r/JustNoCoworker

My coworker (on numerous occasions) has called a black man -who is a patient at the hospital where I work, ‘dark chocolate’. I am mortified every time this happens & I feel like crawling under my desk. My coworker is white. The man never says anything in reply regarding my coworkers comments, he always just kind of laughs but I can tell it makes him a little uncomfortable. How do I get the coworker to quit being such an idiot?!!! Also, I know this man is married & I highly doubt my coworker would say this to him in front of his wife. It’s just all kinds of wrong.

I work in an open-plan office. Desks everywhere. No privacy. "Lisa" sits three feet away from me.

She takes calls all day. Personal calls. Doctor's appointments. Planning her kid's birthday party. Complaining about her husband. We all hear everything.

But the worst part? She puts ME on speakerphone when I call her.

Every time I need to ask her something, she picks up and suddenly my voice is blasting across the entire floor. She never says, "Hey, you're on speaker." She just does it.

I've asked her twice to stop. She laughed and said, "Oh, I just like to be hands-free!"

Last week, I heard her on the phone with a client. She was being so sweet and professional. Then she hung up and immediately said to another coworker: "That client is such an idiot. I can't stand her."

That gave me an idea.

Yesterday, I needed to ask Lisa a work question. I called her from my desk. She picked up. I heard the echo—definitely on speaker. I kept my voice completely normal.

"So Lisa," I said, "just to confirm—you said last week that the Johnson account is a lost cause and you hate dealing with them, right?"

Silence.

She scrambled. "What? No—I never—"

"Oh wait," I continued, "and you also said the new intern has 'zero potential' and you don't want to waste time on him. Is that still your opinion?"

More silence. Then a click. She took me off speaker.

She came to my desk 5 minutes later, hissing: "Are you insane? Everyone heard that!"

I smiled. "Now you know how I feel every time you put me on speaker without asking."

She hasn't put me on speaker since.

I work a normal 9-to-5. I'm not on-call. I don't get paid for overtime. I have a life outside work.

"Brian" doesn't understand that.

Brian is a night owl. He sends emails at 2 AM, 3 AM, sometimes 4 AM. Fine. That's his choice. But he also expects INSTANT replies. If I don't respond by 9:30 AM, he shows up at my desk looking annoyed.

"Did you see my email?"

"I got in 20 minutes ago. I'm catching up."

"You should really check your email first thing. I needed that by 10."

It's never urgent. It's never a real emergency. He just wants me to work on HIS schedule.

Last week, he emailed me at 3:47 AM with a "quick question" about a presentation deck. I arrived at 9, saw it, replied at 9:15. By 9:20, he was at my desk.

"This took you almost an hour to reply," he said.

"It took me 15 minutes," I said.

"From when I sent it, it was almost 6 hours."

I stared at him. "Brian, I was asleep at 4 AM. Like a normal person. You cannot expect me to reply to emails at that hour."

He huffed and walked away.

That night, I set up an auto-reply for after hours. It says:

"Thank you for your email. I am currently outside of working hours and will reply during business hours (9 AM - 5 PM). For urgent matters, please contact [Manager's Name]. Otherwise, I look forward to connecting with you during regular business hours. Have a good evening!"

Brian emailed me at 2 AM. He got the auto-reply. He emailed again at 3 AM. Got it again. He emailed again at 6 AM. Got it again.

This morning, he came to my desk, fuming: "Why didn't you just reply? I saw you online at 8:45!"

I looked at him. "8:45 is not 9 AM, Brian. You can wait 15 minutes."

He said nothing. Just walked away.

He hasn't emailed me after midnight since.

I’ve been at this firm for a year now. In the beginning, I kept my distance and stayed strictly professional with everyone. Lately, though, I’ve developed a strong physical attraction to one of the partners which feels complicated, since his girlfriend also works here. He’s caught my eye looking back at me a few times, and he recently sent me a follow request on social media, which struck me as a bit unprofessional. I accepted it, but nothing’s come of it since.

This crush feels overwhelming like it’s taken over my thoughts. Based on catching him staring at me a few times, I have a feeling he might be interested too. Whenever I talk to him, I get so nervous my whole body shakes. I’m torn on whether to act on it or just let it go. Part of me thinks that if I made a move, I’d eventually have to leave my job. I don’t know what to do. I really want to act on it.

TLDR: crush on coworker

I'm the youngest on my team. I've been here 10 months. "Diane" has been here 12 years. She thinks she's my office mom.

The problem? She keeps volunteering me for things. Extra shifts. Weekend coverage. Holiday decorations. Company charity events. She'll raise her hand in meetings and say, "Oh, [my name] would love to help with that!"

Without asking me. Every single time.

I've had to work 3 extra weekends this year because of her. I missed my nephew's birthday party. I spent 4 hours organizing a bake sale I never agreed to.

I smiled through all of it. Because I was new. Because I didn't want to seem difficult.

But last week, she did it again. Our manager asked for someone to stay late every night this week to finish a report. Before I could even process it, Diane's voice cut through: "[My name] is young and energetic! She can handle it."

Something inside me snapped.

I looked at my manager. I looked at Diane. I looked back at my manager. And I said, clearly and calmly:

"Actually, I can't. I've worked late 12 times this month. Diane has never stayed past 5 PM once. Why doesn't she volunteer herself for a change?"

The room went dead silent.

Diane's face went bright red. My manager blinked, then slowly said: "That's... a fair point. Diane, can you handle this week?"

Diane stammered. Said she had "family commitments." My manager replied: "We all do. I'm assigning this to you."

Diane had to stay late every night this week.

Today, she walked past my desk and muttered, "That was unnecessary."

I looked up and said: "So were the last 10 months."

She didn't respond. Just walked away.

I've never felt more relieved in my life.

I know we’re both busy, I know there’s people around us, I know we’re at work but god just say something. Say anything say even a hello. I never wanted my actions to be misinterpreted. I never wanted a push and pull dynamic, especially when I have to see you. I know I might look unapproachable but it’s quite the opposite. So please say something not just with your eyes, with the glances but through anything. I’m tired of feeling bad when a customer moves and I make eye contact with you. Even a smile…. Just anything.

He’s been on site in Victoria since the 12th and won’t be back until the 24th. I’m feeling really lonely without my little routine of “neck-breaking” just to catch a glimpse of him when he passes by.

I keep thinking about the way he smells when I’m near him, and how he gets flustered when he catches me staring—still makes me laugh.

I’m not even mad that I miss him… I’m just sad because it’s so quiet here without him around.

I work in a small office. 12 people, one fridge. We all label our food. It's basic decency.

"Emma" doesn't care. She's been here 2 years. She just takes whatever looks good. My yogurt. My leftovers. My expensive protein bars.

Every time I'd ask, she'd laugh: "Oh, I thought it was communal! I'll replace it."

She never did.

I tried locking my stuff in my drawer. But I can't lock up everything—some things need refrigeration. I tried talking to HR. They said it's "not a formal complaint" and to "handle it like adults."

Last week, I found my homemade pesto pasta gone. That was my breaking point.

So I made a plan.

I brought my famous spicy chili. It's delicious—but I make it with ghost peppers. Extreme heat. Not for the faint of heart. I labeled it clearly: "[My name]'s CHILI — EXTRA SPICY 🔥🔥🔥"

I put it in the fridge. Waited.

At lunch, I saw Emma take it. She didn't even heat it up. Just grabbed a spoon and took a huge bite right there in the kitchen.

Her face went red. Then purple. She started sweating, grabbing her throat, chugging water. She couldn't speak for 10 minutes.

I walked in casually with my sandwich. "Oh Emma, you didn't. That's ghost pepper chili. I warned you."

She glared at me, tears in her eyes.

I smiled. "Maybe next time, ask before you take someone's food."

She hasn't touched my lunch since. She also hasn't spoken to me.

And honestly? I'm okay with both.

I’ve been working at this company for almost 3 years. When I got hired on I immediately noticed gaps that we could fix in the company. My coworker and I was a team of two on the program. She’s like the program manager and I’m the assistant. We worked well together up until this summer.
We recently got handed a new role but same pay. She got upset but I found possibilities in it. All summer she kept saying she was only doing the bare minimum and to “f” this job. So I picked up the load. I saw my coworker stressed and I tried to help. She even mentioned that when she doesn’t give her all she knows I have her back 100%. Mind she her salary is twice mine. Well after seeing her really not care about her job I mentioned to our supervisor that she stressed and maybe something needs to be removed her plate. Our boss agreed…..:
The last month of summer my coworker got even more upset and said “f this job, f these kids, f this team”. I was appalled because that meant she was really tapped out. She then went on to say she’s only here for the money and she against only doing bare minimum. And this point I go back to the supervisor and say something has to be done. I don’t want to do her work when I don’t get paid to do her work. I don’t know what the supervisor said to her but now she’s pissed at me because else said “we could’ve talked about this without involving other people”. What she failed to realize is I have tried multiple times to talk to her about it and have texts to prove it. So now we’re enemies. She now talks about me around the office, she refuse to help me with simple tasks, she even tries to get out of work we normally do together saying she’s too busy. I absolutely love my job and also I’m about 13 years older than her. I’m at my wits end because she is literally a snake that I never saw coming….

I just want to do my job at 100% and go home. How can I handle this?

I need advice, because I think I’m entering a field again that I know perfectly well doesn’t suit me.
I’m a woman in my 30s, and I have a coworker six years younger than me with whom an unexpected closeness arose from the start. He’s someone I laugh a lot with, and our conversations have crossed the strictly professional line many times. From the beginning, he’s been the one pushing the relationship to become closer, to where it is today.

The problem is that I like it. And he knows it, or at least I think he perfectly perceives the chemistry between us.

He hasn’t done anything I could consider a promise, nor has he told me he wants a relationship with me. In fact, his behavior is quite ambiguous: he seeks a lot of closeness, compliments me, brings up inside jokes about my love life, is interested in my appearance, and sometimes our conversations end up surprisingly personal, even a little flirty.

The problem is we’re both playing the “just friends” thing. Even though he’s been the one investing time, asking questions, joking around, he’s also the one who said, “I would never date someone your age,” and who even talks to me about other women.

Another thing is that he genuinely seems to care about me: that I work comfortably, that I actually rest. He’s kind of my supervisor, and we work remotely, by the way.

Right now I feel like an absurd amount of my feminine, romantic, and sexual attention is orbiting around a man who isn’t trying to build anything with me.

And honestly, I want to save that energy for someone who actually wants to get closer.
So I need advice: how do you pull back when you don’t want to cut the bond, you don’t want to create drama, and you don’t want to pretend you don’t like it anymore?

“Your manners are so bad”
“you need to improve your communication skills “
“What’s your previous job?”
“ You can’t say somebody else is wrong “[her Japanese is not good enough to understand the word <different >and <wrong>]
“ you can’t ask her that question”(my colleague said she got engaged,and I asked is your finance foreigner?)
She asked me outside the office and make just 2 of us space.
“ do you know what is your priority of your job?”
“Is this job too difficult to you?”
And criticizing me in public group slack.

I 33M, work as a PM and crossed paths with this particular HR person(Female) because I was part of the interview panel for multiple roles.

Incident 1 - interviewee giggled and greeted me since we were both the same ethnicity, HR caught this and kept teasing me about that interviewee.

Incident 2 - I got a fade cut cause my wife wanted me to try out a new look and I loved it. HR kept praising me on multiple occasions and continued teasing me in front of my manager with that interviewee.

Incident 3 - Just before an interview I mentioned I am having a bad hair day and she said "dont worry this one may not be your type" and started laughing in front of my manager, again!

Multiple occasions where she said, people greet me on interviews differently because of my good looks and caught her staring a few times when we met in person. She knows I am married. I am not that good looking tbh. I dont know if I am overthinking this, but I am starting to feel a little uncomfortable now around her. Every interview I am on with her, she has to pass a comment. What do I do? Is this normal? I want to put the brakes on this whole situation before I start avoiding her.

I have heard from my friends about their work crushes and how work is not boring just because they have someone to look forward to. As for me i am in a relationship and i am not really able to have crushes because of that, what are your thoughts about having work crushes if youre already dating someone?

I share a desk with "Mike." He's been here 4 years. I've been here 8 months. We're supposed to split the workload 50/50.

Reality? More like 90/10. Me being the 90.

Mike takes 2-hour lunches. Every single day. Comes back with Starbucks, chats with everyone, takes a "quick" 30-minute phone call, then spends an hour "researching" (scrolling Twitter). Meanwhile, I'm drowning in tickets, client emails, and deadline after deadline.

I've mentioned it to my boss twice. Both times, she said "just communicate better with him."

So I did. I sent Mike a calm email with a spreadsheet showing exactly how much each of us did last month. I was at 78 tasks. He was at 22. I asked if we could rebalance.

He replied: "I work faster than you. It's not my fault you're slow."

I saw red.

Today, Mike left for lunch at 11:30. At 1:45, still not back. I had 3 urgent client requests and a report due at 2 PM. I couldn't do it all. So I stopped.

I sent an email to my boss—cc'ing Mike—with screenshots of the workload, the timestamps of his lunch "breaks," and a simple question:

"Which of these 3 client requests should I drop? Or should I wait until Mike gets back from his 2-hour lunch to decide?"

I attached the spreadsheet again.

My boss replied in 4 minutes: "Mike, come to my office when you're back. [My name], drop the lowest-priority request. I'll handle the rest."

Mike came back at 2:10. Saw the email. Didn't say a word. Just walked straight to my boss's office.

He came out 20 minutes later looking deflated.

Today was the first day he took a 45-minute lunch.

Maybe there's hope after all.

My work mate is suddenly being cold / mean. we’ve been been friends / pretty tight till recent weeks at work for almost a year.

Personality wise, he’s naturally cocky, bantery, playful a loud person. 1 on 1 he used to be warm and would regularly come over, say hi, joke around, and generally root for me ect. Would share opportunities with me ect. New staff have asked if we’re together ect. (obviously we’re not). But I considered him one of my closer work friends and felt like we had each other’s backs and he would say the same. “I’ve got your bk” ect. 

Now recently things can be quite hot-and-cold generally. Before recently things were good, banter, ect. Recently I’ve been noticing he’ll say hi to my work mate beside me and others around and not really acknolege me at all. He’ll say hi at some point during the week but it was defo weird to be right there most times and suddenly now being ignored. It wasn’t really usual for what was normal for our dynamic.

Anyways here’s where the weirdness gets weirder:

A few weeks ago I joined a side convo in our group about job opportunities. I asked one of the girls about it and he kinda dismissed me being like “don’t worry about it.” I gave him a blank look and continued talking to her, me and her spoke 1 on 1 for a good few mins. The next morning he came over to me being unusually friendly/playful. I called him out for being hot-and-cold and weird lately he didnt directly apologise or really ancknowlege he just said  he wasn’t feeling good the previous day. It felt very vague And more like he was skirting around being rude. It did feel like that was his way of trying to keep things smooth / positive after he was rude.

Then last week, while I was away, he booked one of my sales opportunities for himself. This is significant because we consider ourselves friends and normally wouldn’t do that to each other. He has previously left opportunities for me. I confronted him and he acted like he’d done nothing wrong and didn’t apologise. Ive noticed when he’s wrong even for small things, he’ll swear he’s right but still try to improve in his own way after a few days I guess.

Anyways, 

the next day we didn’t speak much at all. But near end of the day he came behind me and pulled my chair out from underneath me, making me nearly fall. He laughed, but the laugh seemed really forced to me. I was just staring at him like WTF. About 20 minutes later I was really starting to feel sh*t now ao I asked to speak to him 1 on 1. I told him he was acting dumb/weird and that it wasn’t funny. He just acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about, Again, no apology. 

The same day he also complimented a girl then immediately looked at me like he was trying to see my reaction which I thought was weird af.

Since the seat thing we’ve barely spoken. He’ll sometimes come over to talk to the coworker beside me and not acknowledge me, which is strange because he used to naturally say hi/include me.

Then today he joked to the coworker beside me that he’d stolen another one of my opportunities. Because he’d actually done this recently, I looked up dramatically like “Nooo, not again!” He was smiling, but when he realised I’d briefly believed him he immediately went serious and said “Nooo, obviously not.” He almost seemed offended that I hadn’t realised he wasn’t being serious.

Pls guys I need your thoughts / opinions of what’s going on because I don’t know where all this hateful/ mean behaviour is coming from. Theres almost like a switch and It feels like he‘s going out of his way to show me just how much he dislikes me now Like snatching my seat from beneath me. 

I genuinely miss the friendship because he was one of my more solid work friends, but I’m also really disappointed by how he’s behaved recently and don’t want to excuse it just because we’ve gotten on before**.**

Help! How can I escape this being in a side guy? I am currently co-workmate with this Female so how can I escape this relationship without resignin from my current job? I really love her to the point whenever I knew they were going to meet up (his bf) I got jealous, I'm slowly killing myself inside. I work at inside ortigas. please help im drowning

[supprimé]

I've been at this agency for 2 years. Most teammates are great. Then there's "Mark"—office golden boy, 5 years senior, treats information like currency.

Three months ago, we started a major client project. Mark was "lead coordinator." We had a Slack channel, shared drive, weekly meetings. All normal.

Except I always felt one step behind. People referenced docs I'd never seen. Deadlines changed without my knowledge. Mark always had excuses.

Last Thursday, I found out why. My teammate "Jess" accidentally screen-shared her phone. I saw a WhatsApp group: "[Project] - The Real Team." 7 people inside. Our team has 8.

Guess who was missing?

I said nothing. For 48 hours, I watched. Mark would drop decisions into official Slack—but always after the WhatsApp group already agreed. He'd say "we all decided" about things I never discussed.

Monday, I showed up 10 minutes early. Mark was alone. I closed the door.

"Why am I not in the WhatsApp group?"

He froze, then smirked. "Oh that? Just memes. Didn't think you'd care."

"Add me now. I'll wait."

He had no out. I scrolled through 3 months of chats. Strategy decisions. Task assignments. Deadline changes. And Mark instructing everyone to keep it from me.

After the meeting, I went to my boss with screenshots. She read them. "This is serious."

This morning, Mark met with HR. He left pale at 11 AM—"working from home" all week.

Jess apologized. Said Mark told everyone I was "too busy" and "didn't want to be bothered."

I accepted. But trust is gone.

Watching Mark walk out of that HR meeting?

Worth it.

TLDR: My coworker has started publicly asking me if I’m sick whenever I come into the office. Even when I’m perfectly healthy. I’m looking for a witty comeback for the next time she asks. (We meet at office once a week)

I have an annoying coworker who is such a bootlicker of the boss. She tries to do everything the boss does and be everything like him.

My boss is a germaphobe (but he's also very polite& gentle) so she has been pretending to be one as well. Its so annoying.

For the past few weeks, everytime I go to office, she asks loudly infront of everyvody else, "are you sick?" Or, "you're not sick, right?". One time I had a mild cold and knowing what these guys are like, went to office with a mask on (I would've happily stayed back but that was my team mate's farewell). She saw me coming in, made a whole show of freaking out, told me not to take my mask off and then, she wore a mask as well.

Whats a good comeback for when she asks me whether im sick again, for no good reason?

Btw, she's such a narcissist and is very bossy with everyone else in the team. She cant do that with me since both of us are in the same high ranking positions for different teams. I feel like this is her way of getting back at me.