I work in a fairly small office (no big corporate chain; HR covered by the Operations Director). One of the women who works alongside me is a bit of a head cook and bottle washer type, who likes to think she has some authority because she has some general office management responsibilities. She can also be a bit prim; she’s older, and isn’t keen on the fact that we no longer have a traditional office dress code, or that people are a bit more informal in general these days. That’s obviously her choice, as long as she doesn’t try to push those views on anyone else.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago she was complaining there was too much swearing in the office and said she was going to bring in a swear box; that we’d all have to put money in for charity if we swore in the office. I thought she was kidding, but she actually made the bloody box and brought it in. I laughed to myself when I saw it. I certainly had no intention of going along with it, but I didn’t say anything, as if other people were happy to put some pennies in for charity, that was their choice.
Anyway, today I was talking in the office and described something as a “shitstorm”, and she actually came over jingling her little box at me. I just laughed and said, “Yeah - I never agreed to that”, not really believing she’d actually chase people for money. But no - she was serious. She said, “I told everyone I was bringing in a swear box. There’s too much swearing goes on in this office.” She then said that, as she knows people don’t carry as much cash these days, I could put an IOU on a post-it!
I sort of snorted and said, “You’re not serious”. But apparently she was. And took great exception. She said again, “I told everyone.” I snapped at this point and said, “Well you don’t get to TELL people. You can ASK if they want to take part - and I don’t.”
Well, she’s clearly gone whinging to our actual manager, as he spoke to me about it later in the day. He basically said that of course I didn’t have to put money in the box, but could I just humour my colleague a bit as “she means well”. Frankly I was getting pretty annoyed now and said I, and all of us, humour her enough already. That she’s not management and needs to stop acting like it. He seems to think it doesn’t matter that much, but I have had enough. I said I’d try to avoid swearing in front of her if she was genuinely offended, but she could forget it if she thought I was going to do just nod and smile.
I appreciate it’s probably gone too far. But honestly, I’m an adult in the workplace, not a character in an office sitcom. It’s not up to me to humour delusional clerical workers.
Should I push to get the box removed?