How to deal with a toxic co-worker

[lottamoxie]

Originally Posted by MPowering1

Employees don't put companies on notice, particularly when they're registering complaints about people the company would never fire because they've been there so long.

What usually happens is the complainant puts a target on his back and things go bad from there.

I meant "you've alerted your company to a particular issue you're having with the coworker."

If the company would *never* fire that coworker, for any reason, then she is all-powerful. And if some employees have that level of power, then there's nothing another employee can do but take the abuse or the covert dissing. However, if there's a company handbook or something in writing (mission statement...anything...that mentions respect for each other or harassment in the workplace is not tolerated) then that's something tangible. A company could be sued if they were informed and provided documentation about a harassment situation and chose to do nothing or punished the 'whistleblower' employee instead.

All companies want to protect themselves. No one thought Matt Lauer could ever be taken down until he was. An attorney + employee + documentation, in a meeting with HR and senior management, did exactly that. There was already a pattern of harassment, which NBC ignored, but get a lawyer involved and ignore will not be what occurs.

[MPowering1]

Originally Posted by lottamoxie

I meant "you've alerted your company to a particular issue you're having with the coworker."

If the company would *never* fire that coworker, for any reason, then she is all-powerful. And if some employees have that level of power, then there's nothing another employee can do but take the abuse or the covert dissing. However, if there's a company handbook or something in writing (mission statement...anything...that mentions respect for each other or harassment in the workplace is not tolerated) then that's something tangible. A company could be sued if they were informed and provided documentation about a harassment situation and chose to do nothing or punished the 'whistleblower' employee instead.

All companies want to protect themselves. No one thought Matt Lauer could ever be taken down until he was. An attorney + employee + documentation, in a meeting with HR and senior management, did exactly that. There was already a pattern of harassment, which NBC ignored, but get a lawyer involved and ignore will not be what occurs.

Thanks for the clarification. That makes sense.

I've seen this at least a dozen times over the years. Only once did it end well for the person complaining and that was because he had been with the company longer than the woman he was complaining about.

Human Resources in many companies don't want to deal with bulldozers so they tend to get rid of the people who can't deal with them.

Also, I don't think this falls under harassment. It falls under asshattery and that's never in the handbook.