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Okay, so, some of the gripes are major and some of the gripes are minor, but Katherine Crowley and Kathi Elster have written a book called "Working With You Is Killing Me: Freeing Yourself from Emotional Traps at Work", and the management consultants say:"looking at this book would teach you how to deal with the aggravating people who make you dread going into the office." They join us now. Good to have you with us.
Good morning.
I say "Good morning" with some trepidation. Don't (inaudible) But, it, it's always er.. risky to try to summarize a book to the authors of that book. But, as, as I read what you say, you say "Quit complaining",(Right),"Do something". But, and this is the part that surprised me, the best thing to do is to change yourself because you are not gonna change the other person.
That's right, Charlie. What we found in working with many, (a) thousands of people over the last 20 years is that we all know it's futile to try and change another person. So, the best thing you can do is begin by changing your internal reaction and then we give you very concrete tools for how to change your experience.
What, what's this business about unhooking yourself?
Right, well, we give you this process. It's actually four steps and the first two steps are to cool down your system. Because as we all know when we get upset, when someone, those co-workers really annoy you, you immediately get upset. So the first two steps are to deep breathing or doing some sort of physical exercise if you can run out of the building and walk around the block.
Yeah you say you spend a lot time talking people off the ledge(exactly),which is essentially calming them down .
It's cooling their system down.
Okay, but once you've done that and that seems very intuitive, then what do we do?
Well, the next two steps would be taking action.
Yes, to unhook verbally as what we say, so you find something to move the situation forward and you take the high road not accusatory but a win-win kind of communication, and then you look for a business tool whether it's documentation of some kind or sending out an e-mail or referring to a job description.
Okay, but it seems, isn't it a little defeatist to say you have to change yourself? Er, the, the... really it's 'me' that has to change as supposed to the other person?
Well, have you ever changed anybody?
I've tried many times; it's not really possible. So if you...
No, you can't, you can't affect a personality transplant in other people, I agree with that.
You can't change somebody. But if you can change your reaction to them you'll have a much better love-work life.
Yeah but they are still gonna be annoying, aren't they?
That's right. That they are not gonna change and part of the book we explain to you how to depersonalize and detach and stop taking it personally.
Alright, you spend a lot of time telling me about types of workers, co-workers and types of bosses.(Right)So,give me the, the most common annoying type of co-worker.
The most common annoying type of co-workers, actually what the viewers were talking about, er, they are called "boundary-busters". So, whether it's someone who invades your space, makes too much noise, eats up your time, chews your ear off. Those are boundary-busters.
And how do I deal with them?
Most of the time you do have to confront the boundary-buster. But what we suggest is again cool your system down(Correct! ) ,make sure, you know, make sure you take the high road and when you do confront and communicate with them, you say in a way that they actually say:Oh,okay, I hear you, rather than yelling at him. What we tend to do is" You are so loud" instead of saying:" you know what, it really bothers me, I can't concentrate when your, when your voice goes up, so can you please calm it down? " So it's a way, it's a communication style and we give many examples in "Working With You Is Killing Me".
Okay, and, and what's the worst kind of co-worker? May not be the most common but the worst.
Well, what we call the worst kind, what we've decided among ourselves is the "saboteur" and this is because this person will speak very sweetly to you. And in the meantime, stab your back, one way or another, behind, behind you.
Right, and what I do about that?
Well, you have to be your own, wage your own PR campaign. As soon as you detect that somebody is talking negatively about you. And usually somebody will warn you or you can sense that your relationships with other people are deteriorating. You, you need to just make sure that you're at every meeting and you know when this person is speaking to someone else that you can get in and find out what they are saying. And wage your own PR campaign get people to speak better of you, at ultimately they get caught.
Right. The key with the saboteur is you have to detect it. So if someone says to you something like watch out for Susie Q, She's known for doing that kind of thing, you really wanna listen.
If they tell you she is a snake, she is probably a snake.(She perhaps...Exactly)And most common problem with the boss?
Er, you know, personally I think it's the exploder, although a second too, would be the avoider. You know, the boss that...
Exploders are the one who yell(s) at you, the avoiders are the one who doesn't address the problem.
Exactly. They are afraid of confrontation and they are both equally awful. Nobody wants to get yelled at, and no one wants a boss that doesn't have your back. If you go to them for a raise but that would be a confrontation for them to get you a raise, they're just not gonna do it.So...
When does it get to the point that either you have to quit or the annoying person has to quit?
That's a really good question. And what we say in "Working With You Is Killing Me" is that, you actually have to figure out your tolerance level and you also need to determine what are your fatal attractions. For some people an exploder as Cathy mentioned is tolerable, they can...if they use our technique and learn to manage up, they can deal with it; for others that is just not acceptable and the toxins from working with someone like that literally wear away at their health.
You know, when you really ask people in "Working With You Is Killing Me" is to, to learn to assess yourself and what your tolerable level is ,what you can really tolerate.
All right , all right , thanks to both of you, appreciate it.
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