101 Ways To Annoy Your Coworkers

I had a very enlightening meeting on Friday afternoon. Apparently, my mere presence is annoying and offensive to my coworkers. If I have an opinion, they are irritated. If I don't have an opinion, they are irritated. They are sure I am frustrated and upset when I leave a room or pause to think about an appropriate response to a question they have asked me. Of course this led to me being frustrated and upset . . . and therefore, we were all walking on eggshells around each other. So, we had a mediated team meeting with our principal on Friday. I'd like to refer to it as an emotional rumble. And I totally lost. I swear my cry-baby gene was malfunctioning or something. But in retrospect, it was a good thing for a couple of reasons. First of all, my principal has now seen first-hand how messed up my team can be in their treatment of me. And secondly, I've gathered new resolve and new methods of annoying them that will at least keep me sane for the last 12 weeks of school.

Do you have a coworker that becomes annoyed and offended when you leave a room? Try one of the following!

• Warn the coworker you will be leaving the room by playing a pre-recorded message "Departure time in T - 1 minute . . . . T - 30 seconds . . . . T - 20 seconds . . . " That way, if they feel the need to yell or add one more unprofessional remark, they have plenty of warning before you exit the room.
• Sing and dance out the room. How can they think you are upset and get offended when you sing, "Follow the yellow brick road . . . ", "I'm leaving on a jet plane . . . ", "Come on and ease on down, ease on down the road . . . ", "Bye, bye Miss American Pie . . . ", or "So long, farewell auf wiedersehen adieu . . . "
• Back out of the room slowly while saying, "Beep . . . . beep . . . . beep . . . . beep . . . ."
• Leave the room as you normally do but be sure to quickly go back into the room and ask those in the room to rate your exit on a scale of 1 - 3 with 1 being highly offensive and 3 being just great. If you really want to extend this one, have them fill out a survey every time you leave a room asking for advice on ways to improve your exit score.

I actually tested a few of these out and the result was quite entertaining. I backed out of a room one day, but chickened out on the beeping sound . . . there was no response to that exit. However, when I walked out humming "Follow the yellow brick road . . . " my coworker started singing along. Good times! I think, however, the response I earned for my obnoxiously chipper "GOOD MORNING!!!" was the best. I was told I chose a bad day to start that! Not being a fan of mornings in general, that was a pretty good one!