Me [29F] with my vegan coworker [29F]. I don’t know how to deal with her.

A woman shared her ongoing struggles with a vegan coworker who frequently criticizes her lifestyle, particularly her hunting hobby, and offers unsolicited advice about diet and health. After a tense confrontation in a team meeting, where the coworker sarcastically mocked her, she firmly set boundaries, prompting others to do the same. While HR plans mediation to address workplace tension, the woman now feels conflicted about her coworker’s apparent distress and how to proceed. Read the full story below.

‘ Me [29F] with my vegan coworker [29F]. I don’t know how to deal with her’

As the title states, I have this vegan coworker (we’ll call her Vegan) who is very active on FB and in the office about being vegan and how cruel farming is and everything. Each to their own. I don’t necessarily disagree with her views on animal cruelty but here’s the thing, I’m a hunter. Not a trophy hunter but I do shoot feral pigs, rabbits, ducks (introduced, classified game ducks) and foxes and I fish too.

All except for the fish are classified as pests, foxes especially kill native wildlife and farm animals and farmers will often put you up on their property for free to hunt them. I have passed tests here, especially for identification of game ducks vs protected species and practice ethical hunting, i.e. allow the animal to have a fair chase, no dogs or tracking devices, practicing marksmanship and dispatching prey swiftly and humanely and not wasting the meat.

None of that is obviously good enough for Vegan. When she first came onto the team and told everyone she was vegan, I kept my mouth shut about my hunting. I also think she’s really intolerant because she preaches to people about how going vegan will help with their various ailments and always turns up her nose at people heating up meat in microwave. As a result, we’ve kind of consciously started excluding her when we get up for lunch.

However last year I started going hunting more regularly with a work friend from another department whose uncle owns a farm where feral pigs and like are an issue and he often swings by to have a chat about guns/bows and our next trip and she found out I was a hunter. This isn’t even at our desks, it’s in the kitchen area that has tables and stuff, we sometimes eat our lunches together. Ever since then, every conversation I’ve had with her, she’s referred to hunting and how cruel it is.

One time, I wore a leather pencil skirt to work and she had a go at me for wearing animal products. She seems to have singled me because of the fact that I go hunting. My boss has no spine, I’ve tried talking to him about this, but she just intimidates him and makes it seem like she’s been persecuted and he’s back down from that. She even tried to get a “vegan” shelf in the fridge and tried to rope in some Hindu vegetarian guys to do that but they pointed out that they use milk and cheese and honey in their cooking. They also think she’s nuts.

It’s gotten to the point where we go out for drinks on a Friday night at 5 and we never ask her. I don’t organize these things, a coworker does but my boss told me, when I brought it up in one on one meeting, that she feels really left out and she seems to think it’s my fault because I’ve been here for longer and I’m somehow poisoning them against her or something. I have since been conscious of this if anyone starts conversation about Vegan, I just say I don’t talk to her unless it’s work related and she’s more than adequate at her job. It’s actually become something of a joke or “catchphrase”.

I told my boss I don’t organize anything except official events and she’s always been invited. If she’s not invited to informal stuff, that’s not even organized by me, then that’s not my problem. The coworker that doesn’t invite her, she managed to p**s him off because he’s eaten guinea pig (he’s from Peru) and she asked him if he’d eaten any of his other pets. For the record, he never ate a guinea pig that was a pet, it’s something they eat in Peru.

Whenever she brings up hunting or anything, I just point blank ask her there was anything work related that she wanted to talk about, and if there wasn’t, I would start talking to someone else or just walk off. I have asked her multiple times to keep conversations work related. I never start a conversation with her at all. Most of the time, she pounces when I’m in the kitchen making tea, getting water or just stretching my legs.

One time last week, a group of us were talking and she got up join the discussion. A horrible silence fell over the group to the point where I just excused myself and went to me desk and so did a few others. It all came to a head in our team meeting today when our boss, usually at the ends asks if there’s any positive news or celebrations outside of work people want to share like engagements, marathons, charity appeals etc and Vegan sarcastically asked me how many “lives I’d taken last weekend”.

I got annoyed and said her constant badgering me about my hobbies and choice to eat meat was discriminatory and bothersome and that unless it was work related, she was not to engage me in conversation otherwise and told our “scribe” to put that in the meeting minutes.

She seemed a bit shocked by that and my boss looked uncomfortable but said fair enough. I thought that was the end of that but the right before our boss went to close the meeting, 2 other coworkers also put their hands up and asked Vegan to only engage them in work related discussions and that they were also uncomfortable being given non-medical health advice pertaining to their choice to consume meat and their diets. Again boss looked uncomfortable but asked Vegan to respect their wishes and closed the meeting.

Vegan didn’t look anyone in the eye after that but headed straight to the bathroom. My boss was trying to get one of the coworkers to see if she was OK and I think one of them eventually checked up on her but she was in a cubicle and asked to be left alone. She eventually came out and asked my boss to leave early which she did. I feel awful now. She embarrassed me in front of my team with the “lives taken” comment so I pushed back but I am caught between not wanting her to miserable and not wanting anything to do with her at all.

A few of my coworkers and I ended up in a proactive conference call after this with HR who basically said that always been subjected to unwanted advice and jabs about eating meat was not OK but some “mediation” was in order to ensure cut the tension in the workplace. The HR rep then called my boss who explained what happened in the team meeting and complaints that we’d made one on one etc but then he went into a meeting room and didn’t hear the rest of discussion.

I don’t know what to do, assuming she comes into work tomorrow or if I should even talk to her at all. TLDR: Vegan coworker keeps making jabs at me, I snapped and told her not to talk to me unless it was work related and 2 other coworkers followed suit. Vegan left work early upset. Not sure how to proceed from here.

This post have new update: UPDATE: Me [29F] with my vegan coworker [29F]. I don’t know how to deal with her

Check out how the community responded:

sillysillyyou −  Chiming in as a vegan here. She is being completely ridiculous. She has now created a hostile work place for you and your coworkers. As a vegan in the world she cannot expect to never encounter meat eaters. Its one thing to state your opinions, but it is quite another to berate your coworkers. If she didn’t want to work with meat eaters she should choose a vegan company to work for. Do not engage her further, she has been harassing you. This is her problem now.. Edit: typo

fuckitydoo −  You’re doing everything right, really. I wouldn’t change a thing, you’re by the book and if your boss is spineless in dealing with a bag of shithead crazy, that’s for him to work out with HR when he gets his b**t chewed. You have every right to push back on someone who harasses you at work, and you’re not being cruel, you’re being professional. Well done!

[Reddit User] −  I have nothing productive to add, but I love the image of the Hindu guys tapping out of her (vegan, cruelty-free) nuttiness.

Springheeled_Jill −  As other people have noted, she’s a bully. She’s been working hard to establish dominance–I’m surprised she hasn’t been peeing on people’s desks. Leave her alone. Don’t extend your hand to her, just politely nod when you see her, have the professional conversations you need to have with her and get on with your life.

Since she’s a bully, any attempt to jolly her along may be seen as weakness. Bullies gotta bully, so I would not trust any apparent change in behavior. At all. She’ll probably just gun for revenge–you’ve got a wishy-washy boss, yes? I wonder how hard she’d have to work to get him to take up her cause?

Be rigorously professional with her–dot every i, cross every t, triple check that she is not even for a nanosecond outside of any loop in which she has a professional concern. If you are talking with other people when she walks in a room, you all should probably make a point of acknowledging her presence with a wave and a smile before returning to conversation–you don’t want accusations that you guys are “plotting” or otherwise freezing her out.. Etc. Maybe consult HR on how best to move forward so that everyone’s ass is covered?

[Reddit User] −  She dug her own hole, now she can lie in it. Hopefully by two other people speaking their mind your boss can start to see that it’s obviously not just you that doesn’t like her.. How insufferable

[Reddit User] −  I know you are uncomfortable and feel guilty but this is essentially your boss’s fault. You made a boundary request, you didn’t attack her as a person, you cited the behavior you wanted stopped and that was all. He should have pulled her aside and said there had been complaints about her pushing her views unsolicited onto other co workers and that it was inappropriate; that she should consider this a verbal warning and the next time would be written and the third time would be termination.

That is the boss’s job. He didn’t do it and now everyone else had to confront her and ‘make’ her feel bad. She brought this on herself and your boss enabled it. It isn’t your responsibility to fix it. (ETA and I hate hunting and was a vegetarian for a long time. This situation isn’t a belief problem it’s is a behavior problem)

gesunheit −  This is not on you. You’ve done everything right. She has the freedom to make her own choices, and the office respects her lifestyle choices – no one is going up to her and demanding she start eating meat. It’s her problem that she can’t extend the same courtesy to you and the rest of the office, so let her face the consequences. Maybe this jarring event will slap her awake to what a j**k she’s being!

Edit: I just wanted to also point out that it’s incredibly insensitive of her to berate someone for partaking in their cultural dish, guinea pigs are staples in some parts of Peru. That’s like shaming an Argentinian for eating beef. Very disrespectful.

Zap_Dannigan −  Why did you come here for advice, you’ve done everything perfectly, imo. Don’t feel bad, don’t engage her, just keep on keeping on!

CraazyMike −  Bully’s come in many forms, but she is a bully. The best way to deal with a bully is to confront them head on. You did this and in true bully fashion, she backed off. Don’t feel bad about what you did. This will ultimately cause less trouble in the office than letting her continue.

PurplePlurple −  She feels really left out and she seems to think it’s my fault Has anyone directly told her, she’s left out because of her behavior? Maybe it’s difficult to tell her she’s snobby and rude – she sounds like the kind of person who escalates to get things their way. So, nobody ends up wanting to tell her because of that? I wouldn’t be surprised if people don’t expect her to take it smoothly. But it’s important for people to tell her that she’s left out for her own behavior. She doesn’t respect people – by extension, nobody wants to spend time with her.

Vegan sarcastically asked me how many “lives I’d taken last weekend” Does she really expect people to want her informal company, when she’s a toxic asshat? I mean, you sound like a reasonable, responsible, considerate hunter. And you’re getting the opposite of that treatment because this j**k believes a generalization more than they do the golden rule. She’s miserable because of how she treats people.

I think it’s great that you feel sorry, but this woman did bring this on herself. You’ve repeatedly expressed your disinterest in her advice and your displeasure of her mission to, seemingly berate anyone who doesn’t have her diet. And all this tension exists because your boss won’t do their job in the first place, which is to manage things.

I’d be tempted to extend – well, not an apology. I wouldn’t apologize for standing up to myself. But I would want to try touching base with her. Actually, I might seek someone to mediate the conversation, for posterity and for help in communicating with her. If she doesn’t realize just how horrible she treats everyone, I’d feel compelled to talk to her about it. That’s the thing though – can she be talked to about this?

I feel like that’s probably where you hesitate the most – even if you did reach out, she might still take it as offense or blow up on you. I would reach out and *end* the conversation if she does her usually toxic crap. You tell her that’s the reason she’s in the place she is now, and you tell her you won’t continue the conversation until she can have one with respect. Otherwise she needs to keep it to herself and do her job.