“I’ve been around forever,” the senior employee said. “But even the people who are younger, who were in the workforce prior to 2020 and used to come into the office every day, have noticed that there [is] an ignorance … truly a non-knowing of office norms.”

Loading

People are more likely to talk loudly about work-inappropriate matters, she said. A woman who sits near the senior employee, for example, complains frequently about her boss.

“It’s kind of stupid behaviour,” she said. “Not a lot of common sense, I think, is probably what it is. And I hadn’t seen that before.”

Meanwhile, social media has become a hotbed for frustrated workers to air their grievances – sharing stories of stolen lunches, shady emails and parking-spot wars.

According to a Gallup analysis in February, only 38 per cent of employees felt respected at work, down from 44 per cent in March 2020. At the same time, only 30 per cent of workers polled in February viewed their organisation as having a positive impact on people and the planet, a five-percentage-point drop from June 2021. Combined, these numbers point to an environment where employees may feel both less supported and less committed to their work, factors that can lead to less-than-ideal behaviour.

“I think part of this may be people got so used to working alone,” said Kate Zabriskie, president of Business Training Works, which provides soft-skills training and conflict resolution services for clients. “When you have more shared space, these things come up more.”

Also: “People are people, and they’ve been people-ing since the beginning of time,” added Zabriskie. “But you’re hearing about it maybe more now just because of the viral nature of social media.”

On Reddit, one user’s story recently went viral after the person claimed that they were the only one in the department to not be invited to a colleague’s wedding. While they were told by the bride that the wedding was being kept small, according to the Reddit post, the rest of the small office was told that the user couldn’t make it. At a department meeting, a co-worker told the person that it was a “shame” that they hadn’t been there. When the snubbed employee said out loud that they weren’t invited, their relationship with the bride soured.

“Now she is mad at me and [our] working relationship is cordial at best,” the person wrote.

TikTok is no better. One woman has a series, totaling almost 1.5 million views, to recount her chilly interactions with a snarky colleague she calls “the evil witch”.

Loading

And another user has complained about a problem that experts say has been a nuisance in workplace settings: stolen lunch from the office mini-fridge. She said she buys her prepared meals for several days at a time, while her co-workers typically bring home-cooked food. But when she went to heat up the chilli crisp chicken she had purchased earlier, it was gone. “I am livid right now,” she said. “... I make probably less than everyone who has access to that fridge. They make money! They can afford to go buy nice food.”

Issues involving food, questionable cleanliness and personal space are among the biggest complaints Zabriskie receives at her firm.

Among the most memorable incidents Zabriskie can recall: an employee who was planning to host a summer barbecue at her home decided to pick up groceries during her lunch break. “She put a bunch of things in the [office] freezer,” Zabriskie said. “And they were all gone, because somebody took them. I never did find out who it was.”

In another, more horrifying example: one employee was bathing herself with the office’s kitchen sponge, Zabriskie said. “Just the casual nature of work, sometimes people take it too far.”

Over the years, Business Training Works has offered services for email etiquette and appropriate Zoom conduct – especially during the pandemic, when Zabriskie said some clients reported that employees would join virtual meetings from their beds.

“This is typically when we’ll come into the picture,” she said. “There’s a lot more level setting that needs to happen in workplaces that we’re seeing some demand for.”

The Washington Post