Dealing with a Difficult Co-Worker Can Make You Look Difficult too

People are as different as, well, bananas and oranges and when you are in the workplace most likely you are going to be working with many different types of fruits, or personality types.  It would be great if we always could work with people who our personalities blended well with, but this is not always the case.  If you are working with someone who is difficult for you to get along with you need to be very careful in how you handle the situation as it may backfire on you.  First of all examine yourself, make sure that it is not you that is causing the “rub” between the two of you.  All to often when we have co-worker that is difficult to work with we start to complain to our superiors about them, looking for them to resolve the problem for us.  If that doesn’t work we complain to other co-workers about them hoping to gain support so that then maybe our superiors would then do something.  What we need to realize is if we are complaining all of the time about this difficult co-worker, we may begin to look like the “difficult co-worker”,  that is unable to get along with others and this could damage your career.  If you are having problems with difficult co-workers and you have tried to work it out with them, and have examined yourself and you know it is not you, then go to your superiors and let them know of the situation.  Tell them what you have done to try to resolve the problems and ask them for insight and help.  No complaining, you need advice on how you might be able to handle the situation better.  This is a more professional approach, one that your superiors can respect, you are eliciting help with the situation, not complaining about it.  Work relationships are not always easy, but you don’t want to hurt your career by not being able to handle them professionally. 7/22/14 http://humanresources.about.com/od/workrelationships/a/difficultpeople.htm