Uncomfortable

I normally get along with most people I meet. I think most people would describe me as easy going. In fact, a friend recently said I am accommodating, which I am not sure is a compliment or not.

At work, there is a lady whom I really don't want to be around. This is at my day job so it is a smaller office with not a lot of people, which makes it difficult to avoid this person. When I first started working here I was OK with this person and we had several conversations and I thought she was pretty nice. However, as time has gone by it seems that she is THAT person who always has a better story or has had a worse experience. She also has a bad habit of interrupting when someone else is speaking. Sometimes I don't make eye contact with her so that hopefully she won't start a conversation with me. This is so bad!

I don't want it to be like this. I don't want to feel uncomfortable trying to avoid someone at work. On the flip side, I don't want her to be uncomfortable either. I hope I do a good job at not letting her notice that I don't like talking to her.

Here's a story for ya. I usually get to the office at least 30 minutes before business hours. Once, she came in about 15 til and asked me to go out and get her a sausage biscuit because she didn't have time to stop on her way to work. Now, if we are still 15 minutes from the start of work and if I have time to go get a biscuit, wouldn't she have had time too? I did go get her biscuit. I am not sure why, but I did.

This morning, she calls me on my desk phone and asks me to help her with the kitchen. Not knowing what she would need help with I comply. She brought doughnuts for the office (very nice of her) in honor of the return of a coworker that has been on medical leave for a while. She needed my help to get paper plates out of the cabinet. Seriously. There was nothing else. I got the plates, put them on the table next to the box of doughnuts and told her I was trying to finish a project (which I should be doing!) and came back to my desk.

As I said before, she is a very nice lady - no question. For some reason, I just don't click well with her. And I have no idea why she makes these odd, unreasonable requests from me. Or why I oblige them!

I know that I could have worse problems. I have definitely worked with less desirable co workers! My plan is to only speak to her when she speaks to me. Maybe that will politely indicate that I don't want to be social with her. Honestly, we don't have a very social office. No one here really goes out of their way to know anyone on a personal level. Which is sad (or good). But, maybe this lady won't think I am treating her any different than anyone else. This makes me feel so immature though!

Leave me a comment and let me know if there is a better way to handle this. It is not as though she is unbearable or anything but similar to an itch I can't reach to scratch.