Office irritations

Sitting every day in a modest number of square meters with people you haven't all chosen yourself. And even if that is the case (in my case it is) and you are incredibly fond of them (likewise), office irritations do arise. Recognizable? Recognizable.

Everyone here does that. When high-profile visitors come (Chanel or Louis Vuitton or something), I always email everyone to ask if the office can look a bit presentable and then I always go around all the chairs in the morning to collect the coats and hang them on the coat rack. I find coats over chairs make it look like we're in high school and we're afraid our coats will be stolen.

That is Lies' irritation towards me. I completely ignore the fact that she puts in earplugs and says ‘I want to work concentrated for a moment, I'm out of the loop for a bit.’ Five minutes later, I start chattering again; “By the way, Lies…” I plead guilty…

Our super site builder Robin (the sweetest and nicest, mind you) has a few nerdy traits. He likes to listen to very strange music that I can hear through his headphones. That's impressive because he sits about twenty meters away from me. Even more annoying is that when he gets hyped up by his crazy music, he starts tapping and moving along. Then I shout very loudly: “Robbes! Stop!” and then he keeps quiet. For a quarter of an hour.

Albert Heijn bags I find a rare ugliness. Liesbeth is much less bothered by this and always had about three lying around her desk. Now she has improved her life (at my request), but if I say something unkind, she punishes me by scattering empty bags from the supermarket. Sometimes she even texts me a photo of a drawer with AH bags as ultimate revenge, well, pain to my eyes.

Coco is a dream colleague who makes tea, cuts apples into wedges for us, or brings prosecco, but she has a tic that we need to get rid of. She always leaves the doors of her beauty cabinet open. We find that annoying, irritating.