I Finally Said "NO" but It's Biting Me in the Butt

[snookumsnort]

I got hired last year to work with this person who's more senior than I am just because she has been with the company longer. The thing is, lately, she keeps volunteering for additional work with out boss even if she can't handle the shared load we have alone. Most of the time, she dumps the dirty and tedious work on me.

I really don't mind but I have my own workload to worry. When I see her chatting her mouth off the phone for 30 minutes while I work to catch up, its frustrating. So this Thursday & Friday, she asked me to do 2 mundane tasks. One was to deposit 1 stinking check in the bank that she can very well do on her own. The other was to re-check everything she did to make sure it was accurate (we always check our own work...even the manager said that). And I flat-out said "NO".

Now, there's this other chick who shares the office with us. When she's asked to help out with work, she keeps saying out loud "Oh, I absolutely have NO problem doing that." She says it at least 3x without people asking her. I'm seriously doubting if I did the right thing now.

[CopyCat]

Well snookums I don't know what you should do...
But it does sound as if you have put yourself in a bad situation...
But reading this just makes me so happy that I don't have to deal with office politics...
I have a couple of buddies that are computer programers and they belly ache to me and
each other about that office crap all the time... I don't think I would make a very good office cat myself...

[Binkleywalker]

Had a similar situation but in retail. Its hard to advance anywhere in the situation I was in when everything was seniority based. Well, unless I gave the place several years, but I tended to get bored with an employer like that at around the 3 or 4 year mark. Needless to say, as in your situation, it generates an unusual amount of work place politics.

[BabyJane]

Sounds like she's the typical office Psycho to me! Smiling to the boss's face & pretending she's No. 1 employee of the year ..... then getting someone else to do the work she's supposed to do!

There's loads of stuff on the net on how to deal with these people but I found a particularly good link very recently because my daughter-in-law, who is a very capable person and excellent at her job, has suddenly found herself having to work with someone who thinks she's the bees-knees and for some reason the bosses think so to. Until they wise up, my d-i-law needs to know how to deal with this two-faced person so I sent her this info - and she's said that it has been very helpful indeed!

Dealing with the office psycho « Angry 365 Days a Year

Good luck!

[snookumsnort]

OMG Baby Jane! That article hit the nail on the head! I couldn't help laughing when they mentioned that the friendliest person in the office could turn out to be the psycho! Hahaha! But it's so true with this co-worker of mine. Because we're the only 2 sharing the workload, nobody else really gets to work with them. And because no one else really knows her "results-oriented" side, no one will believe me if I do complain about her.

[BabyJane]

Glad to be of service! My daughter-in-law said that she felt much relieved after reading it to discover that she wasn't, in fact, becoming 'precious' or over-sensitive! She felt she was being sidelined by a colleague who suddenly wanted to know the how, what, why & where of my d-i-law's job. As this girl had only been brought in to help, d-i-law was getting a bit concerned that her boss was apparently becoming hostile towards her.

Seems that her 'helper' colleague ensured that any phone calls from MDs of their biggest clients which were actually for my d-i-law were being taken by the helper. So of course d-i-law was being kept out of the loop on important decisions and organizing stuff. By sidelining my d-i-law this colleague cleverly made it look like she was the one doing all the organizing and that my d-in-law was letting things slide! Worse, because the girl is actually not very well organized and doesn't know half of what's supposed to be done, it made my d-i-law - in the eyes of these very important clients - look inefficient. But of course, she didn't know that little miss Trixty was taking stuff on herself but when it went wrong, somehow made my d-i-law look like the one who'd messed up

As a consequence of reading that link, she has learned a few tricks on how to ensure she's one step ahead of her little helper.

In the meantime, she's looking for another job - she reckons if her bosses are so fickle that they don't recognize all the hard work she's done over the past 10 years and instead have fallen for the googly charm of her little helper who just an office psycho in disguise, well it's their own fault

[purplefdu]

I can't say I miss office politics either.I spent four years busting tail to be told I had a "bad attitude" that was keeping me from a promotion. Apparently backstabbing is a preferable attitude to helpful and hard working. I simply left at that point.

[layla]

I've found there are politics everywhere you work; even if you work as a contractor you have to deal with pain in the booty co-workers that you just can't seem to be rid of. And if you are self employed, then you have the headache that goes along with that. You just can't win. I guess that's why it's called work.