There are an endless amount of characters in the
workplace.
There’s the lady you find in the break room, always on a
diet and commenting on your weight (God help you if
you are proportionate, she will eat you alive). The guy
who shows off way too many baby pictures of his not-
that-cute-kid. The girl who stays in her office with the
door shut, even during fire drills. And the dreaded over-
talker who never gets the hint (which might explain why
that one girl stays in her office).
We all play roles in our workplaces, many of which are
unique to only our office. But there’s a standard cast of
characters as well. You can find varieties of them
anywhere you go, but they all share the same skill sets.
They are the ones who will succeed and the ones who
will fail.
In lieu of filling you with fluffy “this is what a successful
person looks like” talk, I thought I’d take the opposite
route. The following is a list of people who stand out for
all the wrong reasons. Fair warning: If you don’t know
who this person is at your office, it might be you.
1. The Gullible One.
If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that you
should never believe everything a company says. Don’t
believe them when they say they don’t expect layoffs
(the mere mention of that word suggests they’re on the
way). Don’t believe that they’ve offered you the highest
salary they can. Don’t believe them when they say they
can’t negotiate your raise. And definitely don’t believe
them when they say “this year has been really bad, but
next year you’re going to get hooked up on that
promotion you want!”
When a boss, HR rep or recruiter (or anyone playing a
role in your career and financial success) states
something that makes you tilt your head to the side and
think “huh…that seems sketch,” don’t just accept it.
As I’ve said before, the car dealer will act like he can’t
budge on a number. But if you stand up and start
walking to the door he’ll automatically find a discount
for you. Companies are in it for the bottom line even
when they’re negotiating things with their employees.
They want to encourage you to stick around while also
finding a way to save money. And it saves them money
to give you a smaller raise, to skip a round of
promotions, to make you work through Christmas. Don’t
fall for it.
2. The Groupthinker.
Groupthink is a psychological problem that runs rampant
in workplaces. Even more if you’ve got a large
population of “longtermers” in a corporation. Groupthink
is why technology isn’t updated, why policies are
outdated, why there’s no new blood (or ideas) on a
team, why you hear the sentence “you can’t do that,
that’s not how we’ve always done it!”
It’s easy to spot these people, especially if you’re new
to a company. They sit in clumps together and they
make bizarre statements in meetings, they do the same
things every day and they complain when their life is
disrupted by something (or someone) new.
If you fight against a mass of groupthinkers, you run a
high risk of failure, persecution, derailment and tons of
frustration. But if you engage and join them, you will
become silly and possibly unmarketable for your next
career jump. Take your pick.
3. The Fearful One.
People do ridiculous things when they’re scared. Just
ask anyone who’s died in a horror movie (I mean, who
drops the phone and runs up the stairs?!).
Fearful people will cause you serious amounts of trouble
at work. If they’re scared of getting fired, they will find a
way to point a finger at you. If their project is failing,
they will suggest your role was to blame. Drowning
people will grab whatever they can to keep their head
above water. Don’t stand too close and become that
object.
And don’t become the drowning person. If you ever feel
worried about something at work, you sense something
bad coming your way or you screw up big time, avoid
the fear by taking some action. Talk to someone, your
boss, your mentor or a peer to get information that will
quell your fears. Or fess up and find out immediately
what repercussions are headed your way for the screw-
up so you’re not worried about the unknowns. Do
whatever you need to do in order to avoid becoming the
fearful one.
4. Apathetic Guy.
The other day, a friend of mine posted a message on
Facebook FB +3.3% stating her frustration that people
keep calling her upcoming maternity leave a “vacation.”
She mentioned a litany of things that have to be done
while you’re on maternity leave (none of it sounded
remotely vacation’ish). She referenced this because she
felt judged and persecuted for her decision to take the
time off.
Consider now the single person. If you haven’t been in
this demo for awhile, you might not be aware of this,
but single people are also victims of workplace apathy.
I’ve actually heard the sentence, “You can stay late
tonight to finish this, right? I gotta get out of here and
it’s not like you’re going home to a family.”
Everyone is dealing with something. Everyone feels
judged and misunderstood every once in awhile. And
everyone feels the sting from these moments. Show
some compassion even when you’re having trouble
putting yourself in their shoes.
Don’t be the apathetic coworker. The grass isn’t always
greener, even though it may appear so.
5. The Sore Loser.
Anytime you’re successful or experience something
great in life or your career, I guarantee you that someone
somewhere will doubt that you earned it the good ‘ol
hard-working way. That someone somewhere is the sore
loser.
A sore loser will think you got that deal because you’ve
got an important last name. Or that you were hired
because your Mom sits in the corner office. Or that you
simply got lucky (literally and figuratively).
You can’t stop a sore loser from thinking what they
want and you can’t convince them out of their opinion.
The only way to battle a sore loser is to make sure
they’re not right (it might surprise some of you ladies
that yes, business can indeed be conducted outside the
bedroom!).
Update: It’s been called to my attention by several
female readers that the comment above was offensive
and diminishes the hard-earned success of females in
the workplace. I realize now it was a poor example and
misrepresented the very reason I have this column. It
wasn’t my goal to suggest that women are perpetuating
a Mad Men-era stereotype and that men are absolved of
their roles in these scenarios. While it exists, this in fact
is NOT a common problem in the workplace. I mentioned
it as merely a side note to emphasize the importance in
making sure “Sore Losers” are not making accurate
accusations by carrying yourself properly in the
workplace.
Use your connections and your network to get ahead,
but do your own dang work. Show results. Then the
sore losers will disappear one by one.
6. Malicious Gossiper.
There’s harmless gossip and then there’s malicious
gossip. Harmless gossip is…harmless. But you must
avoid the malicious gossiper completely. In fact, put
large amounts of space between you and this person.
Assume that since they’re willing to share really bad
information with you, they’re sharing it with other
people. They’re kind of like the flu.
If you run across a malicious gossiper and they start
talking, whatever you do, don’t agree with them.
Because the next thing you know, your sentence of “Oh,
I agree with you – I bet she totally slept with that guy to
get that job” will be shortened to “So and so just told
me that so and so slept with so and so!” And voila,
you’re screwed.
7. The Apologizer.
I recently attended an event where several startups were
invited to pitch. One woman stood up to sell her idea to
a room undoubtedly full of millions, a big opportunity for
a small company. She looked sharp and ready. But then
she opened with, “Don’t worry, this isn’t a crappy
website that does blah…”
Well shoot. For the remainder of her presentation, I
assumed her website was crappy.
The Apologizer will discredit themselves as soon as they
open their mouth. They will start a presentation with
qualifying statements like the one above or they will ask
for a raise by saying, “I know we don’t have a lot of
money, but…” They lose these deals because they show
a massive lack of confidence in the statement,
regardless of topic.
You don’t necessarily have to avoid this person. Just
don’t be this person. The company pays you a salary
because they think you’re worth it. You have every right
to be in the room and to be having that conversation
right then. Why act like you don’t belong there?
Repeat the following statement as many times as you
need to before you have an important conversation or
make a presentation: Be confident, not cocky.
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