Something wicked this way comes

Something bad happened at work yesterday. I’ve never written about work before, usually because I didn’t want someone from the office to discover my blog. That’s unlikely now, so here goes:

A woman who reports to me is leaving. Her last day is Friday next week. We have always given a going away party/luncheon/or something for every single person who has left the office, even if we didn’t like them. This time however, no one wants to plan anything for her and so there will be no farewell festivities. She has managed to alienate every single person in the office, terrorizing one very sweet person, slamming her door on others, provoking one man into a confrontation that got him in trouble, but not her.

I am a very quiet person. I can sit in meetings and not say a word for a long time. On the phone, people are always saying “What? What?” until I start speaking louder. In the two years or so that this woman has worked in the office, I have swallowed a lot of stuff, bitten my tongue, tried to maintain professionalism in the face of outrageous behavior. She is always the aggrieved party, it seems, in these interactions.

She is leaving, and so is more outrageous than usual. She had some computer files that I needed because her name was all over them as the contact person, and I wanted to change them and post them to the website after she is gone. She refused to give them to me. My frustration built and built over last week until I asked her into my office to ask one more time. She asked me why I needed them. Anger bubbled up and I forced it back down and explained I needed them for the transition. She said she’d send me pdf’s, which of course I can’t edit, and I blew. I actually raised my voice, saying I didn’t want that, I wanted the original files. She jumped up and declared, “I don’t have to sit here and be yelled at” and stormed away. She went back to her office, got her stuff and slammed the door on the way out.

I am also a relationship oriented person. That means I want everyone to like me. That has been difficult with her. You know the sound a basketball makes as it clangs off the rim in a missed shot? That’s what so many of our conversations have sounded like over the past year.

This is what kills me: she is certified to administer the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator and so she of all people should know how to approach different types and give them what they need. All of this just flies right over her head, as she blunders ahead. It seems to me that she pushes people to the edge and then is so surprised when they fight back.

So. I shouldn’t have raised my voice. She shouldn’t have refused to give me the files. She is leaving. I probably would have maintained myself a little better if she were staying, but then this whole issue might not have come up. Maybe something else would have sent me over the edge.

Oddly enough, she finally tell my boss why she didn’t want to surrender the files. The guy who is the webmaster (the same guy who got into it with her and got in trouble for it) actually told her that we wanted to take her name off this one document that she had written “Created by ________” on the cover. We don’t put our names on things that we do for the office. It’s just not done. Besides, at least three other people had contributed to that document, so she couldn’t claim to have formed it from nothingness. Anyway, at least she finally told somebody what the deal was. And yes, we did plan to do exactly that, but you don’t tell the target you’re going to wipe them out. You wait until she’s gone.

Arrgh! It was a dumb argument anyway. I could have had someone re-type the documents lickedy split and no one would be the wiser.

What do you do with people like that? What in their lives causes them to act like that? She is 41, single, not in a relationship. She has friends, just none at work. Maybe she’s a better friend than a co-worker.

I have probably set myself up as the aggrieved party here, which is a strange position for me, since I usually give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and seem incapable of writing anyone off-- trying to be understanding, empathetic, saying things like, “You have to see it from their point of view”…”Well, you know she hasn’t had an easy time of it”…”Everyone deserves another chance”…And then, I am angry when people walk all over me. In trying to be empathetic, I just wind up being pathetic.

The other supervisor in the office feels that this incident with me was just another part of the pattern, and that I shouldn’t be upset about it. No one has suggested that I apologize. It’s funny, but I don’t feel any great compunction to say I’m sorry. I’m not keen on the idea of having our work relationship—such as it is—end on such a sour note, but I’m not enamored of the notion of making nice with her either. Maybe I should just let it go.

What do you think?