How do you handle difficult coworkers?
Backstory: I’ve been at my company for two years, prior to this role I worked for another company for 15 years. The previous company had terrible pay and benefits, required long hours and weekends at end of quarter, but the coworkers were awesome. Even the ones that were difficult or that frequently disagreed were great humans and we could agree to disagree. Even through the disagreements we could come to a decision and move on. Many of these people I am still friends with.
My new company is the complete opposite. Great pay and benefits, they encourage using all your PTO and never expect you to work after hours, just expect the work gets done. The people are terrible though. They disagree on everything, point fingers and play the blame game. My predecessor was known to be difficult (i experienced it during training before they left) so I assumed it was residual tension he created with other teams. After two years though I have more than proved my competency, am solution focused, and willing to work with others and yet I still feel like the whipping boy. It’s not just me, I see it across the board in the way people treat each other and get super defensive in meetings. If I had a dollar for everytime the word friction is used in conversation I would be rich. It’s exhausting, I dread logging in every morning to see who has messaged and what mood I will get from them. I don’t feel like I can be honest, even though they preach a culture of “being open with one another,” I feel like any honesty gets backlash and that I have to just sit and smile and nod and put up with being treated this way. Every minor inconvenience gets escalated and I find myself defending myself or my direct reports. I hired my direct reports and they have also voiced this to me. When I try to voice to my boss or my HR business partner I get some fluffy advice to put myself in the other persons shoes or “that’s just the way Joe Schmo is” with no real help.
I am passionate about what the company does and the benefits and perks are nice but I don’t know how much longer I can stand to be treated this way. How do you handle this situation?