Three Easy Tips for Dealing With Difficult People at Work

Have you ever ducked behind the water cooler to avoid a nasty coworker? Or felt genuine terror when getting an email from your boss? The workplace is a complex, ever-changing environment that can sometimes be tricky to navigate. We spend so many hours of the day at work that, in many cases, we see more of our coworkers than we do of our own families. Since it is such an integral part of our lives, conflict in the workplace can become a draining, life-consuming situation. But it doesn’t have to be like that. Here are three tips on how to break the cycle of negativity and create a healthier work environment for yourself.

1. Identify your sources of support.

Unfriendly situations create a feeling of loneliness that can be soothed by finding a sense of community and support. Explore the resources offered by your workplace through Human Resources, Benefits Offices, or employee-led organizations. Frequently these resources are available but go unnoticed until an employee needs them. Your employer may offer access to mediation, counseling, or personnel trained in carrying on difficult conversations. When a company is too small or lacks suitable offers, support can be found through other community organizations such as public libraries, meditation groups, and churches. Online groups also provide education in conflict resolution, well-being, and life coaching. However, when choosing among the possibilities, it is essential to distinguish between organizations offering support and groups that enable the negative situation by providing a place for complaints. This brings us to the next point:

2. Beware of commiseration.

When choosing good sources of support, be very careful not to confuse genuine help with commiseration. And be especially careful when you are looking for support online. What at first looks like a support group may be nothing but a container for grievances, with no real help coming out of it. The way to know the difference is to gauge how you feel after interacting with that particular group. Do you feel uplifted? Light? Optimistic? Or do you feel drained and just as exhausted as you were before? Commiseration is like alcohol: it’s tempting to have some, the first round feels exciting, it comes with peer pressure, then you lose track, get carried away, and the next thing you know, you wake up in an emotional hangover, feeling like you got hit by a bus and with no real solutions in sight.

The reason sources of commiseration are so attractive is that, as humans, we want to be right. And the easiest way to be right is to find others that agree with us. The problem is that we choose to be right over being happy.

Having someone agree that a person or situation is the source of your misery it’s only helpful when they can offer a real solution. For example, if you are in an abusive relationship and find a group that helps people leave the abuser and start a new life, that is helpful. But joining a social media group called “I Hate my Boss” will only leave you feeling worse because its purpose is to perpetuate negative situations to attract an audience and gain more clicks, not to provide real options.

Think about this: when was the last time you found a great solution to a problem by feeling deeply miserable or angry? In my personal experience, that would be, well, never. Solutions, ideas, and change only can come when we experience moments of calm and clarity. Next, we’ll discuss the best way to find that clarity.

3. Remove your attention from the negative person or circumstance.

That may sound counterintuitive but bear with me. One of the common beliefs most people have is that, to solve a problem, you need to focus all of your attention on it, thinking about that situation as much as you can until you find a solution. That is, in fact, faulty logic. We automatically try that approach because uncomfortable circumstances pull onto our emotional strings and trigger a survival response. That’s why whatever we perceive as negative becomes more prominent and noticeable than neutral or pleasant situations.

When we find ourselves in an unpleasant situation, the body reacts as if it was a matter of life or death. And most likely, a past experience similar to the current one reinforces the belief that we are in danger. For example, suppose you had a cruel elementary school teacher. In that case, there may be an underlying idea that authority figures have the power to hurt you or wreak havoc on your life. Hence, a boss with an unpleasant demeanor reads as terrifying as your psychotic fourth-grade teacher.

But then excessively focusing on that person not only doesn’t solve the situation but aggravates it. If your focus stays on them, two things will happen. One, your brain will interpret it as a dangerous situation, and the stress hormones flooding it will severely decrease your ability to find reasonable solutions. And two, your body language will hint at your dislike of that person. In turn, they will react accordingly, making things worse. The situation escalates even though, for both of you, all of this is happening at an unconscious level.

So take a step back and focus on something else that brings relief. It can be as simple as listening to a song, doing a short meditation, or watching a video of kittens on YouTube. You won’t be able to jump from angry or depressed to happy and peppy, but that is not the point. All you need to do is move from the current negative emotion to one that feels a little better. And once you get some relief, do a little more to improve your mood. Soon enough, your foggy brain will clear up, and what seemed like an insurmountable problem will become a solvable situation.

In all likelihood, if you are reading this article, the unpleasant situation is not a matter of life and death, and in whatever way it evolves, you will not die because of it. But your brain is wired to react to a workplace conflict the same way it would if you were confronting a saber-tooth tiger in the wild, and being aware of that is the first step to finding solutions to what look like unsolvable problems.

I hope these suggestions point you toward a better workplace experience. To help you on your path, here’s a list of support resources you can find online for free.

The What If Up Club

33-day alignment program

Free resources by Hay House