r/coworkerstories

I (24f) recently started a new corporate job where everyone in my office is older than me by at least 10 years. There are about 10 people in my department, and our desks are pretty spread out and separated by dividers (so I can’t see anyone unless I scoot my chair back to peek around the divider). Theres one lady in her early 50s that sits right next to me and when I first started, she seemed normal enough. It’s a very quiet office so no one talks much in general, but over time this lady has started making small talk with me every so often. Unfortunately her small talk quickly started making me more and more uncomfortable. On an almost daily basis now, she’ll make comments about what I wear, what I eat, how I sit, she even pointed out that I tuck my hair behind my ears a lot and offered me a hair tie.

At first I thought maybe she was just a very observant and awkward person but I started to realize she doesn’t do this to anyone else we work with. I noticed she memorizes my schedule, even when it comes to things completely unrelated to work like a doctor’s appointment or oil change. For the most part, she’s always seemed harmless but now I’m beginning to feel uneasy about just how close she pays attention to me.

The most recent thing she commented on is just so weird that it really got me thinking. For context, I pretty much always use the same pen when I write notes at work (and not even intentionally, it’s just what I keep in my notebook). It’s not a fancy pen either, it’s just a plain black pen. The other day, I was at my desk minding my own business and I grabbed a blue pen to write something down quickly. This lady immediately rolled her chair back and turned toward me. She didn’t say anything but I could feel her staring at me so I looked back and sure enough, she was sitting there facing me, just waiting for me to turn around. I looked at her confused thinking she was about to ask a question or something but she just says “so what makes you decide to use the blue pen over your black one?” keep in mind, I was at MY desk and there’s a divider between us… why would she be watching me write a note at all and more importantly, why would she notice I used a different pen?

I could not tell you what any of my coworkers wear, I couldn’t recall what snack they had, and I FOR SURE wouldn’t be able to tell you what type of pen they use everyday. She makes me feel like I’m being watched 24/7 and I feel like it’s slowly making me crazy.

I received a promotion, which moves me to a different program in my company allowing me to STOP working with this one women, let’s call her DEBRA.

Debra, for the past two years, has been my coworker, but I think she prefers the role of “difficult coworker #1”. At any opportunity she would report me to both our bosses, avoid conflict, hang up on phone calls when she was losing an argument, and refuses to talk out a business decision.

Now, I will admit my share of difficulty. I am a very factual and opinionated person who refuses to be run over. But I always was making a decision for the best of the business, not the company. I tried to resolve issues, let it not get under my skin, not take the words so personally - but you know what - sometimes enough is just fucking enough. So I stopped trying to repair a relationship and just attempted to end each day not so pissed by her actions.

Anyway, I am now free. No longer working on the program with her. No longer obligated to return a phone call or solve her problems for her.

My confirmation I’m not crazy? Instead of giving me a congratulations (like every normal person in my company did with the job change) her verbal AND follow up text message is “I’m pissed because you are leaving the program”

Once again, I AM the source of misery for you. At least I was able to let her down, one last time.

I found out that my coworker has apparently been using a spreadsheet to track everyone's activity like what time they usually leave, what time they get coffee, who they usually talk to and what time. There was even this column that was titled "most likely to quit" and the craziest part is that the 2 people he listed in the spreadsheet actually left like a month or so ago!

The way I found out about this was because he accidentally sent me a cloud excel link via email, and I was able to keep a copy of the link (its still set to anyone can view, which is odd)

The really weird part is that he updates it frequently, like one time I went to the break room and mentioned it to my coworker and she immediately knew what I was talking about because she noticed that hes always writing on his notebook whenever anyone does anything during company time. And then 10-20 minutes after I left the break room, to my surprise; he updated it AGAIN and even included how long I was in the break room for.

We brought it up to the manager and the manager asked him about it, and he said it was a "personal project for organization". He wasnt technically breaking any rule by doing it, so nothing really happened after that. Now everyone is paranoid whenever he opens his laptop or whips out his notebook, and the other day I passed by his desk and asked him "Whatcha doin there buddy" he just closed it and said "nothing you need to know about". Youd expect it to be the most boring place ever, but I never expected myself to be this uncomfortable and curious at the same time. In the office no less.

Back in the good old days of dot matrix printing I use to have to run reports every morning for my boss. I had a list that I used to extract exactly what was needed and I'd request 40 one sheet reports which I highlighted and set on her desk. It took about 30 minutes each morning.

One of my coworkers, Morilynn was always trying to insert herself into everything so she decided that she needed to run those reports instead of me. My boss asked me to train her on how to do it so I set up a time to do so.

I didn't have anything written down so Morilynn had to take notes. I explained several times that it was easier to run the 40 one sheet reports instead of printing everything and then having to pick out only the 40 sheets needed. I asked if she wanted me to look over her notes but of course she declined that offer. I gave her a copy of the list I used daily and told her to put that with her notes.

I told the boss that the training was finished and she decided Morilynn would run reports from that point forward. I asked if I should sit with Morilynn the first day and was told no because Morilynn had already popped into her office letting her know this was a piece of cake and gave boss a copy of the notes she had taken to show how easy it was. I decided to come in a half hour later than usual since I didn't have to run reports.

I hadn't even gotten to my desk yet when Morilynn flagged me down. Apparently instead of requesting 40 one sheet reports she decided to run all and pick out the 40 she'd need. Run all generated a 3000 sheets of paper. Yup 3000 sheets of paper on a dot matrix printer. Everything anyone else in the department needed to print was in que behind that 3000 page report which took forever to print.

Morilynn tried to throw me under the bus about her poor training but since she had given the boss a copy of her notes that clearly stated how to run 40 one sheet reports along with the master list showing the specific inputs for each report boss wasn't having any of that. I didn't have to say a single word about anything because it was clear that Morilynn went rogue on reports.

Everyone in the department complained about having to wait for their print jobs to come up in que, Morilynn was hiding at her desk, and I was given the report job back. After that anytime Morilynn asked to learn something new she was given the opportunity but was overly supervised. It was glorious to watch.

I worked at this job a few years ago when I was about to graduate high school , and I only lasted around a month, which you’ll understand later in the story.

During my time there, I met this guy who I’m going to call Ray for the sake of this story. Ray was quiet and a bit awkward, but he was also nice to me, and I didn’t mind being around him. Early on, I noticed that my other coworkers would make little comments about his behavior at work. He definitely seemed to be treated differently, overworked, and under-respected. I always treated him the same way I treated everybody else who was respectful to me. We had a few conversations, but they were mostly just small talk. Then, one day, I was in the break room when he came in and started telling me that he thought I was cool enough to hang out with outside of work. I was hesitant because I don’t usually make friends with my coworkers outside of work, but since he seemed cool, I figured, why not?

Once I got home, we started texting a little, and everything was pretty good. We began getting to know each other’s interests outside of work and were getting along pretty well.

Eventually, though, things started to shift into a more-than-friends situation. He started by telling me I was the most beautiful girl he had ever talked to, then proceeded to tell me he loved me just three or four days after we started talking. He would send me paragraphs about how he saw a future with me and everything. I was taken aback by this because I didn’t want to be in a relationship with him. I mean, he did say he wanted to be friends. 😐 I tried to hint that I wasn’t interested in anything romantic, but he wouldn’t listen. He would brush it off and then start doing the same thing all over again.

Now, I will admit that I started entertaining it a little because I was bored, but I wasn’t giving him nearly as much attention as he was giving me. However, when I actually started to see how he lived, it turned me off even more. He barely had a life outside of work, didn’t have many friends, and had some anger issues that turned out to be much worse than I initially thought. It also seemed like his entire life revolved around me. I mean, he wanted to talk literally 24/7 whenever we weren’t at work. I don’t like talking ALL the time. I enjoy having my own space, so this started to irritate me. But, at the time, I wasn’t as bold as I am now when it comes to telling someone outright that I’m not interested and that they need to leave me alone.

Now let’s get too where the story really starts,

He invited me over to his house for the first time, and I went because he had been wanting to show me some things around his house. Everything was fine at first, but then he started getting a little touchy-feely, and one thing led to another. You know where that goes.

I don’t even know why I did it. I was young and stupid, and I also hadn’t had sex in a while, so I was just like, Fuck it. This might be TMI, but an essential part of the story too where things changed, but I made a comment about him not being able to finish, and that’s when shit started to go down. I was lying down when he suddenly shoved my head with his knee extremely hard and said, “Get the fuck out of my house! LEAVE!” It was an immediate 180. He went from being calm to suddenly furious. He walked out of the room, slammed the door, and started throwing things around.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. I was about 5’5”, and this guy was around 6’4”. I had no idea what he was capable of. I started arguing with him through the walls because, what the fuck? Where was all of this coming from? He came back into the room, and I gathered my things to leave. Obviously, this wasn’t a safe situation for me to be in, and I needed to get out of there ASAP. However, he started grabbing me and trying to hold me back from leaving. He began crying and telling me that he loved me so much and that “I’m the only reason he’s alive right now.” I managed to break free from his grip and told him never to contact me again.

I left and sat in a parking lot for a while, where I started crying. Meanwhile, he was blowing up my phone with excuses. He started talking about how the “neighbors were telling him to kick me out” and making all these bizarre claims. I had enough. I told him never to contact me again and to please leave me alone.

Fast forward about 2 years

Here’s the thing: I’m still friends with a guy who works at my old job. He calls me every once in a while too catch up with me, and every time we get OTP he still lets me know that Ray is STILL obsessed with me.

Apparently, every single time Ray comes up there, he tells my old coworkers that we’re “soulmates” and that we’re “meant to be together.” Every single time he comes back up to the job (he ended up getting fired, not sure when though) and would talk about me for 30-45 minutes. Mind you, it’s been a couple of years since this happened, and I haven’t seen or spoken to him since the incident at his house.

But one last message Ray, let’s not meet again.

Today i just witnessed something straight out of a movie scene at work. I am relatively new to the office, and a senior colleague of mine was being shouted at by our manager. As the senior colleague tried to justify his actions, the manager crossed a line and brought up something very personal regarding his child's school.
That was the breaking point. The senior immediately snapped, and all hell broke loose. He shouted at the manager left and right, telling him he wasn't his slave and that the maximum the manager could do was fire him. He said all of the manager's authority stayed within the office boundaries, and outside the office gate, it was a level playing field.
My manager was completely silent the entire time, and I could sense the fear in his eyes as the senior just walked out. I fully expected the senior colleague to lose his job, but to my surprise, he didn't. I also learned later that the manager actually apologized to him. I really wish I had his guts.