We’ve all been there. No matter how much you love your job, where you work, and your coworkers, there is always one person in the group who just gets under your skin. It’s the inevitable fact of working life. Whether it’s the office gossip, the joke guy, or the mean boss. There’s always one. These particular annoying office types can go from being slightly annoying to almost unbearable.
Here are a few tips with dealing with a difficult co-worker in your office.
- Take Him or Her With a Sense of Humor. Movies like Office Space along with TV shows like the Office have found success in making fun of daily office life. It may seem silly but sometimes changing your perspective just a little and seeing that difficult coworker as a character of themselves can make it easier to take whatever their difficult personality trait is with a grain of salt.
- Let it out. If you have a close friend at work or even your spouse or a friend at home, use them! It’s important when trying to survive office life that you have someone who you can vent to about the people and things that drive you crazy during the day. Letting things build up just won’t work.
- Avoid the person. This may not always be easy depending on your specific situation. If you don’t work in the same department as the difficult coworker try and avoid running into he or she in the other places you could possibly run into him or her. Skip the break room when he or she is in there and go out to eat your lunch if you have to.
- Is It Worth it? Ask yourself this all-important question. How miserable is the coworker really making your life? If you can live with it then follow the above tips to help just let it go. If it gets to a point where it’s no longer worth it and something needs to be done, follow these steps below.
- Confront the Person. Try to be polite and diplomatic but explain to the person your problem. Try and get them to just agree to disagree or live and let live. Hopefully the person will tone down the behavior or just stay out of your way.
- Take it to HR or the Boss. If talking it out with the person hasn’t worked, take it to HR or your boss to see if you’re the only one with a problem. Ask them what steps you can take to resolve it. Sometimes a meeting with an unbiased third party who is trained in conflict resolution (as your HR manager should be) is all it takes to make things right.
Good luck!
