I was hoping someone can help me with my relationship with my colleague. We have been colleagues and friends for about a year now and usually work in different areas of the building we work in.
We have been working alongside each other for the past few weeks and i feel this friend has been undermining me at every turn to the point of not wanting to go to work as i feel my confidence is now nil ( I suffer from depression and anxiety too). No matter what I say she disagrees with me even though I've been doing the job for 8 years compared to her 2 years. She is also about half my age though I don't know if this means anything but I just didn't want to dripfeed. We do the same job and we are on an equal level although I am on a higher pay rate because I've been there longer.
Some of the things she does are tell me how to do my job and i do answer back by saying yes i know I've been doing these things for 8 years now. She undermines me as when I've told the children we work with they can go outside to have chill out time and run about with their friends she got angry when they didn't want to play a game with her so she sent them inside as they disrespected her. She always seems to be watching me and waiting for me to fail at something or correcting me constantly.
I don't feel like I'm a bad person and I am well liked by other colleagues and get along with everyone pretty much. I don't feel the need to be always in charge of everything and I try to do my best at work. I enjoy my work but at quitting time i go home to what is essentially my life I don't live to work but work to live.
I know this is a first world problem but it is eating away at my self esteem. I only have 2 more weeks of working closely with this person and its going to be a long 2 weeks.
Two senior members of staff have also arranged for her to go and work somewhere else as she had undermined them...