Dear Dáithí: Am I super-intolerant now or is my co-worker the worst?

It's a good office in a handy location — it has good WIFI, clean desks, a nice little canteen and lots of other perks. And our parent company wants us all in a professional workspace now because that's their policy internationally so I can't work from home.  

But this person is clearly after getting too used to being alone as they take long loud calls all through the day.  Everyone else uses a headset and talks quietly or even goes to one of a whole bank of soundproof rooms for private meetings. 

But this person is taking personal calls — they keep talking about their cat or what's for tea or some saga with their bus journey so they must be personal, right? So they don't feel the need to go to a private meeting room.  

And don't get me started on the tea situation — I enjoy plenty cups of tea myself throughout the day but this person drinks a weird herbal concoction that they let steep on the edge of their desk for nearly an hour each time before they drink it. If I said it smells of socks and mould, I'd be being generous. 

They carry all their hot water bottles and fans and snacks and God knows what in individual plastic bags and there's a whole rustly rigmarole about unpacking and repacking each of them every day. 

It seems like they lose their Leapcard every second day and the whole place is disrupted while they look for it.

And if they ever actually settle down to do some work, they are ringing their supervisor to say they are overloaded and will need assistance.  Imagine if this tactic works and I end up surrounded by people just like this person!

Have I really just become super intolerant now? I can't stand it but would be embarrassed to be calling my supervisor who's in a different time zone about such unserious things, though they are seriously irritating me. 

I have an image of this person sitting up on you while you are they working away. You shouldn’t sit this close to anyone, even at dinner. You need a space to twist and turn and do what you have to do. Everybody knows how these work spaces work and you just don’t act like this person is. 

One of the problems for me is that this has gone on for too long. Really, you should have knocked this on the head the very first day it happened. People like this will act like this because someone doesn’t stand up to them and because they are allowed get away with it. But it can be sorted at this stage and all is not lost, it’s just going to be a tougher task, but we can deal with that too.

It’s a pity that you have to put up with this because you have described a really nice workspace and as you said it has a lot of perks, very good WIFI being one which you need for your job especially when the boss doesn’t want anyone working from home anymore, which is another pity. You have substituted children climbing all over you at home for a loud middle-aged person who smells of socks and mould.

I feel like with all this happening all around you at work that you’re in an episode of Fair City because in reality you are living this person’s drama and who wants to be doing that. We all have enough drama in our lives. There is an etiquette in a workspace like this and there is for a reason. 

Everyone has a day’s work to do and you can’t when this is happening. Just like the Leapcard incident - Jesus! if I had found it first, I know where I’d have stuck it. This person has no self-awareness, but that is no excuse for acting like that. You should ask a few more in the workspace if this person is bothering them too and if so, go a chat to this person as a team. 

There also should be someone who is over the whole workspace and if there is this person is not doing their job either. The workspace supervisor, if there is one around should deal with the problem, if not you have to do it.

Part of this workspace etiquette does involve what food you should bring to work and smelly food is a no-no. it reminds me of a person who brought fish to work and stunk the place out cooking it during the day.

I’d have no problem with this person getting their omega 3s, but you need to clean up properly after yourself. Now this person can drink whatever they like but it needs to be away from you. You need to be direct and say that whatever you are drinking you need to drink it somewhere else because it is making you sick, again it’s going back to no self-awareness, so this must stop.

I think it’s also helpful to take a look at what might be going on with this other person and as you know I don’t like how they are carrying on. It seems like they are looking for attention, are they looking for someone to talk to? 

We really don’t know what’s going on with them. You could start the conversation you are going to have with them with: "Are you ok?" And after that: "Do you realize that you’re the only person being loud on the phone, do you realize that you sit far too close to me?" and so on. But do ask them if they are ok? it’s a fair question.

The person might be bothered by something and if so, take a step back and listen, it’s still not your problem, but it’s good to listen and help if you can. Now you might also get a look back off them to suggest maybe you should be asking yourself that question, and if that’s the case just read out everything you’ve put in this letter.

The real problem here is that you have a set of standards and values which are good to have and the other person seems to have very little or none at all and this will always cause problems until you deal with them. So, you have to talk about this and confront this issue otherwise get used of the smell of smelly socks and mould.

Even though your supervisor lives half way across the world, I would explain to him/her what is going on, but I would say also that you’re dealing with it and that it is not their problem. You never know -  your boss might say to work from home a few days of the week. How nice would that be?

The good thing here is that there is only one person and not a gang and you are well within your rights not to be putting up with this. It’s just too much. You go to work to work and not for this drama and if it was to continue it would start interfering with your work and then it would be the boss calling you asking why the work isn’t being done. You need to get ahead of the curve.