The 10 Profiles of Unbearable Colleagues at Work.
Any resemblance with existing people would be purely coincidental.
No matter what field you work in, you have undoubtedly already been confronted with unbearable colleagues at work. Of course, you have also interacted with some very cool and nice colleagues, but usually, these are not the ones that stand out the most when you look back on your time in a company.
You remember the ones who made your life impossible. Since it is unfortunately impossible to escape them, whatever the company you work for, I propose to draw up a portrait of the 10 worst colleague profiles, just for you.
Any resemblance with existing people would be purely coincidental.
The passive-aggressive
Let's start with a colleague profile that is, to say the least... acidic! If it had to be summed up in one word, it would be resentment. If it were made into a pastry, it would most likely be a lemon pie.
A bittersweet character, the passive-aggressive doesn't express his anger or disagreement head-on: he will regularly distill his harsh remarks, discreetly reacting with onomatopoeia and eyebrow-raising, because he doesn't like direct conflict.
The result? A poisonous atmosphere is guaranteed in the open space!
The colleague who makes a big show of being busy, but gets nothing done
For a professional, he is a professional! Of the air, of course. This air-breathing colleague is aptly named because he never stands still, so we think he's always busy, but he gets nothing done.
What does he do? Everything but his work!
He has assigned himself tons of micro-tasks that no one has assigned to him: restocking the toilets with paper, putting the reams of paper in the photocopier, changing the water in the pet fish ... Yes, the whole deception lies in the fact that he is a good prince because he makes himself useful to the community!
Don't be fooled: he doesn't give a damn.
The risk-taker
He or she is a colleague who could pass for charismatic. Beware: this type of colleague is more dangerous than he or she appears. Underneath his or her cowboy or cowgirl exterior, he or she is an employee who will take any risk, at the peril of the team's work and even the company.
He's like the Jim Carrey of the professional world, the daredevil of the workplace: boundless energy, but tiring. All fire, he works fast. Very fast. Too fast. At any moment, he's going to slam you between the fingers.
The veteran who has seen it all
You're bound to have a sample in your office. No one knows how long it's been there, so much so that it's practically part of the decor.
He's the old-timer: he's seen it all, experienced it all (but not beaten it all). He knows everything better than anyone else, and it was better in his time, and it would never have happened like that. And blah blah blah.
As soon as he opens his mouth, it's to shout and reaffirm his status as an elder who prevails over all others. The problem is that he doesn't just talk about the past, he LIVES in the past: the slightest micro change in tools or processes, and it's as if he's reliving the passage from the Stone Age to the invention of the Internet in a hurry.
Which also makes him a potential drama queen. That was the least bad, the base. Add a good dose of paternalism, and a pinch of sexism: there you have it!
The college without any filter
In reality, we don't hate him all the time. We'd like to have him around in small doses, but that's impossible: it's the antithesis of his being.
You'd think he'd been hired to talk about his life 24 hours a day, including things you'd never want to know. From his recent bender with his best friend Tiffany to the latest STI he got, it's a short step. A step he takes without hesitation, even with his feet firmly on the ground.
But his chatty side is to his desire to bitcher what Dr. Jekyll is to Mr. Hyde: two sides of the same coin.
Yes, this chatterbox is also a famous gossip on legs, a blunderer in his spare time, who, if he has nothing to put under the tooth, will always know how to find you a good old dubious gossip of behind the faggots.
The eternal optimist
Behind this profile of a colleague, hides a deeply annoying and tiring being. He arrives every morning at the same time, he has always slept well, and he always displays his best Freedent smile.
Don't look for it: he never suffers any mood fluctuation.
Constant, equal to himself, nothing has a hold on him, and, as a good Stoic, he likes to quote his favorite credo from Epictetus' manual:
“There are things that depend on us, others that do not depend on us.”
In other words, the pedantic equivalent of “You know, I don't believe there is a good or bad situation” from a certain scribe from whom he was inevitably inspired. A true guru of well-being, he was chief happiness officer in another life. If his optimism may seem motivating, it is paralyzing: his painful and bland logorrhea never moves things forward.
The grumbler
Why be happy when you can bitch? This colleague made his life choice a long time ago. His middle name? Irascible. For this colleague, nothing ever goes right, everything is subject to whining. The open space? It's too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. Michael's farewell party? They made fun of us, and the snacks were awful, as always. What do you mean it's our team's turn to host the ninth-grade intern this year? And it goes on and on. Our competitive grouch is not about to shut up: his favorite job is to grumble.
The ass-licker
This archetype is not only found in the professional world, but also at all levels of our existence: he is the know-it-all who is the teacher's favorite at school, the sellout who tells the supermarket security guard that he saw grandma put a bunch of lettuce in her plastic bag after weighing it, or the one who gives the entrance code to the building to the cops with the smug feeling of having done his duty.
The professional world is a real sandbox for him: I'll bend you over backward for the boss, and I'll butter you up for all the managers... If for him, being overzealous comes right after breathing, he can also be a born upstart!
The misogynist Gorgon
Sorority... What? No need to say the word, she doesn't know.
This colleague, often a manager with a not stupid profile and a well-inflated CV, would have the power to make emulators if she didn't suffer from unconfessed misogyny. Insecure, doped up on female rivalry, and endowed with teeth that scratch the floor, she fired - or pushed out - virtually all the girls in the company to surround herself with testosterone with 100% male hires.
More paternalistic and sexist than her, we don't do that!
The disgusting colleague
One would tend to diagnose him with Diogenes syndrome, as his office is so unofficial. It is a heap of rubbish, of infamous stuff.
You can find everything: the charger you lent him about 100 years ago - now sticky with an unidentified material, the wrappings of his last lunches at McDonald's, his whole collection of coffee cups where a mushroom culture is growing nicely...
Of course, his hygiene is like the maintenance of his office: chaotic.
Do you have some bugs at work? Don't look any further, you've found the person in charge: Mr. Disgusting has struck again.
With a bit of bad luck, you check off several boxes in this bingo of the worst colleagues. Surviving in their company is a real crossroads, so my hat is off to you! Don't hesitate to share in the comments the profiles of your worst colleagues as well as your related anecdotes. This will allow us to laugh at them if we can't change things.
Some reading
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Bear Market Gold Lesson: With Cryptocurrencies, You Must Learn to Separate the Wheat From the Chaff. This is the perfect time to do what should have been done before.
The Unfair Advantage You Have Over the Smartest People to Get Rich. There is no need to try to create unique things to become rich. There is a better way.