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I will avoid the specifics but in the meeting my co-worker was very condescending and called me lazy. I stayed calm tried to get my points across but she was very argumentative and didnt listen to me. She was very unprofessional. Anyway I am thinking of going to my boss and explaining what happened calmly and asking for advice. I will say i still like my coworker, want to work with her, but I am confused by the criticism. Does she have advise. Is this a smart strategy? Boss will ask what had I done to address the issue with worker and I will say I tried to talk to her for an hour and she was combative.
I am afraid I will look as a complainer
If you didn't talk to her outside of the meeting, I'd start there. And give her and you time to calm down a bit. I just had a blow up with a co-worker that I adore and we had to take a step back, give it 48 hours, the we chatted via IM an tried to coordinate a day to actually talk about the issue. We finally did about a week later and we are fine. We both needed to calm down a bit.
If you did try, I'd give it a week and try again. If that doesn't work and it's affecting your work (as in, you two not getting along is affecting your work - not you being upset with her criticism is affecting your work), then take it to your boss and ask how to handle the situation (vs tattling on her).
You may not be seen as a complainer, but office politics will dictate how bad it can get. At my last job, the office was full of gossip 24/7, so talking to your boss meant it ends up with HR, HR talks to the both of you and then it goes in both your files, and then everyone knows so now people pick sides.
I will avoid the specifics but in the meeting my co-worker was very condescending and called me lazy. I stayed calm tried to get my points across but she was very argumentative and didnt listen to me. She was very unprofessional. Anyway I am thinking of going to my boss and explaining what happened calmly and asking for advice. I will say i still like my coworker, want to work with her, but I am confused by the criticism. Does she have advise. Is this a smart strategy? Boss will ask what had I done to address the issue with worker and I will say I tried to talk to her for an hour and she was combative.
I am afraid I will look as a complainer
Closest I ever came to that was on phone call where a regional manager, other regional managers also on the call, completely came unglued and started ranking out me and my second and command (different org). Extreme tone and volume, literally screaming. He got about ten words in and I hit the "Hangup" button on the conf bridge, ending my team's participation in-toto. I used some salty language in front of my second, just she and I, ranting at the wall basically about how inappropriate that was. Then I cooled off and put it into context.
Not quite the same as OP's case. I had the OPTION of hanging up on that sonofagun.
It so happens one of the two national managers was someone I almost considered a friend, co-lo'd nearby in the HQ. I waited, cooled down, and went in very conciliatory to her (we were peers): "Jeez, what's wrong with Keith? Karla and I were on a call with him earlier, and..." I did not ask for action or satisfaction, so to speak. Elizabeth the NM said, "Not the first time he's done that. He's on the outs, let's just say. I'll bring it up in 1:1." And, she did. I flew to SF office (from Seattle) later, nothing was said nor needed to be, really. I thought that was a bit small of him, though.
Frankly, Keith should have called Karla and me next day and offered at least an explanation (satisfactory) or a mild apology (even more professional). He did neither.
It was not a coincidence he was terminated, for cause, months or half a year later as I recall, and I know exactly why (too salty for this forum). I was involved in some of that for totally unrelated reasons, giving witness and testimony as a just termination.
OP should expect what I mentioned, that's how big people solve problems. Then they ought to work together on solving (it).
Oh, I did have a peer (Lead Financial Analyst) with the bad habit of just grabbing her **** and walking out of meetings in a huff when she didn't like what you were saying. No explanation. She did it to me and again, my second, once for what I thought was a dumb reason. Usually happened when someone, like me, questioned why she'd done this or that dumb thing and not told the other departments. Never apologized to me or anyone else. She just couldn't constructively handle the conflict. It caught up with her, it usually does in business btw unless it's some mechanic's bay tiff between two guys at the Dodge dealer, whereby it's settled with fists out in the break area (hey, fine with me). Career limiting moves, all of those.
They took her aside and asked her what happened and why. Pretty much told her that was bad and that's it.
What i did was ignore her for 2 months then I went in and apologized for making her blow up (and I didn't really even know why she did). It worked because we talked it out and we're good now. The best part is, the bosses knew I did that and were really thrilled that I was the bigger person and apologized for something that wasn't my fault (maybe 10% it was tho?). So I am glad it happened in a way because it let me show them I'm a big boy.
Now that I'm in management I can say 100% we just want people to get along and know that people get weird and jealous at work sometimes. We all do or say things out of stress sometimes that we don't really mean.
Thank you for responding.
What if, the person tend to do this on regular basis...every month or 3rd month? I've been stuck with one for 2 years. Then I have another one I work with, who is trying hard to validate that she has management skills and always at co-worker expense. She used to work in my department, left for a supervisor role, then went on medical leave for a year and she was sent back to my department. She always point out coworker errors to management, always changing procedures without consulting superiors, not following the work flow procedure, blow up, sometimes insult you, or try to discipline you, telling you how to do your job. When she speak to management, they agree about some sort of change without considering how it affects the extra work for coworkers.
Anyway, I really love how you handled it and it give me a better way to handle the situation. I simply don't know what to do when it is their character to always be like this?
I will avoid the specifics but in the meeting my co-worker was very condescending and called me lazy. I stayed calm tried to get my points across but she was very argumentative and didnt listen to me. She was very unprofessional. Anyway I am thinking of going to my boss and explaining what happened calmly and asking for advice. I will say i still like my coworker, want to work with her, but I am confused by the criticism. Does she have advise. Is this a smart strategy? Boss will ask what had I done to address the issue with worker and I will say I tried to talk to her for an hour and she was combative.
I am afraid I will look as a complainer
Before you write your email to your boss detailing her unprofessional behavior, is there something that you have neglected to do on a joint project? Is there work that she had to do because you couldn't handle it? Does your boss pit workers against each other? If this is brought to light, could it find its way onto your review?
There are a lot of skunks out there. Watch your back.
Before you write your email to your boss detailing her unprofessional behavior, is there something that you have neglected to do on a joint project? Is there work that she had to do because you couldn't handle it?
I suspect that was the case, and the co-worker didn't want to be the only one left dangling.
First, take a poll at the workplace and see how many others consider you lazy.
You might consider it constructive criticism.
A co-worker ran to the boss because I told him I had to decide whether to believe anything he said since I knew he'd lied to me in the past. It went like this:
Guy: She said I lie!
Boss: You do lie. Now get back to work.
What's the end goal here? Why would you need to bring this to your manager? And what do you expect your manager to do? Shouldn't you try and deal with this first? Have you talked to the other person about this? Debate/arguments happen all the time... not sure why two adults need to drag a third one into this.
I will avoid the specifics but in the meeting my co-worker was very condescending and called me lazy. I stayed calm tried to get my points across but she was very argumentative and didnt listen to me. She was very unprofessional. Anyway I am thinking of going to my boss and explaining what happened calmly and asking for advice. I will say i still like my coworker, want to work with her, but I am confused by the criticism. Does she have advise. Is this a smart strategy? Boss will ask what had I done to address the issue with worker and I will say I tried to talk to her for an hour and she was combative.
I am afraid I will look as a complainer
There are always two sides to every employee problem. What we don't have is the other persons opinion of the cause of your confrontation. Being in the business world in a management position, I have seen similar problems many times, similar to yours as you explain it, and found in every situation when I got both sides of the story, both parties had done something that upset the other party, and they each reacted accordingly. And YES, both got angry, and reacted accordingly.
If I was you, I would think twice, before running to the boss, as after hearing both sides, the boss may determine you were the one that started the problem, and you are the one that gets a lecture.
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