Your Impatience Only Burdens You, Lady

In the office where I work, we have “kitchen weeks,” which means we take turns to be responsible for keeping the communal break room and kitchen clean, wiping down the counters, running and unloading the dishwasher, cleaning stinky things out of the fridge, etc.

It works pretty well, except for one coworker who seems to have appointed herself as the kitchen week police. She always finds something to complain about.

It’s my kitchen week, and I’m sitting in the break room hurrying to finish my lunch since I have a meeting in a few minutes. Just as I’m done eating, the dishwasher, which I started a few hours ago, has run its program and beeps to signal that it’s finished. I pop it open to let it cool down, hang a towel over the hatch — this means the dishes inside are clean and waiting to be unloaded — and prepare to go to my meeting.

Unfortunately, my coworker happens to be in the break room at the same time as I am and immediately descends like a hawk.

Coworker: “It’s your kitchen week, isn’t it? Aren’t you going to unload that?”

Me: “I will, but right now I have an online meeting with [Important Client] to update them about [important project]. It’ll take thirty minutes at most. I’ll unload the dishes when I’ve taken care of that.”

Coworker: “Well, don’t expect me to do your job for you!”

Me: “I don’t! I’ll take care of it as soon as my meeting is finished.”

I leave for my meeting, which goes well, and then hurry back to the kitchen to unload the dishwasher. Once I get there, I find that someone has already done it for me. I have my suspicions about who it is, and they are confirmed when I get called into the Human Resources manager’s room the next day. 

The HR manager and I are on friendly terms, and I know I haven’t done anything wrong, so I’m not worried.

HR Manager: “I got a complaint about you from [Coworker]. She claims you refused to unload the dishwasher even though it’s your kitchen week and forced her to do it instead.”

Me: “Oh, really? What actually happened is that I prioritized a scheduled meeting with [Important Client] over unloading the dishwasher, and when I got back to the kitchen, she had already done it herself, completely unprompted.”

HR Manager: “Yeah, I figured it was something like that. You’re not in trouble; I just have to follow up on all complaints I get.”

Me: “Um, not to be that person, but [Coworker] is due to retire soon, right?”

HR Manager: *Sighs deeply* “Not soon enough.”