It's her, not me.

Why does it seem there must always be one at every workplace. One person who is never happy about anything, who never takes pleasure in anything unless it's the failure of someone else?

It is so tiring, so very draining, to be around such a negative person. And it's so very hard to get anyone to do anything to make her change her behavior. The problem with having "nice" management is that they never want any conflict, especially if they have to know about it or deal with it - so they ignore it.

When I attended the seminar "How To Handle Toxic People", the main thing they told us is that we have to say to ourselves, "It's her, not me." OK. I can do that. But why, I'd like to know, do we have to tolerate such obnoxious, toxic behavior in the first place. This country has come to a point where even bad employees get to keep their jobs because employers don't want to risk the lawsuits that will surely come about upon firing bad employees. Even employees proven to have stolen from the company are given the opportunity to "retire" with full benefits.

So, sometimes I have to ask myself, "Why am I working so hard, and being so honest, when I could lie and cheat and steal from this company, and they'd give me early retirement?" And my answer has to be: Because I need to be able to live with me. So I continue to work hard, and be honest, and tolerate the one really would prefer to give a good hard smack... and count the days to my legitimate retirement.