In our office there is a cleaning lady who is there during business hours (9-3, I think) *. She is a nice person, but she has a habit which bothers me.
At least once a day (sometimes more) she will say, “Hi Captain Crunchy Crunch!”, in a slightly loud tone, as she walks past my office. I always reply back with, “Hi [insert name here]”.
It doesn’t matter if I make eye contact with her or not. I could be turned around in my chair, not facing the doorway, and she still would call out, “Hi Captain Crunchy Crunch!”.
Does this seem strange to you? Would this bother you?
This didn’t bother me at first, but after 100+ times of going through this, it’s starting to irritate me. No one else in my office does this.
I’ve been thinking about confronting her and saying something like:
“Hey, I appreciate your friendliness, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to call into my office every day with a “hello”. No one else does this. If we cross paths in the hallway, then we can exchange ‘hellos’. Sound good?”
What would you do?
Why our office has a 9-3 cleaning person is beyond me. There is a second cleaning crew that comes in after hours. This person essentially spends the entire day socializing with office staff. She emptys the trash cans and occasionally vaccums the floor, that’s it.
Took me a minute to realize that you meant she was saying your actual name.
I thought she was actually calling you Captain Crunchy Crunch
I suppose it might be a little bothersome, but even then it only happens once or twice a day, thats not too bad. Does she say hi to every else in the office too?
I have read your post several times and can’t for the life of me figure out what you find bothering. For some reason that hasn’t been made clear, she seems to think you are nice enough to greet every day. Pretend you are and say hi back. It can’t hurt.
It’s not really a big deal, I know. It’s just strange behavior, which appears to be outside of generally accepted office norms. Like I said, I never known anyone else that does this on a daily basis.
Sure, some people do this occassionally if they havn’t seen you in a while, but every day? Without making eye contact?
The majority of the time when this happens I am busy writing Coldfusion/Javascipt code, or creating some ridiculous new InfoPath form, or something similiar. My train of thought is momentarily zapped. And for what?
Hell, I have too many making an appearance in my office as it is. Hey, Crunchy Crunch, how about those Redskins, huh!. Hey, Crunchy Crunch, did you hear what Mr. Busy Body said about Mrs. Slacker?
Man, when does it end? This is what lunch is for, correct?
While this is true, I’m in the same boat and really, if you’re concentrating on a difficult task and you have someone who disrupts every once in awhile just to say “hi”, after awhile you want to punch 'em.
I work until 6 pm. The reason I do so is so I can have just ONE hour that is free of interruption – it is the most productive hour of my day. Unless the “cleaning” crew arrives. Ugh. Mr. Friendly will talk you ear off with benign stupid chatter about the weather and “Oh, are you going out this weekend? I bet you have plans this weekend. Make sure you dress warm if you go out this weekend. It’s going to be cold. And tomorrow it’s going to be cold. Hey, how are you doing anyway?” His wife works with him and she at least does her job, but he will interrupt you several times and hour being “friendly”.
There have been times where my boss (who also works until 6) has had to be downright rude to him and tell him to get out of his office.
Sure, it’s just saying “hi” but several phenomenally pointless interruptions randomly spit out while you’re trying to concentrate is as annoying as hell!
That works for those who have a door. A lot of cubicles do not, open conceptoffices do not, and cleaning staff often have to enter anyway to get your garbage can.
Imagine you get to wokr and yu co-worker says “Hi, how are you doing this morning?” No problem being friendly. But if every time your co-worker walked past on the way to the photocopier, the water-cooler, the bathroom, the kitchen, the supply cabinet, or the fax machine, he stopped to have the exact same exchange as the other 20 times… Trust me, you’d go nuts.
I’m going to say this as politely as I can…
What kind of elitists are you people?! If the president of the company did the same thing would you complain? Or “confront”?
It sounds to me like you think you’re somehow better than the cleaning person. I have a news flash; you aren’t.
Stop whining. Say hello, be polite for Og sake. She’s not coming into your office, putting her butt on your desk and chatting for 20 minutes. Its one second out of your day. Why in the world would you hurt someone’s feeling just because she says hello?
Merry Christmas, Peace one Eart…never mind.
I am proud, and I mean very proud, to say that I have a relationship with the top people of my firm, as well as the lowest paid schmucks who do the real work.
That cleaning lady is just trying to establish contact…it is her way of saying, “I exist.”
Cut her some slack. Go out and say “hello. How’s it going? What is your name?” (Which you neglected to mention in your OP, so I assume you don’t know it).
Nothing worse than ignoring the “little people”. It make you a big, pompous asshole.
And trust me…those lowly workers are the one’s who can let you in on a whole lotta dirt/scandal/rumors in the company. My ass has been saved many times by getting the inside scoop from them.
There was a study out a little while ago looking at productivity in programmers. One of its conclusions was that every time you interrupt a programmer deep in thought, you lose half an hour of productivity. Even the slightest interruption can really throw things off.
That said, if you confront her, it will not be taken well, you will probably hurt her. She is likely greeting you because you were nice to her once.
My advice would be to buy a CD player, and a big-assed set of headphones. No-one is going to come and pull off your headphones just to greet you. Are you allowed to listen to music at your desk?
