What do you do?

I have a dilemma and I think I need advice.

I have this colleague who is a trying personality. Let me describe.

She's 62. She's gushy - everything and everyone is woooonderful! She's highly irritating sometimes but gets very offended when it seems like people are ignoring her - if you are quieter than normal, she thinks it's about her. She won't ask for help with work, but she's all over you when it's a personal thing (offer to cook dinner, wash for you, whatever). She's insecure and needy. She's high maintenance. She needs validation. She isn't thorough.

I have this colleague.

Today, she let us down. Let me start from the beginning.

Last week, colleague and I had a meeting with Fred (not his name). In this meeting, Fred asked us to put some information together. He asked for it a certain way, under certain headings but it was important to jsut get the information in there (keep this in mind). Colleague and I agreed, but it was colleague who was ultimately given responsibility for it. I was support and this was fine - I was flat out with a lot of other things.

Anyway, document is due tomorrow and a review was done today, this time with our manager involved. I was not a part of this review due to my busy nature (yes, i am very important!). Apparently my manager and Fred reviewed the document and manager made a point that the information did not follow the client's headings (as previously discussed in the first meeting). But Fred did not tell manager that it was the original intention to do it that way and it had not been done.

So, being that it was at the 11th hour, I was brought in to review these documents and structure them according to the first meeting. My colleague was given other tasks and I was taken off my other VIDs (Very Important Duties). I was given the brief to rewrite 3 of the 6 documents. However, upon reviewing the other 3, I realised they too needed to be placed into the same format. I spent the entire afternoon rewriting, calling people for the missing information and fuming. As I was doing it, I realised that my colleague had basically done a huge dump of information from our library of information, without reviewing it, without tailoring it and without thinking about the discussion from the first session about structuring it to the client's requirements. Yet, she had spent 'all this time' fluffing around with a document - doing god knows what.

My colleague wanted to know why I was stressing out and shitty. I said that the document hadn't been tailored like the first discussion and needed a lot of work. She turned around and said, "Oh! But that's what Fred said to do and that it would be tailored upon review!" The panic in her voice was evident, like she was excusing herself, trying to defend herself when no one was attacking her.

The thing is, Fred did say this, but he and I both expected that yes, she would dump the information in there, but the expectation was that she begin tailoring the information according to the client's requirements, not sit passively by and wait to be told to do it. All I can think is that all she heard in that meeting was "blah blah blah, dump the information in, blah blah blah".

The basics of our work is this - you dump relevant information in, and then you go back and think more about the requirements and you start to tailor the information. You don't dump the information in and hope to hell the client can work out where the answers lie within the information. It's such a lazy, apathetic attitude. It shits me. Tonight, I was at work later than anyone else, trying to pick up the pieces and cover for her, when I realised that I shouldn't need to. So, I wrote my manager an email and without actually naming her, explained the discussion which originally took place.

What do I do about this woman? She's incompetent and although has had SIMILAR experience in this line of work, wasn't very good at it and still isn't. She pretends to understand what is expected, but has such a romantic notion of things, really doesn't take things in. You just can't rely on her.

How do I talk to my manager about this? I have spoken to him about this on a very high level, but he's so non committal about it. This is his style. It was his style last time when a colleague wasn't performing. I left that job, disheartened. I don't want to leave this job disheartened. I refuse to. I am better than her, more valuable. To me, she is someone who people roll their eyes about and tolerate. She's a bit of a joke unfortunately. A kind heart, but not very professional.