“Everything you need to know in life, can be learned in the slaughter house,” according to Dwight from The Office. Dwight is funny and amusing, but scary, very scary.

Admit it. You would be terrified of you had your own Dwight Schrute as a coworker.

Maybe you have your own Dwight, but don’t know what other scary workers are lurking in your office. Need help in profiling them? Check out “Scary Co-Workers, These are the colleagues who make you shudder when they creep by and they can be avoided for only so long. Here’s how to deal with them” by Patricia O’Connell and her slide show.

The 10 Scary Workers & Why They are Scary

1. The Boss from Hell: they’re the boss, so they have almost total power over our professional fate. Even if you think your boss isn’t fiend enough to fire you, he or she can still make your life completely miserable — without even trying.
2. The Snoop: snoops are distracting. Instead of concentrating on their jobs, they’re concentrating on yours. And that makes it hard to do your job. Plus, it’s easy to buy into their loopy conspiracy theories when you’re overworked or overtired.
3. The Gossip: they’re not trustworthy. If they are telling someone else’s secrets, you can bet they’ll tell yours. Plus, it’s hard to verify what they’re telling you, so you don’t know whether you should be worried or not.
4. The Slacker: slackers are scary for two reasons: (a) if they don’t do their jobs, they can really screw things up for the rest of us; and (b)  they’re scary because they can make us really angry — either because we have to pick up the slack, or even on principle.
5. The Pessimist: pessimism can be as contagious as the common cold. It’s hard to stay motivated about what you’re doing when the office Eeyore comes moping by.
6. The Time Thief: they’re often nice people who are just looking to forge some kind of bond, so we don’t want to be rude. Then again, if we engage too much, the boss could think we don’t have enough to do.
7. The Underminer: their goal is to make you look bad, no matter how tiny the issue might be. They’re likely to strike at any time — as long as they have an audience.
8. The Backstabber: you don’t know when or where this scary co-worker will strike. And often you don’t even know it until some time has passed — and the damage has been done.
9. The Geek: we can’t relate to them. If you can, then you’re scary too.
10. The Dream Boss: because it seems too good to be true and we’re afraid that this won’t last and we’ll wake up. It’s called a dream boss for a reason.

My Favorite Scary Worker?

The Dream Boss. I’ve had a dream boss (only twice), but I mistakenly put them on a pedestal. No one’s perfect so they eventually fall off the pedestal that left me disillusioned and disappointed. People are only human.

O’Connell says that I should “be grateful, and don’t go looking for trouble —or the ‘truth.’” I agree. But I’ve never looked for the truth. My dream bosses usually made key management or leadership decisions that I eventually found disappointing. I was lucky to have them “perfect” for a short period of time prior to falling off the pedestal.

Read O’Connell’s article so you’ll know how to protect yourself from scary workers. I don’t think she has any recommendations for a”Dwight” scary coworker who sees coworkers a farm animals in a slaughter house.

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