Dealing with a jealous coworker
Have you ever faced a difficult colleague who seems to treat you negatively for no apparent reason? It’s frustrating, right? Sometimes, the cause isn’t clear — they could be dealing with personal issues ranging from mild to complex. Lead with empathy and give the benefit of the doubt.
The complexities of pressure employees have between juggling family and career, return-to-office mandates, political uncertainty, loneliness of being remote, what have you – it’s a lot and it’s converging in new ways. Some folks just need to take a break so they don’t risk an emotional explosion that they can’t control. Some industries create pressurized vacuums where employees are burning out at high rates.
Sometimes, they might just be straight up envious. Some people are difficult to work with. Even if in their heart of hearts they don’t intend to be that way, their actions show it and that’s all that matters.
A jealous coworker tried to ruin my career and here’s how I dealt with it:
Years ago I worked with a woman who I was senior to. She’d make comments in the office in front of everyone about how her department was under funded compared to mine, even though at this higher role, I was managing many more teams.
At peak drama, she contacted me remotely to ask me to reprimand someone on my team for listening to music in the office with headphones – even when she played her coffee shop music over the speaker. When I asked her to resolve this directly by tapping on the employee’s shoulder and asking them to turn it down 2 notches, she sent 3 paragraphs about “doing the right thing”. Escalating past her manager, who was… get this… also next to them in the office, she instead created a conflict over messenger out of something that should not be an issue at all. When I rerouted her back to the manager, she refused to talk to them about it and then escalated to the CEO. About music in headphones. He was also sitting behind them. Couldn’t hear it.
When she resigned, she spent 4 single spaced pages of her exit interview accusing me of scaring my team, there were full sentences in all capital letters, quotations marks, and made up stories. It was so wild.
Should I have been dismayed by this? As a cancer, an IFTJ, a manager of a 75 person department, 5 years at the company… I was just confused. I felt like I was supposed to be angry, but instead I just pitied her.
In the end, I got a raise, so her plan backfired a bit.
Signs that your coworker might be jealous
Here are some telltale signs that a coworker may be jealous of you and what you can look out for in your day-to-day interactions.
They might take credit for your work or publicly or privately downplay your achievements.
They might avoid you in meetings or social interactions; if they interact, their comments and tone are full of sarcasm or mistreatment.
Their compliments are lovely but have a negative undertone you can sense.
They hide helpful information for your work to undermine your efforts.
They gossip and try to destroy your reputation.
Tips to deal with a jealous coworker
This is my own personal approach which works for me and may or may not for you: Hold your emotional ground by looking down on them without stooping to their level. Keep this inside your mind though - don’t speak with condescension, sarcasm, or passive aggressiveness.
Keep your interactions factual, clear, short, work-focused, and avoid emotional responses. You don’t need to overexplain your boundaries, and you don’t need to answer inappropriate questions.
Understand that jealousy often stems from insecurity and try to maintain healthy boundaries to protect your emotional well-being. Sign out of work when you’re done and don’t go above and beyond to please this person.
Talk to someone you trust or a professional so you can process what is happening and have a sounding board for how to move forward.
Use public messaging channels.
Notify your manager and clearly communicate what is going on.
Keep an incident log – not on your work computer or accounts – with dates, description of the event, and screenshots.
What do you learn from situations like these?
To avoid them. It’s really hard to tell how it’s going to affect you personally. If your manager is unreasonable like mine was, you might find yourself in a really tricky situation. Protect yourself as much as you can – use public chats, notify your manager of the behavior, and keep a private incident log.
If you’re a manager, it’s your responsibility to create a harmonious work environment. But if you are in a tense situation or become the target of someone outside your team, or a peer, it can be really hard to deal with, and I’m so sorry for that. I know how you feel.
Jealousy tenses the work environment, jeopardizes plans to achieve specific goals, pits teams against each other, and sometimes, it can come from one source or multiple ones.
How you handle this situation truly sets you apart as a professional. Your ability to deal with tricky dynamics with composure will define you as a leader and distinguish you as emotionally grounded. I know this is frustrating and confusing, and I hope you’re able to manage with it. Good luck.
