“I Unfriended My Coworker on Facebook.  Now Our Office Potluck Is a War Zone”

 

I work at a mid-sized accounting firm off Jefferson Blvd., sandwiched between a dentist’s office and one of those strip-mall cell phone stores that only sells glittery cases and questionable chargers. Our office isn’t fancy, but it’s Fort Wayne functional: burned coffee, motivational posters from 2004, and a community fridge where Tupperware goes to die.

 

Once a month, like clockwork, we host a potluck in the breakroom. Brenda brings her deviled eggs. Someone forgets forks. And Dave from payroll pretends he doesn’t know who brought the “spicy mystery dip” while going back for thirds.

 

Enter Holly.

 

Holly is my coworker, equal parts loud opinion and passive-aggressive Facebook meme. She’s the kind of person who calls herself an “empath” but once yelled at an intern for using her favorite coffee mug. She posts constantly, usually things like:

 

• “Real queens fix each other’s crowns 👑 (unless someone’s fake, then bye)”

• “Not everyone who smiles at you is your friend. Some just want your lunch.”

• And once, during a particularly tense budgeting week:
  “Energy doesn’t lie. People do.”

 

I tolerated it. We all did. Until the posts started sounding oddly specific. After I took a sick day for an actual stomach flu, she posted:

 

“It’s always the ones who ‘need a day’ that do the least. 😂”

 

The final straw came after I wore a new blazer I bought at the Glenbrook Express during my lunch break. The next morning?

 

“Reminder: Expensive jackets don’t buy you leadership. Or respect. 🤷‍♀️”

 

So I did what any overworked Fort Wayne professional would do after a long week and one too many cryptic subtweets.

 

I unfriended her.

 

No message. No warning. Just click, and gone.

 

Apparently, that click was heard around the breakroom.

 

The next morning, she cornered me by the Keurig, her eyebrow arched to the heavens.

 

“Wow. So we’re not friends anymore?” she asked, loud enough for the intern to freeze mid-sip on his LaCroix.

 

I told her I just wanted to keep work and social media separate. She replied, “Some people can’t handle honesty,” then posted a selfie in the bathroom mirror with the caption:

 

“When you radiate too hard, the fake ones unfollow.”

 

That Friday, we had our monthly potluck. I brought my buffalo chicken dip, which has literally won awards at my church’s March Madness bracket party. Holly had volunteered to organize the food labels this time.

 

I noticed Brenda’s pasta salad had a little name tag that said “Brenda’s Famous Classic,” and Kyle’s sausage rolls were tagged “Coney Dogs with a Kick!” Mine?

 

“Unidentified Dip – Caution: Spicy and Salty”

 

I wish I were making that up.

 

Then she rearranged the table so my dish was next to the outlet with the broken power strip. My dip sat there, bubbling sadly in a lukewarm crockpot purgatory, untouched. Not even Dave touched it. Dave. The man who once ate expired crab rangoon out of the back of the office refridgerator.

 

And now? She has quietly removed me from the shared birthday spreadsheet. No invite to Kyle’s surprise party. No mention of “buffalo dip” in the recap email she sent out to the team, where she praised the “amazing contributions from the team, especially those who show up on and off the clock.”

 

I’m starting to think the dip wasn’t the only thing salty.

 

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Summit City, Be Honest:

 

• Was I wrong for unfriending her?

• Is this just a modern-day HR nightmare in slow motion?

• Or is this the price of trying to protect your peace… and your buffalo dip?

•  

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