The co-worker who keeps pilfering your chair. They belch all the time, they bring smelly food in, they pull off socks and do their toes. It's really obnoxious. In the golden days, workers could hide their eyebrow-raising traits in the sanctity of private offices. Now the walls are invisible.
Many workers toil in open cubicles, which let all the bad habits hang out.
We had a fellow I used to work with who would sit and talk on the phone and clip, clip, clip his nails. And it's only getting worse. Studies by Houston-based International Facility Management Association found the average amount of space a middle manager gets, for example, has shrunk from 151 square feet in 1994 to 142 square feet in 1997. Like an episode of Seinfeld, offices are filled with loud talkers, phone slammers and hacking coughers. My secretary was good enough to put a call in and interrupt.