A reader writes:

Advice to deal with a frustrating coworker who guilt trips people?

In our office, there exists a coworker who finds ways to manipulate and guilt trip people on a daily basis. Let me provide a few examples…

• She often works through her lunch breaks, then pulls the “poor me” card, expecting sympathy or rewards for doing so. (To be clear, nobody has asked her to work through her break, she has chosen to.) She berates the boss for not paying her for working through the break, or for refusing to give her extra time off to compensate. She also makes a gigantic production out of every little task, to make it look like she is working harder than everybody else. In actuality, she is just wasting energy to create a scene, rather than completing additional tasks.

• If there is a holiday, she purchases gifts for EVERYONE in the building, plus brings trays of food. If this was done out of the niceness of her heart, great. However, after the event she continually complains that she has contributed so many gifts, only to get nothing in return. Again, nobody has asked her to do this. In fact, we have told her numerous times that none of us have time or money for holiday events at the workplace.

• The other day, she left on her 15-minute break to get food, and when she returned, asked if I would like half of her sandwich. I replied with a “No, but thanks for asking.” I then left for my break, to purchase coffee and a breakfast sandwich. When I returned, she yelled out “Oh, I see MY half a sandwich wasn’t good enough for you” and then proceeded to storm around, loudly slamming office equipment on her desk.

• Other times, she has randomly brought in food, and since I adhere to a low-carb lifestyle, I rarely eat any of it. Again, this results in a sort of temper-tantrum. She insists that since nobody ate what she brought, she will not bring anything EVER again. Yet the following week, more food appears and the cycle repeats.

It all just seems so … neurotic! People don’t ask her to do any of these things, yet she does – and then tries to bait us into owing her something. It creates a negative environment, and makes us all feel bad about ourselves (even though we know it isn’t really warranted).

I, my other coworkers, and even our boss are at a loss for how to handle her. We all try to set boundaries and keep our distance – but what is one to do when boundaries are set, but clearly ignored?

Our small group of office workers would be grateful for any feedback or advice you have!

My goodness, this is troubled behavior.

You’ve really just got two options here: You can be blunt or you can ignore her. And frankly, even if you’re blunt, there’s no guarantee that’ll work, and so you might end up just having to ignore her anyway.

In a situation like this, where you can’t force someone to change, you’re sometimes better just leaping straight to the part that you can control, which is your own reaction.

But if you’re willing to give bluntness a shot, it would sound like this:

* “We’re all working hard. It’s weird to make a production out of things like this.”

* “No one asked you to bring in gifts or food. If you’re unhappy with how it was received, you should stop bringing those things in.”

* “You’re right. This isn’t an office where most people bring in gifts or food. If you’re going to, you’ll be happier if you accept from the start that you’ll probably be the only one doing it.”

* “You’re right, I didn’t want your half of a sandwich. I wanted my own.”

* In response to tantrums insisting she’ll never bring in food again: “Yes, that sounds like a good idea since this obviously upsets you.” And, “You’ve said that before but you keep bringing it in. Since it upsets you, you should stop.”

* “Could you please stop storming around and slamming equipment? It’s really distracting.”

In other words, plain, non-emotional, matter-of-fact responses. Keep your tone low-key too — matter-of-fact, almost bored.

Will it work? Maybe, maybe not. But if you do it enough, it’s going to make her routine a lot less satisfying for her, and that may decrease the number of times it happens around you. Plus, it might be satisfying to you to be able to give her a logical response rather than feeling like you have to coddle her.

But if that doesn’t work, at that point you’d have to shift into strategy two: controlling your own reaction to her, which in this case would mean just ignoring her temper tantrums. She’s upset that no one brought her gifts or appreciated her food sufficiently? Fine, she can be upset. You don’t need to soothe, reassure, or otherwise indulge her. You don’t need to respond to her at all! You can internally roll your eyes or internally laugh because she’s ridiculous, then mark it up to the fact that humans can be irritating, and leave it there. (Oh, and feel sorry for her loved ones because while this is ridiculous in a coworker, it’s truly toxic in a parent or other close relative.)

P.S. Your boss has more options here. Your boss has the authority to tell your coworker, “What you’re doing is disruptive and can’t continue” and “Stop bringing in food and gifts because when you don’t get the response you want, it’s creating problems” and “You can’t lose your temper at work, period.” (While we’re on the subject of your boss: If your coworker is non-exempt, your boss actually does need to pay her for all time worked, even if she was supposed to be taking a break. Your boss can discipline her and even fire her for working through breaks if she’s been told not to, but if she’s non-exempt, she does need to be paid for that time. So that might be one thing your coworker actually has a point about.)