Why workers are stressed by office politics

City workers quizzed in the survey, conducted by camera maker Canon, said problems with technology were high on the list of things causing people to snap.

Around eight out of 10 Sheffield office workers said they had witnessed acts of visible anger where colleagues had let their frustration get the better of them.

The main cause of city workers losing their temper was office politics, at 61 per cent, followed by PC problems, 23 per cent, and people leaving paper jams in printers for others to fix, 15 per cent.

Admin was another time waster with one in two office workers in Sheffield saying they wasted around an hour a day on unnecessary tasks.

Psychotherapist Lucy Beresford said: "For people to feel less stressed in the office, they need to feel more in control of their working life and working environment.

"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."

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