Does people really like innovative new colleagues?

[Sandalison]

So this woman (let’s call her Lucy) is new-ish in the office (since 18 months ish). She is friendly and confident. She is always talking in meetings and stepping forward with suggestions, ideas, new information, etc. She is the ‘new and fresh’ person, who has been given a special project, made a big success of it, delivers lots of training and also seems to send lots of emails. She likes to make jokes about her “unruly” hair (gorgeous and curly) and “unhealthy dependence on lists” (which I interpret as showing off about how ultra-busy and ultra-organised she is.)

The bosses love her, and so it seems does everyone else. Eveyone except me! She reeeeally gets under my skin.
Now, Lucy isn’t even in my team, so it’s not like I’m in direct competition with her, but nevertheless I have come to terms with the fact that I am just being a jealous cow here.

To emphasise: I KNOW I am a jealous cow!!

What I am wondering is, am I alone in my bovinity (and suck as a human) or do other people feel the same way about the Lucys in their offices ( I still suck but feel a bit less like stabbing her with a pencil).

YABU - you’re on your own hun.
YANBU- yeah Lucy annoys all of us.

I know a Lucy, she keeps sending emails with lots of shouty ! Also likes to shout and let us all know about her successes.
She is not in my team but seems to have taken it upon herself to send me links that are related to my work that I might be interested in but nothing to do with her job or role. I do wonder how she would feel if I started sending her links related to her job?
So in that respect she could be creating more work for me if I took any notice. Possibly she could be trying to make me appear ineffective although she has nothing to do with my work. I would like to tell her to stick to her own work as she clearly does not have enough of her own work to do.

I'm a Lucy sorry.
I am good at my job. I make a lot of money for the company (finding contractual ways around things) and i am very good at process improvement (because ultimately my time is spent better on making a positive change rather than admin)

Lucys however often come up against other Lucy's which is my current situation and your confidence takes a knock. Luckily i get on well with Lucy 2.

Why not come up with a idea yourself for an improvement initiative and suggest it to your manager?

We have a Jekyll and Hyde... err I mean Lucy.

She was all (fake) sweetness and light until she got into a management role - still fake when it suits but the masks slips regularly to reveal a narcy, sly, petty, underhanded, bullying, power tripping, unprofessional, micro manager. Ugh.

I was very much a Lucy back in the day.

Generally, my bosses loved me but I knew I was very disliked by various older women.

I think we need to drop the "Lucy" name.

We don't want it to get a hold like the racist/sexist/misogynistic 'Karen'.

It would be a shit non-innovative thing to happen.

@DressingGownofDoom

There's two types of Lucy:

Type A: the Lucy who is full of 'great' ideas that creates extra pointless admin for everyone else. Everyone hates her and she usually flits off to another job after a year or two.

Type B: the Lucy who just really likes working hard and actually has good ideas that reduces your workload sometimes. Everyone likes this Lucy but eventually she'll take on so much extra work that she'll become as miserable as everyone else when she realises the boss just uses her to dump their own workload on.

Brilliant summary.

From where I am (and it hasn't been that long but long enough to see a real revolving door for quite a few members of staff), after type A has gone and is replaced, things do not take long to go back to where they were and 'had always been' (according to the jaded), thus laying the ground for a new type A to shine and to wonder why things are as they are when they find them.

Oh gee the shiny people who blow their own trumpets and seem to have new ideas... It never comes to anything in my opinion. They just move on too quickly and no one else realises.

I have a lot of experience in my role and I LOVE LUCY! When I was earlier in my career I may have felt threatened by a Lucy but I learned to embrace the people I felt most threatened by and my career really benefitted from it. Purposefully decide to really enjoy and like her enthusiasm. If her talent is genuine you will not have to fake it for long.

I wish I was more of a Lucy

I think I'm good at springing into action when things need to be done and exploring new ideas but not so good at thinking of them myself!

I'm a scientist and so we have a lot of innovators at work. There is definitely a split between the genuinely amazingly creative types who do incredible things and everyone loves, e.g. I remember one at work who gave a brilliant talk about their secret project and afterwards we were all 'that's absolutely incredible, it'll completely change how we work for the better' and the innovation has subsequently won loads of recognition across the industry. When I get a young person like that working for me it's great and makes my life easy because I just settle into a mentoring role, much more fun than managing a poor performer.

Then there are those who are great at managing upwards (at least for a while) but are essentially lazy and claim the credit for other people's work and can't follow through. They end up with horrible nicknames and are hated. Sounds like the OP's Lucy might be more of the former than the later which is good.

I have encountered various incarnations of Lucy in my time. Some are good, have a real passion for the job and a desire to improve and make things better for everyone. Some just want to make changes for the sake of it, to get themselves seen, without actually giving a shit about the chaos they leave in their wake when they are invetiably promoted.

I am in a working environment at the moment that is slipt between the Lucy's and the anti-Lucy's. Even though I work from home and probably only speak to these people for about 20 minutes a day, the office politics is palatable.

Our Lucy is in marketing and likes to blow her own trumpet, she would do well on the apprentice.

I feel sorry for all the young Lucys out there. The amount of bile being spewed on this thread by people happily nursing their hatred of other women doing better than them at work.

They are all glory seekers. They nick all the credit. They talk the talk but don’t know what they are doing. They are narcissists. They shag their way to the top. Everybody has cruel nicknames for them and rejoices when they leave.

Anybody interested in the gender pay gap could find all the answers on this site. Enthusiastic women are squashed by their colleagues or ostracised until they conform. Or other women discourage them from advancing their careers: there was a thread recently where the OP had been offered a job with a rival business for much more money, but more commitment. Most of the responses encouraged her to decline in order to spend more time with her children and have an easy life in a job she knew.

It’s a fascinating, if disappointing, window into the mean spiritedness of some women. Pray that you never have to work with them.

@Iamthewombat

I feel sorry for all the young Lucys out there. The amount of bile being spewed on this thread by people happily nursing their hatred of other women doing better than them at work.

They are all glory seekers. They nick all the credit. They talk the talk but don’t know what they are doing. They are narcissists. They shag their way to the top. Everybody has cruel nicknames for them and rejoices when they leave.

Anybody interested in the gender pay gap could find all the answers on this site. Enthusiastic women are squashed by their colleagues or ostracised until they conform. Or other women discourage them from advancing their careers: there was a thread recently where the OP had been offered a job with a rival business for much more money, but more commitment. Most of the responses encouraged her to decline in order to spend more time with her children and have an easy life in a job she knew.

It’s a fascinating, if disappointing, window into the mean spiritedness of some women. Pray that you never have to work with them.

Absolutely agree! It’s terrible 😞

Anybody interested in the gender pay gap could find all the answers on this site.

I can't speak for others, but I'm just as sceptical of male innovators. It isn't about the person, it's about the greed and superficiality that is corporate culture.

I don’t mind someone like this as long as they deliver.

What I don’t like is someone who is desperately trying to impress in meetings by taking over and mouthing off about how we can change things/improve if they don’t know what they’re talking about and they’re full of crap. I used to work with someone like this. He was like it from day one, clueless and useless but thought he was amazing. I used to cringe for him but he was oblivious. Didn’t last long!

I think without Lucy in my life I would count myself as good at my job and a nice person!
But add Lucy in and I am now worried that I am both shit at my job and a horrible person!!
If you all vote YANBU that at least I will know I am a normal shit horrible person !!

I think this sums it up OP. Even if you dont want to be a 'Lucy', you do need to be comfortable with the way you are and how you work.
You dont have to be like her, be as good as her, you dont even have to even like her.
I would say that you really shouldnt be feeling like the above, seems more of a reflection if how you perceive yourself against her rather than just letting her crack on and do the 'Lucy thing' and be happy with what your doing at work.

Hope that makes sense!!

Iamthewombat - I feel sorry for all the hard working women and posters you’ve just patronised and completely misrepresented in your post. It’s not older women = jealous and lazy, younger women = brilliant and shitted on by older women

Who said that all older women are jealous and lazy? Not me. If you’re going to pour out your resentment, at least own it. Rather than whining that you are special and nuanced and nobody understands you etc etc. I bet that you’re a joy to work with.

You admitted upthread that you’ve formed a grudge against one particular woman. Why are you now denying it? Oh yes, it’s “nuanced”.

Angry and bitter? Unlike you, I haven’t been spewing anger and bitterness about women who do better at work than you.

Let’s see you stand up for women in the workplace who threaten you. Which is what this is about. It’s tragic. And yet, you continue to tell yourself that you are ‘promoting a culture’.

holds hands up
I'm a Lucy...

I've just been specifically recruited into my new role to look at what my holding group is doing in its various marketing teams and see how this can be improved and amalgamated into one large, more efficient team.

I've experienced lots of eye rolling and workplace fatigue so far. The general attitude seems to be one of "this is how we've always done it"

I've also noticed in meetings people will wait and look at me, expecting me to start asking questions

I'm just doing my job. What I get paid to do. Just like everyone else.

And yes, I have children so trust me I really don't believe in making extra work for me or anyone else!

I've just been specifically recruited into my new role to look at what my holding group is doing in its various marketing teams and see how this can be improved and amalgamated into one large, more efficient team.

People will hear that and think - redundancies.

The company makes redundancies, saves money, you get promoted.

The remaining team end up working all hours to make up the deficit for the people who've been lost.

Then, a year or so later, the bigwigs realise actually the work can't be done with fewer people.

You've moved on so someone else is brought in to hire a new team. The remains of the old team will be the ones who have to train them. A new team is hired, someone else gets a pat on the back and promotion for setting up the new team.

The old team sit back and wait for the cycle to start again - because, guess what, this happens every two years.

I think you need people like that breathing fresh life in and rattling people up.

As someone who has worked in the same department for 30 years, and seen people come and go, I agree. Also, as the OP is still referring to Lucy as new after 18 months, it does seem like her workplace might need some new life.

I do agree with others who say that they would like her as long as she didn't make more, pointless work for me.

Also, regarding her self deprecating jokes about hair and lists, it does sound annoying and possibly attention seeking, but perhaps she has been teased about them and the jokes are a defence mechanism?