How to Succeed at FAIL

There is a girl (I can't bring myself to call her a 'woman') at work who I've given every benefit of the doubt. I have tried my very hardest to put on my imaginary 'WWJD' bracelet, which for me is asking a whole hell of a lot considering I'm not even Christian. Amongst my office friends, there have been many discussions about this girl, trying to discern what exactly it is that is wrong with her. "She must not know what a total asshole she is." "No. She knows. She just does not care." "Heather is on a power trip." "It's all about showing us that she's the smartest, but the way she goes about it just makes her look stupid." The theories abound.

When I first started working the job I'm at, I just thought that maybe she was over-zealous. That quickly morphed into her being a busy-body. From there she became, in my eyes, a bully. After that, as I became more comfortable with (and aware of) my surroundings, I began to realize the situation was much more complex that I could have ever imagined. Here's how good ole Heather totally succeeds... At FAIL.

Heather is friends with our manager, Carla. Carla doesn't have any managerial experience at all, and Heather takes full advantage of this. She takes every opportunity to put her two cents in about everything, whether she's asked for her input or not. Heather managed to royally piss off and alienate the one guy in our department, Brian. Brian is a really nice guy who's easy to get along with. She told him that he was rude and demeaning to everyone in the department. None of us have any idea what she's talking about. Heather is an employee of another company that supports the firm that I work for. That company doesn't have management on-site, so it seems like she feels that since her boss isn't around she can do whatever she wants... He'll never know. She texts all day long (with Carla) and giggles incessantly about the texts. The rest of us are constantly paranoid that the texts are about us, although we've all gone way past the point of actually caring anymore. She comes in to work in the morning talking on her cell phone, then proceeds to sit down at her desk and talk to her boyfriend about nothing in particular for at least 15 minutes before starting to work... This wouldn't be a problem if she didn't talk LOUDLY and laugh like a hyena. She interjects herself into any personal conversation being had by anyone in the department, because really, it's all about her.

The final straw for me came earlier today. I inherited some files that she had begun work on previously. This is nothing out of the ordinary--I'm still relatively new, and someone had to inherit part of her workload to offset the overflow. This morning I was checking a file that I had inherited from her, and I noticed that she had made notations in the file two days ago. Two days ago? What? I'm perplexed. So I read the note, and it was barely even in English. I suppose it would pass for English in West Virginia or somewhere... But I'm not from West Virginia and WHY ARE YOU IN MY FILE????? I could not for the life of me figure out what she had done or what I needed to do to proceed from the notation she made. I did however, see from her hillbilly-ese that she had spoken to Carla about the file. So I emailed Carla and CC'd Heather. I copied her notation into the email and asked that, in the future, if there are going to be complex issues discussed on my files, that I'd like to be involved and CC'd on emails.

The first reply I got back was from Heather:
"Hence the note."

It was all I could do not to reply:
But I can't read your fucking hillbilly language. Speak English you damn mongoloid!!!!!!!!!!

Instead I took a deeeep breath, collected myself and began to send another email explaining why I thought it was important to be kept in the loop, since I'm responsible for the outcome of these files, etc, when I get an email from Carla:
"Stop it."

Very professional. Did I forget to mention that Heather and Carla are like two little peas in a little friggin pod? No? I mentioned it? Well, it bears mentioning again. Anyway, long story short, I got shut down by Carla, who told me that Heather's hillbilly note in my file was more than sufficient and that I need to stop bickering. Heather succeeded in completely alienating herself not only from me, but also from everyone else who is friends with me in the office. I.e. everyone else. FAIL succeeded. It's about to get Biblical.


*To protect the not-so-innocent, all names have been changed.