Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : I am between changing careers and started working at an office as a temporary worker a couple of months ago. The person who trains me is a 50ish year old Chinese lady who I have to share a cubicle with. She was really nice at first but over the weeks have become quite nasty to me.

At the risk of looking like I am trying to persuade you on my side there is quite a bit of context so I will have to go into some personal details.

This lady’s cubicle habits include burping like Homer Simpson at least 5 times a day; ripping loud farts and acting like nothing happened; cackling like a witch at anything she finds amusing and this includes a minor typo someone made in an email; and smelling like sulphur at any given time of the day by snacking on what seems like boiled eggs that have gone bad. I do not say anything to her about these habits but no doubt they contributed in how I see her and lowered the level of tolerance I am willing to give out. I find these habits quite repulsive.

While she is a wealth of knowledge of her area of expertise as she has been there for 7 years she is not good at explaining things. She also talks really fast when she explains things because it comes naturally to her. While I am trying to decipher one sentence through her accent she’s already said a paragraph. Of course she will act completely surprised when you don’t understand her. Almost right away I asked her to slow down because it is hard for me to understand what she is saying and I believe she took it as a slight to her English. Since it is necessary for me to understand her I did not feel bad.

During the first day of training she mentioned that everyone at work is jealous of her. When asked to clarify she informed me that she had been accused of not pulling her weight by her coworkers who work in nearby cubicles and have gotten talked to by management about this issue. I shrugged it off and didn’t think much of it. More on this later.

As time went on she started acting quite controlling and strange including telling me what exit to use out of the building to leave on particular days for reasons I can’t comprehend. These are not time saving tips for me but rather more like feng shui tips which she constantly reads on her computer at lunch time. They do not make sense for me to take so I just smile and ignore them. She also insisted that I lock my computer when I walk away which is a good advice but she says someone has been messing with her files whenever she goes to the washroom. I know for a fact this is not the case as the one time she didn’t log off when she went to the washroom she accused me of messing with her files. She says someone has been doing this for months and months and she is baffled they are not satisfied. 

As a person who is being trained I believe it is fair of her to get me to do a variety of tasks for exposure but as time went on I noticed that she was not doing any work except saving and archiving her emails. All the while delegating all the work onto me. This went on for the first month. When she pointed out a minor mistake I made which is the same mistake she makes all the time (a part of my job is going through her old files and updating them with new documents) I told her I feel pressured since I am being asked to do a lot of work and that we should start sharing the tasks so I can take my time to make sure I am not making mistakes. I said this very politely but she did not like this one bit as her face turned flush red and her voice dropped like she was brewing in deep madness after a shock. She did not speak to me unless it was necessary that day.

The day after she started speaking to me in a very annoying hateful tone that sounds like a screechy whiny yelling session. I cannot stand these yelling sessions so I tend to cut her off in mid sentence and say I got it. Then she does this thing where she says the exact same thing but in slightly different words so I have to cut her off again. Now it was quite obvious to me she enjoys telling me off over a mistake so not 3 minutes after I pointed out a mistake that she made which I happened to be looking at and told her that she needs to be careful as well. Further I went on to tell her I see her mistakes all the time but I don’t point them out instead I fix it for her because we are a team and I don’t want to point out every single mistakes because there are a lot of them. By this time we are not on speaking terms unless it is necessary for work.

The day after she seemed enragedover a mistake so I told her the truth. I told her that she needs to better explain things because this was not something we went over. She then proceeded to yell at me about how when she first started she had to learn on her own so I should try to learn on my own as well. I yelled back at her I am giving her a feedback so the next person she trains (meaning I won’t be there) will be better off. She then proceeded to yell at me more about how she had to learn on her own so I told her okay. I descalated the situation by telling her I don’t want to get into an argument with her and that I was there to work and not fight. I also said I want to enjoy the place I am working at and I can’t do that if I am not getting along with people. She said that is the reason why she keeps rocking herself at work because everyone is jealous of her. I put on earbuds after this and I told her to get my attention if she needs me. This is a way for me to cut out all chit chats and keeping all exchanges exclusive to work. This was just yesterday. She asked me a question one time, I answered her then she tried to make the conversation about something else so I immediately looked away and put the earbuds back in to tune her out.

The management at work noticed I am a good worker since the piles of documents that were on her desk started disappearing since I started working there. The piles of work we get in the mail, she does not like me doing them and always tells me not to worry about them although it is just as important. I personally believe this is because she wants other people to see how much work she has to do. Since I started working 3 piles of 2 feet stacks have shrunk down to less than 10 pages as of this week. I was hinted at a full time position offer in about a month by management but the last couple of weeks I have not been enjoying my time because of her. 

Am I the asshole? As a temporary worker should I take the power trip with a good smile and do the work quietly? I admit I have no filter in situations that I feel strongly about and should have more tact but the way she yells at me now is more than what I am willing to personally take.