The biggest gripes among office workers have been revealed as bad manners, long and pointless meetings and office politics, according to pan-European research commissioned by printer manufacturer Canon.

The research found that long and pointless meetings were the biggest annoyance in Europe while in the UK and Ireland office politics took the top spot.

Eight in 10 office staff in the UK and Ireland have witnessed visible acts of displeasure by colleagues, with the most common causes of staff losing their temper being spoken down to by a boss or work colleague (61%). PC downtime and leaving paper jams in printers also featured prominently, cited by 24% of staff.

The survey of 3,000 office workers also revealed the most stressful administrative tasks, with collating documents coming out as the most tedious, cited by 27%. This was followed by searching for files on the company network (23%), filing expenses (16%) and submitting holiday requests (10%).

One in 10 office workers admitted to wasting three hours a day on unnecessary admin, with four in 10 spending at least two hours on such tasks. When asked what they would spend this wasted time on if they could improve office productivity, the resounding response was leaving the office on time (39%) followed by more time for personal development (27%) and taking a proper lunch break (16%).

“For people to feel less stressed in the office, they need to feel more in control of their working life and working environment,” says psychotherapist and occupational stress expert Lucy Beresford.

“When this control is lost through external events such as a rude boss, sitting in a pointless meeting or a printer jam that no one wants to fix, it doesn‘t take much for the average office worker to snap.

“There is no doubt that office rage is on the increase, but a range of initiatives such as crisper meetings or interpersonal kindness could reduce stress levels.”