Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Dealing with an impediment to success at work

Is there a person in your office who is an " impediment ' to your success and the success of others?? A real downer who is sucking the oxygen out of the room by just walking in ??

Let's look at the definition for impediment:

im·ped·i·ment/
Noun: 1.A hindrance or obstruction in doing something: "an impediment to progress".

Each of us runs into these kinds of people in our professional life.  They are the " trolls" of the workplace.  Their attitude, demeanor and other characteristics are like the smell of a corpse flower, driving away all others and foretelling that they are only here to slow you down.

Some have the unlucky stance of having these unprofessional idjits as their direct supervisor - then the issues are twice as crappy.

Why would anyone purposely act this way ??  Likely it is a mental defect or some learned behavior from when they were young and learned acting out got them more attention from teachers and parents.  The mistake made by their parents and teachers are now being experienced by all those who come in contact with these unprofessional and unmannered cretins.  Like many others, if they are able to make this behavior work for them, why would they change it ???  They certainly don't care about others or the effect their behavior has on workplace morale.

The best way to handle them is to just keep them at an arm's length. They thrive on trying to make your world a gloomier place but keeping them at arm's length will frustrate the life out of them.  They will likely try to get into your business but the only way to have this happen is if you let them.  Once they get bored and/or frustrated, they can move on to annoying others or maybe, if you're lucky, the real Boss will get the info on what the PIA ( Pain in the Arse) is doing and get rid of them.

The choice is yours but take my advice -

Keep the business trolls out of your life and you'll feel better. 

Like the Penguins in the movie Madagascar, the best thing is to do what the head penguin told his compadres:

 " Smile and Wave Boys. Smile and Wave..."

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