Getting Along

4

The Pessimist

“This will never work.”

Theresa worked two cubicles over from Simran and made a habit of stopping by several times a day. Simran wouldn’t have minded these brief visits except that Theresa did nothing but complain. “Every morning when I asked how she was, she would launch into all the bad things in her life,” Simran told me. “Her home, her commute, our coworkers, you name it!” At first, Simran thought that listening and asking questions would allow her colleague to vent some of her negativity, but that just made things worse. “I became the go-to for her daily tirades.”

Once, after the CEO called an all-staff meeting to announce that she was giving everyone in the company a bonus after a particularly strong year, Theresa went ...