Crying in the office

LegacyUser

Ok so a junior colleague of mine came up to me regarding a piece of work she is doing, for some reason it had my name on it (although it has nothing to do with me, different section altogether)...I told her such & she basically said well I'm not doing it, it has your name on it, left the document on my desk & left.

Came back a few seconds later & kept going on about it to which I repeated it has nothing to do with me, talk to your mananger. This went on back & forth for a few mins..

I politely asked her to leave, she kept at it, I said "please leave, you are annoying me", no joy.."please leave you are pissing me off" still no joy so I flipped & said "will you just f*** off" (very much out of character)...queue floods of tears & she left.

I left it a few minutes & apologised, she said it was ok but I am worried it may be taken further?

eth0_

You'll probably be asked to apologise is all...but you could equally claim she was harrassing you to do work that is not in your remit, despite your politely explaining this to her and telling her to speak to her manager about it.

the_syco

eth0_ wrote: »

You'll probably be asked to apologise is all...but you could equally claim she was harrassing you to do work that is not in your remit, despite your politely explaining this to her and telling her to speak to her manager about it.

Agreed with this. The timely tears may get some people to do the work for her, though:mad:

Mrs OBumble

Get in first: go and tell your manager what happened, explain that she was harassing you, and that you lost your cool. Ask for advice on what you should do next, and for support if it should happen again.

It always looks better if your're proactive.

sammyv

I love to turn around and say that to some of my workmates!!

mmm....you might get in trouble and you might not. Get your story across first. You could always turn on the tears too, and use the harassment card.

You say she was a junior, she had some neck on her, refusing to leave you alone!!!

Too much pussy footing going on in the workplace....if you feel like telling some to fook off, then you should be allowed (within reason)!!!

LegacyUser

do two things
1 - get to the boss first - be completely contrite explaining the situation, you should not have yelled or sworn at her however annoying,

2 then get yourself a book/ training course on communicating in the workforce. Its disgusting to swear at someone in the workplace - or anywhere else as a form of communication between two adults. all you have to do is stand up, take it from her hand, tell her it will be redirected as appropriate and ask her to leave you are she is disrupting your work - now how hard is that do to? she might think you are a wagon but surely you won't care?.

doolox

The power of tears to turn mens hearts......

She is a user.
She probably does this at home and gets results, ie work done which she should be doing herself.
If your boss is a man all she has to do is turn on the tears and her side of the story will be believed.
You say she is a junior, she has probably got the advantage of being younger and probably more attractive than you.
Get in to your boss and get your side of the story out first, eat crow if necessary and apologise.
Contain the situation, be calm and get it down on paper if necessary.
In future stay well away from Little Miss Teary-Eyes, if she harasses you again get to your bosses offce immediately. If she follows you at least you will have a witness to the tears and emotion and he will have first-hand knowledge of her behaviour.
Do this a few times and she will get the message, you have boundaries which should not be crossed and you will have marked them.
Men do the same thing, using shouting and bullying to get other people to do their work, it is more obviously evil and obnoxious and easily spotted by the bosses and is quickly stamped out.
The tears are more difficult to deal with...........

LegacyUser

I don't think what you did was too out of line - you have to stand up for yourself. You could have given in and ended up doing her work.
If your manager has any sense they won't come down on you too hard.

WindSock

Perhaps from her perspective: Being an office junior she may just get lumped with everyone elses work to do, that can be a pain in the hole especially if it's not hers to be doing. Did you explain to her properly that the work was not yours or were you just abrupt from the word go? If you were rude from the beginning then perhaps she was frustrated at being talked down to. You lost the handle by shouting f off to her. granted she may have been out of line by badgering you, but you are her senior so therefore more professional and you would be expected to conduct yourself in a better manner toward your colleagues. Perhaps the situation could require a bit of mediation from your boss or hers to clear the air.

LegacyUser

ever hear the term "Public praise, Private bollicking"?

Cursing vociferously towards another colleague not only wrecks things between you and her. It wrecks things for everyone around you. Trust me I've seen it all before. In the end I just ignored both parties. Wasn't going to be stuck in the middle of that sort of muppetology in the office.

Cop on. Control yourself the next time. There are better ways to say no. Such as, through your manager telling her manager...

LegacyUser

They are all quite right. You should go and whinge to your boss about the horrible junior that wouldn't leave you alone until you spat at her.

Forget to mention that she was only trying to give you work that clearly had your name on it.

You assert that it was nothing to do with you. Clearly it is somebody elses job to reassign work that you don't want that has been assigned to you. Just because your name is on it does not mean that you have to have anything to do with it. Let a junior sort it out for you so that you can get on with the job of feeling important. That's what the plebs are there for anyway isn't it?

I'm seething at firstly how you handled this and secondly at how others have condoned your actions and suggested that you backstab the poor girl to 'cover your ass'. Be a real grown up. You were a ****e. Admit it, learn from it and move on. Life is too short for that petty crap.