AIBU to suspect a colleague’s behaviour may relate to my nationality?

Worst advice ever.

There would be an investigation which will probably reveal that you have lied, wasted company time, started a smear campaign and on the list goes.

Obviously don't do this.

Send yourself a horrible meme anonymously and show her and tell her you've been considering going to hr about not feeling comfortable/targeted
Tell her that casually/in a non threatening way and watch her freak

But you are concealing the nationality in this post so obviously you do shy away from openly saying it. Anyways I’m sure I know what nationality you are. Enough clues in the post to work it out.

If you seriously have 20 of these ^ then regardless of her potential racism she's a shit colleague and all 20 should be reported

Take the racism out. Spreadsheet every micro and macro (!) aggression. Report the vile person

By all accounts your first language seems to be English!

I work with a person who accused me of being racist and hating her/her country etc etc. I have actually lived in her country and most of my family are from there so actually she is totally wrong on that count but not on the fact I cannot bear the woman. For some bizarre reason she has decided it is because she is an Aussie and not because she is a loud mouthed obnoxious biggot with views I find astoundingly ignorant and racist herself but nope, she thinks it is because of where she is from. Perhaps your colleague just does not like you yourself? I mean no disrespect, I do not know you at all but we can't like everyone.

@oneofthems will you be getting paid for working on Saturday? I really hope so and I’d also discuss this with your colleague on Monday. A previous poster suggested you could have emailed your colleague stating that this would be delayed now until Monday, and asking her to update the client with the reasons why. Too late this time but this could be an option for the future.

Couldn’t you arrange for client emails to be posted to a shared inbox? You shouldn’t have to but it’s something you need to bring up, using this latest incident as the reason why.

Well race is a construct so it’s perfectly possible to be racist towards someone who shares your skin tone, build, hair colour/texture if you’ve bought into the idea that they are somehow different to you at a physical level. Antisemitism is racism, the Rwandan genocide was racism, colourism is racism.

It's racist for white non travellers to be prejudiced against travellers. And most travellers are white. But yeah I guess it's all those things!

I believe that hating someone with the same skin tone as you but from a different country is xenophobic not racist. Different religions is religious discrimination.

And you as usual are keen to minimise any suspected racism and dismiss it as a possibility. No surprises here. Are you white btw?

It’s illegal to discriminate against someone because of their political beliefs.

If your colleague is being deliberately difficult because you are American, she would be discriminating against you due to your nationality which you can't help and can't change.

If she is doing this because you are a MAGA American, she is being difficult with you because of your views and political beliefs which are a choice. Her behaviour is still unacceptable and unprofessional but more understandable .

But people in the workplace can hold all sorts of opinions you don't like - as long as they're not promoting them in the workplace.

When you work with a lot of people, there's a chance you won't like all of them. You can still work with them professionally and be polite to them, and expect that back. I know it's unusual never to have any smalltalk in the office, but you can talk about the weather or something fairly neutral.

You don’t think someone could hold the same racist views as their husband . THAT’S a reach.

Yeah that is what I thought.

I thought OP might be English in Scotland or Ireland. In which case she'd be right to keep her nationality secret or she'd get lots of posters telling her the colleague is right or she's imagining it.

Do you have the sort of relationship with your team, or some people in it, where you could mention (verbally) that she seems to have a bit of a blind spot in inviting you to meetings or passing on work, and could they support you in managing this? You could frame it as being all about client satisfaction, managing upwards, flexing for different styles etc. That way, your team would feel empowered to bring you in to meetings etc rather than sometimes assuming you’d been asked and had a clash (or whatever) and the more savvy ones will probably clock what is going on and might even be a bit protective of you.

I wouldn't bother on here. It seems perfectly okay to have a go and discriminate against being English on here so discrimination against a nationality is common.

!

Well, it matters because you have said this is about nationality but now it seems it might be about your right to have (far right? racist?) views with no consequences.

Either way, she absolutely shouldn’t be unprofessional, which it looks like she is with all these repeated “errors” in a pattern. But you asked to understand the reason for an apparent dislike. I like Americans, I dislike MAGA and think it’s having a terrible impact outside the USA as well as in it. I reserve the right to dislike MAGA, it’s nothing to do with nationality.

You can't bring up nationality op. You'd look like a nutter with a chip on your shoulder.

You CAN clearly push back, in writing every single time.

So every time there's a near miss and someone tells you or forwards something she should have, email her. 'Hi Louise, Sam sent me the x which was cascaded on Tuesday. Can you please make sure i'm in all future emails and meetings? Thanks'.

When she mentions she thought you were on holiday, stamp on it. Email her later 'Hi, you mentioned earlier you'd thought I was on holiday, hence missing me off X. Just wanted to let you know my calendar is public and kept updated so if in doubt please check. Thanks!

When she withholds work, don't let her mistake become your emergency on a Friday and dump it back in her lap. 'Hi Louise, unfortunately i'm snowed under with X today and simply don't have scope right now. Can you please contact the client to let them know of the oversight and confirm this will be provided by cob Monday? Can you please also ensure future asks are sent in a timely manner to ensure completion by deadlines? Thanks'.

If or when she doesn't reply, start innocently forwarding to her line manager. 'Hi Susan, please see the trail below. I haven't heard back from Louise yet so wasn't sure if she'd had an early finish maybe? As this is now time critical due to the previous oversight, can you please ask one of your other guys to touch base with the client today? Thanks'.

And separately, keep a simple log of every incident. If she doesn't get the message in a couple of weeks, send it to her line manager, again innocently 'Hi Susan, sorry to bring this to you. However, as you can see by the below log there have been several near misses and client impacts lately and I wondered if maybe Susan needs some additional support? Would appreciate if this could be addressed please'.

Also this colleague is a bit stupid allowing an association with this on her fb as many prospective employers check it

Given the direction this thread took without you even saying anything specific, of course it can be entirely true that your coworker is bigoted and more importantly, unable to put that aside while at work.

I was born in Israel and brought up in the states. I have an Israeli name and an American accent and immigrated to the uk 20ish years ago. I’m also Jewish. It’s been an interesting time these last few years. So I am very, very sure that people can treat you differently because of any or all of these things and I’m very sure it can bleed into the workplace. I however have no way to fix that except to put that to one side yourself.

At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter. She’s racist or incompetent or a bully and you just have to get more allies around you. Be super clear with anyone else on the team that they need to forward you things or copy you in etc. I’d have no issue saying ‘person appears to be struggling a bit right now as she missed me out of xyz so I’m trying to put some support around her’. Kill her with kindness, never bad mouth her and keep records for HR if it gets to that point. And, if an option, look for a new job as this isn’t likely to either improve or be great for your mental health.