Senior with narcissistic traits. How to handle.
We have a senior in our team who regards herself as special, exceptional, superior, perfect, beautiful. Yawn. She is in a senior position above 10 of us and although she has no management responsibilities she is tasked with handing out daily tasks. She keeps all the really juicy stuff for herself. You know, the sort of stuff that will get attention higher up. The sort of stuff that ensures her a USP. People who praise and bow to her get the other interesting jobs and the others who see her for what she is ( and keep a short but safe distance) and who she regards as inferior get the lowly tasks. Most days us lowly beings have not much to do. She hands urgent tasks out without saying they’re urgent so she takes it upon herself to jump in and complete tasks so makes us look incompetent and her the saviour. I’ve asked for deadlines or if somethings urgent and she’ll say there’s none and it’s not urgent and yet…. I learned years ago to not go to management about such things because ultimately that just puts a target on my back. They do know from others about past incidents (passive-aggressive complaining, snitching, taking personal credit for team work) that there are issues but not about this issue. I don’t know if anyone else has realised what she’s doing but I have spotted the pattern. I’m struggling to not give a damn about this and just get on with things but it really pisses me off that she has such power now and boy does she use it to her advantage. My biggest worry is she is now in a position of power which can decide who is regarded as more knowledgeable and therefore keep-able (is that a word?) in future restructuring which will happen in about 6 months. Any thoughts on how to deal with this? I’m not in a position to move to another company yet.