When was the last time you really wanted (or needed) to say something, but kept quiet? Write a post about what you should’ve said.
I have this struggle almost on a daily basis. Because otherwise I’ll fucking explode and possibly end up getting fired.
So, there’s a situation at work, and there’s a lot of tension between myself and another co-worker. She’s older than I am, and there’s just something not right about her. Personally, I think that she might possibly be bi-polar, or that whatever medication she is on, is affecting her mental and emotional state and she’s just not realising it. Now, I can completely understand this, and sympathise, but there’s a line, and bitch, she fucking crosses it constantly.
She can be quite difficult to work with. Other people in the office have had experiences where they have given her work to do, and she simply says no, or she’ll have a go at them for having the audacity for giving her so much work to do (which is actually quite simple, remedial tasks). Being an older person in the workplace, she clearly has issues with her memory, because she will be shown how to do something, for example, on the database, and she will take as many notes as possible and then somebody will sit with her again and go through the process step-by-step, and she’ll take more notes, then a day or two later, she’ll say that she has no idea how to do it; completely forgetting (or ignoring) that somebody also went through it with her. It will be pointed out that she took notes, and then she will sometimes even deny that it’s her handwriting. A majority of tasks or information she will deny having an knowledge of. Being told about a new process for doing something – deny. Being told about a new telephone system being installed – deny. She has even had a few run ins with her manager about her workload, and her role, denying that she was employed for a multitude of the things that she was actually employed to do – she just refuses to do it.
She’s been shown her original employment contract and position description, and refuses to accept that she was ever shown that, despite it being her signature on the forms… knowing her, she probably denies it even being her signature or her handwriting… Clearly, there is something wrong with her memory, but that’s having such a significant impact on the rest of the people who work with her.
For me, personally, it’s so difficult to work with her. She walks around the office with this attitude of being so busy all the time, but she actually has almost nothing to do. Most of the time she just sits at her desk reading her book, or knitting, or fighting on the phone with her daughter that lives interstate… and yet still gets paid. What really pisses me off is when she starts to micro-manage me, and concern herself with the work that I’m doing, and the work that the ladies in our Finance department are doing, almost as though she is entitled to know exactly what we’re doing. I have to deal with it on a daily basis, and it drives me fucking crazy. Sometimes I just need to leave the office so that I can calm down, because I’m just so close to the edge with her, and I know that if I go over that edge, I’m going to unleash a fucking demon, and literally rip this woman to shreds. I am more than aware of how volatile I can be, ESPECIALLY when I’m in such a fucking rage, and I completely flip out… I see nothing but white, and I end up having no recollection of anything that happens… but I know that I go batshit fucking crazy.
Now, in saying that, that’s the last thing that I want to do, because I know that if it were to happen, I’d end up probably getting fired, and well, considering where I work, it’s pretty hard to ever get fired… but I would. Trying to talk to her is something that everybody is afraid of because you just don’t know which persona you’re going to get. Some days she’s really quite pleasant, and friendly and helpful, and others she’s so nasty and mean and disappears for extended periods of time.
There have been countless conversations with my manager about her, and even I have admitted that I’m on the verge of completely losing it, and god help anybody in the immediate vicinity if / when I explode, because I’ll be coming for her, and anybody else who wants to get in my way. My manager has acknowledged that the employers are also aware of the situation, and the grievances amongst other employees with this woman, but even the employees are too scared to talk to her, because they don’t know which persona they’ll get.
It does my head in. Stop being so fucking scared. You’re not there to be her friend, you’re her EMPLOYER. Something needs to be said.. hell, something has needed to be said for at least twelve months, if not longer, and every day that goes past, is just another day that lets her behaviour chip away at me. I don’t want to have to be the one that has the talk with her, but because of everybody elses reluctance to do so, I feel as though I have no other choice. I’ve even suggested getting in a mediator – an impartial party – to facilitate the conversation… but it’s just fallen on deaf ears.
It’s getting to a point where I don’t want to come to work, simply because she tends to be that unpleasant… and nobody in our workplace should have to feel like that…
adorablyobnoxious 