How to Deal with Difficult Co-Workers

Whether you view your supervisor as a friend or a dictator, the relationship can be stressful either way. If your supervisor was promoted from the ranks, it's bound to cause confusion in how you relate to each other now that your friend holds a higher position in the company.

Trying to keep the friendship going the way it was before the promotion only causes friction in the department. You're quickly ridiculed as the "favorite" and other workers are fast to distance themselves from you.

If you're the supervisor who finds a co-worker that you would enjoy hanging out with as a friend, you have to think twice about that choice. As a person in authority, the extra attention you give to a subordinate who you want as your friend puts that person under a lot of pressure and results in workplace stress for everyone.

No matter how well-intentioned the friendship is meant to be, when a supervisor tries too hard to be friends with a subordinate, it creates a hostile workplace which is a serious situation.

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Supervisors and subordinates can be friendly without the need to be close friends. That's the safe strategy, which doesn't create stress for either group. This also keeps enough professional distance so that the supervisor doesn't risk being used for a subordinate's advancement.

Putting the shoe on the other foot, being friendly instead of friends shows that a subordinate has a positive attitude to all colleagues and isn't just trying to get attention from people in power.

On the other hand - what happens when a supervisor-subordinate relationship isn't friendly at all, but rather hostile in its own right? This can cause a lot of problems because the employee should be able to come to the manager to discuss workplace issues.

How is he supposed to confront the supervisor about a problem that happens to be - the supervisor himself!? If there's no upper management person to intervene, then the supervisor needs to initiate a discussion between himself and the subordinate so that the situation can be diffused.

If you're the employee and can't get the supervisor to agree that there is a problem, then you might have to get legal counsel if the situation is severe enough that you feel retaliated against in the workplace. Your other options, if it's not quite that serious, are to find another job or learn how to handle workplace stress on your own.

Your job is perfect - at least on the days that the co-worker next to you is out sick. After all your efforts to get hired for this job, you are ambushed daily by the nightmare co-worker three feet from your own personal space.

Whether it's the co-worker who's a chronic complainer, bossy, annoying, or just plain rude, the idea of discussing it with your supervisor makes you feel like a tattletale running to the teacher. This type of workplace stress can be chronic and lead to health problems over time if you don't address it.

To paraphrase an old saying, you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your co-workers. How do you decide what's just aggravation from something more serious? Become an observer and notice who else this person irritates.

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If you're the only target, that's a greater concern than when the person gives everyone the same rude treatment. Are the comments thrown at you coming from impatience or stress?

That can be easier to mend than when the comments are demeaning to your race, gender, religion or ethnicity. If you're targeted, demeaned or find your work product sabotaged, then you need to make an appointment with your supervisor and calmly state your case.

Present what was said or done to you in a factual manner without it sounding like a gripe session. If the situation is irritating but not as serious, you can try talking to the offender - but don't expect instant change.

The easiest way to change a situation is to control the only thing you can control - your response to it. When the co-worker snipes at you, look at it as an overflow of that person's unfulfilled life and your answer will be moderate.

Then turn around and get back to work. Don't dwell on it. You can bet others will take notice of your business appropriate behavior. That's how you win over peer-to-peer workplace stress.