Catty women in office

[DaphneDahlia]

Yesterday I dropped into my company main office. Since Covid the office is not used so much as a lot of staff WFH.
My experience of some of the Personal assistants is dreadful. I walk into the office and feel dread as the atmosphere is very awkward as soon as I walk in. I feel intimidated and see side glances and smirks between them when I speak.
This is ridiculous as I am a grown woman who is close to retirement. Why am I letting such women have a negative effect on me. I came away feeling really uncomfortable and sad.
Has anyone experienced this and how did you cope?

Reported

Catty implies they were being spiteful or hurtful with their remarks- but sounds like they didn’t say anything, you’ve just made assumptions based on a look. Maybe you’re the catty one.

@sweetpickle2 no it's really not in my nature to be catty. I'm quite confident that there were smirks

PAs have a very difficult and often thankless job. Not saying you do this, OP, but there can be a tendency for them to be treated as 'general admin servant for anyone who is not a PA themselves' so they are usually a tight-knit group who will fight one another's corner. PP's advice to breeze in and be pleasant to them is good.

Some really interesting views here. It's difficult to challenge them as an office as there are other women in the office that do not appear to be part of this

I read a quote once that really stuck with me and changed how I approached people that I wasn’t keen on:

”Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.”

Years ago, my first instinct would have been to have my back up, or hostility, but I much prefer to conduct myself this way.

If you keep it polite then there’s nothing wrong with confronting it. In fact, if there are other people in the office when you ask, it might be even more effective.

Just ask them if you’ve done anything to upset them as you’ve noticed the mood changes when you enter the room or speak so if there’s an issue you would like to discuss it so that you can improve the situation.

I don’t think anyone can blame you for that as it’s not rude. They will either say no and stop doing it (most likely), or they will say yes and tell you what it is!

Alternatively, ignore it and write them off as a bunch of sad cows 🤣

This is a bizarre take. It shouldn't matter whether OP is senior or junior to them - nobody should 'dare' to treat anyone like this at work.

I do agree with the poster who said that PAs often have a very thankless job, and some of the posts on here ('give them some photocopying'? If it was the finance team giving catty looks, would you say 'give them some invoices to pay'?) reflect that. I've been a PA and it was grating to be looked down on by staff at all levels, who thought we just sat there and photocopied (I wish!), and we also had zero flexibility, so when everyone else could WFH and come into the office whenever they liked, we were in there day in, day out, for no real reason. Are they definitely giving you dirty looks OP? I just ask because I am shy/introverted and often feel like this, especially around people I don't know very well. But I know this is often just a trick my brain is pulling on me - they're more often than not just reacting to something else and have barely noticed me.

I’ve made my peace with the fact that a lot of grown ass adults act like idiotic children. I would just ignore them or roll my eyes

If you rarely go into the office it could be the smirks were about that, ie 'bloody hell look who's actually turned up'. You're probably not the only one who gets it, can you ask another colleague? Not nice behaviour but it's maybe not personal.

Oh give over.

I like this!

I’d say one reason they probably didn’t like me was because I didn’t join in the daily swipes and bitching sessions about people I didn’t know. It made me uncomfortable. If makes me disliked im glad im on the right side of that.

in fact i am well liked by the people who matter. I have plenty of friends who are true and don’t need to drag people down or make them disliked by smirking and giving long stares…that is bullying. Have a good day 👋

Hey, if you like to choose war over peace, that’s entirely your prerogative.

But for me, this approach actually helped my mindset a lot. You can’t dictate how others treat you, real or perceived, but you can choose what you put back out to the universe.

I think there’s a wee bit of middle ground between all out war and sucking up to people who treat you badly.

So you don't see any link between you thinking women are the worst and women not liking you? If you thought black people were the worst would you expect us to like you?

And you don’t see the link between genuine bad experiences making me wary. I wouldn’t bring race into it…it’s not a good look. I might think it, but I’ve never shown it.

Plus I do believe if you read my next comment I clarified that I was wrong to generalise. But to clarify…I was wrong to generalise.

Hmmm great plan, pop into office now and again, rather than get to know people rage at them and throw your weight around just because you have a senior position.
That's definitely going to improve the atmosphere going forward.

What is making you feel intimidated? They are no better than you. Just go in, say hi and ignore. Tune out of noticing side glances and smirks. I was bullied for three years by two ladies in my office when I was in my very early twenties. They were much older and were really quite spiteful towards me, either talking over me or ignoring me or leaving me out or being snarky. Luckily, I didn't give a shit as I was just going in to get paid; I was good at my job, it paid well and the boss liked me. I got on with my work and pretended I didn't even notice. Bizarrely, after three years they stopped everything and gave up being mean. They were great to me from then on. I don't know if it twigged that it was absolutely pointless as I didn't react in any way or care, or they got bored 🤷‍♀️. So my advice would be to just not give a fuck. See it for what it is -a job. Be professional and distant. They are not friends, you don't need to care what they think about you.

I don't think women are the worst - I just think I expect them to be decent and friendly and supportive, so when they behave in cold or isolating ways, it hits harder. I've had one appalling female boss and two outstanding ones, and most of my female coworkers have been excellent. I've had a lot of mediocre male co- workers, one excellent male boss and a few average ones who think they are the best.

If you read on you’ll get the just of my reply. Thank you for at least being fair with your reply and not responding with ‘no wonder everyone hates you’ which actually isn’t the case, I now do feel well liked. Unfortunately I was caught in a race to the top or get TF out culture several times, and MY personal experience is this is how women bully. Can’t beat the stares and side smirks in that situation. Ah well eigh

I think the "office bitch" is a character you see in books, films and tv shows written by men to show women that women hate other women and you have to choose between being liked or having a successful career.

There might be the occasional woman who is having an off day, but 99.99% of women in real life are warm, kind, funny, supportive and helpful and have too many other things on their plate to get angry about another woman's success, appearance, age, working hours, or anything else.

Studies don't really support this though. Vast majority of women vote for preferring a male boss and feel even more strongly than men about it.

I think if I adopted this as my mantra, I would find myself sharing my unvarnished opinions of a few people because I'd never get another chance!!😂