The Wall Street Journal - 06.03.2020

thing, they make work a lot less pleasurable

and a lot more stressful. But perhaps more

significant, they make us less effective at

our jobs. They create tension in the work-

place and reduce collaboration. They inter-

rupt our workflow and intrude on our atten-

tion. In fact, if workplace technology has

largely failed to deliver on its promise of

productivity gains, the gaps and conflicts in

how we each use tech at work may be a ma-

jor contributor to that disappointment.

Most of us, of course, assume that the

problem is with theotherperson. But per-

haps as we come to understand the most

common workplace tech peeves, we can rec-

ognize where our own tech usage may fall

short of considerate collegiality.

So in the interest of fostering self-aware-

ness, I asked people to share their biggest

workplace tech peeves, the things that drive

them crazy. Here are the top complaints

they offered.

CC insanity

When cc’s required the hassle of creating phys-

ical carbon copies, people were cautious about

PleaseturntopageR2

TheTech

Habitsof

Co-Workers

ThatDrive

UsCrazy

Whenitcomestousing

technology,peoplecanbereally

annoying.Andsometimes

thosepeopleareus.

R

ECOGNIZE any of

these people? The

colleague who

doesn’t reply to

emails in a timely

fashion. The office-

mate whose cell-

phone constantly

chirps as texts pour

in. The remote

worker whose paper

rustling disrupts every conference call.

When it comes to our colleagues and tech-

nology, we all have our individual pet peeves.

But one thing everybody can probably agree

on: Our frustrations with workplace technology

often aren’t because the technology is intrinsi-

cally annoying. They’re because people are in-

trinsically annoying. And as technology ex-

pands into every available corner and crevice

of the workplace, so does our co-workers’ abil-

ity to use that technology in ways that bug us.

While all these things may be mildly (or

not so mildly) annoying on their own, they

add up to something much bigger. For one

BYALEXANDRASAMUEL

INSIDE ILLUSTRATION BY WREN MCDONALD

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JOURNALREPORT

WORKPLACE TECHNOLOGY

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