How did I become the bad guy? (Mild)

The BBQ Pit
1

Im thoroughly confused and just a little pissed.

Im a sad little wage slave, working at a large company through a temp agency. I started back in January of this year. Im still a temp, the company has no urge to hire me on as that would mean shelling out more money. I know they like me as I’ve been given new and different tasks and am on the list of folks “with a brain” I guess corporate policy is that they have to keep a ratio of “real” employees to temp ones. Maybe Im just buying into their shpiel so I can feel good about driving 45 minutes one way and bust my ass for poverty level income. (Mmmyeah, and gas prices this week are what again?)

But I digress. Lets move on to CowOrker. We’ll call her X. X has been temping at company for well on two years now. No raise, no shift of duties, pretty much locked in place. She’s a little younger than me. We’re both female. She trained me and we hit it off as fast friends. We had gone out for beers, I even had her to my house for dinner. Well, after I was at company for 4 months, they noticed my anal-retentiveness (in a department that rewards that) and decided to move me over to the team that would benefit from my nazi-esque work ethic. X was upset about me leaving her team and for a time blamed me, saying I didnt fight to stay. Well, she was well aware that Husband is not working right now, so our only income is this temp assignment. I am not one to rock boats and jeopardize our living for someone’s tender feelings. She eventually stopped picking on me about it. Key word here is eventually, meaning it bothered her for longer than I thought something like that should.

Now about two weeks ago, I was informed that I was promoted to Team Leader, with a raise in hourly wage. Still not hired on officially, no benefits to speak of, but a raise. And more work. I was quietly proud of myself for about 2 minutes. Well when I tell X about promotion - she gives me an overly sarcastic “Well that’s GREAT for you!” and from then on proceeds to not speak to me. For two weeks.

Not one word. And what Im pissed about it is how people can be so fucking CHILDISH. I mean = The Silent Treatment? Are you 9? I was supposed to train the new person for X’s team and I wanted to get an update on what that person needs to know, but Silent Asshole X just shot herself in the foot. I trained the new person all week, with what I thought she should know. Im sure it’s not to her liking, but at least I did what I could.

I know X is frustrated with getting passed over yet again. Wasting two years with crappy pay and no recognition must really suck. And I can empathize, I really really can. But apparently out of the blue she’s got this notion that all of a sudden after 8 months working with her that I’m this ovelry-ambitious ladder-climber or something. That somehow I’ve betrayed her by management noticing that Im not a complete fuck. It’s a Fucking Dollar Raise!!! Get over yourself.

I just can’t fathom that there are people like this. At this AGE, anyway. I thought I left Junior High about 20 years ago. It’s insane.

2

You’re management now (well, sort-of). It’s time to leave the lower classes in your wake, as they’ve already served their purpose as stepping stones on your climb to a higher nobler life.

3

Gee, an immature, childish, unprofessional worker was passed over for a promotion to management? How could that have happened? After all, her occupying a seat should definitely surpass any actual communication skills or emotional maturity. The hiring manager should obviously have realized that her cattiness would have completely dissipated if presented with a promotion with no pay increase.

4

I often give people the “silent treatment”. Personally, I prefer to call it “disengagement”. Usually, I assume everyone I meet is a terrific person until they prove themselves otherwise. Occasionally, someone initially appears like being a potential “life long friend” and then, after a period of time, I’ll come to the judgement call that they’re just a “fair weather friend” and little more - that is, someone who’s there when the times are good and then they disappear.

I don’t whine with people like that. I don’t try to change them. I don’t complain about their behaviour etc - I just disengage and move on. From my point of view, that’s most adult decision I can make - namely, if someone let’s me know for long enough that I’m not REALLY important to them, I simply treat 'em the same way. It’s actually quite heathy from a self esteem point of view.

In that context, ask yourself… perhaps your ex friend decided the same thing about you?

5

We’ve got several temporary employees now that I wish we’d hire. Unfortunately, my company is very reluctant to increase headcount. Not too long ago, there were many layoffs in the industry. We were incredibly lean and managed to get through by with cutting open positions and letting attrition handle most of the rest (we did have some layoffs–but fewer than our competitors).

Now our market is picking up, and we don’t have the manpower to get all these new projects done. We really need additional people–but management is still reluctant to take on additional permanent staff lest we have another situation where layoffs are needed. So we muddle through with lots of temps and consultants. (It’s much easier to let them go if times go bad.)

If you’re with an anal retentive and conservative company, you may be facing the same thing. You are in a good situation in that you’ve been given additional responsibilities. Eventually, they have to realize that you can leave pretty easily while you’re still a temp. The more you know and the more they rely on you, the less they’ll like that.

Sucks about the silent treatment. Her childishness will only look bad for her. You’ve done nothing to feel bad about and nothing anyone can blame you for.

6

Hmmm… there are three sides to every story… His; Hers; and THE TRUTH…

7

Well, in this case it’s hers, hers and the truth.

8

This whole scenario is bullshit from top to bottom, but it is all too common in our business world. Temps training other temps; temps at jobs for two years; temps being given pittance raises and more responsibility but not hired. All bullshit. I can totally see why X is acting foul; she’s being taken advantage of, and she knows it (and so are you, Duck, but you’ve got your reasons for staying). Taking it out on you isn’t right, though. It’s the company that she should be mad at.

My best advice to deal with her (what I wish I had done at the last job I was at where a co-worker was harassing me) is treat her with extreme professionalism. Do your job, don’t even act like you know she’s mad at you if you have to deal with her in a professional capacity, and if she says or does something hostile, tell her flat out that you don’t accept that kind of treatment.

9

You got some toadies and your new office is inside a volcano.

10

I actually got hired by a company ahead of another temp who had been working there two years (I was there six weeks as a temp). The resentment is natural. Curling up and suckling it like a concrete tit is definitely not. Xaviera got rogered, and you got a “promotion.” It happens that way. All you did was try to impress your bosses, though. She’ll get over it.

11

Bah. Fuck 'er.

I had a co-worker like that once. Perfectly nice girl. Every time I got good feedback or a raise or “got my way” (which amounted to making people follow the rules and policies) she got pissed. The fact of the matter was that I was more accurate, efficient, and didn’t cave to pissy people. She got jealous. That’s not fixable. I quit that job to go back to college and somehow that made me a lesser person.

I don’t talk to any of those people anymore.

12

Let her go. She doesn’t understand what work is all about, that it’s not a big social club continuation of junior high school.

You have no obligation at all to jettison your own career progress in the vain attempt to make them notice and promote an inferior worker. You would be a fool to do so. Put it out of your mind and carry on.

13

HeheheheB]Boo**. Well done. But I think it has gone whooshing over the head of the OP somehow. You’ve gotta remember that subtlety is wasted on some people.

:wink:

14

Oh, just ignore my coding fuckups. It’s 11.30 pm here, and I’ve had a bad day with stupid underlings at work who don’t fully appreciate my superior skills or the fact that I get paid more than them. :smiley:

15

Congratulations - you just climbed one level higher up the greasy pole. Get used to jealousy - you’ll be encountering every time you step over another drone on your way to the top.

But take heart! One day, many years from now, you will look back at the fields of dead in your wake, each expertly leap-frogged with a smile and a stab and realise how much better than all of them you really are.

You Player, you.

16

I’m sorry, but What the Fuck are you on about. What the hell was she supposed to do, do a piss poor job so jrhighgirl would feel better. Oh wait, I know she was supposed to turn down the raise when her husband isn’t working and tell the powers that be to give it to jrhighgirl. ThatDuckIsEvil knows the company can jettison her at any time, and she is supposed to throw her income and chance at a real job away for someone who has proven she is petty and no real friend. um. right.

17

One of my coworkers and I are currently giving each other the silent treatment. We had always got along well, but awhile ago, she butted into my business, which I admit irked me - basically, she left a copy a page of the company standard operating procedures on my desk, obviously insinuating that I wasn’t doing what the SOPs called for. I was confused, because AFAIK, I was doing exactly what I was supposed to. I double-checked with our manager, saying, basically “<coworker> left this for me. Am I doing it wrong?” She said no. ALAS, my coworker overheard this, and after the manager left, began to bitch me out for not calling her over, since I mentioned her name. We proceeded to have a baffling conversation worthy of Abbott and Costello (“Are you going to start doing that?” “I already was!” “You already were what?” “Doing what the SOPs called for!”) Tired of the inane conversation, I finally just said what was apparently the magic word: “Whatever”.

Coworker, red-faced: “DON’T YOU SAY WHATEVER TO ME! YOU HAVE NO RESPECT! BLAH BLAH BLAH!”
Me: Whatever.

That was about three weeks ago. We haven’t spoken since. Oh, except the time she had to ask me a question and prefaced it with “I need to know something, so I have to talk to you.”

Beeeyotch. At least I no longer have to put up with her constant whining about how everything is better in LA. And she no longer explains to me in a condescending manner how things work in California. (“In California, we call the expressway a freeway.”) Um, hello, dumbass, even if I don’t mention it in every other sentence, I’m from California too! No one is impressed.

Wow, I didn’t mean to go on that long. Guess I have some rage built up. ANYWAY, the point of all that was is that coworkers suck. We spend eight hours a day with people not of our choosing and there’s always a great likelihood that some of them are going to whackjobs. And you have to deal with them anyway! Ugh. Ugh ugh! I can’t wait to get out of my stupid job.

18

woosh :smiley:

19

I wonder if this isn’t where the resentment is coming from. [sarcasm] You wouldn’t have known your job if she hadn’t trained you and you stabbed her in the back by sucking up to management. The promotion should have been hers by right since she’s been there longer. [/sarcasm]

I’ve seen this often where people expect promotion by seniority only. Our company was recently bought out by a multinational conglomerate, and the a coworker who’s been here half the time I have has been promoted above me. After my seething resentment died down a bit, I had to admit that my coworker was just better at the job than I was, even though I’ve been here longer.

One of the harder admissions I’ve had to make to myself.