I have a coworker who frequently asks me to do things she could easily do herself. Most of the time I do them, sometimes I'm passive-aggressive and just don't do them, and sometimes I "teach" her how to do them herself. I've written about her before (I asked you all if you thought I was being bitchy or not), and she has now repeated herself, asking me to email something to someone when she can easily do it herself. WTF is wrong with her? It takes as much effort to reply to me saying "send it to Nathan" as it does to actually send it to Nathan. Nathan works with her more than with me, and she's on good terms with him, so what gives? How should I respond to this? Should I just do it? Should I reply to her asking her to do it herself? If so, what should I say?

You could get a boombox and play at full volume in her ear Peter Gabriel's DIY.

don't send it to me. i'm sick of getting crap from the two of you. unless it is a shrine.

i take it she is your equal in the office hierarchy? if so, just say you don't have time and this really is not your responsibility. or talk to your boss directly and say "look, i don't mind doing this things if YOU want me to do these things. I just unsure how much orders and requests of hers I should be spending my time on. Are these items truly my responsibility or hers? Can you please clarify."

Yes, she's my equal. It would take me as much time to respond saying I don't have time as it would to do what she wants me to do. I'm going to suck it in this time and just do it. I have no problem saying no when she asks me to do big things that are ridiculous and/or not my responsibility. It's the petty requests that I have trouble with, because I think it would be unprofessional to express my irritation. I don't want to go over her head for that reason, also. The good thing (heh) is that she often complains during meetings (which include me and our two bosses) about having so much work or having to do a task that takes hours out of her day, when the rest of us know she's exaggerating because we've either done or designed her tasks. Another problem I have is that I know I jump at chances to help other people I work with, but I really dislike helping her with anything because I think she takes advantage. I'm afraid that may show -- well, half thinks "good, then she'll get the hint" and the other half thinks that's unkind/unprofessional of me. Aw, screw it.

If you have decent bosses, then they should be able to tell that she is not doing what is expected of her.

Mention to your supervisor how all the time you spend doing things for her is starting to disrupt your work. the requests should stop forthwith.

Forthwith. That's a nice 25 cent word. I just got a cease and desist e-mail (cease and desist -- a nice 25 cent phrase) from Microsoft because I was trying to sell an unopened, never used, academic priced, box of Office 97 on ebay. Frickin' cocksmokers. Could've made a quick $75. Speaking of cocksmokers, a couple of years ago when I was home for xmas vacation, my sister rented Clerks, and we proceeded to watch it with my parents in the room. I had never seen it, but she had and thought it would be a hoot to watch my parents watching it. They lasted about 5 minutes. Actually, it was a hoot. Stupid cocksmoking parents.

i've got twenty gigs of mp3s on complete random. talk about a cocksmoking hoot. there is no segue from serge gainsbourg to ween. or is there? spider: i'd start forwarding requests for assistance to this person. intially, unique requests, but eventually start slipping in requests that she'd sent you earlier. you should never be too busy to fuck with someone's head. oh, and don't listen to the plebs. if you go to your boss, your boss is going to notch you down on the responsibility scale. bosses like it when you can handle things yourself. david bowie->erykah badu->chemical brothers. strange.

ok, given: - businesses are often multiperson organizations - groups generally produce best when moving in similar directions - communication is improved when it flows both ways throw your co-worker some shit work (requests) on a regular basis...stuff you really don't wanna do... if they learn that their requests well result in similar ones from you, they will either quit (which you seem to want), or you'll both become more productive, fitter, happier...(also good)... a win-motherfucking-win situation...

footnotes, fuckwit.

pardon?

when you lift directly from post previous, you should indicate your source via a footnote or similar device.

You like Gainsbourg? Lemme guess -- either Lemon Incest or Je t'aime moi non plus. Is Jane Birkin still alive?

I said in my earlier message that I had no intention of going to our bosses with this, especially since I haven't even talked to her about it. I still haven't done what she asked me to do yesterday. Maybe it will come up today and I can raise my left eyebrow and ask, "Why didn't you send it to him yourself?" I don't want to waste the energy messing with her head. I just want her to do her own work. I wish I didn't suck so much at confronting people. How about I just continue not doing what she asks me to do? (It's not like I say "OK" and then don't do it. I don't even acknowledge that I've received the request.)

What is your goal in this job, spider? do you want to improve your position or do you just want to fly level and easy? no judgement, here, i'm not sure which is better. if you want to improve your position, your goal should be the success of your team/department/company (whatever makes sense.) if this other person expects that you're doing the work, and you aren't, the work gets dropped. if you look at it from the "success of the company" point of view, you need to make sure the work gets done. you'll be promoted over her soon enough anyway. you might as well just do the work. i mean, you know, if that's your goal. (if that's not your goal, you're one more person adding to the oppression of men.)

That's a good point. The tasks she gives me take no time out of my schedule (for the most part -- I said no right away to a few of the big things she threw at me), and I'll continue doing them if I have to. I do want our department to do well, and ordinarily, I don't mind doing people's work if they need help or don't have the time to do it themselves. I'm often bored with nothing to do here (though this particular coworker doesn't know that). It's just the principle of the thing. Why would I send you an email saying "tell John the cost is $100" when I could just as easily send an email to John saying "John, the cost is $100" ? That's what bothers me -- it doesn't make any sense for her to ask me to do these little things. Oh, do you think this is a way for her to get out of responsibility? Like, "gee, I don't know why John didn't do X. I told Spider to tell him the cost -- go ask her." But WTF? Look, I'll tell John if it will mess things up not to, but seriously, she needs to do it herself. I don't deal with money -- I don't care if John knows the answer or not. I care about X, Y, Z, and I don't make other people talk to my clients for me to tell them X, Y, and Z. That's *my* job. And it's not a big enough deal to complain above her. I'm not actually doing the bulk of her work or anything. I'm just running errands for her. And what I want to know is how to say, "Do you see 'secretary' or 'personal assistant' next to my name? Then fucking do it yourself" ... but in a nice, professional way. How would you do it?

you know....this sounds more and more like the shit nico dealt in the work place with other female coworkers. and i started to say that its this kind of catty behavior (on your colleague's part and potentially yours, depending on how you respond) that keeps women back in the workplace. maybe. this really should be a two-second dilema. tell her straight up, firm and directly that you are happy to help at times, but the requests to send an email that she could have done just as easily as the e-request sent you must stop. you dont have time, and she should really do these things her self. reiterate you will be happy to help her with bigger projects as necessary and time permits. build. burn. build. of course she'll probably call you a bitch behind your back and the catty behavior cycle will continue. god damn, you're fucked spider.

I liked Nate's suggestion

how about, 'i'm not sure why you keep running your answers [or questions, or whatever] past me, but i'm sure whatever you think will be quite sufficient' wait though, does she ask you in person or in email? if she's telling you in person, i would just ignore her and if she has to ask you why you didn't do her chore for her then you can say that you're quite busy with your own work and so you forgot and then suggest that next time she just do it herself. forwarding an email that she asks you to forward is kind of funny all by itself- maybe just cc a few extra people for entertainment value. i think if someone was talking to me at work and said, 'could you tell so-and-so that whatever' i would just ask 'why?' or perhaps, 'why, aren't you on speaking terms?'

Ah, these are the kinds of answers that I want! I think I will combine Nate's and Heather's suggestions and do the work when it's needed and cc her, or reply saying "I think it's best if you do this -- this is your area of expertise, not mine." I have no problem saying no when she asks me in person -- I just say, "You know more about this than I do -- I think you should do this" and she does. No problem. It's just awkward in an email because you can't soften your tone. Did I mention she's very sensitive? Thank God she works from home most days.

my response to this: "tell John the cost is $100" would be, as I think heather meant, to fwd the message that she wrote to john. i don't think i'd cc a bunch of others, but i'd probably CC her and your direct report. CC'ing your direct report is often a good way of saying "this is how i'm handling X". managers like status. managers don't like extra work.

I was just about to offer the same advice. The CC thing would curb that habit. So do you think she feels slightly below you and wants to run things past you first, or do you think she thinks she's above you and wants to make you run errands? I guess you said you feel like she's running you around like a secretary... If so, throwing a little back might straighten her out. If it's the other way, it would probably just be confusing to her.

a good way to get promoted is to demonstrate your ability to do the job you want to be promoted to. a good way to do this is to show initiative and assume as much of the role as you can within the bounds of your current responsiblities. it kind of seems like this is what she is doing in some lame way. pretending she is your boss so that when/if it comes time to promote someone she'll look the best. it should backfire on her. you should make sure it does. without dulling your halo, though.

it sounds like the latter to me tbone.

"would be, as I think heather meant, to fwd the message that she wrote to john." I see! I didn't get that the first time -- that's brilliant. Heh, I'm almost looking forward to the next time she pulls this. I don't think she wants my job...I think she's just lazy. Also, I really don't want to get my direct report involved -- I just think that would look really bad. Thanks for the advice, guys!

i dont think she wants your job, nate was implying she wants your bosses job.

I can't imagine that, either. I really think she's just looking for a way to get out of work.

I think you just hit he nail on the head Spider!!! This coworker wants to be a manager. Manager's rarely due any "real" work. Their job is to delegate. And, that is exactly what she is doing. I forget which Hitchikers Guide to the Universe book it was where all the useless people on a planet were put into space craft and were crash landed here on earth. But, your coworker sounds just like it.

What an amazing generalization.

i do a hell of a lot of work.

HEY SPIDER : reciprocate. ask her to do stuff for you and see how she behaves. if you get a "yes" push her some more to do some menial shit work until you get a whine. when she says "no don't have the time" or makes an excuse , then SHE's set the precedent for you to be able to say no too... either way, you win.

The problem with that is that I know I'd do a better job than she would, and innocent people would get burned if she screwed up. She's been much better lately. I think she's just insecure about her own abilities, and I've been trying to praise her at appropriate moments.

Is it catty behaviour that keeps women back in the workplace? I am so fucking glad to know that, so now I have an excuse of a different sort for not running the world. Patrick, sometimes you say the dumbest shit. Seriously, like, I can (and do) let a lot of it pass unmentioned...but backstabbing and character assassination are not a gender specific workplace problem. Dumbass.

hey margie....did you read what i wrote? "...and i started to say..." ending the statement up with "maybe". maybe you overlooked these implications of self doubt as to what i was saying but i put them there for a reason. your such a hardass margret for fucksake pull the log outta yer assbag eh. am i supposed to thank you for allowing my dumbass comments to say pass your royal review?

yes. duh.

NO, Mine. And, he did.

OK, this is lame, but I wanted to report that this situation is still going on, and a few minutes ago this person asked me (verbally) to email a coworker with some info, and I said, "Can't you do it yourself?" (because she had all the info, clearly, and it was her area of responsibility) and...and...she must have used mind tricks on me, because before I knew it I was saying, "Fine, I'll do it." How did that happen? And the weird thing is, just a few minutes earlier she said she was tired of doing other people's work. And the awkward thing is, yesterday my boss and discussed training her to back me up when my workload piles up too high. I hope he'll forget to follow through, because I can just picture the poor job she'd do. Ugh.

It could get you a raise. Let her get trained. Let the work accumulate a few days. Not to much. But, enough. Then get sick. She'll get stuck with all the work and you're boss will find out had bad she is compared to you.

you should talk to your boss. frame it as though you are asking for advice on how to handle it.

why don't you just get it over with and crack her once or twice in the kisser. you know you wanna.

lol have you tried just not doing it? sure, she asks you, but don't do it. You don't need this shit. Then maybe after a while she'll catch on and figure that she should do it herself? i've found that pretending to be an idiot works so well in so many situations.

We are all idiots about something. And, yes I include myself in that observation. The only good thing about it is we are usually unawear of our own idiocy.

how the fuck is is that good?

I may have done something wrong yesterday. Tell me if I screwed up or if this is okay. And dammit, if I get no replies, I'm bumping this on Monday. There is a particular task that needs to be done on the first of every month. My boss normally does the task, but a few days ago he told me he wanted me to do it from now on. He would need to train me, since I don't know how to use a particular Access database that is involved. (It's not complicated -- I've just never seen it before.) Yesterday (Nov 1) he shows up around 3:30, starts training me, and then realizes he needs to save the newest version of the database to a shared folder so that I can download it and actually do the task. At this point I have learned nothing. He says he'll be right back and leaves. Except he doesn't come back. I do my own work...4:00...4:15... I think, maybe I should go get him? But I don't. I finish my work and then go home at 4:45, like I always do. Did I do the wrong thing? Should I have gone to him and reminded him that he was in the middle of training me? I didn't, because I figured something more important must have come up for him to work on, or he would have come back. Do you think it would be reasonable/justified for him to be annoyed that I left without saying anything to him? The reason I'm asking is that I think the answer is no, but I don't trust my judgment.

I don't think you did anything wrong. If it's his responsibility to get the work done, then he should have come back to see that you learned how to do it. Chances are he got caught up in something, it started to get late, and he did it before he left. Personally, I think maybe he should have told you, what was up. Besides you had work to finish as well.

"The only good thing about it is we are usually unawear of our own idiocy." why am I not surprised to hear this?

you didn't do anything wrong. stop enabling your boss. email him or go see him on monday, and remind him that he never finished training you.

Whew, I'm glad you guys agree with me. To tell you the truth, I was rather irritated when I left on Friday. I just spoke with him and apologized for leaving early (because I didn't want to walk in and be accusatory), and we'll finish training later. He seemed unhappy, but I couldn't tell if it was with me or with something else. Oh well.

geeeze spider. so instead you walked in and were apologetic? for what?

I thought that would be the best way to handle it -- that way there would be no awkward "hey, you screwed up" "no, YOU screwed up" moments. I was going for an "I screwed up" "no, *I* screwed up" exchange but what I got instead was: Me: Hey, sorry about Friday, I had to leave a little early... Him: [says something vague, seems nervous and/or put-out]...I had some problems with (Friday's task) and I'm fixing them now... Me: [confused, but thinks that those problems would have happened regardless of who did the task, so she's in the clear] Oh, okay.....So, do you want to finish teaching me soon or do you want to wait till next month? Him: I need to finish this first... Me: OK. No rush, I guess. EXIT STAGE RIGHT. Fin. No words have since been exchanged.

"that way there would be no awkward "hey, you screwed up" "no, YOU screwed up" moments" see its the fact that you even had the thought there would be such a moment that is of concern. no body screwed up. homie got busy. you had to go. no biggie. how long have you been working there now?

2 years. I think I'm feeling insecure because I'm aware of my unprofessional attitude toward rank and I'm afraid that some people may think I treat them too casually. I was also irritated when I left, and I was afraid that may have made me do something I shouldn't.

After 2 years, i think its more than acceptable to be casual towards the uppers while recognizing their rank in your work. Formality gets tiresome aftersome time. If you're personable, people like that. Hell me and my immediate supervisor abuse our VP We walk in cussing up a shit storm all the time. We have a personal relationship that goes beyond lackee to VP. Of course Ive been here going on 5 years. But we work well together, we are honest and open with each other. Its a relaxed relationship while condusive to productivity. If that was me in that situation, I would have said "Hey G, you totally left me hangin on Friday, no worries, just find me when you are ready to resume". No apologies necessary on anyone's part. Considering its been two years, perhaps let your guard down a bit, and let the relationship open up a bit more. Maybe this will ease any insecurity.

Well, dude, we're not like that. I've been referred to as "the good daughter" in the dept. -- that should tell you something. Shit, I'd fake sick and leave early today if I didn't think I'd drown in the piled-up work tomorrow. I'm really unhappy here.

mmmmmkay. if you dont mind the undue stress and worry.

OK, I admit that I'm in the middle of a PMS-induced mood swing at the moment so my thinking may be fuzzy, but I think you're being deliberately obtuse. The nature of a relationship is such that two people are involved, and both people have to agree to a change for it to happen. I mean, both people have to be okay with it for it to work, right? I can walk in there and slap the guy on the back and make jokes and treat him like my brother, but that's not going to be perceived as Spider being casual. It's going to be Spider not knowing her place. So, yes, while I'd love to be able to ask, "Dude, why'd you bail on me?" that's not going to work. YOu know, Jesus was onto something when he said it's better for you to seat yourself at the end of the table and then to be called up to a place of honor, than the other way around. It's the same thing here -- I apologized first so that I wouldn't be made to apologize later.

"So, yes, while I'd love to be able to ask, "Dude, why'd you bail on me?" that's not going to work" why? are you not friendly enough? are you not personable enough? surely you share jokes and light hearted comments right? 2 years is a long time. You've seen him more on a daily basis than you have your mother, most likely. Im not saying change the terms of the relationship tomorrow...but rather gradually. Open up a bit. Instead of viewing everything in as a hierarchy ....realize that its established you are a valuable asset to the team. You're secure. Only economics would get you fired. Act like a team player rather than a nervous substitute. This is too rigid of a response spider to the situation. There was no need to apologize first or last, neither him, nor you. He's the boss so he can walk out on you whenever he wants to and not apologize. Sorry im not trying to pick on you and i know it seems like i am. sorry.

I know you're not, don't worry. My problem is, going back to the title of this thread, I just don't know how to assert myself nicely. I'm either too soft, or I get in your face. I think this is a sign of my immaturity.

i think you're quite mature spider.