Another reason to look forward to retirement!

I am SICK of office politics!

I’m a pretty laid-back person, and I get along with pretty much everyone. I might not be the most popular person at work, but I am pleasant enough to get along with people from every department in my company–a rare thing, since most of our dept’s squabble.

Contrast this with my friend, who we’ll call Meg. Meg complains. All the time. About everything. Too much work? You better believe she’ll spend all day, everyday complaining. Not enough work? She’ll complain that she’s bored. If someone in the office does something really great, she’ll congratulate them and try to outdo them in her next breath. It’s not uncommon to hear from her, “Congratulations on landing that great new project. I’ve got a huge project on the horizon, too.” Meg also never sees anything as a team coup: it was either her accomplishment, or she bitches that it should have been.

Over the past month or so, Meg has been trying to sabotage me to the senior staff at our office. I first became aware of this when one of the vice presidents mentioned that she told him that he should have her do a project that he had already assigned to me, and take me off the project. The reasons she gave had nothing to do with me; it was basically that she wanted to do it. He let me know immediately, and I still have the project.

Today, I got a call from a customer that ended up with me in an hour-long conference with two VP’s, the CEO, and the CFO of my company. This project, which came out of a random call that was sent to me from our operator (who loves me and hates Meg), really put me in front of the senior staff and made me stand out. Meg, of course, immediately goes to our immediate boss (one of the VP’s in the meeting) and the CEO and complains that the call should have been routed to her. She’s got more of a stand here than she did before: the territory that we each cover is being redesigned, but the customer who called was part of my past territory. To be fair to her, I immediately went to my VP and the VP who oversees this particular type of project, and asked if I should move ahead or wait until they redesigned the territories. Of course, they said, “Move on it now,” so I did, but she used that to badmouth me.

I know, from careful conversations I’ve had with two different VP’s, that everyone realizes that Meg likes to complain. I also know that I’m held in high regard and that Meg’s attempts to stab me in the back have thus far failed. (Actually, that part’s pretty funny to watch.) However, it’s stressful to deal with someone who is so obviously out to get me. To make things worse, we sit right next to each other and we have been good friends in the past–so much so that it’s a running joke in the office that people often accidentally call us by each other’s names.

So now I’m trying to find a balance between being outright rude to her and trying to rid myself of her negative energy. Sigh…How long until I don’t have to work in an office?