Complete tool

Krysanthemum

This is a work-related question. Background: I work in a consulting company proofreading their reports and running their production department (word processing, printing, general other tasks the consultants don't want to do). I've been here for 2 years, and I'm pretty good at my job.

There's a guy (let's call him Tony, that being his name) in the office who is a law unto himself. He's been with the company for at least 15 years, almost since it began, and even though he's a complete tool to everyone, including his superiors, he gets away with it because he is the preeminent specialist in his area in the country. Anyone else would have been fired long ago for the crap he pulls.

See, most companies have procedures and guidelines to follow to everyone can get on with their job without bumping heads all the time. Because I'm running a production department of 4 people for around 25 consultants, I've got a couple of procedures in place which means we don't all go batshit insane trying to do work coming from 25 directions. There's a Style Manual for writing reports, so things get done with a certain amount of uniformity, and training sessions to attend so everyone has approximately the same level of knowledge. It's just the kind of stuff you have to do when working in an office.

Tony, in short, refuses to do anything vaguely cooperative, and is rude to boot. He tries to come off as charming by saying all his shit with a big grin on his face, but he comes off as an ass. He is constantly swapped from supervisor to supervisor because no one can handle him for any length of time. However, being production supervisor, I have to deal with him occasionally.

I won't go into the numerous issues I've had with him in the past. Suffice it to say that when he walks into my office, I internally cringe. Thankfully, it's not that he's picking just on me (although I think he thinks I'm an easy target), he's just like this to everyone, and is pretty much universally despised.

This morning, he walks in to ask why a particular document wasn't formatted properly (this question having come originally from a company director). I looked it over, and explained to him that it was probably because he had done it himself, incorrectly, without asking the production department to do it the right way. He started his usual diatribe about the production department (ie me) being inflexible and his priorities being more important. Best of all, apparently I should have known that his doing the job himself would have caused this problem and prevented it. This whole conversation took place politely, but with my grinding my teeth and him grinning in his usual "You are never going to win with me, because they can't fire me" attitude. He's now back with the director, and I shudder to think what bullshit he's feeding him.

So, basically, help me. He's not going to be fired, and every time I've tried talking to my supervisor or his about his rudeness and/or ineptitude, I get told that Tony really is a law unto himself and things will go a lot more smoothly when I just accept that. I can accept that to a point - that point being where his fuckups become my responsibility. It's pretty clear I'm never, never going to win this argument with him, no matter how much logic, good sense and calm I try to inject into the conversation. I get no back-up from my supervisor, so it's just going to keep going like this.

tl;dr Compete ass at work, everyone hates his guts but he's never going to be fired, no support from supervisors, how do I not claw his eyes out in frustration?

Heir

Just scanning what you said there, but I think your number 1 priority should be to cover your own ass.

Document EVERYTHING with him. Every conversation, every incident, every email.

If he keeps screwing up like that, you pile up a nice case against him, and send it to your superiors. I know you say he can't be fired, but if he isn't getting the job done he at least needs to be reprimanded.

I don't work with you, so I don't know if there's more to it than what you are saying, but people like him tend to do their best to backstab honest workers. If you know he's going above you to complain, I would make damn well sure I had my ass covered.

Good luck though. I'm not a fan of crappy workers, and I resent office politics.

The Cat

Yeah. document everything. In addition, treat him exactly as you would any other employee who would show that attitude. Don't hold back. Its a tall order to break a culture of coddling someone like that, but I think you'll find that a lot of other people will back you up once they realise that they're not the only ones who want something done about him. Feeling alone in that kind of situation is common, but there's probably a half-dozen people within throwing distance of you who secretly feel the same.

Krysanthemum

Both of you just put your finger on my problem. I don't have any documentation, he patently refuses to follow any of the procedures (including filling out required forms) so it always comes down to he said/she said. And since it's much easier to chew me out that try and tell Tony that he's stuffed it, I'm pretty much always on the losing end.

To make matters worse, when it comes to the director who is involved in today's problem, if it comes to a he said/she said between a consultant and a non-consultant (ie me), the consultant gets preference, every time, without fail, even if it's Tony and it's obvious he's the problem. I mean, I'm just admin staff, what the fuck do I know?

And Heir, I have been treating him like every other employee. That's pretty much what precipitated our last unpleasant encounter (in short, he didn't follow procedure, I didn't do the work because that is the consequence for everyone who doesn't follow the procedure, director told me to stop playing games). Everyone in this office resents his behaviour, even upper management, but if they don't do anything about it (and even actively support him when I try to do something, see above), what can I do?

The Cat

you can get documentation though. try and communicate largely by email, and save everything. tape conversations, if your state laws allow that without his consent. Beat him to the director if something happens, complain first about how he's disrupting productivity and creating an intimidating work environment (harassment stuff tends to make management nervous, being as how its lawsuit material). If you really won't get any support from upper management in the face of that though, you may have to just wear it. Or, you know, ex-lax his coffee >.>

Feral

I'm going to suggest something that is going to sound rude but is meant in the most constructive possible way: either get over it or get a new job.

What it sounds like is you're not fighting Tony, you're fighting the corporate culture. The culture of your company - or at the very least, your office - is that codified procedures aren't binding, admin staff exist to be walked on by consulting staff, and people would rather complain behind other peoples' backs than actually stand up for themselves.

Tony is just a symptom of all this. If your company culture valued professionalism and procedure, there wouldn't be a Tony. If Tony were to die in a car accident today, it wouldn't take very long for some other tool to fill the void Tony left, because people like him thrive on the kind of environment you describe.

You might not necessarily need to find a completely new company. Depending on how deep or high up the food chain this culture goes, transferring offices or departments might help. But based on what you've described, I really do think that the problem is not Tony, but the culture overall.

Thanatos

Feral wrote: »

I'm going to suggest something that is going to sound rude but is meant in the most constructive possible way: either get over it or get a new job.

Yup. Suck it up, or move on.

If you've got a secretary, have them say you're busy whenever Tony comes in, and that he can get in touch with you by e-mail. If you don't, just tell him you're really busy whenever he comes in, and to get in touch with you by e-mail. Stop taking personal meetings with the guy. That way, you have documentation for everything.

Krysanthemum

Yeah, my husband thinks I should find a new job too. I have plans for starting my own business and working from home, but there's a couple of hurdles I need to jump before I can do that, and so leaving this job is about a year away. I could find another job in the mean time, but I have zero confidence that I'm not going to just hit the same Tony-look-alike in my next job. At least here, I know I'm good at this job and most days, I quite like it.

Personally, I like the ex-lax suggestion. 8)

Anyway, I went and spoke to my supervisor. She's not going to be able to do anything directly for me, but if the shit does hit the fan, I'll at least have gone to her first and flagged this as a potential issue so she's not hearing Tony's bullshit first. She was relatively sympathetic - she throws Tony out of her office on a regular basis, and I think that's going to be my tactic from now on. Not argue with him, just ask him to leave (unfortunately I don't have a secretary, so there's no barrier there). Meanwhile, Tony is an ass, and I'll get on with it.

Superunknown

I'm no master at making people change or dealing with assholes, but you have the ability to throw him out of your working space, so everytime he starts tooling it up, kick him out immediatley and don't give him what he came to get. Rinse and repeat and I'm sure he'll get the message soon enough, and if not you'll at least feel better about kicking this guy out repeatidly.