Silently Suffering in a Small Office

Lots of workers complain about too much noise in the office, from co-workers who are boisterous to loud telephone talkers to those who insist on leaving a radio on as they work.

But this worker is trying to contend with the opposite: silence. A boss in his office refuses to speak to him

What do you do in a small office's poisoned environment where the No. 2 thinks the silent treatment is appropriate? He's gotten over it, but his assistant persists. After nine months of no response to even a passing "hello,"I gave up and now we're in the third month of awkward silence. Should I start over in the New Year? He's clearly uncomfortable with a turn-about, and it's not my nature to continue. This place is worse than high school. And the No. 1 is conflict-averse, so even raising an issue makes those who speak up the bad guy.

While it is unclear what may have caused this rift, Steve McElfresh, president of HRFutures in Palo Alto, Calif., said this worker "needs to do the obvious and address the underlying issues of misbehavior and realize that as the underling he'll probably have to go 51 percent of the distance to resolve this.

"I'm guessing this person has already done that and certainly all efforts to try to resolve this need to be done first," McElfresh says. "But you've got to remember that people by and large don't change. So, if you get on the right side of them, fabulous. Go for it. But if you can't, and more importantly if doing that is uncomfortable, find yourself a large new office where it's a little more bureaucratic and a little more autonomous."

In the meantime, he suggests approaching the assistant who is stonewalling him and simply ask, "What can we do to resolve this?"

If this small firm has a human resources department, the worker could also contact it to see if an HR manager might be willing to intervene to try to solve the on-going rift.

McElfresh notes that small offices are in some ways like small towns.

"The great advantage is that people are intimate," he says. "They care about each other and they know everything about each other. The disadvantage is that they're intimate, they care about each other and they know everything about each other."

"If you can create the kind of relationships to make it in that environment, it's a great place to be," McElfresh says.

If not, it is likely time to find a new place to work.

Kenneth Bredemeier has six years of experience writing about the workplace. On the Job, a column addressing real worker questions about office relationships, corporate policies and workplace law, is written exclusively for washingtonpost.com.

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