Loving yourself means loving your enemies
How I deal with annoying colleagues
Do you know these days when you just hate everybody? When you just can’t wrap your head around how the people around you can be so short sighted and illogical sometimes?
Today was one of those days for me.
When you are like me an ambitious hard-working employee, you most likely know the feeling of frustration about other people’s indifference in the work place.
Other people’s ignorance about shared projects drives me crazy.
Some people successfully practice ignorance is bliss. This ignorance is the food for my rage.
But I think we all know that this is not the way to go. Turning into hulk will not save us but is a one-way street. A one-way street into misery. And I don’t want to be miserable at work. And I think you neither.
So, how can we deal with annoying colleagues?
My three-step plan to happiness at work — or at least a little bit less furiousness ;)
Step 1: Know your limits
Everybody has a different work ethic and this is totally fine. And my point here is not to put yourself in the shoes of the other person and try to understand their situation. I mean this can sometimes be really challenging and also unsatisfying when you are always the only one that is showing empathy and no one else does.
The key here is: Know your limits!
What behavior can you tolerate and fits in your work ethic? How do you imagine working together?
Immanuel Kant’s work on the categorical imperative gets very relevant here.
“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law”
By setting a set of values at the workplace, that fit your personal values, but can also work as universal rules at the workplace, you can set limits that others are required to hold on to.
Thereby, you solve your personal dissonances of the behavior you wish to see and the behavior you show or accept due to actions triggered by your colleagues.
As I said, empathy is key to build a long-term relationship with someone, but when this seems so far from reality, limits come to play.
Step 2: Find a colleague in spirit
I am a true believer in the fact that anger, that is withheld for a long time, can hurt us physically and psychological. Because I simply think that nothing good can come out of the fact that so much negative energy is sucked up in ourselves.
Find someone to share your frustrations and anger with
And I am not talking about finding someone to gossip and talk badly about people behind their backs. Gossip is one of the deadly sins of speaking (everyone who has seen this famous Ted talk knows what I am talking about) and nothing good can come out of it. Even if the short-term relieve is promising.
AGAIN NO GOSSIPING!
I am talking about sharing your frustrations and talking about the situations you have been in with no judgement but with emotions and simply sharing your feelings.
Step 3: Kick Ass at your job
I once read the following quote:
“The secret of successful people is that they choose wisely how they spend their time”
And at first this does not tell you a lot. But once you go beyond the physical actions that define most of your time such as going to work, working out, reading a book etc. and also include your emotional actions the quote gets a whole new level of meaning.
We are not only responsible for our actions but also our thoughts.
And therefore, we can choose how we spend our time.
Choose to kick ass at your job instead of at getting frustrated by your colleagues.
Manage your time and emotions so that your priority is your job you love and not the people that annoy you. Because nothing is better than the satisfaction of a job well done! Use that energy to focus on performance instead of provocation.
If you have other recommendations on how to deal with annoying colleagues, please share in the comments!
