This post is going to be a bit of a rant. Lately I seem to be coming across people at work who have certain characteristics that I just can’t seem to accept. I have been working for a long time and I have had my fair share of annoying, difficult individuals. Somehow, I’ve always managed the situation and not let it affect my life. This however, is not the case now. And I don’t know if I have changed and become less tolerant or whether people just seem to be getting more and more unscrupulous by the day.

Some people lie. I don’t mean minor white lies. We’ve all said those little things like “yes, I’ve requested for the details”, when in actuality you’re just drafting the email. But this is not like one of those instances. This is when someone completely denies what has been said. Flat out saying “I never said that!”, without even blinking. Going back on your word, promising to do something and then not being sorry about not delivering. Worse still is, completely denying you ever made the promise in the first place. I just don’t know how to deal with people like that. So what do you do? Put everything in writing? I don’t think that will really work in every circumstance. How is that even practical?

The cherry on top of the cake then is using these lies to put the blame on me in the end. So because I am naïve enough to want to trust people, I become the incompetent fool.

I am lost. I am lost and miserable. I don’t want to confront this person because I know I will never be able to keep up with the lies and underhandedness. What is this world I live in where I can’t count on having a face-to-face conversation with a person because everything said will just be denied. Oh, and did I mention the rudeness? When I say, “I thought we agreed…”, I met with a look of shock and anger, as if I am the one twisting the truth or even how dare I mention anything of the sort.

I am stumped! For the first time, I don’t have a clue as to what I should do. I realise that there may be nothing I can do to change this person’s behaviour. Worse still, I can’t avoid working with the person either. So I have to watch every step I take and install some kind of rear view mirror to make sure I don’t get stabbed in the back.

I grew up with the notion that a person’s integrity meant everything and your word should count for something. I guess that’s why it’s bothering me so much that these values are being mutilated. I may be sad and disappointed, but I’m certainly not going to change my ways to be devious and conniving. I’m just going to take it one day at a time and hope that at some point things get better.

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