Assigned a new partner? Difficult to work with? Difficult people do exist at work. Difficult people come in every variety and no workplace is without them. How difficult a person is for you to deal with depends on your self-esteem, your self-confidence and your professional courage. Dealing with difficult people is easier when the person is just generally obnoxious or when the behavior affects more than one person. Dealing with difficult people is much tougher when they are attacking you or undermining your professional contribution.

Ten ways to approach dealing with difficult people:

• Start out by examining yourself.
• Explore what you are experiencing with a trusted friend or colleague.
• Approach the person with whom you are having the problem for a private discussion.
• Follow up after the initial discussion.
• You can confront your difficult coworker’s behavior publicly.
• If you have done what you can do and employed the first five recommended approaches with little or no success, it’s time to involve others.
• Rally the other employees who might have an issue with the difficult person, too — carefully.
• If these approaches fail to work, try to limit the difficult person's access to you.
• Transfer to a new job within your organization.
• If all else fails, you can quit your job.

Read more about each of these 10 approaches [http://humanresources.about.com/od/workrelationships/a/difficultpeople.htm]