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How to deal with difficult co-worker??

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by utken

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Miss A is a very smart hardworker in my department. However, she also has quite an attitude when dealing with her trainee, whom she perceived as a 'slow learner'. Her current trainee, who is our newly hired associate, has been the third person for the position in 2 years. The previous 2 left because they couldn't tolerate with Miss A's attitude. Being in the field for almost 5 years, she practically knows all the in's and out's in the company and is a very valuable person to the employer. The reason we hired the trainee is to deligate some of her responsibilities. Somehow, the tension began when the trainee's questions about the job started to irritate her. One who tries to ask questions (perhaps sometimes too much questions) and to learn,while another gets pissed off and raised her voice against another party. Being in the same department and saw the same thing happened to the previous co-workers, I really don't thing this is a healthy trend. In fact, my manager is someone who does not like to 'make the wave', and even told the trainee not to ask too much questions when Miss A isn't in a good mood!! This is bad. It appears to me that the company cannot afford to lose Miss A, yet don't know how to deal with this situation.
Obviously I'm just one of the employees and can't do much about it. But, I would hope to hear some opinion from you all learn some management skills:)

Thanks.

6 replies

by syadm

Hi,
2 things came to my mind while reading..
nobodys perfect and nobodys inexpendable.
Is the tutoring of new staff stated in Miss A:s job description. If not then put it there. If one uses the right words and explains that no one but Miss A cando this tutoring then she will probably feel flattered and go about it with a little more enthusiasm.
Also, does she have the time needed to focus away from her main duties? Maybe the reason why she gets grumpy is stress/high workload?
If none ofthe above works then maybe your manager is the issue. Has your manager really got what it takes to fix problems like this one?
I live and work in Sweden, Europe an here we are very quick to ask our manager to shape up if he/she fails do do the job.
Our business climate and conventions is such that the manager really has to be better than the other to be manager.
I would bring the problem to my managers attention and request a solution. If my manager would fail to do this then i would probably bring the matter to next level (boss) and my manager would get a funny hairstyle by the barking from our buss for not doing his job.
Maybe it is harder in your region.
Good luck.
/Tom

by lance.gillis

Look her in the eye and tell her two things.
1. You treat people like dogs.

2. What goes around comes around.

Be sure you don't take any crap either.

by lance.gillis

Look her in the eye and tell her two things.
1. You treat people like dogs.

2. What goes around comes around.

Be sure you don't take any crap either.

by road-dog

If Ms A's tasks include training junior personnel, than she is failing in that task by allowing her ego to get in the way.

Everybody is expendable. If Ms A continues in this type of behavior, your company will be served with papers from an ex-employee's Attorney eventually.

I have mentioned in other threads about how this is not the IT market where inflated egos and "birth control personalities" can be tolerated. If Ms A is doing this to protect her position, then Management needs to manage. Overdependence on a single employee is dangerous and should be avoided.

If this employee is so valuable, get with HR and identify her mentoring responsibilities and define the expected level of performance in doing so. Brief her on this situation and make her aware that this will be assessed at bonus and raise time. I believe that your situation will improve or she will move on to greener pastures. Either way, eliminate the dependence ASAP, no good can come of it.

by gordonk

Today's world is getting more complex than ever and it is becoming and essential rule to work in teams. Ms A apparently doesn't understand this concept - or even is affraid to admit that from whatever reason.

Maybe it's time to think about the following:

1) is she really so valuable to the company to take the risk of new people (maybe more valuable than she is) coming and going with an extra expense? is she worth loosing potential high valuable employees - and how many?

2) plan a meeting with her to discuss her career and the influence of coming of a new employee who'll absorb some of their duties and explain the advantage for her of doing so. Try to motivate her so that she'll begin to believe that it will be of an advantage to her instead of a disadvantage. She has apparently a lot of knowledge and experience, but she has to be willing wo pass it to someone else, otherwise the value of her knowledge is approaching the point of no-knowledge!

If there will be consistent troubles with her then it is probably time to think about firing her before the company will become a real hostage of her and then it will become even worse!

This decision should be done by the HR or management and the steps taken should depend on the size of the company...

by utken

She indeed is an employee whom the boss depends on very much because of her expertise. Nobody in the office knows her job as well as she does. Further it is a small size company which means she is the only one in-charge in her area (Sounds like a bad news to me) The trainee was hired because her job was getting overwhelming and needed someone to share the load. I don't think traning people is explicitly stated in her job description, but being the one and the only one who knows the job, Miss A was automatically becoming the one who trains. I'm sure that the company is aware of the 'hostage' situation and trying to deligate her duties but to get a replacement is tough because she never works well with anyone under her supervision. Perhaps the manager should consider 'taking over' her jobs before she chase another person out the door??

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