Bad Habits in the Workplace

Our professional working lives last about 45 years. Let’s say you worked a 40 hour week, 48 weeks of the year, that’s a total of 86,400 hours of work time! With all those hours worked it’s understandable if you let a few bad habits slip out whilst spending time in the office.

Whilst many habits fly under the radar, there are a few that can annoy your co-workers. In some cases, this can lead to a breakdown in office harmony and lead to disagreements with your co-workers.

Here we’ll take a look at some habits that can have a negative effect on the workplace.

Tardiness

Consistently arriving late for work can be seen as disrespectful both to your co-workers and your bosses. If everyone else can make the effort to arrive on time, why can’t you? Punctuality is critical to a successful career and building strong relationships with your peers. This also applies to office meetings, keeping people waiting can be construed as inconsiderate, rude, or arrogant.

Gossiping

We go to work to get stuff done and not everyone appreciates a co-worker who spends most of the day engaging in idle chit chat and office gossip. That’s not to say that everyone expects to work in silence, obviously a little chatter is healthy for a positive work environment but if your co-workers appear more interested in looking at their monitor than listening to your story, maybe it’s time to stop chatting and start working.

Smelly Food

We’ve all been there, sat at our desks beavering away when the harrowing smell of someone else’s dinner comes wafting over to insult your nostrils. Obviously a person got to eat but cooking or heating strong smelling foods like fish or dishes heavy on Garlic aren’t going to be making you any friends in a hurry.

Personal Hygiene

As with smelly food, the last thing a co-worker wants to smell when at their desk is your body odour. This also applies to those that over compensate, sure your girlfriend might like that aftershave but your colleagues might not be that enamoured being choked to death by your sexy scent. Always try to go to work clean and fresh and don’t got OTT on the perfume.

Bad Habits

When you’re in the privacy of your own home you can pretty much do what you like, burp, fart, sneeze without covering your mouth and pick your nose to your hearts content. However when your in the workplace, your colleagues aren’t really dying to see them, hear them or smell them.

Space Invader

Each persons desk and surrounding area is their personal space and unfortunately some people are oblivious to the fact they are encroaching on it. Approaching peoples desks and borrowing without asking as well as standing too close (even to the point of being inappropriate) can cause upset. When approaching another co-workers desk always s aim to be considerate and respect their personal space.

Negativity

Nobody wants to work with a pessimist colleague. They sap the life and joy out of a team and answer everything in a negative fashion. Negativity can also stifle creativity if every idea is being put down which could end up leaving you as an office pariah. If people know your negative, they will start to avoid you at work.

Swearing

It’s extremely unprofessional to be cussing at work all day long. It shows that you not ready for progression and demonstrates to others that you aren’t able to calmly and thoughtfully deal with a situation. If witnessed by a customer or client, it can also reflect very poorly on your employers which could land you in some very hot water.