Feeling frozen out at work

[Galaxyinmypocket]

I'm really stuck on what to do next and actively looking for another job even though I like the job itself
A new worker started a couple of years after me, she was employed to support the whole team, to help out with less urgent tasks but equally important to make the whole job work better overall.

We got along well initially, she is older than me and has worked hard throughout her career and had more responsibility in a previous position she held. Something changed a while ago when I requested support and she refused, my manager advised me previously to request this support from her and so when she refused I told the manager, in confidence about the response. (I was quite overwhelmed with workload at the time and manager asked why I wasn't proactively requesting this woman's support).

My manager told me she would raise this as a general issue with her (privately) to make sure she offers support to the whole team. I didn't kick up a fuss about it and hoped the matter would be resolved.

I'm not sure what came of that but I was never offered support afterwards (and wasn't previously offered, I had to ask) by her and when I have requested support with small tasks she has completed some and others she has just sent the work right back to me at the first hurdle she has faced rather than considering other solutions. I should add, I've offered solutions to her also, in a polite manner and I don't feel I've been patronising. Sometimes she looks exasperated or rolls her eyes when I've politely asked her to do something for me. She often really overtly looks like she cannot be arsed or looks too busy to help me. I am conscious that she WILL be busy.

She is always taking to other people on the team about the work they are collaborating on and I do feel annoyed that I'm struggling on without as much support.

The most recent thing is that I spoke to her last week, just me and her around, no noise distractions or anyone else in the room so can't fathom how she might not have heard me, but she didn't even look at me as I spoke to her, didn't look up from her screen, didn't acknowledge me whatsoever. I've not told the manager about it, don't know if it's worth it. It was about some support I was asking for, which she did do and emailed me about later.

Sometimes I say good morning to her when she enters the room and she ignores me, same if I say goodbye to her .
But this is only sometimes and not every single time, when manager is around she talks to me if I talk to her, very brief responses usually.

I feel like this is covert way of freezing me out, making me feel I'm not part of the "clique" they seem to have.

I feel like if I raise this again I'm worried I will be seen as the problem or a complainer.

I don't know if it's me, who's not looking at things objectively. I'm not sure, I finish work every night feeling I'm not part of the team. I start work each day feeling low.

I feel I'm getting depressed. I don't want to seem like a victim but I don't know how to move forward or what I need to do next. Its making me feel worthless and question if I'm unlikeable. I'm annoyed with myself for putting up with this crap but worried colleagues will think I'm unstable if I say anything about how it's affecting me.

I've worked so hard to get where I am, I'm gutted and not sure if I'm being too sensitive? Am I overthinking it all?

I'd speak to your manager in confidence and say that you think your colleague may have problems with her hearing as she doesn't seem to respond to your greetings and doesn't reply to you when you ask her questions. I'd ask if any others members of the team are experiencing the same?

OP

You have a little gang of friends there that get on better with her rather than you

Trust me, they must be slagging you off behind your back

You clearly did not fit in with that litle, vicoius clique

They want you out and her in your job

How do i know I hear you ask

Ok, I will tell you - I've seen it a number of times in the places I have worked in. It was a toxic environment and a good manager, but all trying to make everyone happy and the little vermins playinng on the managers good nature

Time to leave, or fight if you are up to it. If you are up to a fight, you will need at least one good work frined in your office and a second to make it better. These friends would have experienced the cliques nasty work. Go to the manager and tell them you want HR involved. It gets messy, it gets stressful, you could crack up, it will make you ill. Yes, it happened to me but I beat the bastards with intially one good buddy, then two, then 5 against the gang - took months, but we got there we the lead gang members being moved

Your choice. TBH, looking back, I would have left but thought F these bastards as the office was ten mins drive from our home and we had free parking in london and I'd already been there for a number of years and had flexi-time and I found the role easy - so I stayed and fought the inbred bas.... - thinking banck the bast... made me ill

Good luck

Thank you both for your responses.

@Harvestfestivalknickers I'm not sure others in the team are experiencing the same. From what I've observed they are so close and almost like friends, rather than just work colleagues. She is breaking her neck to help the others, hence they always have lots to talk about. I feel even asking her to do the most minor job to support is inconveniencing her. Actually, there's been times when she's actually said I can't do that, or I can't do that yet as supporting other team member. Always busy helping others on the team.

@DistinguishedSocialCommentator that sounds so stressful, I'm glad you fought though, well done. I don't think I've got it in me, I'm already exhausted and just coming out the other side of some stressful life events. I think it would see me off if I had to deal with any more stress, that's why I'm thinking the solution might just be to move to another job.

She couldn't actually replace me, she isn't qualified to so I don't think it's that. I just don't get it though

Make a timeline of the tasks you have asked her to do, with ‘done’ or ‘not done’, and show to your line manager at your next 1-to-1 to explain if you are overworked or not meeting your targets.

She is definitely behaving badly and is being incredibly unprofessional, I completely understand why you are feeling down and you have my sympathy. That being said, I don’t think you’re blameless here.

When she first declined to assist you, immediately relying on hierarchy to solve that problem for you was not the most diplomatic response. Did you ask her what her reasoning was? If it was something reasonable like a capacity constraint, you could have approached your boss together to help her prioritise her workload for example. You said you didn’t kick up a fuss, but prematurely escalating issues will win you no friends in the workplace.

Thanks, the replies are helpful.
A timeline is a really good idea!

No, I didn't ask her why she refused the earlier request for support. She offered an explanation without me needing to ask. I did not feel able to challenge her at that time, she cut me dead and I did not feel capable of challenging her if I'm honest.

I'm not prematurely escalating issues. Not intentionally anyway. I didn't want to raise it as an official complaint. I did inform my manager of the response though and left it at that so manager was aware I had tried. Initially I did not want manager to say anything (she offered to), thought it might be a one off. Not even certain it's even been mentioned to her. She and manager appear close, always laughing together too.

It's since this though that I have noticed a change in her behaviour towards me and started to realise there is a huge imbalance of the support that should be offered equally. I'm not trying to win friends by the way, but I certainly don't want to feel like I'm deliberately being made to feel excluded.

I have been told by my partner that I should have been more demanding of the support.

God she sounds horrible!

I wish I could be more assertive, it's not in my nature but I'm trying to be, I spoke to her when we were alone (did not plan it that way but I needed to discuss and others had left the room) about a task I'd emailed her hours earlier and she had not acknowledged or replied about, that's when she just ignored me.

I don't think others in the team would view her as 'horrible'. She's not an overtly horrible person.

Okay, so for now you need to have a discussion about your capacity with your line manager. Beforehand I think you should request a meeting with rude colleague via email. Say that you need to approach your manager about your capacity and you would like to have a discussion with her to understand which of your ongoing tasks she is able to support you with.

Personally, in this meeting, I would address her attitude, but if you choose not to it can be fairly neutral. Get a commitment for support for certain tasks, communicate the deadlines, confirm in writing and then let her get on with it. You will have been transparent and will then have an accurate picture to take to your manager who can decide what action to take.

Be mindful that although she is providing unequal support and it’s inconvenient there may be a genuine reason for it. She probably does have competing priorities and it might be that the tasks that she is being asked to complete by others unfortunately do take precedence over yours. You won’t know this until you ask. If she ignores your request, then it is fair to mention this when you discuss your capacity with your line manager.

Hard as it is, I suggest you separate the impact this has on you getting your work done - the simple facts about tasks you ask for support for that are refused or not completed - from the personal stuff about feeling she doesn’t like you and isn’t as close and chatty as she is

she doesn’t have to like you
she does have to do her job

her behaviour does all sound a bit petty and playground, and I get why that’s upsetting, but it could also be you are being over sensitive. either way tho if I was your manager I’d see any complaint as a bit “it’s not fair Jane is being mean to me, why won’t she be my friend”.

the issue your manager should be concerned about is that she isn’t supporting your tasks, and you are therefore not able to work effectively. Frankly she doesn’t have to be friendly to do that. your description of the concept when she didn’t seem to be listening and didn’t reply, but nonetheless did the work, backs that up

if possible I would also start with neutral but factual feedback to her (and do it when others are around this time, while making sure you are completely polite and preferably not critical) as I agree with others that taking your concerns to your manager rather than talk to her directly to sort it out may have been what has triggered all this in the first place. From her perspective it may feel like you told tales about her to the boss and tried to get her in trouble, over something that could have been dealt with between you.

Agree with @MCOut approach.

It might also be that you are giving her very menial work that she feels you could just do yourself, and others are giving her more involved projects. Making it really clear what her capacity and role covers might help.

Something has clearly happened such that she’s taken against you; either you’ve said or done something to offend her or there is a perception of that from her. I’ve had this before, assistant refused to support me in the way she was others and clearly viewed me with contempt and it got me down too; in the end I just explicitly asked her, but in an a non accusatory, genuinely curious way: I seem to have upset you in some way and I’d love to understand why so that we might work better together?

my colleague explained why we’d got off on wrong foot (the reason wasn’t actually anything to do with me) but I think the respect and curiosity from me helped her to see her assumptions of me were wrong and she also got to explain how she liked to work/how we could get best from each other. It immediately resolved things and we actually get on well now!

Thank you to everyone who has responded, there's some really constructive advice here.

FWIW the tasks/jobs I've requested support with have been exactly the same jobs she is helping others with.

Prior to her starting we were told she's here to do XYZ so these are the specific tasks and jobs I ask for support with.

I agree she doesn't have to be friendly when communicating about the work, but a basic heads up or acknowledgement would be courteous so I know if I'm going to need to crack on with it myself or not.

Can you work out what it is about you that she might have taken issue with? Anything in your communication style?

im not asking this suggesting you are to blame for her behaviour btw; it just might hold the key to a resolution

Well, she sounds pretty awful, and well done to you for sticking with it so far !
When you get a group of women together it can really get bitter and bitchy unfortunately.
I've worked as a hair stylist for most of my working career, and luckily worked in higher end companies, but even with a professional management, there are those who can choose to isolate you- and it will be for good reason even if you can't personally identify it. Even a simple reason like her feeling jealousy over you, or just not jelling may be enough for her to (wrongly) treat you differently ( perhaps it's a way to push you out)
Anyways.... my suggestion would be reverse psychology. Try not to overthink things at work, and pretend to yourself that you and her are the best of friends!! In fact... try slipping into conversation with your colleagues how you really like her and give only positivity as comment.

Also try talking with her on a private moment... keep it light and not too desperate looking- but ask her out to a social interaction outside of work.
Maybe invite a few from work to a group social but you be the one to take the lead on this.
Yet again, keep positive, channel energy that's positive and believe that there will be a difference.

I know this might sound a ridiculously stupid way about it... but from personal experience I found this actually helps.

Even if you quietly don't like her... while at work act accordingly and don't let the bug*#r/s grind you down !!

I can't think of why she is like this with me, I am always polite, I ask her to support me with things that are reasonable and things she is perfectly able to do without any input from me. Lots of stuff I ask for help with is sent back to me because there might be a barrier for example, someone not answering a call, so that will come back to me. She helped me do something a couple of weeks ago but only did half the job and I had to go over that again so have felt as times that there's no point asking.

She doesn't even look at me sometimes. I feel I have tried though and I've tried to show interest in her life and the things she talks about, but I accept we are not friends. I'm here to do my job but would prefer to get on well with people as I'm here all week with them.

I am not going to over stretch the effort any more and happy to just get on with my work. I'm still looking for other jobs though, life is too short to put up with this juvenile shite.

It’s either a misunderstanding or she is projecting. I’ve had a colleague make comments that seemed rude or belittling and she tried to be friendly after these occasions but I didn’t feel comfortable trying to be friendly - I suspect she was told I’d help her but management progressed my role in another direction. Equally the comments may have been unintentional or I was a little sensitive. Everyone has their own styles and baggage.

Could age be a factor? If you are younger? I have younger managers and they’ve been off with me, as if I’m going to be difficult even when I’m very open and friendly. Ignoring it and being friendly regardless has helped. Like PP just act as if everything is fine, assume the non response was unintentional and try harder. Open up a little about your life so you are seen as a human and she can’t project on to you.

I became friends with one of these managers who started off being difficult. Outright asking could be helpful as suggested above, I’d have been open with someone if they had upset me and I’d be happy to be told it was unintentional/they were just having a bad day.

The people who get on best are those who assume everyone would be happy to help and are friendly - “why would anyone dislike me” positive attitude. People pick up negativity, anxiety and vulnerabilities and not everyone will be nice.

You have to ask your manager how someone less qualified than you does not respond to you, does not provide the service they are hired for and what are you expected to do from that moment forward

I am a union rep.

She is being passive aggressive and I would be raising this every single time with your line manager.

Agree with @TheFancyPoet