by James Callahan

Created on: March 08, 2010   Last Updated: March 09, 2010

All jobs seem to bring some measure of angst. But beyond garden variety office, or work place, politics and back stabbing, sometimes there is intentional sabotage by co-workers. A pastor friend of mine told me about a woman in his congregation who puts together the classified ads at a local newspaper. She's often allowed to leave work earlier than other staff, so she can pick up her children at daycare on time. After she would leave, her co-workers would then change her work. So when the newspaper came out, phone numbers were wrong, prices on items for sale, were wrong. And customers would be angry. Guess who got the blame, at first. We're supposed to love our neighbor, but how do you love those people?

When I worked at Disney, about the worst thing you could do was not show up for a scheduled shift without calling in. It was called a no call/ no show, and three got you fired. But what do you do when a supervisor, who has it in for you, changes the posted schedule while you are off work, and unaware. You show up at work days later, when you think are supposed to, to find that you are in trouble. It happened.

There are some really sorry human critters out there. I once had an office manager who worked for me that gave everyone the impression of being the perfect employee. Corporate loved her. She was great on the phone, was diligent with the paperwork, and seemed indispensable. But I kept losing receptionists and sales people over various reasons. It didn't make sense. I started to realize Amy had her subtle hands in all of it. She didn't want anyone sticking around too long. Bottom line, she didn't want anyone to know too much about her job, for fear she could be replaced. Apparently she had had problems at other places where she had worked.

Other kinds of tampering in the work place come to mind. A friend finally fired a computer technician who was intentionally loading viruses onto a customer's network. Why? Guaranteed service call.

Management and leadership is a big part of the problem. But often, they just don't care. Or they can't see what's going on. At a factory I once worked at, sometimes the day shift would sabotage the night shift, or vice versa. Each team was responsible for a certain level of production. And it was possible for creative saboteurs to make life difficult for the team coming in after them.

I can think other instances. If you take a job as a temp, chew your gum the wrong way, and you could be history. Life is not fair I guess. Anyone got a story or two like these?

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