151 Quick Ideas to Deal With Difficult People

137Beware the Minimizers

Allison had second thoughts about how she judged a colleague who was dressed down by a cube-mate for talking too loudly. The woman told Jessica, Allison’s friend, that she was loud and inconsiderate. When a friend told Allison how mean she thought the woman was, Allison just chalked it all up to a misunderstanding because it was true that her friend tended to talk loudly. Allison encouraged her to patch things up with the woman.

That seemed like a good idea until Allison herself hit the woman’s buzz saw. She couldn’t hear while speaking with a client on the phone because the infamous shusher was holding a loud conversation with Allison. She asked them to tone it down. The shusher loudly proclaimed that Allison demanded ...