Oh, Those Pesky Coworkers!

We all have coworkers who rub us the wrong way, get on our nerves, and generally drive us crazy.

Let's consider these examples of people with difficult coworkers:

1. Ted finished working on a difficult bit of code and headed for the team meeting. When he got there, Sandy looked at her watch and glared at him. "You're late," she snapped. "Hey, it's only ten after," Ted responded.

How selfish! Sandy thought to herself. Ted has no respect for other people's time.

Meanwhile, Ted wondered why Sandy made such a big deal about arriving precisely on time. It's hard to put down what I'm working on when I'm in the middle of something important. Why doesn't Sandy understand that?

2. When the technicians showed up to install more memory in Frank's computer, Frank asked Talia if he could use her machine, since she was going to a meeting. "Sure," Talia replied. When she returned to her cube and logged into her computer, she discovered that Frank had changed the settings.

Sheesh, thought Talia. He asks to use my computer for an hour, and he acts like it's his. I'm never letting him use my computer again. I wonder if he read my mail, too.

Frank, however, was pleased that he'd set up several helpful shortcuts on Talia's machine.

3. Sam greeted Jennifer with a cheery hello as he entered her office. "How was your weekend," he asked. "Did you do anything fun with the family?" Jennifer scowled. "Let's get down to business, Sam," she said.

What a grouch, Sam thought. I'm just trying to be friendly and build a working relationship.

Jennifer, on the other hand, wondered why Sam was so nosey. Doesn't he get that I don't want to discuss my private life at work?No one in these examples is a bad person. They aren't wrong or behaving atrociously. But Ted, Frank, and Jennifer are acting in ways that are different from how Sandy, Talia, and Sam expect people to act. The opposite is true, too: Sandy, Talia, and Sam are acting in ways that Ted, Frank, and Jennifer find puzzling and irritating.

Conflicting Definitions of Appropriate Behavior
We find other people difficult when they don't meet our expectations of "appropriate" behavior. The trouble is that each of us has a different definition of "appropriate." To further complicate matters, some areas of mismatched expectations are easy to see and comment on, but others aren't.

In the first example, Ted and Sandy have different ideas about how important it is to arrive exactly on time. Sandy believes that not arriving on time shows disrespect for the group. Ted believes it's more important to accommodate individual needs and be "close to on time." These mismatches are easy to spot and most people are able to reach some accommodation because there is some external reference point: the clock and the agreed upon meeting time.

Other mismatches are about personal space, personal property, and privacy. What may seem like friendly conversation to one person may seem like prying to another, as in the example with Sam and Jennifer. Fred doesn't view Talia's computer as "hers." To him, it's company property and, therefore, belongs as much to him as to anyone else who works in the group.

There's no external reference point for these. Each individual has his own idea of what's appropriate. Psychologists call them "boundaries." But, unlike boundaries on maps, we don't always know where our boundary lines are until someone crosses them. Others don't know where our boundary lines are unless we tell them.

Deal with Difficult People Where You Have the Most Leverage
We can hope that people we find difficult will realize how unreasonable they are and will change on their own, but they won't. They won't wake up and change because they don't see themselves as difficult or inappropriate. These troublesome (to us) people believe they are acting in a reasonable way. In fact, they may wonder why other people are so upset.

When you feel yourself becoming upset, ask yourself if you've been clear in what you expected from the other person. Check on your emotional response. If you are having a strong response and wondering why the other person doesn't get it, it may be a clue that someone just walked all over your boundary lines for acceptable behavior.

Understanding why people drive us to distraction at work doesn't mean you have to tolerate behavior that you find distressing. Talia could set a boundary with Frank by saying something like "Frank, it's fine for you to use my computer as long as you return the settings to my preferences when you're done."

You can always make a request for a change—not for the other person to fix herself, but to respect your boundaries or find a third way that will work for both of you.

Life is too short to let the people we work with fray our nerves. We can't change those irritating people, but we can recognize the source of our irritation and change our own response.