The Five Most Dangerous Types Of Work Colleague
Certain co-workers can seem innocuous, but are actually vipers in disguise. These are the five most treacherous types.
Anyone who has worked in large companies, multinational corporations or sprawling organizations knows that your career and sanity can entirely depend on who your boss is … or who your manager becomes, following the latest re-org, merger or takeover. And much has already been written about toxic bosses, how to “manage upwards,” and hierarchy survival tips.
Less advice, however, is to be found concerning the desk jockeys to your right and left, the “team members” and other types of co-workers with whom you need to collaborate while simultaneously trying to figure out which of them will try to shiv you as soon as you step away from them at the coffee station. You need to understand how badly they’re determined to leapfrog you on their way up the greasy organizational pyramid. It’s thus crucial to be able to recognize them, for, like the Devil, they take on many different forms.
To be clear, we’re not talking about co-workers who are merely unpleasant, or bullies, or time-wasters, or lazy, or simply not up to the job. We’re talking snakes in the grass here, seemingly as friendly as Golden Retrievers while taking every opportunity to move their pieces forward on the company chess board. One of their key medium-term objectives, besides getting a promotion and a raise, is to put you — the dear buddy that they’ll gladly have a beer with after work — in professional checkmate.
Based on years of experience in startups, companies and corporations, here are the five types of colleague you most need to watch out for.
1- The Rabid Chihuahua. These are the easiest ones to spot, announcing their presence as their label suggests: loudly, aggressively and full of defensive paranoia. They’re incredibly rude and they love dominating meetings and pre-emptively assuming leadership of teams, but not necessarily contributing much to them. In my experience, they tend to be short of stature (although exceptions abound) but long on arrogance. The fact that they’re totally transparent as to their upward aspirations should not fool you into ignoring the perils of their duplicitous political skills. These have been fine-honed over a series of positions from which they were either promoted or, in rare cases of divine justice, fired.
2- The Poison Pussycat. This creature is outwardly the opposite of its predecessor in this list. Seemingly docile, non-threatening, friendly, and outwardly collaborative, this purring assassin will smoothly transition from eager teammate to management informant as soon as you’re out of sight. Charming everyone around them while spreading false rumors, leaking information where useful to them, and downright making things up is their modus operandi. Often fairly incompetent at their actual jobs, they are kept in place by higher-ups precisely so as to have someone “on the inside.”
3- The Double Agent. When things start going sideways at a company or in an organization — sales are down, funding is threatened, or there has been a scandal or a big setback — this sly figure will come out of the shadows to enlist you as a would-be co-conspirator against the boss, the department or the set of people everyone is blaming for the situation. If you really care about what’s going on and agree with that apportioning of blame, you may be tempted to fall into this trap. Know however that as soon as you say, or — God forbid — write anything supporting this position, it will be turned over to the authorities. When the chips are down, tread with caution.
4- The Best Bootlicker. Let’s face it, we all inject a bit of obsequiousness into our behavior around a new boss, versus the new management team after a re-org, or in our interactions with the winning cadre of overlords following a merger. But this is just a bit of window dressing, a thin disguise of our true feelings that we feel we must assume in order to survive in the ever-mutating organizational jungle. The Best Bootlicker, however, melts his or her entire being into that of anyone with real power, hoping (and all too often achieving) advantage through total servility. One cannot hope to compete with these forelock tuggers: they will always prostrate themselves one rung lower than you could ever imagine.
5- The Protected Species. This is another type of colleague impossible to compete against, as they possess that most valuable of professional assets: a bulletproof umbrella. In family-run companies they’re often the rather dim cousins of the owners (think Greg in Succession); in start-ups they might be former college schoolmates of the founders; and in corporations and large organizations they’re the untouchable protégés of someone in senior management. Whether they’re competent or not, whether they’re likeable or not, doesn’t matter. Say a single word against them, and you will call down a lightning bolt upon your head from above.
I should conclude with an additional mention of that most insufferable, unreliable, illogical and reality-denying type of employee.
One that will sabotage your best efforts without your even being aware of it.
One specific to the professional category that includes solopreneurs, freelancers and other types of one-person businesses. And, of course, writers here on Medium.
Yes, you guessed it: it’s you!
