To think there’s someone like this in every workplace?

[DoorKnobber]

Some one who is arrogant and opinionated, disliked by many colleagues but is good at their job?!

I have one in my work place, I’ve only been there a year and been able to to tolerate him, even get on with him, but he is so self centred, full of opinions as in never shuts up and has an answer for everything... guaranteed he’ll speak out in meetings, usually against everything anyone else has said.

I doubly don’t like him atm (which I think is where this thread has come from) as he has has recently twisted something I Have said to him about working with another colleague. He’s gone and told her that I’ve been slagging her off! Luckily she had the sense to come to me about it and we’ve sorted it. But I really want to confront him about it, but there seems no point as it won’t change him!

Do you have a colleague like this? How do you deal with them?

Yup, we definitely have one. She also has absolutely no boundaries with regards what you do and don’t talk about at work (politics, religion etc) when you don’t know people particularly well and is always keen to “share her thoughts” on a variety of subjects. She is hilariously baffled at the conversational tumbleweed this generates.

@firstmentat, I was going to say the same. I'm definitely the gobby, opinionated one.

Ooh @BrightYellowDaffodil that’s just reminded me of when I was training and another student... who I spent every Friday with for a year but wasn’t close to... told me that her fanny was hurting from her recent wax! I really didn’t need to know that

Why though @LakieLady? Why are you that person? Do you take other people’s opinions in to account?

Every work place has them. I'm working from home just now and it's so nice being away from the office. I'm actually seriously considering looking for a new job when all this ends and I have to go back to the office. I didn't realise quite how much I was allowing the atmosphere in the office to get to me.

@roking I have one of those. The martyr, is what I call them. They have more work than anyone else, bigger case load than every one else. Blah blah blah. We have to keep paperwork and a point is made of how much paper work they have compared to everyone else. What I know however is that said files of paperwork are actually full of empty plastic wallets. . They work an extra 2-3 hours every day, banging on about how dedicated they are, no one works as hard etc. Unfortunately, what they don't realise is that management actually thinks they are terribly inefficient and doesn't give them any of the big jobs anymore because they've upset too many important people with their argumentative 'I'm always right' attitude.

Oh no, I think I might be that person in my team I am good at my job, my performance reviews say I'm the highest performer in the team. I was specifically hired to design and implement improvements to how the team does stuff and while the team is constantly complaining that the way they work is not working, they are not open to changing this.

I speak out in meetings because I want to contribute and I have ideas that could make all our lives easier but my ideas are ignored or dismissed. It is clear to me from the way they speak to me that they find me annoying and don't want to work with me. I am excluded from all social activities that they organise.

Got a few of these, not just the one.

One in my team is a massive pita, full of bull shit, tells everyone how to do their job, starts a lot of sentences with 'in mmyyyy day...'.

One in another team is a nasty man bitch, gets write ups on the colleague board for doing a great job, but actually makes things very unpleasant with his face like a slapped arse when he has to help our department, tattle tales for the most petty things.

One is a manager who is furlouged, and its been bliss since she's been off. I use the word 'narcissist' with caution, but I honestly think that's what she is. She's made so many people cry, said so many spiteful things, she is basically a bully. But in her department she does get shit done.

In all three cases we know info that should be reported to HR (lots of theft, lots of bullying, nepotism....) but management prefers to adopt an easy life and not rock the boat because its easier to maintain a low level atmosphere of toxicity.

Well as my FIL used to say "Theres always one dear" Lots of nice easy going people and one has to be a knob dont they? Best to ignore if you can .

No so sure actually. IME they're rarely good at their job, just good at telling people they're good at their job.

My workplace is filled with them!

Mrs good at the bits of her job she chooses to do but refuses to be a teamworker. Everyone even the CEO is scared of her.

Mrs thinks she amazing and has fooled everyone into believing the same. I'm her manager and the lists of work she provides for this time are laughable. It would take about an hour a week.

Mrs super busy (yes we can all see as you've started marking your start and finish times in your calendar and sending unnecessary emails at the weekend) but has no original ideas.

Having come across several of these over the years I have learned not to engage as it only encourages them. My default now is to smile beatifically at them, and trace “fuck off you twat” on the roof of my mouth with my tongue 😉 and if they are really on a roll I award myself bonus points for using alternative fonts.

I make sure I keep every single email. Never agree or disagree with them verbally, always in writing and I sit firmly on the fence when asked leading questions, such as "can I ask you what your thoughts are on...." because as soon as it's said it either causes arguments or is used as backup if it fits their current agenda.

They load the gun for someone else to pull the trigger quite often and they always befriend the moaners who have an axe to grind. As these people become their soldiers to back them up.

People like this are disruptive, disrespectful,sly, nasty, narcissistic, manipulative, tendency to occasionally bully and very often not as good at their job as they want everyone to believe. It's the image they present of how good they are at everything that's king to them.

Distance, distance, distance, they will throw you under the bus at the earliest opportunity if they can.

@Asiama that's how I feel all the time. And when work is such a big part of your life it can be utterly demoralising. You have my sympathy.

I worked with someone very like this. Very opinionated, very bitchy, upset quite a few people too. The thing was, he was quite often right and I admired him grudgingly at times for pointing out things to senior managers that others didn't dare. However, after I left, I found out that he actually didn't do as much work as he liked to tell people he was, and, in the words of a manager, "had a very high talk to action ratio."

I've found a large proportion of academic staff are like this , a large proportion of those are males. Must go with the territory of being an expert in your subject I guess.

You need to take the wind out of his sails Make him look like the dick he is. Once he starts spouting off, an "oh god yes off again , gang on everyone your opinions no longer matter". And just very sarcastically agree with everything he says. "oh yes silly me and my opinions". Etc etc. You'll find that it becomes a joke and others will join in. He will find you really irritating and stop engaging.

Peperethecat Morocco does have a significant Jewish population. They migrated there due to persecution by the Spanish inquisition. There are historic Jewish quarters in most of the main cities.

Peper - there used to be a huge Jewish community in Morocco, and there are still some Jews there, so it's not a completely unreasonable thing to say. Also, Morocco is quite secular, you can buy alcohol, etc. I think this is what he was trying to say, rather than that most Moroccans aren't Muslims.

Ha! I came on to say the same about Jews in Morocco. It’s seems most of the population have decamped to Israel where they are in fact the second largest community.
So I think that’s what he was trying to get across.

Every work place has them. I'm working from home just now and it's so nice being away from the office. I'm actually seriously considering looking for a new job when all this ends and I have to go back to the office. I didn't realise quite how much I was allowing the atmosphere in the office to get to me

Me too. My boss is a grade A dick and working with her causes me untold stress and anxiety. She is moody, talks over people, claims our ideas as hers and is actually not very good even though she tells everyone how great she is. I need to leave.

How do you deal with them? We have a few where I work and they seem to make a fucking bee line for me. Rise to the bait, they've won, let them bullshit you and they're so self-absorbed they think you believe them and they've won. Ugh.

Q

No, he was definitely saying that there still is large Jewish population and trying to imply that it isn't an Islamic country at all. We are in France and the environment we work in is quite traditional French Catholic. I think he says things that he thinks will make people see him as, I don't know, less foreign, more like everyone else maybe? He also talks about his fiancée who is apparently a French nurse and goes on about how good and kind she is. The only thing is that he comes across very strongly as gay, and none of us have ever met her or even seen a picture of her. It's really hard to explain but I think he is deeply insecure and makes an awful lot of shit up to make everyone think he fits the mould better and could one day be senior management in the company. I would feel sorry for him, and I kind of do a bit, but he is also an insufferable bore, a gossip and generally not a very nice person. I work in a small team with just him and our manager, which is part of a larger team that we don't work directly with. Within about three weeks of him joining he had started slagging off the rest of the team to me and trying to get me to gossip about them behind their backs, so I gave him a wide berth and then he went and told our manager and the rest of the team that I'd been horrible and unwelcoming to him. It made me so miserable I wanted to leave, until after a few months I realised he'd fallen out with almost everyone. So with him it's just a combination of weird behaviour, and the stuff about Morocco is just an example of making things up which a simple Google search shows not to be true.

We have one and being the HR Manager I've recently been able to properly pull him up on it, I really went for it too (all very professionally of course) felt amazing!

Yes. He was my boss but he was shit at his job.