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November 27, 2007
How to Make the Workplace Insufferable
Primetime TV comedies, popular movies and comic strips may poke fun at the irritants inherent of the workplace, but incivility and chronic rudeness in the real workplace are more pitiful than amusing.
Most workplace rudeness stops short of prohibited behavior: it is more taboo than it is forbidden. Throughout the day, forms of rudeness run the gamut: not remaking coffee after you've taken the last cup; not keeping personal habits personal (e.g., clipping toenails in cubicles); not cleaning up your lunch mess in the break room; not flushing the toilet after the effects of said lunch; burping on your way out the door; and not saying "pardon" or "excuse me."
A survey released late last month by staffing firm Randstad USA asked people to identify which of seven workplace behaviors they found annoying. Some of the pet peeves have their roots in 21st century technology. Others are rooted in the 21st century workplace, with its reliance on teams and its abandonment of private offices with doors that can be closed.
Out of 1,540 U.S. employees surveyed, 60 percent revealed that their biggest pet peeve in the workplace was employees who gossiped, followed by other people's poor time management skills, at 54 percent. Colleagues who leave a mess in communal spaces rounded out the top three workplace pet peeves at 45 percent.
Other irritants cited by somewhat fewer survey respondents included:
• Potent scents such as a co-worker's overpowering perfume, eau de cigarettes or tuna fish sandwich (mentioned by 42 percent);
• Loud noises such as speaker phones and cell-phone rings (41 percent);
• Overuse of personal communication devices such as cell phones and BlackBerrys during meetings (28 percent); and
• Misuse of e-mail, such as hitting "reply to all" and sending what should have been a private comment to an entire 300-person company (22 percent).
A survey of more than 3,000 people last year — conducted on behalf of online learning provider SkillSoft — revealed other leading colleague irritations: others not pulling their weight; managers who failed to support, pressured and changed their minds about what they want to be done; interruptions by colleagues and managers; bullying behavior by managers and colleagues.
Last month, the Civility Initiative at the Johns Hopkins University and the Jacob France Institute of the University of Baltimore appropriated the top workplace misdeeds into a "Terrible 10" list of rude behaviors, drawn from an online survey during a two-week period in May 2007 that polled employees of Lifebridge Health and E A Engineering Science and Technology, as well as employees and students at the University of Baltimore.
Topping the list of offenses: discrimination at work. Other working-world offenses on the list included taking credit for someone else's work, treating service providers as inferiors and using cell phones or text messaging in mid-conversation or during meetings. (Complete list of "Terrible Ten" behaviors here).
On this last type of behavior, more businesses are telling people to stay off their cell phones — and it's extending beyond workers. At a bagel shop in Seattle, Wash., customers who ignore the no-phones sign are told, "We'll be right with you as soon as you're ready." Employees then skip to the next person in line until the cell phone user puts down his or her phone.
"When [there are] 15 people in line and you're on the phone talking with someone and we're asking whether you want a bagel toasted or with cream cheese, it can add five minutes on for the other customers," according to an employee. [Source: Seattle Post Intelligencer]
It's more than just being rude, though. Between the lines of these surveys' findings, there are some serious ramifications.
The problem is that the line between workplace rudeness (annoyances) and incivilities (indignities) is so thin. And outside of prime-time TV comedies or popular movies and comic strips, which often poke fun at the rudeness inherent of fictional employees and employers, chronic incivility in the real world is more pitiful than amusing.
Worse, consequential stress has horrifying effects on our cultural, community and individual well-being. In the workplace, rude behavior and incivility affect the bottom line. When employees feel uncomfortable at work, there is impaired individual performance and collectively impaired organizational performance, including increased turnover and absenteeism and decreased commitment to work. In fact, 35 percent to 40 percent of victims of uncivil workplaces contemplate changing jobs; about 10 percent to 12 percent actually do change jobs.
As we noted earlier this year, uncivil workplace inhabitants do their dirty work in a number of ways, including personal insults, threats and intimidation (verbal and nonverbal), status slaps intended to humiliate victims, invading coworkers' personal territory, rude interruptions and two-faced attacks, among others.
"In this bloggable, cell-phone-camera world, your brand on the inside is going to be your brand on the outside," Tim Sanders, former leadership coach at Yahoo Inc. and author of The Likeability Factor, recently told the Seattle Post Intelligencer. "If you have a bunch of jerks, your brand is going to be a jerk."
Earlier:
Top 10 Workplace Stresses and Irritations
The Civilized Workplace: No Jerks Allowed
Resources
Workplace Misdeeds Top "Terrible Ten" Rude Behaviors List
Johns Hopkins University, Oct. 4, 2007
Top 10 Most Stressful Professions; Work Stresses and Colleague Irritations
SkillSoft (via PRNewswire), May 11, 2006
Please Hold: Businesses Want to Hear Your Order, Not Your Call
by Kristin Dizon
Seattle Post Intelligencer, Nov. 10, 2007
Employers Looking for Ms., Mr. Congeniality
by Ellen Simon
The Associated Press (via Seattle Post Intelligencer), Nov. 18, 2007
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3 CommentsThis article listed many activities that annoy others. Good listing overall. I think of managers who decide not to do their work and 'DUMPING' their work on others, then taking credit for your work as prime. Meanwhile, you get hammered to get it done 'now' so they won't look bad.
As a number 2, cleaning up after others (who thought the company also hired their mom - who never shows up - or a private maid) for each of them. People like to work in a clean office and it is a boost in moral for all. Leaving your mess for others to see and work in is just plain lazy and rude. Then, if the management drops quibs that you are not paid to clean up after others (which is true) then you have no motivation to clean up anything. I personally would feel embarrassed to get up from a table and NOT cleaning it up, no matter who made the mess. Some people just have no social conscience or values. (Their parents probably still dress them in the morning). Yet these social back slappers get promoted and the undue raises. Give me a hard-working quiet person any day.
As a number 3, those people so absorbed with cell phones that some carry 2 around, who leave them laying around to ring and ring. If it is that important, take it with you, wherever you go. Others don't believe in a personal phone call. To make or receive a call, immediately put it on speaker phone. Saves your arms but drives the rest of us nuts. Then again, why use a phone at all, you talk loud enough that anyone within 100 feet can hear you.
As a number 4, if the work is that important to get 'er done, then why do you laugh and giggle in the aisles most of the day with those others in your click while the quiet person is thinking thru the problems you dumped in his lap? Quit hob-knobbing and get to work. I had a teacher in grade school many years ago that stated, "What I want to see is more paw work and less jaw work." Still holds true today. It is a fact (unless you are in sales) that the more your mouth runs the less work get done. This would be classed as unnecessary noise. Much like the punk rock and screaming FORE-ground music (?) that some offices and stores play. Turn it down. Treat it like a library. If you value the end product, turn the noise down in the offices. SOME people are thinking and actually working.
As a number 5, getting in a rush to get a job done. Remember that Haste makes Waste. Once sales has 'clearly defined the problem', then get out of the way and let the engineers do their job. Don't come in every other day and change the scope of work or the equipment list. Make up 'your mind' so I can make up my mind (once). Don't waste my time with your indecisions.
How about adding on as one of the real difficulties that the general office architecture can be a real drain on productivity? We're in the process of moving out of an OLD building which has definitely seen better days, and into a brand new one. I've been over to look at our new place three times, and every time I go there, I get so depressed with it that I have to leave.
In the new place, I'm going to be in a large cube farm with about 40-50 other folks, all in one large open room. About 25 years ago, I attended a class in which we talked about office layout design, and we were told that "open office planning" was the wave of the future. "It is calculated deliberately to increase the paperwork flow, and make all parts of the team more effective."
That is not the exact words, but the general idea. I reflect Loyal's thoughts. At least my old office space is a bit more cozy(less than 10 folks in here), and doesn't always have that underlying hum of a bunch of folks talking on the phone or giggling around about the latest gossip, etc. The new place is HUGE by comparison, and will undoubtedly be five times as noisy. I wonder how I'll manage to explain to the boss why my productivity on engineering designs is dropping like a rock.
Just like the "bad smell" theory of disease, the idea of open office planning system (OOPS) as the best way to have people in a work space has seen its best days. OOPS is okay for a bunch of accountants or typing pool folks, or that sort of thing. But, for an engineering shop where you're really in need of a relatively quiet place to be creative (at least part of the time), OOPS is a nightmare. The work space design wonks need very badly to get back to looking at the human element in office design, and stop with all the "most effective use of space" and all that.
We need to start once again being more considerate of the person that's going to have to work in that space, and see if the cacophony of large open offices really allows people to work effectively. And, by the way,... enough of those glass walls, too. They're phony and intrusive, and invasive into people's privacy. If the boss has to have these to check on his employees, then fire those employees and hire ones he can trust.
November 28, 2007 3:54 PMHow about employees who don't know (or take the time to look up) words like "insuperable"?
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=insuperable
November 28, 2007 5:04 PM
