These are the biggest pet peeves in the office today

Truthfully, no one can do anything right in the office.

Think about lunch for a second. At noon, you head over to the office kitchen and you’re eager to re-heat last night’s leftovers. In goes the pasta in the microwave and out comes an aroma that is going to stink up your office for hours. Now, your coworkers are mad and you’re the main culprit.

Office pet peeves are inevitable. They can range from anything like everyday appliances not working to office chit-chat, to no coffee being left in the pot and things like the battle over office temperature. Another big pet peeve was witnessing coworkers not washing their hands. In this current time of Coronavirus that seems particularly compelling.

A new study by Zety surveyed more than 1,000 Americans to find out the truth behind office pet peeves. For the study, researchers asked participants about how often each scenario (below) happens at work and how angry it makes them. They created a “tilt factor,” which essentially was a measure used to calculate how annoying and how common each instance is inside an office.

Here are the examples of pet peeves often seen inside the office:

• Not enough coffee left in the pot.
• Coworkers coming to work sick.
• Coworkers coming in late or leaving early.
• Printer out of paper, jammed or broken.
• Coworkers chatting with each other or on the phone in a shared room.
• A/C too cold.
• A/C too hot.
• Slow Wi-Fi.
• No clean dishes to use.
• People using your mug.
• Not enough interaction with colleagues.
• Coworkers not washing hands before leaving the bathroom.
• Elevator out of service.
• Coworkers’ bad breath or body odor.
• Coworkers texting/browsing social media during work hours.
• Not enough sockets available.
• Coworkers’ chewing on pens/pencils.
• Malfunctioning hardware or slow computer.
• Conversations about politics or religion.
• Not enough parking space.
• People calling or arranging meetings to discuss things that “could have been an email.”
• Coworkers or clients following up too soon.
• People using too much cologne or perfume.
• Too many meetings.
• People using too much jargon and buzzwords.
• Company firewall.
• Depressing decor or bad lighting.
• Being involved in conversations in a bathroom.

What drove America’s workers to insanity was when coworkers come back to work sick. Eighty-seven percent of respondents said they found it somewhat annoying, with more than half (52%) said it happens often or very often.

The second worst office situation for workers was when hardware or a computer wasn’t operating properly, followed by coworkers coming into work late or leaving early, and coworkers not washing their hands before leaving the bathroom.

If you’re someone who gets annoyed when your boss or another worker arranges a meeting that could easily have been discussed via email, you’re not alone. Eighty-three percent of respondents said they found these instances somewhat annoying. Eighty-one percent said having too many meetings also peeved them.