A Realistic Approach to Dealing With People Who Don’t Like You

Some years back, I had a coworker who didn’t like me. She openly and often challenged me and spread rumors about me to the rest of the team. The icing on the cake? She bragged to my supervisor that she could do a better job managing people than I could.

It didn’t help that it was rooted in her dissatisfaction with her own profession. My work had to fight off the steady stream of criticism, and I felt I had to defend myself constantly.

Now that I am far from the situation, I can see the bright side. In dealing with those who have it in for you, I learned five things from her contempt:

1.   Look in the Mirror

It’s too simple to assume that people dislike you without considering why they would feel that way. Think about if your actions could be seen as disrespectful or insensitive before writing them off as irrelevant.

It might be something you’re already aware of, like a tendency toward excessive competition and the willingness to sacrifice others in the name of success. However, it could also be due to habits you aren’t aware of, such as automatically finishing people’s sentences.

So, get an opinion from a reliable source. You can gain insight into how you come across to others and why your efforts may be met with resistance from your supervisor or a trusted colleague.

This will allow you to make some adjustments to your behavior and re-establish contact with those with whom things got off to a shaky start. (There’s no easy way to initiate this discussion, so I’ve provided you with a sample letter to use as a guide for soliciting constructive criticism.

2.   Don’t Try to Change Each Other

Perhaps the people you question claim that they have come up with nothing that could offend anyone else. If that’s the case, then you should prepare yourself for the fact that not everyone will like you.

You are not responsible for persuading them to do anything. You should be polite, to be sure, but it doesn’t mean you have to compromise your unique qualities.

It’s important to remember that everyone has their favorites at work and in their personal lives. There are certainly some people you get along with well and others you don’t. It may hurt less if you remember that it’s just human nature, despite how personal it may feel.

If I’m still feeling down, I remind myself that nobody’s perfect and our flaws make us unique.

3.   Don’t Bother Trying To Interact

Being accepting doesn’t imply you have to accept their behavior, though. One of life’s ancient adages is that if you argue with a fool, you’ll prove that there are two of them.

Don’t clap back, no matter how confident you are in your ability.

I’ve found that changing the subject is a great technique to avoid joining in on the conversation when I don’t want to. If I have to talk to someone who doesn’t like me and I can tell the conversation is going in a wrong way, I swiftly change the subject. For example, you might say, “Steve, I’d love to go back to explicitly conceptualizing the marketing approach.”

4.   Shift Your Attention

After dealing with such a pessimist, it’s essential to redirect your positive energy toward those who support you. There’s a good reason you have a job; those who recruited you recognize your abilities and value them.

It makes no difference what other people think of your abilities.

To get my mind back in the game, I will sometimes imagine that I am performing in front of a huge crowd. There are bright lights, a camera, and many eyes on the activity. Whatever transpired in the dressing room or onstage during last night’s performance is irrelevant.

I should be more concerned with how well I do now. Thanks to that image, I can shake off any bad feelings and get down to business.

5.   Reset

To work with someone who dislikes you, you must (constantly) start over. You can’t go into every job meeting remembering how this person will be challenging to deal with.

If you reset, you’ll feel less frustrated and be able to get more done.

To achieve this goal, “act dumb” can be used. You are indeed astute enough to decipher the hidden meaning of your coworkers’ supposed praises and recognize the snide remarks for what they are. But you can always act like you don’t.

You can respond graciously, “Thank you for recognizing my work. The positive outcomes didn’t only make me happy; I felt the same way.

You want everything you say and do in your interaction to go as smoothly as possible because you believe it will.

Signing Off:

It would be best if you kept going forward despite the naysayers. The difficulty of this lesson is much beyond any others. Knowing I’d have to spend the day with this horrible coworker gave me anxiety. But I made it through by telling myself that it was her issue, not mine.

That coworker and I never really clashed. As you can see, she had some profound feelings for me. That was a responsibility she bore alone. Realizing that I was not at fault for this setback strengthened my resolve, and I could keep performing the work I enjoyed despite the setback.