How do I deal with a hostile workplace or am I just being overly sensitive?

[atrystan1]

I don't want to write a book so I will cut to the point and add more details if needed.

 

I work in Real estate and just put together a team of 10 people in my office. Today another senior agent like myself came to me and said, "you mind as well go to the unemployment office today, your team is never going to work, you are not qualified, you are sneaky and we know who you really are, and you made a lot of enemies on this floor, and you will never be successful."

 

He made me cry i'm sad to say. I have never in my life been spoken to like this.

 

He said this when my manager was not there and it felt hurtful and threatening at the same time. But truthfully i haven't slept for a few days so am I over exaggerating? Is there any reason that someone should have talked to me like this?

 

There is a back story where he thinks I stole jr. agents from other teams to create my own but in reality I never approached anyone they all approached me one by one because i was helping them and their senior agent was not. Furthermore, i never helped them expecting anything or because i had this master plan. Now every senior agent has been talking about me to my manager, the owner of the company and everyone in between.

 

So please help, any ideas. Am i over reacting, should what he said be addressed or not?

[Ariel85]

You screwed up big time, and though his comments were harsh, they were also warranted.

 

When you're in management, and line staff come to you and want to jump ship from their current manager, a peer of yours, you don't farm them over to your team and act innocent and like they just came to you because you were so wonderful. You should have shown your peers the respect of telling them what was going on. Your loyalty should have been first to your boss, then your peers, and then your underlings.

 

This one was on you, sorry.

[atrystan1]

I didn't act innocent I am innocent. I have been working there over a year for myself and have on a regular basis only spoken to 3 people. I keep to myself. To tell the truth I told them to talk to other Senior agents and I did first talked to my boss to let him know what was going on and then I addressed the other agents. I do not know how those words would ever be warranted in a work environment. Furthermore every other senior agent was talking to this group trying to "Farm" them over to their team even offering them more money and they all said no.

[Ariel85]

I didn't act innocent I am innocent. I have been working there over a year for myself and have on a regular basis only spoken to 3 people. I keep to myself. To tell the truth I told them to talk to other Senior agents and I did first talked to my boss to let him know what was going on and then I addressed the other agents. I do not know how those words would ever be warranted in a work environment. Furthermore every other senior agent was talking to this group trying to "Farm" them over to their team even offering them more money and they all said no.

 

OK, so now you're changing your story a bit. lol

 

You said that all of the junior agents came to you, one by one, because you would help them out. I imagine this means most of your 10 agents approached you to come join your team? So then how do you spend a year only talking to three people, and wind up with 10 junior agents asking to be mentored?

 

This doesn't add up. You're saying you spoke to all of the other senior agents to tell them that their staff was approaching you for help and that they wanted to leave that agents team and come work for you? And they were all OK with it and gave you permission? So you continued to mentor each of these junior agents, one by one, even though you must have known it was wrong, otherwise why did you approach their managers to tell them what was happening?

 

It really doesn't gel, I'm afraid. If you told the other senior agents what was going on, you should have also had the foresight to tell the junior agents that you simply couldn't help them because they were on another team. If you honestly went to the senior agents to tell then what was happening, then you would have also put a stop to their staff coming to you.

 

Still vote this one on you.

[Moontiger]

He was totally unprofessional. You can stand up for yourself and show that you will not accept this kind of behavior. For example, the next time this man or anyone else starts to talk to you like that say, "Name, this conversation is not going to a constructive directions. Lets discuss these concerns at another time."

 

You need to stand up for yourself or this will just get worse. Don't play games, don't talk bad about anyone, let your work speak for itself. You may also want to report this interaction to your manager.

[Moontiger]

Ariel, even if she was wrong in some way previous to this interaction, this other person behavior is completely inappropriate. I have work with a fair share of awful people but I would NEVER speak to someone in the work place this way. There is no justification for it.

[RedDress]

I think that whether you did right or wrong is a little irrelevant at this point because it's done.

 

I think the best course of action is to kind of realize why they might feel the way they do (they feel like you "stole" their team whether that's true or not) and try not to take their remarks personally but as a learning and growing experience. And from there? Prove them wrong. Success is the best revenge.

 

OP - I've also been attacked while taking on a new position. It's not nice. But I made them eat their hats through proving myself, a strong work ethic and being true to myself.

 

Learn... (maybe it's best not to take in too many of other people's staff even if they come to you out of appearance of impropriety...) - but just brush it off and do your best now. Tomorrow is another day.

[Moontiger]

RedDress you just reminded me of something that happened to my sister-in-law. She got a huge promotion and was replacing someone was very bad at the job. Her first day there another high-racking employee (on the same level as my SIL and they had the same boss) told my SIL, "You know everyone things your departments a joke right? And they way they run (previous employee) out here was bull(censored)."

 

People will attack you when they feel threatened. Keep a cool, professional attitude.

[atrystan1]

Because I didn't approach them, 1 approached me because he sat behind me and was always asking questions and complaining, he told someone who came to me, who told someone who told someone. And yes he was 1 of the 3 people I talked to and I was always the peacekeeper between him and his senior agent.

 

1. You are an independent contractor in real estate, you can go where you want when you want and if a senior member isn't helping you, you are free to change. You don't need permission, they do not own you and they do not pay you, but they do take half your money and they were not TEACHING them.

2. People are not cattle, if they were being treated correctly i wouldn't have to answer all of their questions.

3. This is Real Estate, and there are only 3 senior agents who were had team members that left. (1 agent had 3 different teams leave her 3 different times because she is horrible and loses their deals and treats them like children.)

4. I approached their managers to let them know what was going on, that they should talk to their jr. agents and help them not because I believed what I was doing was wrong but because I believed that is the natural thing to do. If someone asks for help help them PERIOD.

5. And we are 2 senior agents working together. I work in rentals and my co-worker works in sales, so yes half approached me and the other half approached her and confirmed with me. I NEVER approached them saying, hey i'm making a team. That was the LAST thing on my mind.

 

Ariel, I think you are thinking of me as stealing other peoples workers, but you don't realize that these agents are in their 30's and 40's they had been with their previous team leader for OVER 2 months and had no MADE A PENNY. Not only that but they were not teaching them anything and they were treating them badly. Can you imagine working for free for 2 months, not making a penny in the busiest season of the year? They were on their way out the door and were going to leave the company.

[atrystan1]

Thank you Mootiger and Reddress...you both are right, the best thing I can do is just be successful, learn from this, and not let the bad talk go any further. I didn't mean for this to happen but it did, so what can i do, just learn and move forward. I think I should also bring it to our managers attention because I do think this will get worse if we don't stop it now.

[abitbroken]

If you work at different real estate offices, yes, then it is their choice to come ask if they can work for you. If you sit at desks next to eachother/or are in the same real estate office and an agent who is on their team approaches to you be on yours, they need to talk to the agent whose tea they are on and tell them as a professional courtesy what they plan to do. The agent has a chance to rectify what is wrong (the reason for leaving) or at least that person is not blindsided. I find it hard to believe that every single person would just join your team and not tell the other agent or there wouldn't be someone who told the other agent they wish they were trained more and then they got what they needed.

[abitbroken]

btw, sometimes in a commission job where you sell big ticket items - 2 months is nothing. It would take time to cultivate a buyer, and it takes longer than that a lot of times to sell a house. If they didn't make a commission in 6 or 8 months as someone new - then i would complain, but they can't expect to make money out the gate with nothing in the pipe.

[Ariel85]

Ariel, even if she was wrong in some way previous to this interaction, this other person behavior is completely inappropriate. I have work with a fair share of awful people but I would NEVER speak to someone in the work place this way. There is no justification for it.

 

I don't disagree with you, and I did say the comments were harsh. I do get where the other manager was coming from, however, but agreed it was totally unprofessional.

 

Still, I never thought of a real estate office as being the pinnacle of professionals, so it's not a surprise, taken in context.

[Ariel85]

Ariel, I think you are thinking of me as stealing other peoples workers

 

Because you did steal them. Your mentality is like listening to a married man who cheats, and says that the other woman came on to him over and over, so what was he to do?

 

It doesn't matter that they all approached you repeatedly. All 10 of them. lol. You didn't handle it properly as far as showing your peers the respect they deserved in letting them know you were being approached. Instead, you continued to mentor them all, in essence mining them for your own team. You need to take responsibility for how you mis-managed this one. In fact, if I were you and you would like to create a more congenial work environment for yourself, I'd go to this manager and apologize for doing what you did in taking their staff.

[Imthatguy]

Because you did steal them. Your mentality is like listening to a married man who cheats, and says that the other woman came on to him over and over, so what was he to do?

 

It doesn't matter that they all approached you repeatedly. All 10 of them. lol. You didn't handle it properly as far as showing your peers the respect they deserved in letting them know you were being approached. Instead, you continued to mentor them all, in essence mining them for your own team. You need to take responsibility for how you mis-managed this one. In fact, if I were you and you would like to create a more congenial work environment for yourself, I'd go to this manager and apologize for doing what you did in taking their staff.

 

You're wrong in this. Some workplaces are competitive environments not a "happy let's hold hands we're all a team no matter how unproductivie it is type environment". If those workers come to her and want to work for her and she's in the positon to offer them that and feels she can benefit from them then good on her. Yeah the other guy gets screwed, and that is the competition. So what, his workers felt like they had more to gain from her and she felt like she had more to gain from them, his loss. The only reason he is making comments to her is because he is threatened by her and rightfully so. The workers did what was best for them, and she did what was best for her. The only one that got screwed was the guy who sucked at his job, boo hoo to him.

[Ariel85]

You're wrong in this. Some workplaces are competitive environments not a "happy let's hold hands we're all a team no matter how unproductivie it is type environment". If those workers come to her and want to work for her and she's in the positon to offer them that and feels she can benefit from them then good on her. Yeah the other guy gets screwed, and that is the competition. So what, his workers felt like they had more to gain from her and she felt like she had more to gain from them, his loss. The only reason he is making comments to her is because he is threatened by her and rightfully so. The workers did what was best for them, and she did what was best for her. The only one that got screwed was the guy who sucked at his job, boo hoo to him.

 

No, I'm not.

 

If we go by your logic that the workplace is a free and openly competitive environment, and business acumen, professionalism and respecting the chain of command is irrelevant, then the OP has ZERO reason to complain, because she/he would then be an integral part of that type of dynamic and created this kind of situation to begin with.

 

Basically, you can't break the rules and then cry foul when it comes back to haunt you.

 

Working with others means just that. The OP isn't working from home, independently. They are in an office environment, which means you learn to play nicely with others - a lesson we all learn in nursery school. And if you don't, as the OP discovered, then you suffer the wrath when you behave badly. Competition among sales people to out-perform is one thing. This doesn't mean you lose your ethics in pursuit of your goals. Or again, you do, and then you have created a very negative environment for yourself, and others.

 

Karma.

[TheVP]

atrystan,

People tend to get very hostile when they feel their livelihood is being messed with. The emotional stress caused by some harsh words is probably minimal compared to what your co-workers are feeling by losing their team members whether they were keeping them happy or not.

 

I doubt the team members would want to go back and forth between senior agents like a yo-yo, so I'm not sure what can be done for reconciliation at this time. I would talk with the agents and apologize and see what you can do to help make things right. I'd talk to the owner to get a feeling for how he feels about everything.

[battleweary]

There will often be conflict in competitive, outcome based situations and there are few workplaces free of conflict. Some people sort it by the book, some dont- this guy didn't.

He feels threatened, could be confidence issues in himself or just lashing out at what he truly perceives to be inappropriate behaviour from you. It doesn't sound fixable, but it's his problem to get over. Your job is to be successful and lead your troop here and his rant provides motivation for that then milk it. But don't lose anymore sleep over him- he's a person in your workplace, he's not a chosen part of your life. Don't give him the satisfaction of seeing that he's rattled you.