Remote employee calls out their disruptive roommate by matching their energy and taking loud work calls in the common area: ‘We agreed that we would use headphones’

• In this case, these roomie remote employees were not only brewing and stewing in a hostile work environment at home, attempting to drown out one another's meetings, but also bringing that drama up after hours. This seems like a simple issue that a good set of headphones could solve, but when one roommate's entitlement turns petty, that's going to be met with equal pettiness intensity. (Per the laws of roommate dynamics, of course)

  Roommate drama doesn't abide by the same rules as friendship, coworker relationships, or even siblings. Operating on a completely different scale of exposure and disdain, roommate drama supersedes all logic, often leaving the survivors of any imminent battle slinking away into their respective rooms to lick their wounds and fight again tomorrow. For the bickering between roommates will never truly get solved, not until one person moves out can anyone move on. That, combined with coworker energy? Now we've got ourselves a story of rampant pettiness that'll only conclude when the lease is up. 

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  via Canva+ (Laiz Scultz)

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

• "WIBTA if I start taking my video calls in the living room without headphones

  My roommate and I both work from home. We agreed when we moved in that we would use headphones for calls and keep common areas quiet during work hours. It was her idea actually. I thought it was reasonable so I said yes."

• “I have kept my end of it completely. I do every single call from my desk with headphones on, door closed, even the short ones.”

• “She stopped doing it maybe three months in. Now she takes calls on speaker in the living room, sometimes for an hour at a stretch, loud enough that I can hear both sides of the conversation through my closed door. I work in a role where I need to concentrate, and the noise breaks that completely.”

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  via Getty Images (Pheelings Media)

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

• "I have brought it up three times. The first time, she said she would be more careful. The second time, she said her headphones were hurting her ears and she was looking for new ones. The third time, she said I was being rigid because it was a shared space and she had as much right to use it as I did.

  That last one sent me a little."

• "So now I am considering just doing the same thing. Taking my calls on speaker in the living room during her work hours. Not to be malicious, just to let her experience what the last three months have felt like from my side.

  I have talked to her three times. I do not know what a fourth conversation looks like." 

  via Old_Entertainer4898

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  via Pexels (Vitali Gariev)

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

• G-reeper66

  Tell her she set the rules and as such she must uphold them rigidly or you will do the same!

• Safe-Muscle2940

  Mirroring her behavior might get the point across, but could also escalate things quickly

• GeeWhiskers

  Start opening your door and loudly voicing “Could you please keep it down, I’m in a call”. I’m sure she’d rather not have her callers know she’s unprofessional.

• UnburntAsh

  "Did you lose your headphones AGAIN?!"

  "Please use your handset normally, as I can't focus on my work call!"

  "Girl, I know you're hungover and it's messing with your ability to regulate, but how can you be so LOUD when you're still loaded from last night?"

  Alternatively, every time she does it, go out to the kitchen and start using the blender. 😂

• EntertheHellscape

  Yeah OP, don't do the exact same thing as her. You open yourself up to her messing with YOUR calls. Just use the shared space too, conveniently every time she's using it. Making yourself a shake of some kind every time she's on a call is the way to go. It's good for your brain to keep your energy up after all!

• dkbGeek

  It's a shared space. Continue your calls while walking through the shared space to the kitchen and back in the middle of her speakerphone calls. Extra points for managing to have a call about something disgusting at the time.

• 4MuddyPaws

  I'd take my break while she's on a call and go to the kitchen to make a smoothie in the blender.

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