Toxic Coworkers : How to Deal with Dysfunctional People on the Job

We've all worked with someone “difficult,” someone who could always be trusted to blow up to space out or do or say something wildly inappropriate. As it happens, those of us who concluded “the guy's just nuts” were right: a fair number of those impossible-to-get-along-with employees actually do have full-fledged personality disorders. In Toxic Coworkers, the authors help us to recognize a variety of common personality traits and disorders, understand how they come about, and learn to develop effective strategies for dealing with them. So the next time the narcissist who runs the front desk is bugging you, or you need to squeeze a favor out of the schizoid who handles inventory, you'll know exactly what to do.

In the authors' random poll of 1,000 working people, 80 percent said that a single coworker contributed significant stress to their workday. Everyone has worked with someone "difficult" - someone who could always be trusted to blow up or say or do something provoking or inappropriate. Psychologists Alan Cavaiola and Neil Lavender have studied this much-discussed but rarely addressed area. Their research showed that the conventional wisdom that some problem workers are "just nuts" was right: a sizeable number of such employees do in fact have full-fledged personality disorders. In Toxic Coworkers, they pinpoint a variety of personality traits and disorders, showing how they come about and offering effective strategies for coping with them. The authors cover the range of familiar types, from hyperactives, histrionics, and sociopaths to narcissists and obsessive-compulsives and provide concrete techniques for surviving them.

Contents 1. The Problem with Personality Disorders 2. Introduction to Personality Disorders: Our Cast of Characters 3. All Hail the Conquering Narcissist 4. Histrionic Personality Disorder: Lights . . .Camera . . . Action! 5. The Antisocial Personality: Rules Do Not Apply 6. The Borderline Personality Disorder: A Storm in Every Port 7. The Perfectionist: The World of the Obsessive Compulsive Personality 8. The Dependent Personality Disorder: Till Death Do Us Part 9. The Passive Aggressive Personality: The Ultimate Obstructionist 10. The Avoidant Personality: “On the Watering of Wallflowers” 11. The Lonely World of the Schizoid 12. The Paranoid Personality: The Loneliness of Suspicion 13. Other Toxic Coworkers References