Situation with Co-Worker

[somaguy]

Background: I work part-time at a small engineering company. I am the youngest engineer there (18) but get along fine with other co-workers, as they are mostly young as well. One of the senior engineers, however, acts very condecendingly when dealing with me. He is very rarely polite in his dealings with me, both in professional and non-professional (i.e. lunch) settings. This isn't so much a problem it itself, but I have come to believe that he holds some sort of grudge against me, due to what happened last friday.

 

During that week, he assigned me a project. Nothing too significant, just writing a testing program for the production department to help them test our products. I had completed the project to spec, and went over to the production department to make sure that they knew how to use it.

 

I was walking back to my desk, and walked in on him talking to one of my co-workers about how "somaguy isn't doing his job." Now, I hadn't heard any complaints from him before, so I asked him what the problem was. He talked about how my program was causing the production department to waste days of their time. So, I inquired as to what the issues were. He brought up some bugs that the testing department had found (minor, did not interfere with function, and I had fixed them by that point anyway), and how I hadn't added the instructions for this program into the documentation yet. This was something he never asked me to do, so I told him that I would do it ASAP, which I did.

 

The thing about this that bugged me the most, was that he didn't tell me about the problems with my program, and instead discussed my "lack of performance" with my co-workers. I am planning to ask him on monday if he has any probelms with my general performance, and what I can do to fix them.

 

My question is, should I bring this up with my boss? The HR person overheard this and later on told me that she could talk to my boss about this situation, as she also believed that it was very rude to be discussing my performance behind my back. I don't want to escalate the situation further, but I would like to address his concerns with my performance. I get along fine with all my other co-workers and my boss, and none of them have had any complaints about my performance. Why does this one engineer get on my case like this?

[bluechocolate]

You should try to deal with this yourself before escalating it up the chain. In fact, if your boss is happy with your performance then you may not have to do anything at all and if you think you might want to work there full time you may have to deal with this guy all day everyday. Anyway, perhaps everyone knows that this guy just likes to bellyache & no one takes him too seriously.

 

In future if he gives you any more tasks to do ensure that you have all the instructions & ask for clarification if you think he might have overlooked something or you're not entirely sure what he wants.

 

Why does this one engineer get on my case like this?

 

There's always someone like that & always will be. If it all possible ask him for his advice or guidance on one or two things every once in a while. A little ego stroking can do wonders!

[somaguy]

You should try to deal with this yourself before escalating it up the chain. In fact, if your boss is happy with your performance then you may not have to do anything at all and if you think you might want to work there full time you may have to deal with this guy all day everyday. Anyway, perhaps everyone knows that this guy just likes to bellyache & no one takes him too seriously.

 

In future if he gives you any more tasks to do ensure that you have all the instructions & ask for clarification if you think he might have overlooked something or you're not entirely sure what he wants.

 

Why does this one engineer get on my case like this?

 

There's always someone like that & always will be. If it all possible ask him for his advice or guidance on one or two things every once in a while. A little ego stroking can do wonders!

 

In response to this...my boss does want me working there full time. He is paying for my college on top of my salary and really wants me to stick around (or so it seems)

 

Other co-workers also have problems with this person from time to time, so it's not something completely unique to me. However, my boss does value him very highly, so if this engineer badmouths me to my boss, it could mean bad things.

 

Either way, I don't work with him very often, so I will just ignore it for now. The ego stroking thing is a good idea...I will have to try.