Typing too loudly and eating smelly food at the desk are just two of the office offences identified by Edinburgh City Council in a new etiquette guide it has produced for its staff.
Workers who are moving to the council's new city centre headquarters were presented with the 30-page guide, listing the dos and don'ts of office behaviour.
Other frowned-upon actions included taking shortcuts between desks, loud telephone conversations and talking to your computer or yourself, the Scotsman reports.
Perhaps even more controversial is the clear-desk policy in the new office, which prevents staff from hanging jackets on the backs of chairs or leaving personal items, such as photographs of loved-ones, on the desk at the end of the day.
One worker told the newspaper: "Cleaning away desks is going to be a nightmare, and it will be farcical if we're reprimanded for leaving a pencil lying out.
"Most of the people working in this building have high-pressure, stressful jobs and we need a common sense approach to let them do their jobs properly."
However, the council's director of city development, Andrew Holmes, said that the guidelines were "as much about consideration for others as it is about good practice and becoming more efficient in our day-to-day jobs".
A similar recent decision to ban personal items from desk space at HM Revenue & Customs in Wrexham and Rhyll was slammed as "dehumanising" by trade union PCS.
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