The ‘Work Memes’ group has grown immensely over the years. Founded back in late 2020, it had 564k members in March 2023 the last time Bored Panda featured it. Now, at the time of writing, the community has grown to nearly 1.1 million in size.

Nearly doubling the number of members in just half a year is incredibly impressive and this is a testament to how relatable and funny the content is. What’s more universal than moaning about work after an exhausting day earning money for someone else, after all?

Anyone hoping to become part of this expanding community has to promise to treat all the other members with kindness and respect. The administrator and moderator team enforcing the rules insists that there is “literally never any reason” for bullying or hate speech. The goal is to create a welcoming environment for everyone.

The ‘Work Memes’ team also expects everyone to only post work-related content. Anything random, related to politics, or spammy will end up getting removed. When in doubt, remind yourself of the Facebook group’s name!

If you’ve made friends at the office, that’s wonderful! However, it’s quite likely that sooner or later you’ll have to work with someone who you’re less thrilled about. They might have a work ethic that’s at odds with yours, ignore your boundaries, or tell inappropriate jokes. Whatever the case might be, they're not someone that you want to spend much time with. However, working at a company means that you can’t always pick your colleagues. You need to learn to get along with someone you may actively dislike.

Fundamentally, it’s good communication that helps you solve issues both in the workplace and outside of it. So if a coworker of yours is making your life miserable, you need to confront them in some way. Of course, you should stay professional and diplomatic even if your first instinct might be to passively-aggressively mock them. The calmer you are, the quicker the entire situation can be resolved.

‘Indeed’ suggests avoiding blame as much as humanly possible. Ideally, you won’t go about accusing your coworkers of this and that (even if they’re completely guilty of bad behavior and awful work practices). Instead, you should explain how you feel when they behave or speak a certain way. By putting the emphasis on yourself, you’re laying the groundwork for possible peace and compromise.

Though it’s easy to think that we’re always in the right, objectively, that’s not always the case. In real life, situations are often nuanced, they’re rarely black and white, with a clear-cut hero and villain. So even if you don’t feel like it, it’s worth talking to your colleague from hell in order to get their perspective on things.

Try to actively listen to your colleagues and what they’re trying to tell you. Not only will this help you during any future conversations with them but you might also realize that you have more in common with them than you think. Colleagues from hell can seem very human after a genuine heart-to-heart conversation with them. You might not become the fastest of friends, but you may be able to have enough respect for each other to forget your enmity and get on with your work.

If all else fails and you’re still not friends or even lukewarm acquaintances, it might be time to change your approach. Depending on how serious the issue at work is, you may want to (and have to!) get your superiors and the human resources team involved. Usually, in more serious situations, it really helps if you have some sort of evidence to provide about how you’ve been mistreated or harassed. 

Obviously, if management is unwilling or unable to solve the friction between you and your coworker, you can always look for a job in another department or even a different company. But that’s a measure of last resort, it’s not something you want to lead with immediately.

Alternatively, you could try to accept your colleagues for who they are, with all of their personality quirks. Nobody’s perfect and so long as they’re not actively harming you, you could try coexisting in peace. Try to be more mature and compassionate. If you’ve tried getting to know them and you still don’t enjoy their company, you could simply limit your interactions with them, instead focusing your time and energy on your workplace friends. You know, the people you’d send these memes to give them a break during work hours!