columbia1 Posted March 14, 2013 Posted March 14, 2013 I have a coworker that I do not like very much. Her communication style is very clipped and in a word, bitchy. I watched her rip a new co-worker to shreds on their incompetence behind their back. She is positioning herself to be promoted, and will do anything to show she deserves the position. To that end, we worked together to get a project started, and while our incompetent co-worker made a mess of it. When that co-worker was no more, she backed off including me in any of the work involved in the project that I could be involved in. She did not ask for my opinions or my suggestions, just put all of her energy into making herself look good. This has gone on for awhile now, and I began to get frustrated - not only for not being included, but because she wasn't even sharing information with me about what was going on anymore because there was an opening for her now that our incompetent co-worker was no longer in the picture. I had reached my breaking point a couple weeks ago when I got a memo at work about something I was unaware of and didn't even know what meeting I missed. The common denominator in a lot of things was this co-worker. Out of spite, I did something to one-up her, and she did not react well. After an exchange back and forth, I called her out on her disinterest in working with me and communicating with me, things I have been blamed for in the past. I included other people in the communication (highers up) because I wanted a record that I had made attempts to work with her and she declined or didn't follow through. Now, she approaches me to talk and wants to "clear the air" and says I embarrassed her by including my higher ups in the conversation. I have talked to a few other people about my concerns, because I was worried I was letting my personal feelings cloud the situation (that I wasn't being included). They told me to trust my gut. Part of me wonders if her conversation means she know she screwed up and needs to back track. My communication style with her was exactly the way she would normally communicate with me something - it was basically a dose of her own medicine that she didn't take too kindly to. And now she wants to "fix it" and look like the bigger person, although quite honestly she has problems with me too. I told her my issues and asked her to tell me how she would like me to change my style of communication with her, and she said she didn't know because had never had anyone she needed to. She also intimated that I was crabby and taking it out on her because I am single and have no one to take my anger and frustration out on, and she had a husband to do that to (which I found completely inappropriate and untrue). I ended the conversation by telling her that I have seen the way she treats people (like our ex-coworker) and myself, and that if she wants change it will come when I see a change in her and her manner towards me. I pointed out her communication style is no better than mine, so all the blame doesn't rest at my feet. She wants to put it all on me, and I won't tolerate it. Does anyone have any insights or suggestions on how to progress from here?
Minnie09 Posted March 16, 2013 Posted March 16, 2013 It always depends on who has the better cards with the managers. Who do they like and support? I'm in a similar situation right now, where a female coworker who seems very intimidated and threatened by me, even though we work in different positions, tries to bully me, withhold information etc. unfortunately we do report to the same manager and she is more liked by him, they even go out together and see each other outside of work which is inappropriate IMO. For this reason, I was ignored once in the past for a promotion. She has tremendous influence on our manager, and badmouths me to him all the time. I'm trying to step on nobody's toes, ignore her, not interfere - she still treats me like I'm a major threat and undermines me actively behind my back. I do have the better education, background, experience, but she's been working there longer and knows everybody of influence. Blah.
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