A member of our team yesterday morning was clearly in a bad mood.
I tried being kind, to the point of being patronizingly ingratiating, but I resent having to tip toe around people like that at work.
After a few hours of this, I tackled one of her colleagues and whispered “ X* seems very grumpy, I don’t know what’s going on”, with the intention of bitching about how unprofessional I thought it was. Instead he said that yes, she’d had a difficult time of it recently, with some trauma in her personal life, with relationships and her flatting situation. He thought that was probably why she seemed a bit preoccupied today, but he’d try and have a chat with her and make sure she was OK. And then he thanked me for noticing and speaking out “it really helps knowing that people are keeping an eye out for us, and are concerned about our wellbeing.”
“Oh ah yes well, no problem!” I felt a real heel.
*not her real name