Need help with bully at work

Can anyone help me strike a balance here? I know a lot of folks in this forum have seen their fair share of PDs and bullies.

I’ve been getting bullied by a coworker I'll call Tammy. We're equals. If anything I probably make a lot more than her. Our boss has told me in so many words that Tammy’s employed as a favor at this point, she's unreliable because she has a lot of mental health problems. She says she has bipolar and borderline. Every year she’ll spend a month in a hospital claiming she’s suicidal. She doesn't get along with coworkers and has scared off multiple clients by being inappropriate or rude to them.

We’ve been at the same company for several years and we never spoke. Tammy hardly even looked at me. Then out of the blue she started emailing me all the time, saying passive aggressive things about my work. Ultimately nothing she thinks matters. I’ve kept our boss in the loop about it and he’s “on my side” so to speak. He’ll speak to her, she’ll leave me alone again, and then about 3 months later this dance will start all over again. We don’t do any work together so there is literally no reason for her to contact me. She rifles through my work looking for something to knit pick or complain about. It’s obviously bs.

Usually I don’t respond to her emails. Just read and ignore. Sometimes I even take the criticism and make a change. But other times she’s downright rude and I feel compelled to email her back and assert my boundaries. I was abused by an NPD dad, and HPD and APD were also represented in my family. I’ve had so much therapy just to learn how to set and enforce boundaries. Putting it into action is very hard for me but ultimately it's comforting. I spent so many years beating myself up and not defending myself that I've seen my fair share of depression and self-harm too.

I understand BPD and it’s a no-win situation. She perceives a slight, attacks me and if I defend, she'll take that as a slight as well. She literally told our boss that “we hate each others guts.” I don’t know where that’s coming from! I hardly know her, I don’t hate her and I haven’t given her a reason to hate me.

Am I right in responding to her or should I just ignore her ALWAYS? I want to be assertive and stand up for myself because it's comforting. But I also don’t want to feed the beast. If a borderline thinks you’re a great outlet for misery and strife, will they ever leave you be? What does a trauma survivor do in this scenario?

Hello starfruit504: First off what occurs to me is that, if I were in this situation, I would block this person's e-mails. You wrote that you don't work with this person. So I take it there is no reason why you have to be receiving her e-mails. From my perspective, any opportunity you give her to continue to harass you is just adding fuel to the fire, as they say...

For me, this situation is troubling. I don't know anything about the company you work for, or who your boss is. But, unless he's the owner, & he's just always going to be there as long as the company exists, I would be skeptical about his being on your side. Perhaps he is... perhaps he isn't. But, either way, people come-&-go. If he leaves, or gets promoted, etc. how might his replacement view all of this? What is being entered into you Personnel file... assuming there is one, of course. How is all of this being viewed by others who are not directly involved... for example, other employees this person may be talking to?

The bottom line here, from my perspective, is that this is a situation that could unexpectedly come back to bite you at some point. Letting it continue to fester, may serve your boss because then he doesn't have to deal with it. But, again from my perspective, what would be in your best interest would be for the company to do whatever is necessary to bring this abuse to a conclusion as quickly & permanently as possible. I wish you well...

Our boss is the owner, but I agree I get the feeling that he just doesn't want to deal with it. He always says he's not making excuses for her but I feel like all I get from him are excuses.

Literally no one at work likes her, so I'm not concerned about her forming a lynch mob. She literally can't be nice to anyone. Kind of her own worst enemy.

I worry that if I block her email and she ever finds out she'll do something to sabotage me. Mess with something of mine and then claim "I emailed you about it..."

I don't want to leave my job because I love it and I know that quitting is what the bully wants in the first place. I wonder if I get really direct with her if our boss will make excuses for me too!

I would ask my boss if it would be ok to forward emails she is sending you directly to your boss? And is it ok if you CC him/her on any responses you send to the person in question.

Otherwise I'd just refuse to respond. Ignore it. Block her.

Maybe as a sig line in your email you could put down, "Please route urgent requests to my desk phone number at:"

CC and forward everything to your boss. Just talk to him first and ask him if its ok.

You are in a very tough spot if the boss/owner is aware of the situation but refuses to take appropriate action. I would suggest two things. They will not totally solve the problem, but at least give you some breathing room. First, I would limit replies to her emails, both in the ones you choose to reply to and the length of your response. Don't get into a back and forth and always copy your boss. Next, don't pay attention to things that dont affect you directly. You said, "She doesn't get along with coworkers and has scared off multiple clients by being inappropriate or rude to them." Those are issues for the boss to address. If he's happy that she is costing him business, he needs to man up.

Good idea. I save everything she sends me because I know that's what you're supposed to do if I ever needed to "build a case."

I'm also leaning towards blocking her or making some kind of autoresponse.

I never confront her about those things. I've stayed out of her way completely, and that's why it's so weird that she's targeting me now.

I don't think my boss is totally aware that those accounts are gone specifically because of her interactions with the client. He doesn't seem to think too much about it -- which as I'm explaining it doesn't seem like a very good boss. The more I explain my situation the more is seems like a bad one. Maybe I should stop looking at this gig as permanent for me.

With people like that I just keep things very cheery and on-surface. "Thanks again for sharing your observations! I and our project team continue to appreciate your constructive suggestions and will take them under consideration." Some crap like that. (It's actually not quite a lie, since any genuinely constructive suggestions would be worthy of consideration.) That should put a stop to it, since the way you describe your work relationship with this person doesn't suggest to me that they are in a position to follow up with requests for status updates. In any event, my status update would continue to be "we're taking it under consideration; thanks again for kindly offering your feedback!" Fake smile; end scene.

THAT is beautiful.

Ugh, I understand! I agree, you are really in between a rock and a hard place. Let me tell you though, HR is not your friend. HR is there to protect the company, not you, not her. The same would go for your boss, the owner. He isn't "on your side" he is on his side, and if you and this co-worker become too much of a problem, you will both be seen out the door. I would do everything you possibly could to deal with this without bringing him into it any longer, since he has already shown his unwillingness to be proactive. I am speaking from experience here.

I moved into a new apartment when I got a new, better paying job, and it turned out that I moved upstairs from (my now husband) the exh of a coworker. I supported the SVP/Legal Counsel at the office. I did not work directly with the coworker, had no reason to have any dealings with her at all. But when she found out I was dating her exh, she went bat **** crazy. She harassed me at work, rifled through my desk, threatened me, harassed her exh while she was a work. I went to HR and to my manager, filed 3 formal complaints, and nothing happened. Then just before Christmas, she was fired, for poor work performance, and then after Christmas, I was told that I had a choice of either being laid off, with a huge severance package, IF I signed a confidentiality agreement and agreement not to SUE them. If I didn't sign it, they would fire me for cause, they would find one. Knowing the fight that would ensue because I supported the legal counsel and had seen them do similar to other employees, I knew I had very little choice in the matter. It was a matter that they didn't want to deal with, they just wanted to protect the company and that was it.

I sure do not want to see anything like this happen to you!

Can you respond to one of her emails criticizing you with a request that she not have any involvement with your work considering she doesn't have anything to do with it. Request that all issues with your work be directed to your manager, or something to that affect? Keep ALL emails, print and take them home or forward them to your personal email. I am sorry you are dealing with this, I know how it can take over your life.

My last response to her literally ended with the statement "in the future don't contact me." I just don't think she'll abide by that because she's already gone out of her way to contact me this much.

People in real life say "Oh I deal with people like that all the time." The reason I'm taking it more seriously than that is because it's so irrational (she's going out of her way to screw with someone she doesn't actually have any business contacting) and because she has multiple mental issues.

I don't believe HR is in my corner at all. And yall have given me the perspective to see that my boss isn't really there either. He's so "thankful" I'm keep him "in the loop" on this, but he does nothing proactive. It's all lip-service. I just found out today that my bully has been with the company for more than 10 years! So she aint going anywhere.

I like the idea of a boiler-plate sugary-sweet response, but I'm also entertaining the idea of blocking her from my email altogether. I'm just weighing whether or not that could bite me in the butt later on.

She's never come to my desk or called me -- I mean she never leaves her office. She's overweight and rarely gets up. I think she likes to hide behind the malice in her emails, that way she can deny that she meant it the way I took it, she can say I read too much into what she wrote or something.

How has it been going?

It went way better than I anticipated! She was reprimanded by management and told not to contact me. They told her flat out that contacting me is unnecessary in the first place and to stay out of my accounts. If she sends me any email ever again, it has to be cc'd to my boss and manager. That alone is enough to stop her, because I think the secrecy of it all was what she was really into, being a bully under the radar, like the kid who kicks you when the teacher isn't looking.

I'm ALSO being promoted in the new year, which I think is management's way of saying "We're sorry, we want to keep you, please don't go away." This removes me from the bully's sphere entirely.

I think that you should consult an attorney. You're being constantly harassed at your job and management is doing nothing to stop it. It's causing you undue stress and preventing you from doing your work. I'm no lawyer, but an attorney would know your rights and liabilities in a Texas, and it all sounds like a properly-worded letter from your attorney to your boss could straighten things out in a jiffy.

YAY! I am sooo glad!!

Sounds like a most excellent outcome. Congratulations.

It's ironic, I really didn't think my boss was going to show up for me. I was totally skeptical and then he really took care of it. I was wrong about him!

Congratulations on the promotion! I just wanted to say make sure you keep a record of all this, the promotion and everything, just in case you ever need it.

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I would suggest ignoring this person. If you interact with her its only a matter of time before you slip up, have a bad day and wind up confronting her. Ultimately, she's licking her chops hoping that happens. Why is anybody's guess.

Blow her off, but archive the emails. Put them on a thumb drive if allowed to keep them off the company server so if a higher level manager (maybe the one pressured to keep her employed or your direct boss) investigates this if it blows up, you'll have conflicting documentation if they manipulate the original.

Doesn't this just suck? Why make trouble where there is none? I was a tradesman so there wasn't much in the way of office politics. You just told a troublemaker to kiss your azz. There wasn't a lot of doubt where people stood on issues. There was little drama...everybody knew their jobs...and 99% of the guys avoided the petty ***** because they looked at the Big Picture. They just wanted to get through the day safely and go home.

My centering statement to myself was: It takes two to play a game...and I ain't playing.

Sending you strength!