Horrible co-workers


Bruna

Bruna

New Member
How do you manage to stay calm around toxic people at your work?
And by "toxic" I don't mean on negative people that surround you, I ignore them.. Toxic person (or 2) in my company is a person that always makes my job much more complicated, gives wrong informations or doesn't give them at all, which reflects on what I do and how fast I do it.
I am generally a positive, happy person but when I think about her or even see her in the office I get so frustrated, negative, loud.. I can't even control myself around her anymore.. Do you have that kind if people around you? What do you do to stay calm?
 
Bruna

Bruna

New Member
Haha great for you! :D sometimes I wish I was too but most of the people I work with are really great.. I'd miss them
 
scotty

scotty

Moderator
Staff member
Levi said:
I'm freelance....says it all really lol
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I'm with Levi on that one!

I don't do the employee and office politics thing at all.

Thing is, there's not too much you can do about them until you get into a sh@t hits the fan situation.

A number of years ago I worked at a greetings company and my best mate almost begged me to get him a job there as he'd lost his through redundancy and things were getting bad financially.
I very uncomfortably pulled out the stops and got him an interview and he got a job working on the same small team as me.

After a while he became toxic.
He was just SO NEGATIVE about every little thing and made it known to everyone in our room at every opportunity.
He was just a total, toxic sh@t fountain! :confused:
It got so bad that our Manager (who was really nice and more like a mate) broke down in tears after work and told me she couldn't take any more and she was going to get him fired as she was at the end of her leash.
I asked her to let me have a word first and I came up with with some cock and bull story to try and get him to back off a bit without pointing the finger at the Manager.

It did seem to work and as far as I know he's still there 16 years on although the Manager and myself aren't.

Not only did I get him the job, I also saved him from losing it and I never got thanks for either.

Some people?


 
Bruna

Bruna

New Member
How did he react when you told him about his behaviour?

My "person" is also here for years now.. 6 I believe.. And nobody does nothing seriously to remove her from that position.. Even when she makes flaws that cost us more than 10000 eur on one single project..
 
scotty

scotty

Moderator
Staff member
Some people just seem to be able to get away with it! :(

As I remember I concocted a story that the manager was really pissed about the atmosphere in the studio and was going to leave because of it.
I think I may have embellished it a bit about her wanting to go to the CEO and that it was a big deal so "everyone" needed to knock it off.

It seemed to calm him down a bit and worked.

It wasn't easy because he was a "mate" from college days and I'd vouched for him.
It was really bad before an I used to have to spend the day with earphones on listening to music.
He's say some pretty cruel and sick shit at times that used to really get people down including me.

Needless to say I'm no longer in contact and I'm happy for it to be that way.
 
scotty

scotty

Moderator
Staff member
Thing is...It can really become an issue when you're around a person like that for over eight hours a day, five days a week. :(
 
Bruna

Bruna

New Member
Maarten de Haas said:
Noice cancelling headphones let you switch them off.
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Yeah... It is a great option if you just don't want to hear her. BUT (!) for example I'm doing a 10 pages brochure on our newly developed pretty complex product. And by doing I mean taking photos, photoshopping, writing texts, press prrparations, finding a print service that can handle stuff I imagined, getting prices for everything, arranging and choosing papers.. And since she is the head assistant of the development department I ask of her just some basic info about the developed product, main materials used, some interesting stuff that our clients would like to know.. And she doesn't even gives me that minimal basic info (when I ask her for producr code for example she just says: go find it somewhere, or gives me thr wrong one) .. Just playing deaf.. And then I'm pissed of and search 10 other people for the info that they sometimes don't know.. And I can't pay enough attention on the design (what should be my main interest) because I have to collect and think of the data ill put inside..
I said that next time, they'll get a childrens picture book, since they don't deserve anything else..
 
hankscorpio

hankscorpio

Moderator
Staff member
Have to say. Had a co worker act the bollox with me yesterday. Wanted me to quote up a job, needed it that day, and when I went to go through it with him he was loud, giving out, annoying. I just said, do you want this today or tomorrow? And he shut up.
 
Bruna

Bruna

New Member
No, thankfully..I have to work with her from time to time..i'm marketing department and she's development.
Yes, and people complain about her all the tme, to our managers and to each other. There are two answers: ''we cannot fire her because her knowledge is too important for the company'' or ''oh, she has a bad day, get used to it''.
 
hankscorpio

hankscorpio

Moderator
Staff member
It's probably one of the key lessons I learned a long time ago and this is how it works.

Another co-worker used to 1)Having a meeting, 2)Email what we just talked about, 3)Ring me, 4) Pitter patter of footsteps as he runs down the corridor asking me "Have you got all that?"

All in the space of about 2 minutes.

So, the trick is - just pick up the proofs/brief whatever it is and just say - "Is this what you're looking for?" - then they say "yes" then you put all that paperwork to the bottom of a pile on your desk.

If they say anything just say you'll get to it when you are finished the rest of your work.
 
scotty

scotty

Moderator
Staff member
Glad I don't have to put up with that shite these days as my tolerance is not as high as it was with people.

Saying that...Being freelance has it's own set of problems.

Today the dog did two turds and I only had one dog bag and that pile of washing and vacuuming isn't going to do itself. ;)
 
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