There’s a big difference between being playful and being pushy.

A woman shares that she started a part-time warehouse job specifically because she wanted to work her shift, collect her paycheck, and go home. She was not there to make friends.

Alas, one of her coworkers decided all on his own that they were going to be friends.

The problem was that his version of being friendly involved barking at her, shaking her lunch table, among other unpleasant interactions.

She made it clear she wasn’t having it. But when he kept trying, she went to HR.

Then she had to go back to HR again.

What would you have done? Keep reading for the full story.

AITAH for reporting a ‘friendly’ coworker to HR twice?

Last year, I [38f] started working part-time at a warehouse. I really just wanted a part-time job where I went in, worked, and got to leave.

I wasn’t interested in making friends, though there were a few coworkers who I started connecting with.

I wound up feeling it was necessary to report a coworker to HR, and now because there’s been a bad reaction from my other coworkers toward me, I’m wondering if I did the wrong thing.

A couple weeks after I started, one coworker, Shane [56] started naturally gravitating toward me, even though I found his energy to be a little exhausting.

She wasn’t expecting things to escalate so much.

He’s the ‘class clown’ type personality, where he is constantly joking, pranking, and annoying people on purpose.

He has a ‘work wife’, Jane, who is also around his age.

He often does these pranks to Jane, who clearly gets frustrated and will snap at him to stop, but they seem to enjoy this dynamic and are basically inseparable.

I chatted with him and at first felt like he was just being friendly, but then he started displaying the class clown behavior toward me and I felt like I was being socially suffocated.

His “funny” behavior was basically bullying.

The type of things he did:

-Barking at me like a dog when he’d pass by an aisle and see me. If I didn’t respond, he’d keep barking. Like a little yappy dog barking with snarls and growls and high-pitched barking.

I once told him I legitimately have a sensory disorder and him barking at me can make me feel ill, yet he did it a few more times.

-Getting nearby me and mumbling under his breath, so I’d think he was talking to me, take my ear bud out, only for him to tell me he was just messing with me.

-Shaking the lunch table while I was sitting at it to annoy me.

Yup, I’d have punched him.

-Making faces while passing by on the forklift by sticking out his tongue, crossing his eyes, etc.

-If I didn’t respond, he’d do it or walk by and say hello until he got eye contact.

-On top of this, he also started obsessively complimenting my hair.

This is when things got creepy.

The first month I was there, he told me I had beautiful long hair. I said thanks. He told me to never cut it. I said well, I sometimes do cut it, but thanks.

The next time we were alone in the lunch room together, he told me I was a pretty lady and had beautiful eyes.

I said okay, thanks. He later told me again I was pretty, but said he’d been married for over 30 years and ‘you don’t ruin a thing like that.’

I was grossed out, because I felt it wasn’t necessary to keep complimenting me while claiming he’d never ruin his marriage.

He then routinely began complimenting my hair, emphasizing how long and beautiful it was, and that I was never allowed to cut it.

She didn’t know how to make it stop.

I started ignoring him on purpose, but it made it worse.

He seemed to get tense and started seeking me out. One day he drove past on the forklift, crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue, and I looked away and kept working.

He parked the forklift, came up to me, and went, ‘Look, I’m trying to be friendly, do you understand?’

I told him that I couldn’t possibly be expected to react to him whenever he demanded, and I had real life things on my mind and was exhausted. He said okay and walked off.

She finally took action.

I went to HR and told them I wasn’t trying to get him in trouble, but I would like some sort of documentation.

They sat him down and told him to ease off. A few days later, he came up to me and said he liked my tattoo and claimed he’d always wanted a tattoo but didn’t know what to get. I said a tattoo artist could help.

A few days after that, while walking behind me, he told me my hair was beautiful and to never cut it.

Back to HR. They sat him down again. This was about three weeks ago.

But other people got involved.

He finally stopped talking to me, but now Jane is clearly mad at me and is talking LOUDLY about Shane over and over whenever I’m around. Like saying his name loudly to other people.

Yesterday she got huffy because I was logging my cart into the computer and it was apparently in her way, so she pushed it at my body and walked on.

She also walked into the lunchroom thinking it was empty (they prefer to take lunch together but when nobody else is there), saw me, said, ‘Oh my GOD,’ and left again until I left.

Apparently, she rained on their parade.

On top of that, another woman who I liked keeps telling me that Shane did nothing wrong (gossip spreads) and that I mistook his intentions, he loves his wife and would never hurt her, and that people are getting afraid to have fun at work.

I said look, if gossip is spreading, then nobody but me knows what was going on and I had previously asked him to tone it down and was feeling forced to respond to him.

Turns out a whole group of people now think I’m an ******** who hurt the feelings of Shane. I keep being told, ‘That’s just how Shane is!

He’s not a threat, he’s goofy and likes to have fun.’

AITA?

It’s not about misunderstanding his intentions; SHE did NOT want to participate in those kinds of interactions, so he should respect that.

What did Reddit think?

He knows what he’s doing.

Yup.

Food for thought.

Another reader chimes in.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a customer who still asked for a manager after receiving perfect service.

He has flying monkeys.

It’s unbelievable that some people are defending him instead of respecting her right to be an introvert or simply not enjoy whatever that was.

Also, as one commenter said, he is probably acting one way with them, and one way with her. No one can convince me he didn’t have ulterior motives to be complimenting her in that manner so often.

Regardless, she wasn’t finding him funny or friendly, but annoying and disrespectful. Only he was laughing while she felt uncomfortable.

She also started deliberately avoiding him. At that point, continuing to seek out her attention is just plain sus.

It’s good that she went to HR twice after trying to deal with it on her own.

Bothering anyone like this is the kind of fifth-grade behavior people need to be called out for.