Tjyylli

When she talks to me my anxiety goes through the roof. I have to use
controlled breathing while imagining murdering her in a variety of
ways. This is bad.

You should be discussing this part with a mental health professional.

They can advise strategies and/or medication to help you cope with your anxiety, since you find it so severe.

What do I do exactly because even in my infinite wisdom I kept a poker
face telling her grits teeth "okay I will implement those changes" In
reality though I am also done with this project, even before she
started. She is keeping me from advancing to other more important
projects.

You should be discussing this part with your boss.

Together you should decide how far you should be going to please this coworker (and any other consumer of your work). And together you should decide how to deal with them when they want more than you are authorized by your boss to give.

She is keeping me from advancing to other more important projects.

That should be important to the organization's leadership. So, you will hopefully have your manager's support when you set a firm deadline beyond which further edits cannot be made.

Here's an example. "I am unable to make any additional changes to this document after [insert the day of your choice, including today]. Please make sure to give me a complete list of all the final edits you'd like before then."

If they have a change after that deadline, take it to your manager and let them know how and why the situation is preventing you from addressing more important projects.

How do I deal with a coworker that keeps asking to make small superficial changes to a report, and it is seriously triggering my anxiety?

Seems that this coworker is (1) not your boss and (2) bypassing the established procedure for the project development (template, given, implement it, repeat).

I suggest a two-step approach:

• 
  

  First, try to address and solve this with this coworker. Next time they ask you to make some changes, or asks you for a random meeting, try something like this:

  
  
  

  
  

  Hello Joe, I am currently busy with Project A and B. Is this related to the Website Report Project? If so, and you wish some changes to be done, please send me the new template along with the changes listed via email, and I will get to it as soon as I can.

  
  

  
  
  

  This way you are kindly steering them towards the correct development procedure, and making them aware that you have other, important projects to do.

  
  


• 
  

  If this fails, the next step is to bring this up to your boss. A professional way to phrase it I can think of is:

  
  
  

  
  

  Hello Boss. Lately Joe has been asking me several changes regarding the Website Report Project. I am aware that I also have Projects A, B and C to work on, so I want to ask you if I should give this Report project priority over the others.

  
  
  

  Regardless, could you please send us an email indicating how the development procedure should be? I understand I should be provided with a template, and only after that I can proceed to make the changes. Is this correct, boss?

  
  

  
  
  

  This way you are also politely steering your coworker to the proper development procedure, by having your boss remind you two how it should be. After this, if your coworker insists on out-of-procedure changes, you can safely point them to your boss's indication and ask them to follow the standard procedure.

  
  

It's weird, I see no answer addressing what I feel is the core of the problem so I'm adding my own :

What do I do exactly because even I kept a poker face telling her while gritting teeth: "okay I can/will implement those changes"

By agreeing each time to the demands of your coworker, you enable her behavior and she'll feel unconsciously encouraged to keep doing things the way she does it.

So if someone, anyone (even your boss) keeps interrupting you for small things and for bad reasons until it makes you unable to work correctly and even stresses you out, you need first to be able to say "No, it's not possible".

Once you've done that, of course you can start discussing better processes or what are the correct channels to do thing, as stated in the other answers. The point is not to block everything, just to make them understand that their ways are unproductive and/or just bothering you (which is sometimes something they just weren't aware of and will comply quite nicely once they are).

Other answers have already covered insisting on getting the template and talking to your boss about how to prioritize this work (including getting a deadline).

Once the template exists, schedule a time to meet with her and then only discuss changes during that meeting. This way you aren't getting randomly pulled away from more important work multiple times a day. When she tries to get you to drop everything for a change to the template, say you can discuss it at the meeting:

• We'll have to talk about that during our meeting.


• We can go over your new template at the meeting.


• We can talk about time estimates at the meeting.


• We're meeting about that at [day/time], let's talk about it then.

omg, I am "so done" with this project

You can try to discourage this by saying things like:

• I like to try to stay positive about our work.


• Having the template and regular meetings will make this easier to finish.


• Let's focus on wrapping this up.

If the report is essentially done, you can point this out when she says she complains:

• Actually, I think this looks good. Are you ready to wrap up with project?


• The report looks complete. Is there anything preventing us from saying this is done?

Since these responses invite discussion, only use them if she complains during the meeting.

I programmatically make PDFs of content on a site and suffer from exactly the same issue as you, although it's my director that requests these multiple and minute changes all day long

What it boiled down to is her using my output for 'testing': they want to see the report on the system, critique it, then make changes

What solved the problem for me was doing:

• Exaggerating the amount of work it is to make a small change. So saying "I can do this, but it will require a lot of other backend changes", coupled with:


• Repeating the changes back to them and asking them to confirm, then giving your own deadline of "for tomorrow" and avoid agreeing to do something immediately or that day


• When they come back later and ask for a change again, say "i'll have to redo the functions to implement that and so will miss the deadline" meaning that either I carry on with what was agreed, or i'll miss the deadline that was agreed upon

Another idea I think could work for you is saying that the project is taking too long and now you need to log your activity on it. So you'll now be logging all her "requests" as time spent on this project

It seems that you have already found the answer you were looking for, but it might be interesting to others.

I had a somewhat similar situation, where commercials where constantly contacting the developers with features requests, new bugs, etc. without any kind of prioritizing. And always strict deadline: "for yesterday, very important customer". As a result the code quality and progress was strongly limited.

What we did was install a ticketing system (JIRA), and a change process. And be firm in insisting they use those:

Sorry, but until there is a change request in the system, I can't work on it.

The process could be a weekly/bi-weekly meeting with your boss to decide what needs to get in, what doesn't, and set priorities accordingly.

This all will ask as a buffer. They will ask much less changes if they have to "work" for it (fill a form) and wait until they get back their change. That way, you (together with your boss) set the rhythm, not the "customer" (or in that case your colleague).

There is no template even though my boss asked her to provide one.

Ok, she doesn't deliver what your boss wants? His Problem (and then your colleagues), not yours - if you report on the project state openly.

When she talks to me my anxiety goes through the roof. I have to use controlled breathing while imagining murdering her in a variety of ways. This is bad.

No, thats not unusual, as long as the imagined ways of murdering her are fast and painless. But much better would be if you imagine to (and do) report the status of the project "no template available yet" in friendly word to your boss, something like:

I am afraid we are running a little bit behind schedule. The layout keeps changing rather iteratively; we can continue like this, but we will not be ready as planned. It would help a great deal if we had an approved lay-outed and styled template available, that would make consistent demonstration and testing much easier.

Take Control of the Change Process

Your co-worker, who I assume is not your supervisor or you would say so, is monopolizing your time in order to micro-manage this project. Not only is it adversely affecting you with stress, it is wasting project time and causing severe delays in delivery of the project.

You need to take control of the project, or they will continuously pester you to make minor changes.

Set Your Own Meeting With Clear Objectives

Your first objective is that you need a web template - even if you aren't a graphics designer, you should know what the template needs to look like. Set up a meeting, provide an email notice about said meeting, and come prepared to draw out the details of the template. 30 minutes, each day, until the template is complete.

If the co-worker tries to pressure you for details before or after the meeting, tell them to bring them to the next meeting. Do not provide any answers outside of that meeting. If you must have details clarified, use email, and insist that they use email as well. Be firm about this - be a broken record if you must. They will, hopefully quickly, learn that they cannot waste your time or their own by constantly providing needless input.

Do Whatever Work They Do Provide, Properly And On Time

This is the most important part - limiting this type of input to meetings and emails will reduce your stress, but you still need to get the work done. Anything they provide concretely through meeting discussion or email should be worked on right away. You do not want to be the road block that prevents this project from going forward - so don't be. Work on what is solidly agreed upon. No more, no less.

Your time is valuable - their time is valuable - and you both need to make the most of it. They aren't, so it's up to you to take charge and provide some semblance of structure to the work day.

That being said, it is normal to sometimes come by each other's desk to discuss details that are important in the moment. You may have to walk to their desk to get clarification on some points as well. You will need to work on handling the stress of interacting with others in unplanned situations, and set firm boundaries on when and how often that interaction should take place.

This will require a lot more fine-tuning, as the co-worker's limit for person-to-person interaction and your own are (very clearly) not the same. And as a developer, you require more focus and personal time than they do (apparently) on their own tasks.

Be polite, be professional, but be firm in your own personal and professional boundaries, and take control of them whenever possible.

As someone who still struggles with striking that balance - I wish you luck.

Whatever software you use for the changes, install it for your coworker and let them play around until they get it right. then check if their changes are okay and merge them into the product.

if they are not eager to learn, you are not eager to run. fallback to normal working conditions as mentioned in other answers, ask for the template, schedule normal finish date after more relevant tasks, tell them to ask your boss if they need it faster.

I've got a bit of a different take on what's happening here. I think the difference is that the two of you have a drastically different ideal iteration length.

Keep in mind, "Doing Stuff" generally happens in a cycle:

1. Planning


2. Implementing


3. Getting Feedback


4. Repeat

This cycle can be very long - I've seen waterfall projects where it's months between customer review points.

And it can be quick - make a change, take a look, see if it works, then repeat. (In pair programming, this can be extremely rapid.)

There's no "right" answer. Fast cycles lets you get stuff done quicker (faster feedback, more responsive development, etc) but it has the downside of making the 'planning' part get too rushed and reducing your ability to do other things. Slow cycles let you plan well and devote your time among other projects... but it also means the project will take longer.

So your coworker. She wants very rapid cycle times. Five minutes - do a single change, let's see what it looks like, okay let's move on to the next change. You want a slower cycle - list all the changes you want, I'll do them all over a few days/weeks, and then get back to you with all the changes done.

Neither of you is "Right" - it's not right vs wrong. It'll help you moving forward if you realize where she's coming from: she wants a quick feedback cycle, and there are advantages to that. Don't get me wrong - I think you'd be wise to try to slow the cycle process down to something more reasonable from your side. But the interpersonal facet of this will be helped if you realize why she's doing what she's doing, and that she's not necessarily "wrong". She just wants a cycle length that's too short for your comfort - and fortunately, you can probably force a much longer cycle length by:

1. Dictating a frequency/time you'll accept update requests


2. Giving her a time when those updates will be performed and given back to her

I think that Mike already found the root cause of the problem. I just want to say a couple of words to expand it.

Be assertive! Enforce her to install the software required to do her job properly. This will enable her to shorten the "feedback loop" and make her do the job even faster because she would not need to wait for you to do requested changes.

You have to state things clear! If she refuses to install the software making silly excuses, then you also should refuse to do any "temporary changes" for her to even see it. She states that mentioned software will make her life difficult. Lets begin with the mention, that the lack of it already made yours difficult with her.

Instead, offer her some support in installing and operating mentioned software. I can imagine that she will have lot of technical problems initially bothering you even more than usually, but gradually, she will learn how to use it and she will eventually stop bothering you completely. Ask other colleagues for some help with supporting her with installing and using the software. It will "load-balance" itself evenly among all of you and cease to be perceivable issue.

Other side notes:

The discussion may look like:

• Hi Dennismv, I need you to do some new changes I 'm working on recently.


• Is it how it should look like in the final version?


• I am not sure.


• So let's install the development environment and see for yourself.


• I would like not do do it! It will take lot of time and make life too complicated... [smiles gently]


• I'm sorry to say it [her name], but I would like you to stop using my setup to see output of your changes you are not sure how it actually look like.


• It is just a couple of font adjustments. It should take you five minutes to apply them. Can you make this change today?


• No, [her name] I won't make any further temporary changes. It already wasted lot of my time I should spent on other projects. It is your responsibility to provide me the final template. My responsibility is to just apply the final version that shouldn't be changed too often. Instead, I would like to invest my time to help you install and use the software because I believe that it will stop wasting my time in the future.

I can Imagine what she is actually thinking:

• My task is to change the report, because it must look better.


• I have a proposal of some changes, but I'm not sure how it will look like "in real".


• I can not see it because I don't have required software.


• I don't want to install it because it is too scary technical thing. It will make my life even more difficult.


• Dennismv already installed it and can use it. Let make him apply my changes so I will see them.


• Dennismv said that he will do it "later", so let go to kitchen for some coffee.


• Dennismv didn't do it yet. Because it is my only thing to do in this job and my boss insisted it should be done yesterday, let go to Dennismv's desk and ask him gently again, when he will apply the changes so I could keep on progressing doing my own job...

Besides, there were similar situation im my previous job. Some "business people" approached our team with lots of "grammar/spelling/translation" issues on the company's main page.

Luckily there were two very smart developers in our team. They came up with the idea to provide a web browser plugin that allowed the "business people" to edit the translation file in runtime and see the results immediately.

After implementation of their plugin, instead of lot of small requests to fix small "defects", there were only requests to upload files provided by them with all needed changes. It made things easier and quicker for both sides.