CollegiateLuggage.com: Where facts and opinions come to party.

Whether you work for a large company, in a small office, or even as your own boss, you will from time to time encounter Difficult People. They zig when you want them to zag and they remove the fun from everyone's day without even consciously trying.

I have given a great deal of thought to the conundrum of how best to handle difficult people. I use the word "conundrum" because the simple answer would be "get rid of them" but if it's a co-worker or a boss or a supplier you need to work with, my snappy simple solution doesn't work. Here is a short list of helpful suggestions for dealing with DPs:

1. Speak directly to the difficult person and tell them that they are making your life miserable. NOTE: Most people won't do this because they don't want confrontation and because confrontation typically causes the DP to dig their heels in.

2. Tell someone who has the DP's ear to intercede on your behalf, and tell the DP that he/she is making your life miserable and to please cut you some slack. NOTE: Many people are reluctant to ask a third party for help because it shows a certain lack of courage and the DP is likely to misinterpret the gesture in any number of negative ways including but not limited to: "Oh, he/she didn't have the guts to tell me this to my face!" Or, "Why is he/she involving you in this situation -- it's none of your stinkin' business." (Thereby alienating your colleague).

3. Write a letter to the DP clearly and thoughtfully explaining your situation and requesting that they find a way to work things out and move forward amicably. NOTE: This will probably backfire since many DPs are illiterate and those that can read only understand every fourth or fifth word in a normal sentence.

4. Schedule an intervention with the DP, along with other like-minded members of your workplace, to get them to face up to their own unpleasant behavior and to make an honest commitment to change for the better. NOTE: If this is a movie on Lifetime everything will work out. If this is real life, the DP will add paranoia to the rest of their negative behavior traits, making them even more difficult to work with.

5. Quit or transfer: This is actually the only solution that puts your own welfare ahead of the DPs. People's personalities are fully-formed by the time they are 21 years old. Expecting the DP to change so that you are now happier working with/for them is comparable to waiting for pigs to fly. And, thinking that if you just "hang in there" a bit longer, things will somehow improve is like denying the existence of gravity. Once a hammerhead, always a hammerhead.

Of course, I am self-employed and my company sells Swiss Army brand travel and business gear decorated with collegiate logos. I might be wrong.