left on read when it suits!

[workplacedrama]

i work with a woman, she's not well liked, moody and doesn't like many people, and has taken to whatsapping me while at work to moan, complain and winge.

when i am not at work, she will also message me with moans and complaints. but if i message her for whatever reason.. gonna be late, not coming in etc.. she leaves me on read! I work with her because no one else will! i can deal with her tantrums and can ignore a lot of her behaviour when at work.

Only when she needs to moan again, she will message saying 'oh i thought i'd replied' and then begin her complaining.

i go to work to work, i don't get involved in drama, do my job and come home as i work to live not live to work. I can see why others don't like her, and she seems to use me as her sounding board and i feel like i'm beginning to be treated the same as her just buy assocaition.

if we are at work, and she needs to moan, she will type her message, and then hold her phone up and waggle it indicating i have a message and i need to see it!

how do i make this stop? she's clearly using me.. but i'm such a push over i don't know how to stop it without hurting her feelings and i also feel that she's the type of person who will make my life miserable if i cut her off

MN'ers do your finest.. help me deal with her as nicely as possible!

Oops, I forgot my phone at home/lost it/ run out of battery. To be honest, if she was showing me her phone by the way of encouraging me to check my messages, I'd have no problems nicely telling her "sorry, I am snowed under. I'll check it at lunch/after work/next year/never"

Block her number and say 'my phone is broken', or are there work reasons why you can't do that? Are you a people pleaser?

I can see why other people in the office may start to treat you as they do her because you are letting her drag you down. By messaging with her you are getting involved in the drama

When she sends you a moan & then waves her phone across the office at you everyone else knows what is going on, they know she is bitching about one of the others to you.

I refuse to use WhatsApp because it just seems to be about moaning & creating problems & if someone wants to they can text me, but I assume you can block her somehow.

You can always tell her you have decided not to use your personal phone for work.

She sounds like a pain in the arse, don’t let her drag you into her moaning.
Can you just mute her and never reply? I would not be happy with colleagues I’d spent all day with continuing to message me in the evening when I’m spending time with my family.

You need to say that she needs to put it in an email. Set the boundaries now as your colleagues have. Speak to management about it as just because she is difficult doesn’t mean management can abdicate their responsibilities to actually manage.

also anything she writes as a WhatsApp can be part of a subject access request so she needs to be careful