Woman exposes colleague’s wild messages: ‘Sounds like harassment’

A text exchange between two colleagues has gone viral, revealing just how few boundaries some people have when it comes to work.

It used to be that when you finished work, you left the building and were done for the day, and unless someone wanted to call your landline, you were unreachable.

Nowadays, people can call, text, or even swipe into your direct messages on social media, making it increasingly difficult to maintain boundaries.

Australian employees recently gained the right to ignore work messages and calls outside of working hours, within reason and depending on their role and expectations.

However, it’s still unclear what is acceptable or unacceptable from a co-worker, and one woman’s text exchange proved that.

Kait, 25, a retail worker from the United States, posted a series of screenshots on X revealing the strange messages her colleague had sent her.

“I made the mistake of giving the money to a co-worker and now I have been asking non-stop for money, travel and food. “No one in management will do anything about it,” she said.

The texting started with the colleague asking to borrow $7 and Kait sending her the money.

Then the requests kept coming.

“Can you lend me $10 or $15 and I’ll pay you back the $7 on Monday,” one message reads.

When Kait replied, “I only have $3 to my name right now,” the associate was unrepentant and proposed a new deal.

“Can I have the $3 I sent you on Saturday? Plus $7, she asked.

The employee also posted a series of other text messages she received from her colleague, which included her asking for different lifts, more money and asking Kai to buy her groceries like milk or a Dr. Pepper.

The tweet has been viewed over 28 million times, and Kait, who didn’t expect the thread to blow up so much, provided further context about the messages.

She said that the colleague did this with all the employees in the place where they worked. People have blocked her, but some claim she finds them on social media platforms to continue messaging.

“A regular customer when she comes in now asks if she’s working, if she is, then they leave immediately because she used it for grocery money and never paid it back but kept asking for more rides or more money.” she asserted.

She also said that in total, she had only given her colleague $15 at most, but was fed up with the “relentless” messages asking for money, food and lifts.

It may sound like a strange and very specific scenario, but recruitment expert Roxanne Calder told news.com.au that these types of personal texts between colleagues are constantly causing problems in the workplace.

“Boundaries are blurred,” she explained

Calder said that when personal texting becomes an issue in the workplace, it’s really “difficult” to navigate as a boss because you don’t want to overstep.

“I had to deal with it a lot. I try to stay out, but if I have to get involved, I give advice from a distance. I try to give personal advice, but in a professional setting, I make it really neutral,” she said.

Calder stressed that if an employee came to her with a personal message from a colleague, she would have a “responsibility” as a manager to try to resolve the issue.

“Personally, I would say I didn’t think it was appropriate, and I would explain the consequences and explain the emotional side of it,” she said.

The recruiting expert also noted that sharing text messages between a colleague and yourself online can lead to hurt feelings and workplace tension.

“For emotional reasons, I don’t think it’s fair or just,” she said.

Calder said it’s not just texting that leads to inappropriate conversations between colleagues; she sees the same behavior in Zoom meetings.

“When you’re in a one-on-one meeting and there’s a group of 20 people, you don’t give your colleague a note or write ‘what an idiot’ when the boss says something you don’t agree with because he’s going to see it, – she said.

“However, when you’re online dating, people are texting each other back and forth and saying all sorts of things and that now extends to texting each other.”

Despite the fact that constant messaging with our colleagues has become normal, people were scandalized by the texts Kait shared.

One person called them “weird”, another called them “crazy”, while yet another claimed the lyrics were nothing short of “wild”.

More interestingly, though, people online were divided on whether management should be involved or whether this was a personal problem that Kait should handle on her own.

Although technology has been a part of our working lives for decades, people are divided about where work and personal problems begin and end.

“That sounds like harassment to me. I would contact HR – advised one.

“Block her and pretend she doesn’t exist at work. You probably won’t get anything in return and there’s no benefit to being nice to a person like this,” said another.

“I can’t believe people like this exist, but if your management doesn’t do anything it’s completely hostile. Your co-workers should be on board with this and you should tell them about the client.

“Management can’t do anything,” claimed someone else.

“What should management do in this situation? Am I missing something? Someone from my work wants some money. I lend them. They don’t call me back – now it’s someone else’s problem? – wrote another.

“I work in management and the garden people they come to me with are crazy. It’s absolutely pathetic how adults have to run to management to solve their completely unimportant private problems. I would fire every one of these kids if I could, one raged.

“I was thinking the same thing. What is the problem with this management? This is a personal matter. What will they do? asked another.