Most of the time the topic here is about what is wrong in the office but sometime you just want to have a little fun and perhaps tried to get under the skin of others.  For those type of occasions it is time to be a bad cubicle neighbor. 

How to go about being a bad cubicle neighbor:

1. Attitude - Change your attitude.  If you tend to be upbeat or the glass half full type turn that around and get negative.
2. Appearance - Make sure that your outward appearance is not as great as it used to be.  This is not to suggest that you should wear something or act in a way that might get you fired.  But, you can certainly give your neighbors at work a good ole frown when passing them in the halls.
3. Communication - Here is where it gets fun.  Try turning everything into something that is painful and hard to deal with.  If someone invites a group out to lunch complain about the selection of restaurant.  Complain to other about not being invited.  If someone brings up an idea be sure to put it down.  Pawn off your work on others.  If they push back act like you don't know how to do the work or don't have the necessary information or materials.
4. Credit - Take credit for others work.  The first one that speaks up usually gets the credit anyway so you might as well be the one taking credit for accomplishments and ideas.  Note: This is best done when taking credit for items by an individual that is not present.  So if they are always there set up a meeting with your manager to take credit for the work or idea.
5. Blame Game - If something goes wrong be sure to point out that someone else most likely did this.  Try to pick on someone that has a messy desk.  People are more likely to believe the accusation.
6. Office Hours - If others are not at work by start time be the one to point that out.  If someone takes a long lunch or gets back a little late point that out too.  It doesn't matter if they left late and still took an hour if they got back past the usual time.  If that isn't enough for you, try keeping a log of when everyone comes and goes.
7. Noise - Take some personal calls.  If your kid is going to have to go to summer school be sure to call the school and discuss loudly the situation.  Need some maintenance done at home?  Why not call at work to get it scheduled at work.  Haven't talked to relatives in a while?  You really should connect more often.  If someone around you is on a business call be sure to pick your phone up and at least pretend to be on a call of your own.  Be sure to increase how loud your voice is throughout their conversation.
8. Food - Throw out food in others trash cans. Burn popcorn in the office microwave.  Don't just barely burn it.  Find an empty cubicle and leave some chicken broth in a cup in there.  This is a nice little experiment.  Before too long you'll have a little science experiment showing that things can grow and survive in the office environment.

There are many more actions that you can do to be a bad cubicle neighbor but thats all we have for now.

When making phone calls it is important to keep the personal calls to a minimum.  If you need to make many then please make plans to make those on your cell out of ear's reach of your neighbors.  While hearing how screwed up your life is and how your child is hangin out with kids older than them and how they have failed the 8th grade and must go to Summer school makes those around you feel like their non-white trash lives less so it is still inappropriate.

Take note trash cubies, your life is only interesting in that it makes the rest of us feel good and sad for you.  Keep the red neck trash calls to your personal time.

For the rest of you making personal calls on work time is understood and accepted as long as you are not a loud talker. 

There are times when you meet someone that is just hard to work with and that can be placed in the category of personality conflicts.  There are people out there that their existence can cause frustration.  From the tone of their voice, process of attacking projects or even the tone of their emails.

But, there are also the times when you must work with people that are hard to work with because they make it hard.  They make it hard on you and on themselves without even knowing it.  These are the clueless ones.  Most of the time they are the ones that love to talk and not just the nice office banter of someone stopping by your office.  They are the ones that like to make a 30 minute meeting take two hours and when you walk out the door (probably sooner than that) the realization comes that this was a complete waste of time and that the reason for the meeting hadn't even been discussed. 

If you have to:

• Spend the first 15 minutes of a meeting dealing with everyone not knowing how to enter a webconference
• Give EXPLICIT instructions on how to give comments and the type of information that they are to avoid
• Take at least 2 hours a day providing responses to questions that have already been answered
• etc.

I feel your pain!

What can you do about it?

• Find another job. 
• The other option is to retrain those that are causing problems.  If it is an issue that is rampant in the company the best course of action is to leave.  This is the same thing as fighting city hall.  Even if your recommendations could save the company large amounts of money and move them to being the industry leader you will be met with anger from the mindless drones that believe that the only way to do business is their current path.

Take a look at your company.  If they aren't doing well and this situation is encountered, RUN!  The company might be lucky enough to limp along using outdated and poorly thought out practices but it won't get any better unless the change comes from the top.

There is a time and place for personal hygiene and it isn't at the office.  If you need to take care of some personal issues please try to take care of it at home or some other personal space.  The use of the office for taking care of trimming finger nails is an improper use of you time and the space that you are provided.  It is true that there is a close trash receptical but you should be advised that these are available for puschase at a number of stores allowing you to create the same positive nail clipping environment at home.

The rest of your co-workers will truly be impressed with your increased awareness of others disgust with you and perhaps enjoy doing their jobs a little more. 

If you'd like to see the opposite of the noises that surround me in a audio and visual experience check out HP's new campaign called Happy People.  I'm sure your office sounds like this one or perhaps a bit closer than mine does.  Even with all of HP's new ads and great placement on many sites I would still rather have a Dell.  They have had their issues with call centers outside the country but I was really impressed recently in the experience in customer service and their follow through.  They may not  be the next Apple yet but they might be on their way.

STATUS REPORT:  Its actually quieter today.  Most of the main characters are out of the office.  I'm not sure that I could stand the usual chorus for a full day today. 

I have been battling the noise in the office and specifically the mouth breathing gum chewer next door.  My Ipod has truly been the savior in this situation but it is amazing that the no volume mouth breather can still be heard over certain types of music.  Below are my finding from my study.

Having a wide variety of music has provided me with a good sample.

I have tried many songs in the following genres and noticed that some of my initial assumptions were incorrect.  I thought that some rather quiter typs of music such as some country and classical would be the worst performers and rock, techno and alternative would come out on top.  The result was very mixed.  The true finding here is that the tempo of the music and perhaps the tone of the lyrics plays the largest part in drowning out the monkeys.  If you choose music that is a bit angrier or at least something that is expressing the message fervently you will find that the drowning effect will increase.

• Alternative
• Country
• Classical
• Rap
• Rock
• Techno

Noted Behavior:  During the course of the experiment it has become aparent that energy levels and communication between the monkeys will vary.  Specifically the day after one of them works from home they experience a drop in activity the day after and consequently a drop in office noise is experienced.

Its Monday and I'm tired.  I had a nice large cup of coffee this morning and that didn't seem to help.  Perhaps its the allergy medicine starting to bring on that mellow floating feeling but things aren't as annoying as they usually are.  the noises are plentiful and loud as usual.  The sounds of nasal spray, coughing, snorting and grunting are there like usual.  Yes, the zoo of nerds are definitely in.  I swear they are a bunch of nerd monkeys. 
they run from cube to cube shouting unintelligible phrases as if there were something that they were actually working on.  (Of course, having been in IT in my past I understand what they are talking about but I prefer to think that it is useless monkey chatter.)

I wonder if there is a replacement for the banana with nerd monkeys.  What could that be?  A laptop.  Perhaps a shiny pda.  Maybe something a little more nerdy like a USB coffee mug heater.  Maybe I'll browse over to ThinkGeek.com to see if there is something to test this out with.  I'm sure there is something.  Stay tuned for an update on the responses received from this little experiment.

The Answer:
The Shock Ball - Placed in between all of the cubes this could make for a nice little surprise as the inquisitive monkeys pick this little treat up.

Have you ever noticed that office noise can sond like finger nails one a chalk board through a PA system?  I have.

The residents of my neighboring cubicles are such a joy to be around.  The grunting with lack of volume control as well as no respoect for others phone calls is GREAT!  I have to say that the sounds that are emitted from my neigbors are hard to drown out.  I think that a white noise devise might be a good investment at this point.

Try leading a conference call with 20 people on the line wondering why they can barely hear you over the coughing snorting

And now for the first "We Know You Want One." If you happen to be doing some foreing travel this year you might want to pick up one of these little gadgets.

Lingo Voyager II 12 Language Talking Translator - AS SHOWN 12 Language Talking Translator, English-Spanish-French-Italian-German-Russian-Chinese-Japanese-Korean-Arabic-Hebrew-Greek, Translates and talks over 240,000 Words, Translates and talks 27,000 Useful Phrases, 8 Line Display, Voice / Memo Recorder, 6 Travel games, Decoder-Mines- Number Slide-Totem Pole- 24- Number Puzzle, 8 Metric and 8 Currency Conversions, World Time Clock with Alarm, 32K Phone Book, Calendar, 12 Digit Calculator, Batteries: 2 ?AAA? Included, Carrying Case.

All quiet on the nerd front.  Not even a garbled word from the Redneck.