So like I said I knew that my branch manager was planning to meet with Unhinged Coworker yesterday afternoon. But whatever is going on with her escalated yesterday morning to the point that EYE had to go talk to branch manager about her before they even met.

I was walking down the hallway toward my office when UC came up to me with a binder in her hands. She said “Look at this clemency petition I’m going to submit. Doesn’t it look nice?” So I look at it and it’s for one of MY CLIENTS. Not hers, mine!

So long complicated work thing short: those of us who aren’t attorneys *work at the direction of the attorneys.* We can’t just decide “oh I wanna work on this case,” we have to have an attorney assign us to it. And I knew good and goddamn well no attorney had asked her to work on this. She somehow knows this client (she’s never been assigned to his case so idk how, but she does). I know that because she’s asked me for updates on it several times and she’s always telling me how much she talks to him. So she just decided she was going to take his case from me and work on it! Without telling me, without asking any attorney or supervisor. Also - it was AI. Even the photo on the cover of this binder was a photo of my client she had taken and “deinstitutionalized” (her word) with AI.

So I went to the branch manager’s office and was like “That’s my client. Who assigned her?” And the answer is: no one! She was about to submit a formal petition to the governor’s office, on behalf of OUR AGENCY, without any authorization whatsoever! We wouldn’t even have known she was gonna do it if she hadn’t been trying to rub my face in it in the hallway!!!!!

Obviously the branch manager was super concerned about it and was like. Yeah absolutely NOT. And then we talked about all the other weird shit UC has been doing and she said she was gonna address all of it. UC trying to do this clemency without authorization, her claiming she’s going to see death row clients every week even though there’s no reason to (and the capital attorney didn’t approve that or even know about it), her begging the entire office for money, her taking an empty office and making it into what’s basically a living room (to the point she asked me if my husband would put shelves up for her).

So that afternoon they met. They were in there with the door closed for an hour. While they were meeting, I found out that UC had been telling people she didn’t have time to do her regular job duties because she was working on that clemency for me. She told our capital attorney “Well Kate was really stressed and overwhelmed so I offered to take it off her plate and she agreed.”

LIAR!!! Number one - it was already done. I’ve just been waiting on the client to send me his application because it’s the one part of it I cannot do for him. He is dragging his feet on sending it to me and has been for a long time, but it’s been done forever. So even if she had actually taken it over, it wouldn’t have relieved my workload. And it especially didn’t relieve my workload considering I NEVER KNEW SHE WAS WORKING ON IT!!!! Number two - I have never, not one time in the 3+ years I’ve worked here, pawned my work off on somebody else because I was “stressed and overwhelmed.” I handle my shit!!!

So I was really pissed off and went to that attorney and said “Hey, just so you know - what she told you is a lie. I never handed it over to her and no attorney ever approved her to work on it. She never asked me if she could ‘take it off my plate.’ She’s full of shit.”

Ok so then. When the meeting between UC and the branch manager was over, my work friend asked the branch manager how it went. She said “I don’t know.” Friend was like what do you mean??? And branch manager said “The entire hour we were in there she never said a word. She just stared at me.”

CREEPY!!!!!!!!!!

Then work friend and I went out back to smoke. You have to walk past our big mail room to get there. And guess who was in there shredding documents? UC.

What the fuck was she shredding!!!! Something crazy is going on. VERY suspicious to have a meeting with your boss where you get your ass chewed for multiple reasons - including that you seem to have something inappropriate going on, what with visiting these clients for no apparent reason and not having any work product (that you’re willing to show) for the visits - and then immediately after you’re shredding documents. She’s insane.

Also the branch manager told her she had to break down that room she’s become completely obsessed with and tried to turn into a living room. She spends hours of every work day in there fucking around with the decor and browsing Amazon for more stuff to buy for it. But now she has to get all her shit out of there. And idk what she’s gonna do because although I used to think she was staying at the office, I now have reason to believe she’s living in her car on the days she’s here. And her actual home (three hours away) is a 300 sq. foot tiny home. So what is she gonna do with the half refrigerator, and the air fryer, and the huge meditation pillows, etc etc? She has nowhere to put it and no room in her car to move it even if she had a place to take it to. And her office is already crammed full because she has it set up like an apartment so??

Unhinged, creepy coworker I’ve been talking about seems to have had a legitimate mental break of some kind. The last couple weeks she has started doing stuff that is just very bizarre (even more so than usual) and makes no sense.

An example: she walked up to our big boss, handed her a single piece of paper, smiled, and walked away without saying anything. My boss looked at the paper. It was an AI generated photo of a wombat attending the Kentucky Derby. My boss has absolutely no clue what it’s supposed to be referencing. She said it’s not an inside joke, it’s not related to something they’ve discussed before, she has zero idea why my coworker gave it to her or what it’s supposed to mean.

Another example: my branch manager and my work friend were in the manager’s office talking. Unhinged coworker walked up and just stood there in the doorway staring at them and smiling with her lips pulled back really far. Didn’t say anything, just kept standing there frozen. Finally manager goes “…do you need something?” And coworker said “No, I just wanted to show you my emoji face” and walked away. ?????

Anyway. The reason I say today is going to be interesting is because our branch manager is meeting with coworker. Coworker claims she’s been going to visit our death row clients every Friday. There is no reason for her to be doing that…and our capital attorney, who is supposed to direct her involvement in these cases, did not know she was doing that. So he found out about it and freaked out, he was like “I am REALLY concerned because she has no reason to be going to see these clients that often, and because I don’t know why she’s going. She’s not sending me updates or memos or notes. I have no clue what she’s doing.” So branch manager is going to try to get to the bottom of that today.

And the thing is we don’t know if she’s actually going every week (it is a 3 hour drive from our office) or if she’s just claiming she is and going home. Either way it’s a problem. If she’s not actually going…she has stolen both money (travel reimbursement) and time from our employer. Which is an instant termination offense. If she *is* actually going…why??