I haven't been around here mostly due to lack of time. I am an area director for Toastmasters this year and have been extremely busy with work.
For the past 2 years, I have had a coworker from Jamaica. He behaves as though he may have some mental problems like untreated OCD. He also gets frequently confused and has memory problems. He thinks he knows how to deal with people, but has basically zero soft skills and would rather have 40+ long e-mail chains than call someone on the phone, even when the boss has told him to pick up the phone.
Last year, he was following me around the office and leering over the cube wall watching me work. I am 41 and dress very conservatively. I tend to wear polo shirts, button-down blouses, sweaters, things of that nature and always wear either a tank top under them or a scarf over them. We can wear jeans at my job, so I usually wear nice jeans.
He got angry when I asked him to stop because it was making me uncomfortable, and basically was all like "how dare you ask me to stop? and "OMG, I was just stretching." I'm sorry, stretching does not entail bending over and looking at your female coworker while she is working, especially when he is in his 20's and I am middle-aged. I was forced to report him to the boss, and now we are finally physically separated, but still within a few feet of each other because we are on the same team.
For a while, he sent me bizarre random texts, complaining mostly about other women in his life, such as a college professor who once gave him a D or some female manager who, I suspect, basically had a nervous breakdown. I don't blame her.
This guy screws up nearly everything I give him, yet the male boss, he does his stuff perfectly every time. I have received multiple complaints about him from buyers, and have told them repeatedly to go to our boss. I am not a manager, so I have basically no power over him other than to ask him things nicely. The boss does very little about him.
This guy has made fat-phobic comments repeatedly such as "that isn't good for you," "this would be better for you," etc. He sits there and tries to find little tiny things that I did that he doesn't like, sometimes weeks after I have covered for him. The types of things that he screws up on are not tiny considering that these buyers are very demanding and perfectionistic. With data entry work, it has to be done right or we look like idiots. He also cannot problem-solve, and he acts like he needs all the answers handed to him on a silver platter. Unfortunately, my workload is such that I rarely have time to answer his questions, and he has been here just over 2 years. The only thing this guy is good at is the copy/paste reports he does for our boss, that I could have done when I was 12. He acts like he is healthier-than-thou and brags about exercising for 2 hours a day. I have hypothyroid, it would be nice if I had the energy to exercise for an hour a day. I have told him I have hypothyroid. He still acts all healthier-than-thou.
I am at the point where I could quit if I was rich enough to. I have started looking for other jobs within the company, but the offerings are not plenty. If I were not an area director for Toastmasters, I would consider looking outside the company, but I have been there 8 years and don't want to give up my 3 weeks of vacation time (which I can't use because this guy either doesn't do the work, does it totally wrong, or does it partially wrong every time I take even just 1 day off.)
He's sent me bizarre random texts, like last year he randomly texted me about some football movie that had violence against women in it that he didn't like. I don't know why he felt the need to tell me that. There was an incident in the parking lot with a female friend of mine in Toastmasters, that was his fault but she said he got very mad at her. He's send me weird texts like he was trying to control my behavior or something. I told him he wasn't my boss and he didn't get to do that. He's made remarks like I shouldn't wear certain clothes that there was no reason given. It was just a cardigan, with a top underneath...excuse me, since when does he get to be the female fashion expert? I told him that I was old enough to choose my own clothes, thank you very much.
Last year, I got myself a bouquet of roses and left a note with a man's name on them on my desk. He stopped with the bizarre random texts after that. However, lately he's started up again with one the other day, just totally out of the blue, stating that he apparently decided to run a red light and didn't get a ticket. If I were a minority in this day and age, I would obey the law to the letter with all the bologna that is going on with our cops. But maybe that is just me.
So basically, I am at wit's end in dealing with him. The boss will not do anything about him, and this guy will not do anything simply because I ask him to. I really don't have a choice other than to find another job within the company. In addition, this man has shown enough red flags that I cannot trust him, not only with my work but not to be safe around him. I have tried talking to the boss numerous times about him and nothing has been done. I have zero faith that anything will get done about him, so long as our boss is the boss.
Has anyone else had an impossible-to-deal-with coworker like this?
For the past 2 years, I have had a coworker from Jamaica. He behaves as though he may have some mental problems like untreated OCD. He also gets frequently confused and has memory problems. He thinks he knows how to deal with people, but has basically zero soft skills and would rather have 40+ long e-mail chains than call someone on the phone, even when the boss has told him to pick up the phone.
Last year, he was following me around the office and leering over the cube wall watching me work. I am 41 and dress very conservatively. I tend to wear polo shirts, button-down blouses, sweaters, things of that nature and always wear either a tank top under them or a scarf over them. We can wear jeans at my job, so I usually wear nice jeans.
He got angry when I asked him to stop because it was making me uncomfortable, and basically was all like "how dare you ask me to stop? and "OMG, I was just stretching." I'm sorry, stretching does not entail bending over and looking at your female coworker while she is working, especially when he is in his 20's and I am middle-aged. I was forced to report him to the boss, and now we are finally physically separated, but still within a few feet of each other because we are on the same team.
For a while, he sent me bizarre random texts, complaining mostly about other women in his life, such as a college professor who once gave him a D or some female manager who, I suspect, basically had a nervous breakdown. I don't blame her.
This guy screws up nearly everything I give him, yet the male boss, he does his stuff perfectly every time. I have received multiple complaints about him from buyers, and have told them repeatedly to go to our boss. I am not a manager, so I have basically no power over him other than to ask him things nicely. The boss does very little about him.
This guy has made fat-phobic comments repeatedly such as "that isn't good for you," "this would be better for you," etc. He sits there and tries to find little tiny things that I did that he doesn't like, sometimes weeks after I have covered for him. The types of things that he screws up on are not tiny considering that these buyers are very demanding and perfectionistic. With data entry work, it has to be done right or we look like idiots. He also cannot problem-solve, and he acts like he needs all the answers handed to him on a silver platter. Unfortunately, my workload is such that I rarely have time to answer his questions, and he has been here just over 2 years. The only thing this guy is good at is the copy/paste reports he does for our boss, that I could have done when I was 12. He acts like he is healthier-than-thou and brags about exercising for 2 hours a day. I have hypothyroid, it would be nice if I had the energy to exercise for an hour a day. I have told him I have hypothyroid. He still acts all healthier-than-thou.
I am at the point where I could quit if I was rich enough to. I have started looking for other jobs within the company, but the offerings are not plenty. If I were not an area director for Toastmasters, I would consider looking outside the company, but I have been there 8 years and don't want to give up my 3 weeks of vacation time (which I can't use because this guy either doesn't do the work, does it totally wrong, or does it partially wrong every time I take even just 1 day off.)
He's sent me bizarre random texts, like last year he randomly texted me about some football movie that had violence against women in it that he didn't like. I don't know why he felt the need to tell me that. There was an incident in the parking lot with a female friend of mine in Toastmasters, that was his fault but she said he got very mad at her. He's send me weird texts like he was trying to control my behavior or something. I told him he wasn't my boss and he didn't get to do that. He's made remarks like I shouldn't wear certain clothes that there was no reason given. It was just a cardigan, with a top underneath...excuse me, since when does he get to be the female fashion expert? I told him that I was old enough to choose my own clothes, thank you very much.
Last year, I got myself a bouquet of roses and left a note with a man's name on them on my desk. He stopped with the bizarre random texts after that. However, lately he's started up again with one the other day, just totally out of the blue, stating that he apparently decided to run a red light and didn't get a ticket. If I were a minority in this day and age, I would obey the law to the letter with all the bologna that is going on with our cops. But maybe that is just me.
So basically, I am at wit's end in dealing with him. The boss will not do anything about him, and this guy will not do anything simply because I ask him to. I really don't have a choice other than to find another job within the company. In addition, this man has shown enough red flags that I cannot trust him, not only with my work but not to be safe around him. I have tried talking to the boss numerous times about him and nothing has been done. I have zero faith that anything will get done about him, so long as our boss is the boss.
Has anyone else had an impossible-to-deal-with coworker like this?
