November 21, 2018 • 24 mins
When you're stuck in a difficult situation at work and you don't have the power to change it, how do you hold on to your sanity?
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
My colleagues will stop commenting on everything I get people
and meeting Why does my coworker keep taking credit for
all my ideas? Have any wisdom for me? Hi'm Alison Green.
Welcome to the Aska Manager podcast, where I answer questions
from listeners about life at work, everything from what to
say if you're allergic to your coworkers perfume to what
to do if you drink too much at the company party.
(00:25):
Let's get started. I get a lot of letters from
people who are stuck in a difficult situation at work
and it's something that isn't going to change, or at
least they are not the one with the power to
change it. It could be a terrible boss, or a
really frustrating coworker, a terrible company culture, but whatever it is,
(00:46):
it's not something that they have the ability to resolve themselves.
And they're trying to figure out, knowing that I can't
change this, how do I avoid being driven crazy by it?
And when our guest today wrote to me, that is
the question that you put. Hi and welcome to the show. Hello,
it's a pleasure to be here. So you have a
situation at work with a new Ish coworker who is
(01:08):
creating a lot of drama and unpleasantness. She's doing things
like throwing temper tantrums and slamming doors and throwing papers
and complaining about everyone around her, and you're not in
a position to do anything about it. You're lower in
the hierarchy than she is. Is that right? That is correct?
Throwing papers is pretty extreme. How do geople around her
(01:32):
react when she's doing that? Um, we typically try and
you know, just avoid adding to the fire, if that
makes sense. You know, she will, depending on the day,
if she's frustrated with something. I mean, she really just
will throw papers around at her desk. She kind of
(01:53):
you know, slams her drawers, she kind of mutters to herself,
you know, swearing and um, you know, slams various doors,
you know, the doors from the front of the office
to the back of the office. And if there's clients,
you know, she just kind of will storm through the
front of the office, or she will be complaining about
something that she also does, if not more extreme, And
(02:18):
it's it's a very interesting time, to say the least.
I'm so curious about this. Has she behaved this way
in front of her boss or in front of anyone
else who's senior to her. Um, she behaves that way
to people senior to her. Absolutely. Um, it's a law firm.
So she's done that in front of associates. I haven't
seen her do it in front of partners as much,
(02:39):
but she does still keep kind of the same persona
She's not ever since she started, she's been like that.
She hasn't. She didn't ever put on a face when
she first started. She wasn't her best self. So because
you know, you know, when you first start somewhere, you're
you are absolutely your best self. I kind of concerned
(03:00):
because I was like, if this is her best self,
then we can all go down from here. Yeah. Well
it's I mean, it's so ridiculous for anyone to be
like this at work in general. But it's so interesting
that she's doing it well she's new, because, as you say,
usually people who are going to eventually be over the
line at least have the sense to wait until they've
been there a while longer and are more woven into
(03:22):
the organization and more comfortable. So it's bizarre that she's
doing it while she's still knew. How new is she
now at this point, probably a couple of months in.
But yeah, when it first started becoming a very big issue.
I mean she was less than a month in. She
had already taken about four days off in a month span,
(03:47):
whether it was calling in sick or just you know,
I'm not quite sure. Again, I'm I'm not. I don't
deal with that as much. But yeah, solid three Mondays
and a Friday. This is fascinating. Now you said it's
a law firm, which actually made me think, oh, okay,
because law firms are sort of notorious if you're bad behavior.
Is she a lawyer? She is not, she's fair legal. Okay, interesting, okay,
(04:11):
but yeah, it does seem like law firms are just
like riven with bad behavior. Um. Absolutely, Now is your
sense that it's being addressed behind the scenes, just more
slowly than it should be, or do you work somewhere
with a culture where problems don't always get addressed. So
it is a very small law firm. Um, there's less
(04:32):
than ten of us total, so it is not the
typical office environment. You know, law firms in general are
notorious for being kind of a little toxic, and we
are definitely not a typical office. We were very close, Um,
personal lives are very intertwined. One aspect of it did
(04:53):
get addressed luckily actually after I had initially written into you. Um,
but as a whole it has not been addressed. And
things typically don't get addressed unless it really causes a
huge problem to clients, if that makes sense. If if
it's just between us, it doesn't necessarily need to be addressed,
(05:15):
or you know, it does need to be addressed, but
it is not a priority. Yeah, that makes sense. And
the fact that it's such a small firm I'm sure
makes it worse because if you had a couple of
hundred people there, you wouldn't be exposed to this all
the time. But with only ten of you, it's going
to be hard to get away from that. Oh you can't.
You can't get away from it. Absolutely. It is not
(05:36):
only that, is it a it's a small physical office
so and it's very open, so I mean you can
hear her constantly. Yeah. Now, you had said to me
in your letter that aside from this, you really love
your job, you're really happy there. But what made you
write into me was that you find yourself kind of
getting caught up in the drama that she creates, and
it gets you frazzled and stressed and your work suffers.
(05:57):
Will you tell me more about that again? And caught
up in it and it affecting your work absolutely. So
typically you know her temper tantrums and stuff like that.
I'm not as privy to it because I am separated.
I have a you know, I have a door. I don't.
She has slammed my door before, but I have a door.
I'm away from her typically, but recently she sent a
(06:19):
very passive, aggressive email to me, didn't copy anyone UM,
and she did it to another coworker that I found
out later that really, I mean, just thinking about it
kind of gets me a little caught up again because
it was just very frustrating to be on the receiving
end of it, and it really affected me for the
(06:39):
whole day. I could I kept thinking about it. It
was just getting me really frustrated and I really couldn't
think about anything else. And was it just like personal nastiness? Yes,
and no, it was something that um. The what she
was emailing about, which I've seen you talk about plenty
of times, UM was actually a candle, which sounds very dramatic.
(07:03):
So she emailed me about a candle I had burning,
and we had discussed it. She had emailed someone else
about a candle they had burning and just complaining about it,
not saying it made her ill, but just saying she
didn't like it. And something that frustrated me about it
especially was that she is a smoker, and so she'll
come into our tiny office space, you know, kind of
breaking and you know, unfortunately it is an addiction. I
(07:24):
understand that, but it's just kind of a a give
and take that she doesn't quite see, I guess is
that the reason we're burning these candles is because we're
trying to cover up that smell. And so she'll send
a very passive, aggressive email that really, I mean, just
(07:46):
really got to me that day. Okay, So I think
there are two issues. One is this big question of
how do you avoid letting this kind of thing get
to you when it's happening around you and there's nothing
that you can do about it. And the other is
how do yours on when she's rude directly to you.
I can't believe she slammed your door, by the way,
was she like storming out of your office and a huff.
(08:06):
She she was actually just like walking through and it
was oh man, it was And the email actually came
shortly after that one. Ah. Yes. So she just kind
of stomped through and slammed the door, and I I
thought maybe something was going on with her. I was like,
maybe she's frustrated, you know. But then it came to me,
(08:28):
so I was like, Oh, you slammed the door because
of me. That's I mean, it's really hard to ignore
stuff like that because other annoying habits, I mean, frankly,
all annoying habits can be hard to ignore. But others
you can kind of let them roll off of you.
But when someone is injecting that kind of aggressive anger
(08:51):
into the environment you're working in, that is really hard
to tune out. I mean, that's just a very disruptive
energy to have around you. Well, I want to give
some advice. Let's take a short break here, and when
we come back, let's get into what you can actually
do about this. Okay, and we are back. Before the break,
(09:16):
I was saying, I think there's probably two different questions here.
There's what do you do when she's rude to you?
And there's what do you do about this bigger situation
that you can't control. When she's rude to you directly,
I think you have a couple of options. With some people,
you can address it pretty directly. I don't think I
would recommend that with her because she sounds like a
loose cannon, and I don't know that there is a
(09:38):
point in engaging. I mean, she sounds volatile and just
generally kind of horrible. But if that weren't the case,
then sometimes you can just name the rudeness and ask
what's going on, Like, Hey, your tone here really surprised me.
Is there something going on that I don't know about?
Or I might be misinterpreting, but you sound frustrated with me?
What context am I missing? And sometimes again I don't
(10:00):
think with her, but sometimes just practically calling it out
like that, not being rude back, but just naming what
you're hearing and asking what's up with it. Sometimes rude
people will respect that and respond to it. Sometimes they're
so used to never having been called out in a direct,
matter of fact way that they will actually back off.
I actually did this with a coworker once ages ago.
(10:21):
Some of the time he was fine, but sometimes he
would get just really grumpy and aggressive out of nowhere.
I think it was just like when he was in
a bad mood, he would take it out on everyone else.
And I was finally like, look, you're talking to me
in a way that is really unpleasant. What am I
missing here? And he actually apologized and stopped doing it
around me, So that was a success. But it doesn't
work every time, and I don't think it's the solution
(10:43):
here with this coworker because she just sounds too far
gone for that. So there is another option, which is
to just kind of ignore it. And I mean, like
like I was saying earlier, that's really hard to do
with that kind of hostility and anger. But you could
try really internalizing that this behavior is all about her,
(11:05):
you know, and clearly it is, because no rational person
is doing this sort of thing. No rational person is
routinely thrown papers at work. You're those doors. I mean,
people just don't do that. So I think if you
can internalize this is a about her, sometimes you can
kind of distance yourself from it because you work with
this crazily hostile person and sometimes that is going to
(11:27):
splatter on you because you're standing nearby, But it's not
about you. And if you get really clear on that
in your head. Sometimes it can make it easier to
just let it roll off you. You know, you get
a route email, you roll your eyes at it, maybe
you even feel sorry for but then you move on
with your day. But I mean, I know that that
is really easier said than done with someone like this.
(11:49):
I do want to say more about this idea of
feeling sorry for her that I just mentioned, because well,
that is probably the last, the last instinct that you're
having right now. There might be something there that will help.
I mean, you're not required to feel sorry for her.
She's behaving wildly inappropriately, and she's making your work environment
really awful, and you don't have to have sympathy for
(12:11):
that if you don't want to. But it is true
that you've got to be a pretty unhappy person to
routinely behave the way that she is. I mean, imagine
being her and going through your life that way, like
imagine showing up at a new job that way. I
don't know what kind of relationships she can have with
family and friends when she's like this, but I would
bet that they're not great ones. And I would bet
(12:33):
she has yeah, and I bet she has a lot
of weird stuff going on internally. I mean, obviously, anger
at a minimum before is often a cover for other issues.
So I mean not to be overly sympathetic here, because
she is making your life pretty bad, but I bet
it is fairly painful and frustrating to be her, And
sometimes if you can remember that, it can drain a
(12:55):
lot of power from the person and make it easier
to let their behavior roll off of he because now
she's not this monster. Now she's kind of this sad
situation that you can have pity for. Does any of
that resonate? I mean, um, it's kind of been what
I've been trying to do, honestly, is especially given the
context that I hadn't mentioned this earlier. But she's not
(13:18):
really even doing much work. She's not really doing much
of anything. Um, if she gets projects, she maybe does
one a day, you know, So in that context, especially um,
given that she's claimed to have you know, so much
work history in this environment, I do feel sorry for
her because I can't imagine this lasting for very long.
(13:41):
I I do feel pity, But at the same time,
you know, it does get in your head eventually, no
matter how much you can kind of I don't want
to say knock her down, but you know, knock a
monster down. Yeah, gosh. I wonder if the reason she's
not doing very much work. I wonder if people are
hesitant to give her work because she's difficult to work with.
(14:02):
Initially she got quite a bit of work. And I
mean there, of course, with any new job, there's a
learning curve of how to do it at this specific office,
even if you've been doing it for you know, twenty
or so years. So initially there was a learning curve
and it was pretty steep. Um. The people who worked
immediately with her were we're a little alarmed at how
(14:23):
steep that learning curve was. And even though they kept
assigning projects, they would have to keep taking them back
because again, it's a law firm, there are deadlines to me,
So as much as they try to assign work, whatever
that work is, she'll complain about it. Even she'll say,
you know, this isn't good enough for me. I don't
I don't file, or you know, I want to do this,
(14:44):
I don't want to do that, And it's just we
all do these things. Whatever she is getting assigned, we
all do them. So her thinking she's better than whatever
tasks she's assigned again is an they're very frustrating things. Yeah,
I'm thinking about how he said that usually problems don't
(15:06):
really get forthrightly addressed there unless they're impacting clients. But
I wonder if this piece of it might eventually move
it into that category where it does get addressed. Absolutely.
It is again, since I've written in it is kind
of slowly gotten into the circle of what the upper
levels are thinking about. They're kind of they're aware of it,
(15:27):
they've kind of discussed it with their upper levels and
and kind of seeing what they're finally realizing that we've
all had to deal with for quite a bit of time. Yeah. Well,
it's good that it's being seen and and this might
be the piece of it that does get it brought
to a resolution. Who knows. I want to talk also
(15:48):
about the other piece of this, this question of how
do you work somewhere that has a frustrating situation going
on that you can't stop and not let it get
to you. So we'll do one final break and when
we come back, let's tackle that. Okay, we are back,
(16:09):
So we want to talk about the big question of
your letter, which is when there is something really frustrating
going on around you at work and you can't stop it.
What do you do? And I think there are a
couple of different things I'm going to throw out there.
We'll see if any of them resonate with you. Maybe
all of them will, maybe none of them will. We'll
see what happens, hopefully all of them. Hopefully all of them.
(16:30):
That's right, So one of them is just trying to
get some clarity about what the situation is. If you knew,
for example, that your workplace was generally pretty good about
addressing problems, but it just tended to take a few months,
you might be able to safely assume, Okay, my past
experience here tells me that they are on this and
something is going to get done. But I also know
(16:51):
that it's not the fastest process. But I do know
enough to trust that it's not being ignored and in
time this will be dealt with um or in your case,
it might be it's seems like this is on their
radar now, and there might be details of this that
are going to mean that it will be addressed, even
if otherwise it might not have been. Or if you
are somewhere that never addressed problems no matter what which
(17:12):
is definitely a place that some people work in that
in itself, as frustrating as it is, is actually another
kind of clarity because in that case, you can tell yourself,
you know, I really like working here because of X,
Y and Z, but I know that one of the
trade offs is that they are way too accommodating of
bad behavior and this is probably going to go on
for quite a while. And that doesn't sound very helpful
(17:35):
or very very encouraging, I know, but it can help
you avoid a situation where every time your co worker
has an outburst, you're sort of being in your head
against the wall with frustration about why no one is
dealing with it, because you know why they're not dealing
with it. You know their conflict of verse and they
don't deal with problems, and so you don't need to
like gnash your teeth waiting for it to be handled.
You you know that it's going to go on for
(17:56):
a while, and there can be a kind of emotional
freedom in just knowing that, so that you aren't like
waiting and wondering and pulling out your hair about why
no one is taking action. Does that make sense? Absolutely?
There's so much freedom and just kind of accepting the
fact that nothing will be done about this, so let
me just move on with what I have to do
and just you know, try and truck a long best
(18:18):
I can. There's absolutely a clarity in that. Yeah, and
I think seen from one angle, that can sound really pessimistic,
but it really is liberating to just like to not
have to think, like, do I have to tell someone
about this? Is there something that I should be doing?
Is it going to be tomorrow that they deal with it.
It really like you can kind of relax sometimes when
you realize this is just going to be how it is.
(18:40):
Another thing you can sometimes do is to talk to
your own boss about the situation. Not always, but if
you do have a pretty good relationship with your boss
and she seems to have good judgment and be reasonably
clued into what is going on in your office, sometimes
you can say something like, hey, do you have any
sense of what is going on with Jane? Do you
think someone who's working on it behind the scenes and
(19:03):
who knows you might hear, oh, it is definitely being handled,
which would give you some comfort, or you might hear, well,
you know, Jane's boss has her hands full with other stuff.
So I think it's probably not getting very much attention
right now. Or you know, Jane's uncle plays golf with
the CEO, and so no one who knows, but it
might give you just some more context for what's happening.
(19:25):
But the big thing that I want to recommend, and
if you've read Asking Manager for any length of time,
you've probably heard me say this before, and because I'm
a huge fan of this, and it is that sometimes
when you are stuck in a situation where there is
bad behavior going on that you can't do anything about,
it can be helpful to reframe it in your head
so that you find it entertaining. My sister, my sister
(19:48):
actually told me a long time ago that when she
is stuck in a situation with irritating people and she
can't get away from them, she pretends that she is
a heroine in a Jane Austin novel, and she is
a poor relation who's stuck around these rich relatives who
are behaving badly and she's dependent on them, so she
can't do anything about it, which is a common theme
in Jane Austen novels. And she said it really changes
(20:10):
her perspective because she loves Jane Austen, She's able to
find it amusing instead of just annoying. And I love
this advice for work things. It doesn't have to be
Jane Austen. You could pretend it's like a workplace comedy,
like the office or any other form of entertainment because
you're a coworker. Sounds like she is behaving badly enough
that she could be a character on a TV show,
(20:32):
maybe even one where you would watch it and think
this is such an unrealistic portrayal because no one would
get away with behaving that badly. Or you can pretend
there's a variation on that. You can pretend that you're
an anthropologist who's studying a different species, or like an
alien life form. With all of these, I think the
reason they work, to whatever it's not that they do
work is that you're putting some emotional distance between you
(20:56):
and the situation, and when you step back, it's easier
to find some hue or in it, and that drains
a lot of power from the person and can make
the whole thing more bearable. Does any of that resonate absolutely,
especially you know kind of picturing it. I was thinking,
as you're as you said, the office. I'm just thinking
of watching a TV show about a workplace and having
(21:17):
her as a character and just being I mean, it
would be completely comical, you know, watching people having to
deal with her and seeing the things she does, and
I mean even seeing the things that I don't see
that she does I'm sure are incredibly entertaining. So that
absolutely does you know. I'm just thinking about it now,
and it's kind of hilarious. Yeah, it is. I mean,
(21:39):
when you are living it, it is very often not hilarious.
You can get yourself into a headspace where you have
distanced yourself and you are thinking, like, my god, she's
like a caricature of a bad coworker. There really can
be humor in it, and there is so much power
in being able to do that because it does take
you out of this space where your frazzle and on edge,
(22:01):
and it puts you on almost like a completely different
plane where you do have emotional distance, absolutely, and you
do have a lot of other things going for you here.
I mean, the fact that you love your job is huge,
and when she gets really annoying, you might even just
focus on that. You know, the reasons that you're there,
all the things you like about working there, and that
one person doesn't cancel all of those things out, absolutely,
(22:25):
And I think that's that's part of what's kept me going,
is just knowing how the how it can be without
her and knowing you know, again, I do get a
fairly separate myself from her for the most part. Most
a lot of people have to deal with her a
lot more than I do, So I just kind of
focus on that and focus on, you know, my little
bubble and how much I like my bubble. Yes, your
(22:47):
candles in your bubble, awesome candle and at least you
have a door that's a silver lining. Absolutely well, So
that is my advice. Does that help? And is there
anything else we should talk about that would be helpful? No?
I think really that even just that last bit, just
about imagining it, imagining other people watching it, and I'm
(23:08):
imagining myself watching it. I think that is that is
something I'm definitely gonna apply and try and think about
a lot more, because again, thinking about it right now,
just away from her is so comical just to imagine
this kind of person. So I think that will definitely
help day to day, if if it does kind of
impede on me anymore. I'll just imagine, you know, I'm
(23:30):
a character in a show and watching her doing something
like that, and maybe you can get a successful screenplay
out of it. Maybe that's my new calling. That's right. Well,
thank you so much for coming on the show. It
was a pleasure. Thanks for listening to the Asking Manager Podcast.
If you'd like to come on the show to talk
through your own question, email it to you podcast at
(23:52):
Asking Manager dot org, or you can leave a recording
of your question by calling eight five five work. That's
eight five of T six nine seven five. You can
get more ask a Manager at Ask a Manager dot
org or in my book Ask a Manager how to
navigate clueless colleagues, lunch stealing bosses, and the rest of
your life at work. They Ask a Manager show is
a partnership with How Stuff Works and is produced by
(24:14):
Paul Decant. If you liked what you heard, please take
a minute to subscribe, rate, and review the show on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play. I'm Alison Green and
I'll be back next week with another one of your questions.
My colleagues will stop commenting on everything I get people
and meeting Why does my coworker keep taking credit for
all my ideas? Have any wisdom for me? Hi'm Alison Green.
Welcome to the Aska Manager podcast, where I answer questions
from listeners about life at work, everything from what to
say if you're allergic to your coworkers perfume to what
to do if you drink too much at the company party.
(00:25):
Let's get started. I get a lot of letters from
people who are stuck in a difficult situation at work
and it's something that isn't going to change, or at
least they are not the one with the power to
change it. It could be a terrible boss, or a
really frustrating coworker, a terrible company culture, but whatever it is,
(00:46):
it's not something that they have the ability to resolve themselves.
And they're trying to figure out, knowing that I can't
change this, how do I avoid being driven crazy by it?
And when our guest today wrote to me, that is
the question that you put. Hi and welcome to the show. Hello,
it's a pleasure to be here. So you have a
situation at work with a new Ish coworker who is
(01:08):
creating a lot of drama and unpleasantness. She's doing things
like throwing temper tantrums and slamming doors and throwing papers
and complaining about everyone around her, and you're not in
a position to do anything about it. You're lower in
the hierarchy than she is. Is that right? That is correct?
Throwing papers is pretty extreme. How do geople around her
(01:32):
react when she's doing that? Um, we typically try and
you know, just avoid adding to the fire, if that
makes sense. You know, she will, depending on the day,
if she's frustrated with something. I mean, she really just
will throw papers around at her desk. She kind of
(01:53):
you know, slams her drawers, she kind of mutters to herself,
you know, swearing and um, you know, slams various doors,
you know, the doors from the front of the office
to the back of the office. And if there's clients,
you know, she just kind of will storm through the
front of the office, or she will be complaining about
something that she also does, if not more extreme, And
(02:18):
it's it's a very interesting time, to say the least.
I'm so curious about this. Has she behaved this way
in front of her boss or in front of anyone
else who's senior to her. Um, she behaves that way
to people senior to her. Absolutely. Um, it's a law firm.
So she's done that in front of associates. I haven't
seen her do it in front of partners as much,
(02:39):
but she does still keep kind of the same persona
She's not ever since she started, she's been like that.
She hasn't. She didn't ever put on a face when
she first started. She wasn't her best self. So because
you know, you know, when you first start somewhere, you're
you are absolutely your best self. I kind of concerned
(03:00):
because I was like, if this is her best self,
then we can all go down from here. Yeah. Well
it's I mean, it's so ridiculous for anyone to be
like this at work in general. But it's so interesting
that she's doing it well she's new, because, as you say,
usually people who are going to eventually be over the
line at least have the sense to wait until they've
been there a while longer and are more woven into
(03:22):
the organization and more comfortable. So it's bizarre that she's
doing it while she's still knew. How new is she
now at this point, probably a couple of months in.
But yeah, when it first started becoming a very big issue.
I mean she was less than a month in. She
had already taken about four days off in a month span,
(03:47):
whether it was calling in sick or just you know,
I'm not quite sure. Again, I'm I'm not. I don't
deal with that as much. But yeah, solid three Mondays
and a Friday. This is fascinating. Now you said it's
a law firm, which actually made me think, oh, okay,
because law firms are sort of notorious if you're bad behavior.
Is she a lawyer? She is not, she's fair legal. Okay, interesting, okay,
(04:11):
but yeah, it does seem like law firms are just
like riven with bad behavior. Um. Absolutely, Now is your
sense that it's being addressed behind the scenes, just more
slowly than it should be, or do you work somewhere
with a culture where problems don't always get addressed. So
it is a very small law firm. Um, there's less
(04:32):
than ten of us total, so it is not the
typical office environment. You know, law firms in general are
notorious for being kind of a little toxic, and we
are definitely not a typical office. We were very close, Um,
personal lives are very intertwined. One aspect of it did
(04:53):
get addressed luckily actually after I had initially written into you. Um,
but as a whole it has not been addressed. And
things typically don't get addressed unless it really causes a
huge problem to clients, if that makes sense. If if
it's just between us, it doesn't necessarily need to be addressed,
(05:15):
or you know, it does need to be addressed, but
it is not a priority. Yeah, that makes sense. And
the fact that it's such a small firm I'm sure
makes it worse because if you had a couple of
hundred people there, you wouldn't be exposed to this all
the time. But with only ten of you, it's going
to be hard to get away from that. Oh you can't.
You can't get away from it. Absolutely. It is not
(05:36):
only that, is it a it's a small physical office
so and it's very open, so I mean you can
hear her constantly. Yeah. Now, you had said to me
in your letter that aside from this, you really love
your job, you're really happy there. But what made you
write into me was that you find yourself kind of
getting caught up in the drama that she creates, and
it gets you frazzled and stressed and your work suffers.
(05:57):
Will you tell me more about that again? And caught
up in it and it affecting your work absolutely. So
typically you know her temper tantrums and stuff like that.
I'm not as privy to it because I am separated.
I have a you know, I have a door. I don't.
She has slammed my door before, but I have a door.
I'm away from her typically, but recently she sent a
(06:19):
very passive, aggressive email to me, didn't copy anyone UM,
and she did it to another coworker that I found
out later that really, I mean, just thinking about it
kind of gets me a little caught up again because
it was just very frustrating to be on the receiving
end of it, and it really affected me for the
(06:39):
whole day. I could I kept thinking about it. It
was just getting me really frustrated and I really couldn't
think about anything else. And was it just like personal nastiness? Yes,
and no, it was something that um. The what she
was emailing about, which I've seen you talk about plenty
of times, UM was actually a candle, which sounds very dramatic.
(07:03):
So she emailed me about a candle I had burning,
and we had discussed it. She had emailed someone else
about a candle they had burning and just complaining about it,
not saying it made her ill, but just saying she
didn't like it. And something that frustrated me about it
especially was that she is a smoker, and so she'll
come into our tiny office space, you know, kind of
breaking and you know, unfortunately it is an addiction. I
(07:24):
understand that, but it's just kind of a a give
and take that she doesn't quite see, I guess is
that the reason we're burning these candles is because we're
trying to cover up that smell. And so she'll send
a very passive, aggressive email that really, I mean, just
(07:46):
really got to me that day. Okay, So I think
there are two issues. One is this big question of
how do you avoid letting this kind of thing get
to you when it's happening around you and there's nothing
that you can do about it. And the other is
how do yours on when she's rude directly to you.
I can't believe she slammed your door, by the way,
was she like storming out of your office and a huff.
(08:06):
She she was actually just like walking through and it
was oh man, it was And the email actually came
shortly after that one. Ah. Yes. So she just kind
of stomped through and slammed the door, and I I
thought maybe something was going on with her. I was like,
maybe she's frustrated, you know. But then it came to me,
(08:28):
so I was like, Oh, you slammed the door because
of me. That's I mean, it's really hard to ignore
stuff like that because other annoying habits, I mean, frankly,
all annoying habits can be hard to ignore. But others
you can kind of let them roll off of you.
But when someone is injecting that kind of aggressive anger
(08:51):
into the environment you're working in, that is really hard
to tune out. I mean, that's just a very disruptive
energy to have around you. Well, I want to give
some advice. Let's take a short break here, and when
we come back, let's get into what you can actually
do about this. Okay, and we are back. Before the break,
(09:16):
I was saying, I think there's probably two different questions here.
There's what do you do when she's rude to you?
And there's what do you do about this bigger situation
that you can't control. When she's rude to you directly,
I think you have a couple of options. With some people,
you can address it pretty directly. I don't think I
would recommend that with her because she sounds like a
loose cannon, and I don't know that there is a
(09:38):
point in engaging. I mean, she sounds volatile and just
generally kind of horrible. But if that weren't the case,
then sometimes you can just name the rudeness and ask
what's going on, Like, Hey, your tone here really surprised me.
Is there something going on that I don't know about?
Or I might be misinterpreting, but you sound frustrated with me?
What context am I missing? And sometimes again I don't
(10:00):
think with her, but sometimes just practically calling it out
like that, not being rude back, but just naming what
you're hearing and asking what's up with it. Sometimes rude
people will respect that and respond to it. Sometimes they're
so used to never having been called out in a direct,
matter of fact way that they will actually back off.
I actually did this with a coworker once ages ago.
(10:21):
Some of the time he was fine, but sometimes he
would get just really grumpy and aggressive out of nowhere.
I think it was just like when he was in
a bad mood, he would take it out on everyone else.
And I was finally like, look, you're talking to me
in a way that is really unpleasant. What am I
missing here? And he actually apologized and stopped doing it
around me, So that was a success. But it doesn't
work every time, and I don't think it's the solution
(10:43):
here with this coworker because she just sounds too far
gone for that. So there is another option, which is
to just kind of ignore it. And I mean, like
like I was saying earlier, that's really hard to do
with that kind of hostility and anger. But you could
try really internalizing that this behavior is all about her,
(11:05):
you know, and clearly it is, because no rational person
is doing this sort of thing. No rational person is
routinely thrown papers at work. You're those doors. I mean,
people just don't do that. So I think if you
can internalize this is a about her, sometimes you can
kind of distance yourself from it because you work with
this crazily hostile person and sometimes that is going to
(11:27):
splatter on you because you're standing nearby, But it's not
about you. And if you get really clear on that
in your head. Sometimes it can make it easier to
just let it roll off you. You know, you get
a route email, you roll your eyes at it, maybe
you even feel sorry for but then you move on
with your day. But I mean, I know that that
is really easier said than done with someone like this.
(11:49):
I do want to say more about this idea of
feeling sorry for her that I just mentioned, because well,
that is probably the last, the last instinct that you're
having right now. There might be something there that will help.
I mean, you're not required to feel sorry for her.
She's behaving wildly inappropriately, and she's making your work environment
really awful, and you don't have to have sympathy for
(12:11):
that if you don't want to. But it is true
that you've got to be a pretty unhappy person to
routinely behave the way that she is. I mean, imagine
being her and going through your life that way, like
imagine showing up at a new job that way. I
don't know what kind of relationships she can have with
family and friends when she's like this, but I would
bet that they're not great ones. And I would bet
(12:33):
she has yeah, and I bet she has a lot
of weird stuff going on internally. I mean, obviously, anger
at a minimum before is often a cover for other issues.
So I mean not to be overly sympathetic here, because
she is making your life pretty bad, but I bet
it is fairly painful and frustrating to be her, And
sometimes if you can remember that, it can drain a
(12:55):
lot of power from the person and make it easier
to let their behavior roll off of he because now
she's not this monster. Now she's kind of this sad
situation that you can have pity for. Does any of
that resonate? I mean, um, it's kind of been what
I've been trying to do, honestly, is especially given the
context that I hadn't mentioned this earlier. But she's not
(13:18):
really even doing much work. She's not really doing much
of anything. Um, if she gets projects, she maybe does
one a day, you know, So in that context, especially um,
given that she's claimed to have you know, so much
work history in this environment, I do feel sorry for
her because I can't imagine this lasting for very long.
(13:41):
I I do feel pity, But at the same time,
you know, it does get in your head eventually, no
matter how much you can kind of I don't want
to say knock her down, but you know, knock a
monster down. Yeah, gosh. I wonder if the reason she's
not doing very much work. I wonder if people are
hesitant to give her work because she's difficult to work with.
(14:02):
Initially she got quite a bit of work. And I
mean there, of course, with any new job, there's a
learning curve of how to do it at this specific office,
even if you've been doing it for you know, twenty
or so years. So initially there was a learning curve
and it was pretty steep. Um. The people who worked
immediately with her were we're a little alarmed at how
(14:23):
steep that learning curve was. And even though they kept
assigning projects, they would have to keep taking them back
because again, it's a law firm, there are deadlines to me,
So as much as they try to assign work, whatever
that work is, she'll complain about it. Even she'll say,
you know, this isn't good enough for me. I don't
I don't file, or you know, I want to do this,
(14:44):
I don't want to do that, And it's just we
all do these things. Whatever she is getting assigned, we
all do them. So her thinking she's better than whatever
tasks she's assigned again is an they're very frustrating things. Yeah,
I'm thinking about how he said that usually problems don't
(15:06):
really get forthrightly addressed there unless they're impacting clients. But
I wonder if this piece of it might eventually move
it into that category where it does get addressed. Absolutely.
It is again, since I've written in it is kind
of slowly gotten into the circle of what the upper
levels are thinking about. They're kind of they're aware of it,
(15:27):
they've kind of discussed it with their upper levels and
and kind of seeing what they're finally realizing that we've
all had to deal with for quite a bit of time. Yeah. Well,
it's good that it's being seen and and this might
be the piece of it that does get it brought
to a resolution. Who knows. I want to talk also
(15:48):
about the other piece of this, this question of how
do you work somewhere that has a frustrating situation going
on that you can't stop and not let it get
to you. So we'll do one final break and when
we come back, let's tackle that. Okay, we are back,
(16:09):
So we want to talk about the big question of
your letter, which is when there is something really frustrating
going on around you at work and you can't stop it.
What do you do? And I think there are a
couple of different things I'm going to throw out there.
We'll see if any of them resonate with you. Maybe
all of them will, maybe none of them will. We'll
see what happens, hopefully all of them. Hopefully all of them.
(16:30):
That's right, So one of them is just trying to
get some clarity about what the situation is. If you knew,
for example, that your workplace was generally pretty good about
addressing problems, but it just tended to take a few months,
you might be able to safely assume, Okay, my past
experience here tells me that they are on this and
something is going to get done. But I also know
(16:51):
that it's not the fastest process. But I do know
enough to trust that it's not being ignored and in
time this will be dealt with um or in your case,
it might be it's seems like this is on their
radar now, and there might be details of this that
are going to mean that it will be addressed, even
if otherwise it might not have been. Or if you
are somewhere that never addressed problems no matter what which
(17:12):
is definitely a place that some people work in that
in itself, as frustrating as it is, is actually another
kind of clarity because in that case, you can tell yourself,
you know, I really like working here because of X,
Y and Z, but I know that one of the
trade offs is that they are way too accommodating of
bad behavior and this is probably going to go on
for quite a while. And that doesn't sound very helpful
(17:35):
or very very encouraging, I know, but it can help
you avoid a situation where every time your co worker
has an outburst, you're sort of being in your head
against the wall with frustration about why no one is
dealing with it, because you know why they're not dealing
with it. You know their conflict of verse and they
don't deal with problems, and so you don't need to
like gnash your teeth waiting for it to be handled.
You you know that it's going to go on for
(17:56):
a while, and there can be a kind of emotional
freedom in just knowing that, so that you aren't like
waiting and wondering and pulling out your hair about why
no one is taking action. Does that make sense? Absolutely?
There's so much freedom and just kind of accepting the
fact that nothing will be done about this, so let
me just move on with what I have to do
and just you know, try and truck a long best
(18:18):
I can. There's absolutely a clarity in that. Yeah, and
I think seen from one angle, that can sound really pessimistic,
but it really is liberating to just like to not
have to think, like, do I have to tell someone
about this? Is there something that I should be doing?
Is it going to be tomorrow that they deal with it.
It really like you can kind of relax sometimes when
you realize this is just going to be how it is.
(18:40):
Another thing you can sometimes do is to talk to
your own boss about the situation. Not always, but if
you do have a pretty good relationship with your boss
and she seems to have good judgment and be reasonably
clued into what is going on in your office, sometimes
you can say something like, hey, do you have any
sense of what is going on with Jane? Do you
think someone who's working on it behind the scenes and
(19:03):
who knows you might hear, oh, it is definitely being handled,
which would give you some comfort, or you might hear, well,
you know, Jane's boss has her hands full with other stuff.
So I think it's probably not getting very much attention
right now. Or you know, Jane's uncle plays golf with
the CEO, and so no one who knows, but it
might give you just some more context for what's happening.
(19:25):
But the big thing that I want to recommend, and
if you've read Asking Manager for any length of time,
you've probably heard me say this before, and because I'm
a huge fan of this, and it is that sometimes
when you are stuck in a situation where there is
bad behavior going on that you can't do anything about,
it can be helpful to reframe it in your head
so that you find it entertaining. My sister, my sister
(19:48):
actually told me a long time ago that when she
is stuck in a situation with irritating people and she
can't get away from them, she pretends that she is
a heroine in a Jane Austin novel, and she is
a poor relation who's stuck around these rich relatives who
are behaving badly and she's dependent on them, so she
can't do anything about it, which is a common theme
in Jane Austen novels. And she said it really changes
(20:10):
her perspective because she loves Jane Austen, She's able to
find it amusing instead of just annoying. And I love
this advice for work things. It doesn't have to be
Jane Austen. You could pretend it's like a workplace comedy,
like the office or any other form of entertainment because
you're a coworker. Sounds like she is behaving badly enough
that she could be a character on a TV show,
(20:32):
maybe even one where you would watch it and think
this is such an unrealistic portrayal because no one would
get away with behaving that badly. Or you can pretend
there's a variation on that. You can pretend that you're
an anthropologist who's studying a different species, or like an
alien life form. With all of these, I think the
reason they work, to whatever it's not that they do
work is that you're putting some emotional distance between you
(20:56):
and the situation, and when you step back, it's easier
to find some hue or in it, and that drains
a lot of power from the person and can make
the whole thing more bearable. Does any of that resonate absolutely,
especially you know kind of picturing it. I was thinking,
as you're as you said, the office. I'm just thinking
of watching a TV show about a workplace and having
(21:17):
her as a character and just being I mean, it
would be completely comical, you know, watching people having to
deal with her and seeing the things she does, and
I mean even seeing the things that I don't see
that she does I'm sure are incredibly entertaining. So that
absolutely does you know. I'm just thinking about it now,
and it's kind of hilarious. Yeah, it is. I mean,
(21:39):
when you are living it, it is very often not hilarious.
You can get yourself into a headspace where you have
distanced yourself and you are thinking, like, my god, she's
like a caricature of a bad coworker. There really can
be humor in it, and there is so much power
in being able to do that because it does take
you out of this space where your frazzle and on edge,
(22:01):
and it puts you on almost like a completely different
plane where you do have emotional distance, absolutely, and you
do have a lot of other things going for you here.
I mean, the fact that you love your job is huge,
and when she gets really annoying, you might even just
focus on that. You know, the reasons that you're there,
all the things you like about working there, and that
one person doesn't cancel all of those things out, absolutely,
(22:25):
And I think that's that's part of what's kept me going,
is just knowing how the how it can be without
her and knowing you know, again, I do get a
fairly separate myself from her for the most part. Most
a lot of people have to deal with her a
lot more than I do, So I just kind of
focus on that and focus on, you know, my little
bubble and how much I like my bubble. Yes, your
(22:47):
candles in your bubble, awesome candle and at least you
have a door that's a silver lining. Absolutely well, So
that is my advice. Does that help? And is there
anything else we should talk about that would be helpful? No?
I think really that even just that last bit, just
about imagining it, imagining other people watching it, and I'm
(23:08):
imagining myself watching it. I think that is that is
something I'm definitely gonna apply and try and think about
a lot more, because again, thinking about it right now,
just away from her is so comical just to imagine
this kind of person. So I think that will definitely
help day to day, if if it does kind of
impede on me anymore. I'll just imagine, you know, I'm
(23:30):
a character in a show and watching her doing something
like that, and maybe you can get a successful screenplay
out of it. Maybe that's my new calling. That's right. Well,
thank you so much for coming on the show. It
was a pleasure. Thanks for listening to the Asking Manager Podcast.
If you'd like to come on the show to talk
through your own question, email it to you podcast at
(23:52):
Asking Manager dot org, or you can leave a recording
of your question by calling eight five five work. That's
eight five of T six nine seven five. You can
get more ask a Manager at Ask a Manager dot
org or in my book Ask a Manager how to
navigate clueless colleagues, lunch stealing bosses, and the rest of
your life at work. They Ask a Manager show is
a partnership with How Stuff Works and is produced by
(24:14):
Paul Decant. If you liked what you heard, please take
a minute to subscribe, rate, and review the show on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play. I'm Alison Green and
I'll be back next week with another one of your questions.
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