5 Types of Most Annoying Co-Workers
5) The Push Backer. The Push-Backer is perhaps the most annoying and unpleasant type of co-worker because they are so uncooperative. It is easier for the Push-Backer to spend thier time and effort finding reasons and ways to resist you or a situation rather than just deal with a simple dialogue. Push-Backers are often unavailable, screen thier phone calls meticulously, remove you from distribution lists on reply-all emails, or never reply at all, and ALWAYS respond to you verbally or otherwise in the form of a question and never a straight answer. An example of typical push-backing behavior would be the following:You: "Dude, that's wierd, I can't get onto the server - do you know if the server is down?"
Push-Backer: "I dunno, did you call IT?"
Pushbackers abhor responsibility. They never take initiative for thier own tasks, often waiting to be told by someone else to start, stop, proceed, slow down, expedite, save, delete, and generally move forward. By waiting to be told, this further protects them for being accountable for anything, and thus enables thier ability to blame someone else when asked why something did or didn't happen as planned.
4) The Ego Genious - The Ego Genious is too smart, too intelligent, and too important to follow the team game plan, therefore it is imperative for the Ego Genious to march completely to thier own agenda instead. When explaining an idea or concept to those less familiar, the Ego Genious prefers to talk at people as this futher inflates thier sense of self-inflicted pride. Even among thier peers, the Ego Genious never fails to refrain from condescending thier fellow co-workers, team members, or general audience of which they're trying to impress. Forgetfulness is not an uncommon trait among Ego Geniouses. For it is forgetfulness that allows the Ego Genious to back-pedal on a situation or conversation that they know they unwittingly got themselves into. They constantly and consistently love to point out thier personal accomplishments as the gold standard, and frequently use the term "gold standard." For example, if you were go to lunch with the Ego Genious, here's how the conversation might go:
You: "Mmm. This place really knows how to make a killer ham sandwhich"
EG: "Well you obviously haven't been to Chez Ego Genious Cafe where they make the best ham sandwhiches. I gave them their recipe for thier ham sandwhich."
You: "Really? What's in your recipe?"
EG: "Well obviously, the best ham, the best bread, the best cheese....it's sooo quality."
They also commonly like to change the subject when your line of questioning becomes overwhelming for them.
3) The Baby Boomer - Although my disdain for the baby boomer generation will eventually become a separate post in its own right at another time, the Baby Boomer as a co-worker: never has any time, yet always finds time for a vacation, and typically they find this time during the heat of the storm. The Baby Boomer can never set up thier own meetings as they generally have a poor grasp of Outlook and standard Microsoft Office software in general. This is why they are utterly dependent on thier secretaries and project admins (PAs), and may explain much of the reason why they commonly treat you or talk to you as if you are thier personal office assistant. Rather than ask thier peers, younger staff (or simply just any other staff that happen to be standing around) for help using thier Outlook calendar, the Baby Boomer prefers to sit and wait for thier secretary or PA to return from lunch/vacation/day care runs/or general errands so that they can continue to be utterly dependent on them and ask them to fix or arrange an appointment on the Baby Boomer's calendar. For example, calendar updates or meeting reschedule notifications are particularly a Baby Boomer's worst enemy. For this requires finding the actual appointment on thier own calendar, changing the date or time on the pull-down menu, clicking "save," and hitting "send update." A common scenario with a Baby Boomer might go like this:
You: "Hi Bob. Here's a copy of the report that Mrs. Client asked for. Since you are the project manager, she would like to receive it from you as a PDF."
BB: "Pee-dee-what? I dont have that on my computer, can you send it?"
You: "Uhm, I emailed you PDF copy last night, it should be an attachment in your inbox. Should I send it to you again?"
BB: "Oh, I think you should just send it to them pee-dee-ess style. That sounds great."
2) The Back-boneless Manager - It's not that the Back-boneless Manager is lazy, the Back-boneless Manager is just really afraid of the notion that people might feel bad as a result of his/her decision or input on a decision. The Back-boneless Manager hates conflict, so much so that they lack any empathy in a situation because the owning any capacity for empathy might actually enable them to act or react to a situation; and the Back-boneless Manager would prefer to lose a quality team member over a meaningless situation rather than defend thier team, team member, or self. Common traits include never defending their team or team's hard work, taking obnoxious or uncalled for comments from the client, always telling the client that they're right, and generally watching shit hit the fan and then asks why it smells so bad.
1) The Leadership Institute Whore - they've been to so many leadership seminars, management workshops, workforce conferences, etc and still sit back with a wide-eyed amazed facial expression every time they're pressed into a shitty staffing situation. In meetings they confidently throw out terms like "solutions, enterprise, platform, people-driven, catalyst, bottom-up, work styles, staff succession," and my favorite, "knowledge-based." They facilitate meetings by writing shit down on a big board, as if the visibility of thier lame note-taking skills will persuade a group solution. Their office is usually decorated by a neat little area dedicated to sticky notes. And the classic sign is a shelf dedicated to old 90's notebooks and handouts from past conferences about "training." The Leadership Institute Whore has been so institutionalized into the culture of management, that they have little capability managing people, a project, or people and a project at the same time.
posted by Westcoaster @ 8:41 PM
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