Annoying people are a fact of life. Some people are paid to be annoying, and others are just plainly annoying. Once in a while, Tip Dude needs something from an annoying person, or an annoying person won’t leave Tip Dude alone. Here’s how to handle them:

• Create A Bureaucracy - Sometimes, an annoying person needs something from you. They keep calling, e-mailing and contact you when you would prefer not to be contacted. One way to stop the annoying person from being annoying is to create some kind of criteria that they have to fulfill before contacting you again. It doesn’t have to be any official criteria - just make one up. For instance, a customer kept on hounding Tip Dude about returning for a refund something that they purchased and then misused. Tip Dude politely and persistently reminded them that they need to obtain a Return Merchandise Authorization by sending in the original receipt, copies of all prior e-mail correspondence and a full description of how they interacted with the product and what procedures they used to determine that the product was dead on arrival.
• Use a Form Letter - In some situations, you need to respond to many different annoying people repeatedly. In other situations, others are persistently annoying because they are unable to do something to your satisfaction. You can write a form letter for these situations and simply respond with the form letter whenever the annoyance occurs. A small company that Tip Dude worked for was incorrectly billed for phone service continually and no phone company representative were ever able to correct the problem. So, Tip Dude’s boss wrote a form letter to the effect of “We are requesting a bill adjustment in the amount of $XXX.XX due to continuing errors in the bill pursuant to the service contract.” Every month Tip Dude changed the amount appropriately (using a formula), printed it out and sent it to the phone company with partial payment.
• Make Yourself Scarce - Sometimes, annoying people keep hounding you because they need to have a meeting with you on a topic that you would rather not discuss or isn’t your priority. To deal with this situation, you can continually reschedule the meeting time. For example, if you really don’t want to work on a certain project and the project manager keeps emailing you about times for a meeting, simply e-mail back and apologize for having a prior commitment at that time and suggest an alternate time that is a week or two later. Continue to cancel and reschedule the meeting every one to two weeks, until they give up.
• Repeat Your Requests - Sometimes people are annoying because they are paid to deflect your requests, using those methods that Tip Dude suggested above. This can be very annoying, but you must rise above that annoyance so that the annoying person doesn’t get the upper hand. To obtain service from someone who continually deflect you, simply repeat your request every few days or every day, if necessary. Do this with a form letter, form email or by repeatedly calling. Of course, it is very important not to lose your cool while doing this. Be patient, explain your request every time in great detail and with a big smile. Eventually, you may get through to someone who is able to authorize it. Sometimes, the “annoying person” would simply allow you to have what you need since they’re no longer able to deflect your continued annoyance.
• Transfer the Annoyance - There are several ways to do this, of course. You can delegate a task that you find annoying or one that involves with dealing with annoying people. If that doesn’t work, sometimes you can delegate the task to the annoying person. For instance, someone who perpetually asks you about some minor detail could be given the decision making power to decide for themselves. Someone who always asks you to do something might be asked to learn to perform the task themselves.
• Stonewall Them - In certain cases, you can simply refuse to return calls and ignore e-mails. This works better if you’re in a position of power, but even if you aren’t, and you have nothing to lose from not responding, simply don’t respond. They’ll get annoyed with you, and you’ll become their “annoying person,” but maybe there is nothing they can do about it.
• Appeal to a Higher Power - Sometimes, annoying people are annoying because they persistently fail to do something they’re supposed to. You’ve tried nagging and repeating your requests, but they’re stonewalling you. This is an extremely annoying and frustrating situation. Sometimes, you simply have to appeal to a higher authority to get around the problem. If you can persuade a higher power to nag on your behalf, it might work. Or you could ask a higher power to overrule the annoying person. For example, when you have billing issues with telephone companies that could not be resolved with representatives, you might try asking to talk to a manager. If that doesn’t work, you could try sending them a formal written letter stating your complaint and your decisions (such as the decision to cancel an account). Sometimes the written correspondence will reach a higher level of management.
• By-Pass the Annoyance - Similar to the previous tip, sometimes there are ways of accomplishing what you would like to have done without dealing with the annoying person. Typically, it is difficult to circumvent government bureaucracy. If it’s a matter of private or vendor bureaucracy, there is usually a way to get the same services without dealing with an annoying vendor. If the annoying person is a family member, there is also typically a way to get things done without involving them. Sometimes, it might be quicker and less annoying to simply do the task or purchase the item yourself, even if in principle the annoying person is required to do it for you or furnish you with the item.
• Placate the Annoying Person - If you truly can’t bypass them, for example, when dealing with a government bureaucracy, it might be better just to placate them. Give them what they need and allow them to have a power trip on you. Sometimes, you’ll get the results you need (and maybe more) if you play nice. Obviously, there is no need to do this unless whatever you need from them is worth all the pandering you’re going to have to do.
• Pay Off the Annoying Person - Sometimes, the annoying person is annoying because they feel they’ve been short-changed. Just pay them to shut up and let you get what you need to do done! Unfortunately, you cannot always beat an annoying person. You win some, and you lose some, but in the end you have the last laugh because you’ll get what you want and the annoying person would cease to be annoying.

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