TheBanyanTree: Tears of a Clown

[Margaret R. Kramer]

My Christmas preparations are being interrupted since I have to go back to
Raleigh, NC for a week.  We should have been done presenting our system
design in October, but my coworker Vicki (who I’ve described before as a
bully and a control freak) broke down in the middle of our presentation and
went on a crying jag because she felt our client was criticizing too harshly
some of her documentation and her crocodile tears brought our presentation
to a screeching halt.  We had to regroup and reschedule to do the rest of
presentation for this week.

To back up a little bit, my company realizes Vicki is a great programmer,
but a terrible team lead because of her bullying behavior and her absolute
refusal to let anyone else on the team do anything.  She doesn’t train
people.  She doesn’t explain what she wants them to do, so they do it wrong
because they’re trying to guess and then she gets mad because they don’t do
what she them to do.  Or worse, they will put a lot of time and effort into
doing something and then she’ll either do it over herself or discard their
work entirely.

This project is immense and complex and the client is very demanding, so
they brought in another team lead to take over Vicki’s area and they wanted
to move Vicki into more of an architectural role.  But Vicki won’t budge.
She continues to try to run our area and Scot (who isn’t any big prize
himself, but much better than Vicki at utilizing people in a team
environment) has to continually battle with her.  When she learned of the
company trying to move her out of the team lead position, she called our
client, who thinks she walks on water, and they put up a big stink, so our
company agreed to keep Vicki visible to our client, for now anyway.  So, we’
re stuck with her, or at least, until our design documentation has been
presented.

So while Scot and Vicki battle over control, we’re trying to get the
documentation to where our client will approve it.  We have to  go Raleigh
now.  It’s going to be an ugly trip, I’m sure.  Because Vicki and I are no
longer talking.  It’s another long story, but the short take is that Vicki’s
“boyfriend” Jon, who works on our team as well, although Vicki and Jon deny
they’re in a relationship, but they are and it’s a strange relationship,
with Vicki bullying him, too, tried to trap me in a corner at work.  I
reported that incident to management.  Our manager talked to Vicki and Jon,
and after that, what a surprised, Vicki won’t talk to me.  No big loss, is
it?  Except we have to get through this design this week.

Why my company keeps this woman is beyond me.  There are a million ways
companies can fire people like this.  Yes, she’s a good programmer, but
there are lots of good programmers out there.  We’re not doing rocket
science.  If I can figure this stuff out, someone else surely could.

What’s really intriguing is that Vicki just got a big award from our company
for being a team player!!!!!  Another office nominated her and she got it,
although no one from our office added to the nomination.  So, Vicki is
walking around like a queen and we’re all supposed to bow down and kiss her
feet.  Yikes!

I can only believe what goes around, comes around.  Even though it seems
unfair now, there will be action later that will even things out.  My
feeling is that my company is going to do something with Vicki as soon as
this design is presented.  It’s a huge financial deliverable for them and
they need to have it to the client by the end of the year.

Vicki, in spite of her big award, has been talked to by management about her
behavior during this presentation.  I can only hope she won’t start crying
again.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than
the Christmas spirit.
~Kin Hubbard