Cracking Into Passive-Aggressiveness

One commonality that comes to mind when I think of the difficult people issues I've had in my life is coping with passive-aggressive behavior. I won't go into my specifics but everyone has friends, family, coworkers, and other people in their life that exhibit consistent passive-aggressive tendencies. There they always seem to be, balancing out our varied social ecosystem. If one person "cures" their own passive anger, does another pop up to take their place? It sometimes seems so. Don't you much prefer dealing with those people, love them or hate them, who just explode in your face, tell you how it is, and then move on. No? Am I painting an overly simplistic and one-sided picture? Do you want to avoid discussing this?

So what to do? First and foremost is to learn to recognize the behavior. One should be mindful not to engage in this sort of behavior yourself (we all have our moments), always treat people with respect, and realize that there are often situations where people feel they cannot be open about their opinions, maybe at work for example. What you can do in that case is vow not to contribute to situations where people feel they cannot be open.

How to Identify Passive Aggressive Behavior

What is a passive-aggressive friendship and how to deal with it?

Eliminating Passive Aggressiveness

Defusing the Passive-Aggressive

After years of troubles I can now smell passive-agressiveness from a mile away, and it's sometimes hard to resist having sport with such folks. Sometimes you can have a little fun with it, but remember the rule about treating people with respect. Be generous in giving people slack when it doesn't cost you anything to do so (and sometimes even if it does). Realize that for most people their reactions are unconscious and many people, present company included, simply have trouble sorting through and communicating their feelings much of the time.

I ran into a hilarious book of notes from angry people (click right). Where I work I've seen angry notes about "smelly ethnic food" and "dirty vegetables in the refrigerator!" from passive-aggressive people that were hilarious. I didn't think to take pictures of them, but will start doing so in the future. The following article is also a fun read:

Guide to Passive-Aggressive Note Writing

Happy coping!