Dear MaJo

i am sorry you have to put up with this nonsense from your coworkers. it sounds as though you're smart and have original ideas.

science and especially research is a cut-throat arena in which to work. all you can do is keep on doing what you do best, keep trying, keep doing it well. you won't work in this lab forever. you will have other opportunities. you will find people who do appreciate you and who are fair with you. but you will also continue to run into people that are unfair because they are out there. you need to carry on in spite of them. you owe it to yourself.

some people just make trouble for others by lying and stuff. i have run into this at work, but i never did figure out a good strategy to deal with it. try to protect your work the best you can is all i can say. i never liked the 'give them a taste of their own medicine' approach - some people can do that. only you can decide if you can. i could not, because then i would not be able to live with myself for acting that way, you know?

on one occasion someone was making a lot of trouble at work - she was incompetent in many ways but she got other people to help her - different people so they wouldn't realize what was going on. i realized because i was supervising her, and people complained to me, but i was not her direct manager so i had no power to do anything about it. she badmouthed me, a colleague of mine (who had my same position but supervised different projects than i did), several coworkers... etc.

well you know what, i don't know if anybody "listened" to me when i complained, but ultimately? her position got cut. so she was out. and that was that. and i have to think that her making problems with everyone and perhaps especially me, since she was mostly assigned to my projects, had something to do with it. she shot herself in the foot. which reminds me of something...

i'll tell you what someone told me at the time, maybe it will help you: if she insists, give her enough rope to hang herself with. this means that if she wants to be involved in your project, and your boss lets her - work with her, but give her minimal information and do not help her in any way that is not specifically a responsibility of yours. you said she works horribly, and if this work is as delicate as it sounds, her incompetence will show.

so just be true to yourself. another thing is to try to cultivate the ability detach from work politics. you need a mental break from it. it is hard to do, but it is essential to sanity in these situations.



i hope your boss has more insight this time and that this woman doesn't get a slice of your project.

~ waves ~