Witch hunt at work

[Anonymous]

Has anyone been in the position where a co-worker has a vendetta against you and is out for blood?

How do you handle it professionally?

When should one get HR or even a lawyer involved?

[Anonymous]

Start looking for another job. Don't bother going to HR, they will not help you. Chances are they already know the person is crazy and don't care or don't have the green light to do anything. If the employee is in well with management reporting them will just paralyze any chances of movement you have within that company. It's not right, it's not fair but despite all the Whistleblower protections, it's the truth.

Signed,

HR who has both dealt with this issue between employees and been on the receiving end of a crazy co-worker

[Anonymous]

unfortunately -- pp is largely correct. Try to get a new job...there's someone like this in every office

[Anonymous]

I have to agree with the PPs. You can bring it to the attention of management but chances are this person has done this before and management is aware of it. IMO you need to let them know what's going on to give them the opportunity to do something about it but I would have no expectation that something will happen in the short term. You really can't win in this situation and you owe no loyalty to a company who is willing to tolerate (and, therefore, tacitly encourage) this sort of behavior. Get out of there.

[Anonymous]

Document everything, but in a casual, non-crazy way that does not make it appear that you're documenting everything.

Don't engage with the co-worker. Smile politely and make vague comments that neither agree or disagree with him/her, like "I see" "that's interesting" "how about that." Just don't respond directly to whatever s/he is doing.

And as others have said, you need to determine whether management is the type that has or will let this happen. If so, work on your exit strategy.

[Anonymous]

I'm leaving the company because of this coworker. So that's already solved.

However, the this seems to have just spurred the coworker on this mission to find something to ruin my reputation.

This person uses people of authority (our boss) to compel me to respond to emails, questions, etc. If I don't respond, I look bad.

A part of me wants to just no longer respond to requests and go silent. I contacted a lawyer and he thinks I would have a great case for discrimination, harassment, and slander should I want to pursue that avenue.

[Anonymous]

Just curious- in what type of occupation does this happen? I've never experienced (nor even heard of) anything like this. I'm so sorry, OP, that truly sounds awful! Do you know if something provoked this person? Is it a recent thing with someone that you have known for a while?

[Anonymous]

Op, I think you need to follow your lawyer's advice, not ours.

[Anonymous]

question for OP - if the co-worker uses cc'ing your boss to get you to respond, where is your boss on all this? Deos Boss expect you to respond to every query from co-worker?

Are you in your last two weeks?

If a lawyer thinks you have a case, can you go in with your lawyer and talk to the higher ups and get some sort of settlement?

[Anonymous]

I think you should pursue this if you are leaving anyhow. It sends the message that this type of harassment is not ok and might protect others in the future.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I'm trying to leave without a lawsuit or going down that path, but it seems like this coworker is bent on this. Honestly, at this point I'm pretty sure my boss is involved too.

The lawyer said that he should stay out of it unless they try to prevent me from leaving and / or starting a new position. They haven't yet tried to do that, so I haven't gotten him involved.

On some level, though, I wonder if I am doing more harm to myself by waiting to lawyer up than just doing it now. Maybe I'll give him a call again.

I'm contemplating bringing a lawsuit to send a message, but at the moment I want to make sure my future is secured before engaging in any litigation. I work for the government.

[Anonymous]

OP, do you work for the government as stated above, or for "a company" as I think you said in an earlier email?

If for the government, do you belong to a Federal employee's union? There might be some protections that you could call upon.

Are you being descriminated against in the sense that it's due to a particular aspect like being part of a minority group, or harrassed for personal reasons? And why would your boss support this?

I would lawyer up and sue them.

[Anonymous]

Yes! Got fired. Best thing that ever happened.3 months later I got a better job. She was on people's shit lists for firing me I really think she was jealous of me.

[Anonymous]

Yes, been there...with a friggin' pervert supervisor who did something sketchy and I complained to HR thinking it would help. Instead it made things really, really bad. He was out for blood.

Agree with others-find a new job. Once you have a new job share all your documentation with HR and file a complaint so if anyone does try to stick it out by going the HR route, there will be a complaint on file validating their concerns.

[Anonymous]

Get that person first? And then claim insanity? People like that usually deserve it.