“This note appeared in the office kitchen on the fridge next to our fancy Keurig coffee machines,” says our submitter in New York City. “The coffee pods are set out on the counter in a display, but when people couldn’t find their flavor of choice, they’d go into the cabinets to find it.”
Trying to understand this sign-maker’s design process (“No, still not clear enough. let’s hit return again, center-justify, underline AND change the color?”) makes my head hurt.

Adds our submitter: “Sure enough, not long after this note went up, coffee service was discontinued.” (It has since resumed.)
FILED UNDER: bizarro spacing · bold-underlined-caps · coffee · fun with synonyms · New York · nonsensical spacing · not-so-veiled threats · office
This series of signs (all made by one person, and pinned up across an entire bulletin board) is among my all-time favorites. The glorious redundancies, the inappropriate quotation marks, the clip art — oh, it’s just too good.





(Yeah, the last one is blurry. Our anonymous Canadian submitter apologizes.)
related: A clue your coworker isn’t up for cubicle small talk
FILED UNDER: blitzkrieg approach · Canada · cleaning · clip art catastrophe · etiquette · gloriously redundant · music · noise · odor · office · office cop · privacy · spelling and grammar police · unnecessary "quotation marks"
Explains an anony-dad in St. Louis: “I asked our babysitter to fill out a short form for us on a daily basis, letting us know a summary of what happened with the kids during the day — when they last ate, whether they seemed like they were getting sick, that sort of thing. I guess it offended her.”


An awfully long note for someone who doesn’t like paperwork, no?
related: Happy to be of service
FILED UNDER: CAPS LOCK · Moms & Dads · spelling and grammar police · St. Louis · thanks (but not really)
alanna lives in a house in ottawa with nine other girls, where “dishes are always being left in the sink dirty and growing stuff, or clean on the counter taking up space.” a note war has commenced on the window above the fridge.

by popular demand, alanna has helpfully posted another picture showing the underlying notes!

FILED UNDER: Canada · dishes · excessive underlining · kitchen · note wars · Ottawa · roommates
This exercise in mass shaming is brought to us by Rocky in San Diego, who notes: “These are 5-year-olds playing T-ball.”

related: A new tactic for Pre-K school fundraising…public shaming?
FILED UNDER: bold underlined italics · CAPS LOCK · excessive underlining · exclamation-point happy!!!! · message to all intended for one · Moms & Dads · money · public shaming · San Diego · unnecessary "quotation marks"
Annette in the U.K. calls this one “How to make toast in the NHS.”

FILED UNDER: bread · CAPS LOCK · danger · dishes · excessive underlining · exclamation-point happy!!!! · hospitals & doctors · office · U.K.
Scott saw this note posted to the refrigerator of his friends’ house in D.C. and surreptitiously snapped a photo. “I didn’t want to pry by pulling out the whole note,” he says. “I’m pretty sure Alex was a roommate in the house at some point, but it’s probably been years.”

The magnet’s a nice touch, though, right?
FILED UNDER: D.C. · more aggressive than passive · moving/not moving · roommates
Just in case this site hasn’t given you enough reasons to think twice before leaving a passive-aggressive note, Tobjar in Oakland, California passes along this cautionary tale from worsethanfailure.com:
Not too long ago, there was a small furor in the local media about a major disaster at The State’s Technology Services Division.…When employees of The State came in to work following a three day weekend, they found their workstations overloaded with “cannot logon” and “Exchange communication” error messages. The Network Services folks had it even worse: the server room was a sweltering 109° Fahrenheit and filled with dead or dying servers….They worked day and night to order new equipment, build new servers, and restore everything from back-up. Countless overtime hours and nearly two hundred thousand dollars in equipment costs later, they managed to bring everything back online. When the Exchange servers were finally restored, the following email finally made its way to everyone’s inbox:

As for the employee who sent it, he decided to take an early retirement.
related: When Ph.d.s get frustrated
FILED UNDER: energy usage · office · oh snap · temperature
During his fourth year of college, Andrew from Waterloo says he lived with some seriously passive-aggressive roommates. The following three notes all went up within a 48-hour period:



Andrew couldn’t resist adding one of his own…

(It was promptly taken down.)
related: The post-it wars
FILED UNDER: college life · dishes · excessive underlining · rebuttals · roommates · stealing · that's unsanitary · Waterloo

Thanks to Elliette for passing this along for her friend in Manhattan.
And as a bonus, a classic passive-aggressive noise complaint from the fantastic Found magazine:

FILED UNDER: music · neighbors · New York · noise · Ohio · pleasantries as afterthought · thanks (but not really)