I recently moved teams at work. New team members are quiet and we work around each other and get on well. Then I hear that a colleague from my old team is also moving over, news which made my heart sink. We didn't work closely in that team but due to the set-up in the new place, there is no escaping her and we have to work together frequently.
We are like chalk and cheese: she is loud, I am quiet. She talks constantly, I like peace with maybe a bit of Radio 4. We have very little in common and she talks endlessly about people I neither know nor care about. She is narrow-minded, bossy and prone to explaining things we all already know. She speaks in a childish voice she thinks is endearing and greets me (and everyone else) in said voice every time we walk through a door. She has been shown how to do a range of jobs as per department protocol (long-standing, and set up by our boss) yet with each one she just does it how she wants, causing confusion everywhere. I have tried to mention this but she has an answer for bloody everything and I've given up.
I have ended up retreating into myself and I think she finds me cold and aloof, probably a bit snobbish. I love my work but I'm finding my quiet enjoyment of various jobs is being eroded by her presence.
I think I have made the situation into much more of a stress than it needs to be, and so I'm asking for a bit of help in how to develop a thicker skin. I don't want to create an atmosphere but feel I have done already.
Our boss is usually away in a different office, and I think this is part of the problem - there is nobody there to repeatedly say "no, we do it this way" until she gets it. My colleagues and I don't have the clout in the face of this woman's strong personality. I feel I'd be petty in mentioning it to my boss, and might look like sour grapes.
Oooh it feels better just to get it down on paper. Do feel free to tell me to get over myself :)
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Personality clashes at work (or how to get over myself)
Kernowgal · 19/02/2014 18:24
Oh dear, you have my sympathies in return!
Unfortunately the nature of our work means we spend most of the day in close proximity and there are few occasions to escape.
What we do is quite specialised and she has shown no interest in it, so why she went for the job is beyond me. She spent most of the day complaining about the repetitive task we were doing, but it's part of the role and something she'll be doing a lot of 
I'll just have to see how it goes. She's already put one colleague's back up by bossing him around so I think I'm not alone in finding her difficult.
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