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>In many workplace settings, where adults spend the majority of their waking hours and corporate hierarchies inhibit the direct expression of feelings, a passive aggressive employee is able to sabotage everything from individual deadlines to organizational productivity.  It is critical for employers to be able to recognize passive aggressive behaviors in the workplace before these covertly hostile acts can create a negative impact on morale and decrease organizational productivity. 

Is there a sabatueur in your office?  Keeps your ears tuned for these common, telltale office phrases:

I’ll Get it to You Tomorrow

The passive aggressive employee often feels underappreciated and expresses his underlying anger through temporary compliance.  Though he verbally agrees to a task, he behaviorally delays its completion, by procrastinating, “forgetting” important deadlines, “misplacing” files, mis-using sick days, and arriving late.

No One Told Me

For the passive aggressive co-worker, it is more important to express his covert hostility than to maintain an appearance of professional competence.  He uses intentional inefficiency to complete work in a purposefully unacceptable way.  Look out for employees whose work is consistently at or below minimum standards, who insists “no one ever told me,” and who personalizes any confrontations from authority, playing up their role as victim.

You Weren’t Here, so I Just Asked Your Boss
Sabotage is the name of the game for the passive aggressive employee.  Beware of those who consistently engage in office gossip, incessantly complain about their boss, thwart workplace hierarchies, and withhold important information.

I Just Left a Message Because You Had Left for the Day
Direct, assertive communication is a skill that the passive aggressive employee has never mastered.  Sound the passive aggressive alarms whenever you notice an employee who goes to great lengths to avoid face-to-face confrontation, fails to respond to e-mails, leaves sticky notes on office doors just when they know a co-worker has stepped out, and returns phone calls only after the workday is over.

For more information on passive aggressive behavior in the workplace and how to effectively confront this destructive office dynamic, check out The Angry Smile: The Psychology of Passive Aggressive Behavior in Families, Schools, and Workplaces, 2nd ed.

A baby clothes boutique is supporting my efforts to educate parents and professional by providing articles like this one and many more to the community. Check them out when you need to find that perfect outfit for your little one, they have it all baby headbands, baby shoes, baby hats, and everything in between.

>It’s one thing to write about helping kids make smart choices when it comes to expressing anger—it’s another thing to watch an emotional situation play out right before your eyes and hope that your own child will make a good decision! Last weekend, I took my daughter and her friend to a pizza-n-games type of place. For them, making time for the delicious pizza buffet is like “having” to eat their veggies before they can enjoy dessert; wobbly crane machines and spinning prize wheels are the true delight of the restaurant.

My daughter brought two weeks worth of allowance to the restaurant, hoping beyond hope to win enough tickets to redeem for a quarter’s worth of plastic toys. Okay—that was my cynical adult perspective sneaking through. What I meant to say was that my daughter set a goal, helped around the house for two weeks to earn money, and saved it all for a valued (if not valuable) prize. Her single-mindedness was admirable and her hopes were peaking by the time she downed her requisite two slices of pizza.

First game—lose. Second game—lose again. Third game—the charm? No—near miss! Fourth game and last set of tokens—victory! She won 35 tickets—ten more than she even needed to win the nickel-sized plastic crab of her dreams. She and her friend walked to the prize redemption machine, filled with giddiness and glee. My daughter carefully threaded her tickets through the narrow slot and watched the digital reader tally her score. She triple-checked the machine for the right code for her chosen toy. She entered the first digit, then—one button-press away from her coveted prize—her friend leaned into the machine and pressed the entire panel of buttons at once! Out came a round, grape lollipop—just the prize my daughter never wanted!

I watched the whole scene unfold from about 10 feet away. From high hopes to dashed emotions, it was a roller coaster ride before my very eyes. I held my breath to see how my daughter would respond. What choice would she make to express the anger over what, in her world, was a major wrong?

First, came the tears. Then, there was a foot stomp. I’m pretty sure I saw steam come out of her ears next. She buried her head in my stomach, walked with me out of the game room, and like a true therapist’s daughter, started talking her way through the situation. Her stream of emotional consciousness flurried through four basic choices in expressing her angry feelings:

Screaming & Shouting

Her first instinct was to stomp, scream and shout. She wanted to yell, “You ruined my game and you did it on purpose! I hate you! I’m never bringing you here again. You have to give me all of your tickets so that I can get a new prize!”

This type of verbally aggressive behavior is a common impulsive response by kids. Whether verbal (calling names, threatening) or physical (hitting, grabbing, kicking), aggression is destructive to relationships and never the best choice for expressing angry feelings.

Holding it All In
Talking her way through the aggressive options helped her drain off some of her angry steam. She then began to consider a much different course of action. “It’s okay if I don’t get the crab. The kids will like me more if I don’t say anything else. I can always earn more allowance and come back in a few weeks.”

In this passive frame of mind, my daughter tried to convince herself that her needs were not as important as the needs of her friend or of being liked, so she considered allowing her needs to go unmet.

Getting Revenge

Where my daughter spent the most time debating her choices was in the revenge category. “I’m gonna press all the buttons on the machine when she is picking her prize next time. When she puts her tickets down, I’m going to rip them all up and say it was an “accident” like she said to me. Next time I go to her house, I’ll hide her piggy bank so that she knows what it feels like to lose all your money for nothing!”

In the moment, her ideas for passive aggressive revenge felt justified. Knowing that aggressive actions would immediately get her in trouble and passive behaviors wouldn’t feel satisfactory, she stayed stuck in this more socially acceptable, but emotionally dishonest way of expressing anger.

Tell it Like it Is

With a little coaching to get over the seemingly sweet prospect of revenge, my daughter ultimately steered her own course toward telling her friend honestly and directly how she felt about the button-pressing incident. The whole decision-making process took about 10 minutes of discussion, a quick role play, and a long, cool drink of water, but then my daughter was able to assertively say, “I felt so mad when you pressed those buttons while I was entering my code because I had my heart set on winning that crab. I want you to be very careful when I am redeeming my tickets from now on. I don’t want you to touch any of the buttons next time.”

In the end, the real outcome my daughter was hoping for was to go home with the crab. She did not get exactly what she wanted, but she did achieve something bigger on that playdate. She ran through a series of choices in her own mind, used me as a supportive sounding board, and ultimately made a choice that demonstrated emotional-control, strengthened her friendship, and made her mama proud!

My Baby Clothes Boutique is partnering with me to provide articles, such as this one, to parents and professionals. Check them out whenever you need to find that perfect outfit for your little one. They have it all: adorable baby headbands, cute baby shoes, trendy baby hats, and everything in between!

>I haven’t been able to extract just a clip of this episode, but you can fast forward to about 33 min, 40 sec into the episode. Check out the extreme examples of passive aggressive behavior between Ryan and Preston–it’s Hidden but Conscious Revenge to the extreme!!

Real World: New Orleans Ep. 4 Superbrawl 2010: “The animosity between Ryan and Preston escalates to a place that shocks everyone and the roommates fear for McKenzie’s safety when she gets black out drunk on Superbowl Sunday.”

>Siblings without rivalry are like thunder without lightening. The two just go together, although some storms are more damaging than others. One of the most common sources of family conflict has to do with sibling jealousies and all of the ways that envy rears its ugly head—from physical aggression that pelts like hail to passive aggressive acts that mimic the wind, imperceptible to the eye but obvious in their impact.

Hidden but Conscious Revenge

Here are two classic examples of passive aggressive sibling jealousy:

The first involves two families, four girls, and one sleepover. “Jesse and Hailey” are 7-year old best friends. Their families get together often and all of the siblings have become playmates. When Jesse and Hailey planned a sleepover, both Jesse’s 9-year old big sister and Hailey’s 4-year old little sister were filled with jealousy. Though the big and little sister pair understood that they were a mismatch for their own sleepover, they both decided on a little passive aggressive revenge to act out their feelings of anger and jealousy.

To the parents’ best knowledge, there was no conspiracy or planning on the parts of the left-out sisters—which is what makes the story so hilarious—but when Jesse and Hailey settled down to sleep at about midnight on the night of their sleepover, they both realized that their favorite stuffed animals were missing! Neither girl could sleep without their animal, a commonly known fact among all family members. Jesse knew she had packed her stuffed cat and Hailey kept her Panda bear on the same pillow every single day. How could they both have gone missing?

After hours of late-night searching and little sleep for anyone, both Jesse and Hailey’s sisters miraculously “found” their sisters’ respective stuffed animals. Coincidence? It seems as though passive aggressive minds think alike!

The second example shared with me centers around cool shoes, trendy outfits, special dresses, and all of the clothing battles that are a source of many fights among close-in-age siblings.

Kelly looks up to her older sister, Sally and wants to be just like her (even dress like her). Kelly asked Sally if she could wear the pettiskirt that Sally had just brought home from the store. Since Sally wanted to be the first one to wear it, she said no. Kelly didn’t protest much at the time, but she did sneak into Sally’s closet and take the skirt. Knowing she couldn’t let Sally see her wearing it, she hid it in her backpack. The next morning Sally looked everywhere for her skirt, but couldn’t find it of course. When she got to school, she saw Kelly coming out of the girl’s locker room, wearing a pettiskirt. HMMMM!!

Letting a Problem Escalate

Teenage twin brothers Todd and Kevin got along great most of the time. They were soccer team mates who spent most of their time together. When Kevin began dating Courtney, Todd felt left out of his brother’s life. One Friday night, when Courtney called with an apology about having to cancel their plans, Todd took the phone message, but “forgot” to pass it on to Kevin.

To ensure the information would not be relayed, Todd also hid Kevin’s cell phone and stayed on the computer, blocking e-mails and instant messages. Kevin left for his date unaware of anything unusual and came home bewildered, hurt, confused and angry at being stood up. Before he could pick up the house phone and call Courtney, Todd confessed with an, “Oh! I meant to tell you, but you left the house in such a hurry. Courtney called and said she couldn’t go out tonight. I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer your cell.”

Intentional Inefficiency

Ellie was invited to go to Six Flags with a friend from school. She knew she couldn’t go unless her Science Fair project was complete, since the event was to be held at school the following day. Ellie begged her sister, Maddie, to print out the already-complete Data & Results pages from her computer and affix them to her display. Maddie agreed to do so, but in her jealousy over not being included in the amusement park trip, she added a little something to the data. At the science fair, Ellie was confused at first—then humiliated—when her teacher pointed out the errors in her calculations and disqualified her project from the Science Fair.

How do the winds of passive aggressive behavior blow in your household? Please share your stories of sibling jealousies and stormy revenge here.