W e spend more than half our days in the office. When you’re spending that much time in a certain environment with close contact with all sorts of people, it is inevitable that not everyone is going to get along. I’m sure all of you have at some point or another come across The Office Irritant.
The Office Irritant is easy enough to identify. It is that one person in the office that just drives you up the wall and irritates the life out of you. Maybe it is your boss, maybe it is your colleague. Maybe it is the person who just loves to hear himself or herself talk all the time – and worse, talk about ridiculous topics – oblivious to the annoyance of others around them.
Working in such close proximities with people that annoy you is probably one of the most trying aspects of working in an office environment. You can’t stand this person, but at the same time, you need to be professional and maintain a good working relationship with the person. It is completely exhausting! I know I have had to deal with The Office Irritant many times, and sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and think happy thoughts to keep hidden just how annoyed you really are.
It is fine if you have to deal with The Office Irritant only occasionally, maybe once in a while when you have to check something work related. That is still bearable. But what if you have to deal with The Office Irritant on a much more frequent basis? How do you deal with such a character without snapping at them or raising your blood pressure?
It really can be difficult to deal with someone you just can’t seem to get along with, but the best thing you can do is to remind yourself that you need to try your best to be nice to everyone, especially if you’re working with them. If The Office Irritant is genuinely a nice person who means well, but just happens to rub others the wrong way (yes, there are some people who are naturally annoying to others for one reason or another), try and remind yourself of his or her good traits.
Worse comes to worse, just try and keep your conversations limited to the minimum and only communicate when you need to. If you really can’t stand being around that person, try and get other colleague to be around as well because it can help when there are other people around to talk to and you’re not just stuck with a one-on-one conversation with that person.
Image credits: xperthr.co.uk, current.com, decontaminatetoxicpeople.com
