Your office is not your home. Here are 15 Office Do's and Don'ts. Thank us later.
We get it. The average '9-to-5-er' spends around 8 hours a day in an office space. That's at least 67% of the 12 hours of daylight you'll often experience daily, so it's easy to slip into a 'home like' state in your work environment. Here's how to avoid that.
The irony. One of workers' favourite 'watercooler' or 'time waster' websites Mashable has the definitive list of Work Do's and Don'ts; here goes:
1. DO wash your dish after eating. If you are planning to leave it in the sink, honestly, just throw the dish away.
2. DON'T take your shoes off. If somehow you find yourself barefoot at your desk, please put your shoes back on before your next meeting.
3. DO restart your computer before reaching out to IT.
4. DON'T eat my yogurt. Or anyone else's yogurt. You know what, just don't eat any yogurt in that fridge, even if you brought it in. It's not worth the risk.
5. DON'T initiate a high-five with your CEO. But if your CEO initiates a high-five, definitely do the high-five.
6. DON'T offer to wait for your coworker when you're both in the bathroom, in case they're doing say, Number 2?
7. DO leave treats on your coworkers' desks to let them know you're thinking about them, like warm cans of seltzer and packs of Post-its that only have like three left.
8. DON'T microwave fish. Here's an office hack: microwave some sauce and then pour it over your cold fish to create a just okay room temperature meal that WON'T MAKE THE WHOLE OFFICE REEK OF FISH.
9. DO treat your desk like a lawn. Your personal items should never bleed from your desk onto your neighbor's desk, unless they invite you over for a braai.
10. DON'T have a conversation in front of the water cooler after you're done filling your cup. Stand on either side of the water cooler like they do in movies so other people can fill their cups.
11. DON'T audibly burp at your desk unless everyone around you is wearing noise-canceling headphones.
12. DO label your tupperware. It's okay to use fake names on each item, like Sasha Obama or Khaleesi. No one would ever dare throw out their food.
13. DO say hi every time you pass someone in the hall who you've said hi to in the past. If you stop now, it'll be weird.
14. DO hold your questions until the end of the meeting.
15. DON'T make jewelry out of all the office's paperclips.
Got it? Good!
WATCH: HOW GOOGLE RULES CAN WORK IN YOUR OFFICE