New boy in the office

For a long time, I was the favourite, lots of attention and lots of perks and I never really appreciated the impact on one of my colleagues in the office who constantly came to me with what seemed to be a sob story about how he got different treatment from me. In fairness, I always rated his work less important and lower quality than mine.

And then, one day, 'he' turned up. He wasn't that special, but he could draw better than anyone else (our jobs were about writing, not drawing) so he could do pictures and images that the manager could haul the whole office around to look at with delight. Pretty soon he was being touted as outstanding newcomer of the year, apparently having more talent in his little finger than my colleague had in his whole body, lunches with the boss, constant praise and worst of all, denial by the manager of any claims made against him, explained away as being problems with us. After all, what could 'he' do wrong?

To date this problem is not solved, not even nearly solved. The lunches are more frequent, the praise ever more glowing and the output less and less in response to the lack of need to perform. Crazy, frustrating, it makes me so angry. Views?

Response from Carl: Thanks for your submission. You mention that you understand that you were the favourite previously and that you even recognize that the preferential treatment you received might have had an impact on you co-worker so good for you that you recognize this although I'll take you at your word that you deserved this treatment based on your quality work so perhaps you weren't the favourite in the traditional (ie. negative) sense. In other words, you were the favourite because you deserved it. It would seem that in your opinion, the new guy is the favourite and based on his work output doesn't deserve it.

Maybe the preferential treatment won't last especially if as you say, his skills are unrelated to the job at hand and he's simply the flavour of the day.

Maybe the new guy and your boss are becoming buddy buddy outside work and this is the reason for the preferential treatment. I've seen this too and it's not pleasant that's for sure especially if the the friendship is the sole or main reason for the preferential treatment.

If this new guy's preferential treatment is really that unwarranted, presumably your colleagues will start noticing too if they haven't already. From your comments it sounds like the guy in question is doing less work due to the preferential treatment and his apparent confidence in his position so perhaps he'll end up writing his own ticket out of town when his lack of output becomes evident to everyone including your boss. In this case perhaps all you need to do is keep working away doing your job and things will sort themselves out.

Carl