How to deal with coworker

LegacyUser

Hi all,

I have been asked to transition a very small amount of work from my team to another department. The person I am working with on this is senior to me in the company (she's a junior manager) but again its a different department. We have had trouble with this particular department before as they have to be told the same thing over and over.

She's driving me mad. Over the past couple of weeks I have had several conversations with her about the transition and she does not listen. I'll explain it to her, she'll say she understands, and then hours or days later she asks me the exact same thing. This has been going on for weeks while we ham out the details. Today alone she came to my desk uninvited 3 times about the same thing and also sent me numerous emails.

Not only does she not listen but she doesn't seem to want to be the one to explain the new process to her direct reports. If they ask her a question, rather than tell them what I've told her, she'll ask me again. Today I ended up telling my manager who told me this lady has also been asking her the same questions. I explained the situation and my manager said, if she keeps bothering you and you want me to speak to her I can.

She has now gone over my head again to my manager and said she still has a list of questions and she has scheduled a meeting with her team and my manager. These questions are the ones I have answered before but she just doesn't seem to want to relay the information to her team and wants my manager to do it. My manager cc'd me on the reply and invited me to the meeting but I really don't want to go. My manager says she will do all the talking and we all probably have lessons to learn from this but I really am so frustrated to the point I ended up in tears when I got home. I have tried so so so hard to explain things to this lady and she is making me look incompetent. Everyone I work with says I am really good at explaining things, I am often scheduled to train new hires, I know I am at least decent at explaining things but this lady is just making me look awful.
Obviously part of the big bad work world is dealing with difficult coworkers. How can I best handle this?

LegacyUser

You definitely need to go that that meeting.

If you don't go you will be undermined in their eyes, and it won't look too good in your own managers eyes either. Sit beside your manager at the meeting, leave them speak but add your own comments from time to time such as "if you remember the point I made last Monday" or whatever, to reinforce that you have gone through this already with them.

Also did you do up initial training notes on the procedure for them to refer to which should stop some of the questions. Also every conversation you had with this person should have been followed up with an e-mail detailing exactly what was said and if necessary, your manager should have been copied in.

If you will have no dealings with them once this handover is finished, grit your teeth and get through it.

tenifan

Did you do up procedure documentation for the handover, outlining in writing each step of the process?

If not, there's your "lessons learned".

You should always have sufficient documentation for any process, no matter how simple or small.

indigo twist

Just have it there in print. If she asks a question, direct her to where you have saved the steps in soft copy.

Why don't you want to go to the meeting?

ongarboy

Agreed on all advice given. When I have to hand off procedures, I always document it and ensure I dumb it down to the blatantly obvious detail so that all potential questions are answered within the document. If someone asks a question, I tell them to refer to whatever section. Verbal instructions can get lost in translation/forgotten etc.

Also, I'd also question your reluctance to attend this meeting. You've nothing to apologise for and your manager agrees that you are in the right so you'll be backed up. I'm surprised your manager hasn't brought it up with her manager as this girl seems to be wasting a lot of people's time unnecessarily and seems to have poor information retention skills. Perhaps she shouldn't be tasked with this role.