When I was hired for my current job, one of my employees was in the running for my position and was turned down. This makes for an awkward situation, since she now has to work for the person who beat her out for the job. Well, I was hoping after I heard this that she'd be cool about it, but that's not been the case. She asks me questions she knows I don't know during my staff mtgs to try and make me look dumb in front of my team, and throws me under the bus every chance she gets. I give her projects to do and she hands them back to me a week later, saying "I didn't have time to get to that", and I proceed to push them back across the desk and tell her to make it a priority and complete it. So difficult to work with, and she's supposed to be my right hand man. Ugh. 69 more days until maternity leave.
Re: work vent
There's one woman in my office with friend potential, and a few others who are on a friend-ish level. In general, people there have been pretty decent to deal with besides some of the petty crap that you get when all your employees are women and they've all worked there for 25+ years with each other doing the same job. I can't even imagine.
Ding ding ding! You got it. My boss knows all about it and is frustrated too. Right now I'm still taking the Earn Her Respect, Win Her Over approach....but the time is coming for a Come to Jesus meeting. If someone would tell her why she was passed over for the promotion, that would probably help immensely. People need feedback...and I can't really speak on her past since I wasn't there and have no examples. I'm quickly building my own set, unfortunately. Sometimes there are glimmers of hope that we are going to have a good working relationship, but I still have to watch my back.