Stop Pissing Me Off What to Do When the People You Work with Drive You Crazy by Lynne Eisaguirre Page B
Authors: Lynne Eisaguirre
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function.
“Attention problems” or “attention issues” seem like benign terms, and yet such problems can affect every bit of a person’s life. Consider the conductor analogy. A person can have an IQ that is off the charts, a sunny, giving personality, and great musical gifts, but even with these individual superstar performers in the brain, the person will have many challenges if there is no conductor. Imagine, if you will, the Philadelphia Orchestra with Jean-Pierre Rampal as the flutist, the rock-star violinist from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra as the first chair violinist, and a kindergartener conducting. Imagine the chaos!
In the workplace, these people with “attention differences”
can sometimes be brilliant, witty, and charismatic, but you may become frustrated by the fact that sometimes, they appear unable to stay on task.
Even if you are open-minded, compassionate, and bend over backward to educate yourself about your colleagues’
emotional problems or imbalances, it may not be possible to tolerate having them in the workplace. You may need to skillfully confront them about their behavior, complain to HR, and/or fire them if you’re their manager. Before deciding which action to take, it helps to understand why their behavior may be occurring. Sometimes, the reason someone bothers us so much is because we think that they’re purposely behaving the way they are. If we can depersonalize this issue, we can calm down and plan our best options.
If their disorganization, problems with attention or impulse control, or hyperfocus on the wrong things causes problems
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05. Are They Doing It Just to Piss You Off?
for your business or makes it impossible for you to do your job, something needs to happen. However, it’s not helpful to become an armchair doctor and attempt to diagnose medical problems without an appropriate clinical background. Let the qualified medical professionals provide the diagnosis and recommend treatment. Even if you think you’re sure about a diagnosis, keep your opinions to yourself and your non-work confidants. Certain kinds of mental disabilities may be legally protected in the workplace and if you spout off about them, you could be subjected to defamation or discrimination claims. Further, unless you’re a doctor, there is no way to be sure of someone’s diagnosis.
What you can offer, however, is compassion and understanding. Both will go a long way toward helping you work with such people successfully. In the right job, with the appropriate structure and support (and/or the right medication) these people can be brilliant, creative, and successful. in the Mood: understanding clinical depression
Have you ever worked with someone who was like Eeyore in Winnie-the-Pooh —dour, negative, and depressed, even on the sunniest days? This person may be dealing with chronic and clinical depression. Those dark moods can affect others in the workplace. Modern brain science is validating what many of us know instinctively: Depression is catching.
One reason this is so is because of what neuropsychologists call limbic brain resonance. The limbic part of our brain is the portion that governs mood and feeling. Again, we may be genetically loaded to be happy or sad, optimistic or hopeless. We can work to change these things (and if you want to try, Martin Seligman’s book Learned Optimism is a great place to
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stop Pissing Me Off!
start), but if we have clinical depression working against us, either genetic or brought on by trauma, it can be an uphill, frequently impossible challenge.
Our limbic brains are, to some extent, wired to resonate in concert with others. When you work with someone who is suffering from untreated clinical depression, his or her brain can affect yours in ways that you may not consciously imagine. This is because, as explained in Chapter 4, we’re wired to connect. New brain imaging technology shows that when we
“Attention problems” or “attention issues” seem like benign terms, and yet such problems can affect every bit of a person’s life. Consider the conductor analogy. A person can have an IQ that is off the charts, a sunny, giving personality, and great musical gifts, but even with these individual superstar performers in the brain, the person will have many challenges if there is no conductor. Imagine, if you will, the Philadelphia Orchestra with Jean-Pierre Rampal as the flutist, the rock-star violinist from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra as the first chair violinist, and a kindergartener conducting. Imagine the chaos!
In the workplace, these people with “attention differences”
can sometimes be brilliant, witty, and charismatic, but you may become frustrated by the fact that sometimes, they appear unable to stay on task.
Even if you are open-minded, compassionate, and bend over backward to educate yourself about your colleagues’
emotional problems or imbalances, it may not be possible to tolerate having them in the workplace. You may need to skillfully confront them about their behavior, complain to HR, and/or fire them if you’re their manager. Before deciding which action to take, it helps to understand why their behavior may be occurring. Sometimes, the reason someone bothers us so much is because we think that they’re purposely behaving the way they are. If we can depersonalize this issue, we can calm down and plan our best options.
If their disorganization, problems with attention or impulse control, or hyperfocus on the wrong things causes problems
| 76 |
05. Are They Doing It Just to Piss You Off?
for your business or makes it impossible for you to do your job, something needs to happen. However, it’s not helpful to become an armchair doctor and attempt to diagnose medical problems without an appropriate clinical background. Let the qualified medical professionals provide the diagnosis and recommend treatment. Even if you think you’re sure about a diagnosis, keep your opinions to yourself and your non-work confidants. Certain kinds of mental disabilities may be legally protected in the workplace and if you spout off about them, you could be subjected to defamation or discrimination claims. Further, unless you’re a doctor, there is no way to be sure of someone’s diagnosis.
What you can offer, however, is compassion and understanding. Both will go a long way toward helping you work with such people successfully. In the right job, with the appropriate structure and support (and/or the right medication) these people can be brilliant, creative, and successful. in the Mood: understanding clinical depression
Have you ever worked with someone who was like Eeyore in Winnie-the-Pooh —dour, negative, and depressed, even on the sunniest days? This person may be dealing with chronic and clinical depression. Those dark moods can affect others in the workplace. Modern brain science is validating what many of us know instinctively: Depression is catching.
One reason this is so is because of what neuropsychologists call limbic brain resonance. The limbic part of our brain is the portion that governs mood and feeling. Again, we may be genetically loaded to be happy or sad, optimistic or hopeless. We can work to change these things (and if you want to try, Martin Seligman’s book Learned Optimism is a great place to
| 77 |
stop Pissing Me Off!
start), but if we have clinical depression working against us, either genetic or brought on by trauma, it can be an uphill, frequently impossible challenge.
Our limbic brains are, to some extent, wired to resonate in concert with others. When you work with someone who is suffering from untreated clinical depression, his or her brain can affect yours in ways that you may not consciously imagine. This is because, as explained in Chapter 4, we’re wired to connect. New brain imaging technology shows that when we
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