Baggage Check: Workplace Saboteurs

| Print Post This | Like (0) | Comments (0)

GOT ISSUES? Dr. Andrea Bonior will help you sort them out.

I have a co-worker who is always sabotaging my ideas. Every time I come up with a project, she finds ways to throw kinks into it or stall so that it doesn't get done on time. I know she doesn't do this with everybody. She has people who she's chummy with, but for some reason I am not on her good side, and I truly feel she is trying to bring me down. Yet she always does it without a trace so that she cannot be blamed. I am growing very frustrated with this situation!
— ANGRY IN WASHINGTON

Like someone with a particularly large egg roll, the first thing you need to do is break the whole into its parts. You say she is "always" doing this, but focusing on it that way — as some intractable, impenetrable problem that can't be fixed — will only make you feel more helpless and angry.

Instead, think of this on an individual-incident basis, and attack it from there. The next time a kink shows up, confront her privately and politely, declaring that you're "confused" about why that problem happened, and that you want to figure out together how to keep it from happening in the future.

If she stonewalls, lies or otherwise confirms her irk-tastic reputation, it's time to bring it up to management. You don't have to act like a tattletale — frame it as a discussion about how to overcome some obstacles you've found getting in the way of doing the best job you can do. With any luck, they'll put the pieces together and help you avoid her interference.

I go to the same graduate school as my sister's (newish) boyfriend. He's a very friendly guy, and my sister is very much in love. But I have seen him, on more than one occasion, flirting with other women. It doesn't seem to bother him that I see this, so I don't feel like he's hiding something. I know my sister adores him, and I don't think she has any idea about this, because they never hang out with other people. What's a good sister to do?
— INNOCENT BYSTANDER

Flirting, like a beer-lover's abs, can often be hard to define. Aside from the obvious cases that involve hotel keys or references to hot-tubbing, it's frequently ambiguous. Is it a special way of talking? Laughing? Looking? Making things even more complicated, people have different levels of tolerance for their partner's flirting. So, we first acknowledge the subjective nature of what you've been burdened with; it's not as if you have evidence of an affair.

Nonetheless, you love your sister, and you're concerned that the guy she loves might have a side that's not so dreamy. If you see the behavior again, you can choose to initiate a conversation with her. Don't embarrass her or put her on the defensive by acting like you have a treasure trove of specific, secret evidence, but broach the topic generally, when her guy's already been brought up in conversation. Say you've noticed different aspects of his personality at school.

If she doesn't seem to want to hear more, don't force it — again, you don't have a smoking gun. (Or a smoking zipper!) But if she's interested, then you can be appropriately euphemistic at first (he's "playful," "very social," "quite outgoing") and let her ask as much as she wants to hear. If she thinks she's dating someone who ignores all other women, this will give her a wake-up call and let you feel like you're not keeping secrets. But if she'd rather not hear about it or is less concerned with it than you are, then at least you've avoided overtly bad-mouthing him.

Talk back to Dr. Andrea by leaving a comment below. To ask a question for Baggage Check in the Express print edition, e-mail baggage@readexpress.com or submit an anonymous question here.

Art by Eric Reece for Express