Back Stabbers

This week didn't start off too well for me.  Very early on Monday morning I took a prescription pill that caused my morning drive to work to be a very nauseous one.  Once I got to work I got that under control with some food, but I felt worn out and tired most of the day.  That was bad enough, but what happened during the latter part of the day is what really cast a pall on most of the week up until Wednesday afternoon.  Right before I left work for the day, I checked my work email account and found an email titled "Time on the Phone" from one of the managers on the new Project that I'm working on now.

In a nutshell, the email was sent to inform me that somebody had brought it to this manager's attention that I was spending a large amount of my time at work on what appeared to be personal phone calls.  The email went on to say that this perceived "abuse" could cause team moral problems and to please be careful when talking on the phone.

This made me both sick to my stomach and very angry for the following reasons:

1. Why would somebody go out of their way to go to a manager and complain about my phone calls, especially when I don't abuse the phone!!!
2. Why didn't this manager contact me personally and get my side of the story?

I ended up spending the remainder of Monday, Tuesday and most of Wednesday wondering who my enemy was and worrying about team managers not having my back.  This really hurt my morale and made me suspicious of everybody.

I am very professional at work and don't abuse anything, including the telephone!  This manager ended up going out of town before I could speak with her personally, so I ended up going to talk with my manager about it and thankfully he was very nice and understanding!  He told me that the tattler said what they did during a meeting, which really pissed me off even more as several people heard it!!!  My manager told me that he knows how productive I am and that he didn't pay what the "back stabber" said any mind at all!  He told me to go clear the air with the manager that emailed me and not to worry about it.

A subsequent conversation that day with a fellow team member revealed that he also received an email from this manager, but his was regarding "surfing the internet".   Although it made me mad, It also made me relieved that I wasn't the only person targeted.

I still haven't cleared the air with the emailing manager as she isn't here for the rest of the week, but I hope to do so on Monday.  I also want to try to find out the identity of the "back stabber".  I really don't want to be on a team where people go behind others' backs telling stories to managers!!!!   I also need for the managers that I work around to have my back as well!!!!

This whole thing reminds me of a song by the O'Jays that I used to listen to when I was a kid.  It was called
"Back Stabbers".  Here are some of the lyrics:

What they do
They smile in your face
All the time they want to take your place
The back stabbers, back stabbers
They smile in your face

All the time they want to take your place
The back stabbers, back stabbers

Here is a link to the song:

Unfortunately, I'll be having to watch my back pretty closely now that I know about the back stabber in our midst at work.  It probably isn't a bad idea to just do this anyway, as people can be very funny at times.

I really want to thank my dear friend Tegs for listening to me go on for hours about how bad I felt about this situation.  Her patient ear, kindness and good advice really helped me a lot!  Thank God that I have such a good friend!!!!

Here's to good friends like Tegs!