Colleague is suddenly blanking me and nobody else has noticed, it is affecting me quite alot

[Motheroffive999]

A colleague and good friend has stopped talking to me and won't even say hello In the mornings.
I have asked her if I have done something to upset her, she says not.She is now over friendly with the rest of the team and is whispering to other staff if I approach.
It is a very uncomfortable situation and have to go in to work later than I would like.
Nobody has noticed , my boss saw that I was upset and I mentioned the situation, boss said he wants to ask her again but she avoids leaving at the same time now or is always on her phone, she is now over the top friendly with my other colleagues.
I have looked after her 3 sons and her dog when she has struggled .
Please advise me , many thanks

How long has this been going on? Do you have a mutual friend on the team who you could quietly ask?

I think your manager is putting you in a tricky position there. If something is wrong you don't want to be seen as harassing her either. How much does your job overlap? Does she interact with you professionally or is it impacting the work?

Thank you for your reply.
She will reply if it is to do with work but it is very abrupt.
This has been going on for about 3 months , subtle at first.We work in the same office of only 5 people.

I think this is really hard because as hurtful as it is, she's not really obligated to be friendly towards you if she is still working professionally and getting the job done so to speak. Which I'm guessing is why your manager is putting the onus back on you because it's not related to performance or the job so really their hands are tied as to how much they can intervene. Are your other colleagues acting normally towards you?

Yes my other colleagues are absolutely fine it's just that she is usually whispering to them as I arrive and as I say good morning to everyone she then disappears without speaking.
I have also noticed that she is more friendly and louder than normal when speaking to my colleagues.

It’s awful isn’t it? And once you start to notice it’s difficult to ignore. Is getting another job an option?

Divide and conquer!

Be breezy and friendly with her. Publicly.
Always wish her good morning/good night

Approach those she whispers to and (still being breezy and bright) ask them if she's said anything, because you've noticed......

I have been in my job nearly 20 years so I would like to stay.

Some women are absolutely bloody awful. This is so typical of the way some people behave. I had exactly the same thing at work and never ever got to the bottom of what was going on in her brain. The only thing I would recommend you do is speak to your manager and ask for a meeting with all three of you. A formal meeting where the manager makes notes and where she has to answer questions about her bullying behaviour. Whatever you do don't leave the job even though I'm sure you feel like doing that.

Urgh, I feel you OP.
I had a 'friend' turn on me at work too. At least mine was to do with me being offered promotion (which she hadn't even applied for) so I knew the trigger.

It's quite heartbreaking to lose someone you thought a friend but be forced to deal with them every day. Works hard enough without someone making it even harder for no good reason.

I do agree with Rocky - stay light & professional. Be Uber reasonable & polite. It will ease off as she gets bored or moves on to someone else.

But be clear - this is bullying behaviour. Your employer should have a policy on respect in the workplace or similar, which should include ostracism (refusing to say good morning, whispering, not including you). So she needs to watch her back & I agree with recording any specific incidents. The manager should say s/he's noticed the change & give her a warning shot to pack in the whispering IMO, not drag you into it.

Were their signs she was a psycho like this before? There were with my bully, but I didn't heed them, sadly.

The best way always is to ignore and just focus on your work.

I've had this 3 times in my career and it is hard, no two ways about it. BUT others will notice that you're rising above it and give you quiet credit for it.

Every time it's happened to me, someone much later has commented on my turning the other cheek and that I've done well to avoid bringing the problem into work with me.

It's pathetic really. It's the sort of thing we should be able to leave behind in the playground. But I guess some people never really grow up.

How childish. I’d brazen it out and very loudly say ‘good morning’ to her then ‘oh cat still got your tongue for some reason , I see’ etc..

How hurtful this must be after what you've done for this woman in the past. Some good ideas here. Definitely don't hesitate toget management involved or feel bad about drawing attention to what she's doing - it's when people feel they can't point out something like this that the person doing it feels emboldened to continue. Head up and remember that you have no reason to feel bad and you've done nothing wrong.

How bizarre and very hurtful.
Rise above it, it's not you it's her.
Go in at your normal time, bright and breezy good morning.
If they blank you and whisper every day then that is bullying behaviour and worth going back to your manager about.
I think she has shown you who she is so as hurtful as it is I think you need to move on and accept you are no longer friends.

A colleague I was very close to at work stopped talking to me after I was promoted, she also went for it and was/still is the managers favourite. However the manager wasn't in post at time of interview so I was interviewed by head of service and another manager who were impartial, I did better at interview and got the job.
It makes me really sad how it changed things between us, I still tried to make conversation for ages afterwards and only got one word answers, I now don't bother, I can't change it.
So I know it's confusing and it hurts but try and move on.
Any whispering and excluding sound like bullying though so that needs intervention by management.

The whispering is absolutely awful, I've had that in a job- not necessarily about me, but who knows? Plus I can't concentrate when something is just on the edge of my hearing, it is worse than nails down a blackboard for me. She should be told to stop doing that as it is really fucking rude and childish whomever she is whispering about.

I find people who have used you will act like this once they no longer need you. Next time she needs a baby/dog sitter blank her.

This has happened to me too, we used to be really friendly and then the shutters went down and she started cutting me dead, I decided to keep the moral high ground and always say a breezy good morning to her etc which made her squirm (and I derived quite a lot of satisfaction from). 6 years on and we are both still there, interestingly she has recently thawed a bit but it’s too late for us to ever become friendly again, I can never trust her. I have no idea what caused it and don’t want to know, whatever I may or may not have done or been perceived to do, it in no way justifies her behaviour. Hold your head up high, keep saying “good morning” and don’t let her drive you out.

I'm sorry you are going through this. I can completely sympathise as I had the exact same thing happen to me except the woman was my manager!

We started off getting on great, busy team and worked really well together. Socialised outside of work for quite some time. I went on holiday and when I came back, she was like a different person with me and completely turned on me for no apparent reason. She did her damndest to make me look bad. Denied a conversation ever existed I had with her about a shift change that she had approved. She organised a team night out and sent an email to the whole team, but "expanded" the email so she could pick my name out so I wasn't aware of it. She tried to cause a lot of trouble for me with other team mates and basically made my life hell. It was a good few years ago now but I remember finishing work on the Thursday before Easter in tears as she had given me a written warning over something she had carefully orchestrated to make me look bad. My husband said afterwards it completely ruined our Easter as I spent the whole time stewing over it. Looking back, I nearly had a breakdown over it. I tried to talk to her and ask what was wrong but she was adamant nothing had changed. I ended up speaking to her manager but that backfired, as my manager had been clever and covered her tracks so other people just thought it was me being paranoid. Her manager and her were also good mates outside of work so I found myself in an impossible situation. It got sorted in the end as someone found evidence in her desk drawer that she had been plotting to get me to leave and also another girl before me.
All I can say is keep as much written down as you can and try not to let it get to you. It's easier said than done, I know. It's not you, it's her.

If you get on well with the other colleagues can you find a way to ask them (without her being around) what's she whispering about to them as it's making you feel uncomfortable and singled out?

Don't do this op, it will just be turned around to make you look bad.

Absolutely this. You have to completely rise above it. It's the only way to retain any kind of control over the narrative. She'll still have an impact, but if you don't retaliate, the others will see you not engaging with it.

You have to ignore the lack of friendliness if she’s being professional. However call her out on the whispering. It’s unacceptable. Do it there and then as she’s doing it but be polite and firm.

No, it’ll make silent woman look bad.

No, it'll make you look just as bad as her. Two wrongs don't make a right, you need to keep the moral high ground.

If you say good morning to her, does she say it back? Is it affecting your work, i.e. if you need to speak to her directly about something work related, will she respond politely?

She doesn't need to be your friend, but she does need to behave in a professional manner. She is obviously talking loudly to other people to make some sort of point. She doesn't sound very nice.

I was in this situation. This woman started and she was overly nice to me at the beginning then started negging me and getting to me and being overly nice with everyone else. I agreed to mediation after trying to sort it myself and it ending in a public argument. She accused me of stuff in the mediation that wasn’t true but quite damaging. We then worked together but barely talking and then she started attacking me via email so I reported her and by then she’d gone for a job in another department. During all this my work really suffered and I had to talk to my boss so my advice is ignore and stick it out but do speak to hr