Colleague crying and complaining to me- aibu to want to stay out of her mess?

[Boxshibe]

I have a colleague who has been in the company for 6 months. They are a nice person who seems to know what to do.
All great I thought but there are 2 problems.

1. they have a major problem with another colleague. They think he's abrupt and aggressive with them on teams calls. I'm usually in the same calls and he seems fine to me. She keeps calling me after a call and crying about his behaviour but I genuinely can't see what he is doing wrong.ive spoken to him about it but he thinks he speaks to her the same as everyone else. I think she's planning on complaining.

1. They don't appear to have finished any work and it's now impacting on the project. They were new so given the benefit of the doubt but now it's becoming a problem.

I don't know what to do. Should I stay out of it or try and help? I'm going to speak to our line manager when he's back next week.i just want her to stop phoning me crying.

Christ. Tell her to stop complaining and get on with her job.

Unless you’re besties out of work she shouldn’t be phoning you with problems.

Can you block her number?

I would stay out of it and tell her you’re staying out of it. It’s not your problem

Definitely stay out of it, don’t give yourself anything to lose sleep over.

I don’t think I’d be able to stop myself reminding her I’ve been in on the calls she’s unhappy with and that although I’m trying to support her I honestly cannot see the “aggressive” behaviour she’s complaining of. Maybe that will cause her to question herself a bit, as long as she thinks you agree with her she’ll continue to think of herself as a victim here. So I’d head her off at the pass like that and speak to the line manager as soon as is feasible. She’ll probably ring you less once she sees you don’t buy into her victim mentality too, win win.

In general try and stay out of it if possible, but if she does call moaning about the colleague you think is actually behaving reasonably, I would definitely tell her that. That could serve two purposes : give her a reality check and perhaps stop her calling you if she realises she won't be getting any validation from you.

Stay out of it. She sounds lazy and like she’ll drag you into any drama. I.e she hasn’t finished her work, someone tries to pull her up on that and rather than focusing on that she’ll throw out that she is being bullied by bob and can’t do it blah blah blah. You don’t want to get dragged in.

I know I'll try and stay out of it. It's difficult though we work v closely together as a team and she overshares a lot.
I don't think she's coping with the actual job and will complain about him to divert the attention. I think she thinks we are friends so that makes it difficult.

Then you need to say exactly that to your line manager before she stitches your colleague up with an over dramatic malicious complaint. That her work is the problem, not the other colleague.

God no, steer well clear.

You need to start being busy. Reject her call and send her a message saying you are in the middle of something and can she email if she needs you etc. Be less available and shut down the venting when it starts.

Why have you not addressed them not finishing any work?

Ignore her calls. Don’t get dragged in. Do not make her problems your problems

@Oblomov23 it doesn't sound like the OP is her line manager. It didn't sound like it is her job to pull up her colleague on her performance.

I think I'd be too busy to take her calls, and if one gets through I'd say that I thought Bob was absolutely fine on the call, but if she wanted to make a complaint about him she should talk to her line manager. If she says she's just venting tell her to go do it elsewhere as you're too busy to deal with dramah.

I think I need to ignore. I don't want to be in the middle and take sides. I'll try and be less available 1-1 and stick to calls with others.
Work wise I was assured a piece of work was nearly done so I asked to see it to find it's really not done.

It depends:

1. As I'm sure you've experienced, if you've found someone difficult then things they say can be easily interpreted badly even if they don't mean it like that. If he's been dismissive of them in the past, then something you see as he commenting may be taken the same way. It's also possible that you see it as "just his manner" when actually he's like that and everyone's used to it.
2. Bigger issue worth raising with her line manager.

So work does affect you. You are managing parts of her work. That would be much more of an issue to most managers that the colleague complaints.

Plus the lying, of being assured it was nearly done, when it wasn't.

She sounds very annoying

I've given her a deadline of this week to finish the work and I'll speak to her line manager about it next week. I've been trying not to micro manage as I thought she knew what she was doing.

It sounds like she is struggling with her new role and is trying to blame it on someone else and dragging you into it. Anytime she mentions how aggressive "Bob" is or was on these calls just keep saying that you didn't notice it - he seemed fine to you etc.