Office politics or people's evilness?

[Cuchu]

Ha ha, rhino, obviously you're not a woman. We have a tendency to talk to ourselves and go on and on...

Ha, ha, ha, you are so witty! Do you always have internal dialogue with yourself? If so, remember not to say it out loud or others think you ki siao . BTW, do you know Hamlet? He was well-known for his procrastination which eventually caused his downfall .

Welcome back and hope all's well at the home front.

Cuchu,

I can understand how you feel and though it may sound trivial, such interpersonal unpleasantness and inconsiderate behaviours (the cause of some expats complain about Singaporeans in this forum!) can put a damper in your day. Worse if it affects your professional standing at your workplace. One way to deal with it is to have all 3 talk it out face-to-face, between yourself, male and female coworkers over the misunderstanding. Helps to clarify things up and minimize manipulation of facts behind someone's back. If it is not too confrontational or unpleasant, that is.

Or else just decide whether it's a battle worth fretting over. And perhaps move on.

Yeah, I might just try to forget the whole thing if we can't have a talk.
Well my female colleague and I are ok now I think.
I must admit I was still a little bit boiled when I remembered that I was called on being inappropriate to talk about this female colleague being friendly with the male colleague even though it'd be in a regular friendliness context (actually I was called on talking about her behind her back, her exact words that is), when this guy was "reporting" about the conversation between me and him when I left already! How convenient!
So I sent her an email after re-running what happened, explaining that she should think with a clear mind too that we three could have talked to clear things up before I left, if the guy did have that intention in mind, instead of "reporting" to her after I left.
Gee, it's like he's running to his mummy for her to be on his side!
I'll see how she reacts on that email on Monday.

Well WIMH and earthfriendly, I must admit I am a typical person who needs to talk about things, but I actually usually seek for other people's opinion for me to consider if there is another angle I haven't seen before, before making a decision. Not sure if it's a typical woman thing... I know a girlfriend who can keep things to herself and she is my best friend who doesn't always tell me things that bother her. It's just her personality and probably it's more of a personality thing. But yeah, perhaps more blokes are rather independent in that sense, they don't need to consult others that much for things that bother them.

[Cuchu]

sorry to hear you're in a tough situation.

Cheers for the kind words. I could see it's not really a big thing actually, but still it affected me in a way I didn't want to be I'm afraid

so here is the thing... you are not at all "wrong" here. i think you mean well, but i also think that you're trying hard to balance being nice and not letting yourself be a doormat.

Exactly actually.
In a way I did want to sort of drive him to use the female colleague's phone to see if he were going to behave the same. Or if he were, she would tell him off I'm sure and that'd teach him a lesson, I thought!
I suspect he would act differently however, cause the female colleague is much older so he would be more careful with her, whereas he and I actually started quite ok, actually quite friendly since our age is not that of big difference. Or maybe I am young at heart

the problem is, if you don't say anything now, it will fester slowly, and will become bigger and bigger issue. so, even though it may not be fair that you are the one who has to take the first step, i think you should.

Yeah, actually a flatmate was saying that he probably overreacted cause I let him to have this bad habit for months without saying anything. So now being denied the phone for the first time, made him react more than he would have probably, at least that's my flatmate's theory.
I don't reckon he never saw me correcting the position of the phone at least once after he used it, and this is probably my thing adapting to Japanese indirect way (lived there for a long time), that I was hoping he sort of got the message. But yeah, some people are clueless until they're told bluntly, I suppose.

you don't have to admit that you did anything wrong here,

I don't reckon anyway! Well, I still reckon I'm not asking too much and it's still a common courtesy I reckon.

but you need to have another talk with him. you need to pull him aside, and say, "look, i feel like we got off on the wrong foot and i feel tension between us. it must really suck to join the company and feel like they haven't treated you properly and still haven't given you a phone. that must be really frustrating for you. why don't we try to start over. i hope we can get along together and be friends, but regardless, we have to work together and near each other so we're going to have to find a way to get along. so, how about we start over?"

if you say something like that to him, then maybe you can get a "do-over" on your relationship. if he responds negatively to you when you say this, then you should NOT play his game and just say, "okay, i guess you're not in the same place right now, but please just remember that i want to get along, and hope we can".

if you do this, you've just done more than 95% of people would in your same situation, but you have also not compromised yourself by being a doormat for him. some people just have a lot of issues, and if this doesn't work then at least you gave it a good shot.

I might do that. I want both of us to cool off first though. So I'll wait to see if a good timing presents itself.
Cheers for that advice. I just hope he's being an adult enough to be able to have an adult conversation.
The thing is, a lot of events happened before have proven that this bloke can be quite childish actually, which is why I got annoyed thus made the decision to be more firm say with the phone that I have let him get away with for months.

good luck -- i know how much it can suck to work with difficult people, so i hope you can work it out.

We'll see. Fingers crossed
I actually most likely am not going to work there anymore (which is what I told him and don't want others to know. I had to discuss with him cause it's in the field he has experience in) in a couple of months. So I don't have anything to lose. Well actually he is also looking, which I certainly do know of for sure. So he's in the same situation.
But I don't fancy leaving unresolved baggage actually. Plus you never know you might encounter the same people in the future.