As a homage to Family Guy's Peter Griffin, this article takes a look at five reasons why working in an office environment can has a detrimental affect to employees sanity. For anyone who has experience of working in an office for prolonged periods of time, many of the issues detailed will seem common. In fact, for those lucky enough to escape the drudgery of such an environment, the excruciating antics seen on The Office can often be just the tip of the iceberg. 1. Office hours. More and more we are seeing companies offering contracts to employees stating working hours as being 9am to 5.30pm. Where has this extra 30 minutes come from? More pressingly, what does it achieve? By that time of the working day, most people have long-since downed tools and are on Facebook anyway. Does it also mean that karaoke singers around the world are going to have to shoehorn in that extra half hour to the Dolly Parton song? Imagine: "Working nine to half-past five, what a way to make a living". As if karaoke - and Dolly Parton - weren't insufferable enough. 2. Charity days. You may be a company director with a lot of responsibility, so why not act like it. No amount of prancing around the office acting 'wacky' or dressed in a 'crazy' outfit in the name of charity will make you any more endearing to the company minions earning in a year what you make in a week. And for the rest of you: just have some pride and self-respect. Do you really think that a starving child in Africa will be pleased that you're having a bath in baked beans to raise a few quid? Perhaps instead of spending GBP50 on tinned food you could've had some dignity and appealed to people's charitable nature. It's not big and it's not clever. You're just an idiot. 3. Office parties. Now, everyone has colleagues they like and don't like. Those you like you choose to socialise with. Those you don't like, you don't. It's that simple. So why when we go to office parties do we always end up getting stuck with those we categorically dislike. As if nearly 40 hours a week with these people isn't enough, you expect us to do it in our own time and (invariable) at our own cost! 4. Cliques. In the north corner we can see the emos. In the south, the chavs. On the east side there's the jocks, and on the west the geeks. No it's not a school playground, but something very similar. Despite the workplace being somewhere for fully-grown adults, the office canteen can be divided into particularly groups; the most significant being the haves and the have-nots. Being in the right clique at the right time can see you progress your career either deservedly or not. But if your face doesn't fit in that group? Forget the pay rise. 5. Inane conversation. A long time ago I was given a piece of advice that I wish many others had received: if you don't have anything useful to say, don't say anything. But no. Most people just seem to like the sound of their own voice and will talk at you - not to you - about the most banal, life-sapping subjects. Oh, you saw Big Brother last night? Good for you. You've not taken anything out to defrost for tonight's dinner? That's your problem. You don't know whether to go out at the weekend or not? Why are you asking me! Stop boring people with inane chatter. Just because you like the sound of your own voice, no-one else does.
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