To be annoyed at the office Neat Freak?

[ItsAllInTheWaySheMoves]

I have name changed as I've moaned about this to a couple of RL mates.

I work in a small office; there are 7 of us. One member of the team is a complete and utter neat freak and tbh I am finding her behaviour both annoying and unnerving as we are all constantly getting told off by her for any mess, or anything that she perceives to be mess when it is just at a normal level.

I am not a messy person. My house is very tidy. I keep my desk at work tidy but I do need certain things out on my desk during the day; stationery such as a stapler and hole puncher, files, various paperwork, and a drink. Each day when I've finished work my desk is totally tidy and everything is put away.

We are all constantly coming back to our desks if we've been away from them to find she's tidied them up, which is usually accompanied by a telling off saying we shouldn't have left X, Y or Z out. She moans at us if we have, say, two drinks on our desks (coffee and a bottle of water in my case, today!).

She came storming over to my desk today saying my keyboard looked 'dirty' and huffed and puffed and started wiping it with an antibacterial wipe!

She also is always huffing and puffing around the office emptying bins several times a day (and yes, we get moaned at for putting rubbish in our bins), hoovering, and straightening anything and everything up. It is absolutely doing my head in!

No point speaking to the manager as he is scared of her I think and always whispers to us to keep things tidy so we don't upset her!

AIBU to be fucked off with this? I'm a grown woman and want to be left to deal with my own desk!

As i recently read on another thread, “I don’t have to enable your issues. Please keep your preferences to your own possessions and work station, and i’ll keep to mine.”

I'd say this to her, I think, next time she starts messing around with your stuff.

I'm a grown woman and want to be left to deal with my own desk!

Possibly followed by 'don't you have any work to do?!'

She sounds a total nightmare and would give me the absolute rage!

Because of the nature of my job, I'll often be in the middle of a time consuming bit of work and have to stop to deal with prebooked appointments, or to do something urgent but quick. No way would I clear away all the stuff to do with the big task for 30 minutes to do something else and then get it out again.

If someone came along and "tidied up" all my paperwork, it would take ages for me to get back to where I was.

And anyway, who appointed her tidiness monitor? It's very intrusive.

I would have to ask her to leave my desk alone; that would infuriate me.

That’s incredibly intrusive and rude!

Suggest that something has gone missing. It may stop the interference.

Does she have any time to actually do any work in-between her tidying episodes? Can you speak to your manager about it?

That sounds really annoying. I know said you feel you can't speak to your manager but do you have someone in HR who could help? She sounds like she has some issues that need to be addressed. It is not normal to interfere with other people's desks like that.

'I can see you like a tidy environment. So do I. However, please do not interfere with my desk or anything on it, either by cleaning or tidying it. I want to do this myself."

When she carries on:

"I have asked you not to touch my desk. If you continue to do so I will have to escalate this issue. '

And do so.

Trying tidying her desk and chair outside of the office

I'd be tempted to move things on her desk every time she annoyed you.

I suspect she's struggling with OCD. It really seems extreme and impacts her daily life.

However, you need very firm boundaries. NO TOUCHING anything on your desk. It's your space.

"I'm not willing to discuss anything other then something directly work related with you. If you purposefully interrupt my work or my desk again I will be making a huge complaint about your disruptive, bullying behavior and attitude to HR." Also I'd be having works with your manager and threatening to report him to his superior if he doesn't handle it as what she is doing could easily be seen as bullying. If he's as weak as he sounds this should scare him into action

Echo pps who say please don't touch anything in my desk again. This would drive me bonkers & I'm messy!

Doesn't she have actual work to do?

I’d be messing up her desk!!! I had a load of paper work out today, if anyone had touched it I would have been screwed!!!

She sounds unwell.

I think you should tell her not to touch your things though…and ask her kindly if she needs help with her cleanliness obsession.

I work with one, every day the same shit. Oh Fairy you have 2 pens and 3 post it notes out, I can’t work work in such mess. Me: blank face, carries on working.
they only do it when others are around but now as I don’t respond they say: Fairy you have no work are playing candy crush.

i don’t reply, I just ignore, they say it in front of others and will make themselves look so stupid. In my head I am imagining them in the shredder face first

Oooof! Touch my desk and DIE.

Glad to see this popping up from the other thread - it is a great response for this and so many 'issues' these days.

I love what @RubaiyatOfAnyone said. Absolutely spot on and succinct. Woman up, tell her. She hoovers multiple times? Tell her she’s disrupting your work. She clearly has issues, but you shouldn’t have to suffer.

You need to set her stapler in jelly.

Wow how does she get time to do any of her work?

Best response so far 👏

Some very polite responses here. I'm afraid that if someone randomly came over to wipe my keyboard down when I was trying to work they'd hear 'what are you doing? Worry about your own desk and leave mine alone!' Followed by a Look.

I'm very good at Looks.