Wait, I'm Working With Who?!?

The Essential Guide to Dealing with Difficult Coworkers, Annoying Managers, and Other Toxic Personalities

Peter Economy

• Publisher: Career Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781632657503
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This is the go-to guide on working with anyone in your office—from the difficult or negative to the toxic and destructive—whether they are your manager, a team member, or someone who's just waiting out the clock. Chock-full of useful advice that will make your workday happier and more productive.

Who hasn't had to deal with a jerk at work? Whether it's a toxic team member who loves nothing more than to suck the life and excitement out of her colleagues, the difficult coworker who isn't happy unless the office is filled with mayhem and drama, or a bad boss who causes his employees to constantly dream of telling him to "Take this job and shove it!", we've all had to deal with people on the job we would rather not.

Wait, I'm Working with Who?!? is the essential guide to identifying and dealing with jerks at work, including bad bosses, troublemaking coworkers, lazy and time-sucking team members, and toxic people of all sorts. This book covers the negative impact that problematic coworkers have on the workplace—lost productivity, high turnover, a company culture of ambivalence or defeat—and catalogs 16specific species. It then goes on to share detailed steps for dealing with these characters—whether you're an employee or a manager. The information and strategies in these chapters will be immediately actionable and profoundly helpful.

Based on proven approaches and the latest research and advice of workplace experts, Wait, I'm Working with Who?!? provides readers with concrete, unambiguous advice on how to deal with and neutralize the negative people in their work lives.

PART I

A FIELD GUIDE TO JERKS AT WORK

I am thankful for all the difficult
people in my life.
They have shown me exactly
who I don't want to be.

—ANONYMOUS

Taking on the jerks at work—whether you're an employee, supervisor, manager, or executive—requires first gaining an understanding of the true extent of the problem and its negative effects on you, and then being able to identify the most common jerks in your organization. In this Part, we'll explore the negative impact toxic people have on the workplace and the most common jerks you're likely to encounter on the job. Topics include:

• Revealing the tremendous negative impact of jerks at work
• Understanding the problem of bad bosses
• Cataloging the sixteen most common types of jerks at work—who they are, what they do, and how to identify them
• Assessing the toxicity of coworkers—and yourself

1

THE HUGELY NEGATIVE IMPACT OF JERKS AT WORK

When dealing with people, remember you are
not dealing with creatures of logic,
but creatures of emotion.

—DALE CARNEGIE

I'm sure all of us have a work story that goes something like this . . .

It was my first day at a new job. I was excited, wide-eyed, and optimistic about the opportunity and the super impressive people I was certain I would be working with. Dressed in a blue blazer, a button-down shirt, and khakis, I jubilantly walked into the office and introduced myself to everyone I passed by. My boss led me to my new office, and as I got settled in and read through the new employee pamphlet (actually, more like a book than a pamphlet), I heard a voice from the doorway say, “Hi.”

I turned around, and the woman who worked a few offices down the hall was grinning at me as she introduced herself. Let's call her Erica. She seemed nice and made me feel welcomed, which were two things any new employee could ever ask for. Maybe she could be my new work lunch buddy, I thought to myself. Erica suggested we go to her office to talk, and we did just that—making the short walk down the hall.

As I settled into a guest chair, I couldn't help but catch a glimpse of Erica's computer screen, which had what appeared to be some random website that had nothing to do with work. I didn't think much of it until I visited later and saw the same thing. Every time I caught a glimpse of what Erica was doing, it never appeared to be work related. During staff meetings, our boss would check in with Erica on an assignment and Erica would pretend that she was tirelessly working on it. She would even go so far as to make up the excuse that “It's such a big task for just one person to complete!”

This felt strange and frustrating to me. As her coworker, I saw her slacking every day as she made long phone calls with family and friends, bounced around the internet on her computer, and just generally avoided doing anything remotely related to her job. The biggest personal annoyance was her excessive complaining about work, and how she couldn't wait for the weekend, or how she couldn't wait to leave this “hellhole.” Hellhole? Really?? Yes, most of us are typically excited about the weekend, but there was no need for her to express this to me multiple times every day. And I thought the company we worked at was actually pretty nice—definitely no hellhole.

Regardless, Erica found everything and anything to complain about. She would complain about the coffee machine not functioning properly, our boss assigning her a new task, and she'd complain about everyone in the office and excessively talk about how terrible working at this company was. It was difficult for me to deal with this, especially since I was new to this business and didn't know whether or not to believe her. Not only did it make me annoyed and distracted from doing my own work, but it also made me lose the excitement I had towards the job and company I was working for.

And as I became less excited to go to work and less motivated to do my job and interact with my coworkers, I could feel the energy being sucked right out of me.

I wanted so very badly to get out of this slump, but it was nearly impossible with Erica as my neighbor. We were on the same team and we often interacted as a part of the job. At the time, I had no idea how I could fix this. I began to pick up on subtle things, such as how people seemed to avoid her office at all costs—was this because she was a bad coworker?

It wasn't until I had this realization that I began to notice other things. She was never a part of the team because other coworkers didn't want to be around her. They never invited her to lunch or happy hours—nothing that meant they had to spend more time with her.

This was when I decided to make a change. As intimidating as this was since I was so new to the team, I confided in my manager about the issue I had with Erica. My manager informed me that it wasn't the first time someone had brought Erica up with her, which was a huge concern. She apologized for placing me near her as a newbie to the office, and she suggested moving me to an office in a different part of the building. I enthusiastically agreed to the change.

Once I moved, everything changed. Those who worked around me were actually excited, engaged, and productive throughout the day, which in turn made me more excited, engaged, and productive. They were also enthusiastic and happy about their work, which also made me enthusiastic and happy about the work I was doing. I finally felt that same fire that I had felt when I first began working at this company.

In addition, I started to interact with the rest of my coworkers more, and less with Erica. When you spend five days a week in the same office and on the same team as someone, it can be very difficult to avoid them—especially since she often came looking for me. I found this to be extremely hard at first, but it was very necessary for the overall success of the company, as well as my own personal well-being. I didn't realize this at first, but Erica was a toxic coworker who was draining my energy due to her pessimistic nature and unproductive habits.

I wish I could go back in time to tell myself how to deal with my situation better. There's no reason a coworker should make me feel unhappy about my job, and I made a point to never let that happen again. Fortunately, I now know how to address this kind of issue head on. My goal is that you will also learn how to deal with people like Erica—and other not-so-pleasant types of coworkers. This chapter explores the facts, based on current research and studies, about how bad bosses, toxic co-workers, lazy teammates, and other jerks at work negatively impact the workplace and those around them—and how they affect you, and what you can do about it.

THE PROBLEM: JERKS AT WORK

Just as no two snowflakes are exactly alike, there are many different kinds of jerks that we'll all have the “opportunity” to work with at one point or another during our careers. Many of these people, like my former coworker Erica, can be extremely toxic and rub off on other coworkers in a negative way. Others may only have slight characteristics of being a bad coworker within them, but they poison the workplace—and the people they work with—nonetheless. Small gestures such as leaving early every day or taking excessive sick days can impact the way others feel about their coworkers, their boss, and their company.

Unfortunately, whether we like to admit it or not, many of us have been a bad employee, coworker, or boss at some point in time. Maybe we were late to work one too many times in a week, or we spent too much time scrolling on Facebook when we should have been working on a report or doing some market research, or maybe we even spent most of our day talking to the coworker in the cubicle next to us about non-work-related topics.

We all have a little bit of deviancy within us however much that deviancy might be. If you think of this as a spectrum, we can be anywhere on that spectrum—from 0 percent engaged (nearly impossible) to 100 percent checked out (again, nearly impossible). Someone may be a 1, or a 4, or a 9 on the spectrum of being a bad coworker. However, this doesn't mean they're terrible people who can't be changed—luckily, anyone can change for the better. Doing this requires being motivated to change, acknowledging shortcomings, and then learning how to fix them. It is important to be self-aware and understand how you influence those around you.

In research conducted by software and technology authority Better Buys, workers engage in all sorts of bad behaviors at work. Here, according to Better Buys, are the top ten, across a wide variety of industries:.

1. Consistently late: 56%
2. Gossiping behind someone's back: 53.7%
3. Taking a sick day when not sick: 53.2%
4. Yelling at someone: 51%
5. Excessively socializing: 49.2%
6. Taking an unauthorized long lunch break: 42.8%
7. Leaving early without permission: 41.4%
8. Lying to the boss: 41.1%
9. Practicing bad hygiene: 37.4%
10. Working on personal projects at work: 35.3%³

As you can imagine, yelling at someone in the office, being consistently late, or lying to the boss can all lead to a hostile, toxic work environment. While reading through this list, do any of your fellow coworkers come to mind? You may even notice actions on this list that you have been guilty of at work as well.

If you relate to one or a few of these behaviors, don't fret. In later chapters, we will go through how you can change these habits within yourself, and how you can learn to deal with coworkers who exhibit them as well.

THE PROBLEM OF BAD BOSSES

If we're going to talk about bad coworkers, then we also need to address another issue in many organizations: bad bosses.

As an employee, chances are you will encounter a bad boss at some point in your career. In fact, research by Gallup shows that bad bosses are the number one reason employees quit their jobs. According to the Gallup report, “Having a bad manager is often a one-two punch: Employees feel miserable while at work, and that misery follows them home, compounding their stress and putting their well-being in peril.”⁴ In addition, other research reveals that 75 percent of employees say that dealing with their boss is the most stressful part of their job. And, after working for a bad boss, it takes almost two years for people's stress levels to return to a healthy level.⁵

And if you are the boss, it is extremely important to be aware of qualities you exhibit that may be a detriment to your employees. Just because you're the boss doesn't mean you should neglect being self-aware about potential “bad-boss” habits you may have learned over the years. Just like the bad coworker spectrum, there are varying degrees to which you can exhibit potential harmful qualities.

If you're a boss, are you a good one? How do you know?

In 2018, LinkedIn Learning released the results of a survey of almost 3,000 professionals, asking them this question: What is the single most frustrating trait you have experienced in a manager?

Here are the top four traits of bad bosses revealed by the survey:

1. Having expectations that aren't clear or that frequently change: 20%
2. Micromanaging: 12%
3. Being aloof and not involved: 11%
4. Not fostering professional development: 11%

Regarding the number one bad-boss trait above, leadership training expert Elizabeth McLeod says,

A lack of clear expectations is the root cause of poor performance. Leaders often think they're clear, but the data tells us a different story. Employees need to know why this matters (the purpose) and what good looks like (performance expectations). Show me a leader who says, “I shouldn't have to tell them, it should be obvious,” and we'll show you a team that isn't clear....

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I: A FIELD GUIDE TO JERKS AT WORK
• PART II: EIGHT STRATEGIES FOR DEALING WITH JERKS AT WORK
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• NOTES
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR