Throughout your professional working life, you will always come across co-workers, bosses, and employees that you don’t get along with. Unless you find yourself not getting along with anyone that you work with, you don’t need to over-analyze the situation. There are some personalities that you will clash with more than others. Here are three quick tips for dealing with difficult co-workers and bosses.

1. Kill them with kindness. The worst thing that you can do is act hostile or mean to someone that you work with but don’t like as a person. Kindness will always get you further than hostility or sarcasm. As much as you want to make fun of them, be short with them, or just avoid them altogether, it reflects bad on you to act immature about it. If you’ve worked in any type of professional setting, you’ve learned by now that you are being watched at all times by one of your superiors. The executives in your company are looking for the next stand-out employee to help run this company. If they see that you are like everyone else and you gossip, stab others in the back, and annoy those that are less lovely, they’ll write you off as just another employee. But, you don’t want to be just another employee, you want to be the best. You may love the industry or career that you are in, but being on the bottom is not going to cut it. If you ever want to lead others, you need to push aside your differences, and act mature about the situation. I’m not encouraging you to be fake to others. Apply the golden rule and treat others how you would want to be treated regardless of how you feel about them on a personal level. No one is asking you to hang out with them outside of work.
2. Identify the things that you don’t like about that particular person. when you write down all of the things that you don’t like about someone, you might start seeing how silly they are. Their ears are too big, they sneeze too much, they always have their noses up the bosses butt (okay, that one is just plain annoying), but it might help to see what you don’t like about the person on paper. It could help you to take a different approach about the situation.
3. Confront the situation one-on-one. Dealing with bosses that you don’t like on a personal level whether you think they are not trustworthy, they never stick up for you, or they treat you unfairly, can be the hardest situation to deal with. They hold the key to whether you keep your job or not, so you are walking on thin ice. If it’s a matter of personality conflict, you may have to suck it up. But, if it’s a case of them belittling you, making sexual passes at you, or asking you to do things that are way outside your job description, my advice would be to stick up for yourself in a respectful manner. The wrong way to approach the situation is to spout off at them and make a big scene. The right way to approach it would be having a one-on-one conversation about your differences. If it’s something as serious as sexual discrimination, go right above their head to their superior. You should never have to deal with something like that even if it could cost you your job. It’s not worth it.

Do any of you have any stories about ways that you dealt with conflicts involving co-workers or a boss? I’d love to hear your thoughts or suggestions.