to ask you to share your "awful colleague" stories with me?

[smokeytoby]

I have the pleasure of working with someone absolutely insufferable.

She is at least forty years older than myself, and I believe it is for this reason that she finds it justifiable to treat me like an idiot. She is rude to me, inconsiderate, critiques everything I do (even if it isn't actually incorrect) and as far as she is concerned, the sun shines out of her peachy arse. ARGH.

She was nasty to me today in front of our boss, and while I just shrugged it off as I have found this is the easiest way to deal with her, my boss called her out on it, asked her why she thought it was acceptable to speak to me like that and had a stern word with her (much to my amusement).

Please tell me I'm not alone?! Has anyone else worked with someone rude, and if so, how did you deal with it?

I'm not going to run to HR telling tales, and my boss knows what she is like but tends to adopt the same 'shrug it off' idea as myself when it comes to dealing with her.

Any phrases or techniques on how to deal with shitty colleagues? Or tales of a colleague even worse than mine?

I’m an environmental consultant and had been brought into a team to help them improve environmental compliance on a project. I picked up on a few points, one being the need to use paint that was more environmentally friendly (same colour/coat/wearability, just not with the same chemical structure). Lead engineer went nuts at me in front of the whole team - he was apoplectic and red in the face shouting. I kept cool as long as possible but I was only 23, and quite new to the company. He kept yelling “we’ve always done it this way” and I kept replying “but that doesn’t make it the best way! I’ve been employed to help you make improvements!”... eventually I cracked and burst into tears. Mortified. One of the other engineers stood up for me at last, and he backed off. The next day he bought me a potted plant to apologise and quietly admitted he’d been drunk at the time.

That was but one of the many many unacceptable things that poisonous little man did.

I worked for an utter psychopath. She would pick and choose who she bullied - the team was made up of primary and secondary education sections, and she was scared of secondary but relentlessly picked at the primary staff. One had a breakdown and several left - one pretty much walked out on the spot.

She would change her mind so often that you could never be right - if you did what she asked you to she would decide that was wrong, and if you ignored her she would suddenly stick to her guns. She lied, frequently, in meetings and in individual conversations. She once changed her mind mid-meeting and denied that she had ever said anything different. Apparently the secretary writing the minutes was lying

I have worked with some arseholes, but she was unique in that no-one in the entire organisation had a good word to say for her.

coat=cost

I worked in an absolutely bizarre, dysfunctional and toxic office. It was 7 women working to support one man.

There was one woman in her fifties who had been there years and thought she was the boss of everyone else. Fine, whatever. But she was a let's say 'unusual' personality and managed to see off pretty much all his other employees by making up outrageous stories about them. She'd stay until 10 pm (no exaggeration at all) to sift through everyone's work for the day and if necessary alter it to contain errors. Then speak to the boss about it or other- mainly made up- aspects of someone's performance (she was in at 7-7.30am as well).

For some reason he knew exactly what she was doing and let her get away with it. She and he both loved a bit of drama and not a day would go by without someone being publicly dressed down for their mistakes. He wouldn't stop until someone was in tears.

Her lies about people were so outrageous that she'd often be confronted about them and just shrug. I left- so does everyone else. I check his website every so often and there's always a new crop of unsuspecting ladies!

My first proper job out of uni, my manager was weird. She blew hot and cold - one minute she was chatty and friendly, asking me about my hobby or whatever and the next she was screaming at me and demanding to know why I hadn't done this that and the other. She used to send me out to get her lunch - fine, normal - but then she started sending me out to buy her evening meal for herself and her partner, she'd send me to buy tampons and shampoo, to collect prescriptions... It all felt a bit weird but it was my first job and I didn't really know what to expect. She ended up really paranoid - I was really close to one of the other ladies there, she was line 2nd mum to me, and this boss didn't like it. She concocted some story that we were conspiring against her and suspended us both. We had to have hearings and I don't know about my friend's one but the only thing she had to accuse me of was signing off an email with TTFN. She was really chuffed, throwing an accusation of talking in code. I was completely nonplussed and explained what it meant (the woman from the union who was taking the minutes was red in the face trying not to laugh). Watching her deflate was quite enjoyable but I was destroyed by it all, ended up going off sick and handing my notice in. I had to work the last week or my notice and I had to write up a bit document with detailed descriptions of all my jobs. Just as I was logging off for the last time on my last day, I deleted it.

I had another boss who blew hot and cold with the friendship thing but he was a nice bloke who just didn't really know how to manage. We're still friends even though I left 6 years ago.

Very lucky with the job I have now, although I have a colleague who can't have a discussion if you have a different opinion to her. She will literally tell you to stop talking if you disagree with her, so we keep it light and airy and it's fine.

Very productive time at work with previous manager, still good friends now. Been at my job for years and years, very happily.

New manager came in, took a dislike to me. I have just come through a grievance process against them for bullying me - didn't win but lots and lots changed, all in my favour.

If nothing else, loads of my colleagues know of the situation - not the specifics of the grievance obviously but every time my manager lies, every time they call me out on something minor and I raise it above their heads, every time they don't treat me fairly.

They do not deserve to have that job with no integrity.

My colleagues have been bloody awesome.

My advice to those going through something similar - don't shut up about it; take professional advice; remember you are in the right and have nothing to be sorry for.

This is more someone that I worked with who was an absolutely pretentious twat that was puffed up with the sense of his own importance in a farcical way. I was working as a manager in a 5* hotel at the time, he was a senior manager on the team. We unfortunately shared an office. He had made some claims to have had something to do with something I had been brought up with and his comments about it just didn't ring true, along with many other things and I was convinced that he had made everything up.
One day I rifled through his drawers to find any incriminating evidence of him being the insufferable lier I suspected him to be I found a copy of his CV.
In which he had referred to having served various celebrity clients, including, memorably and hilariously
"Mr Meat Loaf"
That's right, two separate words as in first name Meat, surname Loaf.

What a pretentious cock. It still makes me laugh over 20 years later

Mine is quite mild compared to some of these. I used to work at a well known burger fast food chain, and one of the managers took an instant hatred to me. There was lots of petty little things that I can't really remember now but one instance that stopped with me.

I'm tall and have long legs and the work uniform trousers weren't long enough for me. I used to be SO self conscious about my height and begged her to order me the special order ones that would fit, or to wear my old school trousers like someone else was allowed to do. I was always brushed off.

One day I came in and was talking to her and she looked me up and down, lingering on my ankles and burst out laughing, just right in my face. I quit that day.

i worked with a man whose CV included 'Paramedic in Bosnia' 'Worked at Chicago Hope Hospital' plus many other odd places......as he was in his thirties he would have been a paramedic when he was 9 and George Clooney was a doctor at Chicago Hope !....he was a fanasist...his next big role was on the front of the daily papers for faking his credentials to work in hospitals!

My boss once rang me to tell me that I had just failed my probation. Apparently the 1:1 we had that morning had been my probation review meeting. I had no idea about this as she'd never mentioned it. Or told me that she had performance concerns and given me information on how I needed to improve. So wish I had put in a grievance.

Years ago I had a line manager who was a right cow, she told me I'd be better suited working at a makeup counter in House of Fraser! When I was getting married and she found out my bridesmaid dresses were blue, she said blue to go with their noses (I was getting married in winter). Then she told me I was a spoilt brat because the house we'd bought was fully furnished before we moved in. She was forever making digs at me. Best day ever was when I got a phone call one afternoon with a job offer from the chap who was going to be my new boss at the best company I have ever worked with. She was absolutely furious when the CEO called me in and offered me a pay rise to stay. I took great pleasure in telling her that.

Mine are pretty mild compared to some of these!

In my previous job we had a colleague who seemed to delight in being bloody miserable on a permanent basis! She literally never had a single nice thing to say about anyone or anything! You couldn't even mention that the weather was nice without her moaning about it. She was totally draining.

In my current job, I work with a complainer (do they follow me). Complains about everything - doesn't matter what it is, she will complain! It wouldn't be so bad if when she complained she had an alternative solution to offer but she doesn't.

Thankfully, the majority of my colleagues are great!

I once worked in IT support for a retailer with 150+ stores across the UK and the team leader who did my initial training on their systems took a dislike to me that was so obvious that one of my colleagues actually complained to HR about some of the things she said about me. I used to volunteer to cover Christmas Day (airport stores were trading) and Boxing Day on remote support, as it was triple time and no one else ever wanted to do it. Came into work on the late shift on the 27th to be met by TL with an immensely smug look on her face asking why I hadn't done the evening checks properly, as she'd got in first thing to a message from X store to say their system was down.

Noticing that she'd picked a moment when her boss was around and listening to every word, I took great pleasure in telling her that I had indeed done all the evening checks and logged into my profile on the central system where I'd saved the log file showing that all was well. I've never seen anyone turn so pale. Her boss came over, logged into X store's system (now up and running again), looked at the logs with his higher authority profile and found that the generic security profile (which only he and the 3 TLs had access to) had logged on first thing that morning and deliberately powered the system down. She was taken into his office for a 'quiet chat' and conincidentally moved sideways to a different part of the IT department shortly afterwards.

Over 20 years ago I had my first job as a legal secretary. One of the other secs I worked with was an alcoholic an would come in every morning late and either hungover or still drunk.

Because she was the oldest sec she acted like she was our boss (my boss was a solicitor as was hers). She used to throw her weight around and shout orders at the other secretary's but I ignored her and she hated that. After putting up with enough I got a new job and handed in my notice and HR asked me why. I told them that I can't work with that alco anymore. They acted all surprised like they never noticed. I left and two months later she was in rehab because they insisted. The irony.

Another legal secretary- when I was 17 I worked in a suburban office with 3 x 17-21 year olds and a 75 year old woman who was brought out of retirement just to make our lives hell. She peered at us over her glasses and Olympia manual typewriter and criticised everything from what we wore to how we walked across the room.

30 years later, as a manager myself, I wish I had the balls to "train" my staff with her approach ... it certainly gets results. I don't think my 18 year old DS would have lasted 2 minutes with her without him running home to Mummy. We were hard in the 80s

Worked in an office with an alcoholic. The smell was awful, it would come out of his pores and stink the whole office out. Felt sorry for him though.

How I wish this was in a disappearing thread because I could vent properly.

My colleague accused me of trying to kill them and then went on to accuse me of endangering the safety of many others. Amongst other things.

I can't say anything and it's very frustrating. But where I work someone definitely knows where the bodies are buried or they'd have been out years ago.

A different legal office i worked and one of the girls had serious BO. You would get out of the lift and without even seeing her you would just know she was on the floor. And this was a big open plan office. You would open the windows at minus 5 to get a bit of fresh air in.

Oh yes. I have one. Had an awful day with them today. Came home and wanted to cry. I don't understand the need (and it obviously is a need) to behave that way when everyone is trying their best.

My colleague got spoken to about never being where she was supposed to be and being generally work-shy, she responded by following me around and keeping notes for an entire day on my every movement, right down to when I went to the loo, or to grab something from the cupboard, or spoke to someone. Presented it to our boss in front of me. In doing so proved that she hadn't been where she was supposed to be for most of the day and that I had in fact done everything I was meant to plus some bits to help out where people were off!

The supervisor who HR had to call in after talking to me and telling me she was bullying me.
The boss who said that he didn’t know if I could have a days compassionate leave as the deceased was only my grandmother, and then two years later waited for me to arrive at work after my granddads funeral, and before I took my coat off went into full detail about how he thought he would have a accident whilst driving and his first though was ‘OMG, I going to be like Fos’s granddad, I’m going to be dead’.....

My first job many years ago was in an NHS Finance team headed by an accountancy manager. Gossip in the office was that she often made up details about her fabulous (to me) social life and various boyfriends. I just thought the others were being a bit mean or jealous.
She was also finishing her accountancy studies and took leave to revise and bought us cakes when she passed her finals. Which I thought was nice.
Then she applied for a promotion and moved over to manage the internal audit team.
Few days later we were all called into the Director's office - she'd been dismissed for gross misconduct having never sat an accountancy exam in her life (he'd decided to check given the role she was taking on). It was the cakes that I couldn't get over.

@Psuedosudocrem

hope things are better tomorrow.

The boss who docked my pay on the day Dad was rushed to ITU not coming round from emergency surgery and a heart attack.

We had a compassionate leave policy - our only 'perk' - and this woman went into the HR files and changed the policy ten minutes after I rang to make sure I was unpaid.

She farted on the workers daily. And made the office stink. Not sure which was worse, come to think of it. No, there wasn't anything wrong with her, she just like scuttling up to people for a 'little chat' and farting on you.