Gossiping, backstabbing, bullying and complaining co-workers will ensnare even the best employees into their unhappy world of drama and deceit. In so doing, problem employees transform otherwise efficient, benign corporate environments into tawdry scenes from Ally McBeal, The Office, House or any number of comedy shows poking fun at the dysfunctional American workplace.
In the real world, though, office drama isn’t funny. It creates stress, drains employees of energy and hampers productivity. To address these conflicts, managers and individual co-workers need to understand the “drama type” of employees creating this toxic work environment, says Kaley Klemp, co-author of The Drama-Free Office: A Guide to Healthy Collaboration with Your Team, Coworkers, and Boss.
The four primary “drama types” as described by Klemp, who is also a leadership and teambuilding coach, include: complainers, cynics, controllers and caretakers. Knowing how to handle each of these types of people will help you ward off thorny, stressful situations that could jeopardize your career.
I think I have worked with just about every drama type. The complainer, who has nothing better to do but bitch about other people, thier work habits and ethics, thier job performance and skills. They don’t have time to get thier work done, because they are so preoccupied with what others are doing. The last hospital I was employed at had so many of these drama queen types. Everyday I woke up and was scheduled to go into work, I would get physically ill. I dreaded the fact that I had to go in there and deal with fake ass bitches, who would smile in your face, and tear you apart behind your back. Them chicks couldnt’t keep it real with themselves or others if thier lives depended on it. I guess I could categorize them as the cynics. I’m sorry, but I can’t fake the funk. If I don’t like you, you will know it, and if you don’t know it, then you are just dumb. I can’t sit up in someone’s face that I don’t vibe with and have a conversation about your life, because I don’t really care. I don’t want to hear about your day, because it doesn’t concern me or affect me. If I have to talk to you about work, then I am mature and professional enough to set my feelings aside and get the issue resolved, but if it’s not about money, than it just doesn’t make sense to entertain you. Our biggest problem at my old hospital was favoritism. The complainers and cynics were in that favorite group of people, therefore they felt empowered and at liberty to go into the supervisor’s office all day and night and complain about people that were actually hard workers and could run circles around them. I worked with a bunch of slow, lazy ass people, I would do ten sticks to thier two. People that have been doing this longer than me and get so frazzled and overwhelmed when they see that there are more than 3 sticks that need to be collected. These people drown in a cup of water, they are so pathetic. We had the controllers who would be so worried about your specimen, the way it was collected, the way it was packaged and sent to the lab, and how much was actually in the tube. They would be so worried about your sticks, meanwhile their workload was piling up.
Our biggest problem, not only in the phlebotomy department, but hospital wide, was management. My old supervisor was such a good for nothing, worthless piece of shit. She had her favorite group of people and would only listen to and cater to them. She did not like me one bit, because I wouldn’t take her shit. I don’t care who you are or what your position is, don’t be rude and disrespectful and think that I’m not going to react and comeback at you the same way. She had an issue with the fact that I spoke my mind, had an opinion, and just would not back down. Anybody that didn’t agree with her rule of it’s my way or the highway was on her shit list, and my name was right on the top of the list. We had a senior tech who was assigned to make up the schedule and was supposed to be there to help us out with anyhing we needed. I’m pretty sure her and the supervisor were lovers, because nobody in the department would get away with the type of things this chick did. She was the only one that did not have to work any weekends or holidays. She could take paid time off whenever she damn well pleased. Only 2 people could be out on pto at a time and even tho she didn’t work weekends or holidays she would always take pto for the days before and after, therefore if omeone who actually worked Christmas for example, and wanted to spend Christmas eve with thier family couldn’t because she had already took pto herself. She was always in the main lab, rarely if ever came over to collecting to see if we needed help, but would have herself on the schedule for phlebotomy. She also had her crew of favorites, and she would let people leave work in the middle of the shift to go take care of business and cover for them by not marking it on their time cards.
Human resources at that hospital was the most corrupt department of them all. You would go to human resources and speak to them about what was happening at your department and they would basically laugh at you, and turn shit around on you. They would say that you have to go through this bullshit ass chain of command, and that was totally pointless. I’m so glad to be out of that place and away from those people. I am at a new hospital now, and trust me when I tell you, it’s not that much of a diffrence. My current supervisor is nothing like my old one. She is caring, fair and respectable, but too bad I can’t say the same about the workers. There are some lazy ass people here too, they avoid work, take forever with one patient, sit on the computer looking at bullshit and pretend they don’t see or hear the work that needs to be done. After this hospital, I am not going to work at another hospital, ever! I can’t work with so many personalities and attitudes. I don’t want to be around sick people all damn day and night. I don’t want to sacrifice my holidays and weekends anymore. I just want to work in an outside lab where I work morning hours and can be home by a decent time. I can be responsible for registering my patients and collecting their blood, that they voluntarily walked into donate. I don’t have to be around sick people and and work with patients that have been stuck a million times while in the hospital. A drama free work place! I would love to hear from any of you that have been in a similiar situation. Have you worked with these type of people? Have you worked in this type of environment? How did you hanndle it? or what would you do? As always comments and feedback are greatly appreciated and welcomed. Until next time be safe and stay healthy.
Suranny P.
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