Coworker reports crying baby to HR, then is concerned that she 'ratted out' a vulnerable mother without permission to have her baby at work: 'I work with a lot of touchy personalities and egos, I was not confident to simply ask her to close her door'

What's the more uncomfortable emotion, being riddled with guilt or simmering with frustration?

On one hand, we're impulsive creatures. When our patience wears thin, especially in a high-stress workplace, it's easy to act in the heat of the moment. There will always be clashing dynamics: the office rival, the office bestie, even that overly friendly coworker from the 12th floor who insists on waving every morning in the lobby. However, that doesn't always mean that we should let our irritation with a coworker evolve into an unbreakable office feud. 

We've dealt with the continuous pen-clickers, the painfully obvious lunch-stealers and the passive-aggressive sticky notes writers, but when do we let the slackuationship escalate? When is the frustration big enough to require a manager, HR or even the CEO and at what point has our tolerance been so thoroughly stomped on that we revert to the adult version of the fourth-grade game of "telling on"?

As coworkers, we need to ask ourselves: Which battles are worth fighting alone, and when is it time to bring in the bigger players?

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