What do you do if you don't get on with someone at work?

I sit in an open plan office environment which is bad enough, but bearable I guess. Problem is that the desks are organised into groups of 4 all facing inwards and all there is between desks is a small desk divider.

Now I don't get on with this woman I sit next to. Well, I haven't got that much of a problem with her but she really can't stand me (apparently I'm impossible to work with) and she is now going out of her way to make my life difficult.

On a side issue, how difficult can it be to work with me? I sit at my desk with my earphones on and don't talk much, just tap away on my laptop. I occasionally answer my phone and I don't have anything to do with this woman, we aren't in the same department or anything, we just sit next to each other.

The latest thing is to have a fan on. Now the office is one of those always cold places where we have been issued with fleeces and heaters. So I'm freezing my bits off and have to stop every 15 minutes or so to warm my hands up over the heater and this woman has arranged her fan so that it is pushing cold air straight at me.

I can't do anything formally (its already in hand), I have to bear this out for a few more weeks. Anyone any ideas? I keep imagining the power cable around her neck at the moment!

Sorry about the rant but if I don't rant here I'm going to start snarling at people in the office! And now its time I need to warm my hands up again as I'm having trouble typing.

I know how you feel. Hating it here at the moment and everyone is getting on my nerves. Theres one in particular though that Im warming the back of my hand up for cos she just winds me up. Constant humming which is very annoying, about as much use as a chocolate firegaurd and certainly nothing good to look at.
ARRGGHH!!!

She winds me up so much. I just want to pummel her to death with my bare hands. Phew! Rant over.

Undo a few screws on her chair so next time she sits down it collapses and she injures herslef and is off work for a few days! During that time the fan can go missing!

In our main office they have a silmiar thing, the idea being it brings people together from different teams and allows them to know what each one is doing and hand off work more easily.

One of the things you could suggest is to rearrange the tables every now and again, so everyone sits next to someone new, thats what they do here and although at first people dont like it, it actually seems to work, so im told.

Failing that you cant do much but grin and bear it, considered leaving an exposed wire on her desk or by her feet...

get a fan heater and point it in her direction

sorry not much help

[timwilky]

We all know open plan is a pain. Remember the woman next to you may be having homone probs hence her need for cooling air.

Everone is differerent, when I used to have to share an office I like the blinds shut and little light, they guy who had moved into my office was the reverse. We could never get on. I eventually had a store room converted into an office for him until I was able to justify his inclusion in my redundancy list

Tell her to pick a window!!!!!!!

I already have a heater next to my desk which I have on most of the time. The amusing thing about last Friday was that for once the office wasn't that cold but when the woman came in, she put her fan on so I ended up having to put the heater on!

I am moving desks in a couple of weeks, the MD is aware of the problem and is just waiting for more furniture to arrive before I can move so its a grin and bear it time unfortunately.

Other irritating habits are humming and singing (she believes herself to be a good singer, she really really isn't). Already let her know what I think of that - I waited until I caught her eye and then put my earphones in and turned up the volume.

She has also dumped dirty mugs on my desk as they were apparently used by 'IT' people and as I'm part of the IT department I should sort it out. Really petty I know, but one of the said mugs was from someone from her department and had been sitting for a good couple of weeks with a half mug of milky tea. I put that one on her desk. Lol, she had a fit with that.

Oh, she has unplugged my laptop to plug in her fan. I wasn't impressed and told her off. She complained to her manager, said I was deliberately putting the heater on to cause her discomfort. I had to explain I plugged in my laptop

I'm currently considering taking out the fuses from the fan which is now noisey so I have a constant droning going on. Thank god she is only part time and leaves at 2pm. 32 minutes to go.

Originally Posted by timwilky

We all know open plan is a pain. Remember the woman next to you may be having homone probs hence her need for cooling air.

This is what I assumed, so when I got a heater I carefully positioned it so it points away from her. Also, haven't made any formal complaints about her not passing on phone messages (she is a receptionist/administrator) nor when she deliberately opened a cupboard door into my face.

She isn't particularly liked in the office. There are 3 administrators in the office, the other 2 are over worked, she sits there doing cross words and refusing to take on any other work as 'its not in the job spec to take on other people's work'.

Wind her up

Classic joke i played on a whinger a few years back.

I swapped everything on his desk over to the other side. Keyboard, mouse, pads, pens, everything. Moved it all over the other side. Not to mention sticking down the odd pen, mouse ball etc to the desk

He wasn't happy, but never found out who it was and the whinging calmed down