3 Traits of extremely selfish co-workers
Look out for those people and learn how to handle them
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I know I know, the cover image is a strong one. But this is a strong topic. And it deserves a worthy cover image. With that said now, I’ve identified 3 common traits shared by “selfish” co-workers.
Blaming culture
Given that we started strong, let’s kick things off with the worst of them all. Do you know anyone who loves to blame? Do you know anyone who never takes responsibility or never acknowledges their mistakes? Unfortunately, I can think of a few a came across throughout my career.
These are some of the worst types of co-workers. This blaming culture can happen quite often especially if you work in a cross-functional team. Don’t get me wrong. I love being part of multidisciplinary and cross-functional team setups. In fact, I believe that a squad setup often brings great value to almost any project. However, I can’t say I never heard the words:
“we did it like that because it came from UX / Design”
Like mate, come on: we are a team and we are supposed to work together towards a shared goal. Especially in an agency, people tend to have the mentality of the clients being the teacher who reviews and grades your homework. Those people are the co-workers that only look after themselves and during client calls try to take the load off of them by blaming another team member.
Piece of advice?
Avoid working with those people if you can. If you can’t, just call them out whenever you have a chance to do so.
The know-it-all
I love being surrounded by smart people. As a matter of fact, throughout my career, most time I left a company it was because I felt stuck and not challenged enough. I felt like my learning journey was slowing down. And I am somebody that loves to keep learning new things.
But I also came across the co-worker species of “Know-it-all”. That individual who always looks at others with superiority. No matter if you are talking about the latest design trend or the Sunday grill. They know it better.
