Rude Colleague or Do I need to toughen up?

[Shield1990]

Hello All, I hope you all are well. I was wondering if you may be to put my mind at ease OR give me some perspective please.

I have recently returned to work after maternity leave with my second daughter (now 1) I also have a 3 year old girl. I returned to work (from home) and its all been great and everyone has been lovely until the last few weeks where I've started to feel incredibly uncomfortable with a colleague.

We've always got on fine face to face, and to be fair she did message me upon my first day back and welcomed me which was very kind, but since I've started activley doing work again - and sending stuff to her for approval as is part of our job roles - her messages and comments have become progressivley shorter and more abrupt. The last email I got from her included 'And I'll ask you again' - I know there isn't tone to emails etc, but I honestly have read a few things from her and cringed feeling incredibly stupid. I will be the first to admit I can ask a stupid question or two and have forgotten basic things when working fuelled by caffeine after a night up with my daughter - But it has now gotten to the point where I'd rather ask anyone else for help with some things than her.

I have even tried to ring her as opposed to emailing thinking they may just have too many emails and getting stressed but I can't get hold of them, Unfortunately, I do have to work with them. I have noticed my other colleagues seem to get a lot warmer responses to their queries so I am beginning to wonder if it's something I've done.

I have been told discreetly that other people - even this person's manager has had issues with their email style before. But not sure what to do- as I don't like going behind people's backs to managers etc but i can't get hold of them to talk to them!

It's really getting me down.Every time I see an email from them, I am thinking oh no.. Am I being silly? I'm working my backside off trying to be as on top of things as I was before with two young children and I'm feeling probably a bit sensitive...

I just don't see how it's hard to re-read your emails before you send them. This person is in a role where they're very much aware of how things can look in emails and someone has said it#'s just how they are which i refute - no excuses to be rude as far as I'm concerned as even if I get asked silly questions, I like to make people feel comfortable (even if I grumble to myself)

YABU - Toughen up and learn to ignore it.
YABU - This colleague needs to be spoken to, it's not fair to make you feel like that

I think writing things down is a better way for many people to fix things in their heads so they don't find themselves asking questions they already know the answers to. And there's an immediate reference when you think 'how do we...?' which takes you away from the email (always good to get away from a screen, even if it's just for a few moments).

However, from experience, I do find that remaining utterly polite and professional whilst keeping everything on email, rather than by phone or on Teams is extremely useful, rather than questioning their tone.

The reason for this is that when, if they actually are being unpleasant to you, they drop their guard and let rip at you because you have never said anything to suggest you'd do anything about it, there's a lovely long audit trail of their comments for you to a) forward to a personal email account in case you need them at a later date date (such as for a union meeting) and b) forward to HR/the next manager up.

I've had experience of this. I waited. They escalated. I didn't bite. Then they let rip and completely destroyed their carefully cultivated image with their own words in just a few short emails.

I'd be careful about going to a manager.

Before you do, ask yourself if you are working as well as you did. After all, it's not work's fault if you are having broken sleep. You say that you ask 'stupid' questions and can't recall basic things.

So, if you go to a manager-they will probe a bit more and you might not come out of it looking great, if this other person is able to tell the manager about your shortcomings.

It might be a can of worms you would open and could be left holding a very shitty end of the stick.

confusedx3

It doesn't sound like bullying.

The only example that the OP has provided was of the woman saying:

'And I'll ask you again'.

That's abrupt and its a pointed reference that implies that the OP didn't do something she was asked before.

It may be insensitive and lacking in polish and no doubt the OP was tired and not at her best, but this woman is well within her rights to draw attention to something not having been delivered to the right standard before.

I'd suggest to you that if you think that's bullying you must have had a very easy ride at work and I think you'd get short shrift going to any manager and trying to make a case for bulling around that.

Of course people should think about tone if they want to get the best out of people. But classifying abruptness as bullying is melodramatic and doesn't help the OP.

I will be the first to admit I can ask a stupid question or two and have forgotten basic things when working fuelled by caffeine after a night up with my daughter

Like a pp, I suggest this might be what is getting you the blunt email treatment. Some people don't know / don't care how hard it can be when you come back to work from mat leave. She expects you to be on form.

Can you get up to speed through catch up with colleagues or quick, informal refreshers with trusted colleagues on the identified processes?

It may be just her style but I suspect it would do no harm to alert her about how she is coming over.

I used to work with someone who was constantly sending quite peremptory and really quite rude emails, though in person she seemed more reasonable. As her colleagues we all basically just counted to 10 and said to ourselves "It's just X, she doesn't mean it" and that worked for quite a long time. But we then had a bit of a crisis when a couple of new managers came in and were making some dreadful decisions; X seemed to hero-worship them because of their qualifications and allowed herself to be manipulated by them and isolated from the rest of the department. She seemed to become ultra-sensitive, and the issue around her offensive email style turned itself around so that she was constantly taking offence and reading malign motivations into every communication from anyone she perceived to be amongst the managers' critics.

Ultimately the useless managers left just before they were about to be pushed, never communicated with X again, and X clearly resented the rest of us for that. Things just went from bad to worse and finally she misinterpreted another harmless question as incredibly insulting, started threatening libel proceedings, and then flounced. With hindsight I think it might have been better if we had all been less tolerant in the first place, because it seems to have led her to believe she was infallible and untouchable; also it meant that she had no real friends around when the crisis began who might have helped her to steer clear of the incompetents, and laughed her out of her habit of looking for offence in every communication.

Could you start your reply to her with something like “Oh dear, you sound annoyed/upset with me (again?) I am sorry ... “? Or would that make it worse?!

I have to explain a process to a group of people via email. Then a week or two later I get an email asking a really basic question that I covered in my previous instruction (like for example where on a drive to find a particular document), and I do feel like replying, FFS read my last email you nitwit. But I have to grit my teeth and write a polite reply explaining it. If your colleague is in this position, maybe she's also stressed and too busy to be re-explaining things. Maybe she doesn't realise how rudely she comes across when from her point of view she's just being brief and to the point. Don't take it personally. Imagine she's having a bad day. It doesn't mean you're a worthless person.

@thepeopleversuswork no but equally it has bothered the OP enough to start a thread on it. so she needs reminding that she is a person too, and she needn't feel intimidated by this woman. if it does go beyond that line she of course should escalate. noone should dread work. I've seen it, and it affects your life so much outside too if you're unhappy in the work place. that deserves a conversation at the very least. even if it does mean drawing attention to the fact OP is struggling and may need some more help.

I have committed to the idea that if I cant cope full time with being mum to a young baby I am dropping to part time. is this an option OP?

whilst*

I think watching tone in emails is really important in the workplace and I am not a fan of curt / snippy tone.
Neither so I write flowery tomes every time I write an email. But it really goes a long way to creating a nicer, more harmonious working environment when people employ basic politeness.
I am the most senior person in my organisation and am under a lot of pressure a lot of the time but I always take care with wording and also with thanking people for work they have done.
I took over from my predecessor who has a very poor manner dealing with staff and regularly issued quite imperious toned commands.
The team was in very poor shape, they were actually broken and it led to poor productivity, poor morale, and lots of snipping at one another. It has taken 18mths and a lot of effort to turn it around and it's like night and day now.
So in my experience tone does matter, respect does matter and treating people like people does matter. It leads to greater harmony and a feeling of we're all working together as a team to achieve whatever it is you do and greater productivity.
I learnt a LOT of lessons on how not to do things along the way from people I worked with or reported to and it has made me a better team leader in the end

OP I would keep my correspondence with this colleague polite and professional at all times and I would ask to speak to her to raise the issue if you can. I don't agree with the advice to start replying in a similar manner tit for tat.

If you need help brushing up your skills you need to be clear and flag this up and be proactive instead of asking questions which may have already been answered. Having a baby and being up at night is really not your employer or colleagues issue so you will have to sort that out as best you can so it's not impacting your work.

Hi @Shield1990, I would say you were being too sensitive but the 'And I'll ask you again' comes across as rude.

I would raise it with your manager, because it is undermining your confidence.

Your colleague probably doesn't mean to be rude, and e-mails can come across as being abrasive when that is not the intention.

Gather some examples of the e-mails that you feel are abrasive and forward them to your manager.

On reflection, the OP is quite long.

We all have different communication styles and it can be helpful even In Written communication to "mirror" the other person.

If their tone is short and to the point, don't send war & peace by return.

I voted Yabu only because you didn't ask for another option. It took a while to read your whole post and then in the end I couldn't do much in response because of that mistake.

I don't think the person should be rude to you at all. It's not on. Not necessary.

Like others have said, mirror their style (except for the rudeness) and just reduce communications with this person to the bare minimum.

Seriously I am probably in the colleague's camp! Can't bear having to put Dear, best wishes and all that crap in an internal email just asking where something is or asking if a colleague can do something.

I voted YABU because of this
someone has said it#'s just how they are which i refute
If it is their ‘style’ and it’s not personal I’d just do my best to ignore the rudeness.

I also hate this style and find it counterproductive. Maybe she’s trying to ascertain herself or is rushed but there’s no need.

If you have been given instructions and explanations in writing it is not acceptable to expect someone to keep re-writing and re-explaining because you are too lazy to refer to the original notes.

Employers are not required to overlook your failings in order to make you feel better. It is not about being rude or bullying to direct you to information/instructions you have already received. It's pretty rude to waste someone's time because you can't be bothered to look at notes.

If you're not doing things properly and expecting people to pick up your slack then you should expect performance management measures to be started.

Nobody can ‘make you feel’ anything.

Your feelings are yours. Own them. Reflect on why you are projecting them onto this colleague. Are you inefficient? Do you keep repeating questions which, by now, you should know the answer to? Is she better at the work than you? Cleverer than you? Are you jealous?

I ask these questions because I have had to deal with numerous instances in the workplace when one staff member tries to get another ‘into trouble’ by starting with ‘well, she made me feel that...’.
Sadly, it’s usually two women as well.

Does do your job well and don’t be too sensitive to interactions with colleagues.

I don’t think her style is okay, though as others have said, if her manager is aware of it and lets it slide there may not be much you can do about it.

You could try talking about it to her or to your manager or to HR but that may mean that she stops communicating with you directly about her lack of satisfaction with your work and starts making complaints to your manager (or hers) instead.

Even though her manner is inappropriate, is it also a bit of a red flag for you about your work? You seem to suggest that you are not as on the ball as she is expecting you to be - are her standards likely to be ones that reflected what is expected of you by your own manager? Do you need to take note of her underlying message that you need to buck up?

@Al1langdownthecleghole

Are you able to copy her text and respond to her points one by one in the tone her emails deserve?

Also, think what you need from her before you email and ask specifically for that, using a closed question if necessary to enable her to give a short reply.

This is probably the best way to deal with it. I've dealt with colleagues' snippy emails in the same way myself before. It feels like throwing their own words straight back at them - no less than they deserve.😎 The trouble with emails and texts is that they can appear blunt sometimes even when that's not their true meaning, so try not to take these too personally.

THERE. IS. NO. EXCUSE. FOR. RUDENESS. IN. ANY. PROFESSION.

I think if it really upsets you, then by all means raise it with her (or your line manager). I think she sounds terse and quite blunt, but not really sure it would be excessively rude. That said, if it really upset you then raise it.

But, equally, reflect upon whether your repeated questions and silly mistakes are an issue too- you may be part of the reason for terse replies, though she should never be rude.

You may find that she alters her email replies, but also deals with your mistakes/repeated questions differently too.

Yesterday I was listening to an old podcast of Word of Mouth ('Best wishes, kind regards, or none of the above?' from 31st January 2018) and it was talking about email style. It showed that people right at the top of an organisation tend to send very short emails, it gave a couple of examples from Hilary Clinton and a newpaper editor who gets loads of ideas pitched to her and just responds 'yep' or 'nope' in a one word email. In the piece, someone else tried adopting that style and found that her productivity went up massively. She was able to send 80 emails in a week instead of 13 or 14 in her normal style. So just to say that if this colleague comes across as terse but it helps her to get her job done better, the company are probably not going to mind.

In any case, it's hard to say without seeing a specific example of an email she's written. The only line you gave was 'And I'll ask again' which to me doesn't seem too rude if she is having to ask something you should already have done/answered. If your work is substandard because you're sleep deprived, she probably is annoyed and maybe doesn't feel the need to overly sugar coat that. From what you've said so far it doesn't seem like she's rude so much as direct. She shouldn't have to work harder to answer things you should already know. I quite often get sent silly questions at work. I would answer them, but I wouldn't see any harm in saying 'As I said in my last email ...' or similar.

Fink

This is a really interesting point and is absolutely borne out by what I've seen working for some quite high profile business people.

I work in an industry where we are constantly encouraged to be polite, think about tone and always send emails that prize professionalism over everything else.

I think respectfulness and professionalism are important and you should certainly never be rude over email.

But I do think the over sugar-coating of professional language can be a distraction and also slightly sucky-up. I can totally understand why people who are busy and distracted can be brusque.

Interesting that it was "yep" and "nope" rather than "yes" or "no". The first are chattier and informal so perhaps friendlier, even when negative.

Think you have to reach a certain level of seniority/competence before you could get away with it though

The attitudes and behaviours of other staff members can really effect team productivity and confidence.

There just really isn’t an excuse for snippy or sharp responses. If a team member can’t maintain professional courtesy then it needs addressing.

OP after maternity it’s perfectly normal to have a refresher update/training. I’d ask for that. I’d also discuss the manner in which she is starting to speak to you with manager. This needs nipping in the bud.