5 Types Of Toxic Co-Workers And How To Deal With Them
Originally published in Reader’s Digest
For most, working in an office can offer a pleasant, exciting, and motivating path to a successful career. However, sometimes we encounter unprofessional, unhappy, and downright hostile colleagues. Here’s how to handle them.
The “Chatty Cathy”
Whether you encounter this colleague in the hallway or in a formal meeting, you dread those conversations that seem to last an eternity. It is always a chore to try to extricate yourself from their endless chatter. He or she may be a nice person, but they never come up for air! “Some people need to hear the sound of their own voice constantly because they don’t feel heard,” Sherry Amatenstein, LCSW, based in New York City and author of How Does that Make You Feel? True Confessions From Both Sides of the Therapy Couch (2016). “However, their need doesn’t mean you need to be distracted by un-sweet nothings constantly whispered (or shouted) into your ear. Give a sad sigh and say something along the lines of, ‘Sorry Cathy….I really need to get this done. I’m one of those people who can only focus on one thing at a time and for me it has to be work—or else I’ll lose my job.’” Learn the phrase that will stop gossip in its tracks.
