8 Signs YOU'RE the Toxic CoWorker

By Courtney Clark

​Everybody gets stressed out by work.

But regularly having a negative attitude at work can cause everyone to suffer: your coworkers, for having to put up with your negativity, and you, because you’ll miss opportunities and promotions in favor of people with good attitudes.

#1 – You gossip or complain to coworkers
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This is the classic sign of someone with a bad attitude. Venting and gossiping at work is a telltale behavior of an employee who is feeling toxic and doesn’t care about bringing other people down with them. Venting feels good in the moment, but it’s been proven to be a poor strategy for relieving stress, because it fails to address the root problem.

#2 – You shoot down your colleagues’ ideas in early stage

sIf you find yourself rejecting someone else’s idea before you’ve followed the thought process through and really considered it, odds are good your colleagues are frustrated with you. It’s healthy for colleagues to question and test one another’s ideas. But if you shoot something down by saying “that’ll never work,” before the group has had time to really turn the idea over, you’ll be blocking conversation that can lead to good solutions.

#3 – You feel tired most of the day

Feeling that 3pm slump is normal. Feeling tired all day isn’t normal, and it’s a sign that you could be really disengaged at work. When I work with companies to help their teams build resilience, I remind them that burnout isn’t just about being busy – it’s about being busy plus having a lack of meaning and purpose in their work. If you feel like what you’re contributing doesn’t matter, then it may be hard for you to feel awake and excited to do your job.

#4 – You aren’t respectful to the people lower on the company hierarchy

I once worked with a guy who said “it’s not worth my time to care about Jan (at the front desk.) She doesn’t sign my checks!” What this guy didn’t know is that Jan often made decisions about which salesperson to transfer new callers to! Not to mention she ordered the company supplies, and could “rush” things if she wanted to. She was a good ally to have in your corner… but that guy didn’t know it. If you think it’s only worth kissing up to the higher-ups, your attitude could be harming your career more than you know. People notice, and people talk. Being respectful takes no more time than being rude, so make it a point to show respect to everyone.

#5 – You don’t pay attention during meetings or conversations

I get it: team meetings can interrupt your day and be a source of frustration. But tuning out isn’t the right solution. If a line of conversation doesn’t directly involve you, it’s a good idea to still listen, because it’s likely that somebody is going to get pulled into the conversation to answer a question or solve a problem. And if it’s you, you’re going to look silly if you were checking your phone or daydreaming about your fantasy football team.

#6 – You have large responses to small annoyances

My therapist calls this “turning a 2 into a 10.” Do you find yourself getting aggravated with everyday frustrations like somebody taking your sticky note pad? Or replying “thanks!” to an email chain that they could have just let drop? Sometimes we feel like life is frustrating, but it’s really our own reactions that are making us experience more frustration than we need to.

#7 – You don’t care or seem invested in critical workplace issues

When everyone else on your team is jumping to solve an important problem, are you hanging back? Being checked out at work can be particularly noticeable during a crunch time, when other people are spitballing ideas and getting creative. If you’ve lost your passion for your work, as we talked about in #3, then it’s hard to get invested in problem-solving.

#8 – You respond to simple corrections by correcting the other person back

Nobody likes being corrected. But watch your reaction next time somebody makes a small correction to your work. Do you find yourself wanting to correct a mistake of theirs? Or tell them why, in fact, your original version was right? It’s human nature to not enjoy being corrected, but successful companies are made up of employees with different backgrounds and strengths for a reason. The more eyes and hands on a project, the better the end result will be. Just take the direction, because we all need to get and give corrections sometimes.


These 8 behaviors don’t have to mean you’re a bad employee – they could mean that you’re a good employee who’s on the verge of burning out.

​But whether it’s your innate attitude or unaddressed burnout, it’s critical to take action and curb these behaviors before they impact your work any more.

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