Working in an office environment can be great – being part of a team, sharing in the highs and lows of workplace life together.

But it’s understandable that not everyone is going to be a natural fit, after all you’re hired to do your jobs, not be the best of friends.

So when the guy in this story found his new colleague a little demanding, he did his best to be receptive to her, in a friendly attempt to help her settle in.

After a while, however, it got too much even for him.

Read on to find out what broke his resolve.

AITA for telling my new work colleague that she has no right to control our office habits?

I am a 35-year-old man, and I have been working in this office for three years.

We recently hired a new girl (25, female) and she sits diagonally in front of me so I can see her at my desk and vice versa – we are around one meter apart.

She has been working for the company for three weeks, and has been trying to control our office habit based on her liking.

Uh-oh. Let’s see what this girl has done in her short time at the company.

I have an unhealthy eating habit and I snack a lot during work. She mentioned twice (jokingly) that I was tempting her to eating cakes.

She asked how I can stay skinny even though I eat like a pig.

I offered her some of my snacks, but she refused saying she’s trying to lose weight.

Fine, I stopped snacking on my desk, but my other colleagues and I still have lunch at our desks when we are quite busy.

But the problem just ket getting worse.

But by the end of the first week, she reported us to HR, saying that people should not have lunch or eat at their desks because it can be unhygienic and the crumbs might fell into keyboard etc and attract bugs.

She also mentioned how she was annoyed by me eating ice cream, cakes, bread, etc. during work hours as it disturbs her because she’s trying hard to lose weight.

So HR sent us all emails and now everyone in the office – EVERYONE – can no longer eat anything at our desks.

Yikes! Read on to find even more ways in which she caused drama.

On her second day, she complained that the girl sits next to her (Jane) was using a very strong perfume and the scent nauseated her. Jane does indeed wear strong perfume, but it wasn’t that horrible. All of us could tolerate Jane’s perfume – but suddenly because this new girl couldn’t, Jane was the one that has to change.

Between our team, 6 of us collect $10 weekly to buy lottery. One of the guy in our team is Muslim and he doesn’t gamble, so he has never participated but he never discouraged or criticised us.

We offered this girl to join us and she criticised us, saying that gambling is bad and say it’s very unprofessional to be collecting money to gamble in office environment.

She actually brought this to HR, arguing the harm and risk and if we happen to win millions of dollars – she said a massive exodus would be harmful for the company. Luckily HR didn’t do anything about it.

Then, the complaints got even more discriminatory.

The Muslim guy prays twice a day in our stationery room.

Unfortunately we don’t have prayer room in the office, so he has got his prayer mat and some other stuff in our stationery room, and it has been there since I start working at the company.

However, she suggested him to move it somewhere as he shouldn’t put personal belongings in a common area.

She told the other girl in our team that the old mat was not pleasant to look at.

It seemed like there was nothing she wasn’t out to change.

Our desks are laid out in an L-shape, and my desk is next to a glass window. In our team, there are seven people excluding her, and all of us are sun haters.

We always pull down the shade, which especially benefits the guys sitting on the other corner. They say if the window is opened, the sun glares on their computer screens throughout the afternoon, meaning that they can’t see their screens very well.

This girl has been complaining how our corner is too dark and gives bad vibes and she needs to have the shades opened up.

She mentioned how the sun will make people happier and increase productivity.

And for this guy, the shades were the final straw.

I couldn’t stand her anymore so I stood up from my desk and spoke to her firmly (without yelling).

“Look, you have been here for less than a month but you keep telling us what to do. We have been changing our habits to accommodate you but then you keep pushing things. You can’t keep telling us what to do. I think the best thing is for you to move to sit where the HR people sits because it’s always bright there and you are closer with them than to us anyway.”

She then said I hate women and I’m bullying her and she is telling our manager and HR about this.

Now I’m wondering if I’m in the wrong, and if I did bully her? Is it acceptable for new hire to tell older colleagues to do these things?

AITA?

One or two things – genuine issues – are normal when settling into a new environment, but it really feels like she’s trying to be antagonistic, and some of her complaints are really personal.

It’s not normal for a newcomer to make such intense demands – sure, asking for a replacement for a broken chair or something, but not immediately demanding company-wide changes to suit her personal preferences.

It’s no wonder this guy felt he had to take a stand.

Let’s see what the folks of Reddit thought about this.

This person agreed that he’d done nothing wrong.

And others encouraged the guy and his colleagues to go to HR themselves.

Meanwhile, this Redditor explained a gentle way to do this.

This woman’s demanding behavior is too much – especially since her colleagues have tried their best to be receptive to her requests as they welcome her into the team.

But sometimes you simply can’t keep bending to other people’s wants, especially when her requests start being discriminatory and insulting.

The good news? If she keeps on like this, surely they won’t have to deal with her for much longer.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.