Dealing with a toxic colleague in my new job

[loneranger34]

As the title suggests, I started a new job about 4 months ago and I'm doing well, aside from one thing - dealing with a workplace narcissist. That's what I see her as, anyway - and I've dealt with enough pathological types to know one when I see one. It's the little things that add up, along with a lifetime of specific trauma connected to these people, that makes this an issue for me. Most people would be able to go home and rant to a loved one, perhaps get advice, but I can't! So I'm posting here to see if anyone's dealt with the same situation.

When I started this job, I noticed a culture wherein one person - the titular narcissist - was the reigning queen of the office, allowed to flaunt herself and break rules when she saw fit. There are other malicious types in the office but they're older and less offensive; mostly just bitchy and gossipy, overly concerned with their personal rivalry, which is more funny than scary. However, the head narcissist is a younger woman, close to my age, and the baby of the entire department. She regularly flirts with the external (male) staff, has personal contact numbers for half of them (despite our very privacy-aware industry), and sucks up to the manager whenever she's around. On a personal level, she's sweet and light with everyone but me.

I don't know what I did to upset her, but from Day 1 she's been cruel and patronising to me, regularly invading my space, cutting me off when I speak, mocking the way I speak, and rushing everything she says so I don't get a chance to answer back. She also hides my things, and I suspect takes other peoples' personal items, and is generally rude in a way that's very hard to fight back against without becoming 'the problem'. An example of this was handing around biscuits she got as a gift, skipping past me with a snide comment of "ooh sorry, you can't eat these can you?" (I'm allergic to dairy, and they actually had no milk in) and emphasizing how good they tasted to a nearby colleague. Despite changing departments she comes back to ours every day, either to charm my colleagues or assign me grunt work (filing, printing) despite the fact I've taken on greater responsibilities now. The atmosphere totally changes when she leaves, with colleagues who were previously dismissive or hostile warming up to me and encouraging my progress.

I suspect I feel so irritated because I've dealt with similar people many times, and now I have more self-esteem I don't feel I ought to deal with childish dominance plays like this. My C-PTSD also makes me more nervous, sending me into fight/flight when she's around. It sucks and makes me feel pathetic, plus I'm quiet, awkward and introverted so I suspect my colleagues can be easily turned against me by someone more charismatic. Also, I don't know how to deal with this. If I go to my manager even suggesting she's being a bully, I will be gaslit or made to seem dramatic, even though my manager's a good egg and stands up for me. I would usually be sarcastic and tell her politely to stop acting like my manager, but can't do that either - my reputation will tank, and I'll become 'the arrogant, jealous one'. The whole workplace has an 'it is what it is' attitude, and you're expected to take the 'banter' until you can't. So what do I even do??? I don't fancy changing jobs at least until I've passed probation in two months, and my CV isn't great so I'd rather not challenge an already horrible job market - I was unemployed for a year before this and it crippled me financially.

You totally grey rock her and get on with your job. I’m surprised you don’t know about grey rock if you’ve dealt with cluster b people before.

I agree you should not go to your manager. You’ll look unhinged because her behaviour is covert.

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I try to do that regularly, I'm very boring at work and never give her anything to work with. However, it doesn't work - she just tries it more and more to try and get a reaction from me!

So you grey rock her more and more. You need to be stronger than her. She will get bored eventually if you don’t give her supply. Read up on narcissistic supply.

I would pick up my phone and make a call as soon as I saw her. Call your own number and let it go to answer and leave a long message that sounds like you’re having a business conversation!

That way you can legitimately ignore her and even wave her away if she approaches you.

Or walk off to the loos/kitchen/another department.

Basically you need to minimise contact.

You’re not imagining this, and you’re not weak for reacting — your nervous system is doing its job after past trauma. The goal here isn’t to “win” or expose her, it’s to protect yourself and your job.
Practical approach:

• Grey rock her: minimal response, no emotion, no engagement. Narcissistic types lose interest when they get no reaction.
• Quiet boundaries: calmly redirect (“I’m busy with X, please ask my manager if that’s a priority”) — factual, not confrontational.
• Document, don’t escalate (yet): keep dated notes of incidents in case you ever need them.
• Anchor yourself elsewhere: build alliances with colleagues and your manager through competence and consistency.
• Get through probation first. That’s the priority. You don’t need to solve her — just outlast and outgrow her.

This isn’t about banter or toughness. It’s about self-protection in a power-imbalanced environment.

Public sector? It’s full of them. Queen Bees and bullies. No one ever does anything. They just let them get away with it because they’re scared of them.

I just wanted to wish you all the best with this. Workplace bullying is real and because you haven’t yet passed your probation you are in a vulnerable spot. Providing you are polite and professional I would let her “win” these petty interactions. She sounds like a nightmare and in time she will move on (or you will feel secure enough professionally to apply for a role elsewhere). take good care in the meantime.

She threatened by you since people may like you better and knock her off the top spot. Try to step away from the role she has put you in as her latest victim.

Look up The Drama Triangle and you will see how it operates.

Sorry you’re going through this.

I dealt with someone exactly like this in a previous job and as much as I tried to ignore it, it really affected me both in and out of work. I’m actually reading the Let Them Theory at the minute (completely nothing to do with that work situation) and it struck me how it might have helped me back then. Have you read it?

Ultimately I put up with it for a long time, even went to counselling to help me deal with it, but eventually had to get out of the situation to preserve my mental health. I was offered a new job at a different company which I was about to accept, but when my manager heard this he started taking me more seriously and informed my colleague that he was starting a disciplinary against her. She promptly handed in her notice the same day, knowing she would never survive the disciplinary, pretending she had this amazing job to go to and couldn’t pass up the opportunity even though she didn’t want to leave such a wonderful company (none of this turned out to be true). And in the end I stayed, and was finally happy in my job again, although I have moved on from there now.

So I can completely empathise, it’s a horrible situation, but I would definitely recommend reading the Let Them Theory if you haven’t read it.

@Whosthetabbynow if it is local government then she should join the union and after following @GraceMyers advice, start discussing options. These people are often well known about and poorly managed, I’ve never understood why, but I know that things can improve and have seen only recently similar types exit an organisation following formal complaints. Pleasant it is not but, for the team involved it has made their working lives more tenable.

have a look at your work place policies, there should be one on bullying and harassment, and keep a note of every incident to build up a picture. After you pass probation you could also start the conversation with your manager.. like ‘have you noticed that bitchface does this or that?’ Or should bitchface be giving me work? Etc. There are ways to do it without outright saying it but giving enough for the manager to start noticing. Just a thought

Years ago I too was in a similar situation in the medical arena. Jeez it was a cess pit of parochial bitches.

I stuck it out for 2 years (of basically insidious bullying) but in the end albeit I tried absolutely everything to overcome the malignant issues governed by poor, jealous-of-me, management, I had to get out.

I ended up in a great job for the next 12 years and after redundancy, another great job for years where I was appreciated and encouraged to do well.

Do what you can for now to grey rock, keep a journal and keep your CV polished, accept any offers of courses or additional training and then, slap in your resignation.

Deep joy to mentally tell the lot of them to eff off.

Ugh how stressful. My approach with bitchy people is to take their words to face value, e.g. "Oh thanks for thinking about me, but actually there's no dairy in those biscuits so I can eat one, thanks!" They operate on subtext so find this disconcerting.

Good luck!

I am currently going through exactly the same but its my direct manager and is a bully narcissist and I am on scared of her. I have taken it further and they won't do anything. Local government which I assume yours is too! No advice as I haven't got any but you're not alone

Here in solidarity, also a Local Government employee. However in my case it’s a Senior Manager who is targeting me, in a very subtle covert way. My direct line manager & the perpetrators manager have both made it clear they will not challenge her. So I’m stuck being singled out.

As I have got older I have realised that these types of people always hang themselves in the end, but it can take a long time until that happens. In the mean time grey rock, keep out of her way, and let her slowly lift her mask and reveal her true self. A lot of people prefer to avoid confrontation and prefer to bury their heads in the sand until it becomes too much of a problem, so you are unlikely to get backing from peers. Unless she is blatantly being cruel and you have hard evidence, don’t bother making a complaint or this will just backfire. Just make yourself more boring, and less interesting to her.
She has an agenda to elevate herself so leave her to it, and hopefully she will move on soon.
If it becomes too much it is time to find another job.

Agree with PP. These people always end up going too far and getting sacked.

I’ve worked for years with a colleague who made everyone’s life impossible if she was not in the right mood. She would also expect everyone to be jolly and happy if she was in the right frame of mind. She would dictate when to use the heating or air conditioning, and she would be either incredibly obsequious or extremely rude for no reason. She was always moaning about work and would make everyone’s life miserable from the minute you walked into the office, with her complaining. At the same time, she was hyper-social with the new starters and pretended to be the sweetest and most caring woman you’d ever met. I managed to work with this person for a very long time. I just played the long game by ignoring her all the time or not engaging in any type of conflict, as she was always looking for ways to create tension. She ended up leaving, and I realised that pretty much no one liked her. Just play the game, as she’ll get bored when she sees that she has no impact whatsoever on you. The most important thing is to ignore anything she does and be confident in who you are and what you do. These people are scared of others who are solid and assertive, and you’ll see she’ll try to be friends with you.

You’ve had some really sensible advice this thread, I agree with all of it. You can’t feed her, it’s the only way.

@confusedlotsdid you not resent your manager for not having acted before you had another job offer?

Yes of course I did. But these types of people have a way of charming everyone else around them and making everyone else think they’re wonderful and often it’s only those who are in the firing line who can see what is actually going on. I did try on numerous occasions to address the issue with my manager before it got to the stage of applying for other jobs, but unfortunately I didn’t get very far as it was my word against theirs. It was only when my manager realised it was bad enough that I was actually going to leave that they realised they would prefer to keep me rather than them.

I would have handled the situation a lot differently if I was the manager but unfortunately there are a lot of managers out there who prefer not to rock the boat or do what is right.

Horrid for you OP.

I think laughing at people when they are being ridiculous or rude is a really good way of dealing with it because no one can criticise you. Not in a mocking way but in a slightly surprised and amused, fond way. As if you find her antics entertaining. You could overtly catch the eye of other people and chuckle kindly. It will drive her mad and make you look kind and friendly. Like the biscuit thing...if you look upset or cross she's won. If you laugh at her then you've won. She will soon stop.

Presumably shes jealous or threatened of you if she's targeting you?

How come she's giving you filing etc to do? Is her role senior to yours?

Thanks for all of your advice! She's since moved into another role in the same department, so our office doesn't see her much (thank god for that), and I think they're starting to notice how strange her behaviour is. For example, she's still trying to access our specific systems even though she doesn't need them for her new role, and I've heard management openly wonder why. She also fake-cries when she gets 'overwhelmed' (ie criticized in any way) and they never sound 100% convinced - so I have faith in them! My colleagues seem to be warming to me a bit more now she's gone and I felt a physical weight lift... I don't think they'll ever fully like me, but that'll be because I'm a bit odd / shy and much younger, rather than her doing. I'm glad as I find it difficult to stay stoic when she's around but tend to have strong RBF so always look glum!!
Still going to look for better jobs but I'm scared to leave as the hours are great, pay is better than expected and for the first time in years my manager is a decent person who doesn't micromanage or snipe at me (prev managers were all horrible, very petty bullying types who gatekept basic tasks and then some)!!

All your managers previously have been horrible?