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There are situations when a colleague is terribly annoying. Anything in a person causes irritation: behavior, manners, actions, ridiculous statements. But the main problem is that such conflicts at work are difficult to resolve. Scandals or accusations are not a solution to the situation. You need to start by working on yourself. It is important to change your attitude towards the stimulus. Change your negativity to positivity. Sometimes psychoanalysis, art therapy and group classes help.
If a colleague is annoying, you will have to do some hard work on yourself
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Growth Phase > Development and money > Work > 10 disgusting habits of colleagues that enrage you to the point of trembling
Team Growth Phase
Everything we do as a team
must be done with respect for those present.
George Washington
Nobody is perfect. Even you. Sorry.
We all get on someone's nerves from time to time. Without meaning to, we can drive a person to a nervous tic with just our appearance.
But in most cases, we don’t even realize how much we infuriate those around us. Just like the person who disturbs your peace may not be aware of what brings you to the boiling point.
Let's talk about life in a team: adults spend a third of their lives at work. In many ways, it depends on your colleagues whether your workplace will be a paradise or a living hell.
Bad habits, bad manners, character traits and oddities - all this becomes obvious when you work shoulder to shoulder every day for about 8 hours. We usually don’t notice disgusting habits in ourselves, but we can clearly see what’s wrong with others.
We wrote about 10 of the most disgusting habits of colleagues that irritate and infuriate you to the point of trembling.
Are you lucky with your employees?
Have an honest conversation with your colleague
If the irritant is bad habits, then you should tell your colleague about them. You can offer your own options for eliminating them. The main thing is not to keep feelings to yourself and learn to tolerantly voice what you don’t like.
It happens that such aspirations of colleagues irritate:
- get a promotion;
- get a salary increase;
- become the manager of a large project;
- be appointed head of department, etc.
This is a manifestation of ordinary envy. It is important to recognize that your colleague is truly a professional in his field and deserves a promotion. It is necessary to think about what the envious person lacks to achieve such a goal. You need to analyze the character traits and qualities of your ambitious colleague and try to develop them in yourself. If the person is lazy, offer the boss to pay a salary based on performance. This can motivate a colleague. And also the director will know who to monitor, and if the employee does not cope with his duties, he will be fired. This is a great opportunity to express yourself and show your high professionalism.
A colleague's desire to earn more can cause envy
Tactlessness
A sense of tact - it either exists, or “Didn’t you get enough sleep? You look terrible!”
Tactless questions irritate, confuse and even make you blush. Such people violate the personal boundaries of others with incredible ease and seem to even experience hidden pleasure in doing so...
“I don’t know how much longer I can tolerate this. The head of the department is an adult woman, but she behaves like a boorish minor.
I understand everything: respect for her age, her superior position, but it seems to me that I will soon send her to hell in plain text.
Helen, this skirt doesn’t suit you at all
You have gained a lot of weight, donate blood for hormones
Are you going to give birth at all? How old are you now?
“It’s none of your business,” I really want to answer that way. But, probably, my problem is my inability to fend off her tactlessness and inappropriate questions.
Are we even at work or where? I'm not your girlfriend, but a subordinate. I try not to interact with her too much and avoid communication as much as possible. Well, very unpleasant madam!”
Elena, marketing specialist
Talking on the phone
Every morning Irochka comes to work. He turns on the coffee machine, takes out a golden iPhone and away we go:
- Hello, Pash, did you wake me up? Well, I came to work, there’s nothing to do yet. So what were you doing there yesterday? Did you get there okay? And here we are...
- Yes mom. What am I doing? I drink cappuccino. Listen, yesterday you know who I met
- Hello, why haven’t you picked up the phone for so long? In short, I heard this here! Can you imagine?...
You know this type of people. Personal conversations during working hours are not encouraged, but clearly no one told them this.
They are not at all embarrassed that these conversations are heard by absolutely the entire team. However, the team itself is far from happy with this. You can tolerate disgusting female habits for half an hour while visiting a friend, but not for eight hours at work.
“Irina and I work in the same office. It's simply unbearable! It's impossible to concentrate when someone around you is constantly droning on. No debit and credit will match.
And why do I need to know this intimate information? Who spent the evening and how, who left with whom and who woke up with whom:
-Hello, can you hear me?
- Yes, Ira, everyone can hear you!
My ears are already drooping from her conversations. It’s infuriating!”
Alina, accountant
Feast in the workplace
Food in the office is a separate issue. It's time to write down a list of prohibited items and set up customs control at the entrance. Everything is like on an airplane.
Because some food items simply cannot be brought to work. If there is no designated area for eating in the office, many foods should be avoided.
Mom's smelling cutlets, fried fish, garlic cheese salad - save these aromatic delicacies until your birthday. The workplace should not smell like a hot factory canteen.
“Vitalik works in our department. Basically, he's a pretty good person. But there is one nuance - Vitalik has a very caring mother. And so that her son doesn’t get hungry, she packs him a whole three-course lunch. Vitalik’s lunchbox, so you understand, is the size of a small suitcase.
I prefer to have lunch at a café nearby; the price for a business lunch is reasonable, and at the same time it clears my head a little. Sometimes there is so much work that you have to work without a break and it’s just hell - I can’t stand it when people eat at work.
And Vitalik is especially infuriated with his “product layout” - rustling with foil, bags, heating chops in the microwave, the whole office stinks of some kind of sausage. The broth is also loudly poured out of the cup. Brrr..."
Olesya, bank employee
Rule #4: Choose your battles wisely
A malicious colleague will constantly provoke you into a quarrel, showdown, or confrontation with other employees. Most often, in such cases, the best strategy will be neutrality: just nod back and smile, but do everything your way. But if you still think that you need to get into an argument or showdown, be sure to take a time out and think carefully about your strategy. This will be your trump card: toxic people rarely think about their words and actions because they are completely at the mercy of their emotional experiences.
Judging people by appearance
Everyone remembers the scene in the boutique from the movie “Pretty Woman” with Julia Roberts: at first the sellers did not want to serve the poorly dressed girl, but when she came arm in arm with the rich man Gere, the attitude changed dramatically.
Judging by appearance is a rather bad and stereotypical habit. By judging a person in advance for the way he looks, you can make a big mistake and get yourself into a big problem. Not to mention how such behavior offends and humiliates a potential client.
Fortunately, in many chain stores this bug with the dress code has been successfully worked out and corrected - basically, the sales assistants are courteous, smiling and friendly, regardless of who came to them. But not without exceptions.
“I’m absolutely infuriated by my colleague’s nasty habit of assessing a customer’s social status. She simply scans everyone who comes in with her gaze: watch brand, shoe brand, jewelry, car keys in her hands. If a person is clearly wealthy, he blossoms, there’s a smile on his face, he’s already fluttering.
And if the middle class, they may even ignore that someone came into the store. Usually I get such clients. I don’t mind, but looking at this corps de ballet is terribly disgusting.
Or she might also say: “I’m not sure you have enough money for these boots.”
Who are you to count his money? How do you know who is standing in front of you? And what kind of manner is it to judge a person based on the price of a watch?
In the end, you don’t have the right to choose who to serve well and who to be rude to - that’s your job. If you’re not happy with something, quit!”
Alexandra, sales consultant
Tip one: determine the cause of your irritation
Most often, irritation of colleagues is caused by certain qualities of an employee: professional incompetence, excessive curiosity, communication manners (loud voice, ingratiation with superiors, reluctance to make contact). Other, no less rare causes of irritation are certain habits (frequently talking on the phone about personal matters, carelessness in dressing, the desire to gossip or poke your nose into other people's affairs, the habit of whistling or humming something), an unpleasant smell (tobacco, garlic, perfume, aftershave or stale clothes). But these are not the only reasons - strong irritation can also be caused by the fact that your colleague is somewhat similar to an unloved relative or some other person unpleasant to you, and his very presence next to you can cause negative emotions.
If one of your colleagues annoys you, take a piece of paper and write on it first all the positive qualities of this employee, then his negative qualities. After that, write down those actions or actions of this person that irritate you the most. Such an analysis will help you better understand the cause of your irritation - and then it will be easier to cope with negative emotions.
"Go to work". 5 phrases a bad boss likes to use Read more
Imposing your point of view
A vegetarian and a meat-eater meet at the dinner table... Sounds like the beginning of a promising joke. However, in practice, everything is not so funny.
Sometimes these people are the cause of serious table battles, which other employees inevitably witness.
Some call their opponents “corpse eaters,” while those do not remain in debt and call vegans “herbivores.” Discussions about the benefits and harms of animal protein, about childhood vegetarianism, about the decomposition and rotting of meat in the body... The list goes on.
Sometimes the fanaticism of both sides simply goes off scale. Needless to say how annoying this is to others?
“I eat meat and will never eliminate it from my diet. Just came to have lunch with colleagues during a break. And here are the eternal debates: healthy lifestyle, veganism, meat... And for some reason, it’s usually the adherents of the “plant world” who start.
I can’t understand why they can’t sit quietly, that is, silently? Well, you eat only plant foods, cabbage will help you! Do you want meat? Chew the sausage!
Are you attracted to a raw food diet? Yes please. Do you want to be a fruitarian and eat only fruit? Forward! Even if you feed on solar prana, I don’t care.
Just don’t get into my plate and wrinkle your vegan nose with contempt! Are you offended that I’m devouring a juicy steak while you’re choking on your zucchini?”
Valery, driver
Late to work
“Time is money”, “Accuracy is the courtesy of kings” - these aphorisms are nothing more than an empty phrase for those who are constantly late for work.
An unpunctual colleague steals the most valuable resource – time. This is not only annoying, but also affects the course of your personal life: you cancel or reschedule meetings, change plans, work late without overtime pay. And all this because of someone else's lack of punctuality.
They say that unpunctuality is directly related to a person’s high intelligence, but who benefits from this?
“I work as an administrator in a hotel with a fairly large number of rooms. The schedule is variable, every three days. Shift change at ten o'clock in the morning. I'm happy with the team and the schedule, and I just love working with people. Everything is great!
But there is one headache - my replacement Nastya. There has probably never been a morning when Nastya arrived on time.
At the same time, she does not call, does not warn, and she never has a good reason for this. I actually have my own plans, after all, I just want to quickly get home and go to bed!
I can’t leave early: I need to transfer money to the cash register, information about residents and upcoming reservations.
To all my complaints, Nastenka just smiles and apologizes, saying, “You know me, I’m so unpunctual!” I don’t want to involve the authorities, but this situation is terribly infuriating!”
Oksana, hotel administrator
"Impostor" syndrome
A term that psychologists first used in the 1970s. The concept was initially thought to apply primarily to high-achieving women. But since then it has taken over the whole world. Imposter syndrome refers to the internal feeling that you are not as competent as others think you are.
Although this definition is usually applied to intelligence and achievement, it is associated with perfectionism, social interaction, and can affect anyone, regardless of status, work experience, or skill level. Simply put, it is the feeling of being fake: you feel that at any moment you will be exposed as a fraud. As if your position and merits are just the result of the vicissitudes of Fortune.
To make impostor syndrome a thing of the past, you need to learn to confront your beliefs.
- Share your problem. Instead of endlessly replaying the same scenario in your head, ask yourself the question: “How am I really feeling right now?” Don't let doubt stop you from achieving your goal.
- Help and ask for help in return. It is extremely important to keep in touch with those around you. By being supportive and accepting that you can't be an expert in everything, you'll gain confidence in your abilities.
- Take breaks. There are good days and bad days. Your value as a specialist should not be tied to external circumstances. If you feel tense, step away from your desk and take a few deep breaths, stretch your neck and relax your back. As long as you rest, nothing bad will happen.
Constant complaints
It's all the fault of the president, the lunar eclipse, the location of the stars in the sky, the bad weather, the secretary Angela... For such people, everything in life begins with the letter "x" and this does not mean "good."
Eternal horror and nightmare reign in their lives. Everything is wrong and everything is wrong. They are rude to them in minibuses, and cheated in stores - everywhere they are full of swindlers, impudents and crooks.
Complaining and whining are disgusting habits. This is a consequence of focusing on the negative and disadvantages of life. Taking responsibility for your feelings and thinking positively is much more difficult. It’s easier for such people to be whiners and not try to change anything.
Here's what optimists say about this:
“There is one employee who I consider a very toxic person. A short conversation with her - and I literally feel how joy leaves my mortal body, and my vibrations change to whining. Well, I turned it down, of course.
Simply put, she can reduce any situation to taking the position of a victim. She just likes to be unhappy, she gets high from it. There are such people, right?
She complains about the government, about bad roads, about young people, about old people, about noisy children, about a hysterical neighbor, about a passport officer, about the tax office. Everyone, absolutely everyone around her is to blame for the fact that her life is not going well. What did you do to make it better?
I don’t like dealing with people like that!”
Katerina, sales manager
How to prevent burnout?
The snowball must be stopped before it turns into an avalanche. If your life is busy and there is time for rest and household chores, working hours will not become torture.
Build personal boundaries
The habit of being on call 24/7 can lead to nervous exhaustion. When colleagues or clients know that you can be reached at any time, it becomes almost impossible to fully complete daily responsibilities, especially if you work from home.
Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash
At the end of your workday, turn off your phone and sign out of email. Don't be afraid to miss out on a good deal; your vacation is no less important. Learning to say no to tasks you don't have to do will not only free up time for your personal life, but also earn respect.
Stick to a routine
Eating healthy foods, getting enough sleep, and getting physical activity won't magically make stress go away, but sticking to a routine can be the key to reducing fatigue and preventing burnout. If you are used to reading until late at night, you will find it difficult to relax enough to fall asleep. When you don't have time for a full workout, jogging at a moderate pace around the house will increase blood oxygen saturation. You will feel much better.
Spend your weekend actively
Maintain a balance: after mental work, take up active hobbies - dancing, sports, outdoor exercise. If you spend a lot of physical energy, compensate for it by playing chess, drawing or playing music. After a long day at work, you may not have enough energy to do anything other than watch a TV series. However, sometimes force yourself to do something new.
Feeling irritated at work during a crisis or stress is a natural reaction. Knowing that you've done your best can help develop a sense of accomplishment and encourage you to stick with what you're doing. But if you understand that the boiling point has been reached, and even the upcoming vacation is not encouraging, consider changing jobs. Don't wait until your energy supply is completely depleted. Don’t despair and know that nothing can last forever and circumstances will definitely change for the better.
Idleness
What do we do at work? That's right, we're working. But there is always someone who, in the general opinion of the team, is kept at work “for his beautiful eyes.”
“I work in the regional office of a pharmacy chain. The director of the representative office has two secretaries, or, as it is now fashionable to say, assistants. You can’t find one of them where she is—she’s either running to the post office with documents, or to the statistics department, or running around the office like crazy.
But the second one is always a soft place on the chair - she can file her nails, have tea and coffee and post selfies on Instagram. And it is considered a very valuable personnel. True, only the director thinks so. And in the eyes of men, she is not exactly a beauty.
It’s annoying as hell, especially when you haven’t even had lunch all day. Even if I get angry, I don’t even know how her partner feels.”
Andrey, programmer
Professional crown
Some people are simply convinced that twenty years of work experience makes them a guru in the professional field.
Compared to other employees, he considers himself an honorary elder of the sacred clan - he does not tolerate comments addressed to him, he is dismissive of newcomers to the team and loves to remember that “there was no such disorder before.” This is the office equivalent of a grandmother sitting on a bench at the entrance.
“I didn’t know before that people could infuriate me to such an extent! The woman, for a minute, is already approaching 70.
Yes, she has worked at this enterprise since its founding, is the right hand of the director and has the right to sign important documentation. But to imagine herself as the navel of the Earth, all of the above does not give her any right, nor does she treat her employees as if they were empty space.
I have ten years of work experience, and once a year I take a refresher course. In addition, I am interested in new products, study legislation, watch webinars and online trainings. I believe that when a person does not develop, he degrades.
I have the right to consider myself a better specialist than her, because advanced age in itself is not a reason to consider someone smart and advanced. I redo reports for her, correct errors and resolve issues with the tax office.
But she always twists everything so that I’m just an accountant, Galochka, and she’s a great senior economist.
Everyone is so businesslike, I’m the only technician! And don't say a word to anyone. I’m thinking about quitting.”
Galina, economist
Hygiene is everything
This final point is just the icing on the cake. The final chord of the article, breaking all records of collective disgust and irritation.
A man picking his nose. This paragraph is about it and its derivatives. The same list includes a girl who plucks her eyebrows at her desk in an open space, a courier who talks to a client and cleans his ear with his finger, as well as a man with a toothpick who carefully examines his oral cavity and shows others the pieces of meat stuck in his teeth.
Don't you feel disgusted yet? Congratulations, you have reached the pinnacle of enlightenment and personal growth. For those who are as close to Zen as squatting to Moscow, such behavior seems unacceptable and unpleasant to contemplate.
“I suspect that there are oil deposits in our guard’s nostrils. He is constantly looking for something there so carefully. But seriously, such disgusting male habits just drive me crazy.
I can assume that something is really preventing him from breathing, but can he do this alone? There is a restroom, a staff room, and just a secluded corner in the hallway. You can somehow get out of the situation!
Soon I won’t be able to stand it anymore and I’ll give him a spray with sea water - let him spray it so that nothing there has time to dry out.
Well, honestly, no matter how you look at it, he always has a finger in his nose. It seems to me that he doesn’t even notice it anymore. And from this spectacle my appetite disappears, and my mood deteriorates.”
Olga, supermarket cashier
Instead of output
Psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung believed that problems of irritation should be sought not in its source, but in oneself.
The feeling of irritation is nothing more than a psychological projection of our personal qualities, many of which we are not even aware of. What is not inside you cannot enrage or bother you in the outside world.
If the behavior of your colleagues still does not leave you a chance for a quiet life, remember one more truth - you cannot change other people. Accept this fact in every way.
They are who they are, and you are who you are. If a person has a desire to change, he will do it without your help. Calm, just calm.
Why does your colleague from the next department annoy you?
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A problem that has a solution
A work team is not always a team of like-minded people. Very often among colleagues there are people who cause obvious irritation among others. The reasons for such irritation can be both real and far-fetched, but work is work. Employees are often forced to communicate even with people who constantly evoke negative emotions. If you notice that one of your colleagues annoys you or literally drives you crazy, it is important to know that this problem can be solved.
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