40
sudo-
7y

I am DONE with this woman CONTINUED!

I didn't think I'd have to put another rant about this stupidity at least not this soon but she just keeps on giving!

I have my noise canceling headphones on most of the time and when I want to hear the people around, I just put the right earcup of it to the side of my ear so the music pauses. Today we had a huge disrupt on our services because of a network switch error on the hub. I was also trying to focus on my coding as I didn't wanna do a stupid mistake on the last working day and be sorry about it in the next week.

So this woman sneaks up on me from behind calling my name - meaning she has a question, surprise! -, I say 'yes' moving my head to her side ever so slightly without getting my eyes off of my screen stating subtly that I'm also listening to her while trying to focus on my shit. She starts yelling at me 'look at me!' out of nowhere! I turn my head and ask what the problem is and she asks why I'm not looking at her face! Stupid moron, I might not be too good in understanding your way of communication but you are the one asking so you WILL wait if you'd like to hear answers.

I say I'm working on something and her answer is again 'Why aren't you looking at my face it's going to be quick bla bla did we do this like that?' and I answered I didn't remember because there's no way I'd ever remember without looking further and it was no lie.

This woman clearly has stability issues and everyone else seem to be tolerating it. It's now obvious as I'm not tolerating the nonsense I'll be the one that 'she only has ever had a problem with'.

I was quick to de escalate the situation but now I'm thinking maybe I should've responded in a way that she could understand. I wouldn't ever give a shit about it but this is getting ridiculous.

Comments
  • 7
    I really know these type of situations. Some people can just really topple your stance because they view things so differently and you dont even understand what is going on for a moment.

    To her it was probably something like this "I asked you to help me and you said yes. So then help me and dont concern me whether you are really listening. Thats rude and a waste of time."
    But in your head I am imagining it more like "Okay I have work to do myself but I can try to help you, sure. (And I will keep looking at my screen as long as I can because thats efficient and I believe we are casual and dont mean to be rude. (Also, I am doing you a favor.))"

    I think maybe you could have been more persistent with your own concerns. You didnt mean to be rude you just have your own stuff to worry about and if she doesnt want your help, then.. well then its not your problem anymore.
  • 2
    She wants attention
  • 1
    @sm001 I would remain with "she wants help (including attention to her problem)"
  • 3
    @1989 angry sex? Hahaha I really like your comments I wish I had ranted earlier but I didn't give two shits about it when it circled around people. But come on you've gotta give me my credit man, she was yelling at me and I only spoke with my normal tone - which is baritone and disturbing/rude to her as well! - isn't this de escalation in a sense...

    Anyway I don't wanna date with her let alone fuck her so what do I do now! And apparently I don't wanna sympathize either, then I can't solve this can I...
  • 4
    It's good you de-escalated and the fact you are contemplating a more reasonable approach is good. Just give her the attention and respect she wants and your life will be *a lot* easier. Let me put it to you another way: if you took the headphones off and answered her question, you would have been disrupted for 10 maybe 15 min and your hormone levels (and blood pressure) would be normal and you would finish work and basically have a normal day. By doing what you did, you upset her, caused a commotion, elevated your blood pressure and I bet you'll keep thinking about this for hours - a 15 minute discussion has now cost you a whole day ... because you didn't turn and look at your PM. I'm saying this for your benefit, just get on with the project, if she is annoying you too much then take it up with HR. Don't waste company time on this because it's not looking too good for you whatever you say (even if you were "right" at this point).
  • 2
    @simulate you're right I should've been persistent and tell her that I had stuff to do, but she had already said it was gonna be quick and she was right up on my face the second she was asking for help! So she wouldn't get back from it, but then I'd be able to just say not my problem haha...

    Thank you very much for summarizing the situation, I wouldn't have thought ranting would help this much!
  • 2
    @sm001 @simulate I'm not supposed to be the provider for her attention needs am I? But I'll help her alright, as long as she doesn't yell at my face that is.
  • 3
    @ymas the problem is it was fucking normal and it's what I have always been doing so I did not give it a second thought! Anyway I'll talk to her on Monday, but she has little impact on the project so the team lead will be coordinating her tasks and I won't have to communicate with her too much.

    And this caused me boiling blood for nearly an hour so you're right I was spending company time having hardship concentrating. I don't think I will need to take it to the HR, people around have heard the bullshit 😅
  • 2
    @notroot no exactly the opposite, disgusting....
  • 2
    @1989 wait a second... You just told me to fuck her!
  • 1
    @sudo- stress has been linked to so many health problems that it was one of the main reasons I went freelance. I was team lead before and I dealt with situations where coders were not able to look at eachother. My suggestion is, unless you have mediation training, do not under any circumstance try to resolve this. If she was screaming then it's pretty bad and you might trigger thermonuclear meltdown on Monday. Do not try to clear things up because there is a chance you'll make it worse. If you want to mend things then do it through HR. That's their job. At the end of the day nothing is worth sacrificing your health for. You probably also want to keep the hair on your head, so take a chill pill and tolerate the PM until she is relieved of her responsibilities.
  • 1
    @1989 I've had to deal with so many situations like this in the past. I like your more laid back approach too.
  • 1
    @ymas there must've been a misunderstanding, she's just a developer but more senior than me but she's not the PM. That's how I thought it'd be a reasonable thing to get it resolved in a team meeting where the team lead is also involved. Otherwise I was not thinking a 1-1, I'm not that crazy just yet!
  • 1
    @1989 well my conditional blocks don't go to the else statement when the condition is satisfied. I think you were talking in a language that I don't compile very well.
  • 3
    I would've de-escalated the situation by putting my headphones back on and forgetting about her existence.
  • 2
    @antic haha totally. Like one disappointed look in her face... letting it sink briefly.. and then back to work
  • 5
    Maybe I’m missing something, but whenever someone asks me for help, I either tell them “I’m busy right now, maybe later” or I take my headphones off and give them my attention. Staring away, and having ur headphones partially on is telling them that you will help them, but they’re not important, no doubt she thinks it was rude. Every time I’ve asked someone for help (and I actually mean every time) they’ve taken their headphones off, faced me and given me their attention, else they said they were busy and I left them alone.
  • 2
    @52cal Yes thats the right way to go.
    What I'd have done is tell her that I'm in the middle of something and that I'll drop by when I'm done.

    That's also a good excuse to get up and walk around.
  • 0
    @52cal yeah well she didn't exactly 'ask' for help, she always thinks she's entitled to get help whenever she needs. She started calling my name while coming towards me, she said 'look for a second I'll ask something' when she got closer. And then me saying yes, splitting my attention apparently wasn't enough for her. I didn't promise her my help or anything!

    And the problem with those headphone users that helped you is that they don't own a PXC 550 😝 No I mean it, the headphone has a feature when you actually slide the earcup to the front a bit, it stops playing the music.
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