Office Politics, Part II

I've blogged in the past about this lady at work who is driving me absolutely crazy. For years she was used to running the show and people rarely questioned her at the time. Ever since I first met her, she tried to initially be nice to me (when I was not at her level) but I always sensed that she did not like me one bit.

I've already blogged about how a couple of months ago she left me out of important meetings, and when all hell broke loose with an issue I had to email her for clarification. You can read about it on my post "Confessions of an Office Politics Queen". She put me on email blast that all the other managers were doing their job, and I simply wasn't because I wasn't at a series of important meeting. So I blasted her back, telling everyone including her boss that I didn't appreciate that she was saying that I wasn't doing my job, and I would have loved to have participated in the project if she would have invited me to the damn thing.

After my confrontation with her, she's been kissing my ass. But I'm not stupid, and I know that she is just counting her days until she can undermine and discredit me in one way or the other. Ever since I had the smack down with her, we have both butted heads in a project that I am working on and she has actually won a few of the battles because I decided that I am going to try to be strategic and only fight certain battles. And hopefully she will start to think that I am weak and not as politically savvy as I am. I am much younger than her, and I know that sometimes she thinks that I am so much more naive than I really am.

Right after our fight, I started to notice that a few of her employees began to talk to me very disrespectfully. I immediately noticed it and initially was going to give them a smack down too, but I decided that they are little pissants and so why bother even wasting any energy on them. Some of my employees started to notice and began to get bothered. I'll admit that when it first started happening that I was as pissed as hell, but then I decided that it is just indicative of the fact that she is talking bad about me to her employees.

This situation has made it very difficult for me at work over the past couple of months. She is pretty savvy and is being very strategic in trying to discredit me. So sometimes I have been a little worried, but I just have to trust in my instincts that if I play stupid for enough time then she will slip up and seriously underestimate me.

The other day she included me in an important meeting for this coming Tuesday. Oh, yay, great-I thought that we were finally making progress since we all had to have someone meet with us as an mediator to talk about how everyone needs to coordinate all of the managers' schedules so that all stakeholders are present at certain meetings. So she booked me and other managers in my department for an important meeting.

But THEN suddenly yesterday she sent an email to everyone else that she was going to have a very important meeting on the same date and that it was imperative that key personnel were there. And it is a very important meeting, where important decisions will be made. And SHE is the person who scheduled all of the managers in my department for another meeting on the very same day. This bitch is savvy, and she knows exactly what she is doing-acting like we have a scheduling conflict so that she can push her agenda through while we are not there.

I sent her an email stating that since managers in my department are "key personnel" that we should also be included in the meeting and that her meeting should be rescheduled since there is a scheduling conflict. I received no response.

So I have had it hasta la madre (up to HERE!). This bitch is so smart, and so savvy, yet one flaw about her is that I think that she might be seriously underestimating ME. Sometimes I am so frustrated how she talks to me and acts as if I am stupid, but I've got to learn to redirect my frustration and encourage her to continue to underestimate me. Because she has yet to see that I am truly capable of pulling off an undercover smackdown of epic proportions.

What is so frustrating to me though is that she is so smart that I suspect that she dupes our superiors as to what a big asshole she is. I actually think that some people might suspect that she is very nice, kind, and inclusive. So I have to brainstorm a way that I can expose her to our superiors, without seeming like I am a whiny person or a malcontent. That is going to be a very difficult balancing act.

This weekend I will be plotting, planning and strategizing as to how I am going to pull this off. I am going to go about this the professional way, but I also have plotted a diabolically unethical plan that sooner or later I might have to utilize. I am going to use it as my last resort (and trust me, it is taking all my energy not to enact this plan because it is sooooo delicious).