Attention seeking woman at work driving me insane

[Gloc]

Name changed as outing to anyone that works with her!

She’s driving me insane, seriously - to the point where I have urges to shout at her or literally walk out. Shes so loud, constantly shouting and screaming. She’ll literally scream all of a sudden, waits for everyone to ask what’s wrong and then will say “I’m just so bored!” Or “I’ve just remembered it’s pizza for tea!” Or some other stupid shit.

She’ll randomly throw her papers up in the air and say “it’s stressing me out!” And everyone laughs. What exactly is funny about that?? Maybe the first time I’d laugh but when it’s a weekly thing - not so much

On Friday she suddenly slammed her laptop shut and screamed. Of course everyone was like “what?? What??” And she’s sat there lapping up the attention before declaring “I’ve just seen that my favourite band are touring”. Everyone laughed and said “Jesus I thought it was something serious”. It’s never serious, it’s always something stupid.

She’ll get up and suddenly start dancing - even getting up on the tables etc. at Christmas she brought in a load of those dancing snowmen/santas/clapping monkeys etc, set them up all around the office and turned them all on together. The voice was unbearable. The manager made her get rid of them in the end so she screamed and pretended to cry.

The woman infuriates me. I don’t even know why she annoys me so much. I seem to be the only one not laughing! Before anyone says I’m jealous, trust me - I’m the most introverted person ever, the last thing I want is to be centre of attention

She’s actually making me consider changing my job. I can’t stand it. I’m literally dreading going in tomorrow.

We also have an office disruptor who is the standard entitled drama queen. You don’t want to be accused of bullying but I’ve found that saying “sorry, would you mind keeping it down, I’m really struggling to concentrate with this noise” is neutral and reminds the offender that other people are actually working.

😂😂😂😂😂

You've mentioned a list of things she's already done. Start cataloguing them, date, time, what she did (including how she has already behaved), then take her to one side and say that you can't work with her distraction and noise round you, stopping you from doing your work. You're giving her fair warning, if she doesn't want to modify her behaviour you'll have no option but to take the matter further.

don't give her the chance to back chat or answer back, quick message, said in a quiet voice then thanks and walk away.

if she doesn't get the message after that, you are within your rights to report her with all the detail. The more people allow her to behave like that, the more it legitimises her.

Back to going to HR, you need to mention that you had spoken to your own manager who told you about the bullying allegation/s and that you basically have to suck it up. They have breached GDP and telling you to put up and shut up when someone is behaving like this in a health setting is really dodgy.

I know someone like this, she is a narcissist and she’s obnoxious, thriving on attention of others or “narcissistic supply”… I’d suggest writing an anonymous letter to your HR and not saying anything to anyone else about it. Good luck.

Really!! You are kidding, right! What about OPs mental health!

It's because your introverted, your two opposite sides of the coin. That's why you don't like her

There is always someone you won't like who you work with, you just have to put up sometimes in life

Your coworkers may be laughing with her but they will likely be getting annoyed too. Some of my coworkers get very loud and love drama, we all roll our eyes when they get fired up as they can go on for ages!
Your colleague sounds like she's on another level though. I think she could be unwell and something that management are aware of which is why the behaviour isn't really being addressed

Everyone has told OP to report it to her Manager, but she refuses to, so clearly that isn't what she wants to hear.

VERY funny 😂

This sort of behaviour, the screaming and carrying on would send my anxiety through the roof! Especially in a work environment.

Please contact your manager, HR and get this escalated. Even if she has some sort of personality disorder, it is clearly not being managed.

I knew someone like her - past tense, ditched the friendship, she was a narcissist and had serious mental health issues. Everyone else was an idiot, everyone else couldn't do it properly, everyone else was at fault no matter what and she made some seriously poor choices. Funnily enough she worked for NHS too at that time. Now she works elsewhere. Still 100% bonkers though.

Having worked NHS - things tend to be swept under the rug, management are often ineffectual and dont want to deal with any issues.

Yep there's a whole series - plus spin offs!! - in that! (particularly looking forward to Gerald needs a refund...)

Sounds like you have a particularly annoying energy vampire in the office

Workplaces where I live have an obligation to provide a psychosocial safe work place.

Lol. What does that even mean?

I work with her twin

She's the most shrill person I've ever met

Honest to God,I was once being dropped off in the carpark and we could hear her from there

She doesn't talk-she just shrieks-and she loves the sounds of her own voice

I'll be happily working and she'll scream,over something minor and then she'll start with the 'omg' comments ('EEEEEEEEEEE!we can have bacon with that?' Or 'EEEEEEEE! I need a frappe!') Rinse and repeat all day

Or she has to make her opinion heard-and only hers matters

And she'll repeat her opinion over and over again until everyone agrees

I'm sick of hearing about her personal life,in graphic detail and on steroids

She has been known to pole dance but outside and after her shift

Ditto snow angels (I didn't know you can't make snow angels without shrieking about it) pretending to have sex with another lad (on camera) and pretending to give bjs (again shrieking loudly)

Nothing will get done because she's shagging the married manager (it's an open secret-hes a foul man)

I'm looking for another job as management are shite and spineless,her and another lad who goes round backstabbing us-we are shite at our jobs and he's keeping the place going-even though that's a joke-hes been there 4 months and is awful at his job-to the point we've had complaints from customers

You have my full sympathy

Did she appear on big brother last year by any chance?

If your manager is too timid to deal with this could you make a diary of every episode or record her (is this allowed?) and just go straight to HR?

This woman will continue to behave ike this until someone stands up to her.

Tempting as that would be, these things have a habit of backfiring and it could be the OP who ends up in trouble.

I think it's an NHS thing as I work in an open plan office and we've got two of them! Since the NHS got rid of probationary periods it's definitely got worse!!!!

As a manager in the public service it drives me mad to see people won't raise this issues because they assume nothing will be done. If i had a member of staff like this and no one complained it would be difficult for me on my own to resolve it. I would need evidence that it was affecting others and not just me. Yes there are shit lazy managers everywhere but not all of us are. You literally have nothing to lose by raising a complaint with her manager. Either you'll be proved right and nothing happens or you will be pleasantly surprised and something will happen.

Can you go higher up than your manager? She has to be told by someone to stop randomly screaming, that's just insane behaviour

This would drive me to distraction I couldn't deal with it at all.

On the NHS comments, I briefly worked for the NHS (6 months). I left as it was the most unprofessional and idiot tolerant workplace I'd ever known. Only the NHS would tolerate this behaviour.

I have this at work but the person also ALWAYS has to one-up anyone who is having a bad day. Someone could be like, "Hey, how are you doing?"
I'll my like,"Pretty tired, youngest was up all night."
And she'll be like,"Well trying living my life! I only got two and a half minutes of sleep and blah de blah". It's like oh shut up no one even asked you.

You need to raise this immediately with your manager and try and get others to do the same. Put pressure on over and over to get this addressed

I used to work with a woman who was nothing like as bad but had similar traits and this is likely the thin end of a very large wedge. She drove me nuts. I could shut myself away from her for 50% of my working day but this just made her all the more concentrated in her attention seeking.

Once I had a phone call to make so I sat in my car for my lunch. She was constantly banging on the window asking me if I was alright when I clearly was, just on the phone. I started going to pub at lunch just to get away from her. She even came in to work when she was holiday 'for a gossip'. fucking nut job.

The management knew what she was like and did nothing. I left.