AITA for telling my coworker to stop “Veronica-ing” ?

A Redditor explains a situation at work where their coworker, Sarah, has been mimicking a TikTok character named Veronica, known for her sassy, no-nonsense attitude about workplace boundaries. Sarah, who enjoys using this “Veronica” persona at work, accidentally took a key home, causing a delay in an important project.

When confronted, she responded in her “Veronica way,” stating she wouldn’t deal with work matters outside of her clocked-in hours. The user laughed at her response, telling her to stop acting like a TikTok character, which led Sarah to escalate the issue to HR. Now, the user wonders if they were wrong for reacting the way they did. Read the full story below.

‘ AITA for telling my coworker to stop “Veronica-ing” ?’

If you guys are on Tiktok you may come across the Veronica account. Basically the Veronica character is sassy and always set her boundary clear, “act your wage” no b**lshit attitude. It’s just funny Tiktok about workplace drama. My coworker, ‘Sarah’ (29F) really likes the Veronica-attitude and she often applies the sassy responses into work.

For example, if someone ask to borrow her pen, Sarah will reply something like “It’s not my duty to bring extra pens for you to borrow. I’m not being paid enough to do that”.
Yesterday, Sarah had clocked out but I and other coworkers still at the office for paid overtime due to an upcoming project.

After a while, we found out that Sarah locked the storage room door and took the key with her. (In my company, each department has a small storage room for important documents, etc). Usually the key are just on the shelf in front of the room, I don’t know why Sarah took the key home this time.

We need a specific thing to finish the work, so I tried to call Sarah to ask if she can just ship the key to the office (In my country, we have many instant express shipping like Grab, Be, …etc). She didn’t answer the phone. We tried message her through Facebook, and yeah, no reply. Fast forward to today, Sarah told us that she had a brain-fart and thought the office key was her keys.

I asked her why she didn’t just call back after seeing our message about the situation. She used her “Veronica-way” and told me “Well, after 6pm, my time is for my family and myself. I will not take any work-related call. I don’t get paid for that time and effort to ship the key”. I told her that her mistake lead to the delay of our project, and it’s her responsibility to fix her own fault.

We wouldn’t have to call her if she didn’t take the key home. Sarah just quoted Veronica “No work call after work. You guys already have my time 8 hours a day”.
I just burst out laughing and told her “Oh Sarah, stop Veronica-ing at work. You’re not in a Tiktok video. You’re not a fictional character”. She got angry at me and demand we take this to HR because I cause a “hostile work enviroment” and disrepect her when laughing at her.

My coworkers (especially the ones who did the OT) took my side. But I did laugh at her nonsense answer, maybe I should be more professional and not laughing. The whole situation is childish (I know), so I need outside perspective. AITA?

These are the responses from Reddit users:

IamIrene −  She got angry at me and demand we take this to HR. Take it to HR, explain how she is holding up your project and not behaving as a team player in general (ETA: during work hours). She is creating an uncooperative work environment and yes, you called her out on it.

You were literally trying to do your job and her ineptness kept you from being on time with the project.. NTA. “Veronica” is funny and all, and she makes some good points about standing up for your private time etc, but…time and place.

Gold_Statistician500 −  Apparently this is unpopular? But NTA. I agree with her about not working off-the-clock, of course. But she forced other people to do extra work because of HER mistake. She’s the only one that’s allowed to have boundaries? It’s fine if her mistakes cost other people their work-life balance?

PurpleNoneAccount −  NTA. She messed up by taking the wrong key and should have sorted it. Screwing over other people in office isn’t “setting boundaries”, it is simply being an AH. Expect a full blown pikachu face reaction when she eventually gets fired, or skipped over for a promotion, for being such a lovely person to work with.

No-Names-Left-Here −  I’d definitely take it to HR and get her out of the office permanently. NTA.

Queen_Sized_Beauty −  NTA because of the fact that she locked the supply closet and took the key home. You say in your comments that you guys almost never use the key, so what was she doing with it? I almost feel like she did it intentionally just so that she could use Veronica on you guys.

Especially when she saw your calls and messages, knew she took the key, and *still* ignored you even though she knew that *she* caused the problem. I fully advocate for working only during paid work hours, etc. That being said, that’s not the situation here. When you cause an issue, it’s your job to fix it.

Phew-ThatWasClose −  NTA. She made a pretty serious mistake and then instead of fixing it or apologizing she wants to pretend she’s a cartoon caricature? And she’s offended you laughed? You’re unprofessional for laughing at a literal amature production of a comedy sketch?. Sheesh.

megabitch5000 −  I’d take it a step further and tell management that she took the key home. The write up you’d get at my job for that would come SWIFTLY. You wanna play petty ? We can play petty. NTA

waaaghboyz −  I’m as anti-work as they come but if you fucked up and are making your coworker’s lives harder, that’s 100% on you (her). Especially since your solution would’ve been to send someone to pick it up. Getting an attitude like it’s not her problem is really unprofessional and just plain irresponsible. NTA

Loquacious555 −  NTA. She definitely was the AH by not responding after she screwed up

Trespassingw −  NTA. You may report her stealing important key and leaving the whole team on hold. And after that she made rude statements instead of apologies. 

Was the user justified in calling out Sarah for her behavior, or should they have handled the situation differently? How do you balance humor and professionalism in the workplace? Share your opinions!