The colleague who drains your energy: how to work with them without being emptied

“Got a minute?”

It is ten past eight, your computer is still starting up, your coffee is still hot. And you already know how this will go. The minute will stretch to twenty, and the two of you will talk about how management once again has no idea what it is doing, how the new client is impossible and how nobody can be bothered with anything any more. When he leaves, you will sit in front of your screen feeling as if someone has let the air out of you. He said nothing terrible. He did not shout, he did not insult you. And yet it will take you until lunchtime to come back to yourself.

Almost everyone who has worked in a team knows at least one colleague like this. Someone who leaves you more tired after a conversation than two hours of demanding work would. In this article I will not call him an “energy vampire”, “toxic” or “a narcissist”. Those words are appealing because they put something into words, but they also close a door. A label says: the problem is in him, you are only the victim. The systemic view I work from says something less comfortable and more useful: the exhaustion arises between you, in a pattern the two of you create together. And what arises between two people can be changed by one of them.

What it means when someone “drains” you

The organisational researcher Rob Cross, together with his colleagues Wayne Baker and Andrew Parker, mapped networks of relationships in a range of organisations. They did not only ask people whom they worked with, but also how they felt after talking to someone — whether that person gave them energy or took it away. The question turned out to be surprisingly revealing: energy in relationships was linked to whom people went to for knowledge and whose ideas came to life. With those who gave energy, people described a conversational partner who left them room to contribute. With those who took it, often the very opposite: a conversation in which there was no place for them.

This matters because it shows that exhaustion is not some mysterious force a person gives off like radiation. It is the experience of a relationship in which you are always the listener, the buffer or the wall someone bounces off — but never the other half of the conversation.

Research on relationships also shows that bad weighs more than good. In 2001 Roy Baumeister and his colleagues published an extensive review with the telling title Bad is stronger than good: negative events, reactions and relationships leave a stronger and more lasting trace in us than positive ones of the same size. John Gottman noticed that couples who stayed together had, even during an argument, roughly five positive exchanges for every negative one. Nobody has measured this as precisely at work, but the logic is similar: one difficult relationship can outweigh several pleasant ones. That is why it feels as if a single colleague spoils your whole week, even though there are ten of you in the team.

Emotions travel — even across a desk

In the 1990s the psychologist Elaine Hatfield and her colleagues described a phenomenon they called emotional contagion. We unconsciously mimic one another — facial expressions, tone of voice, posture, the pace of speech — and as we mimic, we also feel part of the emotion we are imitating. We do not decide to do this. It happens in a fraction of a second, before we even think.

In 2002 Sigal Barsade tested this in groups working together on a task. She placed an actor in each group who presented himself as a participant and had been instructed to be either in a pleasant mood or in a bad one. His mood spread to the group. Where the actor spread a pleasant mood, members cooperated better and reported less conflict. One person’s emotions, then, are not just their private business — they affect how the whole group works.

So your body is not overreacting around a colleague who complains all the time. It really is taking something on. One nervous system tunes in to another; in the knowledge base I describe this under co-regulation. When someone next to you is constantly tense, irritable or despairing, your system responds as if the danger were yours too. What can be lovely in a family — calming down next to a calm person — at the office also means getting worked up next to someone who is worked up.

The good news is that contagion works both ways. Anyone who stays calm without closing off is spreading something too.

A team is a system, not a collection of people

In relational family therapy, in which I am training, we do not see a family as a number of individuals under one roof but as a system: each part affects all the others, each has a role that often nobody chose, and the whole resists change, even when the change is good. You will find a short explanation under the family as a system. A workplace is not a family, and it is not right for it to behave like one. But it works according to very similar rules.

In every team, roles get handed out. Someone is the one who knows everything. Someone is the one who smooths over disputes. Someone is the one who “says out loud what we are all thinking”. And often someone becomes the difficult one. In families, family therapists call this the “identified patient” — the member in whom all the tension gathers, so that the others do not have to look at it in themselves.

I am not saying that the colleague who drains you is an innocent victim of the team. I am saying it is worth asking: what is this person carrying for the team? Perhaps his complaining is the only channel through which the team’s dissatisfaction, which everyone else swallows, gets heard. Perhaps the manager never sets limits and he has learned that being loud gets him further. Perhaps someone in your seat before you listened to everything, and that space has simply passed to you. Once you see the pattern, you stop seeing only malice or weakness — and start seeing where you can change something.

The triangle by the coffee machine

When someone drains us, we do something very human: we find a third person and tell them. “Did you hear what he said this time?” For a moment it is easier. You are not alone, someone understands you, the tension spills over.

The American psychiatrist Murray Bowen described this phenomenon in families as triangulation: when the tension between two people becomes too much, a third is drawn in. A triangle is more stable than a pair — and therefore also more entrenched. The tension is not resolved, only spread around. The colleague you are talking about becomes even more “the difficult one”, while the two of you bond over what you both dislike. Soon the whole department is divided into those who put up with him and those who defend him.

I am not saying you must never talk to anyone about a difficult colleague. I am saying there is a difference between a conversation after which you know what you will do, and one after which you are just a little angrier. The first is consultation. The second is a triangle. If you have been talking about the same person with the same people for months, it is probably the second. I wrote more about why such relationships drag on in A conflict with a co-worker that drags on for months: why it doesn’t resolve itself.

Why you, of all people

Interestingly, the same colleague does not drain everyone equally. One person brushes off his morning complaints with a smile and moves on. Another cannot settle for the rest of the day. Why?

Part of the answer lies in what we bring to work from home — and not only from our present home. Patterns we learned in our family of origin repeat themselves at work surprisingly often. If you grew up with a parent who was often dissatisfied, and you learned that it was your job to comfort them, you will automatically slip into the same role next to a dissatisfied colleague. If you were the one who had to listen because others were struggling, you will listen now too — and feel the same old tiredness. I wrote about how early patterns show up with managers and colleagues in Attachment at work.

Christian Gostečnik, the founder of relational family therapy, describes how we unconsciously create circumstances in which we experience familiar emotions again — not because we enjoy them, but because we know them and because they are still waiting in us to be resolved. This is not an accusation. It is an invitation to curiosity. The question “why does this person drain me so much?” often has two parts: one about him and one about you. You have far more influence over the second.

It also helps to notice exactly what you are doing while you are being drained. Perhaps you are not just listening but offering solutions nobody asked for. Perhaps you nod even though you disagree. Perhaps you feel guilty if you cut the conversation short. All of this costs energy — and all of it is something you are doing.

What a conversation with a boundary looks like

A boundary is not a wall and not a punishment. It is a clear description of what you can and cannot manage, said without blame. You will find a short explanation in the knowledge base under boundaries, and a fuller one in Setting boundaries: why it feels selfish even though healthy relationships depend on it. This is how such a conversation might sound (composed, not a real person):

“Got a minute? You won’t believe what they’ve done to the schedule this time.”
“Not right now, Boris. I have to hand in a report by ten. Can you catch me at lunch?”
“It’ll be quick. I honestly don’t understand who plans these things…”
“I can see this really annoys you. But I genuinely can’t give it my attention right now. At lunch I’d be glad to listen.”
“Oh, fine. It doesn’t matter anyway.”
“It does matter. Twelve o’clock?”

Notice what happened. Ana did not say Boris was tiresome. She did not lecture him about complaining too much. She acknowledged that something was annoying him and at the same time stayed with what she needed. When Boris withdrew in a huff (“it doesn’t matter anyway”), she did not slide back into soothing him but offered a concrete time. A conversation like this is awkward at first. By the third or fourth time it is a habit — for both of them.

And one more thing: the lunchtime conversation may well be different. When someone has limited time and an attentive listener for their complaint, they often say something more essential. Unlimited time snatched in a doorway usually gets spent on repetition.

Exercise: a one-week energy balance

Before you change anything, it is good to know what is actually going on. This exercise lasts a week and takes five minutes a day.

1. Write it down after every contact. After each longer conversation with this colleague, note on a piece of paper or in your phone how you feel, on a scale from 1 (empty) to 5 (full). For comparison, do the same with two or three other colleagues.
2. Describe, don’t judge. Next to each rating, write one sentence about what happened, the way a camera would record it: “He talked about the schedule for twenty minutes, I nodded.” Not “he was impossible again”.
3. Find your part. In the conversations with the lowest ratings, underline what you were doing. Were you soothing, offering solutions, agreeing when you didn’t, staying longer than you wanted?
4. Choose one change. From what you underlined, choose just one thing you will do differently next week. Not five, one — for example, keeping the morning chat to five minutes, or not offering solutions when nobody asks for them.
5. Rebalance. Look also at who filled you up this week. Next week, deliberately spend ten minutes with one of those people. You protect your energy not only with boundaries but also with relationships that give it back.

After a week you will have something you did not have before: a picture, not just a feeling. It often turns out that particular situations are draining — mornings, meetings, conversations about management — rather than the person as a whole. That is much easier to change.

What helps day to day

Once you have the picture, here are a few things that help most people:

• Structure instead of chance. Conversations that happen “in passing” never end. Conversations with an agreed start and finish do. If you have to work with this colleague, suggest a short regular check-in instead of constant interruptions.
• Steer towards the task. When the conversation spirals into complaining, bring it back to the question of what the next step is. “Which part of this can the two of us change?” If the answer is nothing, that is an answer too.
• Don’t be the only listener. If your colleague is genuinely struggling, you can suggest they speak to the manager or to someone who can actually do something. You are not the only address for everything that weighs on them.
• Give your body a transition. After a draining conversation, take a minute: go to the window, drink a glass of water, breathe out slowly a few times. You help your nervous system return to its window of tolerance before you start the next task.
• Say what you need, not what is wrong with him. “I need my mornings without interruptions” is a sentence that can be accepted. “You complain too much” is not. I wrote about how to say what you want without attacking and without apologising in Assertiveness: how to say what you want without aggression or apology.

With all of this, small steps are the rule. If for years you have listened for twenty minutes every morning and now suddenly put up a wall, your colleague will experience it as rejection — and the pressure may even increase for a while. That is to be expected. Systems first respond to change by trying to put everything back the way it was.

None of this will change your colleague overnight. Perhaps it will never change him. But it will change how much he costs you. And when one part of a system changes, the other has to adjust too — sometimes in surprising ways. It happens more often than you might think that someone who used to have all your attention, yet never really received it, starts speaking in a more focused way in short conversations.

When the answer is not in you

Everything I have written assumes a difficult but ordinary relationship. It is only fair to say where this view falls short.

When your colleague is genuinely struggling. Someone who is constantly irritable, gloomy and tired may be depressed, grieving, having problems at home or living with an illness they do not talk about. You don’t know. A boundary does not rule out compassion — you can ask how they really are and still stay within what you can manage. But if you notice them talking about hopelessness or about not wanting to live any more, that is a different situation: encourage them to seek help and tell them about the Klic v duševni stiski crisis line (01 520 99 00 in Slovenia, every day from 7 pm to 7 am) or the Samaritans helpline (116 123 in Slovenia, around the clock). In an emergency, call 112.

When everyone drains you. If it is not just one person who drains you but every conversation, every meeting and every message, the problem may not be your colleague. It may be a sign that you are on the edge of burnout — read Burnout is not laziness: signs your nervous system is asking for a break. In that case, a boundary with one person will not be enough.

When it is more than a tiring personality. If a colleague systematically humiliates you, excludes you, threatens you or harasses you, this is not a question of your energy but of behaviour your employer has to stop. Bullying at work is prohibited by law in Slovenia. I cannot give legal advice here, but I can tell you where to turn: to your manager or HR, to your trade union if you are a member, and to the Labour Inspectorate of the Republic of Slovenia. I wrote about how to tell one from the other in Workplace bullying or just a difficult relationship? How to tell them apart and what you can do about each

When the problem lies in the organisation. Sometimes a difficult colleague is a symptom: an overloaded department, a manager who avoids conflict, unclear roles. Your boundaries are necessary then, but not sufficient — the system has to change at a higher level. And sometimes the healthiest decision is to leave.

And when it is you. An honest question we rarely ask ourselves: could I be that colleague for someone? We all have periods when we take more than we give. That is nothing to be ashamed of. It is information.

What to remember

• The exhaustion you feel around a colleague arises in the pattern between you, not only in him — which is why you can influence it too.
• Emotions are contagious: your body really does take on another person’s tension; you are not exaggerating.
• Talking about a colleague with a third person is often a triangle that spreads the tension around rather than resolving it.
• A boundary is a clear description of what you can manage, said without blame — ideally with an agreed time instead of constant interruptions.
• If everything drains you, or if it is bullying, the answer is not better boundaries but help and action.