She backed me into the filing cabinet like a dog cornering its chew toy, spouting advice about aloe vera while her lavender hand lotion suffocated the air between us.
I’d already asked her nicely. I’d dodged, detoured, deflected. I even went to HR.
Nothing worked.
Until I stopped playing nice.
She crossed a line—and this time, I made sure she’d smell it.
And when the office standoff finally hit HR’s desk, they didn’t just find my garlic sandwich.
They found something about Brenda they hadn’t seen coming.
The Aura of Awkward: The New Anomaly in Account Management
The email landed Monday morning: “Please Welcome Brenda Milner – Account Management.” Standard stuff.
I glanced up from my Q3 projections, a familiar tightness in my shoulders. Another body for the already cramped open-plan office.
I’m Sarah, by the way. Senior Project Manager.
Usually, I thrive in the controlled chaos of deadlines and client demands. But some days, like today, the hum of fluorescent lights and the endless tapping of keyboards felt like a cheese grater on my last nerve.
Tom, my husband, always says I internalize too much. Easy for him to say from his quiet home office.
Lily, our fourteen-year-old, just rolls her eyes when I mention work stress, probably thinking about TikTok dances.
Brenda arrived mid-morning, a whirlwind of bright floral prints and a voice that seemed to bypass normal decibel levels. She was shown to the empty cubicle diagonally across from mine. Fine.
I offered a polite wave, got a thousand-watt smile in return, and went back to my Gantt chart.
Then, the first encounter. She needed help with the shared drive. That was normal.
She walked over. She stood so close I could smell the cinnamon gum she was chewing and see the faint dusting of powder on her cheek. Not normal.
My chair has wheels. I subtly rolled back, maybe six inches.
“‘The X drive, you said?'”
She leaned in, following my retreat, her hand gesturing towards my monitor, her arm brushing mine. “Yes, this darn thing! My last place, we had a much simpler system, you know?”
Her voice was conspiratorial, as if we were sharing state secrets instead of discussing network-attached storage.
I could feel my neck prickle. This was going to be a long week.
The Human Homing Beacon
It wasn’t a one-off. Brenda, it turned out, was a human homing beacon. And everyone’s personal space was her North Star.
The next few days were a masterclass in unintentional intimacy.
She’d corner Mark from IT by the coffee machine, her face inches from his as she detailed her cat’s dietary needs. Mark, bless his patient soul, would just kind of… wilt.
I saw Susan from Marketing practically levitate backwards when Brenda approached her desk to ask about a font.
Her stories were endless, mundane, and delivered with the urgency of a breaking news bulletin. Her niece’s ballet recital. The traffic on I-95.
A detailed comparison of fabric softeners. And always, always, from a proximity that would make a dentist uncomfortable.
I tried the usual office maneuvers. The “urgent phone call” pick-up when she neared. The “deeply engrossed in my screen” posture.
I even started taking the long route to the restroom, a scenic tour past the quiet, distant hum of the servers, just to avoid her orbit.
“‘She’s… a lot,’ my deskmate, Carlos, whispered to me one afternoon, after Brenda had spent ten minutes explaining the intricacies of her sourdough starter to him, practically perched on his visitor chair. He had that shell-shocked look, the one we were all starting to wear.”
“‘A lot is an understatement, Carlos,’ I muttered back, my jaw tight. ‘She’s a personal space violation waiting to happen. Repeatedly.'”
It wasn’t just the closeness. It was the lack of awareness.
The sheer, unadulterated obliviousness. How could someone navigate the world for, I guessed, forty-something years and not pick up on the universal cues for “too close”?
Ambushed by the Aloe Vera
The big project, the Atherton account, was consuming my life. Late nights, early mornings, a constant stream of emails and conference calls.
My stress levels were already dialed up to eleven. The last thing I needed was an uninvited lecture on plant care.
I was at the communal file cabinets, searching for an old contract, back to the main office floor. The metal drawer screeched open.
“‘Oh, Sarah, there you are!’ Brenda’s voice, too loud, too close behind me.”
I stiffened. Maybe if I didn’t turn around…
No such luck. She materialized beside me, effectively pinning me between her and the cold, grey metal.
“‘I was just saying to myself, that aloe vera plant on your desk looks a little sad. Are you misting it?'”
Her face was a foot from mine. I could see the tiny lines around her eyes, smell the faint, sweet scent of her hand lotion – lavender, I thought, with a weird, cloying undertone.
My own breath caught in my chest. “‘It’s… fine, Brenda.'”
“‘Oh, but it could be thriving! My aunt Carol, she has the most amazing aloe, and her secret is…'”
The story went on. And on. About Aunt Carol.
About aloe vera propagation. About the benefits of filtered water versus tap.
I tried to lean away, subtly. My shoulder blade hit the sharp edge of the cabinet.
She didn’t notice. She just leaned with me, adjusting her stance like a tango partner determined to maintain contact.
My politeness was fraying. My patience, already worn thin by the Atherton account, was about to snap.
I felt trapped, not just physically, but by the social contract that says you don’t just shove someone away. But oh, how I wanted to.
“‘Brenda,’ I said, my voice strained. ‘I really need to find this file.'”
“‘Right, right! But just quickly, about the sunlight…'”
The “Personable” Defense
That was it. The elastic band of my composure snapped.
“‘Brenda,’ I said, a little louder this time, turning to face her fully, which unfortunately brought our faces even closer for a horrifying second. I took a deliberate step back, creating a precious eighteen inches of air.”
“‘Could you please give me a little space?’ My voice was trembling slightly, a mix of adrenaline and sheer exasperation.”
The monologue about Aunt Carol’s prize-winning aloe stopped mid-sentence. Brenda blinked.
Her bright, eager expression faltered, replaced by a look of… was that offense?
About the Author
