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Should I talk to my boss about a difficult peer?
Home » Human Resources » Dealing With Difficult People: Your Peers » Should I talk to my boss about a difficult peer?Try working it out for yourself first. Your manager might find you whiny, a complainer, and unable to handle things for yourself if you come running every time you have a problem with a peer.
Before tattling on your co-worker, think things through. What role do you play in this problem? Are you encouraging the behavior, or allowing it in some way? Have you exhausted every effort to solve the problem, including talking to the problem peer directly? What kind of response has those efforts yielded?
You don’t have to be confrontational with your peer. Just approach him or her, saying,
“I have a problem with xyz. Can you help me figure out a solution?”Make sure to use
“I” language, which defuses the situation by not placing blame on the other person.
If all else fails, sure, talk to your boss. But make sure you approach it in a professional manner. State the problem, your efforts to resolve it, and your suggested solutions clearly and without getting emotional. Your boss will want to know what you expect him or her to do about it, some come prepared. And understand that there’s likely not much he or she can do. So would you rather he or she know of the problem and not do anything—and see you as a complainer—or just handle it yourself?
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