How to deal with co-worker attacking me to hide incompetence?

Question

After some downsizing at my workplace, I was assigned to work alongside a co-worker on some year-long projects.

In past interactions, I knew she was struggling at the job, and she seemed honest about this. And management seemed content to have different expectations for her. But working closely with her on this project revealed to me just how over her head she was. I suspected she was nervous about working with me, because that would mean her work would come under greater scrutiny. I had no intention of informing management of anything, tried to acting as best as I could like I did not notice, and instead quietly offered to just work together on things.

But recently she has come to see me as a threat. She started sabotaging our projects, offering illogical explanations for her actions. Then I realized she was making up things, blaming the project's failure on me. Though I thought I'd carved out a respected reputation, management seems to think she's telling the truth. Her ability to project confidence in her lies outweighs my ability to express confidence in any conversation.

I cannot stop this person from telling lies about me to management behind my back. How can I protect myself from these attacks?

Answer 1

1. Talk to your direct manager. If they are any good, they will engage and support.
2. Track work, deliverable, requirements, etc. formally in something like Jira, Trello, spreadsheet, etc. Have regular planning meetings and update the plan. Publish results and notes.
3. Ask if you can get some help from a project manager or similar.

The key here is to create visibility and transparency. Proper planning and tracking are standard and "best practices" so no one should object to it.

Answer 2

Though I thought I'd carved out a respected reputation, management seems to think she's telling the truth. Her ability to project confidence in her lies outweighs my ability to express confidence in any conversation.

Both of your abilities to project confidence should have no bearing. There should be a paper trail of the work both of you are doing which would mean that you should be able to disprove your coworkers' claims about you.

I cannot stop this person from telling lies about me to management behind my back. How can I protect myself from these attacks?

Documentation is the best way to protect yourself. If don't already have a project manager, you need to take the initiative to document all aspects of your project.

Besides keeping all communication between yourself and your coworker in writing ( email ), your work should be clearly documented so that any third party can understand who made what decisions and why they did so. This way, if your coworker tells a lie about what you did ( or didn't do), you have the documentation to demonstrate what was actually done.