Dealing with a difficult person at work

[kxpxsc3]

Hi All, I don't really know how to approach an issue I'm facing at work.  Sorry if this is long but I would appreciate any advice you may have.

A bit of background on myself - I work in finance for a big corporation. My role consists of supporting a few higher ups - what they call 'business partnering.' 

Each of these higher ups I work with has an operations manager that I mainly interact (or 'business partner') with.  Keep in mind that these operations managers are at a higher salary than me and most have been in their roles for many years.  Most of them are lovely to work with, with the exception of 1 person.  From the very beginning, something was off about this woman.  They were virtually uninvolved in the work we need to collaborate on, and then in meetings with the respective higher up we support, they would ask questions that sort of threw me under the bus - not much of a partnership at all.

I was really confused because this woman seemed lovely in other team meetings/settings.  As time went on and there were difficult business issues at hand that we should be collaborating and working on together. I found her tone of voice in meetings with me to be accusatory of the issues we were facing (that were NOT in my control).  She would make backhanded comments about other people.  For example, there was a new manager reporting to one of the Directors who was just onboarding and trying to learn.  She made a comment like "Director X is probably getting tired of new hire so & so, I know I would.." because he was still slow at the tasks he needed to complete - which to me was understandable, he was brand new for crying out loud!

Then other times when she needed something from me and I delivered on the ask, quickly, she would call me an angel and be super sweet.

Then again the accusatory tone on the next meeting, almost a "loosing patience with someone" tone for what I feel is no reason at all.  Most of the other operations managers I work with have given me good feedback and I truly feel we collaborate and try to solve issues together.

I spoke to another person who works with her and this person has told me they have experienced this behavior before but never spoke up.  I've flagged it to my manager (who is in a different part of the world) who tried to be helpful but she said she cannot reshuffle the responsibilities because I'm in the same time zone so it wouldn't make sense for anyone else in the team to take this responsibility.  

I'm not really sure what are my next steps here, but I feel anxiety every time I need to work with this person - not sure what MOOD they are going to be in.  I feel anxiety meeting with the Director we support, scared she will try to throw me under the bus.  I'm not sure if I should talk to her about it or if that will throw more fuel into the fire. 

I try really hard at work and I take my job seriously.  I am a sensitive person and I do take this personally even though I know I should not.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

[MsJayne]

You can be fairly sure this woman has limited or no self-awareness if she has such an unpleasant manner.  You say you're being thrown under the bus,  and if you mean that you're being made to take the blame for something that isn't your fault, you need to address that. The work force has plenty of incompetents who treat other people like fools to cover up their own inadequate performance.  Of course, it also could be that she treats you like this because she feels threatened by you and she wants to make you look bad. You did the right thing by telling your manager, and I guess the next step is to confront the offending woman. Bullies usually don't expect confrontation, especially if you do it in front of other staff at one of the meetings, (politely of course, in a way that can't be construed as any sort of attack),  when she's in the middle of insulting someone or blame-shifting. She's using your subordinate position to keep you quiet. Don't go along with it.