Am I being too sensitive?

I admire the way you think Freeduck.

You go girl :-D

I'm just going to vent here for a minute, feel free to ignore.

She's gone this week and the relief is palpable. I'm trying to pinpoint what it is that bothers me so much about her, and appears to bother her about me. I've been thinking, is she the same way to P, the other member of the team? And I never noticed before but she is, just not as often as she is with me. That could be because I'm more vocal than P -- can't shoot down someone who isn't talking.

I'll try to convey a recent example. Last week we were in a meeting with the project manager, who I am immensely fond of because he is just really good at his job and shields us from higher ups and their politics. Anyway, I was making a case for something to do with when and what we release (we're talking software). I tend to be VERY conservative about these things because we've been burned many times by being overly optimistic and/or trying to compartmentalize functionality where we can't. So, as often happens, she says "I'm going to have to disagree, I'm sorry" and does this little hand gesture. For some reason, the "I'm sorry" (and the accompanying hand gesture) ticked me off. It's hard to convey the tone here so bear with me. I came really close to blurting something that would have been counter-productive. Luckily, PM interjected something about healthy disagreement which gave me time to cool my jets and hear her out. I don't care if she disagrees with me, but what burned me up was that the reason really wasn't very good, and in fact went against Development's best interests. And I couldn't figure why she would argue it -- in all the times we've been burned, she was right there and I know she remembers. I gave a good rebuttal and I think I was persuasive but I won't really know until next week.

But after that incident, which I'm sure sounds very mild, and actually was milder than previous incidents, I've been trying to figure out why I get so pissed. Here's what I get:

1) I feel as if she holds herself higher than me (and P)
2) I feel that she thinks I'm not doing enough and that she's trying to make other people think that too. (This is mostly related to our differing interpretations of our new leadership roles, hers tending to lean harder on people management than mine.)
3) Sometimes I feel downright insulted.

Thanks for listening. I don't think I can do anything more than I'm already doing, but I needed to vent.

I love assertive people. I want them on my teams and I want them on my staff. Assertive people make their points, are interested in an overall positive outcome for the project, and are willing to take it on the chin when they get it wrong.

Aggressive people, on the other hand, leave me cold. They want to make sure they succeed even if the project doesn't, and want to make sure no one comes out looking better than they do. They have no qualms with others looking bad as long as they aren't tarnished by the association.

It sounds as if your co-worker is tipping the scale towards the aggressive side and, if so, I don't blame you a bit for how you feel. I'd feel the same way.

I once attended a workshop on assertiveness training. I took it as a manager not to increase my own assertiveness (I have plenty of that already) but to help identify signals in team members that indicate aggressive behavior. If your PM is as good as you think he is he probably already recognizes her signals. If not, it might not hurt to point them out to him. As you have already witnessed, aggression within a team is counter-productive to what you're trying to accomplish.

Thanks for that, JPB. I'm pretty sure my PM is aware of certain tensions, but I don't know much more than that. The trick for me is to be assertive and not defensive.

And, I think this is a little bit about me too. I have a problem with competition, at work and elsewhere. I'm content to do my job and not to compete for any kind of number one spot or anything else. That's not as noble as it sounds -- it's got more to do with my fear of losing. If I compete, then I'm vested and I feel a loss. With a team of three, someone is going to fight to be queen bee. So far it's been her with little resistance from myself and P. I can pretend that it's not a competition (and I truly want that to be true) but the fact is that she's made it one so I need to compete or roll over. I'm the same way in sports -- when I play it's all about the game and the plays and being creative. Until something pisses me off, that is. Then it's "you're going down".

I should really be thankful for this job and the work because it's forcing me to grow up professionally.

Ah. But wait. If something bugs you then it bugs you. PMS only amplifies the bugging, under-your-skin feeling. this friend/co-worker sounds like she has some boundary stuff going on. She also sounds predictable too. So, the next meeting you go into (definitely not when you have PMS) can you prepare yourself mentally to assert yourself when she begins her bulldozing?