8 types of difficult people at work

There are many people in the workplace that can frustrate you — experts have identified about eight broad categories. While some are easier to deal with than others, each one will cross your path at some point in your work life. There are ways to identify these types of people, in order to effectively deal with them and make your day-to-day life smoother in the workplace.

The Passive Aggressive

This category of people is considered the worst of the lot, as well as the most common. These are two-faced people who will agree to everything to your face but not follow through because they don't inwardly agree with you or your ideas. They may also use indirect means to express their ideas so one is never confidently able to count on them or their intentions.

The Insecure Boss

Supervisors can be nit-picky, meddling or downright threatening. A good idea is to be diplomatic with them and to try and remain on their good sides. Messing with hierarchy could cost you your position in the company so the best thing to do around them is grit your teeth, and sprinkle a healthy dose of sugar on your words before serving it to them.

The Pessimist

Always raining on someone's parade, pessimists are quick to point out all the negatives that can occur in each circumstance. It can be quite demotivating to stay around these kinds of people because they are always shooting down ideas and making one question everything for fear of failure.

The Victim

Another type of pessimist, these kinds of people simply refuse to take accountability for their actions, opting instead, to point fingers at another for every little thing that goes wrong. They suffer from inferiority complex and doubt everyone's intentions.

The Know-it-All

Smug and overconfident, this category of people hog time at meetings shamelessly, shout out wrong responses confidently and even justify those responses, steering people in the wrong direction. They are often also bootlickers — thriving on recognition from supervisors and preening over others.

The tormentor

This is typically someone who has made it to a position where they can mistreat others. They have probably worked their way up after a number of sacrifices and are in the best position to become mentors to subordinates. They choose instead, to become TOR-mentors.

The Biased

Microaggressions in their actions, and obviously skewed towards one party, they show no hesitation in favouring one person over another, feeding ill feelings and demotivating deserving candidates. They can be found at all levels but having one of these at the top can be the worst!

The Political Operator

Employees or office staff, nothing stands in the way of these ambitious people. They can play the sneakiest office politics and worm their way up, not caring who they step on to get there. This category of people rarely has friends and rightly so.