Wooden stake. Mallet. Enough said.
I think you’re being a little paranoid. I’ll bet you’re having a bad day.
I’d go all Tonya Harding on her.
The OP works in the White House?
Yeah. Almost no company does that. No one is checking where you go on the web or following your Facebook posts in any official capacity.
Perhaps a case of the “Mondays”.
I suggest that the OP figure out how to work with annoying or difficult people. It’s not like there is some jerk-free company out there. And if you think your’s is jerk free, chances are the “jerk” is YOU!
Become one of her minions. Kowtow often.
And find another job post haste.
Read Snakes and Suits and the Sociopath Next Door.
Feed her misinformation, nothing big, just things that are wrong, or wholeheartedly agree with her psychic visions, then when they get back to you, wink and say “I told Ms. Backstabber that, she believes anything.”
How about being honest with people instead of defensive.
If someone comes to you and says, “Are you okay?” roll your eyes and say, “You must have been talking to Ms Evil. Yeah, she likes to make things up sometimes, makes her boring life exciting. Be careful what you say around her.” Try to be casual and humourous, not angry and accusatory. Or you can do the hush hush leaning thing (“Yeah, did you know she makes stuff up all the time? Crazy, huh?”)
Could you treat her like she’s always joking? If she tells her latest rumor, say “you are so funny, how do you come up with these crazy things?” And do the same if someone tells you what she said, just laugh and talk about some of the other crazy jokes she told. It might not change her behavior but maybe you’ll feel better.
Yes. In my case, the big boss left for another job and took the coworker along. You’re probably not going to be that fortunate.
Have you gone to your immediate boss about it? “X is making up some bizarre stories, and I’m afraid, that with the medication she’s on, she may perpetrate some act of violence up here at work. I’m sending a note to HR about it, and I was wondering if you need to be cc’d.”
I’ve dealt with a nut like this before. I found what helped was to change the topic, keep it trivial (stuff shes not interested in even better). Never reveal anything personal to them and try to avoid them as much as possible. When I did have to talk to this nutbar, I always talked a little louder than normal. This had two affects. One she thought I was a little odd I believed which didn’t make it fun for her, second people around me heard the conversation.
In your situation I would of dealt with the “Oh my, you are in a bad mood today - take a breath, don’t let this work situation get to you.”
“Nah I’m fine, HEY DID YOU CATCH THAT HOCKEY GAME LAST NIGHT FREAKN’ AWESOME.”
Second, cover your ass. Ask your supervisor if you can send him/her updates on your work progress and email once a week sort of thing, bc yourself. That way if she goes full on retard on you and gets to the CEO, he goes to your supervisor. He checks the emails, and says “hell no, there’s no problems with** DMark**”
Third, if you can get out of there do so. I hate to say it but find an office where there are more men than women. Less bullshit majority of the time.
I hafta tell ya, Ibanez, that thing about men being less bullshit is so not true in my experience. I don’t think either gender has a lock on nutbardom, but almost all the gossipy, career destroying, high drama, manipulative, duplicitious wingnuts I’ve come across in twenty-plus years of work have been men.
Mind if I ask what industry you work in and if your workplaces were majority men?
Not to say that isn’t the case. In my experience, however, male jerks tend to be more upfront and domineering in their assholesness whereas female jerks are more underhanded. Remember high school? Male and female bullies didn’t tend to have the same main M.O.
Didn’t mean to generalize, but my experience has been the opposite of yours. But your right both sexes have their fare share of kooks.
What can I say that others haven’t? Phone call to an Anon Ethics Hotline? Stills of her & president emailed to president’s wife / Chairman of Board via a throw-away Gmail account?
Shame there aren’t any employees with MDs on board. Penny’s worth of ink from 3 would do nicely.
Thank you all for the great (and sometimes bizarre) suggestions!
Her “pychic” attempts do not come from Facebook or from any source of info - stuff just pops out of her head. She will say, “I can tell you’re a dog person…” and that person will say, “No, I have six cats…” and she will say, “I knew you liked pets…” etc. She is NEVER wrong, and will twist her great insight until she hits a nail on the head or at least convinces you she knows more about you than you think. Many idiots fall for this age-old con game tactic and really think she knows “stuff”.
She loves to give helpful suggestions like, “Be careful what you say around Bob, I can tell he is watching what you are doing and he is good friends with Jackie in Human Resources.” Most likely Bob has never even noticed that person and has never heard of Jackie in Human Resources, but now the seed of thought has been planted and Bob becomes suspect.
See how this is going?
This has been going on for some time, but only recently have I started putting two and two together to see how she is doing this. I feel fairly safe, in that my work is crucial to her work and she is not stupid enough to want to screw with me. She knows I could make her life a bit difficult (before she would probably eventually win and get me fired).
I am just trying to find the right approach to defuse her power, and a couple of your suggestions above are quite clever. So, whild I continue to mull over the options, please feel free to add any suggestiong, tips, personal experience with situations like this.
Well, THAT may not be true, if we can believe what I posted here:
Well, like I said, neither gender has the corner on crazy. I don’t agree that there is de facto less bullshit in a workplace that has fewer women. I’ve worked in several industries in my adulthood and there were crazies of both genders, but from a straight-up tallying of the numbers, the majority of the crazies I’ve run across were men. I’m sure others have a different experience, God help us all.