If your professional life has required you to spend enormous amounts of time working very closely with people you don't like and/or don't trust, then -unless it has made you enough money to retire after a few years' work- please accept my condolences.
Yes, that's what I said. "To the best of your ability." often means "You have to occasionally spend small amounts of time working with really shitty people.". OP said:
following this advice would have made most of my professional life impossible...