Workplace colleagues who could make you ill (2)

Some colleagues are nothing but trouble waiting to cause you illhealth!

In the last edition, I identified the Tanks, know-it-alls and Grenades as some of the personalities to watch by workers who desire good health and conducive working environments all year round. Here, I’ll reveal more problematic personalities such as the complainers, Snipers and the Passives and how colleagues could deal with them to avoid health problems.
Complainers:
Complainers like grenades are generally unhappy and want to make their colleagues feel the same way and often associate with other complainers.
In such instances, misery not only seeks misery but tries to make misery. They always disagree with policies, management assignments, working conditions, other employees and almost all aspects of their jobs. Like people who read horoscopes in daily newspapers, they try to make their feelings, usually totally unjustified, a reality. When confronted with the necessity of doing their jobs, complainers may be good workers but a disturbance to others and definite morale busters.
They voice their perceived ills very loudly yet are generally insecure and fearful. When confronted with requests for facts or substantiation of their claims, they often give contrived and nonfactual reasons.
Snipers:

Slightly different from the so far mentioned, Snipers delight in spreading malicious gossip, backbiting and cutting people down in a sneaky, often quiet way. Like wasps, their stingers are always out. Although their motivation for behaviour may be similar to that of tanks, they are able to divert attention from themselves to others.
They are extremely difficult to deal with in most circumstances because they blithely deny any wrongdoing, making it difficult to pin them down on specific statements. As bosses or colleagues, they often confront their targets in meetings where they challenge ideas and scorn what others are saying. In such cases, a good strategy is to calmly turn the tables by asking such questions as what are your ideas or do you have a better solution ? When questioned, snipers usually back down and unwillingly accept the ideas of others.
Unfortunately, snipers may be very intelligent, good at their jobs and have established a network of other minor snipers who support their positions. You must be on your guard with such ones but never take them serious for they will respond positively to praise and even become friends of their worst enemies. Should you take their expression of basic insecurity and need for support seriously, you will only e nd up with migraine and other emotional induced ailments in addition to a smeared reputation.
Why? You would degenerate to their position: being a sniper yourself.
Passives:
The most difficult colleagues to work with are passives because of their shield of never letting others know their real feelings for they are motivated by strong survival needs. These kind of colleagues never react to the world around them for they rarely show joy, anger, disgust, love, or any identifiable emotion. By being withdrawn and non communicative as well as not reacting to events around them, they build a wall of invulnerability. Passives tend to conform to the exact letter of policies, do no more than they are told and not react to either criticism or praise.
They are highly suspicious of people who show any emotion towards them such as friendship, frustration, or even promises of better assignments. Rather than risk making a mistake, they document even the smallest discussion and keep notes to protect themselves in the future. Fear of failure and suspicion of the motives of others are their dominant motivations.
Never try pleasing passives-bosses or colleagues lest you end up confused and living in self doubt. Rather, relate with them with non-emotional but factual behaviours though it would take a long time getting used to the paranoid behaviour they often exhibit. Unknown to most people, workplace colleagues could actually be a source of serious health conditions such as stress and unexplained headaches, fever, migraine etc, feeling of inadequacy, lack of self worth which could all lead to more serious health problem such as depression, anxiety, hypertension among others.
Rather than engage in fruitless arguments or debates with these character types, be open by leaving any disagreement through becoming silent and physically withdrawn after you have made your point clearly known to them without getting involved in any yelling bout. In some instances, abruptly change the subject to a more mutually agreeable topic and drop useless controversies lest you end up at the long run suffering from stress disorders and eventually depression.
These personality groups are gifted at damaging colleagues self esteem. Psychological mature behaviour is of great necessity in the workplace though you don’t have to be a psychologist in order to relate with the broad spectrum of characters at the workplace. You must learn to deal with all sorts of human on-the-job behaviours, most of which are neither pleasantly nor willingly changed in order to maintain your own integrity, peace of mind and stay healthy physically and mentally in every areas of your life.