(Un)Qualified People

[dBjason]

Not sure if this is on topic, but I could use a little advice here.

I'm new in a medium-sized company. Typical office politics, and of course there's this one person I always seem to butt heads with. I was hired as a report writer / developer / dba - type position in an accounting group. For the most part, I love my job. But this one person, supposedly a Business Analyst, is really getting to me.

Now I'm not sure (at least in this company) what a BA is supposed to do all day, but this one seems to like to go out of her way to step on people. I guess she gets paid to try to make people look bad. Consistently she comes my way and asks me to change certain reports agains my Project Manager's orders. I fell for it once. Naturally in a meeting when it was brought up I explained that she had asked me to do it, and as you may guess she flat-out lied and said of course not. As a further drawback she'd made the request verbally, so I had no e-mail or written request to back my position. Never again. For a couple of weeks, she left me alone.

Now, it's back to the same old antics. Recently she's asked me for a similar request, and now she's pissed because I'm checking with my project manager before making her desired changes. I fear that covering my *ss may escalate the situation. Granted, I do not like this person (I've never had an affinity for liars & cheats), but I do want my workplace to run as smooth as possible.

To top it off, other co-workers who have been here longer have explained that she'd "step on anyone's face to get ahead". Great, it seems as though I'm pegged for a staircase.

Can anyone give me a little advice on how to handle this situation? I'm not a big fan of confrontation, and I really don't want to stoop down to her level, but at the same time I'd like to just do my job and (of course) look good for the work I do.

Thanks,
Jason

 

[norty303]

I actually DO have to request emails for every change request because my memory IS so bad!!

A quick drag and drop into tasks and its all sorted.

I would have had problems like yours many times over were I not so naturally stupid.......

 

[eyeswideclosed]

Nobody can top my incompetence story: we had a programmer who didn't know how to cut and paste, no lie/exaggeration. She's in real estate now.

If more than 1 goose are geese, why aren't more than 1 moose meese??

 

[Gooser]

I think I can top your incompetence story.

When I was in the Air Force, we had a Tester, as they were called, essentially a SDET. We were back in the test lab connected to the building where my office was by a couple of breezeways, security checkpoints, and a couple of other buildings. She's sitting there at the test box, staring at the Windows desktop, waiting for me to tell her how to do her job. I say, "go to My Computer" and she gets up from her chair. She was going to go to my computer! After that I had her slide back so I could 'drive'.

This is a person who has been in the carreer field for 18+ years! UFB! This was a 'software engineer' that was to be testing our enterprise application!

v/r

Gooser

Why do today
that which may not need to be done tomorrow --me

 

[Gooser]

Talk with your direct supervisor, whoever reviews you and approves your raises. Tell them you want to BCC them on EVERYTHING. Then tell the person giving you the problem that you must get emails for everything. Always send a friendly, "I got it" type response to her requests and BCC your boss. That way when you're in a meeting and she say's, "I never said that." Your boss can be the first one to say, "Uh, yeah you kinda did say that."

Also, I never delete a [work related] email. That has saved my @$$ on NUMEROUS occasions. Especially when I was in the Air Force. We'd always have some civilian that would tell us to do or not to do something, then come back and say, "I never said that." I would then make a list of the people at the meeting and forward the email to each of them, CC the liar as soon as I got back to my desk. Most of our meetings were across the hall from my office, so the emails would be waiting for the meeting attendees when they got back to their desks. It sucks, but you HAVE to CYA, or you won't have an A to C.

It also should be said. ALWAYS be professional in ANY email from your work account. ALWAYS an opening, even if it's just 'Bubba,' ALWAYS use your Signature block for original messages and something like '--Lastname' for replies. ALWAYS include the original text of the email in your response and forwards. ALWAYS use good English, or at least decent English. Your email is not a chat room. The dumber you write, the dumber you look. If your correspondence looks professional, YOU look professional. Management has NO CHOICE but to recognize AT LEAST that eventually...



v/r

Gooser

Why do today
that which may not need to be done tomorrow --me

 

[flapeyre]

Gooser -

I've been at this job for 10 years. I have every one of my incoming and outgoing e-mails from as far back as 1998 (when we implemented Exchange). I save everything, even if it's just a reminder for us to take our stuff out of the fridge on Friday or it will be thrown out. You just never know when you will need it. Especially true now that we, as a publicly held company, are subject to Sarbanes-Oxley (I'm fond of saying that I'm just a SOX puppet).

Feles mala! Cur cista non uteris? Stramentum novum in ea posui!

 

[Gooser]

I'm sort of a SOX-dummy, since I was in the USAF when it was born and I am in a not-for-profit type company now.

I see it mentioned often, and it looks like a serious PITA.

I used to save ALL emails, but in the AF, there are SO MANY stupid "PT is at 3:00 today", replied to by 15 different people, asking where, 15 separate answers, and it grows into a thread for each, then exponetially from there. I now weed down to the ones that make sense to save. But if it is anything even remotely related to the job, I save it.

v/r

Gooser

 

[alvinpm]

I've been at this job for 10 years. I have every one of my incoming and outgoing e-mails from as far back as 1998 (when we implemented Exchange).

It is because of this that I never write/send emails when I am upset. I either wait and hour or deal with the problem over the phone.

hmmmm

 

[Gooser]

I like to catch the person in person, and alone--Leave no witnesses! ;-)

--Gooser

 

[Onyxpurr]

I'm not sure if I've missed if someone has already suggested this, but...

My department frequently gets these issues. And it is EXTREMELY difficult to get people to initiate an email sometimes. So we do this (it's now our policy)...

When they request something from you, send the following email as a follow-up:

"Statement of Understanding for changes to Project A

Please verify that I have understood your request correctly.

The request is due mm/dd/yyyy. You need the following changes to be made to Project A:

- change 1
- change 2
- change 3

Please respond to this email with either approval of the change or any changes. Start of work on above changes will begin after changes have been approved via email response.

Thank you!"

Our customers know that for every request, we send an SOU and will NOT start work until everyone involved (sometimes just sender and receiver) has approved the SOU.

Good luck!

P.S. Quite a few times we've caught people trying to change their minds. We simply send them the approved SOU back.