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!

Backstory: this client is a guy I was asked to do a clemency petition for a while back. I got everything done, months of hard work. The last thing I needed was for him to fill out and sign the application. It’s the one part of the petition I *cannot* do for him. And he wouldn’t do it! I sent it to him multiple times, double checked that he received it (he did), and he wouldn’t send it back. So I just back burnered it because I don’t have time to chase people down to fill out two pages of paperwork. I have too many other clients who need my help. That was about a year ago.

Now somehow UC knows this client and they talk often. So the entire time I was working on this thing, she would come into my office on a regular basis and be like “He’s been asking about it, is it done yet, etc.” And every time I’d tell her that yes, it’s done, but HE HAS TO SEND ME THE APPLICATION. The last time she brought it up was back in April and I got fed up & asked her if she wanted to do it herself. I said “Look, it seems like you have a close relationship with this guy” (why I don’t know, because he’s not her client and never has been!) “so if you want to go to our branch manager and ask that the case be transferred to you, I’m fine with that. I’ll give you everything I’ve got on it.” And she said no because she “didn’t want to take credit” for work I’d done. I thought that was the end of it.

But apparently not because here she is walking up to me in the hallway showing me the clemency petition she’s gonna submit for the guy!! Keep in mind - 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. 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. Even if she had actually taken it, it wouldn’t have relieved my workload. It was done!!!! 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 asked her if she wanted it because she wouldn’t get off my ass about it and she said no. I never handed it over to her. She never asked me if she could ‘take it off my plate.’ She’s full of shit.”

SO. 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 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 decorating and basically turning into a living room. She has to get all her shit out of it. 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??