In mid 2020, one person at work thinking I was a bitch for ignoring and not talking to her cost me a promotion, friends, totally ruined my mental health for a long while, and nearly cost me my job. The reason I didn’t talk to her much? She was hired during lockdown when everyone was WFH and we worked in healthcare admin so we were all pretty bloody busy. I met her in person for the first time at the HR meeting for her complaints against me for workplace bullying.

If her opinion of me had been brought up with me and made my business before she went to HR, I wouldn’t have had to deal with that circus in addition to the hell scape that was 2020.