A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:Dear Cupid, this is not a love question but I believe I will get good answers from the great people in this site. I lecture at a university for the past 4 years, my position currently is such that I am most junior; Teaching Assistant. My job is on contract and my next renewal is due Jan, 2012. I have also just finished my master's degree which I am eligible for promotion to Lecturer as soon as I get my transcript. The problem I am currently faced with harassment at work especially from my immediate senoir colleague. He is still in grad school for his PhD. He is Asst. lecturer, but will only get promoted to Lecturer upon his PhD completion. he has satyed in the program for a long time now, and he seems to feel, by what he says, that people are laughing at him for taking that long. He used to harass me to get staff minutes typed as soon as he wanted it, even if the head of department did not ask for them. Once he got to my nerves, and we had a corridor word exchange in which i basically told him to stop harassing me. I told him if he had issues with how I was executing my tasks, he had to circulate an email to everyone coz so far he was complaining so much even disrespecting me. I said it was ok for him to point out what wrong I was doing but not to call me names or keep sending people to my office as if I was not an acdemic staff who knew how to do my work. He had grudges, so recently, another incidence occured. He told as if joking that he would not put me on the teaching timetable of a new course he had introduced even though i had finshed my masters.I also jokingly told him, " who wants to overwor" He asked another question which was meant to scratch me, but I waved it off with calm. A few days later, he actaully excluded me from the TT! Of course, I was bothered but decided to keep quite sinecI didn't want to set another emotional flares. I am not redundant; I am coordinating another undergrad course so I thought, as long as I have visibility in the university, in due time, I would gain my roles without having to open a can of worms. However, one of the professors already sent out an email saying they should include me and another colleague of mine who is still a student on the TT. I have not seen his response. My question is: How should I handle this delicate man? I know he is jelous and has a low self esteem that he taught me and now, I will be above him in ranks. He has ever mentioned it and his acts show real hatred towards me. One of my former supervisors was also angry at me last week that I requested him to follow up on my missing results. Both of those two are very close to Head of dept. The Head is a good person, who has made me feel important from the time I finished my course(2months ago). He has promised me extra job slots and PhD opportunities. I confide in him. But this matter is delicate as those two are his favourites and I would not want to start an open dialogue with him over the Asst. lecturer. I am confused as to how to go abt this. I love my job, and I would want anything that threatens my position. I have ever lost a job because of such people(gossips, relatives). Please advice me. Thanks a lot.
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female
reader, bitterblue  +, writes (25 February 2012):
 The main issue I would see here is whether he has the power to make you look bad in front of the other staff or even have you fired if he gained the superiors' favours.
Keep doing your job well, you say you rank better than him and maybe if things escalate too much you can ask to not be under his lead if that's possible since he's on a higher step.
And probably if some of the things he does are meant to snap a nasty reaction from you, try to maintain your usual civil posture and response, albeit you really want to slap him.
I didn't understand quite well the incident of the missing results, but maybe if possible you can document your activity or call in whomever can testify you're doing a good job. If you are called in for something undeserved, there must be a way to clarify. And hopefully this guy will in no time show his true colours, but I wouldn't advise that you try to discover him to the Head of dept if he's one of his favourites.
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