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Second to the home (where most people spend between six and ten hours of their time sleeping!), many adults spend more time at work than anyplace else. Whether situational or chronic, passive aggressive behavior is likely to come out wherever a person spends a great deal of their time.
In our training seminars and courses based on The Angry Smile, we have collected hundreds of stories and examples of sugarcoated hostility in the workplace. Here, I'll share four of the most recent examples told to me, representing the first four levels of passive aggressive behavior.
Level 1: Temporary Compliance in the Workplace
(At Level 1, the passive aggressive individual verbally agrees to comply with a request, but behaviorally delays or purposefully forgets to carry it out.)
A participant in a recent Angry Smile training shared with me that she requested permission and funding from her supervisor to attend the seminar four months in advance. During that time, she had to repeatedly remind her supervisor to submit the paperwork to her school's business office, and that each time she did so, her supervisor's response was the same: "Thanks for reminding me. I completely forgot. I'll do it today. (Smile)."
Yet, week after week and month after month, the paperwork never went through and the payment was not made. Fearing she would lose her place in the Conference, she told her supervisor she would pay the Conference fees on her own and wait for reimbursement. However, she still needed her supervisor to submit the proper paperwork to confirm her registration and to be sure that the personal time off would be officially approved.
Again, her supervisor's answers were brief, but affirmative: "Thanks for reminding me. I will do it today." Finally, one week before the Conference, the woman got the answer she was waiting for: "Yes, you are approved to go. Your registration is taken care of. (Smile)."
When the woman arrived at the training seminar to check in, she was told that there was no record of her registration. No paperwork had ever been received, no payments had ever been sent. In fact, the only thing "official" about the process was that the woman had had to use her own personal time for the training and pay out of her own pocket for it.
I just hope that in the course of the training, I taught her enough about how to effectively confront passive aggressive behavior in the workplace. Looks like she has a real situation in front of her!
Level 2: Intentional Inefficiency
(At Level 2, the individual complies with a given request but carries it out in an unacceptable way.)
Boss: John, I need you to move my car for me to the front of the building now.
John: I'm just about to step into a meeting. You asked me to print you a copy of the report before I go. Would you mind asking Phil to move the car?
Boss: You have plenty of time. Just move my car. I need it for lunch later.
John: Right.
John leaves the office building and happens to have the keys in hand as they inexplicably rub up against the paint of his boss' car. John moves the car as asked, parking it in a handicapped space, extremely close to the next car.
John returns to the office meeting and hands the keys to his boss with a quick smile.
At lunchtime, the boss goes outside and sees a large scratch in the paint of his car. He has a parking ticket on his window and the car next to him left a dent in his passenger's side door because they had been parked so close.
Boss: John, what happened to my car? Why do I have a ticket?
John: I don't know. We do work in a rough area. I parked it in front, as you requested. I thought that was what you wanted?
Level 3: Letting a Problem Escalate
(Level 3 is a deliberate and serious way of expressing personal anger in which a person chooses not to share information when it would prevent a problem.)
In their workplace, Tom loves to play practical jokes on Matt, including mean-spirited pranks like misplacing important work items and spreading false rumors that threaten Matt's professional reputation.
Matt is a kind, generous guy who values his job and normally turns the other cheek when it comes to Tom's behavior. One day, however, after realizing that Tom had posted an embarrassing and untrue note about him on a social networking site, Matt decided to strike back-choosing a way that would still be above reproach in a workplace setting.
When their boss made the announcement in staff meeting that everyone would have to come in to work on the following Saturday or face severe consequences, Tom was in the restroom. When Tom returned to the meeting, he asked Matt if he had missed anything important while he was out of the meeting. Matt replied that the boss had just told them all to enjoy their weekends.
Tom did not report to work on Saturday and received a formal written warning on his employment record. When he asked Matt about it, Matt simply answered, "Wow. I didn't realize you didn't know about Saturday. That's rough."
Level 4: Hidden but Conscious Revenge
(The Level 4 passive aggressive person makes a deliberate decision to get back at the object of their anger by maligning his reputation, frustrating his daily life activities, or damaging or stealing objects of importance. All of these activities are achieved without the person's knowledge.)
Jim and Bob are both employees at a local coffee shop. Although there is no official difference in authority between the two men, Jim has been working there for three years while Bob is a new hire. Jim tends to carry himself with a pompous attitude and berate Bob for even the most common mistakes that any employee could make.
Despite being new to the job, Bob knows that since their coffee shop is located in the mall, Black Friday will be very busy. Both Jim and Bob are scheduled to work that day, with Bob on the register and Jim as the barista. Bon decides that he is tired of Jim's constant attempts to humiliate him in front of their supervisors, so he decides he will switch the labels on the milk and syrup (for example, chocolate syrup is labeled as caramel syrup and the whole milk is labeled as skim).
When every single customer complains that their drink has been made incorrectly, Jim is the one who gets the blame.
By the nature of their covert or "justifiable" acts, passive aggressive employees are skilled at evading the long arm of the workplace law. Is there passive aggressive crime taking place at your office? How do people get away with it? Have you found effective ways of confronting it?
