Dealing with difficult personalities

I have a feeling that we have touched this subject before, however, Picard's thread on stress at work made me come again to this subject.

My work is stressful too. Not because there is lots of work but because bad decisions are made daily that makes a non-comfortable work environment even more miserable. For example, near my desk there is some instrument that lots of people need. So, I cannot work comfortably with everyone coming to use it and "chatting with me" while they use it. I requested another instrument for that side of the buidling because ( in addition to stress on me ) there is stres on that instrument too and it cannot handle the load.

What supervisor did ?
He ordered something else, which totally unnecessary. So, now we have another problem of congested space becoming even more congested with boxes of equipemnt that we do not need.

Anyway, this thread is about difficult personalities.
The same supervisor had lots and lots of bad habits. Some of which did not bother me much ( like putting his feet on the table facing me when he discussed something ) , and another employee fried him in a meeting and told him to be mature enough to understand this was offensive and impolite.

What bothered me is another habit. Whenever he came to my desk, his eyes were 100% focused on the screen of my computer. He didn't look casually, but looked there like a laser beam. I didn't like that, and one day I jimped on him. He stopped doing that alright, but see what he does now ! He very clearly hasn't learnt it was impolite. He only is avoiding another confrontation with what he sees as a tough guy with a rough character !! So, Instead of sitting comfortably on the chair and talking with me and casually looking anywhere (even looking at the PC screen ), no, he shakes hands and WITHDRAWS BACKWARDS behind the other chair so as to clearly avoid seeing the screen.

Belive it or not , this botheres me too. There is nothing secret on my screen. My intention is not to prevent him to see my screen at all, but he should stop zooming on it like a torpedo. I want him to act naturally. But he does not get it.

So, it seems, some people are mentally centered on narrow view of life and relationships. They do not seem to able to act "normally" or "naturally" without offending others or somehow making them uncomfortable at all times.

One day, there was a problem at work. It was not a disaster. Someone did something improperly and it resulted in a small localized mess. I suggested to the supervisor to circulate an email that anyone who wanted to do ...XYZ... should contact Mr. (me) and coordinate with me. Prolem solved.

Nope. Supervisor was not interested in solving the problem and guranteeing not to happen in the future, he was more interested to investigate WHO did it in the first place.

Some of you may agree with him, but consider this: Two guys have already resigned. And this problem is nothing but an innocent mistake. Not much harm has been done. We should just circulate the lesson and design a proper procedure for future situations. Case closed. But how can you convince a diffult supervisor who is full of mistkes and only sees other people mistakes ???

Along the same lines I once worked in a call center years ago; for a couple weeks my desk was five feet from the doorway! It was utterly impossible to do my job like that and I said so. They let me move and soon thereafter dismantled the cubes in that spot so fix the issue.

Well, you got the right kind of boss

Ours would make a weird decision as to make the bad situation even worse. And then complain about YOU making excuses and not working hard enough

You are one lucky dude

Some people, some managers, don't want things to be fixed. Even obvious safety hazards.
Drives me crazy but I have to keep my trap shut (except for the safety stuff- I'd be proud to be fired over reporting safety issues).

If I could draw cartoons, I'd supplement Scott Adams' work.

"Employee disengagement" or find another job elsewhere is the only things that come to mind. (done the first, still working on the second)

From the Corporate Prison Camp- another proud possessor of a $300 ID card.

Chisel,hopefully the difficult boss will move on.In my field turnover is pretty rapid,best Ive found is salute,do whatever stupid thing they say,and stay out of their face.Stay OFF the difficult bosses radar,he can fire you.

Do a quick rant OFFSITE without any possible coworker being aware,and let it go.They cant torture or pollute your mind once off the clock,only you can do that,so dont.Let it go.I know,easier said than done,in that case mix a drink.

Some bosses are downright psychotic,I had one a while back,I was the only one attacked who came out ahead and the boss was canned,if it gets confrontational you had better be massively in the right or you are gone.And as Unimog said,it WAS a serious safety/legal issue and the bigger bosses couldnt ignore it,my boss had to go when the truth started coming out.

Many problems can be fixed by just outlasting it.Now the entire management team is gone (Fired) a year and a half later except the one at HR who backed me 100%,go figure.

Ive also voted with my feet and just moved on when the situation was that bad,but in this economy that can be a very hard thing to do I realize.

I sincerely hope your problem will have a suitable resolution.

While a little off of the main topic, I swear by headphones during work hours; I listen to much more music during work than I do otherwise. I've recommended them to people in similar situations to yours - it not only gives you a way to block out some of those distractions around you, but tends to stop people from simply chatting with you for no reason.

Given the move to cubicles and open concept offices, I'm finding headphone use is very common and is a generally accepted practice in most offices (I can't think of any exceptions off the top of my head). This is one way the individual office worker can control their work environment irrespective of the situation they are put in.

And if you don't like listening to music, I know other people who have said good things about the use of noise cancelling headphones instead.

You dont. Set him up for a fall. Make sure it is nasty and brutal.

I used to work at a place which was just like the UK TV show called ' The office'. In fact many people thought that where they were working was the 'The office'. I had even mentioned to a few colleagues before the series first aired that 'This place would be ideal to write a comedy script for'

We had a very similar incident to Series 1 episode 2 'Work Experience'



My manager even had a sidekick just like Gareth.

Unlike the TV show they never did find out who was the photoshop culprit was during the intensive investigation of individual interrogations.

LOL

I have tried ( and maybe failed) to make this thread focused on difficult personalities in general ( work , home, or anywhere) . picard's neighboring thread focuses on stress at work and I should have given more examples out of work environment.

Anyways , my supervisor has no firing power. He only has authority to act like a jerk and give everyone hard time. At the same time I have started to cool down my self 'cause I have two years to retire and now I don't take things too seriously.

So, work-related stress isn't really the biggest stress in my life.

Actually what I have failed to focus on originally is : how do you deal with a person who is hard to satisfy no matter what you do, and who insists on doing everything that irritates you and makes you miserable.... whether this person is a wife, dad , boss, neighbor , or a work colleague.

I think that when we face stressing factors, there are things we should do (a) with ourselves, and (b) stressful factors

Regarding (a) we can resort to things like sports, camping , backpacking, drowning ourselves in prepping ( I do that ) and other similar hobbies.

Regarding (b) we might sometimes STOP the offensive person , or choose to psychologically belittle and ignore them ( just assume they are not smart enough and childish) , or for example you can inest in the situation ( example in picard thread where you ask the jerk for something in return ).

Sometimes you have to pull down the blinds ( keep the jerk from knowing how to bother you further) like me not telling my supervisor I have an office bug-in kit which includes some tools that could have saved the day a few times. I don't tell him because he will use those tools as excuse not to buy tools for work. And he will just use those tools and LOSE them. It hapened a few times with work stuff. He took stuff from our department to another and forgot where he put them. I found them there several weeks after , and during that period WE were in trouble because several people had to share a few tools.

Sorry, again using work-related examples. Maybe it is easier talking against work people that our own relatives.

So, back to the original question
What are your favorite techniques to deal with difficlut people ?

There was a similar thread about this a while back: Bathtub People

In that thread, I wrote:


That's a pretty good book on the topic and its a pretty quick read. I'd say its a worthwhile resource for those wanting to learn more.