I don't make a habit of irrationally thinking that people are scheming against me (although I guess there's always a first time). She does have a history of inviting conflict. This person has been involved in at least one screaming incident in the office.
A story. One of my colleagues' cube is next to the copier machine. She was sitting on a balance ball at her desk with her chair behind her. My boss comes to the copier to pick up a boatload of copies. She goes into my coworker's cube takes her chair, puts the copies in the chair and off she goes. She comes back 10 minutes later with the chair and pushes it back into the cube and it rolls into my colleague. Never said a word to the coworker, never asked if she could use it, never thanked her, never said sorry for just pushing the chair back in the cube. It's like my coworker didn't even exist. My coworker has disliked my boss ever since. I'm pretty sure my boss didn't think anything of it and would be surprised to know that this woman wouldn't spit on her head if it was on fire.
I'm a worker bee too so I know how these things go. The point of that story is there are countless opportunities to offend someone without you even being aware of it. It could be a poorly worded email, or a project gone awry that everyone passed the buck on, or a thoughtless action you don't even remember. I encourage you to look over your interactions with her and see if anything could've happened between the two of you that could be a simple clarification of intent would stop this.
Another thing is even if you've had no interaction with her, this person could feel you don't like her. Feel your antipathy and disdain (you've communicated that even through this thread) and could be responding to that. For example, it can go like this: you see her in the hall and you avert your eyes and turn up your nose a bit. Your lips tighten. While some people are oblivious to these little body language communications, others read them loud and clear. You know she has a reputation and you feel wary of her because of it. She may be sensing it and is responding in kind.
This may or may not matter to you, but it matters enough for you to make a thread about it. It's up to you if you want to proactively neutralize this situation on your own or go to your HR. She may not even own up to anything (if anything is happening...sorry
). If she doesn't you're back at square one and may have a person with a grudge on your hands. At that point, it's very much up to you and how you handle the situation from that point forward.
BTW, proteanmix, I love your avatar. Very cool.
Thanks.
Now I've got to look at which one I have up.
I hope this works out for you. LOL - I seem to go through life unintentionally offending people. Doesn't help that I have a fairly severe hearing impairment that makes conversation difficult (especially with motor mouth SJ's). Hiding in my closet office appears to be a good plan for now.
Hmmm. Two things: people who hunker down in their offices are generally perceived as unapproachable and difficult. If people don't think they can work with your professionally because of the aura you're putting out, is it surprising that people respond to you in this way? You may have learned to do this because of the hearing impairment because it's just easier than explaining the situation. It can be frustrating to rehash the same thing over again. There is a woman at my job who has a medical condition that causes her to emit a body odor. She has a pouch that collects fluid drainage and it smells. Thankfully, my boss told me about it and things made sense because I'd smelled her and was like WTF? Do you feel comfortable telling people about your hearing so they can be more understanding and not misinterpret why you act the way you do?
