Working with a showoff

ginandtonicsky

I work in a small sales team for a tech startup. we've had a new member join recently from the analysis team, she's got a good background and personality for the role. she is a client manager, working with existing clients in a training capacity. i'm the hard salesperson on the team, whose role it is to attract new business.

in general we get on well, but her personality is very grating. everything is "a very good friend of mine is high up at X..." and internal messages on different group chat channels touting the work she's doing. "one of my clients told me today that.." etc. She also interjects at meetings, pipes up and butts in whenever our team is called on to give an overview of what we've been doing etc. Loves the sound of her own voice and loves the world to know how important she is, basically.

I'm not managing my team just yet but my aspirations would be to go that way as my career progresses with the company. i've got more experience and background with both the company and my career in general. being shouted over and hearing "what we like to do is..." when she's been with the team for little more than a month is more than a little annoying.

has anyone worked with this type of personality before and can give some advice on how to not end up whacking her over the head with a biro at some point??

John_Mc

To be honest, if you can't deal with people like that then you shouldn't/couldn't be a manager of a team. There's someone like that in most offices/teams.

She is a sales person and seems to be selling herself very successfully.

Are you threatened by her?
Have you made your aspirations clear?
Would you be able to pitch for your team like that to others?

beefburrito

I know a few of those, they're great for entertainment.

I usually think they're dicks, if they're so important why do they have to let everyone know they've such a low self-esteem...

Sit back and watch them fck up, it usually ends up in tears.....

mfceiling

Yeah the wife worked with a lad like that. The next deal was going to blow her team out of the water, his beautiful wife, gorgeous kids, enormous house, fancy car...
She used to come home upset about how he would talk down to her at meetings etc. I told her to bide her time and concentrate on her team and their business.
3 years later with no big deals ever he sits quietly in the corner. Last months figures made for good reading. Her team brought in just over 36 times the amount of profit his did!!

ginandtonicsky

John_Mc wrote: »

To be honest, if you can't deal with people like that then you shouldn't/couldn't be a manager of a team. There's someone like that in most offices/teams.

Fair enough. Kinda why Im looking for advice though.

Deleted User wrote: »

She is a sales person and seems to be selling herself very successfully.

Are you threatened by her?
Have you made your aspirations clear?
Would you be able to pitch for your team like that to others?

Threatened, no. Pretty confident in my abilities and have some solid numbers to back me up. Constantly peeved at being talked over or the air of expertise despite being with the team a wet week.
Yes my aspirations are clear and it;s a direction i'd expect to move in within the year.
pitch for my team like what exactly?

beefburrito wrote: »

I know a few of those, they're great for entertainment.

I usually think they're dicks, if they're so important why do they have to let everyone know they've such a low self-esteem...

Sit back and watch them fck up, it usually ends up in tears.....

Well, yeah. As it happens I have previous experience working with her at another company she freelanced with, she was ultimately let go because the manager was so peeved by her arrogance.

Batgurl

If this person has form for being all talk and no action (as per your most recent post) then you can probably just be patient, sit back and watch them crash and burn.

I do wonder though, if maybe this person has been hired on the understanding that they are higher up than you / in a team lead position? I’ve seen this happen where it’s not properly communicated and it can be a pain as technically no one is in the wrong.

I think you need to have a word with whoever hired her and ask them if she was hired as team lead? If yes, then you’ll know, if not then maybe take the initiative and hold a team meeting and suggest ye take it in turns talking about the teams progress. Not only will it show you team leadership capabilities but it will also stop her from acting up so much.

NapoleonInRags

Chances are most other people will find her equally as irritating as you do. Bide your time, work hard, keep the head down and things will work out.

seamus

These people are usually showing off as a substitute for actual competence. "If I make it look like I'm doing lots of stuff, people won't notice that I haven't a clue what I'm doing".

If someone is in charge of the team, then you should be bringing up the matter with them, about her talking over people and giving overviews/presentations on things she doesn't know about.

The show boating on internal chats and stuff like that, I'd just ignore. Everyone else finds it as irritating as you do. What she's doing is really transparent, nobody is being fooled.

LegacyUser

John_Mc wrote: »

To be honest, if you can't deal with people like that then you shouldn't/couldn't be a manager of a team. There's someone like that in most offices/teams.

This is not helpful what so ever.....


Since you are not the manager, its not your falt having a person in your team like this. This is an error on behalf of the person who put her in this position. Unfortunately sales can be a very stressful job and adding to the stress by adding the wrong person can be detremintal to the whole team.

I have seen what you mentioned happen before within 2 different companies. One companie did not have the vision to see the issue. The sales team failed within that year 4 sales people ended up going to another competitor. Another companie had the exact same issue and was able to spot it. They ended up moving the person with the "big personality" to another position. They did it slowly, that person in question was happy with the move.