Toxic colleague

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denisoleary

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My partner works in a small office and one of his colleagues creates a toxic atmosphere due to mood swings and fighting / arguing about petty things whenever she can.
Their manager is pretty useless and instead of intervening will warn people in advance to be careful around her today shes in a mood.
My partner works from home 2 days and in office 3 days. When shes not in, work is great.
My partner has asked to work from home full-time and only come into office when shes not there.

This request has been denied and my partner is close to handing in his notice. (Two people have previously left due to this person).
Does anyone have advice, legal or otherwise.
The job is great otherwise, but this one person is ruining it.
 
denisoleary said:
My partner works in a small office and one of his colleagues creates a toxic atmosphere due to mood swings and fighting / arguing about petty things whenever she can.
Their manager is pretty useless and instead of intervening will warn people in advance to be careful around her today shes in a mood.
My partner works from home 2 days and in office 3 days. When shes not in, work is great.
My partner has asked to work from home full-time and only come into office when shes not there.

This request has been denied and my partner is close to handing in his notice. (Two people have previously left due to this person).
Does anyone have advice, legal or otherwise.
The job is great otherwise, but this one person is ruining it.
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You could write to her and point out a few things, then forget to sign your name.
 
There are presumably HR processes in place for such grievances.

Read & understand the grievance reporting process & follow it. Management will be compelled to follow it to as it is their process. Not following it leaves them open to all manner of litigious risk.
 
denisoleary said:
My partner works in a small office and one of his colleagues creates a toxic atmosphere due to mood swings and fighting / arguing about petty things whenever she can.
Their manager is pretty useless and instead of intervening will warn people in advance to be careful around her today shes in a mood.
My partner works from home 2 days and in office 3 days. When shes not in, work is great.
My partner has asked to work from home full-time and only come into office when shes not there.

This request has been denied and my partner is close to handing in his notice. (Two people have previously left due to this person).
Does anyone have advice, legal or otherwise.
The job is great otherwise, but this one person is ruining it.
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Yes ,hand in notice, female bullies have immunity as no boss wants the misogyny card flung at them and it's often conveniently played
 
Horatio said:
There are presumably HR processes in place for such grievances.

Read & understand the grievance reporting process & follow it. Management will be compelled to follow it to as it is their process. Not following it leaves them open to all manner of litigious risk.
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It doesn’t sound like there much in the way of process or structure based on the OP.
 
Only option here would be a formal grievance complaint or bullying complaint etc. really. Disciplinary action could then be taken against the respondent if a case needed to be answered. But outside of that, the only option is to find another job. It sucks and is unfair, but these individuals can be impossible to remove as they are most likely to bring a legal case if there is any misstep whatsoever.
 
1. Employee A is being bullied by Employee B - A should write down everything as it happens and immediately email it to his/her private email. Then A has the time and date of the incident, the incident, emotions etc recorded.
2. A should confront management (again) with detailed written complaint. Ensure management writes back with the process it intends to or has done.
or
3. A should confront B verbally with grievance and make it clear if bullying continues management will be forced to act.
4. If a person is being bullied why should he/she leave the job? My work experiences indicate when a bully is being confronted, the bullying stops.
 
Two people have previously left over this person.

The odds are not good that confrontation will work. Often it makes it worse as they are looking for someone to be triggered by the bullying.

I've always find that minimizing my own contact with such people works best while surreptitiously referring as much work as possible to them. They generally don't deal with stress well. If they are busy they don't have time to focus on anything else.
 
@Leper this is a small office, not a large corporate.

Big companies, with all their resources and training handle these situations badly; this employee hasn't a hope of getting a good outcome

Save your sanity and leave.
 
Thirsty said:
@Leper this is a small office, not a large corporate.

Big companies, with all their resources and training handle these situations badly; this employee hasn't a hope of getting a good outcome

Save your sanity and leave.
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Bullying is bullying whether the office is large or small or whether the company employs 10 or 10,000. Recently, we've had a thread which discussed calling out male violence against women. Bullying is similar and should not be tolerated. In my day as a local trade union secretary, I'd have this situation resolved in minutes and likely the bully would be handing in her/his resignation if failed to comply.
 
Thirsty said:
I agree, but the person bringing the complaint gets smashed in the process. It's not worth it.

So you refuse to tolerate it by leaving.
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Thirsty said:
I agree, but the person bringing the complaint gets smashed in the process. It's not worth it.

So you refuse to tolerate it by leaving.
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Hi Thirsty, that might be your opinion, but I've been through several court cases as a result of members being bullied and it was the bully who always got smashed and deservedly so. Believe me, once the bully is called out the victims seem to get emotional strength from somewhere and when people who were bullied get going it is difficult to stop them. I could give astonishing examples here, but I'm trying to keep my posts short.
 
galway_blow_in said:
Yes ,hand in notice, female bullies have immunity as no boss wants the misogyny card flung at them and it's often conveniently played
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Speak for yourself. Many bosses in my circle will have no difficulty in dealing with such situations.

Having said that, in the situation described by the OP, leaving is probably the best advice.
 
denisoleary said:
Does anyone have advice, legal or otherwise.
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Action is the antidote to despair. I wouldn't hand in notice but I would resolve to leave. I'd quietly secure a job elsewhere then hand in notice. All I'd say to the current employer and the new one is that I liked the work but was looking for a change. While tempting, there's likely no profit in venting your spleen in this case.
 
Leper said:
Hi Thirsty, that might be your opinion, but I've been through several court cases as a result of members being bullied and it was the bully who always got smashed and deservedly so. Believe me, once the bully is called out the victims seem to get emotional strength from somewhere and when people who were bullied get going it is difficult to stop them. I could give astonishing examples here, but I'm trying to keep my posts short.
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It is often a different experience when trade unions are involved.
 
Leper said:
Bullying is bullying whether the office is large or small or whether the company employs 10 or 10,000. Recently, we've had a thread which discussed calling out male violence against women. Bullying is similar and should not be tolerated. In my day as a local trade union secretary, I'd have this situation resolved in minutes and likely the bully would be handing in her/his resignation if failed to comply.
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At what point does bullying become bullying? i.e. the person is toxic, difficult to be around etc but would we consider that bullying? I work with someone whom I cannot abide and they're rude, loud and annoying but I don't think I could identify a single episode of bullying. It makes for a very difficult situation to deal with.
 
RetirementPlan said:
Speak for yourself. Many bosses in my circle will have no difficulty in dealing with such situations.

Having said that, in the situation described by the OP, leaving is probably the best advice.
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Well if you're experience is that male bosses are not in anyway reluctant to address bullying by female employees for fear of being labelled sextist ?

That is indeed heartening, it has not been my experience however
 
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