“Oops! Sorry, I didn’t mean to call you out like that. At work. In front of other people…”

Calling something like that embarrassing is a HUGE understatement.

So was this woman wrong for what she did to a new co-worker?

Let’s dig in!

AITA for accidentally calling out a new colleague on lying about her language skills?

“Last week a new colleague “Cathy” (33f) started at my (25f) work place. She instantly stood out in the team, because she seems like someone who is very… loud and assertive?

Two of my colleagues, me and Cathy were having coffee in the break room (we were the only ones in there and we were sitting far apart), when the subject of travel was brought up. My colleague said she wasn’t booking trips anymore because it’ll probably get cancelled because of Covid anyway.

Cathy decided to chime in.

Cathy, immediately cut in about how sad she is because she travels so often and she goes on these far “exotic” trips to Europe as her hobby. When I think exotic I think the Bahamas or something instead of Europe but. Cool.

Cathy then jokes about how all this “no travel business” is making her fear that she’ll lose some of her foreign language skills. I asked what languages she spoke. She claimed to be fluent in 3 European languages, among which were French and Dutch. Cathy said she was “at a native speaker level” and went on about how people in Europe were always surprised when they found out she wasn’t from there.

But Cathy didn’t know what was about to hit her.

I was excited, because I never get to speak Dutch over here. I was raised in Belgium, which has three national languages: French and Dutch (which are my mother tongues and the most commonly spoken there) and German.

It’s quite common to be pretty fluent in at least two out of the three languages in Belgium, because you’re required to learn them at school (along with English) from a young age. I told Cathy “oh leuk, dan hebben we iets gemeenschappelijk!” (“oh fun, we have something in common then!”)

Cathy decided to be as petty as can be…

She immediately pulled this sour face and asked me if that was supposed to be Dutch.

I said yes.

She laughed awkwardly and said she “couldn’t understand because I have a terrible accent and must not be that good at speaking it.” Now see, I don’t have an accent. I speak Dutch more fluently than I speak English.

I told Cathy that I grew up speaking Dutch and speak it to my family all the time.

She got miffed and asked what languages I speak and where I’m from. I told her I’m from Belgium, so I also speak French and I added “which you just said you speak as well, cool! We can speak French instead!”

I acknowledge that I was a bit of a jerk here, because by that point I knew she probably lied about speaking French as well.

Cathy wasn’t happy about how this turned out for her.

She then shoved her chair back and angrily got up, said “whatever” and stomped off.

It was awkward.

My other colleagues just kinda shrugged and said she shouldn’t have lied.

However, she later approached me and told me I embarrassed her by acting “superior” about my European heritage. I told her there was no way for me to know she’d lied about speaking those languages.

And it turns out that Cathy was talking some major smack!

She rolled her eyes and told me I was immature. A colleague told me that Cathy had called me a “little ***** who enjoys bullying new colleagues” behind my back later. I don’t think I was a bully at all, but I don’t want this to turn into a huge thing. Do I just apologize to keep the peace?

AITA?”

Check out what people had to say on Reddit.

One reader said she needs to report Cathy to HR.

Another Reddit user said she needs to let them know before this becomes an issue.

This person said Cathy might be lying about more than just this…

One Reddit user said this is probably affecting the whole work environment.

And this person made a good point…

Well, that was quite a ride.

I wonder if these two buried the hatchet…