This happened 3 years ago. One of the reasons I stopped being friendly and stopped trusting people in the office.
I work for a small digital marketing company and we recently started accepting interns in our company. This is a paid internship.
I was assigned to handle two interns and help train them in web development team. One is a 22-year-old guy and the other a 24-year-old girl. I was only 22 back then but I was one of the pioneer employees and I was promoted in a short time to lead the web dev team.
It was a little intimidating to train someone since I don't have much experience back then but I believe I did the best I could. I showed them how the work was done around the office. I made sure that they will get the necessary skills and experience for their future employment. I gave them tips, even shared my account for Udemy so they can access tutorials.
I don't micromanage them since they can pretty much handle it without so much supervision. Eventually, I recommended the two of them to be officially employed in our company.
A few months after they were officially hired, this girl started acting bitchy towards me. Like she doesn't respect my position as the manager of our team. Whenever I would assign tasks, she would sometimes complain “I already have lots of tasks today. Can't you do it?” “I am not an expert in design. You're better. Can you do it instead?”
Our team indeed gets a lot of tasks, a lot of edits from Content Team, SEO team but as a manager, I decide which one is a priority and which one is not. I also make sure my developers don't get burnt out since I know how it feels.
The thing is, even if I am the one who manages, I still do a lot of web development tasks myself. I turned a blind eye to these little behaviors. I just wanted to get the work done. BIG MISTAKE for me.
Her behavior started to become more noticeable and she's growing to be more hostile. She would blurt out loud “WOW ALOT OF TASKS FOR DEVELOPERS TODAY. I WISH EVERYONE WOULD HELP AND NOT JUST SIT THERE AND GO LUNCH OUTSIDE”
I knew she was pertaining to me because I along with the other senior developers often meet with clients outside of the office (with boss) to meet and discuss with our clients.
I realized that the reason she became more hostile was because of another employee. A 34 year old woman working as an SEO specialist was whispering shit about me. She convinced her to be more hostile, disrespectful towards me because this woman believes I am a lazy, power-tripping manager and I don't deserve my position. Even spread a rumor that I am probably hooking up with the boss.
We don't have an official HR during this time. But I decided to set up a meeting to discuss any work issues. They refused so I took it to my boss (the CEO) who was actually sad this was happening. A lot of investigation and reviews were done trying to fix this issue.
Boss informed me these girls have a vendetta against me and another co-worker they hate. They even went as far as taking pictures of me in my desk whenever I would do touch up my makeup (which is allowed btw and not a crime/ boss doesn't care) and then they told him, I was lazy and not working. Boss who actually knew me and knows all the contributions I have done in the past didn't believe them but he still tried to be fair. Had a long discussion about work performance with the operations manager.
Long story short, the 34-year-old woman, and this 23-year-old girl were fired. Also, a whistleblower said this SEO woman was conspiring against the company. Stealing important contacts, using the paid tools, plugins to do similar SEO services on her own. 3 other developers were found to be helping them and they were also fired.
Now, I don't get how this woman could hate me. The boss theorized it is probably age thing. That she probably can't take that someone younger than her was in charge. Boss finally hired an HR as well to make sure future conflicts between employees will be properly handled as well. But I hope this doesn't happen again.
Anyways, work in the office has been silent and people are now kind of scared of me. Which is something I don't want. I just wanted to be a friendly, approachable, co-worker for everyone. But since I have been working from home since the pandemic, there wasn't any issue since and I don't get to see them anymore except on zoom meetings.
TLDR
An intern I trained started to hate me after she was hired. Turns out an older employee is whispering shit behind my back because she hates me. Spreads rumors I am a lazy, power-tripping manager and probably hooking up with the boss.
The issue was carefully reviewed, performance were checked and they were fired because whistleblower revealed they were stealing contacts and using company tools/plugins trying to build their own digital marketing company.