I was going to ask if you’ve lost weight recently!
You also don’t want to be seen as someone who can’t get along with your co-workers, so keep that in mind when you poke around to figure out who said what to whom. Highers-up don’t like dealing with petty stuff from underlings.
I agree, keep the candy dish. Even if they’re doing this because they’re jealous (and hey, being considered for a promotion just adds to that hypothesis), that doesn’t mean you pander to it.
Talk to John directly and calmly. In fact if you act bemused by the entire situation being blown out of proportion that’s even better. You had the fax, were holding it for him and had no reason to believe it was urgent. You’re not sure what was happening with Judy that day, but surely this couldn’t be the cause of her over reaction.
I agree with taking your turn for an early departure this time, but if Judy or Sally are the one selected to stay back you might want to lock your desk. No matter what happens with the promotion, be sure to watch your back with those two.
I think the candy dish is fine, especially since others have them; keeping stocked with the premium stuff IS a good way to encourage visitors to your desk!
The bubble tea thing, though? Next time, announce, “I’m going to get a bubble tea at lunch! Anyone want one? They’re $6; I’d be happy to pick one up for you while I’m out.” Lets you be considerate without being taken advantage of.
And I think your plan to leave early at Easter is a good one. However, you might want to casually bring it up before the actual day, since they have come to depend on you to stay. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve already made plans to leave early, and if you change gears without warning, drama is sure to ensue. It’s not fair, but it’s what’s most likely to happen.
Eeeeenteresting. I wonder if your two co-workers haven’t been having some private Bitch Chat amongst themselves about how unfair it is that you’re well-regarded and being considered for promotions, etc., when all you do is give out candy to people and you haven’t even been there that long blahdy yappity yappity blah.
I don’t have a lot to add to the other good advice that has been offered already. I think you’re handling this situation really well, from what you’ve said so far.
I’m starting to suspect Sally and Judy are jealous and/or threatened by you. You’ve got the attention of management and they seem to like you. It likely hasn’t escaped management’s notice that you’re the one to stay late.
My advice would be to keep doing what you’re doing if it’s something you want to. Don’t stay late for Sally and Judy because it won’t help with them. But if it’s something you think will help you look good to management and you want to, then do so. Be pleasant and professional towards Sally and Judy, but watch yourself. I don’t mean be paranoid, but do make sure you don’t give them any ammunition to sabotage you.
By all means ask them what the issue was with the fax, but don’t get emotional or accuse them of anything. Take the high road since and they’ll only end up making themselves look bad.
Sigh. You guys are right.
I’m torn between “This is an injustice!!” And just forgetting about it. It’s probably good that it’s the weekend so I have time to fume, ponder, be disappointed, fume again…
What I would like to do is say to them, with my boss present, something like “Judy and Sally, I know the truth and I’m comfortable with that. Boss says she believes me and that’s all that really matters. I am going to put this behind me and move forward with a professional working relationship.”
I’d also like to say “you horrible petty bitches!”. But I won’t. 
I don’t know if I’d do anything else about that fax unless it was mission critical information. Faxes fail to arrive all the time.
Rise above their petty squabbles by not getting involved any further. Unless it was truly a super important fax and then you could apologize to John for the delay but other wise, don’t drop to their level. Remain your professional, good natured, hard-working self. Often it turns out that everyone sees the bitches for who they are and them squabbling about who delivered a fax is only going to make them look bad.
Seriously, after getting both sides of this story, I would hope it would be clear to your boss that the only reason Judy made up the thing about you throwing the fax into the trash is because that way she could spin it as, “I need to tell you about this because information might be getting lost.” If it’s just that you left a fax on your desk for the time being, she looks like a whiny tattletale crybaby. Which is in fact I’m sure what she does look like right now.
Well now see you’ve got me rethinking leaving early on Thursday. The truth is I really don’t mind doing it and yes, people do notice that I stay when everyone else leaves. The big boss on my floor has noticed this more than once and he will be the one who gives the go ahead to fill my boss’s position.
I just want to do what ever is going to work out best for me in the end. I like my job, really like the people I work with, seriously lucked out with having an awesome boss, and I want to be here for the next 25 years till I retire.
edited to add: the fax was not critically important. We very rarely use faxes because most of what we send is confidential and can’t even be emailed. Most things get sent by government courier with CONFIDENTIAL stamped on it.
Don’t. You will have branded them liars out in the open in front of your boss. They will not be able to let that go. The key here is if you want the promotion, you have to be above their petty stuff. It’s not worth your energy to be seen as wrapped up in it.
Also, you have to assume that at the second meeting between your boss and Judy, your boss probably did let Judy know that the boss knew she was lying, and reamed her out. I would just put the matter to rest. You handled it, and they know they were wrong and got caught. It’s up to them to rebuild the relationship with you. You just act professional and act as though you’ve put it behind you. It’s also possible that Sally may come around to your side a little anyways after seeing what doodoo Judy got herself in, in order to distance herself from it. Is your boss also their boss?
These women were such bitches; it might be helpful to ask yourself how a guy in your job would handle it. Think about someone like Jim from The Office. Guys seem to let stuff like this roll off their backs, not stew about it tearfully, not that you don’t have every right to. To me, there’s nothing to say to them. They got busted, and they know that you know that they know, etc. Except that now you know they’re not really your friends, and it’ll suck while you all have to gradually rebuild a working relationship. Try not to let it ruin your workday. How would you amuse yourself all day if they weren’t there at all? Try to come up with new ways to occupy your free time until things ease up. You’ll feel a lot better about it in time, although right now is probably miserable.
Look at the bright side - now you know who not to trust in the office.
The one thing I’d do is go to my supervisor and ask for a clarification of duties so you don’t have a misunderstanding like this again. She knows that you mean, “So these bitches don’t try to get me fired again,” but that’s how you play the game.
Update: So I went to work yesterday (Monday) after a lot of thinking and (especially) a lot of really good, sound advice from you guys.
Although I wanted to blab and blab to my boss about how I was feeling and blah blah blah, instead I just asked her if John had been told that I had thrown his fax in the garbage. She said he had not so I told her as far as I was concerned the matter was over and it would in no way affect my work. She said she thought I handled the whole thing well.
Last week when it was all happening, Judy and Sally spent lots of time (their desks are behind mine and beside each other) whispering between themselves which made me feel pretty shitty. It was also very annoying because whenever Judy isn’t around, Sally gossips and complains about her, even to me. I’ve never really known what to say when she does so I always just say the same thing “Well people have different ways of doing things” with a smile. I guess I’m just not brave enough to say “I don’t want to hear your gossip.”
Well Sally has gone on holidays for 2 weeks so Judy doesn’t have anyone to sit with and stew and whisper. It was quite interesting today as a steady stream of people came by my desk to chat, play the puzzle and have a chocolate. Even Judy and Sally’s boss regularly comes to visit with me and have a chat. I could see Judy watching the goings on but she just would not join in and instead was pretty much silent all day.
I have always gotten the impression from Judy and Sally that they don’t like that I’m on friendly terms with their boss but I’m on friendly terms with all of the bosses.
The chocolates and games are put out with intentions. The games are great equalizers. It doesn’t matter if you’re an admin or the big boss if you’re trying to figure out the puzzle. You’re both just people and so I treat them as a person and they see me as a person. Everything I’ve done there has been done with the goal of making a long-term career. It seems to be working.
Oh I decided, and already told my boss, that I am going to stay on Thursday so everyone else can go home. I asked myself what will work best for me in the long run and volunteering to stay, and having the bosses see that I do what other people don’t want to do, can only work in my favour, so I’m going to stay.
So many thanks for the great advice, you guys were all right and I’m glad I listened to you.
Good job!
Judy has two weeks to stew with Sally gone? It’ll be interesting to see how long she holds out.
Whatever will you do all Thursday afternoon if you can’t post from work anymore after the computer virus incident? Can you bring in a thumb drive with Firefox on it and surf the web from it (no ads with Firefox, so no viruses)?
Yesterday I installed Firefox on my work computer. I don’t know if I’m allowed to but if not I can claim innocence. If I want to surf the web, I’ve had to make due with reading a news article and then all the mind-numbing comments about it.
How do I use my jump drive to surf the web?
Well, I haven’t done it myself, but here is a website with programs and info.
You put portable versions of the programs you want to use on the thumb drive, and then use them instead of the computer’s program.
This is a pretty good point. I know when I complain about petty backstabbing at work to my boyfriend he totally doesn’t understand why I let it get to me.
Judy and Sally really are jerks. They’re really proving that saying that people who will gossip with you will gossip about you. Be very careful of these two women - I see nothing but problems with them in the future.
You sound a lot like a younger me, FloatyGimpy. I had similar issues at a couple of workplaces, and it always blew my mind that people could be deliberately mean. At least now I can pick those people out of a line-up and put on a different Smaje-face for them.
Someone mentioned here that bosses hate to hear about petty issues between underlings – true dat. So I’d avoid going to your boss.
But I would call a meeting with Bitch 1 and Bitch 2 (don’t make it a friendly sit down, call it a “meeting” and request their presence; if you have Outlook, send them an actual appointment that they have to accept or reject) to discuss how you three will be handling any faxes in the future. Nail them down on it. Is it really your responsibility to check for faxes – any faxes that come in? What happens if you find a fax from another department? What happens if the fax machine blows up? Figure out (with their input) how you ALL should be handing any incoming faxes. If they say it’s not really that big a deal, you can then let them know that obviously it IS a big deal to them, and you’d rather not have any confusion in the future. You know, bad for the company and all that.
I’ve found that being a woman in the workplace sometimes means (for *me *-- not trying to generalize here) trying to make everyone happy. And you’re not there to make people happy, you’re there to work hard and garner respect. There are people in my company who are super friendly but undependable when it comes to work. These are the people who will not be promoted. They will be well-liked, but not promoted.
Good luck. Stay strong! If you’re a good worker with a friendly demeanor, people will like you, with or without desk chocolate.
I’ve found that being a woman in the workplace means that some other women will always, ALWAYS be threatened by me for no damned reason. Either that or they just like to be bitches because they hate themselves and their lives and they want everyone else to be as miserable as they are.