Coping with annoying colleagues

Daisy70

It's more of a general query than a specific problem. How do you phase out annoying colleagues?

She sits in the same office as me and every time she opens her mouth, my hackles go up. She always thinks she knows better than everyone else and her just turning up to work irritates me.:D I know that she doesn't particularly like me and that's ok, I know she's in the minority.

I really need to know how I can ignore her without creating an even worse atmosphere. Ever since she arrived, the atmosphere in this office has changed so much. She irritates most of us I know but she seems to get under my skin:mad:

heretolearn_2

I think we've all been there at some point.

If she is just irritating/personality clash there is not much you can do about it, you two are probably never going to like each other. Just remind yourself that it doesn't matter, you aren't there to be friends, just be professional at all times and keep interaction to work matters only.

then go home and vent :mad:

HeadAboveWater

Daisy70 wrote: »

She always thinks she knows better than everyone else and her just turning up to work irritates me

Hmmm... I thought there were only 2 of us in this office. I didn't realise you were here too... You hiding in our cupboard?!?

heretolearn wrote: »

then go home and vent :mad:

That's what I do

bargainbetty

Options:

1. Learn to ignore her.
2. Find something she is particularly daft about and prove her wrong (smile sweetly and say you didn't realise there were different ideas on it, and ask where she got hers).
3. Even when she is specifically talking to you, ignore her for a few seconds longer than necessary. When she asks why, you can comment mildly that you're never sure when she is talking to you, because she talks so often. If she can see that no one is listening, she might get the message and shut up a bit.
4. Politely ask her to keep the volume down a bit, as you are trying to concentrate and she causes distractions.
5. Talk to your collective boss/line manager and ask them to have a quiet word with her, of the 'keep your opinions to yourself a bit more' variety. If she is a fairly recent arrival, she may think that being loud and communicative is a good thing, and genuinely not realise that she gets on your t*ts and appreciate (eventually) the feedback.

Good luck

Miss_Havisham

get to know her - have a cup of coffee with her and maybe another work-mate. Ask her what she thinks about a piece of work etc. She might be shy or lack confidence but can't deal with it very well.

Sometimes situations like this can snowball and it just needs someone to break the cycle. If it fails then you're lumbered, sorry.

PasturesNew

What if ... she DOES know better than you? You might learn something

Lionbar1990

I've got one of these annoying people in my office.... I shouldn't do it and it's not right but I purposely wind them up... makes me laugh inside that I know they're angry! Means when they annoy me I know I can do the same back!

Bit tit for tat and all that but gets me through the day!

Just make sure nobody else realises what your doing unless you may get in trouble !

Daisy70

PasturesNew wrote: »

What if ... she DOES know better than you? You might learn something

No. She doesn't.:D She knows more about some things and drones on incessantly about her knowledge.

I have nothing to learn from her thank god.

Daisy70

Miss_Havisham wrote: »

She might be shy or lack confidence but can't deal with it very well.

Shy? She couldn't be further from it.:rotfl:

I've kept it friendly today but not spoken to her too much, we'll see how it goes.

Evilm

I ask myself how I manage with several of these all day every day... I work in an office where I think there is more discussion about non-work stuff than work stuff and it drives me mad. Concentration is about the only thing that saves me from asking them all to be more quiet...

Ashles

Try and be patient and ignore her.
If she annoys you that much, chances are she probably will other people too, and after a while people like that tend to annoy the wrong person and pay the price. Let the battle be with someone else.

And as a wise man once said - if you want to lose a lot of time, have an enemy.
(or something like that)

Of course if she doesn't annoy anyone else, only you, then maybe it's not her...