How to Piss Off Your Co-Workers in 15 Easy Steps

Forget gas station bathrooms or the quinoa bar at Whole Foods, the single most disrespected public apparatus is the office microwave. Even when it's not being used, that vintage Quasar smells like a decade's worth of burnt Lean Cuisine and tainted salmon. If you use it to heat up some Chipotle, you'll awaken the volatile chemical compounds of 10,000 rancid Spaghetti O's and your burrito will taste like charred popcorn. There are no winners, just a common area that stinks worse than Hangover III and a nearby cubicle workstation full of pissed off temps.

Throwing a coworker under the bus via Microsoft Outlook is the most pathetic thing you can do in an office. It's sadder than stealing toilet paper from your floor's restroom. Rather than taking up problems with you directly, the CC snitch slanders you in an email and, rather despicably, copies your boss in on the communication. If you get fired, your only move is to wait for this cat in the parking lot. We never condone violence, but the CC snitch deserves no mercy.

No one's impressed with your ability to rally to the office with a rare strain of bird flu. In fact, those of us breathing the same circulating air think you're a jackass. Because of shared bathrooms, kitchens, and meeting spaces, the office is a Gathering of the Juggalos-like breeding ground for infectious disease. Everyone wants to retire early, but not because they were bequeathed with a flesh eating virus.

If you think yelling "fudge crackers!" in frustration is more work appropriate than swearing, you're out of your fucking mind. When Nicki Minaj spazzes in a British accent, it makes us want to fall on a pen. It's twice as annoying when you do it and we have unlimited access to sharp office supplies. But the worst, THE WORST, is the middle management type with a full clip of at-the-end-of-the-day's at their disposal. If you have something you say more than twice per day, a piece of your co-workers' soul dies every time it's spoken. Unless you’re Urkel, drop the catchphrase.

From press releases to memos, the American worker peruses dozens of emails per day. Most are read without incident, but a single mistaken "reply all" or unnecessary "cc" will absolutely turn a cubicle out. If you want to see Debbie in accounts receivable completely lose her shit, reply all to the next company-wide email with a shrewdly appropriate Grumpy Cat meme. That divorced mother of three will pull the dusty keyboard from your Dell PC and beat you to death at your desk. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Rather than shelling out for a staff of bozos with salary requirements, companies are content to ride debt-crippled recent graduates into the ground. At first, you'll be feeling yourself for shattering that forever-an-intern glass ceiling. But $26K a year and that 15-percent off at Qdoba "job perk" won't look as nice after the boss asks you to come in for a third straight Saturday. This can't be life.

This one really hits to the core of why people resent corporate life. You're not a copywriter, you "deliver creative content solutions." You don't hock medical supplies, you "facilitate high end sales to meet the increasingly dynamic needs of today's health care system." When you start using phrases like "momentum in the marketplace," "knowledge acquisition," and "concrete measurable," you're too far gone. It's too late. And you're going to piss off the co-workers around you who aren't corporate tools. Yet.

Our friends at Four Pins have a whole guide for this one, but the basics are simple: don't stab anyone in the back, don't dog a coworker to the boss, and don't steal other people's ideas. Easy, right? Well as sure as water coolers and TJ Maxx button-ups, your office has more than its fair share of shine stealers. You know how the rest of the Yankees feel about Alex Rodriguez? That's how the office feels about this guy. They'll find a way to stab you in the back or throw you under the bus, and you'll just be pissed off when H.R. asks you to clean out your desk.

You'll probably end up sleeping with a co-worker. The unnatural barriers you set up to keep things "strictly professional" are just cannon fodder for fantasy and, while at work, you're impervious to your girlfriend's watchful eye. It sounds fun, but Based God help you if things end badly. It's hard enough to shake a love-scorned ex when they don't know your phone extension. Multiply the difficulty of your escape plan by the square root of 1000 grief-stricken Taylor Swift songs if you break a co-worker's heart. Quarterly review spoiler alert: "Doesn't follow through on promises."

If you're going to wear headphones, make sure you're not rocking a cheap set of $3.49 Koss ear buds. Your co-workers will be able to pick up lyrics on "Suit and Tie" and will likely interrupt the bridge on "Thrift Shop" by stabbing you in the jugular with a ergonomic stapler. Don't be that guy bleeding from the neck because they wouldn't turn down the Rihanna. We're trying to save your life. Keep quiet and carry on.

An office's morale depends entirely on the company's ability to masquerade fairness. That all goes out the window when the CEO's daughter is driving a Mercedes E-Class, bringing her cat to work, and demanding to know why you were five minutes late returning from lunch. Your time at this company will be forever vexed. You're not leapfrogging the boss' kid for a promotion and you'll grow increasingly resentful of the litter box behind your desk chair. One word: Nepotism. Avoid it.

Nothing prepares you for how often you'll have to discuss "weekend plans" in the real world. It's nonstop. And the twist in this whole harmless small talk paradigm is that no one's all that interested in what you did (or are doing) on Saturday. It's an unsolicited pleasantry that's expressed for the sole purpose of you returning the favor. Now get ready for an eight minute breakdown about a bachelorette party, fantasy football draft, or the last episode of Breaking Bad. Settle in, young'un. Until you retire, the majority of your conversations networking opportunities will be vapid weekend talk with strangers.

Ugh. This guy. Some of you probably work for an unconventional executive type who pretends that they're not running a sweatshop by "letting loose." This is the kind of person who describes the workplace as "more like a family," except there's a dress code and a social media policy. We blame Zappos for this kind of fuckery. Corporate life is a conditional agreement to suffer constant humiliation in exchange for health insurance, but no one told you that embarrassment would end up on YouTube.

You have drive, a motor that never stops, and an absolutely unmatched work ethic. Oh, and you also have a department full of pencil pushers that absolutely hate your guts. If you're the prettiest cheerleader, the rest of the squad will hate you. If you score the cover of Rolling Stone, the rest of the band will hate you. And if you're working through lunch, tearing up meetings, and getting asked to join the bosses foursome for the company golf outing, everyone in the office will be totally annoyed by you. There's a reason they say it's lonely at the top.

Exaggerating your personal worth is part of being a professional, but don't overplay your hand. First, being around a complainer is annoying when you're sipping lean on a beach in Santa Barbara, it's excruciating in the office. Second, it's a self-serving pity party that absolutely no one cares about. You know that piece of mind you get from having dental insurance? It comes with a price. Specifically, you're going to have to wear khakis for 10 months out of the year, get cut down to size on the daily, and do a whole bunch of shit you don't want to do. We've all accepted that work sucks sometimes, you should too.