The 7 fastest ways to stop driving your colleagues crazy

You know, besides getting their names right...

sick at work
(Image credit: (Thinkstock))

1. Embrace Boomerang

Studies have shown that our brains are more creative when we're relaxed and distracted, which means we often have "brilliant" ideas while lathering up in the shower, or playing KenKen while lying in bed before sleep.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

2. Use those sick days

Sometimes it's tempting to go to work sick. Maybe you're a work-aholic, or maybe you're new and still trying to prove your work ethic. Or maybe you just truly love your job and suffer from debilitating workplace FOMO.

Whatever the case, don't do it. Offices are large, elaborate petri dishes, and germs can survive anywhere from a couple minutes to 48 hours on hard surfaces — which means they can easily travel from door knobs to keyboards to eyeballs to blood streams.

This contagion factor is something we all try to forget about while we're working. So if you're sick, visibly or otherwise, but still absolutely have to work, do it from home.

3. Consider the tuna

It's a mystery of science: Some foods that taste perfectly good, smell just terrible. Since it's standard office etiquette to try not to smell like crap, it's best to enjoy tuna melts on weekends only. Your cubicle neighbors will thank you.

4. Keep the date

One helpful thing to come out of the government shutdown: A helpful tip from the head of the EPA about office etiquette. In a welcome-back memo to employees, EPA chief Gina McCarthy wrote:

During the shutdown, we made every effort to water accessible plants. And of necessity, the refrigerators were emptied of all perishable foodstuffs last week. The oldest food found? A can of Campbell's soup dated 1997! So, please remember it is everyone's responsibility to keep the refrigerators clean. [Yahoo News]

So, yeah: Get rid of everything in the office kitchen you've had there since the dot com bubble.

5. Practice keyboard compassion

When work gets stressful, it can feel great to hit stuff. That's why the Office Space scene where the gang goes ballistic on a printer is so satisfying:

But many of us don't realize we play this out automatically in tiny ways, like typing aggressively, which is not nearly as satisfying, and makes your co-workers uncomfortable. So, if possible, save the electronics abuse for true emotional breakdowns.

6. Hold the honey

This one's for the old men: Back in Mad Men days, or whenever you first entered the workforce, calling your female officemates "Honey," and "Sweetheart," was probably charming and perfectly professional. Or at least normal. Now it makes you seem kind of weird and skeevy.

7. Stop complaining about how busy you are

Just stop.

Carmel Lobello is the business editor at TheWeek.com. Previously, she was an editor at DeathandTaxesMag.com.