Help me show compassion to this colleague

[Inchimoocha]

I work very closely with a colleague in a very small team. We will be working together for another few months before I will be reshuffled elsewhere.

Colleague is sweet but has a lot of mental health problems which impact on her ability to perform the role. I'm not going to give specifics but she is consistently dropping the ball. Management is aware and I have told them that if colleague drops the ball, I'm not picking it up as I have my own workload. When we started working together I tried very hard to take her under my wing and made a big effort to be compassionate, even if it meant me taking on her work.

I've stopped because it was very, very stressful. I know I will be moving on to another team in a few months but need some help to deal with some of the emotions I feel when colleague is not undertaking her tasks adequately. I've stopped reminding her as I have my own work to concentrate on and, for my own mental health, have had to step back. In the past I was polite and direct but it made no difference so I've stopped explaining things as we both have the same level of experience in the field. I've had to completely shut off from caring about her side of things.

I'm not sure how management is dealing with this or planning to deal with it, as its not my problem. My colleague is underperforming and I'm not, so will leave it at that. However, whilst I do feel very frustrated at times, I still want to treat colleague with kindness. Our time working together will be over soon and I want to know that I treated her with respect, while still maintaining my own boundaries.

When I'm feeling overwhelmed, I do make efforts to leave the working environment for a few minutes, to give us both a little space. I also use a lot of polite greyrock techniques so I don't get drawn into any conversations which I feel would trigger my annoyance. Colleague seems very emotionally fragile and I would rather just concentrate on my own performance and not get drawn into anything.

Just to clarify, i tried very hard to support colleague at the beginning. Things would improve for a while and then go back to how they were.

Management is aware but I just need some tips on how to manage the last few months while maintaining my own dignity and professionalism.

All this, a person can only be carried so far to be perfectly honest you are not their mother

And I don't see how this is fair on anyone

After 40 years of work with absolutely no issues l encountered this fairly recently. I was totally supportive at first, took time to explain everything thoroughly, overlooked a few things and then one day lost my temper which had literally never happened in work before. The person actually reported me to management but luckily they were totally aware of the continuous incompetence so it didn't become an issue. This person had a great way of talking the talk but not walking the walk so they could have been fooled.
To be honest l decided to retire as l felt my whole career could be ruined if l had to continue working with this person.
This is no help to you as you are not retirement age but try to detach as much as possible and count down those days. You have my sympathy because it feels awful to lose your temper when it's not your usual way of operating. Saying that l am amazed at how straight talking some of my children's bosses are and maybe our issue is being too nice always and people take advantage of us. My dh is also self employed and he gives it straight to people and they all get on well as Tey know where they stand.

I'm early 40s so not near retiring soon. I'm so sorry you felt like this and your career ended on a sour note. I do however feel very seen by your comment (among others on this thread, bar the one implying I'm a dick). It completely takes over your life unless you bring a much colder side to the front of your being.

A few days ago, colleague said something to me that, a few month ago, would have seen me cancelling everything, sitting do with a cup of tea, doing a full debrief/chat/shoulder to cry on kind of 'safe space' to chat. I just said something akin to 'oh right'. I told my friend who said 'that is so unlike you!' It's definitely turning me into a much harder person. I feel an element of the softness of my character has been lost. Maybe not a bad thing.

You are falling into the female trap of thinking the solution is to be nice. You’ve done all you can. Now it’s the company’s job to sort this out. You can and should be polite to your colleague - but it would be disingenuous to do more than that.

Focus on looking after yourself. if she is dropping the ball as frequently as you describe it’s pretty impossible to step back from, and is bound to add to your stress as you are jointly responsible for the project.

I would go and see your union and get advice (join one if you don’t belong). Then I would go and see HR and tell them you need them to put another person on the project with the two of you, who can do he actual work, because she can’t.

Follow up in writing. Report weekly (or more often if needed, (but daily will piss them off), on what has been messed up / not done.

Be polite to your colleague, but tune her out / wear headphones. You’ve tried very hard but now your goal is for the issues she is creating to be sorted out.

One more piece of armchair philosophy occurred to me at my gym class.

You are frightened of being angry. You said you are not an angry person and seem ashamed that you displayed anger in a difficult situation . I wonder why that is ?

I'm not saying you should let your emotions rule your actions, but actually accepting and understanding why you are angry- and actually you've got every right to be angry at your management whose mishandling of the situation endangered your mental health and your reputation- can be very healthy.

I was going to spout a bit more about maybe you are frightened to be angry in case it spills into other areas of your life - you are very busy for example is your DP/DH fully carrying 50% of the load - but I may well be overreaching there.

100% and also brought up in counselling. I was brought up to never express anger. It led to punishment and I was never taught how to channel it. All anger was seen as defiance and still isn't allowed as an adult (in my family). My therapist told me that I have a right to be angry about anything I'm angry about. As I said, I'm learning a lot! You are really being spot on with your observations!!!!

When I was off with stress, I saw other areas in my life where I was doing unseen work and carrying mental loads. This was months ago and my husband had really picked up the slackening a way I didn't even realise he needed to. The 'thinking stuff,' like uniforms, clubs, lunches, snacks, spellings etc. I've also dropped some expectations of myself at home.

I know this won't be the sort of response you are wanting, and I am trying to work out the situation just from what you have written and of course could be wrong. However I will share as - who knows - you may see some truth that might help you reframe things.

The locus of your discontent is that you share an office with a colleague who is underperforming. Happens to be due to emotional issues rather than incompetence or laziness (as far as you can tell). I don't think she is constantly crying/needing support and insisting you stop working to listen? (Forgive me if she is and I missed that). So it's her underperformance that annoys you.

But this underperformance does not directly impact on you, because you have told your bosses (and they agreed) that you will not be picking up her work.

Not sure what the nature of your work is, but I assume something to which you feel a moral commitment - you believe your work (your collective work as an organisation, including your colleague) makes the world a better place and are invested in seeing it done well ....

Yet as you have written a post about this asking for help to deal with it, and spent valuable therapy time discussing it (not saying that is wrong - I think given your response it's totally apt) this clearly looms enormously large for you, and I think you need to question (hard) why that is. You seem to take it personally, as if you are the primary "victim" of her underperformance. But are you? Surely it would be the service users who suffer due to the work she isn't doing (if you have them), who have way more cause to he angry.....

I work in a school, and believe passionately in the work we do. I have at times been aware of colleagues underperforming (for all kinds of reasons). I of course find it regrettable - it impacts on the young people I want to help. But I have never felt an urge to be rude or challenge them about it, it has never loomed large enough to me to need to seek therapy to deal with it, etc etc.....

If I was your therapist, I would suggest you question why you gave positioned yourself as the main "victim" here, and whether this is a broader tendency you have.

If I was your close friend and could speak to you honestly, I would say, just be kind to her, what's the problem? It's not always all about you .......

Good luck - hope you find a way to feel better.

I know the boss has spoken to HR about the situation and I've spoken to a union rep but didn't go forward with the next step. I'm still deciding what will be more detrimental to my mental health in the next few months. Is it worth it? It will be over by the end of May or thereabouts. How much more stress can I handle? I don't know.

Thanks for trying to work things through. Unfortunately I can't reply too specifically as i want to keep things as private as I can. I can't quite explain exactly how much the issue impacts me, but it does. I knew I was having a strong reaction to the situation and the therapy helped unravel a lot of the 'me' parts. I do not have a victim like mentality generally as I don't tend to feel like one and this situation doesn't follow any kind of trend in terms of how I relate to situations. I'm normally a very glass half full person usually.

A previous colleague worked with my challenging co worker and left the job after many years in the company. She said the tricky colleague was a big part of her decision to go (it's complicated and jot my place to share). When she found out I was now working with her, she got in touch to tell me to record everything. I thought she was exaggerating. She wasn't.

Another staff member left our department for a more autonomous role within the company as she said that working with my colleague put her off ever doing the same team-based work in our place. I don't really chat to this lady but one day she caught me in the foyer and said 'if you ever need to talk, you know where I am'. My eyes filled with tears and she hugged me and said 'I totally understand'.

I don't tend to get involved in gossip or bitchiness but I heard a lot of things on the grapevine before we worked together.

So, having a good sense of the fact that I'm not prone to being a victim, that countless other colleagues have had challenging experiences working with her and with the fact that therapy brought up issues that I really could own, and work on, I would still say that there is a very real problem.

I will take what you said on board for sure, and examine my reactions to see if I can further separate myself from the situation. That's really all I want.

Sorry I forgot to add that basic competence is a huge issue. Sorry if that wasn't clear!

Why do you think it is so bad to lose your temper/show annoyance? I think it is a great post and you are really self aware in talking about pulling back but this stood out for me - do you see that as a failing? I'm not talking about shouting and screaming and telling everyone to F off but sometimes when a usually very agreeable person shows anger constructively/says how they feel it is very impactful. I used to be proud and say oh I never get angry/get mad/lose my temper but then realised that was because I was putting up with stuff a lot of others wouldn't. Just a thought! You'd rather you be incovenienced than you manager - again why?

This is definitely something that I'm very interested in working through. The first time I lost my temper with her, my voice was raised and I just couldn't stop telling her off about the the thing that had happened. I kept trying to calm down and it kept pouring out of me. It actually felt scary as I felt like I couldnt control it and I'm always a very controlled person. I choose my words carefully and always err on the side of being diplomatc. Believe it or not, I don't tend to find people overstepping boundaries. I just have a certain calm way of dealing with things. I'm good at getting people on board and diffusing tension. Usually, people don't push against me too much. I know some people who feel like people walk all over them, but I don't. I'm not confrontational but I have my own quiet confidence. This recent situation pushed me further than I've been pushed in a long time and the fury was crazy. Why am I protecting my boss? Again, I can't speak too much about that as she has her own situation within the organisation. I just feel like at this point, things will end up too messy for the short space of time we will be working together, should I go down the route we are all thinking of. I will be having a meeting with all my bosses at the end of this period and tell them how much I have taken on and how subsequent employees must be protected. I think I will feel more angry if she is put back into a similar team once I move on. We will see.
It has been very eye opening for me, this entire thing.

Also, colleague was absolutely devastated when I got angry with her. I didn't actually feel guilty about it but I didn't like the rage.

Sorry, me again. Just back from work. Seems like colleague is checking out mentally and its almost better. I don't feel the need to keep up the facade and im just getting on with my stuff. Any things we would have split, I'm just doing because it's easier, faster and... gets done. I've been pretty chilled today and didn't feel stressed about the situation.

Don't apologise for posting on your own thread !

Great sounds like the detachment is working, and you're focusing on whatever makes it easiest to get through the day as a strategy.

It feels like it has been a journey of self discovery for you. I don't know if you have seen the Devil Wears Prada, but there's a bit where Andi ( the young heroine) says she wants to leave or something because she isn't like her ruthless boss Miranda. but then Miranda says she is already like her because Andi was prepared to let someone else miss out so she could go on a coveted work trip.

I'm explaining it really badly but it's always uncomfortable when we realise that we aren't going to sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of someone else. I'm learning it pretty late in the game age 53, but you've got time to take on the knowledge and move higher should you choose to.

How long has the colleague been working for your organization? Do you do feedback? Is there anything else involved such as autism?

We have been both there for 5 years. We hadn't worked together before last year though. I suspect autism but I'm not qualified to know. I feed back to my superiors. I tried giving constructive feedback when we started working together. However, not only was it about very basic stuff, and was generally not acted on very well, it turns out previous colleagues had provided exactly the same feedback. I stopped giving feedback a few months back as it's more stressful than not.

@rookiemere thank you. Yes I really am learning a lot about myself and my place in the world. How my feelings and emotions matter too and that being nice isn't the same as doing the right thing.

I'm going to my boss tomorrow as today was very difficult. Last week, I noticed that she was doing something which would set the project back. I explained that we should do it 'x' way instead, which isn't just my preferred method but industry standard. I explained how to do x and followed it up with some further examples, because if it goes wrong, it impacts me. Then today, I came back from a break and she was doing the thing I had asked her not to. Another colleague was there and questioned why she was doing 'x' that way and she had some implausible excuse. I felt, if I lose my temper I don't know if I'll ever stop! It's like talking to a brick wall! I'm speaking to my boss tomorrow for some support that doesn't involve me doing management's dirty work for them. The therapist did tell me that if things get too stressful that I do have the option to take some time off work again. I'm not there yet but feel like I'm heading towards it.

For those still following this, or anyone I the future who comes across this...I had a meltdown in work and couldn't stop crying. I went home.
I've an appointment with my doctor tomorrow and will ask for time off.

Oh bless your heart. It's totally understandable that you ended up having a melt down, and I'm glad you're going to get signed off for a break.

What did your bosses say when you talked to them yesterday?

Unmumsnetty hugs from me xxx

She's not your problem to solve,I ended up being someone's sounding board that had multiple personal problems so much so I ended up with a situation that their issues became my issues....never again it sucks the life out of you.shes a company problem to solve.

You need to look out for yourself now, they are not for you to sort out for management

Thanks everyone.@Grimchmas management understood. On Wednesday, I was sobbing into my bosses' coat. I said to her that I just can't do it anymore. @Northernsouloldies yes, I feel so incredibly fed up and drained and like i just cannot do it anymore. @Theluggagerules I absolutely agree. Nobody is taking care of me, so I will take care of myself.

The thing is that even when my colleague gives herself a bit of a shake and pulls her socks up, it doesn't last and it's still just about adequate. And I actually wouldn't have a problem doing double the work, if it was just a case of getting on with all of the tasks (my work load plus hers). I could manage it fine, if I just managed my time very well. It wouldn't bother me at all.

But it's the frequent explaining things, basic things. It's seeing and hearing things that aren't appropriate for someone in our industry to be saying/doing amd cringing every day. Many of these things aren't examples of misconduct, but are just...grating to a level that is hard to pinpoint but difficult to ignore. I don't even know how to explain this. I keep telling myself 'block it out, let it go over your head, she's not doing any harm-its just annoying, let it go'. But every day, something bothers me. Sometimes it's dropping the ball, sometimes it's a lack of awareness about how to do the job or what's going on, sometimes its poor time management, sometimes it's that she is talking very loudly to someone when I'm with clients, sometimes it's inappropriate comments to clients that often seems to go over their head but are ringing alarm bells inside me.

It's not always serious, but it's always constant. Constant annoyance, constant drip, drip, drip of me feeling flummoxed. The constant need for me to leave the room to take a breather. The constant urge to roll my eyes. Lately the urge has been closer to losing my temper.

I've been fighting the feelings for so long, and I frequently have to pick my preferred tension. Tension because you had to explain something basic, again, and it always feels like its a humiliating experience for her, or tension because I'm holding it in. Yesterday I was thinking, am I crazy? I'm off work on stress because everything about this person bugs me to the point I can't be in the same room as them.

Then I realised that sometimes our bodies pick up on things that we can't consciously figure out or articulate. Every day, my body wants me to go away from her and be somewhere else. It's a constant urge to be elsewhere.

My bos now realises just how bad the situation is. Many of.my colleagues have been texting me saying I'm doing the right thing. Everyone agrees that this pattern of her stressing colleagues out since she started just has to stop.

I'm at home and just cannot believe things have come to this point! This person's behaviour is so annoying that I can't even go to work, to do a job that I care about and love.

I'm meeting my bosses next week. If someone has any suggestions for what I should say, please let me know.

OK, an update for anyone in this boat in the future. I had an urgent meeting with the main bosses of the company. I was distraught and they asked if anything else was bothering me, if there was anything else going on as I seemed so distressed. I kept crying throughout the meeting as I found it so frustrating to explain how someone who wasn't bullying me could have quite this dramatic impact.

And really it came down to the fact that I felt absolutely emotionally drained trying to be professional, calm and patient every day when I felt really annoyed many, many times a day. I also feel really sorry for this colleague and so struggled with so many mixed feeling of pity and guilt for being so annoyed. She would look at me with these big sad eyes when she could tell I felt annoyed that a task had been messed up. I could tell she was feeling anxious around me too as she was getting jittery doing tasks around me because she knew she kept messing up and that I kept suppressing my annoyance and in the end would find any excuse under the sun to leave our work space. It completely messed me up and the time I was off work, I was waking up with aching joints and my fingers frozen in one position which I think was pure stress. I slept and slept that week.

Finally I told my bosses to take me off the project but they said they couldn't (long story). In the end, the nature of my role has now been changed in a way which allows me to be more client based and therefore out of the office a lot more. The remainder of my tasks in the previous role have been taken care of but it's a long story too.

The difference to my mental health has been absolutely gobsmacking. I have such a sense of freedom and relief. I've a month left to go and I'll be moved along but I couldn't even get through that period of time without losing mind!