Is this Malice? We work in MN and our workplace is showing down and today my buddy was threatened to be fired if he keeps talking to me and while I know and he knows that we shouldn't be talking we spend very little time doing so and others in the workplace do it day more. Furthermore there are coworkers I have who do far less one of them has missed a week of work and takes days off frequently, another takes enough smoke breaks in a day for the whole week and the dude who threatened him actively stands around talking while not working whereas my buddy and I will do something while talking. I don't get why people are expected to go to work mindlessly and not communicate to each other in any sense other than work like seriously why do managers care about the little people increasing morale by cracking up about something Kanye said (just an example)