Saturday, April 28, 2012

Colleague from Hell - Tips on how to deal with it!

It's very 'steam' to work with a terrible colleague with attitude problem.
I dun tink the problem comes from my communication skils, all the while i have been maintaining good ties with my ex-col and my current teammates. I dun joke on work, in fact i see these jokes as very unprofessional, as it is not funny at all but only contributes to loosen our trust, thus jeopardizing the working relationship.
It has been numerous times she put up the "flame" on me...it's jst a matter of time when i gonna burst with her working attitude. I have been a high tolerance person, and this evil colleague is taking advantage and trying to manipulate the situation to make her feel like she's the top and no one can challenge her.
Let me depict one situation here:
I was searching high and low for numerous price quotation for a few items and noticed that i had none. Knowing this colleague who did the same task before and possibly have it, i went up to ask from her.
As usual, my polite and nice way of requesting item but somehow being returned by her 'arrogances' and rude reply of telling me that she had actually sent them out to me before. Well, it wasn't the way she replied is rude, but the words and the contents of her word sounds rude and as if challenging me that she is 'right'.
I was very sure that i did not get it coz I have searched for it before i went asking from her.
But again, she insisted that she had sent it to me.
So I was like asking her back on when did she sent it to me.
But she can't answer, keep on stressing that she had indeed sent to me.
so i narrowed down my question, saying, "It's OK that i can search in my inbox, but can u roughly tell me when did u actually sent it? I can't be searching all the mails that she sent out from last year til this year on someting that i dun even have an idea on what the content is all about (or perhaps a keyword that she used on that particular email that she had sent out). Well, indeed i have actually searched every possible keyword (by typing the product name, but none appear). So I was wondering how do i sure whether did she sent out or not? She might be claiming that but mayb she had mistakenly recalled? I can't be wasting time searching for someting that doesn't exist in my inbox?
And worse still, she is like trying to challenge me back by saying that i dun read emails that i received or sort of criticizing that i m ignorance and forgetful on recalling certain things that she had sent out.
How heck can i remember so much stuffs that i received in my inbox?
and guess how she replied?
"so u want anyone who sents someting to u to make an announcement???"
I was like perplexed with this kind of statement that she made.
I stop and thinks for awhile, coz this question is very tricky and it applies differently on different situation.
But again, i sensed that she is diverting my attention towards another topic.Yea, that clearly shows that she wants to manipulate the situation and take control to proof that she is right and i m wrong.
I did not answer that fully coz she interrupted. But again, i need to get my fast thinking in knowing how to defend myself..and i realized that she had actually put me into a situation to argue with her.
She forces the situation to the extend of getting someone to be blamed and placing fault on me.
To me, my intention is to get quotation, not to find fault on others, and i just want to get things done.I was tired of searching, and i asked another question whether did she shared out in our sharepoint (which we usually did). And i point out whether she did share it in the correct folder. She can't answer, coz in fact, she did not. She only said tht she did share out in sharepoint which is according to project names.
And i asked her, "so u want me to recall based on projects? how did i know which projects have it?"
She can't answer, coz logically it is inefficient to search thru all project folders.
She lose.
But...not wanting to lose yet, she said someting as if I accused her of being selfish and not sharing things out.
I have to explain to her that i m not accusing her of being selfish with her information, I jst want to know if she did actually sent out to me that time coz i dun get to have it or even aware of it existence.
Can u see now that she is good in diverting topics!
Well, well, well...it all started with my polite request of asking for someting which I believe she has, but it ended up sort of being in a challenge-response situation.
And later i confronted her in GTalk again, fearing that she still tinks i have the intention of accusing her of being selfish when indeed my intention is to get my things done.
So i explained again to her my purpose, and guess what she replied now?
"No worries, i m just kidding. I was bored and sleepy and wanting to get some adrenaline rush on you"I was like wtf!@#$%^
She thinks it is fun to play on other's feeling???
I was tired too, and i got no mood to kidding with her on job. It is very unprofessional to play tricks during work when people are in serious and tension mode. And she is taking the whole situation as some sort of entertainment to make her happy?
Later then, she tried searching on her outbox jst to find proof to me that she actually sent out to me sometime ago.
But she couldn't find one.
She gave me this lame excuse that she hav the habit of deleting mails after sending out.
And to put off her guilt, she immediately upload those quotation onto the sharepoint, yea, to the exact folder that i pointed earlier.
She is darn clever in covering off her mistakes and guilt!
So now, let me breakdown her wrongdoings. If i m her manager, i m gonna list them down one-by-one just like how my boss did to her:
  1. Not sharing item in the sharepoint. Or, if she did share out (as claimed), then she done it the wrong way of placing the files in the wrong folder.
  2. Not sending a copy to me. Or, if she did sent out earlier (as claimed), she should be able to tell me when was that and not asking me to search the entire history of my emails that was sent out by her.I dun even know whether that email do exist in my inbox or not. It was like searching for someting that doesn't exist. But turn out that she did not send to me coz no record was found on her site.
  3. Lying (after discovering that she did not send it out). Or perhaps giving lame excuses that she have the habit of deleting mails after sending out, this is obviously want to cover off her ass! Come on, just admit it if it's probably her mistake of recalling wrongly. She is so darn kiasu of losing face.
  4. And being high ego, even though she had knew of her mistake, she still can make various unprofessional statement and tried changing topics such as saying that I accuse her of being selfish and not sharing things out.
  5. Making false statement of people being ignorant and not checking emails.Well, u can't expect people to read and remember all your emails, but of course i m not asking u to announce every email that u sent out. This thing is very subjective, depending on the importance of the issue/message that you need to bring across in your email.
  6. Coupled with her loud voice, continous speeches and not letting people a chance to explain, she knows she is good making people feel down and manipulate a verbal conversation to side on her. But she had misuse her ability.
  7. Fooling on people's emotion, and not taking job seriously. Work is meant to be serious, yes, u can play at times but not in this kind of tense situation.
Alrite, tis is only one tiny part of my very controversial working environment. There were many encounters that i had to tolerate with her and sometimes i wish i dun have to tell this out in my blog...but i jst wanna share out to u guys that this colleague from hell had done so much dramas that damages our working relationship. I m gonna share out a few in the future coz i wanna tell u guys what shouldn't be done in working place.
It's good that she has been warned by boss of her attitude. Despite serving her resignation notice, she is still unaware of her wrongdoings and keep on creating nuisance at work. I just hope that she learns it someday or get a feel of what is it like being the opposite site (of being a fooled victim). And sad enuff, i hav lost trust on her and i m not goin to let her stay if she can't find a job out there. After all I hav already given her many chances to be taken advantage-off (till she gets promoted from being my sub to be in the same level as me coupled of months back) and now i m not goin to giv a hell chance to her to step on me again.

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