Having a file created on me

Having been a temp for over a decade, I can normally tell when the staff are creating a file on me to justify terminating me in the role they hired me for.

And this...https://hbr.org/2023/08/getting-alon...boss-wont-help

I started a temp job two weeks ago with high hopes that they would hire me for the vacant admin role I'm filling in for.

Last week everything was going fine. But this week? The file creation activity against me has started. Here's the way it's going:

The head admin took away my ability to:

-open and stamp and organize the mail
-accused me of mistransfering phone calls (my phone's log shows that I didn't do those transfers either, and apparently facts are trumped by lies)
-accused me of losing files (files I never touched to begin with)
-the head admin gossips about ALL the previous temps and how psycho they are (I can count myself among them soon, I suppose, b/c if she gossips about them, she most certainly will gossip about me to the next person in the admin support role)

This is how it starts when people don't like you and want you out. They sabotage you and make up lies to bring to their supervisor to justify terminating you.

How much will you bet I'll get a call or email from my recruiter stating as much.

I am sorry you are in that situation. People sometimes don't like other people for purely personal reasons and then feel the need to come up with "objective" evidence to justify their feelings.

That is really unfair but I fear it happens a lot. I had a supervisor once who was constantly looking for reasons to get me fired. Luckily he failed. Later I found out it was for personal reasons. On the other hand, I had a supervisor for whom I could do no wrong. I am so sorry that you are not getting support at work.

There are people who will be unhappy with no matter what.

Reminds me of a story of a father and son going to market on a donkey. People saw the father riding the donkey and said: How awful that the man is making the child walk while he rides the donkey.

So the man put his son on the donkey and people said: How awful that the boy is letting his poor father walk while he rides the donkey.

So both the father and son got on the donkey and people said: How awful that two people are riding on that poor little donkey.

So the father and son carried the donkey and people said: How awful that there are crazy people like them who try to carry a donkey.

Does that story make sense?

It is really unfair. I forgot to add that their HR person kept showing up to the front office to borrow the tape dispenser. She borrowed it three times. Could she BE more obvious? She was likely monitoring my work space because there are a million tape dispensers around the entire office space. Like, what the hell?!

Then, one of the staff brought a file I'd put together to do a "teachable moment." Again, having been duped a million times by people who hate temps, I knew what was coming. "Motts, you put the older date on top." No, I didn't. YOU did, so you have evidence that I put the file together wrong.

The phone transfer, the file correction, taking away front office duties after only being there 2 weeks is an insult to my intelligence and to my administrative skills. I have certifications in multiple areas and yet I'm sitting there in my corner picking my nose, twiddling my thumbs, watching people around me sabotage my work attempts to show the recruiter that they feel that I'm incapable.

I really want to work for myself. I am terrible at office politics and navigating through all of this game playing. It's exhausting to witness and be a victim of, especially when HR is game playing too.

Like your experience, @Yaowen, I have no control over who supervises me. The people can like or not like me.

All I can do is mind my business when I am a temp and have no legal rights at the company since I AM a temp. Temps have no legal rights.

Yes, the donkey story. I'm familiar with it. The moral: Try to please everyone and you will please no one.

I'm not trying to please anyone at this temp job. I'm just trying to perform the tasks I was asked to perform and instead I'm being manipulated, sabotaged, undermined, insulted, and setup because these catty women don't like my personality. I don't "fit" their toxic office culture. It's a small county office of ten staff. Apparently, the front admin specialist is SO conniving she's driven out EVERY temp and other employee who sat in the 2nd admin specialist role.

I say that because she gossips about the past admin specialists and the other staff to me all day long. She shows me their Microsoft Teams messages to her about me, about other staff and gossips like she's exempt from any consquences. What can I do? I just nod and play along. She went to an hour long meeting on Friday with the administrative director (the woman who supervises her).

I can only imagine the lies the front desk admin specialist spun about me, having listened to her tales of other women who did the role I was hired to fill in for. They are hiring for it and past experience tells me I won't be chosen since the administrative director would have to change my "temp" contract to "direct hire" or "temp to hire" to avoid paying the large $5000 fee to hire me to full-time. It's cheaper to hire an outside job applicant.

What I hate is watching them create these lies about my work performance. It doesn't help me to email the recruiter who are just as conniving. It's all about the money. Temps are expendable. We aren't considered viable humans. We don't have souls. We are just a weekly paystub and a commission to the recruiters and the companies that hire temps. We are the dirt worms crawl in.

I will just keep applying to jobs (which haven't hired me yet despite the multitude of interview requests). The catch-22 as a temp is when the people interviewing me want professional references. Companies legally won't act as a reference for temps since temps aren't their employees. So, recruiters are the references. And no, I don't have previous references I could request a professional reference from.

I think I should try to do freelance work while I continue my rideshare driving. Expecting the temp job to go away b/c of the fictitious narrative this county office staff is creating about my work performance because the women are catty and dont' like my personality, is why I have to work for myself. I am tired of office politics. Temps never win those battles. So it's just not worth trying to correct their blatant lies about my work performance to the recruiter.

What...the...hell ?!?!

This morning at the county temp job, the admin specialist who speaks multipe languages called her friend and told her in Farsi (I don't speak it) peppered with English words, "secretary" "same hair" "she's annoying"

I sit 15 feet away from her.

She was comparing me to the previous temp she *****ed about to me all of last week.

She clearly is so arrogant that she thinks I'm not going to understand when she talks about me RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.

Do I say something to their HR person? To her boss?

No. Why bother?

I'm so over this place. I will do the bare minimum until I can find a job or they hire someone for the other admin role and end my assignment.

When a person gossips the way you have described it’s how that person is as a person.

It could be that she remains employed because she can speak another language. Yes it’s rude that she chooses to talk trash about you in front of you like that. I would not want any job that would include having to deal with that kind of person. A temp job gives you a chance to see that toxic before working at a place.

Sadly as you have been seeing there is a lot of toxic out there.

She told me that they hired her because she speaks 6 languages fluently, so it serves the county office well, since they don't have an interpreter on-site. She also used to be a bank manager, so she does all of their finances while helming the front office. The second admin specialist job's desk is off to the side, 15 feet away from her desk.

I will say that is the benefit of seeing the work environment as a temp. Since no one respects temps - one of the staff exlaimed, "oooh" to imply her disdain for me being a temp. Since she trash talks EVERYONE to me, I'd be stupid to think that she's not doing the same about me to everyone in the office too.

There is a TED talk about “ civility “.
The speaker is Lillian Ngala.

Would actually be good to get the link and email it to the boss ofwhere you are working as a temp. 😉

Do you mean these two? They are great TED Talks.

The ironic timing of your post -- there is a 2 hour workshop at my temp job for the staff to attend this morning on, "how to have difficult conversations," about de-escalation techniques.

(rolling my eyes)

Just this morning, the admin specialist threw me under the bus (again) and gaslit me when I held her accountable.

I hate working here.

Christine Porath: Why being respectful to your coworkers is good for business | TED Talk

Steven Petrow: 3 ways to practice civility | TED Talk

I'm listening to the admin specialist now and all of her non-conflict answers regarding "intent" and "impact," that contradict the way she's been gaslighting me while I've been here.

They are sharing personal stories and my eye rolloing is non-stop. I think I'm going to dislodge my eyeballs from their sockets.

Just crazy-making behavior. The admin director didn't even acknowledge me this morning. This place is a toxic mess. It's like the American sitcom "Parks and Recreation" on steroids. Total ********.

So frustrating...

The admin specialist won't train me to do anything related to the front area of the office. She is VERY territorial. That is a red flag for me as a temp: it means that I won't be hired on full-time as long as this woman refuses to reliquish her share of admin tasks. I am certain that's why this office can't keep a second admin specialist in the role - it's because of this admin specialist.

She doesn't keep a visitor log on the counter (she has her own Excel sheet according to staff - so she only completes it when she remembers to document each visotor and the name of the staff and time and date) and doesn't communicate to me that I'm supposed to keep a visitor log.

One of the staff asked me to start a visitor log. When I brought this up to the admin specialist she was dismissive, "ok, I guess you can do that." WTF.

She doesn't share any of the tasks she does with me or let me do anything.

She also will go over to my desk and take stuff off of it without communicating to me why she took anything. Like today, she took a client's money order off of my desk while the client was completing a packet. She was on her phone when I walked over to her desk, pointed to the client's money order, she turned her back to me ignoring me, so I took the money order and waited for the client to finish completing her packet. I couldn't put the money order inside the safe box because the admin specialist and her boss won't give me the combination.

She is doing a large mailing and didn't communicate anything to me about it either. She just has me creating labels and putting files together.

She mis-sent a bunch of faxes of clients applications too, and rolled her eyes, trying to blame ME. BUT...I got IT to pull up the fax logs of who sent those to bad fax numbers and bad emails, and HER email and name are attached to each fax and email. I laughed inside. It felt like retribution. Meanwhile, it's still my fault. Right?! Because I'm the temp.

Just a lot of gaslighting behavior. If they don't want a second admin, they shouldn't have hired a temp. I'm completly invisible.

I'm doing bare minimum as it stands. I'll just show up and sit here until the assignment ends. I'll also just keep applying for jobs.

I emailed the recruiter with a bullet list of the ways the admin specialist has been sabotoging me (I have back ups of every taks that contradicts her lies).
I told the recruiter not to report anything I've shared yet. I want to keep emailing the recruiter every day with a check-in.

The admin specialist continues to sabotage me, even today. I surprised her by saying "no" to her request for me to shut the door that divides the main office and front of the office, which I had been doing out of fear, which she used to gossip to me about the previous admin specialists and everyone else in the office she works with. She was PISSED when I said no. She repeated her ******** like a parrot, and I just held my ground and boundary, repeating myself back "I'm here to do my tasks." So, when she tries to rope me into her gossip sessions, now, I just ignore her 100% and stick to asking questions about the admin tasks.

HR emailed my recruiter that my last day is Oct 19th so at least now I have an end date. 2 1/2 more weeks with this toxic woman.

I read a Forbes article yesterdady about types of toxic bosses. I figured out that the toxic boss at my current temp job's toxicity is that she is passively complicit to the active toxic behaviors of the admin specialist. She also doesn't or won't be held accountable for her actions, and projects on to others.

Honestly, I think I should start writing a contributory/editorial column about the shenanigans of toxic workplaces sharing my stories .

The best part of yesterday was the way the admin specialist 'protested too much' about how she's neveer done anything to sabotage me (yeah, that's a big ol lie). Deleting an email from a shared email drive, right in front of me, then having the gall to say, "emails just sometimes disappear. No need to worry."

Another horrible day at this temp job.

The admin specialist interrupted me while I was helping a visitor whom I helped last week. Then, I messaged the staff person about it who the visitor wanted to see. When the toxic boss stopped in to say "Happy Wednesday" (barf), I asked her if we could divide duties daily via the white board. She said no; that would not be indicative of sharing. I think that just creates more opportunity for confusion.

Every week, the admin specialist and toxic boss have a morning huddle (but the temp is never included). The admin specialist just refuses to share her front desk tasks and refuses to train. She didn't tell me that I could schedule meetings for the staff via Outlook and got mad when I asked her why she didn't tell me. "I forgot." Um, sure.

She also met with the human resources person this morning (maybe they finally hired someone; maybe they're preparing to terminate my role). She has stopped being "gossipy" with me at least (and is now completely aloof and ignoring me) so that means maybe they did tell her to stop gossiping to me? I have no idea. Fine by me!

The lack of communication here is astounding. The admin specialist won't train me, won't direct me to resources, won't let me make mistakes and her boss isn't interested in doing an inclusive morning huddle to include me in the day/week/month's tasks and deadlines. So toxic here.

hope you get something else Motts

sounds like a really bad place to work

Thank you, @felineangel. Working here is what it must feel like for pet store fish trapped inside a 15 gallon tank that has green algae everywhere, blocking the fish's view of the world outside the glass tank walls, dirtying the water making it hard for them to breathe and just exist and be happy.

I keep reading fantastic articles about toxic bosses and coworkers which makes me want to write my own contributory column. I'm just a certified coach so who would read it?

UPDATE:

The admin specialist continues her self-proclaimed "trouble-maker shenanigans" here. She is really outrageous and obnoxious.
I arrived at 7:45 am this morning and opened the bldg's front door with one key fob, and used the file cabinet key fob to unlock a row of file cabinets used by the staff here.

She claimed that she didn't get my scan ("I didn't get it."). Yet we share the same email address as the co-admin roles, so she can literally go in and DELETE any email that I send to her (what a dumb way to set up 2 people's roles - to require them to use the same email address). Then, she claimed that the bldg's front door was still locked an hour after she was here. She must have dementia because she forgot that she entered through the building's front door this morning because I UNLOCKED IT before she arrived.

She went upstairs to the second floor where the administrative director's office is. I can just imagine her lies, "Motts didn't open the bldg, I had to do it. Motts didn't scan the letters we mailed out last week to me).

She also withholds communication with other staff from me. Take this morning, she and the IT guy and the administrative director all messaged via Microsoft Teams this morning about an afternoon appointment. Was i included? Nope.

I instant messaged the director this morning to ask her if tomorrow as my last day or if she will extend my contract. No response from her or from my recruiter today.

This temp job is affecting my mental health because it's so beneath my skills and abilities, and the admin specialist and her supervisor etc. treat me like crap.