How to deal with egotistical, arrogant senior colleague

Question

My problem started from the moment when my client and my manager recognized my work.

Sometimes he'd stop talking with me without any valid reasons. The first 1 or 2 such incidents I apologized, thinking it's my fault, but in recent incidents he directly said it was his ego problem.

Now he is not talking with me, whenever I initiate conversation with him, he is making rude expressions and not giving proper responses.

I've never had any issues with my ex managers, leads and seniors. I am facing this issue with him only. It's not the first or second incident, it's the fifth time so instead of apologizing, I'm just ignoring him and this problem.

Is me ignoring him OK? Any suggestions how to deal with him and this situation?

Answer 1

If I were you, I'd ignore his behavior as long as his behavior is not affecting your job performance.

His behavior derives from his personal issues, and let him have a ball dealing with his issues without you getting involved in whatever hell he is creating for himself, unless you living in his hell is your idea of a good time :)

If his behavior starts to affect your work performance, tell him point-blank that his antics are affecting your work performance and its about time he stopped. It's a cynical CYA move: when you escalate to your manager, your manager will ask you if you talked to him, at which point,you will be able to truthfully say "Yes, I talked to him and I didn't get anywhere with him. That's why I am now talking with you"

He doesn't have to like you but he has to stay out of your hair and cooperate with you professionally when you need his cooperation. Until he gets his act together, look for friendship elsewhere :)

Answer 2

I would suggest that in public you be as professional and polite to him as you can and if there is a reason to compliment him, make sure you do that. If things come down to there being such a conflict that one of you has to go, who is going to look better, the one behaving professionally or the one behaving like a five-year-old?

However, if he starts publicly presenting an untrue story about you, correct the misinformation in public. Don't let his version of events be the only one. I am always polite, but I never let anyone spread lies about me. One guy tried this with me all the way up to the CEO of the company (I had never even met him but my name came up for some assignment that he didn't want to leave his department) and I had to to take his lies apart just as publicly and in such a way that he never bothered me again. I wasn't nasty, I didn't say any untruths back and I didn't call him names (althoughI was furious and wanted to), but after he had lied about me in writing questioning my professional competence, I sent back to the CEO (and all the Senior management staff he had orginally sent the document to) a multi-page document detailing all the lies and providing proof that they were lies. He never tried that with me again. Sometimes you have to let a bully know that you are a dangerous person to try to bully. In this case I did this with the full support of my boss (who was the person who showed me the orginal document so that I could respond, he was pretty mad too.). If you have to take the guy down publicly, it is good to have your own boss's support before you do so.

Make sure to cover yourself with your boss by making sure he is aware of your contributions. Hopefully this won;t go so far you need a smack down to avoid a destroyed reputation, but in any event, making sure your boss is aware of all the good things you do helps mitigate anything he says when you are not there to hear it.