Can no longer be arsed with this person…

[CouchSpud]

A woman in work who is emotionally all over the place, I can never tell what mood she’s going to be in.

I am pretty good at getting on with everyone, I don’t like conflict and will happily say sorry to appease a situation, even if I’m not in the wrong. I’m anything for an easy life.

This woman finds offence so easily and will strop and cry.

I made her cry the other day by making a very socially acceptable joke about what she was doing. She was struggling with opening the staffroom door. I was behind her and just said ‘would you like an adult to help you’ laughing, expecting her to laugh along too. The door can be tricky and everyone struggles with it. I think this is also a well known joke.

She glared at me, said ‘really?!’ then ran off down the corridor crying. I didn’t follow.

I have spoken to others , and they agree with me that her response was ridiculous. But it turned out she’d been having a shit week, she’s apologised to me over email, which I acknowledged. But she’s now upset with me for not apologising back.

If I’m honest, I don’t want to apologise. I can’t be arsed!… I just don’t want to interact with her at all anymore, as this isn’t the 1st time this has happened with me or others. The unpredictability or her moods is not worth the stress.

I assume you are referring to my post. This was in reference to your OP ,the first line - 'I'm picking up autism from this one'.

The point I was trying to make is that this lady could be going through something stressful at home - bereavement/ debt/DV/financial issues.

So Why do you- (as per your OP) assume she's autistic?

Ah, those cursed and inconvenient labels again.

You assume I made an assumption, but actually, it was a suspicion based on lived experience spanning many years. That doesn’t mean I’m right and of course I could be completely wrong, and I’m more than happy to accept that, because that’s the mature thing to do.

I wasn’t assuming, just considering possibilities based on patterns of emotional dysregulation. Stress at home could absolutely be a factor, but if this is a recurring issue with extreme reactions, it’s worth considering whether something deeper might be contributing. The main point is that she seems to need support,whether that’s workplace adjustments, therapy, or just a bit of understanding.

Drama Llama ??? labelling is tad adolescent , a bit of staff room gossiping ,
has it occurred to any of you to ask what is going on in her life that makes her so easily upset, I'm really glad I don't have you all as colleagues, you all sound really unsupportive
Still a Mum At 79

Toxic springs to mind.

If things are really that bad with her it should be up to the management to say something to her as no one wants to be treading on eggshells at work all of the time, I completely get it. But at the same time she sounds like she is really struggling too, maybe she needs a friendly ear, you don’t know what is going on in her home life, maybe she’s belittled there to, which is exactly how you made her feel at work with your ‘adult’ comment. If she really is falling to pieces every time someone talks/jokes with/at her she sounds very unhappy possibly even borderline depressive, I’d personally cut her some slack until you at least find out what is going on with her outside of work.