Ideally everyone would have great co-workers, people who helped you to succeed professionally and made you feel appreciated and respected. Unfortunately this is not always what happens and you may be forced to deal with someone that makes your job harder.
Whether your colleague has anger control issues or is just not very competent at their job, at the end of the day you still have to get your work done.
Here are a few tips to help you deal with a difficult co-worker.
- Don’t let it negatively affect your work. Even if it’s tempting to take longer lunches to get away from a difficult co-worker, in the end you will suffer from it the most as you will need to make up the time in order to finish all your work. It may feel good to make your colleague look stupid at a meeting or to send them a passive-aggressive email but it won’t do any good for your relationship and it won’t make you feel any better in the long run. It will make your relationship with your co-worker even worse and make it harder to get your work done and nothing is more counterproductive than that.
- Write everything down. Document interactions with your colleague, whether its requests or criticisms. This way you have something to refer back to if your co-worker is being irrational or contradicting themselves. Having a record of everything they say to you can be helpful if your relationship gets so bad that you want to discuss the situation with a supervisor, you’ll have written proof of what has been going on.
- Don’t react too hastily. Give yourself a little time to think before reacting when dealing with a conflict with your co-worker. . This will give you a chance to be level headed. Even if your co-worker becomes emotional, you need to uphold your professional manner so that they have nothing to use against you. Your issues are more likely to be resolved if everyone is being calm while they are being discussed.
- Identify your co-workers triggers. Find the things that tend to lead to anger management issues and avoid them as much as you can.
- Don’t bring your work home with you. Try to get into the habit of leaving all the stresses of dealing with a difficult co-worker in the workplace and not taking them into your personal life – this will only add to your stress levels. This may mean having friends that don’t work with you to help you detach yourself from your work life.