AIBU to suspect a colleague’s behaviour may relate to my nationality?

[oneofthems]

I have a colleague who is new to our function, although not new to the company, and from fairly early on I had the sense that something was quite off in her attitude towards me.

I hope people know what I mean. Nothing you can formally put your finger on, but a pattern of small things. Meetings I am left out of, emails that don't get forwarded, deliverables I am only brought into at the last possible moment. We are at the same level.

Every individual micro incident is absolutely in nothing to see here territory. Taken together (been six month) they paint quite a clear picture.

I thought I'd make a very intentional effort to build bridges. I looked at her public social media to see whether there was anything we might have in common, I don't know, something very innocent, a first step. Dogs, travel, hobbies, sport, whatever. Her own feed is very mainstream, mostly food, travel, family events and fashion, occasionally some local news reposted.

However, I discovered that her partner, whom she publicly tags as being in a relationship with, has a very specific prejudice against people of my birth nationality.

To anonymise this, imagine I'm Argentinian (I'm not), with apologies to any Argentinians reading. More than 50% of his posts are things (mostly reposts, with some crazy conspiracy-theory shit) along the lines of "deport all Argentinians back to Brazil if Argentina is so bad for them ", reposting crimes no matter how minor committed anywhere in the world by Argentinians, "lock Milei, lock Milei" protests, stats on Argentinian corruption, or claims that Argentinians are all Nazi descendants and shouldn't be allowed into the UK. I am actually surprised some of what he reposts is not automatically flagged by algorithms as hate speech.

Neither he nor she appears to have any connection whatsoever to Argentina that I can work out, or even to anywhere in South America, which somehow makes the fixation even stranger.

I OBVIOUSLY know his views aren't automatically hers, and I certainly don't want to hold someone responsible in my head for everything their partner posts. There were views my partners held that I didn't, and vice versa. Still.

AIBU to wonder whether I found the reason?

I believe that hating someone with the same skin tone as you but from a different country is xenophobic not racist. Different religions is religious discrimination.

It's racist for white non travellers to be prejudiced against travellers. And most travellers are white. But yeah I guess it's all those things!

Well race is a construct so it’s perfectly possible to be racist towards someone who shares your skin tone, build, hair colour/texture if you’ve bought into the idea that they are somehow different to you at a physical level. Antisemitism is racism, the Rwandan genocide was racism, colourism is racism.

@oneofthems will you be getting paid for working on Saturday? I really hope so and I’d also discuss this with your colleague on Monday. A previous poster suggested you could have emailed your colleague stating that this would be delayed now until Monday, and asking her to update the client with the reasons why. Too late this time but this could be an option for the future.

Couldn’t you arrange for client emails to be posted to a shared inbox? You shouldn’t have to but it’s something you need to bring up, using this latest incident as the reason why.

By all accounts your first language seems to be English!

I work with a person who accused me of being racist and hating her/her country etc etc. I have actually lived in her country and most of my family are from there so actually she is totally wrong on that count but not on the fact I cannot bear the woman. For some bizarre reason she has decided it is because she is an Aussie and not because she is a loud mouthed obnoxious biggot with views I find astoundingly ignorant and racist herself but nope, she thinks it is because of where she is from. Perhaps your colleague just does not like you yourself? I mean no disrespect, I do not know you at all but we can't like everyone.

If you seriously have 20 of these ^ then regardless of her potential racism she's a shit colleague and all 20 should be reported

Take the racism out. Spreadsheet every micro and macro (!) aggression. Report the vile person

But you are concealing the nationality in this post so obviously you do shy away from openly saying it. Anyways I’m sure I know what nationality you are. Enough clues in the post to work it out.

Send yourself a horrible meme anonymously and show her and tell her you've been considering going to hr about not feeling comfortable/targeted
Tell her that casually/in a non threatening way and watch her freak

Worst advice ever.

There would be an investigation which will probably reveal that you have lied, wasted company time, started a smear campaign and on the list goes.

Obviously don't do this.

Absolutely. There’s no excuse for unprofessional behaviour. But the OP is suggesting this is motivated by racism or dislike of her nationality, but the more she posts the more I’m wondering if it’s about open support for an unpleasant regime.

That’s exactly what you did.

Have you considered she just doesn’t like you as a person rather than playing the race card.

Still no reason to behave unprofessionally.

Anyway - the why is important to you, but actually, it's not relevant. Her behaviour is the important thing, and whether she's doing it because you are Argentinian or because you can speak 3 languages or because have blue manicured nails or whatever else doesn't matter. She's treating you poorly, and it wouldn't suddenly be okay if the reason turned out to be something else other than your nationality.

I agree it wouldn't be ok, @EBearhug , but if the colleague's behaviour is targeting the OP because of her nationality, religion or ethnicity, that could be considered to make the colleague's actions more serious.

I think you should send an email in reply, pointing out that this the Nth occasion on which your colleague has not passed on a request for something you need to do promptly, which has meant that you have to complete it in an uncessarily tight time frame, and please could she forward any such emails promptly in future. And blind copy your manager in, so they are aware.

Do you deliberately withhold information and meetings and tasks from your colleague, dropping them on her when it’s too late to
meet the deadline?

I can comment on the algorithms thing - they don’t care anymore. I reported someone for calling me white vermin on Instagram and saying we should be exterminated. Apparently that doesn’t break any of their community guidelines…

Yes it’s probably because of your nationality. Unfortunately I doubt you could prove it.

Totally different departments so I do not have to deal with her at all thankfully. She still will tell you I hold her nationality against her as she of course does not see herself as an annoying cow.

Then your situation isn’t the same as OP’s, is it?

OP, in response to your comment on my previous post...

' I know perfectly well...'

Yes, as I wrote, you had already stated you knew what to do professionally in response to what appears to be what I'd characterise as a silent, passive-aggressive undermining of you and your professionalism.

I sympathise with you and can understand your desire to know why she is behaving towards you in this way. Nobody on mumsnet can answer that for you. Posters may agree with your suspicion because of the husband's posts. But short of this colleague telling you herself, there is no actual way of knowing and she's not going to tell you even if you were to ask her directly. That's a possibility open to you - to ask her directly why she's undermining you; but i think you probably know she will never admit any intentional malice, dislike or racism. Only she knows why and she aint telling. So you will likely never know for sure. You have to live with that.

Of course it's a horrible situation to be in: to be undermined for no apparent reason. Quite often in workplaces there are these animosities which come from seemingly nowhere and subvert the mission, which is to get the job done. Ive experienced it myself and been naively mystified because I never imagined people behaved in this way, silently undermining onecwhilevsmilingbto one's face. It's deeply unpleasant to be caught up in such a situation but sometimes there is nothing to be done about it. It's all about the other person.

However, I'm glad that your doubling down on calling her out more publicly is beginning to work and with luck (I hope) she'll cease her campaign of subversion. As I said before, your option is to move to other employment.

@oneofthems is it possible to say to her the next time some micro aggression presents, 'Goodness, Julie! Not again! This is becoming a bit embarassing that you constantly miss me out - and it's obviously affecting my team. I'm starting to think it's because it's because I'm Argentinian and it's deliberate, lol. That's surely not the case, is it?'

Make her deny it. Keep it light and with an airy laugh. When she does, say, 'Just incompetent then? I'm wondering whether to raise it'

You've nothing much to lose by the sound of it. Then she either continues with the stupid behaviour that you've made it clear you've noticed or she grows up and starts thinking about doing her job professionally as she should be doing.

You mean like the hatred some cultures have towards the British nationals overseas because of our government involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran etc?

I can’t see a work situation where at an equal but different senior level would be responsible for arranging meetings and contact lists, and taking you off. And if this was happening, I’m sure someone would ask me if I’d managed to dodge the Whitehall meeting #222!

Also, how was it that a message to do with some urgent work went through her instead of straight o you.

if both of the above really happened, it shouldn’t be difficult to get your name back on the appropriate lists.

my vote is that she’s incompetent and/or doesn’t like you.

you haven’t said how she is to you personally, in a workplace or large group I’m aware of who wants to know me and shows an interest, and those who are in different circles. Does she ever mention what she’s done at the weekend for instance?

So OP is being bullied because she’s a Messi fan?

Found it odd that OP doesn’t just say what she is. Why the cloak and daggers?

Just as odd, she’s been able to find their SM despite not following them and unlikely the colleague would have volunteered for OP to be FB or SM friends.

Racists are generally smarter than that now though. It's the micro agressions like OP says.