2009 30 Oct

Amongst my co-workers is a young-ish male (27 yrs old) who is by far the longest-serving employee in the company. He supposedly saw the company rise and fall during his time there, and therefore believes he calls the shots around the place. Why do I say this? When I was first hired to handle the company's marketing work, he would tell me what to do and what not to do even though he has only done a little bit of marketing work before I joined. He is trained in another field, but yet wants to handle my work and often offers marketing suggestions to the boss that do not work. Yet the boss trusts him and gets him involved in marketing work because he is comfortable working with him which gives my co-worker the impression that he is allowed to tell me what to do. Many a time I have caught him sneaking looks into my computer screen even though he now sits at the other end of the room from me (he walks over and glances at my screen), making comments on what I am doing (this even after I told him to stop doing it), passes rude remarks about Americans (my fiance's American and I'm not) even though he knows my fiance, don't ask me why he does these things I can't figure him out, makes snide comments about how he thinks women are more suited to menial tasks because men like him need to handle more important matters, leaves me out of important marketing discussions and not wanting to tell me much even when I enquire with him about them and often likes to interfere with any marketing decisions I make.

He also has this really obnoxious habit of judging people based on their qualifications alone. He sincerely believes that paper qualifications are what makes a person, and anyone less educated than he is, is ridiculed by him either behind their backs or openly in front of them. My other co-workers are the sort who do not like trouble so they just keep quiet about things. And my boss does not want to hear about it nor get involved, therefore this co-worker's behaviour goes unchecked.

Has anyone else had an experience similar to mine? If so, please advise what I can do with such a person?

PS- I am female by the way in case you haven't already figured it out. 🙂

Thank you.
Thank you for your replies, I really appreciate them. 🙂

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