Your Brainstorms, Her Glory Lessons in Coping With One Who Plays an Underhanded Game
By Amy Joyce Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, April 14, 2002; Page H06 She loves her job, she likes the challenging work and relishes the fact that the office isn't far from home. She even enjoys the clients she works with. But. There is that one co-worker. The idea-stealing, sabotaging, swaggering co-worker. The person that our woman who loves her job has to work with every day. Closely. When her co-worker was new, the woman was asked to clue her in on projects the woman was creating, but soon it became clear that the new employee was doing more than learning the ropes. Piece by piece, the woman discovered that her co-worker was claiming the ideas as her own. Once, when the woman proposed several activities for an upcoming program, the conniving co-worker presented them to the CEO and stole the credit -- though, when a few of the ideas were said to be excessive, she made sure to attribute those to our woman. It got to the point where the co-worker was praised by the company's chief executive as the only one in the small office who had accomplished her goals by the end of the quarter -- even though they were conceived and accomplished by others. And she strutted it. How do employees go to work, only to face a back-stabber? What method is there for reporting it, if you think reporting it will only come back to crash your career even more? The woman whose ideas have been appropriated decided there wasn't much she could do. Complain to the boss about the back-stabbing, idea-stealing employee? She'd just look like a complainer. Call the co-worker on it? The other woman might do more of the same just to protect herself, or even take it a step further and ruin this woman's reputation. Such situations create a lot of daily stress. If you know this awaits you at work, it's hard to get out of bed in the morning, isn't it? It can drag you down, kill your creativity and turn an otherwise great job into an albatross. Our pal here tries to shake the albatross by coming home, drinking a glass of wine and going for a lo-o-o-ng walk. It's sad, though, she said, because her two small children "now think work is a horrible thing." "Who's the problem, the co-worker who takes credit for my work . . . and blames us for her errors [and] inability to make budget, or the CEO for fostering this climate?" she asked. Well, probably both. She knows that, and she knows there has to be something she can do. But frankly, her mother, friends and husband are all a little tired of listening to her complaints, and tired of giving suggestions that she just doesn't think will work. "I try to block it off, and say that it's just her, not the job," said the woman. "But I'm so steamed, I don't want to do the job anymore." Which is why, says Cynthia Olson, a director at Mediation Training Institute International, she has to stand up to this co-worker. But not in a way that makes the co-worker feel she is being stood up to. For now, the woman decided to keep doing her best work, and keep her ideas from the traitorous employee. When she has a new idea, she mentions it to her boss before her co-worker finds out about it. Simple enough. "Hopefully, down the road, they'll say, 'Okay, this person is working,' " she said. "I also keep the CEO apprised of what's going on. And when I get an e-mail from someone saying, 'Good job,' I send that on" to the boss. Okay, these are all good practices. But then there is another "but," namely, is that solution just going to make the woman's attitude about the icky co-worker worsen? Probably, says Olson. If you don't confront the person in question, Olson says, you end up talking to others about it, and pretty soon you're a gossip. You end up participating in a workplace that becomes factionalized and where people gang up on one another. Most times, the best way to handle these things is to talk about them adult to adult, said Daniel Dana, author of "Managing Differences" and president of the Mediation Training Institute International. There's something we all seem to forget. Just as all the relationship gurus out there say: Communication is key. Sounds corny but it's true. Olson said we have to let problem co-workers know what we need without blaming them. And there's that other little thing we have to force ourselves to do: Listen. Acknowledge that the other person has a point of view. Yes, even if you're sure that point of view is wrong. "But that doesn't mean don't state clearly what we need, and what the impact of their actions are on us," she said. "A lot of times, folks just don't understand what they did to us. So we build up resentment that doesn't help anybody." Least of all, us.
