{"id":118,"date":"2007-05-03T11:46:23","date_gmt":"2007-05-03T15:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/officepolitics.com\/advice\/?p=118"},"modified":"2007-05-14T14:35:09","modified_gmt":"2007-05-14T18:35:09","slug":"how-do-i-work-with-a-snake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/how-do-i-work-with-a-snake\/","title":{"rendered":"How do I work with a snake?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Office-Politics,<\/p>\n

I would be very interested in your advice for this situation.<\/p>\n

There is a new women working in our office now. This women was hired to work for the new director of our department however he has not moved his new office to our location yet. It has been over six months. <\/p>\n

Well this women obviously doesn’t have enough work to do because she keeps asking me about mine. She will ask what are you doing or are you working on? Then she will say that I should show her how or different things about my job so she can help. She says that she can only show me certain things of her job because it is off limits. I don’t want to get caught up in playing some stupid office politics but I fear she may be trying to undermine my work to advance her position. <\/p>\n

She is almost young enough to be my daughter, but I can tell she thinks she knows everything. An example is I was off a couple of days ill, I am not sure what is wrong with me but I suspect maybe female problems. My doctor has been running some tests. I told her about it, maybe stupidity on my part. She starts stating that she thinks I should just go ahead and have a hysterectomy and on and on. I know I need some lessons in assertiveness but I stood there listening to her go on and on thinking ‘Omg when is she going to stop.’<\/em> Boy it sure is easy for her to say these things.<\/p>\n

Am I just being paranoid or should I just let it go? I mean maybe she is smarter then me and could handle some things better. I do have more then my share of duties but I just know that the work she would get, would be the work I don’t need help with. I always seem to get the work no one else wants to do or that doesn’t get promotions or salary increases.<\/p>\n

Thanks,<\/p>\n

No Snake charmer<\/p>\n

OFFICE-POLITICS REPLY BY TIMOTHY JOHNSON<\/strong>
\n\"timothy<\/p>\n

Dear No Snake charmer,<\/p>\n

Wow\u2026 it sounds like you\u2019ve assessed the situation pretty well. This new woman in your office appears to be a snake, and by all accounts I think assessment of her motivations could be accurate. My only recommendations to you would be to proceed with caution. No, I don\u2019t think you are paranoid. No, I don\u2019t think you should just let it go, either. You should, however, proceed with caution. If she asks about specific procedures with your job, one possible reply might be, \u201cThank you for showing interest in my job. We\u2019ve worked hard to build in back-up procedures to cover for each other here, and I\u2019m sure you are too busy to concern yourself with the details of my responsibilities. It sounds like you may want to share more of your job with us, though, as you may not have a good risk management plan in place yet.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

As for her medical advice, just let her know that you are under the care of a very competent physician, but you will let him\/her know of the recommendations as you are considering all options. Then just don\u2019t tell her anything along those lines any more.<\/p>\n

As for you, it sounds like you may need to consider some rebranding of your own job and reputation if you have simply become the dumping ground of unwanted activity in the office. I think there is a time and a place for utility players, but if your work is not very fulfilling or rewarding, you may need to consider asking for more challenging assignments or volunteering for more high profile projects to boost your own stock within the office. Too many people wait for things to happen to them rather than making their own destiny. It\u2019s time for you to consider accepting new challenges.<\/p>\n

Thanks for writing to Office-Politics.com,<\/p>\n

Timothy Johnson, Author<\/p>\n

Timothy Johnson<\/a> is the author of the newly released Gust: The “Tale” Wind of Office Politics<\/a> (Lexicon, 2007) as well as Race Through The Forest \u2013 A Project Management Fable (Tiberius, 2006). As Chief Accomplishment Officer for his company, Carpe Factum, Inc. (Latin for \u201cSeize The Accomplishment\u201d), he also is a dynamic speaker, providing keynotes and workshops on the accomplishment-oriented topics of project management, creativity, process improvement, systems thinking, and (of course) office politics. His consulting clients have crossed multiple industries and have included Wells Fargo, Harley-Davidson, ING, Teva NeuroScience, and Principal Financial Group. In addition to writing, consulting, speaking, and coaching, he is also an adjunct instructor for Drake University\u2019s MBA program in Des Moines Iowa, teaching classes in Project Management, Creativity for Business, and Managing Office Politics.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Office-Politics, I would be very interested in your advice for this situation. There is a new women working in our office now. This women was hired to work for the new director of our department however he has not moved his new office to our location yet. It has been over six months. Well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-backstabbers","category-office-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}