my top (bottom?) ten annoying cubicle sounds
September 10, 2012, 5:32 P.M.

Gum smacking--what can I say? This one is sheer, oblivious rudeness.

Nail clipping--this is an office, not your bathroom. Totally inappropriate and far too personal to be done at your desk. (And if it is TOEnails, well, you simply deserve to be killed, that's all.)

Finger drumming--Here is a tip: nothing speeds up because you are drumming your fingers. Especially people.

Ice rattling. The only thing worse than shaking your cup around like a maraca is rummaging around in it with your dirty, rat-like paws in order to fish out a piece of ice which you fully intend to put in your mouth to chomp on.

Silverware scraping on china. Again--inappropriate noise for a cubicle. It's bad enough I have to share a cafeteria with you pigs; I shouldn't have to be subjected to your horrid lack of manners at my desk as well.

A plastic spoon scraping...scraping...scraping a yogurt cup. LET IT GO!

A hand scrabbling around in a purse. This one gets more offensive, the longer it takes you to find an item. Clean out your bag once in a while!

Flip-flops. Really? In an OFFICE? We aren't working at Joe's Beachfront Dive Shack, you know.

Prolonged bag rattling. Do grown people really need lessons in how to open a bag of chips? Well, yes. Apparently they do. Ironically, the worst offenders are the ones who are actually trying to be inoffensive and quiet about it. For these people, I have a tip: It's like removing a bandaid. Doing it quickly (if a bit more noisily) is far less painful.

Keyboard pounding. This one is harder to justify being mad at, since it is a legitimate, office-related activity. BUT...you would think some of these people were dealing with the keyboard action of a 1952 Royal upright manual typewriter, not a modern computer keyboard. I learned to type back in 1979, when there were ribbons and actual paper involved, and I never had to pound a keyboard like that to get the job done.