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Ask Slashdot: How Would You Deal With A 'Gaslighting' Colleague?

Posted by EditorDavid on from the just-because-you're-paranoid dept.

An anonymous reader writes: What's the best unofficial way to deal with a gaslighting colleague? For those not familiar, I mean "bullies unscheduling things you've scheduled, misplacing files and other items that you are working on and co-workers micro-managing you and being particularly critical of what you do and keeping it under their surveillance. They are watching you too much, implying or blatantly saying that you are doing things wrong when, in fact, you are not...a competitive maneuver, a way of making you look bad so that they look good." I'd add poring over every source-code commit, and then criticizing it even if the criticism is contradictory to what he previously said.
The submission adds that "Raising things through the official channels is out of the question, as is confronting the colleague in question directly as he is considered something of a superstar engineer who has been in the company for decades and has much more influence than any ordinary engineer." So leave your best suggestions in the comments. How would you deal with a gaslighting colleague?

6 of 433 comments (clear)

  1. What I do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    in these situations is murder them. I'll sneak into their house at night, while they are sleeping, and first I cut out their tongue. Then I stab them in the eyes, then I take two icepicks, and I jam them in their ears. With all of that complete, the next step involves me raping them in the mouth, butt, and/or vagina (if they have one). I leave them lying on the floor, and I steal all their valuables.

    I haven't been caught yet.

    1. Re:What I do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Listen to AC, submitter. He's the HR director at the company I work at.

  2. Easy! by ArchieBunker · · Score: 3, Funny

    Plant ISIS literature on his PC and then call the feds.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  3. I had a micromanaging boss at HP once. by mark_reh · · Score: 5, Funny

    We'd have department meetings and no matter what anyone else came up with, his idea was somehow always better. After a while we all just clammed up in the meetings, let him have his say, then we had our own, informal dept meetings without him over lunch. We eventually decided that the best way to get rid of him was to make him look good so he'd get promoted away. It took about 6 months but we made it happen. His boss saw what was going on and asked me about it and I told him the whole thing. My immediate boss ended up getting "promoted" to a position as an "individual contributor".

    When they go low, you go high...

  4. Re:Yes, GTHO out of there by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Funny

    You shouldn't have given them ALL the passwords. "Sorry, that's all I've got. Jerkface must have deleted the rest. You deal with it." As a famous comedian said, "Always leave them wanting more." :-)

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  5. Re: Leave. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    He says he didn't take my stapler, but I would burn the building down.