I've decided to start this thread in knowing that many people have to, or have had to deal with impossible co-workers. There are many sites on the net that give insight and solutions to such issues. However I'd like to pose my issue her knowing that many people here can come up with some sound/funny/solid or help filled solutions to problems in the work force.
If you have any work related problems/issues with co-workers or bosses please share, maybe some of us can come up with some helpful suggestions for you in how to deal and or cope with difficult co-workers.

Me... first

I work with a male co-worker who has started acting real weird. About a month or so ago I hurt my upper left arm while doing a home repair. I even took off for a day to go to the doctor.
Well the day I returned to work, I told him i missed work due to an injury my arm.
then for some strange reason the same co-worker started tapping me (open handed) on my arm in the same area of the injury. I told him nicely that I had hurt my arm and please stop because it was causing me added pain. He said "oh, I forgot you said you hurt your arm. Well this went on for about a week, all in all each time he would tap me on my arm and I would remind him about my injury he kept saying, oh, I keep forgetting. This incident happened more than ten times within the week. Mind you, we were never on any type of familiar ground, only professional, and prior to my injury there was never any physical contact between the two of us.
I made a complaint, now it's seems like I shouldn't have. because the supervisor said that in this new generation touching is something younger people do, and told me i should not have taken it so dramatically. i need the job. what would you do?

sorry sounds like BS...the supervisor should have talked to the guy....you injured your arm. I'm sorry you're going through this.

sue them for sexual harassment, you'll be rich

wait after I quit or they quit and then whoop their asses

sometimes, even in the workplace, nothing beats a good ol' "STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!!!" ultimatum...

That is ridiculous! That coworker has issues! And what was the supervisor thinking? I'm sorry you had to deal with that...


My story:
I am in a co-teaching situation at the high school (actually 3). One particular teacher has a reputation of being difficult to work with. He was assigned to the class in Dec. after the regular teacher went on medical leave.
At first, G didn't do anything. I ran around up until Christmas like a crazy woman trying to make sure the kids had work.
On Jan. 4, he decided to "take over". He dismissed what I had been doing with the kids, starting something new. So I tried to be a "team player", and said I would make up a quiz for the new material. I showed it to him in the morning and we talked about my quiz. When we got to the class in the afternoon, (he was late), I had started passing out my quiz when he took it, tossed it aside and said, "We're not using that one" in front of the kids. I stared at him for a second, then told the kids I'd be back and left.

Also, I had been in touch with a mother who was concerned about the switch in teachers. I shared the correspondence with him, and he said, "Tell her to contact ME. I'll let her know that he's in the hands of a competent, experienced teacher. And you." I've been teaching for 20 years!

There are other examples, but this is getting long. I finally spoke with a Union rep about this, but in the meantime, I made it clear that we are CO-TEACHERS, and that I've been with the kids since the beginning of the year. He has been better, so I withdrew my complaint.

Some people are just clueless.

Seems like your supervisor has got the wrong end of the stick. You have every right not to be 'harrassed' at work. I have put 'harrassed' in inverted commas as there are obviously many tyoes of harrassment, ie sexual, physical, emotional. Your supervisor clearly hasn't done their here job. If it could be deemed as something serious, although it doesn't seem to be at this point in time (ie it seems whoever is prodding you is being extremely childish) your supervisor should have asked u to maybe write your complaint down, in which case s/he has to act upon it. S/he should then have approached this person in private, put your complaint to him and given him a chance to express his side of the story, in writing if need be, so if it does escalate s/he as supervisor has something to fall back on.

For your supervisor to shun you away is wrong. You may need to bypass your supervisor and go to his or her boss. If you are not happy GET IT DOWN IN WRITING as they have to act on it.
The main thing your supervisor ought to be doing is not to let this escalate into anythigng more serious. Ie if this person feels he has the right to prod you or push you as he sees fit, what else in his mind does he think he can get away with?

I have been the director of my pub business for just over a year, it's a small pub and we have 15 full and part time staff and everyone has the right to beable to come to work, earn money, feel safe etc, as people who feel on top form do a good job for my company. The problem we have sometimes is some drunk customers belittling staff, so it would be my job to acknowledge the problem, give my member of staff a quick pep talk ie she or he is drunk, they don't know what they are saying, focus on your job, you are doing nothing wrong, don't rise and take their bait etc. If it's quite serious I would approach the customer when they are not drunk (some of these are local people who come in everyday) and just put it to them that I know what they have said and will keep it clocked. Another rude or bullying offence is a 3 month ban from the pub.

I know this is a bit different from having to work with people who are like that, but your supervisor should have the know how to deal with something like you are going through. Find out - maybe in your company handbook - if there are any policies or procedures your supervisor needs to follow if a verbal or written complaint is made.

In the mean time while you are waiting for your supervisor to get off his/her arse and do their job, tell the person who is touching u to go and play with traffic.

chocolate1 said:

one suggestion (from a friend of mine) if you are still working with this person, and if you cannot manage to ignore him, document everything! keep extensive and dated documentation, showing detailed occurrences. after documenting the facts (not emotions, not feelings) for about three months, make an appointment with your direct supervisor. if she or he will not take action, go to the next level of management, and keep going until you reach the human resource manager.
keeping documentation seems cumbersome but believe me it's more effective than trying to recall a scenario w/out having actual dates and times recorded.

(my friend who works for a gov entity had an issue, she was able to get a co-worker off her back because she kept documentation of the negative encounters with that person. now her work life is much better and the co-worker was given an admonishment that was put in her personell file.)
i hope the employee that's on medical leave will be back soon!

Your supervisor sounds like an I can't believe he's making excuses for that coworker for touching you like that. You should not have to put up with that in any way, shape, or form. A person who purposely touches someone in an area where they have been injured sounds sadistic. Your coworker definitely has issues. Is there someone over your boss who you can report this to, or a person in Human Resources? Some so called "bosses" should not be given the roll of supervisor, and this is a good example of that.

I had a somewhat similar experience at a place where I worked at. This woman I worked with was a total , was nasty to everybody, and just had a very unpleasant personality. I remember hearing one of my coworkers complaining to my boss about her, and telling the boss that the coworker's attitude was getting worse, and that the boss really needed to talk to her about it. His response? "Give it time." I wanted to snap at him and say, "Give it time? What do you mean, "Give it time"? Is that all you can tell us? That's not going to solve the issue that is going on. You're the boss, and you SHOULD be able to handle it in the proper matter. What's the matter, are you AFRAID of her or something?" LOL - of course, I didn't, but it really got me mad that this "boss" refused to do anything about it. He and the other department head seemed to be afraid of this woman, afraid to step on her toes or something (something I still, to this day, cannot understand). He just seemed to have the attitude of, "Well, if I just ignore it, it will go away."

I had enough with this woman and her attitude, and one day, I just let it all out and told her how I felt. Boy did that ever feel good. I still had issues with her, but everytime she started getting nasty with me, I called her out on it and corrected her on it.

In my honest opinion, nasty coworkers with bad attitudes need to be lectured about it, and told that if they do not follow through, they will be terminated (and the boss needs to follow through on that). It just seems like some bosses just don't want to get involved with difficult coworkers for some reason. They probably think that the people working for them are all adults, and that they should be able to work it out amongst themselves. I somewhat agree with that, but when a whole department is having issues with the same employee, then that employee needs to be told about it, and the situation needs to be corrected.

I think the supervisor should have kindly taken them aside and reinforced your request to not have your injured arm touched.

That's not too much to ask, especially after you have already tried to tell your co-worker yourself.

I was wondering if it could be accidents on that co-worker's part but you said there was no prior contact, so I don't know!

psychodelicide said:

Well put. Hell, even I have been pulled aside and you best believe my behavior was corrected quickly once the issue was brought to the surface and "realized".

Isn't that what supervisors are for? I swear they don't do much else

Cinnie said:

Thanks. And yes, part of a supervisor's job is to take care of situations like the ones that are being discussed on this thread. I have also been talked to about my behavior/attitude while working at a past job. I stepped my game up quickly.

psychodelicide said:

That's because you're a good employee. I am thinking that when a supervisor chooses to not step to a difficult employee, it is because they feel it will not make an impact.

I'll never tell. They might be reading this.

Cinnie said:

that's great

Cinnie said:

Thanks. That's sad if a supervisor won't tell a difficult employee to "shape up or ship out" because they feel it won't make any difference. If I had an employee like that, I probably would just fire them.

I would have probably socked arm touching dude in the face after the third touch...."oops I have nerve damage and that was just a reflex"

I have had too many idiot coworkers, and also some really cool folk, but I swear that idiot will bring a whole team down. Being as I have a hulk-like personality (that means don't make me angry because you will not like me when I'm angry) I always end up getting in trouble too.

I don't tolerate stupid well.....

And another thing, sometimes the client is not always right....

But I probably am that "difficult co-worker" because I focus highly on my job and I don't tolerate much shit. People tend to complain about me because I'm always trying to utilize common sense to get shit done so nobody has to be doing excess work for excess hours.

lafleurdove said:

Sounds to me like co-worker dude thought you were either faking your injury or exaggerating it so you could get the day off. With all the touching he's hoping to "bust" you.

Take the issue straight to HR and file a report. If the supervisor won't even look into the situation for you, then you should know that you are totally on your own. Make sure you document everything, dates, time, the who, what, when, and where routine. Keep your lawyer's name and number on hand too as well, in case it comes to that. Good Luck.

missfee said:

Yep. if your place of work has and HR department, use it.

i am so thanking all of you for your post. they have given me a less "angry" feelings as well as some good ideas.
as far as work 2day, i hide my feelings well, so as far as folk on the job know, e'rytings awright!
thanks again.

now i hope more people will put their situations where we can come with some problem solving for you, or you!

Don't know if it's been suggested yet, but if you work somewhere that has any sort of official workplace e-mail, I'd probably voice complaints that way to both to the supervisor and the person offending you. Read-receipts might not be a bad idea, either. But any reply on their part acknowledges you brought the situation to their attention and the conversation practically documents itself and is easily forwarded. Having a conversation on the side and documenting after always allows room for them to deny or alter what they actually said. E-mail...not so much.
[Edited 1/24/10 20:22pm]

FauxReal said:

great idea. A short respectful email to the offending party, then cc: the supervisor on that same email. That should get them to stop pretty quick. Something like, "I have asked multiple times that you stop tapping on my injured arm. It is causing me distress. I just to make sure you really hear it so I'm sending this simple request in writing." I would ignore the supervisor's blasé attitude and continue to assert yourself in a levelheaded way. I would hope that everyone would respect you more after doing so.

In the work place there is this terrible thing called MOBBING. You don't appear to be there yet. For your own protection JUST IN CASE THIS TURNS INTO SOMETHING THAT HAS TO BE LITIGATED:

(1) Start DOCUMENTING everything! I mean EVERYTHING! Who said/done it. What was said/done. How it was said/done. The date, time, and place.

(2) Create a paper trail if necessary!

(3) If it gets too bad, HIRE AN ATTORNEY and feed him/her your documentation...

(4) Your supervisor should have done something by now.....

I can go on and on! Your co-worker is engaging in conduct that is legally considered HARRASMENT!

Nikademus said:

That's exactly what I was thinking, but he seemed to keep it up a bit too long. After two or three times, I would have reported it to HR. Your supervisor should also be reprimanded for not doing anything about it because it was definitely harassment.

seems as though everything turned out for the good. the guy that was causing me the trouble got put on a two-week administrative leave (no pay).
he's back and while we still have to work together, he seems resigned to leave me alone and stay clear.

peacenlovealways said:

^ all of that!

let it slide this time that is what I do , once i let it go, happens again, file a written complaint and try and get different shifts?

as someone also said document everything- TIME, DATE, WHAT HAPPENED EXACTLY, WHO WAS STANDING WHERE AND ALL THAT and then take it 2 a person higher on the ladder.
[Edited 2/8/10 4:56am]

I agree with everyone suggesting documentation.

Regardless of profession, an employee must document--with dates, times, exact words spoken to the best of your ability...anything precise you can think of, relating to the harassment. Also document your experience with your supervisor. I mean.. you complained, your supervisor did nothing, and that's just as bad as the harassment you're going through.

Is there a human resource person at your company/office?

Right now... wait.. I guess a wait and see approach might be best. There's a possibility this person has heard through the grapevine you talked to the supervisor, and he might back-off because I would think this person needs the job just as much as you do.

**Oh.. also is there anything in your employee handbook relating to harassment? There should be some written policies concerning this matter.
There should be written policies and protocol concerning what to do about employee complaints; in other words, if you go to the supervisor and nothing is done, then what are your next options? There should be written procedures and code of conduct all employees had to sign-off on depending upon the size of the company.. Now, if it's a very small--"mom and pop" type business.. there's the problem. A lot of small business are not as formal.

If it happens again, you could take your signed copy of your employee handbook, and highlight passages to show your supervisor.. that regardless of "intent," this guy is crossing the line according to policy.. (You could possibly show it to the employee before you go to the supervisor again--just to remind him in a friendly way, his behavior is not acceptable according to policy even though his "intent" might not be hurtful... It just depends upon how "threatened" you are feeling by this behavior.) Same goes for that teaching situation. School districts usually have very specific "codes of conduct," so...it doesn't matter if a fellow employee is just "kidding around," he should NOT be hitting you or touching you--on either arm much less your sore arm. It's completely inappropriate. Hopefully, it's all against your company policy as written in your employee handbook. If the company is large enough, there should be something..

Smaller business?? Well... if it's part of a corporate chain, you could report the incident(s) to the district manager--even corporate office. The corporate office SHOULD have an HR department.. So.. And STILL as part of a corporate chain, you all should have had to "agree" to policies and be advised of protocol.

Mom and pop business.. well... the options then would be to contact the workforce commission in your area...to be advised on how to deal with this matter..

Hope this helps.. In the meantime, document, document, and document some more!
[Edited 2/8/10 7:25am]