To be fed up with work colleague!

In the 50s, a quickie had about the value of an A level, nowadays it's probably worth a Masters !

Before complaining you’d be best to have plenty of concrete evidence of her problematic words and actions and to have evidence you’d tried to address it directly with the colleague. And to be clear on what you’d like the boss and colleague to do.

Most of the examples you describe would be difficult to evidence.

I once had a more subtle colleague, senior to me, who’d undermine me, cut me out of information of relevance to my work, meetings, work tasks. She was quieter about it. I decided that it would be difficult to evidence and that she’d likely be even worse if I raised things with her. I left!

@Crimble123 pretty sure that your job does not include showing her how to do the bits of the job which need to be done on excel or any other computer programme/ she is obviously not as capable as she likes to make out. you should not help her do the job which she is supposedly able to do. tell her directly that you are doing the same job as her as she is not your superior, so you wont be taking insults or orders from her! tell hr the same!! they need to train her and not expect you to train her!

So I think you need to raise the meetings thing with your manager. That’s not acceptable and your manager needs to
make sure you are included.

Also from now on do not share anything that could be remotely helpful with this idiotic colleague.

You get a lot of dimwits who think forceful people add more value. Also those who think women need to act like men to get ahead at work. Women who do this are often the absolute worst kind of managers and are vile towards other female colleagues.

You're not alone OP. I manage someone who undermines me, or tries to. Something im going to have to address as she does it in meetings when she has her 'audience' pain in the arse and quite frankly a b*tch

I'm not sure what the answer is, but agree with you that this is not behaviour that you should have to put up with. Even if you wfh part of the time, you spend a lot of time with work colleagues.

What do you want the outcome to be?

I’ve just started a new job. I have a colleague with whom I have to spend 3 hours, twice a week. I come away each time with a headache, as she talks continuously, like a stream of consciousness robot, causing absolute chaos all round. I have to do this until the end of September. If it was permanent I would be leaving.

This is a long winded way of saying you might not be able to do anything, other than leave (or find a way of working away from her) as bosses are terrified of dealing with ‘personalities.’ People have tried addressing things with my colleague’s boss, but not got anywhere. Some people are just untouchable.

With the boss, go in with specific incidents, really clear, state the impact it is having on you and the business. Going to a client after you've made the first contact is a good example, makes your company look uncoordinated, you felt undermined and unsure of what you should do next as not clear who is handling it now, client likely confused too. Ideally she repeats behaviours, so if you've had this happen once, you've given that feedback (ideally in writing) and it happens again - that's when involving your boss will have more impact.

Just keep it up with the challenge, go to writing and document what is happening. My tip would be to pour your heart out to copilot or ChatGPT, explain that you are feeling undermined and ask it to help you frame your emails (or how you raise it verbally) in a constructive way. Look at models like COIN to help articulate what the issue is and how things can improve. You want an objective person to be able to look at the situation and see it for what it is with you coming across in a good way. And just suck up that she will be annoyed by your raising your concerns. She's annoying you and it sounds as though it's her behaviour that is off.

Good grief really? So women can only be forceful and confident because they're having sex with a senior man?

She is the problem (from your pov) and I think you need to become a bit of a problem. Your boss can't be bothered to challenge it so you will need to. So for example, re her contacting a client after you had initiated it, pick it up with her "colleague, I am confused as to why you contacted X after I had already got the ball rolling, I'm sure you didn't mean it to come across this way, but I found it to be very undermining. We should be supporting each other and not duplicating effort and I'm sure this is confusing for the client". Pick these things up every single time and get more blunt as time goes on.

All without fail?

I can't imagine where you've been working, in fact I don't want to know.

But rest assured there are plenty of professional workplaces where 'bulldozing females' as you put it, are very successful without having sex with anyone.

I’ve worked in a few places with a bulldozing female in the past and they have all, without fail, been shagging the boss, hence they get away with their behaviour

She couldn't just be a strong and confident woman?

She has to be having sex with the boss?

I think your mind might need dragging out of the 1950s, even if it does start kicking and screaming all the way.

Yeah some people are just like that you can't/shouldn't change somebody's personality.

She’s probably shagging the boss. That type usually do.