Workplace incident AIBU

[Invff]

Would appreciate an outsider perspective here.

I'm struggling with PND, the breakdown of my marriage and recovering from years of childhood abuse. I've always been fiercely independent and was in a position to support numerous family members while I was working. All this changed after I married someone pretty much insolvent and started a family. I'm now a single parent to preschool children, the eldest of whom gas SEN.

I applied for financial support through an organisation that provides financial relief to people in my profession. Unbeknownst to me, one of the trustees is a colleague. I withdrew my application once I found this out although I was advised that my colleague declared that she knew me and did not to have opened documents pertaining to my application including banks statements and benefit statements.

To my utter dread, and having not seen said colleague for a few years, I am working alongside her again. Due to shame and embarrassment I've tried to avoid her in my place of work. But today she's been trying to start conversations with me, and interjecting with fairly irrelevant comments in conversations I'm having with colleagues.

For example, she told me that she was made redundant when her son was small and it was the best thing to happen to her since it's allowed her to start her own business. She mentioned a mutal colleague was a single mother and bought up her daughter alone, and that she gave the mother her own son's baby clothes. She's asked me twice about where else I'm working/how frequently I'm working. And asked me if I've bought my own lunch in today or I'm purchasing from outside.

Am I being unreasonable and too sensitive to be a little upset and annoyed at this questioning? We've never been close and I wouldn't ever share personal details with her. She's also incredibly respected in our profession.

I had a call with the director of the charity and my case has been the catalyst for changes in how they operate which I have welcomed. Would it be appropriate to contact the charity again, or to email my colleague about today?

Thank you

That sounds very difficult. I don’t think you are being unreasonable at all to feel awkward with this colleague. The charity clearly needed better protocols. What would you hope to gain from emailing your colleague,though?

She's also incredibly respected in our profession.

if you try to avoid her and keep refusing to talk to her, you're the one who seem to be in the wrong and appear as rude.

She's just trying to be polite .Your feeling of shame is private, that shouldn't impact her a all, why should it

I don't think your colleague has done anything wrong. You used to work together, you haven't spoken in a few years, now you're back working together. She sounds like she's trying to start conversations. I think you're reading too much into innocent question like whether you brought lunch in or are going out. All she knows is that you applied for aid. She didn't read the application. If she's a trustee, she will have seen lots of applications. With respect, I think you're own feelings about having to ask for help are making too much of a deal around this. Try to forget it and act as you previously would have with your colleague. It will be easier.

I understand the awkwardness, but don't think the colleague has done anything wrong, really? It sounds like you're reading stuff in to what she is saying when she might just be making polite conversation or trying to be supportive

Of course, you don't want your personal difficulties shared with people that you know, but it sounds like she declared the relationship and didn't access any of your documents, and the charity has since tightened up on its processes?

Honestly, there is no shame in asking for help in any case. The charity exists to help people in situations just like yours, and there is nothing wrong with you needing to access that help. I certainly wouldn't judge a colleague if I accidentally found out that they were going through a tough time - would you?

I can't help but feel that this issue has more to do with your own misplaced sense of shame at having to ask for help than it has anything to do with the attitude of the colleague. I suspect that you're looking for evidence of judgement that probably just isn't there.

I'd give yourself time to cool off before emailing your colleague. This sounds like the kind of situation where you'll possibly send something and be cringing at a later point once the emotions have settled. But maybe I'm just projecting.

YABVU

There is absolutely no reason to feel embarrassed at all. You haven't done anything wrong and it sounds to me more likely that your colleague is trying to make you feel comfortable and welcome and start conversations. Maybe she gets the vibe you feel uncomfortable with her and is putting in the effort to make it otherwise?

You shouldn’t feel ashamed or embarrassed, you didn’t do anything wrong.

Equally I don’t think your colleague has done anything wrong. It just sounds like she’s trying to make conversation. She also did the right thing by declaring that she knew you and not looking at your application.

This seems like one of those situations where it would be best for you to do nothing - unless I’m missing something?

My take on it is that her conversation starters are a bit clumsy, but she is trying to difuse an awkward situation for both of you.

You have nothing to be ashamed of by previously asking for help. When I met my DH my outgoings every month were more than my incomings and I was living on 7x 6p cans of bean and spaghetti, a loaf of bread and 4 jacket potatoes each week. When he realised this was all I could really afford he used to insist on buying me a grocery shop each week. Most people have gone through a time of financial struggle. But it's nothing to be ashamed of.

Please don't be ashamed or embarrassed.

Only you are in those conversations, so you know the tone, but could it just be that she's trying to connect, that she wants to help - if she's a trustee of the charity she clearly does want to help people, and now you're in her orbit and she accidentally knows that you need support and is making it known that you're not alone?

Firstly, she isn't going to be be judging you for making an application to a charity of which she is literally a trustee. If she judged people for getting help from a charity, she wouldn't be involved with that charity.

Secondly, it's not actually her fault if she happened to see you'd applied to the charity, so it's a bit harsh to try to avoid her for it; she's done nothing wrong.

Thirdly, the comments you describe just sound like friendly, polite conversation to me.

Honestly, I think you're reading far too much into all this. With your PND etc, you're probably seeing things through a very negative filter right now, and you're assuming the worst with no real evidence.

Sounds like she is trying to be nice and your being a bit paranoid!

She wouldnt be a trustee if she didn't want to help people. Stop feeling ashamed. Everyone needs a hand in life at some point.

Thanks for your responses.

Would it unreasonable/bordering deranged if emailed the director to request she lets the trustee know that I decide against accepting their offer of support because of this conflict? I appreciate this is more my problem, but it honestly felt like being hounded. We don't get much opportunity to catch up with colleagues during the day, ans certainly not for long (5-10 min breaks 2 or 3 times) , and it seemed every single opportunity she saw me, she tried to relate to the issue of single motherhood or financial difficulty. I don't doubt she is well meaning, but I also cannot pretend it didn't feel very very insensitive and clumsy as one poster suggests.

I was the one who said her conversation starters might be a bit clumsy.

I have to say, and using your own words, I think it would be bordering on deranged if you sent the email you are proposing to send.

Had she completely ignored you, you might be posting on here saying that you felt judged as she wasn't making any small talk at all.

Your reasons for not going ahead with the assistance are understandable, and you could say you have decided against it because you feel uncomfortable with a work colleague being one of the trustees, although you completely understand everything would be confidential.

I don't think you need to bring the individual trustee into it though, or tell them to blame her. She hasn't done anything wrong.

You are assuming this is the only time this happened to this person while they were with the charity. Conflicts of interest happen often, she took the correct action, and did not see any private material or involve herself. For all you know, that could have been the fifth time that month she came across a name she knew.

This was obviously a really hard time for you, and it still seems to be reverberating for you.

However, you are attaching to this person who has done absolutely nothing wrong a lot of the bad feeling from that time. You need to let it go. In all likelihood, she has either very little or no opinion of the situation and as a trustee of the charity will have seen it all a million times and attach no judgement to it.

I think you’d be very ill-advised to complain.
Based on your own words, you are much in need of help, to the extent that you contacted a charity related to your work.
A colleague connected to the charity exhibited considerable tact and decorum, and removed herself from direct access to your case; then much later, on more casual reconnection, she (again) behaved in a well-meaning manner towards you, though it was trivial and casual in the extreme, but you decide this is her hounding you, and you wish to make a formal complaint.
On the basis of what you deemed to be clumsy and insensitive chat, even though it was unrelated to her work as a trustee!

Even if she were both those things: so what? Why are you seeking to make trouble for her in this way, when you were in no way harmed?
This is a meanie schoolgirl attitude, and you really could do without it.

Do you think perhaps your current poor mental health might be impacting on how you are perceiving this situation?

You are hyper-focused on yourself right now and sensitive to any slight due to your feelings of shame.

As such, any comment someone makes about anything to do with your current personal situation, you are going to fixate on and take personally.

It sounds like there's a combination of comments your colleague has made in conversation that are perfectly innocuous, but because of your own sensitivity, you have connected them to your application for financial support.

Your colleague followed the correct procedure in declaring they knew you and did not access the documents you submitted. As such, she can't possibly know why you've applied for support.

Kindly, you are reading far too much into this, and are going to do yourself no favours whatsoever by complaining about it.

Your colleague was clearly trying to be kind and supportive. You sound like you might need someone like that in your life right now. Perhaps welcome it, rather than seek to punish it.

Also, life goes tits up for all of us sometimes. Asking for help from a charity is not something to be ashamed of. Please be kinder to yourself.

She’s trying to be nice to you. please don’t let your pride get in the way of accepting help.