Team leader & Silent Treament. Ignore?

[Buxtaroo]

I hope someone can help as to whether I should discuss it with my Manager or just to leave it alone. My team leader for the last 8 years has given me the silent treatment on and off sometimes for a day or two and sometimes for a week.

Currently I am helping in a different team which has made life easier but I am still sitting with my old team near my team leader and often have to discuss work with him. He started ignoring me again and this time it has been about a month.

It has really bothered me this time. I recently and asked him to give me some time to talk as he had said he was busy. After about two weeks when he hadn’t found any time and I asked him again and we went to a team meeting room. He denied there was a problem and said it was nothing personal and he didn’t know what I was talking about. It was just so frustrating. I must admit to my embarrassment that I started to cry. Just wanted advice really. Not sure if I should speak to his Manager who is very approachable but useless. Just wanted some advice really. as it is getting me down more than I should. I work in local government.

I hope you are in a union. Your union rep would be a good person to talk this through with. Then HR.

Thanks. I am not in a Union. Also I was hoping that it would get better but it never has. I also don't want to make it into a bigger issue that it is. I was hoping for some advice from anyone who has had this happen to them before.

Could he be stressed?

He is stonewalling you.

I would send him an email... “further to our discussion on X date, I feel it will be helpful if
I start putting all requests for meetings or requests for work discussion in an email, to ensure that any further issues are resolved in a timely manner” and copy your manager in.

He is always stressed. However he does not treat other people like that and the behaviour is reserved only for me. If I ask him a work question he will answer. I sent him an email saying that it was very obvious that there was something going on as he had stopped talking to me and could we discuss. He replied that when he has time we will and as he didn’t approach me I ended up asking him to go to the meeting room.

I am coming to the realisation that there is probably nothing I can do and I will either have to put up with it or leave. I love my job and don’t want to leave.

Has anyone else noticed? I've found that generally when someone is overtly behaving in a bullying manner it's quite obvious to everyone else and they often ask the victim about it.

Had a situation similar to yours last week- I could tell my team leader's manager was giving her the silent treatment.