Problem with coworker

[peaceful-forest]

I work in a warehouse. The department I work in, our desks are close to each other. There's a particular woman that I have to work with sometimes. Let's call her "Nicole".

Nicole is not a pleasant person to work with. She talks way too much. She often brings up inappropriate discussions that I thought everyone knew not to talk about at work, like sex related things. One of the sex things she was talking about, it was so disgusting I actually had to walk away from my desk so I couldn't hear her. She knew this particular topic upset me, and proceeded to talk about it anyway with others while I was there. She talks very bad about others. It's a variety of things - someone is lying about doing work; she has an offensive nickname for a coworker she doesn't like; she likes to put down one of her son's ex-girlfriends that he hasn't been with in years.

A particular incident involving me and this coworker happened earlier this week. It hurt my feelings and it's the last straw. Let me tell you what was happening when she said something hurtful to me. I was having trouble with something in our computer system. The woman who is responsible for reaching out to the IT department requested help for me. Let's call her "Sarah". It was taking the IT department a long time to respond to the problem. I simply had thought Sarah filled out the request form wrong (corporate had changed our IT ticket system and it's more difficult to fill out now and sometimes it gets redirected to IT help at another facility instead of our own). Like I said, I thought she had filled the request form out wrong. It turns out Sarah did it right and she was not the problem. I admitted this.

Nicole then says, "it's because you think you're smarter than everyone that works here". I was very shocked when she said this. This was coming from a person that has also accused Sarah of being a liar and not doing her job right in the past. I've helped Nicole numerous times with her work, ranging from very easy to difficult.

I don't want to work with Nicole anymore. I don't want to speak with her anymore. I don't want to be near her anymore. I don't think I should have to help her with her job. She has been there much longer than me and should know how to do it by now. Why is she frequently asking the "thinks she's smarter than everyone else" person for help?

I've wanted to report her to HR, but here's what's stopping me - retaliation. I know HR will take the complaint seriously, but I work with people that also gossip and may retaliate against me. I've seen it happen to others in the past - when there's a legitimate issue reported to HR, then the complaint gets gossiped back to other workers and they retaliate.

What should I do about this incident?

I'm hoping she will be fired soon over another issue (she also has poor attendance and is very close to pointing out). I don't know if I should go ahead and report to HR or do something else. I want peace at work - I don't have it because of Nicole. I want to focus on my work, not a trouble-maker.

Thanks.

 

[Zceptre]

Been in a lot of these spots, or similar enough at least. Seems like stirring the pot more will only turn bad into worse.

"Check the power plug" advice first... pray about it, obviously. Just covering that base. Beyond that I've learned that quiet people and people that don't fight back usually put the mouthy people to shame. I've personally been the quiet person who just toughed out the abuse and have witnessed other quiet people who others actually spoke well about when loud mouths finally walked away. I've also been the guy to speak my mind about some foolishness, and my words got twisted and everything went straight off a cliff from there.

As much as i despise my own advice here (you have no idea), I would probably try to just ride out the storm and hold on to God for my anchor in the meantime. I've been in situations where I thought it couldn't get worse, and then the moment I reacted... it got worse. I would wager that there are other people who have a disdain for this person's behavior, but people that don't gossip aren't broadcasting that for everyone to know.

Patience and diligence sometimes work wonders, and people definitely are watching even when we think they aren't noticing things.

I went to a job one day, was for road construction. They paired me up with a younger guy who was very tall and had a lot to say about everything. They told us to walk the site and pick up roots. He complained and nagged and walked and didn't pick a thing up. It looked for some time like he had it great with friends laughing at jokes when on breaks and getting paid to just walk around. Then one day a gigantic off road dump truck rolls up on us and the guy steps out and yells for me to get in.

Less than an hour later I was driving a rig and right past the man who had lots to say and didn't touch any roots. He didn't look happy. He quit (or was let go?) shortly thereafter.

I've been through other scenarios, but they always play out best when I kept my nose clean and did my job. No one was telling me 'great job' while I was picking up roots and no one was telling the other guy to start doing something. That same job people made fun of me, mocked me, talked bad about me. Just kept my piece of mind to myself, and did a good job even if people made giggles about it. Always worked out better that way even though it wasn't easy all the time. I learned people respected me more even if they didn't say it.

Just my experience in somewhat the same.