My problem is this: I feel constantly undermined and belittled by another employee.
Its a large company with many branches but our actual office only consists of five people.
I started at the company as a part timer, with little or no responsibilty. Then I was given a "promotion" of sorts. A promotion I neither wanted nor asked for. I thought I would give it a go anyhow, there was no pay rise, just an increase in hours and responsibilty.
I try to do well at this position although I don't really like what im doing now. The woman who did this job before me has moved into another department. She's probably no higher than me really but this other department has always been seen as the one that makes the most money.
Now I am doing, essentially, her previous job although I havent been trained on it fully, there are still some things that she continues to do. It hasn't been completely "handed over" to me yet.
This is a fair point. BUT...we are now down two members of staff. When she did this job, she had me to help her with the mundane tasks. I dont have a "helper". When I take a holiday, she does not cover my work, its all left for me to sort out when I get back. This leaves me seriously behind. I have deadlines to meet and it just doesn't happen. When she takes a holiday, I find I suddenly have people ringing up from all over, throwing problems at me that she hasn't bothered to sort out. Either way, I have double the workload. Perhaps because im a pushover, I dont like to delegate
I also find these days that answering the telephone is mostly left to me. Now im not a receptionist and nowhere in my contract does it say im solely responsible for this. I've tried ignoring it, but its just left to ring and ring. We could lose business over that and so I answer it.
This woman has attitude with work. She's unwilling to help anyone, to sort out problems etc etc. Her answer to it all is "fuck it, im too busy". She doesn't return phonecalls, or emails and doesn't care one iota about letting people down. She sits at her desk and laughs about it.
I feel under pressure to get things right, as really im the trainee and need to prove myself. Im stressed, and unhappy. I have tried to go straight to her (Im not into backstabbing) and tell her im not comfortable with how things are going. She has made excuses and laughed in my face..telling me I need to step up and prioritise my work. At which point I could have easily exploded as I was "prioritising" my work when she was still in school. I could make the point that although im not yet trained in everything she did, the things I do know how to do, are done straight away and not left in a heap on my desk as is hers.
I want to make it clear to my manager that this is not working out. But my manager is close with this woman and I know for a fact anything I say will be repeated to her.
I feel so trapped. I need my job. I dont want to make myself unpopular, but im feeling downtrodden and something has to change. If I were to have a "chat" with my manager about all this and it was repeated, where would I stand?
I dont want to start lodging formal complaints with HR in a head office far away. But I know from experience, if it ever comes to the crunch, I will be asked why I didn't complain in writing.
How can I sort this out?
Apologies, for such a long post.
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4 replies
EmployeeFromHell · 18/09/2007 19:48
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