Saving a Chronically Unhappy Coworker
For 40 years, I have advised executives on legal issues surrounding employee discipline and termination. As part of my job, I listen to beleaguered supervisors confess their frustration over what to them is an anomaly: a highly skilled and well-trained worker with a “bad attitude.”
If I’m talking to a manager who’s been through employment litigation in a previous situation—even after winning at trial or on summary judgment—what immediately surfaces is an acute paralysis of decision-making, often expressed as them saying, “Just keep me out of court.”
Beyond that understandable plea is a more nuanced concern: “Why is this talented employee so unhappy?” or “This worker should be grateful for the [opportunity/pay/flexibility] we’re giving her instead of moping around like a martyr.”
Having had so many frank and confidential discussions with managers, as well as taking innumerable depositions of dissatisfied and often outraged employees, I’ve started calling this type of employee, who is often but not always a knowledge worker, a “worried worker.”
I’ve learned why such people slide from worried to chronically unhappy, exacerbating their suffering and anxiety.
Three traits drive the worried worker into chronic unhappiness: fear, resentment, and a secret sense of superiority.
None of these traits represents moral failings, and they’re certainly not fireable offenses. But acknowledging and accepting their existence can not only benefit an employer’s bottom line, it can also save someone’s job and everyone’s sanity.
Fear: Even when there is absolutely no possibility of being fired for poor performance or being laid off due to financial concerns, the worried worker believes the abyss of unemployment is but one step away. They can admit (at least to themselves) the sheer irrationality of their distorted thinking. But they cannot stop their racing thoughts, especially when they are exhausted, which is pretty much all the time. Without the protection of a union contract, or any contract at all, an at-will employee is expected to trust their employer implicitly, a state of mind unfamiliar and undesirable to those prone to paranoia.
Resentment: The worried worker is obsessed by the attention and affirmation his co-workers appear to be getting, which he knows for sure he is not getting. Essentially, the chronically unhappy (though productive) employee operates on the principle that management is doling out compliments, raises, and hidden benefits every day—to others. “Why not me?” asks the unhappy toiler.
This Sisyphean wheel of misfortune triggers a dangerous cycle of “trying even harder.” That means the worried worker can never afford to say no to yet another emergency or last-minute deadline, no matter how intrusive it is in her personal life (what personal life?) or insulting to her pay grade.
One key habit of the chronically unhappy: They rarely take vacations, never use all their allotted days off, and work remotely during the short vacations they do take.
Secret sense of superiority: Despite believing the end is probably near, and despite constant evidence-gathering of favored treatment lavished upon co-workers, the worried worker is technically not “insecure.” Not for her is the misery of imposter syndrome, as if she doesn’t deserve her good fortune.
Rather, her mindset is quite the opposite: “Not only am I smarter, faster, and better educated than my colleagues, but I could run circles around the yahoos leading this company.”
This type of self-talk, while likely inaccurate, is decidedly dangerous. It directly contradicts, for example, the entire paradigm of mentoring: looking to a wiser soul above you in the organization for help. It’s hard to accept and profit from help offered by one you consider a yahoo.
The best way to start helping a chronically unhappy employee is to surprise them with just one question: “How are you doing?” Waiting for the answer without immediate prompts is the goal.
Rather than a mere conversation starter, an inquiry like this should be based on the realization that the anxious worker has already spent untold sleepless nights—and possibly many hours with a therapist—trying to alleviate their stress.
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The employee has made spouses, partners, family members, and friends privy to the pain and constant repetition of a “really bad time at work.” An acknowledgment by management, however, of the extraordinary effort and commitment this person has given the enterprise, beyond mere “good performance,” allows the employee to say to his support group and his therapist, “Work, I have to admit, is a little bit better.”
