NH&G: How do you deal with obnoxious coworkers?

[emoflamingo]

I have a new coworker in the office that is driving me crazy (it's totally a personality clash thing - she is loud and bossy, IRL I am quiet, reserved and pretty go-with-the-flow) and I am going to drive myself bonkers if I don't figure out how to deal with it. She does things I've repeatedly asked her not to do (answer the phone before the caller ID can show up so we can see it later if we need to refer to it, not to invite people into my office for me to help them until I am done doing something because I deal with private information and I don't need anyone seeing a checking account number and being able to write it down, etc.) and she has not caught onto things at all after 2 weeks.

This may drive me to actually drink.

[mrs.jacinthe]

Are you her supervisor?

[emoflamingo]

May 17, 2013 15:36:07 GMT -5 mrs.jacinthe said:

Are you her supervisor?

I guess technically? There are only 3 people in my office (which is why dealing with her is so bad) and despite my boss' away message calling me his "assistant" (nope), my outgoing email says "office manager". I mean, I manage myself (awful because look at me posting online during work hours) and her.

[emoflamingo]

Also, I had to teach her how to bookmark AND copy and paste.

[munkii]

May 17, 2013 15:40:58 GMT -5 emoflamingo said:

Also, I had to teach her how to bookmark AND copy and paste.

She has a job how? 

That's completely mean of me to say, but for serious...

[mrs.jacinthe]

I wondered if it was the same person. I think it would be appropriate at this point to call her into your office and have a closed-door come-to-Jesus meeting.

Outline what she's doing wrong, the potential consequences for the company of her actions, and the potential consequences for HER of her actions. I'd also ask her to outline some ideas to help her remember to do these things. You don't need to be harsh, necessarily, but you need to get right to the point. Especially if there's legal liability for your company, she needs to understand that her learning curve needs to take a sharp turn upwards.

[emoflamingo]

Oh no, this is the SECOND person mrs.jacinthe. I thought, for sure, he hired the ONLY person in the state who didn't know this. He did not. I made him ASK if she had computer skills and she was all "oh yeah, totally." Not. I taught her how to fax too.

He is hiring these people based on their personality and/or gender (though I have no proof because he didn't say it to me but my friend/former coworker) and passed up someone (because he was a guy) that is not only computer smart but wanted the job.

The worst part is I literally gave her a step-by-step guide on how to do every single thing she would need to know how to do. He apparently decided she is the "marketing director" (because he wants to have her go out and hand out business cards and fliers once a week) so now if she ever leaves here, she'll be able to fight for the same jobs I want because of his stupid title.

[emoflamingo]

I think the only solution is a new job. I have applied at 4 this week again.

I got a lecture about how he can't "do it all" but he hasn't been in close to the beginning of office hours in 3 weeks, he is routinely gone for a good portion of the day for random shit (but I can't take care of any personal things during his hours) and I'm doing the job of two people while training someone new who can't even copy and paste.