What makes a Surgical Office Assistant do?

How do can I suceed if someone keeps playing office politics?

• I work for an organization that appeared to be stable and calm. There was one person who seemed to want to mess with everything. She has some kind of a personal beef with me and I don't know why. She claims she doesn't but her actions say different. I am scheduled to be at work at 9:00. She periodically makes an issue of it with my manager. I've been coming in at the same time for months but she periodically runs to him and acts like I'm supposed to be at work by 8:30. To clear up the confusion, I've changed my schedule. I also take on an unbelievable amount of job duties when compared to her. She does a BS job on the one major task she has. But is quick to point out if anyone else in the department doesn't do something completely to her liking. She doesn't even know how to do her own job. She got upset in a meeting once because I couldn't go help her with the duties that were assigned to her. She's tried reporting people to my manager, and then when that didn't give her the immediate results she wanted, she went to his manager. Then when that didn't pan out for her, she turned to her friends on the board. Suddenly, my manager's manager gets axed. Now my once secure job I feel is in jeopardy because she's playing office politics by kissing the butts of some higher ups instead of doing her job. The guy she got fired is basically the CEO. Out of an 8 hour day she'll probably work for 30 minutes. A task that takes me 30 minutes to do will take her hours, days, or even a week, depending on the task. She is my manager's assistant basically. She has no power to fire me but she has a direct line to the people who can. She can even use her pull with board members to threaten my manager (who can axe me). This sucks because I feel at the mercy of someone who wants to control everything and yet knows nothing about what she would need to do. What do I do? It's hard enough finding a job these days but people like her stress you out and make you not want to come to work.

• Answer:

  this person sounds like a bad apple- you have a couple of choices- 1) address your concerns directly with her in a tactful way 2) speak with your manager about the effect this individual is having on you and your performance. 3) seek employment elsewhere- if your organization can de so disrupted by one person, who knows what the future holds. you may find that you are much happier to work somewhere else, or perhaps in another department where you don't have direct contact with this woman.