Woman Gets Promoted Above Rude Colleague, Serves Cold Rev…

I (F36) have a colleague Jamie (F43). I started 3.5 years ago at our org and she came on not long after. I began part-time in my role doing fundraising while was full-time in administration. We’re on a team of 7 people, so pretty small, and I’m the only fundraising person there. Our org is probably around 50 or so altogether. At first things were good. We shared an office, bantered, talked about our weekends and little casual life stuff. Totally friendly vibes.

Then a year ago, I started sensing a power dynamic shift. I was growing in my role and starting to take more initiative even being part-time. At this point she started leaving me out of important fundraising-related meetings and conversations, despite her not having any fundraising expertise and an entirely unrelated role. Any time I’d try to get information or remind her to include me, she would either talk around the issue, do it once and then “forget”, or ignore me altogether. She would also put wildly inappropriate numbers in our budget and resist any feedback from me about how to adjust them.

One time in a meeting Jamie spouted some completely inaccurate, wildly overblown fundraising numbers and I gently corrected it, saying something like “To clarify, we’re still in discussions about these numbers so things might shift”. She turned to me with a nasty expression and shut me down by whispering something rude that only I could hear. For various reason I won’t get into, going to our cynical, checked-out boss wasn’t a good option, and HR doesn’t really exist at our org. My part-time role meant I also had little power. I decided to start looking for a new job.

But then a full-time person on a different team had to take medical leave, and I offered to step in and cover some of her work for a few months. Ultimately I was offered her job and moved into a full-time position. The org even let me help rewrite the job description so I could continue doing some fundraising plus her job, and have my own assistant to share the load! It was a big promotion for our kind of nonprofit org. I even got my own office while Jamie had to keep sharing with two other people, which I’ll admit felt good. And while I’m not totally sure, I’m pretty certain I’m making more than Jamie now too.

Now Jamie only gets a half smile and a curt “hey” when I arrive at work. I don’t even stop by her office to say hi or goodnight, and we only speak when necessary. I also started signing off all my emails to her with “Best” instead of “Thanks”, and am completely boring and neutral-professional around her. Meanwhile, my new assistant (for whom I wrote the job description and got to help interview and hire!) is absolutely fantastic. I took her out to lunch the other day to celebrate her first few months here. As she was about to go back into her office she now shares with Jamie, she asked if we could do lunch more regularly. I said, “Sure, let’s make it monthly!” Jamie was in there to overhear the whole thing and I honestly hope she did. She ain’t getting any lunch with me – that’s something you gotta earn by being a good colleague, and she’s been nothing but dismissive and disrespectful to me.

I can tell it’s getting to her. She has been over performing friendliness to me, fishing for me to get chummy again, and sharing news of any tiny donations coming in as if we should be jumping up and down screaming like children at recess. I’m always extremely calm and cordial to her, and always collaborative in meetings. She continues ignoring any emails where I remind of something or give a directive without a question. I know I’m getting under her skin and she knows I have more power now. I would never sabotage her but it feels good knowing she feels intimidated and unstable. She should! This is what happens when you’re an insecure, rude colleague at work.