This episode of the Workin' on the Weekends Podcast is all about dealing with difficult people at work. We break down some common archetypes of people we can't stand working with, and how you can navigate those relationships best.

The Types Of People We Find Hard To Work With/For 

Aka The Corporate Archetypes We Hate 

1. The bottleneck - the people that you are always waiting on to get something done. You constantly find yourself “circling back” with them to check on the status of XYZ and you can never get your job done until you hear back from them.

   
   



2. The micromanager - the people that always have an edit, always want to change something that you worked on.

   
   





1. And we’re not talking about general feedback, we’re talking about a social media caption with 10 changes and unnecessary feedback that in turn, becomes a bottleneck

   
   





3. The “too busy for you” - it sucks to have a manager that doesn’t have time for you to support you or get you what you need to be successful in your role

   
   

How To Deal With Difficult People In The Workplace

GENERAL:

• Have a work bestie to vent to!

  
  





• Side note: don’t make venting about people your entire friendship though

  
  





• Document interactions with difficult people so you have proof to refer to if you ever need it

  
  



• Loop in your manager so they’re aware of the situation

  
  

SPECIFIC:

How to deal with the bottleneck:

• When following up with these types of people, be extremely specific in the timing you need them to get back to you by. 

  
  



• Start the conversations earlier than your standard processes. For example, if you’d normally give a work week to review content, try a week or a week and a half.

  
  

How to deal with the micromanager:

• Have a conversation, like:

  
  





• Can you teach/show me exactly what you’re looking for in something like this so next time I can do it more in the way it seems you’re looking?

  
  



• Is there an area where I am missing the mark in your eyes that is making you need to give me this much feedback?

  
  





• Take into consideration the past feedback you’ve received from your client and implement moving forward to cut down on the back and forth.

  
  

How to deal with the “too busy for you”

• Set recurring meetings with agendas so you can batch your questions and make sure you’re being heard and being provided support when you need it.


• Ask any questions you can upfront when work is delegated to you, in case this is the last time you can get in touch with your manager for a while.