Tales of a Hard-Working Aspie: The Abysmal Coworker

Tales of a Hard-Working Aspie

The Abysmal Co-worker

I have a co-worker, we'll call her Corrina, who has been purposefully making my life a living hell for the past year and two months. I never did anything to this girl, but she has some sort of vendetta against me. She's awful. 

In my last post, I mentioned a troublesome relationship with some of my past co-workers in the cellular phone department of the electronics store where I work. I admit, they ran me off... In a way, they won. 

From day one I was the odd one out. The group was a clique and I was blackballed. I was never invited to hang out with the gang outside of work (everyone else was). When someone brought lunch for the entire department, I was left out. I even tried to get some people together for Thanksgiving dinner and was told that everyone had plans with their families only to find out that everyone had gone to one of the employee's houses to celebrate together without me. 

After awhile, I didn't even want to fit in with these people; I just wanted them to leave me alone. Unfortunately, just ignoring me wasn't in their plan. Corrina led the charge in talking to me like I was stupid, laughing after every conversation I tried to have with her, refusing to help me out even though she was (at the time) a supervisor in the department, and in spreading malicious rumors. 

After undergoing a major change in management, I finally had an ally. He thought that a meeting where he expressed his desires for everyone to start fresh would make things better. Unfortunately the plan backfired. I was subject to an hour long roast session. I was informed that "no one wants to be friends with someone like you" and was accused of "sneaking off to the bathroom to cry during like every shift". Things from my first week working there were being rehashed for crying out loud. I thought I was the only one who had trouble letting things go! These people were acting like kids in a candy store. They'd been waiting months to make me cry this hard. 

By the end of the meeting, nothing was resolved. My saving grace was that I was able to change departments. Even seeing Corrina and her minions was enough to make me sick to my stomach, but at least I knew that they wouldn't risk crossing the store just to be mean to me. 

Unfortunately, an innocent act today led to the absolutely final boiling point. I had a customer whom I'd been working with for about a week now. This customer was making a large purchase and was purchasing from several different departments, including the cellular department. All I did was try to help my customer. All Corrina wanted was to create drama.

I took my customer over to the cellular department because our computer was in use, the next available computer was not working, and for a CELLULAR transaction, it seemed like the logical place to go. Corrina rudely interrupted my sale, asking why I was working over there rather than on our computer. I explained it wasn't available and continued working with my customer.

I later found out that Corrina had gone to our supervisor to complain about me. Apparently she decided that the only reason I had gone to the cellular department was so that I could sit down (complete BS). She continued on that I was taking too long with my transaction and I was getting in the way, etc... Everything she said was met with an immediate dismissal, but it didn't stop her. She came back over and proceded to fling my customers products around angrily (it looked to me like she was about to slam the brand new computer onto the desk because she had backed into it on the floor and gotten angry). 

Even after I left the cellular area, she continued to go after me. She shot me death glares, stared me down, and made me feel incredibly uncomfortable... and she did all of this in front of a new employee who was training. 

Our supervisor happens to be a good friend of mine; in fact, she's my best friend here in Texas. She told me about the complaints and her reaction to them. I couldn't believe that Corrina had really gone to a supervisor because I was doing my job! When I mentioned my dismay that all this was happening in front of a trainee, she replied that the new employees would have to make their own decisions but that it was promising that one of the newer employees had expressed to her that he liked working with me. I was somewhat thrown by this statement, until she said that she had assumed that they were training all the new employees to hate me. 

Of course part of me believed that all along. The other part hoped that the part that believed it was the paranoid part. After talking to my best friend, I felt awful. It wasn't her fault. She doesn't control my mind... unfortunately I don't either. 

I immediately became depressed, withdrawn, and started to severely doubt myself. Something particularly bothersome to me was that she told me that (with my aspirations to move into management roles) the more times management had to get involved in trying to solve these personal problems, the less likely they'd be to promote me. I've worked so hard to fix my relationships with all of my other co-workers... THIS ONE RELATIONSHIP IS BEYOND REPAIR! That is not a reflection on me; it's a reflection on how it was handled from day one. 

Once that thought entered my head, the next thoughts that came were auditory memories from the morning of the roast session. At one point, I felt myself blinking back tears and at the same time, I heard the voice accuse: "you hide in the bathroom and cry all the time!" It was like I was stuck in quick-sand, but the quick-sand was emotions and I was being sucked down by the negative ones. 

I sent an email asking to talk to my general manager about all this. It may seem odd that I wrote a blog about it, but for me, it was somewhat therapeutic and will serve as a series of notes for me during my eventual meeting with management about this issue. I just hope that I can free myself from this quick-sand of negativity before I ruin the best job I've ever had.