How to deal with an annoying co-worker?
 

I'll cut a long story short - we no longer have a team leader for our team (I work in an open plan office full of small teams for a big company; we sometimes work in tandem with other teams but generally we're all self contained teams) because he got fired and in terms of the actual work we're doing, we're fine (dare I say better off...) without a team leader.

However, one of the guys on my team is rubbing everyone else on the team up the wrong way by way of his (****ING IRRITATING) personality and over the last couple of days it's really hyped up and become a bit problematic. How do you think I should go about dealing with him? It's gone past ignoring him and biting my tongue because he's actively impacting on my working day now, he comes over to ask questions he already knows the answer to so he can argue with you for 20 minutes about the answer, then go ask another person anyway thus wasting your time. We don't have a team leader, so I can't do the usual go to my manager if I have a complaint thing. Should I confront him (which might seem really personal and affect the team) or should I go to the team leader of another team and explain the problems to them so they can have a word with him? I shouldn't have to deal with this and it's not fair on me or anyone else to have to deal with this kind of behaviour on a daily basis, he's extremely infuriating to work with and it's gotten to the point where I can't even look at him without getting mildly irritated/really angry.

I would have a word with a decent team leader from another section and firstly ask his/her advice about who you should go to, that way you cover yourself and can offload to that team leader at the same time in an informal way.

Life is too short to sit on your hands. make the move Z.

Why don't you suggest a specific time and duration for discussions, every day first 15mins in the mornings maybe to iron out any team niggles? Say you'd prefer it to being broken off other duties throughout the day, sounds like a storming/ norming scenario :laugh:

Well it depends.

Do you think he will be more pissed off/embarrassed/upset if he heard it from you or the team leader?

On the other hand he might take it really well if you're just honest with him. It's obvious that something needs done here, but it's figuring out what's best for the long run.

Totally agree with Trumpet - God help me...

Thanks LT, we've got a meeting with one such team leader tomorrow so I think I'll try and catch her after the meeting's over and just quietly tell her how I'm feeling, ask who I should speak to and see what she says. I feel like I'm going mad, the guy could start an argument with a brick wall. The other day at lunch he said I "agree with terrorism" because he was ranting about ISIS and I said "this has happened throughout modern history though, Al Qaeda were funded by the US to take on the USSR and then they turned the American guns on the US and 9/11 happened" - quite how that makes me a terrorist sympathiser I'm not sure. Yesterday tipped me over the edge though, he came to me with an issue, asked me what to do, I told him what to do, he told me I was wrong and went and asked someone else in our team and then asked someone who isn't even in our team and got the same response three separate times from three separate people. He spent 20 minutes arguing with me about this non-issue. Piss off! Pedantic wanker.

:joker:

Yes he sounds like a twit, but you do not get paid to deal with twits so offload and move on and up. :spin:

Don't entertain him, or give him a platform.. stick to discussing work issues with him if you can't avoid it and keep your responses as brief and succinct as possible. If he come's to you with an issue, say I'm very sorry I'm busy right now I'll find you when I'm free. He'll get bored of asking when you never get back to him.

Z get used to it, some people are going to grate on you, you can't go running to the boss every time someone annoys you, take matters in your own hands, if he asks you a question, act dumb, say you are not sure about what he is asking and refer him to someone else, he will soon get the message.

:joker: snap

Is the person concerned Morsh?

:suspect:

it sounds awful like him

Kill them

It's just not that kind of job, because we're working with a new IT system and the whole reason we were employed is to work through the issues in it - originally 10 of us started out in October, 2 left after a month and then at the end of November they brought in 2 new people to replace them, this guy is one of the replacements. Since then, another 3 have left, meaning there are 7 of us in the team, 5 originals and 2 replacements, so the five of us who have been there from the start know more because we've become accustomed to the system - the new starts had to sit and watch us for the first week because nothing was set up for them, then it was the holidays etc... so they've really only properly started since we came back on the 5th of January and it's fine that they have questions as things arise, it's just this guy will argue ANYTHING you say... But I would just love to say to him, leave me alone, if you have a question, email it to me and I'll get round to it when I have the time...

See I just don't know, it might come across as really personal if I tell him myself or it might seem really personal if I involve a team leader... but he IS preventing me from doing my own work which I find very annoying and stressful because I've just been given control of an entire project which is exciting for me but it means I'm not able to focus on it all day because I keep getting interrupted by this guy and his debates...

That's what I keep telling myself, I'm not being paid anything extra to deal with him, so I shouldn't have to...

I honestly minimise my interactions with him as much as possible, I usually don't get involved in any debates at lunch, sometimes I even have lunch at my desk just because I can't be bothered with him... It's bloody irritating...

Well this is the other thing, I don't know if I'm just being really petty and letting him get to me and I should just do nothing and hopefully it'll stop getting on my nerves soon and it'll be fine...

i'll cut a long story short - *90 page essay*

I feel bad for you if 2 paragraphs is considered an essay

I could post it again but this time entirely in interpretive .GIFs if that would be more to your taste

:joker::joker::joker:

Zee, I am going through the exact same thing right now with a co worker to the point that the way they are behaving impacts our work daily and then because of her it ends up falling back on all of us, so both myself and another worker had to end up having a word with the boss which was ****ing pointless because nothing has changed and I'm going to end up going mental at her :laugh: I'm laughing but it's really getting to me, I'm not used to crap like this after working for myself for so long.

Anyway sorry for hijacking your thread and I know none of that above is any help to you but honestly if you find that it's impacting your work then I would say go ahead and have a quiet word with another team leader and explain the situation to them, there's no point in speaking to the person in question imo since you still have to work with them and it could cause an atmosphere or worse constant arguments.

Hope you get things sorted out.

In fact lets take a lead from the horrible bosses movie and you sort out my co worker and I will sort out yours :think:

i was joking :sad:

no, you are as bad as Morsh the bad co-worker

:nono:

and Kizzy who now works with Josy

I agree with what Livia and LT think. I'd go see someone else before you say something.

Josy making things all about her as per usual :nono:

I don't listen to anything my co workers say. All they do is gossip about everyone. I just do my job and only chat to the people I like.