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March 1, 2010

Protect Yourself from Toxic Colleagues

By Blaine Loomer

The Networkers

Surely you recognize the Networker—the person who spends more time networking than actually working. They believe that the road to success is about whom you know, not what you know.

I’ve watched people do nothing but network all day long. One guy worked from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. almost every day. Initially I thought he was a very hard worker. One afternoon, a few of his coworkers showed up at happy hour, and I asked them why he worked so much. It turns out that he was spending the entire day walking around the office, socializing with everyone, then doing his work after hours.

How to protect yourself? Don’t get trapped in the Networker’s web. Networkers name-drop and appear to be connected. In reality, they are time thieves. They burn up a lot of your valuable time with meaningless office chitchat. It doesn’t take long for everyone to get tired of them. Hanging around them will not add much to your value.

The Taskmasters

Have you ever come across someone at work who spends all of his time worrying about what everyone else is doing, at the same time complaining that no one else in the company ever does anything and he is saddled with all the work? This is the Taskmaster. Taskmasters are quick to assign tasks to other people to avoid having to do anything—and yet as soon as a task is completed, somehow the Taskmaster is there to take credit for getting it done.

The Taskmaster constantly works to create the perception that he is so busy that he just couldn’t possibly work one more thing into his day. In reality, he has a lazy streak a mile wide, and he works harder to get out of work than most of us do to get our work done.

How to protect yourself? Beware. Keep him at a distance or you will spend your days doing his job.