Situation

LegacyUser

Hi all.

If I may use a hypothetical situation involving 2 people, we'll use Kima & Ronnie. Kima has been working in this office for MNC close on 15 years now. Started off small team, nice crew, enjoyed the work, going great. Bit of restructuring, couple of redundancies & Kima is, for the most part, on her own. New supervisor, still all good, happy out.

Cut to maybe 6 months ago & Ronnie starts in the office too. Initially all grand, Kima showing Ronnie the ropes, getting to know each other, coffee breaks, facebook buddies, etc.

Now about 4 months ago, Ronnie's attitude is all changed. Short answers to general morning chit chat, developing into ignoring Kima, turning to exclusion, turning on occasion to aggression & intimidation. Kima has no idea why or how this developed. Ronnie has approached Kima on a couple of occasions, quite aggressively, wanting to know what her problem was. Kima being pretty quiet, muttered out a bit of an apology & an excuse (where none was required, in my view).

Now Kima hates going into work, awake at night wondering what she's done, sick with worry, tears etc., talking about quitting

I know both Kima & Ronnie. Kima's a quiet, friendly, chatty type, gets on well with most people & Ronnie is a quite outgoing, politically astute (in the office kind of way), well able to go, and has form for this kind of carry on.

I side with Kima in this, and would like to offer her some advice on how to move forward with this, but I'm not great with office politics/relations.

Anyone any thoughts?

_Brian

Marla Daniels wrote: »

Anyone any thoughts?

Maybe offer to support her if she wants to complain..
But really its none of your business..

the_pen_turner

I would tell them to sit down and talk it out,
you don't know of any reasons for this behaviour.

unless you are really close to one side I would keep out.

you don't know the whole story.

unless Ronnie is completely off their rocker then there must be more to this


which side of the story are you hearing

Stheno

She could start keeping a detailed record of every incident which occurs and use that to make a complaint to HR?

Disgruntled Badger

I would suggest taking this up the ladder
Talk to the boss. Kima is with the company 15 yrs and was kept ahead of everyone. She is clearly very valued by the company, and I would therefore assume her boss. Ronnie needs to be spoken to by the boss and come clean if she has a problem with Kima, or if there is something else wrong in her private life that is affecting her attitude at work. Either way the boss needs to know. It's his/her responsibility as an employer to safe guard the physical and mental wellbeing of the employees.

skallywag

Disgruntled Badger wrote: »

I would suggest taking this up the ladder
Talk to the boss.

OP, I would seriously think twice about this bringing this matter up with your boss. It's Kima who needs to do the talking here, not you.

Mrs OBumble

I would butt out, unless I had personally witnessed any specific incidents of concern - and then I would tell my manager specifically about what I'd seen.

If Kima is reading this, she needs to take her concerns to her own manager.


Oh - and I tell all my friends to never, ever be Facebook buddies with direct work colleagues. LinkedIn is for colleagues. Facebook is for friends. Don't mix 'em.