Jezebel
I hated my last full-time job for a variety of reasons — because it consisted entirely of unchallenging grunt work, because the higher-ups encouraged a culture of snitching, and because almost everyone there was actively looking for a new job — but what actually made me quit was my deep and undying hatred of one of my coworkers, whom I'll call Angela. As the most senior of the junior staffers, she was ostensibly my superior. Every morning she would arrive at the office and immediately change into a pair of Orvis slippers, while ritualistically rubbing her hands together with anti-bacterial gel. Soon after I started the job, and on the eve of a three day weekend, I asked Angela what she was doing for the mini-break. "I'm handing out hot dogs at a homeless shelter," she informed me. "I began volunteering there when I first started this job and I was low man on the totem pole. I needed to have someplace to go where I was in charge of everything."
Volunteering at a homeless shelter for the "power" it conferred upon her? That was pretty much Angela in a nutshell. There were other things: Bragging that she regularly manipulated emails (forwarding emails from other people after she had changed the content of the messages); lying to management about my making personal phone calls during work hours; berating a Subway employee for giving her less than "perfect" tomatoes. In an already-unfulfilling job, Angela was the proverbial straw: I could put up with the other bullshit, but the idea of seeing her weasel face for one more day made me want to die, so I quit even though I didn't have another gig lined up.
Apparently I'm not the only one who suffered from workplace "collenemies" as Time blogger Lisa Takeuchi Cullen termed them. Cullen relates the story of a colleague who ratted her out about freelance work, and quotes a study that says coworker strife can lead to "a wide variety of workplace problems, ranging from lost productivity and higher turnover to increased and open hostility." And in yesterday's New York Times "Thursday Styles" section, Lisa Belkin discussed strategies for dealing with malignant coworkers, as outlined in a book called Toxic People: Decontaminate Difficult People at Work Without Using Weapons Or Duct Tape . Author Marsha Petrie Sue divides workplace evildoers into three categories: "Steamroller (a bully who is not necessarily right but is determined), the Whine and Cheeser (who finds the dark side to everything, as in: "Cheez, I got a raise. I'll have to pay more taxes"), and the Backstabber (enough said)." Belkin describes a woman whose nasty female coworker dumps her lunch detritus into the first woman's garbage can just to piss her off; Sue suggests that the victim of the lunchtime sneak attacks should pick up the garbage "and carry it into her tormentor's cubicle when others are watching."
As for my revenge on Angela, I never got any, and it continues to bother me that I never got any sort of closure on the situation. In fact, I still fantasize about running into her at a bar, downing some liquid courage, and telling her where she can stick her goddamn slippers. Thank god for the virtual Jezebel office and my lovely coworkers, whom I would never, ever want to cornhole with indoor footwear.
It's Not the Job I Despise, It's You [New York Times]
Never Mind Office Romance. Fear The Collenemy [Time]
Comments
Too many memories and stories flooding my brain. I think my head is going to explode.
Yay! Three Cheers for Jezebel and the way it does wonders for the 8 hr. workday!
Bad coworkers truly are the pits. I work in a small "team" made up entirely of awesome people and we have one vacancy. We've decided we'd rather do all the extra work than risk getting some douchebag in that would ruin the group.
it's always women who get wiggy with me in offices. all that fluorescent lighting? anyway, i'm freed from that. praise _______!
Thank Darwin I have my own office. At the end of the hall.
My solution: don't work a job. My worst day being my own boss beats my best day at a job, hands down.
"Poop is raining from the ceilings. Poop!"
That is all
This is why I work from home. Oprah, Ellen, ESPN radio, NPR, Michael K., and you guys are lovely co-workers.
I work alone in an office- like, I am the only employee and my boss is never here. That can be annoying too- at least you have someone to direct your irritation at if there are other people there. i have to direct mine at, well, myself.
"The idea of seeing her weasel face for one more day made me want to die"
I am there.
Yeah, I gotta get me one of those virtual offices before I start bitch-slapping people.
I just don't socalize with people. Problem solved.
aw! you described my CURRENT employment situation! thanks!
"Collenemy"? Blogosphere, I implore thee: enough with the cutesey-bopsie portmanteux. Lolcats were way more than enough. Thx.
@SarahMC: bummed i didn't get to meet you at the jez dc gathering! sisterhood shit took precedence.
I had a boss like this once. I saw him again a year after I was "let go" under extremely fishy circumstances. He took one look at me (and my SO), and literally turned on his heels and fled. I guess the jellyfish hated confrontation that much...but, it was funny to see him beat a hasty and sorta gay retreat.
I had a coworker at my last job who was, hands down, the worst human being to ever walk the planet. She would routinely scream at people for her own fuck ups, read our emails and IM'd her long distance boyfriend while the rest of us were in the office until 11 every night. It ended up being a good thing, we hired a lot of new people and we all bonded instantly. Nothing like common enemy to make everyone else in the office best friends.
Now that sounds like someone who has never had an orgasm.
How many of you work from home? Now I am curious.....not to mention incredibly jealous.
I have an arch enemy at my office...a real live butthole. After this week, my new strategy is to become the super hero ferosha coutoura and spray him in the eyes with hairspray...the fukin bald bastard.
last office job i had was sabotaged by a nasty bit of work who sounds a bit like "angela". what a misnomer!
@Archetype: *raises hand*
Used to work part-time at a place where I guess we had a Backstabber. She tried to manipulate people-on practically her first day there, she was asking me questions like if I had a car and oh could she borrow it to practice driving on? Uh. No. She wouldn't pay her rent when she lived with a co-worker, claiming she was poor. She reportedly stole stuff from other departments. And the boss wouldn't fire her, probably because she said she'd sue him for discrimination (she was from India).It was ridiculous. And she always complained about wanting to go to a bigger paper. When she finally supposedly got married to her long-distance fiance, she quit and there was much cheering. Oh, also one day she came in and was trash-talking me, but the person who heard her wouldn't tell me what she said, so it must have been bad.
@hatepaperdoll: Me too.
And that pretty much sums um why I quit my last job with nothing lined up. It's the riskiest thing I had ever done, but I was a thousand times happier the next day knowing I would never have to deal with manipulating, snitching, double-crossing co-workers (well at least not those).
@JessicaLovejoy: Ha!
@Archetype: me, when i'm not traveling. i love it, and i get to mooch around on the jezebel site when i'm not scurrying about.
OOoh, one of my current teammates is a "whine and cheeser" and it's pissing the heck outta the rest of us. We've been covertly trying to figure out how to switch her with someone on another team. Office politics are SO much fun!
@skinnybonejones: Hear, hear!
I totally work with a Whine and Cheeser. EVERYthing she does is wrong, EVERYthing the customer does is wrong, EVERYthing her coworker does is wrong, etc. etc. She leads such a sad existence, I would almost feel sorry for her if she wasn't also a total bitch.
@charlotte corday: You SHOULD be bummed!
The Jez sisterhood will prevail!
The secretary in my office is a total cunt backstabber. She lies to the boss about everyone else in the office, myself included. Oh, and she's completely perma-tanned trashy and professionally incompetent. Proper spelling, punctuation and grammar are nary to be found in the letters she types.
Our receptionist is an idiot who can't manage basic filing tasks. "No such thing as a stupid question" my ass!
My boss eats vegetables all day (not quietly, mind you) and talks with food in her mouth.
I am desperate for a new job.
@cubiclewhore: up* grrrr.
In my lab all the gossiping, nosiness, racial bigotry, and all-around douchyness is done by male colleagues . All of the female coworkers, myself included, that had desks in their same office had to ask for new arrangements from our PI (boss).
"and telling her where she can stick her goddamn slippers"
And maybe some free hot dogs too
Oh man. I had a great internship at a great company with awesome people.. except the miserable little dude who sat across from me. Really obnoxious about dumping work onto my desk, absolutely dreadful whenever he had to help me, loudly passive-aggressive about how I should be kissing his ass daily because I was an intern. The two approaches I tried, being super-nice and just ignoring him, still didn't prevent me from regretting the fact that I let him ruin my summer and subconsciously held back a lot for fear of him ridiculing my efforts.
@dosido: i thought it was from Mean Girls.
@lonewolfer: When they start trying to get their nose all in my business I say the most inane incoherent thing I can think of (oh, I saw cute bunnies!) and get the fuck away.
@charlotte corday: Oh crap, you just reminded me that I forgot all about the happy hour! Oops :( I shall stay tuned to the Facebook group for future meetings.
I guess I'm really lucky. I've worked at some semi-crap jobs, including retail, but have mostly liked the people I work with. Or ignored the ones I didn't. I did have a batshit crazy boss once, who blamed us for everything, but the whole division knew she was nuts so at least I felt there was some sympathy for us. Right now I work in Boston and my boss is in Philly, and I telecommute once a week. The people I work with are a little loud, but other than that I like almost every one of them. Plus I get to hang out here most o the day. Nice.
Karma happens. It does. I once worked with a blandsome guy who was hired and promoted and endlessly extolled by our cougar boss who made no secret of her desire to see him naked. He used to clog the communal printers with his freelance while the rest of us were trying to make deadlines. He used to take the little receipt nubbin off the bottom of the restaurant bill so that he could claim casual coworker lunches (where everyone chipped in) as business expenses on his taxes. He used to claim credit for the work of others because his own work sucked ass. And then he got a more prestigious job at a more prestigious agency and we all gnashed our teeth and tore our garments and railed at an unjust God.
And then the prestigious agency fired him. And then his girlfriend kicked him out and got a restraining order. And then he was arrested for trying to break into the house they shared before the restraining order. And then he called his old cougar boss to see if she would bail him out.
Gentle reader, she did not.
The end.
@lonewolfer: I try not too either during lunch (I need to be alone), which leads to bitchiness too. This bitch who talks constantly during lunch (dragging it out hour-long, rather than 40mins when we all have important shit to do) finds me anti-socal or something. If I ask for help, she laughs, or condecends, which she didn't when I put up with eating with the rest. Others respect my privacy.
Anyway, those three categories can easily be found outside work too. On on-line forums and similar especially, I think. Oh well: Morons are everywere.
@Joy_Rebar: That is a lovely happy ending to the story. Thank you!
This chick was crazee at my old office. I mean like multiple personality like crazy. She say something in front of a group of people and then deny it to our boss. She talked about personal things from her childhood in staff meetings. AND whatever was good, she did. Whatever sucked, she didn't. And also talked about things that could happen as if they had, so it would confuse everyone, especially about funding. She was so incompetent. Wait, sorry. I got worked up.
I have a higher up I call George Costanza. Because...he's George Costanza. When you walk out of our bathrooms and breakroom, you look straight at the computer. We have a game to see who can see him doing the most incongruously non-work related thing. Watching Dr. Oz videos on Oprah.com won.
I also have a co-worker who's a closeted lesbian who insists on referring to her SO as a "roommate" and yet gets angry whenever people aren't inclusive of teh gays (she's the only one in our office). It's kind of like, you can't have it both ways. She might get more sympathy if she weren't also a horrible human being who yells at people over the phone and comes over to chit chat when I'm obviously trying to read my very important spam.
Yeah, I'm that girl in the office. When you come to chat with me, I don't pay attention and check my email. BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO GO AWAY.
Is it drinking time yet? Should I shop between now and drinking time? Or go to yoga?
At my summer/current internship, a woman I worked with was the biggest bitch ever. I'm the LEGAL intern, and everyone there knows I'm a third year LAW student. She to this day doesn't understand that. At the company Christmas party she asked why I was drinking. Um, I'm 24? She didn't understand why I lived off campus, despite me trying to explain to her that my school doesn't have grad student housing. "Oh, right, you're not a freshman, I forgot." NO, I HAVEN'T BEEN A FRESHMAN SINCE 2002! She's also asked me to photocopy stuff and put together mailings for her. No, I don't do that. And BTW, she's in MARKETING!
I'd also recommend "The Sociopath Next Door" [www.amazon.com] for reference. It's amazing how many of these scheeming hozebags are amoral, conscience-less mental cases.
Ohhh! Story time!
I worked at a company for almost 2 years and felt I deserved a promotion. I had 30+ projects under my belt. So I went to my boss and asked for one. "Oh, yes! You do an excellent job! I'll just need to check with the editorial director," she said.
A week later, I checked back in with her. And she said, "What? You didn't ask me for a promotion. When was this?"
It gets better.
So around that same time, they hired a new editor who was to become my manager. Which made me happy as I hated the old one by this point. And on my first day, she came to me with her administrative work and said, "Since I don't have an ed. assistant this will be your job, okay?"
So I quit. And then they hired an INTERN to take over my projects and made her an ASSOCIATE editor.
Also- whoever commented that they used to work with women like Tanisha from the Bad Girls Club definitely had it much, much worse. I cannot even imagine working with someone like that!
Teaching is Shangri-La compared to working in an office. I don't know what it is, probably something wrong with me, but I have never worked in an office situation where it wasn't the total assholes who were getting ahead, and they'd do it any way they had to. No low was too low to stoop to, no matter too petty to pursue, no ass too filthy to kiss. I never thought I was doing anything but doing my work and trying to get along with people, and somehow I always managed eventually to fall victim to these asshats.
Whereas in my current job, yes, the kids are frequently functionally illiterate, and they see me as hopelessly old at 33, and the pay is sucky and there are few benefits and less job security, but I'm in much less danger of having a stroke from day to day. Never once have fisticuffs broken out over who is the true owner of a ball of rubber bands. True story.
@Archetype: I have two mornings a week of face time and the rest is done at home. It is a major perk.
Wow this is prescient. I've just spent 3 hours working on a bullshit project because the person to whom said project relates is completely OCD. My office is fine, for the most part, but between this mess and the shit pay I get, I gotta get the fuck out of here.