How to Avoid Office Drama

One of the best decisions you can make in your life is to choose to not get involved in petty office drama. Unfortunately, no matter how close-knit you are with your coworkers, you’re still going to struggle to keep your cool and your dignity, when it seems like everybody around you is acting like they’re in a time-jump episode of Gossip Girl.

Limiting your interactions with catty colleagues to work-only conversations will do little to help you keep from being sucked into the black hole. Your challenge is to rise above the office drama at work while preserving your relationship with your colleagues. Here are a few tips for keeping the conversation positive, and staying out of office drama at work that would take up your valuable time.

Avoid the Office Drama Instigators

We all have enjoyed our free refill of fresh and voyeuristic office drama. People who love to gossip at work will stop by your cubicle and expect you to fan the flames while they dish the dirt. Call it what you may but you’re still being held prisoner by a productivity drainer.

Workplace expert Lind Swindling, JD, CSP, in her book, Stop Complainers and Energy Drainers, shared eye-opening results from her survey on unnecessary workplace drama. According to the survey results, 78 percent of participants spend three to six hours a week listening to complainers.

The more you hang out with the bunch, the more time you’ll waste on toxic conversations. Workplace gossip will add little to no value to your perceived worth at work.

Find a way polite to put an end to this misery. For me: “You know what Jane, I’d love to sit and chat, but I’m on a tight deadline and I need to get back to work. Some other time, maybe?” works like a charm.

“It’s none of my business, darling.”

What do you do when your favorite escape-phrase fails to work? You want to treat everyone equally and respectfully but there’s no end to this office drama. You can’t use your favorite escape-phrase to get out a work situation where you’re forced to pass judgment on a particular person or a situation at work.

Let’s say someone on your team says, “Katie’s marketing idea was quite shoddy. I wonder if her proposal got approved because she’s the boss’s friend.” Even if you agree, try to say something diplomatic like: “She seems really overwhelmed. I think she has a lot on her plate.”

If you can’t think of a way to avoid taking sides, just change the subject.

Follow the two rules and you’ll avoid workplace drama without offending anyone at work. A workplace without drama is happier, efficient, and more productive.

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