Today? Yesterday? Every day? Tax Day? If any of the pet peeves that follow tick you off, you’re not alone!

Table Manners

• Open mouthed chewers
• Slurping
• Loud chewers
• Slathering food with salt/ hot sauce/ketchup before even tasting it
• Cracking gum
• People talking with a full mouth
• Chewing gum/cracking
• Spitting
• Talking about what you are eating
• Demanding everyone wait and take 500 Instagram photos before eating

Phone Etiquette

• Taking phone calls in public
• Being on their phone too much
• Facetiming without headphones
• Staring at their phone rather than watching where they walk
• Texting during a meal
• Ending a call without saying good-bye
• Ignoring an in-person companion in favor of a phone screen
• Using speech-to-text in public
• Constantly filming in public rather than engaging

All Around the House

• Leaving the toilet seat up
• Singing (badly) in the shower
• Leaving empty containers in the fridge
• Not replacing the toilet paper
• Leaving lights or ceiling fans on
• Being loud when someone in the house is trying to sleep
• Leaving dirty dishes on counters or in sinks next to the dishwasher
• Wearing shoes in the house
• Leaving cupboard doors and drawers half open
• Not closing bottles or other containers completely
• Opening a new container before the old one is empty
• Using things without permission, e.g. clothes, accessories, car
• Not putting things away (clothes, sandwich-fixings, etc.)
• Failing to throw away empty containers
• Playing music or watching TV with the volume turned way up

Speaking Politely

• Interrupting
• Finishing another’s sentences
• Talking over one’s conversation partner
• Talking too loudly
• Turning the topic of every conversation back to oneself
• Talking during a movie
• Gratuitous swearing
• Stopping the conversation to correct someone’s grammar
• Talking to someone who is trying to read
• Using LOL or OMG during a face-to-face conversation
• Constantly talking about a particular obsession (health/diet/exes/etc.)
• Saying “like” instead of “said” (I’m like, “Duh!”)
• Treating every conversation like a monologue or performance

Any Time, Any Place

• Being habitually late
• Self-entitled people
• Attempting to control everyone and everything
• The silent treatment
• Encroaching on others’ space, particularly in crowded areas
• Clicking a pen
• Repetitive tapping
• Cracking knuckles
• Nose-picking
• Mean-spirited gossip
• Knee bouncing
• Cutting in line
• Littering
• Unsolicited advice/recommendations
• Constant throat clearing/coughing/sniffing
• Passing gas or belching
• Clipping nails in public

Does it Have to Take All Kinds?

• Particular family member(s)
• Particular friend/acquaintance/neighbor
• Surly servers/salespeople/cashiers
• Dog owners who don’t train or pick up after their pet
• People who cut in line
• Grumpy people venting their bad mood on servers/salespeople/cashiers
• Bad drivers
• One uppers
• Know-it-alls
• Strangers (or friends) encroaching on your personal space
• People who randomly command you to smile
• Strangers calling you Honey or Sweetie
• Standing up the minute a plane gets to the gate

Common Pet Peeves

A survey of 544 people conducted by Survey Monkey listed these top fifteen pet peeves at home and at work.

• Leaving common spaces messy (63%)
• Colleagues complain about their work and/or specific colleagues (53%)
• Manager doesn’t give you credit when it’s deserved (50%)
• Neglecting to take out the trash (45%)
• Bedmate takes too much of the blanket (39%)
• Colleagues show up late to meetings (33%)
• Colleagues fail to recognize your contributions (31%)
• Talking loudly over the phone (30%)
• When a bedmate moves around too much (29%)
• Taking food without asking for permission (24%)
• Cooking something that smells unpleasant (22%)
• Bedmate wakes you up early in the morning (22%)
• Bedmate is on their phone or computer late at night (22%)
• Playing music loudly (22%)
• Occupying the kitchen for a long period of time (20%)

The results indicate that younger people (18-29) and older people (45-60) differ in their peevishness. Which group is more often peeved varied depending on the item.

More Specific Pet Peeves

A similar survey reported on PromoInfoTools found a lot of overlap with Survey Monkey, though some seem to be distinctive. (I’ve shortened or edited some of the answers for the sake of brevity.)

• Crunching! Especially on the phone.
• People tailgating
• People being hypocrites
• When people don’t believe what I’m saying is true
• People not showing up on time for appointments
• People using items and then not putting them back where they found them
• Being late for anything
• When people do not take responsibility for their actions
• When people take what is said at face value and jump to conclusions and judgements without doing their own research for the truth
• People not putting their shopping cart back
• Feeling unappreciated
• Correcting or “cleaning up after” someone else’s mistake(s) or sloppy work
• When someone interrupts me when I’m talking to interject what they want to share
• When my time is wasted. Take my money, or my material items, but not my time.
• People who categorize people by income, position held, school jocks and nerds, etc. We are all human and deserve to be treated as such, not by our categories.

• Inconsiderate people
• Roadside trash and the people who throw it out their windows
• Wasting water
• When people don’t make eye contact or acknowledge you when your paths cross
• Being lied to and the person thinking they are getting one up on me
• Lack of customer service
• Being told someone will call back but they never do
• Lack of communication
• People hitting “reply all” on an e-mail when it should be directed to a specific person
• Traffic
• When the waiter interrupts my conversation to ask if I want more water
• People who don’t get to work on time. It’s disrespectful to your coworkers!
• People who can’t “stay in their lane” – Do your job, I’ll do mine
• Lack of basic manners! Using please and thank you is all I ask
• Toilet seat and/or cover left up when not in use
• Discrimination of all types, racial trauma, micro-aggressions, bigotry. Internalized and systemic racism affect us all.
• Robocalls!

More Specific Pet Peeves

More people are interested in pet peeves than I ever imagined! If you are interested in a particular category of pet peeves, there’s probably a survey for that. For example…

Forbes: Survey: The Biggest Pet Peeves Of American Dog Owners

Zety: List of 28 Common Office Pet Peeves

Cmmonline: Survey Reveals Americans’ Restroom Pet Peeves

Bottom Line: Pet peeves are everywhere! It’s important to note: something that’s a minor annoyance—or not at all annoying—for one person is especially irritating for another. Ask yourself if your pet peeves are worth the emotional toll they take. If so, find out how to deal with them. That advice is also available online!