Ok so I (mid-20s female) work for a company for a few years now and about a year ago, a man (mid-50s) joined, let's call him "Tim".
At work, let's say the job hierachy has 6 levels (level 1 being the lowest and level 6 being the boss).
I used to be on level 2 but now on level 3. Tim joined at level 4 (primarily due to him being double my age and so supposedly having a lot of experience).
Tim is easy to get along with in a social context but in work context, he's incredibly stubborn and will never agree with anything anyone says and will stick to his guns no matter what (he's not loud but a quiet stubborn kind) - I've noticed this behaviour with a lot of men in their mid-50s (they get very set in their ways and pride doesn't allow them to back down). He'll happily quietly argue/debate until sunset if he needs to, about every little tiny thing.
I find he likes to keep up appearences that he knows what he's doing but quite often, there's a lot he doesn't know - he has no education beyond high school level (which I know he is insecure about as a lot of the staff here even have doctorates (PhDs). He has worked for the last decade in a completely unrelated field (but worked for the 15 years before that in our field).
Aside from his stubborness, another annoying thing about him is he loves to mansplain and even his compliments come across very patronising. He's all to happy to be the "teacher" as it makes him feel superior but always brushes it under the rug facts like me training him when he arrived at work (he downplays it massively).
Anyway, the other day, as he'd taken time to learn more about a machine that I'd initially trained him on, he offered to give me training along with another staff member (who is level 1 and directly managed by him).. during that convo, he continually kept grouping the level 1 staff member with me (level 3) and grouping himself (level 4) with the level 5 staff member.. he does it all the time as he's got some sort of insecurity because he knows all the other staff in his level are far more knowledgeable and able than he is so always groups me with the level 1 staff member to make himself feel better. I'm not the only one who thinks he's not up to his role (the few that do like him fall for the chat of him portraying he knows more than he does or his external friendliness).
Even when he initially started at the job and I was on level 2, he'd always try and make me do the dogsbody tasks (despite me taking time to train him on technical stuff etc.), he constantly looks for every opportunity to nit pick anything I do and happily mansplains for hours.
He even "jokingly" said at the time, I'm the lowest position out of everyone (this was before the level 1 staff member started) so I should do his menial tasks for him and he'd ask how I must feel to be soo highly educated yet in such a low position (again, insecurity that he hasn't got anything beyond basic high school education).
Infuriates me and unbelievable that I have to have to put up with such irritating, childish behaviour from a middle aged man...
AIBU?
What would you do? What do you think about this?
Thanks