Want to strangle a coworker or client - Tell us Why ! Share !

[EcK]

Hey everyone,
Thread is self explanatory I think

Anyway, feel free to share in your despair.

My latest story:
I just got the 1000th slap worthy remark from a guy I work with and am fighting with all my will to remain professional.
Like the type of person who hinders your work but still insist on being part of everything that's not part of his skillset and insist upon making decisions he's not qualified to make then blames the issues on the guy saying we shouldn't do what he says (yours truly)

This particular guy always sends emails with everyone in copy making it sound like I did something wrong for doing my job, ask for detailed timelines for iterative projects (so, by definition we can't have a precise timeline for this), makes every project he forces me to modify based on his vision crap etc. I'm a TAD fed up at this point as my usual strategy is to become that person's boss but I can't as we're not in the same office / company. And 50% of my billings are with this .. person.

In my case it's a client, someone working with me would not survive long in an office with me honestly (based on past office experience). But with a client (well someone working for said client but liaising with me in my work) I can't quite do that.

Currently doing part of the missions with someone new in that company, it's going splendidly (did more in 2 weeks than in past 3 months with 1/4th the effort and with better results) but that guy keeps barging in (because he was the initial client-side project leader) and asking for obnoxious stuff. (like some difficult to make yet quasi 0 added value updates on existing software that's going to create weeks of bugs to do in a rush when he was supposed to take a decision 4 months ago which would have allowed us to integrate this much more easily at the start of the project)


[MENTION=1180]miss fortune[/MENTION] [MENTION=19700]Anaximander[/MENTION] [MENTION=8584]SpankyMcFly[/MENTION] [MENTION=5223]MDP2525[/MENTION] [MENTION=27162]Cloudpatrol[/MENTION] [MENTION=19719]Forever[/MENTION]

 

[entropie]

Good thing, if you are boss, you can actually strangle them and just tell the others: "oh that guy, well he quit and went for Hawaii, I think."

 

[Grand Admiral Crunch]

[MENTION=5643]EcK[/MENTION] If you complained enough, could you get him fired?

 

[miss fortune]

holy shit, he sounds like the night shift guy I work with!

my first month of working my new role he sent out an email every night listing everything I did that he didn't like and then cced in all of the high up bosses so that they'd think I did something wrong... my boss asked him to stop, his boss asked him to stop and he didn't... finally I threatened to report him to HR for harassment if he didn't stop and the emails magically stopped coming

it made my first month a lot worse than it could have been and I spent a lot of time doubting that I was cut out for the job at all

sorry that you work with someone dreadful [MENTION=5643]EcK[/MENTION]

 

[EcK]

[MENTION=5643]EcK[/MENTION] If you complained enough, could you get him fired?

I can't really get a CLIENT fired, no.
Also will that did happen in the past to people working with me (simply because I was more competent and that ended up showing when people can see both parties every day) I find it ethically reprehensible to lower myself to this level of asinine office politics.

 

[EcK]

Good thing, if you are boss, you can actually strangle them and just tell the others: "oh that guy, well he quit and went for Hawaii, I think."

I'm not a violent man, but the thought might have crossed my mind.
The irony is that the few times I've met him in person well. He gave every sign of being the kind of person who'd be my bitch within a week's time. But via internet (we do most of our work in different countries) he's a know-it-all jerk.
The thing is I actually kinda like him, and he's quite smart and it's always refreshing not to have to always talk with people with whom I share a 50 IQ gap. But otherwise yeah, he acts like a freaking child playing at being a manager.

 

[Grand Admiral Crunch]

[MENTION=5643]EcK[/MENTION] If you complained enough, could you get him fired?

Pizza Hut refuses to sell some people pizzas sometimes....Maybe you could humiliate him so he'd avoid you.

 

[EcK]

Pizza Hut refuses to sell some people pizzas sometimes....Maybe you could humiliate him so he'd avoid you.

I think someone who manages people and doesn't know the first rule of management shouldn't get beyond coordination level jobs no matter their intelligence.

the rule being: don't 'shame'/reprimand people you're going to work with publicly because they'll hate you for it. If you have a disagreement do so privately. Share praise, reprimand 1 on 1.

I mean, it's really not complicated. I've figured that out after a few months of working and I'm supposed to be the obnoxious entp here.

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

[MENTION=5643]EcK[/MENTION] It sounds like you're dealing with an overly ambitious (but naive to the business) type person. Sometimes I will think someone is being a major dick but really, they simply don't know what they are doing - or know the basics. They are "faking it to make it" not realizing they are expending their energy in inefficient ways.

I don't know if that holds true for your situation. But in response, I would just ask why they need the information and to what purpose (with the said expectation that you intend to provide it). If they are answering legitimately, then you can say, sure no problem but "if I did that it won't give you what you are asking for" (explain why). I can do this (what makes sense to you and what helps everyone) and explain why that is more beneficial to solving his issues.

I don't know. That may be way off base but clients and their reps are far from efficient or easy. In fact, total roadblocks but I have found most times finding out their priority first, clarifies how/what you can do for them and doesn't piss them off. While still giving you a chance to explain how your job works best in an attempt to show how misplaced their expectations are.
School them. It's tedious af but it works.

 

[EcK]

[MENTION=5643]EcK[/MENTION] It sounds like you're dealing with an overly ambitious (but naive to the business) type person. Sometimes I will think someone is being a major dick but really, they simply don't know what they are doing - or know the basics. They are "faking it to make it" not realizing they are expending their energy in inefficient ways.

"Oh so you've met him too ?"
yeah that was my analysis as well.

I don't know if that holds true for your situation. But in response, I would just ask why they need the information and to what purpose (with the said expectation that you intend to provide it). If they are answering legitimately, then you can say, sure no problem but "if I did that it won't give you what you are asking for" (explain why). I can do this (what makes sense to you and what helps everyone) and explain why that is more beneficial to solving his issues.

Oh, I do that, the guy's just stubborn as fuck. At one point i spent 7 hours on Skype with him to try to disuade him from forcing me to take a project in a horrible UX (user experience) and UI (user interface = design) direction. Didn't work. That was the LONGEST CALL IN MY LIFE, I wanted to die.

I don't know. That may be way off base but clients and their reps are far from efficient or easy. In fact, total roadblocks but I have found most times finding out their priority first, clarifies how/what you can do for them and doesn't piss them off. While still giving you a chance to explain how your job works best in an attempt to show how misplaced their expectations are.
School them. It's tedious af but it works.

Well dunno, doesn't seem to work with this guy. Every time I take him 'aside' and try and gently explain how things actually work to him he goes back to his 5 year old child behavior within a week. And starts putting everyone in copy of abnoxious mails - like he just sent me a mail telling me not to contact a third party developer for troubleshooting of an issue he wasn't able to fix in 3 weeks. I got everything planned in one hour. If I had invited him to the call it would have taken 2 and added 20 hours of useless work on top of it. I mean if I was to answer his question directly instead of trying to be polite and diplomatic I'd have to say - essentially "You are not competent to be part of these meetings, it's my job, and you've been trying to get it done for montsh now, I've given you every element you needed to make a decision, you haven't - so please stop making people's work harder and let me take care of it without adding to my work needlessly for the N-th time this year."

 

[Grand Admiral Crunch]

I think someone who manages people and doesn't know the first rule of management shouldn't get beyond coordination level jobs no matter their intelligence.

the rule being: don't 'shame'/reprimand people you're going to work with publicly because they'll hate you for it. If you have a disagreement do so privately. Share praise, reprimand 1 on 1.

I mean, it's really not complicated. I've figured that out after a few months of working and I'm supposed to be the obnoxious entp here.

I didn't intend for you to take it seriously.....You are obnoxious.

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

[MENTION=5643]EcK[/MENTION] can you say f*ck it without losing your job? Or hand it off (at least hand off direct communication) to someone who this guy has a better rapport with? When all else fails, it's one of those two. I would try that. Good luck.

 

[Amargith]

Sounds like you could use a 'communication liaison' to manage this guy.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Oh jeez. I know this type. There's a couple of people like this at my job in separate departments who feel like they have to cc everyone at the company on emails to me. Always copying my supervisor so before I even have a chance to problem solve or address a situation I have to answer questions from my own boss when I could've already been working on the problem.

I'm not sure the best way to address this though as your situation is a little different with you having to deal with someone outside of your company. This sounds like a problem with your client company having a poorly defined structure and chain of command. There should be one or two MAIN points of contact, at the most, and no one at this dude's company seems to realize. I have dealt with this on occasion with some of our vendors not having a clearly defined POC at their respective companies. All you can really do is state your case to your superiors and have any necessary arguments or evidence available to back yourself if this fuckhead is trying to make you look bad. Is he accusing you of specific fuck ups or kind of just trying to beat around the bush in a way to imply you are responsible for fuckups?

 

[EcK]

I didn't intend for you to take it seriously.....You are obnoxious.

Thank you

 

[The Cat]

How dark are you willing to go Eck? In the mean time, enjoy this Bugs Bunny Cartoon, It might give you some fun ideas. ^_^
Anyway, hope things improve for you.

 

[Yuurei]

I suppose you could call her a co-worker.

I was minding my own bossiness, doing my own thing in my happy place.
She started giving me shit about not being a part of more communities or having more hobbies and started giving me all sorts of suggestions I didn't ask for.

I answered " Yes, I have tried that." to most of them and explained why they didn't work out.

Then she mentioned theatre.

"Oh yeah! I worked in th schools theater in HS!" ( it wasn't a HS job it was a real job. My High School theater is the largest and most advanced in WA, maybe the NW. So we had to work a lot of very professional shows. " We including myself and one of the guys who is apparently in the Twighlight movies. Our old pretentious drama teacher must cry about his wasted talent every night)

" I LOVED it! It was the best part of my life! I was even trained by some pretty legendary guys. I really wanted a career in it."
"What happened?"
"The year I graduated one of the Judges was replaced by a guy I worked with who just HATED me ( My family, actually, and myself by association)"
" Oh you're such a downer! You can't complain if you didn't tr-"
" I did. It did not go well."
"Oh, what about volunteering?"
" I tried that too! It seemed like it was going to pan out."
" Ugh. What's your excuse this time?"
"...they called me with a job while I was bed ridden with sepsis after the botched back surgery where I lost my disc"
" So you just gave up?"
" No! I've tried many times since. No one will let me do me physical work because I'm a liberality. I probably would injure myself TBH."
" Is your back really that bad?"
" Yeah."
" Oh well aren't you just a ray of fucking sunshine!"

I get it, I know what she's doing. She comparing me to those miserable people who refuse to try anything to justify their claims that the world is out to get them-wrong number lady.

We're losing the art studio. A few people are trying to put something together. I mentioned that I was slightly concerned that if they did succeed they wouldn't keep me in the loop and wouldn't know about it.

Same woman " Oh yeah, everyone goes out of their way to exclude you!"

"Uh, No. It's easy to lose contact with people over time. If it takes them a few years it seems likely that none of us will hear about it.
She continued " All I know is, I'M letting THEM handle it. I've had enough of that in my life." Then she laughed derisively you know the " My life is sooo bad" kinda way.

A few minutes later she exclaimed " Art therapy! That could be for you!" All I could do was look up over the bonsai pot I was working on to give her a " Seriously?" look. The art studio is quite therapeutic, when this woman isn't giving me shit.
.

 

[Amargith]

...if they don't have any real power over you, that could be a really fun little lab experiment, ime

 

[Grand Admiral Crunch]

Thank you

I didn't mean it.

 

[SpankyMcFly]

Hello Eck,

Addressing what I think is the bottom liine of this inquiry, ideas on what to DO. Suggestion incoming;

Resist the urge to 'argue' with him. I know I know, this is practically anti ENTP but hear me out. First, if he has some hare brained idea for something, get it documented. Very important step. Then make sure he knows that you disagree and why as concisely and professionally as possible. Document this. When things play out and the idea/plan is not working. Document this. Resist 'I told you so'. Now what you do with this 'evidence' is entirely up to you but if you really want to get 'rid' of him, get your boss involved so that he can then get the main client involved or kick it up the chain. Since they have the actual power to do something about this person. Point out how he is hurting the bottom line and their self interest. Evidence has amazing effects when it comes to higher ups actually 'doing' something. Especially if you go on record via cc'ing bosses etc. Just make sure you keep your own chain of command in the loop lest you alienate them.

You'll notice the thrust of what I'm suggesting is PROVE that your idea/thinking is better. This not only will buttress any machinations you may wish to engage in, it simultaneously 'proves' your own worth while highlighting his own failings.

I think a portion of your frustration comes from the simple fact that your main way of getting what you want "can't" work in this situation, i.e. reasoning/logix etc. Since you are dealing with a client's peon. Adapt and overcome.