The 13 Most Annoying People to Work With

The 13 Most Annoying People to Work With



Most of us have had colleagues over the years who turned annoying into an art form. Well, now it's a classifiable art form. Career experts Christine Lambden and Casey Connor, authors of the new book, "Everyday Practices of Extraordinary Consultants," have compiled a list of "The 13 Most Annoying People to Work With." How many of these does your company still have on its payroll?

• Pontification Person. This person goes on and on, telling you what he or she is going to say, saying it, and then telling you what he or she said.

• Um Person.To avoid losing control of the conversation, this co-worker fills every pause with "Um," not realizing he or she might be able to think better when not talking.

• Too Much Detail Person. The authors could elaborate on this one, but then, of course, that would be contributing to the problem.

• 50,000-Foot-Only Person. He or she is eloquent when you talk about the big picture, but refuses to allow anyone to get into the details, which we all know is where the real work gets done. "Unless you’re the CEO of a multinational corporation," say Lambden and Connor, "you have to be willing to work at any altitude."

• Hypnotized-by-E-mail Person. Wireless technology can be a lifesaver, but there’s something defeating about presenting to the tops of people's heads because everyone at the conference table is hunched over his or her laptop.

• Buzzword Person. "This employee is annoying in meetings, team rooms, and in cubicles," say Lambden and Connor. "In fact, this person is just plain annoying all the time."

• Foul Language Person. Much like Buzzword Person, this co-worker is too lazy to think of the right words to express what he or she is thinking, if, indeed, he or she is thinking at all. This person isn’t trying to impress you with his or her knowledge. "They aren't trying to impress you at all," Lambden and Connor note. "They don't care what you think of them." Refreshing on some level, but probably not a person you’d want on your team.

• Reiteration Person. The only contribution this person makes is to restate what already was said. So, basically, he or she actually has no contribution to make.

• Too Busy to Be Prompt Person. He or she always is late to work and every meeting, clearly lacking time management skills. Nobody can be working on something important all the time, after all.

• Can't Control the Meeting Person and arch-nemesis Wants to Take Over the Meeting Person. There has to be some balance between the out-of-control ditherer and the maniacal meetings dictator, doesn't there?

• Secondary Conversation People. Your best material often isn't riveting, but staffers at least could pretend to care. But Lambert and Connor point out these workers "only are annoying if their conversation is less interesting than the meeting."

• Disagrees With Everything Person. "This co-worker honestly believes he is just being practical, or serving as the voice of reason, or playing devil's advocate," the authors point out. "This may be true sometimes, and even helpful occasionally, but when it becomes a habit, everyone else just tunes them out."

• Obscure Metaphor Person. This employee is as annoying as "the fool in a troupe of Morris dancers," say Lambden and Connor. "See? Wasn’t that annoying?"

THE WISE OLD MAN’S LESSON

A wealthy man requested an old scholar to wean his son away from his bad habits.


The scholar took the youth for a stroll through a garden. Stopping suddenly he asked the boy to pull out a tiny plant growing there. The youth held the plant between his thumb and forefinger and pulled it out.



The old man then asked him to pull out a slightly bigger plant. The youth pulled hard and the plant came out, roots and all.


"Now pull out that one," said the old man pointing to a bush. The boy had to use all his strength to pull it out.


"Now take this one out," said the old man, indicating a guava tree. The youth grasped the trunk and tried to pull it out. But it would not budge.


"I – It's impossible," said the boy, panting with the effort.


"So it is with bad habits," said the sage. "When they are young it is easy to pull them out but when they take hold they cannot be uprooted."


The session with the old man changed the boy's life.



REFLECTION



Habits form character and character is destiny- we sow our thoughts and reap our actions; we sow our actions and reap our habits; we sow our habits and reap our characters; we sow our character and reap our destiny. Thus, first we form habits, then habits form us.



Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of. It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.

There is an old saying that, one can't kill a frog by dropping him into hot water. As we drop him into the hot water, he reacts so quickly that he immediately jumps out unharmed. But if we put him in cold water and gradually warm it up until it is scalding hot, we have him cooked before he knows it. The encroachment of bad habits in our lives is very much like this.The chains of bad habits are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.


Conquer your bad habits soon or very soon they will conquer you

YOUR HRD SKILLS AT TEST

Case 3

One of your exclusive dealers in ‘B’ category town has shown a bad performance in the last one quarter. He hired a sales girl who stayed for 3 months and quit two months back, then he hired one of his nephews who is about 35 years of age and has little idea about the products in the showroom. He is also being used for miscellaneous activities. The two has very good potential as it has large factories and a couple of public undertakings. The turnover of people has been high at the shop. Recently the dealer sacked one of his service mechanics who in your opinion was not too bad. You and the dealer have been having a virtual fight on the personal issue. He thinks he knows his business best and the kind of people that would fit his shop the best. He also alleges that though you have been taking up personal issues, but you have never given any help in selecting the right people. The dealer also retails TV/VCR’s and audio products. At present he has his nephew at the counter and TVs / VCR mechanic, one accountant, one peon and his son who spends half a day at the shop.

The showroom is pretty decent and is on the main road in the centre of the town. There is definite potential even for attacking the institutional sector. In your opinion if he goes the right way he can double his revenue both in sales and service.

Town Data :

Population ..................................................................................................... 15 lacs
Town Sales of Refrigerators (all brands) ...................................................... 2000 nos.
Total no. of Consumer Durable dealers ........................................................ 50 nos.
Last 2 years sale of refrigerators of your dealer ............ Year - 1 ................ 40 nos.
Year - 2 ................. 35 nos.



A. Can you work out a comprehensive personal plan for the dealer ?

B. How would you recommend him to go about selecting the right profile of people ?

C. What will be your first month’s plan with him if he accepts your recommendation ?







Case 4


One of your dealers in a ‘B’ category town has shown a bad performance in the last one quarter. He hired a sales girl who stayed for 3 months and then quit 2 months back. Then he hired one of his nephews who is about 35 years of age and has little idea about the products in the showroom. He is also being used for miscellaneous activities. The town has very good potential as it has large factories and a couple of public undertakings. The turnover of people has been high at the shop. Recently the dealer sacked one of his service mechanics who in your opinion was not too bad. You and the dealer have been having a virtual fight on the personnel issue. He thinks he knows his business better and the kind of people that would fit into his shop the best. He also alleges that though you have been taking up personnel issues, but you have never given any help in selecting the right people.

The show room is pretty decent and sized and is on the main road in the centre of the town. There is definite potential even for attacking the institutional sector. In your opinion if he goes the right way he can double his revenue both in sales and service.




A. Can you work out a comprehensive personnel plan for the dealer ?

B. How would you recommend him to go about selecting the right profile of people ?

C. What will be your first months plan with him if he accepts your recommendation ?

How not to be a dog in the Manger

You have a dealer in South Delhi whose sales performance is shown below. There are two other dealers also in the same area whose performance is also shown. The competition has been fierce and all kinds of sales promotion methods have been in the last 2 years to woo the customers. All the 3 dealers have fairly good showrooms. However, the performance in the last 2 quarters has shown a disturbing trend for all 3 dealers.

	Dealer	Year 2	Year 1	Current Year
				Q-1	Q-2	Q-3
1. 2. 3.	IFB Exclusive IFB Dealer New brands TVS WP Exclusive Multiple brand dealer Old brands New brands	500 610 340	550 700 400 50	100 170 50 80	80 70 130 80 60	60 70 125 50 50

All the dealers have other products like TVs, VCRs, etc. and also have some kind of tie ups with finances for hire purchase and leasing. Due to competition and new brands with technological advantages introduced, your dealer added a new brand in the 2nd quarter. The multiple brand dealer in any case lapped up all new brands as they arrived. Your marketing intelligence has also revealed that a fairly aggressive person who was working with a renowned MNC took up a very small showroom-cum-office about 1½ years back in this territory and has gone about quite systematically to capture his share of market. He represents new brands of refrigerators, TVs Whirpoorl, Goldstar and some more consumer durables. He has two very professional sales persons and together they have been focusing on the offices, public undertakings and also at timed doing direct selling. The exact data on his sales is not available, but he has been working with fairly innovative ideas and schemes and has maintained a healthy retention figure. You also hear from the market that one or two additional shop keepers are also planning to change their business line and jump into consumer durables in close vicinity of the above 3 dealers.

A. What do you plan to do in the immediate future to salvage the situation in the last quarter ?

B. What’s your long term plan i.e., quarter 1 and 2 of next year to control the situation ?

C. Can you workout a detailed plan with check points for your above recommendations ?

OLD VALUES ON DISPLAY

As Raju got off the train at Dhangaon, he sighed to recall that the dealer here was an extremely stubborn and self-opinionated old man who was always difficult to handle. He recalled the ding-dong battle he had with him over the issue of product display before he had finally convinced him to more two of your products to the front of his showroom.

Although your product contributed to only 10% of his total sales, the old man was of the opinion that he was well-known in the town and those who wanted to buy your product knew where to come. Then how did matter if he kept grinders, mixers, cupboards and televisions in the prominent front half of his showroom ? These were the products where he felt, he faced much tougher competition and needed better display.

Raju had, on several visits to Dhangaon, patiently explained to him the benefits of a better display, especially in view of the fact that the dealer for the competitive brands had a larger display of colours and models in a smaller shop. He also explained to the old man that he was losing market share even if marginally so. Raju recalled with a wry smile the long lecture the old man had given him on the incorrect marketing policies of his company which were resulting in the drop in market share.

Anyway, during his last visit, Raju had personally supervised the shifting of refrigerators to a spot where anyone entering the shop could see them. The old man had grudgingly agreed that the improved display would help the sale. Raju wondered how the old man fell two months after the change.

After freshening up at his hotel room, Raju hit the market and went straight to the old man’s showroom. As he entered, he realised with a sinking feeling, that his products were nowhere is sight.



A. What action should Raju take on the spot & why ?

B. How could he handle such a situation on a long term basis ?