I (20s) am still fairly new to my job in reception with only a few months in at my job.

I have always felt a little intimidated by my senior receptionists because they, to me, essentially act like high school mean girls. They gossip and S-talk with one another when there aren’t clients around.

From day one it felt like a very unwelcoming environment, but hey, I kept my mouth shut because I needed the money and I didn’t want to stir up trouble as the “new kid”.

One of my colleagues in particular, let’s call her “Samantha” (30s), has been the supreme offender in terms of gossip and cattiness. She’s the kind of person where, if you have an issue with something she said, she manipulates the situation so that she’s the calm one and you’re the one acting irrational.

She constantly talks about how she doesn’t care about other people or this job. She comes across to me as very narcissistic as well, talking about how her “gigs” outside of our place of work make her much more money, or all of her talents that make her such an overqualified individual.

Another one of my coworkers that I don’t work with as often due to schedule lineups, let’s call her “Heather” (50s), is disabled. She never complains, never gossips, or anything. Her only “””fault””” is being a little slow with the phones.

The other day, Samantha practically flung one of the rolling chairs away from the desk and replaced it with another one. I asked her what was wrong with the chair (these were new chairs that we got only about a month ago), and she said “That’s where Heather sits. She wears Pampers, and craps and pisses all over herself all day while she’s here, and she smells. I’m not touching that seat.”

The complete and utter lack of compassion floored me. I’m sure that Heather doesn’t want to be in this kind of situation, but I was just horrified at what I was hearing from Samantha. Will I be targeted if I “go over her head” and report this situation to our manager without speaking to Samantha about it first?

I find it very difficult to talk to her and she is incredibly intimidating. I can only imagine if I attempted to speak with her about her behaviour that she would shrug it off and not actually care about my concerns – and then probably gossip about me to the others.