I’ve heard horror stories from others who have had encounters with the dangerous and often disguised Passive Aggressive Human. It is hard to comprehend because I’ve been lucky so far in my life to only experience the inexperienced or newbie PAH. There’s always that guy who doesn’t deal with his feelings directly or tell you what he is thinking so he can ‘just move on’ to other things. There’s the encounter with the girl who can’t compliment herself without putting herself down and giving you a sideways glance leaving you unsure which side of her to agree with or just run away.
Now I am experiencing for the first time in my life a person who has an advanced degree in PAH. The Passive Aggressive Human Award, shall we call it PAHA. This award is not easy to achieve because it requires a person to be so completely into their own made up world of ‘self’ that the concept of owning the award doesn’t even enter their mind.
It took me a few months to identify this person’s personality as Passive Aggressive. Perhaps it’s my own lack of experience or assumption that other people are, dare I say, normal and reasonable in their dealings with fellow human beings. My naivety may be my undoing in this circumstance. I ventured out into the world of the Internet to find out if PA was indeed the correct definition for this person and what I found was her picture. That may be overstating but I swear they were talking about my workmate.
Yes, I did say workmate. This is unfortunate not only because I am supposed to work with her one-on-one but because she’s also been assigned as my mentor, coach, and trainer (it literally says that on the list of duties we have). These three things do not identify her in any way other than, on occupation, she can train a person to do certain tasks. She does not, however, know how to mentor or coach someone. Training is a function she can muster however is only useful if the person being trained grasps the teaching immediately. She does not have time for unnecessary questions or instances when a person simply forgets how to do something. She will deal with the situation and then walk away shaking her head or sighing her deep, disgusted sigh that emanates from her entire body.
If someone does something wrong, she spends a great deal of effort protecting that person from the boss however she will put that in her memory banks and hold on to the fact the person messed up for later use.
Let’s look at three incidents in particular.
She yelled at us for doing a task a certain way that, two months prior, we had agreed to do that exact way. Unfortunately, she forgot that agreement and yelled at us. One of my coworkers didn’t know what to say and sat there with her mouth open. I very PC called BS and reminded her of the previous agreement. She stiffened and asked when she ever made such an agreement. When provided with the facts, she simply said ‘well, if I said that, I don’t remember but from now on we’re doing it this way’.
I found this particular incident difficult because of my own desire to ‘fix things’ and perfect my own skills. In other words, I wanted acknowledgement that we were doing what we agreed upon but also wanted the relationship between us to be mended so we could work well together. I apologized for the situation and stated that perhaps I should have checked for an update to the situation.
What didn’t happen was an apology from her for yelling at us. She simply said ‘it’s fine’ and blamed it on the fact she was being yelled at by others, which she didn’t like but somehow did not recognize she was doing the same to us.
She has become angry when she thought I was blaming others and not being a team player. This was far from the truth but because she does not speak to a person before jumping to a conclusion, she complained to our boss via email and then forwarded it to me (still not sure why). The result… I responded to the email and said my peace. This is not like me as I keep my emails PC and far, far away from controversial. But on this day, she had pushed one too many buttons and I simply let it fly. What was her response? An email back stating she was done with all the BS and the responsibilities and this and that and… went home for the day. I stayed at work and spoke with my boss to try and resolve my intense anger over the issue.
The next day, I spoke with my PAH coworker and said I was sorry it got to that level. Did she apologize for her part in the incident? No, she again said ‘don’t worry about it… no big deal’. I would hate to see what she does when it IS a big deal. Burn down the building?
I found this incident eye opening and it has caused my respect for her to drop to below freezing. Complaining about a fellow coworker before gathering the facts is far from professional. Her email to my boss was inappropriate and demeaning. Forwarding it to me was simply a way for her to express her power and ability to throw me under the bus whenever she feels the need. And finally, throwing her hands in the air and running home after I defend myself only shows me she’s unreliable.
The most recent example of her PA tendencies, and honestly the moment when I realized she was PA, was when she sent an email asking me if I was still doing a particular duty and if so, why had something or other not occurred. I must say that her way of dealing with people is extremely poor and if she were to encounter someone fragile or suicidal, she might push them over the edge. As it is, she’s dealing with me and I just got my back up like a cat face to face with a hyena. I professionally answered her email explaining that yes, I was doing such and such. It went from there and after a while it was determined that she was assuming I was doing something that I most definitely was not. We had never agreed that I would do this duty and if we had, believe me, I would have remembered because it was very important.
Here is where the passive aggressiveness explodes. I emailed, offering to help fix the problem. No response. I emailed proof that I was never doing this duty and that everyone in the group was to take care of their own portion of the task. No response. I emailed that I would help gather information and update the data but instead she did it all herself, sighing and grumbling the whole time. Later that afternoon, I updated another area of the report and emailed that we get together and talk about how we should proceed going forward. No response. A week later, no response, no mention of it, nothing.
And this time, I did not apologize.
I self-analyze quite a bit and in so doing it helps me determine if I am wrong in my dealings with others. If I am wrong, I apologize. If I am not wrong but realize that it’s a two-way street, I work with that person to forgive each other and move on. If I’m not wrong at all and the other person is a jerk, no apology is necessary but I still tend to want to fix it (something I struggle with). If I have determined that I in fact am not to blame and I have done all that I can do to fix the situation or apologize for the difficulty of the situation, there isn’t a lot more I can do. Apologizing when you haven’t done anything wrong, is silly. Apologizing to someone who is Passive Aggressive and won’t apologize for what they have done wrong, only gives them power over you. It may be time to move on to another department or company. I’ve heard that there is no way to change a PA person; that all you can do is ‘deal’ with them, keep detailed logs of your interactions with them, and avoid them when possible. That does not make for a friendly or productive work environment and I’m old enough now to realize I really don’t have time for that level of manipulation.
