5 Signs You May Be a Bad Coworker

Yes, I have worked with these insufferables. People with these characteristics are not interested in "looking within" to try and change their behavior. They are not clueless; they act in these ways because it gets them what they want. They get away with doing less work, or they just get left alone in general, or they get to be the center of attention with their rants. They are usually self centered narcissists, and they don't care what others think of them. Much of the time they do NOT get fired. Why this is, I have never figured out because I am not a manager.

dd in jersey city of NJ 4:18PM November 13, 2009

Re: "You bring your personal life to the office in ways that make people uncomfortable. For instance, I used to work with someone who was constantly making personal calls...."

I once worked in an office where a lady kept getting phone calls from her son about a raccoon that had gotten onto the front porch of the home. It was a very busy unit where the work involved going over hospital contracts and medical claims, and so most of the work involved working quietly with numbers, waiting on hold to get through to an insurance company CSR to check claim status, or talking to a patient on the phone. For some bizarre and inexplicable reason, the moment this woman's call from her son came in, the entire unit just happened to be totally silent, working diligently on claim and contract analysis, thus amplifying her hilarious conversation.

I will never forget that afternoon when the entire unit began cracking up about the raccoon adventure on the other end of her line.

Sometimes, those little "disturbances" can make for good comedy fodder in an otherwise serious working environment.

Side note: Keep the lids on the garbage cans to ward off raccoons. : )

Angie Koutrotsios of IL 9:34PM November 09, 2009