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Office politics and the chain of command
Queen of Swords
Member Posts: 14,355
Long read.....
First off, I love my new job, and my supervisor is a peach, who does a great job. In fact, everyone here is super, and the one person who was difficult to get along with, let alone get to know, is now gone,...however, she isn't REALLY gone...
You can just tell Missy is one of those people who walk through life with a chip on her shoulder, a genuinely miserable person, who, if you aren't miserable, or she doesn't get her way, will make your life miserable. My coworkers have told me about the office tensions she would instigate, and how everyone needed to walk around as if on eggshells so as not to insight her wrath. Don't get me wrong, she was very good at her job, consistently one of the best performers, but her attitude stunk. To reiterate this, she interviewed for the same job that my supervisor currently holds, and Missy was told after the final decision was made that the reason she didn't get the nod was because of her attitude.
Upon returning from my knee injury, I find out that Missy has taken a position in another program with another agency. Great,...only not for me. She works for a different agency, but with the same clientelle, and the same locations. As I'm meeting with my clients and their schools, word is slowly filtering down to me that it seems Missy has been bad-mouthing our program, she has gone so far as to set up her office in the office space I had obtained from the school so that I can meet with my clients in privacy, then, she confronts me and starts telling me I will have to rearrange my visit schedule, because she plans on being at the school on this and this, and this day, oh, and don't even think about using this ofice during the summer, because she is going to be here everyday. On a personal note,I suspect Missy is just trying to put a big screw to our program because she thinks she has an axe to grind over the indignity of not getting the promotion she feels she deserved. I hate pettyness in all it's forms, and this is the epiome of pettyness.
So, I report this to my immediate supervisor.
Herein lies the problem...immediate supervisor and Missy are "friends." I don't know if you can call it a friendship, because I believe Missy is just one of those personally exploitative people who is only nice to you if she thinks she can get something out of you, even if it is only to reinforce her own sense of self-importance, by allowing her to set the parameters of the relationship. My supervisor's reaction to my telling her about the things that went down at the school was something less than supportive of me, something like, "Well, that's just the way Missy is, you're going to have to work around her." I was flabergasted, she is going to allow her "friend," who is allowing her petty feelings of rejection dictate to me how I am able to do my job, in the program that she worked hard to make what it is, for the agency that she works for.
I believe my supervisor is letting her freindship dictate her response. I spoke to another co-worker from a separate program, and she agreed. She suggested that if I feel this way, I need to speak with my supervisor's supervisor, or, as it is, go up the chain of command. I will only do this as a last resort. I love my supervisor, and with the exception of this situation, have not had one complaint about her. I'm going to ave another chat with her about this again, and hope she will tell her "friend" to quit being a self-important, controlling jerk, and let me do my job.
Sorry for the rant. Will keep you posted.
First off, I love my new job, and my supervisor is a peach, who does a great job. In fact, everyone here is super, and the one person who was difficult to get along with, let alone get to know, is now gone,...however, she isn't REALLY gone...
You can just tell Missy is one of those people who walk through life with a chip on her shoulder, a genuinely miserable person, who, if you aren't miserable, or she doesn't get her way, will make your life miserable. My coworkers have told me about the office tensions she would instigate, and how everyone needed to walk around as if on eggshells so as not to insight her wrath. Don't get me wrong, she was very good at her job, consistently one of the best performers, but her attitude stunk. To reiterate this, she interviewed for the same job that my supervisor currently holds, and Missy was told after the final decision was made that the reason she didn't get the nod was because of her attitude.
Upon returning from my knee injury, I find out that Missy has taken a position in another program with another agency. Great,...only not for me. She works for a different agency, but with the same clientelle, and the same locations. As I'm meeting with my clients and their schools, word is slowly filtering down to me that it seems Missy has been bad-mouthing our program, she has gone so far as to set up her office in the office space I had obtained from the school so that I can meet with my clients in privacy, then, she confronts me and starts telling me I will have to rearrange my visit schedule, because she plans on being at the school on this and this, and this day, oh, and don't even think about using this ofice during the summer, because she is going to be here everyday. On a personal note,I suspect Missy is just trying to put a big screw to our program because she thinks she has an axe to grind over the indignity of not getting the promotion she feels she deserved. I hate pettyness in all it's forms, and this is the epiome of pettyness.
So, I report this to my immediate supervisor.
Herein lies the problem...immediate supervisor and Missy are "friends." I don't know if you can call it a friendship, because I believe Missy is just one of those personally exploitative people who is only nice to you if she thinks she can get something out of you, even if it is only to reinforce her own sense of self-importance, by allowing her to set the parameters of the relationship. My supervisor's reaction to my telling her about the things that went down at the school was something less than supportive of me, something like, "Well, that's just the way Missy is, you're going to have to work around her." I was flabergasted, she is going to allow her "friend," who is allowing her petty feelings of rejection dictate to me how I am able to do my job, in the program that she worked hard to make what it is, for the agency that she works for.
I believe my supervisor is letting her freindship dictate her response. I spoke to another co-worker from a separate program, and she agreed. She suggested that if I feel this way, I need to speak with my supervisor's supervisor, or, as it is, go up the chain of command. I will only do this as a last resort. I love my supervisor, and with the exception of this situation, have not had one complaint about her. I'm going to ave another chat with her about this again, and hope she will tell her "friend" to quit being a self-important, controlling jerk, and let me do my job.
Sorry for the rant. Will keep you posted.
Comments
Wait for a week or so re think your thoughts then go back to your supervisor.I wouldn't go over her head just yet but she needs to understand that you need to be able to do your job without it being dictated by someone who is not apart of your work group. I'm sure she probably understands this now but give it some time to sink in.
Best of luck to you!
Unless you work in the Forestry Service and have no human contact, you are going to have to deal with the "Missys" of the working world.
That's why, when I retire, ain't nobody gonna see my * off my little farm except when I make a beer run.
A desk is a tool for finding out what a person is doing. A locked desk is an invitation and that they have something to hide.
A little subterfuge is a good thing, and let's people know that there are certain people that are not to be fooled with. Pictures and videotape complete the package. You never have to show it, just let it be known it exists.
This works to perfection, as it kept several people from bothering me in my twenty years in the Sheriff's Department.
Margaret Thatcher
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
Mark Twain
I work at a place that has around 600 people. About 50 of them I have contact with on a daily basis. From contracted janitors to 5 or six superintendants. Of those 50, about half I need to "work around". Some of it's because they are union members. Some of it's because they are not. A few cases are because they are, in my opinion, stark raving mad.
Unless you work in the Forestry Service and have no human contact, you are going to have to deal with the "Missys" of the working world.
That's why, when I retire, ain't nobody gonna see my * off my little farm except when I make a beer run.
I'm a team player, I have no problem making compromises to help someone else do their job. I never had a problem with her when we worked together. I found her adolescent eye-rolls, and temper-tantrums both amusing and annoying, but she was a wealth of knowledge to me my first month, and we got along just fine.
Now, however, she is using both my "newness" and my extended absence against me. These school districts were her caseload before I was hired. When I was hired, she got shipped to a smaller satellite office, primarilly because of numerous complaints from her office-mates about her attitude and how she wanted to play the office diva. During my absence, she was supposed to be handling my caseloads for those school districts, which, come to find out, she was only making sporatic contact with the clients, and by so, delibrately undermining both the clients' and the schools' perception of the program, which she is blaming on me, saying I don't know how to do my job, instead of giving them the REAL story, which was that I broke my leg, and SHE was supposed to be making contact with them.
She knew months before she left what she was going to do. I think she wants to hurt me because she sees me as the reason she was shipped to another office.
I don't plan on giving this up without a fight. We are obviously talking about a person who is used to being able to get her way through intimidation.
I bartended in an oil field workers/biker bar. I wonder if she thinks up to this?
either that or get her alone and have a "talk" to her[}:)]
true..but i never let people get away with causing trouble for me...i never forgive...i never forget...and i always get revenge...it works well for me,or has so far in life.
I don't plan on it. My ideal situation would be to resume my established visit schedule. Let her work around me. My program worked for the office space. Our name is on the door (which, she has told me, she plans to take down). Let her schedule work around me. I'm only there two days out of a week.
Unfortunately, that will put me in bad with "the boss."