I worked with two women who refused to talk to each other because of a perceived slight that happened 7 years earlier. One felt that the other interfered with her attempts to flirt with the building security guard by also flirting with the security guard. Both of these employees, and the security guard, were married at the time by the way. One employee later went on to supervise the other during a time period in which they still refused to speak. I'll have to remember to tag this blog entry under "productive" and "mature".
In a different office we had multiple teams and each team was assigned an admin aide. The admin aide on my team refused to work with the admin aide assigned to a team with which we frequently worked. I asked our admin aide why she disliked the other one so much. Her answer was "oh, go ask her, she knows." So I did. When I asked the other admin aide she loudly stated "I haven't liked her since she sat next to me in the old building and took the credit for all of my work." I asked, "what old building?" She told me it was the building where our department was assigned before I was hired...10 years earlier.
Before I am accused of only using gender specific examples, please allow me to share the story of *Barry and *Geoff (*not their real names). These were two middle age guys who disliked another guy in the office so much, that they would be the poster children for modern anti-bullying efforts. While the first two examples were people that would refuse to talk to each other like they were pre-teen school girls, these two guys treated the office like it was a junior high locker room (I'm not projecting my own experiences...). They singled out the guy they didn't like and would encourage other co-workers to shut him out of office functions. Not literally of course, but they would treat the lunch room like their own personal Forrest Gump bus.
So as the manager, and a decent human being, when I found out these two were picking on one of my employees I spoke to them individually. I went the route of the prisoners dilemma and they caved and each one fingered the other as the main instigator. After spouting off some rehearsed lines about how disappointed I was in them and how I expected an immediate change in behavior, I asked them both why they picked on the guy in the first place. They both said when the victim was hired he asked Barry's wife, who of course worked in the office too (tag under relationships), if she wanted to go out for dinner. He had no idea she was Barry's wife and apologized when she told him she was married. This had all happened 15 years before I got to the office. This poor bastard was putting up with this for 15 years! Thank God we didn't work for the post office!
In a different office we had multiple teams and each team was assigned an admin aide. The admin aide on my team refused to work with the admin aide assigned to a team with which we frequently worked. I asked our admin aide why she disliked the other one so much. Her answer was "oh, go ask her, she knows." So I did. When I asked the other admin aide she loudly stated "I haven't liked her since she sat next to me in the old building and took the credit for all of my work." I asked, "what old building?" She told me it was the building where our department was assigned before I was hired...10 years earlier.
Before I am accused of only using gender specific examples, please allow me to share the story of *Barry and *Geoff (*not their real names). These were two middle age guys who disliked another guy in the office so much, that they would be the poster children for modern anti-bullying efforts. While the first two examples were people that would refuse to talk to each other like they were pre-teen school girls, these two guys treated the office like it was a junior high locker room (I'm not projecting my own experiences...). They singled out the guy they didn't like and would encourage other co-workers to shut him out of office functions. Not literally of course, but they would treat the lunch room like their own personal Forrest Gump bus.
So as the manager, and a decent human being, when I found out these two were picking on one of my employees I spoke to them individually. I went the route of the prisoners dilemma and they caved and each one fingered the other as the main instigator. After spouting off some rehearsed lines about how disappointed I was in them and how I expected an immediate change in behavior, I asked them both why they picked on the guy in the first place. They both said when the victim was hired he asked Barry's wife, who of course worked in the office too (tag under relationships), if she wanted to go out for dinner. He had no idea she was Barry's wife and apologized when she told him she was married. This had all happened 15 years before I got to the office. This poor bastard was putting up with this for 15 years! Thank God we didn't work for the post office!
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