Petty Coworker?

Discussion in 'General Chat' started by cap.toon, Mar 25, 2020.

  1. cap.toon

    cap.toon Well-Known Member

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    Do you have petty coworker reporting you for the most unimportant things! Like seriously!

    My team lead came to ask if I have been humming. I replied, “just started yesterday but I wasn’t loud. I do talk to myself, but I am trying very hard to not do it and stay as quiet as I can.” Lead said she will mention it to my Sup (update - that she had talked to me about this as she was required to). But come on, how idle must people be to notice I was occasionally (not more than three) humming quietly? What petty people.

    To my knowledge, I had a short humming moment yesterday evening and this morning. That was it. I haven’t done such thing as hum to the point I turn someone crazy. I wasn’t even loud. Now, should I be annoy and report the worker who sometimes sit at her desk so hard the entire wall shook? Maybe a guy to the left and another to the right, each a row away, for speaking so loud?
    Me am piss. A coworker reported me for humming quietly. I only did it a short while yesterday and short while today. Not even a full 5minutes. Coworkers r petty people. Kinda wonder if they got the wrong person cause the person across seem cool with my self talk and person behind me don’t give a jack shit. No person to my right, empty, and a walk way to my left. Who the world is listening to me quietly him and say I am distracting?? Oh goodness.

    you got petty coworker? What’s your story?
     
    Last edited: Mar 25, 2020
  2. Nightow1

    Nightow1 Well-Known Member

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    There are a lot of people out there like this. Their idea of "leadership" comes from all those "heroic" stories where the narrator or writer "fights against the system", so if they are not putting someone down, they are not "leading". It just ends up making them look like assholes. In the military, it's called Junior Officer syndrome, often happens when someone just came out of OCS and is trying to look "relevant". Not that it is limited only to Junior Officers. Books like the "Pentagon Wars" are an example of this.
     
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  3. VesperNyan

    VesperNyan Well-Known Member

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    The simple answer is that they like flexing their power because it makes them feel macho. Same thing happens in the hospitals all the time. I dont know if its jealousy or a way to cope with their awful lives, but things like that happen all the time. I say you gotta stand up for yourself or they will see it as a weakness and try to bully you. Remember YOU ARE AN ASSET not A LIABILITY so have more confidence.
     
  4. reagents 11

    reagents 11 disaster personified

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    Ah that kinds. She's control freak that also had a bad day so she probably lashed out on you. I'm lucky that my permanently frowning face are intimidating enough to keep those kinds mostly away. Can't say the same about cops though.
     
  5. Anon Ymous

    Anon Ymous Well-Known Member

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    well you know it's that kind of thing
    bully you so you can notice her
     
  6. Zomula

    Zomula Well-Known Member

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    In a job I have already left, I had a position that was responsible for teaching new employees about the safety standards and procedures and making sure those procedures were followed, and when got a new employee that had "10 years of experience" in the same line of work at another company they actually complained because they thought I was being "bossy" when I told them I had to go over the safety issues with them. Most F-up thing was that I was actually written up because of it.
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2020
  7. campfire

    campfire Well-Known Member

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    Maybe, your humming wasn't acceptable backround noise for your coworker. Ask her what kind music she wants you to hum. Then bang each other.
     
  8. cap.toon

    cap.toon Well-Known Member

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    I don’t even know which coworker was this. My coworker across my wall had acknowledged my self talk and said she wasn’t “annoy.” I took it at face value, but had reduce it. She doesn’t seem like the kind to quietly report. My coworker behind me don’t give a care. She can’t hear me anyway. I don’t have neighbors beside me, so who knows. The only one I could think of is one across my wall, but she seems to be a pretty cool person and not bother with things like “humming” and self talk. The thinf is, I wasn’t even loud.
     
  9. cap.toon

    cap.toon Well-Known Member

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    All crap. How could your supervisor even held you accountable for the option of something so mundane. You have work there longer and supervisor should have known you longer. If it was me, I would only write up someone if I had multiple reports.
     
  10. cap.toon

    cap.toon Well-Known Member

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    If my supervisor mention it, ‍♀️ I could only described what I remember of my behavior. I am in no way distracting to other people, in my opinion. Other people r distracting to me but nothing outrages so I just stomach it and leave it at that. Idk why people r so petty. I’m not the only “loud” person, geez.

    But people do talk and they will gossip about the most mundane things. One coworker, don’t know much about her or her department, came up to me and started talking about how she knew I was new since we last talk but people are being fool into thinking I came from the other branch a town away; as I was walking my way around the local branch very comfortable. Idk what she meant by comfortable. I just nod along.
     
  11. Vanidor

    Vanidor Well-Known Member

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    It's just an excuse, you obviously annoyed your coworker on other things and they have reached the point where anything you do will annoy them. There's a possibility it's just they were annoyed/stressed that day, but most people don't complain about tiny issues to their boss until they have been pushed past their snapping point. The fact that you haven't noticed they snapped, or even which, isn't good.

    You can either try to mend things with them, or go all out war.
     
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  12. DragonMage18

    DragonMage18 Outcast

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    It one thing if she/he report you after telling you multiple times to stop, while making sure you heard her/him (that is atleast acceptable to some degree). Another is asking if you have hummed, and then go report you.

    I don't know if you told the full story or not but, for something like that, there should be no need for a sup to get mixed in.


    As for petty coworker, I guess I have hadd one. After the day is over we usualy use water hoses to do a quick cleanup before the washers get there. One day another coworker acidentialy got that coworker very wet on one legg after triping (backside of the feet, middle of the back and face are usualy the only areas where water can get). That coworker then gave the other coworker a quick spray of water in the face, before going to our superior and complains about geting sprayed with water.

    This one is not as much cowirkers being petty, but more me complaining and being amazed at what they can do.
    So it's a fabric where it can get pretty loud even with proper protection against noice (people usualy also listen to music and radio while working).
    Where there's two stations not so far from eachother.
    One of them is making sure that the product is clean and securing the quality of it before packing.
    There is then a group of friends working in that factory.
    If there then is someone from that group on both stations, they can begin yelling to eachother.
    This is happening where people usualy have to get up close yelling to hear clearly.
    But they manage to hold conversations in that enviorment while staying 15m appart, while everyone hear them better than whatever music or radio they listen to.
    Well thats not the main point, the main point 8s that the one/ones working withe the cleaning/quality check spend most of their conversation bearly working, making everyone else working extra hard to compensate.
     
  13. Zomula

    Zomula Well-Known Member

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    I think that they were trying to get rid of me.
    I had also been written up for "treating my job as work" (written up as being rude to customers), and a number of other BS that I was refusing to sign. The supervisor was putting me on shifts all alone during the busiest time of year and would bi*ch me out for not getting everything done, and I was even accused of ignoring customers (I wouldn't work past my scheduled time because corporate had been telling management that if we work unapproved overtime to write us up). I had also worked each of the three shifts (place was open 24 hours) at least twice the last 2 weeks I was there, and they planned on keeping it up in the weeks that were scheduled before I left. All of this happened after they hired the "10 years of experience" person, and I think they wanted them as an assistant manager, I was next in line (I had been told this a month before they hired "10 years"), and the position had been open a month before that. I went in a week after I left and that person was wearing a management shirt, so I'm pretty sure of the reasoning.
     
  14. cap.toon

    cap.toon Well-Known Member

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    Honestly I haven’t annoy anyone. There is no one to my left or my right. The cubicle sharing a wall with me is pretty chill. The cubicle behind me is also chill—she listens to music on her EarPods. I don’t talk or hum like I am talking to someone two cubicles away. Someone is just being petty or they got the wrong person—I heard story of this before where people who knows the sup pretty well would casually complained. The sup would take comments like that seriously cause it was said by someone they “like.” This entire area is noisy. If I can hear someone two cubicles away, that’s loud. My sound volume doesn’t even penetrate pass my cubicle unless you’re walking by or is the other person sharing my wall. Plus, people type so loud.

    Personally I feel I haven’t annoy anyone. I am so busy, I don’t even have the time to chit chat—‍ Who would I go annoy? If someone don’t wanna help me, I can obviously tell.

    Sry if I left out things. Not my intention. I meant to say my team lead is required to talk to me about this “report.” She also needs to inform my sup that she “talked to me” about this “report.” It is the rule here I guess. As far as I was told, it wasn’t my sup it was another sup who informed my Lead. My Lead just explained that if a sup speak up, then someone reported it. Which to me doesn’t make sense as to why this is distracting cause as I have wrote before there is almost no one around me—walkway to the left and empty cubicle on the right. The person behind sits a good two feet and the person sharing my wall had checked before that I was self talking and not on the phone with customer. I had asked her if I was annoying when she brought it up, but she was “cool” with it. If she didn’t like it, she could just tell me. It could have been her, maybe?. Last time, when she came to check if I was self talking she got the girl behind me involved “if the other heard me too.” Which the other replied “no.” The whole conversation was pretty chill. She sounded like she just wanna confirmed and nothing about being annoyed.

    I take things as face value, so if I have an annoying habit let me know. Don’t say it’s cool and then reported me behind my back. Goodness. If my sup brought it up, shrug, I can only say idk—I don’t even hum. I only did it twice for less than a minute.

    I hate coworker like that too. Had to make up for workers who slack off.
     
    Last edited: Mar 25, 2020
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  15. imK

    imK Artful Dodger

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    I had a similar thing. Chose all out war, dragged it out over 14 months and got the employee and my manager fired.
     
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  16. mir

    mir Well-Known Member

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    A couple years ago my team had to use a teacher's room at a school for our work. The room was assigned by the school, we didn't get to pick, so every location we went to, we needed to just work with whatever we got (including working out of basically a closet once).
    For this room, all the desks were pushed to the center of the room, so we had to rearrange the desks for use, and in the process had to move the boxes that were on those desks. After using the room for a week (this is during a school vacation, so the teacher was not there) we put the desks and boxes all back where we found them. Except apparently we missed one box. One box, which we had accidentally left on the counter roughly 7 feet away from the desks where it was supposed to be, in plain view (because it was a big box, you'd have to blind not to see it there), which we had never opened or did anything to contents of, was enough for the teacher to insist that the principal of the school make a formal complaint. So the principal sent the complaint to the supervisor of all the teams (our supervisor), who then was obligated to pass on the complaint to our team. And the teacher additionally declared (through this weird grapevine sort of thing) that she would never allow any team to use her room ever again. I understand that teachers have a system to how they organize their things, and if she had tried to address the problem in any other way, I'd feel sorry that our team messed with her organization. But I have never seen anyone be so petty and vindictive about something that would take less than 10 seconds to fix. So instead I am just thankful that I have never had to meet her in person.
     
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  17. cap.toon

    cap.toon Well-Known Member

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    :blobfearful: I wouldn’t want her to be my teacher.
     
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  18. cap.toon

    cap.toon Well-Known Member

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    How amazing of you. But if I say anything, the chance of me being fire is pretty high. I’m still on probation. If one person can get a sup to move, the sup pretty much would like that person quite a bit. But hey, I am a newbie. If I am right about who I thought made the complaint, then she probably said something because her status is higher. While she can’t say about the other people because they have superiority over her. A very loud speaker is a lead and another is an employee that have been there for 5 years.:blobangery: In this rank, I am the stepping stool.
     
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  19. imK

    imK Artful Dodger

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    I totally understand. I was maybe mid-level on the totem pole at the time. Typical office, strict hierarchy. I first had HR approach me to let me know I was reported to them for being 'overly friendly' towards my co-worker, which is fair enough. I wasn't interested in them, just in the habit of including them in my greetings and sometimes going out of my way to greet them. I did that with everyone. Not everybody wants to interact with their co-workers and I respect that so I backed off and kept our interactions strictly business. I thought everything was settled until I got another heads up from HR, same co-worker, complaining about me harassing them through isolation. What. The. Actual. Fuck.

    After that I made sure I was never alone with my co-worker and became extremely careful to have other workplace witnesses around whenever I spoke with them. The manager I was directly under took it upon themselves to call me in for a formal meeting and warn me about my unprofessional conduct. All right then. Let's do it. I took her, the company and my fellow employee to court. You can't sue directly in New Zealand, but you can ask for damages. I'd documented all of my interactions with everyone after the first complaint and luckily a few of my co-workers stood up for me. It took over a year of back and forth before I won my case. The manager was let go, the co-worker was made redundant. After that I had no confidence in the business since they were so sloppy about the whole situation in the first place and I quit. Long time ago and I'm much happier now.
     
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  20. imK

    imK Artful Dodger

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    Forgot to say don't forget to keep a daily record of all your interactions with your co-workers/boss. Jot it down in a notebook, make voice notes on your phone, whatever. Try not to be anywhere near your co-worker alone if you can help it. Avoid talking to them when they are alone. Make sure to use a moderate tone and check your words so nothing you say can be twisted as rude, unprofessional, etc. It's a little extra stress for a while, but it'll eventually become second nature and you'll be able to weather the storm out of habit. I hope you find a better job in the future. Or at least nail this job and start climbing the ladder so you can figuratively step on her head. Don't kiss ass, but don't forget to be polite and pleasant to your co-workers and boss(es) as well. If you have to, picture rubber. Any shit they do to you, let it bounce off. That's your armour. Wear it well my bro. GL.