12 of the pettiest colleagues you’ll ever meet

From stealing office supplies to spreading rumours, Wani Azahar spoke to various (anonymous) sources to spill their pettiest work wars. Here are the confessions.

I had an ex-colleague who would come to work late often, sometimes even around noon. My previous employer was not too happy about it and decided to deduct her pay. In return, the colleague resigned and stole all the A4 papers and office supplies as revenge.

I once shared a post-work beer with a colleague. Instead of splitting the bill into half for a pint, he insisted we split it based on how much I drank - which was ⅔.

All of us will always buy snacks for the office. Some buy expensive and good quality ones such as Swiss chocolates, Tokyo Banana and other delicious cookies from our holidays. However, we have a freeloader who always finishes up the good snacks quickly. So when we hinted that anybody who wants to eat the snacks should at least contribute some, she only bought a pack of gummy bears.

The team was planning a mini celebration for our assistant director. However, we had a colleague that was quick to say “no!” to the idea; which was funny as they have been working so closely together for four years. After some grovelling, she relented and forked out for the humble-sized cake and card (amounting less than S$5 per person). She never stopped grumbling the whole time. You would think she would be more human.

One of my colleagues do not like having people use his dustbin whenever he's on holiday. So he hides them beneath his desk.

Once, my colleague was passing a remark about another co-worker’s body. The body-shamer expected me to agree with him, which I didn’t. So he decides to minimise conversations with me and gives me the cold shoulder whenever we bump into each other now.

A former colleague of mine was doing an event at Changi (east of Singapore) for about a month and he lives an hour from the venue. Due to the nature of the task, he has to leave home for work at about 6.30am everyday and would reach home nothing earlier than midnight. Naturally, his transport fare exploded. Unfortunately, my ex-boss refused to pay for his claims as it was too much and spread rumours in the office that he went to the gym every morning and abused his benefits. 

My boss was complaining to his business partner of how the latter (and her team) sometimes consumed electricity and water in the office. He then decided to charge his business partner half of the bills. Here’s the tricky part: he has a team of 18 people, while his business partner has only two. Guess business is business.

I used to work with a very childish employer. After much torment, I decided to resign. During my tender period, he had bought a cake to celebrate the upcoming holidays. He personally invited everyone (out loud) in the office to have come have a taste in his room. When it came to my turn, he paused, skipped out my name, and blatantly moved on to the next cubicle.

I came to work one day with a fresh manicure in burgundy. Granted, my nails were a little longer than usual at that point of time. Some time later, I cleaned off my manicure and the very next day, my colleague came with the exact same shade. I complimented on how good the colour looked on her. Her response? "Yeah, I just think it looks so much better on short nails."

One of my colleagues offered everyone except me some homemade cookies. When I asked her if I could try one, she said she didn't have any left. But I knew she was lying because I saw the same box of cookies beneath her desk.

It’s frowned upon in my office to have personal deliveries sent to work unless in dire situations. One time, I had to send my groceries there as no one was home to receive it. Coincidentally, a colleague was also handing me a gift that him and his wife got. In other words, I had two “personal” deliveries sent to my desk that day. My team mate saw that, and in two minutes said: “Alicia* (my boss) just wants to remind you that no personal deliveries is to be made at work.”

At that time, my boss was on a yacht. In another country. Probably too busy to respond within two minutes. A week later, this same team mate had her month’s worth of groceries complete with cat litter, detergent, and dog food sent to her desk. Funny how Alicia didn’t have anything to say to that though.

*Names have been changed to protect identities. 

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