I totally lost my cool on a co-worker last week. Let me re-phrase that…he came into my office and yelled at me for something that was his mistake, and I responded by unleashing every ounce of frustration I’ve had with him since I’ve started that job. After all, I am an editor. My job is to edit materials and find errors. I am lucky that I have a very cool boss… because I honestly thought that he would just fire both of us.
During the drive home (the boss had sent me home early), I was about 51% satisfied that I had yelled at my co-worker, and 49% wondering what I could have done to prevent what had just happened. Don’t get me wrong, he deserved a reprimand. I had tried my hardest to maintain my cool until he said, “Why didn’t you just fix this yourself?” and then all hell broke loose. I have to fix something that you did? Do your own job. I mean, right?!
I thought about all of the times that I came home with a bad attitude, all of the nasty text messages that I had sent to my friends complaining about this dude, and every sigh that came out of my mouth every time I looked at his work. I’m not going to lie; yelling at this guy felt pretty good. But part of me was pretty horrified by what had just happened.
So, as I do with all of my problems, I decided to call my dad and talk to him about it. After laughing about the incident for a few minutes, he reminded me this: We can only control how we react to situations. We have no control over other people. As much as I’d like to prevent a situation like that again, the only part of it that I can prevent is to make sure that I don’t explode next time. I can’t correct his work ethic, and I can’t prevent him from making another mistake and him storming into my office like it’s my fault. Pretty comforting, right?
Truthfully, he’s probably not going to storm into my office again because now he is aware that I’m not the type of co-worker that is just going to apologize and do whatever I have to do to get him to leave me alone. I’m a hard worker, and I am polite to everyone in the office. After all, I spend more time with these people than I do with my boyfriend or my friends…I may as well make the most of it.
Simply put, remember that you cannot control how people act and react. If a co-worker is being rude for no reason or trying to take advantage of your work, speak to your boss in confidence about it. Say something like, “I’ve been feeling a little taken advantage of by so-and-so” or “So-and-so has been a little disrespectful to me… could you maybe just keep an eye on that situation for me?” Remember that managers and bosses are people too and part of their job is to make sure that things are running smoothly. If all of their employees are running around screaming at each other, it says something about their managerial skills. They probably don’t want people fighting as much as you do.
If you feel that telling your boss will only make the situation worse, tell your boss that you’re not here to point fingers and be a tattle-tale, but you’re telling him/her because you genuinely want the problem to be resolved. Just ask them to keep an eye on that situation, so if something does happen and the boss notices it and decides to take action, it will look more like the co-worker was caught. Make sense? If this situation is reoccurring, be sure and document these instances so it doesn’t become a matter of “he said/she said.” If your boss is friends with the crazy co-worker, tell the boss anyway. If nothing is done about the situation, talk to your boss’ boss.
As frustrating as the situation may be, also look at it as an opportunity. If your boss is paying attention to this person, it is likely that he/she will notice that this person may not be the employee that they thought they had hired. Look at this as your opportunity to shine. If this person is constantly rude to co-workers and customers/clients, make sure to be more mindful of how YOU treat your co-workers and customers/clients. After that situation with my co-worker, I also mentioned to my boss that I am interested doing more graphic design with the company. Because he is aware that my co-worker is a pretty lazy person, he was willing to let me get into that a bit more.
If you’re wondering how I interact with that co-worker now, to be honest, I don’t really speak to him. I made my feelings about his work ethic known (rather loudly, in fact), so he does his job and I do mine. I am polite whenever I have to speak to him and that is about it. Honestly, it’s just not worth feeling upset and hateful about it…
However, if you’re feeling sexually harassed by a co-worker, or if you feel that this conflict stems from a racial, gender or sexual orientation issue, you should ALWAYS tell your boss immediately. You should NEVER feel personally threatened at work.
How do you deal with crazy co-workers? Let’s hear your co-worker horror stories!
guest
Usually if a situation does arise, it is best to speak to that person calmly in PRIVATE, assuming that person is just difficult but still professional. Other times, when you are dealing with someone who is so unreasonable, I would speak to my superior. However, there have been times I had to deal with a superior who just pains in my butt!
When I was a cashier at a fast food restaurant, I was in the back of the kitchen taking orders in the drive thru, tendering payment and folding kid’s meal boxes and boxes for a baked dessert. The manager was in the front, by the pick up window, hollering at me to hurry up. I am doing 4 things back here (5 if you count the times I had to turn off the mic to tell the kitchen people about special requests that cannot be communicated through the computer/cash register). Someone is telling me what they want at the speaker and entering the order in the computer while I am counting money and tendering cash. The customer decided to pay with all coins. How can I hurry up? It is not my fault the customer was still counting the pennies, nickels and dimes. Believe me, many times, I just counted the change quickly and threw them on the counter to sort into the till later. The customer was taking a long time, and the manager approached me, yelling at me that we have a time frame to serve each customer, blah blah blah. I got so mad that I pulled off the headset, threw it down on the ground and stomped way to the break room. After 10 minutes she begged me to come back to the front because it was the lunch rush and there were no other cashiers to take orders. (She had tried taking orders herself and found herself struggling.) If they expect us to be fast, accurate and friendly, the management can’t be expecting miracles. Even though it was a fast food job, I still took my job seriously until I found the next better job. Not all of us slack off, even at meaningless jobs such as that.
Ever since I found an office job, I don’t have much trouble interacting with coworkers. The only person who gets of my nerves is a lady in the showroom. I’m in the accounting department, and sometimes the contracts I deal with are missing some information, which I must make sure is all there before I invoice clients. I’m not to contact the clients for those things, so I email her because she deals with them. It always take forever for her to answer, and sometimes she doesn’t answer all my questions. Honestly, I cannot email more than 2 questions to her. It is like her head spins if she sees 3 or more question marks. Not to mention the fact that she copies me when she emails some clients, and I see her message. She doesn’t pay much attention to spelling and/or grammar. I know English is not her first language, but one can learn. The way she speaks/emails makes her sound very rude, when I know that is not the way she wants to come off as.