I’m not sure if this is the right sub for this, but I’m getting increasingly frustrated and don’t know the best approach for my situation.
I started a new job this past year in a different but adjacent field to what I had been in for a decade. My supervisor likes me and tells me I’m doing a good job. I get along with the other person on my team but I’m having issues with the person training me. She is not my superior and we have the same job duties and title, she is just ‘training’ me as she has been doing this job for ~6 years. Keep in mind, it’s an entry level position and just for some background, she’s made comments that make it sound as if she’s bitter about not being chosen to move up yet.
She’s very condescending and rude towards me, refuses to answer questions when I have them but comes down on me for not asking enough questions and tosses out endless passive aggressive comments if I ask another team member or my supervisor if I have a question even though she advised me to ask anyone and everyone questions and utilize them. When I do, she becomes snarky and passive aggressive. She also comes into the office extremely ill when she knows our older coworker is trying to be safe and avoid illness – WFH anytime for any reason is an option and we all have home offices paid for by the company.
I’ve tried the kill ‘em with kindness approach and unbothered approach but I’m frankly getting irritated. I feel like she wants me to do just good enough to help keep her workload down but she withholds training and information so that I am not working up to my potential, which not to be rude, is beyond hers. My prior work has been very difficult and highly technical. This current role is probably about 40% of the work and difficulty of my last job – I took the position for the higher pay. I really truly feel she doesn’t want me to succeed or possibly outshine her. I’ve already been pegged to take on additional duties beyond what she has ever done once I’m fully trained and comfortable in my role and I get the sense that she doesn’t like that.
It’s not even as if we could try to smooth things over and be ‘friends’ as she is highly judgmental of everything I share about my life and her interests include binge shopping, drinking, chasing sugar daddies at age 50, crystals, palm readings, fortune tellers and other hippie woo I don’t believe in. I tend to be a more level-headed rational person who believes in science and budgeting. Sometimes I forget she’s nearly 20 years older than me. She even made a joke about me being poor for not buying my phone outright and in the same breath stressed about the end of year bonus not being enough to cover a vacation she already put on credit. She even suggested I max my cards to take trips when I told her I was saving for a vacation later in the year. After the first week I decided to be very choosy about any personal information I share.
Clearly, calling her out absolutely is not an option, but stuffing it down with a smile is driving me insane.
Does anyone have any tips or advice on how to deal with this and get through it until I’m more independent and my work won’t be as influenced by her withholding answers/training? I enjoy the job itself and everyone else I work with, it’s just her and I can’t avoid her right now.