I want to kill my collegue ... Coping strategy needed

[UsedtobeFeckless]

Due to a work reshuffle I'm landed with the lazy, whingy, passive aggressive nightmare that every other department has sucked and spat out ... Throttling her would be frowned on and I don't want to leave. Help?

I worked with someone like that. She was known as the oracle because apparently she had lots of product knowledge. True, but she made constant mistakes and spent hours chatting on the phone making personal calls. She spent way too long chatting to our suppliers too, to the extent that she left her husband for one!

luckily it was a long time ago and I've worked with some decent staff since.

So does everyone think she's nice or everyone has had enough of her?

Oh bill lighten up, you goose

If she's not doing the work she is meant to be doing can you or a senior manager have serious words with her asking why such and such jobs are not getting completed?

I agree Bill.

I'm really hard working and conscientious, but only because I'm a coward. I love working with lazy pisstakers - I find them quite inspiring. I wish I had the courage to fuck things up at work and laugh in the face of The Man as my eager-to-please coworkers get all het up.

My personal experience of working with this type is that if you stand back they always mess up at some point.

Normally it happens very close to the time they start to think they are untouchable.

Just sit, watch and wait.

I'm a leaf in the wind ... I'm feeling much more chilled this morning! I'll change the title of the thread to I'd be secretly quite pleased if my co-worker got another job

Are you senior to her? Note down every problem, note down what her productivity is like, note down how much of her day she wastes chatting. Then do a formal appraisal and go through it all, and tell her she now has defined targets which you want to review in a month's time. Make sure you get HR and your own seniors fully on board.

Just because the OP may be senior to her it doesn't mean that she can give her an appraisal

That's the manager's job.

We're the same level ... I suspect that she's being monitored already as we have a new manager ( hence the re-shuffle ) and she's been picked up on her time-keeping - that's why I was raving last night - she spent all day grumbling at me about losing her flexi-time when we don't get flexi-time! She just used to mooch in and out when she felt like it and as we didn't have anyone in charge then nothing was said ...

Billsykes I worry more about the people who never admit to the feelings of aggression we all have. It's the people who claim to be suffused with loving kindness and never have a violent urge who are often the most insidious psychological tyrants.

Plus, the only person I've ever known to slash someone else's face with a broken pint glass was constantly prattling on about being a non-violent Buddhist who never felt anything but love for another living creature.

Is it the sort of workplace where you can give her her own workload to manage; e.g "I'll do project A and you do project B". That will:

1. Minimise you having to speak to her about work (as you will be working on separate things).
2. Show up pretty easily to your seniors that she is being lazy when all of your tasks are completed on time and none of hers ever are.

I worked with two or them who were best mates One of them was particularly nasty. Her yoghurt pot scraping at the desk almost tipped me over the edge. Thankfully I left but left a dear colleague who reported them for bullying and is now off with stress as the incompetent management would rather not deal with them

And the amount of times I fantasised about tripping them over was infinite.

You want to 'shut her head in a door'. Wow, workplace bullying is alive and well.

Obviously a figure of speech to all but the excessively literal.

New resolution time. I'll just get on with my stuff and let nature take it's course ( Also lock myself in the stock room when she starts moaning ... )

Phooey.

Sorry, delayed reaction. That was to bill.

I hate it when that happens. I used to work somewhere where there was one absolutely incompetent team assistant, but rather than face the process of managing her out, people just encouraged her to apply for other jobs internally. It was so bad that people would hide the fact they were traveling from her as they knew if she arranged it she would fuck it up. In the end my boss wound up with her through a reshuffle, bit the bullet and got rid (with due process before anyone says anything).

Bill I am a really good parent, every one agrees that my children are pretty fantastic.

They are well behaved, kind, interesting, clever little people with an excellent sense of humour.

I could give this thread to them to read as a comprehension exercise and they would immediately understand that any posts threatening/suggesting violence are for comedic effect and not serious proposals.

They are 8 years old.

As you are presumably an adult I am surprised you don't have the same understanding.

disturbing that a lot of people who post on them are not bringing up kids

Bill, what exactly do you mean by this? A lot of people here won't be bringing up kids as they have flown the nest. Others will be TTC or childless/free. A genuine question BTW, no sarcasm intended.

Don't over-compensate, don't explode!

Practise polite but firm responses, and use them. General whinging you will have to try and put up with (though you could say something like 'Actually, do you mind if we don't talk for a bit? I really need to concentrate on this' if desperate). Anything that impacts on you, you should deal with immediately.

I've had a colleague for years who is a complete pain. He has recently used strategic incompetence cynically to get out of the important task he was assigned, landing many of us with last-minute extra work to pull the organisation of of the mess he created. It was the final straw-I simply cannot bear him any more and avoid him.

But actually, the constant ranting about him at work and home was making it a bigger deal than it needed to be:- beware of doing this.

DH simply refused to listen to it. Now I come home and just say colleague's name. DH rolls his eyes and makes me a cup of tea. And that is more fitting, somehow, more proportionate. Twerps will always be with us, sadly. Don't give them an iota more headspace than you need to. In fact, be ruthless about taking the space you need to get your work done, without any qualms of conscience.

How about really on it and clear performance management against her competencies?