Need advice about a work colleague

I have someone who sits oposite me at work.

She is, in general, a fairly nice person but we just don't resonate.

She has worked with the company for 21 years but has recently changed departments and works with me for half her 40 hour week.

I had to teach her the job and she very low confidence. I spent a lot of energy reassuring her and helping her learn to trust herself. I pay her compliments because I hear her putting herself down.

But.... all the time I just get a vibe that she doesn't like me.

I try to ignore it, try to show her that the only reason I know more about the job is because I have been doing it longer, and wrote most of the procedures. When she says she has a boring life compared to mine I say that so long as she's happy it doesn't matter if she doesn't do the stuff I do.

On Tuesday she was saying that she doesn't push herself to learn more like I do. I explained that my desire to improve is based on low self esteem. I over complicate and over think. I explained that if she is happy with who she is and her life it is better than constantly striving to be "good enough".

I don't necessarily believe all the negative stuff I am saying about myself, it's just I feel she has put me on a pedistal and is hating me because of it. I am just trying to get down off the pedistal.

Anyway, I have been doing my best to ignore it. To try to get on with her but at the end of Tuesday she just blew it

I was having a mini rant in the sales office because once again someone had left the key in the safe.. which to me is just plain stupid, may as well just leave it open.

We thought we knew who it was an the sales manager was going to speak to him in the morning. No big deal. I walked up to my colleague saying "I can't believe after the e-mail I sent last week that someone has left the key in the safe again".... her reply was "oh that was me".

From there, rather than simply saying "oops, duh, sorry, won't do it again" she made a heap of excuses. As I walked away (it was home time) she shouted "if only we were all as intelligent as you".

I guess I'm over thinking this, but that statement showed her true colours. It was nasty and uneccessary, but it showed me exactly how she feels about me.

I feel she thinks that either I think I am amazing, that I think I am more intelligent than others and look down on other people. Or she really does think I am cleverer than her and is jealous. I don't want her to think either!!

Now, in my life, people who are nasty to me just get cut off. I don't need people like that in my life so they stop existing. But I HAVE to work with her. On tuesday I have to do an hour car journey with her and be in a day long meeting with her.

I'm not sulking when I'm not talking to her, I am simply cutting her out of my reality.... but I am not able to do this.

Now I know how she feels about me, how can I continue to be nice to her. I don't want anything to do with her

I don't know what to do. I feel if I forgive her and am nice to her again she will just continue being nasty to me.

I was bullied at school, even by my "best friend".. I don't take garbage from people now, not by being nasty, just by not letting them close enough to hurt me twice.

Does anyone have any advice?


Edited by SF Staff