The Connie-Maggie saga continues ...

[Lexophile]

This is now my third installment in this story. Anyone not familiar with it can review "Why is everyone so afraid of her?" and "OK, now I really don't know what to do."

To sum up, extremely difficult "teammate" Connie has been treating team leader, Maggie with complete disrespect. Maggie just yesterday was announced to be the supervisor of our team, so Connie can no longer blow off Maggie without incurring serious penalties. Connie has bullied and bad-mouthed pretty much everyone on our team and made a complete yoohoo! Moderators!  Ban me now! of herself because she wanted Maggie's job. I posted yesterday that the announcement was coming down, and Connie's reign of rotten behavior was about to come to a very sudden halt.

Maggie predicted that Connie would do one of two things. She'd fight it tooth and nail or she'd immediately start playing nice. Well, all day today, Connie has been sucking up to Maggie. Maggie says she's been chatty, pleasant, and responsive. I'm relieved for Maggie (for now, because I don't know how long it will last) that Connie is checking in her behavior and recognizing Maggie's new authority.

Now here's the interesting part.

Also announced yesterday was that I am no longer to be considered an admin. I am to be classified as a technical editor and assigned work accordingly. The General Manager made it abundantly clear that NOBODY is to perform editorial reviews but me. That message was also conveyed to Connie yesterday. Thank goodness I am on Maggie's good side because now Connie is angry about me claiming all of editorial work! It's only fair for me to have right of first refusal - I am the one who worked three years to bild my clientele. I am the one who slogged through all of the red tape and marketed my skills to generate the attention to quality control needed to sustain a full-time editorial position. I am the one with the experience and education to call myself qualified to edit documents. Connie only recently started trying to lure away some of my editorial work because she didn't want to be on the admin team either. She succeeded in convincing a few project managers to give her some editorial work, but now that has been taken away because of the GM's announcement.

Connie has responded with one-word answers to my emails today. I have already told Maggie that I am not going to play Connie's little game. I can see Connie trying to turn Maggie against me now (she tried it once before with a different teammate after I left smaller company) and I let Maggie know what my fear was, and now I'm going to drop it. This is going to be an interesting few weeks ahead.

[Suze]

congrats on the technical editor positon.

And keep an eye on your back -- I see Connie with a knife

Good for you for not sinking to her level.  I hope that Connie relizes that she is not in KinderGarden anymore, and having a temper tantrum won't work anymore.

[sammycat]

Congrats on your new position. 

I don't think Connie will be around much longer.  Whether it's because she jumps or she's pushed will be interesting to see.

[Lexophile]

Yes, It will be. She has now started badgering me over a week-long meeting I scheduled for one of my project managers. One of her PMs gave permission for us to move his meeting and I had to ask her to do it because Outlook will only allow the original meeting organizer to change the meeting. She has since come back asking me all kinds of questions about what kind of meeting it is, am I going to be taking detailed notes, etc. Because I am no longer an admin, I won't have the time for things like taking notes in a meeting. I recognized this as one of Connie's notorious fishing expeditions, so I did not answer her emails. It's driving her nuts. Maggie laughed when I said she would probably try and turn her against me. I am perfectly confident in my relationship with Maggie, and Connie is just stupid and predictable enough to try it. I am actually looking forward to it.

[blue2000]

Maggie laughed when I said she would probably try and turn her against me

Connie sounds like a colossal idiot! I think I'd be laughing, too.
IMO, Connie has cooked her own goose with that one. Since she tried (unsuccessfully) to badmouth Maggie out of a job, there is no way Maggie is going to go for her badmouthing you out of yours.

[hobish]

Yes, It will be. She has now started badgering me over a week-long meeting I scheduled for one of my project managers. One of her PMs gave permission for us to move his meeting and I had to ask her to do it because Outlook will only allow the original meeting organizer to change the meeting. She has since come back asking me all kinds of questions about what kind of meeting it is, am I going to be taking detailed notes, etc. Because I am no longer an admin, I won't have the time for things like taking notes in a meeting. I recognized this as one of Connie's notorious fishing expeditions, so I did not answer her emails. It's driving her nuts. Maggie laughed when I said she would probably try and turn her against me. I am perfectly confident in my relationship with Maggie, and Connie is just stupid and predictable enough to try it. I am actually looking forward to it.

If you are using MSN Outlook you can cancel meetings. You can also put your out of office assistant on to send out an automatic message saying that if someone is trying to contact you for Admin. duties contact blahblahwhoever instead. List your immediate senior on the out of office message & a general department extension if you have one. You can set it up so that you do still get e-mails that you should/want to get.

If you don't have a general department ext. for admin list whoever would be next to contact after you, whether it be up or down the scale is your judgement.

Delete Connie's e-mails & don't let them distract you from your new job. You're outside of it all now, no?

and furthermore... I am no longer to be considered an admin. I am to be classified as a technical editor and assigned work accordingly. The General Manager made it abundantly clear that NOBODY is to perform editorial reviews but me.

YEEEEAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!  

That's great!

[Lunadiana75]

Woot!  Congrats!

Just keep that level head you have and hand Connie the rope.  She'll hang herself, they always do. 

[ShadesOfGrey]

yes, congrats. 

[Slartibartfast]

I'm so happy for you - you finally got the position you've been working so hard for!

It sounds like Connie's painted herself into a corner - both you and her now-manager know what a little manipulator she is, and she's overplayed her hand making it obvious she's the one causing the problems.  Sit back, ignore her, and edit to your heart's content :-)