High school never ends...

[x3Harvey]

Does anyone else work somewhere where the maturity level and catty attitudes are worse than they ever were in grade school?

My workplace is full of cliques, drama starters, and rumor spreaders. Even our clients are guilty of it. The most recent occurrence was a rumor flying around that another agency was no longer performing a service that we also perform, so we were going to be getting their case load.

A coworker approaches me yesterday and says that this news isn't true and that somebody told her that somebody told her that somebody talked to (insert my first name here) at (insert some other office that I don't work at here), and got this information. So according to my coworkers and supervisor, it's apparently me that told a client that this other agency will no longer be accepting the work... which I never told anyone this. I don't know anything about this other place. I don't claim to, and I have certainly never discussed it with a client. IF it was even me that talked to the client in question (which we don't even know for sure because they're claiming they talked to someone in a different office and my first name is not uncommon) this certainly turned into a bad game of "Whisper Down the Lane" because what came out at the end of the rumor mill was certainly not what came out of my mouth.

Don't you just love being reprimanded at work for things you didn't do?

And this is only the most recent drama. Things like this happen at least twice per week, and I'm usually the scapegoat... I tend to keep to myself. I show up, do my job and leave. I don't sit with my department at lunch. I don't feed the drama llama.. and somehow this makes me an easy target. Everybody goes to lunch, and when they come back, they've found 12 things that I didn't have anything to do with to blame on my existence. I'm like the geek in the glasses that everybody likes to bully. I hoped this shit would end when I got out of school.. How wrong I was!

[sporkium]

Don't you just love being reprimanded at work for things you didn't do?

sue... or get out of advertising/public relations.

[LZA]

You gotta get out of that position... You already taught those people how to treat you... They'll continue to walk all over you until you leave or someone else fucks up and finds a way to blame you, then fires you...

Man I wish you nothing but the best. But I would say take this job as a learning experience, and what not to do next time...

[x3Harvey]

The bullshit of the matter is... I've never had a problem like this at another job, and I didn't have this problem at this job until I switched departments.

In the past, behaving professionally, and politely, and pulling my weight, has gained me similar treatment in return from my coworkers, and nothing but praises from supervisors. There have been a few that I didn't get along with.. like the occasional person who was lazy, bossy (but weren't in a position to be so), or had a bad attitude, but I always had other coworkers who sympathized and took my side. I'd pointedly ignore unwarranted requests from coworkers who were being too bossy, or kindly suggest things for less-motivated coworkers to do to help out more, and this was usually enough to get us through the day together. No one was truly a snake in the grass.

Where I work now, I work directly with two other people, who have become best pals. They love to gossip, complain, and hate on other people together. They pick on other people too, but because they don't work directly with them, they tend to pick on other things with other people. They were making fun of how another employee walks, and his "ugly" boots. They make fun of another and imply that he's not really sick whenever he calls out sick (which could get him fired if that rumor gets around). There's just so much hate!

I used to try to be friends with them, but all they'd do was complain. They'd complain about their husbands, their job, the weather, their cars. You name it, they hate it, and trying to join their bitch-fest would just bring me down, so I drifted away, and now have become the subject of many of their bitch-fests.

Generally, my supervisor sides with me, and when I approached her about the alleged phone call today and explained my side of the story, she agreed with me, and I wasn't disciplined... but because my supervisor doesn't really work directly with us, I always have to meet with her afterwards to defend myself. It's exhausting, and I wish something could be done about the workplace mean girls!

My supervisor knew me and liked me before the work environment became so toxic, and this gives me a foothold, but I worry this toxic work environment will only fester and spread. I've been job hunting for seven months but nothing has panned out yet. Nobody at work knows I've been looking.

It will be the best day of my life when I put in my two weeks notice!