Boomer Lady Coworker Trying To Sabotage Me Over Professional Disagreement

First, I'll say that yes I've been generally a bit more neurotic, high strung, and antsy this year because my mom has been going through chemo and has been dealing with health declines. I'm helping to care for her as much as I can. However, I've done all I can to make sure this doesn't impact my work. I'm not perfect, but I'm not having panic attacks at work. I got my new job less than two months before my mom started her treatment and its helped me infinitely. My job was the only escape I had from my real life issues.

My coworkers and supervisors do not know this is going on, because I didn't know them enough to tell them. It's my mom's business, I don't want everybody in it.

So, all of this starts with a customer we were working with. He gets arrested for DV while we're trying to finalize a contract. I didn't find out about it until two days later, and the contract signing is time sensitive so we were losing out on valuable time.

My boomer lady coworker happened to find out about the arrest by chance, and she was weirdly on his side. Saying things like "Oh, I bet the girlfriend provoked him/hit him first" before either of us even knew any details. I was like "well you know you can't go putting your hands on people. But it really doesn't matter how it happened, the customer is now a liability". She was extremely adamant about his innocence, making up an entire narrative of events before we even knew what happened. It was strange. I even told her that I personally didn't care why, or how, it started. Just that doing business with him is an risk because he may do similar again. My coworker doesn't know this man, we live in a small area and he's not originally from here. She even said that he didn't know her. Like the minute my coworker found out that this man was arrested on DV, she instantly assumed he was innocent, very much projecting something. Honestly, with how personal she took it, it did make me kind of uncomfortable because my opinion is: "don't put your hands on people. I don't care what happened, why, or how. I just know that it makes you a contractual liability". Basic, lukewarm take.

I tell my bosses, they all tell me that they're placing a hold/cancelling out the contract. I do as I'm told, and when the guy bonds out and calls us back (blaming his phone for why he didn't contact us), I tell him what I was told directly by our boss.

A few days later, my old lady coworker is like "I'm going to try to appeal this guy's contract approval status because he's been punctual and reliable up until now. Which is true. That's why it disappointed me that it played out like this. He was my customer, not hers anyways. Im like "lol he had some good qualities. yeah, but what if he gets arrested again? its just kind of a risk now. its not difficult to not put your hands on somebody lol" And she goes off on him being innocent and it probably not being his fault. Saying "oh well if someone puts their hands on you, see what you do" and I could've been really particular and been like "well that'd be self defense then lol" but I didn't. I just said "Intention really doesnt matter. What if he does it again?" and my coworker was like "He won't" and I could say was "we don't know that".

This was not a fight or anything. I didn't raise my voice or anything. She was more passionate about this than me. I don't care about nature of the arrest itself, I just don't want to get into a contract with this guy and he voids it because of his actions. Now I'm stuck with someone for upwards of a year who can't fulfill their end of the deal. Wasted our money and my time.

It was our first professional disagreement about getting into a contract with someone who's shown that they're not reliable. I'll do whatever my boss wants, end of the day, I don't care.

But directly after this, all last independence day week, my older lady coworker was really petty and hypercritical with me. Like nothing I said or advised was good enough. She was doing this in front of customers and everything. It did make me a type of way, but I'm only making a 38k salary and this job is a temporary thing I'm using to propel me into a better career. So I'm pretty nonchalant. I'm not going back-and-fourth, I'm just like "okay. my bad. yeah. sure". I let it slide, maybe she's having a bad week. I get it, a lot of my weeks this year have been abysmal.

This week, my boss comes in unexpectedly and it's all normal until they're like "Oh, hey, so I heard you had a panic attack" and I'm confused because the situation she brought up wasn't one where I was panicked or anxious at all. I don't have anxiety, I wasn't having an anxiety attack and I told my boss that. This also happened like a month and a half or two ago.

For context on the situation, my boomer woman coworker always up and leaves our rented office to chat with other company employee's who work along us. It's boring in our office, sure, but she leaves during business hours and is gone for like 30-45 minutes sometimes. Everyone who comes in is looking for her so I'm usually left to try to figure out how I can resolve it.

A customer she was assigned to had come in looking for her because she'd asked him to stop by. However, my coworker was yapping on the clock. The guy smells like nicotine or something. Fine with me, but this lady has severe asthma and has told me stories about how stuff like that has sent her to the hospital.

So, I'm with her customer who needs her so he can do the pre-reqs for a possible future contract, and she's not in the office, she's yapping down the hall on the clock. 10-15 minutes pass, and yeah it's awkward which gets me a lil frazzled, yeah.

I have to leave the office to go find her because it's obvious she's not coming back. So after walking around everywhere, I eventually find her and some other randoms talking about nothing. And I'm like "hey your customer is here". I'm a lil frazzled because it's embarrassing to have this customer waiting to talk with her and she's not doing her job.

And as we're walking back to our office, I'm like "Oh, this guys smelt like smoke. just a heads-up, I know you have severe asthma". I was trying to be nice. Because if you tell me you were hospitalized for something, I'll keep that in mind.

I wasn't anxious during this entire thing. At most, I was a bit frazzled because I'd just been trying to buy you time for 15 minutes. Why would I be having an anxiety attack because she was chatting on the clock?

But, my boomer coworker is now telling my boss that I was having an anxiety attack and it made people uncomfortable. No one told me anything. My boss even said she was kind of surprised because that's

Basically, what I ended up telling my boss was "hey, I don't have anxiety. I wasn't having an anxiety attack in that moment. This is my first time hearing that people perceived that I was. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I'm shocked to be hearing about this for the first time". I didn't give my side to the situation. I just held firm on me not having anxiety or having a panic attack, because I wasn't.

Because the alternative was a situation where its "senior employee vs new hire" and if I did throw her under the bus, I would win the battle but not the war. It'd become my word vs her word. So, all I could do was take it take it on the chin.

I could've easily been like "yeah, i was a bit frazzled because my coworker had ran off to yap with her friends for like 15 minutes when she knew her customer was stopping by any minute. And yeah, i brought up that he smelled like smoke because I didn't want her to have an asthma attack. Why would I be having a panic attack over her not doing her job." but I didn't.

Which I'm happy for 24 hours later.

If this escalates or if my job is on the line, I'll say something. But I feel like she was trying to bait me into playing a "you vs me" court of public opinion game. I just started working her under a year ago, my boomer coworker has been here longer than I've been alive.

I'm not happy with this situation, but I know that if I turned it into a blame game, then i'd lose. But if I just hold fast to the truth that I wasn't having an anxiety attack. Yes, my boss was super nice about it and was like "we can make accommodations" etc. etc.

Whatever they do, they do. I just had to make the decision that wouldn't spiral. Because I know if I was honest and threw her under the bus, it'd end badly for me and be a way bigger deal than it should be. I am kinda hurt over this because imo it's not that deep.

Like she's trying to put me in a position where I either look bad or she can say I'm accusing her of stuff so I get alienated by my coworkers. But it's not gonna work. I won't be confronting her about this either, because she's expecting that because that's something she'd do