I (23F) work in an office and I actually like the work that I do. It’s reasonably challenging, the work load ebbs and flows so I don’t get bored, and I get to watch movies on company time and be a warm body at a desk. The main aggravating factor of my job is the older women I work with. They seem to have it out for all of the younger girls in the office, and the passive aggression is through the roof. One HR member in particular, is always up my ass, we’ll call her Karen.
I’ll admit, I have a problem with punctuality. I couldn’t be on time to save my life (it’d be easy to blame my ADHD, but it doesn’t help that I don’t really care about being on time either). Karen has made it her life’s mission to manage my time. She waits near the office entrance every morning, and checks her watch as I walk by. I just smile at her, wondering if she doesn’t have anything better to do. Then she keeps tabs on my emails to make sure I notify everyone that I was late. If a while goes by and I don’t send an email, she’ll pop by my office and say “Did you send the email letting everyone know you were 10 minutes late today?” And I’ll say “I forgot, thank you for always reminding me!!”
Whether I’m late or not, she’ll walk by my office multiple times in the morning, just peeking in at me. If another girl from the office has stopped by to chat with me, Karen’ll walk by a few times to see how long we’ve been talking, the eventually poke her head in after a few minutes of us talking and say “Hey girls!! Are you on break? It might be time to break this up!” Even if the conversation is a whole 2 minutes, she will make sure it doesn’t last a second longer.
It doesn’t make much sense that she does this meddling because she works on the opposite side of the office building, and has nothing to do with my department.
It’s gotten to the point that I’ll do things to spite her, asking her if she’s getting her steps in as she walks by my office for the 4th time, making every conversation with her as painfully awkward and confusing as I can for her until she goes away, and being so incredibly sweet to her while she’s trying to grill me for being late when she’s NOT MY BOSS. I sent an email that said “I got in at 8:30ish, I’ll be in the office until 3:30ish” and she immediately perked up and said “we don’t do “ishes” around here!! If it’s a different time, please let me know.” So I told her “update my time to exactly 8:32 -3:32 if you’d like.” Bc why tf does it matter?
She also has a FIT if I work remotely, I think she complains to other members of the office that it “must be nice” that I have remote work as an option. It’s not common, but if it’s more convenient/makes more sense for a particular circumstance, I’ll request to work from home. I’ll be permanently working from home once I move next week (thank God), and I asked my supervisor to work remotely for the remainder of the week before I move. I work 45 minutes from my house so it’s a bit of a commute for work that I can do just as well at home, especially while I’m packing.
My supervisor looked uncomfortable when I asked this, and said “Well, I talked about it with Karen… (INSTANT EYE TWITCH FROM ME HERE, because why does Karen in HR need to know?) And Karen would prefer to have you in the office. It’s just one more week, right?”
I could say the same thing, it’s just one more week, why do I need to commute almost two hours a day to be here? Why does Karen have a say on if I stay or not? I don’t think I hid the frustration and annoyance on my face very well.
So here I am, trudging through this last week in the office, wondering why this Karen is so obsessed with me and my lack of punctuality, loyalty to my work, and my friendships in the office. Just a few more days.