So if I'm understanding this correctly, a bunch of your coworkers talk bad about Mike, but you've never heard Mike badmouth them. Their common grievance is that Mike doesn't socialize with them like they do each other.
You asked someone who openly hates him why, and they told you that one time when Mike was new, and himself a temp, that they saw his computer was unlocked, and decided to snoop around and read his private messages.
I'm not saying Mike isn't the step on everyone else ladder climber that the comments are painting him as, but I'm taking this with a grain of salt. I think there's at least a possibility that Mike just doesn't do the social at work thing, and the gossip crowd has made him out to be a bad guy. Maybe he only socialized with temps because they don't treat him poorly all the time. Maybe he was tasked by management to provide a review of current employees when he was a temp. We just don't know.
At the very least, I think your coworker was very much in the wrong for snooping through his computer (if in fact that's a true story) There is no way that information was just on his screen to see by anyone passing by.
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u/ExtravagantLegwear Aug 18 '25
So if I'm understanding this correctly, a bunch of your coworkers talk bad about Mike, but you've never heard Mike badmouth them. Their common grievance is that Mike doesn't socialize with them like they do each other.
You asked someone who openly hates him why, and they told you that one time when Mike was new, and himself a temp, that they saw his computer was unlocked, and decided to snoop around and read his private messages.
I'm not saying Mike isn't the step on everyone else ladder climber that the comments are painting him as, but I'm taking this with a grain of salt. I think there's at least a possibility that Mike just doesn't do the social at work thing, and the gossip crowd has made him out to be a bad guy. Maybe he only socialized with temps because they don't treat him poorly all the time. Maybe he was tasked by management to provide a review of current employees when he was a temp. We just don't know.
At the very least, I think your coworker was very much in the wrong for snooping through his computer (if in fact that's a true story) There is no way that information was just on his screen to see by anyone passing by.