Week 4: Work Relationships

Difficult coworkers are most likely to be in every company and each person will have to deal with working with a difficult coworker at some point in their work lives.

The textbook breaks difficult coworkers into eight categories; the independent other, the soap opera star, the bully, the adolescent, the self-promoter, the mild annoyance, the rebellious playboy/playgirl. and the abrasive, incompetent harasser.

I work with a woman who I would place into the "soap opera star" category. For privacy reasons, we will give her the name "Wanda". Wanda spends a lot of time complaining about her personal life or work related issues, distracts other employees from their jobs because of her questions and/or complaints about how they are doing their job and s constantly asking very personal, inappropriate questions.

I had read over the "Steps for Improving Relationships with Others" in the textbook and thought I would try the tips out with Wanda. I will list each step and explain how I applied each one to my working relationship with Wanda.

1. Make sure you are not the difficult person: I tried to be friendly each time Wanda spoke to me and make sure that I don't roll my eyes or make comments about her after she has left the room

2. Ensure that you are doing your job: When Wanda asked me about why I spent a few minutes outside after my assigned time, I owned up to the fact that I had taken an extra few minutes instead of getting frustrated with her.

3. Ascertain the goals of the "difficult" person: Although it may seem annoying at times, I realize Wanda is following the rules laid out by my job and is trying to ensure that others are doing so as well.

4. Assess perception levels: Wanda is much older than me with a different working style and her beliefs differ from mine differently. I tried to understand where she was coming from when she was asking me so many questions and realize that she may be wanting to provide advice or encouragement because she is older.

5. Accept the difficult person for what he or she is: Since the things that Wanda did to frustrate me this week were trivial, I decided to just let most of them go.

6. Confront the person: When asked a few too personal questions, I simply explained to Wanda that I felt as if that information was private and I did not want to share it with her.

7. State how you feel: To make it clear that I thought her questions were a little invasive, I explained to her that I would like to keep parts of my personal life separated from my work life.

8. Give recognition when the other person deserves it: I thanked Wanda for holding open the door for me at work. I know this is very minor but it still deserves recognition.

9. Maintain a professional demeanor during interactions: Instead of talking about anything personal when she is around, I stuck to work related topics to avoid having her ask more personal questions.

10. Seek mediation if all else fails: I did not feel the need to seek any mediation because my interactions with Wanda can be easily handled.

Working with others whose personalities differ so greatly from mine can be quite frustrating. Using these simple steps can help decrease the amount of conflict I have on a normal basis though.