I manage a group of around 10 people at the moment, and all of whom are ladies. More will be under me including men once the old batches successfully graduates.

Although I am Chinese Asian working in a foreign land, my people have no problem with my style of managing them - direct, highly involved, communicative, fast, high standard, and keeping the group dynamic nice. My team ranges from White, African, to Chinese and no one has issue with me. Most of them really appreciate my professionalism and how I have been guiding them. I also have good relationships with people who aren't in my team yet, But this particular person is cracking my head...

This person
- female, early 30s, Thai national
- when asked for information, she will send me a link, and in the horrible tone of voice, ask me to link and refer to that
- if anything, i need to refer back to her, instead of her updating me what she has done without my knowledge
- any meeting outside work but helps to boost their connection, she answered me - 'I am not answerable to you'
- only wants to meet once a month, online, and according to her time schedule, not mine
- refuses to join my team meetings, and refuse to mingle with other people in my team
- she would mislead information then accuses me of having to agreed that when she only rushed to complete a sloppy work (We can easily see a sloppy work in a glance)
- keeping a lot of paper trail to paint I'm a bad person and she has been doing her best. this also includes providing false info in her email (Other people in my team can easily be my evidence to my work professionalism) (I am also tired of keep correcting her in emails because it will lead to no end, and most times she will just reply 'noted' which I have zero idea what that means)
- sent out meeting invites even though I have told her she needs to work more on her task first before calling for a meeting (Basically just telling me off, who the fish I am, and we will most probably be talking about the same thing from last meeting, a pure waste of time)
- always sends documents attached to cloud and she often makes changes to it (leaving no trail of her terrible work)
- behind her tough look in front of everyone, all I know is she cries and cries like she is a victim of my wrongdoing
- she is a highly anxious person
- manipulative, but half stupid as well - I always get to find out her next moves and foil her MO (and she doesn't like it obviously)
- never takes accountabilities and responsible on her own actions
- gets offended easily and said I disrespected her
- sent a hinted email teaching me how to write properly to her as a sign of respect
- sends work that makes zero sense at all but she will also display such a confident look
- sends a set of work through email and display another sets of document during meetings

This issue has been made known to my other colleagues and we will bring this up to the management next week. I want her off from my team and the whole company, she imo is a pure liability. Managing this team is only a part of my portfolio, I have other work to attend to as well.

I am truly intrigued by what type of person she is. Some said she is rich so she always has it her way. Does anyone has someone like this at the workplace? How do you deal with it?

Thanks for listening my rant.

Bro, from your question i have question.

Hiring thai/viet degree holder. ( i never tried )

but is rather easier/cheaper than hiring labour from bangladesh right?
Under category Skilled Worker/Professional

do you know the details?

You have done more than enough.

Follow like gov staff kito. SoP all the way deal hard on her, chance you gave too much sudah. She already against you from start.



It's either she quit or leave project or you leave your job/leave project.

No idea. I'm just a toxic high performing kuli somehow

not really, all depends on skills

yes, i have done enough. but i can never imagine the rudeness she displays, as a thai. it's shocking to say the least.

not smart, doesn't deliver quality work, go against me, i need to listen to her. lmao.

i won't leave my job, i bring in 300% productivity than other people. company has plenty of people to fire before me.

she has to go.

she said she is not answerable to you. maybe u can start explain this part

perhaps one quick and effective for you to knock some sense into her is to actually report all these misdemeanors issues of hers to HR and issue a warning letter, while you are at it prove her redundancy and have her dismissed in 2 months time.

I have had subordinates who underperform yet have ego as huge as their dickheads, and I have come to realise that rather than working things out and dumb down to their level, getting rid of them outright is always the best approach.

To her, she thinks her work just covers the work. And not about meeting people and know their needs.

So when we attended the big group meeting and I asked her if she was coming. Because everyone was. Later on, she then told me this.

You can see she has no idea what her work requires her to do.

Yes. She also always requires me to justify why I came to that decision. While other sub will think and know my intention is good and they will figure out then only discuss from their side.

I've put everything in black and white and expected an alert from management but somehow management approves her performance. I then personally email to the management that we SERIOUSLY need to have a meeting about her. We will have the meeting this coming Monday.

Underperform and huge ego. Then ask me to submit to her. Then she will direct the meeting. But she looks so stupid in the meeting because she had no idea what she's doing. And when I correct her, she finds it offensive. But if I don't, she will blame me later on that I didn't guide her well.

focus on the 9 better

Doing that and they're performing really well. They also bond very well which I'm happy to see. Supporting one another when needed.

My other 9 will perform so well while she busy arguing with me. Soon, we will complete 4 projects while she's still talking about how we should proceed with her project.

Their achievements will be her embarrassment.

She has to go, one way or another. U give in too much.

You need is to manage her out

It is never pleasant and easy to do it

I rather take in double project then facing staff like this but sometimes you just have to deal with it

Do update here if you manage to kick her out

Always curious as to how other manager manage bad staff out

It's time to do some spring cleaning sis.

Yes. She needs to go. I want her out of this country. She can go back earn her Thai baht. She has such a great opportunity but behave like everyone owes her.

Will do.

As she is under me. I used to manage her by myself. Slowly as she hits her important milestones, her true self appears and it gets ugly. Everyone knows her right now. I don't have private meeting with her as well. I had a short meeting once with her in the corridor for 5 minutes and then she made a paper trail on how I refused to meet her in person and how I cancelled the meetings (when we didn't even agreed to them). She knew my style on when I meet with my team and best to consult them (I said that 3 times) and she didn't even write that in her paper trail email.

What happened after that? She never appeared to see me. She's good at barking online but in person she pretends to be the sweetest Thai person. Everyone is shocked when they hear stories from side. That's how cunning and manipulative she is.

The thing with this country also they're very kind. Even criminals blame their mental health and they don't get into prison. Here comes a difficult cunning person whom the uni may give excuses for her behavior. I hope not. I've enough justification to kick her out. Her behavior has zero alignment with company's vision and goals as well.

She's tough. Now she's occupying my head rent free cause i need to think how to deal with her and also prepare for her trap and having to always stay vigilant.

I really need to focus on my other projects and deliver them.

Just to say work isn't difficult, it's the people that's difficult.

Sure sounds like a sociopath with a princess mentality.

Since she deems herself unanswerable to you, high time to gather evidence and follow the necessary protocols to ensure that she indeed does not have to answer to you or anyone else in the company.

I have one ex subordinate exactly with the criteria of what u mentioned.

The only way u can win this type of people is not to fight them and you yourself must be very professional. You must not retaliate by anger because if you do, she will like it becoz you proof that you are the problem not her.


Trust me this person is very anxious and the way she reduce anxiety is to by "gaslighting"' you.

So how you deal with this type of person? Make everything transparent, all emails, communication, work update, projects, make it all official and formal, and try to reduce to minimum any personal contact with her. She will feel very terrible and upset when you put the spotlight on her.

gone are the good old days when things can easily settled by fist fight outside the garden.

Has it been made absolutely clear, company-wide, that she is reporting to you?

I think in her previous job, she was in a similar position as you.. now it looks like a downgrade for her, hence all the damn pettiness / jealousy...

Basically you are dealing with a narcissist that play victim. Their behavior is purposely to make you questions your reality and when you submit to them, they win.

To know more, google about the topic of
1. Passive aggressive behavior
2. Narcissistic that play victims
3. Narcissist gaslighting

You will get a lot of tips from above topic.

Stay calm, dont get angry (I know you're angry, that is what she purposely wants from you).. record and exposed her, demand her perfection in work, she will get stress at the end.

This post has been edited by sp3d2: Jul 7 2024, 08:29 AM