When a co-worker is rude to you, it can be hard to know how to respond. Because you’re expected to maintain good relationships with colleagues, you might be tempted to pretend the rudeness didn’t happen. But when someone is rude over and over, and you’re required to deal with the person as part of your job, it can cause real stress and make your working life much less pleasant.
Here are some ways to deal with a rude co-worker.
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Ignore it. If someone is mildly snippy with lots of people, not just with you, one option is simply to try to ignore it. The fact that the person does it to multiple people means that it’s something about them, not you. Sometimes people are chronically rude or snippy because they’re not good at dealing with stress. Sometimes it’s because they’re generally unhappy with work or with life. Sometimes they’re simply curmudgeons. Whatever the cause, if you can reframe it in your mind to a problem of theirs, rather than a reaction to anything you’re doing, it can be much easier not to take it personally and to let it roll off of you.
To be clear, you’re never obligated to do this. You’re allowed to speak up if a co-worker treats you poorly. But sometimes choosing not to let it get to you can be the easiest way to deal with it. But if not …
Speak up. If a co-worker is rude or otherwise disrespectful to you, sometimes calling out the behavior can make the person realize she was out of line. And if it doesn’t achieve that, it at least may demonstrate that you don’t silently accept rudeness, which may make the person less likely to treat you that way again.
One way to speak up is simply to name what’s happening: “I know this is frustrating. But you’re using a pretty adversarial tone here that’s making it hard to figure this out.” Or, a more assertive option is to simply say, “Please don’t speak to me in that tone.” (Make sure you say this calmly and matter-of-factly to minimize the chances of escalating the problem.)
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A more subtle option is to say something like, “Whoa — you sound really frustrated. Do you need me doing something differently here?” Asking that question can nudge the person to realize that you’re not doing anything that warrants rudeness in response.
In some cases, the rudeness might be less about tone or demeanor and more about the substance of a remark. In that case, be direct that it’s rude and needs to stop. For example, if a co-worker snidely remarks on your recent weight gain, an effective response is, “Wow, that’s really rude.” Ideally you’d also add, “Please don’t comment on my body.”
If the rudeness is part of a pattern, you might try addressing it as a whole. Years ago, I worked with someone who didn’t deal with stress well and would take his frustration out on colleagues. I think he must have known on some level he was doing that, but the fact no one had called him out on it had made it easy for him to keep doing it. I finally said something like this to him: “I like working with you, but I don’t know if you realize how you talk to me sometimes. You can come across like you don’t want to listen to what I have to say or that you’re annoyed with what I’m saying. It can make working together pretty hard. Do you think you could rein that in?” To my surprise, it seemed to disarm him and he was much easier to work with after that. (This doesn’t mean you’ll always get an easy resolution, of course! But it’s a reasonable thing to say, and it’s worth a shot.)
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If it’s extreme, report it. If a colleague is a little snippy here and there, try the advice above. But if someone crosses the line into overt hostility or abusiveness, or if the behavior is so frequent that it interferes with your ability to do your job, that’s something the person’s manager should hear about.
And of course, if you are the person’s manager, chronic rudeness is something that you need to address forthrightly. Managers sometimes hesitate to address interpersonal problems, figuring that it’s not really about the person’s work — but treating people politely is as much a part of what you need from a staff member as quality work. And if you don’t address rudeness, it will poison the working environment for the rest of your team, so it’s crucial to address it and make it clear that being civil to colleagues isn’t optional.
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How to Deal With a Co-Worker Who’s Rude to You originally appeared on usnews.com