So I’m in the break room a few days ago being a nice guy and starting a new pot of coffee. As I’m pouring the water in, a guy (let’s call him Biff Tannen) comes in and says, “Careful there, you have to have nerves of steel to do that!” and bumps my arm spilling half the pot of water on the table and floor, but fortunately not me.
What the heck is up with that? The most impudent part is that this is the second time Biff has done this!:mad:
I was able to hold my tongue and just mop up the water. I am the newest and youngest guy in the department so I don’t want to make waves by yelling at him, but in protest I didn’t finish with the coffee and silently left.
Just today I came across Biff again and he said, “How’s that shaky hand of yours?” Trying to be indifferent I simply told him I didn’t know what he was talking about. He replied, “You know, spill anymore water all over the place?”
Some people just never seem to grow up. I mean, if I was visiting my wife’s kindergarten class I wouldn’t be surprised to see behaviour similar to this. But come on, we are in a professional workplace and Biff has to be at least 45, not 6!
So do I continue the role of an elementary school kid and go to the Human Resource department to snitch? Do I mention it, maybe casually so it doesn’t seem like I’m try to get Biff in trouble, to my boss? To Biff’s boss? If it happens again should I just pour water on him? On his computer? How do you deal with an elementary school jerk that never grew up?
Also, does this belong in The Pit?
I’m not a human behavior expert, but I dealt with my share of wannabe bullies and I managed to avoid their wrath for the most part because I made it clear I really didn’t give a shit what they thought of me and that I thought their behavior was moronic.
A simple, jovial ‘‘Nice going, jackass! Have fun cleaning all this shit up!’’ would probably have been my first response.
He’s doing it because it bothers you. If you pretend it doesn’t bother you, he’ll probably quit. Whatever you do, don’t show them your fear.
You can’t be a doormat, that only encourages them. He’s harrassing you and creating a hostile work environment. If you don’t go to HR he’ll just keep doing it.
You probably could try giving him a warning first – “any more of this bullshit, I’m going to HR. You have been warned,” and see if that works.
If you don’t warn him first, he’ll come whining to you later and say you “went behind his back,” and that “if you had a problem, you should have told me to my face.” That’s how these assholes operate. He’ll try to turn things around to make it look like you did something wrong, try to emasculate you, call you a coward. Don’t give him that. Make it so you can say that you did tell him to his face.
The warning could end up being enough. These guys look for easy prey. NEVER clean up any of his messes again.
It is easy to comment on what you should have done differently.
As my grandfather used to say, “Everyone knows what to do with a kicking mule except the fellow who bought him.”
That having been said, I genuinely believe you should send him an email describing what happened and how inappropriate it was.
Send it JUST to him and let him know that he has been warned.
If anything else untoward happens, send an email to his supervisor, and HR along with a copy of the earlier email.
Good luck. I would have cleaned up the mess myself but that’s because I would have been too flustered to have done anything else. If this had happened at my lab, that person wouldn’t have made it through one installation. Things get pretty down and dirty on the road with 16 hour days pretty much the norm. Asshole bullies like Biff typically can’t handle it when he finds his laptop has inexplicably lost its CMOS settings and fails to boot.
Or drop the glass pot and when it breaks cover your eyes and start screaming: “My eye! My eye! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE??? There’s glass IN MY EYE!!!” It’ll scare the shit out of him.
It’s common for these types, when confronted, to counter that their accuser has no sense of humor or can’t take a joke. Don’t listen if he says that. What he did wasn’t funny.
Don’t pour water or anything else onto his computer. The computer probably belongs to the company, not to him, and you might get in trouble with your boss for doing so.
Don’t do anything to the coffee pot. That might affect innocent bystanders.
You could try telling him to grow the fuck up. If he accuses you of not having a sense of humor, tell him his little joke would have been funny – to a ten year old.
Certainly don’t operate at his level. Don’t cuss him out, call him an asshole, tell him to “clean up his own fucking mess” or whatever. Deal with it professionally - personally I would have told him “You need to clean that up”, then I’d immediately go and have a little talk with his boss. If the boss isn’t there email him.
“Biff just walked up to me while I was filling the coffee machine and intentionally knocked the pot out of my hand. Can you make sure he doesn’t do anything like that again? Thank you.”
Make a note (email yourself) of exactly what happened, who you spoke to and what was said. Keep that in your “CYA” folder.
I’d also mention to the janitor or facilities folks (whoever has to keep things clean) that “Someone spilled water all over the floor at the coffee machine”; that way you know it’ll get cleaned up and nobody’s going to slip and get hurt (sounds utterly anal but it certainly happens).
He did not act professionally, he was a little jerk. That behavior will get him in trouble sooner or later, however if you respond in the same fashion then you’ll be demonstrating that you don’t know how to behave either. He probably does this because nobody checks him on it.
You could do what I did to my 4 year-old son. It was a tad mean but it taught him a lesson.
He had the bad habit of trying to jump up and hang off of me while I was trying to do dishes in the sink. I told him to stop since I didn’t want to drop any dishes accidentally on him. He continued so the last time he did it I did the whole exaggerated “whoa, whoa, look out” and dumped a half a cup of water over his head.
You could try that and dump a bunch of water on the guy. “Gosh, I’m really sorry. You bumped my arm and it looks like I spilled all over you.”
I have to say, Dio is right, but I would have reacted like you said or close to it. I would have at the least said “WTF is wrong with you? Are you a child? I ain’t cleaning this up, and if you touch me again you’d better call a doctor becacause you’re gonna eat this coffeee pot.”.
I cannot stand bullies. I’ve learned however that most of them back off if you show the slightest amount of backbone. Especially if you expose them for the asswipes they are. I worked with a guy that loved to prey on me. Before it became a nuisance I let him start up and then I took my rank off and put it on the ground and said “Fuck with me again.”. He alluva sudden got all “Hey, I was only kidding blah blah blah” but everyone else there saw him for what he was. A blowhard. Now, he is bigger than I am, and younger…he could have kicked my ass. But he would have known he was in a fight. After that I told him if he had anything to say to me it better be work related. He never screwed with me again.
Just because you’re new doesn’t mean… no scratch that, especially because you’re new you have to establish what kind of person you are right away, and that behavior makes you look feckless and passive.
If someone pulled some shit like that with me I would confront them right away and make it very clear that it is in no way acceptable behavior. You should do the same.
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