How to Work with Someone You Don't Like

We’ve all worked with that person.  He or she seems utterly impossible. They’re loud and offensive, they destroy office relationships, they’re just plain mean. Like the bully on the playground,  no one wants to deal with them; but you’re in HR and you have to. There is a way to deal with the difficult employee or coworker. Learning how to work with someone you don’t like may not sound like much fun, but once you’ve done it successfully the first time, you may find yourself looking forward to finding more hidden “gems” in difficult people.

Let me tell you a story. When I was young and naive, I worked in a factory. One of my coworkers was a real tough cookie. She swore like a sailor, lost her cool at every opportunity, made the temps cry (and sometimes the management), and  - oh, her music! All day her music of choice was loud snarly stuff about suicide, kicking puppies and other unmentionable stuff. I couldn’t figure out how she still even worked there. Being the inexperienced young person I was, she found in me a prime target. I swear she chose her most offensive language and music for the times we  had to work together. When I’d just about had enough, a thought occurred to me: Maybe I could find something in her I actually liked. The idea sounded ridiculous. Like something out of a childhood fable and just about as unlikely as a cow jumping over the moon. But what did I have to lose?

At first I started noticing small things. She had really cool hair. Okay, that was likable – sort of. When she did laugh and it was genuine, it filled a room and was infectious. When the jokes were somewhat clean, they were really funny. I also discovered she knew her job very well, and when I got up enough courage to ask for her help or opinion, she would stop everything to assist me.

A funny thing began to happen–as I found small things to like, I actually began to like her. And she started to like me too. We even found a few small but surprising things in common.  After some time, I noticed the music got turned down when I was around and her language was tamed. We finally began having real conversations. And then one day she came to me when no one was around and started telling me about something in her personal life that was causing her emotional pain. I let her talk. She even cried, and I realized that this tough woman was someone who had gone through a lot in her life.

We never talked about that conversation again, but we found a true respect for one another. She still made the temps cry and she was just as crude as ever most of the time, but I learned something valuable about people: There really is something to like in the vast majority of people.

Maybe the concept seems simple, but oftentimes those are the things that work. When you have to figure out how to work with someone you genuinely don’t like, and when you manage to turn the relationship around, something amazing happens – you begin to find likable things in just about everyone. That not only makes the world seem a better place, it transforms your job into the perfect opportunity to appreciate the differences in people.