How to deal with stand-offish colleague

[SoShinySoChrome]

I am in a new team at work. Four men and one woman. They work together well and obviously as the newcomer I need to fit in. The guys are normal but the woman seems a bit short tempered with me.

Sometimes I will ask a question she has told me the answer to already and she will get huffy. E.g. if I say ‘I can’t see the excel file for X client, she will say ‘I already told you we log the results in the excel folder which is filed by month, not by client.’

Excuse me for breathing, it’s only day 3.

How can I try and ensure we have a good working relationship? She is good at her job however the rest of the team don’t get the abruptness because they are already fully competent at their jobs and she is aware I am learning the computer system they use.

For what it’s worth, I’m not younger or more attractive than she is, so I don’t think ‘female jealousy’ would be the reason she is like this. I think it is personality.

What can I do to improve relations. She seems to prefer to have lunch alone and has said no to any cups of tea I offered, so I don’t think suggestions along those lines would hit the mark.

Sounds territorial to me as she was the lone female in the team!

Can you ask someone else in the team? Some people just aren't born teachers unfortunately - it seems like she can't remember what her first week was like!

I'd personally avoid her until I'm a bit more settled and then do everything I could to prove I'm better at her job than her... but then I'm a competitive bitch so probably wouldn't take my advice

You have no idea what is going on in her life. Maybe she's just been passed over for promotion, maybe she's nursing a dying relative, maybe she's worried about losing her job so really resents giving time over to the newbie.

You haven't done anything wrong, she doesn't know you, so it can't be personal.

You don't have to be friends. Be pleasant, get on with the job.

But when she's telling you stuff, write it down so you don't have to ask the same questions repeatedly.

Just ask other people!!

Just be pleasant, not over friendly, don’t try and win her around. Concentrate on the job, learn to be self reliant as soon as poss. Sometimes people don’t take to other people for the strangest reasons and I wouldn’t bother trying to find out why.

Take notes. Are you always asking her or do you ask others as well? She seems a bit abrupt considering you're only be but I guess some people just don't have the patience for having to repeat themselves

Maybe you could say "I appreciate it must be frustrating going over things more than once but it'll take me a while to get used to your system, if you can bare with me I'd be grateful"

It might be some time she needs to adjust to someone new, on the other hand she could just be an unpleasant, unhappy biatch, which needs kindness and sympathy, I know easier said than done.

Try and project what actions you'd like to see from, see how that goes.

Give it time and hang on in there. Good luck.

I had one of these. I just pretended she wasn’t stand-offish and spoke to her as if she was speaking to me normally. If I had a question, I asked, thanked her politely for her answer however it was delivered.

We became friends and she admitted she didn’t like me to begin with. But that was her problem because she didn’t know me.

Im trying to be very patient with a newby at work but sometimes I fail and am abrupt, especially when having to repeat myself again and again.

I've just moved flats
(Including getting a kitchen fitted and dealing with a leaky roof). I'm under a lot of pressure at work. My 6 year old has been undergoing medical tests since last October. And I'm still getting woken nightly by DC. And I'm having to support my parents a lot atm.

It's not her fault but I have so many other things going on.

And I don't drink tea or coffee so would refuse that.

Agree you need to write stuff down so you're not asking the same thing. That would be annoying.

Well don't take it personally, that's for sure!

Ask the guys instead. Don't bother offering her a brew, she's obviously a queer un.

Not everyone is good at training and mentoring new staff. It takes a great deal of patience and understanding to do this well and most people just don't have the competence or skills.

Ask her if she can refer you to any training notes to save her becoming irritated by your questions or ask for her suggestions on how the best way to learn would be. Taking notes isn't always fool proof, you still need to be able to ask. No one will expect a new start to be fully competent and trained in just 3 days!!

It's annoying to have not remembered every little aspect of the job on day 3...?
Wow there's very little tolerance here.

OP - I would ask a different staff member if you can. She sounds hard work.

Well it depends ,if you were told something on day one in passing and then couldn't remember it on day 4 that's fair enough.
If you asked once,had a comprehensive nice answer and then asked again 5 minutes later then I can see why she might be a bit huffy.

As for lunch and tea/coffee of that's how she's always been she's not going to suddenly change just because you are being nice. I have lunch on my own and don't drink tea/coffee so a lot of my coworkers think I'm an antisocial sod.

Perhaps you are asking her all the questions and not to your male colleagues?

Try splitting your queries equally amongst the 5?

Sorry but I agree it’s all about you invading her domain . Just smile and ignore for now. However, don’t take her crap forever. She sounds like a colleague we’ve recently got rid of (she found a new job) ‘‘tis bliss without her .

i think it's a bit off for posters to immediately start talking about female competitiveness or territory - are we 5?!

Maybe training you hasn't been factored into her workload.

Maybe you're asking too many of the same questions and she's getting frustrated because you're not getting up to speed fast enough; or not taking notes; or whatever mechanism you should be employing to train.

Maybe she's just short tempered and feeling uncomfortable in the hot weather.

Maybe she's got a health worry making her distracted.

Or maybe she just doesn't like training people (like me) or got fed up training all the new ones because they were seen as the most experienced in a team (like me) and got dumped with newbies every single time (like me).

Or whatever.

Point is - there's no point speculating.

Just keep it polite and professional, if there's a training gap, raise it with your manager, and continue to be effective at undertaking the training you DO manage to do with her (like take notes).

that's it.

also - i wouldn't accept tea or coffee either because i only drink it rarely and i use my lunch breaks for getting away from thinking about work - i read, go for a walk or do chores like post stuff. so that's more about what i need (down time) than rejecting you as a colleague... lots of people are the same..

I get it with someone in work- she makes out she’s too busy to engage in pleasantries but when she wants to talk that’s ok- she hides behind the whole being honest thing to deliver what sometimes feels a bit of a scathing attack

Ooo watching with interest.

I'm struggling with a new colleague. She's clearly taken a dislike to me. I've been nothing but friendly and helpful, told her to feel free to ask me anything, not acted impatient at all. She won't take drinks from me but does from others, she's happy chatty with others but icely civil to me, and that's only when she really has to talk to me, she appears busy all day but I actually can't work out wtf she's doing as I'm struggling to do nearly everything myself despite her saying she's used to being in a busy role. She said there were certain things she couldn't do last week, which was not a problem, so I directed her to a task that really needs doing that she is more than able to do and I got a shitty reply where even my colleague raised his eyebrows.

It's starting to feel personal and I'm getting pretty pissed off with it now. I'm damn good at my job and get on very well with the team and have had great feedback from the manager so I'm annoyed that someone new has started, that I was looking forward to as I was struggling to do it all alone, and she's basically turned out to be a pita and I feel awkward and uncomfortable. I don't give a flying fuck if people don't like me, that's fine, but don't be rude and treat me noticably different when you've been there 2 minutes. She also completely cut me off today to talk over me to the person I was speaking to, literally went "yeah ok" in massively disinterested voice halfway through my sentence.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am writing things down but cannot retain every single thing. It’s a complicated system with many variables not covered in training but coming up on a case by case basis.

I rarely ask her but when I do she is very irritable. This then makes me nervous and stupid (more than usual).

You have my sympathies.. It's a difficult situation.. To actually say sorry it must be frustrating for you but I really appreciate your help is maybe a good idea.. Write everything down.. Give yourself time to look over and write up your notes.. Maybe firm up a time with her to answer any questions.. And have several ready.. That way it's clear and not interrupting her.. You could even go through any gaps in your notes then. Other than that I'd advise not trying to work out what her problem is..it will be a different reason every day and is not productive.. Try to find out if there is anything written down.. Procedures.. Office files.. Folders you could look through.. Doesn't sound like the company is training you properly.. Just expecting colleagues to fill you in.. Of course it happens a lot.. But when with someone like that it's extremely demotivating .

@Anon I’m now paranoid it’s me.

We are in an open plan office so it is quite noisy. There is chatting between desks but I can’t really hear anything beyond my immediate neighbours so I’m now worrying that maybe I accidentally ignored her or talked over her and got her back up.

I’m a bit formal and old fashioned. I hope that has not been misinterpreted as ‘iciness’.
I’m not going to overanalyse, I’ll get a good night’s sleep and be a normal human being tomorrow.

If she is mean for no reason I will try and just get on with it.

@SoShinySoChrome don't worry, it's definitely not you .