Category: the Rant Board
Why are adult women more like child tattle tales with each other in the workplace? And they wonder why I prefer guys as friends?
For the last two years someone has been tattle taling to management about me doing stuff that doesn't even affect them. It started small, from "Look where spongebob put her spatter jacket" or parked her car, to an anonymous report of false accusations on a day everyone knew was scheduled for layoffs.
So I'm doing my department pickups, and to save time, as we have so many people out we're going to have mice working for us at this rate, I skipped samples whose tests are run during the daytime unless the person's bucket was full of them. The same person who was too lazy to even get her own racks on the cart right next to her & management came back to me with that asked me was I going to pick up these samples (I was confining myself to those with tests done at night), went & told a supervisor, who came back & asked me to pick 'em up. My not picking 'em up unless there were a lot was affecting no one, and this individual was leaving when drivers had much more critical stuff to sign in. Definitely not one to talk. She can't get off her own rear end to pick up her own supplies, but she can get up to leave or to tattle tale on others? This is a quiet individual who seems to blend into the background someone you would think is a don't bother anyone type, but I think I am finding out something else.
This is not the first time I have encountered women like this. Years ago some would even accuse me of stealing food I don't even like. Why are women in the workplace like this? They make a big to do of wanting to be treated with equal respect as men, yet they conduct themselves like tattle taling children & gossipy teens in the locker room. I don't understand why they target me in particular. There's nothing to be jealous of, for chrissakes I'm not doubling for Giselle Bundchen. I go to work in surgical scrubs & sneakers & no make up, keep no personal photos. This person doesn't seem to talk to others & I think had my job in mind for herself, that's the only thing I can think of.
I stick with my friend on the other side of the building & make little conversation on my end. It really gets tiresome dealing with grown people who act this way. Thanks for the rant space.
thing is sponge, i think you are dealing with someone who feels threatened by you. are you more powerful than her in personallity, if not in work position? could it be this? if so, then you are in a difficult position, as this person feels threatened by you, and wants to do anything to get you out of the position you're in, even if you don't know you are in that position of threat, as it were, it's stupid and assonine, and idiotic, and wrong that ppl do this to others, but they do, and it's a complete fuck up. sorry this is happening to you. i hope all works out for you and this person is seen for what they really are, which is a loser.
I've been on both sides of the coin: manager and managee, and all I can say is Spongebob has the guts to say what none of the rest of us, including me, have ever dared to say.
Yup, for the most part, many women on the workplace do precisely what she is talking about. And man oh man to they get huffy when someone like me simply asks: "Do you have nothing to do? Because I can find you something to do ..." which is how I responded when "concerned" individuals would approach me like that. And 100% of 'em were women.
Frankly I think women ought to hold one another accountable on the job now, if they want their situation(s) to improve. I never saw men ripping on women, but women would tear each other asunder in so many ways they embodied H.L. Mencken's quote: "Misogyny: a man who hates women as much as women hate one another."
Basically, and some of you may not like this, but there's nothing at all we men can do. It's up to them. If I respond like "Grow up!" or something, as I could to another guy, there's a harrassment claim, or what would I do if she cried and said she had issues?
It's a conundrum for sure: and like a lot of rants, this topic only displays a deeper problem. I certainly don't know how it could get solved.
I've rarely understood women myself, even though I am one. But if someone was giving me that kind of hell, completely unprevoked mind you, I'd do everything in my power to get her fired. If I don't bother anyone, I see no reason why someone should bother me and if someone wants to start a fight with me for no reason, I make it my business to win.
OMG Sponge!
Thank you SO much!!!
About six months ago my work environment became like hell on earth. I ahve my own office, but going out to the main office area was so tense that I would only go out there when absolutely necessary. Some of my coworkers would pitch in and help each other at the drop of a hat with HUGE projects, but the minute I needed a second opinion on whether a form was photocopied or original it was a HUGE inconvenience.
I am thankful that my boss and office manager like my work enough that when I told them things were so bad I wanted to quit they took me seriously. Come to find out that when I went on two weeks of vacation last month my boss brought everyone into his office and read them the riot act. Office dynamics have been strained, but better, especially since the main source of my problem took another job with another company three weeks ago.
Sorry for the high-jack, Sponge...
But I seriously don't know what it is about women in the workplace, though... and it's not limited to any particular age group, though I find that women in the mid-late twenties are the worst about this. Maybe because they're closer to my age I expect more from them?
Kate
Age group I have found a lot of the worst offenders to be much older women, although now that I'm in my 40's the problem people are more likely to be my age. I have also found the ones that were so nasty they had to get the riot act were not single women, but married ones with at least one child & sometimes grandkids. ?!?!?! The single women go to their jobs, or two jobs, or work & school & they're busy & happy with their lives, the married ones, who should have other people to keep them occupied, are miserable & gossipy. What's up with that? One woman the guys love to confide in, but then she repeats & gossips about what they've confided, has a husband & 3 kids from 9 to 17 years of age. I guess family isn't good enough to keep these women occupied, but I don't know what would get their minds off other peoples' business.
probably nothing. We got a few gossipers at work running their mouths about a comet hitting a place called Cheissland (look up Cheiss in a German-English dictionary) and rather than them find out we were spoofing them they started going on and on and on about it all concerned. I didn't pay for lunch for two weeks on account of the bets I won over that.
hahaha Yeah, get them back! I'd say give them something to gossip about that will ultimately make them look like total idiots as you did in your example. Nice about the lunch too! I've never trided this, but it sounds as if exploiting their weaknesses and causing them great shame would shut them up too, particularly if all the things are true and it's their own friends who are spreading the gossip. Just never do it to anyone who's good and innocent cause that would be horrible.
No I made no money directly from them: We guys, a few of us, just placed some bets. To me it was like tossing a stick in the water and seeing how far how fast it floats downstream when you're a kid ... you bet on how long it takes using a particular gossipper with a particular made-up tale to get it spread. And the agreement was all you could do is just ask her "Have you heard that ..." and mine just happened to be a comet hitting Cheissland. I don't think any of 'em ever knew they were the subject of anything.
Awe, that takes away half the fun! But if these people really weren't causing you any trouble, guess there's no harm done and no need to do any, just collect a nice bunch of change. *smile*
I think it is fare to say that women do tend to be more catty, back-stabbing and so on when they feel threatened. As a friend of mine once stated, "women don't need nails; they have claws."
Crazy Musician, good for your boss for sticking up for you!
Now it's really bad when I can cite the goings on of a defunct lab, but a supervisor at a facility I worked in the '90's, before it merged with another, came right out & said, "Now if someone's actions affect your finishing time, or the work quality, or are outright errors, come get me. But DO NOT come to me with 'so and so had to go to the bathroom 5 times tonight.' Maybe so and so had a problem that night." Unfortunately where I am now all complaints have to be considered equally valid, and laws passed in Congress mean you can't know who your accuser is to confront them or at least know who to avoid, making the workplace uncomfortable for those like me just trying to do a job & go home and wasting supervisors' time with trifling matters.
Congress needs to stay the hell out of things like this. First, they passed the ADA, which is good in certain instances but which forces interviewers to lie about why they didn't hire you and to not be able to ask questions about your disability and then they pull this shit, which I didn't even know about until now, that says that you can't know who your accuser is. If someone has a problem with me, you'd better believe I'd want to know who and why!
while this does indeed annoy me, I have to say I've met men who are just like this too...
Really? Perhaps because my office is primarily female I see it, but I don't see men like that in the workpl.ace
Nor have I.
Never saw that eether.