r/office

My company has been hybrid for a while now and I recently switched teams. I went from really hating my job, to really enjoying my role; but I’m now being asked to go in more regularly. I’m not eager to leave and want to make this current role work.

The odds feel stacked against me and I’m not sure what I can do to make it more enjoyable.

1. We hot desk so I can leave anything at my office to make it more personal/comfortable for me

2. Everyone I work with is in another city.

3. I’m a designer and everyone else in my office is not, so I don’t have an obvious reason to collaborate/ask for input on anything.

4. 95% of the employees live in the suburbs and leave early to beat rush hour, so some days the office empties at 3:30.

What are somethings you do to make going in more enjoyable, or should I begin looking for somewhere with better culture?

Bro, my coworker keeps copying my hairstyles. It’s not so much that she copies my hairstyle, the issue is I hate looking like twins, I’m a grown woman, feels weird at work. This is the 3rd hairstyle that I’ve gotten, and she’s copied.
Thinking of shaving my head 🤔

Our drive is an absolute mess and the built-in search is basically useless. I feel like half my day is spent either clicking through 10 layers of subfolders or pinging people on Teams just to find basic stuff.

Roughly how much time a day do you guys actually lose to this? And when you can't find a document, do you usually keep digging yourself, or do you just give up and ask someone to send it over?

Caption :Boss: “Can we talk for a minute?”Me: “Of course.”Also me internally: What did I do? What did I forget? Am I getting fired? 😭😂

What’s the first thought that comes to your mind when your boss says, “We need to talk”? 👀

My coworker talks so much about anything, every other phone call, any inconvenience, she’s complaining out loud. N when she’s not complaining she’s bringing up random conversations with her buddy. Idk if I have some sort of disorder but it’s truly exhausting. I can only wear one headphone because I’m on the phone all day, there’s no escaping her. Not to mention she’s super negative so everything is a negative reaction , a complaint, a sigh, a grunt, it’s just… kids stay in school so you can have better choices.

Omg, this is so cringe. There are 100 people in my office team meeting and the game is calling on everyone and them talking about their summer vacation starting with each letter of the alphabet. It’s like a kindergarten show and tell. I’m like, “wtf-I can only afford to go to work and go home” and can hardly afford that. Fucking hate this so much.

I have recently joined this company ..my boss has given me project again and again. Even though I do everything according to him still I am not able to do how he wants..I don’t know…this time he even pointed it out that there’s something which is wrong coz everytime if I have to do the thing then what’s the point…even if I write the same thing still not able to get it what he wants…I am in designing field and he is the head designer.

I'm not big on team outings in the first place. Especially if it takes place on what should be my time (lunch).

In the past 2 weeks, we've had a pizza party, had to watch a documentary as a team during lunch, went out to lunch as a team and we all had to pay (which didn't seem to bother anyone except it would have been nice to know since I can't afford it!), department picnic, and finally another team outing next week.

In my opinion, that's too much! And our boss keeps bit**ing that millennials "ruined happy hour" after work is done for the day. ... no.... we just want to go home....

Update: we have another lunch celebration today in the office. The treat is cereal 🤔

Hi guys, for those of you who work at a computer and sometimes have a lot of free time at work after finishing everything — how do you pass the time without making it obvious you’re bored? I’m more of a phone person, but in an open office I don’t want people to notice or make a big deal out of it. I also can’t play games I actually like, like The Sims, because it’s way too obvious. So what do you do on your PC that still looks like you’re working? Do you play low-key games like Mahjong, read articles, free books, or use any good websites? I’m looking for tips because sometimes I’m bored for like 5 hours and slowly losing my mind in the office.

What workplace email phrase makes you cringe every time you see it?

Let’s keep this one simple.

What phrase lands in your inbox and immediately makes you think:

Oh, here we go.

Maybe it’s:

“Per my last email…”

“Gentle reminder…”

“Please advise.”

“Thoughts?”

“Circling back…”

“Friendly reminder…”

“Moving forward…”

Or perhaps there’s one that deserves its own special place in workplace-email purgatory. 😂

What’s yours?

I 33M, work as a PM and crossed paths with this particular HR person(Female) because I was part of the interview panel for multiple roles.

Incident 1 - interviewee giggled and greeted me since we were both the same ethnicity, HR caught this and kept teasing me about that interviewee.

Incident 2 - I got a fade cut cause my wife wanted me to try out a new look and I loved it. HR kept praising me on multiple occasions and continued teasing me in front of my manager with that interviewee.

Incident 3 - Just before an interview I mentioned I am having a bad hair day and she said "dont worry this one may not be your type" and started laughing in front of my manager, again!

Multiple occasions where she said, people greet me on interviews differently because of my good looks and caught her staring a few times when we met in person. She knows I am married. I am not that good looking tbh. I dont know if I am overthinking this, but I am starting to feel a little uncomfortable now around her. Every interview I am on with her, she has to pass a comment. What do I do? Is this normal? I want to put the brakes on this whole situation before I start avoiding her.

On my last working day at my previous organization, I did something completely unexpected. More importantly, I made it clear where I stood and what my path ahead would look like.

My last working day there wasn’t exactly a great experience, for a couple of reasons.

First, my last working day was suddenly preponed, and I wasn’t informed about it. I came to know about the change only when someone casually mentioned it during an informal conversation.

When I asked how that happened, I was told that the holidays had been removed from the calculation. That came as quite a shock because everyone who had left before me had followed the same calculation, and I had calculated my last working day based on the same approach.

What surprised me even more was being told not to tell anyone about my last working day. I found that quite strange.

Technically, apart from HR, the management team and me, nobody knew that it was my last day. I still don’t know the reason behind keeping it that way. But, ironically, it worked in my favour.

So, when I reached the office that morning, it felt like a completely normal day—for me and for everyone else.

I had, however, been given a lot of work that had suddenly landed on my desk. I kept working relentlessly. At one point, the person sitting next to me asked, “Why are you working so much? It’s your last working day!”

I simply told him, “I don’t want to leave things pending.”

The person who had been given additional charge of my profile had neither much understanding of the responsibilities nor, from what I could see, much interest in learning them.

By afternoon, I was completely exhausted. That’s when I decided to send my farewell mail. I knew that once I sent it, my system access would soon be blocked, and I had no intention of taking up any more work for the day.

I had already prepared my farewell mail and kept it ready.

But there was one significant difference.

I did not include my personal email ID or phone number in the farewell mail.

It simply didn’t feel right to do so.

The people I genuinely wanted to stay in touch with already had my number. I had personally shared it with them and had also requested them not to share it with anyone else.

The experience I had at that organization had hurt me enough that, by that point, I didn’t want to remain in touch with anyone from there.

Some of the people who read my farewell mail understood my intentions immediately. It was, apparently, the first time someone in the organization had left without sharing personal contact details in a farewell mail.

During my tenure, I had brought about several changes in the organization.

And when I left, I ended up doing something else that was a first too.

I had changed the organization in my own way while I was there—and when I left, I set a new precedent as well.

I worked at an Indian firm

Hey all, to clear all confusion - for the last 9 years, up untill last Friday, I've worked construction, warehouse and retail and random part-time jobs. I've been working ever since I turned 17 with some gaps for studying and university. Every single job I had so far was somewhat shitty - either the working hours, or the pay, or the fact that I'm too tired to even get out of my car when I get home and every free minute I have I spent just resting my body. 2 months ago I applied for an office-based position in a local company that basically offers the complete opposite - Monday to Friday, fixed hours, home-office for a few days of the month, freedom to choose when I have lunch or take a smoke break or even go to the bathroom. The only thing they care is that the job is done by the end of the day - everything else is entirely up to you. Of course there's some corporate stuff involved that are still extremely new and unknown to me but I'll probably get used to that.

What was totally frightening for me was the fact that for the first time ever I took a proper lunch break, didn't have to check in with anyone, didn't have to sign in a book the moment I stopped working and went to have lunch, time 30 minutes, and sign in the same book again on the dot.... I took a whole freaking hour, if not even more, and I just... sat on a bench in a nearby park, had my lunch in peace, smoked a few cigarettes, talked on the phone and didn't have to check my watch anxiously every 2 or 3 minutes. At the exact 30 minute mark my arms and legs started shaking almost uncontrollably from the thought that I was gonna get in trouble for not being as punctual as I'm used to be. I know for some of you that's the norm but to me... that's something new... the other things is that for the first time in my life I actually have energy left at the end of day and I can actually do some of the things that I wanna do and love doing. And my coworkers in my department have been great - I didn't actually see any of the hypocrisy and two-faced-ness that I'm used to seeing in people working an office job. For the first time in my life I actually don't dread going to work tomorrow.... I'm confused... what's going on?!

Don't get me wrong - I'm definitely not a huge fan of meetings, endless emails, being stuck on a desk or even hushing my voice because it's an open space office.

TL:DR - First "normal" job in my life and the freedom feels weird. The corporate stuff too...

Genuinely curious if other people see this too...

We work with a lot of office coffee setups, and there are a few things we keep running into.

The machine is sized for headcount instead of actual attendance. A 100-person office with 40 people coming in most days has very different needs from a 100-person office with 90 people there every day.

The machine isn’t maintained. A lot of “bad coffee” complaints seem to come down to a machine that hasn’t been cleaned or descaled properly, rather than bad beans.

People’s preferences are harder to predict than you’d think. An office might say everyone drinks drip coffee, but then you add an espresso or cappuccino option and suddenly the usage looks completely different.

Hybrid schedules make sizing even trickier. You can have a setup that feels excessive most of the week and still struggle on the one day everyone comes in.

And then there’s all the boring stuff nobody thinks about until it becomes a problem: who cleans the machine, who keeps everything stocked, who notices when something isn’t working, etc.

We’ve found that getting the machine right is only part of it. The equipment, maintenance, and actual usage all have to line up.

For people who manage office coffee or workplace operations, what have you found makes the biggest difference?

"I'll write something as simple as ""Got it, I'll send this by 3"" and somehow spend another few minutes wondering if it sounds rude or too dry.

I’m doing some work with EditOn AI, so just being upfront about that. It’s a Chrome writing extension, and the office use case got me thinking about how much time people lose on tiny messages when the wording or tone feels off.

For me, tone is the annoying part. Grammar is usually easier to catch. Do you actually use any writing or grammar tools for work emails/Teams messages, or do you just reread everything before sending?

No link here. I’m genuinely curious what people in office jobs actually do."

What are people’s thoughts on this?

I work from the office two days a week, 3 days at home. My job can fully be done from home

But my boss, is really weird about office days, in that there is no flexibility in it, and she gets angry if anyone needs to work from home on those days such as medical appointments

So on Wednesday it was my office day and the lady in my team next to me had come into the office absolutely full of cold. I started to get really anxious because I didn’t want to get it as I was visiting my family this weekend and my dad has gone through cancer treatment and so is immunosuppressed.

I did go home for the weekend and I’ve currently travelled across the country, to wake up this morning absolutely full of cold myself. My family are really angry with me

And then what’s made things more worrying for me is I am currently 3 hours from home, due in the office tomorrow, and I have driven here and I have severe vertigo. So how am I supposed to drive home 😭 I mean I’m going to have to drive home because my manager will not be impressed if I say I’m working from home tomorrow

But I wish there was more flexibility.

Plus I was really looking forward to all my plans this week :(

I heard they can eat anything literally anything. I work in an environment where i need to destroy a lot of documents but i want to become more eco friendly, would replacing my paper shredder (fellows 79Ci - 16 sheet shredder) with a large venus fly trap - or perhaps a pitcher plant. Wondering what the consensus is and whether this really is in the best interest of me and a plant

Starting at a random office that imports fruits.

I’m kind of concerned because they offered it to me on the spot Thursday haven’t sent an offer letter or confirmed pay rate and it maybe 2-4 hrs of the day. I truly expected this to be a 2-3 day week job.

I’m walking up now and no text from the one person who does work in office.