Is it abnormal to be THIS annoyed with a co worker
Just a bit of background to this, 3 months ago, I left a highly toxic job environment and started a new role at a new company.
For the 1st 2 weeks it was really difficult, I was doing something that was really out side of my comfort zone, leading projects i had no expertise in and interfacing with teams around the clock operating on clashing timezones.
However i stuck it out and thereafter, i felt much better & developed a really good working relationship with my new boss. He was really experienced and helped me navigate a lot of the challenges i faced.
A week ago, the worst thing happened, my boss got retrenched, and me being the one with the next most senior title in the team was tasked to take over his responsibilities. On top of what i am currently doing, I now also have to oversee a team of 2.
Since then my life has been hell. The problem was not even the crazy workload but one of my coworkers whom i am supposed to oversee.
This particular coworker has been in the company for the longest compared to the other 2 of us. She has this habit of always trying to give us advice because of her experience in the company, but always failing to articulate what she wants to say. Half the time i am confused by her. She often likes to give me feedback on my presentation skills and comment on how I led the meeting and this confuses me because she hardly ever contributes to the meeting and behaves like she is some meeting inspector/evaluator.
Because I have to oversee what she does and report to my new line manager, we recently sat together to go through her projects and what shocked me was how little she was doing compared to the rest of the team members. And her project list were made of projects that had not beeen completed since 2021, or phantom projects no one assigned her. At the end of the session i was just exasperated when she asked me about my projects and when will i be sharing my progress with her.
I am facing a lot of difficulties reigning her in, our team is undergoing restructuring and the company has freezed our outstanding projects in order to cost cut. But just the other day I caught her commiting additional budgets for future projects which were not confirmed. I tried to tell her nicely that she shouldn’t do that because it makes it difficult for me to negotiate with the agency later on. She completely wrote me off and insisted that my ex boss (who is no longer in the company) gave those projects to her and hence they should be confirmed. I couldn’t get her to understand circumstances have changed and our budget might be reduced moving forward.
Recently I disagreed with the way she was handling another project, again she wrote me off by saying that i dont understand the background of the project. I just asked her to explain to me and again, she couldn’t articulate her point and simply said “you’re too new you wont understand”.
and GUESS WHAT? shit hit the fan, our team tio complaint which was escalated all the way to the HQ. and my line manager asked me to provide an explanation as to why things escalated so much. my co worker who is in charge of the project just MIA, and here i am, almost midnight on a friday night, typing a report about an incident i dont even have the details to.
I feel like i am so annoyed with this co worker that it has become borderline obsessive. Like i get this impression that she really wants to dominate me, but at the same time, expect me to proof read her emails and sign off cost estimates for her projects so that she dont have to take ownership for anything. She often tells me “Boss, i got this problem, what should i do?” and when I share with her my opinion, she will always reply ” I see, you are still too inexperienced at this/ oh you dont know the history of this nevermind lah..” blah blah and totally write me off. Worst thing is i dont think she is doing it intentionally, its probably just her personality.
I feel a lot of anxiety and stress because my work load and responsibilities have increased ten fold and there is a loose canon in my team i cannot manage. I just feel like giving up, and it’s only been 3 months!!!! I feel super frustrated, what should i do?