Work with a jerk?

Jerk alert….Jerk alert…. We all know at least one. In your workplace, if you’re limited to Jerk Person Singular, you’re lucky. They exist everywhere, unloved and definitely unlovely. The question is, what is the best way to cope with the problems that these people create in your working day?

# 1: Boss Jerk.

Oh dear. You have one of these? You need to evaluate whether or not the plus side of working for someone who makes your stomach churn whenever they enter the office outweighs the negatives they create for you on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis. They come in all shapes and sizes:

  • the divide-and-conquer specialists, who set you against your colleagues and vice-versa, then stand back to enjoy the fallout;
  • the blame-merchants, who screw up regularly but never carry the can for it, by having neatly lined up a colleague or subordinate to face the firing squad;
  • the crowd-pleasers: so busy brown-nosing and being everybody’s best friend that they don’t get the job done – and guess who gets into trouble for that? No, not them.
  • The rug-pullers. They’ll set up a meeting to discuss a particular project, you’ll arm yourself with all the relevant data, and as soon as you get into the meeting room, they say “we aren’t going to talk about that today”, introduce a new topic and enjoy your discomfiture at being unprepared.
  • The bully. Kind of jerk who enjoys tearing a strip off you or colleagues in front of the entire staff.

All I can say is, if you’re tolerating one of these, you aren’t likely to change their behaviour, so your best bet is to change your work location to as far away from them as you can manage.

Or pray they get promoted far, far away.

For the next exciting instalments of the Jerk Cycle, look out in the coming weeks for the following: Peer Jerk; Telephone Jerk; Junior Jerk.

Got any Jerk stories you’d like to share? Post a comment.

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