Adminzilla Update
Who is Adminzilla? Well, she is the control freak who was hired to be the exec assistant to our EVP and couple other VPs in our department.

She's basically pissed everyone off at one time or another, including me. I think she doesn't realize that you have to keep good relationships with the people around you at your job...because those aren't just 'people'...they're resources. They are people whose help you are going to need at some point.

Anyway, Adminzilla flipped out on me right before Christmas or New Year's because I didn't take some stupid tray back downstairs after a client visit. She acted like the cleaning people were going to make off with it. It was kinda funny, in retrospect. But she even had the audacity to get in my face about it, and I had to tell her, Look dear, it's not that big a deal. And she made it sound like my supervisor thought that it was and I was afraid she was going to tattle to my sup. That's the cornerstone experience that I am building my working relationship around with her. ie...I'm treading lightly and avoiding her as much as possible...and I'm considering the source of everything she says and does.

Twiggy has a total vendetta against her and loves to drum up drama about her. There was a client visit this morning for one of the 19 directors that I support and so I was naturally going to handle it. But the thing is that 2 of the VPs that Adminzilla supports were involved, so she was having a control conniption. This is where 5 years of therapy comes in. When someone is having a control problem and it's not really that important that you maintain control over whatever it is, then just cede control. You will feel so much better and so will she. So that's what I did. She took over and that was that. I do zillions of client visits a year and I'm not thrilled with that part of my job, so letting someone else do it is just fine with me.

But Twiggy was in full drama mode and was enjoying gossiping against her, so whatever. I just listened and whatnot, in the interest of maintaining an ok relationship with Twiggy and not making myself become a subject of her gossiping any more than I already am. She gossips about everyone, so I just shrug it off and try to avoid talking to her any more than is necessary to maintain an ok relationship with her.

My turn to play psychologist: I think that Adminzilla's control issues stem from the abusive marriage that she was in for years and years and the endless criticism that she endured. She is terrified of making a mistake or doing anything to earn her any more criticism. She confided to me that her exH had her feeling so bad about herself that she could not look in the mirror. Knowing that and understanding that about her allows me to shrug off a lot. Thanks Therapist!