How to deal with an aggressive/hothead coworker

[survivor2021]

So to give you some context, I moved abroad one year ago and have been working in this company with someone from the same country as me.

The team is nice, this guys has also been helpful in giving advice and stuff about the country and city and where to shop etc.. one thing I don't like about him is that he can get loud and aggressive when discussing work.

For example, today, he called me to ask about we have missed some data in some work, and I was involved in the topic, and the principal engineer is the one who wanted the task to be done. I told him that I have no idea about that data and I'm not the one who implemented but it's the principal engineer. I didn't get the chance to know about the rest of the data yet.

He was talking loudly and making a big deal out of it when I literally suggested to post it to our team to ask maybe we have missed this stuff. He kept scrolling and showing 'Hey we miss this.. and this..' and I politely told him over and over to ask the team about it, maybe they know something. Then he mentioned something like "YOU will take responsibility with the principal engineer if that stuff is missing''.. Indeed I was involved in the topic but I'm not the one who chose the data and didn't even touch it, everything was setup by our principal engineer.

We are the same age and both of us are the young ones in the team. He has been working in the team one year more than me.

Anyway, I felt that the guy was trying to show off that he knows more, in front of other coworkers from the same country as us too. I know this about him as he is not someone modest or chill. He is the type to talk too much, forces his opinion and so on.. He is not really bad, but like any person, he has some bad in his personality.

I remember my very first task, I had to pair up with him on something and I had a very fast and easy solution and respects best practices, but he kept beating around the bush with a complex approach, but I didn't want to argue with him that much because I thought I might be missing something since I am new.. but his approach led to nothing but more confusion for me. When I tried to explain to him, he keeps mentioning complex stuff and tries to eat the words to avoid the main point and keep his own approach as the solution.. the only way to convince him was to involve a senior that he looked up to and respected. I shared with him both solutions and he stated that mine is obviously much better and when I told him ' Mr Senior said that the solution I suggested is better ' that's only when he accepted it. Not from me but from the senior, you see...

Also I had him over to my apartment to watch a game last week and he didn't show any guest etiquette.

My questions are: 

• Overall, how do you find such types of guys ? The type that 
• How do you deal with them ? Should I argue with him in work when presented with different opinions or having a conflict like this one ? 

[Cherylyn]

He has an explosive temper.  😡 Beware.  Learn to protect yourself.  Have witnesses abound.  Have your colleagues and / or superiors with you.  Arrange a meeting and discuss this openly with them including him at the table.  Discuss with the group.  Not 1:1 otherwise he'll gaslight you and force them to think there is something wrong with you and not him.  In order to get respect and for him to exercise self control in the future,  handle this situation carefully and within group discussion settings only. 

[Wiseman2]

48 minutes ago, survivor2021 said:

the only way to convince him was to involve a senior that he looked up to and respected. I shared with him both solutions and he stated that mine is obviously much better and when I told him ' Mr Senior said that the solution I suggested is better ' that's only when he accepted it. Not from me but from the senior, 

Report to your supervisor. If the senior supervisor can handle disputes, that may be better than getting into conflicts with this coworker. 

[Cherylyn]

Have a meeting with your supervisor.  If you get nowhere with him or her,  then HR.

[Batya33]

Keep a paper trail of the communications.  Do not interact face to face if possible given his temper. Also google the site askamanager dot com - it's also helpful for this sort of question. I'm sorry you're in this situation and for sure tell your supervisor, then HR.

[catfeeder]

On 1/31/2024 at 3:52 PM, survivor2021 said:

...I'm not the one who implemented but it's the principal engineer. I didn't get the chance to know about the rest of the data yet.

He was talking loudly and making a big deal out of it when I literally suggested to post it to our team to ask maybe we have missed this stuff. He kept scrolling and showing 'Hey we miss this.. and this..' and I politely told him over and over to ask the team about it, maybe they know something. Then he mentioned something like "YOU will take responsibility with the principal engineer if that stuff is missing''.. Indeed I was involved in the topic but I'm not the one who chose the data and didn't even touch it, everything was setup by our principal engineer.

I can only speak for myself. I've worked on teams doing feed builds, and regardless of where I stand in the process, if anyone approaches me with a data issue to be handled by my team, I take ownership of the issue. I don't redirect them to someone else or push back on the person raising the issue to go open a ticket somewhere else.

I thank them for raising this, and I tell them that I'll do everything I can to help. I record the issue, I ask for any available screenshots to help me work the issue, and I ask them if they are the person I can contact if my team needs more clarification. Then I take the issue to my team. As we review the issue, I learn whether this is a no-brainer or a complex fix along with specifics about how I should write this up as a ticket. 

You get to decide whether this person's frustration with your push back is valid, whether you want to approach your team with your knowledge of an issue that you were unwilling to document and bring to them in a professional way, or whether you want to make this a personal problem with your coworker.

[Batya33]

8 hours ago, catfeeder said:

thank them for raising this, and I tell them that I'll do everything I can to help.

And/or a compromise like "oh to my knowledge Principal Engineer is working on this but how about I take a look, see if I can help and if not I'll email PE and cc you so you're in the loop and we'll get it done" (emphasis on we). 

[survivor2021]

@catfeeder Well looks like I miscommunicated enough to look like I 'redirected' the issue to someone else's responsibility enough for you to escalate it to me trying to make things personal because someone pointed a mistake in our work. 

Well then let me rephrase it correctly for you: My very first response was that I actually am not aware of the missing data and don't have an idea about how it was chosen, as my knowledge of the topic is limited. I didn't redirect it to anyone, not the PE or the team. In the end I ended up asking the team myself the very next day if we could have missed any data. Let's not turn this into an "I" vs "We" please... 

When I was confronted with this issue, in a topic that we are working on and it's still midway ( meaning it's not fully reviewed and not fully implemented yet ), I didn't redirect anything and my response was : 

" Let's let the team know, maybe we ( as In I and the PE ) could have missed some data ".. Like I said, I was planning to let the PE know and investigate and again, I ended being the one telling the team that we might have missed some data. The guy knows that and in case I forgot to mention it, I did ! Yet he didn't take it as an answer.

Also I'm not here to take lessons on how to communicate properly in normal situations and please don't try to make this look like I'm trying to make something 'personal' with someone, as I'm the most non-conflict person and a decent communicator, unlike the guy I'm talking about. I'm here to take some advice and opinion on how to handle someone who sometimes has a short temper, loud, likes to show off, and exactly is not the best person to work with.

Maybe to give you other scenarios: One day, a developer asked about something that we, the operation team work on, and I ended up giving a detailed answer enough for him to understand and not reproduce that error in the future. The 'loud aggressive' coworker, who was next to me in the office, told me that I shouldn't bother with telling him all that and next time I must ignore him. There you have it. I don't want to list out all of the scenarios to make you believe that it's a fact that this guy is indeed not the best person to work with, but that's one of them. 

[catfeeder]

Okay. If you think defensiveness has nothing at all to do with your problem, then keep running with that. See if that resolves it.

[Coily]

I'm not a fan of making this a personal conflict by dragging managers and HR in too quickly. People like this are weasels and will try to manipulate situations, and don't get put in their place as they are loud and aggressive. I'm not saying never go to those people, but doing so can lead to unintended consequences for you.

I propose that you take a very by the numbers route. When he brings up a problem for the group, ask that he send you an email about it. When he gets loud and obnoxious, tell him you are still waiting for that email about the topic that needs addressing.

Personally I'd never allow such a bum over to watch a game at my place, even if other co-workers are invited. Your home, you can play favorites. Side note co-workers aren't your friends, you can be friendly, but they are not friends.

But over all, just demand every critique of his in writing.

 

[survivor2021]

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Okay. If you think defensiveness has nothing at all to do with your problem, then keep running with that. See if that resolves it.

@catfeeder What defensiveness ? In what part I look mad or anxious because I received criticism ? Isn't there a professional way to do that, instead of doing what the coworker did ?

You know what ? The coworker was right, and indeed data is missing... but why would he, instead of accepting my initial suggestion of sharing this with the team and look more into, or even counter it with another solution or suggestion, start screaming and already pointing fingers, saying this and that will take responsibility ? Like i said, topic is midway through implementation.. we still didn't back up everything either way. So it's not even a big deal in the first place.

Today I mentioned it with the team, PE asked what other buckets we could have missed, we identified them, added them and that's it. I asked PE and a senior and said it's no big deal as we didn't fully complete our backups in all of our architecture and data yet. 

In fact I love criticism and I like when someone points flaws in my work so I can improve. I'm obsessed with best practices and making the better out of myself, both personally and professionally. 

 

[survivor2021]

@Coily 

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When he brings up a problem for the group, ask that he send you an email about it

We are a team of 5 and in fact we are not that formal, which can have a negative impact like this and some decisions even get taken individually or through Slack messages. 

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I'm not a fan of making this a personal conflict by dragging managers and HR in too quickly

Totally agree. I'd rather absorb this rather than escalate it. It's no big deal, and that's why I wonder what is the best way to deal with such short tempered show offs. Best thing I did so far is to pair up with other people on other topics either way I was more interested in and they were much better, I worked with a very experienced senior and another engineer who gave proper criticism and helped me evolve a lot. But I can't evade this guy with our little number in the team. 

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Personally I'd never allow such a bum over to watch a game at my place

Never going to do it again. Lesson learned. All this stuff of work aside, not gonna have him in my place again after the rudeness he showed when he came over. Maybe that's how he acts with best friends or buddy buddies but that's not how we are and I don't even accept that behavior from my best friends. Also yes, I never see people from work as friends. I still want to have a good relationship with them though.

[Batya33]

2 hours ago, survivor2021 said:

I'm obsessed with best practices and making the better out of myself, both personally and professionally. 

Are you exaggerating or are you truly obsessed? Your work ethic is admirable -I feel the same -but sometimes too intense can be self-sabotaging especially on a team.  

I was mindful of boundaries too at work and still am but I made really close friends at work over the years (25-30 give or take) and originally met my husband at work. I will say I often became closer friends after one or both of us left the company.

[survivor2021]

@Batya33 

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but sometimes too intense can be self-sabotaging especially on a team.  

That's true. I try not to make it have a negative impact especially on the team. It still has an impact on me, like the one time when I was quiet during a meeting because I simply had no input, and one of the coworkers pointed it out that I was quiet, and I got like super anxious for the rest of the day, thinking I should have said something. I then realized it's normal sometimes for the other team members to just, not have anything to say in some topics. 

I'm trying to balance things out and so far, my one year in this team has been good. I'm getting involved in different topics, have a good relationship with pretty much the whole team as well as the other teams that I interact with, come up with some improvements here and there to implement... 

Still I have a lot to learn, both technically and also in communication with this kind of people and how to handle conflicts.

Also about friendships, so far from my experience, as well as my relatives and friends, It's extremely rare for friendship/family mixed up with work/studies to have a positive impact on relationships.. it's not impossible, just rare.

[Batya33]

52 minutes ago, survivor2021 said:

@Batya33 

That's true. I try not to make it have a negative impact especially on the team. It still has an impact on me, like the one time when I was quiet during a meeting because I simply had no input, and one of the coworkers pointed it out that I was quiet, and I got like super anxious for the rest of the day, thinking I should have said something. I then realized it's normal sometimes for the other team members to just, not have anything to say in some topics. 

I'm trying to balance things out and so far, my one year in this team has been good. I'm getting involved in different topics, have a good relationship with pretty much the whole team as well as the other teams that I interact with, come up with some improvements here and there to implement... 

Still I have a lot to learn, both technically and also in communication with this kind of people and how to handle conflicts.

Also about friendships, so far from my experience, as well as my relatives and friends, It's extremely rare for friendship/family mixed up with work/studies to have a positive impact on relationships.. it's not impossible, just rare.

I love how insightful you are. I respect your perspective on friendship.  My husband and I worked for the same large company- but never together. That made a huge difference. I supervised 2 women - separately - who I’m now close with but closer once we no longer worked together. Since I just had to remind my son - here because I dated a coworker lol - oh 3 times just to brush his teeth you might be right about the impact lol. 😉

[Tinydance]

Well, first thing. You actually don't need to be friends with him. There is no obligation to be friends with colleagues because friendship is a choice. I'm a bit confused because it sounds like you don't like him that much but yet you actually invited him to your house. My answer of how to deal with him in your personal life is simply don't be friends with him in your personal life.

Do you have other friends? If this guy has a loud and opinionated personality, unfortunately who he is won't change. If you don't have many friends in the new country and really need him as a friend, unfortunately you will need to accept that he's this type of person. I generally don't get along with very loud and opinionated people either so it's rare for me to be friends with them. I have relatives like this so I just act polite but try to keep a distance. Like, for example I don't ask them to catch up unless it's a big family event and they're already there. 

In terms of work, it is best to be polite to colleagues so just act polite and keep conversation to work related topics. If he's not a manager then just say politely: "Sorry but you can't criticise me and boss me around as you aren't the manager. I'm happy to talk about it further with my actual boss and resolve things but you aren't my superior." Just something along those lines.

Unfortunately if someone is really opinionated, what is that person's main trait? They think their opinions are right. So if you're trying to "deal" with him by telling him he's wrong, etc. it will probably just lead to fights.