[dspillett]

> There's a tangent behavior where people are difficult because it gives them power/control.

Another common one, which I've hit a few times, is that people who are being difficult are doing it mainly to get out of doing what they've been asked to do, or at least one particular detail of it, because they see it as a chore or they are simply incapable. They hope that by badgering you for every tiny detail, you'll eventually get exasperated and do that step for them because it is quicker and easier than dealing with them as they do their best not to get it done.

Sometimes management is quite savvy to the problems this causes and when reported they deal with it. Though in one example they didn't take the matter seriously at all until I was actively interviewing for other positions, because one way or another I was going to stop having to deal with that person (and the overtime I was doing to get my own work finished having spent large chunks of time trying to stop him make the project fail). This was far from his only flaw as a colleague: having massively lied about both ability and experience on his CV (which I didn't know about at the time, I was not involved with the recruiting) being the big one that was cited officially when they got rid of him.