To be totally sick of bitchy colleagues behaviour?

[Jerri907]

I work in an office. I love my job apart from the behaviour of one colleague, who makes me feel uneasy and who just totally dominates the office with her bitchy, cliquey behaviour and dominant attitude. Her behaviour is making me dislike the job and the environment even though everyone else is nice enough. Her behaviour reminds me of that of the popular, bitchy girl in high school that divides and conquers, and plays everyone off against each other.

Firstly, she is very very loud and shrieky. I have no problem with loud people, I'm not exactly a wallflower myself and I love loud, fun people, but her loudness means that her voice is 99% of the time dominating the office.

She is very fickle and cliquey with who is 'in' with her at a time, and basically works her way around the office excluding different people at different times. Because she is so loud and talks so much, everyone seems politely grateful when they are in the good books, and seems to do everything they can to please her and to keep in with her. She then ditches them like a hot potato. We have regular new people in our office, and quite a high turnover of new staff (there are quite a few longstanding staff members though), and she almost instantly decides whether they are in her clique or not. Those that she doesn't include will often swiftly leave.

She does things that seem to deliberately exclude people, at different times. For example she recently decided to start a 'Lunch Club' which meant all staff members going to lunch together each Friday. I was not invited to this lunch club, and neither were two other colleagues. Everyone else was. I wasn't overly bothered that I wasn't invited but she talked relentlessly, and loudly about Friday's planned lunch all week and made it clear that some of us weren't invited.

She is extremely bitchy about people who aren't there at the time. Lots of slagging others off and nasty comments. Again done very loudly!

I do my best to keep my distance from her and just be polite and professional if she talks to me, but her behaviour is just awful. I have mentioned it to our boss and he made the right noises but I think he too is intimidated by her and will do anything to please her. She and I first started at the same time and at first were friendly but after a month or so once she'd got her feet under the table she ditched me and didn't speak to me for about another month. I quickly realised what type of person she was, and didn't let myself be drawn in by her again and just keep a distance. I clearly see others getting picked up and put down by her all the time though.

AIBU to be sick of her behaviour?

She sounds a horror!

It’s taken me years to get used to our ‘office diva’. Now I tend to nip to the loo or make a tea when she is being particularly outrageous to avoid it when possible. When not; just sit, breathe and internal eye roll.

Send her an anonymous letter, detailing what she does, spell out how annoying she is

Definitely do not send her an anonymous letter. She will become a loud victim.

Oh God, we have one of these, constantly shrieking, shouting, gossiping, creating drama, sitting on the blokes knees, dancing in the office. Loves to find out gossip and pass it on even if she doesn't know the person, has to be the centre of attention at all times.

The few of us who are not graced with her presence, mostly women, just call it "The 'Amelia' Show". *Not her real name.

Somehow she found out I'd made a complaint about a member of staff, no idea how, she was dying for the gossip but I told her it was none of her business so she pretty much made stuff up and said I was being a drama queen. Said member of staff has since been sacked because of the complaint and lots of investigations but I'm the drama llama.

There's currently a shit atmosphere in the office as she's shagging 2 blokes who both know she is. Now it just feels awkward all the time as we have to listen to her playing one of against the other.

It makes for long days

*off

Being unhappy at work can really grind you down.

Two issues, boss sounds a wimp and is not prepared to face the situation and the office show-off sounds like a bully to me.

Unfortunately bullies don’t stop at the school gates.

So either your ignore, but it will still get on your nerves!

Personally I would be looking for another job, life’s too short to be miserable at work.

She sounds like an insecure narcissistic bully. She won't change. If you challenge her things will get worse. Keep your distance, bring headphones, leave.

Oh god I would be thankful that I’m not part of her clique and lunch club. I imagine her cronies hang around her because they are scared of her rather than they actually like her.

In my first work place I accidentally became part of a clique. I had suffered with mental health issues since childhood and I wanted to be liked by everyone, she seemed to take a liking to me and so I didn’t rock the boat when she was being unreasonable. At one point she was bullying a colleague and I said nothing at work but then would go home and worry about this colleague and how I could fix it without upsetting the bully but I was too scared to even talk to the bullied colleague in case the bully spotted me. I had been bullied at school so felt lots of guilt at not being able to stick up for this person.

Now I’d rather be in the “outcasts” who just want to do their jobs. I’m friendly with everyone but tend to limit time spent with the ones who have a tendency to bitch. If they are doing it about someone else they are also doing it about you.

So be thankful OP. You don’t have to worry about staying on her good side and you can probably laugh at how ridiculous she is.

I was in exactly the same situation a year ago. Stunning looking 24yr old colleague who was vile towards some of the office staff if they weren’t in her ‘gang’. She was particularly vicious to a new colleague, spreading rumours she was paid mire than anyone else, was useless at the job etc. All nonsense but several of her followers fell for it and also ostracised this poor colleague. There was a collective sigh of relief when she left. The office is now transformed and the isolated colleague is far happier. I agree with keeping your distance from her.

We have someone like this in our office. Fortunately the boss won't put up with any of her shit and has hauled her over the coals when it has been necessary.

She is leaving next week

Who you have lunch with, choose to socialise with is your choice and indeed anyone else's. The noise is what you should focus on, and if an informal approach to your boss is not working, then a formal route may be the only option. You are harassed by it, and employers have a duty of care to you for your mental health. YANBU to be annoyed by it.

Plan an office coffee break and don't invite her...

Everyone will see through her before too long and she’ll be left alone and isolated. Karma!

Sadly not true at all - people like this tend to get away with it all through their lives. They may not be truly liked, but they do maintain social dominance.

Report and continue to ignore. What s knobber.

I cannot believe that an office worker has been sotting on blokes laps!!! Outrageous!

Where is your manager in all of this, or is this an entirely unsupervised office? No wonder there is a high turnover of staff, working there sounds draining.

The problem is not just her though

It’s all those who are engaged in her efforts to exclude others.

If I was invited to a lunch club that excluded three others, I would decline the invite

I second using the Grey rock method. Don’t engage with her.

www.aconsciousrethink.com/6158/gray-rock-method-dealing-narcissist/

We do social lunches at work. People are invited and go or don't go. One maternity lunch three of us weren't invited. It was rude pure and simple, and I politely told my boss it wasn't on as deliberate exclusion is a form of bullying. He obviously said something and it hasn't happened again. That's a different scenario to my team going to lunch and not inviting me. I'm their manager and it's nice to have time away from your boss. Not that they always go without me, but I understand when they want team time without a boss around.

I wouldn't be happy with the lunch club at your place as it is deliberately exclusionary. You mightn't be bothered (I'd be happy to be rid of someone like that for the peace and quiet) but others might be, so I'd raise it with your manager as being inappropriate and tending towards bullying by exclusion.

Sorry, when I say people, it's an email to the whole team. So it may be team lunch for a couple of teams together and you go or you don't - not going isn't seen as bad. For the above case, it was sent to individuals on teams and certain people weren't invited, which was really mean given the normally inclusive culture.

I used to work with someone like this, her name was Debbie. I feel like every workplace has a Debbie. This woman had a little coven who would flap around her and do everything for her. Making certain people's lives a misery. I didn't report it as she was best buds with management and people I did talk to about it said "oh that's just Debbie" and continually excused her behaviour.

I used to work with someone like this too - agree that every office has its "Debbie". In my case it was a gay man called Peter. He was exceptionally loud. Everyone else managed to have conversations at a normal level except him, you could hear him right down the other end of the office. He was bitchy and downright rude about people he didn't like, which was most of us. He would comment on appearance, refer to the heterosexual staff (again, most of us) as "breeders", loudly discuss his sex life on a Monday morning, choose his little clique of followers for pub lunches on a Friday. He was just awful. The person he was most awful too was my friend John who was also gay, but not "a proper gay" according to Peter as John was happily settled down with his partner rather than out clubbing and pulling different blokes each night. Several of us raised it with the manager, who regularly pulled Peter to one side and asked him to calm it down and stop being a diva. Totally ignored.

He was just a hideous person. Eventually he left. We all cheered.

OP... day to day, keeping a low profile is best.

Long term though, this is very damaging. My advice is you have to think about what your boss' boss would think of the situation. If you feel they would be supportive in stopping this behaviour then it may be worth making a complaint and trying to sort it out. But if you feel that they, along with your own boss, are going to brush it under the carpet, then there's really not much you can do. This is because your boss will only ever act if they feel they are being supported by their own boss. And to be honest it doesn't sound like your own boss is very interested in sorting this out.

In that case you have to think long and hard about your own mental health. Exposure to this kind of behaviour can be really damaging. You will need to make a decision about whether it is best for you to put up with it at the moment (depending on what else is going on in your life) or whether you really are better off taking some time, and taking your time to find a new job that suits you better.

Good luck.

Not sure of legal side of this but if you can record her bitching about people that would be real proof . I had this with a senior day centre manager who had her clique of 'in' staff , she would selectively excludeand slag off a random member of this group from time to time to.teach the others to behave (she was up to dodgy things and needed cover). I left a voice activated recorder in the staff office and played it back to her before the next staff meeting with a warning that i would play it to the staff member and senior managers unless she made an instant change in her behaviour .At this stage i didnt care if I got disciplined...
She kept quiet for a bit but was poisonous to be around ..she resigned two weeks later and took her three best mates to the next poor sods who employed her .

Amazing to see so many helpful posts and suggestions here - I am not the OP but I am going through something very similar.

Does anyone know what factor people like these bullies often use to determine who they choose to exclude..? I'm midway between extrovert and introvert. Often these types of bullies are very extrovert but they seem to like both extroverts and introverts.. yet I get excluded by these types often.. any key triggers/behavior traits for that?