Jennifer, your husband is successful, why are you still working? Have you been there, and just didn't know what to say? Well, you know what you want to say, but it's not safe for work. Today we are going to be digging into how to respond to rude comments at work. Whether it's coming from a rude boss, a passive aggressive coworker, or maybe just a Chad, I've got you covered. But first hello, my career bestie. And if you are new here, welcome to my channel! I talk about navigating obstacles at work, toxic workplaces, and how to create career success, and a successful life in general. If you want more of those topics in your subscription feed, click the subscription button and the notification bell so you don't miss a video. Alright, let's get back to the rude people. Now, have you ever had to deal with a rude co worker or insulting comments at work? Tap the like button if that is what brought you here today. The first thing that you need to do when you're dealing with rude comments at work are rude co worker is to take a breath, okay, maybe not a breath, but at least take a moment. And there was a very sciency reason why I'm telling you to do just that. When you're dealing with a rude comment or an insult at work, what you're actually dealing with is conflict and conflict activates our amygdala. And what does your amygdala do? Well, it's your fight flight or freeze reaction, when your amygdala is active, your cerebral cortex is basically shut down, which means that anything that you do right away is going to be an irrational action, whether it's fight, what did you just say to me flight? Oh, look at the time, I need to get to a meeting now my next meeting and an important email and I need the bathroom or freeze. None of these is going to be the most effective response to an insulting comment at work. I mean, it might feel really good to tell them off in the moment, but it's not going to serve you long run and telling people to fuck off at work might not be the best thing for job security. Yeah, to be professional, you know. And that's where your big breath in and out comes into play. your amygdala is activated in a conflict by some neural chemicals, not going to pretend to know their names off the top of my head. So if I'm feeling zesty, I'll just pop them in right here. And if not, then there's just nothing there. After six seconds, those are going to dissipate, which now gives your rational brain your cerebral cortex time to take back over taking that moment taking that deep breath takes about six seconds. And that is going to allow you to get back into a more logical and rational reaction might feel kind of awkward to you know, six seconds of silence, but I promise you it's gonna pay off because we are going to then do the next thing to deal with insults or rude comments at work. And that is to assess their intention. You know, I hope mince words around here. So I'm just going to call it what it is. Some people are just dumb, and they have no social skills. So humans are the worst. Now of course, this comes in all sorts of different flavors and varieties. And there's different motivations that lie behind the rude comment or the insult at work, maybe you're dealing with a passive aggressive coworker, and instead of just confronting you about something that they don't like, or their unhappiness, they're just gonna be all about it. Or perhaps you're dealing with a jealous coworker, and they're feeling insecure and inadequate, and they're taking it out on you by trying to cut down your confidence and your awesomeness. Or perhaps it's a competitive coworker that you're dealing with. And the reason behind their rude comment is really just to give themselves the upper hand and increase their odds of winning whatever winning is. And of course, it can be much deeper than that and much more complex, because humans are complex, and our relationships with each other can be complex as well. So I won't spend the entire day helping you psychoanalyze your coworker and their intention, but I have a guess that you have a pretty good gut feel of their motivation behind it. One thing that is very important to do while you do this is to actually D personalize the comment. One thing that I've talked about here before, and I'm probably gonna say again, and again, and again, because it's so important, especially when we're dealing with conflict and difficult co workers, is that their behavior towards you probably doesn't have a lot to do with you. It has much more, if not everything to do with them. If someone is insulting you, if someone is treating you rudely at work, it is not because you are not worthy of being treated well and being respected. Their behavior is actually a reflection of how they feel about themselves. And they're just projecting it onto you. Is it the cool thing to do? No, but it's a fact. And we're going to deal with what we're working with right now in D personalizing and remembering that their behavior towards you actually has little to do with you is going to help you disjoin any biases that you might be bringing into the interaction as well. Let's face it, none of us enjoys being insulted. It doesn't make us feel good. And it makes us feel a whole bunch of awful things about the entire situation and the person we're dealing with, the more depersonalized we are as we evaluate the situation, the less of our own biases we're going to bring into it and help us really understand what is going on. Now with that in mind, I would love to hear from you in the comments down below what you think the intention behind the rude comment or the insult work really was and I That as you scroll through the comments that are dropped in, you're going to find that often it's a them issue as opposed to a UI issue. And ultimately, if you can assume the best of intentions, and the person didn't really mean to be the jerk that they were being when they hurled that insult at you, the better off you're going to be able to react. And that brings us into the next step to dealing with rude comments at work. And that is to change the topic. So it's kind of like flight mode, but more productive, like we just talked about, most people probably don't have bad or malicious intentions, when they're making rude comments at work, they're probably just being dumb. Again, call what it is, odds are, they're just oblivious to how rude they're being. So if the rude comment or the insult was at first time infraction, or maybe it was just the workplace drama queen who does this to everyone, the easiest way to deal with it is to actually change the topic and disregard I mean, if someone is like that with everyone, or if they just had a moment of stupidity, we don't want to hold it against them and kick up a whole bunch of unnecessary workplace drama. Really, it's a matter of choosing your battles and focusing on speaking out and speaking up when it's really important because of any minor slight results in you being like you have insulted my honor, I challenge you to a dual your work life is going to be pretty miserable. When you're reacting to a brew co worker or an incident work, the thing that you need to keep in mind for yourself is perception management. And I feel like this is way too often overlooked in these conversations, because your co workers and your boss and everyone around you at work is absolutely going to judge you based on your reaction. And if you're reacting to every comment, well, they're gonna think that you are the dramatic co worker. And that's not who you want to be. Because that's not going to be the thing that helps you succeed at work and helps you advance in your career. Now, that isn't to say that every rude comment and every insult should just be ignored and disregarded. That is absolutely not the case. And when you assess from the situation and the context and the person that you're dealing with that you need to do something about it, it's time for us to move into the next step. And that is to mirror the absurdity. Again, going on the assumption that people are somewhat oblivious to what they're actually saying, and how it's coming across to other human beings. When you repeat it back to them, it might be the thing that enlightens them and gives them the opportunity to course correct without you having to be insulted. For example, Jennifer, your husband's successful work, what are you doing still working? You want to know why I continued my career when my husband also has a successful career. Another way that you can mirror to them is by asking them to repeat their statement that can look a little something like this. I didn't quite catch that question. Or and I personally, this is my favorite one, you can play dumb to highlight the absurdity and the inappropriateness of whatever it is that they just said or what they just asked you. I'm sorry, I don't quite know what you're asking me, Chad, do you mind explaining it to me. And if it suits your style and the severity of the situation, you can also do that more directly. And when that is the case, you really need to move into the next step in dealing with insults or rude comments at work. And that my friend is your adult voice. We're grown up professionals here we got this. And sometimes that means that we need to speak directly to the infraction and the insult that just went down. When you do this, the most important thing is going to be the confidence that you convey in this situation. I have a whole video on dealing with conflict of work that is going to lead to dig in. But I want to give you some tips right here. But I will link that video down below just in case you want to check it out. You want to enact your power posture Here, sit up or stand up straight, take up some space, you are going to speak clearly and concisely, no muttering mumbling or giving them an opportunity to miss hear you or undermine you in cases where you need to speak up and speak out. It's important to be clear and concise in your communication, how you say something matters. And you want to make sure that there's no opportunities to misunderstand or misconstrue exactly what you're saying. While your inclination might be to be somewhat accusatory in what you're saying, in some cases, it is better to stick to something like an I feel statement. So instead of saying, Chad, you're inappropriate AF you want to say something more along the lines of Chad, I feel like that's not an appropriate conversation for work. However, in the case, when you're dealing with straight up, I'm giving you a permission slip to call it out. Like going back to what was said to me, I was too focused on keeping that other person comfortable in the conversation even though their question was deeply insulting and undermining at work. Here's what I should have said that question was incredibly inappropriate. And I'm going to pretend that you didn't ask don't ask anyone that again. Of course, the pretend part is optional. Now you might have noticed in that example, that there's something that's very key in responding to that rude or inappropriate comment at work and that is confidence. If I wasn't saying that exactly how I said it. It wouldn't resolve the problem. I don't want to be rude, but I think that me Maybe that was in a question that I should answer work. No, unfortunately especially if you're in a toxic workplace or bad work environment. This is something that you might already be struggling with. Heck, I even know professionals in fantastic work environments that struggle with confidence at work. The good thing is there is a quick way to start building up your confidence at work, and that is knowing and owning your unique awesomeness quotient your UAQ. If you on't know what yours is yet, follow the link in he description down below to get your UAQ S arter Kit. It's totally free, easy to use, and i 's going to help you build confidence at work q ickly. There is one more thing that you really n ed to do in order to prepare for interactions w th a rude co worker or dealing with insults at w rk, you need to be prepared for potential c nflict. After all, these conversations are not a ways easy, I don't want you to walk into it u prepared. So what I want you to do right now is g and watch this video right here to help you p epare to engage in possible conflict at work in a productive and positive way. But before you go I this video helps you in preparing to deal with r de co workers or insults of work, give this v deo a thumbs up it really helps my channel and i makes you my favorite career bestie if you h ven't already consider subscribing and I will s e you in the next video my friend bye for now.
