Are Your Colleagues a Headache?

Inspiration Office, an Africa-wide office space and furniture consultancy recently conducted a poll to find out what South Africans really want from their workplaces - with some interesting results!

Good coffee, access to natural light, some greenery and a one-time list topper, a comfortable office chair! What people dislike most are noisy colleagues and people who eat smelly foods at their desks.

Surprisingly bad bosses only came in at number three of our top peeves.

So this article has inspired me to share some of the most creative “office solutions” we have heard first-hand over the years to these non-negotiables. We are not saying the approaches were right and that there weren’t easier solutions, but that they were effective and gave us a good laugh on the day.

Andiswa, a Polokwane learner, said her superior was in the habit of eating fish and chips at her desk and then leaving her plate, knife and fork on the desk, so the smell never left the office. Andiswa asked nicely once or twice and eventually placed her manager’s eating utensils, plate included, in her (the manager’s) laptop bag! Problem solved!

Abigail, a receptionist we met, said that her colleagues constantly stood around in her reception area speaking at the top of their voices and no matter how often she asked them to pipe down, they simply never did. Her solution was to place a yucca plant in front of her desk, allowing for only one person at a time to stand comfortably! They soon started congregating on the other side of the reception area! Ouch!

A learner in an open-plan office was terribly upset by the bad body odour of her colleague and despite having spoken to management about it, nothing had been done. She then decided to address it personally and approached the person, who just said, “there is nothing wrong with pheromones”. Our delegate then spent the next week overdoing all the perfumes she could find until her co-worker commented on one he really didn’t like; she then doubled her efforts on that one. Eventually they all sorted themselves as he finally got her point!

We have many anecdotes like this from the wonderful people we meet on a daily basis. In our Business Etiquette courses these are exactly the type of office behaviours that we talk about and address. In fact, through an array of workshops we address all the other pet peeves listed in the Inspiration Office poll, like long meetings and “bad boss” behaviours.

Let us know some of your funnier and more creative solutions in the comments.

Staff Training is a soft skills training provider, contact us at (021) 839 3021 or drop us an email.