SINGAPORE: A 23-year-old employee has sought advice online after noticing that her senior colleague, a 27-year-old woman who is four years older, has been “stalking” her at work.

In her post on a local forum, the employee shared that the colleague has been “obsessively” monitoring her movements and keeping tabs on “what she eats, what she’s doing at her desk, and how she carries out her experiments or deals with machines in the lab.”

“It has been close to half a year since I entered this company, and I don’t think I want to let her continue this act,” the employee said, alarmed by the creepy behaviour. “She has been monitoring me to the point where she will hide behind machines discreetly just to see what I am doing when I’m handling my own experiments. She can’t even leave me alone when I’m taking out the trash.”

“There have been multiple occasions where I caught her turning her head to look in my direction, and when I turn around, she will quickly look away, pretending. If she wants to keep an eye on me, she can just do it openly. Why hide?”

She also noted that the colleague appears to behave in a similar way towards other staff members, although she is not certain whether they feel the same level of discomfort.

“[This colleague] does the same thing to the rest of my colleagues when in the lab. However, I’m not so sure if they feel the same way as I do. Nor do I want to ask them because my colleagues can’t keep secrets. Having spent the past few months with them, I just know the rest of my colleagues dislike her as well.”

Not knowing how to respond to her colleague’s actions, she asked other Singaporeans for advice.

“I’ve been thinking of talking to my supervisor about it. Should I inform her about it and ask her to observe my colleague? Any suggestions on what would be the best way to do it? As I am still under probation, I don’t want things to turn sour when I still have to work with her.”

“Maybe she’s trying to build a connection or friendship.”

In the comments, several users advised the woman not to overthink the situation or blow it out of proportion, and instead try to respond with a bit of patience and kindness.

One individual wrote, “I hope you can choose the path of kindness. You don’t know what she might be going through, even if her intentions aren’t innocent. I think a lot of it can be addressed with a ‘Hey, are you ok?’ or ‘Is there something I can help you with?’”

Another commented, “You don’t have to be confrontational about it, but still let her know you are aware of her watching you. A simple ‘Do you need something from me?’ Or a joking ‘Yes, how can I help you, ma’am?’ will suffice. After a few attempts of this and still no change, then you can bring it up to her that you’ve noticed her watching you a lot and move forward from there based on what she replies.”

A third user took a more open-ended view, saying there could be many possible reasons behind it. “Maybe she’s trying to build a connection or friendship…. Maybe she’s bored. Maybe she’s a wannabe leader, maybe she has anxiety and paranoia and thinks you are checking on her. Who knows? Ask her why.”

Others also shared similar experiences from their own workplaces. One person wrote, “I had a colleague who did something like this. Once I caught her staring at me, then I just stared back. Strong eyes, not backing down, then she became paiseh and smiled at me. I rolled my eyes and shook my head. After that, she doesn’t dare to make eye contact with me.”

In other news, a man earning S$110,000 a year has shared online that his girlfriend has been nudging him to increase his monthly spending to S$3,000.

Writing on the r/singaporefi forum on Tuesday (Mar 24), the man shared that he has been intentionally keeping his monthly expenses at about S$2,000, even though he is in a strong financial position.

Read more: Man earning S$110k a year says GF keeps nudging him to bump spending up to S$3k a month

This article (‘It’s been half a year of this’ —Employee says colleague keeps ‘stalking’ her at work) first appeared on The Independent Singapore News.