Ask HN: Confronting impossible people (In life and business)

My mother's old trick for situations like these is to be on their side without saying anything bad about anyone else in the house. Instead of "Whatever, I'm freezing my ass off", try something like "I can't believe they'd do that to you! That's awful, man. It's effing cold when this door is left open. ::closes door:: I'll get them to close it tomorrow."

The premise is that it's hard for the righteous to disagree with someone who they think is on their side.

I've done quite a bit of conflict resolution in my day. I once worked as a resident assistant (RA) in the dorm and had to deal with very similar problems.

Here is my textbook answer. You want to meet with the person on their terms. Go to his/her office/room on a day when the issue is not prevalent, because neither of you want emotion to be an igniting factor. Be humble. Yes, you're pissed and it's clearly them, but trust me, the best action is to bite the bullet and see if the two of you can come to some sort of agreement.

Strike a deal. Clearly the other person has some motivating reason behind their issue. If you can fix their problem in a way that they can't, it might also alleviate your problem. In your specific case, I would talk to everyone else in the complex for him. See if you can get action items written down. "I affirm that I will keep the outside door closed at all times". Make sure these action items are clear and understood by everyone. Yes, you may have to talk to everyone personally.

I don't know the best way to deal with this situation, but fighting passive-aggressiveness with itself will not solve anything.

The fact that you waited for him shows you're not afraid of a little confrontation, but I think you may have wasted a good opportunity by getting frustrated and leaving instead of telling him directly that he was being rude and childish. People who are oblivious to others rarely pick up on polite hints.

It wasn't that I had become too frustrated to keep talking to him, it was that I saw there were not going to be any breakthroughs then and there tonight so I played one last card, the guilt trip, which failed miserably. I am thinking of confronting him more sternly tomorrow when this inevitably happens again.

Should I think about bringing the real estate agents into this, or even trying to get him and the others together in a room and telling them all what I think?

Anyway, this Ask HN wasn't just meant to be about my situation here, more about tips, philosophies and reading materials to help others deal with similar situations, especially in the business world.

(Oh and thanks for the reply!)

You mention nothing about the other 4 roommates. You're probably better off trying to solve this problem with them than trying to alone. It'll probably be 5 against 1. 5 against him or 5 against you. Doesn't matter. Either way, you'll know what to do.

Smile. Be kind and polite. Remember that he probably thinks the same of you or even worse. Try to figure out his motivations. Be friendly, talk to him about things he's interested in. Try to see the world through his eyes. Once you managed to hit a common voice with him, it's much easier to find solutions for your differences.

Aside from the immediate issue that you're dealing with, which it sounds like others have given some good advice for, here's something for the future:

Read How to Win Friends and Influence People. I used to think it was just a treatise on how to manipulate people for selfish gain, but after reading it, I think it's really more about cultivating a genuine interest in people and developing the habit of treating people like we all want to be treated. You'd be surprised how effective this can be once you start doing it, partly because it's increasingly rare in our society.

My initial reaction on hearing that would probably have been to scream "are you fucking stupid?" at him. But I have a very low tolerance for that kind of behavior and luckily have learned to suppress that type of response :-)

Besides, if people really are leaving the door open in the morning, that won't solve anything. Talk to him and find out who's leaving the door open and you can all three sit down and figure out what leads to that happening.

Most things domestic have simple solutions once the underlying problem is discovered.

As far as dealing with passive-aggressive behavior in general, I find that being polite, but firm generally gets the behavior to stop. What you don't want to do is yell at them like I said above, since that just causes them to shut down temporarily then go back to doing the same thing.

I found the contents of "Getting Past Now" by William Ury helpful when negotiating with difficult people. http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Past-No-William-Ury/dp/0553371...

Thanks for the book idea, afraid I'm too poor being a uni student to buy it, but I might check if my state library has a copy.

It costs less than two hours of minimum wage, dude! Aren't you in the US?

Some people you just can't reason with.

I see other people advising sitting down and talking. It's probably worth trying. One episode of nutsy behavior isn't enough to write someone off.

But there's a sizable fraction of people out there that are 100% asshole. Talking to them won't produce any lasting results, no matter what they agree to or promise. It took me a long time to get this.

If your roommate is one of these guys it comes down to you moving out, somehow forcing him to move out, or just putting up with periodic episodes of bullshit.

(If you were willing to beat him up every time he acted like a dick, that would probably modify his behavior, but I don't recommend that for reasons of jail.)

I would like to recommend something I call "Sleep Deprivation Psychology". I used it with great success at varsity. ;) Basically if someone irritates the hell out of you, wake him up at 4:00 AM. Whenever he/she is in deep sleep (REM sleep, Theta brain-waves). A rough estimate would be 1/3 or 2/3 of their normal sleep cycle. To wake them, use excessive noise, a fire-cracker works wonders or hammering on metal pots and pans. Done right, they will receive your communication loud and clear.

WARNING: This can lead to an arms race, so do your communicating anonymously.

Try to talk to him about it another time, when you are both relaxed. He's likely got himself worked up into anger over the 'other housemates' (which to him could include you) before doing something that childish. It will be much harder for him to behave like that once you have discussed it calmly - although if he is 100% a-hole that might not matter much. Also, try to discover the root cause of his annoyance - he might have a justified complaint that just hasn't affected you yet. Good luck!

My response:

Okay bob, I understand you have a problem with them. But here is what's going to happen here: You're going to stop doing this tonight. And we're going to talk it over tomorrow with the people you think you have a conflict over.

Now there will be further steps I will take if I find you are doing this tonight, and they will not be Passive In The Slightest. So fucking cut it out tonight, show up tomorrow to the talk we have with the guy who's causing the problem, and don't fuck with my sleep. Or Else.

To anyone still following my amazing misadventures,

I woke up this morning to find house-mate #4 laying down the law. Turns out no one opens the door in the morning, it's all the one guy and now I know at least two of us have had it. For now the problem has gone, but at the cost of fuelling his paranoia that we are all out to get him as a group. One more thing and I'm getting him kicked out.

Thanks for all the advice guys, it's cool to see how the crowd thinks.

You can't negotiate with terrorists (ie irrational people).

Seriously, if there's one thing I've learned dealing with d-bags and a-holes over the last decade is that they are what they are. They might eventually change, but it's unlikely that you can get them to.

The trick is figuring out if this guy is irrational or not.

First you need to read the book "Getting To Yes" about Principled Negotation. If that works, then great.

If not, you need to get him to move out, or move out yourself.

I would tell him I was fine with it, but that he is responsible for paying the extra heating bill as well as replacing anything which may be damaged or stolen by leaving the door open.

If he agrees to it, then great - turn up the heat.

Shitty heating only works comfortably at maximum with the door closed, dropped ten degrees when he started with this crap. You can always tell someone that they're responsible, but when it happens how are you meant to enforce that kind of stuff with anything other than intimidation? (not where my skills lay)

Why don't you ask him if he'll stop propping the door open if the other people stop leaving the door open in the morning and then ask them if they can do that?

Or get up in the morning and close the door after them.

Punch him in the throat.

This is actually very simple, although the execution seems to trip a lot of folks up.

There are several stages. If you go through all of them, things work themselves out.

1) He hears you. He is able to repeat what you said back to you and not screw it up.

2) He empathizes with you. He honestly understands how you feel and would feel the same way if it the roles were reversed

3) He agrees that something must be done.

4) He is able to do whatever it is

These are sequential steps, and you can't skip to #4 without going through the other ones. I've found that most of the time the problem is in #1, although you're more likely to think it's 2 or 3. People who don't know each other sometimes have a very hard time getting a common moral/fairness foundation for value discussions. This impedes communication.

So get some friends -- the other guys living there would be great -- and start down the list as part of a group effort. Hell you don't even have to single him out if you don't want to, your problem is with the door, not him.

Most times group dynamics and peer pressure can do the work where reasoning, cajoling, and punching in the neck won't.

But dude, whatever you do, don't make your own prison for yourself. Bail if you can't fix this. It'll just get worse. If you've just moved in, then move out. Most places have a 30-day clause on new leases for stuff just like this. Any judge or real estate agent or whatnot is going to be a lot more sympathetic to you if you took active steps, was unable to resolve, and left than if you suffered for weeks or months and then up and leave. It's your pain: it's your job to take action.

With this kind of guy your best bet is to get on their good side. Psychos will not stop at anything.

The only way to deal with people like that is to move out. Why are you structuring your happiness in life around his actions?

I'm afraid I just signed a 6 month lease and I'm in no financial situation to move anywhere else. I wish one of the others had told me about all this before I moved in.

You sound younger than me, so I'm going to clue you in on a secret to life.

> no financial situation to move anywhere else

That doesn't exist. You make decisions first and then figure out how to execute/pay for them later. We're not talking about buying an island here, we're talking about having a really base level of happiness with your entire living situation.

Move out and get your own place. Figure it out, you're smart.

If you're not up to the challenge, then just tell him you'll kill him in his sleep if he does that shit again.

I totally understand what you mean about making a decision and then just working it all out, it's one of the cornerstones of how I live my life, but moving out and into this house was one of those decisions and its going to take a little while to finish dealing with all the financial problems that it caused for me. Do you think writing "I'll Kill You" in blood on the front door would be enough? Heh.

Clearly you can't always run away, can you? You have to be able to face problems and deal with them. If you run away all the time, the choices available for you in life will become pretty limited.