Biggest Office Pet Peeves
State your grievances, a couple of my big ones:
The person who makes every meeting run over because he interrupts after every other sentence to ask for clarification.
Working with someone who is so type A that they make small changes to your work just to feel in control.
That manager who just assumes whatever you're working on is unimportant and randomly calls you into his office and gives you new projects that you can't exactly see the significance of.
When you're in a meeting with a known long-winded speaker and you finally think it's over but one of the Ivy Leaguers has to ask a question that sets the speaker up for another 20 minute soap-box spiel on a subject that no one is genuinely interested in.
Being told that a certain project is extremely time sensitive only to present it to your superior the next day and realize that they will probably never use the information you've gathered them in any way.
Sitting in the cubicle between two people that yell at each other from across the office all day.
People eating seamless loudly while giggling to themselves watching Netflix.
Who watches Netflix in the office???
You have never worked in an office.
When people try to make it over obvious how hard they are working or how long they worked this week
Admins on personal calls all day long
... yeah it's been a bad week
Intentionally public displays of work - CC'ing unneccesary parties to make yourself look better. Sending out team-wide emails displaying the work for the same reason.
Meetings that run over every time.
Meetings that are schedule for 30 minutes but take 14, then whoever is running the meeting drags on / talks in circles / brings up unnecessary questions to fill time.
Waiting for people to leave meeting rooms from their meetings running over.
People with kids that use them for every excuse known to man.
People with kids who talk about their "accomplishments" at work.
People with kids who talk about their kids and refer to them in the first person. -"My weekend was great, took Christian to a soccer tournament"
The fact that i have to ask that question and listen to that answer on Monday.
This interaction:
"Hey xx, how's it going?"
"Oh, you know, livin' the dream"
polite laughter
I hear this fucking conversation multiple times a day
People who enable the MURDER and RAPE of innocent animals by eating a NONVEGAN DIET. Shameful!
Ivy Pet Peeve (Originally Posted: 04/05/2007)
This thread is in response of some of the “is Harvard easy†posts yesterday. I find it so ridiculous that ivy kids always claim that they are so superior to top public school kids. The justification of grade inflation via the argument that if ivy kids went to top publics they would get all A’s is asinine. I think it’s even far fetched to claim that just because you go to an ivy you would even be in the top 20% at a top public school. Yes, ivy kids are smart and I’m not attacking their intellectual aptitude. My point is simple; going to an ivy does not translate to success at a top state school.
I have several reasons for support my argument. First and foremost, the institutions run entirely separate academic systems. At ivy schools, and other small private schools for that matter, students are coddled by their professors, teaching assistants and academic advisors. Classes are small and it is defiantly not a sink-or-swim environment. In contrast, top public schools have very large classes and there is very minimal student support. On average my econ classes were in 100+ person auditoriums with class numbers never dipped below the 80-100 person mark. Also, I definitely did not have an academic advisor. It is much easier to be academically successful when one is in significantly smaller classes. I’m sure there are a great number of kids in the ivy system that would falter in said institutions due to either lack of motivation, the need to be taught in a small environment, additional distractions that are prevalent at state schools and overall increased competition. This is not to say that they are unintelligent but rather in a large public school it’s easy to slip through the cracks. I have plenty of friends that chose to go to UCLA/Berkeley over ivy schools because of either financial reasons or just because they preferred Los Angeles/San Francisco to the east coast. As a whole they do not dominate, it’s a mix, some do well and others do alright. I feel this microcosm would be applicable to the general ivy population. I believe that their situations do not imply that they would not have done well at ivies but rather adds support to my argument that the two systems are completely different and success/failure in one environment does not translate to corresponding results in another.
Additionally, the grading systems at top publics and ivies are very different. My econ classes had a B- curve with about 15% of the students getting As whereas at Harvard 50% of the students receive As. The majority of kids that go to the top publics are intelligent, were very successful in high school and are competing for top jobs and grad school programs. The competition is fierce and there are a finite number of As. It is a poor assumption that ivy kids would dominate under these parameters.
I can continue to write but this is long enough and my point has been made. Yes, ivy kids are intelligent. However, do not assume you are superior, more deserving or would be more successful than top public kids. I for one believe I would have actually been more academically successful at an ivy intuition.