To give a little bit of context I(30F) have a medical condition where I unfortunately have to miss work sometimes. I’ve spoken to my boss about this and provided doctor’s orders and he’s been kind enough to work with me and understand that I may have to miss work every once in a blue moon if it gets real bad. This isn’t a frequent occurrence nor do I miss long periods of work. At most it’ll just be like… A day or two every 1-2 months. He has given me the opportunity to work from home if I ever get too sick to come in. I always complete my share of work and even help my co worker if I finish my tasks first. So to emphasize, my absence doesn’t affect my coworker’s share of work ever.
Now the issue is, when I come back to work this lady starts playing 21 questions and doesn’t know how to drop it. Every other person in the office is normal and at most they’ll say they’re glad I’m feeling better and go on about their day. This lady is older than all other my coworkers and she’s foreign so maybe in her culture it’s normal to overshare but God I don’t feel comfortable disclosing my medical condition to her!!! And the way she always digs for more information when I’m clearly uncomfortable answering her questions just drives me nuts.
Example of an in-person convo for reference:
Her: How are you feeling?
Me: Will say better or not so good depending on how I’m feeling
Her: What’s wrong?
Me: I feeling was sick unfortunately.
Her: Yeah but what is it?
Me: My condition flared up.
Her: Yeah but what are your symptoms?
Me: I just wasn’t feeling well/I don’t really like talking about my condition as you know, sorry.
Her: Are you like throwing up or is it your head?
Me:…. I was just sick but I’m here now. And I feel better. So asks work related question
Her: Are you taking your medicine? Is it not working?
Me: I’m still taking it.
Her: You should get a new doctor.
Me: I don’t feel comfortable talking about this anymore but I’m still working very closely with my doctor 🙂 .
Her: I just think you should get a new doctor whatever they’re doing isn’t working and you’re still getting sick.
Me: internally fuming but trying to politely change the topic back to work
Idk you guys, I work with this lady in close proximity so I don’t wanna be rude to her or offend her cuz I don’t wanna make my life a living hell by having her hate me since I have to sit next to her every day but she does this everytime I get sick and I’m running out of polite ways to tell her to please stop asking me about my condition.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post – my boss and I have a clear understanding about my condition and how it affects me and he’s been more than accommodating towards me so I’m like why the heck is my coworker making me feel like I owe her some type of explanation whenever I get sick, when my condition has no affect on her workload and is frankly none of her business.
I’m literally writing this post right now because I got sick today and now I’m anxious about seeing HER and I want to put an end to her questions without coming off as rude or mean to her.
Any advice would be much appreciated. Please and thank you!!!
TLDR; I have a medical condition that my boss has been kind enough to accommodate. My coworker however always asks me endless questions about it as if she’s trying to guess what my condition is??? I’m clearly uncomfortable about disclosing it and have repeatedly expressed this to her politely. Missing work now makes me anxious despite my boss being understanding and I now spend the majority of my sick days worrying about my interactions with my coworker instead. How do I get her to stop asking me questions about it? I’ve already asked her to stop and she hasn’t.
Edit: Punctuation because I tend to write run on sentences when I’m upset…