Walking Disaster

Everyone has that one coworker, right? If you got along with everyone you work with all the time, I would assume you’re either lying or mentally ill. Even when I was self-employed, working for and with myself only, I still didn’t like my coworkers most of the time. This particular coworker is problematic all day long, and I’m not even counting her enduring, pathetic love for Ron DeSantis. I’ve written about her before (see here and here) but this time her shenanigans had wider spread consequences. 

It’s worth noting that I’ve been working with her in positions identical to each other in title, salary, and responsibility for about three and a half years now. For about three years and four months of that, she has been trying to be my manager, or at least the manager of our department…of two. I don’t know if this is something our old boss promised her or if this is part of the standard GOP-Karen entitlement that has been baked into her personality, but my boss has made it clear that it will not happen. Partly because she has no management experience or bachelor’s degree. Mainly because she’s an idiot. Also because her antics have the opposite effect then she’s intending, which brings us to her latest. 

Part of my claim that she’s an idiot comes from the fact that she believes our marketing team is in charge of email signatures. Walking Disaster Pro Tip: always make friends with marketing and customer service – they run internal networks and external messaging so they can make or break a salesman’s reputation. She had reached out to them a few times with various title changes (which they always gave me a heads-up about). Inside Sales Representative became Virtual Account Manager, which then became Territory Manager, which then became Product Specialist, and so on and so forth, with a few other random ones in between. As a way of forcing her to stay humble and to serve as a subtle reminder that we are the same (position-wise, as a person and saleswoman I am much better than her), I would simply change my title to match hers each time. However, when we actually grew our department, aka got a third person, and were folded into another team with a new sales manager, her palpable insecurities came out in full force. 

As soon as there was a new manager’s ass to kiss, she changed her title to Senior Product Specialist. Since this was the first time she escalated her status over others instead of just thesaurusing synonyms for her position, I felt the need to double-check the hierarchy. A quick call to my boss confirmed that she is not senior to me and confirmed how little my boss cares about email signatures and titles, which is probably the healthy outlook. His exact words were, “Who gives a shit – you have the same salary and responsibilities. If she wants to change her signature, that doesn’t matter, right?” Well, Sir-Who-Signs-My-Paychecks, that is incorrect. It does matter. With as much turnover as we’ve had, optics and perception matter when there’s no context behind it. But since he doesn’t care about email signatures… and since she gave herself an upgrade to Senior Product Specialist… I decided that I am now CHIEF Senior Product Specialist. 

Here’s where it went off the rails a little bit. When transferring a customer to another sales rep’s territory, that rep, who’s also a friend of mine, called to congratulate me on my promotion. I was a little confused, but then she pointed out my signature and I had to explain to her, “Oh no, not promoted, just fucking with our company’s version of Roz from Monster’s Inc. Thanks though!” Some background information is that this other rep, along with a majority of the other reps, also can’t stand this woman.

So my friend changed her signature to Senior to the Product Specialists. After that, it spread further. About four other sales reps heard what was going on and decided to get in on the action. They became a Chief Senior Specialist, Strategy Director, Senior Sales Representative, etc. The whole situation was no longer in my hands – which is exactly my description to my boss when he called me to ask, “Was this you?” Yes, Sir-Who-Signs-My-Paycheck, at the start it was. However, it has transcended beyond myself, and I have instructed exactly zero people to take up my cause celebre. 

We left it as a plea/demand to just change my signature back to matching Roz’s and leave it at that. However, a month later during our Q1 Town Hall, title changes and their effect on email signatures and LinkedIn profiles are no longer allowed to be changed without express permission. I was unaware LinkedIn was affected, which just proves that this coup moved beyond my wildest dreams. 

I would apologize, but after a few drinks paid for by my fellow Roz sufferers at our recent National Sales Conference, my boss was just toasted enough to admit he found the whole thing hilarious but only because of my ability to exceed quotas, otherwise he would not find me as funny as I so clearly am. I would like to point out that I tried my best to refrain from using the phrase “she started it,” but we were about three rounds deep, and at the end of the day, I’m a truth-teller. So, anyone else who would like to enact a hostile takeover of your sales team – make sure you are making the company money first.