WHETHER we like it or not we spend most of the hours of our lives in the workplace. The chances are that we see more of our colleagues and workmates more than we do the members of our family or household. So, you and I have finally come face to face with the fact that it was the unkind hand of fate that flung us together with some of the persons we have to call co-workers. Some of us have such annoying, creepy and freakish habits at work that we could scare even Frankenstein to another death. But here we are, inevitably twined, all because of our pending utility, rent/mortgage and food bill.

So, how do we handle colleagues with horrible communication habits? It starts perhaps by identifying these tendencies within ourselves and then others. Holding up the mirror helps in the self-diagnosis; the treatment is another matter. Feel free to see yourself, as do I, in some of these colleagues with really bad communication habits.

The Bad-Word Merchant: You and I may not work in an environment which encourages a colleague such as the peddler of curse words. But there are those who have to work side-by-side with co-workers whose every other word pays homage to the gods of expletives. He or she may even be the boss which makes them feel more entitled to pelt you with these swear words. I, myself, will not pretend that there are days when some colourful words do not flutter to my lip when I see colleagues in the throes of doing something moronic. However, there is a time and place for everything and the workplace is definitely not the place to let these words fly. Curse words are at worse very demoralising and will definitely produce the opposite reaction to the one you wish. To these offenders: Think twice and sanitise. To those of us who have to listen to the barrage of incendiary words on a daily basis, especially if they come from your boss, chin up. Hopefully, soon the world economy will turn for the better and you will be free to launch out.

Loud and Obnoxious: There are some people, who, try as they might, cannot speak softly. Their voice boxes are always on the high end of loud and most times what they have to say is unpleasant, hateful and spiteful about a person or situation. You will never hear them singing someone else’s praise loudly, but you will always hear them boasting deafeningly about their personal minor and really, really tiny accomplishment. Any good psychiatrist worth his salt would have a field day analysing that one, but in the meantime you and I are caught in the cross hairs. I find that my colleagues with this tendency always require an audience, and the more people surround them the more scandalous their performance. Treatment: Don’t entertain them. They will lose practice and eventually become like ‘one of us’.

The Office Gossip: Huge hundred-page books have been written about the grapevine lover. We all love the office suss and the latest fact or fiction about who is doing what to whom, when, where and why. But the rumour-monger has made spreading gossip her noble civic duty and an integral part of her job description. She (or he) spread false tales faster than how the looting and rioting spread in London this week in the UK’s worst unrest. The untold damage done by the gossiper is similar. Make no mistake, the office gossiper does not think of the repercussions of his or her actions but consider themselves the unchallenged editors of ‘Dwag Newspaper’. Move over Wikileaks. Apart from creating confusion and unhappiness in the work environment, office rumours are demoralising to staff and management. Counteract the gossips by putting the truth out there before they do and calling them out. This works best if the listeners of the gossip, ie you and I, stop them in mid-sentence and ash them pointedly about the source of their information, each time they open their mouths. You will be surprised how quickly they shut up. Like the loud and obnoxious co-workers, they require an active audience. Chase them away or you will be the subject of the next news round-up.

Mr Loverman: No one can convince this office Lothario that he is not God’s gift to womanhood. He considers every female in his office fair game. Age, attractiveness (or lack thereof) is no deterrent as he seemingly has a quota to fill. He comes on to everyone in a dress or skirt in his speech or action and he is bold and without boundaries. At his disposal are varying tools: double entendre, innuendoes, insinuation or direct delivery, and he uses them freely. The new, young female employees are usually the victims of this heinous heart-throb who stops short of being stalker. This character needs his speech swept of sin and his communication cleansed. Your HR department can step in an help in this delicate situation. But ladies do not let your imagination go wild and wrongly accuse your colleagues.

Yvonne Grinam-Nicholson, (MBA, ABC) is a Business Communications Consultant with ROCommunications Jamaica, specialising in business communications and financial publications. She can be contacted at: yvonne@rocommunications.com. Visit her website at www.rocommunications.com and post your comments.