I would appreciate some advice on how to handle this situation.
I started a new job with another new colleague. We got on line a house on fire straight away. We started to see red flags in the organisation immediately. The woman who is training us part of the time who is the same position as us was very disrespectful about the manager. She made it clear that she comes in early, never takes a lunch break and stays 2 hours after work most days. This is daily because she said the workload is immense and duties are immense.
We had to visit another office who do the same job and like this woman said that they work all hours. All of these people said they only take long weekends and never even a week of because the job is so stressful that you need the days to be taken frequently to cope.
They keep repeating this and it’s obvious that they expect the same from us as new members of staff.
On the 2nd week my line manager was putting calls on loud speaker so that he could show us how he deals with calls. Embarrassingly for him, one call was from one of the colleagues we met crying her eyes out saying that she despite working all hours of the day and night she can’t keep up with the workload.
We also had an email from the manager thanking people for working all hours to cope. One other colleague told us if they had listed all the job duties she would never have applied for the job.
To top it all off the disrespectful colleague must have taken a disliking to me and owing to managers comments she has been twisting my words and making things up to look like I am unhappy in the job.
The other day the other new starter was left alone with her and she began probing her about me. She was asking all sorts of intrusive questions about me. Anything my new starter colleague said, she would twist it. She even commented that I didn’t speak up about a certain topic, so that must mean I think ab and c about it. Very bizarre assumptions about me. Also she called me a rebel and my new started colleague a goody goody on my 2nd time of meeting her. I have no idea why as I have been nothing but kind and civil.
She says she senses and atmosphere and she doesn’t think I like the job. She said that she dislikes that I am not open like my new starter colleague is. She asked her about my medical history and made comments about my marital status. She is aware that a very close family member of mine has just been diagnosed with cancer but seems determined to find ways to get me sacked.
What should I do? I had a bit of a breakdown this weekend because I am so nervous about the workload and the fact that this woman seems determined to get me out.