Update 55,94,96,119-122 - No, I don't want to e-mail chat with you

[weeblewobble]

I'd say at this point it sounds more like harassment than someone being a little desperate for friendship. Tell your supervisor that she is making your job difficult and stressful. The fact that she does it to multiple people makes it even more of a problem. I agree to the above poster that suggested keeping a "log" of all her contact efforts.

I think The Office episode "Sexual Harrassment" should be required viewing in all workplaces.  Both for the sexual harrassment education email etiquette.  Being Queen/King of Email Forwards is NOT a good thing!!

[Lauds]

I feel that if I tell my new supervisor that it will just seem petty and that she'll just tell me to ignore her anyways.  I guess for now I will see how things play out and will keep trying to ignore her.

What if you tell your supervisor what she is doing and tell them that you just want to check that what you are doing is okay. Ie that you are letting all her calls go to voicemail and only responding to both those and the emails if they are work related.

If your supervisor wants you to do something different this gives her the opportunity to tell her; if she's happy with how you are handling the situation you've essentially got her approval to ignore your coworkers neediness. And then you just need to keep up only dealing with her when it's work related.

[SleepyKitty]

I read a blog called "Ask A Manager", and one of my favorite bits of advice is when you have a problem that might come across as petty when you're telling about it, try going to your manager and asking them about it instead. Like,

"Supervisor, Coworker keeps calling and e-mailing me over non-work related issues and disrupting me from my actual work. Please do something about it."
vs.
"Supervisor, Coworker keeps calling and e-mailing me over non-work related issues and disrupting me from my actual work. How would you like me to handle the situation?"

It looks better because you're going to Supervisor because you respect her advice, you're not dropping a relatively minor issue in her lap and asking her to deal with it, but instead being proactive about it on your end, and when you implement her suggestion (which may be just ignoring the calls) you now have "official" permission to do so.

ETA: Much like what Lauds has already suggested 

[sweetonsno]

Please forgive me if you already answered this question and I just missed it, but have you tried directly asking her to tone it down? The fact that her first instinct (after being told to be careful with her phone usage) was to call you makes me think that she doesn't realize that you're annoyed by it. It could be that because you have been responding, she thinks you enjoy the chatting. Most people would get the hint after being ignored for a day, but who knows? It might be worthwhile to actually tell her that you're unable to chat and that you want to be left alone for the first hour of the workday. For example, if she emails, "Good morning!" you could write back, "Good morning to you. Look, Chatty Cathy, I've been meaning to tell you... I really like to use the first hour or so at my desk to take care of business-related emails from yesterday and prepare for the day, so please don't be offended if I don't respond to a social email right away. I'm angling for a promotion/totally swamped/trying to not be viewed as a lazy office gossip (okay, so maybe the last one would be a bad idea), so I really need to focus all of my attention on my current project. I'll give you a call on my coffee break if I'm caught up."

[bopper]

I agree with the previous poster.

If you went to your boss with this issue, they would ask you "Have you asked her to stop?"

"Chatty Cathy, I need you to stop demanding me to answer you via email for non-work related things. I don't mind emailing from time to time, but when you say "You haven't said good morning yet" it just gets on my nerves. If you want to say good morning, go ahead. But please keep questioning me on what I am doing. I am working and if I have time to reply to you, I will, but otherwise please just wait."

[s]

EDITED TO ADD: Sorry I didn't mention this before but I had actually forgot about it since it feels like it didn't even happen!

Sorry I should have provided more background info.  When they did "talk" to her before it was several times.  Finally, the last time I let them tell her that I had a problem with her contacting me all the time.  So she did call and appologize.  Also after that, I was helping out with other departments a lot up until 1-2 months ago so she knew I wasn't always at my desk. 

Now that we've been moved to a new project together it seems that she thinks just because I'm not helping the other departments anymore at this time that I have nothing better to do but respond to every single e-mail she sends.  We both do our work out of this one server and have to assign ourselves what we're working on so no one else works on the same thing.  I always dread it when I come in and have to assign myself work because she will see that and most likely takes that as a cue as I'm here and she can bug me.  I'm pretty sure she watches the server and notices when I'm moving my work when I'm done and assigning more stuff to myself.

Seriously though, I've e-mailed co-workers knowing they are at their desks but if they don't respond right away I just assume they're busy.  Anyways, she e-mailed me first thing this morning, 15mins into my shift.  I'm going to try to ignore her for another full day and see how it goes.  I have previously, and I guess I'm going to have to again, tell that I'm busy.  Though, when I've said that in the past she always wants to demand to know what I'm busy with!  As if the work that we do doesn't count?     I was also thinking of throwing in that I turned my e-mail alerts off so I don't know when I have e-mail unless I decide to check it because the alerts were distracting.     I'm not really going to turn them off because I do need to know when I get certain e-mails and unfortunately I can't just turn them off for her e-mails only.  I so wish though!

So I'm going to try to handle this myself for awhile longer so I have more proof that I've tried to handle it before presenting it to my supervisor, if I feel that it has come down to that.  I am also saving all her e-mails so I can show if need be, how frequently she e-mails me about non work related things.

[artk2002]

Since management talking to her really didn't help, you're going to have to cure her of this. It's not too tough, but it takes some patience and self-discipline. Do not ever respond to her unless it is specifically work-related and even then, only respond to the work-related part.  Not even to say "I'm only talking to you about work-related things." If there's anything personal in the message, ignore it. If you respond to anything else, all you're doing is teaching her how many times she has to e-mail you before you give in. You'll get an "extinction burst" where she increases her activity. She may get very, very whiny, but you have to remain strong. Let your management know that you're taking this position, so she doesn't go to them saying "Saiyangerl isn't being a team player -- she won't respond to me." You're right to keep copies of all e-mails.

[JaneJensen]

This girl sounds like she has a serious problem. Really, this goes far beyond the realm of super-obnoxious friendliness. I get a weird vibe about it after your update.

 I would absolutely do what everyone else here has suggested, and what you are planning on doing- cut this person off.- pronto. Do not respond to an "friendly" e-mails at all. Not later in the day, or later in the week, just never. Respond only to work related questions, with short, terse, professional answers.

[s]

This girl sounds like she has a serious problem. Really, this goes far beyond the realm of super-obnoxious friendliness. I get a weird vibe about it after your update.

Yes she does have a serious problem and I think she thinks we're BFFs.  That is going to be hard to shake since we've been working together a little over 3yrs. 

So far she has e-mailed 3 times today and I haven't even gone to lunch yet!  She sent me the usual good morning e-mail not even 10mins into my shift.  A little less than 2hrs later she forwarded me a funny e-mail which I did enjoy but resisted responding at all.  Then just now, like 15mins ago she sent me an e-mail with the subject "saiyangerl seriously where are you?"  And in the message she said "I was thinking did I make you and DH something for your wedding? I don't remember."  DH an I got married 1 1/2 yrs ago so what does it even matter.  I almost fell out of my chair!  I thought it was some emergency or something from the subject!

I am sooo tempted to respond later, not right away so I can show her I'm the one in control, and say that I'm busy and need to concentrate on work and have disabled e-mail alerts or something along those lines.  Or should I just do what a previous poster did and ignore ignore ignore no matter how much more frequest her harrassment gets at first?   

[O'Dell]

She needs to be told straight out to only communicate with you about essential work issues. "The personal emails are unprofessional and inappropriate. That includes 'good morning' emails and any other non-essential comments or inquiries. Your communication with me needs to be kept strictly to work topics. If you continue to send me inappropriate emails, I will take this issue to our supervisor."

And then follow thru. Only respond to work topics from that point on, and keep your tone cool and very professional when you do respond. Save/log all personal communications from her to take to the new supervisor.

[Steve]

I can't just turn them off for her e-mails only.  I so wish though!

Actually, in most e-mail programs, you can. If you are using Outlook, all you need to do is create a new Rule that filters e-mails sent by her, surpresses the notification and sets them to "read". You can even move them to a seperate folder so you will not see them when going through your other e-mail.

[Clair Seulement]

So my counterpart Danielle works in our other office which is in another state.  She always wants to chat by e-mail or phone.  I get in later than her because we're in different time zones but she knows what time I get in.  She always seems to expect me to send her a "good morning" e-mail every.single.morning.  If I don't she'll send me an e-mail asking why I didn't bother to say good morning.  I personally don't think I'm being rude by not doing so because we're not in the same office and don't actually see each other.  Also, doesn't matter if it's someone in the same office as me that I see or someone in the other office that I don't see, I do not like being bothered first thing in the morning when I get in.  I'm not a morning person and it takes me a little while to get going.  This does not mean I won't return a good morning to someone in my own office or anything like that, but I prefer to be left alone for at least the first hour of my shift.

I have since refused to send good morning e-mails now unless I actually feel like it.  I never said anything, just started doing it.  She seems to have adjusted.  She used to send e-mails, just typing her message in the subject line, such as "You did not say good morning" "Are you alive?" etc.  I found those offputting and quite rude and it made me want to respond to her even less.  Also, she would call me about miniscule petty stuff that she could just e-mail me about.  Getting multiple calls is distracting plus she is super chatty and would keep me on the phone.  I just no longer answer my phone when she calls and let her assume that I'm not at my desk or already on the phone.  I would think the same would go for e-mail.  I don't think e-mail requires an immediate response, especially if it's not important or work-related.

When I first stopped answering my phone she would send an e-mail immediately demanding to know where I was.  She would also e-mail and call my co-workers about where I was!  Now none of this was due to anything important ever.  We can both do our jobs without having to interact.  She has cooled it on the phone, though every once in awhile she will try to call. 

Anyways, so is she being rude?  Am I rude not to want to answer her calls or e-mails?  How else should I handle this?

I have a colleague that does almost exactly the same things (insisting on responses on her time and repeatedly contacting me or others if she doesn't get me immediately; writing e-mails in the subject line [HUGE PET PEEVE]; calling about stupid things for no reason over and over) and I have begun treating the same way. I think you should continue to ignore ignore because what she wants is unnecessary, extracurricular acknowledgement at times of her own demanding, and she must not be rewarded for this even with negative attention. Telling her flat-out probably won't work and may encourage her to behave in a more whiny fashion. My own colleague got my personal e-mail address once when we had a system crisis and I thought she could be trusted, and she started using it to try to get answers from me over the weekend (she's a freelancer). I told her to stop e-mailing me at that address, she did not, so I stopped acknowledging or answering any messages she sent to that address and finally she stopped.

[s]

Thanks for the tip, Steve!  I tried what you said in my outlook but the notification message still popped up even though I told it to mark the e-mail as read and move it to a specified folder.  Kind of annoying...   

Anyways, against many posters' advice I finally e-mailed her after being at work for nearly 5hrs I think and said the following:

Sorry, been busy.  I disabled my e-mail notifications awhile ago cause it’s distracting.  Thought I told you.  Going to lunch!

And got this reponse (sigh):

No you did not tell me silly.  Ok I was like what is going on, well you should check them more then.  So did I make you something for your wedding?  How are we suppose to chat if you cant see my emails 

[Sophia]

That last sentence is almost funny.

[Steve]

Maybe you can do it like this:
Disable your general message for new e-mail.
Make 2 rules: 1 for your co-worker : moving the item and marking it as read, and
1 for all other e-mails (just do not add a sender to your rule) and specify a "special notification".

Make sure the rules are processed in the correct order and processing of rules stops if rule 1 is satisfied.

THis might do the trick.