Jerks at Work
Toxic Coworkers and What to do About Them
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- €9.99
Publisher Description
Want to get those difficult colleagues off your back and restore your sanity? NYU psychology professor Tessa West shows you how.
Have you ever watched a colleague charm the pants off management while showing a competitive, Machiavellian side to the lower ranks? They don't hesitate to throw peers under the bus, but their boss is oblivious to their bad behaviour. What about a constantly interrupting colleague? Or an over-bearing manager? While these jerks stress us out in small ways throughout the day, they aren't technically breaking any rules, so we're expected just to put up with them.
...Until now. Tessa West has already helped thousands of people resolve their most pressing workplace issues. And here she draws on a decade of original research to profile classic workplace archetypes, including the Gaslighter, the Bulldozer, the Credit-Stealer, the Neglecter, and the Micromanager, giving advice to anyone who's ever hidden in the bathroom to cry at work. She digs deep into the inner workings of each bad apple, exploring their motivations and insecurities, and offers clever strategies for stopping each type of jerk in their tracks.
Know a Jerk at Work? This proactive approach reveals the single, most effective way to achieve emotional wellbeing at work.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
NYU social psychologist West empowers frustrated workers to deal with difficult colleagues in her punchy debut. Among the types of workplace antagonists she identifies, there's the "kiss up/kick downer," who tramples colleagues to get ahead; the "credit stealer," who pretends to be friendly but takes ideas; and the gaslighter, who manipulates others to make them complicit in unethical behavior. For each "jerk at work," West details methods for pinpointing what motivates them and where and when their jerky behavior is most likely to occur, and offers tactics to deploy in response. In the case of a "free rider," for example, friendly folks who don't do much, one should set strict boundaries, and with a neglectful boss at the helm, one should "need-nudge," or make concrete requests for help with specific time frames. West highlights the roles she's played in workplace drama—she's been employee and boss, and confesses to being both victim and jerk: her excessive micromanaging once drove 11 students working on a research project to quit in a single month. She mines these experiences for solid anecdotes, and while her tips are geared toward victims of workplace bullies, West's simultaneously humorous and no-nonsense approach to collegiality is broadly applicable. Leaders and workers alike will find in West an astute and personable guide.
