Nobody Likes A Whiner

Nobody Likes A Whiner

Lately, I’ve been very pi**ed off with a particular colleague of mine. She’s not really a colleague mind you, but someone in a position more senior than mine. And my function serves, or used to serve, as a supplemnt to her position. With foresight, I feel it’s kinda weird that my department are taking someone from outside to do a job that I have more experience and know-how to do, with I having carried out the supporting role for the job for the last 4 years. But then you don’t question the management’s decision, and I put that down to the possible reason that the management must have thought I was either incapable or unprepared to do the job myself. I’ve always felt I had much more to learn, and perhaps there’s some wisdom in the management’s choice that my limited knowledge could understand. But then, I digress…

My animosity towards this senior of mine has been cumulating ever since her first few months here. It all started fine enough when she joined my department in November 2004, with all the credentials she has to show. She is a certified financial analyst and with some other accounting qualification at hand, and with the prospect of having a qualified professional to work alongside with, I was relishing it. And to be honest, I was feeling a bit intimidated too. Surely, she would bring with her some ideas a person of her qualification would usually do.

The first few months were understandably a transitional period, and expectedly of course, I would have to carry the extra burden that comes with teaching my senior the trades about the job she’s supposed to perform. Honestly, it was a rather humbling experience at first, with her commenting that the current system is so inefficient that so much time and manpower could be saved with some extra initiatives she intends to carry out. Heck, I was even put down by her when we had a financial performance reconciliation meeting with a line department, when she chided me in front of the member from the line department that MY inefficiency was causing unnecessary stress in reconciliation work, and then further made promise to the person that beginning the next month, when she takes full rein of the job, such unnecessary tasks would not happen again. So I was made to look incompetent. Fine. I thought to myself, let’s see how she’d do it.

All these while my discrepancies with the respective line department had been in the region of RM10k, which could be defined as immaterial. My senior was proposing a zero difference, which in reporting for a trading company like this, is extraordinary. So she prepared the financial report for that line department the next month. And the difference was? RM 20 million!

Her first reaction to that huge difference? 'Izwan, check what’s wrong with my numbers. I can’t seem to point where the difference comes from'. You’re talking about RM20 million here makcik, not 20 sen. It’s like not being able to find the Twin Towers when you’re in KL. And so I redid the report that she prepared. And beginning that month itself, she told me to carry on with the reporting as she began to dislike the person from that line department that we had a meeting with the previous month. She said ‘he’s too pushy, asking too many questions about the report’. Well if my accounts you prepared showed a RM20 million difference, I would ask a million of questions too!

Things went pretty much downhill from then. She wasn’t taking charge of things that she’s supposed to. And what annoys me the most is that, she would do some shoddy work with reports in a split second without even verifying the correctness of the numbers, and then hand them to me to verify and confirm. And that’s pretty much the pattern up until now that I end up doing most of the reports, and most of the time correcting the mess that she made.

I blew my top recently though. I had to go on leave for my exams, and I left her some tasks which were urgent for submission while I was away. When I came back to the office, I was horrified to find out that nothing yet was done. When I confronted her, she claimed our non-exec staffs did not get back to her and informed her what to do, so she did nothing. ‘You waited for instructions from your non-exec staffs? Shouldn’t you be instructing them what to do?’, I fired back. She was adamant the particular non-exec staff was making her life difficult however. Ok la, fine I said…

So I told her to help me do it now, since I had loads of other things I left her to do that were still undone to do. She went on to do what I asked her to do, and again submitted to me haywired numbers. When I confronted her again with this, she said she couldn’t do it any further, as she was already busy with some other tasks at that time, failing to note that sitting next to her cubicle, I couldn’t help noticing her computer screen would always either show the website of some online music, or opened forward e-mail attachments. And on that same ‘busy’ evening of hers, she left the office at 5pm to go for squash practice.

Grrrrrr!!!

And today, as I’m working my a** off to complete the task that she claims she’s too busy to help me with, she’s been out of the office all morning sightseeing at a nearby convention that I would have to skip since I’m NOT TOO BUSY doing my job.

Arrgghhhh!!

My point is, I’m tired of whining about her everyday, and I really hate to whine and bitch about her. It doesn’t feel right, and maybe I should bring the matter up to my boss for his further action on the matter. Another colleague of mine made a comment that I looked busy all the time, and when I responded sarcastically it’s because I’m carrying a deadweight in the office, she countered back by saying ‘that’s what you say. Others might see it differently.’ I take that as a hint that perhaps I’ve whined about the matter too much, and maybe I should put a stop to it. I admit, nobody likes a whiner. Now it’s either I do something about it, or shut up about the matter altogether. And I intend to make this colleague-from-hell of mine to be more accountable for her responsibilities here, some way or another. You just watch…

I know, I know. I shall stop the whining. *Sigh*