Say something, or just drop it? Rude coworker

[Zapbasket]

One of my coworkers, in the same position as me, was very rude to me on Friday and I'm not sure how to deal with it.

 

It started when he got a phone call from one of my clients. His extension is the first one in our directory, so sometimes he gets calls from people who don't know the direct extension of the person they're trying to reach, or who are too lazy to listen through the directory for the correct extension. This client has called me 3-4 times a day every day for the past 6 days, and when he calls he's chewing. On Friday I was busy and I planned to e-mail him an answer to his question that he'd asked the day before.

 

But my coworker said to this client, "Oh, she's sitting right here in front of me, right at her desk. Call her back and I'll make sure she picks up."

 

I was pretty pissed, and after I completed this obligatory phone call, I said to my coworker, "I don't appreciate what you did. I don't think that was fair." And he, right in front of 2 other coworkers, said, "I'm sick and tired of fielding your phone calls. I'm not your personal secretary. These people call and they're mad at ME that you're not picking up." He said it with this sneering tone and I was dumbfounded. First of all, it's not true, but I found myself stammering, "How often does this happen?" And he said, "Like, 4 or 5 times a week." Again, not true, because I'm sitting right there and maybe once a month he gets a call from one of my clients. I'm usually very responsive with both clients and colleagues who call or e-mail, and sometimes I just get too many calls and e-mails to get to in the midst of everything else I have to get done.

 

I turned back to my desk and didn't talk to him again the rest of the day. He did not venture to apologize.

 

This is the second blatant rudeness he has shown me since he started working here in March. The first one was when the owner of the company and I struck up a conversation and he (the owner) invited me into his office to chat. When I left his office, I returned to my desk and my coworker said, "Oh, so what is he, your sugardaddy?" again in a sneering tone. I was, again, dumbfounded, and after mulling it over for a day or two I decided to let it go.

 

Then there was a smaller rudeness that happened recently when I went to lunch with the other three coworkers in my position. They're kind-of a clique and usually go to lunch together and I'm never invited. But for some reason this time they extended an invitation to me, and I went not because I love to hang out with them (they're always vaguely rude to me) but because I think it's important to make nice with your coworkers and foster a "team spirit" at work. I don't think our company does this enough and so I make every effort where I can. So, I went to lunch, it was nice, and when we returned I went to the restroom and realized that I had ground pepper stuck in almost every one of my teeth. We'd sat at the lunch table long after we'd finished our food, so that pepper had been there pretty much the whole time. When I returned to my desk, half jokingly I said to this same coworker, "I just discovered I had pepper all over my teeth! Why didn't you guys say something?" And this coworker said, "We just thought it was funny to look at." Again, totally dumbfounded.

 

Now, one thing that occurs to me, arrogant though this sounds...is that I am an attractive woman and a good two inches taller than either of my (5'5") male coworkers. Neither of them is attractive, and I am much more accomplished than either of them. So I definitely think there is a bit of a...what to call it..."insecure short man" syndrome going on here. I've seen it elsewhere, not where I've been the recipient of it, but I've heard about it and seen it in others.

 

So...what can I do about this situation? Just ignore it like I've done the last two times? Tell on them? Try to ignore them completely? Pull this pipsqueak coworker aside and tell him off (I really think I could scare the crap out of him--he's just a scrawny wimp of a guy--and appears to me to be the more so given his infantile, unprofessional behavior)? Get HR involved, especially regarding the sugardaddy comment, which borders on sexual harassment? I'm just not sure how to handle it. The office is very small--there are only 12 of us--and so it would really help if we could all get along. It's just that I've been nothing but lovely and professional to all my coworkers and I'm a very good employee (just got offered a promotion, unbeknownst to my coworkers--I'm cringing at the thought of the nasty behavior that will ensue when the cat is out of the bag), so I don't really understand why all this rudeness. It takes me by surprise all the time, and I always feel really helpless and upset afterward. It makes me want to leave the company to think that I'm placed on a par, position-wise (at least at the moment) with these people whose behavior has shown them to be such complete idiots.

 

Any advice?

[Heavenly55]

Sounds like a little spineless, man whose just imitated by you which is why he has to give you his rude comments from time to time. Maybe he even likes you. Me, I would not get hr involved, especially if it's a small office. You could pull him aside tomorrow and say I would appreciate if you stop with you childish, rude comments or what I would do is just ignore him. There's a few coworkers of mine, one in particular who is mr. hawty, pretenious, the holyier than thou type. Because of some of his condesceding comments he's made towards me he gets a hi and bye, and that's sometimes when I feel like giving it. Otherwise, I don't stop to talk. Who knows he might even like you lol.