cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/28878325
In the last 4 weeks I’ve worked with several people over 60 and I don’t like what I saw: slow giving report or describing a problem, fixation on trivialities about a client’s appearance or something funny he did instead of getting directly to the point and doing our jobs, incapable of coping with new forms of communication, feeling they are your supervisor, even though they’re not, criticizing you for ‘wasting’ paper or erasers, telling you how they dislike other coworkers, even though I just met this person 2 hours ago, acting as if only their way of doing things is the right one, then they pretend to be your friend and ask questions about your personal life which I deflect as good as I can.
I don’t like working with people like this, it’s very draining and I don’t want to become this kind of person.
How do I make sure not to become this kind of person?
Just focus on that and you’re good.
There are two ways to do “bad things” 1. you’re not aware of them being bad (because you never question yourself), 2. you are aware, but you excuse them somehow.
You have already cleared 1., all you need to do now, is to remain strict with yourself to never do excuse your own bad behavior.
And to be clear, I don’t mean to constantly blame yourself, I mean “finding excuses to do the bad thing anyway, because this time is an exception”. And it’s also fine to give up on this later if you find you can’t keep it up. It would be disappointing, but any effort in this direction is good, don’t let it dominate you.
Also, practice harmless small talk. If your colleague is talking drama, try to shift the discussion and bring up their pet or hobby or something.
I’m sure you can find some old boring topic that you find moderately interesting but can talk for hours on? Just use that. Comic book art, a particular species of flower you keep in a pot, 14th century mongolian music, idk.
One thing is to identify the bad behaviour in others, to see you’re doing it yourself is much harder though. People often don’t realize they’re doing something they hate in others.