The androg­y­nously renamed and uniden­ti­fi­able Sam and Lexy work together at IHU Corp. (that’s I Hate You). Sam has scaled up the lad­der of the orga­ni­za­tion over the past gazil­lion years and Lexy has only been around one third as long. Both are in senior posi­tions but Sam out­ranks Lexy. IHU has had sev­eral changes in über senior lead­er­ship in recent years.

The eco­nomic down­turn, local pol­i­tics and scan­dals and inter­nal upheavals caused by the fre­quent change in com­mand has over the years slowly caused feel­ings of queasi­ness of the largely tenured staff . Sam and Lexy have allowed them­selves to be affected the most. 

“I can’t look at Sam, it makes me nauseous.”

“Lexy knows how to push my but­tons and enjoys doing it.”

“I refuse to work with Sam any longer.”

I refuse to be at the same table as Lexy.”

In the time of Gen­e­sis they got along swim­mingly well. They lunched together, shared jokes and sto­ries of their chil­dren as they grew up. They had con­fi­dence in each other’s pro­fes­sional abil­i­ties. It all started with one grain of sand in the oyster’s shell that encap­su­lated. The rest is his­tory. It goes some­thing like this.…

Sam was pro­moted to a very senior level posi­tion. Lexy was OK with it because of the tenure Sam had. But Lexy started to feel like Sam was on a power trip and that com­mu­ni­ca­tion was becom­ing strained and dif­fi­cult. Lexy started to feel “ordered around”.  Lexy took this to the big boss who said, “Find a way to work with Sam or find another job”. That direc­tive and the way it was deliv­ered painted a pic­ture in Lexy’s mind, one that said, “I went from peer to slave and now I’m toast”.

Bit­ter­ness started to boil in the cauldron.……

The quick suc­ces­sion of über lead­ers swept it under the rug. Being the con­sum­mate intro­vert, Lexy inter­nal­ized it and started to have back pain. Sam, the feel­ing extro­vert, started hav­ing migraines, kept try­ing to reach out and failed attempts only made them worse. To make mat­ters worse, there was no HR depart­ment for any­one to turn to for guidance.

Doo doo doo doo doo doo do do.….. A tick­ing time bomb wait­ing to explode. And it did.

In an unex­pected turn of events, it was Sam that stopped talk­ing about it and put it into a for­mal writ­ten com­plaint. Now it had to be addressed. The com­plaint con­tained seri­ous alle­ga­tions of  bul­ly­ing and a hos­tile work envi­ron­ment. These were 2 very valu­able employ­ees, it had to be addressed. For the integrity of the orga­ni­za­tion and to avoid an EEOC com­plaint for Adverse Employ­ment Action based on dis­crim­i­na­tion, retal­i­a­tion and or con­struc­tive discharge.

Luck­ily in this case, an HR con­sul­tant was brought in and even­tu­ally one hired to staff.  The sit­u­a­tion was resolved via per­for­mance man­age­ment, seri­ous coach­ing and signed expec­ta­tions doc­u­ments. A best case sce­nario was had.

Well there’s a rose in the fisted glove
And eagle flies with the dove
And if you can’t be with the one you love honey
Love the one you’re with

The days of gentleman’s agree­ments in the work­place are over. I will be ever so grate­ful to the leader who pushed me to doc­u­ment, doc­u­ment, doc­u­ment early on in my career. It’s a pain in the tohkes and I hate it. In fact, I’m still on the elu­sive hunt for the per­fect dig­i­tal scribe if you can rec­om­mend one. I have sent back the ones I have tried. I digress but oy vey, why can’t they get it right?

So any­way, if you are in the cubi­cle with a co-worker from hell and iden­tify with Sam or Lexy you need to try to work it out with one other, unless it’s some type of gross con­duct that needs imme­di­ate report­ing to a supe­rior and doc­u­men­ta­tion from you. Here are 60 arti­cles from Helium for your perusal and reflec­tion to see if you can get some­where on your own.

If your crack at pop psy­chol­ogy doesn’t get you any relief you do need to say some­thing to your man­ager and you need to doc­u­ment the con­ver­sa­tion. The man­ager should too but do it any­way.  It’s never a waste. If noth­ing else, it will be the begin­ning of an intrigu­ing novel you can com­plete in your retire­ment. Ask for next steps and a time table to res­o­lu­tion. Put that in your notes. Above all… don’t whine. Just tell it like it is, say it is unac­cept­able and ask for res­o­lu­tion. See what happens…

Hopefully, the sit­u­a­tion will be han­dled with sen­si­tiv­ity, dis­cre­tion and pro­fes­sion­al­ism. If not, you have some tough choices to make. There is no law that oblig­ates peo­ple to be nice to each other and HR depart­ments deal with per­son­al­ity issues per­haps more than any other. If you have made an earnest attempt to get along that didn’t pan out and you are that irri­tated it might be the time to move on. Why allow your­self to be mis­er­able and pos­si­bly your health to suf­fer? Start con­duct­ing a job search.

If you decide to look for another job please resist all temp­ta­tion to dis­cuss the per­son­al­ity con­flict you have with a co-worker. It’s not going to work in your favor. You’ll need to give another rea­son for your moti­va­tion to change employment.

How­ever, if you feel the sit­u­a­tion goes beyond a per­son­al­ity con­flict and has moved into the arena of harass­ment or bul­ly­ing and your employer has not prop­erly addressed the sit­u­a­tion you may qual­ify to file a for­mal com­plaint to the EEOC if you are in the U.S.A. This is not to be taken lightly. Friv­o­lous com­plaints are com­mon and truth­fully they cause a night­mare for employ­ers. Don’t be spite­ful. Take a deep breath, read the FAQ’s and ana­lyze the sit­u­a­tion accord­ing to the guide­lines. Do you really have a legit­i­mate com­plaint wor­thy of gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tion? If you do it is your right to file the com­plaint. Be ready to know it could get pretty ugly. It could mean court. It will air your dirty laun­dry if there is any.  I’m just saying.

Like a bad mar­riage, if it’s frac­tured and irrepara­ble, usu­ally the best rem­edy is a divorce. If both par­ties agree to coun­sel­ing and this mar­riage can be saved maybe you can have a sec­ond hon­ey­moon… maybe.

Get it together come on make it nice
You ain’t gonna need any­more advice

Doo doo doo doo 

Thanks Steven Stills for your tal­ent. I love your music.

Karla Porter, DSL