49 People Expose The Most Terrible Coworkers Who Made Work More Miserable For All (New Pics)

A lot of people deal with such nuisances at work on a daily basis.

A recent survey found that 85% of workers have faced an annoying colleague at some point, and 58% say these behaviors hurt their productivity.

“The only reason why people continue to be selfish is because they work in places where it is rewarded. If we de-incentivized it, either by making it difficult for people to get ahead if they behave selfishly, or by requiring people to work collaboratively to get ahead, we wouldn't have this problem,” Tessa West, who is also a professor of Psychology at New York University, tells Bored Panda.

A coworker’s toxic behavior can stress you out, make it harder for you to regulate your emotions and read social situations correctly.

Over time, even one difficult colleague can lower your morale and impact your work.

West says: “If you're a newcomer to a team and there is a norm of selfishness — hoarding resources or knowledge, for example — then selfish people affect morale by signaling: ‘if you want to fit in and get ahead here, this is how you do it.’”

“Only those who want to abide by those norms will stick around. For those who aren't abiding by those norms, selfish behavior, when it is rewarded, can really eat away at feelings of fairness and justice in the workplace,” she adds.

If someone gets away with selfishness and gets ahead by behaving this way, then it makes everyone else at work very cynical. “They will do the minimal they need to get by. They disengage, and start looking elsewhere.”

Selfishness in the workplace is contagious, and it can become ingrained in a company’s culture. When such behavior is tolerated for a long time, and no one speaks up, the whole workplace can feel like it’s toxic.

More and more people will start getting irritated and stressed, and there can be communication breakdowns and conflicts.

A 2025 Monster survey of about 1,100 US workers found that around 80% of employees say they work in a toxic environment, up significantly from the year before.

In addition to annoying behavior, surveys show rising trends in gossip, unprofessional communication, exclusion, and coworkers taking credit for others’ work — all signs of a workplace environment that puts individual egos ahead of the team.

“Workplaces fix bad behavior when they start to feel the pain of not doing anything about it. They are rarely driven by moral reasoning alone. Lots of companies have mission statements that sound something like: ‘we believe as an organization this is how we should treat people with kindness and work together collaboratively.’ But the business needs to feel the pain of not abiding by that stance,” says West.

“The good news is, there is almost always a good business case to be made for squashing selfish behavior at work. It leads to a revolving door of talent, unethical behavior at work. Dishonesty, and so forth. Nobody wins when selfish people have free reign at work.”

Many people have reported mental health problems tied to workplace culture and poor management.

A recent poll revealed that three out of four workers say their mental health at work is negative, with 40% reporting ‘poor’ and 34% saying their mental health is just ‘fair.’

61% of workers said would rather quit, and 39% said they would rather get laid off from their job than work in a toxic workplace.

When faced with annoying office behavior, many people tend to avoid confronting their colleague or reporting them to HR.

In a survey, only 25% of workers said they trust HR to address toxic behaviors, and over 65% said their complaints made no difference after reporting them.

“Most people think that if they’re being targeted by someone who’s toxic at work, other people know and don’t care. In fact, most people will tell me, ‘My boss knows. They’re just too busy to care.’ Chances are, your boss doesn’t know — at least not to the extent that it’s happening. You need to let people know,” says Tessa West.

If you’re feeling stuck in a frustrating work situation, there are several ways to take control.

One approach is to share how you feel soon after an incident — within a day or two if possible — when the situation is still fresh and not blown up in your head. Waiting too long makes it easier for others to downplay the behavior since you didn’t bring it up right away.

Expanding your network at work can also help. When we only talk to the same two or three people every day, we miss the bigger picture, like who might be causing tension or what the unwritten rules are.

Basically, make allies in the workplace.