Ways to Annoy Coworkers

By Manali Oak

 It is easy to say that you should always be cordial with your coworkers and try to make friends with them. It's easy to talk about workplace ethics and healthy work culture. But, it is equally difficult to maintain it. Perhaps, it is too idealistic to always have polite and friendly colleagues. At times, you come across jerks who dampen the office atmosphere and you need to confront bullies and arrogant individuals who spoil the working environment. And sometimes, you need to deal with them, in their own way; you need to apply a 'tit for tat' strategy! Following is a list of some ways to annoy coworkers. Well! I cannot take the risk of advising you to follow them though!

Endless Talks: Request one of the coworkers (the one who irritates you the most!) to come to your desk and start an unending conversation with him/her. Discuss pointless issues or narrate stories, which are sure to bug your coworker. Start telling the colleague, something that is really boring. You can invite some other coworkers and create the feeling of discussing something really important. Or you may pretend to share something really interesting and gradually make it lengthy and draggy. Watch your coworkers while they return to their cubicles, irritated, annoyed and flustered, all at the same time! 

Phone Calls: Making unnecessary phone calls to your coworkers is a good way to annoy them. You can try one of the funny voice mail ideas and drive your coworkers crazy or make repeated calls to your colleagues, making the same point, over and over again. Communicate over phone in a babytalk or disguise your voice as someone else's. Make hissing sounds in the phone, saying that you have a bad connection. 

Annoying Emails: Send long, irritating emails to your coworkers or circulate spam. You can use some of the email prank ideas to bug your colleagues. Carrying out unnecessary communication through the use of emails is another way of annoying your coworkers. Send them bulky attachments and junk mail, thus wasting their time and inbox capacity. Announce your work status through an email or make trivial announcements like "I will be on phone for 5 more minutes" or "I am in the restroom" by sending an email to the entire team. 

Office Pranks: Sneak behind someone or walk around the office suspiciously. Hide behind the chair of one of your coworkers (one who has always been bullying you) and frighten him by catching him unawares. Disrupt the functioning of your office elevator by leaving its door open. Sneak into the pantry and add salt to someone's coffee. You can even try adding salt in place of sugar to the coffee vending machine! (Well, that's risky.) Another way of annoying coworkers is to watch out for a time when they are not on their desks and meddle with their workstation. You can unplug someone's monitor or pour glue onto someone's keyboard! Or fix a piece of clear tape under the computer mouse to stop the mouse ball from moving. 

Disrupt Meetings: Attend phone calls during meetings. Setting your cell phone to some irritating ring tones and message alerts will make it even worse! Another way of annoying those at the meeting is to talk without waiting for your turn. Interrupt their speech or laugh out loud when a colleague is discussing something seriously. Annoy your coworkers by getting some new procedures passed, during every meeting. Calling meetings for trivial issues, digressing from the meeting agenda and diverting everyone to unimportant subjects, wastes their time, annoying them further. Use your creativity(?) to devise prank ideas for meetings that are sure to annoy the attendees. 

Are You Crazy: Act crazily during the office hours and drive your coworkers mad with anger. (All, at your own risk!) Eat someone else's lunch or take a sip from their coffee. Irritate those around you by exclaiming "Ahh", after every sip of tea/coffee. Whisper loudly or laugh hysterically and you are sure to annoy your colleagues. Another sure way to irritate coworkers is to mimic them whenever they say something, talk to them in a funny accent and call them by wrong names. (Try mispronouncing their names.) You can practice drumming on your desk or make it even more irritating by pretending to bang your head on the keyboard. Your colleagues might ask you what the problem is; say nothing, just keep banging your head. (Harder this time!) Type loudly and sigh each time you need to use the backspace key. And you will see your coworkers turn furious! Come to work wearing funny clothes; drench in an aftershave or wear a strong perfume; whistle all day long or sing off-key, or bug your colleagues by talking to your computer monitor, as if it were a person! 

Annoying your coworkers to the extent that they feel depressed or hateful, is not the right thing to do. If pranks and crazy acts are not taken in the right spirit, they no more remain, a laughing matter. So, beware.