You know the type. You make a small missetep or the communication was lacking and then they say passive aggressive remarks, take pictures, send emails CCing everyone.
It gets to the point that you’re getting fed up and want to react or be petty and documeny every mistake they make. Like you’re really close to just saying fuck it and telling them to eat a dick. What do you do?
41 comments
Its not worth it, let it go.
Money is not everything.
On one occasion, I said fuck it and told them to eat a dick. It worked out but I wouldn’t recommend it, depends on the person. In my case the guy was actually pretty cool usually but was going through a lot, was really depressed and fighting with his wife and was taking it out on work, so the ‘fuck off’ came as kind of a wake up call for him.
Coworkers or managers?
I avoid making those missteps of lacking communications and avoid the reprimand
Cut out the source
Be the bigger person – just ignore them and they generally go away. If you want to follow a career you will come across these people now and again, they thrive off conflict so don’t give it to them.
Ignore em. I don’t worry because I do amazing work and my bosses recognize that. Plus I am the head of my department and only answer to the GM and the owners. So anyone focused on what I am doing isn’t doing their job anyway and will inevitably out themselves.
Depends on your relationship with the person. For the most part I try to take the high road. If they are criticizing specific work you are doing then bring them into the fold earlier, ask for their input, guidance, whatever even if you don’t need it that way they’d be criticizing themselves too. If softer tacts don’t work you have two options depending on your working environment – 1. Document a few instances and share it with your supervisor for awareness even if you don’t ask them to address it at this time. 2. Pull them aside and ask them what’s up — suggest that you are always open to coaching but the current tact is b.s. and not productive.
Delete any emails that don’t actually require you to do anything.
lol. they try that with me they are going to have a bad day. but then again i am the boss and owner and i will replace a person like this
Just ignore the snipes, but if you know your communication is lacking or that you’re making missteps, fix those issues. They can’t snipe at you if you don’t give them a reason to do so.
It’s quite possible you’re bad at your job and they’re creating a papertrail to document all your mess-ups
Government job, as long as I do what’s in my job description I don’t have to give even a third of a shit what other people are up to.
Ignore them.
I try to remember that part of my job is to get along with my coworkers, and it’s part of their job too. If I can do it and they can’t, that means I’m better at my job and everyone who works with us can probably tell.
I play the reverse uno card and start calling out things they are doing wrong or that are creating time bottlenecks. I’ll reply to the email and cc the boss and say, (co-worker) pointing this out is a non-issue and we need to focus on the bigger picture etc, and not get everyone sidetracked. They usually back off when they realize I’m good at these little chess games, and I’ll find a weakness and take them down if they attack.
One coworker I had used to be a manager and was acting as if she still was one, so she would try to assign me some of her tasks if it looked like I wasn’t busy. I cc’ed the boss and responded to her email by saying ‘If you are having trouble finishing your tasks in a timely manor then you may need to reach out to our boss so he can provide further training opportunities.’ I never had a problem again.
I have had similar situations and casually dropped hints to other coworkers to see if they have similar issues with this person.
You can tell your manager/supervisor about the situation and start cc’ing them on your emails to either share evidence or possibly prevent the next snip
If they’re coworkers and not managers/supervisors, you can safely ignore. As for the emails, my most successful retort has been a reply all with your manager and theirs included: “Excuse me [supervisor], just so we’re clear, is doing this action now the norm? I feel it’s highly unprofessional but if this is the new expectation going forward I have no issues complying. I can go ahead and forward you some mistakes I’ve found in the work of [annoying twat waffle worker] that I hadn’t reported sooner as I had found the mistakes not too dissimilar to my own and not worth reporting as they were easily corrected and did not impact workflow and productivity”. Also make sure to print it all out, forward to a private account, and don’t be afraid to get HR involved should it become a “hostile” situation.
Also make sure to correct course if the mistakes are genuine and do require correction. No reason not to benefit off of their stupidity.
You’ve just got to out passive aggressive them honestly. I was in a similar boat once and I just added my manager and her boss to the email thread.
“Tim, I could have sworn I reported to Carol and she would be in charge of evaluating my performance. Did something change that makes Bryan my boss now?”
That was the last time I ever had to deal with him. Fuck Bryan
Do your job as perfectly as you can learn the policies and legislation to the letter to the point where if someone tries to trip you up you can deal with it similarly if someone you have an issue with fucks up you can report it if you really want to be petty.
Ignore them.
Everybody can tell they are being assholes. Trust me.
I tell them to eat a dick and do it themselfes if they have issues with my way of getting stuff done. The kicker is that I’m on par with the managers, they can’t do it better than me, and I am not easy to replace in our company, so I can get away with it. Boss usually picks my side because of reasons above.
That said, I do get allong with most coworkers and can handle genuine criticism.
i queue them up and answer once a week by sending a single message out to all these people at once listing each email followed by the shortest answer possible
Somehow learn how to simply not care. I look at work as a separate realm that I have to go to and deal with but I don’t let it affect any part of me that isn’t “work famrob”
I simply don’t get micromanaged nor do I check my emails.
I said fuck it and told them to eat a dick. Currently in tech school learning a new trade. Becuase I never want to work in a field where that shit goes on again.
I think it’s important to mention that your job is not your career.
At some point, you’re probably going to get fired or laid off for some bullshit reason. This will make you feel like a complete failure unless you realize, starting right now, that just because you lose your job doesn’t mean you lost your career.
There will be other jobs and some of them will even lack the type of dickhead you’re enduring now. If you’re this concerned right now, this is the time to find a new job. It’s a lot easier to find work when you’re already working. Use this to your advantage and don’t let a bad experience with one employer and their people delude you into thinking they can torpedo your whole career. They can’t.
I go silent and let them continue to draw attention to themselves. They eventually cross the wrong person.
Overperform, get friendly with people above them, and then power up to a death March till they quit. Maybe randomly slam on breaks by taking a vacation when they need to push. Usually works unless I’m dealing with a deep end psycho.
Ummmm, just a heads up, that shit is not normal.
I’m lucky enough to work on a team where no one does that. My manager is pretty chill but I would imagine she wouldn’t appreciate those games and would squash that kind of behavior pretty quickly.
You could talk to them and ask inform them of how you prefer to receive criticism, and explain how you’re in it for the success of the company and would love to improve to make everyone’s day smoother. Inform your HR rep/boss of this interaction. If they continue putting you on blast, elevate it. If HR/your boss don’t help out, start looking.
I had that once. Honestly i just talked it out, i thought about a few things to do to them, but i didnt want that energy in my life so i described the behavior and showed my good intentions. All they want, in my limited experience, is to bitch, so if you let them get it out its great for them. I really listened and was prepared to accomodate them.
After that i said sometimes i make mistakes and having a constant reminder that they did not liked it didnt helped, it cant, its asking me more focus and energy than i care to give, than we can ask of someone, also they are not my boss so i dont appreciate this form of control and scrutiny and its unprofessional of them, its also nonsensical of them, they are not bosses lets take it easy on themselves they dont have the money of the boss but neither the stress so whats the poin ?? and i only tolerate it against money.
We also are all humans so we make mistakes and its unfair to put me on the spot for not being perfect, its technically an attack. Nothing more.
I finally said i only wanted for things to go well and that they should tell me what bothered them im not their enemy i dont want to trouble my coworkers, that will motivate me to not fuckup.
All of that wasnt necessary i could tell but.. it worked. I dont like the gal but she doesnt bother me like before.
I also considered slash her tires or use brake fluids to fuck up the car’s painting.
1. I pretend I’m in a competition to decide who is the coolest motherfucker on planet earth.
2. I treat this petty person with pity. Nothing will cause a person to spin out faster than you not acknowledging their offense & looking down when you see how low they truly are.
3. If they don’t give up on their own keep handing them more & more rope by which to hang themselves. Eventually they will escalate & it will be clearly inappropriate to everyone
Generally, I tell them “Eat a dick, as a matter of fact, eat a whole bag of dicks. If the way you treat me is indicative of your ethics, then you will continue to handle these situations like the bag of dicks you eat.” If you have a *career* and you feel like this behavior is being allowed, it’s usually more indicative of a larger problem in my experience.
Ive got 24 yrs in corporate so I’m speaking, anecdotally ofc, from experience. Over my career I have always dealt with social climbers, neck steppers, back stabbers and so on. In every role I’ve been in, i was leading technical initiatives and directing ppl so my role has more or less been desirable to other low integrity employees. I took fire regularly. My response was to be a consummate professional and ignore the chatter and gossip. I felt that If i had addressed comments from ppl that i considered insignificant it would give credence to their arguments. I can’t think of a single situation where i engaged in a petty dispute. It helped that I always strived to perform at a high level and left the politics to leadership who nearly always frown on those sort of shenanigans. Bad blood in business is a cancer of its own and i never wanted anything to do with it. For me, In every case I outlasted the anklebiting coworkers. I was,however, caught up in a downsizing after 19 yrs but i was surprised when the large local competitor reached out to me within weeks with an offer. Apparently they had heard of my reputation and told me that interviews were a mere formality. I was hoping to get out of corporate and go to a small company with a beer fridge in the break room but I’m happy that i didn’t ever demean myself by getting dragged down into a wallowing mud fight over some stupid thing that won’t really matter in 3 months.
Now in my 40’s – after taking way too much bullshit when I was younger – I welcome anyone to bring on over some criticism to me at work. They can sit in my chair and do a better job if they think its possible – otherwise they can STFU and save their breath.
I used to take it personal, but now I know there is nobody here that can bring my level of work, so they can take it or leave it. I know I can find another job.
I will also put people on blast if I feel like they are trying to make me look bad somehow – write an email and copy everyone. Unfortunately – it has happened often in my career.
I work places where this kind of thing isn’t a thing, this kind of behaviour would be seen as weird and out of the spirit of our office/work culture, guess I’m lucky to have that though
Control what you can control and ignore the rest. Occasionally, when I’m not communicating well or dragging my feet, someone will call/email/CC my boss. When that happens, I know I’ll be asked about it, so I refresh myself on the timeline of events and prioritize completing whatever needs to happen next. Usually, seeing I’m back on track is enough to make my supervisor happy with the situation. I may receive some extra scrutiny or a lecture, but I’ve learned to deal with it and not worry about what repercussions may come (usually none long term; I’m not getting fired because I failed to send a follow-up email).
If you feel it’s unwarranted, factually incorrect, happening too often, talk to your boss about it. Just talk through it so they know it’s an issue with one person and not indicative of all your work. Listen and execute based on their feedback.
Long term, I try to preempt that shit by giving the other person what they expect before it is demanded. If they’re complaining I don’t communicate enough, I’ll over-communicate, for example. If it’s a situation where they keep calling me out on something that’s not actually wrong or I’m not actually doing, I’ll document it going forward so I have evidence of what I’m doing and why. Focus on making sure your supervisor knows what and why instead of butting heads with the coworker. That might be showing receipts in a response when they CC your boss or it might just be gathering everything up and taking it directly to your boss. Just depends on the situation.
When I was learning English as a kid I ready the prince by niccolino Machiavelli over and over with the hardest form of English available. You would not believe how well a good understand machiavellianism and some of basic psychology can be used to destroy these fools.
I very covertly have quick 1 off convos with whoever is above him and i about nothing in particular to get an idea of who they are and their morals. Men and women I deal with differently. But…dealing with dudes .. I figure out through those short convos what they view as moral and honorable, men are easy because there is a lot of universals with most. Short burst conversations moving forward I personify it.
For instance.. if boss has kids and you do too and they ask about your weekend. Talk about nothing then bring up something yo u did with your kid that brings you In a positive light.
Essentially find out what they respect and drop crumbs that you are that person. It works even better on female bosses as females tend to decide more using emotional logic, so it overrides it faster.
When dbag complains, do not be rude back but stand your ground. This makes him dig his own hole.. even if the boss is friends with him he can’t not doubt the guy and the person unknowingly makes ennemies and destroying themselves.
This has had 100% success rate, even got 2 people to quit this way. But you gotta know what your doing. People can’t know they are being manipulated, so always just be positive guy.l and tell no one. This usually takes a month or so depending. But you come off as the good guy and everyone starts to hate the other person. The smarter people think they are, the easier it works because their ego won’t let them believe they are being manipulated
I don’t worry about troublemakers. My work speaks for itself.
Reply-to-all – ‘hey X can you please tell me what your desired outcome was from sending this email? Thanks in advance, I’m trying to reduce my time spent on unnecessary emails’