ASK PHILIPPA Our agony aunt tackles your issues
A reader feels undermined by passive-aggressive remarks at work. See that they are aimed at your role, not you, says Philippa Perry, psychotherapist and Red’s agony aunt
Q I find passive aggressiveness difficult to deal with, especially at work. It makes me think I am going mad! I think it would affect me whatever my career choice, but I have started working as a freelance literary agent and, though I mainly love my job, I have experienced a few would-be authors being disgruntled. It might be around not being able to get them a deal, my ideas for shaping their manuscript, or when I have told them I can’t represent them. Recently, I noticed two authors calling me different but similar first names. I know it seems small, I should ignore it, but I know it was deliberate. I end up asking myself, ‘Why?’ It feels like bullying. Sometimes, I’ve found that it happens when I display some firmness. If, for example, I’m negotiating something in my favour.
Publishing is also a relatively small world and that seems to trigger a sort of early fear in me; perhaps memories of bullying at primary school. My career is going well, so I feel I am on the right track, but I don’t want this fear of other people disliking me to sabotage what I am achieving. I want to be able to deal with passive aggression, and appear friendly but firmer.
A Who doesn’t find aggression, whether passive or not, hard to deal with? This feeling of ‘going mad’ because you experience aggression but the person in front of you is smiling is isolating. I wonder whether it is particularly painful if it often felt that your parents, or siblings, played the same game: saying one thing, meaning another, or supposedly innocently making themselves right but at your expense. We can get into the habit of thinking of ourselves as victims, priming us for that role at school where others may find us an easy target to bully. If this is our experience, we can expect to be bullied. So if someone gets our name wrong, we might assume they are doing that on purpose, and perhaps they are, but who knows?
You say you want to appear friendly but firmer. How about instead of appearing friendly, you are just straightforward? Accept that when you make a decision that is in line with your integrity and sound for your business, sometimes that may not appear friendly to someone who was hopeful you were going to make them feel better about their work and career choices. Some people assume that an agent and publisher is less like a colleague and more like a surrogate parent who will look after them. You’ll disappoint such expectations, and when people have hopes that get dashed, they will look for someone to blame. You may get a lot of feeling directed at you because of how people want you to be a sort of saviour. I know it is hard, but get into the habit of not taking this personally. It’s unlikely to be about you, but about your role and what people may project on to it.
Trying to over-adapt to clients will not help relationships with them. I would always use ‘I-statements’ and not ‘you-statements’. So, ‘I am not the right person to represent you,’ rather than, ‘There is no market for work like yours.’ I-statements can feel riskier because they are self-defining, but they are easier to hear.
Congratulations on your new career. It is inevitable that you will disappoint people, but I have every confidence, as the years go by, you will take their reactions less personally.