u/Tough_Department1019

Hi,

There's a colleague at work from another department, who i rarely work with, about the same age, she works here for few years longer than me, but is not senior to me or anything. We meet occasionally on coffee or lunch breaks.

Coworkers are generally nice, we get along well or we are at least normally polite. But this particular colleague seems as if she can't stand me for some reason. She usually dominates every lunchbreak conversation, which is fine by me, im not a big talker, just occasionally i add something, as do others. Now i don't mind her usually, we just coexist. But lately she started to give these very snide comments on anything i say. It's usually when we're (the whole group) just making some small talk. For example:

• We talked about parking getting more expensive in the city center, nothing personal or super life changing. She commented right away, as if she is angry: "why do you even go there by car??!" As if im the only person who goes there by car.
• Or she makes some comments about me taking a coffee cup. "Don't take that, just take that cup!" (They are not personal cups, we always share them, so it's not like i stole some one's cup, or as if it is even relevant which cup i take)
• Or we talked about an online workshop, i said i tried to do something they told us about in workshop, but yesterday I haven't yet succeded. Even before i finished my sentence, she basically shuts me down "yeah, thats really easy to do, its nothing new." - I know for a fact, that for majority of us it is a new thing.

Usually i don't even respond, because i dont care much, or im just surprised at the attitude. And I also prefer to have calm nice conversation, not to keep my guard up to be ready at jabs like that at all times. That would be exhausting. But now its becoming more frequent and it's starting to get on my nerves, it's unpleasant and its becoming stressful for me to join others at lunch break. I mean, i don't want to spend every lunch break hiding in my office just because of some bully like that, we're not in high school..

I noticed that she also only does it infront of certain people. If we're alone, she acts normal, and if there are people present who tend to be very straightforward, then she stays polite.

How to respond to her to make it stop?

i'd like to keep things calm and polite, but still resolve it, otherwise im afraid that she will catch me once on a bad day and i'll just snap, and tell her to go f* herself.

Edit: added something for clarity.