Petty things that start wars in every office

[Catananche]

Ah, the fridge cleaner. We had one of those as well, until we started labelling food not only with our names but also with a CAN BE THROWN AWAY AFTER *DATE*. She was happy she could throw away stuff and we didn't lose our precious food.

One of our biggest office discussions was about the windows. People would randomly open windows and mess up the office climate control. It would be blazing heat on one side of the building and blazing freezing air on the other side. The window-openers couldn't be persuaded to leave the windows closed.

Another one was the radio: people complained about the station, the volume, people humming along, people singing along and people turning the radio off. It was very annoying for those of us who didn't really care about the music.

[Outdoor Girl]

Someone posted a sign on our fridge last week.

'It's so cute!  People are starting to name their food.  I ate a tuna sandwich named 'Kevin' today.'

[Lady Snowdon]

My company posts signs on all the fridge doors of what days they will be cleaned out for the entire year.  It's usually once a month, on a specific Friday.  Since it's up for the entire year, people aren't really able to complain that they didn't know, since they've had to look at the sheet every day they put something in there!  I'm grateful for that one, since everything else about the fridges causes a war.  We have something like 4 fridges for over 200 people on my floor, and people are constantly doing things like going grocery shopping on their lunch hour and putting their groceries in the fridge, or bringing in 20 of something to last for the whole month, or trying to cram 50 huge insulated lunch bags into one fridge (which causes my stuff that's not in a reinforced lunch bag to be smashed). 

[Adelaide]

I have a story about #4: Kids' Fundraisers. One of the secretaries (a girl about 22, my age) walked around the office soliciting donations. They weren't even for her child. Apparently another secretary was "too shy" to ask for donations, so this girl was doing it for her. She was soliciting donations to get a 13-year-old autistic girl almost $2000 worth of cheerleading equipment and a uniform. The secretary kept saying "Girl's Mom wanted to go around and ask everyone, but she was too shy to do it so I am!"

I turned her down. She walked up to me, cheerleading catalog in hand, and stuck it under my nose to point out things that the kid needed. I just said "No, I'm afraid that won't be possible." (Thanks to ehell for that phrase.) The girl soliciting stared at me like I'd grown a third eye. She kept throwing out points like "She's autistic" to which I would say "Okay." and "She's only 13."  "...okay." and "She really wants to be a cheerleader." "...okay." This secretary just could not get that I wasn't going to give any of my minimum-wage paycheck to her. I noticed that the secretaries were somewhat frosty to me after that, but I really didn't care.  I never even figured out which one of them was the actual mother!

[Pippen]

I have a story about #4: Kids' Fundraisers. One of the secretaries (a girl about 22, my age) walked around the office soliciting donations. They weren't even for her child. Apparently another secretary was "too shy" to ask for donations, so this girl was doing it for her. She was soliciting donations to get a 13-year-old autistic girl almost $2000 worth of cheerleading equipment and a uniform. The secretary kept saying "Girl's Mom wanted to go around and ask everyone, but she was too shy to do it so I am!"

I turned her down. She walked up to me, cheerleading catalog in hand, and stuck it under my nose to point out things that the kid needed. I just said "No, I'm afraid that won't be possible." (Thanks to ehell for that phrase.) The girl soliciting stared at me like I'd grown a third eye. She kept throwing out points like "She's autistic" to which I would say "Okay." and "She's only 13."  "...okay." and "She really wants to be a cheerleader." "...okay." This secretary just could not get that I wasn't going to give any of my minimum-wage paycheck to her. I noticed that the secretaries were somewhat frosty to me after that, but I really didn't care.  I never even figured out which one of them was the actual mother!

There was a thread on here a while back about a director using the companies personal contact list to send out solicitations to employees at their home address for her children's private school activities. I wonder what the outcome of that was.

[Bijou]

All true. 
Plus, nothing is worse than a clique.  There was one where we worked and no less than three of the people who got pulled into it came to me and complained that the 'leader' had shared with others confidential information they told her was for her ears only.  They all were confused, "I thought she was my friend".
On the coffee, we had the coffee wars, and that was when I bought a one of those cup and funnel sets for making one cup at a time and supplied all my own stuff. 
We ended up assigning a different work department to clean the kitchen every Friday and when you have to be involved in cleaning up the joint, you are a little more careful. 

[TheaterDiva1]

I can't believe no one mentioned flushing toilets (or should I say, not flushing well enough or at all).  Seriously - it just takes a minute to flush, watch and make sure everything goes down, and flush again if necessary.  I'm tired of finding paper (or worse) floating in the bowl when I go on there!

[girlysprite]

At my previous company, two departments switched fridges, because one was much bigger. No issue there. However, the smaller fridge that now went to smaller department hadn't been cleaned out yet. And it was gross - there was even mold growing inside it. I kept going over to big department and demanded that someone from that department would clean it. After several demands one person caved in. However, the irony was that this one person never used the fridge at all. I gave him a bucket of candy as my thanks for doing this. The department got a big scolding from boss.

On dishwashers - dishwashers don't solve the 'dishes in sink' issue. You see, if the washer is full with clean dishes, no one wants to take out those clean dishes, and end up with putting their dirty dishes in the sink.

[oz diva]

 I have never encountered popcorn of any sort in an office setting. Is it common in America?

[rain]

oz - the answer to your question is a resounding YES!!! (but I don't eat popcorn)

[Bijou]

I have never encountered popcorn of any sort in an office setting. Is it common in America?

It was in our office.  Fortunately I don't mind the smell of burned popcorn.   

[whiskeytangofoxtrot]

POD to just about every previous post! I would also add- not refilling the copy room printer with paper or the stapler with staples, and failing to close the ice machine door. Apparently these require a higher skill level than I would've expected.

To anyone who's never experienced these annoyances, I have two questions: 1- where do you work? 2- when can I start? 

[Adelaide]

I have never encountered popcorn of any sort in an office setting. Is it common in America?

It was in our office.  Fortunately I don't mind the smell of burned popcorn.   

We had that problem as well, but it wasn't always with popcorn. Someone would always burn food and when people smell it in the break room it was all "Oh, what happened in here?" or "Ermagerd, someone cooked food in the microwave? How dare they!"

[workerbee]

Along the lines of 'office smells' - I have one co-worker who uses an incredibly strong "scent stick" thing in her office. She started with the plug-ins, but upon being informed they were a fire hazard, went with this thing instead.  I have a strong aversion to those sickly-sweet fake scents, and this one is so strong it actually filters out into the common area outside our offices! I wish she would just get rid of it. (I know many offices have a policy against this sort of thing, but sadly we do not).

Not only does it bother me personally, I just consider it highly unprofessional. Kind of like dousing oneself in perfume. I went in her office one day after she'd had the door closed for a while and the smell nearly knocked me down.

[Slartibartfast]

The microwave in the physics department at Duke University (so used by what one can usually assume is smart people) had a big sign on it saying "PLEASE DO NOT MICROWAVE METAL OBJECTS."  I laughed at the sign and said something aloud about how it was funny they had to specify that.  The grad student using the lounge at the time replied "It was funny before they went through three microwaves in the last three months."

Seriously, people?  How do you get to be a graduate student in physics without knowing that putting metal things in a microwave makes shiny-flashy-boom and the microwave no make hot anymore?