Let's get ready to rumble — at the office

Eve Tahmincioglu • Profile • E-mail

Thanks to a prevalence of co-worker conflicts, the workplace is looking a lot like that scene from West Side Story when gang members from the Jets and the Sharks go at each other on the playground.

Many employees can’t seem to get along these days and it’s fostering stress, tension and anything but a productive atmosphere.

Jennifer Conway from Grand Forks, N.D., remembers a co-worker who was always ready to rumble.

"She has assumed I am a moron from day one," she explains. "She gave me responsibilities without any training, then took them away at the first sign of a screw-up." The co-worker also trashed her behind her back, and made up stories about her, sharing them with managers. “She made my work life miserable in so many ways, I can't begin to name them.”

Our moms and dads taught us how to play nice on the playground, but some of us didn’t take those lessons to the workplace.

About 10 percent of workers admit to intentionally making a co-worker look bad or incompetent, according to a recent MSNBC.com and Elle magazine survey of more than 60,000 people. And about four out of 10 workers surveyed say they have thought about it. The top reasons for taking a work comrade down? They were incompetent, not a team player or just generally not liked.

Such conflicts lead to stress.

A report by ComPsych, provider of employee assistance programs, found that more than half of U.S. workers are experiencing high stress levels, and for the first time "people issues" have replaced workload as the No. 1 cause of stress.

"New hires have picked up somewhat, which can lead to turf wars led by current employees," said Dr. Richard A. Chaifetz, CEO of ComPsych. "At the same time, wages have not caught up with inflation. This can cause workers to feel they are competing for less resources, resulting in tension and interpersonal conflict in the workplace."

No matter the reason, you can’t let co-worker conflict bring you down.

Conway realized that. She went to her bosses but got nowhere in curbing her co-worker’s behavior.

“Since no one was willing to deal with this woman's behavior issues, I gave my two-week notice.  The job market is really tight here, so I decided that it was the perfect time to go back to school so I could get the career I really want.”

She graduates in the fall with a degree in English, and has plans to write nonfiction and teach.

Here are some of your letters:

I am an office manager for a doctor. I have worked for him for 19 years. I am writing about a co-worker. She is the only employee who has worked for him longer than I have. She is extremely passive-aggressive. She dumps work on others that she doesn't want to deal with or that she knows will upset the boss, but is quick to claim credit for doing things that should be my domain. I have kept my mouth shut for the sake of peace in our office. But finally last week, she did something that got me so angry that I let loose on her. There were patients in the reception area that heard it . . . [although] other employees did not.

I live in a small town where good jobs are hard to come by. My boss actually encourages this type of behavior on her part and finds it funny.
— Jeff

Your first problem is you’re feeling powerless, says Gus Stieber with Bensinger DuPont & Associates, a company that provides employee assistance programs. You need to take back control of your own emotions. You can confront your co-worker but address a particular incident not her personality. You can’t change others. You can only control yourself.

Ask yourself, he advises, why now? Why are you so upset about this co-worker that you would blow up at her after all these years working together. “Maybe he’s displaying some of his own passive-aggressive behavior to her,” he surmises. Look at your own pressures from outside the office. Has anything changed?

You do have choices in your life. You can stay and deal with your co-worker directly in a professional way, or you can move out of the small town and find another job.

“When you empower yourself and realize you have a choice you’ll see things differently,” Stieber says.

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