Of all the four letter words available to us in the English language, "work" can be one of the most distasteful.

You may be reading this over your morning coffee, getting ready to start the work week. If you are one of the most fortunate among us, you get to do something for a living that you truly enjoy.

You have a career.

Or you may be in the group that does something for a living, just to put bread on the table.

You have a job.

Whether you have a job or a career, the vast majority of us spend the majority of our waking hours working.

Handling the many stresses of work can be an exhausting experience. One of the most difficult sfressors of work cart be dealing with professional relationships. Whether you are dealing with a boss, a co-worker or an employee, relationships at work can be a tremendous source of stress.

Let's take a look at two different ways of handling stressful relationships in the workplace.

One of the most useful distinctions to make about a work relationship is the difference between dolphins and sharks. Let me explain through the use of a metaphor. When you go to the beach, it's usually fairly safe to swim in the water with dolphins. Swimming with sharks, on the other hand, is a very dangerous activity. The trouble is, sometimes when you're in the water it can be very difficult to tell the difference between the dolphins and the sharks.

In the workplace, dolphins are the people you can trust. Sharks are the people that, at best, you can't trust and, at worst, you have to protect yourself against.

Dolphin traits