People have been sharing the tales of their most hideously annoying colleagues – 22 impeccable arguments for working at home

Thanks to the way modern society is structured, the vast majority of us have to go to work. Which can be good as it offers structure, purpose, and, most importantly, money. But it’s also bad because we have to put up with some of the most annoying people in the universe: our colleagues.

They’ve been discussing the oddballs, dullards and irritants we spend the majority of our time with on the AskUK subreddit after Spirited-Ad-9558 posted about their own experience…

‘I’m curious. Can you tell me about your most annoying work colleagues? I’ll start…

‘Open plan office: colleague would bring a big sharing size bag of crisps and make that bag last him the whole day. The whole day punctuated by “Rustle. Crunch. Chew chew. Gulp.”

‘Like nails down a chalkboard.’

And this opened the floodgates for people who had a tale of an annoying co-worker they really wanted to get off their chest, like these…

1.

‘Noisy eater. Eats breakfast while I’m starting work, lunch after my lunch break, crunches snacks and slumps tea. Also bursts in and asks questions irrespective of what I’m doing. I work from home. It’s my wife.’
–sunheadeddeity

2.

‘Tim. He’s a nice guy, not a malicious bone in his body at all but fuck me if you somehow get on the subject of something like Star Wars or Marvel movies, any kind of pop culture really he will talk for hours and he has absolutely no social awareness.

‘So you’ll be trying to end the conversation and he won’t pick up on it and just keep going.’
–Octoboy1

3.

‘A woman in my team who is, I swear, an energy vampire. Everything is either about her, or turns to how it should be about her.

‘Every tale takes 20 minutes to get to the point because of the amount of background stuff needed to get to it, including why she was doing the thing, or what did her brother reply to when she asked him that thing (and her subsequent response).’
–Halfang

4.

‘Me: My mother is going to make my wife’s wedding dress.

Colleague: Can’t you afford a proper one?’
–lankymjc

5.

‘I had a manager who would try and get us to do as she said by threatening us that her boyfriend ( who was a manger in a different department), was going to beat us up.

‘He was at least half a foot shorter than us, and one of my colleagues used to be a bouncer, so can handle himself. We’d just laugh at her and just left her at it.’
–unbelievablydull82

6.

‘Had a manager who denied a colleague time off for their own father’s funeral, but was later herself denied a day off, so called in sick, then retroactively changed it back to holiday after in the visible-to-all spreadsheet.

‘She made a temp cry, would talk in graphic detail about her sex life, and one-up ANY achievement anybody mentioned. We started making up things after a while and she took the bait every time.

‘Worst person I’ve ever known.’
–vegan_voorhees

7.

‘I’m in an office (public sector) where there is a huge mix of ages/generations.

‘Whilst my colleagues aren’t bad people, there are clear differences generationally. For example, my older colleagues feel very strongly about going into the office and preserving “office culture” whereas I and colleagues my age will go in on our mandated days, but don’t care as strongly for the “culture” – which isn’t much to write home about.

‘I’m not saying either one of us is right, there is probably a middle ground somewhere (and the young ones could probably compromise a little bit too, if I’m being totally honest). But it’s things like this that cause friction, because attitudes towards work is so different.’
–XStaticImmaculate

8.

‘I work in retail and there’s one colleague that if you acknowledge her existence at all she’ll just latch onto you and follow you around talking and talking and talking non stop even if you don’t respond to what she’s saying.

‘She’ll even follow you to the bathroom and talk until that door is shut. Regular customers actually avoid her and try to get away from her as they know she’ll just talk away for ages.’
–Collide74

9.

‘I have a colleague who is a supervisor and makes constant mistakes to the point where we, the team, have to work harder or pick up the slack but he gets away with it cos he’s charming.’
–CuteMaterial

10.

‘I have a colleague who sings constantly. She’s nice and I get on with her in every other aspect but she will. not. stop. singing. Half the time not even words, just kind of an improvised vocalisation. I put headphones in but I can still hear her.’
–pusopdiro

11.

‘They’re a total swot. Good at their job, but doesn’t know where to draw the line and finish for the day, works their days off. All this would be fine, except they expect everyone else to do the same. Fortunately the boss agrees they’re a loser.’
–twogalsinatrenchcoat

12.

‘Someone who click clacks so quickly loudly and continuously on their keyboard. What on earth are they writing for so long!’
–OkFortune9308