How to stop a coworker from ruining your reputation

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(MoneyWatch) Dear Evil HR Lady

I was recently moved to a new position at my company. I am unable to interact directly with my boss daily as he travels a great deal. I usually work with one of his other direct reports. She is new to the company. I have 6 yrs with the company. My HR file is empty of negative feedback.

She recently told another co worker that I have issues.

My first thought was I wonder what issues I have, or more bluntly put - what issues does she have with me?

People tell me I am very easy to work with - they have for the past 25 years. I have a huge work ethic. I get my work done and on time. Always have, always will.

The last thing I need or want is for people to say or think that I am not productive and hard to deal with. How do I approach this woman to determine what her issue is with me?

She definitely has issues. You may too, but as you said, that's not the point. You have a good reputation at your company. This woman is new. My guess is that it is precisely because of your good reputation that she's targeting you.

And yes, I just said "targeting." Some people are not happy until they are top dog and rather than working to climb to the top, they just try to bring people down. Therefore, you must have issues. Because if you didn't have issues then she'd have to admit that you're better than she is.

I'm a fan of two approaches: 1. The direct confrontation and 2. The cover your behind. Both are needed in this situation.

First, the direct confrontation. There is a magical phrase that I learned from Alison Greene, a management consultant who blogs at Ask a Manager:  Can you clarify? 

So, your whole line of inquiry goes like this: Jane, I heard that you were telling people I have issues. Can you please clarify?

She may or may not answer you. She may deny it. It really doesn't matter. It lets her know that you're not a doormat. It also lets her know that her little gossipy chats are not working to endear people to her because rather than gossip behind your back, these people are going to you. And why wouldn't they? You have six years of history here.

Now, when people tell you additional bad things that Jane has said, your job is to laugh and say, "Oh my, Jane has way too much time on her hands!" If you're not bothered by it, it highlights the ridiculousness of the whole situation. 

Now the cover-your-behind portion. I'm not naive enough to think that a simple question can defeat a seasoned bully. (I swear, people who do workplace bullying started out by stealing lunch money in 2nd grade and have been honing those skills ever since. This is not an amateur.)

First, send an email to your boss (face to face is good, but you said the boss travels frequently). Here's your phrasing: It's been six months since I've been in this position. I just wanted to quickly touch base with you and make sure I'm doing what needs to be done. Jane has expressed concern that I'm doing/not doing X correctly. Can you please let me know if that's the case? Thanks so much!

The boss will respond and either let you know that X is a problem or that X is not a problem. If it is a problem, you can fix it. If it's not, then the next time you have a clarifying discussion with Jane  and she complains about X you can be confident that your boss is okay with it.

Now, will this make Jane go away? No. Will it mean that your life will become blissful and perfect No. Will it make your boss aware of the situation? Yes. Will it discourage Jane? Yes.

If things don't get better, feel free to ask your HR person for help navigating this situation. Just make sure you ask for help with your behavior, not Jane's. Jane may be the person that needs fixing, but by framing it as you needing help responding, you're more likely to be taken seriously.

Have a workplace dilemma? Send your questions to [e-mail].

[rightontarget]

I tend to agree with the "not a good idea to go to HR" with this problem. If you truly are a good employee there is nothing wrong with bringing up the situation to your direct superior. I have always enjoyed a good working relationship with my bosses and an honest and direct approach usually works. I agree that you do NOT want to appear to be "whining" about the behavoir of the other employee. Showing an interest in your OWN performance and inquiring if your superior is satisfied with your work always shows your main interest is in doing a good job. As long as I knew that my boss was satisfied with my job performance I never really paid much attention to petty remarks from other employees. After all they do not determine my salary or job security.

*I really liked the suggestions of how to deal with this other employee directly: "Jane, I heard that you were telling people I have issues. Can you please clarify?"

She may or may not answer you. She may deny it. It really doesn't matter. It lets her know that you're not a doormat. It also lets her know that her little gossipy chats are not working to endear people to her because rather than gossip behind your back, these people are going to you. Now, when people tell you additional bad things that Jane has said, your job is to laugh and say, "Oh my, Jane has way too much time on her hands!" If you're not bothered by it, it highlights the ridiculousness of the whole situation. Good ideas!

[weareidiots]

The problem you have has less to do with your petty coworker and more to do with other co-workers listening to what the petty one says about you, and believing what she says without asking you about it first.

[Cheers2013]

Bingo! That is so true! This is the other half of the battle. How do you salvage your reputation in this instance? When the bullying co-worker sullies your reputation in this manner, she gains a political advantage and often reaches her goal of becoming "top dog," however undeserved. It's completely demoralizing because you then have to "accept things the way they are" in your now compromised position at the company until you either leave by choice or are pushed out.

[ballwyllo]

I think the suggestions in the article were well thought out. I would have to agree though that in certainly the last 10 years, HR has become much more of enforcer for management than a developer of the company's human capital. I would be very reluctant to tell HR anything unless accompanied by a lawyer.

[saucymugwump]

This article was generally good, except for the last paragraph where Lucas advised advice from HR. Such a strange comment from a former HR person!

HR is absolutely not there to help employees. They are there to help and/or protect the company. They are there to fire and hire; in the latter case, they have no clue what hiring managers need, so they resort to canned (i.e. scripted) searches for buzzwords, if they haven't already outsourced the entire hiring task to an Indian company.

Never take your troubles to an HR person. That may have been good advice 20 years ago, but it is career suicide today.

Also, in the second-to-last paragraph, Lucas opined that a polite confrontation will change Jane's catty behavior. The reality is that cats never change their stripes, so in the words of all of the past and present Homeland Security chiefs, be (forever) vigilant.

[AmandaKellam]

Saucy,

I take issue with your contention that "HR is absolutely not there to help employees". I am sure you have experienced (as we all have) this type of behavior from Human Resources; however, I spend a good portion of my time addressing some of the behaviors discussed in this article. If I am not doing that, I am working to develop the employees that I support and preparing them for future opportunities. Yes, HR is there to help the company, but a big part of that is helping employees. I sincerely hope you have the opportunity to work with a good HR department in the future.

[twmat311]

I echo that the last thing HR does is to help people. I've spoken to more that exist to purify resumes so they scan easier, crunch that scanned data into nice colorful graphs and data charts, and geneerally "analyze the capability to hire."

I had one nag me so much to finesse my already scannable resume (change this font to that, make this boldface, change "Corporation" to "Corp." etc) - and this after filling out one of those archaic copy-of-a-copy 1960s vintage applications - to find out "we're only collecting data for now." Argh.