Tessa West - Jerks at Work - Toxic Coworkers and What to Do About Them

If I dont double my sales by the end of the month, Sasha will skewer me. She just gave this horrible speech to my team about how I am such a disappointment.

Annie sat slumped over her happy hour cocktail, catching up her former colleague Calvin about what had gone down over the past two months. Shortly after she was hired, Annies boss, David, hastily left the New York office to deal with a supply chain problem in Asia. With little time to find a replacement, he put Sasha at the helm.

Sasha wasnt particularly talented at any one thing but perfectly adequate at a number of things. She had spent ten years in the New York office and had a wealth of institutional knowledge. Not very many people could tell you who in sales is the most socially suited for dinner with clients and how to fix the broken video projector.

But above all else, she was clever with money. Sasha was a real detail sleuth, spending hours poring over budget sheets to cut a dollar here, a dollar there. People griped about her cuts (Where did the espresso machine go?), but David didnt care. He liked saving money. And with every additional month he stayed in Asia, Sasha sank her claws deeper into the companyfirst taking over all small-scale budget decisions, then inching her way into hiring and promotion. Once she started controlling the sales team, all hell broke loose.

Sasha was the Frankensteins monster of bosses at workundercutting people in front of their teams, micromanaging them, and changing direction so many times it made peoples heads spin. In meetings, she had an unpredictability that left everyone on edge, all smiles and compliments one moment, torturous acts of humiliation the next. She also wore so much perfume it left Annie with a low-grade headache anytime she spent more than ten minutes in a room with her.

In the early days while David was still closely monitoring her, Sasha was charming, almost obsequious. She sent Annie emails that said things like, Im so honored to be working with you, and I hope some of your magic rubs off on me. Can we set up some weekly training sessions? The emails stopped once David no longer insisted that she cc him on everything.

In fact, once David checked out entirely, Sashas true, terrible colors began to show.

Like a lot of jerks at work, Sasha started with small, public acts of criticism meant to damage Annies reputation. Each week, Annie would hold a meeting with her sales team. About a month into the job, she noticed Sasha sneaking in during the last five minutes.

Hi Annie! Do you mind if I chat with your team for a few minutes? she asked sheepishly.

Once Annie was out of earshot, Sasha would question Annies decisions (Are you sure thats a good idea?) and undercut her expertise in front of her direct reports (I know that client wellmuch better than Annie; he will never go for it). Then she would spread weird and wrong gossip about her, which Annie figured was an attempt to build rapport with the team.

The micromanagement started off with small, arbitrary changes to Annies budgets. Daily food allowances requested at forty-five dollars a day were changed to forty dollars, for no other reason than to remind Annie who was really in charge. Sometimes Sasha would increase Annies budgets, which made no sense at all.

Over time, Sasha oscillated between jealous and downright patronizing, sometimes within an hour. When Annie tried to make autonomous decisions, Sasha assured her that David wants me to oversee everything and everyone. Small changes to her budgets became massive overhauls. It became impossible for Annie to execute a sales contract without Sasha getting in the way.

Then came the firing.

Sasha was having a tough time containing gossip about herself and she was becoming paranoid. Like a dictator losing her grasp on her people, she started cutting off heads left and right. Sometimes she would bring in groups of people to her office and fire all of them at once; it was quicker that way. Annie assured her team that she could protect them, but she wasnt so certain. The anxiety was so staggering, it overshadowed everyones progress. They stopped celebrating wins. They stopped having lunches out together. Everyone was happy if they just made it through another day.

Most people, including Calvin, jumped ship as soon as things went south; they werent going to sit around and watch their workplace turn into a hellscape. Annie, on the other hand, had remained and tried to stay positive. But it was getting harder every day.

During this period, Annie made several attempts to contact David. Things were not going well in Asia, and most of her emails were met with autoreplies. Eventually she landed a video call with him at two a.m. her time. But before the words were out of her mouthSasha is a terror and shes destroying this companyshe knew her approach wouldnt work. David looked exhausted, like a man who had walked this road several times before and had yet to find a detour.

Listen. I know Sasha can be tough, but she is doing a lot. The best I can do is decrease the amount of face time you have to spend with her, he told Annie. He ended the call with some words of encouragement and begged her to just stick it out until this supply problem gets resolved.