how to deal with a rude coworker

by Alison Green on April 10, 2025

Here’s a round-up of advice about how to deal with rude coworkers.

how to deal with a coworker who’s rude to you

dealing with a cranky, unpleasant coworker

how to work with a jerk who raises his voice, when “that’s just how he is”

new coworker is a rude know-it-all

my coworker is rude and insubordinate

my rude and intrusive coworker makes me feel horrible

dealing with coworkers who are rude in meetings

my intern is a rude jackass

my coworker is a rude, inconsiderate bully — but am I being too sensitive?

when a colleague is being rude to someone else

what to say when your boss is rude to a coworker in front of you

coworker is rude to my intern

my coworker is rude to Uber drivers

my boss is rude to waitstaff

my boss is rude to my husband

can I fix how my boss treats people?

when you’re the manager

my employee has a bad attitude

I have to manage the office jerk

my employee is combative and rude — how could I have prevented this?

my employee is rude to colleagues — but some of them are rude to her too

do I need to give my rude, difficult employee more positive feedback?

my employee is being rude to others — but I think it’s from the stress of cancer

when you might be the rude one

am I the office jerk?

what does it mean if your boss says you have a “bad attitude”?

should I tell my boss I know I’ve been a jerk and I’m getting therapy?

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{ 40 comments }

{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      I almost did a section on that, but most letters here about bosses being rude go beyond rude into full-on tyrant or jerk, like these:

      https://www.askamanager.org/2018/02/my-boss-is-a-jerk-how-do-i-deal-with-her.html

      https://www.askamanager.org/2018/10/my-boss-is-a-jerk-to-me-but-only-me.html

      https://www.askamanager.org/2012/04/my-boss-has-mini-mean-flashes.html

      https://www.askamanager.org/2020/08/mean-boss-and-feedback.html

      https://www.askamanager.org/2017/02/how-can-i-deal-with-a-hostile-unreasonable-boss-until-i-can-leave.html

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  2. Red Sox are the best Socks*

    Okay am I the rude one check:

    I have a professor who asked for ~15 demonstrations in his classroom this semester, about 15x more than most professors. He’s new so a lot of them are things we don’t have. I wrote him an email saying I can do the 7 we have plus two that I’m confident I can build in a week or so, but not the other six.

    It’s just this is supposed to be like 10% of my job, and the other job is ramping up. Anyway is that rude?

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      1. Red Sox are the best Socks*

        They were both famously good at one thing lol and demonstrations are not the thing I am good at. I was hired for the second part of my job.

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        1. Benihana scene stealer*

          I suppose that would be like if they suddenly asked Papi to be a gold. glove fielder. But anyway, does the new professor realize 15 demonstrations (whatever that is) is so far above the norm? If he’s just clueless about it he should understand when you mention it

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          1. Red Sox are the best Socks*

            He does, I think he’s just so used to his last job that had a dedicated demonstration technician where that was her whole job. Too true— here’s hoping they respond well to my email.

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      1. Red Sox are the best Socks*

        Thanks, it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference when politically, staff <<< professors in academia.

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    3. Fluffy Fish*

      Think of it this way – rude is a behavior. You can say just about anything and it can be rude or not. The classic it’s not what you say it’s how you say it.

      Telling someone what capabilities are and are not or more simply even telling someone “No” is not inherently rude. How you say it is.

      You were not rude. Unless you also tacked on calling him an idiot or you told him to his face but in a tone that made clear you thought he was an idiot.

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  3. Festively Dressed Earl*

    Does anyone have any tips on how to prevent your face from showing subtitles? It’s the one thing that comes up in these articles that I’ve always struggled with.

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    2. Miss Chanandler Bong*

      Wear a medical mask and claim you’re being cautious…

      *yes, I am giving bad advice because I work from home with cameras off and do not know how to control my face, lol*

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      1. Lenora Rose*

        well, wearing a mask is generally not bad advice when the number of possible serious airborne infections is up and the tracking for those is being cut (though I personally focus on using them on public transport, not at work). but I’ve found for people who wear masks a lot, I start to learn the micro-expressions in their brows and around their eyes very well indeed…

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      2. Red Sox are the best Socks*

        Haha I lost a lot of my poker face in COVID so I actually agree with you. It’s not bad practice at all anyway.

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  4. Maple*

    What if you are perceived as rude because you are very direct (especially as a woman) and you don’t candy-coat things? For context, I used to work in food service.

    I can’t deal with “Oh, hello, I hope you’re not too busy right now… If it’s not too much trouble, do you think you could groom the new llamas? I realize blah blah blah…” Just ask me if I have time to groom the new llamas. I will say “Yes” or “No” and we will move on with our busy day. I realize there is a middle ground but if we are in our high-llama-grooming season, being succinct is good. I do always say please and thank you. Thank you for taking the time to read this, I realize you are extremely busy. ;-)

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    1. Miss Chanandler Bong*

      I usually say “sure, be happy to” rather than just straight yes or no.

      I hate that women get perceived this way. I get feedback on being too direct, but I feel like if I were a man, I wouldn’t get this feedback.

      Also, now I work with women predominantly and they find my direct manner off-putting, but when I worked more with men, they were fine with it. And I’m sure my male colleagues do not get this feedback.

      I don’t get it.

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      1. Nova5155*

        I’ve had the same experience moving from male dominated space to female dominated. I’ve always been direct, and that worked great in the carpentry or rigging department but got me in trouble over and over in the costume dept for being “rude” or “unfeeling.” Sorry, I have a lot to do and I don’t want to have to explain *why* I need the information, and I know I’m *such* a bother, and it would *really* help me out if you could just do what you said you would do two days ago. I’m not interested in finding how you feel about actually doing your job. Way, way to many feelings in a costume shop!

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        1. Miss Chanandler Bong*

          I got feedback from my boss a couple of days ago that saying “grossly under expensed” was too harsh.

          They’d been under expensing for years by thousands of dollars. I don’t know what I was supposed to say. “oopsies, we made a mistake!” *rolls eyes*

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          1. amoeba*

            Eeeh, I’ll say “grossly” doesn’t sound super professional though, but quite, err, judgy. Which, fine, probably they deserve! But I’d rather go with something like “significantly” or whatever, which hopefully gets the same message across while sounding less… personal?

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      2. Elizabeth West*

        I am so blooming sick of having to be “nicety-nice” (at work and in general) just because I’m a woman. Just no. I’m polite, but I prefer to get straight to the point.

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      3. Potato Potato*

        Can confirm as a trans man- I haven’t heard that I’m rude in a long time. I don’t think anything has changed much on my end. I’m just as direct and polite as I’ve always been. The only difference is that people see me as a man now.

        (On the flip side, I get side-eyed now for using certain emojis and being “soft”. But those don’t seem to affect how I’m treated as much as being “too direct” as a woman did.)

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        1. Grizabella the Glamour Cat*

          Interesting! Thanks for contributing your unique (due to having experienced certain things as both a man and a woman) insight into this issue. I find it fascinating.

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    2. bananners*

      From a very cis white lady who is FANTASTIC at the niceties but secretly hates them, I want you to know that when I get a response from someone like this – just a yes or no – it lets me know that they are a safe person for me to drop the bullshit soft language and I appreciate working with them even more.

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    3. Peanut Hamper*

      What I hate about these types of questions is that they often don’t even ask the thing the questioner presumably wants to know. Even the “do you have time to groom the llamas?” doesn’t get around to the real question: “Will you please groom the llamas today?” A yes to the first question does not imply there will be a yes to the second question.

      Please, folks, just get to the point.

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      1. Maple*

        I think this is getting into “ask culture” vs. “guess culture” which is something I find fascinating. It’s usually applied to social situations, but where I live, everyone is from everywhere, so you don’t know until you say something which paradigm someone is working from.

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  6. anononon*

    Is there a good way to preserve my reputation while I’m working for a jerk? My issue isn’t that he’s badmouthing me — apparently he likes me? — but I’m getting weird pointed remarks about my work ethic from people who haven’t worked with me, who know that my predecessor was always being asked to do unreasonable things, staying super late with no notice, doing things counter to firm policy, etc., and know that none of that applies to me, because I set really firm boundaries with him and enforce them. I would of course continue to have reasonable boundaries with a different boss, but I wouldn’t feel the need to enforce them so ruthlessly with someone I didn’t think was looking for a loophole like my current boss does.

    I think they think I’m naturally argumentative and insubordinate, and I really am not. The impression I get is they think it’s funny my boss has to deal with me but they’re glad they don’t have me working for them.

    (People I have done work for generally have good feedback, so I don’t think it’s actually my work that’s the problem.)

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    1. Bird names*

      Do you know how they arrive at “argumentative and insubordinate” since, as you say, your boss doesn’t badmouth you? Do they see you pushing back on unreasonable timelines with your boss or are the perhaps miffed that you’re not providing the same kind of turn-around as your predecessor thanks to better work-life-balance?

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      1. anononon*

        You know, I think it might be the latter now that you mention it. I got behind on an important task because my boss was literally telling me not to work on it as he claimed it wasn’t important, and no one had actually told me it was less important than the endless emergencies he kept making me work on instead. (This is before I was aware that my predecessor had been staying late so often, and the task is inherently one where you might think “well, it’s waited 4-6 years to get to us [because of bureaucracy that’s out of our hands] so one more week isn’t gonna hurt.”)

        I think this task is significantly more in control now, and I know to push back with my boss if he insists it’s not important. I did privately go to the head of our department and explain this — he hasn’t been making snide remarks but the person who is “really” in charge has been, so I wanted to make sure he understood and get some backup if I had to push back with my boss. TBH I don’t think I really have backup — nobody here wants to be the bad guy — but that’s a different problem.

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        2. Bird names*

          Oof, sounds you’re facing several problems at once and your last sentence certainly sounds telling.
          What is noticeable for this complete stranger from what you wrote:
          – unclear task prioritization in the department
          – multiple people with (valid?) input into your work tasks
          – boss’s priorities may differ from department head (your boss’s boss I presume) and he’s not trying to change that
          It certainly makes sense to get aligned with your boss regarding priority, as you’ve already tried to do. The snide remarks still seem weird in context. It’s also interesting that you only found out after being in your role for a while how much extra time your predecessor put it. I wonder if they simply decided that was the easier road after getting conflicting information from all sides.
          To be clear, I don’t think you should pick up a ton of extra hours to make up for made-up emergencies and all the conflicting directions. Just, this is a lot to deal with and trying to look out for your health and well-being in the middle of this likely would be difficult for most people. I hope you have some people (maybe someone outside your chain of command maybe?) in your corner or that you can start up a leisurely job search in case the whole mess proves resistant to disentanglement.

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          1. anononon*

            Haha, I appreciate you being like “dang that’s a lot of red flags” because yes, this workplace is… very problematic. I think what happened is they grew a lot faster than they were ready to, and it’s pretty disorganized, and on top of that my specific department is them branching out into a new specialty. The people are extremely nice, but I can feel myself developing bad work habits and I expend so much energy just trying to figure out what a directive from on high meant, or if there was a directive from the leadership at all, or trying to find a document that should be in a specific place but isn’t.

            (I think also that some of the priority mismatch and confusing hierarchy of input into work tasks may be explained when I add that this is a small law firm, and they’re trying to integrate a handful of attorneys who are used to being the only person in charge of their support staff/paralegals into a more assembly line style of work, to mixed results.)

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            1. Bird names*

              I may not have any personal work experience in that regard, but heard enough stories to have a rough idea how “handful of attorneys who are used to being the only person in charge” might play out. Your description of the current issues certainly makes sense in that context.

              The way you describe it, it sounds like things might still be falling into place, and I certainly do hope that there is a viable *and* sustainable way forward for you. Should you later decide to move on though, I suspect it won’t be for lack of trying to make it work.

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  7. BellStell*

    This is a very useful list of articles, thank you so much! I am always amazed at this website’s depth and breadth of information.

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  8. Other Fish*

    What if your manager isn’t rude, just passive aggressive as fuck? I’m already being careful not to respond to anything implied and to be very transparent and thoughtful when we discuss work issues. But it’s hard when she’s clearly in her own world of imagined slights.

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  9. AngloNemi*

    Something that used to bug me was being accused of rolling my eyes or looking negative in meetings and conversations. Coming into work with the smile I had practiced in the mirror was apparently sarcastic and disconcerting. I didn’t realise until I moved into a job that required a lot more time on camera that not only do I have a major case of RBF – now diagnosed as flat affect yay autism – but that when I’m thinking deeply about something I tend to look upwards. Oops. Having access to video of myself or an earlier diagnosis could have solved a lot of workplace conflict for me earlier in my career as I could have worked on things I genuinely didn’t know my face was doing.
    That or having colleagues less determined to find reasons my face literally didn’t fit.

    Reply ↓

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