‘I don't make the rules, I just work there’: 56-year-old Shelly blames her coworker for the company’s new policy change, yells at her face, and starts office rumors

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Jun 24, 2025 9:00 AM EDT

Stories like this woman's really make me think offices are some sort of parallel universes, complete with different physics. Within these sets of laws, a corporate policy change, especially when it comes packaged with winners, losers, and a fresh round of workplace scapegoating, is a real gravity-reversing event. This 36-year-old finds herself cast as the office villain simply because her paycheck didn't take the same nosedive as someone else's. It's the kind of twist that makes you wonder if HR moonlights as a screenwriter for workplace melodramas.

56-year-old Shelly, once a casual friend, now delivers Oscar-worthy glares and whispers with the subtlety of a soap opera mean girl. The company pulls the rug out from under her, and somehow it's her coworker's fault, as if being in the right place at the right time is a calculated act of betrayal. Attempts to address the tension are met with managerial shrugs and HR's favorite refrain: not technically a violation. Emotional cold wars and passive-aggressive mood swings don't make the employee handbook.

It's just a new take on the old workplace blame game: when the system fails you, find the nearest target and make them pay in awkward silences and icy stares.

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  • The company screwed over my coworker and somehow I'm to blame...

    "I'm a regular employee with no say whatsoever in how the place is run"
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • My (36F) coworker (56F), let's call her Shelly, woke up one day and decided I was the bane of her existence. Up until a
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  • couple of months ago we were kind of friends I guess. We'd joke around at work, send memes to
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  • each other on Facebook and she even invited me to go to a concert with her.
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  • Literally two days after the invite our company had a major policy change. The change
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  • benefitted some people, myself included, but others got royally screwed. I am a regular
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  • Cheezburger Image 10520611584
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • hourly employee with no say whatsoever in how the place is run. I don't make the rules, I just work
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  • there. Well, Shelly is one that got screwed and decided that I was personally responsible.
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  • Cheezburger Image 10520606976
    via Alliance Images

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • After yelling in my face that "this is bulls "I figured she was upset and I'd give her space.
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  • Since then any time I walk into the room I get glared at and/or side eyed. If she's having a normal
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  • conversation with someone and I walk by she automatically drops her voice to a whisper. I
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  • was finally fed up and vented to my manager who basically blew me off. I asked if I could have a
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  • mediator sit in on a conversation between Shelly and I to try to resolve whatever it is she
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  • thinks I did and he told me not to try to talk to her because I'd somehow get in trouble for it. That
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  • ped me off so I went to see what HR had to say. HR says she's not violating any policies.
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  • I'm not trying to get her fired. I just want her to truly ignore me if that's the route she wants to
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  • take. I feel like going out of her way to change her whole mood just because
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  • I walk in is some form of bu ying or retaliation or something.
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management boss workplace-stories hr manager bosses work PTO managers supervisor workplace Horrible Bosses work-life balance
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