Hey all - can I ask your opinion and advice on something?
I'm an NHS specialist nurse in the UK and I work on outpatient clinics as part of my team. Our team is split 50/50 nursing wise into outpatients clinics and inpatient wards. We have an inpatient team on the wards where I sometimes go over to help them out with mainly routine stuff when I have gaps in clinic. This generally isn't two way though as they don't help out on clinics when we need help unless it's a dire emergency or I'm off sick - and even when that happens, from my POV they seem to take umbrage and it's a massive deal.
Well basically, whenever I go over to help them there's a colleague on my team who despite being very nice to speak to and interact with normally, has a tendency to e-mail me about jobs I've not done afterwards or provides me with some constructive criticism about things I have done...but she is the same grade as me. This time round, and what is the main issue for me...is that she e-mailed me whilst I was redeployed to ICU during COVID and had just finished a shift. This e-mail was asking me to do some non-urgent admin jobs that I had not yet done - and she copied her supervisor in to the e-mail as well. I was going to do these admin jobs eventually anyway, I just didn't have time to do them straight away, so I put them on my own to do list.
I replied saying I couldn't do them as I'd been sent to ICU during COVID (which she already knew anyway) and copied my supervisor in as well. I'll be honest, I reacted and played the same game back. I'm not sure whether the tone in my reply was pointed...it probably was...but I'm not going to lie I was very annoyed and I think I was within my rights to be personally. I was annoyed that she knew I'd been redeployed when she wasn't - and is in the ward office sending me non-urgent admin jobs and copying a supervisor in to make it that bit more pressurised. Rather than just doing them herself and taking account of the situation I was in and the pressure I was under being redeployed to the front line. Bear in mind this colleague knows I have been off sick in the past with stress and anxiety and appeared very sympathetic at the time.
Anyway now that COVID has scaled back somewhat here and I'm back from ICU and in my usual team, it was her birthday last week and I e-mailed her saying happy birthday. I've mostly forgotten about the previous situation now, although it did annoy me. She will have seen the e-mail but it's gone completely unacknowledged, no reply...no thank you or welcome back to the team. Although I'm making assumptions here and she isn't obligated to reply and I didn't really send it for that - and I might be TOTALLY wrong (I am the sensitive type) about this...my gut feeling tells me that she's ignoring me on purpose (as she normally does reply) and that she is upset with me.
I don't particularly think I've done anything wrong though and I actually think she was the one being unreasonable when she was fully aware that I'd been redeployed to ICU and was sending me pressuring e-mails about admin jobs, copying supervisors in etc. whilst she is in her comfort zone - and I'm being thrown into a potentially life-threatening situation, where admin jobs - especially ones that aren't urgent - are the least of my worries and priorities.
Luckily I don't deal with this colleague that often and I have not seen her since this happened over three months ago. She may be perfectly fine when I do see her. But does anyone have any advice for when I have to deal with her and I can't avoid it? Assuming the worst case scenario that I have upset her and she is holding a grudge against me? I don't want there to be an elephant in the room - but at the same time I don't think I should be the one to apologise either, despite how much I may personally want to clear the air. I will admit when I'm in the wrong and I will own up to my flaws and I may actually be wrong here, I don't know. But I don't think I am. I have extended the olive branch and at this moment in time on the surface it seems to have been rebuffed.
It's a shame because I do believe this colleague is a nice person and we were quite friendly at one point - and it was never and has never been my intention to upset her, but she didn't seem to take into account my feelings when it came down to it and I'm not sure why I should be the one who feels guilty about this?
Does anyone else have a view on this?
Thanks!
