151 Quick Ideas to Deal With Difficult People

131Ouch! The Supersensitive Colleague

Thin-skinned colleagues will keep you on the ropes if you allow them to. These employees typically have low self-esteem and see slights in everything you do. Everything unpleasant that happens to them is seen as a deliberate act done by you or someone else.

I forgot to return a former colleague’s phone call. She was having a difficult time landing a job and needed some information from me. She accused me of being arrogant for not calling her back. But the call had simply slipped my mind. When I did call, I couldn’t convince her otherwise.

We all have moments like that. And most people we accidentally shortchange slough off the oversights. But oversights equal outright slights in the mind of the oversensitive ...