dgriego
Posted : 9/25/2008 1:55:19 PM
miranadobe
dgriego
Do not, no matter how tempting it is, get involved in coversations with other employees about what a
ass your co-worker is being.
Very good suggestion there...
I have been involved (against my will) in numerous disputes between employees and countless times the person who is most likely in the right, ends up hurting their testimony and character by falling into the habit of gossiping about the problem. It is human nature, if you are offended or hurt you want to vent about it and if someone says "hey such and such is such a $%^$ " then that just opens up an opportunity for you to agree with them and give them details, all of which is the worst thing you can do.
I have also found that in most cases, the most obnoxious uncouth of the involved parties tends to be the one that comes to the "fight" prepared. They will have a list of every single grevious, many will be embellished and some are outright fabricated and the party most often in the right will only come with the one.
Learn from this, if you are having issues with a co-worker, document everything, write down any parties that may have overheard converstaions or witnesses events, keep a log of it and keep that log to yourself, share it only with management during an investigation, keep copies of it at home, trust me, the assholes of the world are masters at this, and in order to protect yourself and your interests you must think like they do.
The good news is the obnoxious butthead people cannot adhear to the keep silent no gossip rule. They will always end up spouting off their garbage, let them do so, make notes of anything that you hear from others about what the butthead is saying but do not get caught up in gossiping about it. And another thing they will fail to do is tie in how the events affect the work. So document details of how her actions are affecting the work of yourself and others, the buttheads of the world always forget this part because they are only interested in themselves.
If you do this it will be obvious to the investigating parties who is in the wrong, if you fail to do this then you will lose credibility, all it takes is for one person to say that you were at the water cooler telling everyone what a butthead your obnoxious coworker is, and even though she probably is a butthead it will hurt your side of the case in an investigation.
Been there so many times on the investigating side and it is something I hate to be part of but it occurs all to often in the workplace and in 99.9% of the cases I have dealt with the root cause of every issue is always one loud mouthed obnoxious person who creates problems with co-workers and extra work for management.
I sure miss the good old days when you could just point to the door and say "You are fired, please leave now and never return".