Help. Can't work out office game play (employee, credit, collect)

[Chicken71]

4 weeks ago we had a new starter at our office. He has been employed to take on a number of projects. Part of that is to share some of the workload on my project and by the end of December I would have handed over the entire project. We are both at the same level, so neither of us is more senior to the other.

What I have logged here is just a section of what has gone on otherwise it would be an even longer message.

To get him up to speed I ran a number of workshops (which included a number of other staff). I have also included him in meetings and discussions, and have involved him in all aspects of the job. I got fantastic feedback from the other staff about this.

1) At first he had a lot of questions which is totally normal, and I had no problems answering. However these questions came every 30 seconds. Quite literally. After a while I had to say that he should collect these questions for a time in the day where he could ask these all at once. This made little impact, which meant I had to move to a hotdesk for a few days to get some peace. He admitted to me that in his last job he was told he talked too much.

2) He then started telling me that the piece of work I was doing was wrong, how I was doing it was wrong, my approach was wrong. I asked how he would improve it but he couldn't answer.
None the less he still wanted to take control of it, and I was in total shock to find one morning that he moved my wiki pages and edited the ones I had been working on. This was my deliverable, which I reminded him frequently. I managed to be delayed 3 weeks on my work because he has interfered and disrupted it. I started to think I was going mad.

3) He needed persistant hand holding, like asking me to ask someone who sits near both of us for things!!! I suppose I just put this down to nerves.

4) He frequently pushed me aside and took over and controlled MY meetings with others. Even the ones he turned up late for.

5) One of the pieces of work he was briefed was to ask our clients specific questions for some user research.
5.1) He was supposed to involve a number of us from the project in his interviews with clients. Which he failed to do so. So I reminded him to do this and he said he had forgot.
5.2) Others asked why they weren't being included so I suggested to new guy a wiki space to share his schedule so we could get involved. He reluctantly entered the information and left dates and times out or put the wrong dates and times in.
5.3) The Business Analyst was interested in one of the interviews so put his name down. Only to find out that the new guy had put the wrong date and time in (apparently by accident), as he had already run that interview.
5.4) The new guy has mentioned to me a few times that he wants to get knowledge from the users so he can use this knowledge and power against the product owner and BA, this is literally how he said it.

6) Last week, just as a few large pieces of work started with some kick off meetings he announces he will be going on a weeks holiday in 3 days time. he had booked it ages ago.
With this news, the BA comes in the next morning to say how he is worried with the amount of work that needs doing and the resources available. So I sit with him to pull together a plan on a white board. New guy comes in and says we don't need to plan and totally dismisses it.

7) The new guy then pulls me aside to have a go at me, saying he didn't like that I commented on his holiday, that he didn't understand what the problem was with the workload. I replied saying it would be nice to have told the team sooner about his holiday so we could plan work around it as I would now need to cover his work that week. His reply was literally he didn't see what the problem is.

8) Later in the week he then starts to claim that he had told me ages ago about his holiday, and in his exact words, well it's his words against mine! And tells me I'm doing a terrible hand over. Even though feedback from others has been excellent.

9) The BA said he will be meeting with clients to get more detail on business requirements. The new guy tells him not as he has done so already. So essentially he's now telling the business analyst to not speak to our clients!!! (BTW: we work client side, not agency, not that that matters).

10) New guy sends an email to me and the BA just before he leaves is to say that he is speaking to another team already so none of us were to get involved and he would take this on when he gets back. The BA replied to us all and the product owner saying we should all meet to discuss, and BA later warns me afterwards that with the wording of that new guys email, he is basically saying back off.
The BA is starting to say that he thinks this new guy isn't stupid, he's calculating something.

What makes it worse, is that a colleague had a go at me on Friday saying she thinks I'm trying to undermine him. So had me thinking. Bear in mind this colleague likes to remind me of all my failings on a regular basis. And to add to this our director has gone easy on him and hard on me.

I am totally stupid when it comes to office politics. I'm really slow to spot the games that people play. But this person is a different breed. At first i it was his personality, nerves from starting a new job, but I'm sure quite sure why he is behaving like this.

I was naive enough to think that hard work and being a decent person would equal success. Which possibly explains why I get shafted all the time.

[ggumbo]

Whoa. I don't know what all I just read.

God I hope my first job isn't like that.

[Cleverbeetle98]

What's a BA? Who was in charge of hiring this guy?

I mean, if your job is to hand over the project, keep detailed notes about what you've done (the meetings, ect) and hand it over. If he tries to go over your head and say that you did a poor hand off, show your evidence and lay the blame on him. Also detail how you would have handled/finished it that would have made it successful.

If you two are equals, he probably had to get his holiday approved by someone, right? So at least they would have known he was going to be gone....I can't imagine the higher ups expect the work to stop that week.

[Colorado Rambler]

Going by the things you have revealed to us about this jerk, I’d say he’s a narcissist who is interested in doing as little as possible while getting the credit for as much as possible. You are a threat to him because the quality of your work make his stuff look like what it is – an ignorant attempt to look good by deliberately going back and putting in errors into your product as you struggle to complete it by your deadline. Every single you describe him doing results in you looking bad – from having to spend all day answering his stupid questions to having to do re-do your wiki page.

The sense of entitlement this character displays is outrageous and again, typically narcissistic. The dude is so toxic, your company should call in the EPA to do an on-site environmental clean-up in your offices. Since the problem can’t be solved that way, this sorry excuse for an employee should be fired. Start documenting everything that Mr. Toxic does and does not do. Enlist your co-workers to do the same. Is there anyone at your HR dept that you can confide in and/or get help from? What about the boss? Would you feel comfortable bringing in your and any other documentation about what a pathetic job Toxic Boy is doing?

Just as an emergency plan, I’d start checking out jobs with other companies and putting out highly discreet feelers here and there. This person wants your job and he may have some slight chance of arranging that. So just in case...

PS Or take up an office collection to hire a hit man.

[Chicken71]

Thanks for your replies.

We have an odd set up, arrangements of staff over projects, teams, departments, so not easy to explain on here. But I'll try to answer enough to make some sense.

Originally Posted by swmrbird

What's a BA? Who was in charge of hiring this guy?

BA is Business Analyst. Sometimes referenced as the abbreviation.

Originally Posted by swmrbird

Who was in charge of hiring this guy?

3 of us ran through a few candidates, a number of interviews, many were not up to par, I was on holiday when the other 2 interviewed him. But I am the only one working with him directly.

To be honest, the pain of emplying someone is possible in this guys favor. And his director likes to breed that type of person. I know her as she was my line manager for a while and tried to teach me awful, rude and disrespectful ways to upset people in meetings, like tapping your pen on the table really loudly while the other person was talking to intimidate them.

Originally Posted by swmrbird

I mean, if your job is to hand over the project, keep detailed notes about what you've done (the meetings, ect) and hand it over. If he tries to go over your head and say that you did a poor hand off, show your evidence and lay the blame on him. Also detail how you would have handled/finished it that would have made it successful.

The feedback from others is good. And I have documented what I need to.

Originally Posted by swmrbird

If you two are equals, he probably had to get his holiday approved by someone, right?

Yes, he had agreed with the Director when he started. Director is not on our project so doesn't oversee any details on this project. And his line manager (also not on the project) told him to tell us, new guy told her he had told us already (so essentially lying now to both of us), and then he said to me, I'm the new guy, I don't know what the process is"

To be honest, this is the type of behavior that gets promotions in our department. I've seen it endlessly, time and time again. The more rude, difficult and incompetent you are the further you go up the chain. And then sadly those people like to bully those below. I became quite ill because of this and had to take time off. It's take me 5 years to build my life back again. Hence I've been overlooked for 9 years.

[Chicken71]

Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler

Going by the things you have revealed to us about this jerk, I’d say he’s a narcissist who is interested in doing as little as possible while getting the credit for as much as possible.

Yep, however our company like to employ, and even promote people like this. He will go far in our department.

The difficulty is that we (designers) are on a project together. But the project didn't hire him, the design department did.

To make matters worse, the guy running the project used to go out with the design director. And she quite happily makes life difficult for people when she wants to. She pulls together an army. I've seen it. I've heard her say, if they don't agree with me let's make sure we make their life hell.

Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler

Start documenting everything that Mr. Toxic does and does not do. Enlist your co-workers to do the same. Is there anyone at your HR dept that you can confide in and/or get help from? What about the boss? Would you feel comfortable bringing in your and any other documentation about what a pathetic job Toxic Boy is doing?

HR are totally pointless. Seriously. I have seen them do disgusting things to innocent decent people. No reason to go there.

Problem is Toxic Boy has got some good ideas, and the design director likes people who work differently. The problem is that he's not wanting to adapt to the project.

Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler

Just as an emergency plan, I’d start checking out jobs with other companies and putting out highly discreet feelers here and there. This person wants your job and he may have some slight chance of arranging that. So just in case...

Well I'm moving off the project. But I agree it is time for me to go after these years. I just had to find my confidence again. Which I admit has been shaken from all this. I was terribly burnt out and depressed for 5-6 years, mostly down to terrible management, unfair promotions of team members who's work I had to redo. Bullies, blaming managers. So I'm scared to get ill again. I'm not cut out for politics or calculated vindictiveness. I'm rather naive that way.