A Case of the Mondays

Taxes (and problems getting into the right websites to do them), and all this bizarre rain is making me punchy.

Maggie writes:

"Now that you're WOH maybe you'll have some perspective on what I should do. My new coworker has decided that I'm her confidant, and she's telling me some details of her life that I really just don't want to know. Also, she's been pretty deliberate in hiding this stuff from management, and I have no idea why, but it makes me feel really uncomfortable, like there's way more stuff she's hiding.

I don't want to be involved in any of this, but I also feel some duty to tell my boss that she may be a chronic liar. Help."

a) This sucks. B) I'm late for work, so I'm just going to open it up to the readers. When I get home tonight I'll put what I think, which is probably what everyone else will say.

Also, I'm totally curious about these details of her life. Bad me.

Must go put on my flair and leave for work. Ciao.

Update: Here I am again. I totally agree that the only real thing to do is try not to talk about anything with this woman. Just try to be pleasant, but as busy as you can be. If her lies seem to be directly related to work (like she embezzled money or accepted large gifts from clients, etc.) then you should give your boss a heads-up. But if it's just general character issues, she'll shoot herself in the foot eventually. You should stay as far away from all this as you can. Triangulation is very bad, and if you triangulate yourself into the situation by going to your boss you will not come out unscathed.

Comments

[SarcastiCarrie]

Tough one. I would probably just avoid her and act busy whenever she came around to talk. Very passive-aggressive of me. If she keeps going on, I would joke about "TMI" and if she says she wants to go to lunch so you can catch up, I'd decline.

If you have a fiduciary responsibility like she's embezzling or something, you may have to tell management. Otherwise I would ignore it until it stops.

[Cat, Galloping]

you have to be really cool and not friendly beyond what is professionally required. never ever talk about anything not work-related, or you will wind up with her telling you about her severe diahrrea. not that that's ever happened to me. ahem.

[Shandra]

I guess it depends on your office culture and where she is in the pecking order. But perhaps it's overly Upper Canadian of me to think that it would be fine to say "I'm sorry - I'm not comfortable with all these personal details" and then change the subject?

[pnuts mama]

this happened to me a few years ago with another student- we went from being casual friends to him spilling his guts to me daily about a million things that i did not feel even remotely comfortable with (fertility issues, his wife's mental health problems, etc etc) and i didn't know what to do either. it was so awkward b/c i certainly did not feel comfortable with knowing intimate details of his life since i am not his counselor and definitely felt as though he was betraying his wife's confidence and privacy to me, and we weren't sharing equal confidences (me: i had a latte this morning! him: my wife tried to commit suicide last year!) ack.

thinking about it now, i definitely did take the passive-aggressive approach by just cutting back on any interaction with him as much as i could, as well as curbing my responses to most of what he said to me, or only talking to him if we were in a larger group. in a way i felt bad b/c i know he needed someone to talk to, but i was too much of a wuss to say to his face that we weren't that kind of friends, and never would be, and he should find a counselor or therapist to work these issues out with instead.

[isabel]

I would say something like: I've got to get this off my chest: I'm getting very uncomfortable with knowing X when management thinks Y. From now on I'd prefer it if you kept stuff like X to yourself. In fact if we could just stick to work related topics for a while that would work out great for me.

Anytime after that you can just say "Work related topics!" with a big smile when the conversation turns to things you find uncomfortable.

Or go straight to management: she'll never tell you anything again, that's for sure. Not sure how that would play out in the long run though. Depends on how many bridges she's already burned. Come to think of it, you might want to ask around about that. You might be her latest 'friend' in a long line of same.

[Sarah]

"Flair", hee!

I'm interested to see other reader's comments because my husband deals with this sort of thing all the time at work, from some of his male co-workers. There are one or two of them who apparently have no concept of what "TMI" would mean.

[Charisse]

Pretty much what other folks have said, but just to note a particularly effective method of passive aggression for this (as long as you work at a computer).

When she comes by, just be busy--read your email or whatever and sort of throw her half your attention the way you do to your preschooler when you're trying to work at home. You know, "...uh-huh..........uh-huh....oh sorry, didn't catch that...uh-huh......what, sorry, got a bunch going on here...oh yeah?....uh-huh........hm? oh, sorry...."

Basically never look at her for more than a second, have your eyes keep getting inexorably drawn back toward the screen. She will find this really boring. If she invites you to lunch, you are just swamped right now. (You don't have to tell the truth about this--she is supposed to gracefully accept a plausible excuse. Not that she will, but it it sometimes helps me stand firm if I know that Miss Manners says I'm in the right.)

About the lying...I'd leave it alone unless it's somehow related to the field of work or to business. (I'm remembering a situation when one of my cohorts on a non-profit board shared all about her extreme BDSM lifestyle but didn't want the organization to know. Total TMI, but not the org's business either; if she'd talked about her falsified credentials or weird finiancial dealings I would have felt very different.)

[Mary]

That stinks! Is she a new employee? If you have a close & friendly relationship with your boss (or HR), maybe you would consider telling them (especially if it would come to light on its own anyway) Would her secrets interfere with your job or someone else on your team, or if and when the secrets come to light, could she say something like, "Well, I had already told XX and she didn't make a big deal out of it, so I didn't think it was an issue." Make sure you protect yourself.

I had a coworker that was hired to cover my maternity leave. But she was pregnant, hiding it, and due in the middle of the leave she was covering. Duh. I found out and confided in my boss because it was a situation that potentially was screwing over my team, make my leave more difficult, and in the end would eventually be discovered anyway. My boss handled it in a very professional way without involving me whatsoever.

If the coworker is simply just an annoyance, I like the passive subtle approach others have mentioned. Do you have another close buddy who sits nearby? My friend JJ had a similar problem with a coworker who would go into his office and blab for almost an hour at a time. Finally I started calling his office about 2 minutes into it. He would then have a "very important call" he'd have to take. For my part, I wouldn't even say hello so I didn't run the risk of being overheard. Sophmoric, yes, but if it helps you solve your problem without hurting feelings, what the heck?

[Niki]

I am almost always stridently against passive-aggressive behavior. In this case, though, I thoroughly support it. But I would love to see it called something else, probably just so I wouldn't feel like a hypocrite....

Here's my take: Unless you actively sought out her friendship, sharing things about your own life, etc., you don't have any responsibility to her. Including responsibility to actively explain your boundaries and what you expect from her. If you did invite confidences and share your own, but did so expecting WAAAYY less drama, then I think you do have some responsibility to redraw the boundaries. If, however, she's just decided that you are compatriots because of your positions, and she's drawing you into her personal life... meh. Sure, the most effective way to stop that is to tell her straight up you're not interested. But since relationships between coworkers are, by necessity, generally not based on anything substantial, using real-life standards in a work setting can cause problems.

In finding passive ways of deflecting the discussion, maybe you could try to find ways that aren't hurtful. Not being available for lunch, and generally cutting back your contact with her both seem decent; these are ways of demonstrating your boundaries, even if you aren't communicating them. If she asks if something's wrong, maybe then you could say you'd begun to feel uncomfortable.
Again, this is more effective (and less hurtful) if you haven't made active efforts to engage her. If you did, and she went overboard, I'd suggest finding gentle correctives.

In any case, I'm sorry you're in this position. The workplace is one of the few places women naturally come together (the nuclear family being so, well, nuclear), yet the nature of relationships there is so forced that it leads to these uncomfortable situations. After my last job, I promised myself I'd stay away from 'office politics' (i.e., sharing anything about my personal experiences of the office environment), but I don't know if I could truly carry that out any way besides being cold and distant to everyone.

Best of luck to you.

[Jan]

I suppose it's too late for 'no habla ingles', huh? :)

Awkward, awkward, awkward.

I can imagine maybe saying something along the lines of, "you know, if you want to keep XXXX private, you'd probably be better off not talking about it at work."

If you think it's stuff that might affect the work situation, or that she's hinting around at that kind of thing, maybe you could go the direct route and just say, "I'm starting to be really uncomfortable knowing this stuff."

Maybe you could make a big deal about how terrible you are at keeping secrets? Heh.

I'm a lot of help, aren't I? Good luck, it's a sticky situation.

[Carmen]

I'd be inclined to tell her, something along the lines of 'Look, I don't want this to create problems between us, but I really don't feel comfortable knowing all these things. Particularly if it it's stuff management would want to know about.'

If the things she tells you can in any way impact your relationship with your boss, she's got to understand that you're not willing to let her issues cause problems for you. If she doesn't get that, then you probably don't want anything to do with her anyway.

If it doesn't work, I would take it up with management, but I'd give her the first go at sorting things out.

Having said all that, here's the disclaimer: I continually get myself into trouble for just saying things out loud, when maybe more diplomatic ways of solving problems could be found. :^)

Good luck, anyway!

[Megan]

Wait a minute, wait a minute...do you work in my office?? Are you sitting in my cubicle right now? I think we have the same co-worker. I laughed out loud when I read your entry because I am in the exact same situation. In the short time this person has worked here (I've been here quite awhile), I've found out that she's been married twice (she's in her early 20's), she's tried both genders, she converted to Judaism, etc., etc.

My tactic now (besides never confiding anything to her, as I suspect she's as indiscreet with other people's information as she is with her own) is to do what Charisse suggested...I half-listen as I very busily work away. Eventually the conversation peters out. Good luck...this is a tricky one!

[Julie]

I agree with the above. Remember....conversations go two ways. If you decline to hold up your end of the conversation, it is forced to end. You will be considered a terrible conversationalist....but who cares?

Also, cover your ass if the information she is sharing in ANY way compromises your work or your credibility at work. If it does, let your boss know immediately. If she is your boss, let HER boss know immediately. If you doubt their ability to be confidential, then talk to someone in management you trust. Don't worry about going over heads. Protect yourself.

[julie]

also.....long uncomfortable silences go a long way to alienating someone. Use them to your advantage. They go best with blank looks.

:)

[Hillary]

I say be upfront and stop the conversations now. Carmen above said it nicely.

If she doesn't stop, warn her that you asked her to stop and you will not lie if management asks questions. Or go to HR, that's their job.