I genuinely cannot believe I am even posting this...and posting for traffic so I am automatically being unreasonable
Up until the job I am currently in I have always worked in a heavily male weighted environment. After having a child and a couple of redundancy issues I am in a job I sort of enjoy. Its not world changing but it pays the bills. As a team we get on really well normally, have a laugh when there is time but mostly we keep our heads down and crack on with the work required.
It has become very noticeable since Jane (not her real name) joined the team after maternity leave that this is no longer the case. Dont get me wrong she is a lovely lady and had a really rough time with severe Post Natal mental health issues. I had a severe case of ante natal depression and a mild case of PND myself so I have a huge amount of empathy for her situation. We are not friends but we are friendly if that makes sense.
Since her return it is clear her mental health is not as strong as she protests it is. She has bouts of severe paranoia and almost manic mood swings. One day all is fine, we all chat as a team and others its like ww3 could erupt at any time.
After a recent clash between her and another team member I was asked to keep an eye on the situation and alert our manager should it seem like things might escalate. I did this at the start of last week as Jane has seemed more on edge and has become progressively more paranoid over the preceeding few weeks. Her behaviour towards a particular member of the team has become very erratic, she is constantly demanding to know why she has been left out of meetings, where everyone is every second of the day. Although we are on the same base team we work on completely different clients and our roles do not overlap. Meetings I may be invited to have absolutely nothing to do with her. She is not expected to cover my role so she doesn't need to be included. This applies to.other team members too. However, part of my role is global across all clients we work with. It is a very minor part of my role, takes all of 5 minutes a week. It is literally a data collection of work they all do weekly and then maintaining a global tracker.
As it turns out someone else has also reported concerns around her current behaviour.
Then last Friday it was mental for me. I am doing my role, part of our managers role that cannot be covered from home (management are all wfh) and also another colleague from a different department as they are on annual leave. I was really busy and basically kept my head down most of the day and didn't really join in as much with the general chit chat. Jane had also come in and was visibly in a foul mood, I asked if she was OK, she said she was so I accepted that and left it.
It now turns out she has been slagging me off to another colleague on the team, apparently I have blanked her and been rude to her, created an atmosphere because I wasn't joining in with the frivolity on Friday. She has been exceptionally shorty with me, eye rolling if I speak, ignoring me when I asked her for the information I needed for my work. She has been rude, dismissive and openly hostile towards myself and another lady who works on the same client as I do all day. I literally haven't done anything wrong, I have been exactly the same with her and everyone as I have always been so I really don't know where this hostility has come from.
How do i deal with this? Part of me wants to front up and ask her what the issue is but based on her recent history of exploding at people who have simply asked if she is OK I am.also very reluctant to say anything. Dp thinks I should just ignore it, keep.my head down and carry on as normal but honestly 1 day of this BS and the atmosphere she has created by being so moody and snarky with people is awful. Everyone is on eggshells because we all recognise this as a precursor to her blowing up.
Do I speak to my manager and ask her opinion or do I just ignore and carry on?
I am not used to working in this environment...help!!