“You’re Not Good, You’re Not Bad, You’re Just Nice”
One of the women in my department is very “nice”. The type of overly fake, obviously performative “nice” that only works on people playing the same game, as well as the terminally oblivious. The type where being in the know and part of the “in group” is more important than anything, even if there’s no “in group” to be a part of. Let’s just say I wasn’t shocked when I learned that her prior job was as “brand coordinator” for a fashion magazine, and that her entire life and livelihood was making connections in a notoriously hoity-toity industry.
She constantly mangles and misuses industry and in-company terms, including peppering in phrases from her old job(s) which don’t apply here, leaving folks confused. She has a terrible habit of using the bathroom for fifteen to twenty minutes both before and after her lunch almost every single day, in addition to normal breaks. She’s never met a conversation she couldn’t insert herself into, regardless of how busy we are. She asks questions randomly into thin air and then makes up her own answers whether or not someone responds. On top of all of this, she has this extremely gaudy fake-wood-and-gold plaque in her cubicle which reads “Be Kind”. Her idea of “kindness” is mostly, “Don’t say or do anything that would get me in trouble, even if it’s 100% my fault.”
This morning, the Head of Operations had a meeting with us in the purchasing department. The number of mistakes, like wrong quantities being purchased or purchase orders being entered with the wrong pricing, has been rising rapidly. As head of the department, I know for a fact that 90% of the issues she’s talking about are directly due to Ms. Nice spending more time during the day schmoozing, gossiping, and turning away from her desk to just chat things up than putting any focus on her work. I didn’t publicly throw her under the bus, and I actively tried to avoid looking directly at her, but every time I caught sight of her, she was just sitting there with a blank, vacant stare like she shouldn’t even be there. I made a mental note to have a private conversation with her ASAP to make sure it all sank in.
About fifteen minutes later — well before I had the chance for that conversation — she had already made another mistake: we needed 250 of something and she’d ordered 25. A simple typo, yes, but this was exactly the sort of thing we’d had an hour-long meeting about, and on the FIRST task she handled afterward, she’d done the same thing. I sent an email to her, asking her to please double-check her tasks before completing or sending them and letting her know that I had already sent the correction through to our vendor.
Thirty seconds later — I guess she actually had her emails open for once — she came storming up to my desk and whisper-hissed at me.
Ms. Nice: “What was that?”
Me: “What was what?”
Ms. Nice: “That email you sent!”
Me: “Did you read it?”
Ms. Nice: “Of course I did!”
Me: “Then you should know what it was.”
Ms. Nice: *Tsks* “I mean, why would you send that in an email!? That wasn’t very kind, you know!”
Me: “[Ms. Nice,] I have talked with you privately three times in the last month, I’ve mentioned it to you on an individual basis dozens of times, and we had that entire, hour-long meeting this morning. We are having between four and twelve significant errors per day in our department, and over 90% of them come from you.”
Ms. Nice: “Oh, it’s not that bad! And when you send it through email, [Head Of Operations] sees it!”
Me: “Yes, it is, and yes, she does. That’s why she specifically said during the meeting that I should do that. So, I did it.”
Ms. Nice: “Well, it was just a little typo! We caught it and fixed it, no big deal!”
Me: “No, I caught it. You sent it off without double-checking it, and because that keeps happening, now I need to take time out of the rest of my duties to double-check everything the group does. Just last week, seven different purchase orders were entered, by you, with glaring and obvious errors, including you ordering 1,000 of something that we’re lucky to sell fifty of in a month, so there’s a full pallet back in the warehouse they have to try to find room for.”
Ms. Nice: “It’s still not very kind! It’s not your job to look over my shoulder all day or anything!”
Me: “I’ve tried being kind. You’ve been getting worse instead of better. And in case you forgot, I’m the purchasing manager; it is literally my job to make sure you and everyone in this department does their job correctly. That’s why my name was on your write-up the last time before this one.”
Ms. Nice: “Well, I would never do anything like that to you! I have too much respect to try and get someone I work with in trouble! I have too much respect to go sending off emails and dragging other people into it!”
Me: “But you don’t have enough respect to just follow directions, or to not take an hour and a half for your lunch break every, single, day?”
Ms. Nice: “I do not! I always punch in on time!”
Me: “Maybe, but when you leave your desk at 12:30 and you don’t get back until almost 2:00, and you’re nowhere to be found in between, it doesn’t matter to me what time it says on the clock.”
Ms. Nice: “Oh, like you don’t take a little extra time in the bathroom sometimes! I’ve seen you!”
Me: “Sometimes. Not every day. And I’m not taking those breaks and also extending out my lunch.”
Ms. Nice: “Well, what if I had a medical condition that made me spend that long?!”
Me: *Raising an eyebrow* “DO you?”
Ms. Nice: “I might!”
Me: “Well then, bring in a note from your doctor and we’ll make accommodations. Of course, that wouldn’t excuse you from having to make sure your work is correct.”
Ms. Nice: “Oh, come on. Do you really think it’s that big a deal?”
Head Of Operations: “Actually, yes, I do!”
Ms. Nice jumped out of her skin; I did a simple if cartoonish head tilt, as I hadn’t seen her approach, either! My boss almost literally dragged Ms. Nice by the ear off to her office for yet another private chat; I’m really hoping this is the last straw of her finally getting her act together, or finally getting let go, a decision that is sadly above my pay grade.