I struggled to make this little box sound insightful, witty and philosophical all at the same time. I think we all do that. But it honestly boils down to this: I have an opinion and I like to share it.
How to Get Coworkers to Hate You
June 21st, 2010 by snowkissed received No Comments »
Note: This is satirical. I am not actually encouraging you get coworkers to hate you. Unless, you know, you want them to…
Every office seems to have one. The one person that drives everyone nuts. It could be their attitude, their habits, their sense of humor (or lack thereof), their laugh, or perhaps their strange fascination with getting involved in absolutely everything possible at work. Well, you too can be that person – or rather, dethrone the current most-hated-candidate.
- Sing and drum with your fingers randomly. A lot. The more off-beat, the better.
- Answer questions directed at other people. If the question was lead with another person’s name and you cut in with the answer, extra points. If the answer is incorrect, double the points. If your answer insights a useless argument… you don’t need this guide.
- Come up with an obnoxious sign-off or signature for your emails. Use it all the time.
- Nag other people. Often. If you’re a manager or somehow able to direct other people, stand over them until they get their work done. Then, get them to explain everything they did. Make it clear that you don’t believe they did it right. If you’re an overachiever, solve the problem yourself. Badly.
- If you’re losing an argument, walk away. As fast as you can. Bonus points for throwing your hands up in frustration. Gold star for making a girly frustrated noise.
- Your coworkers are not people, they are tools.
- This one is important . It’s a real winner. Ready? Okay. Do. Not. Follow. Process. If a policy exists, it’s meant to be broken. You know a better, faster and more efficient way to do it, so get to it.
On a serious note, I do believe that it’s often to remind ourselves of office etiquette. While you shouldn’t necessarily be striving to be the most liked person at work, you should be showing respect to everyone that you interact with. When you have a large team working towards a big project, cooperation is tantamount to success. In order to encourage cooperation and, most importantly, collaboration, those that you work with have to respect you and want to actually help you. That way when you need a favor, they’ll be more than happy to help you out of a tough spot.
This is most important for those in a managerial position. While you can get results by being abrasive, rude and demanding, the quick results won’t last long. This doesn’t foster any kind of loyalty nor even a desire to continue to do well. Stephen F. Covey explained the way relationships work best (I find this particularly pertinent when it comes to work relationships). You have to view relationships with people like you would view a bank account. Unlike its financial equivalent, relationships do not come with credit cards. If you keep withdrawing (asking for favors) from another person, they will eventually run dry. You have to give in order to keep that positive relationship, even if it’s just positive encouragement or guidance in solving a rough problem.
You would think that a lot of these concepts (be nice to people, follow the rules) would be common sense. You would think that people would do unto others as they would have done to them. Though I don’t want to sound like I’m preaching, I do think that we need to start encouraging these best-practices a lot more. This can help work become a more positive environment.
And to close this out, on the topic of etiquette: High Five Etiquette
) as well as clothes. Also, while picky, I do enjoy my purses. So, my challenge for the month of March was to get through all 31 days without buying a single pair thing for myself to “wear”. No shoes. No clothes. No purses. Nada.
), I was able and willing to manage a CMS like Joomla and customize it and work with it and try to keep it as current as possible. That got a little too tiring and I found that a lot of the functionality it provided was actually more than I needed, so it became difficult to keep it simple. Blogging, especially just a quick update, became a pain because I had to be careful I didn’t break the formatting of whatever theme I was using.
) as I find the look and feel that suits me best.
