Pardon the Paranoia

There's a guy after my job.  Honest.  He has been hounding me since I went out on extended sick-leave over a year ago.

My problem is that he seems like a nice person.  Everybody likes him.  He's opioniated, like, he knows everything about everything, and the people I work with, other than me, are so tolerant they don't even realize they are being tolerant.  He's the boss's friend, and where I work, that's good as gold.

He didn't plan on going after my job, in the beginning.  I was working full-time, and he was a bored retiree.  He'd hang out and schmooze for hours with whoever was unlucky enough to allow a conversation to start with him.  I was very grateful when the boss was in and he went and hung out with the boss for hours.

Then, when I came back from eight weeks of sick leave, he had become a volunteer.  There he was, doing things none of the other volunteers ever do, in fact, nothing that I had ever done in all my years volunteering, and there were a lot.  He wandered around the back room, checked out all the bulletin boards and people's desks.  Helped himself to a huge mug of coffee, commented on what other volunteers had signed in, or why they hadn't.

And he took my one of my jobs.  I had this job that nobody else wanted.  I had been doing it for five years, and I loved it.  And when I came back from sick leave, it was no longer mine, because he wanted to do it.  And he was the boss's friend.

Now, I'm not that diplomatic sometimes, but maybe if you were returning from an extended sick leave and feeling a tad insecure, you would have reacted the same way.  When this volunteer told me he was doing my job, expecting praise and gratitude, I commented instead that it really was my job.  Now this is where it got interesting.  The volunteer told me the boss said that I didn't really like doing the job, and that's why he did it.  My boss, when I complained to him, said that I had told the volunteer that I didn't like doing the job.  And because I made the unforgiveable mistake of complaining, I became A Problem.

A few weeks later, when I was experiencing renewed pain and also running out of leave, my boss "encouraged" me to step down to part-time.  His motivation was that a co-worker who had been happily part-time needed to move to full-time.  A co-worker who never confronted the boss, I might add.  A nice person.  So after a few more weeks, I conceded and went to part-time.  No more insurance coverage, no longer able to apply for disability if the problems became more severe.

Here we are a year later.  The volunteer seems to show up every day.  I see him more than I see some of the full-time employees.  Yesterday he worked 9-2 -- MY HOURS.  He hustles like he's auditioning for the Olympics.

So I'm thinking, a bored retiree, a bit of a tightwad who could probably use a little income.  A boss who would promise him easy hours to get him on board.  And, without me there, a totally family environment.

What would you think?