Year help: I have a co-worker problem, this new lady started at my job (i’ve been there 4 years) last month. - Help.com

Go and talk to your boss one on one and calmly explain the situation from your point of view. He might still take her side and say you should have taken the higher ground and not have been mean back to her, or whatever, and if he does say that, just swallow your pride and say you made a mistake and you’re sorry. Then go and apologize to the woman and explain the situation from your point of view to her too! Its worth a try anyway!

You shouldnt have done it back, but you did, so follow liv’s advice for optimum results.

Well, my boss and I have never gotten along because she is a new boss and on a power trip, she loves when she gets a chance to give me problems.. she is also a total *****.. I think this woman maybe bi polor. I don’t think I can bring myself to apologize to her yet…I feel like I’m the one she should apologizing too..but I know she will be gone soon anyway she is just a temp.

what if I just ingnored the problem and just went about my business??

OK, you need to try to understand what was going on here. First, I detect some resentment on your part, as you refer to yourself as a “real” worker. I suspect that your co-workers may have resented the temporary workers, also. They may be viewed as a threat, because they could take any of your jobs once they got trained, right? The temp worker may have hoped to gain permanent employment at some time, and when you started correcting her she may have seen it as an attempt to prevent her from being hired permanently. You probably confirmed her worst fears when you “did the same to her, but worse.” The best course of action, after you said she “copped an attitude,” was to simply ask her, “Hey, is anything wrong? It seems that you’re upset for some reason.” Tit for tat doesn’t work very well in the workplace. Then the temp worker gained the moral high ground by going to the boss. She made you look like a jealous, insecure person who was trying to sharpshoot and give the temp worker a hard time.

Yes, you need to go to your boss and explain that you are sorry that you didn’t try to defuse the situation earlier, but that you reacted negatively to her attitude when you shouldn’t have.

You might also want to walk in the other woman’s shoes. She doesn’t have a career, obviously, and these are tough times. Perhaps she went back to work to support a disabled husband–who knows? But here she is, perhaps in a desperate situation, and she is thinking that you befriended her so that you could come in and criticize her. Did you tell the boss the first time she messed up? If so, that was uncool and probably got back to her.

I want to tell you something that I hope you never, ever forget: you may think you are secure now. But in 20 years you could find yourself in that woman’s shoes. Companies are laying off outstanding, loyal workers today without a second thought. And if you don’t think that age discrimination is alive and well, check back with me in 20 years!

Hope this helps!

But there may be a good chance that you may run into her again.

Hey Chev.jame…I work for the government, I have a lot more job security than companies. I did not tell the boss when I corrected her, I understand that she is still in training and like I said I was trying to help her.

Hey Chev, how does the temp gain the moral ground by going to the boss? In my own experiences, as both a supervisor and employee, it just shows that the temp is too immature to handle her affairs. In fact, if a temp came to me and complained about another employee that had been there for awhile(and if that employee had no other complaints lodged against them), I would be apt to actually let the temp go. Employees like that breed bad work conditions. The only fault I see is that Anon replied with negative comments back.

OK, Anon. I will tell you something. I worked for a defense contractor. A LOT of the civil service people resented us. The resentment was palpable much of the time.

You are right about having more security than with civilian companies, but there are such things as Reductions-in-Force (RIFs), and you know that your boss could upgrade your job, advertise it, and then hire someone else–right? That’s the easiest way in the world to get rid of a civil service employee.

First, hang onto your job, because we’re in dire economic straits right now. Secondly, talk to your boss. Just tell her that you’d like to follow up on the conversation before. Take responsibility for not handling the situation better.

And try to have a little compassion for the temp worker. No one knows what she has been going through. I’d bet anything that someone really stabbed her in the back once before.

Lastly, you might try to eliminate some of the “we/they” attitudes and even tell your boss that you see new opportunities to forge “one team” out of the permanent and temporary workers. That’s the way it should be. By the way, I used to be civil service before I went back on active duty in the military. I’ve seen the labor perspective all kinds of ways.

She gained the moral high ground like this . . . suppose there’s a street fight and one of the fighters calls the cops. The cops are most likely to believe the one who called them. That’s just human nature . . . it’s believed that the truly aggrieved person is the one who would first ask for help!

There’s a difference between a street fight and an employee fight, unless the employees went too far. As a supervisor, if you have a temp on one side and a full-timer on the other, I look at how they explain the situation, not who comes to me first. If the temp flies off the handle and the full-timer calmly explains their view, then I would be more apt to side with the full-timer(if they were in the right).

It takes an inconsiderate and unworthy supervisor to automatically jump to side of the person who came to them first.

Cole, I agree with you . . . but the wheel that squeaks is the one that gets the grease! I’ve seen it time again . . . in the office and in the street.

Maybe that’s happened with you, but where I’ve worked the squeaky wheel gets replaced. The street is different.

There’s also the issue of office politics. Supervisors do not always do the right thing. If boss A doesn’t particularly like employee B, and temporary worker C reports a spat with B, then A sees an opportunity to make B look bad and gain more control over that employee.

In my experience, office politics trumps competence any day of the week. No, I didn’t subscribe to office politics, and I always tried to help those unfairly victimized. But most organizations are rife with it, and the hardest, most loyal workers are not always the ones who get ahead.