Cliques & Crones!

Oh yeah, the folks who are actual employees and in-house contractors versus us outside contractors. I'm talking about a group of less than 10 people, BTW. We stay on our side and have our lunches together, and they do the same.

I"ve just started a new job- I've been here about a month, and it doesn't seem that way at all.

However, in my last job- it was DEFINATELY like that- super clique-y....funny, it kind of reminded me of high school.

Back! Sorry it took a while - been a bit swamped!

So. There is just the *one* clique here at my workplace, made up of a few crones who've all been here for donkey's years. The remaining few are divvied up into two groups - the ones who are accepted by the Clique and ones who are not. (Yours truly belongs to the latter, btw.)
Most of the time it doesn't bother me (and that bothers them), but sometimes.....sometimes....*teeth on edge* We're all part of the support staff, but have very different functions; also, though I'm one of the two newest staff, I'm the only one with a 'Senior' tag before my title, which besides one level difference in the pecking order also means a sizeable pay difference. There are a whole host of reasons for ongoing hostilities, and most of the times I'm just amused by them. Lately, though, maybe I'm PMS-ing or something - I've just about had it!

Let's see if I can form a cast of characters here:
Phoebe: the flakey sister (just had a 'significant' birthday)
Marguerite: wannabe head-honcho
Jane: plain (don't mean in terms of appearance here)
Marissa: born-again

These are the four main, and the first three are who I have the most run-ins with. There are a few more who lurk peripherally. I'll fill in as we go along.

Can I just say - they are driving me N-V-T-S! I'll write in 'episodes' as we go along....here's one from this week:

Phoebe, along with the rest of her group is supposed to input some information weekly into our financial system. Thereafter I have to run a couple reports checking that information, which is then checked by my boss and finally released to our head office. It is an ongoing struggle to get da gang to do their work in a timely fashion so that my boss & I can complete ours on time. I've been relentlessly driving - always nicely - my 'stick to the deadline' campaign, because when people don't - it really screws us up. The deadline for this week was Tuesday, given that Monday was a holiday. Phoebe checks with me on Tuesday AM that the deadline is for COB the same day, I send out an email reminder as well. But what happens on Wednesday AM? - Phoebe is late with getting her stuff done. Very late! So, I walk to her (for the second time on Wednesday), and say to her - listen, Phoebe, can I have your stuff? And she waves me away - literally - waves me away, like I'm a mosquito, saying (I quote): "Get away from me, HW, get away. I said I'm getting it done." (half joking, half not). So I say to her - "ok. You're holding me up. I'll let you finish this work right now - but we'll discuss this later."

And we do. I make my point quite neatly - I'm sure it will happen again.

oooohhh, this could be a fun thread. Keep writing _HW_, it's therapeutic (and entertaining).

Divide and conquer heatwave.

It seems, Phoebe is doing this on purpose to aggravate you, and is
trying to get you into trouble at the same time. If it affects work efficiency, then you need to step up a notch.

I would email Phoebe that you expect her to meet the next deadline,
otherwise you'll document her work performance and will have no other
choice then to report these incidents to your superiors.

Don't engage in chit-chat or any other pleas for her to complete her
job. She knows what's at stake and should be adult enough to comply.

The minute you'll try to reason with her, you have lost already.

Amen Calamity Jane!

Thanks for the comments, folks. Sorry, I'm only able to post erratically these days - too much to do both at work and at home.

CalamityJane: I don't think Phoebe was deliberately trying to get me into trouble (though it would've been a nice icing on the cake). Mostly, it was a power struggle. The irony of the situation is not lost on her - she was the one who had trained me on this financial application, and here I am now, correcting her errors. There are several other examples like this one that irritate ol' Pheebs. She's looked up to by the other support staff in her pool as being the 'smart' one.

dadpad: I am generally nice to people, and a good teamplayer, however, I don't go all out of my way to ingratiate myself with people. Any more. I realized that in order to befriend my new colleagues I was downplaying my own intelligence, even my personality to a certain degree; I knew if I went out all barrels tilted - they'd all get a little 'complexed' (each & everyone of them has an 'inferiority complex'). I guess I just stopped caring enough to divide and conquer, even. Take Phoebe for example. When I first started (with my New York Headquarters background/ attitude/ contacts), she was so intimidated that she always talked (to me) in this so-soft-you-could-barely-hear-her, shy little girl voice. I used to constantly have to request her to speak a little louder because she was so soft-spoken. I don't even know when that facade fell away and she transitioned to her (normal) booming voice. I realized many months later what she had done, and why. In the time in-between, I had constantly made her feel very smart (and made myself seem not so very smart while I was at it). She just grew to think (with my help) that she could treat me as a subordinate in some ways, and a not-so-very smart one at that. Well, now. I've taken care of Most of that attitude.

These days the balance has shifted. I'm so very tired of this divaliciousness that I'm out - all barrels tilted. No more Ms. Nice Gal here - I'm all business. So, whereas before - I was not part of the Clique because I was not 'all that,' now I'm out because I'm a topic for bitching.

So. There's a new Head Honcho in the office, a new direct boss for me. Indirect for everyone else. Man, you should see the peeps all trip all over themselves, putting their best footsies forward. These sorts of things are so very telling about people.

This could be a fun thread... I work in retail at a department store which is part of a national chain. I recently got moved from the kids dept. to juniors. The reason, I was told, was because there has been a policy shift and only so many part-timers in each dept., and it's based upon some esoteric formula that only God and the top boss probably know... So my best friend in kids got talked into trying a full time position, and I got talked into moving to juniors (the HR person explained their reasoning about choosing me to move vs the 18 yr old boy who is the final part-timer in kids, "Well we couldn't have Kash checking the juniors fitting rooms, now could we?- And besides, you'll open a lot of express credits there." So far, I've gotten 4 in 3 days this week, which is about average except that they were all on one day.) Among the ladies of the junior department is this one old biddy whose makeup is walways leaking down her face and she favors black, so she's some kinda 50-something goth chick. At first I thought she was snooty and deliberately misdirecting me when she would answer, but it turns out she's deaf in one ear, and just plain stupid. And another lady, who's her friend, who was contending for my original job in the store, and got it over me- but got hired for less... and has since moved into the big women's clothes dept, and she sort of runs it since she's the only worker over there... she likes her area. J is supposed to help in juniors when nobody's shopping in big women's, and she does, but she's something of a control freak and often busies herself doing stuff that goth granny thinks is so off. Then there's the former queen of the department, who had some sort of run-in w/the manager, who left her hanging for about a week without scheduling her to work as some sort of punishment... Then there's a young person, who was the fitting room attendant who got promoted to sales associate who asked not one customer if they wanted a credit card the night we worked together. I'm not sure I like my new manager, who chose J over me to begin with (although H hired me for an unheard of starting salary to go to the kids department...) I'm up for a review and a raise later this month, though, so I am outwardly portraying outstanding professionalism, or so I think... There's also hype about competition between the A building and the B building (store's spread out over 2 other former dept. stores' spaces in the local mall...) B is the friendlier building (w/the kids, men's and home dept.) and also has a lacksadaisical dress standard compared to the A building. At least I have an excuse to improve my wardrobe!