Colleague causing me extreme stress at work

[Itsalmostpumpkinseason]

Managers have allowed this bully to get away with her behaviour for many years. I tried to complain to my manager about the issues I’m having with her previously and lets just say it ended up making the situation worse for me and nothing was even done. This woman is very manipulative and she likes to think she is the boss. Staff are scared to speak to management about her, that’s how aggressive she is that everyone is scared.

Not only do we have to put up with her controlling behaviour but she is so loud and aggressive. You can hear her from so far away. She started again about something last week and she’d been on one all day and I’d had enough. I calmly asked her if she could calm down a bit, as I am trying not to get stressed myself, I’m trying to look after my health and this job is stressful enough. I asked her to just tone it down a bit and came at the situation from a friendly caring point of view. She didn’t respond very well but I told her that she’s sending my blood pressure high with all the shouting and the drama. She thinks we’re friends and in my opinion if she was my friend she would keep dragging me into her drama and stressing me out, as well as behaving like a bully.

I can’t imagine what her BP is… from the minute we start to the minute we finish she creates drama, and tries to drag me into it. It’s causing me extreme stress. I physically cannot work with her any longer, but I’m stuck at the moment until I find a new role. I’ve been here for 6 years and she’s got away with treating everyone like this, other staff are bitching to me about her. I’ve asked them not to do this as it’s putting a lot of stress on me. I’ve asked them to speak to the manager and I’ve explained that if no one comes forward then she will never change her behaviour. I tried before myself but I was the only one who tried to speak with managers so because I had no one else backing me up, nothing was done.

Can you go beyond your manager e.g. to HR? Have you kept a diary of incidents?
Ultimately though, it sounds as if you would be better off searching for a new job.

There’s nothing that can be done as I previously have gone to 3 managers, one of which is the highest before HR. I was spoken to so badly and gaslit so much that I can’t bring myself to go through it again. They are losing so many staff because of this one person but because no one will mention her name so the managers don’t know how bad she is. FYI managers do not work with her, they are based off site. This is how she has got away with it because there’s no one here checking.

I am wondering if anyone has any advice of how I can get away from her dramatics until I can find a new role somewhere? Do I just try to avoid her or walk away mid conversation? I asked her to calm down and it made her worse last time. I’m worried that if I avoid her she will start her manipulation and make my work life even worse. She can’t stand not being in control and I sometimes feel smothered by her, like she needs to have control of me. If I pull away she won’t allow me to. I tried once before 1-2 years ago and she physically wouldn’t allow me to fall out with her. I feel smothered and surrounded and controlled by her, even when she’s in a good mood. Other times she’s bullying everyone or trying to start an argument then plays the victim and cries if anyone calls her out. Does anyone think she has a personality disorder? I’m trying to figure out how to handle her outbursts, but I’ve noticed my anxiety getting worse when I’m around her.

I haven’t kept a diary no, I honestly don’t plan on speaking up alone and my colleagues will run and not speak up to back me up. They just talk about her behind her back which makes me even more stressed.

Can you work from home ?

@FedUpMumof10YO nooo I wish. I work directly with her, I can’t even swap around job descriptions or times to try and get away from her. I have no issue with telling her what I need to say as I would just make sure to do it with a manager present. The issue comes from still having to work with her after and her games. She would turn on me so fast, trying to get me in trouble, watching everything I do. Just stupid stuff.

She did this before when we fell out for 2 days until she wormed her way back in. It’s almost like she’s our boss, for context we work in a minimum wage role. So none of us have the authority to boss others around but she’s been getting away with it for years as supervisors and managers get a headache from her too so they just ignore her behaviour. No exaggeration from the second I walk through door, she’s kicking off about something and somehow trying to get me on her side. She will practically force you to say she’s right and won’t drop it, until you agree that she was correct in the situation. I explained to her before that she just needs to calm down with the way she approaches situations. She quickly turned on me and got even worse. You can’t reason with her and then she turns on the tears when others have tried to say anything back or defend themselves. I’m actually getting anxiety just typing this because I’m so stressed wondering what drama will unfold tomorrow. This weekend will be spent job hunting!!! Wish me luck 🙏

I have just been in your position. My only
advice is leave for another job asap. Our HR refused to get involved, despite witnesses coming forward as to the physical abuse and rows. The colleague in question has ‘worked’ her way through nearly 20 ‘victims’, but absolutely nothing has been done bar our manager having a quiet word - which only made things worse.
The ‘plan’ for those of us affected -1) never work alone with the problem colleague, we always made sure there was a witness to her actions. 2) document
and report everything. 3) look for another job. 4) if one of us had to work alone with her - we suddenly developed a vomiting bug and went sick.

basically plan your exit strategy.

Yep enough is enough. I’ve been unable to leave, situations in my personal life have meant I needed to stay in the same job. This issue has carried on for years and I’ve just had enough now. Time for a change.

As there are no managers around and presumably you're not being captured on video or audio, what happens when you tell her to shut the fuck up?

@Jongleterre going on experience - I would guess that doing that will
jusy make her escalate her behaviour, from a full on row, to physical violence/ things being thrown. The only was to avoid things getting worse was to basically avoid all conversation and avoid any interaction whatsoever with her. Basically avoid giving her any fuel to add to her rage.

What I imagine to happen from past experience myself and of others is you cannot reason with her. If she feels that you are criticising her she immediately switches it’s actually quite disturbing. She could be my best supporter and the next thing she’s trying to throw me under the bus if anyone tries to hold her accountable she will shove us all in the line of fire. I’ve been told again today that she speaks about me behind my back and makes things up about me. This makes the other staff not like me, surely a friend wouldn’t do this. I asked her about this before and she started crying saying that the other staff are lying and they are jealous of us. She would never ever speak badly about me and she’s the only one who supports me. So she won her way back in. I’m hearing again from more than once source things she’s saying when I’m not there, nothing necessarily bad, just stirring the pot, causing me trouble with other staff. I’ve told these staff members that I do not want to know and please don’t tell me. I feel very awkward now but I’m thinking of having a word with her tomorrow.

My thoughts are…

Manager being there actually benefits me and gives me a witness

Alternatively she will definitely cry so the manager might feel sympathetic towards her

Either way I can’t win. If I speak to her alone I don’t think that’s a good idea

Alternatively should I just be nice to her and suck it up until I find a new job? It will be hard but I suppose I hopefully will have left in the next few months… I can’t look for new jobs until September because of my situation at home. So hopefully by Christmas I’ll be gone.

Her behaviour is not only being tolerated by management but enabled.

Find another job, you won't ever win a battle with someone like this.

I'm just so pissed off on your and everybody else's behalf on this.

I'm at the end of tolerance for people like this, so my rationale going forward would be that if she is allowed to shout and be stressful and dramatic, I would start doing the same.

The squeaky wheel gets the oil at the end of the day, and only by being assertive and genuinely having zero tolerance can stuff like this be resolved.

The reason people like this get away with their behaviour is because other people are too (rightfully) socially conscious and do not want to cause attention to themselves. Management may not pay attention to one lone idiot person shouting, but I can almost guarantee that if you challenge them on their level then management will start to pay attention because it will go from one person being a bellend to an office conflict.

Lodge a formal grievance

There’s nothing that can be done as I previously have gone to 3 managers, one of which is the highest before HR.

Why haven't you gone to HR directly?

I tried to make a formal grievance before and I was told that we must resolve our issues by talking, they still made me work side by side with her despite me crying because it all became too much. I pointed out that we do not have issues… she is the constant issue. She’s only been here a few years, I know that she was only moved to our department because the last one the staff all came together and got rid of her by complaining. She doesn’t know that I know this but her manager told me and other people have too.

Unfortunately the staff I work with and managers are weak. Her manager denied telling me this information about her being removed from the last place, which is part of the reason I believe she is being protected and I can’t understand why. I asked the manager if I got other colleagues to also come forward would that help? She told me that would make it look like we are all collectively bullying her and picking on her. I knew at that moment I wasn’t going to win this battle. This was the big boss. So apart from HR I didn’t know what to do. I’m sure any grievances need to be submitted via the manager so she wasn’t sympathetic to my issue anyway so I just gave in. I swear she’s got even worse the last couple of months. I might just try to avoid her and not make small talk.

@Aquamarine1029 wouldn't that be like saying my managers haven’t supported me, and look like I'm trying to go higher up? Then they would be unhappy with me.

Op, kindly, who gives a fuck if they are unhappy with you? Why would it even matter? If HR can't put an end to this you'll leave anyway. Your managers haven't supported you, and you have every right to go to HR whenever you want to.

Can you plug in headphones and ignore her or is it not that sort of job?

Huge sympathy, it sounds tough. A new job and a honest exit interview.

Honestly I think you need to find a new job. It’s near impossible to fire someone for being a PITA. Which in principle is good… but it will allow for certain individuals to poison workplaces for years on end.

Can you record her ranting and raving and anonymously put it on YouTube then email it to HR?
I worked with one of these many years ago and ended up leaving as I developed an anxiety disorder over her behaviour and lies. IDK why managers side with these types but they really seem to get taken in by them.

I worked with a similar one. Just find another job. Its not worth the impact on your mental health. After I left, a whole load of junior staff left, because they could no longer ask me about minor queries and had to go straight to her, and she was bloody horrible to them. Five of them got in touch with me via LinkedIn with the latest news.

So many people move through that company because of her, yet management will not act. I was honest in my exit interview because I had forwarded a lot of her abusive e mails as evidence.

This
make your gireivence about the managements failure to investigate. You need to state they are failing in safe guarding and risk assessment as the lack of regular oversight and supervision is causing you stress form unprofessional behaviour of other colleagues, and you need them to investigate and take action to eliminate that clause of stress
try to avoid pointing finger at the colleague, that’ll get you no where
you need to make this about failure of the management , the systems, the organisation

They have to investigate and offer you a hearing , within a certain time frame (look up rules on google as I can’t remember) . Take someone with you to that meeting which is your right. They can witness what was said and help prompt you if you veer off point or get a bit off piste.

read up. Put a clear case of what they need to address. Make some suggestions if need be of what you think they should do . State how many times you’ve already tried to address it with them

as other say, start recording in a diary every incident- try to go back for last month if you can. If y9u can’t it might be worth eating for 6 weeks data of records before raising grievance ,you must have evidence

AND, once it’s over ALWAYS JOIN A UNION - unfortunately if you’re not already a union member then it’s too late to deal with this issue if you joined as they’ll exclude it. But make sure you have a plan b in the unions for all your future carer

@Backstreets exactly!!! She’s a pain in the arse with a bad attitude. It’s not a sackable offence. If she had done something really bad like hurt me, then that is different. I’ve realised now that they will never get rid of her. Hopefully soon it will be long behind me.

You are legally entitled to a grievance process
that’s the law
https://www.acas.org.uk/grievance-procedure-step-by-step#:~:text=A%20grievance%20procedure%20is%20a,want%20it%20dealt%20with%20informally