How to deal with passive agressive co worker?

Aaaargh! I SO FEEL your frustration! LOL Of all the screwed up personality styles passive aggressive is the WORST!

In my experience I’d call her out on it, maybe even give her an article about her issues and, like all manipulative personalities, shine the light on her cunning streak. They don’t like that at all!

Tell her you’re onto her sneaky little games.

Otherwise, poison her coffee. haha

Of course she is going to accuse you of what she does, backstabbing…projection is part of their issues. I let go of a “friend” like this about 7 months ago now, I do not miss her at all! lol

I don’t know…but I usually get aggressive…at passing them up. Yep.

Are you required (by your supervisor) to be training her?

If so, can you request that she be assigned to somebody else for training?

If this is not directly a part of your job requirement, let her flounder on her own.

When I encounter passive/aggressives in any part of my life, I just do my best to avoid interacting with them altogether. They have a very skewed perception of reality and their anger issues are related to previous stuff in their past. It really has nothing to do with you at all. You’re just the latest handy target of their screwed up rage issues.

If you absolutely HAVE TO be training her or risk losing your job then the best you can do is to put as much stuff in writing and be as unemotional and straightforward as possible.

Confront her on the crap she’s been spreading behind your back as calmly as possible. She’ll either be more cautious in the future or get worse but at least you’ve cleared the air.

But the best thing is the least amount of involvement as possible. Perhaps you can recuse yourself from training her citing previous relationship prior to the job? Convince your boss that it makes things awkward (without giving any specifics)?

Just thinking off the top of my head. Do whatever you possibly can to disengage. She won’t change until/if she spends enough time in therapy to grow past this. Chances for that are slim.

You tell the boss that this chick is not working out and pretty much refuses to learn and if possible make a report so it’s all on record. Sometimes friends are the most fucked up people to work with. It’s over.

Yeah, I recommend reporting this to the supervisor who assigned you to train her. It’ll hurt you in the end if you don’t. When you report this, also mention what she’s been saying behind your back about you not helping her. Because that too can get back to the boss. Let us know what happens, OK?

If she continues to mess up, will she be fired? If so, I would point that out to her and mention that you are there to help. If not, that makes things difficult.

Can you just tell her you have heard she is complaining you are not giving her feedback and instruction, and want to know what more you can do? It will rock her a little that things are getting back to you, might slow her gossip, and maybe she will actually be very specific what she needs from you.

If she refuses your help or to be more specific, I would go to my supervisor. The supervisor can decide whether to assign her to someone else, which I think is unlikely, meet with her and get her side, or meet with both of you at once to sort it out.

Passive Aggressive is the worst.

It doesn’t sound like you are in a unionized environment….is there a Respectful Workplace Committee in place or at least a Human Resources representative with whom both parties can sit down and bring your concerns to the forefront for an impartial review and path forward? I do agree that this hidden hostility is absolutely the worst. The only thing that comes close to that is sarcastic comedy that is meant to bring you down with a razor tongue. That is of course a form of bullying.

If you’re in charge of training her, are you also her manager? If you aren’t then report to her manager that you’ve hit a wall in the training to where your co worker is taking direction/correction as attacks rather than a need for better attention. I agree your co worker is probably tuning you out now and also paranoid and self conscious enough to keep messing up instead of improving. Call in some backup and get yourself out of the equation. What a sucky situation!

Wow, thank you so much to everyone that replied, they’ve all been really helpful.

I have talked to our supervisor about it – and they actually assigned her to someone else to have them train her. I’m hoping this will help.

As far as confronting her about her gossip about me, I am hesitant to do that because the person that told me is a friend of mine. I don’t want her to get in the middle of my work situation with my co worker. Is there another way you suggest bringing it up?

I do my best to be friendly on her and see how she’s doing, but at the same time it doesn’t feel right. I’ve already distanced myself from being friends with her, but now even our work relationship seems slightly awkward. I don’t want it to be this way, but as I said, such is dealing with a mind of a passive aggressive.

@Kokoro: Good news there! Don’t worry too much about the gossip, let it go and see if a little distance between you puts it to rest. If not, her lackluster job performance probably isn’t a secret and people will likely give her the in-one-ear-and-out-the-other. If she takes it personally that her supervisor intervened, you can always explain you didn’t feel like you were helping her anymore.

She actually has one of the best reputations in our work place, it just so happens this particular section she was moved to has been hard on her. So I can definitely understand how it’s slammed her ego, however, I feel like she needs to spend less time sulking and more time trying to learn the job.

She also did come up to me and express she felt disappointed I talked to the supervisor. I told her that it’s just that I didn’t feel like she cared and I’ve already sat down twice (with the office door closed) asking if she needed help. I also apologized… yet I have not seen her formally apologize for all the mistakes she’s been doing and having customers complain to me about it. I know it’s wrong to expect things, though.

@Kokoro
It’s never wrong to expect others to be accountable for their behaviors, but, with passive aggressives, they simply do NOT apologize EVER!

I worked with a woman some years ago that finally was let go because she refused to consult with management before doing whatever she wanted. Even at the bitter end she still stubbornly held out that she was not behaving disrespectfully to the company owners.

I’m sure she is still complaining about how she was done wrong, even years later. haha

@Kokoro Sounds like maybe you two had a miscommunication. Hopefully everything will settle down as times passes, and this will be more or less forgotten. Souds like you did nothing wrong, your intentions were always good.

@Coloma How frustrating!

@JLeslie I wish she would see it that way… I keep telling myself I should not worry about what she thinks and says, since I cannot control it, no point in getting upset. I should not be surprised that she is the way she is. (there is a reason I kept our friendship at a distance)

@Kokoro Passive aggressive types tend to hold onto grudges, and think they are right period. I think part of it has to do with the fact that they never really discuss a disagreement, never clear the air, never bother to hear your side, or your intention. The one very passive aggressive person I know, when I apologized to her, it was like her license to cement her feelings. Once I said I was sorry if I had upset her, that was like admitting I was a bitch, had been wring, and she was right. We never got to a point of clearing the air and her also saying something to make things better. She had been awful to me too.

Plus, there is this movement now in psychology and apologizing in general where supposedly saying, “I’m sorry I hurt you,” isn’t enough. In fact some see it as adding insult to injury. Drives me crazy. I did a Q on it once.

Here is the Q. About halfway down you see me talking about what I mean.

To infuse a little humor on the dark side :-D

www.passiveaggressivenotes.com

It’s also helpful to remember that passive-aggressive people in the workplace are also like that in every other area of their life. It’s like they were dipped in it. It’s also why they never appologize too. They can’t see it.

That’s why my policy for dealing with passive aggressives is very simple.

DON’T…....