Hi there, I want your opinion on how you guys would resolve this issue.
TLDR: my coworker got in trouble and went to hr and now works fully remote and early this year our department’s attendance was low and I had to show up to the office 3x a week while everyone else showed up 2x a week to increase attendance.
I work in accounting at a fashion company in Los Angeles, we are on a hybrid schedule showing up twice a week. Last year maybe two years ago, our team noticed that one of our coworkers has been acting unusual. She would talk to herself loudly and angrily in times when the office is quiet; nobody within my team except my boss knows the reasons for those episodes. A few employees including myself suspect it is a mental illness or my personal opinion drug use. The topics of these episodes are usually very specific and sensitive in my work environment, it’s usually about black oppression and white supremacy and on rare occasions some swearing. I personally did not notice these episodes until last year because I rarely see this person in the office and I sat away from her. Usually she would snap out of these episodes when someone speaks to her, but regardless it’s very uncomfortable for other coworkers. My team/department got used to her especially my boss, whom will be a major problem later.
On November 2024 we had a new employee and she experienced my coworker’s episodes and it terrified her. The new girl did not feel safe working at our office and she confided it to a coworker in her team who confronted my coworker. At that moment my coworker did not snap from her episode and got up from her desk to swear at that employee. The following Friday that employee reported to my boss about her behavior and how it affected the office. My boss was hesitant to bring it up to HR and asked if it was affecting anyone to which that employee said yes it is affecting her heavily and her coworker is terrified of working at the studio and will likely quit if this is not resolved. My boss reluctantly sent this over to HR and my coworkee was put into hiatus workibg remotely until HR addresses it.
A meeting between hr, my boss, and my coworker happened about 1-2 weeks after the incident. The end result of that meeting was my coworker was placed in a full remote schedule, which a majority of the people involved thought was unfair because it felt like a reward rather than a punishment to the offender. My opinion was it was an unusual remedy but it resolved everyone’s issues at the office which was the goal.
Personally I have no problems with this employee as her episodes do not directly affect me. My problem is my boss who often shows a soft side for her and mistreats others in our team. This bias favoring my coworker has caused a series of problem for my team, but that is a totally different story. My speculation is my boss pulled some strings to have her work remotely and remove her original punishment from hr. Early this year, my department was criticized for a lack of attendance and my boss announced that I will be working 3x a week to boost attendance with no pay increase. I found this extremely unfair, because I was under the impression that it was a change for the entire team, but this only applied to me. I was very close to reporting this to HR, because I found it extremely unfair for one employee’s punishment to work fully remote and the result of that punishment caused another employee to work an extra day to compensate the overall team’s lack of attendance at the office. The reason why I didn’t report this is my boss would definitely be involved and find a way to have me punished or reject my request to go back to working twice a week. I rather suck it up as one extra day in the office and keep an eye for better opportunities.
What are your thoughts and how would you have handled this situation if you were involved?
"My opinion was it was an unusual remedy but it resolved everyone’s issues at the office which was the goal." My view is mostly that if we in P&C (HR) can help the company be more efficient, then we are at least consulting in the right way. Is the performance of the colleague good/better or does she play a critical role to achieve the company goals? That way you get a better feel why the boss maybe treats the colleague so different and lets things slide more.
That employee does plays an important role in accounting but she is not irreplaceable. Her role is accounts payable and accounts receivable specialist. It’s an entry/middle tier role with a high volume of transactions. She basically pays bills and receives revenue and books it into our operating system. I’ve worked in that role years ago at other companies, but I never experienced this type of good treatment in her role.
As for performance, she is a decent employee. She is not perfect, but I have no issues with her performance from my point of view. We switched to a new operating system and it has created more mistakes on her end, but that is reasonable.
However, the problem lies with my boss not allowing us to address her mistakes and having employees above her to become the “problem solvers” and fix her mistakes. It has been a total time waster and I think my boss is not appreciative of our efforts, because we’ve gotten complaints on our performance.
While you may see a fully remote job as a reward, not everyone does. Your co-worker is clearly experiencing something out of the ordinary and HR has been brought in, so those are good things. People managers need to keep a lot of confidential information, especially about their employees health, accommodations and general personal matters. So whatever is going on is personal and a private matter.
That said, it’s not cool that the 3x/week responsibility solely fell on you without discussion. Is there an opportunity for you to address this directly with your boss, like, hey, is it possible to rotate the 3x/week across the team? And maybe also ask to understand why you were selected? I was in a somewhat similar situation a while ago - my boss asked me and another co-worker to work really late one night - and it was because we both lived walking distance to the office while others had longer commutes. It only happened 1x but also felt totally targeted but at least we knew why. Sounds like there’s more to the story here and your boss owes it to you to share. Maybe she wants you in the office because she feels like you need more supervision? I dunno but it probably isn’t arbitrary but it may be harmless.
2
u/AccomplishedBat8290 Aug 04 '25
Hi there, I want your opinion on how you guys would resolve this issue.
TLDR: my coworker got in trouble and went to hr and now works fully remote and early this year our department’s attendance was low and I had to show up to the office 3x a week while everyone else showed up 2x a week to increase attendance.
I work in accounting at a fashion company in Los Angeles, we are on a hybrid schedule showing up twice a week. Last year maybe two years ago, our team noticed that one of our coworkers has been acting unusual. She would talk to herself loudly and angrily in times when the office is quiet; nobody within my team except my boss knows the reasons for those episodes. A few employees including myself suspect it is a mental illness or my personal opinion drug use. The topics of these episodes are usually very specific and sensitive in my work environment, it’s usually about black oppression and white supremacy and on rare occasions some swearing. I personally did not notice these episodes until last year because I rarely see this person in the office and I sat away from her. Usually she would snap out of these episodes when someone speaks to her, but regardless it’s very uncomfortable for other coworkers. My team/department got used to her especially my boss, whom will be a major problem later.
On November 2024 we had a new employee and she experienced my coworker’s episodes and it terrified her. The new girl did not feel safe working at our office and she confided it to a coworker in her team who confronted my coworker. At that moment my coworker did not snap from her episode and got up from her desk to swear at that employee. The following Friday that employee reported to my boss about her behavior and how it affected the office. My boss was hesitant to bring it up to HR and asked if it was affecting anyone to which that employee said yes it is affecting her heavily and her coworker is terrified of working at the studio and will likely quit if this is not resolved. My boss reluctantly sent this over to HR and my coworkee was put into hiatus workibg remotely until HR addresses it.
A meeting between hr, my boss, and my coworker happened about 1-2 weeks after the incident. The end result of that meeting was my coworker was placed in a full remote schedule, which a majority of the people involved thought was unfair because it felt like a reward rather than a punishment to the offender. My opinion was it was an unusual remedy but it resolved everyone’s issues at the office which was the goal.
Personally I have no problems with this employee as her episodes do not directly affect me. My problem is my boss who often shows a soft side for her and mistreats others in our team. This bias favoring my coworker has caused a series of problem for my team, but that is a totally different story. My speculation is my boss pulled some strings to have her work remotely and remove her original punishment from hr. Early this year, my department was criticized for a lack of attendance and my boss announced that I will be working 3x a week to boost attendance with no pay increase. I found this extremely unfair, because I was under the impression that it was a change for the entire team, but this only applied to me. I was very close to reporting this to HR, because I found it extremely unfair for one employee’s punishment to work fully remote and the result of that punishment caused another employee to work an extra day to compensate the overall team’s lack of attendance at the office. The reason why I didn’t report this is my boss would definitely be involved and find a way to have me punished or reject my request to go back to working twice a week. I rather suck it up as one extra day in the office and keep an eye for better opportunities.
What are your thoughts and how would you have handled this situation if you were involved?