Finally - a breakdown, I mean, breakthrough

This is a post about a goal I set for myself to stop letting my control-freak co-worker get to me...


I arrived to find a message from her at 6:15 when she knows damn well that I don’t arrive until 8:00. She was almost civil and “sweetly” told me that in regards to the question I had asked, not to worry about it as it was part of her responsibilites.

After suffering a breakdown, (a crying jag at my desk which was almost unrelated – my husband returns from a 2-1/2 week overseas trip on Friday, which has given me a renewed respect for single motherhood) I pulled myself together and went on about my day. In the afternoon as I was headed to the kitchen to see if there were any goodies, I was stopped along the way by an especially detail-oriented engineer. He questioned me on something particular which I honestly didn’t have anything to do with so I told him to ask her about it. I even supplied him with her extension # off the top of my head.

So he called and left a message and his closing sentence was just asking for trouble – He said “and B here is claiming its all your fault”

My face fell!

With all the problems we were already having (which he of course knew nothing about) he had potentially made the situation SO much worse. So I marched myself over to my boss and requested a meeting for the 3 of us (he is her supervisor also)

I know he knew it was coming (I have a source in HR who told me to be honest when he came to me about it – which leads me to believe that maybe she had already complained) but he dead-panned and looked at me as if to ask what for?

We had the meeting this afternoon and I am SO proud of myself. I was mostly professional and calm, cool and collected, and not get emotional. I weathered personal attacks and barbs citing my myriad mistakes and pitfalls. I wasn’t prepared for her barrage, but I tried to remain calm and acknowledge the problems while not wasting the opportunity I had to get things out in the open. I brought up several concerns and from some of the supervisor’s comments I could tell that I had the upper hand, so to speak. And we did clarify some issues.

Once the issues were covered, he summarily dismissed me, saying “You go, you stay”. I have never been dismissed before but he “kept her after class” to talk to her more. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall!

Later in the afternoon he approached me at my “office” in cube-land to ask if I thought it was productive. He also said that she wasn’t going to change, that “that’s just how she is” and asked if he should start looking for another position for me, whereas my face fell and I said poutingly (is that even a word) that I liked this dept and that I would give it some time as long as I could learn and grow.

I think I’ll approach him tomorrow and see about getting a different position within the dept. In any case I feel a bit compartmentalized in this position and that my skills are not being used to the utmost. I also have inside information that another dept will be losing its exec asst as she is unhappy in her position and wants to move to our dept. So we’ll see what happens next.

Stay tuned for the next episode in this ever-unfolding drama!