Interpersonal Skills Stack Exchange
Interpersonal Skills Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [colleagues]

For questions pertaining to people who are fellow workers or professional peers.

For questions pertaining to people who are fellow workers or professional peers. Colleagues may not share a workplace in cases of remote work and similar.

24 questions
68
votes
10 answers

How to stop a colleague from talking to me about work when I'm on my lunch break?

More often than not, I eat my lunch at my desk. There aren't any shops or cafés nearby, so this suits me just fine. I usually put my headphones in and browse the news or SE to take a break from work. Occasionally, colleagues will come over to…
Cthulhu
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53
votes
10 answers

How to tell a colleague to not drink water from my bottle

So I have a water bottle in my office and to fill it every time is a tiring business. I need to walk to a different floor than I sit and then I need to wait till other people fill their bottles. Then after filling it, I need to come back to my…
Peaceful
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21
votes
11 answers

How to tell a colleague to take care of how he looks

I am working in a software consultancy company, and our job has a good deal of direct interaction with clients. We are a very international bunch of people, but we are based in Germany, and all our clients are German. From the professional point of…
A random lady
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18
votes
5 answers

How do I prevent people from repeating to others everything I say to them?

I’d like to know how I can make people stop telling others every single thing I tell them. Here’s a dialog between me and my high-school classmate, in class: Me: In case you can’t eat any more, can I have the rest? (Out of taste) My colleague:…
Alex A
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14
votes
3 answers

Dealing with colleagues who think single women as being always available

I am an Indian woman, residing in India and single. And the latter brings a lot of unwanted attention to myself, from both genders. Females make fun of me stating that I need to get married and start giving me unsolicited advice. Male colleagues…
WonderWoman
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12
votes
2 answers

How do I tell a colleague that I won’t have an intimate relationship with her?

How do I tell a colleague that I won’t have an intimate relationship with her without hurting our work relation? Background We have been working together for a few years; she was single and I was not. I became single a few months ago and I noticed…
Simon
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12
votes
3 answers

How to improve relationship with a co-worker who does not speak to me?

A little history: I was hired onto this team a few years ago. The subteam I'm on has several people: the project lead (Jim), the co-worker I'm asking about (let's call her Mary), and others including me. We all report to the team lead (Tom), and…
Anon1142
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12
votes
6 answers

Co-worker constantly thinks I'm slacking off

I work as the sole web developer in my department doing back end work. As I'm sure many of the developers here will attest to, a large portion of the time spent programming is spent on thinking how you're going to write the next class, function,…
Henry A.
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9
votes
5 answers

Handling the question "what did you do for the weekend?"

Another week, another Monday and another same old unpleasant question (at least for me) - What did you do for the weekend? A couple years ago I moved to another country in western Europe from South-East of Europe. As you might be familiar, the…
lowselfesteemsucks
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8
votes
6 answers

How to interact with a colleague if you understand only 5% of what he says?

I work in a big company, I have a colleague from another sector, who (I think) has some kind of problem in speaking. I really can't understand what he says and every time he talks to me, I just keep smiling. Normally, our exchanges are social but…
Marco Salerno
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8
votes
2 answers

Appropriate way to show appreciation to colleague?

I've started my first year in industry some months ago in a UK Software company. Since I'm pretty much a newbie I had to ask around for help. There is this guy that has been helping me a lot with work stuff but also with some other stuff not related…
WormholeToNowhere
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8
votes
3 answers

How could I talk to a coworker about my feeling of being left out by the team?

I have asked this question in The Workplace, but it didn't seem to be the good place for this question, so I'm trying my luck here. I have been working in the place I currently am for more than a year now (IT sector), and since a few month, I have…
Jaeger
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5
votes
2 answers

Invitation for dinner refused with a strange reason

I have got a new colleague to work together on a very long project. We have worked for a month now, things look good so far. She is a very reserved person, but I am not a big extrovert myself, so this fact didn't bother me. Still I have thought that…
Flot2011
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5
votes
3 answers

How can I inform a foreign colleague that the private conversation in their native language is not so?

I enjoy learning languages and in the past few years, have been learning Spanish. A work colleague, who is either new or I have only just noticed him, calls (presumably) his partner during his lunch break in the kitchen area. We're in completely…
user8671
4
votes
6 answers

How to avoid wishing my coworker on her birthday?

My coworker has been announcing that her birthday is coming soon. I work in a small office with only five employees. I like her but I don't want to wish her because I don't believe in birthdays. Never in my life I wished a person on their birthday,…
loveTrumpsHate
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