The Five Obnoxious People at the Office: How to Deal with Them

Here are the different kinds of obnoxious personalities in my office that I learned how to deal with through time. I hope that my experience can help you out as well:

1. The Whiner

She’ll complain about anything and everything. A piece of paper gets stuck in the printer and she’ll whine about it to everyone. She’ll whine about the weather, the amount of work she has to do, about her boyfriend, her cat, what she had for lunch… You get the drift. But how can you work with somebody who is just so negative about everything? If you’re not careful, your optimism (along with your team’s) might just get zapped in the process while listening to all her grievances, plus the fact that you can’t seem to elicit any other reaction from her than (you guessed it) a whine.

Solution

Bring your iPod to work. Listen to music and drown out The Whiner’s noise barrage. If ever you have to deal with her, try to come off as though you are overflowing with optimism. Perhaps the only thing they need is to hear from people that everything is OK and there’s no need to be negative about anything. Your relaxed and laid-back aura is sure to offset theirs.

2. The Loudmouth

The word ‘discreet’ isn’t part of his dictionary at all. He’ll talk on the phone for extended periods of time and it’s always like he’s conversing with a deaf person on the other end, no matter who it is. He’ll try to talk about embarrassing things too, like what his crap smelled like this morning or fantasize loudly about the girls he’s currently dating. He’ll talk about how nice their rack or ass is and what he wants to do with them.

Solution

Instead of bashing his head in with a baseball bat or having his trap sewn shut, you can try to divert his topic of choice into something more suitable and less offensive. This is called the power of suggestion, which is most effective when they’re not even aware that you’re deliberately changing their train of thought. Be assertive if you have to. The only reason why they do what they do might be because nobody ever bothered to compete with his “loudmouthedness”. The next time he attempts to broadcast to everyone the nasty details of his late-night rendezvous with some random girl, try to have a word with him about how you find it offensive, and that you’d appreciate it if he could tone it down a little bit. Nobody has ever lost anything by asking politely.

She’s perpetually in this disillusioned state of being the smartest person in the world. She’ll always have an answer to any question that’s thrown to her (even if she’s not being addressed, actually). She’ll insist on their being right all the time, regardless if it’s a topic that they know very little of. She just has so much conviction that she is, indeed, the most knowledgeable person who ever lived. She even knows better than you husband, the doctor. Or your sister the neuroscientist. Hell, she even thinks that she knows more than Einstein! She is simply convinced that she knows everything.

Solution

Humor them. It’s a big no-no to directly contradict them, especially if you do it in front of other people. Know-it-alls have a lot of pride so it’s best to simply humor them. They crave to be superstars. Their confidence in themselves could be used as an asset, too. The best way to work with people like this is to present them with facts, and find win-win situations that will still, in a way, make them look good.

4. The Joker

You can’t take him seriously. He probably won’t take you (or anybody, for that matter) seriously either. Every single moment of the day to him is just plain humorous. There’s always something to laugh about, he feels like he can joke around with everyone, even in situations when it’s uncalled for. At times it seems like he’s got the emotional maturity of a 10-year old boy, with his endless lineup of pranks that are waiting to be pulled on some innocent victim. He’s the kind of guy who’ll phone prank you while you’re in the middle of working on a serious deadline (he’ll be like, two cubicles away, snickering at your puzzled reaction). He’s the type who’ll announce it to the entire office that he caught you with snot hanging from your nose. He makes 300 photocopies of his butt and hand it out to people randomly.

Solution

You’ve got to keep in mind that no matter how annoying he may be, he’s the one who makes things lighter in the office when things get too serious, so he’s an essential part of the workplace, too. The workplace needs laughter to keep it fun. But once you find that the pranks get overboard, it’s time to put your skills at diplomatic talks to the test and try to find the best way to communicate with him that it’s not very polite and hygienic for him to leave his used socks in the office fridge.

5. The Stressor

Her mere presence stresses you out immensely. At the workplace, she’s like a dementor, looming over people’s desks and sucking out the positive energy from anything that’s within her 5-meter radius. She panics easily. She has this strange belief that the sky is falling. She can’t trust their staff to do the right thing. If you work with her, she’ll do everything in her power to micromanage you. She looks a lot older for her age. She nags a lot. You’ve contemplated sprinkling sedatives in her coffee more than once before.

Solution

Again, like the whiner, sometimes all she needs is for people to show and tell them that everything’s OK. Set an example to her by remaining calm even during stressful times. Be the living proof of how people are more effective and make better decisions by remaining calm. If this doesn’t work, try opening up to them by being honest about how their stress levels have a tendency of rubbing off on you. Offer help if you can. Be sincere and don’t attack them. They might not even be aware of this attitude of theirs.