Clingy best friend-turned-colleague treats work like a high school hangout, flooding her lawyer friend with gossip, personal oversharing, and nonstop distractions: ‘I can't stand her anymore, so I muted her on everything’

You know the feeling when an appliance or a smoke detector just refuses to stop beeping and shut up? For this one unlucky lawyer, it was just that but not from a microwave or coffee machine. Unfortunately for her, it's the best-friend-turned-colleague who never quite evolved out of middle school. Somewhere between the cold coffee updates and TikTok marathons in the open-plan wasteland, the younger version of this friendship slid into the Twilight Zone. Once, sharing secrets meant late-night sleepovers and cautionary tales about teachers. Now, it's a barrage of toilet confessions and ponytail betrayals, all delivered with the urgency of a courtroom emergency.

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  • Clingy best friend-now-colleague is being weird at work and draining me

    o female coworkers in an office, one whispering gossip to the other who looks annoyed while working on a laptop.
    via LightField Studios

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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  • Client files aren’t the only things piling up. The best friend’s toxic team apparently works about as much as a garden gnome. That leaves all kinds of free time for 50-text soliloquies, full of grievances about Becky’s hairstyle and dramatic reports about personal plumbing. Boundaries, meet buzzsaw. Nothing screams healthy adulthood quite like muting every app in a desperate bid to maintain some professional dignity, only to return from court and find the gossip tornado parked right at the desk.

  • I've gone through middle school, high school and law school with this girl (over a decade of close friendship).
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  • Recently, I referred her to my law firm and, although she's a lawyer in a different team, it's become very difficult and suffocating having her around...
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  • and I'm seeing her in a very different (negative) light. Her work ethic is very different to mine and her team is apparently quite gossip- y and toxic (which I didn't know since my team is very pleasant and professional, albeit intense).
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  • She started texting me lengthy essays every day about the petty things that happen in her team (which sound like immature high school dramas) and she's started to sound like a toxic mean girl...
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  • female coworkers in an office, one whispering gossip to the other who looks annoyed while working
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    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • very hateful and judgey (which is out of character for her). It seems like they don't do much work either, given that she has so much time to spam me on every social media platform possible during work hours.
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  • Each polite brush-off is met by another attempt, and when “busy” status stops her in cyberspace, she manifests in person like a haunting. Cue the TikTok-sharing, the loud outbursts, the public shaming at a volume level that would make a karaoke machine blush. Good luck explaining to the rest of the firm that not all friends are chosen family, sometimes, they’re cautionary tales in business attire.

  • Most of it is pointless or TMI - like the fact that her coffee was too cold today, or Becky "stole" her look by wearing a ponytail to work or she had an uncomfortable morning dump (with details).
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  • Why do I need to know this?! And it's 50+ texts basically talking to herself the entire day!
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  • She was not like this beforehand. I usually do not have the time or capacity to respond to all her messages.
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  • Cheezburger Image 10572008960
    via LightField Studios

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • If i do respond, it's mostly grey rocking because I don't agree with her constant rants and pettiness (like I might say "oh no that sucks hope it - gets better!").
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  • I also politely assert my work boundaries, such as reminding her that I don't go on my phone at work (or rarely at all) and that my work requires a lot of focus.
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  • Congratulations to this lawyer for joining the partnership of drama and HR risk. 

  • She'll respond to this in a polite and understanding way, but her actions will say otherwise...
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  • For example, i'll return to my desk and find her waiting for me. Since I'm not as responsive via text, she's now resorted to rocking up at my desk to give me the gossip about a colleague or her personal matters (like her dating life) in our OPEN PLAN office, or to follow me up and nudge me passive aggressively to check my phone about some messages she sent earlier.
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  • If I'm not available at all that day, whether that's being at Court, in meetings, at a work lunch, etc she will proceed to send me texts about how sad she is that I'm not around (for context, I'm not neglecting her - we hang out frequently on weekends and with other friends outside work).
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  • I feel even more pressured when apparently I'm the only person she will talk to at work and she refuses to mingle with anyone else.
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  • The worst "tense" moment we've had so far was right before a hearing I had in Court (prep madness while on 0 sleep) where she kept trying to show me tiktoks.
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  • I kept telling her I didn't have time and that I'd watch them after work. To her apparent frustration, she became pushy like "it's only quick!
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  • it's funny!" and I had to say "I'm sorry, but NO - not now!" very loudly and she proceeded to play the videos out loud in the office anyway while I was madly typing/prepping.
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  • It was embarrassing, inconsiderate and infuriating. I could feel my whole team looking at me too...
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  • and I hope they heard that I clearly wasn't entertaining this. I can't stand her anymore so I muted her on everything she could contact me on and so I can focus on my work.
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  • I also permanently changed my work accounts to "busy" or "out of office", but it doesn't really work since she'll still hover around my desk several times a day.
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  • I'm also really suss with all this because I'm very mindful and precious of my career.
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  • I'm conscious that colleagues will notice her antics (or worse, the horrible things she says about them) and assume I'm part of it.
    via teal_lantern27
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