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Ten rude things never to do at work

Liz Ryan, Forbes contributor

I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t know the rules of workplace etiquette. Where would you learn the rules? They are seldom taught in school. If we are lucky our parents and grandparents teach us. Otherwise we risk looking and feeling impolite and out of place. Sometimes we only realize that we’re doing something impolite when we notice the looks on our coworkers’ faces.

Here are 10 terribly impolite things that happen at work, but shouldn’t. Don’t be the perpetrator of any of these workplace gaffes. Your coworkers will thank you and your professional ambitions will not be blunted when you watch your business manners!

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Also read: Five Signs Your Boss Is A Weak Manager


10 Rude Things Never To Do At Work

1. Participate in a loud mobile-phone conversation while walking down a hallway, thus interrupting dozens of people in their work.

2. Chew ice, slurp coffee or otherwise eat or drink loudly or obtrusively whether you’re in your cubicle, in a conference room or anywhere else.

3. Work out via a lunchtime bike ride or run and then go back to work without washing up.

4. Get into an argument on the phone and force your teammates to listen to it.

5. Apply or remove nail polish at your desk. Some people are allergic to the chemicals in nail polish and polish remover — and that goes for cologne, after shave and perfume, too!

6. Try to engage one co-worker in a conversation focused on bashing another co-worker.

7. Walk into a meeting late and ask the other participants to bring you up to speed on the part of the meeting you missed.

8. Ask your co-workers about their financial status, or talk about your own.

9. Invite one co-worker to lunch while ignoring another co-worker who’s standing or sitting right there.

10. Push your political or religious views on your co-workers.

Also read: Immigration up but which state is most popular?

You can leave a copy of this story on the conference room table or tack one to the break room cork board if you want to send a message to your team. It can be hard to tell one colleague that he or she is getting on people’s nerves. If your team starts an ongoing conversation about your community, its norms and everybody’s needs, that will be good for your team’s culture, too!

Liz Ryan is CEO/founder of Human Workplace and author of Reinvention Roadmap. Follow her on Twitter and read Forbes columns.