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Over to you!

You've read about dealing with difficult colleagues in general, so now it's your turn to tell us your experiences. Have you ever had to put up with a tricky co-worker? Tell us about it!

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Do you have a colleague who really winds you up? Do they distract everyone when you're trying to work? Write down a description and try to use this unit's grammar and vocabulary as much as you can.

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Here are some of the comments that we received:

Mona, Egypt

I used to have this co-worker who was bugging me all the time, sticking her nose into my business and it went too far till she deliberately made my manager angry with me. I couldn't bare it any longer. I was overwhelmed with this trouble-maker behaviour and that's when I asked her frankly to stop nagging me. I believe if I hadn't done that, she would have never stopped. 

Rita, Spain

I remember the last company where I worked in. I'd not say I had tricky colleagues there but they got me down because their only interest was to give a wonderful  company appearance  to the customers while the quality level of our products was quite bad, at least at the beggining.

I was the only technical worker in a marketing department, sometimes they manteined conversations about inane themes while i had to help a customer on the phone with problems relating our hardware or software. I had to ask them to lower their volume to be able to hear the customer at the other end of the line.

I think everything would have been much easier if I had worked in R+D department or production department. I would say it was a question of "tricky department" instead of tricky colleagues.

Rodrigo, Brazil

I work in Brazil and here we have all the situations mentioned in the article, mainly unimportant conversations during work time. The productivity is not really our strength point.

Our present economic situation is very bad and I hope people understand the need of higher productivity to tackle the moment.

Vladimir, Russia

There are a lot of communication problems with our co-workers at work. Bad-tempered colleagues usually irritate and annoy us, their disruptive personality usually gets us down. The perfect advice can be only one - try to put off with them. We should collaborate on tasks together to find the point of collaboration. This is an idea. In my working life I usually have to cope with great stress and sometimes people behaviors are irrational and difficult to understand, but I always do my best to get on with them for the future relations and projects. You never know today what will be tomorrow!

Trinh Viet Linh, Vietnam

It is true that we can choose the friends but we cannot choose our colleagues and there are always some difficult ones among them that we have to put up with in our working life.

I used to have a good job but I quit it however good the pay was. The reason was very simple: there was a hard smoker in the office. He often broke the etiquette "no smoking in the office". "You save money if you stop smoking" we advised him, "Your lung will be damaged if you smoke too much" we warned him. He did not give up his habit. "It would be great if you could stop smoking in the office", "Would you mind smoking outside the office", "We would appreciate it if you could keep our office free from smoke in one single day"... we requested him politely. We tried lots alternatives and expected that he stopped smoking for his health and us as well. But we failed and I quit the job because I was clearly aware of negative influence of passive smoking and I did not want to be killed by his smoke.

I personally believe that every ones have to put up with colleagues from hell. Some people chooses to learn to live with. Others choose to quit as me. How’s about you? 

Gian Piero, Italy

Almost everyone had to cope with some difficult colleagues in his worklife. As for me, I always tried getting on well with all of them, thinking that it was part of the job. A few years after, when I was entrusted with the management and responsibility of the office,  then I believed it was my assignment to try changing someone's behavior. Not publicly, but face to face in a polite way. I was lucky and I succeeded in the task.

Gerard

For my first job, I worked for an air plane company and discovered the hot desking.

In fact, I really appreciated it because I was young, so it was a way to meet people.

My job was to answer phone calls and I remembered that we had fun. Between two phone calls, we could laugh and also make fun of our clients.

But today, It might be different. I would not bear people who don't respect the work of their collegues, speaking too much high, eating dirtily or having bad behaviour.

I'm completely agree with the fact that we have to put up with and try to improve situation trying to ignore them or understand them. If It would be today, I would appreciate a personal desk.

I love meet people but only when I decide it. For my opinion, we should not have friends at work, it might cause problems. If I had choice, I would not work in open space offices.

Jose

Well, you know it's not really easy to share habits with your colleagues. At the beginning of the article was the key: you can choose your friends but you can't choose your co-workers.

I remember a colleague who left the office and she went to buy a lot of things for home. There was another one who told everybody a lot of lies every day. Nowadays, there's a colleague who have snack and lunch at the desk cutting the bread with a knife and drinking some beer. Yes, it's completely true. Also he's a rude man. But I'd rather say that the most of my colleagues have been really great, polite and patient with me.

Olga, Russia

Sometimes life might turn so funny side. We are talking about our colleagues who have bad personality or don't use personal hygiene. But we don't think about one thing that we could be exactly this colleague from a hell.

I used to work in the office where was a common kitchen. One day I brought a very smelly fish. I understood this fact only when I began to eat it. Of course the smell was going around all our office. It was so embarassing and I tried to do something. The worse thing was that my boss came to the kitchen and asked loudly without any etiquette "What's smell so bad and who did it?". No one did not answer, but my face was so red!!! I thought that I lost my dignity.

The funny thing that  my boss brings very smelly food everyday and nodody can't say to him anything because of shying. Just we wait when he finishes to eat and than open the windows and joke behind his back. When I was on his situation, I would like that someone tell me something like: "I'd really approciate it if you could eat so nice food at your home" and "Would you mind helping to make air more fresh?". And we could laugh about this situation together.

Anderson, Bogota, Colombia

We are 12 persons in the office, but I have one partner that always smell really bad, I want to say her something about it but is really embarrassing, in fact she is a beautiful woman and she actually works just by my side, I'm tired of the situation and is absolutely frustrating that one person so beautiful had this bad habits.

Suzy

We were only two in the office but when I began to work with my colleague, I had problems.

When the phone was ringing... she was always the first to answer... and she shouted... For me, it was quite impossible to have a speech normally speaking!

I knew she lived with her mother who was hard of hearing... One day, I said: "it will be great if you could speak less strong at the phone..." She agreed... but she forgot often... I had to remind her of: "Do you mind speaking gently!"

Now, I am retired and these are old memories... but she still shouts with other younger colleagues!

Taras

Once I was forced to work with a person who really winded me up. On the first day of my work I asked him where the box is. And instead of  just saying where it is he started to call the box and say swear words. He abused me and after it I decided that it is better just to avoid him or try to have less conversation with him. And I want to say that it's really working. But it isn't always a right way. I had opportunities to avoid the difficult person but there are kind of jobs where you don't have such opportunities. So we should to search alternative ways to get on with our workmates.

Mario, Italy

I don't know whether I am a very lucky person or a too tolerant one, but I must confess that I have never had any colleagues winding me up. Generally, if you are too tolerant, your colleagues take advantage of you. But fortunately my colleagues are very polite and I don't have to do any effort to get on with them. Obviously, the office is quite noisy sometime due to ringing telephones, arguing people, photocopiers and things like that, but if you think that every working day comes to an end, you will be able to put up with anything. Or almost.

Eşref, Turkey

I’m working in an open-plan office where we are 17 people work together. It is impossible not to be a colleage who wind up you. One of them really behave badly and irritate me. He wants to answer the phone firstly, and speaks loudly. Shortly everyone is being annoyed his behaviour. So firstly I warned him off his behaviours and loudly speech. For a short time he tries to come calm, but later returns his natural situation. At the end he didn’t change their behaviour, but I used to him.

Regiane

I work with someone with a really bad behaviour. This person could never mind using his extension to call someone (from another room) to asks something...He needs to shout, thus everybody knows what he wants. This guy does not mind using a couple of words like "excuse me" before entering in the others conversation. He talks so loud on the phone that disturbes everybody in the office.

I am really thankful that we do not have an open-plan office, because it could be worst. Our office is so calm and peacefull when he is out... Eventually, all we need to do is to keep calm and learn how to deal with these colleagues, because does not matter where you go, they will be there.

Cristina, Spain

Once, I was working in a pub as a waitress and I had to deal with a pessimist-old-woman who works alongside me three days a week (the rest of the week I worked with a fabulous colleague). Her behavior really winds me up! She was all the time telling me stories about their family, which were irrelevant and inane. Moreover she made me sad, because she didn’t like working in a pub, so she criticized the costumers all the time, like: "Children are all the time messing all up! They are so cheeky!" Additionally, she was really clumsy, she used to break plates, and then she blamed me! I couldn't believe it. I tried to ignore her, but it was very hard.

Henry

It was a nightmare to work with a bitchy colleague. I once had a colleague who kept talking about her boyfriend. However, what she wanted was the colleagues' agreement with her. She would be in fury whenever we gave comments to what she said.

She was ruled to colleagues but well-behaved in front of her supervisors. That is why I disagreed what my other colleagues said that she was just emotional. She actually knew how to behave, she just fired on us.

Luckily, eventually I left that office and I don't need to work together with her anymore.

Juan Carlos, Colombia

I might tell you that in my current job, I have co-workers that always make irrelevant conversations by whatsApp or Facebook while we work. I think that this behavior is disruptive for our company. Our productivity have bad results when we waste the time. for this reason some companies began to prohibit this devices during working hours.

Manuel, Spain

I'm completely sure everyone has lived, worked or married a hell colleague.

I'm a very active person, always trying to improve our working place and reducing risks. Lazyness is the worst behaviour to deal with. I think on my office as a common ground where develop the projects the managers set on us to guarantee our future and improve salaries

Peter

There is no alternative for me to live with my co worker. She is really talkative and incooperative. She is older than me 5 years old. When I was a new comer she has alredy worked for the company for 5 years. She always want to leave the office early for picking up her baby in the kindergarten so. But she always get away with leaving office early because she is a niece of our Deputy Executive officer. Sometimes I feel stressed because she is really lazy. All of work has been solved by me, she always talk about some inane topic. But I have to collaborate with her because my job is good.

Erika

When I was working back in Brazil I used to work in open-plan office, it was really hard because most of my colleagues were non sense . Many of them used to speak so loud and others used to eat smelly food in their office desk.

One day I was talking with a client on the phone and people around me were talking out loud about an inane subject, not related to work so I had to ask them very nicely to speak lower because it was interfering with my conversation with the client. I remember me saying: "guys would you mind talking in a lower voice please?" They got all surprised and understood my point of view and they all got back to work instantly, since that day I had no problems dealing with them and they respected me some much more.

Juan Manuel, Spain

This really is a tricky issue for almost everybody.Wherever we go we may find people who don't agree with us: different behaviors, different feelings,different points of view. I think we all have sometimes had that sort of experiences. It seems we people are this way,each one different to the other, and sometimes we coincide and have similar feelings and other times we don't.
I have had hard arguments around work colleagues. Maybe the best way managing this situations is to accept them. Elsewhere we can find people who disturb us, even though ourselves can be disturbing too. It's necessary each one to find the best response to that fact. It could be a good beginning being friendly, assertive and giving explanations.

Francois

I worked 40 years and I haven't had many colleagues whose the behaviour was really bad. I remember that once I had a colleague who didn't smell good. As I was his manager, I had to deal with that. At first, I didn't know how to do. Then I decided to have a word with him and explain what could be the consequences for his colleagues. He was clever enough to figure out what I wanted to tell him and he changed his behaviour in the next days. Hadn't he been so smart, would I have managed to solve that problem? I wonder.

Manoel Gomes, Brazil

I think that most of us have to put up a colleague that winds us up. It's a very bad situation when someone affects your work. For example: if someone smokes in the office, my eyes start hurting and I try show him that his behavior is disruptive. In a polite way,  I ask if he would mind smoking outside the office. I advice him that smoking is too bad to health. 

Daniela, Italy 

Working with people isn't simple as you can imagine when you go to school.

In my office, for example, there were an open space and people shared everything. They discussed a lot about football on Monday morning and that got me down and annoyed. I couldn't do my work. It was necessary silence to write articles and to answer to the email and it wasn't possible in this disrupted environment!

Every day I fought aginst collegue that used to talk aloud about everything he did. If  you are writing something important for your boss, you must be concentrated and his behaviour was very annoying. I put up with this fact but, gradually, I started to deal with him explain my inconvenience. I convinced him that the better way to work together was the respect of own spaces and his behaviour changed soon. Eventually, I was satisfied and I had success thanks to hard work and determination.

Nguyễn Đăng Hà 

In some situations, we have to work with tricky people. It is quite uncomfortable. Some people choose to avoid talking with people that they do not like. However, in my opinion, sharing experience about the task you are doing with your collaborators can improve that task. I believe that people bahave badly because we have not understood them. Therefore, I think we should talk more to them and be firm. We can ask them more about their family or friends if possible. In my experience, some people are hard to make friends, but that does not mean impossible.

Fabio

I’m so happy with my work. My colleagues are wonderful and friendlies. However, sometimes, some of them would like being myself. It’s very interesting e funny. All the things I make are copied by them. I dont complaint about that. I like that! and this is what they dont understand. I love them! I work with them! I'm your inspirations and i like of that!

Manuel

I´m actually have a co worker (a girl) that make her everyday work like an history, she always talk loudly with another co workers, on the phone conversations and sometimes use bad language.  I did a complaint directly in a good way, but the things gone worst, she answered me with screams and bad words. I don´t have another way to have a solution for this problem, I just have to be patient and count to ten and breath.

Aqidatul

Fortunately I never really had bad experience with annoying colleague. But sometimes there are few people who had bad odor and not maintaining their personal hygiene. It was quitie irritating for me. Another thing is the laziness of a few co-workers. When we were trying to be dilligent but the same thing not happen with your colleague than it won't work either. Especially if it is a team work oriented and in workplace we seldom work alone. So maintaining a good communication with your colleague is a must.

Florent, France

I used to work with a colleague in my old company who always did my daily job instead of executing his own activities. He used to come in my office, trying to get all information on projects I was responsible for, to stand personal benefits. He often abused and irritated me because I did not get the same knowledge as him. He did not use or share any of my ideas. I tried to be friendly and maintain my professional dignity but it is very difficult to work in such conditions when a colleague does not want to change his behaviour and collaborate further.

Due to his age and seniority, he had a huge draw in the company and I could not air my grievances to my boss. So, I decided to change work to meet new people. Maybe I will have to collaborate with some same disruptive colleagues but for the time being, I am ready to keep smiling and make more effort to deal with such behaviour.

Monize, Brazil

Being a doctor is not easy, and this is my job. Everyday I listen to many problems, sometimes it's easy, but sometimes it's not. So, I work with every type of person. Some patients are very difficult people and some colleagues too. They do annoying things, like be rude, not having good hygiene and being silly. They need to known that their behaviour is not productive and sometimes it causes many problems, for example: poor service, low productivity and efficiency. In health services this can cost lives. Unfortunately, in Brazil, this is a very common scenario. Being polite and aware of the benefits of good communication and social interaction makes the working environment to be more dynamic, productive, efficient and happy. No one is equal to anyone but the smooth progress of work depends on the tolerance that everyone has with their co-workers.

Antonio

I remember a colleague that I had many years ago in another Company, not the Company I’m actually working.

This person had a problem, he was an alcoholic. Many days on a week, he comes drunk to the job. The work consisted in to answer phone calls from clients that had problems with their internet connection. So, as you can suppose, to be drunk is not the better way to answer a phone call. He shouted the clients, bothered female colleagues and made too much noise.

It was sadly, because really this man had problems in his house. He was in a divorce process and who knows what more.  I remember most of the days the boss told him to walk around the building for pass the hang over. One day, the company fired him.

This story maybe could help us about the problems that have the people around us. Normally, we haven’t seen the problems of others, we think that we are the center of the world.

Ília 

I can remenber the last tricky colleague I have because it's not usual and because it's recent.
I've started working in a new company in a new project and the only person working on that is my colleague that was supposed to support me in the initial phase but instead of that fakes supporting me. Do you know when somebody says something verbally and his or her body language says the opposite? If you need help if you have any doubt ask me and when I do it I hear if you had took notes you wouldn't ask me that and so on. I'm new in the company and cannot air my grievances to my boss or anybody else. For the time being she gets away with faking real support because she is older on the project and has the project's leaders trust. I have no alternative to put up with trying to have support from others that are really available and ignoring her. No matters what happens my dignity is above everything.

José, France

At work, there are always colleagues who try to distract others with bad jokes, inane conversations, or even things which have no signification, and I mean not at all. Sometimes, it is really difficult to work with these kind of colleagues, but I notice that they are often very appreciated by others, what do make the problem much more complicated. And, if they are so appreciated on the other hand, it's because sometimes we need to get distracted and come back to our day-to-day tasks much better, so anyway, I think we need this type of persons. Perhaps, if we deal with them and we play along with these 'colleagues from hell', the problem will be surprisingly resolved more effectively.

Pawan, Nepal

I have had few colleagues who made things very difficult for me; they used to chat inane and irrelevant subject matter right under my nose and had disruptive personality. If i try to air my grievances to my manager, he would discard it completely saying they were seniors and ought to be respected. So, my gripes would go unheard every time i try to. Its not that i haven't tried to collaborate with them - i have tried several times. But, they don't seem affable enough. This made me very upset but i had no other alternatives than to tolerate them at work.

Oni

I have an interesting story about a tricky co-worker. At that time, I got a new job and it means I have new co-workers. In the first day, I came to the new office. There are five people in my open-plan office. I introduced myself and also they introduced their selves to me. I felt uncomfortable when all of us were doing our own job. I heard a noisy sound and it really disturbed me. And the noisy sound came from my collaborating partner because he pushed keyboard buttons too firmly and too quickly, so it was like a piano concert but had disturbing sound and inconsistent rhythm. I could not do anything at that time. However, because it always disturbed me every day, and I couldn’t focus on my job. I decided to tell him what he did annoyed me. However, I thought what way I had to do because if I told him, probably it would hurt him. Finally, I got a brilliant idea. I said to him that pushing keyboard button too firmly and  too quickly could break the laptop. And I explained what the downsides were when laptop was broken. After long explanation, he understood it and he never do that again. In the end, both of us got advantage, I helped him to be avoided at breaking his laptop and I also felt better in my office.

Antonella, Bari, Italy

I have worked for three months at the University of Salerno in a chemical laboratory.  I had to join a team and I remember one of my colleague was what I can define a tricky one. She distracted me every 5 minutes with inane conversations and she ate on the only table in the laboratory, making it very tidy. Moreover, she brought her unauthorized friends in the lab, they touched every reagent and every flask that were there, so I couldn't get on with my scientific project. In the beginning, I complained with my boss, which suggested to me to talk about these problems with her. So I followed her advice and surprisingly  it worked. If I had talked to her at the beginning, I would not have any problems and I would finish my project earlier.

Mohammad Al Afifi, Palestine

I used to have a tricky colleagues, he is very quiet and concentrate when he is doing his work , but when I am working and he is free he always interrupt me and talk about irrelevant and boring subjects.

I tried to be cool and patience for long time, but after a while his behavior affected my work quality and made me nervous, and at this point I decided to en this problem, I spoke to him and explain the problem and told him to stop this behavior politely.

At the end I discovered that his behavior is just a bad habit, and when he realize that he stopped it and our relation became better.

End of Session 4

That's it for this session and all those tricky colleagues! We hope you enjoyed reading the article and sharing your stories. Join us in Unit 6 to learn about modals of deduction.