SUMMARY POINTS

  • Jealous coworkers can make work life more difficult
  • They are always out to get you and want to see you fail
  • Ignore the haters and keep on kicking ass at work
You’re just going about your normal business, doing your thing and gettin’ shit done. You have a pile of grunt work that needs to get knocked out this week and requires some info from several people.

Most of your coworkers are cooperative and for the most part, they’re all good to work with. No real big issues most of the time.

However, there’s always one person that just makes your job harder than it should be. Well, not harder but more like annoying and frustrating. They’re capable and cooperative with other people, but when it’s with you, things just seem off.

They’re not super responsive on emails. They don’t interact with you, in fact, it seems like they try to avoid you whenever possible. And when they do have to work with you, they’re a real pain-in-the-ass coworker.

We all have a Jealous Jan in our office. It’s a prototypical bitchy coworker that for some reason, has something against you. And, you have no idea why.

You wonder if this is something you’re doing that’s pissing them off or worse, maybe others in the office too. You’ve asked around and nobody else has any issues with you. It’s just with Jealous Jan.

Now, you’re trying to figure out why she’s got something against you.

10 Signs That Your Coworker Is Super Jealous Of You In A Bad Way

If you've ever felt like one of your coworkers is constantly giving you the cold shoulder, or if they're always finding ways to put you down, they may be jealous of you in a bad way.

According to this study, much of the ill animosity is because that particular employee just isn’t performing as well and as a result, isn’t getting the reward and recognition that other top performers are getting.

While it's never fun to feel like someone is resenting you, there are some telltale signs that can clue you in as to whether or not your coworker has it out for you. 

1) Always In A Bitter Mood Around You

If you find yourself in a meeting with a jealous coworker, you might notice that the atmosphere is pretty tense. Sometimes, you can really feel it the moment you enter the room.

It’s like the record scratch moment - bzzzrrrt.

They might be giving you dirty looks or their mood instantly goes from positive to negative when you join the conversation. And chances are, their mood isn't just sour because it's Monday morning.

2) Throw You Under The Bus A Lot

No one understands the challenges of navigating office politics quite like you. It seems like every day, someone is trying to throw you under the bus. And it's not just them - your jealous coworkers are always the first to quickly pile on.

Whenever they have the chance, jealous coworkers will be there to further discredit you. They’ll back up the bus and run you over again. They have no qualms about doing it either. 

3) Talk Shit About You Behind Your Back

Nobody plays office politics like envious workers. They work the gossip channels up, down and across the entire organization.

And every single time, they’re doing their best to talk shit about you and the quality of your work to others. They’re always questioning your capabilities and highlighting failures to tarnish your personal brand.

4) Never Offer To Help You

You’ve been in large cross-functional teams working on big projects. And, if they’re part of this working-level group, you can be 100% certain that they’ll never extend a helping hand.

They’ll only do what’s minimally required for you and that’s it. And to make matters worse, they’ll drag their ass on it too and make up bullshit excuses for their late contributions. They make it impossible to keep your momentum going when things get fucking hard.

5) Never Congratulate You On Wins

When you do finally get the recognition you fucking deserve at work, jealous coworkers will never join in and congratulate you - ever.

It could be something like a simple email or joining in a celebratory group lunch. They’ll never be a part of it. They’ll come up with some excuses for getting out of the work event and just bail.

They may even use the time to…

6) Publicize Your Failures And Mistakes

Envious colleagues that are out to get you will do and say all sorts of crazy shit to rain on your parade. They turn into office assholes and get joy out of your failures and mistakes.

In fact, if they ever find out about you dropping the ball on something, they’ll be the first ones to spread the news about it to as many people as possible to publicize it.

And if shit hits the fan at work, they’ll be the first ones to tell your boss and HR that you should be fired.

7) Sabotage Your Projects

When a jealous coworker is part of your group project, they’ll find sneaky ways to get the project off the rails. This could be destructive things like deleting key data files or more subtle things like delaying their contributions.

Every opportunity they have will be used to undermine, slow down and/or derail your project. Their only goal is to prevent you from making any positive progress and keep you from staying motivated when shit isn’t working out.

8) Resent Any Kudos You Get

You can see it in their facial expressions. When you get kudos from your boss or other senior-level executives, you can see their resentment in their body language.

Even if the kudos are well deserved for your kick-ass work, you can tell that they feel pissed off that they didn’t get any recognition for their work, even though it had nothing to do with your project.

They are the exact opposite of your work BFF, who would be the first in line to give you high-fives and a bunch of hugs.

9) Lack Of Cooperation And Communication

Dealing with jealous backstabbers on a daily basis is frustrating as fuck, especially if you need their contributions, input and information.

Getting what you need from unresponsive coworkers is bad enough, but when it’s from a coworker that doesn’t like you, it’s a million times worse. There’s a total lack of cooperation and communication.

When it gets really bad, you’ve gotta escalate things to get shit done. This in turn gets them pissed off and more resentful because you made them look bad in front of their boss. It’s a no-win situation.

10) Exclude You From Social Events

If and when an envious coworker is setting up a little happy hour get-together after work, you’ll never be directly invited but instead, you’ll usually find out about it from another coworker.

Or even simple lunch outings are an exclusionary affair. You’re often left behind. It’s especially true for any social event that they’re organizing outside of work. You just won’t be part of it.

Just Keep Being The Superstar You Are

Work life ain’t easy. Every day can be a test of your willpower, endurance, patience, etc. But when you’ve got to deal with the extra headache of jealous coworkers, it makes a hard job unnecessarily harder and makes managing work stress tougher.

And, who wants to deal with that added bullshit?

There are lots of things that are out of your control in life and trying to control something you can’t is only going to drive you crazy. You’ll be banging your head against the wall for no good reason.

Trying to change someone’s outlook and behavior toward you is one of those things that you can’t control. In some cases, it makes sense to try to amend things. In other situations, it’s just not worth the time or effort.

Sometimes, you just gotta ignore the bullshit from all the Jealous Jans in the world and just do your own thing.

Get in the zone, stay focused, be productive and find the joy in your work.

Ignore the haters, be your own cheerleader and keep being the office superstar you are.

Feel Better,
[Cubicle|Therapy]

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