My colleague is lovely, kind and works really hard. She struggles with her MH she's very open about it.
Sorry, bit of back story to try and prevent drip feeding.
We are the same level and do the same role. she's been at our current work place for 9 years and in the industry for 15+ years, I've been here a year and in the industry only 2. We are similar in age.
Our work load has increased alot recently and the company are currently advertising for someone to join our team. So the pressure has increased.
Recently, if someone asks me something work related instead of her, she gets agitated. She offered to help recently with something as I was swamped, i accepted and asked her to start at 'k' as I've sorted up to there. She made a big thing about how the alphabet doesn't start at K and she's capable of doing them all. How she's only trying to help and slammed her pen down and walked off crying. Everyone around was shocked. I went after her to check on her, she said how I think she's useless and how much experience she has and she's great at her job. Which I tried to reassure her I don't think she's useless (I honestly don't), agreed with her that she is good at her job and she trained me!
I have been asked to show someone from head office around tomorrow and talk them through my role and she got agitated that she didn't know about it and I'm pretty sure she didn't believe I found out the same time as her via our ops manager (I got the email from HR after the ops manager came to tell us about the visit, so I didn't know either!).
I feel like I'm walking on eggshells if I need to query something with her or I 'know' something she feels she should know she gets angry or upset. She got angry she didn't know one of the contacts on a contract she has ever dealt with changed. Even though the info is all on the system should she need it.
I worry I'll upset her and I'm not sure how to navigate it all. Other colleagues have picked up on it and it's making them come to me more than her, which is feeding into the problem.
I've raised it with my manager as I am worried about her and her MH. I believe they've had at least one meeting since I spoke to my manager and she took action pretty quickly.
Had anyone got any advice, please?