I hate confrontation

[kevsgirl]

What a day. There's a girl at work, Mary, who seriously has been so difficult since back in February. I mean the girl hates me and I don't know why. It started suddenly one day - she wouldn't make eye contact with me and then started being an uber bitch whenever she was around me.

People noticed, but no one said anything. It got to the point where I wanted to just quit and never walk in the door again. It was seriously bad.

Finally I told my supervisor that I didn't know how to deal anymore, but I didn' twant to confront her. Supervisor says to me at year-end review that she knew about it and so did 2 other girls - all three of them decided together that whenever Mary said anything negative about me in front of them, they'd not react or leave. They didn't want to confront her either (she's scary!)

 

This upset me to know that all along they'd known and I wasn't crazy. It was totally something directed at me.

Fast-forward a couple of months: our team has totally changed because a lot of the workers have moved on or changed areas. So Mary no longer has her posse and is feeling a bit alienated. Now the new people like me a lot and she's the one who has no one.

 

So things have been calmer. I've been trying to just deal and for a long time I'd kept my head down and tried not to aggravate her. Tried to be really helpful and nice. Recently I'd even felt that things were so much better I'd try to look at her and say hi.

 

Suddenly this morning she pulls me into a room and says that "we've got to talk". Things have gotten totally out of control and she wants to know what the hell is going on. Apparently 4 girls last week from another section came to her and told her, separately, that she supposedly hates me. Or that they thought that or had been told that.

She asks me why?

I say I don't know. She thinks it's because we've been playing off eachother and I've been talking about her behind her back.

 

Hmmmm maybe it's because people actually see that she's a total bitch towards me and then they talk about it and the gossip turns to fact?

One of the newer girls actually asked me yesterday if something was up between me and Mary because she had noticed a few weeks back at a meeting M really shot me down in front of everyone and that it was really obvious...

 

Back to the conversation. So she's going on about why did this happen, this has to stop, etc. I start bawling. It's like the one person I dont' want to cry in front of, but I hate confrontation. To be fair, she was shaking from anger at one point, but she sits there not moving, smiling and talking. I begin to actually sob I'm so stressed out. I hate this reaction to stress and confrontation. It sucks

 

I try to say to her that I don't know why it all started. That one day I came in and she was mean to me and I didn't understand. I tell her that I've heard that she talked badly about me behind my back from some girls. She completely denies it.

We're at an impass. Agree to disagree. Decide that we'll try to move forward and from now on if anything is weird, approach eachother directly.

 

Fair enough.

I'm still pissed. She didn't take much responsibility at all. FI thinks she is trying to cover her ass because she knows it's going to get back to management (our manager is on vacation right now). He thinks this was a power play on her part.

 

The worst was at the end, she walks out leaving me sobbing and I try to compose myself for a few minutes. Finally making a break for the washroom I bump into a good friend co-worker who sees me and immediately steers me into a meeting room. It took 45 mins of chatting about other stuff after telling her the conversation in detail for me to calm down enough to get lunch.

 

She knew what had been going on as she had been the brunt of M's wrath for a few short days a few months ago. Nonetheless, when I told her about the convo, I was very careful to spin it in a very positive light, saying nothing bad about M.

 

Now FI says I should tell my manager that this has happened in very neutral tone, and CC Mary on the email. The email should say that we chatted about our "differences" and agreed to disagree, but that we are moving forward and will be making every effort to act respectfully toward one another from now on.

 

I'm scared to send this email b/c then Mary will know that I had already raised this with my manager. But the thing is that before the three other girls left, one of them was my superior and she had told my manager of the situation, so really what it comes down to is that everyone knows that it's her!!!

 

What a nightmare.

 

Makes me want to quit and not go back on Monday

I don't know what to do.

I hate this kind of problem. I can't deal at all

 

I need some advice