Hi, r/relationships! Longtime lurker, here with something that's been bugging me for days.
I (25F) work at a law firm as an assistant. Our floor is shared with several attorneys that sublease rooms, some of which are associated with my firm, some of which are not. The woman I have in question is an older lady aged 60-70, supposedly very intelligent, graduated from an Ivy League years ago with her law degree. She spends most of her days in her office reading the internet and chatting with people in our floor. Now, when I first started out, I was warned of her by several people. But I thought, oh she can't be that bad, what a sweet lady... Oh, how I was wrong.
I've seen her in the break room, which has a refrigerator, stealing from people's lunches to compliment her own. She stays late and digs through people's trash and has let me know about certain things I keep on my desk that she would like to have, such as coupons and the like. She would tell me how she "couldn't help but notice that I had xyz" on my desk. She claims to have "found" lots of things that people just "threw away" or "misplaced" but those things clearly wouldn't be found unless she took them specifically from someone's desk. I watched her swipe a pen from me RIGHT after I set it down. Her room is cluttered with things, just tons of stuff, some of which have our logo on them. She's constantly salvaging day-old food from stores and offering them to us, which hey, I have no complaints about, because I grew up poor. But she's been an attorney for over 30 years. She should not be dumpster-diving.
Everyone, including my manager, knows how nosy and annoying she is and tends to just try to stay out of her path. The last straw for me was when I bought a mug specifically for my use a the firm. It's a very specific cup with a cartoon on it from a brand name store. There are two brand name cups in our firm. Now there are none.
It was last week that I noticed my cute cup wasn't in the cupboard like I usually found it. All the older, faded cups are there. But not mine. I checked the dishwasher and sink. Not there. While I was delivering the mail, I gave a quick glance at whether or not it was sitting on someone's desk. Because that would be fine. I would just have to beat them to it the next morning. It was nowhere.
When I was delivering her mail, I noticed that the other brand name cup was sitting amongst her clutter. She usually drinks out a thermos where she can siphon off the rest of our coffee before it's gone and take it home, so I know she doesn't use mugs. I didn't see my mug sitting anywhere in her room. However, what set me off was that the minute she arrived in her room, she started rummaging through some bags. I could hear here from the hall, so I went over to say hi and lo and behold, the nice cup sitting on the shelf was gone. I said hey. And she shot up from under the desk, like a deer in the headlights. And she asked what I wanted.
I know this is a lot of grief over a cup, but I plan on being with this company for several more years, and it's a giant rain cloud over my head whenever I step in because she violates my trust. We used to chat like friends about movies and books and I don't want to see her face ever again. I have reason to believe it is her because no one else in the suite exhibits suspicious behavior like her and literally everyone else is trustworthy. She is the single only person who does not respect people's privacy and belongings.
I feel like it would be drastic to send an office-wide email over a cup and I could just buy another one, but I just feel gross on the inside when I think about it. So, am I being overly dramatic over a stupid utensil or do I have the right to say something?
tl/dr: how to confront someone who shares my office suite of theft? Should I even bother?
Submitted July 08, 2015 at 12:22PM by skitty__cat http://ift.tt/1MdCDJV relationships
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