To want revenge??

[thequickbrowndog]

Colleague absolutely favoured by manager as she is a massive brown noser. Works hard, work is her life etc

She is also a sly, backstabbing, tell tale.

I work part time, and when I'm not in she checks my work for any kind of mistake or for anything i haven't got around to doing yet and takes it straight to our manager, a twenty something year old desperate to get up the ladder. Me and colleague are in our 40's so manager hangs off her every word.

How do I deal with this? Colleague isn't actually doing anything wrong is she? Shitty as her behaviour is, management probably appreciate her snooping and tale telling.

I've come to the conclusion I can't stop her, but I can try to get one up on her somehow. Is this unreasonable behaviour??

It is for your line manager to manage your performance, not your colleague. Highly inappropriate in my opinion.

But wanting revenge sounds rather childish.

I would complain of harassment/ bullying if she goes through your work.

Lock the work away

Do your work accurately and in a timely fashion.

let her waste her 20s with this petty nonsense.

id say that’s revenge enough no?

We have our own work but in shared folders so always have access to each others.

I'd start by checking my work carefully for errors and arranging things so that what's not done yet is clearly marked and prioritised with deadlines for completion on it.

She'll just look stupid if she's wasting time looking at work for errors that aren't there and bringing well planned future work to the managers attention. You can suggest to the manager that checking your work is not your colleagues job (unless it is) and is a waste of her working day.

Just be professional do your job and don’t get drawn into tit for tat. There’s no place for this type of noise in a workplace.

If your manager is decent they will see through any immature attempts at her trying to undermine your work.

I’m a manager and I wouldn’t be happy with someone going through someone else’s work unless they had a valid reason to be doing this. It’s actually irritating if staff repeatedly raise petty issues about each other’s work. It says to me that person is not a team player. I wouldn’t do anything in response because at best you will appear unprofessional and at worst you get yourself into trouble.

Make an appointment with your manager and make it her problem.

X seems to find frequent problems woth my work and it is causing me stress and anxiety. Please can we have an honest conversation about how we deal with this because it can't go on. Do you have any concerns about my work and how can we work together to address them?

Then leave a silence. Let her fill it.

If it is genuinely petty and you are actually competent despite the mistakes then most managers will consider the colleague a pain in the arse and that's why you aren't in performance management already- because your manager is fine woth your work and pissed off with the colleague.

Can you make sure you have done all your work (accurately) before you leave? It will give her nothing to complain about and give you an easier time when you return to work.

How much work are you leaving when you go off? Do you make a lot of mistakes? If you are not completing your work in a timely manner and making a lot of mistakes, you might be preventing her doing her job well.

I can see why she might be pissed off if she thinks you aren't pulling your weight.

The mature response would be to either do your own work more carefully or communicate with either your colleague, your manager or both about the issue.

My manager isn't decent, that's the problem!

When any directive comes down from on high about H&S, fraud or incompetence, the first thing we're told is to report it and don't try to investigate ourselves

By going into your documents she is creating an audit trail which can be seen by anyone who investigates and who's to say she hasn't altered something to make you look bad?

Can you password protect your documents to make them read only

I think the only real solution is to get another job and at the exit interview, tell them why. Make sure you can substantiate everything you say, though.

I worked with someone like this once. I’m still baffled as to why she was adored.

In the end I bit the bullet and left and told people why I was leaving. It was more than I could bear

I've had a similar unpleasant experience with a back stabber causing trouble. I took revenge the correct way by being a back stabber right back and they are now facing serious consequences of their own doing. You need to do it discreetly. Try to rise above it for the time being and trust that her downfall is coming. My revenge will be even better in a few months time because I'll actually be doing exactly what they did to me right back to them and they won't be able to do a thing about it. Bide your time.

I had this once at work, and ended up leaving because of it. Confronted the manager about it. I guess I might consider it a form of bullying now (my example was in the days before they took that sort of thing seriously) and consider raising it as such?

I had this once in my twenties and the snooper was in her fifties (but junior to me and seriously pissed off about it). In the end she thought she found a mistake and took it to management. Management was a gem and thought I had dealt with the situation pragmatically and appropriately in my work and the snooper was required to apologise to me for snooping on my work 😂

Appreciate your manager may not be so brilliant but I do think in the end people like this get their comeuppance - as long as the quality of your work is good.

I really appreciate all responses, and it's difficult to explain the situation without saying that I'm a teacher and we share classes. So where she finds 'mistakes' it's often subjective. For example "OP supplied equipment for child x even though she shouldn't have" in this case the snooper is right, but morally I think I'm in the right. Does this make any sense??
Or "OP didn't write feedback in class A's books"
She goes through and checks I've done my marking or planning, checks my resources etc. it's driving me insane and my manager seems happy to receive intel from her little spy!

I need to work out a way to do this! Good for you!

You have to start giving her some of her own medicine. And if you can find a way to trip her up, do it. Lay some traps.

What on earth are you doing?

I wish I knew how to

In my case it was just time. They lied and caused me a lot of trouble then goaded me about it when nobody was withing earshot, so I waited til they thought it was all forgotten about then 'accidentally' told the truth about something they had been up to and caused them even more trouble. They actually walked straight into it. If you're going to do something really shitty to someone who did a lot to help you, try and make sure you're beyond reproach yourself...

If you're doing your job to a decent standard, she can look all she likes, she's got nothing on you to tell tales about. The odd mistake, or work not completed (as long as there's no deadline) is of little interest to managers, so even your inexperienced one is likely to get fed up with her soon.
Make sure you know what's acceptable for her to be looking at and what you have reason to expect to be confidential, and if she snoops into the latter, make a complaint.
In the meantime, just get on with your job, cover your back about anything you need to, and wait for your manager to wise up. Because people who waste managers time with petty and vexacious tales about valued team members don't stay popular.
If you're set on revenge the best way to get it would be to usurp her. Become your managers new right hand, be better than her, and play her at her own game.