April 13th, 2008
Dealing with Difficult Coworkers
Difficult coworkers are often times like difficult family members. You didn’t choose them, but you are expected to accept, humor, and maintain good relations with them. Job stress is one of the most common stresses in our lives and it usually doesn’t come from the tasks of the job itself. Stress on the job usually steams from our interactions with others while all working towards a common goal. This is why the seemingly simplest businesses to work for can still be extremely stressful. I’ve personally had fast food jobs in my college years that were as stressful as my stints in the more “corporate” world, simply because of the dependency I had on others that didn’t share my work ethic. So, how do we deal with difficult coworkers? Here, we’ll profile difficult coworkers and discuss the small steps that you can take to maintain a stable working environment.
One of the most irritating coworker personality types is the nosy coworker. They want to know who called, what they wanted and if you’re dating or sleeping with them. The most important thing to realize about nosy people is that drama is the very core of their existence. If you have anything going on in your life, they need to know it and not for your sake. They will act concerned to try to get you to open up, but in all honestly, they simply want to know what’s going on. To make matters worse, they will then draw their own conclusions and assumptions and share those with the entire office as well as everything you’ve said. Suddenly, an upsetting call from your brother-in-law becomes an upsetting call from some man that you’re probably having an affair with. See how that works? The best way to deal with noisy coworkers is to remain calm about everything and shrug things off like they’re no big deal, even when they are. They hate it when you don’t display the dramatics that they crave and will eventually move on to more “interesting” coworkers. If something is going on in your personal life and they do catch wind of it, stay cool and don’t act like it’s that upsetting. Otherwise those vultures will feed off of your misery and will peck you to death for information. You don’t have to appear stoic, but when asked about your latest breakup, just shrug and say that he was a great guy but it didn’t work out and then ask a work related question. Not bashing the other person leaves little room for questions and then moving back to work let’s them know that you’re here to do your job and that you’re really not affected by the breakup. No drama = no nosy coworker.
The next worst coworker is the noisy coworker. Yes, sometimes they overlap with the nosy ones, but this is the person in the cubicle beside you that takes personal calls all day long and speaks like their talking into a tin can instead of a cell phone. Hanging things on the common wall will muffle sounds a little, but sometimes you will have to develop a little intestinal fortitude and simply ask them to speak a little quieter. If you’re concerned about hurting feelings or getting a backlash, try one of these: The next time your neighbor is shouting into her phone, act like you’re on the phone with an important client. Hang up soon after she does and go to her cubicle. Tell her that the client could hear her entire conversation and that you wanted her to know, not in a demeaning way, but rather in a “concerned for her privacy” way. Say that you’re trying to look out for her so you wanted her to know that people are hearing her conversations around her. Laugh about it a little and ask her how the kids are doing and then go back to work. Or you can say that you phone is kind of quiet and that it’s hard to hear clients on it. This will make your phone the problem and not your coworker, but still open the door for you to ask them to speak a little quieter.
There is also software on the market that is designed to drown out the sounds of nosy coworkers, not by being louder, but by jumbling what your coworker is saying. We’ve discovered that what makes people talking around us distracting is the fact that you can understand what they are saying. This makes your mind wonder and listen to their conversation. Software designed to make those conversations indistinguishable, allows you to focus on what you’re doing, rather than the talking around you.
Dealing with people is an important skill that, for many people, takes a conscious effort to become good at. Hopefully these tips will help you deal with at least these two types of difficult coworkers and make for smoother sailing on the job.
