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?

Crikey if you hadn't of said you work in an office I would of thought you work with me.

I have to work with someone who is loud and screechy, vile mannered, racist, homophobic and this week disabilist. She bitches and moans about management the moment they walk away and usually after they have just done something for her. Friday there were PA comments about 'not being able to say certain things' after I refused to tell them the name someone was called in Love Thy Neighbour...yes she went on for ages about what a good show it was.

It is just so hard to stay quiet, but Ive realised it is the best policy, you cant argue with thick people who pride themselves on 'saying it like it is'

I feel your pain OP and am following for tips on how to deal with it. Just makes you feel like shit doesn't it?

Working in a very small department and the ostracising and exclusion has really stepped up a notch in the last few weeks. It's hard waking up and dreading going to work. I have some big work projects on at the moment that I want to finish and then it's career break or new job time.

Borelis. You’re socially isolated, on fringes of work place cliques and too nice. I.e. you won’t fight back. Or they’re just jealous threatened by you in some way. Because you’re good at your job.

These types tend to be quite predatory and seem to have a sixth sense for who they can victimise, if you learn to stand up for yourself and make it clear you won’t tolerate their behaviour which is generally difficult for us nice types to do, you only really need to do it once to get the message across and then they’ll usually back off and gravitate towards the next poor sap.

any key triggers/behavior traits for that?

IME you could be absolutely fine, well-mannered, professional and friendly, and if someone has the will to get under your skin they will try it on.

Three things that are guaranteed to immunise you from their actions:

1. Not giving the tiniest fuck

1. Getting on with your role responsibilities, deliver, deliver, deliver

1. Not giving the tiniest fuck.

Daisychain01. I think the key phrase there is ‘ they will try it on’

Bullies will try it on if you are too nice and a bit on the fringes. Which is why some people need to work on standing up for themselves.

You can be as professional and hard working as like, which will protect you upto a point, but they will ‘ try it on’ and keep pushing your boundaries if they think they can get away with it.

She sounds like an idiot. Do as you are doing. Body swerve her - she won’t be able to deal with not getting a reaction. You win.

AND she is the one with ishoooos. Poor soul.