I recently had a chat with a peer EA about an encounter she had with another EA that caught her completely off-guard. In this post, I’m discussing a topic I don’t hear talked about much: a subgroup in the office profession that I call The Mean Admin Club. Some people call them Office Assassins, Silent Assassins or Office Harpies. In this post, I’ll share one encounter I had, how to spot and strategies to deal with Mean Admins.
I most often witness this behavior among EAs but I’ve found Mean Admins in other office support roles. I call them Mean Admins because the behavior reminds me of junior high kids.
Mean Admins use micro-aggressions, gossip, passive aggressive, outright aggression as their go-to influencing tactics. They are ready to take down anyone who isn’t on their side. Their goal is to keep people off balance and emotional.
In a healthy work environment, you may run into 1 or 2. It’s not fun but is manageable. When they find out their behavior isn’t tolerated or welcome, they look for easier pickings but not before poisoning the well on their way out.
In a toxic work environment, things get very dicey because the behavior is tolerated and sometimes even enabled by other team members, partner departments, or leadership.
A toxic office
At this stage of my life, the arthritis in my knees progressed to the point where they were unstable, I was in excruciating pain, walked with a limp, and used a cane daily. For some measure of pain relief, I was on a rotation of Tylenol, Aleve and Ibuprofen, because anything stronger would interfere with my ability to do my job.
I supported two regional Directors. One leader’s office was a 3 minute walk from mine and the other was several floors away in another wing. I spent most of the day working in my Director’s departments and not much time in my office.
This was a toxic work place, with the Old Guard protecting their turf through gossip and intimidation against the New Leaders, hired to improve the department’s metrics and overall customer satisfaction.
I found out how toxic the gossip was after a closed door conversation with another coworker who invited me in to chat and promised to keep our conversation confidential, came back to me not 10 minutes later when an Old Guard leader called me into their office to explain myself.
As you might guess, my primary goal was to focus on the job, keep relationships professional and interactions brief.
It was in this environment that I met an overtly Mean Admin.
Encounter with a Mean Admin
I’ll never forget the day I met this gal. She introduced herself as: “Hi, I’m X and I’m a bitch.” I was caught off-guard and before my brain could stop my mouth, I replied, “Good to know.”
During the course of our time at this organization, she regaled me with stories of her bitchiness, the pleasure she took in bossing people around to get what she wanted, that she held a grudge. Not limited to coworkers, she told me how she derailed her boyfriend’s career because it meant he’d have to move across the country and she wouldn’t allow him to live out of her line of sight. Miss Bitch was a backstabber, being nice to people’s faces but after they walked out, she’d turn to me and say, “can you believe that shit?” or “who do they think they are?” or “they are so stupid!”
There were 3 occasions when we needed back-up. She was out of office on 2 occasions, and asked me to cover her Super Early Morning Meeting (room set up and scribe). A couple months later, I asked for her help with a room booking. She agreed as long as I sent her the details via email, which I did. At the last minute, she handed the uncompleted task back to me saying she was too busy.
Other than that, we did not back each other up for calendar support. My leaders received multiple complaints about Miss Bitch and preferred to manage their own calendar when I needed to be out. I supported leaders who were not on good terms with her leaders, so there was no way they would grant me access to their calendar because they assumed everyone gossiped as much as they did.
All of which was fine because for the most part, our leaders interacted with each other at the weekly staff meeting so we had very little day-to-day business with each other. We did, however, share an office and exchanged good mornings, maybe followed by general chit-chat but it wasn’t unusual to be head’s down and working.
One day, I walked in, said good morning and she said nothing. I figured it was a rough day for her then headed over to one of my departments to work on a major project. It took me a few days to realize she wasn’t speaking to me at all.
I am pretty self aware and know when I’ve said something wrong because my conscience nags me until I apologize. That was not the case here. I reviewed events of the past few days and couldn’t find anything I said or did that could be considered as offensive.
I was pressed for time on my project and tamping down the latest surge of pain and figured she’d speak up if it was important.
One week into the Silent Treatment, I remembered she said she held a grudge. This may not have been the best course of action, but I was curious: how long would she keep it up? I decided to find out.
Six weeks later, my curiosity got the best of me. I walked into our office, shut the door and asked if I’d said or done anything to offend her.
She had been waiting all this time for me to speak up. She quickly spun her chair around and said, “I’m so glad you asked” and went into a lengthy rant, the gist of which was: I wasn’t a team player because I didn’t clean up the conference room after her department had a retirement party on the day she had her super-early morning department meeting so she had to stay late on her longest day of the month and how could I be so insensitive to her needs?
I don’t know how I kept a straight face. When she finished, I said, “I’m sorry you feel that way but I don’t keep track of your schedule. In the future, it would be super helpful if you just ask for help.”
In retrospect, it was not the best course of action to let it go that long. I decided that if I ever ran into this situation again, I would speak up.
Identifying the Mean Admins
What are some of the warning signs that you’re dealing with a Mean Admin – assuming, of course, they don’t come out and tell you. I’ve found that, for the most part, they don’t announce it that directly. You need to observe behavior, listen to the way they talk to people. And even then, you’ll find out when you least expect it.
The members of this group share some or all of these traits:
- Know It Alls. Yes, admins need knowledge on a wide range of topics, or know how to find out information, but there is no need to be a jackass. They are not interested in sharing best practices. They hoard knowledge. When they do share information, they make you feel like YOU’RE the idiot.
- On a power trip. Whether they leverage their leader’s position to throw their weight around or feel it’s their right due to their title/level. They fly off the handle at the most mundane crap. Some treat their leaders with the same contempt they treat everyone else. Be very cautious when you learn their executive finds this behavior hilarious.
- Dump work on their peers. They are not doing their work and put effort into dumping their work on others. As their coworkers realize they’re a pain to work with, they begin to work around the Mean Admin and the work gets piled on the competent admins.
- Aggressive and PROUD OF IT. Miss Bitch was the only person I’ve encountered to introduce herself as a Mean Admin. Better to know upfront than find out they are…
- Backstabbers: nice to your face but as soon as you walk away, they’re criticize everything from your laugh, today’s outfit or your very existence. They will throw you under the bus at every opportunity. These are harder to spot and you’ll find out when you pull the knife from your back.
Coping skills
Working with Mean Admins is difficult on a good day. They are a pain in ass to deal with, so eventually, people start working around them rather than face their unpredictable wrath. The strategies I’ve developed:
- Read the Room: understand your environment and the players. Choose your confidante very carefully. In a healthy environment, you can speak up to leadership, HR or Employee Relations. In a toxic environment, speaking up will work against you.
- Journaling: to brain dump the emotional crap. Whatever format you choose, keep this in your personal space and do NOT use your work computer/laptop.
- Documentation: stick to the facts. Fish out the details after a brain dump session. Focus on data: names, dates, circumstances. In my career, I’ve had 2 occasions to bring my documentation to leaders. Keep documentation on your work laptop and a copy at home.
- Minimize contact: work with them when you must then lean on your team’s standard work, templates and company policies. You may have to work with them but be professional and keep the interaction brief. Mean Admins prefer Disposable Communication (texts, IMs and phone calls) to written communication. They don’t like to be held accountable. Follow-up any Disposable Communication with an email.
- Be professional at all times. Remember, their goal is to mistreat you until you lash out. When that happens, they run straight to their leader, play victim and blame you – this is why you keep documentation.
- Execute your work to the best of your ability. Which is a good rule of thumb every day, but when faced with Mean Admins, flawless work product is your best defense. Expect to get a comment like, “don’t work so hard, you making the rest of us look bad.”
- Establish boundaries and stick to them. You were hired to do YOUR job, not theirs. It won’t be easy. Mean admins hate rational adults. At the end of the day, they are bullies and they will peck at you. This is more data for your documentation.
- Don’t gossip. Also a good rule of thumb. Gossiping gets admins fired. Don’t be fooled into thinking that if you keep your head down, no one will talk. Mean Admins are keeping track and looking for your weakness.
Members of this club are neither helping the profession nor their career. When the leaders are holding the admin team accountable, the bad actors bolt after receiving verbal / written warnings but before they get fired. Usually with short notice and at the worse possible time.
When they start going down in flames, expect them to be out of office a lot or they go on a leave of absence. Along with this usually comes an upsurge in complaints about how everyone mistreats them.
What seems to shock them every time: no one with any sense comes to their defense. Former conspirators start distancing themselves to save their own skins. Pay attention with this starts to find out who you need to keep a sharp side eye on. These people are not allies. They’re looking for their next target.
Knowing how to spot and manage Mean Admins helps but it won’t be easy. Hopefully, it will be short-term. If you’re in a toxic workplace, then it’s time to plan your exit.
