I have my own room at work - well almost. About 4 hours per week we are 2 in the room. Me and - let's call him Tom. And we really are not best friends. It's not that we hate each other, we are just too different. He is as non diplomatic as one can be. I think I can be diplomatic if I want to. At work I usually want to

Well it started with calenders that we can order now. They should be for work, of course. He told me to get one for home. I'm too - well half and half - I have him always with me and therefore there are work-things in at as well as private things. Anyway, he thinks I'm too correct. Tells me that he does not believe that I never overlay my break. In fact - I don't. I have my mobile ringing when it's time to go back to work. If I stay too long away anyway, I take this time from my overtime. It's just the way I am. Yes, I surf while I should be working but it would be wrong to tell him so, he would use it against me if there would be the opportunity.

I'm just so tired of this ... every now and then he starts with it and in the end he says "Well, doesn't matter, I don't care." - "Funny, you talk a lot about it, doesn't seem as if you wouldn't care." - "No I don't. I don't have to. Your partner has to." - ehm sorry, why are we talking about my partner now?? This was about work!

After that he usually start to call me a bitch (hope the use of the word is the same as Zicke in German). I think I'm not. Well okay, sometimes I am, but I really try not to be. He surly is. I started to be faster then him and call him a bitch right away at this point of our conversation.

It's really that he wants to hear from me that I screw our employer - because he is doing so and wants sanction for that.

The point is: I think he is terrible. The way he economies with his money, the way he works and so on - but I don't say anything to him about that. I never start such discussions as the one we had now. I just accept that he is different and try not to mix into his stuff or way of handling things. Why can't he do the same?

The only explanation I have is that I really bully him in my silent way ... I know he hates that I have no problems with our boss because I am ... different. I tell him straight away what I think about something and if he asks me some awkward questions, I don't say "ehm er errr ... well ... er". I prefer the easy way, even if that means that I have to tell our boss something that he does not want to hear. I am terribly afraid in such situations (it's never nice to say "no I have not finished that" or "sorry, it will never work") but I try to play cool - and I guess that's why my boss and I come along ... he knows somehow to trust me. Tom tries not to say something negative to our boss - but most of the time our boss gets it and finds out.

Well we are different. But where is the problem??