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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Recent-Patient-6449 on 2025-02-19 02:41:18+00:00.
So we have a fairly loose system at my work, where we're allowed to do other things if there is nothing else going on at the time. We also have a fairly even split between customer interactions and paperwork that needs doing.
The coworker who works next to me is an older woman with some views I find 'antiquated' at best, so I already didn't like her, but I was content to keep my mouth shut and not talk about that sort of thing at work (even though she likes to bring up her views such as calling people with schizophrenia drug addicts). Live and let live, trying to get along at work, whatever.
Now while there isn't anything going on, I tend to work on creative endeavours. Admittedly, there has been some times where I've been stressed out and done this instead of administrative work, although I always put it down the moment any customer interaction (in person or over the phone) needed to be done. This was wrong of me, I'll own up to that. She pointed it out (and I will admit I didn't like her scolding tone and found it condescending, but I was willing to ignore that) which was well within her rights to do. If it had ended there, I would have no problems.
The thing is, she has a habit of chatting, a LOT. Up to half an hour at a time of chatting and doing nothing else, not admin or customer interactions, leaving it all to anyone else at the desk (usually me, as she sometimes chats to the other person at the desk). She also makes long personal calls, not only booking in medical appointments but shopping around for the best price for these.
I did try to be polite and tell her that she was right to pick me up on slacking off before I brought up that it would be good if she could be aware of just answering the phone while she's talking about non-work related things. I don't know, maybe my tone was off, but she very much did not like that. Admittedly when she IS paying attention she's faster to get to the phone than me, so she does take a lot of calls. My issue is when she isn't, and I'm basically working solo. She got even more condescending and told me to 'not even go there' with her.
So I decided, fuck it. She's right, admin needs to get done. So now instead of multitasking (which I was sure to do even when I was not slacking off, doing admin until I saw someone come to the desk or until a phone call came in, taking care of that and then returning to admin), I'm going to focus hard on what I'm doing. I'm working on a form and someone comes to the desk? She can stop what she's doing to help. I'm checking data is accurate and a phone call comes in? Well she made sure to tell me how much better she is at taking calls, so she can keep being better than me and take it.
Obviously I'm trying to balance this with not impacting the customers too much. If it's a long form I will put it down to help them after a minute or so, if no-one else has. I won't leave a call ringing more than a minute and a half, that sort of thing. When I do finish the bit of admin I'm on I'll help the person or take the call. But I'm not pushing myself to make it easier for her to chatter away anymore.