Did you know that only 1 to 6 percent of employees report incidents of workplace incivility? It’s understandable. Formally complaining against someone for interrupting you in meetings or ignoring you when they pass you in the corridor may be seen as overreacting. And you certainly don’t want to be known as oversensitive, or the office whiner. That too about something that may just be a harmless oversight.
But what if it’s not an oversight and certainly not harmless?
What if that person interrupts you every time you speak, and deliberately forgets to invite you to important team meetings? What if the cracks they make about your college or community are not harmless jokes? What if they diss your achievements to your colleagues and try to isolate you at office functions? Worst
of all, what if just the sight of them has begun to throw you into a spiral of stress and uncertainty?
An isolated experience of incivility is bad enough. But a stream of slights and rudeness from a colleague can eat away at you and impact your self-confidence and performance at work -- in the long term.
So, what do you do? Since you’re still reluctant to report it, most people take the easy way out and just avoid the ‘problem person’. But that’s not a long-term solution.
It’s true that you can’t force everyone to like and respect you. That’s up to them. But you can demand to be treated with civility, by all. You owe yourself that.
The boundaries at home, with friends and family, tend to get blurred. People sometimes end up saying inappropriate, and even hurtful, things to each other. It’s not desirable, but you put up with them because you believe they come from a place of love. Besides, you have a long history together and, hopefully, a future as well.
That’s not true of workplace relationships. The boundaries here are much sharper, and need to be
respected. They make clear what’s acceptable and what’s not.
Remember the colleague who behaves badly with you? They are, no doubt, as aware of their bad behaviour as you are. Because they too know the boundaries; they’re just checking how far you’ll
let them stray.
There are two things you can, and should, do:
One, call them out on their incivility. Tell them they’ve crossed the line repeatedly and that you will not put up with it. Maybe they’ll agree that they’ve behaved badly and apologise. Or maybe they’ll stick to their guns and claim they’ve done nothing wrong. You now have the choice of reporting them—finally.
Or two, you can completely disengage. You can remove yourself from this conversation and all the future ones, thereby showing them that you’re not playing their game. Walk away and give them the chance to rethink their behaviour. Ifthat doesn’t happen, the next time they interrupt you, just get up and walk away or interrupt them right back. Either way, you’ll make your point—loud and clear.
Shampa Dhar-Kamath is Faculty-in-Residence and Communication Coach at Harappa Education. She can be reached at shampadhar@gmail.com