Internal Politics

[el duder]

Have been on the contract all of 5days now, and the project architect has already tried to get me the sack.

He has taken a complete dislike to me and will not communicate or refer to me, or even look me in the eye. He withholds information from me, so when i have to deal with enquiries from the business he turns it around and makes me look incompetent.

We are working on the same project, but he has take the attitude of why should i tell you anything? He is very competitive. Just for the record, i am 29 and he is over 50, and i beleive this is a status thing.

He has taken the approach of not agreeing with my job responsibilities and withholds information from me.

It is beginning to make my life increasingly difficult in the office and very hard to continue with my role.

I feel i have the support from my IT manager who employed me but he is never in the office. The project architect, is the one doing all the moaning and casuing alot of disruption in the office. I have decided to take the tact of not rising to him or complaining, instead clearly stating that 'i do not see what the problem is' ... but also making sure that i firmly beleive he has a problem with my role or me personally.

He has requested for a meeting tommorow with my IT manager, which i said i would look forward to.

How do i play this further? I really want to kick him in the nuts, but feel this is inappropriate?

Instead i have just tried to get on with my job and ignore him.

[messiah]

Just for the record, i am 29 and he is over 50, and i beleive this is a status thing.

He probably feels threatened by you in some way, thinks there is a plot to replace him.

A similar thing happened to me in my last role where I had to work with a person that interviewed me 9 years ago and rejected me, that person had no say in recruiting me in that current position. The person constantly questioned my ability behind my back (I know this for sure) and was promptly silenced by others in my team.

When the manager who recruited me moved to another role 'that' person started the onslaught behind my back again; there was a 12 year difference (me being the younger) and it was obvious that the malicious person would find it hard to look get a different job elsewhere.

In short if they cannot compete technically or productively they just use politics to cut you down, I've seen it time and time again ..... also many problems occur in IT groups when new managers come in .......

Its the way of the world .... best policy is to tell them to p*ss off and tell them exactly what you think of them and why you think they are doing what they are doing .... humiliating people is the only solution in these cases ..

[DimPrawn]

Yes I had a similar situation. Miserable old **** aged about 55 who had been there 10 yrs as a "lead" contractor. Lead ****** more like.

Resolved it in the end by finding a better contract paying 40% more.

[el duder]

thanks

ok, good advice.

he has taken the approach of trying to play down my technical ability.

however i was not employed for my technical skills. the role i fulfill is a non-technical role.

he is trying to make me look like i dont know what im doing.

i made the decision to go work in the public sector, and stay away from london. however, im stating to find out, its more ruthless here than any bank!!!

so you think is should rise to him? at the moment, i am playing it all down and not making complaints. as i see it, the more he complains and moans the more he looks like he is the problem?

[AlfredJPruffock]

ok, good advice.

he has taken the approach of trying to play down my technical ability.

however i was not employed for my technical skills. the role i fulfill is a non-technical role.

he is trying to make me look like i dont know what im doing.

i made the decision to go work in the public sector, and stay away from london. however, im stating to find out, its more ruthless here than any bank!!!

so you think is should rise to him? at the moment, i am playing it all down and not making complaints. as i see it, the more he complains and moans the more he looks like he is the problem?

Just keep your head and youve done well so far by showing restraint.

Im sure the IT manager probably is aware if this chap has a history of being less than cooperative, just have a private word with the IT manager.

Dont say anything insulting or negative about him , just say that you feel perhaps your contributon to the service could benefit if he was bing more co operative.

You will not gain anything by having a showdown or worse losing your temper in your first week.

In fact you will be playing into this guys hands.

Stay Cool and let him act the Fool !

Good Luck

[hyperD]

I was working direct for a client on a specific project and got on well with the perms there. The team leader wanted to place a bod between the perms and him to manage the day to day stuff and bought in this chap who used to be a C++ programmer then went into "management" (cue alarm bells).

Needless to say, within a few weeks managed to p1ss virtually everyone off in the team, used to interrupt conversations by butting in and standing in front of you if you were speaking and then started to pester me about teaching him MTS and to commandeer the project I was paid to do.

A quick word with the PM and he was sacked that day.

[privateeye]

I've recently been in a similar situation whereby the PM sent me to coventry and excluded me from any project meetings. As a team manager that can make life quite awkward. All I did was my job which was to manage a team efficiently and effectively. I started with a team of 10 that took 4 days to complete a simple task but cut this down to a team of 4 that took only 30mins to do the same task. I guess by doing this I really rubbed it in that the PM was not doing their job. I left the contract and things went back to the way they were, now the PM's superior has asked me to return.

It is often the case that someone comes in who can do the job properly that someone who cannot takes offence - it only highlights how good you are and they are not.

I always keep a paper/electronic trail of any questions/requests I have of anyone to make it easier to highlight if someone is not being cooperative.

[BobTheCrate]

Just for the record, i am 29 and he is over 50, and i beleive this is a status thing.

Maybe el duder but my money is on insecurity, or perhaps a jealous dislike for contractors.

As someone the wrong side of 40 I don't like this kind of behaviour being blamed on age as if it is causal. There are as many (if not more) under 30's who also behave like that.

Insecurity and jealousy are no respector of age. They can afflict any age.

Unless of course you believe once you yourself reach 40 or 50 you too will automatically become insecure ?

[n3il123]

I have a similar sort of thing at the moment with the IT manager, the project that I am working on is run seperatly from the main IT function, so now we have brought our spanking new server to do testing on (which by the way is better than all the 10 year old production servers )

So, he has pulled rank, taken away all the access that myself and other people have had for the last 18 months and refused us access to the new server.. so we got 15k's worth of server doing nothing... just cos this guy has got the hump....... what a muppet personally I have just referred it to my PM to sort it out.. who said public sector was easy?

[Jabberwocky]

Well you are a contractor who has been on the job 5 days - the bells are ringing. Whose side do you think the IT manager is going to take ?

If I were the IT manager I would terminate your contract. Period. Plenty more contractors out there who will get along with the old grizzley.