The Vine: February 3, 2010
Sars,
I have a co-worker with a superior attitude and jealousy streak who cannot separate her personal life from her professional life. She will yell at someone for misusing the copier because her husband lost his job, and she will be an enormous passive-aggressive bitch if you get pregnant because she is infertile.
We work in different offices, have to see each other once weekly, correspond several times a day re: work related topics via email, and are on the same professional level: middle management. However, while my direct supervisor is a director of the company, her direct supervisor is the CEO. She’s privy to things like everyone’s salary history, so, if you catch her on a friendly day, she will disclose how much everyone makes and has been known to give out private information about employee bonuses. Without being asked, BTW.
She’s been quite unprofessional, petty, and immature to me on certain occasions, and I don’t really allow people to mistreat me, so I’ve confronted her a couple of times about the way she is speaking/treating me, and now relations are strained between us.
She has this tendency to override my decisions, despite them not having anything to do with her or the fact that she’s not my supervisor. She’s sneaky, though. We work for a small company and just about everyone gets cc-ed on emails. When she doesn’t agree with how I am handing a situation, she will go to our CEO get his “take” on the situation. Then I get an email from her relaying our boss’ decision on how to proceed, despite the fact that it has nothing to do with her and it was something that our boss shouldn’t have been bothered with in the first place.
It’s annoying, but I deal. Surprisingly, this isn’t even my main issue with her and why I’m writing you.
At our holiday party a couple of weeks ago, she had a few tequila shots and proceeded to tell some people at our table, me included, that she is so good at making me look bad to our CEO and twisting situations around so that she gets her way. Neither the CEO nor my direct supervisor were at our table. I was shocked and asked her if she had in fact just said what I thought, and she said yes.
Now, I have yearly reviews coming up. I normally have one with my direct supervisor and one with our CEO. Do I mention what she admitted to at that party? Do I let it slide? Do I confront her instead?
I don’t necessarily want her to get into trouble, because I don’t want to deal with the aftermath.But I want the CEO to be aware that the things she’s telling him that I am doing are not necessarily what I am doing! Who knows what she’s been feeding him. There are times when I feel that he already believes that I’ve done the wrong thing in a situation and starts a conversation off with how I need to fix it — despite the fact that I haven’t done what he thinks. I’ve always just chalked that up to him being an arrogant micro-manager and me being paranoid. But now I’m beginning to think that he’s been fed BS by this co-worker about me, and maybe it’s time to clear the air.
Please help.
Confused
Dear Confused,
Take it to your direct supervisor first; do it before your formal review, so it doesn’t come off like excuse-making in the event that Co-Worker’s toxins have seeped into the well of your perceived performance.
Tell DS what you just told me, resisting the urge to take an offended tone or drag in every little obnoxion Co-Worker has committed; keep it short.Review what Co-Worker said at the party, mention that you’ve gotten the feeling on several occasions that CEO was misinformed as to your actions, admit that there’s some tension between you and Co-Worker because you set boundaries with her, and ask DS what, if anything, s/he thinks you should do.
And start documenting all contact with Co-Worker, if you haven’t already.Sabotage of this sort is hard to prove and even harder to get superiors to care about if everyone’s work is more or less getting done — but if you say something to DS and Co-Worker decides to make problems for you as a result, you’ll need proof that she’s doing so.
Even that may not do much, though; you should definitely tell DS, but you should understand that it’s likely the CEO already knows Co-Worker is an Eddie Haskell…and doesn’t give a shit.Signaling to her that you know what she’s up to and you don’t plan to let it slide is worth doing — it may scare her into backing off — but you should be prepared for the possibility that the higher-ups won’t intercede in a meaningful way.
Almighty Sars,
I’m in desperate need of assistance, and I think your brand of no-bullshit advice will be particularly helpful.
I have a best friend of 6 years. She and I are extremely close — our families are great friends, we have plans to be roomies upon graduating from college, and — given the amount of time we spend together/on the phone — we joke frequently about being in a relationship.
Oddly, since I moved about 100 miles away for college, our friendship has only gotten stronger, and I visit her frequently (once or twice a month) in our hometown, where she stayed to go to school. The problem we have (as almost always seems to be the case when it comes to female friends) has to do with boys.
I don’t date a whole lot. I rarely meet guys I’m really interested in, but for whatever reason, when I do, it’s almost always when I’m back home. I have a few theories: Hometown is bigger than College Town, I’m more comfortable in Hometown than I am in College Town, I’m with my best friend in Hometown and am therefore my happiest self, etc.
Trouble is, if I meet a guy on one of these trips back home, it becomes a problem very quickly. My best friend will initially be extremely supportive, but that support will be withdrawn immediately if she feels that I am neglecting her in favor of seeing a boy.
Take last year for example: I was sort of seeing a guy who was a friend of a friend. Best Friend did a lot of the early grunt work setting us up, and was super-supportive. As I grew to like this guy more, though, and wanted to spend more time with him when I was at home, Best Friend would become extremely upset and want to talk to me about how I was “abandoning” her.
At the time she had just ended a budding relationship and was feeling not-so-great about it, and I could understand if I was blowing her off constantly to hang out with this dude, but my schedule while I was home was literally this: Spend all day (9 AM to 9 PM, for instance) with Best Friend; finally beg off, amid lots of judgment and passive-aggression, to meet up with the dude at like 9 or 10 PM; stay over at Dude’s house and wake up to a text message from her wanting to “talk”; leave Dude’s house around noon and spend the afternoon with her, at which point I’d have to drive back to College Town.
Sars, it’s exhausting. It’s as though, in her mind, when I come home from college, my time — all of it — automatically belongs to her, and any plans I make that don’t involve her are selfish and inconsiderate. Additionally, it seems like she’s incapable of being supportive of me if there’s a guy in my life if she doesn’t also have one in hers — whether that’s due to jealousy or an abandonment thing, I’m not sure. I do know that we have issues on a regular basis if we, say, go out to a bar and more guys talk to me than talk to her. I KNOW, IT’S RIDICULOUS.
I think I feed into it by returning to Hometown way more often than she comes to College Town, and the trouble is that we’ve established a pattern where she does get most of my time when I’m there. But I don’t understand why, just by virtue of being in her city, I must be there to see her ALL THE TIME. My family lives there too, and I’ve felt pressure to see them less and hang out with her more in addition to all this boy stuff. It’s tough because I don’t think she understands how many different people make demands on my time when I go home…and I’m probably endorsing her belief that all my time at home is hers by spending so much of it with her in the first place.
My point is this: I met a guy a few weeks ago in Hometown. He’s extremely sweet and I’m excited about him in a way I haven’t been excited about a guy in a long time. I went on a single date with him when I was home for the holidays, a date I felt extremely guilty about because I was leaving my best friend on “my last night in town” despite having spent (LITERALLY) 4 straight days with her. He’s coming to see me in College Town, which I appreciate and makes things easier for the time being.
However, when I told best friend about this, her reaction was lukewarm at best, and when I mentioned that I might come back to Hometown in a few weeks to support my roommate, who’s running a half marathon there, she made a comment along the lines of “and by support her you mean see New Guy, right? HAHAHA” which just rubbed me the wrong way.
How do I navigate this? How can I broach this subject — needing her to be supportive of me, allow me to do things that don’t involve her, and pursue a romantic life? Basically, I want to be able to go on a date or two in Hometown without feeling like a total asshole; I know that the way to deal with that is probably to just live my life and damn the consequences, but I don’t want to rock the boat with my best friend (who has quite the temper) and I also can’t help but feel like she might be right. After all, when all my previous visits have just been about hanging out with her, how can she NOT think she’s less of a priority when all of a sudden I want to see someone else?
Argh, things would be so much easier if we just lived in the same damn place!
Totally At A Loss
Dear Loss,
This isn’t about living in the same place.This is about letting your best friend manipulate and control you (and turning around and blaming yourself for giving her the idea that that’s okay).That’s how stalkers work.Not a coincidence.
Understand: it is not reasonable for her to expect that you will spend every waking minute together. Even in a romantic relationship, this is not reasonable.People have other friends, jobs, family, and commitments; the sun does not rise and set on a single bond. Women your age should get that, but Best Friend clearly doesn’t, and now she’s bullied you into forgetting it.I mean, seriously: 12 hours together, you practically have to call Jack Bauer to send an extraction team, and then she’s all over your shit first thing in the morning?This is not what best friendship looks like between two adults.This is an abusive relationship, right down to the part where you say she’s got a temper. What, she’s going to hit you?
Fuck that.Start setting boundaries. Draw a line; tell her to get behind it; do not move it. Again, this is not a friendship right now.This is you bending over backwards not to piss her off; this is you making 99 percent of the effort and getting very little in return, except the privilege of walking on yet another mile of eggshells.This is how people handle parents with drinking problems.Do you see what I’m saying?You can in fact handle the consequences of setting these limits, and so can she, so when she’s behaving unreasonably, point it out, and go elsewhere.
The next time she makes a New Guy crack, tell her you don’t appreciate the attitude, period.Don’t apologize; the apology that’s owed is to you, and if it’s not forthcoming, end the conversation.The next time she’s giving you shit for leaving to see someone else, explain kindly that you have other commitments, thank her for understanding, and leave — and if she freaks out, point out that she’s acting like a possessive boyfriend, you feel like you can’t breathe, and you have no motivation to hang out with her at all if she’s going to get that territorial every time you have a family thing to attend.And then: leave.The next time she’s all stroppy because four dudes talked to you and three dudes talked to her, tell her it’s not a competition and you don’t enjoy going out with her when it turns into an insecurity-management seminar every time.Sending her calls to voicemail now and then; practice vague phrases like “I had something to do” and “I won’t be able to stay the whole day,” and practice refusing to elaborate, or compromise, or feel guilty because she turns everything into a rejection and handles it like a four-year-old.Yes, you kind of trained her to think that’s okay — but it isn’t, and you aren’t doing her any favors by continuing to act like it is.
No doubt she has lovely, supportive qualities, but I haven’t heard a single one; she sounds like an immature Klingon to me, and if she really can’t handle you having a life that doesn’t put her first every minute you’re awake, you’re better off without her.But if you want an actual friendship to come out of all of this, and if you care about her enough not to want her to make a stalky ass of herself, you’ll have to start saying some shit she doesn’t want to hear regardless.This friendship is fucked up, and the only way to unfuck it is for you to grow a backbone.
She’s being a crazy baby.Stop enabling it, right now.
Does one have “another think coming” or “another thing coming”? Are both correct? I have always been under the impression that the former is right, but have seen the latter in some publications that presumably have editors on staff, and am questioning my long-held idiomatic beliefs. Maybe “to have another thing coming” has become accepted due to its common usage?
I can usually let these kinds of things go, but for some reason this one REALLY bothers me. Guidance, please!
Idiom Idiot
Dear Id,
From the most recent edition of Garner’s Modern American Usage:
The tradition idiom is “If you think X, you’ve got another think coming.”The OED records this usage from 1937 (s.v. think).It may not be funny anymore, but it makes sense: X is wrong, so eventually you’re going to think Y instead.But a surprising number of writers substituted thing for think, which is grammatical but not even vaguely clever. … The heavy metal band Judas Priest may share some blame for the widespread acceptance of the variant wording; its most commercially successful song was “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming,” first recorded in 1982.
I can understand the confusion when you hear the phrase — the way “think” rolls into “coming,” it can sound like “thing,” and I heard it thus as a kid.But the “if you think X” phrasing should answer the question.”Another thing coming” isn’t incorrect usage on its own, but it’s not the received idiom.Use “another think coming.”
Better yet, use “think again.”Clearer and less folksy!
Tags: friendships grammar workplace
At A Loss:
Sars is sooooo right. As I was reading about your friend, I thought “this reminds me of X. A lot.” X is a long-term friend who is now in prison for stalking someone. I have known X for over two decades, and was a bit puzzled over the years as other long-term friends told X they did not want to be her friend anymore – sure, X was high maintenance, but that seemed a bit extreme. Like you, I moved away from home but whenever I drove hours to come back, even for one day, there was pressure to spend my time with her, and a lot of guilting me if I didn’t. Because I’ve lived so far from home for so long, I think I didn’t see the full extent of her behavior, but when I learned she was in prison and for what, I looked back and all the signs were certainly there.
So do as Sars suggests – set boundaries, enforce them, and let her know that you’re not going to allow her to push you around. But if you don’t feel as though she’s hearing you, and if you give her a little while but her behavior doesn’t change, it might be best for you to call it quits or at least step back from the relationship before you’ve got a real problem on your hands.
So: Garner 1, Judas Priest 0. (Note: profanity in notes alongside video.)
In case I wasn’t clear on this specific point: do not move in with Best Friend under any circumstances. Don’t even discuss it anymore. Bad, bad call.
Think?? For real?? My mind=blown.
Loss- How is the rest of your friendship with this possessive best friend? When someone acts and possessive as your friend does, there are likely other things wrong as well. And with your willingness to shrug off your friend’s possessiveness for so long, maybe you’ve been ignoring other not-so-good things about this friend (is she jealous about other aspects of your life, not just boys? Is she undermining? A queen of backhanded compliments? Do your achievements make her angry/upset/feel bad about herself? Does she support your life and happiness?). You might want to ask yourself if this friendship is really good for you. Even though she may be a good person and it sounds like you really care about her, if the friendship is damaging to you, you might want to re-think your commitment to being her friend.
Sars is totally right about the crazy-baby nonsense. I would also add this: Be prepared for her attempt(s) to enlist family members–presumably on both sides, if the families really are thatclose–to guilt you into giving in to her creepy demands. Anyone, related or not, who really knows and cares about either or both of you will pick up on who is and isn’t losing the plot.
@Confused – unfortunately there is not much you can do to fix this because the problem is with the CEO. A good manager does not unquestioningly act on ‘feedback’ from your coworkers. A good manager understands that even the best intentioned opinions are biased and while s/he might listen thoughtfully to a third party’s commments about you, s/he will have the sense to validate what s/he hears with direct observation of you and discussion with you and if that’s not possible s/he will take any comments with a whole bucket of salt. If the CEO is taking this shit seriously it’s doubtful that he will start doing things differently – for whatever reason it’s working for him.
I think the best you can do is take the high road – do a good job, talk yourself up as much as you can; make sure YOUR boss documents your good work and do everything you can to get that feedback pushed up the chain to the CEO. But, clearing the air with the CEO? Not going to happen, because if the CEO is letting this shit happen, you already know the CEO is not a straight shooter, and is wholly unprofessional.
One thing you might do, especially if you’re able to find another job, or somehow shield yourself from any fallout, is go to HR and tell them that your coworker is blabbing confidential info. I know if I worked for that company and I found out that someone had blabbed my private info, I would be thinking about suing … HR needs to know about this if you can let them know without screwing yourself.
@At a Loss: Holy crap! Your friend sounds really manipulative. You ARE NOT obligated to cater to her neediness. In a good friendship each person is able to be their autonomous best selves without any guff from the other. If she doesn’t like the you who spends time with other people, then it’s not YOU she likes, it’s the illusion of control and security that the friendship gives her. Sars’ advice was on the mark – set some boundaries and zOMG don’t move in with her. If you find that you are having trouble setting boundaries, it might be helpful to talk to a counselor – they would be able to help you put together a strategy to deal with her.
Re Idiom: The think/thing came up in a fandom grammar discussion over on Livejournal, and one Australian said the “thing” version is the more common one there. I can’t say whether she was right or wrong about that, but I did notice the defense of “it’s more grammatically correct!” Which … it’s an idiom; they often are grammatically incorrect as part of the “joke”, I thought. So I’m happy to see that Garner covers it; I didn’t even think to check him!
At a Loss: I’ve been there, and it might be hard to hear, but Sars is right. If you want any possibility of a healthy, adult friendship with Best Friend in the future, you need to set and enforce boundaries now. And be open to the possibility that, if she makes things worse, you might have to walk away for a while.
For years, people would ask me why I was even friends with Now-Ex-Friend. And I would make excuses for her: she needs me; she doesn’t have many other friends; her life has been hard. But all those excuses I was making? Those came from guilt messages that she was feeding me. And I was enabling her so that she didn’t have to grow up, make any independent decisions, or form healthy adult relationships.
Also (and this post is long — I’m sorry), the fact that you live in a different town is the perfect reason for some strategic distance to help change the dynamic of this friendship. New Guy’s visiting you in College Town, and it sounds like your family’s used to hardly seeing you, so make fewer trips to Hometown. Prioritize your schoolwork, your family, and New Guy for a while, and conveniently miss a few of her calls. (And maybe make some friends in College Town! That helped me.)
NEVER heard “another think coming.” Totally thought Id was just a kook until I read the response. So, sorry Id for thinking poorly of you for a minute there! Guess _I’ve_ got another think coming!
Whoa! I had no idea, NONE, not even an inkling that it was “Another think coming”. I mean…it never even occurred to me. I get it now, but I guess I never thought it was SUPPOSED to be clever. I just thought it was like, “If you think you’re getting dessert, you’ve got another thing coming,” e.g., vegetables, NOT dessert, or…a punch in the face, HA! Also isn’t the “correct” way kind of…incorrect? Is “think” even a noun? How do non-English speakers ever learn our crazy language? I’ve been speaking it 28 years and I feel like an idiot!
Nobody should go to college in the town where they grew up, unless they can’t afford to go anywhere else. That sense of isolation and separation is important in developing an actual personality, rather than merely defining yourself in relation to your parents. Best to go somewhere FAR AWAY, as in a full day’s drive or even a plane flight; Cortez burning his ships, and all that.
******
@Confused,
I actually disagree with Sars to some extent. I think that it’s a good idea to talk to Direct Supervisor about your upcoming review, but I don’t think that you need to bring Co-Worker into it right up front. Because the thing is, your job performance is about YOU, not her. Now, if DS “expresses concerns”, as they say, THEN you can say “well why do you think so, I did X and Y and Z just like you asked and gave you just what you wanted,” and then it might come out that CW was talking shit about you. But if you lead in with something CW said while drunk at a party, then you risk coming off as A Tattle-tale Crying Because The Other Girl Said Something Mean, and your complaint won’t be taken as seriously.
As Sars said, “Sabotage of this sort is hard to prove and even harder to get superiors to care about if everyone’s work is more or less getting done.”
I’m actually more concerned about what you say regarding the organization of your workplace, and the reporting responsibilities.
“We… are on the same professional level: middle management.”
See, that’s the thing. You say that this isn’t the main issue, BUT IT SHOULD BE, because unless you’re a direct report to her then SHE SHOULD NOT BE TELLING YOU TO DO THINGS.
“When [CW] doesn’t agree with how I am handing a situation, she will go to our CEO get his “take” on the situation. Then I get an email from her relaying our boss’ decision on how to proceed, despite the fact that it has nothing to do with her and it was something that our boss shouldn’t have been bothered with in the first place.”
Why aren’t you going to DS with THIS? Why is the CEO giving you direction when there’s a layer of management between you and him? I can’t imagine that DS is happy to learn that CW and CEO are cutting him out of the communication loop. Not to mention the confusion that will arise when, inevitably, you get put on two different full-time assignments at once because CEO and DS aren’t talking to each other.
Next time you get an email from CW saying “CEO says do this”, then you DON’T “do this”. You DO walk into DS’s office and say “what do you think about this?” DS gets paid more than you because it’s DS’s job to handle this sort of thing.
Ok, Linda, you don’t have to answer this, but now I’m totally curious: How exactly does one end up in jail for stalking? I mean, I can theoretically see obsessive behavior leading to…something…but, yeah, totally curious.
Loss, was BF always this possessive and pass-agress, or has it developed since you both started college? It seems like maybe she’s a little jealous and resentful that you went away to have new experiences and she’s in the same place, even if it is a bigger city than Collegetown. Then when you come home and still manage to expand your horizons and have good times without her, cue more generalized freaking out, disguised as having issues with the guy of the moment. Not that it would make her behavior more acceptable, but just an idea as to her possible thought process.
I’m with KDubs – I had no clue about thinK. When I first read that I was all “thinK? That’s ridiculous!”
Holy description of two PAST friendships. Past. For a reason.
As Sars said, don’t even think about moving in with her.
@Confused: As usual, Sars’s advice is right on, particularly about the timing of your reviews, but I would also add that in the process of documenting, you should try to get corroborative statements from the other people who were at the table at the party. Your co-worker was arrogant enough to make a potentially self-destructive statement in front of witnesses because she feels that she is protected by her relationship with the CEO, which and whom she controls. In the event that you need to have your DS do an end run around her to to the CEO to protect you, make sure your DS has ammo to prove that it’s not just a “he said-she said” scenario.
Loss: I agree with everyone else that this behavior is completely unacceptable and you need to set boundaries and stick to them. BUT I do want to add that my best friend from high school was similar back then, but a few years apart in college with only sporadic visiting and communication did us a world of good. Now at age 30 we live across the country from each other but I still consider her my best friend, almost like a sister. We manage to visit at least once a year if not more, and even though we don’t talk every day or anything, she’s still one of my favorite people in the whole world, and certainly someone I would still trust with my innermost thoughts and feelings. And that’s a REALLY short list.
I share this story because based on what your letter said, of course everyone thinks she’s a total nutjob and you should cut her loose–but I understand that she’s your best friend and the thought of losing her totally might be really terrible and scary, and therefore cause you not to take the steps to distance yourself that you really do need to take. Thing is, if she really is your best friend, you won’t lose her forever by asserting yourself and building the life you want, need, and deserve to live. What you want is RIGHT and HEALTHY, and yes there will be a painful adjustment period but if you guys are truly forever-friends, you’ll get back there. In a healthier way. And if not, well, then it was something that needed to be done and better sooner than later after even more drama and heartbreak…because if you don’t do something now, that’s what you definitely will get whether she is truly a lifer or not.
Get some distance, have some hard conversations. Long term, it will be one of the best things you’ve ever done. For yourself AND for her. She won’t see it that way at first, but you both need some space to find your own way.
Loss, the word that kept coming up in my mind while reading your letter (although as far as I can tell, you didn’t use it) is Demands.
There are very few circumstances where demands is the right word: Your boss telling you to finish a project, your spouse telling you to get the damn dishes done already, and a kidnapper in touch with a hostage negotiator.
This person may be your friend, but she’s also trying to be your boss, your wife, and frankly makes your letter sound like you’re suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. No, she doesn’t have you tied up in a shed somewhere while she’s pacing in the yard on a cell demanding a helicopter to Argentina, but she’s already kidnapping your time, your emotions, and your free will.
Twelve hours a day, four days in a row??? I don’t spend that much time with my husband! I haven’t spent that much time with anyone since I was an infant demanding constant attention to my physical and emotional needs. I have no idea what’s behind your friend’s regression to a crazy baby state, but you cannot help her. At least not by doing whatever she says, whenever she says it. She’s not in a place where giving into her demands (there it is again) will make her more stable. She’s not going to suddenly realize how much you care for her and magically become realistic and fun. The last line of your letter: “This would be so much easier if we lived in the same place!” is not true. It’s the opposite of true. But it’s what she’s got you believing.
For God’s sake, don’t move in with her. If you want a friendship instead of a scenario where you’re grateful to her for giving you a bowl of gruel and a bucket to piss in, distance is the key word.
I second Cayenne… what was the reaction of other people at your table? Would any of them be willing to at least confirm what she said, if they were asked by your DS?
And @Loss, I still live near my hometown, and while I spent a lot of time with visiting friends at first, eventually they would have visits “to spend time with family” and it was understood that they were too busy to see friends.
It may hurt her the first time you say it, but it’s something she can’t really argue with. It’s polite, but firm. “My family and I rarely see each other, they wanted to spend a weekend with me.” Done. And if a date with your new guy happens to fall on that weekend – oops!
Like Sars says – you need to set up boundaries. Give yourself a hometown weekend where you don’t see her at all. She needs to understand that it won’t kill her.
And “THINK”?! What on earth? I’m so ashamed of myself.
Dear At A Loss,
start making friends in Collegetown. Seriously. The reason why you don’t feel comfortable in Collegetown is that you are spending time in Hometown all the time, and with one friend at that. Do you have any other reasons to visit Hometown other than BF and whatever boyfriend you have at the time? No? Then perhaps you should consider that being Hometown so often is restricting your ability to make new experiences and friends.
I agree that BF needs to grow up already, but you might want to do so too, a little bit. Give Collegetown and its denizens a chance. Then you’ll be visiting Hometown less often, and will find that BF’s deadly grip on your mental time (let alone your actual time) will dissipate.
I also cannot endorse Sars’ “Do not move in with her” advice enough. Living with her can only make her behavior escalate to 24/7, and who wants that?
Confused–I’m inclined to agree with Grainger here. Another possibility, a tough one, that I think you need to consider is that the higher-ups prefer the results they’re getting when your nemesis intervenes. That’s something that you need to ask your DS about nondefensively. “Am I genuinely misunderstanding your expectations of me? Because I’d certainly want to work on that, if so–can we find a way to deal with that directly through the hierarchy?” If your supervisor says they’re perfectly happy with your work and doesn’t think Crazy’s instructions (and if they come from her, they count as hers, not the CEO’s) need to be followed (or would be no better than yours), then focus on clarifying the chain of command. You’re getting contradictory information from two different branches. If the company’s together enough to provide annual reviews, they should be able to grasp that this is a problem.
However, I think there’s a reasonable chance that you’re the only one who takes this person seriously. She’s been doing this for a while, by the sound of it, and you don’t mention any previous annual reviews’ having suffered from her machinations. It’s quite possible that that’s because the higher-ups don’t pay her posturing any attention at all. They’re still not dealing with the situation very well, and that needs to be fixed, but it’s quite possible they don’t see her loose-cannon-ness as significant enough to cause a real problem.
And that’s where I’d say you need to make sure you don’t turn it into a problem called “the two of us can’t get along.” Stick to the issues you can solve without her changing. The fact that this woman makes you crazy–which she does, above and beyond any impact she might have on your company profile–isn’t something the company is going to fix; they’re almost certainly not going to fire her for that, or even make her stop. Address the issue of your direct report and job standing from an “Am I doing the job you’re expecting me to? Am I clear on who I’m supposed to be taking direction from? What do you want me to do if I get direction from the other side?” standpoint, not from the “Beverly says she’s gunning for me” standpoint. Be the person willing to solve the problem, not the person bringing them a bigger problem to solve.
I always knew it was “another think coming” but then my mom used it on me my entire childhood. “You think you’re eating that cookie twenty minutes before dinner you have another think coming!” I thought she was so clever until I went to school and learned about idioms.
BTW, I disagree with Grainger re: going away to college versus going “away” to college. Some people bloom into adults just fine in their hometowns.
I am never going to get the opportunity to call anyone an immature Klingon.
I kinda wish I knew more immature people right now.
More to the point – Loss, if this was a healthy friendship, then the two of you would be able to sit around with a glass of wine and say ‘i miss the good old days when we could hang out constantly!’. But realise without saying it that things change and NO ONE spends that much time with their best friend once they don’t go to the same school or college.
And ‘another think coming’. Not thing. Definitely.
@Hannah,
In Arkansas, Stalking (explained here) in the First Degree is a Class B felony, punishable by 5-20 years in prison.
What is supposed to make your best friend your best friend — the reason, in fact, it’s not a completely useless distinction — is that this is the person who never gives you shit like this, period, full stop, ever, and having one person you know that about can be very valuable. So my first piece of advice is: stop calling her your best friend. You don’t have to cut off contact, you don’t have to stop being her friend, but stop making the two of you a pair. She isn’t the right person to be in an emotionally dependent pairing with you — that can be as true with friends as it is with people you’re dating. Take a step back. Think of her as one among your friends.
Other than that, I agree with everything Sars said about setting boundaries and sticking to them. You seem to intellectually understand the ridiculousness of her demands that you reserve all your time for her, but you don’t act like you do. Start RIGHT NOW, boy or no boy, not spending all your time with one person. That’s not healthy. Nobody should need to know where you are at all times or expect you to account for your time. There are debates over whether SPOUSES should get to do that; friends certainly don’t.
Tell her no, just for no’s sake. If she accuses of you of abandoning her, tell you you’re not and leave it there.
Never — never, never, never — consider anyone your “best friend” if you can’t tell her the truth because of her “temper.” That’s not trust. You need to tell her, “I need more space, and I also need to be able to tell you I need more space without you flipping out.” It is impossible to love someone in a healthy way and fear them at the same time, and when you say you don’t want to rock the boat because of her temper, you’re expressing fear of her, so you have nothing to lose, because this relationship is already broken. Tell her you’re done apologizing, and stop apologizing. Seriously, life is too short for this.
BTW, I disagree with Grainger re: going away to college versus going “away” to college. Some people bloom into adults just fine in their hometowns.
Agreed — but that isn’t the case here. Neither of them can let go. You don’t have to go away to college, but if you do, you have to GO, and stay there, and be in college and not hold on so tight to your old life. I went to university 40 miles from the town I’d spent my whole life in, and it was hard to stay away at first, but you have to do it or it won’t “take.”
I think “Another thing coming” is totally an accepted idiom at this point. Everyone understands it, it makes logical sense, it has as much as a ring to it as “Another think coming,” if not more. What makes it wrong other than that it hasn’t been used for as long? Languages evolve, idioms develop, etc. The fact that it may (or may not – who knows) initially have been based on a mishearing shouldn’t be dispositive.
Oh, and the always wonderful Language Log has dealt with the thing/think question extensively – see, e.g., here and here. One interesting factoid – though the OED says “think” is correct, the earliest citation they give for “thing” is from 1919; for “think,” it’s 1937.
@Loss – Best friend sounds like my ex-husband, which is just a bit frightening. You don’t mention if she’s going to school, working, whatever, but it sounds like what she’s really doing is marking time until you come home. I wonder if she has any social life at all if you’re not there? I agree whole heartedly that distance is needed here, because this does not sound in any way like a healthy relationship.
Confused – the suggestions about clarifying her emails with your supervisor is spot on. For one, you don’t work for crazy lady, so it’s only good sense to et the boss know that any directives s/he passed to you are being bypassed. For another, it allows you to maintain a record or paper trail of crazy lady’s suggestions/demands. In a previous job, I had someone similar who would give me this kind of info verbally. I got into the habit of sending her emails along the lines of “In regards to our discussion in the stairwell this morning, you had suggested ‘A’ although the committee had decided on ‘B.’ Could you please clarify for us…” and then I’d cc: the other committee members. Amazing how quickly she backed off.
Good luck to you both!
@Hannah:
You go to jail for stalking if 1) you’ve been arrested for it and paroled once before, and 2) the next time you stalk someone, she gets a protection order, and you violate it. Then they put you away, as they should.
Honestly, to this day I don’t know the specifics of X’s case. I do know about the first arrest – stalking a former employer who fired her, and I can’t tell you how many HOURS I spent on the phone with her as she moaned about how nuts this person was to think that she was a stalker. Ironically, she got a therapist after that, and when the therapist suddenly terminated therapy (for some undisclosed reason), X began stalking her.
@Loss : Extracting yourself from a codependent relationship is really difficult mentally and physically. Honestly I went to therapy… seriously if you have the means I’d suggest it. Otherwise, make sure you have a support system in place, while your (supposed) bf may be driving you crazy, you give in for a reason and she probably does fulfill some need you have in your life. It can leave you with a feeling of loss to renegotiate or even end a friendship like that, and you’ll need a sympathetic ear to help you come to terms, even if you’re glad to be through with it.
And I would say don’t move in with her… it’ll be way more toxic than you think, even if you renegotiate and establish boundaries.
Add me to the list who never had any idea that “think” was the proper word there. But then again I did have a sister who was obsessed with Judas Priest in 1982 so I probably heard “another thing coming” about a zillion times.
“Another think coming” blows my mind as well. Never would have guessed. Where I come from, we have a tendency to blend words together, and we usually drop the “g” on -ing endings, so I’ve always heard “anothathin’comin'” and thought it was “thing.” I’m glad I don’t use that phrase, then!
@Loss: You almost had me thinking this letter was from my best friend A about her former best friend (but still friend) B, though your situation is much more insane and we’re a bit older. And Maryanne’s note sounds exactly like them: A saying oh, B has had a hard life, I’m the only one she has, and so on. I cannot agree more with Maryanne and with Linda on this, because their suggestions are things A has had to do with B to save their friendship. (Luckily for said friendship, they live hundreds of miles apart from each other.) It’s on you to set the boundaries. PLEASE do yourself a favor and embrace College Town and your life there, and DO NOT feel guilty about it. As has been said, your real friends are not people you fear. Spend your time with them. It isn’t fun walking on eggshells.
“Never — never, never, never — consider anyone your “best friend” if you can’t tell her the truth because of her “temper.” That’s not trust. You need to tell her, “I need more space, and I also need to be able to tell you I need more space without you flipping out.” It is impossible to love someone in a healthy way and fear them at the same time…”
It would be difficult, if not impossible, to overstate how much I agree with everything Linda just said, but particularly the last bit. And Sars’ postscript about not, under any circumstances, sharing living space with this person. Wow, do I agree with that! Someone who can’t understand your need for space is not your friend, and not someone it’s possible to be friends with – at least not with things the way they are right now. If she’s your friend, then YOUR well-being is important to her. If she’s not behaving like that’s true, and from what you’ve said she’s not, then no deal. Setting boundaries is hard, and it takes practice. But you can do it.
Start now. I daresay you have the Nation behind you.
I second @meltina’s suggestion to Loss to dig in more in College Town and cool it with the home visits. Once or twice a month? For what I think I’m reading as at least two years? Yikes. Even if there are a million wonderful reasons to visit Hometown, you have to stop living with a foot in each place. Join an intramural team, a student org, get a job…something that will really plant you in College Town for several continuous weekends. Visiting home should be a more exceptional event, not the rule. The fact that you say you’re more comfortable in Hometown speaks volumes. Use the process of establishing some boundaries with BF as an excuse to plant better roots in College Town and see what it feels like to really live there. Who knows – maybe there are people there who already want to get to know you better. I think the more you make friends there and establish a fun weekend routine you don’t want to leave, the more you’ll begin to feel like you belong. That feeling will help lessen your dependence on BF, which is decidedly for the best.
And though it’s not your responsibility to take care of BF, this will actually be a good thing for her, too. You’re enabling each other to stay entrenched in old routines, old roles, old relationships…at the detriment of new growth. You don’t have to make new friends because you have each other, and that’s a shame. The proximity you share with other students at college provides the easiest and most fruitful friendship environment around (except, heh, grad school). You’re *right there* with hundreds of your peers and lots of free time. Don’t let the familiar pull of home and BF keep you from diving in and enjoying your time in College Town. Take risks. Put yourself out there. Have fun.
Everyone understands it, it makes logical sense, it has as much as a ring to it as “Another think coming,” if not more.
But there’s no parallel structure with “if you think.” The point is in the repetition of “think,” and “another thing coming” doesn’t actually make sense in that context. What other thing? If you aren’t going to repeat the word “think,” why not just say, “If you think X, you’re wrong”?
The reason that people say “another THING coming” is that they’re used to reads-like-it-spells-like-it-sounds (or however that goes), and modern Americans slur their speech. While we write “another think coming”, we typically _say_ “another thinkoming”, which leads to the confusion.
My little sister once came home in tears from second grade because she’d failed a “writing test”. Her paper, marked ‘zero’, had “thu dag ron torsa chree”. It turns out that this was in fact what the teacher had SAID, but what she MEANT was “the dog ran towards the tree”…
Loss, your question and the comments thus far have got me wondering: Why does this girl need to know when you’re in town at all? Does she get a daily faxed update of everyone entering and leaving city limits or something? I realize your families are tight, but unless she/her fam are actually at your house when you show up, why on earth does she Need To Know the itinerary? Or that you’re coming at all?
If it’s because she’s convinced you that she is entitled that intel, you have permission stop now. Go home, visit, date, whatever, and go back to school without informing her at all sometimes. If/when she finds out and pitches a fit, employ all the other wise suggestions you’ve received so far. You don’t owe her proof that your feelings are legitimate! In fact, if you’re hoping there’s some explanation that will help her magically see everything your way… won’t happen. Not until a lot of time has passed anyway. Stop taking responsibility for her feelings, set some boundaries for now and leave it up to her how she deals.
I’m Australian, and I’ve only ever heard “another think coming”. The substitution of “another thing coming” doesn’t really make sense to me.
So what if you never actually start with “If you think x…”? Because sometimes I look at my dog while I’m eating something delicious, and he appears eager to share. I say, “Oh Ren, you’ve got another thing coming, buddy!” and I give him a dog treat, but not my human food, because that is a thing, but it’s a separate thing from the thing which he was hoping to get. I guess mainly I am sad about being wrong because I consider myself to be fairly smart, and now I feel stupid. I read a lot and have never even heard “another think coming” until today. 27 years is a long time to go without knowing something like that. I guess being born in the Judas Priest era doesn’t help. Sigh.
@Confused: If you have an HR department at your business, I’d talk to someone from HR immediately after talking with your direct supervisor. Explain your concerns just like you explained them to your supervisor, and ask that it goes into the official records — yours, and your crazy co-worker’s.
Speaking as someone who fully was that crazy friend, I more than agree with Sars and posters. When I went to college with my best friend, I was super possessive- I was underage up here in Canada but she wasn’t, and we’d always been in a pattern where I got more attention, friend and boyfriend wise, than she did. And I needed that thanks to my own super insecurity issues and daddy-doesn’t-love-me syndrome, to the point where I emotionally blackmailed her into skipping a friend’s goodbye party because I couldn’t go with her.
Obvi, she pulled away. She got a boyfriend and other friends and just stopped talking to me about things, told me when I was over the line – etc. And it was really painful- but not nearly as painful as realizing what i’d been doing to this girl I thought of as my friend. She has since forgiven me and we do have a legitimate friendship now, but we had to go through a year of really terrible things before I faced up to my insanity. And the only reason I could was because she forced me to.
So I really agree with the poster above- if you ever want to have an actual friendship with her where you don’t feel threatened when you do what you want to, you HAVE to set boundaries and fast.
The think vs. thing convo is so vindicating for me. I once got into an argument with my know-it-all mom about this very subject, with her insisting it’s “thing,” and me insisting that didn’t make a damn bit of sense. But no, she was convinced that the phrase was “If you think that, you’ve got another thing coming,” which makes even LESS sense than if you separate the latter part of the sentence from the former.
Now I just need to figure out how I’m going to work this into casual conversation…..
But there’s no parallel structure with “if you think.” The point is in the repetition of “think,” and “another thing coming” doesn’t actually make sense in that context. What other thing? If you aren’t going to repeat the word “think,” why not just say, “If you think X, you’re wrong”?
I think “you’ve got another thing coming” has a threatening vibe – it implies some sort of physical action, danger, retaliation coming at the person who’s wrong. At least, that’s normally how I hear it used, I feel like.
I’m also Australian and I’ve also never heard anything but “another think coming”. My mother used to say it all the time while I was growing up.
I think “you’ve got another thing coming” has a threatening vibe
I agree — but so does “think” (at least, in the tone my mother always used) (heh).
Alison of a Gun says:
February 3, 2010 at 2:32 PM
(…) Also isn’t the “correct” way kind of…incorrect? Is “think” even a noun? How do non-English speakers ever learn our crazy language? I’ve been speaking it 28 years and I feel like an idiot!
As someone with English as their second language: it ´s half the fun heh. Had no idea about this either…
One of the reasons ‘thing’ may be so common is its prevalence in the idiom “And another thing…” when tacking on a subsequent thought to a discussion (or rant). It’s like cross-pollination!
Me, I never heard ‘another think’. Our house was a ‘you’d better think again’ house.
I had no idea it was “think” either! What really gets me though is that I read a lot too and I swear I’ve always seen “thing” because if I’d seen “think” I would have been surprised, and never would have forgotten it!
Will wonders never cease?