I am not at the stage where I'm escalating to HR. I have had serious conversations with my boss about this situation and I trust her process in attempting to resolve this without going that direction. It's an option for later, but it's something of a nuclear option in an office of 4 people (within a much larger state bureaucracy). Current course seems to be to have us not work together much - which doesn't address her issue of not wanting to be left out, but does reduce the number of occasions where she's going to be unprofessional to me directly. Boss has been speaking with her boss and trusted mentor (who is a genuine superstar with serious interpersonal political skills), so that makes me feel much better about how this is being handled.
Boss indicates this is happening because 1) co-worker is somewhat default rude and 2) there's a general concept this co-worker can't let go of regarding the co-worker being "above me" and the rights/benefits of that status. Boss is working on seeing if she can demolish that second concept, even though it was clearly stated in job descriptions, initial hiring talks, and practice for 6+ months now.
Co-worker has been shockingly rude to Boss as well, which is its own thing separate from me. I think Co-worker really wants to be in the boss role and that's not going to happen, which makes this particularly weird.
This post has been edited by amphibian: 20 January 2023 - 07:12 PM
I survived the Permian and all I got was this t-shirt.