Clean Versus Mean

I honestly have no idea how this lady stayed employed as long as she did. She was an older woman who barely spoke English, so I never really talked to her, but her bad attitude was readily apparent. Seeing her rudely telling off a senior employee who politely asked her if she could help cover another part of the building was my first real experience with her. For my part, I just tried to do my job and avoid workplace drama.

Then, I took a position helping to clean the trays we used to sort out the plants. As this was a medical greenhouse, sanitation was extremely important. I was told right from the start that under no circumstances were the dirty trays to touch the clean ones.

Well, [Rude Lady] got moved there, too. For my part, I just did my job as carefully as possible and didn’t try to start anything. Then, one day, I noticed her putting a huge stack of dirty trays right up against my clean ones. I tried to tell her that we couldn’t do that, but she didn’t seem to get it, so I just moved them over to the side myself.

Now, I could’ve dismissed that as a simple misunderstanding at this point. But then, she moved them right back when I wasn’t looking. I moved them again, and she just stormed off. I just went back to work and didn’t think anything of it.

Then, she came back with the boss claiming that I was being “mean” and “bullying” her. I had to explain the whole situation, and thankfully, the boss took my side.

I didn’t see her again after that.