So I badly need some advice about what's going on in my team that I joined 2 months back. This is going to be a long post, I apologize in advance. I am clueless right now about what to do tomorrow about this and I could really use others' pov.
I am happy here mostly but also I've been constantly facing conflicts with one coworker since first week and it is only getting worse with time. I tried communicating politely and even gave a heads-up to my manager so that he is aware of the situation. In my last 2 1:1s, I have gotten great feedback from him and when I talked to him about my concern regarding the coworker(needing advice), he only said “I think you have the potential to achieve great things in the company in long term based on the value you provide and 6 months in the future, I can see you mentoring new people we'll hire(I'm mid-level but SDE1 in terms of title). And this is just a phase which I'm sure you'll get through.” This is the only thing he said but no advice. And I also took it positively at the time. I thought maybe it will be fine if I just mind my own business and do my work. Bc he seems like a good person who actually wants me to succeed but that's my perspective. i don't really know.
So in brief I'll mention the series of events and please let me know if I'm just overthinking or does it actually give a very weird vibe. It's starting to make me anxious on a daily basis now. But I also don't want to be the negative team member in a team who always has a problem. Because I actually love everything else I have here and I have already invested a lot of extra time and effort to gain good knowledge of the product and code base.
1st week: *manager asks me to connect with everyone and get any info everyone can provide so I reached out to everyone and constantly made efforts to learn about important stuff*
2nd week: *I asked a question to my coworker bc he had been working here longer than me and I thought he will be able to answer* To my surprise, despite being someone other team members are dependent on, he SUCKS at explaining. It was just one meeting that I was advised by my manager to take as KT to discuss code base and architecture but instead, he set up a daily meeting (in the calender it was 30 mins daily) but in reality, he took 2 hours on the first day. I again thought that maybe it's just a one-time thing but the same thing happened every day. 2 extra hours in meetings with him AFTER I'd already done my 10-7 every day and none of the 2 hour discussion with him is helpful. He never answers a question and starts talking about random stuff nobody asked.
if I ask a question about X, he starts talking about Y and then starts mansplaining me (I'm a female, idk if that matters here) the most basic things that if I didn't know I won't even be here but he explains them anyway. It doesn't matter to him whether the hours he takes in talking endlessly is even useful to me, like a dysfunctional machine, all I hear is noise.
Next few weeks: After I reached out to my manager about my worsening work-life balance. I had a conversation with that coworker bc I hoped he will understand. I told him I'm comfortable with connecting if we had a specific topic to discuss otherwise not. And we already have team meetings during the week. I didn't see a point in those meetings. But he made a habit of texting me every day to ask to join the meeting. Despite my convo with him, to which he replied ok earlier. He again asks me to specifically “update” him every day. I should mention that he is not a senior, not tech lead or anything. just a team member as I am.
another month passed: I have tried to deal with it by rejecting the meeting on most days for my own sanity. But today he again said something very weird which I didn't understand. He said – “Please update me if you are not going to join.” (we had already established we'll connect when topic of meeting is discussed in advance and also it is after my work hours and ends very late, overlapping with my dinner time and bed time. making it hard for me to wake up on time the next day) and he added “because we need your periodical report and it's important for you to join” I was like WHAT???
I have had almost 4 personal 1:1 meetings with my manager so far and not even once has he mentioned anything like this. Not even when I told him about this exact issue. Am I missing something here? Is this some sort of secret test by them? Or that coworker is just making shit up?
I asked him directly today to explain what he means by that. Hours have passed and I haven't gotten a response even tho he's online.
Should I take this seriously and ask my manager to interfere here? or Should I just ignore him and keep doing my work? I don't want to look like I'm struggling to deal with difficult situations spcly in the beginning. Even tho I think I'm on the edge of a breakdown rn. Note that I don't have any dependency on that stupid coworker, neither is he any helpful anyway. I just need a solution how I could avoid any interaction with him. I don't want to deal with him at all.
Thanks so much who read it till here. Please share what you think, my head is filled with so many thoughts and anxiety. I want a plan for what to do about this tomorrow.