"Cheer up, the worst is yet to come."
-Philander Chase Johnson

The optimist is more annoying if she's your BOSS,. The pessimist is more annoying if she's your ASSISTANT.

Pessimist. You're here to get a job done, and complaining doesn't make it any easier. Plus, in my line of work, we're supposed to motivate people. Have you ever been motivated by a pessimist?

Paranoia is perfect awareness of all the crap in the world and the unsubstantiated belief that all those things will happen to yourself. I firmly believe it's the second part of that that qualifies one as paranoid.

I've always figured 'prepare for the worst & hope for the best' and I'm still gainfully employed, more than halfway to owning my own home, and except for that, in debt to no one. Seems to work okay for me!

I'd like to be a realist; to neither ignore nor overreact to situations; to see take everything for what it is: nothing more, nothing less. As a realist, I'd neither think that the Lazy Co-Worker who is trying to take advantage of me is "just having a bad day," nor would I think that the simply Interested, Concerned Co-Worker is freakishly stalking me. Instead, I would tell Lazy to do his own work and confide to Interested that chocolate will ease my woes. Ah, to have the best of both worlds.

Paranoia is hyper awareness, not perfect awareness. Like someone who can hear the high-pitched tones that only animals can hear, I think a paranoid person senses (pessimistic) possibilities that the rest of us are blissfully unaware of. Perfect awareness would mean that the paranoid person would also realize when a possibility was realistic and worth worrying about- something they lack.

Actually, I think that the person who is the most annoying in the workplace is the person who is the least similiar to me and my work style. Having said that, I am an eternal optimist who thinks that things always work out, eventually. Pessimists and Paranoists (is that a word?) Drive me crazy! They slow me down! I feel I have to explain so much before I can get anything done. Of course, if you ask them about me... I doubt they would say that I am their favorite person to work with either!

Yeah, happy positive people!

It's better to be around people who lift you up not bring you down.

I consider myself a realist - neither a true pessimist nor a true optimist, but somewhere in the middle. However, when putting together a group of people to work on a project, I always choose someone who I know to be an optimist to be a part of the team. I need someone to be the cheerleader for the group, which is a role that I can't always play. We always need someone who sees what we CAN do, as opposed to what we CAN'T do.

While working under the pressure of an unrealistic work load for several years, I slowly saw myself shift from an optimist to more of a pessimist. I had to start speaking up about the unrealistic expectations and pitfalls in the plans in order to be effective. I hated that period of my life, but found it was necessary in order to set goals that could actually be accomplished. I guess I see both sides now...

Pessimists are hands down more annoying than optimists! As an optimist myself, I find it much more stimulating and positive to work with fellow optimists. Is it not enough that I have to work 40 hours a week that I must endure negativity as well? Give me optimists any day of the week!

I worked for a long time but am at-home now with kiddos...I found and still find it more frustrating to work with pessimists as much time is spent convincing them to get on board rather than just doing! Consequently, I was lucky to encounter an optimist today while rummaging in my purse for a quarter I found a peanut butter sandwich -- don't ask, I still don't know where that came from! -- and she cheerfully pointed out that my kids would not let me ever go hungry. And she gave me a quarter.

Oh, this is easy,
(says the bright-eyed and smiling, self-avowed optimist and dreamer)
- pessimists. I love the 'saying shoot for the stars and you just might get the moon.' Seems to me that pessimists get so bogged down in the reasons not to do something, they never try, while the optimists give everything a whirl. We may expend a lot of energy endeavoring to do the impossible, but it's in the trying that we learn.

http://lifewithbriar.blogspot.com
http://toddlywinks.blogspot.com

The whiners are the worst. And we all know they come in adult forms too.

Hey guys! This has nothing in the world to do with this post but I thought this site was HILARIOUS! You HAVE to go to ElfYourself.com (It's actually the OfficeMax website I think?) My husband "elfed" our family yesterday and I'm still laughing today! Have a great weekend!

I think you can probably mitigate the annoying parts your outlook, either way. (And I'm not just saying this because I once scored a "moderately hopeless" on positive psychologist's Martin Seligman's optimism test.) So, pessimists can undercut the doom and gloom with humor, or optimist can inject a common-sense vibe with their rays of sunshine.

I read an interesting article years back that analyzed optimism vs. pessimism vs. realism in former prisoners of war. It turns out that realists endured their trials best. Optimists had to wrestle with disappointed hopes over and over again, while pessimists couldn't muster the will to go on. Food for thought...
I myself am an optimist, and I'm grateful to have never been a prisoner of any kind. :-)
http://simplescrapbooksmag.com/blog

Paranoia is not perfect awareness. It's self-centered to think everyone's out to get you! (Most people have better things to do than plot the demise of others.) In the workplace, if a boss has believed in me, I've always performed better. Optimists are great to work with.

I laugh at the littlest things. I spil my coffee in the car. I drop a glass and it breaks into a million pieces. Laughing makes cleaning up seem so trivial and easy.
My wife and I laugh all the time. One of us will do (usually me) something that in another relationship would be a points reduction and I or both of us will laugh and it points out the sillyness or the triviality of the infraction.
Interestingly enough I was, periodically, a severely depressed person for about 18 years. At which time I was a total pessimist. I couln't see anything having even a mildly possitive outcome.
Life has taken a dramatic 360 deggree turn where now many things from the grand to little everyday occurrences can be enjoyed for even the smallest amount of joy that may be derived from them.

I read recently that scientists think people are "hard wired" to be either pessimistic or optimistic. So maybe there's nothing we can do to change our or others' outlooks. I guess I'm an optimist, which is good, because my husband is always assuming the worst. If I have a headache, it's a brain tumor. If we get a new neighbor, he's going to be a problem, etc. etc.

I realize the other day that I am content and quietly happy. THis is strange coming from a woman who has spent years studying human history and calling herself a pessimist. I realized that mankind has always had problems, I grew up with the cold war. However, I started looking for the blessing in life, eating better and exercising my attitude changed and the glass is now not only half full but the glass itself is clean. I am still working to make this world a better place and I am quite aware of the human condition. However, I am content with what I have and I have given up the race to out do other people. I should I did give up on a very negative boyfriend (after helping him through 4 major crisis I realized that he would have more mostly of his own making, He was unwilling to see he called most of them.) I now date a wonderful guy who is positive, does not have a perfect life and is willing to work to make this world better. I am not the overly cheerful person at work who is going to tell her coworkers to be happy. I find meaning in my life and I feel blessed though I have several severe health problems and I am not rich just average. Smile at someone, say an honest comment-make someone's day.

Pessimists are much more annoying, because 99% of the things they complain about are so small in the grand scheme of things.