How to work with someone you dislike
One thing most people entering the work force as young adults failed to realise was how different the workforce is to just being in school. You can choose your friends but not who you work with. Most of the time when seeking a job you will end up working for and with people you don’t know. Many times however you get lucky and end up liking a good amount of the people you work with on a daily basis. But what happens when you encounter someone at work that you just really dislike?
Unfortunately sometimes these people just really can rub you the wrong way and make getting through your work day extremely hard. All we can do sometimes is just find ways to help you cope with it the best you can. Ways to help you cope can be as easy as trying different tactics to take your mind off it. Some ideas on this are:
1. Remember it’s okay to really dislike someone
Most of us just assume that everyone likes everyone and will just get along, well this just isn’t the way the world works these days. It’s just not in our human nature to get along with every person you come across. Not everyone has the same personalities so therefore you are going to rub people the wrong way and in turn they will do the same to you at some point. Just keep in mind that even though there may be someone at work you don’t exactly see eye to eye with that at the end of the day you both go your separate ways and don’t have to see them again till tomorrow.
2. Find something else to think about
Try not to hold on to the anger you have for this person. When you are always angry at someone you can tend to store all that pent up anger and despise which will ultimately lead to you blowing up and losing your cool. This is not good for you, your job, and other people around you. It’s also especially not good for your health. The best thing to do is to try to focus on something else such as a big project at work, or find a hobby to occupy your mind with. You can also try turning your attention to something positive like volunteering your time to a homeless shelter, animal shelter, or something else that is close to your heart.
3. Get to know them
Maybe you not liking a person at work just simply boils down to not really knowing enough about this person. As the old saying goes, “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover”. This is so very true in almost every instance in the workplace. Your dislike for them could be due to reading between the lines of emails, texts, phone calls, etc.. which in this case we all know that things can easily be taken wrong through written text due to not being able to distinguish tone and body language. Maybe all that really needs to happen is having a serious one on one with this person, find out their likes, dislikes, hobbies, etc. If this doesn’t work you can always just try simply putting them out of your mind and just concentrate on your duties at your job. Just remember civility is everything sometimes and the best thing is to always be kind.
