How Ellen Killed Bob

Ellen was one of Bob's associates. They'd entered the company at about the same time. quickly established ties as the new supervisors on the block, and eventually gained promotions into middle management. They often went to lunch together although there was never a whiff of anything romantic. Both had happy marriages and each would describe the other as a friend. Neither would have suspected that Ellen would murder Bob's career but then that crime developed over time and was quietly performed.

Even now, Ellen would deny any ill-will toward Bob. She always thought of herself as one of Bob's boosters and could readily cite instances when she'd praised and aided him. A review of the evidence indicates, however, that for all of her good intent, Ellen adopted practices that would eventually be lethal. Her conduct included the following:

• She promptly told Bob, who was notoriously sensitive, about any negative gossip that she heard about him in the office grapevine. This upset him enormously. Many of the tidbits damaged his perception of some co-workers who may or may not have said what they were alleged to have remarked. Ellen felt it was her duty as a friend to pass along the bad news. The effect was to make Bob feel like he was surrounded by enemies.


• Whenever she and Bob worked together on projects, she was consistently late with her share of the work although she knew tardiness was one of Bob's hot buttons and shot his stress levels off the charts. This was especially disconcerting if both had to make presentations.
  
• While at lunch with her other friends, she quoted some of Bob's off-hand - and what he thought were confidential - quips about executives. Those comments eventually reached the wrong ears and created some serious enemies for Bob. He never knew the reason why certain promotions were mysteriously blocked. To this day, Ellen denies any culpability, declaring, "I told them not to repeat anything."


• Ellen passed reports on their joint projects to various executives with the simple line, "Here's a project that I worked on that might be of interest." On a few of those projects, Ellen's work was ten to twenty percent of the total project while Bob did the rest.

All of these did their work in time and Bob's career was effectively stymied while Ellen moved on up the ladder. Bob knew little of most of these actions and it is easy to see him as a victim.

The real question, however, is how much of this was Bob's fault?