11 Career-Ending Habits Of People Who Make Terrible Co-Workers
Drazen Zigic / Shutterstock Navigating office politics is a crucial skill, especially in this job market. Unfortunately, not everyone is taught these skills. Often, without them even realizing, they develop habits that make them truly terrible co-workers.
When someone is persistently unpleasant to work with, they often don't know how to create or contribute to a productive, positive workplace. Sometimes they bring the whole vibe down, which ends up affecting everyone they work with. By learning the habits that undermine their best efforts, people can prevent some of the most career-ending behaviors from becoming habits.
11 career-ending habits of people who make terrible co-workers
1. Making things extra difficult
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Nate B. Jones, a consultant for tech companies, shared some crucial career advice to people who don't know why they aren't growing in their career, or maybe even losing job after job.
These people may not realize that others see them as hard to work with because they make so many things extra difficult.
Jones explains that being hard to work with is something a person can address and fix, but to do so, they have to accept this reality.
"You're either picky about your inputs or you're noisy about your process," he explains. "If you are really picky about the format of the docs you get, if you are really noisy and have a lot of meetings that don't absolutely have to be meetings, if you go back and forth and talk to your manager and talk to other peers a lot, those are signs you're hard to worth with."
Jones offered guidance on how people can fix these behavioral patterns, starting by reversing the inputs you initially didn't accept. Other techniques to change a hard-to-work-with persona include being more flexible and giving co-workers grace, even if they make mistakes that aren't catastrophic, especially if they do it only rarely.
As far as being less noisy, as he puts it, "You don't have to have as many meetings as you think you have to have," a statement that had employees everywhere rejoicing.
He also explains that, "you don't have to check with your boss as often as you think... As long as you're driving toward that impact and you're delivering the work..."
2. Working way too slowly
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When working at a slow pace affects other people on a team, holding up the workflow for important projects, it goes from annoying to a career-ending habit. An employer cannot expect everyone to just pause and wait for the slow worker, after all.
While working slowly may seem like a habit someone can't really change, there are likely systems that can be overhauled in their own workflow that can help.
It should be noted, however, that if one co-worker's slow process isn't affecting anyone else, it's probably better to let it go. Micromanaging is rarely a good solution and should only be utilized when someone's process interferes with the workplace or output overall.
Unfortunately, most people in a workplace are inter-dependent and one person moving excessively slowly can make a mess of everyone's productivity.
3. Complaining too much
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According to Jones, "If you're complaining more than everyone else on your team, it's going to be a problem." When someone complains so much, they're making very clear that they aren't enjoying being at work. This is enough to end their career at this workplace.
Negativity often starts out quite benign, but if you're not careful to keep it in check, it can become a habit. Because habits are formed in the brain, based on routine activity across synaptic clefts, they can be incredibly hard to break.
Before long, that negativity starts to permeate the workplace, adding unnecessary drama and affecting productivity.
Constructive, thoughtful feedback to this employee can be helpful. They may be struggling in life and not realizing how bad this habit has become. They may need some guidance for how to better express concerns or complaints, too.
4. Doing 'icing work' instead of 'cake work'
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Jones defines "icing work" as extra work or random details, as opposed to "cake work," which is "the core work you're supposed to do."
While this seems super helpful on the surface (as icing tends to), it's a waste of time if the core mission of the work is neglected. Yes, the metaphorical icing work can be fun,
"Your challenge is to simply do the core responsibilities that you have to do," says Jones. "Don't do anything else that is extra credit and just focus on delivering the core part of your role perfectly."
If you're the manager of someone who is an icing worker, help them identify which tasks are most important, and design a workflow so they can be productive.
5. Pointing out everyone else's mistakes
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Nobody wants to work with someone who deflects and projects their own work-related issues onto others. This is doubly true if this co-worker doesn't acknowledge their own mistakes.
Jones explained that this attitude is separate from complaining. "This is about how you actually learn and grow and get better. If they notice that pattern, they probably won't tell you."
Pointing out other people's mistakes is one of the fastest paths to being absolutely miserable to work with. And, while the people who do this may think their bosses appreciate it, it's usually the opposite. Their bosses generally wish these tattle-tales would focus on their own work, instead.
6. Being overly rigid and inflexible
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When someone isn't flexible in the workplace, their co-workers are the ones who are left to pick up the slack. Worse, that employee is simply unable to adapt when something changes at work. According to Harvard Business Review, in this age of ever-evolving tech and social environments, adaptability is a key skill.
Being inflexible means a person can't adapt to any changes they experience at work, at least without creating a number of problems for themselves (and often their co-workers). They freak out over little things, ask a million questions before trying to solve them on their own, and generally cause a fuss when things change.
Having an inflexible attitude is something co-workers will pick up on, and it makes them think someone is a terrible co-worker who is not easy to work alongside. This can end their career if they don't work to change this inflexibility quickly.
7. Owning tasks but not the overall impact of their work
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When someone is dedicated to their job and to making their team a success, they know that their personal responsibilities have an impact on the outcome. When an employee only cares that they did their bare minimum of work, but doesn't care if that work actually helps create success, then they don't actually care about their team's success.
"On some teams, you may get away with that, because everyone owns their activities and not their impact," Jones explains. "But in a lot of places, if half the team owns the impact and the other half doesn't, it's gonna get noticed and it's gonna get talked about, it just won't get talked about to you, if you're the one doing it."
When someone is part of the half that doesn't take any accountability for the outcome of their work, they're likely going to be considered a terrible person to work with, even if they're completing all their assigned tasks.
8. They're not dedicated or loyal to their teams
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There are people who are incredibly loyal to their workplace and/or their teams at work. These people tend to make the best co-workers, building habits that help everyone succeed.
Jones notes that dedication is an intangible element that's open to interpretation, of course. Some people may be quietly dedicated, working with their heads down and contributing in ways that aren't flashy, and that's fantastic.
But if someone thinks they're getting away with not being as dedicated as the rest of their team, they're not. Unfortunately, he added, "It will come up somewhere else."
Being committed to your job (or not) is definitely a noticeable attribute. That's not to say you need to dedicate your entire life and all your time to work, but when you're on the clock, you should be giving 100% effort.
Even if you don't do it for your boss, it will pay off in how others feel about you and how you feel about yourself in the end, too.
9. Working on an erratic schedule
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Jones reiterated the second item on his list: Being a slow worker. "I am saying it again because this one is an absolute destroyer of careers," he exclaimed. "They won't tell you. They will think it, and they will work around you."
Jones believes that slowness in the workplace negatively impacts people's career trajectories, to the point where they might even lose their jobs because of it. By paying attention to the pace that your co-workers keep, you'll be able to get a sense of where your own pace falls.
But it's not just slow workers who make a mess of the schedule. People with erratic schedules, like those who zone out all day and power through hours of work after 10pm each night, can disrupt the flow of work, especially if they're on a team.
And, in case it's not obvious, DMing or sending emails at midnight can make people think you're at pretty terrible co-worker.
10. Not 'reading the room'
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It's usually not a personal failing when someone doesn't "read the room" at work. After all, there are all sorts of reasons people may be socially awkward. That person can become a terrible co-worker, however, if they don't make an effort to adjust.
"If you make people uncomfortable at social functions, people notice and it is a problem," Jones says. He acknowledges that this is something that's open to interpretation and personal bias, yet he emphasizes that he's witnessed the negative effects of being socially awkward at work, saying, "Those kinds of people, their careers do not go very far."
He concluded that one way to fix the issue of being socially awkward in the workplace is to "recognize that conversation is about light novelty," adding, "You just need to be relaxed, bring something that's slightly novel to the group, that is not a heavy topic. That can be a wide range of things, it depends on your office culture, but that's really the heart of it."
While some aspects about the way you work might be easier to fix than others, the first step is to turn inward and be honest with yourself about what your flaws are. Taking a long, hard look in the mirror is essential to changing yourself for the better.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.
11. Being in everyone else's business
Lots of people enjoy a little harmless gossip at work, but being nosy is a whole other story. What starts as curiosity can easily snowball into being way too invested in someone else's work or personal lives, which truly makes someone a terrible co-worker if it goes on for too long or gets too deep.
This can become a career-ending habit if their boss gets wind of it, especially if the nosy person is causing drama as a result or causing others to mistrust them. After all, a team needs a bond of trust in order to thrive, and peeking at other people's work in a sneaky way is definitely going to erode trust.
Bosses, too, can be too much in everyone's business. First, it's utterly unprofessional for a boss or manager to ask a million questions about someone's personal life. It can even violate laws if the personal questions they ask affected hiring, dismissals or even promotions.
On a professional level, being all up in someone's work can easily be considered micromanaging, considered by most leadership and workplace experts to be one of the least effective managerial behaviors, when done long-term.
Ultimately, what these 11 habits have in common is selfishness. People who are terrible co-workers are often solely focused on themselves and not thinking about the team around them, and that's not going to get any employee very far.
