How to Handle ‘The Impossible’ Co-Worker

Source: The Muse

They will make your life at the workplace a living hell. You know who we are talking about. The nosy co-worker, the bully, the know-it-all they come indifferent forms. How can you handle them and still keep your job?

Here are several professional ways

1. Control What You Can
Remember that all you can really control are your own feelings. You can’t expect to change someone’s idea-stealing, or other equally obnoxious ways, but you can manage your emotions and learn how to react in a way that won’t cause you further stress and anxiety or impair your ability to work. Whether it’s taking a deep breath or minimizing the face time you have with the offending co-worker, find ways that you can control the situations you’re in as well as your response.

2. Replace Anger with Sympathy
Instead of remaining angry with your co-worker for his or her shortcomings, try to replace that feeling with sympathy. Remove yourself from the situation and think of other possibilities for the person’s behavior: Maybe she’s going through a lot at home and is taking her problems out on her colleagues. There’s usually an explanation for bad behavior. If you can remember that and convert your frustration into understanding, you’ll go a long way in avoiding conflict.

3. Try to Work it Out
If your frustration doesn’t dissolve, see if you can speak to your co-worker in an honest and unemotional way about how you feel. Try to cite concrete examples of times that you felt anxious or upset and point out how those negative interactions are affecting your work and that of the team. You might find that your co-worker, in the stress of the workday, has not even been aware of how her constant interrupting people in meetings or her inability to communicate before noon is affecting her teammates.

4. Talk to Your Supervisor
If you feel that you’ve done everything you can to make your co-worker aware of your feelings, and if you have tried your best to manage your own reactions to conflict, then you may consider discussing the problem with your supervisor.

But keep in mind that speaking negatively about someone’s general personality will probably not reflect well upon you unless you can demonstrate that he or she is directly hindering your productivity. Keep the discussion short, focused, and fact-based, and offer possible solutions to the problem.

If you stay positive and rational, learn how to manage your own reaction, and refuse to adopt someone else’s problems, you’ll go a long way toward successfully overcoming co-worker conflict.

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