I WFH and on a team, said team has a bit of a hierarchical issue and can make newbies feel dismissed. I felt in the hot seat for a minute myself but adjusted to my job and team, now I actually enjoy working with everyone… for the most part.
We had a new member join our team over a month ago and she was having a hard time. She was noticing how older members of the team (meaning those who’ve been here longer) are able to make mistakes that anyone new would be hounded for. I gave her a shoulder to cry on, so to speak, and told her I’d be here for her… I gave her my number since she mentioned trading them. I should have thought about this further, I know. I simply felt bad because I experienced a similar thing and felt alone. I didn’t want her to experience that too. I figured if she ever needed to vent or ask for advice, she can just text me so we keep it off Teams.
Starting three weeks ago, she started regularly calling me at work for more than just “work”. She started using our calls to vent but I’d try to end it since she is calling on Teams when we also take incoming calls. I stopped allowing her to vent at some point by just changing the subject whenever I could on calls, I just help her with whatever she’s asking and then try to end the call. I even mentioned before that I’m not a fan when other coworkers do that, since I appreciate a message first asking if a call is OK (unless something urgent). Then she resorted to messaging me on Teams. When I say messages, I mean incessantly even when I am working or on call myself with a client.
I felt like she was becoming overbearing because no matter how much I pulled my interest away and tried to shorten conversations, she keeps messaging me until I respond. And I mean, 5 messages in a row on teams with no response (I never ignore her when she asks for help, these are messages where she’s trying to chit chat). I care a lot about my job. I don’t want this to reflect on me anyway since I ended up adapting and now my boss is someone I respect a lot.
She has now started to text me 5x in a row on my personal number if I do not respond on Teams. She will send me the same messages from Teams to my texts demanding a response. Yesterday, she even called me on Teams pretending to ask a work related question but it was ultimately just her asking me the same thing she had been messaging me about (its something unserious, but personal).
I’m starting to feel very uncomfortable at work because it seems like the more I ignore her, the more she messages and calls. I’m sticking to my guns and ignoring because I want to avoid confrontation when I feel it is unnecessary. But not gonna lie, I kinda fear how she would react to me saying “i’m not interested in small talk, I just want to discuss work whenever you need help and that’s it” because she has given me the impression that she is deeply emotional. She has taken it personally before when my coworkers have told her they were too busy to help her, but in actuality, they were given important tasks by my sup to work on and turn in the same day.
This has all happened during work hours, never off work hours. I understand the thing you should do when you don’t want to talk is stopping the replies but that hasn’t been working for me yet.
Have you been in this situation before and what did you do?