Hi, thank you so much for your replies. Sorry i didn’t reply earlier – for me it’s a sign of respect or gratitude to reply when somebody does the effort to read my story and reply to it. I was busy and struggling with my moods because of the tiredness and probably stress at work.

Icy, i’m sorry you are having such a difficult situation at work. Yes it’s probably a lot harder when it’s your boss. I’d find it a lot harder to say something when that person is above you. I don’t know what to say to you as i’m struggling with these things myself. I had a few situations at work where the person above me was doing something that i didn’t consider kind (like, watching football at very busy moments when even some machines weren’t working, and leaving us alone with all the busy work), but luckily that doesn’t happen too often. I can’t imagine saying something to those persons. I hope things will get better for you in some way.

We have to find a way that we can just relax and realize nothing bad will happen to us if we respectfully stand up for ourselves…the world won’t end…you won’t get punched in the face…it will be ok. It is easy to say but hard to do unfortunately.

Very well said. It’s difficult yes, but we will only make some progress (however slow it might be), if we try it.
I often tell myself: it’s only work, don’t bother so much, go there and leave it behind you when you’re done. But that’s again my avoidance-attitude. It’s work, and also there i have to learn to let myself be respected. I don’t know how to go about it. It’s such a habit already to let that woman walk over me, and it has probably made me see some things, that towards some people you need to make strong boundaries. I can try to learn to put boundaries now, but now she nows very well that she can treat me in any way, it will be hard to turn this around, so it’s mostly about me trying to practice something.

Annie – your post was interesting. You wrote it partly because of your own experience, and you bring up a lot of possibilities for reasons why things are going that way and some suggestions.
I would like to reply to a lot of things but i don’t want to make this post too long. I will try my best to keep it more or less short.

You say: there might be issues of helplessness or co-dependency..
I can only speak for myself: i think that i have an issue with co-dependency. I have a long history (from early childhood on) of supporting others, who often leaned very easily on me, and doing everything i could to help them. Until it made me completely empty and not caring about myself anymore. So it is important for me to learn to get to know my own boundaries and it will still be a long progress.
So when this woman came in at work, so nervous and anxious, and needing my help, i was going far beyond my own limits to support her, to reassure her, to tell her she doesn’t need to be afraid it’s a really nice place to work and everybody is nice… To show her how the work is done… Times and times again. Until i realised that i was doing that same old pattern again so i tried to stop it. But she was already so used that i was always available to her and that my patience was endless… And yes, of course it probably wasn’t nice to suddenly not reply to everything anymore, and if she shouted i sometimes ignored her for a short moment. But i think it was necessary to do something to try to stop this kind of contact.

I think i can say that i tried quite a lot of times to talk to her, and to ask her to communicate with me. Also the day after the incident with this post, i tried to talk to her how i felt about the way she went about it, without even talking with me, and she didn’t seem to understand. One day she just left, she told me she was going to so something for 2 minutes and left me with the rest of the work, later i heard that she had left a long time ago. I was angry. The next time i saw her i asked her what happened and she just said that she was finished, which she obviously wasn’t. I tried to ask her, if she wants to leave early, to just tell me and i wouldn’t mind, but this was strange. She kept telling me that she was done and that there was no problem. But i feel like shit if they do like that. And again, yesterday she did the same, so she doesn’t seem to care about how this feels for me. In the beginning, i tried to tell her a lot of times, to clean up things after herself because i was always doing it after her and didn’t want to do that. But i don’t like being a nag, so i do it a lot less. And because i’m so frustrated with this, i don’t know how to say it in a nice way. When i do she just tell me that it’s not true and give me a look of ‘what are you bothering about now’.

Yes, there might be issues with her and reasons or difficulties that she had, but is it my task, to find those issues and to support her with that? Don’t get me wrong, for a long time, i was always doing that: trying to understand why somebody acted to me in a certain way, trying to support them… I’ve gone way too for in that tendency and i usually don’t even know anymore if my boundaries are being stepped on. My therapist is making a lot of effort to make me see that it is not my task to think in other people’s place and to solve their problems for them – that is why i mentioned the co-dependency in the beginning of this post.

For a long time i told myself, she just can’t help it, she doesn’t think. She forgets everything, and often if they tell us what to do, when we are upstairs she has already forgotten it or messed it up. Often after work she forgets to bring the things back to the office like keys etc. So i have taken on the role to watch, to remind her the whole time about what we need to do and what we should wait, to ask her if she has given her keys back… Certain things i’ll just do myself because it is easier. I have never complained about her running off straight away and leaving me with the tidying and put things back or replenish things for tomorrow. I just do them – i don’t mind cause i’m paid for it, but i’m often anxious about what the bosses will think that i’m often finishing 15 or more minutes later.
But now, i don’t know about that: she just doesn’t know any better. I notice the different way she acts to me when we are alone and to me when there are other people around, and the way she does to other people. So i can only think, that’s because she knows very well, that i let her do that, that she doesn’t need to respect me because i clean up her mess anyway without complaining.

No, i don’t think that she is treating me badly, in her eyes, and she doesn’t realise how it feels for me, she doesn’t understand it. And i don’t want to bother about it because that’s just useless. She just seems to think about herself and want to make a good impression. I am the quiet one and quite shy, and she’s always talking and always saying to the boss like: look how wonderful i did, look how great i am, that kind of talk. But nobody sees how much i’m trying to help her in the background because i don’t go around boasting about that. And i am worrying about after summer, when it gets quiet at work, will they only keep one of us, so will they prefer her, because she is so good at talking? I know i shouldn’t worry about it. Unless i tell my frustrations to the boss, which i probably won’t. So then i think i should just keep doing my work good and see what happens.
Ok i think this post is way too long, and i have the feeling i am defending myself to you.

And it’s silly cause i’m trying to not think about her anymore outside of the work hours, and when she is not there, and here i am writing ages on a post about her.

I do think that in the first place i need to stick up for my own place, but in reality i’m moving in the other direction again. Giving her everything how she wants it and keeping all my frustrations for myself.
And i don’t seem to manage to have an honest talk because i feel that just gets taken advantage of or laughed away. So the easiest thing for me is to avoid and NOT stick up for myself.

Dear Anita,

Thank you for your reply, it’s often interesting to read your views on things.
I have to let it soak in a bit what you said. I think you are right, she doesn’t do assertiveness.

Yes i feel it’s harsh to do it the way you write it, but i have already seen a lot of times, that it doesn’t work to try to open a conversation with her and talk like 2 adult people on how to arrange things.
I have tried to ‘bark’ at her, at least, to say her things and try to make it sound short and more curtly, i don’t know to which extent i managed. And in the beginning she reacted anxious and would run to do whatever she forgot. Now she just tells me that it’s not true or that it isn’t a problem. She feels so at ease there now and she knows that she can mess around with me.
Maybe i’ll try to bark harder but it is really not my way of doing things, it feels so wrong.

Often i even act very sociable to her, laughing and making jokes. That seems to be something that i do when i’m afraid of people, i seem to pretend that we are friends or something, but it is so tiring. It might be better to go back to being short and quiet with her, more the way that i feel towards her. She knows more of my personal life than the others, it’s a very silly way of me to try to feel safe around ‘unsafe’ people.

I just can’t wait for the end of the busy season and hoping that she won’t work there anymore. But that’s not the best way, cause i want to see what i can learn from this situation.

Hi sorry for my late reaction. I wanted to wait a few days to try to think about it.
Anita, yes, you are right. The win-win, and helping each other, i have that with most people there and that is wonderful, that it is possible. I like giving and with those people i can do that, because they also look after me and give to me. But indeed, i have to know with who i can do that, and put up a big wall with certain people. It’s now not only anymore about that task – now it is evolving that the boss wants me to do an other task, which means that i’m learning a new, interesting skill, so i’m happy with that. But it is in general with the way she behaves about me – i won’t start boring you with all the details.
I don’t know about the barking though. It is not my style, and my experience tells me that it doesn’t work with her. If i try to bark with her, she just barks back, and louder than me, and i get afraid. If i try to discuss with her, she will keep denying what i see, even though she is clearly lying. So i’m trying more the silent approach, trying to say ‘i do this’ – or whatever it is about and not discussing too much, but staying with what i first said. That seems to fit me better, and to work better towards her. She will argue a bit and then go.

Thank you for pointing it out so nice each time: “the right thing… or easy?” i have some work learning to see the difference between those 2 things. I can be very good at self-deception.

@Lovelimess, yes i find it difficult to go talk to the boss. There are a few bosses, but they are so laid-back and not caring too much, that i don’t know who would be best to talk to and if it would make sense. And then i am worrying so much: what are they going to think about me etc, that keeps me back from it. And then i say to myself “i don’t like to be the kind of person that goes complaining to the boss about a co-worker, that is childish” – which are probably excuses again.
Anyway these days she is making it worse in her attitude towards me, at the moment i’m just letting it happen but i’m starting to think to say something to the boss. Hopefully i manage to do that one of those days, because that would be the right thing to do. I think i have done more than my share in trying to talk with her.

Jack, thank you for your reply, i try to reply you tomorrow, tired now.

I am trying to work on it, but is goes very slow, i guess i’ll have to accept that.

Thank you Anita. Yes it is nice that other relationships are win-win, thanks to that place i am learning more about myself, i am learning to see that i am very nice and helpful (haha, i’d never imagined saying that about myself so easily 🙂 ) and it is nice to be able to share that with people, instead of feeling that i am stupid because of it.
But that woman is perhaps also doing me a favor, because i need to learn that i can not be like that to everybody, to some people i do need to keep my defences and set boundaries. I think i have let it come way to far with her in these 3 months, and i think she knows way too well that she can treat me in any way she wants.
The past week, every day that we worked together (which is 3 days per week, but that’s more than enough), she ran off way before we wore finished. I didn’t say anything, i didn’t ask her to stay. Yesterday it was the same, she came to throw something there that she had used and that i needed, and she said ‘see you next week’, i answered her ‘whatever’, as i was getting quite annoyed with the way she leaves and the way she does it. She even started to give out to me and to yell at me that i shouldn’t have said ‘whatever’, that all i had to say is bye. So i said bye and kept going with my work. Perhaps ‘whatever’ wasn’t the nicest thing to say, but i don’t think it’s that unreasonable, considering the way she leaves me with the rest of the work (not a big problem, cause i’m paid for it, but she doesn’t do it in a nice way).
So i’m just hoping that she’ll be let off in a few weeks, when it gets quieter. I’m just exhausted and don’t manage to let it go, now on my day off it’s still bothering me the whole time.

@Jack, thank you for your reply and advice. It is very helpful to me.
Yes i guess that is what we need to do. I am usually so anxious and nervous that i don’t even manage to choose a persona, that i usually talk in a very shy and anxious way, which already tells loads about me. I will have to put work into practising taking on a more confident kind of attitude, especially in the beginning. Being quiet, making small conversation, and observing more, not trying to please and to make a good impression. But focussing more on what impression they make on me. And focussing on not helping everybody out in the beginning but taking my own space.
And i have to learn to be more aware to which contact with which people are actually good and which not. Because now i always mess that up completely. I’m often too shy to talk to people who are nice and build up a contact with them, and people who i’m afraid of (like that woman), i will talk with a lot and trying to please them, to pretend that all is well.
Oh that all sounds so nice and easy to write it down… ha ha.. Perhaps i’ll get there in the end.

May i ask you, did it take you long to learn that? Was it a long time of trying and error, or how did you go about it?
I know that might be a kind of question that is difficult to answer, but perhaps you have some advice on how you changed that.