I'm just finishing up my first month in a new job and the guy who I'm taking over from (a peer) - bit younger than me (early 30s), very focused but a bit full of jargon - seems friendly but has done two things to undermine me in front of other colleagues. Let's call him, I don't know, Z.
The first time was when Z instructed me to take notes on something in a meeting "so he knew I'd understood it." I was like okay, maybe he's not great at communicating. But another colleague, X, came and apologised to me afterwards for Z's behaviour so that made me wonder if it was something more.
Then today we were in a meeting full of other peers. It turns out Z's been having meetings about an issue which relates to part of my work without including me. He informed me that he was, in future, going to be talking to X about everything pertaining to my project, because X knows all about it.
X works with both of us but is not responsible for communication between the two of us - Z and I both in roles which involve communicating between projects. X works on something different and isn't responsible for communicating. So imagine you're, I don't know, a magpie and you're only going to speak to a squirrel about the big magpie nest building project going on in your tree.
It was quite shocking. X went incredibly pale and stuttered and the room went silent. I said firmly to Z that our projects were going to require us to communicate very carefully and directly between Z and me. He curtly said "Understood" and left the meeting.
I've reported all this to my new bosses (they took the first incident really seriously - much more so than I expected, and I expect they'll be the same with this one) but to be honest I'm quite flabbergasted by the whole thing. Being new to the job I'm trying to act as professionally as possible and can't imagine what I might have some wrong, because although my arrival coincided with some problems with the project as Z was handing it over these couldn't be attributed to me at all. The problems were partially his fault, I suppose, but it's widely acknowledged that Z was being asked to do too much and that problems were bound to happen as a result.
A couple of weeks ago he stopped talking to me (I can't believe I'm typing this but it's true) after I requested he slow his handover down to the originally planned date, as he was trying to pass over tasks too quickly. I got why he was cross as he's got a lot on his plate, but the work is really complex and I was worried I'd mess it up if I didn't get it all. It became an issue and again, my boss had to talk to him about it. In the end, he got his early handover date anyway but because I got my head round it all faster than I expected.
The most puzzling thing about all of this is that Z is a contractor and I'm a permanent staff member. Surely it's hugely against his own interests to be acting this way? They can get shot of him in an instant.
Not sure what to do if this happens again - everyone suggests really cool zingers but the last two times I've been really blindsided by it. In both instances he's been really blasé about it, like he's being perfectly reasonable. I'm left completely astonished and slightly powerless, which again is massively undermining in front of other people.
What would you do if he does this kind of thing again? Help!