I can't tell if my co-worker is an idiot, or passive aggressive

We have had a tenuous relationship from the start. She's an investigator, I'm an attorney and everytime I tell her my legal approach for a case we are working on, she always questions me on it. She gets QUITE aggressive during these conversations, barks at me and doesn't let up, to the point where my team leader has to interrupt her and ask her to calm down.

Then, she started "forgetting" to share certain information with me, until the very end, which makes it look bad for ALL of us because then we have to backtrack, and it ends up delaying the case.

Now I just found out she scheduled interviews that I'm supposed to conduct with her for Tuesday and Wednesday. I planned on taking Tuesday off. She JUST told me TODAY the interview is scheduled for Tuesday, even though it was scheduled days ago.

Any advice on how to handle this? She is making my job very difficult and disorganized and I can't take it much longer!

Re: I can't tell if my co-worker is an idiot, or passive aggressive

The communication lines on her end are not open -- I would go to her superior and state that you're left in the dark about key things, and feel there may be other issues behind it.

Re: I can't tell if my co-worker is an idiot, or passive aggressive

for this particular situation, if it won't delay the case too much, i would tell her that you are not going to be in the office on tuesday, and she needs to reschedule that day's interviews - and in the future, you need more notice than two days (counting today and monday).

if they cannot be rescheduled, then i would bring it up immediately with your team leader and explain why her behavior in this situation was not appropriate, and you would like to brainstorm some ideas on how you can all keep track of each other's schedules in the future.

i would avoid bringing up passt behavior - it seems like your team leader knows what's going on already.

if her behavior does not improve, however, this needs to be addressed with the higher-ups. it's not fair to you OR to your clients to have her spitefulness screw up their cases.

Re: I can't tell if my co-worker is an idiot, or passive aggressive

Well she just emailed me and said she forgot to forward to me the other attorney's confirmation of the dates and times for the interviews.

So I emailed her back this:

"You need to CC me on all communication with the attorney like this - not just his confirmation, but your originating email suggesting the exact dates and times, so that this doesn't come up at the last minute out of the blue for me, and so I can accomodate my schedule accordingly. The last I heard we were throwing July 21, 22 and 23 around on Monday, but because I never heard anything about it since, I assumed those dates didn't work and we would be scheduling for another time. I may just have to teleconference into the interview on Tuesday."

I CC'd our team leader because she needs to know why I may not be attending the interview.

Harsh, I know, but I'm sick of this!

Re: I can't tell if my co-worker is an idiot, or passive aggressive

email her and copy a supervisor explaining in a very nice manner, but firm that you just learned of an interview on Tuesday that unfortunately needs to be rescheduled because you will not be in the office.

and, I find what is effective, is dripping it in helpfulness.
Something like, please let me know (or I would be happy to help) what I can do to help rearrange this interview to a day that is conducive to both of our schedules and what I can do in the future to ensure that we are both available on interview days (or something like that)

HTH, and I think she is a passive aggressive idiot

Re: I can't tell if my co-worker is an idiot, or passive aggressive

Re: I can't tell if my co-worker is an idiot, or passive aggressive

Re: I can't tell if my co-worker is an idiot, or passive aggressive

Re: I can't tell if my co-worker is an idiot, or passive aggressive

Document, Document, document. People like this always think that they are screwing you over but the reality of it this person is hsowing blatently examples of an inability to handle simple job responsibilities, lack of communication and a serious lack of professionalism and common curtesouy. People in today's age seem to think that having a job is their right and that no work needs to be done. This is most exemplified in the lack of customer service is 90% of customer service related jobs.
I never mind when people don't do thier job and make themselves look like an arse, however, once that person doesn't do thier job and it directly effects me or reflects negativly on me than that is where the line needs to br drawn. There is NO reason why people need to endlessly suffer because of others peoples insercurities or inabilities.

In short, get the ****** and show her the you don't need to stoop to her level to burn her that she does the burnig just fine on her own.

Re: I can't tell if my co-worker is an idiot, or passive aggressive

I think you're email sounds good. I've found that it helps to be very direct and also very professional with people like this (not stooping to their level, not that you did or would) ...sometimes when they will realize they can't step all over you it will stop

I agree with DebG..your co-worker is doing a fine job of making herself look like an incompetent moron!

Re: I can't tell if my co-worker is an idiot, or passive aggressive

Perfect, you just killed 2 birds with one stone, hopefully they both get the message.

But hey, the quote of the week up on the board here in my office.....

"people are idiots"

maybe you guys should put it on yours too.