I’m sorry if this doesn’t fit but I don’t know where else to talk about this.
For context, I work for an unnamed global pizza chain restaurant as a delivery driver (there, I narrowed it down to like three options lol). At our store delivery drivers usually do basic inside tasks like dishes, boxing pizzas, taking orders on the phone, window washing, etc. when we aren’t out on the road.
I’ve been working there for a little under 6 months part-time and overall I’ve been enjoying it but lately I’ve been hating it more and more because of just one person. Usually she works nights and I work mornings, but because our shifts got switched around, we’ve been working the same shift more often than not, so I get to interact with her more. Basically, whenever she’s around me she is literally not positive. Has nothing nice to say. She’s always either overly critical of me or just generally has a terrible mood whenever I’m around.
I know I’ve been working 6 months but I’m still a part-time worker so it’s taken me a little bit to catch up on a few minor aspects of the job, and I’m still learning a lot of things (we have a lot of responsibilities), in part because the manager who trained me did a really bad job of it. I feel like it’s natural to make mistakes but every time I make a mistake around her it gets exacerbated to an extreme amount. For example just today I was doing the dishes the way I’ve been taught and the way everybody else I know does it, yet she said I missed a spot on 2 of the like 20 tubs that just dried and gave them back to me. Instead of just going “you missed a spot” or saying “here’s the way I do them,” it was “you’re doing them wrong and you’re the reason we keep getting complaints from the pizzamakers about dirty dishes.” I was baffled because I’d never heard a complaint from them about it, and I didn’t hear one from my 6 managers or from the general manager.
I’m fine with criticism but it’s just that none of it ever seems to be constructive. For another example, a few weeks ago we were having a conversation about how we handle the hotbags when we’re delivering. Me and another driver said we like to have the pizza in the bag until the customer opens the door, while she and another driver like to pull it out of the bag before knocking. It’s all personal preference and not really specified in the employee handbook, but she still made it out like me and my coworker were wrong and the way we did it was stupid. There was one time I had a brain fart and forgot to cut pizzas like 4 times in a row, and my actual manager came out and said “it’s cool I’ve done that before” and made sure I cut them right while I was all embarrassed. I felt so much better after that one than a multitude of what this coworker does. And before anybody asks, she’s a coworker. Same level as me, about 1 year more experienced. Not a manager. It’s so crazy to me that she’s such a perfectionist too because whenever she closes we usually end up with food fights at 2 am or a bunch of dishes stacked into a pyramid. Usual teenager shenanigans. But when I’m working around her, she pushes me harder than the damn general manager pushes me, and its his wage on the line when we aren’t working the best we can.
And it sucks too because I don’t see her do this to anybody else. She’s got seniority over like 5 of my other coworkers but she gets along fine with them. We’ve even got a new guy who’s only been working for 2 weeks and I see her and him laughing and joking around a bunch. I have a feeling that she just wants really hard to be a manager, because she posts “PSAs” in our group chat just like the managers do when she sees something done wrong, and always complains about some of my slower coworkers behind our back. Apparently the slowest coworker by metrics is moving to another store soon and she told me and said it was “good” and that “maybe we’ll get somebody faster.” I personally don’t really give a shit who we get as a driver as long as it’s somebody nice to talk to. If we’re overloaded as a store that seems to me more like a problem with management than it is with individual drivers.
I know I’m not at work to make friends, just get paid, but it would be nice not to have such a mentally draining experience at work. It’s not only mentally draining to be constantly critiqued by somebody who appears to be trying really hard to be promoted, but to hear her talk shit about people in the workplace like a middle schooler. She even called a customer “a fucking dumb idiot” for ordering ranch packets (which come with salads) instead of ranch dip cups (which come with pizza), which to me just seems so overblown. I don’t want to be friends with everybody but I’d at least like to be positive, you know? I’ve got coworkers who come back from being stiffed on a delivery or come back from a delivery of 20 pizzas and 10 sides who aren’t nearly as pissed off about it as she is.
We have a shift together tomorrow. Me for 6 hours and her closing the store. I just want to call in sick because I just don’t look forward to whatever mean thing she has to say.
sorry for the really long post, I just had a lot to get off my chest.
TL;DR: my coworker is overbearing and always on my ass about stuff even though she’s not a manager. She’s not like this with other coworkers and she pushes me to be a perfectionist despite regular mistakes on her end when she closes the store. I can’t just ignore her because even when ignoring her, her negativity seeps in.
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When people treat me like that I like to act innocent and ask them for help, killing them with compliments. “oh, the pizza makers complained? That’s terrible! I’m sorry. They haven’t mentioned anything to me directly. Thank you for letting me know! Can you ask them to show me next time? That way I know just what they’re talking about.”
Another option is to play dumb about a rule," I didn’t know that. Thank you for letting me know! Can you show me where in the manual it says that? I wanna make sure I didn’t miss anything else. "
When you press people on their BS, but it a nice way, they tend to stumble and look foolish.
Ask your manager for advice or ask her directly. Do this in a non-confrontational way. Always try to be easy on the people hard on the problem.
The problem is that you do not feel like your getting any positive reinforcement from her. The other problem is you feel like she has some personal issue with you that you do not understand. The other is that your not sure how to deal with it and it is affecting your job satisfaction.
Do not assign blame. Also keep in mind that perfectionists often have inner voices equally harsh on themselves. Not justifying it. Just context. Both my wife and I grew up in families where being perfect was expected and you were never rewarded for it but you were penalized for not being perfect. Took me half a lifetime to feel good accepting positive feedback and to feel good about giving it.
Tell her “I’m not interested in hearing your opinion or your attitude” next time she wants to be a rude bitch. At some point you need to have a spine and stand up to these people. These people aren’t managers and you don’t owe them explanations / justifications
That sucks so much. One person can really make or break a work shift. Is there a significant age difference between you? This comes across to me like someone who’s assumed she has a higher place in the pecking order than you do (or that she should have one, anyway…). When I was working in food service in my late teens, I saw this sometimes with older coworkers who disparaged me because they figured they were knew better. Usually they didn’t, but they made it such a pain to work with them. I hope something gives for you, and soon!
No, she’s only 2 years older than me
Sounds like a jerk. Hey if she wants to be a a manager maybe she could be transferred to a different store… 🤞
If you have private 1-1 conversations with your boss that might be a good time to bring this up.
Honestly sometimes just making a show of it not getting to you can get people like that to leave you be. Just start looking get dead in the eye and saying “thanks for the tip. I’ll take it under advisement”, every time she starts doing that to you. Every time. Same inflection. Even if you have to do it 20 times in a row. Even if she gets angry. Don’t say anything else to her unless it’s required to do your job.
Eventually she’ll get annoyed or bored enough to leave you alone and try to bother someone else she can get a reaction out of.
I really like this. She’s probably waiting for a new hire to pick on.
Without more context, it seems as if your actual management is decent and understanding. I’d try and have an earnest conversation with the one you trust the most, and speak frankly about appreciating her work ethic, but that she can come off controlling and too particular to enjoy working with.
At the end of the day, if she’s the same rank as you her seniority does not magically make her a manager or make her advice solicited. It’s not her job to set the standards of how anybody should do anything, so you are not obligated to obey or listen to her do it. As a manager I would agree with that justification and I’d try to get her to take it down a notch.
It could cause her to resent you, though, if you’re the one she’s chosen to let all that controlling energy out on, but it’s just up to what you wanna do about it, in the end a pizza job is not an amazing, highly coveted and high paying position, if your management doesn’t help you handle it, or if getting them involved makes her worse and they don’t believe or help you, that’s just a sign they’re not that great themselves.
If you have a strong relationship with your manager you might want to bring it up with them, even if it’s just to ask that you and her get placed on different shifts. People like this are awful and while they can change they often won’t, and even then the only one who can choose whether or not they improve as a person is them. If nothing improves, you might want to consider alternate work. Don’t make yourself miserable at a single workplace, when it comes to service jobs there are always positions open.
View it this way: she’s really not mad at you personally, she has a lot of internal hatred and is projecting it on to you. I’ve definitely had that sting where a negative person hits your ego and you try to be a perfectionist. It just helps to know they’re typically very exaggerating, it’s usually not a big deal, and they’re projecting their stress on to you. Definitely easier said then done, I struggle with this a lot. Mindfulness helps, catching yourself thinking negative thoughts back and ruining your own mood.
I think the best way is to beat to your own drum, just keep your inner positivity and honestly ignore her. Just go “uh huh” and try to let her negative energy affect you as little as possible. Talking to her more will just bring you down.
Kill them with kindness, as chessey as that sounds, is really the best way to do it. You don’t do it for them, you do it because it helps you internally and to help view things more positive.
Yes kill with kindness was going to be my suggestion. I also agree with not interacting with her unless she’s directly trying to discuss something with you.
Also, if she says you’re doing something wrong, instead of just trying harder or ignoring her, just ask her to show you the best way to do it. People like people who ask them for favors, and this might make her warm up to you some. If it’s bad enough that you don’t want to be at work, you could also consider asking for a shift change. Be kind, be as strong as you can manage, and ignore if you need to.
That really sucks. I’ve had coworkers like that before, pretty much everywhere I’ve ever worked. There’s always at least one.
I wish I had better advice for you. Usually with them, I just keep my head down and try to stay off their radar as much as possible.
I reported to a middle manager like that at a Finance company. Whether you’re slinging pies or slinging pie charts, insufferable assholes abound.
What I did was I put up with it until I found another job and then I quit, stat. The reason was, I got that Finance job through a “bigger boss” and I didn’t want to cause problems for him by going to HR to complain about the middle manager.
And I didn’t bring it up to the bigger boss directly because I knew he would probably suggest some kind of sit-down with the three of us or something like that, which I didn’t think would work. (The middle manager was the type who would hide his antics if confronted like that—continue to make my life hell but secretly).
If I could do it over, I would have brought it up with my bigger boss but then rejected any offer for arbitration. I would have tried to set my own terms like, “I just know I can’t work with this guy, so you’ll have to move me, or can me if moving me isn’t possible.” I don’t know what your circumstances are, e.g., if you have to cling to this job or not, but that’s what I would try. I think another responder gave a similar response—basically, go to the higher-up manager, but try to go with a plan of action that you recommend, e.g., changing shifts.
Otherwise, I think the default, uninspired corpo solution might be to get you two to talk and shake on it like you’re back on a goddamned elementary school playground. And your mileage may vary if you get forced into that.
I took a look at other recommendations here like “playing nice” or “playing ignorant” or “trying not to take it personally.” And, yeah, if you have the patience for those approaches, give them a shot I suppose. Just remember that you are being paid to do a job, and its up to you to determine whether “putting up with a Hershey-stain of a coworker” is a fair part of your responsibilities.
Oh, man, This is so hard. I feel for you. She could be testing you. She’s waiting for you to say something back. This type of testing could be good or bad. She could be testing you to see if you have the courage to complain about what she’s doing. She could be testing you to see if you get impatient and explode so she has a reason to complain about you. She might like you, she might not like you. You are mature in your attitude because you don’t feel like you need to be friends with or like the people you work with to work with them in a productive way. Maybe she is totally immature and just has it out for you because she doesn’t like your hair or whatever random reason. Her behavior is most definitely immature, because this is what children do with teachers. I’m a teacher, this is what some children do with new teachers. They press the buttons, push the envelope, read and interpret the rules and try to test them out. I have had so many co-workers like this. Six months is a long time to be working with her and never have a dead moment in the work day when she actually tries to engage you in casual conversation, so it might happen soon. With co-workers like this, when there is a dead moment in the shift and for whatever reason this type of person wants to make casual conversation, I just make like they aren’t talking to me, like I never even heard them. It really makes them angry to the point of almost hostility. After that, these types of petty nonsense interactions while working disappear for me because they realize they are not getting anywhere and have no power over me. This is what, in the end, she is testing. Her power. At some point, she will realize that she has none, just like you. I really hope there is a dead moment when she tries to make casual conversation, because it really is pivotal for people like her when you ignore them. I’ve even done the lovely thing of saying, when they get in my face because I’m ignoring them, “sorry, not here for chit-chat. if it’s work-related I might be all ears for you, not that it really matters, you’re the same as me.” After that, I have been left alone to do my job and, sometimes, I’ve even made a friend, actually. The first person I did this to like 20 years ago is actually a good friend of mine now, so many years later, when we have our careers yadda yadda and don’t work together anymore.
