HR Morning

Does your industry create employees who hate each other?

Dan Wisniewski
by Dan Wisniewski
4 minute read

Don’t expect staffers in these lines of work to be rushing to Happy Hour after clocking out.

The 10 jobs where people hate their co-workers

Researchers with PayScale analyzed 28,000 responses to determine the jobs where people said they’d fire their co-workers if they were allowed to change one thing about the work environment.
The “winners”? People in maintenance, food preparation and health care, among others, were the most likely to want to send their colleagues packing.
Here are the top 10 jobs where people really just don’t like their colleagues:

  1. Maintenance (hate their coworkers 1.48x more than the national average)
  2. Food preparation and serving related (1.45x)
  3. Production operations (1.42x)
  4. Building and grounds cleaning (1.40x) – TIED with #5
  5. Health-care practitioners and technical operators (1.40x) -TIED with #4
  6. Health-care support occupations (1.29x)
  7. Office and administrative support occupations (1.24x)
  8. Protective service occupations (1.13x)
  9. Life, physical, and social science occupations (1.08x)
  10. Personal-care and service occupations (1.05x)

So what makes certain jobs more prone to co-worker hatred than others? Researchers pointed to positions with high stress and low pay as the primary reason.
Another factor: Most of these jobs require group effort — and if someone isn’t pulling his or her weight, it’s not hard for other staff members to get aggravated.
What about the flip side: What are the jobs and industries where people are the most content with their colleagues?
Researchers pointed to positions where there’s a minimal reliance on other staff members to get the job done, such as engineering, education, sales, social services, business and arts and media.
Finally, there appears to be a generational divide as well regarding staffer despisement: Gen Y staffers were most content with their co-workers, while Baby Boomers reported the highest desire to change their colleagues.

What makes an employee difficult?

Yes, there are some industries where employees are more likely to maintain a certain hatred toward each other.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t annoying colleagues in workplaces of all shapes and sizes.
The problem: Many of those difficult employees have no idea they’re annoying. For all you know, one of them could be you. (But we’ll assume not.)
Bob Sutton, author of The No A—— Rule and the Work Matters blog, has compiled a quiz to help people recognize if they’re being an, ahem, a—–.
Take note: If you or your supervisors or staffers answer “yes” to any of these questions, that should be a red flag that you might causing other grief or annoyance.
Here’s the 14-question quiz, courtesy of AOL:

  • Do you often find that when you do something nice for people, they do a lot of grumbling? Do they seem ungrateful or uncooperative?
  • When you join a group of people, does the mood often shift? Does a group tend to break apart after you join it?
  • Do you find it hard to get your calls and emails returned?
  • Are you often puzzled when people dramatically over-react to little mistakes, oversights, or casual remarks you make? You bring up some anecdote from last year, and everyone acts upset.
  • Do you often find yourself saying defensively, “It was just a joke!”
  • Do you think it’s important to express your true feelings and views authentically, even if that means upsetting other people?
  • Do you find that people seem resentful and angry when you offer objective, helpful criticism or advice?
  • Do you find that even when you’re trying to be helpful by explaining something or providing information, people don’t want to seem to listen to you?
  • Do you feel annoyed because people tend to refuse to acknowledge your greater experience or knowledge in an area, and instead, ignore your suggestions?
  • Do people tend to gang up against you – when you’re arguing one side, everyone takes the other side, or when one person criticizes you, everyone else chimes in?
  • Do you find it funny to see other people squirm?
  • If someone asks for your opinion, do you think it’s right to tell them frankly what you think?
  • Do you think it’s useful to point out people’s mistakes, areas of incompetence, or previous track records of failure?
  • Is it fairly common for one person to tell you that he or she will speak to a third person so that you don’t have to? In other words, do people volunteer to act as intermediaries for you rather than let you do your own talking?