‘Scheming’ coworker tries to undermine and paint colleagues as incompetent, their boss starts to see through it: ‘He was inclined to take my side over hers’

Author image for Lana DeGaetano
Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."
Dec 27, 2025 9:00 AM EST

In the work world, you can never truly trust anyone. Your coworker "besties" are there for you to bond with over the same unfortunate happenings in the office, but that doesn't mean you can count on them to be trustworthy individuals who are looking out for your best interests. At the end of the day, the method of survival in any workplace is never to play all of your cards. You just might end up kicking yourself for all the times you told your coworker one too many crazy stories… Or, you can do nothing at all, and colleagues will still have it out for you. Your choice!

How do we win if, no matter what we do, we are promised coworker relationship dissonance? One-sided "beef" is one of the trickiest to navigate because you can't change what you are, and they can't change how they feel about you. Some people are simply miserable, and unfortunately, that makes for a rather unpleasant experience in a work setting.

Nothing hurts more than a colleague immediately taking a dislike toward you, even more so when they try to paint you as some incompetent fool who shouldn't have been hired in the first place. The proof is in the pudding (or, workplace output), so you're not necessarily in any work danger, but the passive knowing that someone believes you to be a terrible employee feels terrible. Do you tell your boss? Feign contentment until it all blows over, if it ever does? Such situations are tricky; a lot of the resolutions might be too emotionally expensive to afford.

After all is said and done, it's your word against your angry colleague's. Does your boss see what's going on, too? They might, and are just waiting for you to make the first complaint. Such is the case in this next story, where a coworker targets their colleagues and deems them incompetent, only to take credit for the work they've done. Scroll to read.

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  • businesswoman standing working using tablet at the office
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • "Have you ever successfully defeated an evil, scheming coworker? If so, how?!"

    I'm currently dealing with a bad faith coworker who's actively trying to sabotage me, undermine me, and make me out to be disorganized/incompetent/bad at my job in front of our peers and superiors.
    via Snoo-88490
  • I want to make it clear that this beef is entirely one sided. I have been nothing but nice, mature and professional towards this person, and I genuinely don't know why she despises me soooo much, I seem to genuinely trigger her no matter what I do.
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  • I know you're probably doubting me at this point. Instinctively assuming that I'm exaggerating my situation, leaving out key details and attempting to paint myself as the perfect innocent victim.
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  • Oh how I wish that was the case! I've been on my absolute BEST behavior since I'm relatively new and I don't want to ruffle anyone's feathers.
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  • The picture of professionalism. I could point to countless examples of her treachery, but the most recent instance was when she dumped her entire portion of a crucial deliverable onto me, provided no support or inputs for her part, then popped back up at the very last minute - RIGHT before we were about to present our work to the client, mind you criticizing my finished work, nit picking it to death, and straight up telling me that our client was going to be FURIOUS with it and demand we go back
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  • She's saying this to me with zero time to fix or change anything, literally minutes before the meeting started.
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  • And in front of our team of colleagues. Who all sat there in stunned silence as I neutrally defended the work we'd all just spent hours and hours developing
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  • I wasn't going to take the bait and lose my cool. I trusted my instincts and refused to let her rattle me, and of course - the - clients absolutely loved the work we did.
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  • No thanks to her, even though she gladly took credit after things went VERY well. The situation was so bad and her passive aggression was so intense that our boss noticed as well.
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  • We (my boss and I) had a one on one conversation a week later, and I mentioned that I had a difficult time working 'productively and efficiently' with her.
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  • And he was like 'yeah, I was gonna ask you about that too'. Apparently she's beeeeen like this and I'm not the only one who's had trouble with her - which, thank GOD, I was worried he'd think I was being dramatic or gossiping over nothing.
    via Snoo-88490
  • business man talking to businesswoman in a meeting at the office
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • I think he was inclined to take my side over hers, especially since he was so quick to roll his eyes and tell me how she's been a problem in the past.
    via Snoo-88490
  • Anyway, all that said - what approach should I take to thwart her attempts to hurt me?
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  • Have you ever gotten rid of an evil coworker who was trying to destroy you? Should I just wait and stay neutral, keeping as much distance between us as possible and just hope she pisses everyone else off enough that she eventually leaves or gets fired?
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  • Or should I take a more active approach and go on the offence? Help me!!!
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  • No_Life_2303 It's fantastic your boss understands it. And other people notice that too that's very good for you, so she won't be taken seriously. Honestly, the best way to "win" imo is staying out of her way as good as possible. Try your hardest not having to work with or talk to her. That's always plan A. Find other projects, other things, volunteer for work where she isn't etc.
    via No_Life_2303
  • Plan B, only if plan A doesn't work, is what you do now. Keep your cool, don't get confrontational or try to epically own or defeat her, ignore the shenanigans and everything that hasn't to do with the logistics of working. Only if she directly accuses you of something wrong infront of others very minimally say "That's not true". Don't explain or justify after that. Keep interactions as minimal as possible - don't try to befriend her or have friendly chats.
    via No_Life_2303
  • That way you don't spend a lot of energy getting frustrated constantly and risk your own status, like being seen as combative. Instead use that energy to do something that helps you and does you good (that's what you win), instead of investing it into that difficult person.
    via No_Life_2303
  • pop-crackle You give them enough rope to h g themselves. Document everything. Record every call, follow every call up with an email of what happened, decisions, etc. When she does something concerning, escalate it immediately to your boss. Not in a "telling on her" way, but if she does something like what she did before your meeting with the client started, tell your boss. I usually approach it as asking for advice, ie, "We had a bit of a weird experience with Karen right before the client call
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  • And then whenever you work with her, be perfect. If she calls you out for doing something wrong, you want to be able to send whatever you did to your boss and say, "Karen said this was incorrect, however I followed the SOP and she wasn't able to give specifics. Can you help me understand what should be changed?" If your boss has no power over her, ask if they can bring these concerns to her boss as they impact team performance.
    via pop-crackle
  • I just did all of the above with my workplace evil ch and they finally got fired two weeks ago. It took months but was so worth it.
    via pop-crackle

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terrible coworkers manager ask-employees colleague justice served work advice karma
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