How to work with people and not get frustrated

noisebloom

noisebloom

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If you thought I would be lending some insightful advice... I'm not! I'm asking you.

One of the biggest challenges I've faced in my life has been working with others. Reading this statement myself, my first thought is that someone with this sentiment "doesn't play well with others."

When I think more generally, I can't help but be frustrated by certain tendencies in people:
  • Unreliability
  • Lack of communication or failure to articulate
  • Unwillingness to learn or independently solve problems
  • Lack of accountability
Because of this, I believe I've been somewhat selective with the people I choose to spend my time outside of work, so I tend to not be friends with people that exhibit these traits to a "frustrating" level. As a result, I have relatively drama-free and frustration-free friendships.

In my career, it's been a different story. It doesn't matter where I've worked or in what position, it's hard to find people that are simultaneously reliable, motivated, communicative, and accountable. It seems like every 10-30 minutes I'm dealing with or witnessing the consequence of someone who dropped the ball on something, failed to communicate an important piece of information, didn't own up to an issue they caused, or just doesn't care enough to actually put forth an effort.

I'm not really in a position where I can ignore this, unfortunately; the level of accountability I expect to have for the department I have technical oversight for is high (and this is expected of me as well, but to a lesser extent than my own personal expectations). Even if I weren't in this role, I am always the kind of person that does what they can to push things forward, which involves a lot of collaboration and making sure the cogs are turning.

I'm getting pretty jaded by all of this. I've tentatively decided that "the way out" may just be to pursue some sort of position/career that has minimal interaction with others, but do many of these actually exist? I don't seem to really be able to escape people and the complexities of dealing with them. I want to be able to just "let things go", but when I do, I often find that someone suffers the consequences, e.g.

"Bob didn't do his part on the project, so Sam ended up taking the blame."
"Jon hasn't put forth an effort to learn X to make progress, so now we're a week from the deadline and Rob has to work 15 hours a day to get it done."
"Steve keeps sidestepping issues that he causes and pointing fingers, so now everyone else is in trouble."

I can't shake the thought this is really just the reality of how shitty people can be... but where do I find solace? How do you be at peace with this?
 
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Have similar frustrations with coworkers. I'm sympathetic.

Well, I've no solution except to focus on my own behaviour and do my best to be a decent coworker / employee. Maybe we frustrate others too? I try to give praise and encouragement as much as possible - people seem to respond well to that and it might motivate them to try harder.

I do my best to understand and accept that others are different and have their own style of working.

I don't know what kind of job you do but in mine I keep reminding myself the world won't end if someone makes a mistake or something goes wrong. There's peace in that.
 
GreenTea said:
Maybe we frustrate others too? I try to give praise and encouragement as much as possible - people seem to respond well to that and it might motivate them to try harder.
Click to expand...

True - I undoubtedly frustrate people in certain ways. This elucidates what I suspect my problem is: I can't shake my belief that the value of a human being is proportional to how considerate they are of others (Fe). People thinking only of themselves can literally cause an organization to fall apart. This is just so wrong to me.

I have spent years of focus on recognition and encouragement, and largely what I've found is that inconsiderate workers stay inconsiderate, and considerate workers stay considerate. Both of these workers can still be of "value" to the business, depending on what role they fulfill and what they deliver.
 
noisebloom said:
If you thought I would be lending some insightful advice... I'm not! I'm asking you.

One of the biggest challenges I've faced in my life has been working with others. Reading this statement myself, my first thought is that someone with this sentiment "doesn't play well with others."

When I think more generally, I can't help but be frustrated by certain tendencies in people:
  • Unreliability
  • Lack of communication or failure to articulate
  • Unwillingness to learn or independently solve problems
  • Lack of accountability
Because of this, I believe I've been somewhat selective with the people I choose to spend my time outside of work, so I tend to not be friends with people that exhibit these traits to a "frustrating" level. As a result, I have relatively drama-free and frustration-free friendships.

In my career, it's been a different story. It doesn't matter where I've worked or in what position, it's hard to find people that are simultaneously reliable, motivated, communicative, and accountable. It seems like every 10-30 minutes I'm dealing with or witnessing the consequence of someone who dropped the ball on something, failed to communicate an important piece of information, didn't own up to an issue they caused, or just doesn't care enough to actually put forth an effort.

I'm not really in a position where I can ignore this, unfortunately; the level of accountability I expect to have for the department I have technical oversight for is high (and this is expected of me as well, but to a lesser extent than my own personal expectations). Even if I weren't in this role, I am always the kind of person that does what they can to push things forward, which involves a lot of collaboration and making sure the cogs are turning.

I'm getting pretty jaded by all of this. I've tentatively decided that "the way out" may just be to pursue some sort of position/career that has minimal interaction with others, but do many of these actually exist? I don't seem to really be able to escape people and the complexities of dealing with them. I want to be able to just "let things go", but when I do, I often find that someone suffers the consequences, e.g.

"Bob didn't do his part on the project, so Sam ended up taking the blame."
"Jon hasn't put forth an effort to learn X to make progress, so now we're a week from the deadline and Rob has to work 15 hours a day to get it done."
"Steve keeps sidestepping issues that he causes and pointing fingers, so now everyone else is in trouble."

I can't shake the thought this is really just the reality of how shitty people can be... but where do I find solace? How do you be at peace with this?
Click to expand...
A culture of oneness and unity begins at the seeding stages of the organization. The leader has to recognize these dynamics and curtail them as soon as possible. I place a really high value on unity and team work. I'm not an expert. I'm still learning but it's like mothering children. You have to recognize the culture you don't want to encourage and nip it in the bud. Team work is hard to brew and crucial to it is the choice of manpower. That's why we have to carefully pick out the strengths of the manpower and to choose them by instinct.
 
noisebloom said:
True - I undoubtedly frustrate people in certain ways. This elucidates what I suspect my problem is: I can't shake my belief that the value of a human being is proportional to how considerate they are of others (Fe). People thinking only of themselves can literally cause an organization to fall apart. This is just so wrong to me.

I have spent years of focus on recognition and encouragement, and largely what I've found is that inconsiderate workers stay inconsiderate, and considerate workers stay considerate. Both of these workers can still be of "value" to the business, depending on what role they fulfill and what they deliver.
Click to expand...

I also think it can help if people are put on tasks or projects that suit their skills. For example I've seen people who have bad attention to detail put on tasks that require very strong attention to detail. So, if I'm managing a team I try hard to match people to tasks that suits their skills. This can make quite a difference.
 
It doesn't happen so much anymore because feelings but, on the ward I work on, there would be group supervision where Sam, Rob, and everyone else would tell Bob, Jon, and Steve to get their shit together. The patients had a similar thing too. People would argue, cry, and be embarrassed but it would be left in the room until the next week when, if they got the message, it would be somebody else's turn.

I guess I'm advocating for semi-public shaming but apparently it did work.
 
I should mention that these sessions were facilitated by a psychologist. Also, I don't advocate for shaming generally because people do things in their own time or don't. If someone else is obese, say, it has no direct impact on me. However, these people are getting paid to do a job and it is directly impacting others. There are also individual reviews every so often where performance is evaluated.

I'm not sure what I think about the patients having such meetings but apparently it reduced gossiping, bullying, and issues festering.
 
mintoots said:
A culture of oneness and unity begins at the seeding stages of the organization. The leader has to recognize these dynamics and curtail them as soon as possible. I place a really high value on unity and team work. I'm not an expert. I'm still learning but it's like mothering children. You have to recognize the culture you don't want to encourage and nip it in the bud. Team work is hard to brew and crucial to it is the choice of manpower. That's why we have to carefully pick out the strengths of the manpower and to choose them by instinct.
Click to expand...

I agree. There's a book on management I've read that unsurprisingly echoes your words, but it also points out that most organizations fail to weed out people with these sorts of tendencies, as they are more focused on direct results... I've noticed this; organizations are poor at identifying "side effects" of people's behavior, and instead look at things from a "is X doing his job? how well?" perspective.
 
noisebloom said:
True - I undoubtedly frustrate people in certain ways. This elucidates what I suspect my problem is: I can't shake my belief that the value of a human being is proportional to how considerate they are of others (Fe). People thinking only of themselves can literally cause an organization to fall apart. This is just so wrong to me.

I have spent years of focus on recognition and encouragement, and largely what I've found is that inconsiderate workers stay inconsiderate, and considerate workers stay considerate. Both of these workers can still be of "value" to the business, depending on what role they fulfill and what they deliver.
Click to expand...

This is all highly circumstantial of course. Encouragement will get you very far, probably the furthest of any other strategy, but perhaps you are reaching the end of the utility in that regard.
And as has already been alluded to, another side of this is role placement. But motivation is also a big factor, and a lot of people are simply unmotivated, often for good (personal) reasons.

The main thing you can do to not get entirely discouraged is to remove your personal desires and think more strategically about how to "activate" people, even in the short term.
Sometimes it does take an actual intervention, again it's circumstantial because most of the time that sort of thing isn't bound to happen in the work place typically.

It's difficult to problem solve this without getting deep into the details of your work environment, but overall you have nothing to feel bad about if you personally are providing/allowing
an environment that is conducive to productivity on the part of your workers. Try motivation and mobilization rather than injection of consideration (though don't leave that behind).
 
noisebloom said:
I agree. There's a book on management I've read that unsurprisingly echoes your words, but it also points out that most organizations fail to weed out people with these sorts of tendencies, as they are more focused on direct results... I've noticed this; organizations are poor at identifying "side effects" of people's behavior, and instead look at things from a "is X doing his job? how well?" perspective.
Click to expand...
Yes that is correct. This is a good pointer. I must take note of this.
 
I was really hoping that I'd get a big list of jobs that literally involve no interactions with humans at all

giphy.gif
 
"You are dumber than you think, lazier than you believe, and more replaceable than you can imagine."

"Bemoan the change you wish to see in the world."

"Who looks outside, gets moved away from the window. Who looks inside, gets sacked."
 
Cornerstone said:
"You are dumber than you think, lazier than you believe, and more replaceable than you can imagine."

"Bemoan the change you wish to see in the world."

"Who looks outside, gets moved away from the window. Who looks inside, gets sacked."
Click to expand...

Are you one of @noisebloom 's problem employees? Lol
 
I have had a similar struggle recently at work. I'm on a group project with two other people and though they did work in the beginning over time I was the only one doing most of the work to the point that now my boss actually had to step in to get it done on time.

My coworkers wanted to look at the project the day before it was due, they did not want to distribute the work, the attitude was "you do you I'll do me". Because my work style is to get the work out of the way as soon as possible, eventually my co-workers realized if they did nothing the project would get done by me.

I noticed this, and then just began to announce what work i was going to do and then did not do any more work at all. This led to our boss asking about progress on the last day we had and everyone realizing there was a lot to be done and people scrambling, including my boss, to try to get it done. I went with this approach for a while but again eventually the co-workers stopped participating at all and the burden was put entirely on my boss to complete the project. I couldn't stand that, so at that point I stepped in and helped.

I did some deep reflecting because I was very resentful that I was left to burden the entire project. But I realized at the end of the day, the work just needs to get done, and I can't control other people. Instead of looking at the project as a burden I looked at it as an opportunity to challenge myself. I knew that my boss was seeing my efforts and that they speak for themselves. I knew at the end of the day as long as I live by my own values, I don't need to control other people's behavior.
 
@slant - the story you posted resonates with me, including having a boss that appreciates your efforts. I've always been "appreciated" for "doing the right thing".

slant said:
I knew at the end of the day as long as I live by my own values, I don't need to control other people's behavior.
Click to expand...

This is the part I've always struggled with. An organization filled with people that are doing their part and helping each other out is going to be a stronger, more efficient organization. I just flat out don't see this very often, and my brain is always bombarding me with "what could be" if everyone put their heads together and stuck up for each other. I can't erase this ideal towards efficiency and optimization from my head, and it's kind of this lingering "hope" I have for humanity in general... without it, I'm incredibly cynical and depressed.

If I could get over my frustrations with people in general, my life would be (strangely?) obstacle-free. I suppose everyone has has that one aspect of themselves that leaves something to be desired (Jung rolls over in his grave).
 
noisebloom said:
@slant - the story you posted resonates with me, including having a boss that appreciates your efforts. I've always been "appreciated" for "doing the right thing".



This is the part I've always struggled with. An organization filled with people that are doing their part and helping each other out is going to be a stronger, more efficient organization. I just flat out don't see this very often, and my brain is always bombarding me with "what could be" if everyone put their heads together and stuck up for each other. I can't erase this ideal towards efficiency and optimization from my head, and it's kind of this lingering "hope" I have for humanity in general... without it, I'm incredibly cynical and depressed.

If I could get over my frustrations with people in general, my life would be (strangely?) obstacle-free. I suppose everyone has has that one aspect of themselves that leaves something to be desired (Jung rolls over in his grave).
Click to expand...
Shadow work has helped me immensely. It's easy to tear something (or someone) down. It's harder to build something (or someone) up, but I find that's most helpful.

Firstly I thought about all of my own shortcomings; all of the times I may have not done exactly what I needed to, failures, etc. We all have those. Then I thought about the things these people do contribute to the team. Everyone contributes something. If you are able to embrace your own faults and shortcomings it becomes easier to do the same for others. And when you enjoy doing things for yourself, you have your own work ethics that make you happy to fulfill, then if others don't share your work efforts it doesn't matter anymore.

In a way, when we fixated on others and what they should do, what they aren't doing, we are falling to focus on ourselves and what we instead could do. If there's a problem that you think depends on the behavior of others, that's a problem you can't solve, because you can't control others. Taking ownership of a problem and being assertive and no longer taking inventory of other people's performances (unless you are learning from them) becomes immensely empowering. Lead by example.

The emotions of resentment will always be there, you feel them and then redirect.
 
slant said:
I have had a similar struggle recently at work. I'm on a group project with two other people and though they did work in the beginning over time I was the only one doing most of the work to the point that now my boss actually had to step in to get it done on time.

My coworkers wanted to look at the project the day before it was due, they did not want to distribute the work, the attitude was "you do you I'll do me". Because my work style is to get the work out of the way as soon as possible, eventually my co-workers realized if they did nothing the project would get done by me.

I noticed this, and then just began to announce what work i was going to do and then did not do any more work at all. This led to our boss asking about progress on the last day we had and everyone realizing there was a lot to be done and people scrambling, including my boss, to try to get it done. I went with this approach for a while but again eventually the co-workers stopped participating at all and the burden was put entirely on my boss to complete the project. I couldn't stand that, so at that point I stepped in and helped.

I did some deep reflecting because I was very resentful that I was left to burden the entire project. But I realized at the end of the day, the work just needs to get done, and I can't control other people. Instead of looking at the project as a burden I looked at it as an opportunity to challenge myself. I knew that my boss was seeing my efforts and that they speak for themselves. I knew at the end of the day as long as I live by my own values, I don't need to control other people's behavior.
Click to expand...
People like your co workers
giphy.gif
should really be looked down upon
 
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