What's a good way to handle people like this? I generally put them on my "shit list", and actively minimize interactions, but this doesn't seem ideal. Does anyone have a more positive approach?
Sometimes people have a point and something should be documented better. Especially if I've been asked twice, it's worth documenting better. And I would welcome their input on where and how that should be done. But those are the people are being constructive.
I think the point of the article is that for these people, the answer will always be "whatever I can find that shows my opponent is wrong." So, if the doc was supposed to be in the shared drive, they will say "the shared drive." If it is in the shared drive already, they will say "It also should be linked in the Wiki." If it is linked in the Wiki, they will say "You should also have sent an E-mail to the team-announce@ list." If you did do that, they will say "It would be helpful if it were listed in this Team Resources doc." and on and on and on. And, when they finally find some thing that you didn't do, you say "OK, I will do [that thing] too." and they will come back with the passive aggressive "Well, don't do it because I told you to do it. I want you to understand why!" I worked with a manager like this and it was infuriating. Every conversation's goal was to conclude that I was wrong in some way, no matter how much prep I did.
Typically, asking them to do any additional work gets met with silence and a few days/weeks of being left along by this person. i.e. minimizing future interactions.
Assuming you mean that in good faith you'll be okay. It's all tone, so believe it first.
That's what I love about working at startups: everyone only wants the power to fix things. If you just give them power, they will just do the thing.