Office Etiquette Advice Required

I am in need of a little advice. Before explaining the situation in my office, I do want to mention that I have Asperger’s and struggle with loud noises and confrontation. The office where I work is very small. I sit in a room of six desks, I will draw a picture, so it is easier to understand the layout:

There are a number of things that I want to get off my chest. I do not know whether it is my Asperger’s struggling with these things, or whether others would say that these things are bothersome. I have not said anything to any of the individuals involved, nor have I discussed any of these with fellow staff members, as I do not want to offend or upset anyone. I cannot handle confrontation and I just want to keep the peace and for everyone else to be happy, even if it means I am not.

I sit at Desk 1. The gentleman that sits at Desk 3 does not seem to know his own strength. He doesn’t just tap along with the music; he thumps his fist into the table. This rattles everything on the desk (from Desk 1 to 3). He does not do this too often, but when he does, he can bang along to an entire song.

Desk 3 over pronounces the letter ‘T,’ when it appears at the end of words. It sounds as though they are tutting at the end of pronouncing their name and certain words, like, “Can’t,” or, “Most,” or that he is teaching a small child how to say the letter “tuh.” He doesn’t over pronounce any other letter. No, “dow-nuh,” or “soun-duh.”

Desk 3 does not sit tucked in at the desk. He sits far back from his keyboard, which must not only be bad for his posture, but it means that Desk 1, 2 and people from another room cannot get to the printer. It also makes it difficult for Desk 4, 5 and 6 to get out of the room. Even when they are not at their desk, they leave their chair in the middle of the walkway. We are in a very narrow room. If you are not tucked into your desk, it makes it impossible for anyone to get around you. I have a bookcase directly behind my desk that requires regular access. If I was not conscious of the people around me, I would be delaying everyone from doing their jobs. The person at Desk 3 will be the first person to complain if they have to wait for someone to move.

Desk 3 believes that their connotations of a word/concept are the same as everyone else’s denotations. We have a rule that you are not allowed to eat your lunch at your desk, because we are on full view of customers, shopping for blinds. The denotation for eating at your desk is that it is unprofessional – a customer might think you are playing Solitaire, but his connotation of eating at his desk is that he is so busy he doesn’t have time for a break, but the thing is, he still goes out to take his half an hour break. We are allowed to eat a snack at our desk, eg a couple of biscuits or a banana. The person at Desk 3 does not see the difference between a snack and eating his full lunch at his desk. He says he will just prepare his lunch into small pieces, the size of biscuits. Everyone else has to use their thirty minutes to eat their lunch and do whatever you need to, but he believes that his lunch break is not for eating his lunch.

Desk 2 is my line manager and she is in control of the radio, from her computer. The speaker is on top of the filing cabinet, behind Desk 5. Desk 2 gets a say on what radio station we have on, changes it when she doesn’t like a song and changes the volume as and when she feels like it. I have no interest in music, so the constant change in the radio does not bother me, but the volume does. If she changes the radio station, sometimes the volume will rocket up and she will not turn it back down, because next time she changes back to the previous station it will be quiet, but also she likes to listen to music full blast, so she doesn’t see the problem. I cannot concentrate, or cope, with loud music and get and instant migraine.

I do the same job as Desk 3. I had to answer the phone to customers, after being here two weeks. I have been in the office a year now. Desk 3 started in May last year. It is now April and they still refuse to answer the phone if I am on another call and it is ringing out, because he does not like not knowing what the caller wants before answering it. He doesn’t even like speaking to someone, when I transfer the call through to him, and tell him what the project is regarding, if he isn’t currently working on that project or if it is not open on his PC. This is my first admin job. I have worked in an office for four years prior, but I was just the office junior and was not allowed to answer the phone. Desk 3 is twelve years older than me and has been working in an office for at least 20 years. It is not a lack of experience thing.

Desk 3 stands up and faffs in his backpack for almost 10 minutes to get a mug out of his bag to make a cup of tea, every day at 10am. He will not leave the mug on his desk or in the kitchen and he insists on burying it at the bottom of his backpack everyday, so it takes forever to get it out, emptying the entire contents of his bag onto his desk. Everyone has noticed that he does this – Desk 6 has started timing how long it takes him. If I take too make toilet breaks, he will make a comment, but it takes me 3 minutes to go to the toilet and be back at me desk, which is quicker than him looking for his mug.

Is it acceptable to take your shoes and socks off in an office of this size? When I’m freezing, I will slip my dolly shoes off and sit cross legged, but I do have two pairs of socks on and no one sees my feet. Desk 3 has a pair to laced up hiking boots and will take them off, swap their socks and then put on a different pair of hiking boots, every day at 16:50, when there are ten minutes left of the working day. This colleague also thinks that 8am start is the time that should appear at the door, not the time that they should be sat in their desk working. I get in at 7:50am, put my things away, make a drink and start my computer up, so that I am ready to start work at 8am, but they do not.

Desk 5 is shared between two people. Sometimes one of the co-directors will use it. Sometimes our external project manager will use it. When the director uses it, she talks to Desk 6 so loudly that I cannot hear the person on the phone I am talking to. I have made several mistakes, through not being able to concentrate or even hear myself think.

When the external project manager is at Desk 5, my manager, at Desk 2, acts like a spoilt brat. She often refuses to speak to him, or will make comments under her breath. It is like having two squabbling children in the office. Desk 2 will storm off and slam the door, when she does not get her own way and she will always have the radio on louder when she is in a mood with him.

Sometimes Desk 2 will be in a mood in general, whether it be work related or home related. They will act like a moody teenager. It makes her impossible to approach when I have a question. I am currently learning a new part of the business and I need to ask questions, because if I do something wrong, she will be in even more of a mood.

Our other co-director sits in a glass room behind my row of desks and shouts to Desk 2, from his desk and that is distracting. He also liked to pace behind Desks 1 to 3, and I have a bookcase right behind my desk, so I have to squish myself in really tight and I make mistakes because he is looming over me, often talking on the phone, making it almost impossible to concentrate.

Desk 4 seems to be cursed. In the year that I have been here, we are on our fourth person to work that job. Does anyone else have a cursed desk or job position?

Desk 3 had to transfer my phone to the next room for me, so that I could continue the call with our card payment machine. The call did not transfer on his first attempt, so instead of trying again, he just left me on hold and continued working. When I asked him why he didn’t let me know, he shrugged, and said he pressed the buttons that I told him to, and it wasn’t his fault that it didn’t go through. So rather than tell me, he just left me waiting, thinking that he was going to transfer the call any second. All he had to do was try again and he knows this. It doesn’t always work first time, but it will the second time – Desk 3 knows this. He kept my customer on hold, waiting for almost five minutes in total. This was my customer’s phone bill too, not our company’s.

Desk 3 refuses to write in biro. They will only write in fountain pen, because that is the “proper” way. Even when they are only taking notes. They say that they are so tight, money-wise, that they cannot afford contribute £2 for birthdays, yet they can only write in the most expensive pen. I struggle money-wise. I have to keep a roof over my family’s head. He lives with his mum and dad, has never paid a penny towards anything and does not see why he should. He and his wife aren’t saving to buy a house, because he is going to inherit his parents’ house when they die (it was his grandparents’ house and his parents never bought a house) and he doesn’t drive because he doesn’t see why he should, because he gets coffered around by his parents. His wife is due to move over from the Philippines soon and she is used to renting her own flat. Is she really going to okay with living in his bedroom, in his parents’ house? I know what it is like when your partner has a housemate, but to have to live with their parents too and on a permanent basis, without the future thought of one day getting your own place to keep you going. I buy a box of 20 biros for around £4.99 and they last me a couple of years. At home, I pay £600+ a quarter, towards utility bills and I pay £450, a month, rent. I never learnt to drive because I can’t afford to. I am trying my hardest to save what I can, so that I can buy my own flat one day. I still contribute £2 to birthdays. There are only 10 of us in the whole of the office, and most of the birthdays are all spread out (two in January, one in February, one in May, one in July, one in August, two in October, one in November and one in December). Desk 3 only ever has to spend their wages on themselves. They are on more money than me too.

Over the past couple of weeks, Desk 3 has decided to do an over exaggerated sigh regularly throughout the day. On Tuesday, of last week, he sighed heavily 120 times. Yes, I have started counting. On Wednesday it was 86 times. The previous week, on Monday, it was only 62 times. That is excluding the sighs that he might also do during my lunch break. The job is not too difficult, providing you concentrate. Desk 3 uses Excel to create spreadsheets, which pulls data from various places, doing a large part of the task for him. He doesn’t have an additional side of the company to do work for, like I do. He just has linear tasks to work though each day, without ever having to leave one task part-way through to move onto something else, with the once every 6-8 week phone call that he may receive. He has nothing to worry about outside of work and everything in life sounds as though it is running exactly as he wants it to, so why do a hundred over exaggerated, frustrated sighs throughout a nine hour day?

I know you can say that everyone else in the office will have a huge list of things to complain about me too, and I know that. I am very conscious of my volume when I am on the phone, because I know how distracting it is, hearing someone speaking loud – the only time I will speak louder, is if a customer cannot hear me. I have the noisy keyboard (the keys clatter when you type them) and I know it is annoying when I am typing fast. I do try hard to type slower, to quieten the volume. I know that I am a very sickly person and I get colds and coughs two to three times a year, but I have not made any of my colleagues ill. I am so careful to keep my germs to myself and I have a hand sanitiser on my desk, to always wash my hands after coughing or sneezing. I know there are likely a number of things that I do, that I am unaware of, that my colleagues probably find annoying, but I do try my hardest not to cause disruption. I have the ringer on my desk phone turned down, as I receive the most phone calls and I am conscious of the noise pollution.

I have come from an office where if someone is bullying you and you went to HR, all they would do is pass the information onto that person’s line manager, who would say, “That’s just how they are,” shrug and tell you to get used to it. We do not have a HR or Personnel where I work now and none of these things are bad, they are just annoying. The person at Desk 3 believes that they are in the right about everything in the world that they do. They do not agree with health and safety rules and say that you cannot tell them what to do. They also have a, “tit for tat,” attitude about them. If I were to copy them, in hopes of showing them how annoying they are likely to praise me for doing things, “properly.” I have put up with a lot worse, but just wondered if anyone had any advice as to how is best to cope or deal with things. Any help or advice is much appreciate. Oh and working from home is not an option, I am afraid.

 

- Josie -