Isn't it ironic?

Only a few weeks ago I had my Year 11 students read a text that began with the comment: "She's/he's very talented, just not very good at dealing with co-workers". Later, they had to write a composition giving advice on how to deal with difficult classmates or co-workers. It resulted in the best batch of compositions I got all year.

Unfortunately, dealing with unhelpful or downright mean colleagues or being labelled "difficult" myself when I try not to take their crap lying down is something I have experienced more frequently than is acceptable during the past 20 years in the teaching profession.