u/deanzino

I’m looking for some workplace advice because I’m starting to feel stuck in an ongoing situation with a coworker.

We work remotely most of the week and only meet in-office once weekly. Over time, multiple stakeholders and colleagues (not just me) have noticed that this coworker is often difficult to reach through Teams/email outside of that one in-office day, which makes collaboration and getting things done really challenging.

I’ve also found myself repeatedly fixing or cleaning up issues tied to work that was supposedly already reviewed or completed. Even when concerns or potential errors are brought up early, they often seem to get brushed aside rather than acknowledged, and the same patterns continue happening.

What makes this difficult is that I’m not naturally confrontational, and this coworker has more seniority than I do. Sometimes it feels like feedback doesn’t really land, even when it’s communicated politely and constructively.

Part of why I’ve hesitated to escalate things more directly is because I worry it could backfire and make communication/engagement even worse. This coworker has made comments implying they feel somewhat untouchable because they have the most historical knowledge on the team, so I sometimes feel stuck between wanting to be professional/supportive and not wanting to keep absorbing the impact of recurring issues.

I’ve already spoken to my manager a couple of times about workflow/process concerns, and he even implemented a task tracking system afterward, but it hasn’t really been consistently enforced or utilized yet.

At this point, I’m struggling with:

• how much responsibility I should continue taking on for fixing recurring issues,
• whether I should escalate things further,
• and how to address this professionally without creating unnecessary tension or broader consequences for the team.

Has anyone dealt with something similar? How did you handle it without coming across as confrontational or difficult?