4 Ways to Deal with Drama in the Work Place

Drama at work is never fun, and it can be difficult to know exactly how to deal with office politics and difficult co-workers.

I’ve dealt with my fair-share of office drama and co-workers who are, to put it nicely, less than desirable. In fact, I had to deal with a large batch of drama at my part-time job just last week.

Unfortunately the actions of my co-worker resulted in the end of our friendship, but we still have to remain professional as we’ll still have to work together on at least a semi-regular basis.

After having to deal with office drama a few times, here are 4 ways I’ve found to deal with it in the easiest possible manner.

Avoid Drama Causers

At my both my full-time job and my part-time job there are certain employees who always seem to be involved in drama with at least one other co-worker. After working in an office setting for over 4 years, I’ve discovered that one of the easiest ways to deal with office drama and difficult co-workers is to avoid them if possible.

I know it’s not always possible or practical to avoid the co-workers who cause the drama, but if you can you should do so.

Dodge Sensitive Topics

There are some topics of discussion that inevitably cause office drama. This could include topics of discussion like politics (real politics, not office politics), religion, etc. A general rule of thumb is if you wouldn’t discuss the topic at a family dinner to avoid drama, you shouldn’t discuss it at work or with co-workers either.

Additionally, there may be some “buzzwords” that cause some people to go off a tangent, causing office drama along the way. In my office that buzzword is actually the topic of Internet speed. Speed of our systems is a huge sore spot to some people in our office. If I want to avoid drama, I won’t bring this subject up unless absolutely necessary.

Leave Personal Issues at Home

Everyone has a life outside of the office, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be brought to work everyday too. Of course what goes on in your personal life will affect your office life to some degree, and vice versa, but for the most part you should try to separate your home life and work life as much as possible for the sake of avoiding drama.

I live in very small town, so it can be especially difficult to separate our personal relationships from our work relationships since most of my co-workers and I have lots of activities and friends in common, but I do my best to maintain some degree of separation to cut down on drama. When I have personal and non-work related issue with one of my co-workers I handle it in a personal way rather than bringing that personal issue into the workplace.

Clear the Air

Whenever I’ve been involved in drama in the workplace, I try to always clear the air and resolve issues between my co-workers and myself before bringing in another party. As long as the issue isn’t something serious, like sexual harassment, etc., it can probably be handled between the parties involved rather than dragging the rest of your co-workers into your drama situation.

Occasionally issues can’t be resolved and will have to be taken to a supervisor, but this should be rare if you follow the steps above and make an effort to calmly work through issues yourselves first.

Have you ever been involved in office drama? How did you resolve it? What do you do to avoid future drama? Do you have any difficult co-workers?

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