--- title: Ask the Expert: How to Effectively Deal with Chronic Complainers | TIME description: Got a chronic complainer in your office? MONEY's Donna Rosato shares some ways on how to stay productive with a whining co-worker. canonical: https://time.com/video/DqU10hAq/ og:title: Ask the Expert: How to Effectively Deal with Chronic Complainers og:description: Got a chronic complainer in your office? MONEY's Donna Rosato shares some ways on how to stay productive with a whining co-worker. og:url: https://time.com/video/DqU10hAq/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/DqU10hAq/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ask the Expert: How to Effectively Deal with Chronic Complainers twitter:description: Got a chronic complainer in your office? MONEY's Donna Rosato shares some ways on how to stay productive with a whining co-worker. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/DqU10hAq/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Ask the Expert: How to Effectively Deal with Chronic Complainers > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Ask the Expert: How to Effectively Deal with Chronic Complainers [Watch (HLS stream): Ask the Expert: How to Effectively Deal with Chronic Complainers](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/DqU10hAq.m3u8) (1:48)  _Published 2015-02-02. Got a chronic complainer in your office? MONEY's Donna Rosato shares some ways on how to stay productive with a whining co-worker._ --- Jul 27, 2023 5:44 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [MONEY's Best Places to Retire](/video/CT0oNUGL/) ### MONEY's Best Places to Retire [Ask the Expert: Dealing with Noisy Neighbors at Work](/video/S5bUn17f/) ### Ask the Expert: Dealing with Noisy Neighbors at Work [Ask the Expert: Dealing With a Colleague's Gross Work Habits](/video/R6hSAD1F/) ### Ask the Expert: Dealing With a Colleague's Gross Work Habits --- ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] How do you deal with chronic complainers at work? Everybody needs to vent sometimes in the office. We all need to blow off steam. Donna Rosato, Senior Writer. But what you wanna be really careful about, is you don't want to get caught in a gripe session that's gonna come back to haunt you. Someone who's gonna be a chronic complainer is probably not talking just to you. So be careful what you say. Remember, you wanna make sure anything that you do say, you'll feel comfortable if it gets back to your boss or other coworkers, too. You know, your colleague might have a legitimate gripe and you might wanna help them. A good way to do that is try to get them some constructive advice. So, say your boss really is a micromanager. Talk about how you dealt with it. Maybe you just said, hey, you know, I need to give you updates regularly. Let's do that and see how that works. And if that worked for you, maybe they backed off. If you really wanna help your co- worker, you're probably not the person who can do that. They probably really need to take the issue to your boss. Help them through that. Help them practice a way that they can approach their boss in a tactful way, and maybe deal with their issue. And it's gonna be much more likely to get solved, and they'll stop coming to you to complain. You know who those chronic complainers are. They come into your office and sit there, and gripe for a really long time. So if you see something like that coming. Cut it off before it gets out of hand. Someone comes in and sits down, say, oh, you know, and they start bringing up a work issue that they've talked about to you a million times already. Say, you know what, we always talk about work, let's talk about something else. Change the subject. And if they really need to talk to you just say you know what let's do it another time or even better play the work card. I am gonna be so busy right now and I just don't have time to talk. Let's do this another time. 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