You've got a job. Good. Now keep yourself
off a potential-layoff list by avoiding bad office
behavior. Here are 10 horror stories straight from
the trenches.
1. Don't! Be the Office Downer
You
don't want to be such a buzz kill that people
arrange their desks away from you.
That's what Caroline Melville, owner of virtual
administrative service VirtuallySorted.com, had to
do after hiring an accountant to work with her small
team.
In
the mornings, when Melville asked how he was doing,
he would respond with a deadpan, "I am not dead
yet."
If
the company booked a new client and the office was
celebrating their success, he would pipe in with,
"Ah, I don't know. I don't know. He might leave."
The
eternal optimist didn't stay long. He resigned when
his wife got a new job and needed to move. But
Melville didn't complain.
"It
was quite a sigh of relief for me, actually, because
it was quite stressful having someone like that in
the office."
2. Don't! Microwave Fish in the Office
Tuna sandwiches are banned from some offices, but
fish dishes in the microwave are absolutely off
limits.
"I
never knew who the culprit was because the kitchen
area was not near my desk," says Casey Corrigan, a
media strategist at a New York City PR firm. The
smell would waft through the office gently at first,
and "then you would feel it more pungently."
You
don't want your cube mates wishing you would sleep
with the fishes.
3. Don't! Go Barefoot
"Everybody wants to wear really cute shoes, and they
go out and get five-inch tall Christian Louboutin
shoes," reports a tipster who asked to remain
anonymous because she feared she would lose her job
for outing co-workers.
"If
you cannot walk in them, you should really go for a
more sensible shoe."
Resorting to kicking off your stilettos under the
desk is permissible at the end of a long day, but
"walking around the office barefoot is really
gross."
4. Don't! Set Your Ring Tone to the Jonas
Brothers
Keep your phone on vibrate. Your officemates notice
your ring tone -- especially if it's particularly
loud and annoying.
"You would see five or six people who sat around her
look at her and roll their eyes," says Richard
O'Malley, remembering a former receptionist whose
ring tone for her boyfriend was a Jonas Brothers
song.
At
the sound of the boy-band melody, the woman would
leave her desk to take the call. "It wound up
working against her because everyone knew that she
was slacking off," says O'Malley, who now runs his
own event-planning business, The O'Malley Project
Eventually she was let go. And even though her ring
tone wasn't specifically at fault, it didn't help.
"There were several minor things that built up,"
says O'Malley.
"If
you are the person who has the stupid cell phone
ring, everyone has noticed it already. Turn it
down."
5. Do! Save Smiley Faces for Mom
Sherry Kerr, the owner of a small public relations
agency, hired a recent college graduate to be her
assistant and was confronted with an acute case of
smiley face overload.
They were on the picture frame, clock, mouse pad,
screen saver and a decoy on the monitor. "The desk
space itself was really dreadful," says Kerr.
But
it didn't end there: She also put smiley faces next
to her initials and every single place she signed
her name -- including the company's tax forms.
Kerr tried to talk to the assistant about presenting
a more professional manner in person and on paper.
Her response? "She looked at me with these big round
smiley face eyes and said, `It is a part of my
signature,'" Kerr remembers.
Kerr eventually had to let her go, for unrelated
reasons, but, Kerr says, "I have to confess that I
was happy about not seeing smiley faces anymore."
6. Don't! Be the Boss' New BFF
"People who are worried about being laid off end up
going overboard to prove that they are
indispensable, and that ends up making them seem so
obnoxious to people," says Tina Lewis Rowe, a
professional development coach.
Rowe consulted at one firm where she watched an
employee try to position himself as the boss' right
arm. "At every staff meeting he would try to take
the meeting over and ask employees report to him to
get approval."
Instead of becoming the main man's right-hand, Mr.
Sycophant just annoyed the entire office. His
co-workers don't have much use for him, and his
managers see right through his tricks, Rowe says.
And
while he is still at the firm, "he is on shaky
ground," she adds.
7. Don't! Read Your Emails Out Loud
Keep a lid on it, neighbor. One wife complained --
on her husband's behalf -- about a coworker who
reads her emails out loud. And listens to her
voicemails on speakerphone. Seriously.
"My
husband works right next (as in their desks are
connected with no real divider, like Dwight and Jim
on "The Office") to a woman who does all of her
work, all day long, out loud," says the woman, who
wanted to remain anonymous to protect her husband.
Now
her husband has to take any serious reading home and
do it at night because he can't concentrate in the
office.
8. Don't! Give Yourself a Mani/Pedi
"I
had a boss who would clip his nails at his desk,"
says Michelle Poteet, who now owns Reclaim Order, a
San Antonio-based life-organizing company.
"The next position I was at, the guy across from me
would clip his nails at his desk, and to me it is
the worst sounding thing in the world."
"It
would be one thing if you waited until there was
background noise, but it always seemed to me that
people, would do this when it was dead silence.
Getting rid of a hang nail would be fine, but it is
another thing if they are giving themselves a
complete manicure."
9. Don't! Steal Food
Keep your mitts off other people's frozen lunches.
One anonymous reporter out in the field says that
her Lean Cuisines disappear from the freezer on a
regular basis.
"It
has happened pretty much every where that I have
worked," complains the office worker in distress.
Not
even writing her name in black Sharpie across the
box deters thieves. So instead, the lunch lady keeps
her thawing Lean Cuisine in her desk.
Yum.
10. Don't! Crank the Russian Folk Music
Headphones, people.
There is no faster way to top "cube rube" status
than to crank your music.
"We
had one person who was playing Russian folk music
all day long," says Megan Slabinski, executive
director of The Creative Group, a California-based
staffing agency.
The
constant drone of Russian folk music got so draining
to a freelancer the Group had placed, one of the
employees had to ask the company to curb the
staffer's habit.
Oddly, management was reluctant to address the
issue, reports Slabinski.
"Ultimately, we encouraged them to say, could you
please put on a pair of headphones?"
You
may think that you are all by your lonesome in your
cube, but don't forget about your proximity to
others. And if the spirit moves you, and you must
have a bit of your motherland's music to get you
through your day, headphones, people. Headphones.
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