Dealing with a special kind of co-worker
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I'd like to get some advice from you guys.
Since a few weeks we have a new tester in my office, and despite this being a rather small company, the whole recruitment phase of it has passed me by completely (not that I particularly care about the process in the first place).
However, I have to work with him every day. Now I'm glad we got an extra tester to lighten the workload a bit, but the guy has some "interesting" habits.- First of all, he likes to butt into conversations that he's not part of, trying to become part of it by giving suggestions about things he doesn't know about. It's one thing to give suggestions, but apparently the guy can't take the hint because he's tried to do it 3 or 4 times in the same conversation.
- Lately during our daily stand-up meetings he tends to get in between me and the person I'm trying to talk to (I still fill the role of Scrum master for my team, so this annoys me quite a bit).
- When we're doing our daily work, I find him talking (distracting) my other team members. Not that we never have discussions before he came to the company, but he is apparently quite fond of talking politics and how his view of it changed, causing him to disagree with his friends (which none of us know). Oh, and his humour (humor? whatever, take your pick) is quite dark. It easily tops all the crazy stuff we talk about during lunch breaks to take our minds off of work for a bit.
Then there are a few habits he has that tick me off on a personal level, which I won't disclose on here because I don't see the added value on a professional level.
I've discussed this with my boss (which is also the product owner, so he's present at all our stand-up meetings et all), but he seems to be pleased with how he's performed his job and doesn't seem to care about the rest.
So here I am, curious on how you deal with your (annoying) co-worker(s) on a daily basis. Any advice?
P.S. I know this might be more of a problem with myself, not adjusting to this new co-worker, but I don't get this ticked off by someone so easily like I get ticked off by this person.
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@ThaMe90 said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
Since a few weeks we have a new tester in my office
He's new and probably struggling to fit in. Give him some time to get to know the project and to work out the dynamics of your workplace.
he likes to butt into conversations that he's not part of, trying to become part of it by giving suggestions about things he doesn't know about.
That can be irritating, but surely it's better to have some one who's interested and wants to understand and be involved in discussion than a doormat who doesn't contribute and just stands silent in the background? (particularly if the guy's a tester)
It might be that the guy's an idiot, who will drive you up the wall every time he opens his mouth (I know someone like that), but more likely he's just trying to find his feet and make his mark (and that phase will pass).
Maybe part of the problem might be that he's saying some stuff that you don't want to hear? Make sure you listen to what he says (particularly if your first reaction is to be irritated). Maybe he is just wrong or ignorant, in which case take a deep breath and explain to him why things are as they are. Just possibly, some of what he says might be insightful. He's new so might bring a fresh perspective on some stuff.
P.S. I know this might be more of a problem with myself, not adjusting to this new co-worker
It's good that you see that, otherwise someone here might point out the same, more bluntly...
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@ThaMe90 said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
I've discussed this with my boss
Call me crazy but... instead of talking about this guy to your boss... have you ever considered talking to the person in question?
Approach him during a calm moment (lunch break), invite him for a coffee ( ?), sit down with him and talk.
It's important to make him understand that while what he does is not illegal, you have trouble dealing with it. Make sure he understands your point and listen to what he has to say.
Because, let's face it, a team is a fragile yet effective thing. And coming into a team as the "new guy" can make you portrait some weird habbits you never noticed before. I assume he worked somewhere before. Maybe back there it was vital to butt into conversations because otherwise there was no way to give feedback?My point is: Jesus, people, talk to each other!
Filed Under: talking is a to ... erm... something
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@Kuro said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
Call me crazy but... instead of talking about this guy to your boss... have you ever considered talking to the person in question?
WHAT, are you crazy?
Better to internalize your annoyance until it slowly turns into hate, and then release that by snidely undermining him at every step until either he or you quits.
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@ThaMe90 said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
he is apparently quite fond of talking politics and how his view of it changed,
Definitely put a stop to politics at work.
@ThaMe90 said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
find him talking (distracting) my other team members
Some people are more social than others. He sounds like he's very outgoing and extroverted, and he needs that time connecting with his coworkers in order to function well during the day. It sounds like you're very much the opposite: your social need is filled with only a few sentences at the water cooler, so you see any extra as a distraction.
If the team is mostly full of the latter type of person, he's going to have a rough time fitting in. If the team is mixed, he'll figure out over time who is more like him and focus on chatting with them.
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@Kuro Well I get to work with him every day, so it's not as if we don't talk.
I did try to talk to him about some of the things, but he dismissed it right thereafter.
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@japonicus said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
He's new and probably struggling to fit in.
I wouldn't say he's struggling to fit in. Other co-workers don't seem to have any problems with the guy (as far as I'm aware of).
I guess I'll have to give the situation some more time. See where it leads.
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@Yamikuronue said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
Some people are more social than others. He sounds like he's very outgoing and extroverted,
Yeah, apparently I don't mix well with extroverts. :(
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@ThaMe90 Yeah. He'll probably realize that you're not chatty like he is and stop bothering you so much, but if not, you can gently but firmly reinforce that boundary explicitly once he's less brand new.
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@ThaMe90
Fuck, did I change jobs without noticing?Seriously, your coworker might as well be me. (The only difference is that I never talk about politics in the office.)
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@ThaMe90 said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
@Kuro Well I get to work with him every day, so it's not as if we don't talk.
I did try to talk to him about some of the things, but he dismissed it right thereafter.How did you word it? I mean, this is sort of a delicate issue, since you're effectively telling him to shut up.
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@Kuro said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
My point is: Jesus, people, talk to each other!
Meh. That'll never work. I hate talking to people.
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@Yamikuronue said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
@ThaMe90 Yeah. He'll probably realize that you're not chatty like he is and stop bothering you so much, but if not, you can gently but firmly reinforce that boundary explicitly once he's less brand new.
LOL...assuming he has the self-awareness.
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@The_Quiet_One said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
How did you word it? I mean, this is sort of a delicate issue, since you're effectively telling him to shut up.
I vote for "Bye, Felicia".
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*cow-orker
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@asdf said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
@ThaMe90
Fuck, did I change jobs without noticing?Seriously, your coworker might as well be me. (The only difference is that I never talk about politics in the office.)
Sounds like me too.. and I do talk politics at work, but mostly because 99% of the people here have the same viewpoint.
The one Trump supporter I have to work with though was really getting on my nerves with the crazy talk, so I basically told him I don't want to discuss politics with him.
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@Kuro said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
@ThaMe90 said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
I've discussed this with my boss
Call me crazy but... instead of talking about this guy to your boss... have you ever considered talking to the person in question?
Yup. Always try to deal with the person personally before escalating to your boss.
Sometimes directly tell him you don't want people interrupting discussion at work would be good enough to stop it, if he did assume this is acceptable behaviour (some workplace does encourage joining-in discussion because it could help discover some corners that's not previous recognized to be relevent).
But yeah, talking about politics during office hours is definately not acceptable behaviour. Just politely ask him to talk about it during lunchtime if he really wants to.
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That's kind of repeating what @Yamikuronue said, but it might be in a large part due to different personalities, and simply being aware of that sometimes help to avoid taking things too personally.
There are many trainings, tests and psycho-bullshit that you can find about this, it all basically revolves around the works of Jung. I've found that using the personality types from any such test (doesn't matter which one, you're not going to actually believe in that, just picking some very, very broad groups) and mentally classifying your coworkers into these helps alleviating some of the irksome behaviours. I know that when talking with X there is no point giving him any details that he's not specifically asking for because he's the type of personality that only focuses on fulfilling one goal at a time, while with Y I am prepared for any conversation to drag on and wander to non-work topics because he thrives in social exchange and so on...
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@Yamikuronue said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
@ThaMe90 said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
he is apparently quite fond of talking politics and how his view of it changed,
Definitely put a stop to politics at work.
POLITICS!
I'm not really comfortable discussing political topics at work.
I'LL TALK TO OTHERS
Just between you and I, there are several different and conflicting political beliefs in the office. Some people are too shy to air theirs, and others can get very hurt or offended. We've kinda learned that lesson the hard way. I would suggest not doing that.
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Also, have you considered just, whenever he is in your space, just-- you know-- farting? A lot?
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@Lorne-Kates said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
Just between you and
ImeAcid test: would it be grammatically correct to say "I" or "Me" if there wasn't another person involved in the sentence?
"Here's a picture of my brother and me/I"
"Here's a picture of I" - gibberish
"Here's a picture of me" - grammatically correct sentence"You and me/I are going out to murder a trans hooker tonight"
"me am going out to murder a trans hooker tonight" - Jar Jar Binks
"I am going out to murder a trans hooker tonight" - normal trans hooker murderer.Simples
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@Jaloopa said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
Acid test: would it be grammatically correct to say "I" or "Me" if there wasn't another person involved in the sentence?
Acid test: when someone bitches about my grammar, I throw acid in their face.
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@Jaloopa said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
"Here's a picture of I" - gibberish
Here's a picture of I:
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@Jaloopa said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
"Here's a picture of my brother and me/I"
"Here's a picture of I" - gibberish
"Here's a picture of I an' I" - Rastafarian
"Here's a picture of me" - grammatically correct sentence
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just forward a link of this thread to him, and say that he should look at the replies for some ideas to improves his 'efficiency' within the team.
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@Lorne-Kates said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
@Jaloopa said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
Acid test: would it be grammatically correct to say "I" or "Me" if there wasn't another person involved in the sentence?
Acid test: when someone bitches about my grammar, I throw acid in their face.
Really... what do you do if they bitch about your gramper?
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@Jaloopa said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
@Lorne-Kates said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
Just between you and
ImeAcid test: would it be grammatically correct to say "I" or "Me" if there wasn't another person involved in the sentence?
"Here's a picture of my brother and me/I"
"Here's a picture of I" - gibberish
"Here's a picture of me" - grammatically correct sentence"You and me/I are going out to murder a trans hooker tonight"
"me am going out to murder a trans hooker tonight" - Jar Jar Binks
"I am going out to murder a trans hooker tonight" - normal trans hooker murderer.Simples
"Just between me, myself, and I" sounds perfectly cromulent. Both "Just between me" and "Just between I" sound wrong.
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@ThaMe90 said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
So here I am, curious on how you deal with your (annoying) co-worker(s) on a daily basis. Any advice?
You can't really complain about his suggestions.
But, you can, during the stand up say "Excuse me" and sidestep to get into view of the person you're addressing. That should make the point. After three times, then say it explicitly, "I'm sorry, I'm addressing [person] right now."
@ThaMe90 said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
he is apparently quite fond of talking politics and how his view of it changed
I find that this usually makes a person less realistic than they were before. They tend to become flanderized stereotypes of the new view they take up. There are always problems with a certain view, and when people switch, they tend to ignore the problems of their new view and highlight the problems of their old view. (See Cenk on TYT)
@ThaMe90 said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
I've discussed this with my boss (which is also the product owner, so he's present at all our stand-up meetings et all), but he seems to be pleased with how he's performed his job and doesn't seem to care about the rest.
If it's disruptive enough, make the point that the personal progress does not replace the disruption to the team. If it's not disruptive enough, you'll have to take on a positive reinforcement approach to get the new employee to change their behavior.
@ThaMe90 said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
but I don't get this ticked off by someone so easily like I get ticked off by this person.
I find that, if an employee seems disruptive, some of the time it's simply because they don't feel secure in their team. They feel orphaned. Keep that in mind, in case that's the source of the problem. If so, reinforce that the team has his back, and he may improve.
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@Yamikuronue said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
Definitely put a stop to politics at work.
Or you can do like me, and find a way to make everyone feel like you're agreeing with them...
Sometimes you can't stop politics at work, because too many people are participating. So it's best to smooth over the difference of opinions.
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@Yamikuronue said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
Definitely put a stop to politics at work.
In this case, yeah it probably makes sense to try to limit the politics. But it's possible for there to be enjoyable friendly political conversation between people who disagree.
My rule of thumb is this: don't talk politics with a coworker until you know you aren't going to offend them.
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@pydsigner said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
But it's possible for there to be enjoyable friendly political conversation between people who disagree.
Sure, just not here.
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@pydsigner said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
don't talk politics with a coworker until you know
you aren't going to offend themthey are mature enough to remain civil while being offended..
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@Dreikin said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
"Just between me, myself, and I" sounds perfectly cromulent.
Both grammatically and logically, it makes no sense whatsoever.
It doesn't have to; it's a figure of speech.
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@anotherusername said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
Both grammatically and logically, it makes no sense whatsoever.
I'd say that's debatable, but it's not really the point either.
@anotherusername said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
It doesn't have to; it's a figure of speech.
Indeed. Grammar is secondary to flow, convenience, and familiarity in most speech. And I'm definitely more of the descriptivist sort than the "we keep confusing English with Latin" prescriptivist sort.
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@Dreikin said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
Indeed. Grammar is secondary to flow, convenience, and familiarity in most speech. And I'm definitely more of the descriptivist sort than the "we keep confusing English with Latin" prescriptivist sort.
Linguistics and grammar are different, but each has its place.
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@Dreikin said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
Indeed. Grammar is secondary to flow, convenience, and familiarity in most speech. And I'm definitely more of the descriptivist sort than the "we keep confusing English with Latin" prescriptivist sort.
Hmm... it's a complicated debate.
If you're entirely descriptivist, then you're going to spawn off dialects too rapidly, and eventually separate languages, and that's not good for the integrity of communication.
If you're entirely prescriptivist, then you're going to inevitably be ignored.
If you're somewhere inbetween, then you're going to get the awful grammar that English has.
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@xaade said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
you're going to spawn off dialects too rapidly, and eventually separate languages,
Why? If it can be understood by another speaker of English, it's still a dialect.
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@xaade said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
If you're entirely descriptivist, then you're going to spawn off dialects too rapidly, and eventually separate languages, and that's not good for the integrity of communication.
The Chinese solved that problem by using the same writing system across all their languages.
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@ThaMe90 Tell them to fuck off and they are a cunt.
I heard that clears the air.
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@Yamikuronue You didn't bother understanding mine.
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@RaceProUK said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
The Chinese solved that problem by using the same writing system across all their languages.
Yet they have no idea how to do looking up those people ... like alphabetically.
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@lucas1 said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
alphabetically
Hard to sort alphabetically when they don't even have an alphabet.
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@RaceProUK That was an ace joke you completely missed. A telephone book doesn't work if there isn't something like a alphabet exists.
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@lucas1 That's what I do here: it's kinda my schtick ;)
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@RaceProUK said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
That's what I do here: it's kinda my schtick
I thought the schtick was missing jokes and then getting a sandy vagina when it's pointed out via the medium of ?
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@loopback0 said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
a sandy vagina
Clearly not using the right kind of lubricant...
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@Tsaukpaetra sand is not the right lubricant for doing a lady up the bottom.
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@lucas1 said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
@Tsaukpaetra sand is not the right lubricant for doing a lady up the bottom.
You're just not doing it right then. :P
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@RaceProUK said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
@xaade said in Dealing with a special kind of co-worker:
If you're entirely descriptivist, then you're going to spawn off dialects too rapidly, and eventually separate languages, and that's not good for the integrity of communication.
The Chinese solved that problem by using the same writing system across all their languages.
That's why you have Mandarin, Cantonese, and any number more than I don't immediately recognize the name.
Then you have Japanese, but I'm not certain how they ended up with the same symbols, whether before or after adoption.