Not happy with new job

[ReginaaPhalange]

Just before lockdown, I had a really good job interview with my employer. All I will say is it's a health board. It was an internal position I applied for and I got the job. It's a completely different department but still same employer.

I'm scared to say too much in case I am recognise but basically the reasons I am not happy are as follows.

1. The job I am in is basically a support officer role and I work alongside the project officer. She is alright. Talks a lot of crap about all her previous jobs and how she was basically a superstar in them all, but she's now here as she genuinely has the skills and IS good at her job. She doesn't need to work, she only admitted it's just to top up her extra spending money as her husband made it big and earns loads. Anyway, she treats me like her PA. I am NOT in a PA role, but that annoys me.

1. She steals my ideas! We meet daily as we are working on a project and whenever I suggest anything, I get this. "I hear you, but I don't think that would work here" and then explains why. 2 weeks later, my she will suggest something which she's already rejected from me.

1. She's got me basically duplicating work. I will tell her I've set something up, or inform her of what I've done etc and she will then come back to me later down the line and tell me she's looking for something that can help with blah blah blah. I will tell her I've already done it, but she will try pick pick fault and say "hmmm I need THIS on it though". If I question and say that it's maybe not necessary and just creating an extra step for something that doesn't need to happen (when that's the case) she will argue her point as to why we need it. If I add in the extra detail, she won't end up using it.

1. She doesn't involve me in her work, but expects to know what I'm doing. Whenever I ask what she's doing and can I help, she just says "no, nothing you can help with, it's just something else I have to do". Fair enough, but we are a team and our work is to do with this project which I am supporting should be aware??

1. She interrupts my work all the time and will ask me basically to stop what I'm doing and work on her stuff too. There is still a department to run and if a phone call comes in and I need to deal with that, she interrupts me and expects me to drop what I'm doing.

I'm at the stage where I should enjoy my new challenge and the big pay rise that came with it, but this person is really making me not enjoy it.
She is not my boss. My boss is such a nice guy, laid back but always really busy. We have regular 1:1 every fortnight and I am meeting with him next week.

Should I say something? He doesn't like the drama and would rather we try to sort things out amongst ourselves, but I don't want to talk to this woman as basically everyone says she's amazing and she will out right deny anything I am saying. I'm still new so don't want to cause problems, but this is really making me dislike my job.

Any advice would be great x

Sympathies, she sounds unbelievably annoying and as a small team it sounds like you can't really get away from her! I don't think you are at risk of being recognised so don't worry, unfortunately you get these types in pretty much every workplace, it's one of the most disheartening things about getting a promotion, you come in full of enthusiasm and hope that this is finally going to be the job where people know what their jobs are and get them done without making a fuss about it and you might actually be able to learn from them, only to find however senior and experienced the people you are working with, the same old incompetence/bullshitting/arrogance/self-importance/need to belittle or put down others to make themselves feel big as you had at the more junior levels!

To be honest I think your main priority needs to be developing your own tactics to stay sane and not let her wind you up, personally as a non confrontational person my approach tends to be to make myself find the predictable annoying traits/habits of my co-workers amusing rather than annoying, so for instance I'll have a bet with myself about how long it will take someone to claim my idea as theirs or come to me claiming we urgently need something they previously rejected as unnecessary or whatever, or I'll play 'bullshit bingo' when my annoying boss makes up totally unnecessary and elaborate tasks to make his work seem more important, if he does 5 in an hour I get to go and get a coffee from the canteen (or kitchen in lockdown ).... For things like your examples (2) and (3), where she asks you for or suggests something you already have, I'd probably just humour her and go 'great idea, I'll start work on that right away' (knowing you already have it prepared) rather than arguing the toss with her (so long as this isn't going to impact anyone else). With (1) I would probably use (slightly passive aggressive) humour as a tool so if she wants you to book her train tickets or do her filing or other PA tasks I'd say 'Oi I'm not your PA don't you know ha ha ha' or 'what did your last PA die of haha' or similar - so long as you are sure those aren't jobs you should be doing of course! People like her are quite often not consciously aware what they're doing (not saying it makes it right, just that it's hard to change) and are just very set in their ways so IMO it's about working around it rather than having a huge confrontation which often doesn't achieve actual change and can ruin the relationship all together. Pop pyschology moment but I would suspect she's actually quite insecure about herself and her job - all the boasting about her previous jobs, the secrecy about telling you what she's doing (highly doubt it's because it's something really exciting and high profile, she's probably actually doing someone else's admin work or going to boring irrelevant meetings), the need to claim all progress or good ideas as her own etc etc... looking at it this way may make her seem more pitiable than threatening, doesn't stop it being annoying of course but it will help you not let it knock your own self-confidence.

Regarding asking your boss about it, yes you should be able to but I wouldn't use him to offload all your frustrations about her, cathartic though that might be (use your DP or best friend for that), I would spend some time thinking of things he can actually do to help and ask him for those. So for instance he can't watch you and her all day every day and she may present a very different face to him than she does to you, and a generalised 'telling off' about her behaviour (even if he was willing to do that) may well just put her back up and make her defensive. But if there are specific things he can intervene in that would be really helpful and you should def ask him. So for instance, with your frustration (4) perhaps he could send out a general reminder across the department, so it isn't seen as targeted at her, that he wants phones answered no matter what and this should be seen as a priority or similar, so she can't then argue with you (or conversely, if he thinks you should just let phones go to voicemail if you are talking to a colleague, then that's his call and you can't be blamed for it). You can also use him to tell you more about the wider work she/the department are involved in if you aren't getting this from her. You could also start to subtly find out what opportunities there might be to get involved in other work that isn't so closely linked with nightmare woman, at least to dilute her constant presence in your life?

Good luck!

She's a manager who doesn't know what she's doing and when things don't go to plan you will always be the scape goat.