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If you’ve been around an office for any time at all, you’ve run into one of those certifiable nut cases who makes you (and everyone around you) miserable.
Not to worry. We can help.
Here are the 13 most common office whack jobs, based upon the book, Don’t Bring It to Work: Breaking the Family Patterns That Limit Success, written by the brilliant and charming Sylvia Lafair.
We’ve also included a recipe for coping with the nut case in a way that will help make your workplace more enjoyable for you (if not for the nut case).
BTW: The coping recipes are straight from the fertile mind of our resident real-politik maven, Sales Machine blogger Geoffrey James.
[BTW #2: Here are four of the 13. To read the complete article, please click here.]
The Drama Queen
The drama queen (or king, because this behavior is ABSOLUTELY NOT gender specific) can be a lot of fun. The drama queen will cry, yell, and throw objects around the room simply to make a point. The aim of such histrionics is not to cause pain as much as it is to make a noisy point.
If one is not the target of the upset, watching a drama queen is often like watching a theatrical performance. The drama queen is usually very intelligent and possesses a vocabulary at once extensive, effective, and colorful. Drama queens love gossip rumors personal traumas and emotional breakdowns.
Drama queens believe that their best work gets done when they are in an emotionally charged state. You never have to ask them how they are feeling. If it isn’t written on their face in either the form of a smile or a scowl, they will tell you.
In meetings, drama queens offer stubborn points of view and make sure that everyone knows how wrongheaded the other side is. Drama queens love to stir things up if a conflict is settled and all parties are finally calm. The drama queen will say something like “Yes, I know we all agree but…” Although such people can be resourceful and creative, they waste time and energy that could have been used more productively.
How To Cope: Actually drama queens are your invaluable allies to making sure that other groups or individuals don’t get things done. Invite the drama queen to any meeting where there’s likely to be a decision that you don’t want made. Set up the situation so that there’s something that will be sure to set off a drama tirade. Then sit back and look surprised as the drama queen makes a hash of the entire meeting. Great fun!
The Victim
Victims are consummate complainers. Pessimistic by nature, they never feel respected or trusted. They struggle with feelings of inadequacy and fearfulness and as a result they tend to be quiet and to withdraw from any situations in which they risk being attacked. They will call also go out of their way to avoid folks they think are highly competent.
Victims are always looking for someone to come to their rescue and there is always an alliance to be formed with other victims who are also uncomfortable with conflict. Victims hate having people look over their shoulders. If this happens they tend to slow down, get sick or ask to be given another task.
Victims are often blind to solutions. They spend so much time focusing on problems that opportunities for real and lasting change pass them by. They believe that anything they do will only cause more problems and all too often this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Victims often stay in the same job, even though they’re deeply unhappy. When something happens that causes them to move to another job, they tend to re-create the same conditions. They’re extremely frustrating because they simply will not take action to change their situation.
How To Cope: This kind of person is only a problem to managers, so if it’s a coworker, your coping mechanism is easy. Just avoid hanging out with him, because, frankly, who wants to hear the whining? If you’re the person’s manager, then get him assigned to some form of work that consists of finding errors, like Total Quality Management.
The Procrastinator
Procrastinators always say yes to deadlines but fail to follow through. They then become indignant or evasive when held responsible. As deadlines approach, procrastinators cannot be found by cell phone, e-mail or carrier pigeon. When the work is finally turned in, procrastinators often go on multiple mini vacations to “recuperate from the stress.”
While perfectionism plays a part, most procrastinators lack self-confidence and are unsure whether they can actually complete a task. There also appears to be a link between impulsiveness and procrastination. Impulsive people tend to value living in the moment and thus attribute no real meaning to deadlines.
For businesses the cost of procrastination includes time spent counseling tardy employees, making sure the postponed work gets covered, managing disappointments and handling the conflicts that are bound to occur when teams are waiting for a solitary individual to produce his or her part of a project.
Procrastination costs are hard to measure as one can hardly plot out all the possible alternative scenarios and all the missed opportunities. One thing is certain, a procrastinator on a project virtually guarantees that it will either be late, or that other people will end up doing extra work in order to get it in on time.
How To Cope: Set up a schedule of reminders that send regular emails, with reminders, and return receipts, Copy the return receipts to everybody in the department He can’t run and he can’t hide. Then refuse to take responsbility for the parts of the project that he didn’t do.
The Super Achiever
Super achievers must excel at everything that they do… to the point of obnoxiousness. Not only do they achieve every conventional measure of career success, but their families must look picture perfect. “Happy” is not a word used by super achievers; the only word that matters is “successful.”
Super achievers see themselves as special and they want to be treated as such. They continually inflate themselves often at the expense of others. Super achievers hate criticism and will endlessly defend, explain or justify in order to prove that they are right and others are wrong.
If the super achiever is a peer, no matter how competent you are, you’ll walk away from an encounter needed to shake off an uncomfortable sense of incompetence. If you report to a super achiever, one of two things is bound to happen. Either you will sit at the feet of the star or you will be constantly told that your ideas are second rank. If you oversee a super achiever, expect underhanded maneuvers to get you fired.
Super achievers breed fear and resentment. Everyone begins to guard ideas and an uncomfortable sense of paranoia grows. Initially, a super achiever will charm certain individuals who look as if they can be the best stepping stones. But over time a slew of bruised egos accumulate and by the time the rest of the team what realizes what has happened, the super achiever has been promoted.
How To Cope: The secret fear of every super achiever is that they’re not really good enough or smart enough. That’s why they’ve got to be perfect. So your best move is to play upon their insecurities. Constantly bring up examples of people who are more successful than they are. Make sure they know that “people around here” are questioning their competence. Encase the digs nice candy-coat of hero-worship, where they’ll be swallowed like a bitter pill that will eat away at them. Eventually, if you’re lucky, they’ll blow up from the pressure and get fired.
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To read the complete article, please click here.
Sylvia Lafair, PhD, business leadership expert and President of Creative Energy Options, Inc. (CEO), a global consulting company focused on optimizing workplace relationships through extraordinary leadership. With a doctorate in clinical psychology, Dr. Lafair, who was a practicing family therapist, took her talents into the work world and has revolutionized the way employees react and teams cooperate.