Having a job that you love is a real blessing, but sometimes just one bad co-worker can really ruin things.

What would you do if a co-worker who you didn’t really get along with was caught bad mouthing you to others behind your back?

That is what happened to the employee in this story, so she made sure to take off several days for PTO that she knew the other lady would want, just so she couldn’t have it.

Check it out.

No you can’t have new years eve off.

So I started a new job this year and up until recently I’ve genuinely been enjoying it.

There’s some colleagues I’ve bonded with really well with and I’m actually really good at what I do.

I work in primary care for the NHS (UK) and patients are always telling me how helpful and how kind I am.

Since I joined in January, 6 patients have bought me chocolates/flowers by way of a thank you for fixing certain problems for them.

What a great job!

For the first time in a really long time I feel like I’ve found some sort of calling, as lame as that sounds.

But recently my days have become increasingly difficult.

4 months into my employment my colleague (let’s call her Trish) who trained me up had to take some time out for a health issue.

I spent 3 months basically doing the job without her, and at times it was incredibly stressful being the only person able to perform the job.

Admittedly there was maybe one or two days it was too much and I had to run off for a small cry before getting back out there.

However, eventually ended up taking it in my stride and thus gained praise and respect from colleagues and patients alike.

But when it was said Trish was coming back I was relieved because I thought it would give me a bit more breathing room.

I was wrong.

Now I’ll preface all of this by saying that Trish isn’t particularly well liked.

Why do they keep her around?

She’s known for being blunt to the point of cruelty both to patients and coworkers, she’s snappy, and rude to pretty much everyone.

There’s negative comments regarding her on Google for crying out loud.

She’s had umpteen complaints against her but they keep her around as she’s worked there for around 20+ years.

When she went on leave, granted I didn’t know her that well, but we got on well and in spite of everyone bad mouthing her behind her back or making snarky comments when she went into a different room, I stood up for her.

No one was particularly overjoyed she was coning back from leave other than me.

For the first few days she was back she went straight back to trying to “train” me in spite of the fact I’d been doing everything solo since her absence.

Which rubbed me up the wrong way a little but I ignored it.

The last time I saw her I was still regularly asking questions.

So that’s fair enough.

She sounds awful.

But even though she could see I was quite capable and competent she kept talking to me like a moron.

So I had to be quite blunt with her and tell her I’d been doing the job by myself perfectly well with 0 help from her or anyone so I didn’t need to be “refreshed” with training.

Since then (July) the relationship has soured somewhat.

We’re civil when it comes to work stuff but outside of that we don’t really talk.

Until a couple of weeks ago.

I had a particularly difficult patient call up 3 days in a row and I just needed to vent.

In my head it came under the headline of “work related” so I vented to Trish about the patient, she agreed the patient was difficult and I did the correct thing for them etc.

I thanked her for letting me blow off some steam about it and went to do something else.

Wow, that is really out of line.

I forgot something though so went back and caught Trish complaining about me to 2 other colleagues, calling me soft, a whiney cow, I just need to grow up and get on with it etc..

She was like a deer in headlights.

Nothing was said between us but the whole next day she may as well have been trying to be extra nice.

Now my supervisor messaged me the other day regarding an extra holiday day around Christmas.

Trish is on annual leave currently so the supervisor hadn’t yet asked which extra day she wanted.

From previous conversations with Trish I know she wanted to take the last few days of the year off so she could go over to Europe to spend NYE with her adult child.

Well played.

After the way she’s treated me the last 2 months I felt like being incredibly petty so I asked for the day I knew she wanted and asked to use a couple of my annual leave days as I have “family commitments.”

Meaning I had 3 days off, total, following the weekend (this was also going to be Trish’s plan).

My supervisor gave them to me.

So, that now means Trish won’t be able to take the days off as there won’t be any cover.

I also know she’s already booked her hotel and flights and she was just waiting for the supervisors to bring up the extra holidays.

It is nothing more than she deserves for talking behind her back.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this.

This person did something similar.

Yes, she earned the PTO.

Keeping your mouth shut is the best course of action.

Those would be the perfect plans.

That would make it even better.

Treat people right and you don’t have to worry about this type of thing.

It really is that simple.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.