I've been working at a new office job for almost a month now, and things were going pretty smoothly. The job itself is monotonous and soul crushing, but I get a hybrid remote schedule which is nice and I only plan on staying for a year while I upskill to find another job that will lend me a viable career path.
Digression aside, I was working in the office recently and I had finished my work halfway through my shift (like most days), and so I just decided to go on my phone for a bit since I had nothing else to do. Well, my co-worker who sits adjacent to me all of a sudden tells me that I should not be on my phone as it is a “distraction” and that we are very busy today. They also said that everyone has excuses to go on their phone, but that we should focus more on our jobs as we are a small team (which isn't true by by the way; we finish our work way ahead of time due to the amount of people in our team).
Although they aren't my higher-up, they do have more authority than me as they have a more senior position with more responsibilities, so I understood why they had more work to do, however they had the gall to tell me that we were very busy on one of the slowest days I've experienced at this job so far. I was baffled, and didn't want to challenge them as I am not a confrontational person (and also still new so I don't want to give off unprofessional impressions), so I just sat there for the remainder of my shift clicking nothing and scrolling past the same page for hours. And while I was sat there irked, guess who I see checking their phone multiple times and chit chatting with other people?
What I find amusing is that our boss hasn't questioned anyone over their use of phones despite all of us, except a few, periodically going on our phones when we're finished with our work or waiting for more work to come in. Since I'm new, I'm still trying to figure out and understand the office dynamics at this job (at least I know one person I can't trust). But so far, everything has been relatively good except for this instance.
Where do I go from here? I can't spend hours just clicking nothing and staring at the same page. I also cannot ask for more work because there is none, and even if there was, I am not going to take on more work than I signed up for since I most definitely won't be getting paid more if I do it. Thankfully, I don't have to see this person physically every day since I am on a remote hybrid schedule and the days that I am in the office don't always overlap with the days they are in the office. But on the days when we both will be in the office, I need to figure out how I can avoid having to sit there for hours literally doing nothing. Any advice?