I work with a woman who is grating on me because she won't shut up about how hard she works!
She inserts into every single conversation comments these “woe is me” comments about how hard her job (business manager for a media company) is, how she has to do the jobs of the sales people and the GM's in other markets, how she came in during the weekend, etc. Yet she obviously wants praise and attention for doing these things, because she has been saying the same things over and over since I started five years ago.
Not only that, but she creates even more work for herself by being a total control freak and “checking in” or reminding people about every basic task they already know they have to do, because they are veterans of their craft.
I tried for awhile to give her that reassurance she craves, because she obviously needs praise and to feel valued. But the line in the sand came after a recent conversation where she took her superhero work ethic to a whole new bizarre level, telling me how she's saved the life of two different co-workers (one of them twice!) could take the place of the current creative director (she has zero experience in this side of the business) because she already knows everything he knows (she doesn't know an 1/8 of what he knows), and on and on and on. Just some very bold claims that I'm sure my facial expression told her I didn't believe.
Furthermore, she also acts as the HR person and runs her mouth WAY more than she should. Because of the way our company is structured, I don't report anything, just document it if I think it's unethical.
I used to think she was a nice person who was seriously lacking confidence, but I'm starting to wonder if she doesn't have some covert narcissistic qualities. Seriously, I cannot pretend to be sympathetic to her anymore, and I think she recognizes it.
Does anyone else work with people like this? I think the “I work hard” blustering” is fairly common these days.