My (24f) colleague (45f) acts as if I am personally attacking her whenever I comment on anything work-related. Is it me or her and how can I clear the air?

Sorry, long post:

I have been working at a small company with this colleague, let's call her Sarah, for over four years. I used to work in a different department, but currently work in the same department.

I was hired as a social media intern. Sarah used to do social media from personal interest, but not from expertise, so the supervisor put me in charge over it. Now me and Sarah have a similar position in sales, and my supervisor gives me more responsibility because I make more hours.

I get that Sarah is frustrated with me because from her perspective it probably seems like I just barge in and snatch up the tasks she enjoys. I can imagine this stings, especially considering my age. I try to be understanding about this and the fact that I know she would like to have more responsibility and that she is in a stressful situation at home. However I feel like her behaviour towards me is out of line and it is creating a tense, uncomfortable working environment.

It started a few weeks ago when Sarah did some restyling in our store. My supervisor (and tbf me as well) did not like the outcome and asked me to change it. Sarah felt very hurt that we did this behind her back. I tried to explain why I changed it (because of my boss) and gave my opinion about how we could maybe make the restyling work in a way that everyone agreed to. She then accused me of always wanting to do things my way in a hostile manner. I found this hypocritical as she never even bothered to discuss her restyling plans with anyone. (She also has a pattern of redoing my styling without asking, but I haven't made a problem out of it as I think it means more to her than it does to me). Anyway, things got pretty heated and in the end she walked away from me angrily. It is fair that I have a tendency to want to do things my way, but honestly: so does she. She seems to hold a huge grudge against me because of this altercation.

At this point I feel like I can barely voice my opinion on anything work-related to Sarah without her going in this 'you are not open to anyone's ideas, you want everything done your way, I never had trouble working together with so and so, but with you everything has to be an issue!'- mode. I feel the need to be hyper-positive and cheerful about her ideas. It seems like no matter how nicely I say things, she gets upset. This week she came to help out on an event and suggested we do a certain way of decorating: I had done most of the work for this thing and I genuinely thought her idea looked messy. I said: 'I think your idea about the lay-out is good and we can do it partly like that, but I think it will look better if we do this part so and so'. Without even looking at my idea she said 'my idea looks better and we will never find a common ground' and went to my boss to ask if she could leave because she cannot work with me.

My supervisor is on my side in this one and has talked to her, but I am worried it seems like we are teaming up against Sarah (I already feel kinda bad for her because I think she is generally quite unhappy with life). I am really starting to doubt whether or not I have been uneccesarily rude to her, although I doubt I am (the only one) at fault here. The way she acts like I am an undeserving brat, even though I have always been a valued colleague here, hurts me. Also I am in doubt whether I should just let her have her way with her ideas. I want to have a talk with her but am worried it will just result in another issue.

TL;DR! my colleague accuses me of always wanting to get my way, but her idea of working together is doing whatever she wants. She creates a hostile working environment, but I also feel bad towards her because I get more recognition and responsibilities at this job.

Submitted October 02, 2021 at 08:01AM by certifiedskooter https://ift.tt/2WAe0bd