Controlling and “not a team player” colleague

[coffeegirl73]

The hardest thing for me about my job is a colleague who s just 1 grade above me but wants to control everything - refuses to share information or communicate. Anyone else have this problem. I need strategies to not care and let it just blow over me: I’m tired of getting frustrated or trying to work with this person. She looks at me with such disgust, rolls her eyes , but worst just refuses to communicate anything .

You need to document everything. Email any request. If she asks why you don't just ask instead (ie no evidence) then say that you've asked and you think she's forgotten.

If you have to send a second email, copy in your boss.

She sounds awful - poor you!

I’d say ‘Why are you rolling your eyes at me Sarah?’

Stand up to her, she’ll have the shock of her life.

As the previous poster has said, make sure everything is in writing. Sometimes in person chats can’t be helped and even when I’ve specified please email that to me, they don’t, so I often email saying ‘as discussed x y z, please let me know if I’ve misunderstood or if anything isn’t clear’. So they can’t throw you under the bus later on.

and yes to cc’ing in senior team members. Don’t be afraid of a email her to ask for the information you need. I find chat GPT is so helpful to write professional emails when I’m feeling frustrated.

Yes to emailing so there's a trail, and also use 'no response deadlines' eg 'If I don't hear back from you by X date, I will do it the way I think best / not do any more on this task / escalate the enquiry to someone else'

Call her out when her behaviour isn’t professional. Request things in writing and follow up.

the thing is the manager of us both always defends her. Like yesterday colleague didn’t tell me something - about a task we were supposed to be working on together- I asked on our teams chat and someone knew the answer and I answered saying ah ok I thought it was XYZ (what this colleague had told me just 24 hours earlier). So manager wrote on the chat to me “oh don’t worry it’s hard to keep up with changes. The colleague didn’t reply at all. She is just so brazen with it. Not sure that makes sense am trying not to be “outing”

Record and keep a log of her and your managers behaviour towards you. It is important if anything blows up that you have proof of your and their interactions. Keep the info updated and away from work.Good luck.

You don't know what someone else is going through and there may be something going on in her life which means she's not as communicative as she could/should be. Maybe your boss keeps messing her around at work which is why she let manager respond to your query? Just keep lines of communication open yourself, back up in person conversation with emails on what was discussed and decided/action points afterwards.