To have a little rant about the woman at work...

[ConfusedLlama]

I work in a small web based department in a company. A woman started with the company around 3 months ago and has been very quietly manipulative, I just generally do not get a good feeling about her.

Trying not to out myself here.

She has come in to a role that isn't entry level but is also not a position of authority. She spent the first few weeks saying how our website should look like her previous companies website. For context our website is aimed at women shoppers, her old company was aimed at men. Who, without sounding sexist, have different ways of shopping and therefore would not suit our purposes. This has been explained. Several times. I gave her the benefit of the doubt as I know coming into a new company you want to impress and you utilise what knowledge you already have. I was probably guilty of doing something similar.

So fast forward a couple of weeks, I am developing a new homepage for the site (I'm a developer). She asks me tells me "I don't understand why there are white spaces either side of the page". Fair enough I thought so start to explain. "the white space is to allow for different screen sizes.." before I could finish what I was saying she jumps in quite abruptly with a smug look (i'm not being biased, it was noticed) "our screens our all square though". I very politely through gritted teeth explained unfortunately our customers don't all have the same screen size as that would make my job alot easier.

She has now, whilst quietly befriending everyone "important" in our office managed to copnvince the head of department that the quite and generally lovely worker is scary and intimidating. Resulting in stern talks with said worker and her being at a loss to what she's meant to have done. This has put my back up, as said worker has the next level up of this woman's job. My feeling is she's basically gunning for it.

It gets worse. apparently she's now also a designer everyone always is and has started telling my boss, the DESIGN manager who has 12 years experience and a degree in digital design communication, how he should be designing the website. Also why can't I make this shoppable, why can't I just click the bloody make website button and have done with it. Why is it taking so long just to build one page.

I'm going to lose my rag with her one day...and I wont even feel bad.

It's a great way for them to just not do the work

YES!!!

Well, in her defence (why the hell am i doing that?), she has come in at a bit of a difficult time. We're currently in the middle of a big re-brand and re-platform i.e. huge amounts of work for our team and we could really do without the constant faffing and silly avoidable site changes.

So whilst new ideas are encouraged, copying a male orientated website for a female orientated website doesn't fly.

No, we don't want a full width website because any customer that has a wide screen will get a horribly distorted view of all our products.

No, lets not put a horrible pick transparent layer over everything because these are the gender stereotypes we're trying to get away from.

by all means lets test a bar that follows the customer around the page like some kind of stalker ex boyfriend but I'm pretty sure it won't work as well as you expect it to.

*pink not pick

I think you should keep a record of all conversations with her. Just in case youre the next one to be phased out, or accused of bullying.

I have an update.

Lovely lady has got a new job! I have congratulated her and wished her the best of luck with her new role, she seems to be really excited.

The Sneaky Lady (as I call her), is acting as if she is running the show. She's already mentioned that she wants the next step up job (her line managers job) and as many of you have mentioned, it's only going to be a short time until they realise exactly what she's up to.

I have also found out (i genuinely have no idea why people tell me these things) that Sneaky has been going to one of the women in the office (who happens to have been here since the company started) asking for help with the system, has sat with been friendly with this woman and then goes back to her desk and bitches about her. Genuinely shocked at how someone can act like this I know some people are ruthless in getting what they want but being this manipulative?

She's also a bit creepy. That sounds harsh but I can't think of another way to describe this kind of behaviour. She will come over to ask someone a question but won't, like a normal person, say anything to let you know she's there. She just stands there until you notice her, looming over you until she's noticed.

Am I the only one that finds that a bit strange?

You seem over invested in someone you work with. If she's not smart she will shoot herself in the foot soon enough.

If you've already heard her talking about wanting her manager's job then she's not exactly moving with the subtle stealthy grace of a panther, is she? They'll see through her soon enough.

Annoying for you to have to deal with her in the meantime, but as your job is fairly technical I think I'd stick to being calm and smiley and really really technical in your responses to her. "Oh yes, it's like that with JavaScript, ha ha." "You should see what happens with a different framework! There was this one time I tried using Django, I mean, can you imagine." "Well we are working with a custom CMS, it's not WordPress you know". I think I'd have lots of fun just brushing her off with a load of shite but being all smiley about it.

How strange that someone resigned today and was replaced internally the same day, don't you have to advertise to allow external and internal applicants to apply?

not in a private company no, you can give whatever job to whoever you like

She sounds exactly like a woman who worked for a company I worked at some years ago.

We didn't realise at the time, but all of her bizarre observations about how the entire (software) product was done in the wrong colours, and how various things were stupid and illogical was part of an elaborate plan which she executed to resign and claim constructive dismissal. She did this on the basis of disability discrimination - we never found out what her disability was - it certainly wasn't obvious.

It nearly bankrupted the small company we worked at - which was very diverse and much more equal ops (in reality, not just policies) than pretty much anywhere I have worked before or since.

In the end she was paid off to save any more company time/money being swallowed and signed a confidentiality agreement which she broke by being interviewed for an article claiming she'd been the victim of sex discrimination.

I'm just annoyed that she's treating people like this, I love our team (despite how bitchy it can sometimes be) and I really have tried to have a conversation with her but all I get back is one word answers. Everyone in the team has a likeable personality, I feel, and now it feels like the relationships are very strained.

I have on occasion had to explain to her, when I was asked why the page was taking so long to build, that it not as simple as clicking the "make website button" and hoping for the best.

I hope she doesn't try to pull anything like that DadfromUncle it's, although well known, a family run business.

Ooh we have one of these in our department.

He was employed as an interim by our CEO and within two days was telling our head of ecomms how to do his job and emailing the CEO with his suggestions.

He is without a doubt, completely hopeless, which most of the middle managers are only too aware of. Unfortuntely, because he is 'friends' with the CEO he hasn't had his contract terminated as yet but it's on the cards.

These people always trip themselves up eventually.

I have to say that her asking questions, having ideas you don't agree with (including stupid ideas) and raising them isn't a crime. Better to have an environment where people can raise ideas even if they turn out to be wrong. I don't think that an environment where people stay silent on stuff they're not expert in or directly responsible for is good in business, especially fast moving tech type businesses. Successful silicon valley companies encourage precisely this approach - anyone at any level can throw things out there and debate any aspect of company policy. I also think that in general women are criticised a lot more for commenting on things that are perceived to be 'beyond their remit' than men are.

Perhaps she is manipulative (though not sure if befriending people in the office is precisely this even if it is done in a networking type way) but I'm afraid I think YABU to criticise her for having and expressing opinions.

Theycallmemellow Completely agree that everyone is entitled to an opinion and that prgress is made by bouncing ideas off eachother. Hence me saying in my first post that I can understand being new and using you experience and ideas from the previous job.

However, she doesn't ask say the head of designs opinion on how a promotion should look, she dictates to him with language such as "I want this to go", "I don't like that, you should try..". If it was an idea such as "oh, I saw this great example on such and such a page that's relevant to our business, could we maybe try something like that?"

It's not the befriending either...great she's made friends in the office, it's the sitting there and openly bitching about someone who has tried to help you and complaining to the boss constantly about people. It's manipulative.

I realise I am sitting here bitching about her on here, I do feel bad about it, I also feel that I wouldn't need to have a rant if she was pleasant and friendly.

Hmm, just standing there & not wanting to interrupt you is a sign she's not as confident as she may seem, does she do this with everyone or just you?
devil in me says just never notice her standing there, see how long she leaves it before she actually says something

With everyone not just me, cakelady, its not necessarily interrupting you could be just working on something and she just stands there. Waiting. It scares the crap out of people when they turn round.

I know what its like to be socially awkward it took me a long time to get out of the habits of avoiding people but I never just stood there until people noticed me.

Hmm, i feel very two faced being pleasant to her in the office but really being annoyed by the way she's acting. I'm just very wary of being caught in office politics, ironically i feel i already am.