Results from a recent U.S. survey about twenty annoying coworker behaviors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Kathy Morris at ZIPPIA the career expert on March 22, 2021 titled Survey: What each state finds most annoying in a coworker. They surveyed 1210 workers during February and March 2021 about how many were annoyed by twenty different behaviors. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Results are shown above in a bar chart (Click on it to see a larger, clearer version). The five most common annoying behaviors are being Too Loud (86%), Gossip (61%), Laziness (53%), Bad at Their Job (42%) and a tie for fifth (38%) between Bad Personal Hygiene and Complainer/Whiner. (Being Too Quiet was only considered annoying by 7%).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above, results also were reported for 49 states, with Vermont skipped for too small a sample. For 33 of 49 of states ( or 2/3 rds) being Too Loud was the most annoying behavior. For another four states each it was either Laziness (Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Nebraska) or Tardiness (Louisiana, Montana, Oklahoma, Rhode Island). For another two each it was being Bad at Their Job (Kentucky & Minnesota), Gossip (Delaware & Washington), or being a Negative/Pessimist (Iowa and North Dakota). For one remaining it was either Frequent Absences (Idaho) or Know It All or Other Smug Behavior (New Hampshire). Idaho has great fishing, which explains our frequent Absences.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How many annoying coworkers did people have? As shown above just 8% had none, 27% had one, 54% had two to five, 6% had six to ten, and a very unlucky 5% had more than ten.  

 

But the ZIPPIA article didn’t discuss what to do. On December 23, 2017 I blogged about How to build a bad presentation – describe a problem but not a good solution. There is another article by Robin Madell and Peter A. Gudmondsson at U.S. News on November 30, 2020 titled 10 Types of annoying co-workers and how to deal with them. They discuss what to do about the loud talker, political agitator, gossiper, suck-up, overworked martyr, constant socializer, kitchen slob, weekend warrior, over-sharer, and know-it-all.

 

There also is a 56-minute YouTube video  from Oct 23, 2017 by Bob Sutton titled How to outwit workplace jerks. Sutton wrote a book titled The Asshole Survival Guide.

 

At ZIPPIA there actually is a second article on March 29, 2021 by Maddie Lloyd titled 8 Tips on how to deal with difficult people at work. I was told about the survey in an email from Kristy Crane (in public relations at ZIPPIA) on April 13, 2021 – which didn’t mention that later article.