To make a long story short, I have a coworker that got me into my field. They trained me and we had a solid relationship. We even saw each other outside of work.
Fast forward 3 years and I find a better job opportunity. I thank them for getting me into their workplace and tell thrm we can still hang out and I'll get them into my job as soon as there's an opening.
I swear I hear nothing from them for months. I was stuggling with my personal life and tried to reach out, but they didn't respond.
There's finally an opening at my work. I reach out and we catch up. They were going through a bunch in their personal life too. I reference them for an interview. They get the job. It feels like old times again.
I invite them out for supper to celebrate. They cancel the day of.
They talk about meeting up at my place. I invite them over and prepare a gift. They cancel the day of.
Anyways, through all of this, I trained them just like they trained me. Training goes on a bit longer than expected due to new responsibilities they never handled before which is totally fine. They're always asking questions and taking notes which is a good sign right?
They finally settle into their role, 3 weeks after we should have been done with training. I swear every single hour of the day I get bombarded with questions that I already trained them multiple times on. If I don't answer on Slack, they'll email me.
Every single day is a new complaint. "We should do this this way" "why is the policy like that" "im tried" "i have a headache" and it goes on and on and on... when I ignore them I get messages every hour like "are you ok" "hey i need help" etc
Note: we work remotely and i enjoy my peace and quiet at home but now I'm always stressed in my safe space, my home. It's the reason I left my previous job. My new job was always so quiet and stressfree before this. I don't know what do anymore and how to approach them.
Edit: used "they/them" to remain as anonymous as possible