Everybody wants to have their own personal space and for people to respect it. Like Adesola Harold Orimalade said: “Our personal space is largely an area of ‘protection’ around us and they allow us a feeling of safety. We reserve our personal space only for those we allow in.” A very similar, if not the same, concept goes for our personal belongings. They are called personal for a reason. You can’t take them without asking and you have to respect other people’s boundaries.

More info: Reddit

To avoid making others feel disrespected, it’s critical to respect others’ boundaries and personal space

Image credits: CoWomen (not the actual image)

A woman shared her experience after confronting a coworker who had been using her personal items without asking

Image credits: u/Lower_throwawau091

Image credits: Vlada Karpovich (not the actual image)

Things starting going in the wrong direction as Sarah started using more and more personal items (not her own) and the woman finally confronted her

Image credits: u/Lower+throwawau091

Sarah hasn’t spoken to the woman since the incident, and a few of her employees who were friends became distant

Recently, Reddit user “Lower_throwawau091” shared her story with one community. The woman was wondering if she was wrong for finally telling her coworker to stop using her personal belongings. The post received a lot of attention and got more than 9.6K upvotes and 1.1K comments.

To begin with, the woman explains to readers that she has been working in a company for about 3 years now, her coworkers are nice, she likes her work and everything is great. Around a year ago, a new coworker named Sarah joined the company. At first everything was fine, friendly relationship, having lunch together, etc. However, over time, OP noticed that Sarah was drastically crossing boundaries as she started using the author’s personal things without even asking. 

At first it started with staplers, pens or phone chargers, which don’t seem like a big deal, right? However, one day, the author of this story brought a special lunch to the office that had a lot of sentimental value to her. She placed it in the fridge so it was clearly visible that this meal belonged to her. Well, as you already may guess what happened, Sarah ate it because she thought that it was for the whole office.

OP says that as time went by, her behavior started to shift to the negative side. Her coworker started using her personal computer, coffee mug with her name on it and all her justifications for this behavior were that she didn’t mean to cause any harm. However, one recent incident was fatal.

The woman says that she had purchased an expensive pair of headphones and left it on her desk. The next day, when she came to the office, guess where she found them? Yep, at Sarah’s desk. OP immediately confronted her about constantly using personal belongings and that this needs to stop. The whole office heard this conversation and people divided into two camps. A few of them agreed with the author, but others said that she was overreacting. Additionally, Sarah hasn’t spoken with the author since then. 

Image credits: Pavel Danilyuk (not the actual image)

Bored Panda reached out to the author of the post, u/Lower_throwawau091, and she was kind enough to share her thoughts and updates on this story.

“After the incident, I decided to take the advice of some commenters and approach HR to discuss the issue. We had a meeting with Sarah, and she was reprimanded for her behavior. HR made it clear that using other people’s belongings without permission is unacceptable and that any further incidents could result in more severe consequences. Since then, Sarah has stopped using my belongings, and I’ve noticed that she’s been more cautious around me. We haven’t spoken since,” she shared developments of this story since posting. 

When asked if she was the only one whose things her coworker used to take, OP mentioned that as far as she knows, she used to target mostly her things, though there have been a few incidents where she used some other coworkers’ things. “However, it seemed that she was more persistent in taking my things, which is why I was more affected by her behavior.” Additionally, the author feels thankful for the community members for such a massive response: “It was both comforting and eye-opening to read the different opinions and experiences people shared, and it helped me feel more confident in addressing the issue with HR.”

However, looking back at this situation, the woman thinks that there might have been some other ways she could have handled this situation: “Perhaps I could have involved HR earlier, before the confrontation escalated in front of our coworkers. I also wonder if I could have been more assertive in expressing my boundaries with Sarah from the very beginning, which might have prevented the issue from escalating to such an extent.”

And finally, the author shared that “since the incident and the HR meeting, I’ve noticed that some coworkers who were friends with Sarah have become distant and don’t speak to me as much as they used to. While it’s unfortunate that the situation has impacted some of my workplace relationships, I still believe that addressing the issue was necessary for my own well-being and to maintain a respectful work environment.”

Image credits: Antoni Shkraba (not the actual image)

Folks in the comments backed the author up and most of them suggested going to HR with this issue

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