My coworker is becoming increasingly toxic, but my boss refuses to do anything about it. How do I keep from losing my sanity? Snowflakes inside...
My main issue is Maria. I am standoffish and quiet. Maria is loud and overbearing.
I've discussed my coworker Maria before here.
She is older, very insecure, needy, gossipy, and has boundary issues.
Maria told me that the problem is my face — that my expression is too neutral, so she imagines I'm thinking all sorts of awful things about her.
She talks down to me like I'm stupid, even though I have more degrees and experience than she does.
She's also accused me of talking about her. "You left to go talk about me with Fergus." I said that no, I had to ask Fergus about a shipment and that we weren't talking about her.
When I started, she looked up my address and info. She was like, "Is this person a relative? Do you live on this street?" She then sends me birthday and Christmas cards.
She admitted that she likes "creeping out her own kids" and will "say things just to mess with them."
I sit with Maria and Sally (new manager) in a small room and the two have developed a friendship and I feel left out. Maria will often whisper with Sally and gossip. I try to keep my head down and work, but it's difficult. I was trying to avoid Maria and she must have told Sally because when I came back to my desk, they were both whispering and looking at me. (Which is ironic because Maria is always accusing me of talking about her, yet she talks about me.) Sally coddles her and will often tell her "Oh, I'm so sorry. That sounds so hard. I'm sorry you're having such a hard time. How can I help?"
Maria hated my predecessor and 3 years later, she is STILL bringing her name up and how "predecessor] was so mean to her" and how she would just sit in the corner and the predecessor would talk to others without including Maria.
When I was on vacation, Maria was in a staff meeting and complained that I wasn't giving her the receipts from orders, even though she never told me that she needed them. When I came back to the office, I found out that the procedure had changed. I overheard her on the phone admit to someone that SHE was the one who messed up, yet she blamed ME for it! Wtf?!
Another time she was lashing out at people and slamming cabinet doors because "there was too much talking."
When I left for a meeting one day, she said that it was a good thing because she was "stressed and would start throwing things!" (Again, wtf?)
I'm feeling frustrated because I can't address issues directly and have to work around Maria (and her feelings). Everyone seems to walk on eggshells around Maria (including the boss) and appease her. I've tried, but she just ends up lashing out at me and uses me as her verbal punching bag.
If the attention isn't on Maria *all the time*, she seems to lose it. Last week at a meeting, Sally talked about how she and I met to go over the new database. Maria was quiet, but then said that the meeting had to be switched to in-person (instead of virtual and we all sit at our desks). When we ended the meeting, I sneezed and she told me that I was "sneezing too much that day". (That was the first time that I sneezed all day!)
So... she doesn't like me. I get it. Now what? I don't want to yell back at her or get in trouble, but I'm stick of being her whipping person/scapegoat/punching bag. This is affecting me physically and emotionally. She's taking up way too much headspace and even my family is concerned about the impact that she is having on me.
Is there anything to do? Until I can leave, how do I deal with this? How can I get her to leave me alone? |
Video
Web
Image
Music
BlogU
