TL;DR: I’m so busy that I sit in my office all day, and another employee thinks that this means I’m lazy and is telling everyone I don’t do anything.
I’ve been at my current workplace for almost four years. I’ve hated it more and more which each passing year due to the unmanageable workload. It’s a non-profit, so I’m working two, sometimes three jobs, for the salary of one. (I have been applying to jobs left and right since the start of this year; I’m hoping to land a new one before the year is up).
Within the four years I’ve been here, I’ve gotten three promotions. I think the biggest reason for this is because I used to have the mentality that going “above and beyond” would gain me respect and a higher salary. Spoiler alert: all it got me was more work on my plate. Sure, I got promotions, but the raises that came with them are laughable, and not worth the added workload and stress.
About a year ago, the agency hired a new administrative assistant we will call “T”. Her role is to route calls, greet visitors, take messages, and sort mail. At first, I really liked her. She was always so sweet and nice to me whenever she stopped by my office to give me my mail. I thought she thought the same about me; once, she personally wanted to enroll in a program that my department administers, so I let her come sit in my office so I could give her as much information and support as possible. I also told her that my office is always open to her.
Well, one day when I was heading back to my office from the bathroom (keep in mind that I don’t leave my office often because of how busy I am), I overheard her talking about me to a group of other women we work with. She was saying how lazy I am, and how I don’t do anything because she’d gotten calls from a few clients that told her I was ignoring them, and because there have been times when I couldn’t immediately assist any walk-ins. I would agree that this would look bad for me, except: on average, I get about 60+ calls and 25+ voicemails a day (on top of 100+ emails a day), and my voicemail message says that if I don’t answer, I will return everyone’s call within the week. Despite this, a lot of clients who can’t reach me immediately will call the agency multiple times in a day and say that I’m ignoring them. (The agency keeps call logs of my incoming and outgoing calls, so it’s on record that I return everyone’s call, no matter what). I also can’t always drop everything I’m doing to assist walk-ins; assisting walk-ins isn’t even my job – we have intake staff for this – but when our intake staff are out of the office or on break, T will ask me to assist even though she’s been told repeatedly that she can just take a message, and tell the walk-ins that our intake staff will offer assistance once they’re back at their desks.
Once I heard her talking about me, I just tried to ignore it. But then I heard her make fun of the way I walk right back to my office after I return from the bathroom or from placing letters in our mail box. Everything I did, she made fun of. Eventually, I told her privately that I’d overheard her saying things about me, and I asked her to please stop. I also told her that if she has any problems with the way I’m working, my door is open to her and she can come talk to me directly. I was very polite when I was saying this (because I didn’t want her to retaliate and get worse), but she seemed to be okay with all this and even thanked me for telling her that my door is always open.
Welp. This didn’t do anything, and she continued to talk about me. I had notified my boss of this, who’d also notified T’s boss of this, but nothing was done; T was always sweet as pie to both of them, and I don’t think that either of them believed that T was capable of this mean girl behavior. I’ve noticed that other employees are treating me coldly, too, and I can’t help but think it’s because of T. I don’t understand why she seems to have it out for me. I’ve done nothing to her. I’ve never even said anything bad about her in return.
Lately, I’ve been hearing loud cheers coming from one of our conference rooms. I just found out that our admin department (the department that T is in) organizes birthday parties for employees, and everyone’s invited… except for me. I just had a conversation with my boss, who told me that she wished I could have attended the most recent party. I told her I wasn’t aware there was one. She said, “Oh, but T said you’d declined because you were so busy.” I told my boss this never happened, but she just shrugged it off. Everyone loves T because she has the time to talk to everyone and is always away from her desk, meanwhile nobody believes a word I say because me sitting at my desk all day, single-handedly running this agency, apparently means that I’m a lazy, unfriendly bitch.
I so look forward to the day I hand in my two-week notice.