5 Signs You May Be a Bad Coworker

What to do?

Unfortunately circumstances in life affect the work place. In my experience I've found two different responses to "life difficulty" brought into work: 1) compassionate coworkers who care about your well being (these are healthy "normal" people) 2) malicious coworkers who use your difficulty to advance their position in the company (these are VERY unhealthy "not-normal" people). What to do? Work on your personal problems at home. Don't share your personal problems with anyone you don't know VERY well and COMPLETELY trust. Seek counseling, do yoga, exercise, eat right...anything besides allowing your coworkers too far into your personal life.

Anonymous of TN @ Nov 19, 2009 11:43:27 AM

What if it's your boss behaving like this ...?

This is part of her serial MO:

1. You dump last-minute work on people when you could have avoided doing so. There will always be projects that pop up at the last minute, but don't be the coworker who sits on something and doesn't assign it out until late in the game. You'll come across as inconsiderate, and maybe disorganized, too.

Will cut her some slack since everything gets dumped on her and she is extremely extremely overloaded, but ... some of that work is major & yet minor info is given and we think she's given us what we need then it takes 5 X as long to do because you find out what she was really thinking and and and

S-anonymous at famous museum of NY @ Nov 14, 2009 15:28:48 PM

You're assuming that the bad co-workers care

Approaching a co-worker directly about a problem isn't necessarily a good idea. At my previous job, responses to direct confrontation ranged from "Who the f*** do you think you are? You can't tell me what to do !" to slashed tires. HR was worse than useless.

Jennie of VT @ Nov 14, 2009 00:20:43 AM

That's not ME!

Did you ever notice when you post or bring in an article like this to a staff meeting to try and engage those guilty of one or usually all of the above 5 points, they look around wondering who this could possibly be. They never seem to get it and if you actually try to have a private conversation, one on one with that person you you fear loss of your job by violating them in some way. I just can't seem to win!! Anyone else?

3kidneymom of NJ @ Nov 13, 2009 18:54:38 PM

they don't care

Yes, I have worked with these insufferables. People with these characteristics are not interested in "looking within" to try and change their behavior. They are not clueless; they act in these ways because it gets them what they want. They get away with doing less work, or they just get left alone in general, or they get to be the center of attention with their rants. They are usually self centered narcissists, and they don't care what others think of them. Much of the time they do NOT get fired. Why this is, I have never figured out because I am not a manager.

dd in jersey city of NJ @ Nov 13, 2009 16:21:30 PM

they don't care

Yes, I have worked with these insufferables. People with these characteristics are not interested in "looking within" to try and change their behavior. They are not clueless; they act in these ways because it gets them what they want. They get away with doing less work, or they just get left alone in general, or they get to be the center of attention with their rants. They are usually self centered narcissists, and they don't care what others think of them. Much of the time they do NOT get fired. Why this is, I have never figured out because I am not a manager.

dd in jersey city of NJ @ Nov 13, 2009 16:18:56 PM

Is this for the Air Force

Everyone I work with is described her WTF!!!!!

Lebwayn of CO @ Nov 13, 2009 15:49:38 PM

Actually, this one can create humor in an office

Re: "You bring your personal life to the office in ways that make people uncomfortable. For instance, I used to work with someone who was constantly making personal calls...."

I once worked in an office where a lady kept getting phone calls from her son about a raccoon that had gotten onto the front porch of the home. It was a very busy unit where the work involved going over hospital contracts and medical claims, and so most of the work involved working quietly with numbers, waiting on hold to get through to an insurance company CSR to check claim status, or talking to a patient on the phone. For some bizarre and inexplicable reason, the moment this woman's call from her son came in, the entire unit just happened to be totally silent, working diligently on claim and contract analysis, thus amplifying her hilarious conversation.

I will never forget that afternoon when the entire unit began cracking up about the raccoon adventure on the other end of her line.

Sometimes, those little "disturbances" can make for good comedy fodder in an otherwise serious working environment.

Side note: Keep the lids on the garbage cans to ward off raccoons. : )

Angie Koutrotsios of IL @ Nov 09, 2009 21:34:37 PM