By Vince Mitchell
I once had a summer job working for a construction company. It was a great experience. I was able to work outside all day, and I found I really enjoyed working with my hands and doing physical labor. Although it wasn’t the sort of job that I would like to be doing for the rest of my life, for a summer job, I couldn’t have been luckier. There were only two drawbacks to the job. First, the crew that I was assigned to was working on a project for most of the summer in another city, far from home. Secondly I worked with probably the most difficult coworker I’ve ever had to deal with. I’ll call him John.
Immediately prior to being employed at the construction company, John had been released from jail. I was assured that his crimes were non-violent in nature, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. John also walked with a limp, which I later learned had been the result of a near fatal accident involving an inner tube, a car, and an icy street.
Although his idiosyncrasies make him memorable, what really stood out about John, and eventually caused him to lose favor with his coworkers, was his attitude. John had an opinion on every subject and was always more than willing to offer it. He was also eager to argue his opinions even if they were absurd. It got to the point where all of the other workers were afraid to make conversation in John’s presence, especially if, after 12 hours of physical labour, they didn’t have the energy to argue.
John also fancied himself an expert on the work we were doing. Even though we had a foreman who was in charge of ensuring the work was done properly, John always had an improvement to the commonly accepted process. He offered advice to anyone performing any task. Eventually, John’s advice turned into instruction, as John began to tell everyone how best to do their jobs. We nicknamed him, “Better Way.”
John ended up quitting before the summer was over. He asked for a raise and gave an ultimatum that he would leave unless the company paid him more. This may make him appear arrogant, but in all fairness to John, he was one of the most diligent and hardworking people I’ve ever met. He really did want to do a good job, and he genuinely believed that he knew how best to get a job done. He also believed that he was being helpful by offering his advice whenever he believed there was a better way, which was all the time. But his main problem was that he wanted to control everything and everybody.
Like most so-called control freaks, John would almost never admit that he was ever wrong. He would argue until it was completely obvious that he was wrong or in the case of the work setting, until he was ordered to perform a task differently than he wished. On these occasions, John would sulk for hours or even days. He would complain to anyone who would listen about the person who proved him wrong or ordered him to act against his judgement.
According to Roy H. Lubit’s Coping with Toxic Managers, Subordinates...And Other Difficult People, control freaks like John feel as though they are responsible for keeping their world stable, and, like John, they can destroy the morale of their entire work environment. They tend to create catch-22 situations. They will continue in their controlling ways as long as they are permitted, but if they do happen to be confronted, they will often react in an explosive rage. In the case of John, he viewed any confrontation as a personal attack. Control freaks also destroy creativity in the workplace, as people tend to try to avoid the barrage of criticism.
Dealing with John was a difficult experience. According to Lubit, control freaks like John tend not to change very easily. Even though it was made clear that his behavior was inappropriate and undesirable, John was unwilling and probably unable to change. His behavior seemed to be so ingrained in his personality that there was little that anyone could have done to improve the situation.
Although it often helps to voice one’s concerns about a problem coworker to a supervisor, simply reprimanding controlling behavior will not change the personality of a control freak. It’s often the coworkers of control freaks who are forced to remove themselves from the situation.
In our case, however, we were lucky enough to be relieved of the continuing drama and torture of working with a control freak. John quit on his own.
