Hi, I agree with what Chad is suggesting. I too am having ongoing conflict and poor communication issues with a fellow co-worker. Since I'm a contractor there may be some additional disregard from this employee - i am not sure. I really like her and I think she's talented, however it's my role to get her up to speed on the project and she constantly nit picks and questions everything i do - it is really draining, as the article says. I have tried talking to her about these issues and she was cool, acted like she watned to work this out with me, only to slip into "aggressive and disagreeable" mode a few days later. She like to puff out her sholders, hold out her hand and do a karatee chop on it, smirk at me if I answer a question wrong, and question me in front of others. I feel like i'm constantly having to please her and answer her questions until we beat each topic to a bloody pulp. Some of this IS on me and i realize i can push to hard at time and other times, i'm probably anoying or don't listen other times. I am really trying. I see to get along with everyone else okay, it's a stressful, highly visible project and sometimes we (our team) can get frustrated with each other, but we always come back to ground zero and smile at the end of the day. With this gal, it's not happening. So far, to mitigate this situation, i've scheduled daily meetings, with the 2 team members to avoid any confusion on what the tasks are for the day. I have also stopped going over there to chat with her at a personal level, i basically only talk to her about work. I have also tried talking to her a couuple of times about this - and since this didn't work, I keep communications very minimal between us. I have not told my boss about it, as I was hoping we could work through it. I did communicate the there is a high level of anxiety on our team and I'm hoping he can help ease some of the stress by helping manage expectations and deadlines for our team. This particular team member tends to go from 0 to 50 degress of anxiety when she has to do certain tasks or when there is any "gray" area, so i think this is all helping a little bit. She still questions, and pokes and prods, but now ONLY when we are in a meeting.

Any other suggestions for a "well meaning" project lead are appreciated

All the best.