Well it depends, and I don't know what kind of HVAC you have or how it is setup, but probably. Insufficient air flow is one cause; in an old institutional building you'll see air handlers and control boxes completely broken and wired together and I would bet money that the lest time anyone did a test and balance was when the building was built. You want to increase airflow and decrease the humidity.

9/6/2013 3:36:28 PM

the guy who has to answer every question, whether he knows the answer or not, and was never even included in the conversation

9/6/2013 3:39:36 PM

Planned power outage.

For an hour and a half.

6am Sunday morning.

9/7/2013 2:03:46 AM

Doing construction on the unit next to us and its loud as fuck along with being that high pitched drilling into concrete sound. Fuck this shit!

9/11/2013 10:05:01 AM

people who continuously call the wrong extension over and over again after telling the correct one to dial

9/11/2013 11:42:22 AM

I've got three mother fuckers constantly looking over my shoulder to see what I'm doing. One is looking right now, the faggot.

And one of them never shuts the fuck up.

9/12/2013 3:04:13 PM

Are you that cool/interesting?

9/12/2013 3:22:04 PM

No. He just sucks at his job and needs adult supervision.

9/12/2013 3:36:53 PM

^^ Nope

^ I wish that were the case - I wind up doing their jobs half the time, though

9/12/2013 3:50:11 PM

Quote :

"the guy who has to answer every question, whether he knows the answer or not, and was never even included in the conversation"

every time you see his name on a meeting, you roll your eyes, because he is going to say some stupid useless shit

9/12/2013 3:51:12 PM

i've been doing bullshit busy work for a week. fuck

9/17/2013 9:35:40 AM

Meeting Scheduled 12:00 - 1:30.
No lunch provided.

WTF mate?

9/17/2013 11:05:37 AM

Consider yourself lucky. It's always Panera or some soggy/disgusting bullshit.

They should have chips/drinks/cookies at the very least; I'm sorry for your displeasure.

It's still better than chomping down on some abortion-like tomato.

9/17/2013 11:08:35 AM

^ Worst part is it just got scheduled like 20 minutes ago so its not like I'm really able to plan ahead.

So either I go get my food like now or wait till probably closer to 2:00 to get lunch

9/17/2013 11:11:19 AM

Surely you have a snack machine that can tide you over till 2pm?

9/17/2013 11:14:54 AM

Nope no snack machine. We don't even have a kitchen and the building we're in is lousy. I need a new gig.

9/17/2013 11:19:10 AM

This will teach you to store snacks in your desk.

Granola bars, chips, and fig newtons.

9/17/2013 11:28:04 AM

reply as tentative, go get lunch now and be a few minutes late to the meeting. problem solved.

9/17/2013 11:29:05 AM

It doesnt work that way if hes a drone.

9/17/2013 11:32:16 AM

maybe he works somewhere remote, but most drones could find and eat lunch in the time from 10:51-12:00

9/17/2013 11:43:53 AM

Snacks in the desk are a must, but make it weird stuff so the co-workers don't steal it. Usually canned soup, microwave rice, slim jims, applesauce, and instant potatoes for me.

9/17/2013 11:48:16 AM

i feel bad for the people here who don't have desks, most just have first come first serve tables in an open concept floor plan

9/17/2013 11:49:39 AM

two dead weights. the rest of us have to pick up the slack for their incompetency.

9/17/2013 12:13:13 PM

Meetings during lunch

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

9/17/2013 12:22:03 PM

^ Ha ha ha, my boss was mad because he had a 12:30 meeting. Who does that?

9/17/2013 12:39:20 PM

I'd take a meeting during lunch over a meeting at 4:30 any day.

9/17/2013 12:49:14 PM

Yeah, I'd be pissed at a 4:30 meeting too. But then again, I get mad at ANY meeting scheduled on a Friday.

9/17/2013 12:54:19 PM

Quote :

"i feel bad for the people here who don't have desks, most just have first come first serve tables in an open concept floor plan"

The tiny desks that we have with one cabinet and only waist-high dividers are bad, but that would be much worse. I suppose they don't get phones either? Hopefully the company directory contains cell #s if that's the case.

[Edited on September 17, 2013 at 7:30 PM. Reason : d]

9/17/2013 7:30:13 PM

I have done ~30 minutes of work today

9/18/2013 2:24:32 PM

Quote :

" I suppose they don't get phones either? Hopefully the company directory contains cell #s if that's the case."

The tables seat 4 and have a monitor, laptop stand, and soft phone for each person. You log in and the phone has your number and info. Each person gets a small locking cubby at the front of the work area, its about the size of the small lockers in Carmichael gym (about half the size of middle school lockers). Some of the lucky people get large, deep, locking drawers, but in the newer areas its just a small cubby. This is a large Fortune 500 company.

As a contractor I actually get a decent amount of workspace, and I have a separate large office a few minutes offsite if I need to spread out. But I feel bad for everyone else.

[Edited on September 18, 2013 at 2:34 PM. Reason : .]

9/18/2013 2:32:44 PM

is it bad if I say everything, all the time damn time. This place is sucking the life right out of me.

9/18/2013 2:46:50 PM

The lady in the cube next to me blast gospel music all day and she plays this song almost everyday and it is annoying. I bet I have heard it at least 50 times.

9/19/2013 9:31:10 AM

^
hahahaha, that sucks man. i would probably have to quit

9/19/2013 9:35:51 AM

I probably shouldn't say "blast" but it is definitely loud enough for like the 4 surrounding cubes to hear.

I listen to my death metal but I try to keep it low so the person next to me can't hear it at all

[Edited on September 19, 2013 at 9:41 AM. Reason : .]

9/19/2013 9:41:23 AM

Any change on a system that happens on Friday. Setting me up for a long weekend.

9/19/2013 1:14:28 PM

Quote :

"The tables seat 4 and have a monitor, laptop stand, and soft phone for each person. You log in and the phone has your number and info. Each person gets a small locking cubby at the front of the work area, its about the size of the small lockers in Carmichael gym (about half the size of middle school lockers). Some of the lucky people get large, deep, locking drawers, but in the newer areas its just a small cubby. This is a large Fortune 500 company."

When making the transition to the shared tables I'm sure everyone got an earful about how other companies are doing it and their employees just love it!

I'm sure the very first business to make the transition made the exact same speech. Others love it.

/maybe they do, doesn't sound like something I'd enjoy though.

[Edited on September 19, 2013 at 1:49 PM. Reason : -]

9/19/2013 1:48:39 PM

When people call in because one of their parents tried to commit suicide and now I have to pick up their workload.

9/19/2013 1:49:41 PM

The day of and day after football gamedays are not company holidays.

9/19/2013 1:51:29 PM

People that don't respond to email but have to talk in person or on the phone instead.

9/19/2013 11:06:40 PM

Just had my first face palm of the week

9/23/2013 2:07:21 PM

Quote :

"When people call in because one of their parents tried to commit suicide and now I have to pick up their workload. "

damn, that sucks...

... that their parent tried to commit suicide, not that you have to pick up their workload for a day. i'd bet they rather pick-up your workload instead of having to deal with a suicidal parent.

9/23/2013 2:10:49 PM

Can this be applied to the workplace?
http://tedconfblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/petersinger_translated_v2.jpg

[Edited on September 23, 2013 at 11:48 PM. Reason : gf]

9/23/2013 11:47:27 PM

Smath74 Do you work at UNC? My wife is in one of their old buildings and they are having a huge mold outbreak. As soon as you walk into the building it smell like a dirty old person

9/24/2013 8:56:19 AM

students emailing me for an add code FIVE weeks into the semester

students who try and crash my class that has been full since day one, FIVE weeks into the semester after telling them the class is full

9/24/2013 8:46:28 PM

^^no I work at a public school.

the mold has been a problem at a lot of locations from what i've heard due to the wet summer we had.

[Edited on September 25, 2013 at 3:37 PM. Reason : ]

9/25/2013 3:36:50 PM

Quote :

"damn, that sucks... ... that their parent tried to commit suicide, not that you have to pick up their workload for a day. i'd bet they rather pick-up your workload instead of having to deal with a suicidal parent."

meh, it isn't the first time - you'd think people would get over her being an attention whore after a while

9/25/2013 3:39:44 PM

^ and I wasn't genuinely annoyed...it's just dumb after the third time

9/25/2013 4:11:17 PM

motherfuck going to Chihuahua. I'm sending a proxy.

9/25/2013 5:28:55 PM

Quote :

" When making the transition to the shared tables I'm sure everyone got an earful about how other companies are doing it and their employees just love it!"

Our entire division just moved about 4 months ago from traditional offices to an entirely open-space studio model (~2500 people) and largely people do love it.

The architects / space planners did a few things very differently than the current open-space studios I've seen though that have made a huge difference:

No room has more than 24 people in it, so there's no cubicle wasteland effect. Most rooms fit a single team together, which makes having the open model actually useful for collaboration.

Everyone has their own desk, which is on wheels and self-contained power and network. And there's enough breathing room in each space to reconfigured arrangements in tons of different ways. Unlock the wheels, unplug the desk and go wherever you want.

Dividers are optional and per-person. You can put up your own whiteboard or pinboard desk dividers to separate your space even more, but of the 20-30% of people who did so initially, there are maybe 20 left up after 4 months.

Each room decided their own studio rules. Some teams have open music, some require everyone to have headphones, some declare no music at all. Some dont want food eaten in the studio, some dont want phone calls in studios, etc. It's been really nice to leave it to each room to make their own policies.

There are "focus" rooms for each studio, usually 4 per. These fit 4-5 people comfortably for small meetings or phone calls. They are insanely well sound proofed. They can't be reserved at all for meetings, its first come, first serve. Because of these, the architects cut out 85% of our conference rooms. And so far its worked amazingly well. The remaining conference rooms are much less congested and there's always available focus room space.

(Even the directors and execs are in open space btw, no one was spared )

[Edited on September 26, 2013 at 12:27 AM. Reason : .]

9/26/2013 12:26:53 AM

when someone from home office (Australia) sends an email at 830 pm asking questions
then another at 530 am saying GIVE ME A RESPONSE

they dont own my downtime, and a phone call would be good if sending an email that late

9/26/2013 3:26:37 AM