I'll give some background and then my worries.

We'll call my coworker Felicia. We work in the busiest pharmacy in our large city. I'm the senior tech there, so management expects me lead the other techs. She is a mental health nightmare, and is constantly starting fights through her passive aggressiveness. She doesn't carry her weight in the pharmacy and when you ask her (however nicely) to do something she will get mad and walk out of the pharmacy. She talks trash about everyone, from the pharmacists to new people I'm trying to train. The trash talking was so bad with my last new hire, she stopped showing up after 1.5 weeks.

Here is my issue: I was finally able to hire a new tech (Rachel) to replace the last one Felicia bullied into quitting, and Rachel starts Monday. Management told me to protect Rachel, and I need help with coming up with things I can say to Felicia when she starts to trash talk to that aren't bitchy because ANY criticism and she walks out, leaving me holding the bag.

Management doesn't want to fire her because she's a single mom of 3 young children, and we're already rj ning a staff of 5 techs when we should have 8. They have given her two written warnings. If she gets one more they'll consider firing her. No one likes Felicia and she doesn't add anything to our team. It's incredibly frustrating and I need to stand up for myself and my team so I'm looking for advice on how to do that.

Thanks Reddit and welcome to my nightmare.

Edit: fixed a spelling mistake.