An older colleague, a woman with 30+ years of experience as a cobol developer has been escalating me every week for the last nearly 2 months. She finds different pretexts for the same issue again and again and draws me into various escalation meetings with the Project Manager and the department lead + many other colleagues. Resulting in a lllooooottt of time wasted for the team.
Being in conflict resolution meeting twice a week every week is extremely unpleasant and unhealthy for me.
At the same time being technical lead for the team I am in the right to take decisions.
She has been in the company for 30 years and it appears no one dares to stand in her way although she does not have formal role that is of significance. How can I make all this stop ?
I was considering couple of strategies:
- Say that all this is unhealthy for me, I have high blood pressure and refuse participation. Send all my notes to the management and ask someone else to decide in which case I will align.
- Is there an option to involve HR ? I have never done that. How does someone involve HR and what will happen then ?
- Start working from home in order to avoid all the meetings.
- Try to put the conflict on different base - work ethic. She has a terrible work ethic and the team knows it.
- Try to escalate the conflict even more so that it becomes either me either her issue.
What can I do? HELP!!!!