OP, first of all, this type of calm and patience from a former LEO is wonderful to hear. That is incredibly much to your credit. I can only guess how many situations over your career ended better than expected because you had the emotional presence that you do. I am pro LE to the max regardless and defer to the blue until proven otherwise but thank you for affording me the confidence.
That said, welcome to social and workplace dynamics. Your boss may have your back but you still need to make this guy your btch. It’s going to pour over into your work life in ways you don’t expect. It will start off like this but depending on how much further he takes it, he or others may start making more headaches for you over time. If your boss had your back he would put that guy in his place for you, so you have to look at the landscape that you’re playing in and adapt accordingly. Keep calm, and then find ways to ask questions or make outright statements that are going to reframe this dynamic.
First of all
A couple ideas :
First of all, never seek him out. When you’re on top, you don’t seek out the pawn, you move forward on your path and you clear out issues if they get in your way, ie deal with this next time he moves on you.
1- (next time he acts up, and do this publicly ) hey Pascale, sounds like we got off on the wrong foot. You’re probably having a tough day, it happens to the best of us. The office should grab a drink after work and we can get to know each other better? (Do you see why this works? ‘Hey guys, Pascale is a catty *****, men work towards solving problems and leaders work at bringing teams together’)
2- (acts up again) Pascale, I’m not sure what it is, I totally get we have our own stuff going on, whatever it is, not necessary to tear the office focus away on this kind of stuff. Chill dude, let’s just keep on task here, but I would appreciate if you knocked it off, I’m trying to get work done.
3- Pascale, last chance, I’m letting you know that I’m documenting all of this and my next call is HR
4- Pascale gets his ass beat after hours without cameras around