How to deal with hard co-workers?

I searched the web to find opinions and advices how to deal with difficult coworkers. Probably most of you suffer under coworker’s behaviour, e.g. talking loud on telephone, nervous people, always displeased people, lazy people, very sexy co-workers, not effective people etc.
I came across to an article in wikihow “How to Deal with a Work Colleague Who Has Stinky Lunches”. (http://www.wikihow.com/Deal-with-a-Work-Colleague-Who-Has-Stinky-Lunches)

How to respond when a colleague eats his stinky lunch on the desk?
In that article were given 10 advices to solve this problem, e.g.

- Send him an anonymous email. (no way! Better hack the boss’ pc and send him a mail from the boss mailbox telling him that his works stinks like his work)

- Play the allergy or vegetarian card. (hey, I’m not a famous actress)

- Bring a fan to your desk and switch it on in direction of the meal. (why not just blow)

- Light a strongly scented candle at your desk. (sure, that’s a fantastic advice! I could spray in the office room my Armani code to choke the idiot)

- Put essential oils on your wrists. (come off it! How long may it helps?)

- Consider finding a job where you can work alone… (!?!?!?! Where? On the moon?)

Excuse me! Who gives those stupid advices?

In all of the above listed situations things will definitely go worst. When you have a problem to solve and you choose methods to gloss over the problem, you terribly get into a deeper conflict with coworkers. In your office you have always to watch not to get into conflict, you have to carry to escape and avoid conflicts.

The main and important thing to do always is to lead a “simple conversation”. You should talk to this person, explain him or her how do you feel or what do you think about the situation. A solution to a problem may take one day or one year. Be patient!

Look around you! If you have a bad situation with a colleague probably the others co-workers had too. Let them know how you feel. You could build a colleague circle to speak together with the annoying co-worker.

Speaking with the boss is actually not a good idea. The manager is there to manage people & processes, not to solve misunderstandings between workers. In above situation you could complain to the boss in case your company does not have a dining-room.

So people, how do you deal with annoying co-workers?


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