Woman leaks co-worker’s wild text messages: ‘Sounds like harassment’


Woman leaks co-worker’s wild text messages: ‘Sounds like harassment’

Published Oct. 11, 2024, 10:19 a.m. ET A text exchange between two co-workers has gone viral, revealing how few boundaries some people have when it comes to work. It used to be that when you finished work, you left the building and you were done for the day and, unless someone wanted to call your landline, you weren’t contactable. These days people can call, facetime, text or even slide into your direct messages on social media, making maintaining boundaries increasingly difficult. Australian employees recently won the right to ignore work messages and calls outside of working hours, within reason and depending on their role and expectations. However, it is still blurry about what is acceptable or unacceptable from a co-worker, and a woman’s text exchange has proven that. Kait, 25, a retail worker from the United States, posted a series of screenshots on X revealing the bizarre messages her co-worker had been sending her. “I made the mistake of loaning a co-worker money and now it has been non-stop asking for money, rides and food. No one in management will do anything about it,” she said. The text exchange started with the co-worker asking to borrow $7 and Kait sending her the money. Then the requests kept coming. “Could you loan me $10 or $15, and I’ll pay you back Monday and the $7,” one message reads. When Kait replied, “I only have $3 to my name right now,” the co-worker didn’t relent and proposed a new deal. “Could I have the $3 I sent back to you on the Saturday? Plus the $7,” she asked. The worker also posted a series of other text messages she’d gotten from her co-worker, which included her asking for various lifts, more money and asking Kait to buy her snacks like milk or a Dr. Pepper. The tweet has been viewed over 28 million times, and Kait, who didn’t expect the thread to blow up so much, offered further context around the messages. She said the co-worker has done this with all employees at the place they’ve worked. People have blocked her, but some claim she finds them on social media platforms to continue messaging. “A regular customer when they come in now asks if she’s currently working, if she is then they immediately leave because she used them for grocery money and never paid her back but kept asking for more rides or more money,” she claimed. She also said that in total, she’d only given her co-worker $15 max but she was sick of the “relentless” messages asking for money, food and lifts. It might sound like a bizarre and very specific scenario, but recruitment expert Roxanne Calder told news.com.au that these types of personal texts between co-workers are constantly causing workplace problems. “The boundaries are blurred,” she explained Calder said when personal text messages become a workplace problem, it is really “difficult” to navigate as a boss because you don’t want to overstep.