Does anyone else have problems with one of their co-workers? If you're no longer working, did you have problems with an old co-worker?

I have trouble getting along with one of my co-workers. I swear his only purpose in life is to make people feel like a worthless piece of sh**.

He does this to everybody, not just me. Any time you do something slightly wrong, he's like, "Why did you do that? That is NOT what we're supposed to do." Then if you say it was a mistake, he says, "You were NOT supposed to do that. I can't believe you did that." It doesn't matter if you apologize to him or not. He still goes around telling everyone that you made a mistake.

I'm like, "Seriously? F*** off, douchebag."

He acts like he's smarter than everyone else, too. For example, one time I told him over an internet chat that something wasn't working. (FYI, we have an internal chat for sending messages to each other at work.) Then he was like, "It works. Why can't you learn how to use it properly?" I said, "It doesn't work." Then he snapped back, "YES IT DOES. How come other people were able to use it?" (At that point, I realized he never actually checked if it worked.) Then I showed him it didn't work and he never responded back. He can't admit when he's wrong.

I don't even know what to do with this a**hole. I have to work with him sometimes, which sucks. He's also my age, so he definitely doesn't know as much as he thinks he does... but he acts like he's been working in the industry for 30 years.

[Yzen]

I have worked with people that are similar. I believe people like that have a self-worth problem and their inflated ego is their way to protect their worth. I don't think they care much about people's opinion. People to them are only valuable for proving their "importance" and self-worth.

I am not sure what is the best way to deal with people like that. Ignore them if you can. If you have to work with him and he did something wrong, trying to prove it doesn't help. I don't think he will care about your opinion if it disagrees with his own. Instead, I try to work around them indirectly so I don't have to deal with the games they play for a sense of importance. .

Well put and astute, Yzen!

Bluebicycle, I swear, if it wasn't for gender and age, you could SO be talking about my coworker! It drives me up a wall. Nobody else ever does anything right. (That's amazing isn't it? I mean, what are the odds?! Lol.) It's downright acrobatic how the most innocuous utterance can be twisted to make a put down or personal invalidation. How many sentences per day must begin with "No...<insert here anything which can be translated to "you are wrong">? Also, everyone takes (and "hides") her stuff all the time(!) Oddly enough, virtually every time it is wherever she tossed it last in her pile of crap (aka total chaos work area). It's ALWAYS someone else. (And blame must ALWAYS be assigned, even pre-emptively(!)). Passive/aggressive out the yingyang. I won't even get into her desperate need to make sure everyone knows what she's doing, going to do and going to do after that, and yes, that includes use of the bathroom. TMI. And repeats virtually everything. No sooner does the sentence finish than it is followed with, "as I said" and repeated. She endlessly *****es about the boss and how he does things. All while playing the long-suffering saint. You get the picture.
(For a picture of me, see Edvard Munch's The Scream. Lol.)

I agree with Yzen that the best approach when possible is to ignore. Don't engage if you can help it. Over time I learned to stop and think before I spoke. It was hardest to resist the urge to be helpful. One shouldn't have to stop that impulse!! But after the thousandth time of getting insulted over it, one learns. Quite recently, I got brave and said, "I'm not comfortable with hearing (boss) talked about behind his back." Didn't stop her of course, but at least I've clearly stated why I won't be engaging in any way when she does it. This is a VERY small company, so avoiding is simply not possible. So the next level is to think in terms of damage control. What shields YOU. Like with the helping issue, my mantra is, "don't hand 'em ammo".

My being the unsociable weirdo there has a benefit -- people really aren't surprised that I'm disengaged(!) I rarely talk, and live inside my head. Trick is to try to not let them live inside your head. Not easy!! But maybe think in terms of real estate. Don't let them live in your head for free.

Wow, this is long! Basically... *Ignore *Do not engage unneccesarily (but when must, keep it short and sweet). *Don't hand ammo over. *Don't try to play their game. These folks see only in terms of win/lose (win/win does not compute), and they will do anything to "win". The only way to actually win is not to play. *Try not to demonize. They've clearly got issues. We're not going to be able to change that, so our time is best spent attending to our own needs.

Good luck! I totally sympathize!

[DechanDawa]

I once had a co-worker who was so bad I ended up getting physically sick from the stress of working with her. I decided to quit. My boss was sorry to see me go. I had lunch with the boss and told the boss I was quitting because I could not stand to work with...the office terror. My boss told me that the person I called the office terror had just handed in her resignation and the boss was going to offer me her job which included a pay raise! So I learned my lesson. Never let a co-worker stand in the way of your work.