to be really upset with colleague

[rightsofwomen]

This all happened online as I work remotely.

Work discussion among whole group.
I feel one colleague is getting a bit aggressive in their tone.
I contact him personally and tell him and that he's making me feel defensive.
He then tells whole group what I told him and that it wasn't his intention.
I then contact him (upset) to say there was a reason I'd contacted him personally.
His reply is that he doesn't like the personal chats as they encourage gossip.

There is a history of me (and others) finding him bullish.
He used to be my boss and is the only person to have made me cry at work.

I'd rather talk to him about this in person, but can't.

narky are you suggesting that people who are being bullied in the work place, which often times is very subtle and hard to pin down and generally is about making the victims 'feel' diminished and isolated should just suck it up then

I'm suggesting that they use the proper channels, talk to management and report properly. Not complain about their feelings in private chat messages.

And please don't use emotive words like "perpetrator" for someone who may or may not have used a tone in a conversation. It's ridiculous and demeans important labels.

narky so all transgressions no matter how minor should at all times be escalated to management ? The offender is not given any opportunity to rectify /explain their behaviour, prior to a possible management intervention, via an unofficial word 'peer to peer' - If the worker feels able to to this ?

At no time have you mentioned in any of your previous posts that the op should report to management using correct channels, your biggest gripe appears to the use of the word feelings ? Again I see nothing wrong with use of the word feelings, which the op has used in a factual context 'you are making me feel defensive' there is nothing in that statement that is manipulative or whiny? She is simply expressing the impact of her colleagues aggressive behaviour and giving him the opportunity to explain or rectify, prior to management involvement. If think replaced feel, would that me more acceptable to you?

• in the absence of a name for said colleague I have used words like perpetrator and offender, it saves me typing 'the colleague with an aggressive manner' etc. each time.

I think he was correct in what he did - that he rectified what he said on the group chat was what you wanted, surely? YABU!

narky so all transgressions no matter how minor should at all times be escalated to management ? The offender is not given any opportunity to rectify /explain their behaviour, prior to a possible management intervention, via an unofficial word 'peer to peer' - If the worker feels able to to this

If they are so minor that they are not worth reporting, they are so minor that you should not be creating private channels to complain to people. He is not an "offender", and he does not report to her, he does not have to explain himself to her and rectify his behavior.

The problem here is you are assuming that because she was upset, he must have done something wrong. This is not established in anyway. She has her own issues clearly, he may well have done nothing wrong, and in that case, her repeatedly messaging him to complain that she feels defensive and upset because of him is actually a cause for complaint on his part, against her.

Just because you are upset, doesn't mean the other person has done anything wrong. Don't assume.

So we wait until the colleagues behaviour has become so unbearable that we feel we have no other option than to report to management ? Instead of unofficial word to colleague, that could nip it in bud, before it got to that stage ?

I accept that the op has explained she is under a lot of stress at the moment and I hope everything goes well for her in the coming week, but surely if the colleague felt she was being unreasonable in her email, he would have just politely dismissed it.

I know If I felt I was being unfairly accused of something by a conworker and I was confident in my opinion, with evidence - which there is as it was in a public forum , I would direct them myself to a manager. But he didn't he used it as an opportunity for further shitty behaviour, by apologising publically. I wouldn't want a private conversation announcing to an open plan office, which is effectively what he did.

Just because someone is having difficulty in their lives, it doesn't mean that there feelings are not valid and often times with bullying, which can be very subtle, with isolated events seeming trivial to an outsider, it's only really your feelings on the behaviour that are a true guide as to what is going on.

Finally, the op messaged colleague twice, hardly harrasment is it. So perhaps you should follow your own advice and stop exaggerating and stick to the facts.

You're assuming an awful lot, and sound incredibly biased against the man in this situation.
You should watch that, it makes your advice inherently unreliable.