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The surprising truth about jerks
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You can WFH, but they’ll still find you. People sometimes believe that remote work protects them from having to deal with obnoxious colleagues. But jerks aren’t going to suddenly stop being jerks just because you’re working from home. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in the office or on a video call. Toxic coworkers are going to give their version of events to your boss, in real life, or during an online chat. It’s delusional to think otherwise. [FT] |
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Got a minute? Has this ever happened to you? You get to work, fresh and rested. A colleague wanders over and starts to chat. A half hour later, he heads off, leaving you emotionally exhausted. You’ve just been victimized by an energy vampire, a clueless coworker who drains your life force by being self-centered, manipulative, or just too chatty. To avoid these interactions, understand why the energy vampire targets people like you. [CNN] |
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Don’t underestimate them. Jerks at work have skills. They have things that they’re really good at that allow them to get away with this behavior—a lot like career criminals who never get caught. Coworkers often underestimate these skills. Similarly, they often fail to spot the jerks’ weaknesses. Tessa West, a professor of psychology, distinguishes among various types of jerks, each with a particular set of skills and another set of weaknesses. To develop strategies for coping with jerks, coworkers need to understand both.
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Nice guys, take notice. Everyone has had experience with jerks—and everyone has a theory about how to deal with them. But most of these theories are inadequate. People don’t get better with practice, and they don’t get better with time. They get better when they learn science-based strategies of how to deal with jerks. Even West, who studies interpersonal interaction for a living, says she was constantly surprised during her research at how wrong her own lay theories were. See our new edition of Author Talks to learn who the jerks are and how they get away with it, the coping strategies that work, and why the jerk might just be you.
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| — Edited by Mark Staples |
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