Noisy eaters and moaners: The most annoying office colleagues revealed

We all like a good moan — but, according to a new study, it may be driving your co-workers mad.

A survey of 1,000 office workers found that whingeing is the most irksome habit of colleagues — along with eating noisily and messily.

Technology giant Samsung asked British workers to list the things that most annoy them during a day in the office.

And although colleagues’ poor eating habits and bad moods featured highly, technology was the biggest irritation.

A whopping 92 per cent said crashing computers and slow internet annoyed them — and resulted in them losing 3o minutes a day.

The study also found that colleagues’ annoying habits cost the average worker 22 minutes a day.

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Amazingly, almost a third of those surveyed said they had left a job because of an irritating co-worker.

Twenty per cent said they had left because of the workplace itself and 10 per cent because of technology problems.

Another issue bothering office workers, according to the survey, was temperature — with 82 per cent listing being too hot or too cold as their biggest annoyance.

University of Manchester professor Sir Cary Cooper, who specialises in workplace issues, said: “This is a big issue for the UK as it currently sits 7th in the G7 and 17th in the G20 on productivity per person, showing that these distractions could be causing a big impact.”

The survey by consultancy Censuswide questioned 1,000 workers from small UK firms with under 250 employees.

Full list
Technology
Crashing computers, slow internet, no access to emails

Colleagues
Moaning, eating loudly or messily, interruptions while talking

Workplace
Being too hot or too cold, uncomfortable seats, messy workplace