How to deal with Cheer Suckers aka Hardcore Complainers
One of the beautiful humans on the #CheerSquad contacted me with a serious problem and she writes:
Dear Cheerfully Cheryl,
I have an extremely negative co-worker who really won't stop spreading the negativity. She constantly complains about her terrible life, her nonsense relationship and childhood issues DAILY. She never has a good morning ever and recently I was stuck in a car with her on to a from a work-related event for a total of 7 hours, trapped listening to her miserable stories. We now share an office and I have even moved my position to work more from home just to keep my sanity but I still have things to do in the office. I used to feel bad and would lend an ear but now I don't want to hear any of it because it’s draining the life out of me!
It’s been rough, please send help.
Sincerely,
Ticking Time Bomb.
Let me start by saying we have all been there, whether it's your co-worker , boss, PTA mom, family member or someone in your friend group. At some point in your life you are likely to find yourself sharing a space with a certified Cheer Sucker. That is someone who is so miserable that it brings them a certain kind of miserable joy ( yes it exists) to bring you down to their level.
The worst part?
Some of them are not even aware that they are literally draining the life from you. You as the empath and fixer that you always get to be the recipient of all that these Cheer Suckers have to offer.
I've put together a few tactics that will help in slaying the Cheer Sucker Dragon in three different levels
Phase One - You have just begun to encounter the dragon
Phase Two - You have been battling the dragon for some time now
Phase Three- You are at the end and you need an army to defeat the dragon
Phase One - You have just begun to encounter the dragon and are not familiar with their strength.
Seek out the positive, fun people in the room and sit near them.
If the main conversation develops into something you don’t want to listen to, you can just strike up a quiet discussion with the person next to you. If there aren’t any positive people in the group, sit next to the quiet ones who won’t be whispering snide comments to you.
Set the tone by starting the conversation topic yourself.
Don’t wait for a Cheer Sucker to direct the flow of the discussion. As soon as a few people in the group are gathered, dive right into something positive and direct your comment or question to someone in the room who generally enjoys their job or what they are doing.
Ask, “Hey, how did it go with that new activity you tried this morning?” or “One of my kids said the funniest thing during breakfast today…” or “I saw this super cool pin on Pinterest, that talked about how to avoid miserable people; I think we should try it!” ( well that last one was a bit passive aggressive, but you get the point)
Find topics beyond work that you have in common.
Talking about outside interests creates a strong bond amongst co-workers and friends alike. Share your personal lives with one another so that you can ask about families, hobbies, travels, etc. and not have to revert to a cliched, “So, did you get that stupid email from such and such?” or “You won’t believe what my kid did today” as a conversation opener. If your co-workers don’t want to share anything, get the ball rolling yourself by talking about something unrelated, like local restaurants you like (“Has anyone ever been to __? I just tried it last week and it was really good.”)
If you don’t have anything in common, ask the most positive (or most talkative) person in the group a question.
The key here is to get someone chattering on about something that no Cheer Sucker can hijack the conversation from. If one of your co-workers is about to have a baby, is planning a wedding, or has another exciting event happening, that's a great place to start. Everyone loves weddings and babies, after all. Or, ask one of the talkative people about what their kids have been up to. It might not be the most thrilling conversational topic, but it’s better than being subjected to a rant about how the world is literally deteriorating or that the company is being run by a ( insert anything miserable here).
Phase Two - You have been battling the dragon for some time now and they seem to be unphased by Phase One tactics or they wait until its just the two of you to lay on their miserable fire.
Refuse to comment on complaints.
Smile and nod, smile and nod, then change the subject. You can also respond to complaints with something positive: each time they tell a negative story, you should share something sweet, funny, or inspiring that happened to you. This is very annoying behavior to those who are hardcore Cheer Suckers because it’s no fun to complain alone. So, if you’re consistent with it, they’ll quickly figure out that it’s a waste of time to use you as their sounding board and they’ll go elsewhere. The other option is that they will find you so annoying and cheerfully life draining that they will start avoiding you!
Don’t attempt to validate the complaints OR prove them wrong.
In my many interactions with Cheer Suckers, I would try to make the cheer suckers feel heard and acknowledge their concerns; but, it can be counterproductive to validate the opinions of people who are determined to point out everything wrong with a situation and why your brilliant idea will never work. I’ve found it’s better to let them say their piece and then continue on with the conversation. Literally let them talk and then don't address it and move on with the meeting, conversation or presentation. Be sure to make eye contact with them so they know you heard them, and continue on. Or say, “This will be a challenge, yes. So let’s keep talking about how we can make this work.” There’s nothing you can say to convince the Debbie Downer types that the new anything will be helpful or effective (especially when you have doubts about it yourself), so don’t waste your energy with the back-and-forth. Always keep moving the conversation forward.
Keep the interactions as brief as possible.
Don’t spend a minute longer with the cheer suckers than you have to. In casual situations, excuse yourself by saying, “I gotta get going to { insert any excuse here}! See you later!”
Remember that complaints and rude comments are not personal.
They’re more of a reflection on the person who is saying them than you. So if a colleague criticizes something about your teaching or tries to make you feel inferior, let it slide off your back. Tell yourself, This is his/her problem, and it’s not about me. I refuse to allow someone who dislikes their job to make me dislike mine, too. I’m not permitting those rude comments to take up any more space in my mind. I’m dismissing them, and I’m replacing them now with thoughts about something that worked well in my classroom today.
Stop thinking about the complainer when you’re not around him or her.
It’s very tempting to make jokes about the Debbie Downers in your school, anticipate their response to change (“Oh, no, I can only imagine what she’s going to say about this!”), and generally give them more consideration than they deserve. Don’t allow the complainers in your school to determine how things are done. Crowd out their negative energy by consistently talking about the good things that are happening and staying focused on your goals.
Build a community of people who inspire and uplift you.
A good support system starts by finding just one positive person in your life or in your work that you can seek out after a hard day. You can also join the #CheerfulSquad via the button below.
It’s really important to have other people you can go to for advice without worrying that they’ll make you feel more discouraged than when the conversation started, so make it a priority to find like-minded humans who can prevent YOU from complaining and help you problem-solve constructively.
This is exactly what the Cheerfully Me Coterie is for! So find us on Facebook too!
Be blunt.
I used to go out for lunch ( on in for lunch) with a group of colleagues who I loved dearly, but who never seemed to run out of things to complain about. It was so exhausting. I mean we would be taking a break from work and then spend our whole break on or off the premises going over each annoying, miserable and undesirable moment? One day, I finally just said, “I need a break from talking about this. Can we talk about things that actually bring us the slightest bit of joy? I don’t want to complain anymore, it’s making me miserable. Can we get all the work talk done now and then change the subject?” My friends were actually relieved to have some boundaries placed on the conversation, and it became our tradition to only discuss work for 15 min or so and then someone would say “Okay, are we done? No more work talk now!” It became like a game to catch each other accidentally talking about work and tease each other about having to buy everyone lunch if they brought it up again.
As always if you have a circumstance that you could really use some 1:1 help with please feel free to contact me!
Cheerfully,
Cheryl
