Co-worker giving me the silent treatment

[honeydiane1953]

In this case I will ask you per Dr Phil " Would u rather be happy or right?"

 

[WDSearcher]

OP here.

As for the confusion about the peanut butter thing, yes, it was she that was eating peanut butter out of the jar in the lobby, not the visitors.

I should mention that while she is still giving me the silent treatment, I still talk to her, say "hi" or "good morning" every day. She just ignores me, but that's her choice I guess. I am continuing on as normal.

I should have mentioned this in the OP, but it is well known throughout our office that she is an alcoholic. You can smell it on her and you can tell when she's been drinking by her actions. However, mgmt feels their hands are tied because she has never come to work actually drunk. They say she needs to ask for help, they can't force her to get it. We work for the gov't in which it's very hard to fire someone. They did tell her, however, that she was no longer allowed to drive the gov't car. She has earned the moniker "functioning alcoholic" around here.

She has also given others in the office the silent treatment, she already no longer speaks to at least 2 people that I know of. One of them told me she did the same thing, insisted on an apology that the other co-worker didn't feel was warranted.

Mgmt does know about her erratic behavior, but because of the drinking thing I don't think they know what to do with her so they do nothing. It's crazy what she gets away with.

Anyway, I have played the scenario over in my mind, and nope I don't feel like I owe her an apology. If anything she owes me one but I don't really care if I get one or not. I just want to move on, but she's incapable apparantly. I will just enjoy the silence as some have suggested and continue just doing my job.

If YOU want to move on, then do. Whether she does or not is not under your control.

You seem to be thinking that you can't move on unless she does too. Not true.

You cannot control this situation. You can only control your side of it. So do that. (Sounds like you mostly already are.) Treat her as if she's a perfectly normal, perfectly capable co-worker and make no notice of any silent treatment or anything else.

For the record, I'd also avoid talking about her behind her back with other co-workers or discussing her alcoholism or any other problems she may have. If she has never come to work drunk, the fact that she drinks shouldn't enter the workplace any more than anyone else's personal habits. So ... leave it alone. Don't gossip, don't make side comments. If you want to have only a professional relationship with her, then you need to leave her personal life out of it.

 

[kimmar067]

The co-worker was eating the peanut butter...the sentence is missing some commas so it's not 100% clear.

....I knew what the OP meant - I was jes' makin' a funny.....

[srsly - ewwwww - gross, to watch someone eating ANYTHING in an area that a non-eating area...]

 

[Disney Doll]

If she has an alcohol problem I am telling you that no matter what, if you jump on that crazy train, you're never getting off.

Alcoholics are among the most manipulative people on the planet.

I have been caring for alcoholics for close to 30 years as a nurse, in addition to having a few kicking around in the family, so let me give you some advice based on experience.

Go about your business.

If she's ignoring you, consider it a blessing.

Do your job.

Interact with her as necessary on a professional level.

If she does not respond and it means you cannot do a portion of your job, then go the email route to her with a cc. to your boss. This accomplishes a couple of things: Your boss is aware, your boss now has documentaiton of her behavior and how it is impacting the workplace and you have documentation to protct yourself.

Make no comment to your boss about this co-worker other than what needs to be said from a work-related perspective. No joking about "the silent treatment", no eye-rolling, no nothing. Just "I am attempting to accomplish this task. I have gotten this far in the process and have asked Crazy Mary (probalby not a good idea to call her Crazy Mary either ) for XY&Z and have not received them so I cannot go any further until I have that information. I just want you to be aware of the reason for the delay".

The thing with alcoholics (or any manipulative person) is that you need to make your decisions about things, then you need to consistently act and react in the same manner. For example, as a nurse, I often have alcoholics who are waiting for their sedative during their detox period. The sedative is usually ordered every 4 hours. If someone is really agitated/uncontrollable, we have an "as needed" dose as well. However, the as needed dose is not to be given lightly. So, generally what happens is that I give the patient their regular dose. In 2.5 hours they call saying they are feeling anxious. They do not appear anxious. They have a roomful of visitors, they are talking and laughing and eating McDonald's but they say feel anxious and want their medicine early.

So it becomes a judgement call, where I am making a decision about medicating someone who already has a substance abuse/addiction problem.

My response is, "I gave you your medicine at 830am. It's now 11am and you can have your medicine again at 1230pm. I'll bring it in then".

I can pretty much guarantee you that the patient is going to call about every 10-15 minutes for the next hour and a half requesting that anxiety medicine. And I will repeat that same sentence every 10-15 minutes (in a perfectly pleasant perfectly calm voice no matter how I may feel inside) for the next hour and a half. And at 1230pm they will get their medicine.

With alcoholics, that old adage "Don't wrestle with a pig. You'll both get dirty but the pig likes it". Don't wrestle with her. Do your job. Communicate professionally to your boss when her behavior prevents you from doing your job and let her hang herself.

Alcoholics have a way of getting everyone aorund them in a spin.
Just don't jump on the crazy train!

 

[goofinoff]

I would wonder why it took me 11 years to receive the silent treatment! If you had known that something so ridiculous is what it took for this woman to stop speaking to you, you should have done it 11 years ago!

 

[hereyago]

I once had a co worker do that-he was actually the step father of my boss, luckily my boss recognized he was being a 5 year old in a 60 something body.

i am a very giggly person at times and he asked me to take his last room that was being cleaned and said who was cleaning it. well my boss's sister(yes it was a whole family working there) looked at me and i busted out laughing.

This guy was an recovering alcoholic as well. He went off and me and his step daughter as if a switch had turned on in him. He didn't want to hear why we were laughing, blah blah blah.

Then he didn't speak to us for a couple months. Now I didn't have to correspond with him as we worked by ourselves, but still the work place is not the place for child like behavior.

But I tell you, it was a very peaceful quiet time,lol. Then when he did speak to us again, it was like nothing ever happened.

My boss knew we weren't going to apologize, we had tried to explain what the laughter was about, but I am not going to beg and plead forgiveness when someone is going off the rails.

 

[Rence]

I too crossed a co-worker years ago (I'll call him Bill) and got the silent treatment. He was always a bit off, but we'd become work friends and we'd chit chat on occasion. One day he just started going off about a mutual co-worker - he went on and on about how stupid and incompetent this guy was (actually the guy was one of the sharpest guys in the department and viewed by all as a top-performer). I tried several times to change the subject or to get Bill to drop it. Finally I had enough and I told him to leave my cubicle if he was going to keep running this other guy down.

Well apparently I crossed some sort of line as Bill went on a vendetta against me. He pulled several different childish stunts that always back fired and got him into trouble. For the next couple of years I still had to work with Bill, but I always did it via email. When I needed something I emailed him and copied his boss and my boss. Usually his boss just delegated it to someone else as he was tired of dealing with Bill.

About a year later, Bill was fired. I don't know the exact incident that caused it, but I do know that management was fed up and was looking for an excuse to get rid of him.