Ok so I work In small place where the receptionist/gateway person is from another department/team (with no manager supervisor on site). I am kind of a lone worker for my department and I am 2 grades senior to her. She has a history of moodiness/awkwardness blowing hot and cold etc. I tolerated her and her occasional moods for a few years and things were ok in the workplace most of the time most days. Anyway about a year ago she became arsey and awkward with me just about every day I was in (I work part time she is full time). I let her away with this hoping she would eventually be reasonable with me again eventually. I can go in try and be pleasant friendly when I pass the reception then get on with my work and can largely ignore her most of the day but it doesn’t make it a very pleasant environment to work. Anyway her attitude and awkwardness with me has got worse and more recently she has sent a couple of emails to her supervisor who is the same grade as me, my manager and her supervisors manager to try and get me into trouble. She basically thinks she is more important than she is and has been allowed to get away with being like this for years and it’s got worse since she has been at this site. I don’t want to say what the emails were about as I don’t want to out myself. She is more than capable in her work role but not the ideal personality characteristics for a re working role. She is however mostly ok with our customers but she is really awkward to me and also to some of her colleagues of the same grade on another site.
Anyway a meeting was called last week mainly to try and smooth things over since her emails and my having a couple of conversations with my boss about her awkwardness and worsening attitude in response to her emails.
She behaved badly, awkwardly, angrily and defensively at the meeting lied and turned on the tears. She also accused us of ganging up on her as she was the lowest grade.
Afterwards I was commended for my calmness, attitude and reasonableness and have been told by my line manager that I have her full support and the support of the other persons supervisor if I want to take things further and go to HR. But I have heard on the grapevine that both her supervisor and her supervisors manager and a few of her colleagues have had enough of her. So I don’t want the stress of this or to just be used to get rid of her. Anyway after the meeting we were both asked if we could move on and go forward with an improved working relationship as they didn’t want our customers picking up on an awkwardness unprofessional relationship between us. I said I was more than prepared to do this and on two occasions apologised that she was upset that day said I didn’t want to upset her but things couldn’t continue as they were and her attitude had caused me stress for over a year and I wanted to have a professional working relationship etc. She looked angry and ready the rest of the morning and was quiet and scowly in the afternoon. I said goodnight x when I left and she scowled and ignored me. I am dreading going into work this week. She is her own worst enemy but if she doesn’t calm herself down she will be moved to the bigger site where her superviser is based on a regular or more permanent basis and where most of her colleagues are that she also doesn’t like (which will be great for me) but much less good for her. As she had said to her line manager on another occasion that working from the other site would affect her mental health.
Any advice going into work this week as I am really not looking forward to it as last week was stressful enough and I have enough stress in my job role.
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Moody awkward receptionist in workplace
44 replies
Amazonian27 · 19/11/2018 16:13
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