Quote:
Originally Posted by ZenZeta
I'll try to keep this short...
I've had an ongoing saga with a coworker that has gone WAY beyond it's boiling point. This woman is insecure, malicious and downright mean... and brags about it. Her first words to me when I started 4 years ago was "I got rid of the last girl that looked like you  " To that I responded, "Not this girl"
I worked to befriend this woman and even supported her when others didn't only to have it backfire on my several times over. I finally realized that there was no reasoning with this Narcissist and made the conscious choice to end the abuse and break ties with her after one Gaslighting session too many.
She responded to this by telling another coworker of ours LIES about things that I had said about her -- even accusing me of saying that she was trying to take my job.
I finally had enough and asked to move offices which seemed to work. My peace and productivity increased, and I thought all was well... until I was summoned to HR regarding a door slamming incident.
I took the opportunity at that HR meeting to not only admit that I slammed the door, but to FULLY disclose what led to said door slamming which left little Miss Bully in tears because she wasn't prepared for me to be in the driver's seat of the bus she tried to roll over me.
So now, despite being in another building and doing all I can to avoid interaction with her as much as possible, she seems to find a way to "pick" at me... either through passive aggressive emails (which she copies our boss on) or continuing to spread rumors about me (apparently my promotion has gone to my head).
Now our boss wants us to all go out to dinner together, and I JUST DON'T WANT TO!!!!!!! As a new manager, I know it would look really bad to not go, but the thought of having to play nice with this woman WHILE I'M EATING is not appealing at all.
Isn't there a line where being the better person stops? I've done it for longer than I'd care to, and it seems like she's not being held accountable for her part.
So... should I just suck it up or catch her after hours off property (kidding --- kinda) |
office dinner parties are usually not a good thing to miss. what I usually do is "make an appearance" that's going and doing the hi shake hands with the boss. get the low down on what the dinner party them is.. discussing work or just hang out together. if its a dinner where work wont be discussed. I politely excuse myself a prior engangement with family. bosses tend to understand after work hours is usually family time. if its a dinner that excusing after a quick meet and greet is done I locate where my seating has been assigned at the table and who my table mates are, I spend time with my table mates and go together to the table with the table mates focusing my attention and conversation on the table mates not on the co workers that I may have a problem with. if one of my assigned table mates is a co worker that I have a problem with I know that a dinner party is NOT the place to deal with problems. its time to use my manners, and be polite. there will be plenty of time during work hours to work out problems.
unless of course the dinner party is intimate where the boss is getting together with two employees to work out the problems that the two employess have … definitely NOT the time to miss a dinner party. when that happens I go prepared to discuss the work place problems in a non blaming non judgemental way focused on I statements and focused on coming to solutions. keeping open minded because if solutions are not made at these kinds o dinner parties usually the boss has to decide what is best for the business.. keeping two disgruntled employees or letting one or the other go according to seniority, production and which would be the better asset for the business.
my suggestion check with the boss as to what kind of dinner party this is going to be... intimate just you, the boss and the other employee, the whole office, a work party or just enjoyment time. once you know the details of the dinner you will know how to proceed, you can also ask the boss if attendance is mandatory or not.