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    CtrlAltDelete's Avatar
    CtrlAltDelete Posts: 2, Reputation: 1
    New Member
     
    #1

    May 29, 2014, 03:14 AM
    New employee - sense of superiority
    Hi,

    This probably falls under the category of 'dealing with awkward people'.

    We are a small office (20s now) - that is going through a period of rapid growth, having increased by 40% in the last 6 months.

    One person in particular is becoming a challenge to deal with.

    They started at the beginning of the year, in a mid-level position, by no means a manager - and strangely - were promoted within 3 months (which is normally the probation period for a new hire).

    Since then - they have began openly questioning EVERYTHING that goes on in the office - across all departments, e.g.

    - Why things are done a particular way
    - Why they aren't done another way

    If some others in the office were to ask similar questions - they would be told that it didn't concern them, etc.

    A number of the new hires that have occurred since this person started come from the same previous employer.

    This person has also become (among other things) - a fire officer, a health and safety officer, a first aider, and so on.

    This seems to add to a strange sense of 'more authority than they actually have'.

    During a visit/presentation from the CEO of the overall company (1200+) - they even questioned/tried to correct the CEO when he was discussing a project that the CEO himself was involved in - 15+ years ago.

    The easiest suggestion I can think would be to ignore the person, but it is becoming more and more difficult when this person seems to be involved in almost everything in the office.

    (Their full time role is NOT anything to do with office management/HR etc.)

    Any advice? :)
    ebaines's Avatar
    ebaines Posts: 12,131, Reputation: 1307
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    #2

    May 29, 2014, 05:59 AM
    My advice is: stay professional, and be cordial in all your interactions with this person. I sense two themes in your post: (1) how to work with somone who is always "butting in" to other people's work, and (2) there seems to be some jealousy over this person being promotes so quickly, and and influx of others coming from his same former employer. Regarding (1): I don't know the culure of your company but many start-ups are rather loose in formal structure, with people encouraged to act on issues and help out even if it's somethingg not in their formal job description. Perhaps this person is taking it too far. I know it can cause resentment, but be careful about complaining about it unless his interference leads to a problem for you getting your own job done. As for (2) - it is not unusual for very gregarious personality types to make a very strong first impression - talking a good game and raising issues that perhaps management has not thought of themselves. So he comes across as a superstar, at least at first. In my experience such people typically aren't so good at actually resolving the issues they raise, so wait and see whether after another 6 months or so this person is still the golden-haired child. In the mean time continue to work with him as necessary for the job and be supportive. I have found that quite often even those who rub yuo the wrong way at first can become good corporate allies later on.
    smoothy's Avatar
    smoothy Posts: 25,492, Reputation: 2853
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    #3

    May 29, 2014, 06:29 AM
    I've seen and know of situations such as this... ever hear the phrase... "give them enough rope to hang themselves with..."

    That type of person (the overly aggressive type that assumes they have more power than they do) eventually gets on the nerves of the higher ups who DO have that power... and even if they don't get on their nerves... they might view them as a threat.

    Do your job... do it the best you can... look out for number one... Meaning... if they screw up bigtime... pretend you didn't notice it...(don't cue them in on their mistake) just make sure YOU do everything the right way and to the best of your ability.
    CtrlAltDelete's Avatar
    CtrlAltDelete Posts: 2, Reputation: 1
    New Member
     
    #4

    May 29, 2014, 06:46 AM
    Thanks for both answers...

    To ebaines:

    Yes, I think I will try not to react (or at least be seen to react) to the behaviour that is bothering me.

    1) The person does not work in the same team as myself, so there's not a real 'jealous' grudge about being promoted so soon (over me, etc.) - it was just strange that it happened so quickly, and raised a few eyebrows among other teams in the office.

    This office isn't a start-up as such, we've just grown rapidly recently.

    The office went through a long spell of being a 'team' effort, and then everyone became fairly defensive over their own domains, which on occasion produced some short/blunt responses when asking questions/discussing.

    Like I say, this person seems to be immune to that, and the questions are dealt with.

    2) I think you may be onto something here - there seems to be a general need for this person to comment on absolutely everything - and any office-wide email notification.

    To smoothy:

    1) Yes, this person has been seen to produce the same sort of reaction from others in the office.
    Questioning the CEO if he was correct about a project that the CEO himself worked on was the absolute classic - you can't really go higher than that.
    They are either brave, or have no sense of seniority of others.

    Thanks all again.

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