From Yahoo! Finance comes this article – How Loud is too Loud? As you might guess, the loud phone talker topped the survey as the most annoying office habit. Being an auditory person, I can agree with that one. I’m always telling the Rock Star to use his indoor voice since his voice carries a country mile.
Despite the laundry list of complaints, the loud talker wins the award for most annoying. Of 2,318 people surveyed in March 2006 by Harris Interactive and Randstad, 32% say an office loud talker is their biggest pet peeve. Coming in a close second at 30% is using an annoying cellphone ringtone; 22% said speakerphones are their No. 1 peeve.
I worked in a cube farm early in my career and was a neighbor to a speakerphone talker. I would have voted that as the most annoying habit. This guy would talk to prospects and customers with a speakerphone that would clip both sides of the discussion (not a full duplex speakerphone). I was amazed that he sold anything at all.