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have you ever made a formal complaint against a colleague, and did it right anything......

12 replies

cornedbeefpasty · 29/01/2009 16:29

....or were you left in a difficult situation afterwards?

one of my collegues is making my life very difficult again at the moment. he's rude, uncooperative, will not speak to me unless he can't not iykwim, has a terrible attitude towards me, and the "client group" we work with, is unprofessional at many times and so on.....

he is good friends with the boss, who i really like, he knows that i have had issues with this guy before, but does nothing, even when things are blatently wrong and i know it won't be dealt with effectivly by him....

i'm worried about making a complaint, but nothing changing, and him still working with me, knowing that i complained.... also worried about being seen as a troublemaker by others. i have a feeling that i may well get him into a lot of trouble if i do start this, and possibly get his employment terminated. am worried about this in general, but also don't want the stress that will come with an ongoing complaint....

its getting to the stage that i'm feeling sick about going to work.

any advice welcome.

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thisisyesterday · 29/01/2009 21:07

bump

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cornedbeefpasty · 30/01/2009 07:51

thanks thisis!

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bellavita · 30/01/2009 08:10

Yes, but a very long time ago now.

I worked in a Life Assurance Office and one of the consultants (not on the dept that I worked for, but still on the same floor as me) used to come back from socialising every Friday afternoon really drunk. I used to dread it.

He used to make sexual remarks to me and it went on and on and on. Now I am all for a laugh and a giggle, but this was going too far.

I complained to my Branch Manager. The guy had to go through a disciplinary and it all went down on his file. Needless to say, it did stop, he did apologise and it did not go against me.

Hope this helps.

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sobloodystupid · 30/01/2009 08:11

I'm afraid I made a formal complaint against a colleague which was subsequently upheld. Since then I've been ignored by my entire old team & managment and think I have a reputation as a troublemaker. I did try going down the informal route first though and would recommend that you would try and have a chat with the person involved making your boss aware of this. If it's making you sick then it clearly is impacting you and your work. Good luck honey!

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LaTourEiffel · 30/01/2009 08:13

I know that if I was on the receiving end of what I'm about to say, I'd probably be a bit annoyed at first, but please bear with me.

I think the key question is; Do you need to complain about him, or do you need to find a way to handle him? If you make a complaint, you tend to be seen as a moaner making life difficult, if you can change your approach so that it looks like you've identified a problem but struggling to find a solution then people, HR, your boss etc will be more willing to find a way of helping sort it out. Complaints are really hard for them to deal with without everyone getting really upset.

I'm speaking from experience, I've been working for my boss for over a year now and find it very, very, very hard work, we seem to have a lot in common and want the same goals, we just choose very different paths to get there and that has caused a lot of clashes and my stress levels have escalated out of control (lots of illness, return of depression etc as well as daily feeling sick about going to work) so I decided I couldn't go on anymore - if HR couldn't fix it, I'd have to leave, and as I'm currently ttc and due to current job conditions, didn't really want to take that path - so threw myself into the hands of our new HR manager.

Because she's adopted the view that we are both individuals with our own ways of doing things, we've been able to talk openly to each other about what each other does that upsets each other (with HR mediating as it would never have worked otherwise) and make some 'rules' for us to work by.

It helped me to realise some of the triggers that I was doing that annoyed her as well as vice versa.

I'm not for one minute suggesting that you are doing anything to cause this behaviour, and its certainly not anyones fault - but sometimes two people just don't rub along easily and the only course of action is to acknowledge it, discuss it and work out a plan that you can both stick to.

I don't know if this can be of any help, but at the very least, let you know I know how hard and horrible and scary it is, especially the being worried about saying anything bit.

I also think my scenario has been exceptionally well handled by the new hr boss and without her, it simply wouldn't have been possible.

I hope things work out for you, good luck.

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LaTourEiffel · 30/01/2009 08:16

Right, I've just re-read this bit: Do you need to complain about him, or do you need to find a way to handle him? and it makes me sound like I'm suggesting you need to find a way of putting up with him, but I'm not, really not.

I hope you get what I was trying to say....

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cornedbeefpasty · 30/01/2009 09:11

thanks everyone.. (psst, bella, its me, "onion!" hello!!)

eiffal....i get exactly what you're trying to say, and i wholeheartedly agree with you.... i think that this is getting personal now though with the bloke...he doesn't seem to do it to others, although others have had the same treatment from him over the years as i have before too.

i went to work last night and all was much better. there was an incident the night before, but i went in with a thought on how to handle him, and it did work.....but i don't feel that i deserve to be treated in such a poor way, and whilst sometimes i am able to confront hoim when he is openly rude or nasty, i don't always have the strength to do it iykwim?

i am activly looking for another job, so fingers crossed for that eh? thanks...its good to know i'm not alone really. x

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slug · 30/01/2009 09:17

On the other hand...I once put in a formal grevience about a colleague. I did it after much soul searching and stress. Once it was in (and, eventually, upheld) my colleagues gradually one after the other came out in open support of me. It turns out, he had been doing the same thing to almost everyone, I was just the person who was brave, or reckless, enough to stand up to him.

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southernsoftie · 30/01/2009 11:56

Not sure what kind of work environment you are in but we are just setting up a mediation service where I am and some sort of mediation along the lines LaTour suggested may be a way forward. Idea with mediation is that you try to sit down with the other party (with the help of a mediator)and agree what the problems are, with a view to then coming up with solutions. That way no-one is to "blame" and no-one gets disciplined, you just find a way of working round each other's foibles. It also means that you are not having a solution imposed on you which could lead to resentment if one or other side feels they have been found responsible for the problem. Not suggesting for a minute that you are doing anything wrong, but sometimes it just creates the right impression with the employer if you are willing to deal with it on a no blame basis.

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OneLieIn · 30/01/2009 12:02

I have complained about 2 colleagues in the past. First one was very senior and bang out of order in sexually harassing me. Because he was senior, no-one really stood up for me, people denied me having said things to them like "He is really creeping me out" and "Get him away from me". I was alienated for quite a while afterwards, but I made an informal HR complaint (as in we didn't get witness statements etc), which was enough to get the guy out of the company.

Second was a similar thing where a guy was behaving really badly. I spoke to his line manager informally and said if he did not sort it immediately, I would go to HR. He sorted it, the guy apologised and we all moved on.

Don't let work make you sick, its not worth it.

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bellavita · 30/01/2009 14:08

cornedbeefpasty - I had wondered where you had got to, now I know

Hope you get this sorted. x

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priyanka013 · 25/01/2015 07:24

I have a question about f.i.r ...
Actually i am working in a real estate group in vaishali gzb and i up and down daily from murad nagar which is so far from vaishali metro and my office timings is 10 am to 7 pm which is too much late for me, when i joined this company there is no commitment about timings issue like if i got late after 10 am then my salary will be deduct but still during my interview i informed to my director that this office is too far for me so may be i will be a litte late.but now from last 2-3 months my office accountant bothering me and said this month i will deduct your 15 days salary because i am late 15 days this month while i worked full 30 days.
doing work here is my helplessly because there is no one to help me in my family and i do not have any other source of income to survive. please tell me i am very depressed.
so i just want to know that can i report against him and this office regarding this?? please give me some good suggestions what should i do..

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