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When will this awkward elevator ride be over?
The office elevator is already kind of an awkward place. Here’s how you can make it more awkward for everyone else:
- Talk on your cell phone.
- Don’t hold the door for others
- Stand too close to everyone else even when the elevator isn’t crowded.
A new survey from CareerBuilder finds that those are the most –- but by no means only –- things that annoy co-workers during the ride up to the office or down to the street. More than three in 10 of the 3,800 workers surveyed identified them as the most annoying habits they commonly see.
Other popular elevator peeves included squeezing into an already crowded elevator, not stepping off to let other people out and holding the doors open for an extended period of time.
Clearly, elevator riders are a finicky bunch -- or normally easygoing people become finicky once they enter that small, enclosed space. Don’t hold the doors and you’ll annoy people. Hold the doors and you’ll annoy people.
CareerBuilder also asked workers to tell them the weirdest things they'd seen in the office elevator. They included clipping nails --inappropriate in all office locales, according to many of our readers -- and changing a diaper. Eww.
May we suggest taking the stairs instead?
Related:
Awkward! How an office hug can go awry
No bathroom breaks! Stupid office rules and how to right them
TODAY's Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb chat about why people pass stinky flatulence in public. Hoda says an episode in her building's elevator was so bad "you could taste it."
Leave a Comment:
I'm guessing a loud, raspy fart won't go over too well on the ride up.
that is hilarious!!! People are so unlikely to have a sense of humor these days
LMAO....
My wife hates it when I do that. LOL
When someone or a few people were just outside on a smoke break and come into a crowded elevator. I don't know which is worse, farts or stale cigarette stink.
Exactly, no friggen crop dusting. I hate it when people let out a sloppy one while exiting the vatordome..
It wont go over so well on the ride down either!!
Blake, I think I'll take the Cigarettes.
lolololol
In all fairness, if they just came in from their smoke break it's not stale cigarette stink. It's fresh cigarette stink. :)
Flatulence would probably be the worst, yeah. But a close tie for second would be smokers, people who don't bathe, or people who pour an entire bottle of cologne/perfume on themselves.
My eyes literally started to water the other day on the elevator at work because some guy thought the odor of vintage 1980s polo cologne worked well in excess.
Also when I'm in a public bathroom, with several empty stalls, and someone else comes in and chooses the stall right next to me, it sorta creeps me out.
LOL- and the bathroom is pin-drop quiet! I hate that too!
Whenyou got to go you got to go my friend! Sorry it happens!
Bubba, It's not a matter of having to go, it's about giving space to others, when it's not necessary to crowd them in.
One woman at my office does that every single time. There are 4 stalls - if I'm in one, there is at least 1 and sometimes 2 available stalls that aren't right next to me, so no need to crowd! Creepy.
What I don't get is having cell phone conversations while peeing. I hear one-sided conversations all the time. What could possibly be so important to communicate while you are in the restroom? It couldn't wait until you finish washing your hands?
Also, while I'm in the stall, don't talk to me about your day, or anything else for that matter. Let's save it for the sink area. Let me pee in peace.
@Christine & Jess--
How much space do you really need in a bathroom? You're there to relieve your bowels or bladder; its not a spa.
Christine, et al, re: someone taking the ladies room stall right next to yours when there are other choices. 1). Maybe it's that Larry-politician-guy-at-Minneapolis-airport or one of his counterparts, and 2). Almost the entire world population has no sense of personal space. They are too self-absorbed or just plain ignorant.
Charle7834, obviously you never been in the ladies. Many times it's way nicer than ours and always cleaner.
Can we infer from this that you spend a lot of time in the ladies room?
Not a lot. But once in a while. Working midnights in a closed office building. When I was the only person in the buillding. Where the ladies was a lot closer than the mens. I've been in buildings where they alternate restrooms men on even floors womens on odds floors. But that is mostly in older buildings. That's the life of a info systems engineer doing major upgrades/projects. BTW do you think they hire male plumbers, electricians and cleaning people for the mens room and female plumbers electricians and cleaning people for the ladies?
When I see someone in a public washroom using a cellphone, I always make sure to flush a couple of extra times.
OH - And for the guy in my office building who likes to stand three feet from the urinal when he goes... WE'RE NOT IN JR. HIGH ANYMORE!
This is about elevators but I'm glad someone brought up restrooms. Lot's of awkwardness. Definitely the jerk invading your vapor barrier when there's other openings but insists on being your neighbor, slamming the door & popping yours ajar with such force it quickly creeps open to the point you can't reach it without standing up & risking a pant leg hitchhiker. The whistler. You hear a big splash then rumbling from the spinning 20lb. roll of industrial grade 400 grit that shakes the dividers, then belts out Yankee Doodle. The, I can stay here longer than you can, guy. The motion sensor controlled light that always seems to go out when you're finally alone 5 seconds before the boss comes barging in making it appear that's where you've been hiding all day...& you're still not done. Super sensitive auto flushers that trigger with each inhale... I could go on... Some funny stuff really.
"2). Almost the entire world population has no sense of personal space."
Actually, in the U.S. we have some personal space. Try going to Asia, they don't have even the slightest concept of personal space.
People who can't wait and attempt to get into the elevator as others are trying to get out of the elevator...
Oh, hell yeah!!!
People getting on before letting people out. Idjits.
I love it when people keep hitting the call button thinking that the elevator will come faster.
People who, when getting on, do not WAIT for the people to get off first.
I don't believe you should get off in an elevator. You should do that in the privacy of your home. You're disgusting.
Looking at the picture in the article, that guy was about to get off. I now I would be.
Whistling a tune (usually men) or singing (usually women). Often they continue after they get off as well. It drives me crazy!!
Or out of tune barely audible humming.
If they are a good looking woman though they could "hum" for me.LOL
what i hate most is when people shove into an obviously already too crowded elevator. and im short- so almost always... i get someone's chest in my face, or butt touching my stomach...
You need to purchase some stilts. How short are you? I for one, wouldn't mind if an attractive woman stuck her chest into my face on an elevator. Guess I'm just easy to get along with.
I like hitting the buttons for every floor as I get off the elevator. That's always good for a chuckle.
LOL I have a co-worker that does that all the time, plus another that gasses the elevator and sends the "bomb" down to the nasty woman that sits beside the doors on the next floor down.
In college, we once tied a guy up on a chair - naked - and "Christmas Treed" the elevator (pushed all the buttons). Is that sort of thing frowned upon these days?
People at the airport. They judge the available space without regard for the oversized luggage they're towing and perhaps the three or four brats in tow.
Having perfected the art of farting without making noise I love to rip off a long odoriferous cloud in an elevator if there is anyone that reeks of tobacco smoke.
This problem is not so much about co-workers, but is about the workers of other tenants leasing space in my building:
- taking the elevator to go up or down just one floor...take the stairs!
- stinking up the elevator car after coming back in from a cigarette break.
I often thought that way until one day I tried to use the stairs to go down one floor as the washroom was full. To my agony, I was forced to descend 10 floors to the ground floor. The management has the doors locked to prevent just such behavior. They claim it stops undesirables from accessing the floors bypassing the security desk.
YES. I can understand if you have a physical disability or you are carrying boxes of files. Otherwise, take the damn stairs. And do not stop us at the second floor to go to the third. Irritates the hell out of me.
Cigarette stink doesn't bug me as much, but the people that walk five or six blocks on their lunch break, but their deodorant crapped out around the third block. Or those that fought with their bottles of perfume/cologne, and lost.
Don't forget the person who just MUST douse themselves with a full quart of aftershave, cologne or perfume.
Hey, people, if you stink, cologne isn't going to "mask the stench". It just adds another dimension to the stench. You still stink.
Is it true that Darth Vader's wife's name was Ella?
Yes. However, as the years went by he preferred taking the stairs rather than go down on her.
Gotta love riding the elevator with only yourself and another co-worker who you don't get along with. Both of you looking down, looking at the numbers, etc. So obviously awkward.
If it happens when you're on your way home for the night, just look at them as you're about to step off and say, "Well, good luck at your next job." and walk away.
... outa date smells? Nothing's worse that the "modern" acrid, citrusy overpowering odors of the current crop of synthetic aftershaves, perfumes and deodorants being used today. Ga..ga..gag. How many potential dates have been turned off by your aroma of rancid lemons, limes, grapefruit, all fighting to overcome your apparent lack of personal hygiene?
How about people rushing onto the elevator before anyone can step off? In my book that is thoughtless and rude!
Wait till others can exit the elevator before entering the elevator.
You see, these are the main reasons why transporters need to be installed in all buildings. It's much more efficient to just beam yourself to the necessary location in your building.
I'd like to see them pass a law that would make it legal to own a device that jams the cell phone and blocks the signal. Apparently its a Federal Offense. Law needs to be changed, or you should be able to cram the cell phone up their a$$. Its okay. More and more proof being released Cell Phones definitely cause brain tumors and other various forms of Cancer. Hope you all turn into zombies.
Except you'd want your cell phone if the elevator got stuck. If the elevator call button wasn't functioning, I'd want to call someone!
Banker, you haven't thought this through. The satisfaction of cramming "the cell phone up their a$$" will be short lived once you consider that they will subsequently remove the device from their rectal cavity and, as a consequence of handling it, will then without the benefit of having cleaned their hands after the experience proceed to spread their butt juice on the elevator handrails, buttons and door. For God's sake man, think!
easiest thing to do is learn a few basic sign language moves.. flash them quickly to people trying to talk to you and stare at the ceiling. works every time.
I know one particular sign that conveys the message quite well.