I’m dealing with a toxic person on my team.. today she told me to do something in a demeaning, passive aggressive tone.

I ignored and pretended not to hear it and continued what I’m doing.

What’s the right way to respond? I felt she was baiting me.

10 comments

  2. Ah, toxic people can be a pain in the butt, can’t they? The way I see it, when someone is being demeaning, passive-aggressive, or just plain snarky, it’s best to rise above it. I think you did the right thing by ignoring and carrying on with your work. Engaging with her bait would only give her satisfaction. Focus on doing your job well, and don’t let her get under your skin. Keep being the boss that you are!

  3. You responded well by not getting baited.

    Send an email and memorialize the harmful interaction.

    Let them know how to deal with you. Let them know the next interaction will involve further handling and exposure to disciplinary action so it’s best they not continue introducing harmful dynamics within the workplace.

    Keep it short and simple. You need to nip in bud because it only gets worse.

    Don’t let them speak their response to your email. It’s only manipulation. Let them know they can respond to the thread. If they want to discuss work then advise your happy to accommodate a meeting. If they try to squeeze in their response to your email at the meeting excuse yourself to use the bathroom. Return with just enough time for the meeting subject and offer to reschedule.

    Make NO allowances.

  4. Your comment is fairly vague, so it’s hard to really roadmap and adequate response if I’m honest.

    I think I’d combat three items in this thread as devils advocate:

    1) Do they accurately meet the concept of being toxic? A passive aggressive tone when relying a task doesn’t meet the metric to me. That is more just someone that is difficult to work with rather than toxic.

    2) Are they baiting you? I don’t know if a passive aggressive tone when relying a request is bait.

    3) The concept of documenting this through email. So far, it seems like while they didn’t act respectfully that your response might be a little tied to feelings of persecution. So it might help to inspect their actions, rather than what you expect they meant.

    Moving forward though, I’d keep a detailed log on your personal computer. Date, time, situation and what action of theirs seemed unprofessional to you. If you notice a trend over time, then the best path typically is to confront it with documentation, and this would be when you should approach a supervisor and note what has been happening and it’s frequency.

    At that point, your supervisor should have a plan to put in place to deal with the situation. Follow it to a T, and just continue to defer situations to the supervisor by sending follow up emails with the information you’d have previously added to the log.

    In terms of how to respond in the situation itself, if her request is valid but her tone is not then following the request would be advisable. But again, note the situation and once you have an indication of frequency, approach your supervisor about the conduct. But until then, just treat your coworker as you would any other coworker.

  6. I would ask this person to repeat themselves again. “Excuse me, can you say that again please?” Keep a straight, stern face. This should give her a hint that her tone isn’t very nice.

    Or you can say “Is everything ok?” Again, keep a straight, stern face to signal that her tone is offensive. If she asks why, then you tell her that she sounds very passive aggressive.

  9. Look at her, straight in the eye and ask if she’s ok… then ask her what her intent was, and how did she hope you would react.

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