Work Daze by Bob Goldman

It really is ridiculous! Just because you're nasty, stubborn, snarky and snide, people think that working with you is difficult. Nothing could be further from the truth! You're a peach of a co-worker and a dream of a colleague. All you ask is that your office mates do exactly what you say, exactly when you say it. And, oh yes, don't disturb you with silly demands to actually get some work done when you're busy napping, goofing off or rocking the conference room with Guitar Hero.

Despite your general wonderfulness, an entire industry has sprung up dedicated to dealing with people like you — people that are, supposedly, "difficult."

The friendly folks at CareerTrack are among those taking a crack at the difficult issue of difficult people. If I am to believe the charming, amusingly cartooned brochure that recently made its way into my e-mail box, a one-day seminar is all it will take to "never again fall victim to those who love to make life miserable for the rest of us."

I suppose there is a benefit here for those subservient wimps that we love to torture, but for difficult people like me and thee, the real benefit of the CareerTrack seminar is the opportunity to learn a bunch of brand new ways to be awful. For example, on page two of the seminar brochure we find six archetypes of agonizingly difficult workmates.

First up are the "Know-It-Alls" who are "arrogant and usually have an opinion on every issue. When they're wrong. They get defensive." As a know-it-all yourself, you know this description is only half true. You do have an opinion on every issue, but you're hardly arrogant. In fact, you're totally understanding and sympathetic to the ignorant idiots too stupid to recognize your genius.

"The Dictators bully and intimidate," the brochure copy continues. "They're constantly demanding and brutally critical." Or, as we like to put it, "generous enough to share our precious insights with our less fortunate workmates on how they could improve their pathetic personalities to become more pleasing to important people, like us."

Other supposedly difficult people the seminar confronts are the "Yes People" and the "No People." The Yes People agree with everything and the No People won't agree to anything.

This proves how grateful everyone should be to work with someone like you — a "Maybe Person." Maybe you'll get your work done and maybe you won't. Maybe you'll attend the meeting and maybe you won't. It's indecision like this that makes the job interesting, and if your co-workers don't like it, maybe they should quit!

Another reason to delve into the details of the Dealing with Difficult People seminar is to know what kind of psychological jujutsu may be aimed at disarming your charming behavior patterns. For example, the brochure promises that attendees will "learn how to recognize a person's style of communication based on level of assertiveness and a tendency to focus on either people or tasks."

Apparently, some of the difficult elite have actually made the fatal mistake of focusing an unforgivable flaw that allows the easygoing to manipulate them into being — ugh — nicer. This certainly won't happen to you, since you don't focus on people or tasks or anything that isn't presented in HD on the Lifetime network. As for a "communication style," I'm not even sure the difficult and the proud know what that means. If a few grunts were good enough for our ancestors who lived in caves, I don't see why any more is expected from those of us who live in cubes.

"Me eat donuts in staff meeting. Me sleep. Me happy now." That's our idea of a communication style, and anyone who doesn't like it is going to need a lot more than a one-day seminar to get us to change. And speaking of that dreaded seminar, attendees are also promised that they will "walk away with the tools you need to effectively listen to others, including how to tune into body language and other key methods of communication we often ignore."

Now this does sound useful. If there are ways to be difficult that go beyond refusing to listen or cooperate or be a team player, we want to know it. As for tuning into our body language, go right ahead! When it comes to making our co-workers understand how much they revolt us, we want to make it as easy as possible.

Bob Goldman has been an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company in the San Francisco Bay Area. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@funnybusiness.com. To find out more about Bob Goldman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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