Passive aggressive predecessor

[CrispyDuckPancake]

Has anyone been in a similar situation? I'm about to start a permanent role, which has been covered by a locum (at 3x the permanent salary - going rates, fair enough!) for some time. He is clearly unhappy that he is being "pushed out" by my appointment to the role and is not inclined to ease the transition in any way - such as refusing to prepare the expected written handover, and obstructing me from getting the information myself. I can work around all this and learn on the job - I am experienced - but it feels petty and unprofessional (it's a patient care role so the handover is not primarily for my benefit, but theirs).

He has made a point of telling me the team really love him, are SO sad he is leaving and have begged him to stay, and offered him so much more money than I will be paid. Which may all be true, but it feels as though telling me is intended to knock my confidence and negatively influence my relationships with my colleagues before I've even started.

My plan is to ignore him and just get on with it 😁But any other experiences and tips are welcome.

Put every request, no matter how small, in writing and cc your direct superior.

He can only knock your confidence if you allow him to. So don't.

How much handover do you really need?

I locum and it's normal to have zero handover when you arrive and do zero or close to zero when you leave.

For the first 3 to 6 months you often have to introduce yourself as the new 'last person's name '.

And don't believe anything he says about how popular he is. As a locum you usually only do the clinical side of the job and are spared all the meetings, strategy and policy. So he didn't do the same job as you.

It's really annoying, I've been in a similar situation, when I started my current job I took over from a lady who'd been in position for 20+ years, it was her little kingdom/baby and she really didn't like letting go, for reasons I never fully understood management agreed she could extend her retirement date by months so we overlapped by a long time, notionally to hand over to me and 'complete her filing' but really she swanned around letting me do all the grunt work (and critiquing/nitpicking how I did things), blocking any changes, telling anyone who'd listen how the senior managers had begged her not to retire, had offered her the world on a plate to stay, how everyone said the place wouldn't be the same and things will fall apart without her, how she'd be coming back as a locum whenever we needed her but would be earning £££. It got pretty tiresome to be honest but was soon forgotten once she finally left, I'm pretty sure nearly everyone saw through her and were (nearly) as glad to see the back of her as I was, I also firmly believe this kind of behaviour is primarily defensive, they know full well once they're gone it will become clear how dispensable they (and everyone else of course) really are, my predecessor lady had built herself a very nice cushtie set up where she'd for instance convinced people that certain tasks were very difficult and time consuming and only she could possibly do them, so got lots of allowances and 'protected time' aka doss time as a result whereas as soon as I arrived I automated everything and/or taught the whole team how to do them very easily, making everything much more efficient and meaning I could do lots more of the actually difficult work. She must have known this deception would be blown apart as soon as she left the building hence having to eventually be booted firmly out! She definitely wasn't anywhere near as universally beloved (or competent!) as she thought she was either...

What I'm saying is keep your head down and just wait for him to go, which he surely will soon enough, don't worry about people thinking negatively of you, they're probably not even listening to him or they're thinking 'yeah right mate' when he goes on about his huge salary!

Tbh if he not doing his handover i would be looking for a meeting with your manager asap.
Its their ass is on the line as much as yours if his actions lead to a drop in care.
He is /had been paid the extra and has no reason not to finish out the role in a professional way.
If your manager is not willing to force the issue you have that clearly documented. That way when whatever it is that will happen happens (and it will) due to poor handover the majority of blame is firmly with the ex-employee not you

And if the organisation loved him that much he would still be in the job or be happy leaving to bigger and better things.

Thanks all. I appreciate all the comments and it's helped to get things in perspective. Sorry to those who have been through the same! @NoctuaAthene I recognise a lot of your predecessor in this guy - thankfully our crossover will only be days, so I won't have to keep hearing about his huuuuge (financial) package.

I haven't always had handovers but this has been when the previous post-holder left early, was off sick, or I rotated into a vacant post during training, that sort of thing. I've never had an experience of someone going out of their way not to share information, when they could - in fact to actually try to keep it from me. This is what's taken me aback.

I decided to ignore him and contacted the admin team (with the agreement of my line manager-to-be) who were lovely and sent me plenty of information, which I can work through on my own and will get me up to speed.

If your crossover is only days, how much will you actually see him? Will you not be off doing mandatory training anyway?

It's a basic part of being a locum that you can always be replaced if they manage to recruit a permanent staff member.
So if he liked the job that much he could have applied for it and accepted the pay cut. Or maybe he did and managment actually thought he wasn't that good and hired you instead?

Being paid 3x permanent staff (if that is even true - probably not) also doesn't look as good when you remember he isn't paid holidays, sickness, or employer's pension contribution. And he has no job security.