We have all come across people at work who whine all the time. No matter what time of the day you talk to them, all they can seem to talk about is their problems and issues. Its as if they carry the weight of all the problems in the world on their shoulders. They complain about how they have too much work, how they can’t find time to do their personal stuff, how they can’t find time to exercise, how their boss sucks, why everyone else except them are dumb and so on and so forth. If you give them a task they will probably come up with 10 different reasons on why it can’t be done. You talk to them about a new initiative being launched and they can tell you why it wont work. Its amazing how these people can live a life with so much negativity.
These whiners are extremely harmful to the workplace and to your own personal motivational levels. Its important that you find a way to deal with these people. Here are 4 simple tips on how you can deal with these people.
1. Stay away. This is probably the easy and difficult at the same time. Its easy if the person has nothing to do with your day to day work and you have no reason to interact with this person except social etiquette. However if this person is someone who you have to work with on a regular basis then this is really not an option.
2. Avoid small talk : Avoid small talk with these people. Before you know they will turn the small talk into an emotional movie complaining about everything and anything. Stick to conversations around work.
3. Focus on the task at hand : If ,you are working together on a project, stay focussed on the task at hand and direct your energies towards completing the task at hand.
4. Flood them with positivity : If none of the above yield the results, feed them with your positive and enthusiasm. For all you know some of it will rub off him and they will start changing their behaviour. While the chances of this are remote, the least this will do is to send a signal to the other person that you prefer to stay positive and don’t appreciate a negative attitude