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I'm sure you've all worked in environments where there is someone who seems to make life a living, well, heck (you know what I mean) for everyone. These people seem to delight in destroying others, and oftentimes their wrath appears to be focused on you. In fact, I'm sure you've worked in a place where someone was not only making your job difficult, but everyone else's as well. Of course, everyone but the boss. Somehow, the boss never seems to see these things, eh?
Here is the result of 25 years of experience on the job as a programmer, systems analyst, designer, operating systems designer and programmer, VP consulting and director. I've had as many as a dozen people working for me at a time directly, and several dozen indirectly. People are all different and some people are more difficult to deal with than others. People have their quirks and differences and these need to be respected. For those instances, the best thing to do is to be tolerant and allow people to have their differences.
People also have bad days (or longer), personal lives and who knows what going on outside work. Generally, these things tend to cause short term problems or perhaps even some hostility now and then. We are all human and we are all entitled to have personal lives that are not perfect and a bad day now and then.
However, if someone is directly making your life miserable, the next thing to do is examine (briefly) what you are doing. Are you doing something doing something to annoy or tick off this person? If so, stop doing it (if possible). This usually involves a gentle conversation (or several) with the person. Non-confrontational. Be very nice and gentle. You don't want to make them even more upset, you just want to find out what you are doing so you can knock it off.
It could be something as silly as hanging an offensive picture up on your wall (which you could just remove) or cracking your knuckles (which might drive someone up the wall). It could be more complex, perhaps you are constantly correcting them, or interrupting them in meetings or treating them like children.
In my case, I've found this works almost all of the time. On those occasions, however, when it didn't I have learned the next step is an investigation. This is reserved for those people who are more than just "hard to deal with" or who "don't like me". No, this step is applied to people who are actually hostile or working hard to discredit me or talking behind my back and so on. Further, I usually only proceed to this step if it's obvious that it's not just me the person is making miserable. If lots of people are being effected, then something's going on and it needs to get handled.
These people (and they are rare) need to be investigated and, if indeed they are doing something wrong, either their behavior needs to be corrected corrected or the person needs to find employment elsewhere. In these cases, it's absolutely impossible to be nice to them, to talk to them, to do anything with them that would work with rational people. It's usually the case that they are doing something that makes them irrational.
The first lesson I had in this was when I was in Junior High School. We had a child on the block that was making everyone miserable. Not just miserable, but he was actually causing severe harm. Nothing worked. Talking to the child didn't work. Talking to the parents didn't work. Calling the cops didn't do anything. Finally, the entire neighborhood visited the parents house and made it very clear, in no uncertain terms, that the family had to leave. Period. I was just a kid and was not invited, but I can imagine that their conversation was, well, very to the point. The family moved within a short time and the problem was solved (no violence was involved - it was just made clear to the parents that they should live elsewhere).
When I was 17 years old I managed a liquor store. My boss hired someone to work with me. The person was very hostile to me and most of the rest of the employees. He was also rude to customers and didn't do a very good job - except, of course, when the boss was around. I tried to talk to him, reason with him, but nothing worked. Finally, I looked around and found he was "skimming" the profits. A quick conversation with the boss, who did his own investigation. I didn't see the person again.
I remember one person my boss hired as a C programmer, name of Mark. He was actively attacking me and others soon after he was hired. My boss thought he as the best thing since sliced bread and nothing anyone said could convince him otherwise. So I did my own investigation, and quickly found he had lied on his resume. Mark had never taken a single C class and had never even seen the C language before. He was desperately trying to hide it. When this was proved to my boss, the guy was fired immediately.
Over the years since, I've found people that were using the computer for their own personal projects. I've found them downloading things they shouldn't be. I've found them even stealing and doing other sinister things. Always these people were either "hostile" or "backstabbing".
I remember working with one person, name of Gene, who was always bad-mouthing the company. No one could ever do anything right, and all decisions that were made were incorrect. He was not fired because he was "indispensable". One day he just disappeared. Gone. Someone saw him look up, curse, take off his jacket, throw is to the ground and walk out. He mumbled something like he wasn't going to take it anymore. We were all shocked, but when we looked around ourselves we found he had been stealing and taking drugs while working (hard drugs).
These and many other similar events have convinced me that sometimes, rarely, the only way to handle some people is to get them gone. Of course, only after a thorough investigation and after giving them the opportunity to respond and, in some cases, even to stop and make up for what they have done. People sometimes have reasons for what they are doing, and even if they are doing wrong, occasionally a person will want to correct their behavior and perhaps even make amends for their wrongdoing.
It's taken me 25 years of hard observation during my working life, but my golden rule is real simple. "Honest people want to get along with others". In fact, even mildly dishonest people want to get along, or at least just want to be left alone. It's only the really dishonest people that try and make things miserable for everyone else. That particular piece of information has never led me wrong.