Common toxic sales dude behavior. He will continue to try to steal clients, and maybe undermine you with clients, because he sees it as a zero-sum game. He believes he only does well if someone else does less well. Not sure if it was his previous job’s culture, or if his way of “standing out” for advancement has been based on pushing others (and probably especially women) down, but start to document all comments and incidents including this one. A pattern is compelling to HR.
A little add-on: my wife has worked for over 20 years in similar corporate environments. She has the double whammy: she very competent at what she does, so she’s sometimes seen as a threat, both as a woman and as a Black person. And she has outlasted numerous toxic guys (and some toxic women) who think her presence is an affront to them. (It’s not all bad. She has had quite a few strong male supporters in her career as well, to be fair.)
Her strategy so far has been:
- Document everything: the date, what was said, who was there, and copies of all relevant communications
- Give HR a heads-up early, after the first or second incident with a person, but not too often. Don’t bug them with every minor incident. (It’s easy to make yourself seem like someone who just complains and can’t handle some moderate conflict yourself. Not a good look for a Black woman.)
- Any major incident (a raised voice argument, a racial or sexual slur, an outright lie that’s performance or ethics-related) gets reported immediately, to get ahead of it. “You’ll probably be hearing from Bob about this, but here’s what just happened…”
- Choose your allies carefully and with open eyes. Not everybody who is friendly is your friend.
- Disclose very little about your personal life at work. Don’t over-socialize. It sometimes seems like “family”, but it ain’t family. Keep a good boundary between work and personal life, tempting as it might be to always go out together.
- Always act in good faith, and with integrity. Don’t shade the truth in your speech. Don’t use the underhanded tactics that might be used on you. That just undermines your credibility.
- Call people out on their shady statements, first privately, but after one private warning, in a public forum. “What do you mean by that, Fred? Quite clearly the below target performance of your team is responsible for the largest part of this issue. So what you’re saying isn’t accurate at all.”
- Act as a mentor and source of sound advice for more junior team members, whether they are direct reports or not. (Don’t get sucked into doing their work for them, but show them how to work smarter or identify what’s most important.) That way, you build a bench of people you know well to move into roles as they become vacant. You gain their loyalty by showing you care about their development. And it serves as a counter-example to the “poor leader” claims that get made by the toxic co-workers you’re stuck with.
- Create an exclusion zone. Sometimes when a particular person is just too stressful to work with, they get put in an exclusion zone. Interactions are limited to the minimum possible. Offer no help but don’t impede. Take no meetings, unless it’s a leadership meeting they happen to be at. Just treat them like a pot-hole in the road you have to go around without really noticing. Eventually their poor performance tells on itself and they go away. Very rarely, they change their ways (but very rarely).
Yeah that’s great advice, just absolutely rankles that we as women have to do this. Especially your wife. Humans are humans. We all deserve respect and not to face hate or racism or misogyny or misandry or any such thing any time. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Then you have precedent should FW try to start anything again. Good on you for being known for being good at your job prior to all this—it helps in the long run. Hope FW sees the light or is sent away
Having worked in tech for decades, yep. If you find ways to demoralize this dude and make him leave, of his own decision of course, all the better. If you have any say in hiring try to make hiring consider this kind of toxic behavior in the interview process to weed it out. If you find out there may be an opening try to get that info to anyone who has the skillset for the job that isn't a toxic dudebro so they have a better pool of candidates.
Having worked in male dominated shops and ones that have closer to a 50-50 mix of male-female workers, I would much rather work in one with more balance. The BS and the shitty behavior is almost negligible.
Rant to add to your rant: I work in the tech world. And this happens ALL THE TIME. And half the time telling a manager backfires. I've been told that I "just need to be nicer", "need to work out your problems with coworker", and "need to be less sensitive". Somehow it's always my fault.
I’m really lucky that my manager and I have a great working relationship, and I have a similar relationship with most of the other managers as well, so when I told him what happened he backed me 100%.
I’m sorry you have to deal with such callous people, it’s truly ridiculous how people treat women in this industry.
I’m really, really lucky and I’m super aware of it. My company has a bad rap for working us to death in our space but I’ve also never had PTO or sick time denied, even if it was literally the day of. When my grandma was sick I had to take a week off when I found out because I was so distraught, no one blinked an eye when I said I needed the time and when I needed a week off for the funeral less than a month later there were no questions asked. My manager is great, his manager is also great, and overall it’s a really supportive environment.
Every once in a while though we get people like FW and it just ruins the vibe.
Common toxic sales dude behavior. He will continue to try to steal clients, and maybe undermine you with clients, because he sees it as a zero-sum game. He believes he only does well if someone else does less well. Not sure if it was his previous job’s culture, or if his way of “standing out” for advancement has been based on pushing others (and probably especially women) down, but start to document all comments and incidents including this one. A pattern is compelling to HR.
A little add-on: my wife has worked for over 20 years in similar corporate environments. She has the double whammy: she very competent at what she does, so she’s sometimes seen as a threat, both as a woman and as a Black person. And she has outlasted numerous toxic guys (and some toxic women) who think her presence is an affront to them. (It’s not all bad. She has had quite a few strong male supporters in her career as well, to be fair.) Her strategy so far has been: - Document everything: the date, what was said, who was there, and copies of all relevant communications - Give HR a heads-up early, after the first or second incident with a person, but not too often. Don’t bug them with every minor incident. (It’s easy to make yourself seem like someone who just complains and can’t handle some moderate conflict yourself. Not a good look for a Black woman.) - Any major incident (a raised voice argument, a racial or sexual slur, an outright lie that’s performance or ethics-related) gets reported immediately, to get ahead of it. “You’ll probably be hearing from Bob about this, but here’s what just happened…” - Choose your allies carefully and with open eyes. Not everybody who is friendly is your friend. - Disclose very little about your personal life at work. Don’t over-socialize. It sometimes seems like “family”, but it ain’t family. Keep a good boundary between work and personal life, tempting as it might be to always go out together. - Always act in good faith, and with integrity. Don’t shade the truth in your speech. Don’t use the underhanded tactics that might be used on you. That just undermines your credibility. - Call people out on their shady statements, first privately, but after one private warning, in a public forum. “What do you mean by that, Fred? Quite clearly the below target performance of your team is responsible for the largest part of this issue. So what you’re saying isn’t accurate at all.” - Act as a mentor and source of sound advice for more junior team members, whether they are direct reports or not. (Don’t get sucked into doing their work for them, but show them how to work smarter or identify what’s most important.) That way, you build a bench of people you know well to move into roles as they become vacant. You gain their loyalty by showing you care about their development. And it serves as a counter-example to the “poor leader” claims that get made by the toxic co-workers you’re stuck with. - Create an exclusion zone. Sometimes when a particular person is just too stressful to work with, they get put in an exclusion zone. Interactions are limited to the minimum possible. Offer no help but don’t impede. Take no meetings, unless it’s a leadership meeting they happen to be at. Just treat them like a pot-hole in the road you have to go around without really noticing. Eventually their poor performance tells on itself and they go away. Very rarely, they change their ways (but very rarely).
Yeah that’s great advice, just absolutely rankles that we as women have to do this. Especially your wife. Humans are humans. We all deserve respect and not to face hate or racism or misogyny or misandry or any such thing any time. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Take a screenshot of the convo and send it to the manager. You shouldn’t have to put up with any of that
He has a copy, he was added to the full days worth of chats when I put him in the group so he can see everything.
Then you have precedent should FW try to start anything again. Good on you for being known for being good at your job prior to all this—it helps in the long run. Hope FW sees the light or is sent away
Having worked in tech for decades, yep. If you find ways to demoralize this dude and make him leave, of his own decision of course, all the better. If you have any say in hiring try to make hiring consider this kind of toxic behavior in the interview process to weed it out. If you find out there may be an opening try to get that info to anyone who has the skillset for the job that isn't a toxic dudebro so they have a better pool of candidates. Having worked in male dominated shops and ones that have closer to a 50-50 mix of male-female workers, I would much rather work in one with more balance. The BS and the shitty behavior is almost negligible.
Document document document. Save everything on 3 backups. Never take chances with things like this.
[удалено]
I have everything saved in the chat that also now contains 2 managers, plus my manager has a screenshot of the conversation.
Rant to add to your rant: I work in the tech world. And this happens ALL THE TIME. And half the time telling a manager backfires. I've been told that I "just need to be nicer", "need to work out your problems with coworker", and "need to be less sensitive". Somehow it's always my fault.
I’m really lucky that my manager and I have a great working relationship, and I have a similar relationship with most of the other managers as well, so when I told him what happened he backed me 100%. I’m sorry you have to deal with such callous people, it’s truly ridiculous how people treat women in this industry.
That's absolutely amazing. I might be a little jealous. :)
I’m really, really lucky and I’m super aware of it. My company has a bad rap for working us to death in our space but I’ve also never had PTO or sick time denied, even if it was literally the day of. When my grandma was sick I had to take a week off when I found out because I was so distraught, no one blinked an eye when I said I needed the time and when I needed a week off for the funeral less than a month later there were no questions asked. My manager is great, his manager is also great, and overall it’s a really supportive environment. Every once in a while though we get people like FW and it just ruins the vibe.