Someone close to me has passed away in tragic circumstances. I am taking a couple of days annual leave to regroup and casually mentioned this to a colleague, without going into detail. She looked from side to side and said “ohhh what do I need to say that?”
I was fuming internally but laughed it off and just said don’t worry. She replied, I need to say don’t worry? I then slightly more sharply said the appropriate response was sorry or condolences.
she doesn’t speak English as a first language but speaks it excellently. I feel there’s a real lack of empathy there; I have to educate her on how best to be kind to me?!
I also just find her behaviour fully rude at times. We were talking about foxes the other day and I said that I quite liked them and felt bad humans were encroaching onto their natural habitat. She told me to get over it…
We are in a very small team of people and I’m finding it very difficult to build any kind of positive relationship with her.