How to Deal with Grumpy Coworkers
They live amongst you, and they breed. They are as scarce as sand on a beach and just as abrasive. They, are the omnipresent grumpy colleague.Let’s face it, every workplace has them, and here’s a hint: if yours doesn’t, it’s you! Dealing with grumpy colleagues can be challenging and frankly, life-sucking, if you don’t learn to properly manage those relationships. In fact, understanding what you have with your grumpy colleague is, in fact, a relationship can start you down the right path toward vocational blyss.Relationships, by definition, are mutually dependent on the members in order to be successful and fulfilling and we all want to be successful and fulfilled in our jobs. Here are some strategies for dealing with the grumpy colleagues:*First, it’s not you, it’s them (unless it’s you). Contrary to what your mother told you, you are not the center of the universe. Face the facts that Mr. or Mrs. Grumpy-Pants is just as significantly insignificant as you and move on.
- Speaking of moving on, if it’s possible, why not simply relocate to a different part of the building or area? If your workplace offers that type of flexibility, why not move to a new cubicle? Maybe a friend will be willing to trade places with you. Perhaps, it’s the constant close proximity to Grumpy McGrumperson that fuels his grumpiness.
- Square peg in a round hole: if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit...them of your strict definition of what they have to be. As humans, people are designed to categorize and organize everything; it’s how they make sense of their world. So, naturally you try to fit everything (and everyone) into a box that you’ve personally designed and built in your head, and when something or someone doesn’t fit into that box you want to discard it as wrong or bad. Each person is individuals and as individuals they cannot, and frankly, should not, subject themselves to the molds other people have for them. That being read, they shouldn’t subject others to their own molds. When you determine that MC Grumpilicious doesn’t fit into your mental box for him, build a new box.
- Empathy for others is the ultimate key to relationship success. Perhaps El Grumpador is ill, or perhaps his spouse is ill, or perhaps he has stresses and issues in his life that you can’t imagine right now. The fact of the matter is, when you make an effort to walk a mile in his shoes, you’re in a better position to manage the relationship, and if that fails you’ll be a mile away and have his shoes.
- Acceptance is key and goes hand-in-hand with my third point. Accept that Fussy G. Rumpy is who he is, just as you are who you are.
- Find some common ground with Grumpelstiltskin. Does he like coffee, tea, football, video games, collecting ties, travelling, ...anything? Finding a common source of potential dialog can break down his defences, exposing his soft-spots and vulnerabilities. Chances are those vulnerabilities are similar to your own vulnerabilities and can serve as the tie-that-binds.
The important takeaway from this should be that successful relationships require cooperation from all involved parties, but sometimes that cooperation must be forged in fire. The end goal of requited respect can be accomplished with perseverance, tenacity, and especially empathy.One important caveat for this topic is to be mindful that none of the ideas and strategies suggest or imply that you should allow yourself to be subjected to actual verbal or physical abuse; do not tolerate it. Report all instances of abuse to management and your human resources office, immediately. Just be mindful that grumpiness or outbursts are manifested symptoms of something greater happening within the person; finding the root cause, whether internal or environmental may be the puzzle piece you’ve been missing. Some people, however, are unapologetically and unabashedly mean.
