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Want to get ahead at work? Put your shoes on, and save your nail clipping for after hours.
Lori Hong was never particularly fond of the co-worker in the next cubicle, but there was one thing that really put her over the edge.
“He would freaking cut his nails at his desk,” said Hong, 32.
The nail clipping wasn’t just an occasional thing, either.
“I don’t know what vitamins (he was) taking, but he would clip his nails like two or three times a week,” she recalled.
After living in fear of a cuticle flying over the cubicle wall, or just of hearing that unmistakable clipping sound, Hong, who worked scheduling commercials for a television network, finally asked to be relocated to a new desk.
“No one should be doing that at work,” she said.
Workplace etiquette experts -- and much of the general public -- would agree. A survey of workplace pet peeves, released this week by temporary staffing firm Adecco, found nearly half of those surveyed are offended when people clip or bite their nails at work.
“It really elicits that gross factor because it is personal grooming,” said Jodi R.R. Smith, president of the etiquette training firm Mannersmith. “This is what I categorize as: Should take place in the bathroom, and preferably the bathroom at home.”
Public nail-clipping is such a common problem that Smith sometimes uses it as an example in a role play on how to get a co-worker to stop doing something that annoys you.
Her advice: Be direct.
For example: “I know that you probably have no idea, but when you clip your nails in the cubicle it totally grosses me out. I’m all for good grooming … but if you could do it in the ladies room or at home I’d really appreciate it.”
Smith started her Boston-area etiquette consulting business after dealing so often with issues like these while working in human resources. She said other common workplace gripes include people who floss their teeth at their desk or take off their shoes at work.
The Adecco survey also found that more than four in 10 people were offended by co-workers removing their shoes at the office. The telephone survey of 1,010 people, conducted in July, also found that the majority of those surveyed do not want to see you come to work in ripped jeans, flip-flops, strapless clothing or backless tops or dresses.
It can be tempting to slip off your shoes on a hot day, or even clip that offending cuticle without heading to the bathroom, but that can actually harm your career, Smith warns.
“People think, ‘Oh I’m a good worker, it’s not that big a deal,’ but I’ve had managers over and over again tell me, ‘Oh, Jodi, when we have to do another reduction I know who’s first on my list,’” Smith said. “These soft social skills really make a difference.”
Tim Gates has seen plenty of workplace faux pas in his 17 years placing temporary workers for Adecco. Nail clipping and shoe removal have come up, as well as people applying deodorant at their desks and those who show up in T-shirts with inappropriate slogans or logos.
Usually a quick chat about appropriate dress or behavior is enough to straighten things out. But a little common sense might help avoid such issues as well.
“Some things should be done at home and some things should be done at work,” he said. “Maybe keep those things separate.”
As for Hong, the cubicle dweller with the nail-clipping neighbor, she’s since left that job and moved from New York to Philadelphia because her husband was transferred.
She’s currently looking for work, and she jokes that one of the things she’s watching out for is whether her prospective co-workers clip their nails at their desks.
“Like, do you have that keychain with the nail clipper on it? That would be a turnoff,” she joked.
TODAY's Meredith Vieira takes a look at some of the daily annoyances her co-workers face in their office space.
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A few years back, I worked as a contractor on a half-year stint at a very good company. As this sometimes happens to contractors, I was relocated to a different cube 3 times while I was there. The second time they put me in a cube where I had to deal with a ton of nail clippings from the previous occupant. Upon seeing that I thought I was going to throw up. All the time during the 2 or 3 months I was in that cube, the dude in the cube in front of me had a terrible cough, which was continuous throughout the day, and the sound was hair-raising. I guess he didn’t want to go see a doctor for some reason. My last location was a cube area pretty much built for two people that I shared with 3 other contractors – but I had it good as some other contractors on a different project were placed literally in a closet – where a shelf was added with some chairs. Absolutely no privacy or a sense of personal space for those folks.
A couple years later I started a new full time job, which was a unique situation – when I interviewed for the position they gave me a tour of the building (where 90% of the company was located), but do to an unusual arrangement I was to be working in an office/department in a hospital a few streets down. I should have asked for a tour of my actual working area but I failed to do it. On my second day of work where I was to start working in the hospital location, I found myself placed in a cube/desk that was filthy, just awful (and it wasn’t like any empty cubes were around for me to switch into). I had to bring in cleaning supplies from home just to clean the area. I never understood why a company would give something like this to a new employee, or how the cube neighbors would put up being next to such a dirty area. Looking back, this must have been a bad sign of things to come. Months later I had left for another company.
Also at that hospital location, there was an employee close by who would occasionally text on her cellphone (which I have done – nowhere near as often), but she never turned off the sound on her phone - so for every button/letter she would press you would hear a very, very audible tone. Nothing like advertising to the rest of the department exactly what you are doing !
At my last job, I was in a nice cube but after I while I would notice a serious vibration that would happen where my left cube wall met the center wall. I did have a co-worker who was on the other side of the center wall. For a while I thought that the vibration/noise was coming from underneath the floor under that area. But one time when I was coming back from lunch, I found out what was happening. The dude on the other side was in a position with his laptop on the desk where his body was pressed up against part of the desk (which connected to the cube wall), and the more furiously that he would type, the more his body would shake the desk which in turn would shake that part of the cube wall. A couple months later he left the company, and so did the vibration.
I walked into an office one time, and the man had his leg on the desk, pants rolled up, and he was using a cigarette lighter to burn the hairs off his leg. I dare anyone to match this revolting story.
Gotcha!
Female coworker and I go into bathroom stalls same time. Same tinkle. I hear the sound of package ripping. She comes out as I am washing my hands. She looks in the mirror. Primps hair. Applies lipstick. Smiles. Walks out.
How's that?!
Ok, how about this Toni; same scenario except package ripping along with the tell-tale plopping after the tinkle. No hand washing afterwards.
Im a Floridian so maybe its just me but Im not offended by seeing someone elses feet. Theyre just freaking feet. Who cares. They arent asking you to lick them or anything for gods sakes. But we see feet on a daily basis down here so perhaps its a cultural thing. Hell we only wear shoes for Funerals and Weddings. But clipping nails in the office....poor janitors. That being said women do most of the nasty shiz around my office. This one girl has a layer of makeup powder all over her cubicle.
It's gross... and as an IT person who has to deal with touching other people's grimy keyboards/mice, it's not that hard to figure out who eats at their desk or goes all day without washing their hands.
I worked in an office with 2 guys, both would spit directly into the office trash cans. If you had retreive something later, you were SOL! Finally talked office manager into buying trash cans for each work area.
I was seated at my desk, and my very fat, smelly boss who smoked cigars all day brought his full ashtray over to me, held it nearly in my face, and said, "You don't have to wash it, just empty it." I gave my notice the next day.
I would have vomited all over him.
I used to work with someone who usually came in to the office early. Every once in a while, I'd witness him going to one of our salesman's desk, borrow his clippers and trim his toenails on his own desk. Then he'd return the clippers to the salesman's desk before he came in without telling him he borrowed them. And since I didn't like this particular sales guy - I just somehow kept forgetting to tell him about it.
That is probably the worst....you are grotesque...
Had a boss that was "BI" and he was very well-groomed and refined, and mostly proper. Until we came across his "toys" in the warehouse, being kept with nutritional supplements on a rack. When we ("we" means "I") brought it to his attention, it opened the flood gates for a whole new kind of conversation.....not really a hygiene issue, but kinda applies...
I used to work at a bank as a personal banker and our office was SUPER small! The other banker that sat next to me would put all kinds of food in her desk that would rot and smell so bad! Also, she would lick peanut butter out of those JIF to go packs... IN FRONT OF CUSTOMERS!
If your job requires an activity which can not be done with a chipped or cracked nail, such as typing, then slip into the rest room and take care of the deed. Don't do it at your desk. Clean up after yourself. Don't leave nail clippings on the sink or on the floor.
If you need to look your best go into the rest room to tidy up your hair or touch up your makeup. Don't save these activities to be done at work. Do them at home and touch up if necessary, and only in the rest room. Clean up after yourself in the restroom. Check to see if you have shed any hair around the sinks or if there is any of your makeup evidence clean up after yourself.
You should not consider your work area appropriate for steady grooming habits. You are not getting paid to groom yourself. You are getting paid to perform certain tasks and your grooming is not one of them. Take care of your overall grooming at home. Don't do it at work and don't do it on the way to work in your car either.
Ask yourself this question, What do I do that irritates someone else? Oh, I'm perfect worker.
No, I am not the perfect worker or person by any stretch of the imagination.
However, we all should maintain as much of a sanitary work environment as possible. How in the world can hard, dead skin cells on carpet, flossed food particles on the desk, or two week old open lunch containers on the shelf be sanitary?!
I am kind of interested in finding out if anyone noticed how many of these "habits" were typically associated with women in the workplace. While I do know that men clip nails and floss, I don't think they are often the ones associated with wearing strapless clothing, backless shirts/dresses, putting on make-up, or brushing hair.
So the question becomes are all of these things a office "no-no" because they are a grooming habit or because of gender issues.
I only bring this up because in many modern offices you may find very professional, fashion forward dresses with back cutouts. It is very similar to the case of how in certain offices it is considered taboo for a woman to wear a skirt or dress without hose even though that is not something that is a social necessity any longer. Why the logic? Because a woman who doesn't wear hose with a skirt (especially on a windy or cold day) can be looked at as frivolous or silly.
I seem to break a lot of these taboos myself. I do brush my hair and at times I will put my hair up during the day. I have always been amazed at the ability of people who don't fidget throughout the day and never seems to have any issues of their own. Even more I am always amazed at the ability of people to judge others for what they do. We are all annoying to someone, if not multiple people. If someone is willing to fire someone over grooming issues rather than counseling then not only are they a bad manager they are a bad leader. There is no wonder people love working for companies like Google and Facebook where attitudes are more relaxed.
Women with their congenital need to buy and collect shoes is what always grossed me out. I worked as a phone repairman. Many times I would have to troubleshoot a phone problem by replacing a business phone on a woman's desk. This always involved crawling under the desk to get to the jack. It was always the same old story. As many a 10-14 pairs of shoes and a space heater. The reeking smell of old shoes being cooked was nauseating.
" Many times I would have to troubleshoot a phone problem by replacing a business phone on a woman's desk. This always involved crawling under the desk to get to the jack. It was always the same old story. As many a 10-14 pairs of shoes and a space heater. The reeking smell of old shoes being cooked was nauseating."
Unbelievable! No really, I mean, I think you fib.
I do not know of a single woman who keeps her shoes at work. I think you are full of it! LOL
I can beleive "Devil's Son" .... I work in an office and there are 2 female staff who have 8-13 pairs of shoes under their desk. They usualy use those shoes during the winter when they come in with just their boots on but you would think they would at least take them home ... they don't, they sometimes bring in MORE shoes. Geez
Really! If I were the owner and an a employee stop me in the middle of the work day to whine about a coworker clipping there nails, while lets say , when it came to cut backs they would be on the short list.
These complaints are so trivial. It just takes a minute to clip your nails. Hong is kinda hilarious though.
These complaints are so trivial. It just takes a minute to clip your nails. Hong is kinda hilarious though.
Well Kevin if you were my boss and used such horrible grammar/spelling and/or had such horrible typing skills, "while lets say", I'd gladly be let go so I didn't have to work for such a moron.
I currently work in an office where one of our fellow employees does nothing but cough and blow his nose all day long. This is not an exaggeration. He literally blows his nose whether or not there is anything really there to expel. It's like being tortured. Pretty much the entire office is in agreement on this topic. Oh and to top it off he never washes his hands after blowing his nose. Not to mention his favorite place to blow his nose is in the kitchen. Oh so sanitary.
Oh lord, there he goes again!
Hmm, my short lost would include those who use office time to take care of their grooming needs. Clearly they do not have enough work to do.
I wouldn't mind dealing with any of these problems occasionally, but a daily dose would be aggravating.
I'll occasionally snip a broken or cracked nail with my scissors, and often will slip my feet out of my sandals while they're under my desk. I won't walk around without shoes though- the one time our carpet was cleaned in close to a decade of working here, the office smelled like wet dog for days.
If your job requires an activity which can not be done with a chipped or cracked nail, such as typing, then slip into the rest room and take care of the deed. Don't do it at your desk. Clean up after yourself. Don't leave nail clippings on the sink or on the floor.
If you need to look your best go into the rest room to tidy up your hair or touch up your makeup. Don't save these activities to be done at work. Do them at home and touch up if necessary, and only in the rest room. Clean up after yourself in the restroom. Check to see if you have shed any hair around the sinks or if there is any of your makeup evidence clean up after yourself.
You should not consider your work area appropriate for steady grooming habits. You are not getting paid to groom yourself. You are getting paid to perform certain tasks and your grooming is not one of them. Take care of your overall grooming at home. Don't do it at work and don't do it on the way to work in your car either.
I had a boss who ALWAYS took off his shoes and walked around in in stocking feet. It drove me crazy, so what I did, being a good employee is this....you know how when you remove a staple from something it is all distorted...well I threw those around on the carpet thinking they would get caught on his socks.....one day he was like OUCH..there are staples pocking me thru my sock...I was like maybe you should wear shoes....it was very hard not to bust out laughing..my fellow workers knew what I was doing....and soon they joined in and started do the same....luckily we did have someone come in every night to vaccum, so we were able to lay out freshly used staples on a daily basis......I no longer work there, I quit awhile back, but I still find myself throwing my staples on the carpet and NOT into my trash bin.....hard habit to break I guess....and I wonder does he still not wearing his shoes????
Mich,
I think that was just mean! I think the boss has every right to walk around in his socks if he feels like it.
Most of us wear very heavy boots/shoes in the winter here in Alaska. They can start feeling pretty heavy as the day goes on. Last year I knit slippers for everyone so when they took off their shoes they weren't just walking around in their socks.
Are you freaking kidding me? If your boots are too damn heavy or hot, keep loafers or other shoes at the office to change into. Stocking feet that have been in hot sweaty boots STINK!
Not everyone's feet stink. The majority of us shower.
Sorry Laura that you thought I was being mean but it was suppose to a professional accounting office in MA, NOT Alaska. Proper work attire/dress code. No flip flips, jeans, sneakers est... but I guess I had missed the memo of stocking feet with an occassional hole in the big toe as being OK.
Mich - You never know, he could have a need to take the shoes off. I have issues with scar tissue in my feet, and there are days wearing shoes is excruciating (not that I've ever gotten the nerve to actually walk around shoeless).
Just a little food for thought.
foot for thought.
(that was dumb....sorry people for my dumb joke)
Hello It called a health hazard. How stupid does one have to get to realize that walking around an office situation in bare feet can and will get you hurt. Things like sharp thing in the carpeting, and oh yea thing falling on your toes too............
Stupid, just stupid.
slipping your shoes off under the desk and walking around barefoot/in stockings are two different things. The former is really only a problem if you have smelly feet but the latter is rude and a possible safety hazzard!
Personal Hygiene should be attended to at home. No one needs an audience. If it is so bad that it needs addressing immediately, take it to the restroom.
I have worked in a cardiac care unit and a co worker, sitting at the desk for all, would clip not only his nails, but he frequently trimmed his arm hair and then would brush it aside to the floor.
Barefoot belongs outside or at home. The office is never the place for that. As far as dress code, perhaps if most places of employment had a dress code policy in place and enforced it, we wouldn't be discussing this now. I also think it's a class thing. I would never do any of the above, nor thought of doing it. Somethings you don't do!
Totally agree. But office ettiquette should be followed at all time. Do not spit gum or anything else directly into common uncovered trash cans!
The person that sits in the cube next to me smacks on food, gum etc., and it drives me nuts! It wasn't my pet peeve unitl I moved desks. HELP!!!!!
I dunno, .... I think one of my worst pet peeves is the guy who takes a dump in his cubicle trashcan.
There might be others, but this one comes to mind as an issue of concern.
Someone actually did this?!?!?!
Don't you just hate that?
We have a guy in the office who regularly pees in a plastic water bottle and throws it in his trash recepticle. The janitorial staff has complained to no avail and recently threatened to avoid cleaning his area altogether. This guy is fat and nasty and apparantly too lazy to go to the bathroom. He considers the relative seclusion of his cubicle to be a license for slobbery.
Im pretty sure you're making that up. But if for reals you can call the cops on him for lude and lascidious conduct. Just say a female saw his junk while he was doing it. They can test the urine for DNA.
Beyond personal hygiene, I have a guy at work who thinks it's cute to chomp on chips, when he eats an apple he slurps to high heaven so he doesn't miss any juice. Then in the afternoon he chews gums so loud that everyone in the office can hear him. We have brought the behaviour to his attention several times but he just doesn't get it.
When I was working for a large computer company several years ago, one of the help desk engineers would go running on his lunch hour. He would then come back and field calls without changing out of his (dirty, sweaty, smelly) workout gear, and would parade around the facility as if he was attired correctly. Of course, even our customers noticed, but nobody except me would ever say anything to him. I was reprimanded and told to apologize to him (but never did). He was not that good of a help desk engineer, either.
Bare is how your feet are SUPPOSED to be. Shoes actually deform the feet and prevent them from working they way they are supposed to when walking or standing. Women's "professional" shoes especially deform the feet and legs (high heels) because of the way they shift the center of gravity and change the muscles that support you.
So wear sensible shoes, or don't work in an office. No one should be going barefoot in the office.
Birkenstocks can solve the deformity of feet due to ill fitting and the wrong type of shoes. There are lots of different styles and many of them are office/work appropriate.
actually, reaj, ANY shoe or sandal that encourages a "heel first" method of walking is bad for your body. Birkenstocks are no different.
I am not advocating that everybody should go barefoot, Lance ... but modern society has mandated that everyone wear shoes at all times. There ARE professions where shoes are a safety requirement - like cooking, construction, warehouse. But in an office setting, what major safety risks are there? Items that sadistic people drop just to make others uncomfortable or injure them? Medical science is now catching up to what our non-shod ancestors knew ... you walk differently in shoes (heel first) than barefoot (ball of the foot first) and your toes spread when barefoot to allow better support of your body, your arches provide shock-absorbing when barefoot etc. I'm not advocating that ALL people should be barefoot ALL the time, but maybe we as a society need to urge our footwear manufacturers to provide shoes that are better for our feet and maybe we as a society need to accept those better choices for our own health. A heel-first stride places stress on our backs since the entire weight of the body and the shock involved in walking is transmitted directly up the legs and into the lower back. Our posture changes when we walk with shoes on. Fungus grows on our feet in moist, dark environments ...
And which would people rather deal with - bare feet that get washed every day or multiple times per day or shoes that have soles that RARELY get cleaned? Which is really more "sanitary"? Bare feet can't grow "Athlete's Foot" because the skin dries before the fungus can start growing ...
I'm just saying that bare feet really are healthier and CLEANER than shoes so it should not be an "ewwww" factor.
I go barefoot in my house all the time and I don't walk ball then heel, that makes for a rather strange gait, and not very comfortable way to walk either. Birkenstocks are excellent shoes for anyone with foot problems because of the flexibility of the sole and the fact that they conform to the shape of your foot, the natural width and the cup of the heal supports the foot as you walk. So if anyone prefers to walk on the balls of their feet first then heel, they can with those easier than any other shoe.
Well technically humans are supposed to be naked, but you dont see that in the office. Nor would you want to in America...in Brazil however......mmmmm
delete
reaj ... walking in your home is different from walking around outside. Try walking barefoot "heel then ball" on gravel, asphalt, concrete etc. The ball of the foot should strike the ground slightly ahead of the rest of the foot. This allows the curve of the arch to act like a "spring" to absorb the shock of the body's weight being transferred from one foot to the other. I realize that after a lifetime of walking heel-first it may feel awkward at first to walk the way your body is designed to walk, but if you started to walk barefoot on a regular basis you would automatically walk ball first followed quickly by the rest of the foot.
Just think, that same guy who clips his toenails at work is opening doors, grasping the same door handle or knob that others will also grasp; push the button on the copier machine, shake hands with someone he meets, push buttons on the office microwave... etc. Thus, everyone in the office is touching the residue from his hands from his toenails & feet. In short, everyone in the office is trimming his toenails!
So, next time you see someone at work who doesn't wash their hands after peeing/pooping you are essentially going to the bathroom with them. Have a nice lunch! ;)
Bikini waxing is going too far
That depends on who is doing the waxing. :)
Lance, just looking around at the women in my office...its all yours dude.
One of my biggest pet peeves is with a co-worker of mine. She is rather large and in the summer, she will wear sleeveless tops. EEWwwww Gross. I see her fat and flab, along with her bra straps, sticking out all day long. The other thing that she does, which happens when it is warm, cold, whatever!, about 30X a day is coughs. It sounds like she is bringing up a lung along with a gallon of sh!t..... I can't stand it. It is completely gross. Tried saying something to her but she always has reasons for it.
Karen,
Do you work in my office? Probably not, since you mentioned the bra straps. The old fat woman in my office refuses to wear a bra. Of course there's a union involved so nothing ever gets done about it.
Fat lady with ill-fitting bra: barms...
I have the worst office neighbor in the country. My office neighbor not only clips his nails, wears sandals, plays his radio loud, farts, belches, complains constantly about everyone and leaves his cell phone ringers, (yes, plural) on high. I should win a prize or a medal or something!
That's one of my major pet peeves as well--the cell phone ringer. I'm lucky to be a small business owner now, and I make all my employees switch to silent or vibrate while in the office. But I've certainly been in offices where coworkers have their volume turned all the way up and let it ring. I even had to place a ban on bringing cell phones to meetings--to meetings! I had to fire an employee when he thought it was ok to text and Facebook while in a meeting. Sometimes I just can't believe it.
You should only win a prize or a medal or something if you've taken steps to politely end the behavior. Putting up with crap earns you nothing.
"After living in fear of a cuticle flying over the cubicle wall"....the author just wrote this for that once in a lifetime line.
From some of the comments here, I'm glad I don't sit around any of you. From worrying about seeing someone else's "fat" (Please--get a life); to hearing someone cough (what? no one ever cough around you); eating at the desk (have you looked at the breakroom recently? Talk about pig sty); and a dirty desk (--oh my, I might have to clip my broken nail for all the cleaning)-- what a sad bunch of "co-workers" you folks are. Talk about weak-kneed pushovers. No wonder political correctness is so vapid.
I'm all for being neat, clean and respectful, but this is just nitpicking and petty peeves. I think everyone would get over such things if they ever worked a really dirty job at hard labor, for just one day. It would bring everything into a more true perspective.
Maybe we're glad we don't sit next to you. There's a lot of common courtesy that is needed when working with many different people in an office.
It's not the seeing of the arm fat on the plus sized women, it's the fact that she can't dress appropriately for the work place. IMO, sleeveless shirts should not be worn in an office anyway unless the person has seriously trim and toned arms.
Sure, people cough but there's a difference between an occasional cough to clear their throats to the constant-weeks-at-a-time-hacking-up-a-lung, refusal-to-see-a-doctor-nagging-phlegm-sounding cough that irritates everyone.
Nail clipping of all 10 fingers and 10 toes need to be kept at home. An occasional ragged nail or cuticle is one thing (which is why I keep a pair of clippers at my desk) but anything else is kinda gross and it is a sanitary issue as well. I had to tell the gal who covers the phones for me while at lunch not to use my clippers when she is here because she kept leaving her nail clippings on my key board and it is also a sanitary issue for me; I don't know what kind of fungus she might have underneath her nails.
And don't even get me started on the refusal to wash hands after using the bathroom - eeeewwww!
You should have stopped at "sleeveless shirts should not be worn in an office anyway". It is not professional...whether you are fat, skinny, or in between.
My last employer enforced a dress code so we didn't have to deal with sleeveless shirts...or open toed shoes for that matter. At my present location everyone is smart enough to figure it out...
@Zapper - Apparently you didn't read my post. I just checked. She has phlemed-up 6X in the last hour. Yes. I understand coughing. But phlemming up half a lung 6X in an hour is a bit much. 6 X 8 hours/day is 48X per day minimum.
I also do not "need" to see her "fat" as you call it. Discusting!!!! Dress appropriately. I don't have a problem with overweight people as long as they can dress ok. This co-worker of mine makes enough money to purchase nice clothes (we are talking in excess of 100G per year in Wisconsin - not NY, CA, TX etc)
What a bunch of control issues you folks have. Wow. Professional office dress is addressed in your office manual. (If it's even a small office, I'll bet you have one.) Like it or not, fashion sense or not, if someone dresses within its parameters, then all is good with the world.
I don't want to see anyone ill, either. But some folks have chronic lung conditions that no amount of doctoring seems to fix. I don't enjoy hearing it either, but that's life. (One guy in my office coughed and gagged for 18 months straight. He went to every doctor under the sun. I don't know that he ever did figure out what was wrong. He did change jobs recently, still hacking and coughing. He may have been allergic to this place!)
Nail clipping. Meh. I don't care. It's just a sound in a cube. I would prefer that the mess be cleaned up, but if I don't work in it, I don't care.
As far as poor hygiene in the bathroom, unless someone is going to monitor the washroom, you should use a paper towel to flush and open the door. I do that all the time.
Like I said, if some folks ever really worked a hard, nasty, vile, dirty job--just once, they'd never complain about a business office informality. I prefer neat, clean and tidy, and I work to keep it that way; but I also live in a real world, and it can be very dirty. An old saying goes, "If dirt would kill us, we would all have been dead a long time ago."
BTW--discusting is spelled disgusting.
It's not control issues, it's common courtesy. And I would hope that your coughing-for-18-months-straight former co worker covered his mouth each and every time. BTW, was he a smoker?
Using a paper towel in the bathroom to flush and open the door is all well and good, but are you going to be using that paper towel around the office after that particular person who refused to wash keeps touching things with their urine and feces infected hands? I knew a woman who refused to wash after she would change her sanitary supplies. Made me want to wear a hazmat suit once a month for a week.
And I've done vile, nasty, dirty jobs before. Like I said it's not a control issue, it's common courtesy.
And funny how all of these things don't bother you but you had to correct someone's spelling. Talk about control issues...
Wow--again. It really is easy to pull strings.
No, reaj. he was/is a health freak, actually. So far as I know, the last lung biopsy came back negative, too.
Really worried about that paper towel, too. Nope, it goes in the trash.
Common courtesy? You guys really are funny. I allow people to be themselves (out of courtesy to their own lives), and someone else wants them to conform to another set of standards. HAHAHA
And spelling? Just a simple, easy correction, and offense is taken. I wonder how people react when their bosses catch them making silly errors, especially since spell check shows up on these screens with the red squiggly line. It was a test. You failed.
You guys have fun in your offices. I've watched the vine slowly go down the tubes over the past few years because of the blamers, finger pointers and control freaks. When it comes to personal issues, that's a real easy button to push. If folks would focus on helping one another, instead of attacking them, we would be much better for the effort. Too bad it's a failing enterprise.
MSNBC--try writing an uplifting article every so often. I think it would be good for everyone. This one just makes for easy targets.
(Many years ago, when I was much younger, I worked in the tobacco fields. I helped tend, cut and bail tobacco. It was a filthy, dirty, vile job. No bathrooms, either. The guys would chew and spit into the bails. I won't tell you what some of the other leaves were used for, since no bathroom were available. Tobacco worm, bugs and beetles have big teeth, and they do bite. A bale of tobacco weighed between 40 and 80 pounds, depending what got hauled and where, and how it was to be dried.
When we got the truck to the processing plant, we would unload it by hand into giant mounds. What's big and brown and weighs 800,000 pounds? BTW, I was the only female on the crew, and I carried more than my weight. The big guys quit after one day. We scrawny ones were the one who lasted. And so it goes . . . .
Bravo Zapper!!! Today's younger generation is all about being "politically" correct. It's all about them and their space. For 35 years I worked in an office and my co-workers would cut their nails, take off their shoes, cough, and blow their nose at their desk. To the best of my knowledge no one ever came down with a life threatening illness because of it. Was some of what my they did gross, absolutely! But we always had a good time of it and joked with them about it. BTW, for those of you who are worried about what your co-worker is doing in the toilet stall next to yours well, that's their business. Just keep your mouth shut and don't shake their hand.
Amen Silver Fox....Karen, I'm so glad you are not in my office..you sound like a fat phobic w*tch. Grow up!
My cubie constantly does the "One Cheek Sneak" or the "SBD" (Silent But Deadly) and it is gross as hell. It curls my nose hairs and makes my eyes water. This is not funny at all.
It sure made me laugh.
In some offices, this is referred to crop dusting. The person who peaks over the edge of the cube (to see who "dusted,") is called a prairie dog.