Jurk at my work…Advice?

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Hey guys

 I sorta need to vent and any advice you have, or similar experiences would be sooo helpful!! There’s this girl I work with, she’s a secretary. When I first started this job I was on to assist with administrative duties so I was working closely with her. We made friends, and although we never hung out outside of work, I’d say we were friends. We talked etc. Anyways the person I was covering for came back and I was moved upstairs to take on a different job. We remained friends. Once a couple of weeks ago, we had to go on a business lunch that didn’t include any of the people downstairs (her included) but not just her. Since then she’s been giving me the cold shoulder and trying to make my life miserable at work (and somewhat succeeding). It’s not me, as her reputation here, even with the boss is that she’s unduly angry, rude to everyone and doesn’t do much work. I don’t feel I could confront her about how she’s behaving. I want to make a complaint with HR and my manager, but I don’t know…What do you guys think?

The even that precipitated me being upset today is this: Our emails are stored on the computer hard drive they were opened on. Over christmas I covered for her duties for two weeks, and so used her computer. I needed to access a couple of those emails (that would be on her computer) as a manager needed me to track some things for them. I knew she would be, well you know the b word. So I brought a coworker with me when I asked to use her computer. I was polite and explained why I needed her computer and that I would be five minutes. She rudely questioned me, then stomped off. Came over to me twice and slammed things down on her desk and stomped around, and I heard her complaining to someone else about me (although how she could complain about me politely needing her computer for five minutes to satisfy managerial demand is beyond me) but yeh, you can see why I am soo GRRRR!! UGH!

 

What would you guys suggest? Or, have you had a similar experience?

 

[Beka27]

i would talk to whomever is in charge or HR.  you shouldn’t have to deal with the bad treatment for doing your job.  and… she is complaining to other people about you and probably saying things/spreading rumors that are not even remotely true.  nip it in the bud.  now.  before things get out of hand.  once people have an impression of you, a wrong one at that, it’s hard to reverse it.  i’ve had this situation, not exactly but similar, and it can be awkward… but you’re not a “tattletale” or anything for going higher up.

[RabbitPam]

I’m a little more cautions about approaching HR initially, due to a trusting attitude with them only to have, and know others, who had it backfire on them. The goal of HR is to work for higher management first, and keep things running smoothly, even if it means getting rid of both of you to end a conflict, unjust as that may be. That warning said, there are many HR folks who will stand with you.

Can you try approaching her once first? If she’s acting out all over, and her work has slipped, it sounds like problems at home might be happening. You could say something like, “I miss the fact that we used to be friends. Is there anything I can do to clear the air? I’m concerned about you, and wondered if you were aware that it’s been noticed that you are upset often. I hope there’s nothing wrong and if you need to talk I’d like to.” That at least provides a sympathetic, friendly option for her to take based on your former friendship.

The be prepared for a very, very common issue at work between friends. When one moves up, the other resents and gets hurt and mean. Few people who start out on the same level can maintain a relationship when one is doing better than the other. It won’t help her to hear from you that her work is not good, it will fan the flames. Even if you APPEAR to be above her, literally with the move to the new floor, she can be feeling that way. Most people who grow to hate a job for many reasons begin to subtly sabotage their own advancement, kind of like picking fights with a boyfriend so he’ll break up with you and then can feel justified hating him. She actually may be bringing it about indirectly. She may be just lumping you in with the “bad management” whose only fault might be just not rewarding her for her mediocre work performance. She is probably safer acting out her bitterness with you than if she did it in front of a boss who could fire her for it.

However, you DO NOT have to put up with slander and rumor-mongering behind your back from her if it can be proved and is damaging your work reputation. That’s when HR can and should step in.

[kimberleyanddarren]

i know this may seem childish to you, but i wouldnt go to HR because like rabbitpam said things can go nasty and backfire, so i would be inclined to just give her the cold shoulder, let her know what it is like, stomp about near her and just let her know that it doesnt bother you in the slightest if she is going to be a b*tch to u u can be an even bigger one to her!
ok so thats probably not the best thing to do – but it would be nice! lol
realistically i think rabbitpam is right, ask her if something is wrong if she still acts funny to u then go to HR and say you have tried to work it out but she just wont have it, that way they will see her as childish and wont assume that you are part of the problem. good luck keep us posted!

[babybunsmum]

having just read thru your post & the 3 replies i think in your situation i’d combine all 3.   

first talk to her sympathetically even if it has been a long time since your friendship went cold.  like rabbitpam mentions, if you take that approach you may give her opportunity to come clean about something thats going on with her.   clearly something *is* going on with her.  and this would be the least risky approach imho because it can remain between the 2 of you (officially anyways… not that she couldn’t go & talk about it with others, but in that case i think it’d be difficult for her to make you look bad).  but she may not be willing to admit it or she may not even be aware of it herself.  i agree with the possibility that she’s self-sabotaging… i’ve seen that happen often when some one gets tired of their job.  then they can eventually leave with the ‘good riddance’ attitude and feel no regret.

if that falls flat or worsens her disposition towards you then i think it’s worth a trip to HR.  especially if her behaviour includes disparaging you.  altho i say this never having worked in a company big enough to have an HR, lol, so i may be oblivious of the politics involved.  does your company have a performance review, or do you have an immediate manager who regualrily monitors your work?  i think an important thing is to be protective of your own job performance and have it recognized.  sort of a ‘watch your back’ type thing so that she cannot dis-credit you and put your job at risk.

an alternative or follow up to the other options would be to ignore her as much as possible and just chalk her behaviour upto her childishness. 

the last office i worked at before i went freelance had a couple of employees, in departments other than mine, who i had to interact with and who were verrrry difficult personalities.   i worked in the design department which is always the bottle-neck department… always working on a highest priority job as determined by my boss with other jobs breathing down your neck.  basically, 2 people in particular, would throw tantrums if they couldn’t get what they wanted fast enough.  literal tantrums.  yelling, foot stomping, arm flailing, paper throwing tantrums.  at first i was shocked and freaked out by the behavior, but i soon realized that this was what happened in the big board room meetings with the owner of the firm so they there was basically nothing i could do about it but cope.  in my situation i wasn’t the person calling the shots anyways, so i’d deflect the problem to my boss and ultimately, whoever threw the biggest tantrum with my boss got their way.  needless to say i didn’t stay there very long.  my blood pressure is high enough anyways.

it’s a good thing you don’t have to work closely with this gal.  but if she contiues to be a biotch then find the best way to ignore her, and make sure there are people around you who can vouch for the fact that you’re doing your job well.  good luck!

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Thanks everyone for your input!!

Everyone here really encouraged me to go to HR. We actually only have one lady here who’s quite kind. Also technically I would not worry about losing my job in this climate, we have such a labor crisis here, there’s no way anyone is losing there job in this province for anything! Companies are having to reduce their hours or services because they don’t have staff!! So Anywhoo…I went to her with a “this is what’s happening what would you suggest I do” attitude. She took it very seriously as she said she’d seen this girl do this to lots of other people, even herself included! She encourage me to contact the girl and try to clear it up, but to not ‘bend’ to her. Like, she wanted me to confront her about how she’s acting. She said of course if it doesn’t work, they’d step in. So I emailed her today, she responded basically brushing me off and pretending she’d done nothing and I was ignoring her. I’m trying to formulate a response to that (which I’ll get approved with HR before sending to her..)

I”M just choked that she can act like that and then when called on it try to turn it around. In addressing that I’ve got this “I don’t like that you’re brushing me off and acting as if I misinterpreted your behavior towards me on Friday. We both know that you stomped around and slammed the files down. It was very clear the message you were trying to get across. When you are that clear in communicating to someone that you’re mad at them, you can’t very well turn around later and pass it off as nothing. ” Whatdaya think?

[Holly]

I think you did the wise thing going to HR. I would be cautious how you respond to her, so going to HR for approval sounds good. I was in a situation a year ago where one of the administrators yelled at me in front of students for not keeping my class in the classroom for pre-registration. I didn’t do anything wrong because we let out at the proper time. She was the one was late. My supervisor asked me to write an e-mail to our department. She forwarded to the gril’s boss. She was reprimanded for this. I was embarased because I thought she should of talked to me privately.

[RabbitPam]

It sounds like your HR person is going to be helpful.
Another word of caution: try to do your communicating with her in person, and put a minimum in writing if you can avoid it. Emails are a record, and it can be passed around to other staff you’d rather not get involved.

Frankly, as soon as you mentioned HR’s response about her having this issue with other people all the time, I wanted to slap my forehead and say “of course.” Someone smarter than me once told me that if I ever have a problem with a co-worker, it’s very, very likely that other people are also having that problem and I am not alone. Which means, if you’ve notice it, her boss has, HR has, etc. They probably need documentation to escalate it to getting rid of her, so she may just get passed around to lousy jobs until she quits. (I once heard a boss describe doing just that intentionally to get a good person to quit because she actually asked for a raise for doing a good job. He hurt me too a year later. Glad to be out of there.)

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