I work at a law firm as a legal writer. This is an entry level job where I write extremely detailed demand letters about the case, create “brochures” that are more like textbooks that assemble all the relevant facts for the attorneys to use at mediation and trial alongside extremely long powerpoint. I love it, it's been one of the best jobs I've ever had while I work on my writing career.
But then there's K. K is one of the most insane and foul human beings I've ever worked with. I've complained about K on here before, but she just kind….continues. She is a former assistant principal and English teacher that “quit” because her morals are too strong to work as a teacher in the current system. I agree with her on how awful teachers are being treated right now, that's not the issue. For one thing, there is a lot of reason to believe that K got in trouble and had to move to a new state.
K constantly calls herself “an agent of truth” and “an agent of justice.” (we're a personal injury firm, please keep that mind lol) She has to constantly remind everyone how strong she is, she's so strong that no man has ever given her a gift, no man has ever bought her anything, and she won't even let her husband pay for dinner on their dates. She has told me that she wishes she could report me to my college to have my degree removed because sometimes I make grammatical errors and as the holder of a creative writing degree, I am expected to have a certain level of skill and knowledge. The fact that this is my first ever writing job, and that I am picking up technical writing and legalese on the fly because technical writing was not required for my degree. She's been reported numerous times for being horrible to people, me especially. When I complained to the higher ups about her after she tried to get me fired, several coworkers came to me and said they did the same thing to help me.
She's been nicer to me lately because our boss fired all of the other writers except me and her. She was furious about that because I don't “deserve” my job unlike the others. We have a new writer, and she's set her sights on her more than me now because the newbie is a law student that has class and can't stay late. This is the only job where I really don't mind staying late, but like I get fat bonuses and my boss is very generous with other perks, so like there's big incentives to stay late. New girl can't always do it, and K thinks she isn't dedicated to the “craft.” But it's okay! She's just a very deep, critical thinker and almost no one is as skilled as she is. When she said that, she then told us about how she is so amazing at critique that she brings people to tears, especially when she was an English teacher. Most of her students were too weak to accept her criticism, and she was proud of how many she made cry in class. Because she's so smart and so strong.
A big one recently was that she almost got an entire team (a medical clerk, a legal assistant, and paralegal) fired due to some misunderstanding, and her explanation for them getting hostile and casting blame is that most people are weak. She doesn't need this job because she's so strong and so highly skilled, but most people are weak and need their jobs. She said people who actually need their jobs and are afraid of being fired are like cornered animals and they need to be treated with caution from now on because they're extremely dangerous.
There's so much more…I stay because she's honestly the most stressful part of my day, usually. I try to ignore her, but she is slowly trying to be my boss. I will credit her for getting our department extremely organized, but it stops there. Her organizational methods are constantly changing, which becomes a distraction, but I have a growing theory that she's doing this so that she slowly make everyone dependent on her. She wants all of the writers to receive assignments from her, the obviously best, strongest, lead legal writer. (she still makes glaring mistakes that I stopped making a long time ago)
There has to be something I can do to quietly resist. I struggle with open conflict because I cry really easily, but when I've spoken up for myself, she laughs at me. I've started keeping a log of the terrible things she does, I feel like I'm adding to it every other week. I just want be as inconvenient as I possibly can or be as irritating as I can be without losing this sweet gig I got going on. If not, how do I keep from losing my mind with his unfortunate being I am forced to see every day. I've just fully given up on fixing this relationship with her. I've tried, and she cannot be decent to anyone for more than five minutes.
TLDR; I have a coworker that has a lot of very strong beliefs that get her in trouble with everyone but not enough to get her fired. She is one of the most hostile people I've ever worked with, and it's to a point that don't think she can help herself. I get a vibe that if she even pretends to be decent to another person, she is afraid of being perceived as weak. She even constantly reminds everyone how strong she is, how she isn't afraid of anyone or anything. Is there a way to firstly, protect myself, secondly, fight back without losing my job?