Dealing With Hostile People In The Workplace

Why do some people seem to have everything going for them and still act aggressive, cold, or demeaning? It's a question I've turned over for years. Has it ever occurred to you that a person like that might be depressed? Think of the people in your life who appear to have it all. Think of the coworker who outperforms everyone yet rarely steps out of the office. That kind of withdrawal can read as passive aggression toward the people around them. Depression has no fixed set of symptoms; it moves through each person differently. What researchers and clinicians almost never bring up is that success and intelligence can themselves be signs of it. The subject is a personal one for me.

Once I passed 30, I started looking back on the people I'd known, both in my private life and at work. What struck me was how everyone had simply vanished. No lasting bonds, nothing that held. Person after person I'd met faded back into the woodwork after a short stretch of contact at the office. I began to wonder whether this was a signal that people are growing more isolated and quietly depressed as workplaces harden into something closer to a shark tank.

I've always been consistently warm toward people, and still I kept finding that many of them saw me as a tool for whatever they happened to need. I was a loner for most of my life, so this never stung much until I started my career. Then I learned how skilled some people are at hiding what they actually want. Former coworkers would agree to lunch and then stand me up again and again, or leave me off the after-work plans with no reason given. It hurt, because I was generous with the people I let in. Eventually I stopped tracking how others felt about me, because the problem was usually on their end, not mine. I keep returning to the same thought: maybe this degree of social disconnection points to a low-grade depression running underneath the whole environment.

Some people will actively exploit others once they climb into positions of power. They keep you around because you make them look good. Call them leeches. They see you as a step up, a way to move their own lives forward, and after enough contact with that type you start doubting everyone's intentions. You begin avoiding people. You get a little paranoid. The most damaging turn is when you start telling yourself that nobody wants you near them, no matter what you've achieved. Plenty of people carry that feeling quietly. And you start to ask whether you traded real relationships for the career.

I've sat in that exact place. I used to wonder why anyone would want my company, especially at work when there was no obvious reason for it. What I came to understand is that people will be pleasant to you precisely so they can pull information out of you and then find an angle to make you look bad in front of the group. That isn't bitterness talking; it happens. Whether they do it on purpose or without realizing it is something only they and their therapist could sort out, but the pattern is real. The way to handle someone who behaves like this is to stay gracious while never letting them close enough to use you and injure you on the way.

It isn't all grim. Genuine friends are rare, and the handful you find are the ones who matter. Many people in an ordinary office will keep their distance from you, and often they do it out of fear or because you intimidate them, not because you lack worth. If you let those fearful reactions take root in you, though, they can curdle into low self-esteem, resentment, and loneliness. Should that be happening to you, treat the episodes as chances to build your own confidence. That's what I do. I refuse to hand anyone my joy, and I read other people's attempts at control as a reason to grow a little tougher inside. Sure, I throw myself the occasional pity party. But I've accepted that not everyone will like me and that some will only want me around to advance their own projects. That's just part of living. Heather Browning, MBA, BA