TOTALLY GEEKED!

DEAR AMY: I have worked closely with a co-worker for five years. She can be warm and generous, is a hard worker and is always the first to volunteer for projects and committees. She is also incredibly sensitive and thin-skinned and often perceives slights in benign comments. When this happens, she flies off the handle. She has stormed out of meetings in tears and snapped at co-workers. She recently said something hurtful about a colleague (presumably meant to be funny) in a public forum. I have stopped defending her, both publicly and privately. But because I think her behavior is atrocious, now and then I still “run interference” for her in an attempt to prevent her from melting down and to protect others’ feelings. She often wants to vent about how she has been mistreated and asks for advice about how to handle these imaginary insults, but she rejects any actual help and seems to only want to be told that she is right and others are wrong. Colleagues and I are constantly walking on eggshells around this person, and we resent it. I feel like I’m being emotionally bullied, but confronting her will likely mean making the workplace very uncomfortable, possibly forever, as she tends to be unforgiving. She has experienced some trying personal circumstances in the past few years, and we work in a setting that gives workers a lot of autonomy (i.e. behavior has to be really egregious for a supervisor to get involved.) Any advice?

Emotional Hostage

DEAR HOSTAGE: You have kindly run interference for your co-worker for years, expertly reading her moods and smoothing things over for her, so that she will be shielded from the natural consequences of her actions. No doubt you have done this for her because you are a genuinely good person who wants to protect her and others from her actions. Perhaps you’ve also done this for your own reasons. Her volatility makes you uncomfortable. You also sound a little afraid of her moods and behavior.

Emotional bullies get the best of people by making others check their own reactions in order to try to protect themselves. Over time, this can make things much worse.

If she is acting out, don’t offer help or advice. Never “protect” her from a meltdown. If she is venting to you and asks for advice, tell her, “You ask for advice but you don’t seem to actually want it. I’m confident you can figure this out.”

The loose environment at your workplace gives her a lot of latitude about her behavior, but this environment might not be the best fit for her. If her unhappiness and behavior at work interferes with her (and others’) ability to do your jobs, then it would be time for a supervisor to offer her a course correction.