Now I don’t usually include personal info about myself. (Reasons for it – unknown).
So let me start with: male high school teacher, public school in Maryland— and that should serve.
I work with a colleague who is the most god-awful, insufferably negative person I have ever known.
I have worked with this person for the past six years and she has become increasingly difficult to stomach.
She complains about everything. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
The students, the administration, the other teachers, her parents, her neighbors…EVERY thing.
So I am at a loss as to how best to handle it.
Often-times she comes streaming in at half-rant the first thing in the morning. Lately, though, every lunch period, when I would just beg to have an adult conversation amongst the group, she is at full-whine mode.
Personally, I am relatively low-key and try to stay positive but I am ready to blow a gasket and go off with a vengeance on said-colleague.
Sorry for the short response, but I’m leaving for work soon…
If you don’t report to her and she doesn’t report to you, then you have no official responsibility to do anything to change her ways, and no authority to make her change. But you probably already know that.
Does she have senority over you? If so be careful how you handle it as she may someday be promoted to department head and carry a grudge.
Confrontation probably isn’t necessary (and is probably counter-productive). Unless all the other teachers are also in full whine mode during the lunch conversations, I’d say the best way, IMO, is to join the conversation with more positive topics (or just different topics) and try to steer things away from whatever she’s whining about. Basically, take the fuel away from the fire.
Stand up, take a deep breath, look her straight in the eye and say “You know, <name>, this is really difficult for me to say…but you’re always complaining about everything and quite frankly, I’m tired of hearing about it. I sorry if this offends you, but I prefer to keep things positive. If you can’t at least try to do that, I’d rather not talk with you at all. Please try to understand, I’m not unsympathetic, but I do have limits. I would appreciate it if you would at least try to respect that.”
Upfront and brutally honest: “You know, you complain a lot about everything and it makes it extremely unpleasant to be around you. I’m sorry your life is so terrible and that nothing pleases you, but my life isn’t like that and I don’t have any real interest in sharing your worldview. Please excuse me if I don’t hang around you much because you are a complete buzz kill.”
Alternately, just start with exaggerated “waaah, waaah, waah” baby cry noise every time she starts off. It’s pretty fun, and if you practice it just right you can make the hair stand up on the back of everyone’s neck in earshot–just like a real crying baby does!
I know how you feel, though, because people like this are so damned exhausting to be around–it feels like they’re draining out all your blood through the femoral artery just to listen to them…
Go with this. I am pretty easy-going myself, but if she wasn’t my friend I sure as hell would say something. I’d start with 3, then go to 1, then if she still didn’t quit, then 4, and finally 2.
It’s probably much better than what I did when I was stuck with a chronic complainer for a coworker. I steadfastly ignored the whining, and responded with the most upbeat comments I could think of – I came to enjoy the challenge of coming up with peppy things to say, no matter how moronic.
Coworker: (whine) I think I’m coming down with a cold.
Me: Wow, I don’t mind colds at all, because then I get better and I know my immune system got a good brisk workout! The human body is a beautiful thing! Also, I get some reading done, and I love improving my mind whenever I have some down time! The human mind is a beautiful thing!
Eventually she decided I was very odd, and went out of her way to avoid me.
My second choice strategy was going to be to look really alarmed, leap to my feet, and then say say “my gosh, that’s awful – you’ll have to excuse me, I’m going to go pray for you now!” But I figured that would get tiresome as soon as I ran out of places to excuse myself to.
Those people suck. I’m sorry you have to put up with her.
Heh, I’m on the verge of pitting a coworker who not only whines, but is nasty if you ever try to contradict her.
Several of us try this tactic on her every so often. It works for about a half hour. Then something will set her off whine whine whine SCREEEEEECH whine… She never lets up.
I wish I had a solution. I read this thread hoping somebody could come up with something akin to a heavy-duty flamethrower or an Uzi.
I work with a guy who routinely indulges in whining. Listening to the guy, you quickly find out he’s got a persecution complex. One day the boss is overworking him. The next day his roomates are killing him with their fighting. Then all the coworkers hate him, another owes him money and hasn’t given it back, and wouldn’t you know it?–monstro said something the other day that hurt his feelings!
It’s not just the whining. It’s the melodramatic nature of the whining.
I worked with another guy who was worse, though. He was always grumbling and complaining–mostly about the “cocksuckers” and “assholes” in his life. He never had a positive thing to say about any institution or human being. Everything sucked.
For the second guy, I would just grunt and occassionally nod during his rants, sometimes saying, “Wow, that’s bad”, and then try to change the topic. For the first guy, I try to provide advice or another perspective (maybe you took what I said the wrong way…maybe you should delegate some of the work the boss gave you…maybe you should get your own place). Or, I flat-out tell him he’s being melodramatic (drama queens hate when you say this to them) and that he needs to see the situation for what it really is. He usually agrees with me when I tell him this and he clamps down on all that whining. But I can do this because we’re friends. Sounds like the woman in the OP isn’t really a friend.
Bingo! It’s the same thing with my coworker. She refuses to do anything out of her own scope of work because she’s afraid she’ll be overworked. If you tell her that everybody else is doing the same or more, though, she’ll somehow turn it against you. She also loves bossing people around. Oh, and please don’t mention her divorce. That sets off yet another rant about how all men are scumbags.
Oh phuleeeeze, we mustn’t forget the draaaaaaama True, she has been through some very rough times and, like all of us, she’s entitled to a pity party here and there. But there’s a difference between pity party and PITY PARTY. At one point a few months ago her whining reached the point that even customers were complaining to management. Her hours were docked and she was written up. We’re still hearing about how unfair and unjustified that was. Cripes.
I do not agree with making fun of people who say that their life is full of too much problems. Instead I would suggest that you tell her the obvious solution to her problems. In my experience with whiners it is almost always the case that the solution is very obvious and they are too lazy to apply it. By making it plainly obvious that the difficult solution that she is trying to avoid (by whining) is the only solution she has you will effectively shut her up.
Whenever I want my friend to stop whining about how he never has any money for the rent, I tell him he has to lay off the drugs and alcohol.
Whenever I want another friend to stop whining about how he never has money for food, I remind him that he has to get a job.
Do the same with your co-worker. It might sound preachy, but since you guys are adults, it should come off more as common sense.
"Well if you want my opinion… this doesn’t really match up with all your previous complaints and it’s quite disappointing. With your vast complaining expertise and experience, we were all expecting a little more from you. This effort falls short of the mark.
I try to keep it positive, but I do tend to slip back into whine mode (especially online.)
There are reasons. not GOOD reasons, and not excuses, but reasons.
When it comes to telling people about things and volunteering information unasked, I mostly assume people don’t care. I mean, if I went to the zoo today, whoopee for me. If I got a new boyfriend, chances are good you really don’t want to hear about it unless you’re my best friend. But when something bad happens or when I’m upset or angry about something, I tell people for my own benefit. If my dog died, I need a hug and I’m not going to get it without telling anyone. Or just because I want to rant and get it out.
Sometimes I don’t know what to say to get a conversation started. If I find myself talking to someone I don’t know well, “it’s a nice day, isn’t it? puppies are adorable!” is likely to get a “yeah, great” response, whereas, “I can’t stand pep rallies! They’re so pointless! I could be doing something useful with this hour!” is more likely to get, “I know! I could be…” and generate at least enough conversation to avoid a few awkward moments.
Sometimes, and I know this is a BAD habit, it’s a sort of preemptive excuse. If I’m sitting with my classsmates before choir and I have a cold, I’m likely to tell them I have a cold so that they don’t think I’m just a bad singer. If I arrive at school with my hair wild because I walked and it was windy, I don’t want people to think I just neglected to do my hair. It’s very very silly, I know.
Most of the time, these days, it’s just to shut people up. I don’t sleep well. I feel sick most of the time, so I often LOOK sick and tired and “are you okay!!! you look so tired!!! are you sick!!!” gets a little tiresome. “no, I’m fine” doesn’t work well, so “I’m okay. Just a little dizzy, but I’ll be fine.” or “I didn’t get much sleep last night, but I’m okay” is more likely to get people to stfu.
Anyway- how would I deal with me? “does anything good ever happen to you?” is a good one, although not too dripping-with-sarcasm. Indicate that you’d like to hear about the good stuff more than the bad without making her feel like a complete ass. Point out to her that you never hear anything positive from her. Or take the more passive route and complain to her about how you can’t stand being around people who are negative all the time and hope she picks it up. Steer the conversation- “yes, but what happened today that was good?”
One of my coworkers does something that drives me insane- she "poor baby"s me. think she’s totally serious about it, too, because I don’t complain to her. (if i did, I’ve quit now. I can’t stand being poor-babied) She did it like ninety times tonight because the kitchen (where I was working) was about twenty degrees warmer than the dining room (where she was working.) “po’ baby, in this hot kitchen!” “po’ baby, standing up all night!”… about all this stuff that really didn’t bother me. You could try that- sincerely (or faux-sincerely) say, “poor baby, that sounds awful!” “poor baby- that must have sucked.” Perhaps it’ll have the same effect on her and she’ll be blocking even the negative THOUGHTS for fear you’ll read them and “poor baby” her.
