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Over at Brazen Careerist, Penelope Trunk deals with five workplace habits that should be over. Ugh, yes! Can we get started on this today sometime? Here are the five with my comments:

1. Voice mail - The sooner we get over it, the better. Voice mail is dead, long live voice mail. In some organizations, this is the mode of communication. Middle managers spend their work days sending broadcast voice mails to fifteen different distribution lists mindlessly droning on about whatever is going on in the company. Is some of it important? Sure, if you can get through it.
2. Reply-to-all - An e-mail button that seems to be ever slowly dying. Here is a hard and fast rule for reply-all: more than three e-mails and you either need a meeting or a conference call. You go past that threshold and you are just being unproductive. Just don’t leave a voice mail, that is still probably worse.
3. The crack candy machine - Working from home, I know I have to limit what I have in my home or else I eat it. A candy machine is an extension of that work environment. I realize there isn’t a veggie vending machine yet but is it such a bad idea to encourage people to walk to one central location, out of the work area, to get their fill of coffee, candy and pop?
4. Soliciting money at work - My parents never let me do this when I was a kid so I guess I don’t understand what the problem is. I don’t think fund raising is all bad but it should revolve around officially sponsored corporate events if it is going to be allowed at all.
5. The mega huge office party - The best parties I have been to are the ones involving those you directly work with on a day to day basis. Seeing them outside of a work environment can be a fun and rewarding look into how they tick. I thought a big 150 person party was big though so what do I know?

Any that you would add to this? I think maybe the whole “Come into work when I am sick to show how tough I am and get everyone else sick” thing would be on my list.