Hi, long time lurker first time poster. Please let me know if I made any mistakes.
I've worked with this woman for over 2 years, and the past month or so things have really gotten unbearable. Because we're in a small (under 10) office and the nature of our roles, we work pretty closely together so avoiding her isn't really possible. I can't let her know a client is here to see her, a phone call is for her, or even ask her for information related to her job without an exasperated sigh and a comment about how people won't leave her alone. We work in customer service, so no, we don't get left alone to do our work. She is just enraged, all the time. Everything is upsetting and awful to her.
I've tried telling her to please stop speaking to me as if I'm the one she's angry with, and her answer is always 'I'm not mad at you!' She never seems to understand that that is the problem. She just tells me it's okay, she's just venting, she's not mad at me....but I don't think she gets to tell me if it's okay or not. I've actually said to words "Please stop speaking to me as if I'm the one you are mad at. It stresses me out when you talk to me as if you're upset with me." I just get back "Oh I'm not mad at you! Everything is fine!!" But, it's not fine. I've tried getting mad back and she just shuts the door between our offices and tries to ignore me for about an hour or so and then pretends nothing even happened. If I'm still mad she tries to play 20 questions to see if I'm fighting with my husband about something. I actually have to tell her "Look, I don't want to have this discussion. I'm not fighting with my husband, please just leave me be." Then she walks away and goes back to the sighing. (Personally I think she's projecting there because her husband is garbage person I can't stand and I think may be verbally/emotionally abusive.)
I tried talking to the owner about it, he's dismissive of it. She's worked here much much longer than anyone else and he just says 'it's how she is.' I tried talking to a mutual coworker who usually understands when the problematic one is in a particularly intense rage, and even she tried to brush it off as 'it's just how she is.'
When I'm having a good day I can usually let it roll off my back and move on. But I have my own mental health issues and I'm waiting to get a therapist and for now all I have is crisis hot lines and a social worker who's sympathetic but isn't a therapist.
It's taking every fibre of my being not to walk right out the door and quit, this very instant. It's that bad. I've been on and off crying at my desk since last week. But I can't quit, I can't afford it. This job is paying for my schooling, it's right across the street from my apartment, it's daytime hours, I like the work I'm doing, I live in a small town with limited opportunities (took 6 months to find this job) and I wouldn't be okay if my husband just up and quit his job so I can't do that to him. He knows how I feel and is as supportive as can me, but you can't turn around and dump on someone day after day after day like she does to me. I can't do that to him.
I don't know how to handle this. How do I learn to cope with this? How do I help myself? Can I do anything to change things?
tldr: my older coworker continuously dumps her rage issues and venting on me and I can't handle being her outlet anymore. I've tried asking her to stop and she brushes me off. I can't cope anymore and it's affecting my mental health but I can't quit.
Submitted May 29, 2019 at 08:22AM by snickersthicc http://bit.ly/2HJeMs8
No comments:
Post a Comment