WWYD? I’m not great with confrontation and this power crazy lady at work loves them.

[DailyMailDontStealMyThread]

I took on a new role due to company restructure last year. Now working across a few sites instead of being based at one.

All going well at other sites but not so well at one. I posted about an anon letter sent about me to the HR Director earlier this month and received great advice which I applied and seems to have just made this woman up her nastiness towards me.

She is power hungry over the most minor of things, I can’t even ask for the key to the fucking stationery cupboard without being grilled as to why I need more paper.

There is so much work outstanding that she should have dealt with before I started. She only has these things to do as the person that did my role on site (just this site) asked her to help her out and has now been made redundant.

At first, we spoke about the things outstanding but she gave every excuse she could to why they aren’t complete and wouldn’t give me the contact details to help her because she was “sorting them”

This was back in July and these things are still outstanding and she still wouldn’t let me help so I sort of gave up and left her to it as I have enough to do across sites.

I didn’t really give it a second thought when our manager started emailing me asking me to sort X Y Z, they were impacting on others and I sorted it all out within a couple of days.

This hasn’t gone down very well and the other woman constantly tries to find ways to confront me. Last week was hell, she was constantly at me sometimes in front of customers so I chose to walk away.

She has taken me walking away as rude and wrote an email to the HR Director complaining about me. This was passed to our manager who spoke to me on Friday.

I explained that I’d only completed things that he, as my manager had asked me to do and only walked away as I didn’t know how to respond to her aggressive manner especially when customers could hear.

He suggested we meet, all 3 of us on Monday to address the complaint and issue but when I said I can’t see any good coming from that he agreed.

He is going to speak to her on Monday 1:1 now. I have to be at that site on Monday due to a meeting, I can see this all blowing up and I just don’t know how to deal with it.

I forgot to mention, senior managers all believe she wrote the first letter sent to HR over Christmas. I’ve taken the stance that no one knows who wrote it so I’ve drawn a line under it and moved on.

It’s not been easy though.

If she agrees to ‘sort things’ do a big smile and say ‘wonderful.,by when?’ And then WRITE IT DOWN IN FRONT OF HER. Oh, and then mention that you’ll diarise a catch-up for the day after that date to look at next steps, following her completion of said work. Then everything you’ve said is reasonable and she doesn’t have a leg left to stand on when you then raise an issue with management that she isn’t delivering on time.,,

At this point I don’t want to sit down with her, she is so aggressive and I’m just not used to dealing with that at all, I don’t know what to do in those sort of situations so I’ve decided to avoid it for now and our manager agreed.

But I need some help in how to deal with her, it’s not going to magically go away, I can’t see her resigning and I’m not going to so I need to work out what to do.

As an aside, HR see her for what she is doing and hasn’t/won’t follow up either letter or complaint so I’m ok that way and the managers understand my position so I guess I just need to learn ways to manage or cope with this woman.

It’s all so petty but very, very draining

Can you give us specific examples so we can better advise?

I don't think that this is going to improve until you summon up the energy and gumption to sit down with her with a third party. You could ask HR about workplace mediation or if that is not possible have a neutral third person in the room. You are going to have to get to the root of her problem - what is her motivation for behaving in this way. Does she behave like this with other people in the office? Did she want your job? If there is an underlying reason at least you have something to work with. If she has a disordered personality - then you just need to make sure you have put measures in place to protect yourself from her behaviour. Any aggressive behaviour should be reported immediately to her line manager and HR. E-mail all of your requests and discussions - make no agreements in person/face to face. If you have to arrange work face to face at a meeting, make sure that (if possible) there is a third party to witness any exchanges, write up minutes and all sign them. If no third party is available make sure that you e-mail all noted from the meeting immediately after it. Do not give her any wiggle room for "misunderstandings".

From what you have written it sounds like you have some level of responsibility for her work load- if she is not completing tasks in a professional and timely way then she could and should be disciplined, so make sure all of her work is timed.

It's shit when there is someone like this at work - it's just so exhausting. But if you just act like a robot around her - no emotional responses, completely logical and fact driven, she will either trip herself up or stop her nonsense. Good luck.

If you ask her to do a task do it in email form. Then you have a consistent record

If you have to engage with the petty confrontations..... I would do this

“Where is the stationary key pleAse?”
If she responds why do you need it, what do you wnT it for, etc etc and try’s to interrogate you. Just ignore put your hand out and say “there is no reason for you to withhold the key, so please give it to me”
Then if it escalates say something like-
“You’re willingness to turn every small and simple request like this into something confrontation is unprofessional. It’s being moitored and will be tracked back to line managers” the wrote down the date, time and incident. EmAil your and her line manager.
Out do her with the pettiness and break her.

My has the right idea, it’s seems impossible but it’s also the only route

I have everything backed up on email, so many un replied to and if I try to speak to her I just get an aggressive response so I’ve taken to not talking to her.

I don’t need to communicate with her to do my role at this site, problem lies where people avoid her and ask me to do things, which I do and then it rattles her...

problem lies where people avoid her and ask me to do things, which I do and then it rattles her...

Unless you HAVE to do this extra work - stop doing it. If you are asked by colleagues who want to avoid her, politely tell them you have too much of your own work to do at the moment and refer them back to Angry Woman.

Have you read nice girls dont get the corner office? It might help with general assertiveness so confronting her wont seem so scary and youll be better at it.

Good luck OP. I have had very similar issues with an awkward work colleague recently (she is junior to me) but awkward and full of her own importance (fortunately she wasn’t on my team and I didn’t have any line management responsibility for her) and a key was involved also. I tried giving her the benefit of the doubt and ignoring her but her behaviour just escalated. Then probably encouraged by my not calling her out and her own self importance she got much worse then started emailing her superviser and copying in my line manager and myself. Enough was enough so we had a meeting and she behaved appallingly at the meeting. She has since been moved to another site for other reasons this will have been a minor factor but several other major factors were involved mainly her awkwardness, moodiness and all round bad attitude. Anyway she has been telling other members of staff in another team that the reason she was moved was totally due to me. So I have logged this with her manager.

I’m dreading Monday, I know she will confront me and my natural response is to avoid it, which she see’s as rudeness and around and around we go

In what way will she confront you? Can you respond by saying - "I would like to hear what you have to say but I won't be able to properly hear you while you are being aggressive/shouting/ being confrontational. Perhaps it's best to wait until we are sitting down with X (manager)."

She is just loud, nasty and accusational but that’s great advice again My I’ll try to remember it when she starts again on Monday.

I have the ability/tech to be available over the weekend from home, she doesn’t so I’ve ticked a lot of outstanding boxes today which she won’t know about until Monday.

That will piss her off then our manager will speak to her which will ride her goat plus 10 and I’ll bare the brunt of that no doubt.

Hence why I’m dreading it, part of me just can’t be bothered but most of me wants to learn how to deal with her.

An approach I found helpful with shouty, confrontational people was to stand in silence while they ranted, then repeat my original request in the same calm tone. Don’t say anything else, don’t explain or try to reason with them, just repeat the original sentence. Don’t be afraid of silences, don’t try to fill the silence. Be calm and polite. So “Nelly, I need the stationery cupboard key, thank you.” No explanation, no response to questioning why, no facial expression, no sighs, eye rolls or other reactions to her nonsense, just repeat your request.
All conversations about tasks she is responsible for are followed up in email with list of tasks and time/date of completion. Again polite “Just to confirm our conversation of time/date, you are doing XXX for delivery to me at time/date, YYY etc. Any problems, don’t hesitate to contact me, best wishes, your name. Then you have a back up trail.
Practice doing this in front of the mirror to gain confidence in the professional ‘grey rock’.
Good luck.

I can imagine how exhausting it all is. Dealing with her assertively and letting her know her cards are marked will a) give you so much satisfaction and b) potentially put a stop to all the nonsense. I don't know if you are much of a reader but if so check out The Conflict Pivot by Tammy Lenski. It's a good, shortish book on the basics of conflict resolution. Good luck tomorrow.

Sorry but think you're going to need to stand up for yourself and not allow her to bully you like this. This doesn't mean you have to join in shouting and being agressive (don't do this!), be polite and professional but firm in how you deal with her. Don't allow her to have anything to moan about you about - so for example say 'it isn't appropriate to discuss this here, let's talk about it later' rather than just walking off. Keep a record of any incidents where she is aggressive or rude and like others have said, get everything in writing relating to deadlines/work she has agreed to do.

I would also tell your manager you have changed your mind and would like to be in the meeting. This shows that you are prepared to do something to resolve the situation (even if you shouldn't have to, it looks better to look willing to your manager) and also allows you to defend yourself about whatever claims/lies she may be likely to tell him. Maybe make some notes before hand to prepare - for example if she tries to tell him you're stealing her work you can simply say 'you told me this would be completed by X date, it wasn't, so Y manager asked me to complete it instead'

Good luck and try not to worry!

Hope today went well DailyMail .

I remember you from the other thread OP. Sorry to hear it's still not going well. I know how you feel as I am a conflict hater too but I think probably the only way forward is as your manager suggests - in some way to 'have it out' with her.... cringe I know but it sounds as though she's got some kind of unknown beef with you and until you know what it is you can't address it. From your other thread I can guess what it might be, but it could be all sorts of things. In my long career in HR I have known epic fallouts over all sorts of silly stuff, some memorable ones include the man who thought his colleagues had mortally insulted him by singing him happy birthday and bringing in a cake (he thought they were making a snarky point about his age, they were genuinely trying to be nice) and the two ladies who ended a 20 year friendship and had to be forcibly separated over a row which started with one of them borrowing the key to the biscuit cupboard (that was a power play thing!).

Yes, you or your manager might not actually be able to resolve her problem but sometimes just letting her explain it can be so cathartic and satisfying people feel much better and modify their behaviour at least a bit anyway, and you can then maintain the moral high ground that you've done everything reasonable to sort this out...

The only other thing I'd say is where is her manager in all this? Surely the person to address her failure to complete tasks and rude behaviour to colleagues is really her manager, not you or your manager?