Ahh the modern office. Forget having four walls and a door, many of us would be happy to have a private cubicle in which to spend our working days. The cost of real estate and office buildings means that in a tough economy, we get the privilege of working in increasingly shared office spaces. There are good things that can come out of this, for sure. Maybe the members of a team could become better acquainted with each other, learn more about each other’s personal lives and, as a result, learn to work more effectively together. Maybe problems will be more easily solved if it is easier to turn to your colleague and ask for their input on something…who knows?

But the negatives that occur from sharing office space seem to far outnumber the positives (at least for a people-intolerant person like myself—I consider it a sort of allergy). People who don’t know how to share office space are dumb. Below is a list of some of my biggest issues with these people who are dumb (feel free to add your own in the comments section).

1. Headphones mean I am busy

What is it that people don’t understand about headphones? If they are on, I do not want to talk to you. I am probably busy with something or maybe, I am using them to drown out the sound of you talking to yourself while you work through a task. I can see an offender of this policy replying “but you always have your headphones on?”, to which I would say “Yes. Think about that one”.

2. People may be talking, but not always to you

Just because someone is saying something, it may not involve you. In a shared workspace, there are different people with different levels of responsibility to each other and who will engage in different conversations about the work they have to do. Before jumping in to answer any and all questions that are uttered, try listening to the context in which they were asked and see if you have the requisite experience/knowledge to helpfully answer them. If not, please remain silent.

3. Eating noises

This is a difficult one, because there are noises that occur when people eat. I understand this. Some amount of noise is bound to escape from people’s mouths while they are eating, and there is nothing that can be done about this. This does not mean there aren’t things that can be done to reduce these noises. Let’s start with the basics- chew with your mouth closed and don’t slurp. I would think that people should know these ones, but I am constantly amazed at how much people don’t know. Another strategy? Select foods that aren’t super crunchy. I don’t begrudge people who choose to eat apples and carrots (they are some of the easiest healthy lunch-time snacks to bring), even though the noises that can result are truly gross. I do, however, take issue with chips of any kind and peanut brittle. Peanut brittle??? At a co-op job I had many years ago, a guy I shared a cube farm with had a huge Tupperware container full of the stuff on his desk, and everyday at 3:00pm, he would start crunching on the the shards of sugar. By the end of that summer, I wanted to end his or my own life. I didn’t care which.

There are many more examples of how annoying people can be in these shared environments, but it really just comes down to the fact that some people act as if they are alone, when, in fact, other people are in the same space. These people are dumb. If they took a minute to think about how they might be affecting other people’s sanity, they might improve all of our lives.