Impossible work colleague

[theoldapplebarrel]

A close friend of mine is being driven to distraction by a work colleague who displays all the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder. Everything has to revolve around this person who is manipulative, untruthful and blames others when she is actually at fault. She carries a high opinion of herself and of her abilities - which actually are not that great. She flies off the handle if she is challenged or even if someone expresses a viewpoint different from hers. She puts others down in public with a "jokey" remark about minor oversights which causes embarrassment and irritation.

She seems to want to nurture relationships with more junior members of staff offering to "take them under her wing" and share her "expertise", train them up etc. Which on the surface sounds generous and reasonable but has an odd feeling about it which my friend does not want to encourage.

She goes out of her way to criticise my friend (who is the team leader of the team this person is in) behind her back for no good reason. She is impossible to deal with professionally as she is clever and always has an answer ready which usually comes in the form of an attack on my friend or others. She always plays the victim.

My friend is a straightforward hard-working person of integrity, professionalism and imagination who wants everyone to work together as a team but finds herself frustrated - occasionally, privately, to the point of tears - when this individual, by her avoidance of engagement, manipulation and basic bullying of others stops projects in their tracks.

Senior management are aware and have been involved and a formal complaint from another colleague about this person's behaviour was submitted last year but gained no traction. Two people have resigned from the organisation as they felt they simply couldn't work with this person any more.

Nobody seems to be able to do anything about this person other than to hope that at some point she will leave.

My friend sometimes has sleepless nights, usually before or after a difficult meeting with this person and finds it difficult to relax on her days off and I am fearful for the effect on her mental health. She does have a very supportive husband and good family life which is a huge help. She is to every normal degree a resilient and emotionally robust person who gets her head down and on with any job but is still human and having to deal with this impossible person day to day is costly. She feels she's constantly on the back foot as far as this person is concerned and has to be ready for the next attack, evasion of responsibilities or upset this person has caused another colleague.

She really doesn't want to leave her role, which in all other respects she loves. She is doing an excellent job. She is well liked and respected and she feels loyalty to her colleagues and is committed and enthusiastic about the progress which is being made and potential for development in the work they are doing.

And indeed, why should she be the one to leave anyway? And yet having to deal with the constant hampering and dreadful, manipulative and basically horrible behaviour of this person (now for 2+ years) is making her question how much longer she can continue.

The emotional cost of holding the team together as well as putting in all the hours to get the actual work done (which if it was simply that she wouldn't mind as she is a hard worker) is becoming unbearable at times.

Do other people have similar experiences or have found any solutions?

Why can't your friend ask her own question?

@swanling Well basically because she's not on MN (as far as I know). And I don't think she's the sort of person who would naturally go online with this sort of question.

I have been on MN for a little while and have found that there can be a lot of helpful insightful advice offered on all sorts of things. She's a very close friend and I just wanted to help support her with anyone else's wisdom or experiences in what is a really stressful situation. I listen and offer what I can but I don't have direct experience of this kind of situation myself. Simply that really.

I’ve experienced this a few times.
Use the grey rock technique.
Very calmly, ask them to repeat what they have said as criticism as your friend didn’t catch it the first time. It sounds really stupid when they have to repeat their criticism.
Take notes in all meetings and email them to the person so your friend has a paper trail.
Tell her not to stress over any behind her back comments - everyone else will find the person the same and disregard what she says (maybe not right away but quite quickly).
Keep a written record of any incidents. When a month’s worth of detail is available, she should go to HR and ask for advice. Keep going back to HR.
Raise it with manager as well, stating that it is a source of workplace stress.
In matters of avoidance or shirking, make very clear in writing what is expected and the timeline. Follow up every time when deadlines are missed or work is sub standard.

not wanting to seem glib, but your friend should change jobs. People like that leave thise around them suicidal, and don’t really care.

She probably needs some leadership training.

What a pointless comment 🙄

Thank you for all contributions so far which are really helpful. She has been keeping a paper/email trail for some time and has been noting down incidents, meetings, issues etc, all of which are verifiable by other colleagues.

One of the main problems is the nature of the organisation itself which is in the voluntary sector. My friend and the person concerned are both full-time paid professionals but the majority of others are part-time or volunteers. HR is hired in occasionally but there is no full-time HR team to turn to.

Leadership training is a good idea although she has done this fairly regularly. She's actually a very good, natural leader, although always open to improve and learn. It's the human cost of this particular situation with no permanent HR resource or really effective senior management back up which is the problem.

I manage someone like this, it's a right pain in the neck. They are slippery customers, as you've observed, manipulative and lie very easily, talk badly behind your back etc.

I'd suggest your friend firstly gets rid of the notion that this person will ever work nicely with anyone. It's all about power, control and having the winged monkeys/fan clubs. That's it. They want to be on top and win and will do whatever they can to get there.

I'd also suggest your friend watches some narcissism YouTube issues.

You can use themselves against them though - particularly their tendency to lie in the moment, they will often tell you two different things about the same thing if you ask twice on different days.

With the not taking responsibility and blaming others, I like to go for a firm "you may think this is not your responsibility, but it is." And then don't enter into further discussion. Never get into further discussion!

It took a while but I've finally got the upper hand. It was quite simple really: first, I just totally lost interest in her as far as she could see. I stopped reacting to her nonsense. That made her angry because of course she wanted the supply of my attention. Then I quietly kept notes of all her transgressions for about 8 weeks, and pointed some of them out in writing so there would be a record.

Then I chose 4 of the biggest areas she wasn't doing (and I knew she's not capable of!) and I started performance management. She's now desperately trying to leave, but no one within the organisation will have her because they've seen all her nonsense! I always follow up our conversations in writing with anything I asked her to do or not do so she can't "forget" what I said, she always comes back with some utter guff and I respond with something like "thanks" and don't get into a back and forth.

Oh I know it all so well. One person can change the whole atmosphere of a work environment. It’s usually mental health issues that can probably be traced back to childhood. These people never get any therapy because they never see themselves as the problem. Never see it in a million years. Management never challenge them because it’s not worth the fall-out and meltdown that will ensue so the rest of the staff are thrown to the wolves and have to learn coping strategies. There are some dreadful people in workplaces unfortunately

Is your friend…you?

@Whochangedmynamec Actually, and quite honestly, no. But a very good, close friend I've known for over twenty five years, kids have grown up together etc.

Management wont challenge them as long as target are met , numbers crunch and head office is happy . Theses people usually suck up to management who think they are great .

@Whochangedmynamec Just a further thought. If it was me I'd be perfectly happy to say so as I've done elsewhere on MN. It's an anonymous forum and I'd have no reason to pretend I'm someone else.

@youveturnedupwelldone This is it exactly. I'll share with her your suggestions. She is getting used to the (rather sad) fact that she needs to be constantly on top of challenging her, following her up, etc instead of treating her like an equal colleague but these specific suggestions I think will be really helpful. And word has got round to other parts of the organisation across the region. This person has at times talked of applying for posts elsewhere within the organisation but it's quite possible that no-one else will be now willing to employ her..

Yes, @Tidsleytiddy I agree, in thinking a bit about this and talking a lot with my friend (and I actually know the person a bit, but not very well) I'm realising that this kind of issue can go back to early childhood and linked other mental health issues. For which should elicit compassion and understanding. But I agree it doesn't make it any easier to deal with when the person themselves don't think there's an issue and the manifestations are just unpleasantness and obstructiveness. .

@minkymini I think that was true for a bit. I'm not sure if it's the case now. Her targets aren't being met and the impressive self-talk has worn off now.

I think colleagues are usually stunned by this sort of behaviour and how one person can manipulate a whole working environment. Deep-seated issues are normally the cause. The need to be the best or the one that deserves special treatment. As I said, in my experience with these office pests it was down to childhood trauma that had never been addressed because the person simply couldn’t make the link and thought they were the only “normal” person on the team. It causes so much chaos and people genuinely don’t want to go to work because of one arsehole

You say your friend's colleague "displays all the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder", and certainIy their actions as described by you are highly destabilising. I thoroughly recommend to your friend the YouTube channel "Live Abuse Free" featuring psychotherapist Zoe.

The analysis and advice that Zoe expertly provides has helped me a lot; to put some emotional distance between myself and the narcissists in my life, and to take some emotional and practical steps away from my involvement in their constant manipulations of their - and consequently - my world.

I understand much better both their single-minded, ravenous pursuit of narcissistic supply plus accompanying personal negative traits, and my own reasonable yet complex and heightened emotional and physical responses to exposure to them.

My growing understanding is allowing me to step back and objectively observe their behaviour, then respond in a way that is much less overwhelming and consuming for me; less damaging to my emotional and physical well-being and less taxing for my mental health

Some of the character traits, and the ill-effects of stress that you describe your friend as possessing, resonate with me. I have found Zoe's YouTube channel to be affirming and beneficial and hope it might be useful.

It depends on the nature of the work the voluntary sector does, but if it were to become public knowledge of the inaction by senior management, then should the organisation depend on donations or public funding, this could dry up fairly quickly.

Agree with the keeping records of every incident. Meanwhile start looking for other jobs.

She needs to structure this person out it's one vs the other

@LauderSyme Thanks, I'll suggest this. My own rather inadequate advice when I've been racking my brains what to suggest is that she finds some means of being able emotionally to "step back" from the situation and deal with this person at arms' length.

One of her great attributes is her interest in and concern for others at a human level - that's the level at which she naturally engages with everyone. The thing is in this situation where someone is simply not "engagable" (if that's a word!) at a normal level and is only looking for affirmation to feed some inner need it becomes impossible. She also doesn't want to have to deal with the person at arms' length but would much rather work constructively with her as a colleague. But it is what it is.

I worked with someone who sounds like a carbon copy of this lady, unfortunately. I lasted 9 months. It was a temporary role but I was offered perm and an increased salary to stay. A hard no to that - you cannot buy good mental health and this person was destroying mine. It was public sector so was only a small increase, but indicative that senior mgmt recognised the issues (I wasn't the first person to leave because of this individual and her antics) and were keen to not have to keep recruiting into my role managing this person! Honestly I think leaving is the only solution, unless she leaves!

If this is the voluntary sector I'm assuming that means it is a charity, in which case this needs to be brought to the attention of the trustees.

Loads of these types in the public sector. Untouchable

You realise though that you're not exactly presenting an objective view of the situation? And you seem to have a very high opinion of your ability to read this friend's mind?

In your rendering, your friend is a saint who can do no wrong up against a monstrous colleague. That's clearly biased.

Therefore the advice you receive is flawed from the outset. Same as when people post a "reverse".

Nevermind the fact that your friend does not appear to have asked you to meddle by posting about their private life online.

I worked with someone like this, who was the only person I’ve ever met who I think has narcissistic personality disorder (matched the symptoms to a tee). I can only say it will never get better. She drove a colleague and me to the edge of a breakdown, enabled by our weak manager who avoided her and buried his head in the sand. It took ten years and multiple HR complaints to get her fired, but I wish I’d walked on the job earlier. I still get flashbacks of traumatising situations and hate how she robbed me of my peace of mind. If you don’t get from management support in dealing with these people, you’re screwed. They also present a very good image of themselves to people who are not directly involved with them, so you feel that people in the wider company must think you’re the problem rather than them. If your friend can’t get wider support with dealing with them she should look to her own mental health and leave. It will be better in the long run.

I worked with someone like this who surrounded herself with flying monkeys . Interestingly those flying monkeys completely dropped her when she left the workforce. I asked one flying monkey why she no longer stayed in touch with her . Her reply- no way too much drama !