Red Flags
As the days passed, I started noticing more red flags about Becca’s work habits. While I was processing claims and answering client calls, she’d spend literal hours filming herself at her desk.
She’d pout into her phone camera, make exaggerated eye rolls, or pretend to be overwhelmed by paperwork she hadn’t actually touched. “It’s for my corporate comedy channel,” she’d explain whenever I glanced her way with raised eyebrows.
“My followers LIVE for the office drama!”
At first, I found it silly but harmless—just typical Gen Z behavior that I didn’t quite understand but tried to respect. But then clients started calling about unprocessed claims that had been assigned to her weeks ago.
When I quietly asked about them, she’d wave dismissively and say, “I’ll get to those after I finish this content calendar.” I started staying even later to handle her backlog, telling myself it was temporary until she got the hang of things.
One afternoon, I noticed her filming herself using our ancient copy machine, dramatically pressing buttons and sighing.
“This dinosaur technology is literally killing me,” she narrated to her phone. “How do people work like this?” I bit my tongue, remembering that I was trying to demonstrate leadership qualities.
What I didn’t realize then was that while I was busy covering for her mistakes, Becca was busy crafting a very different narrative about our office—and I was about to become an unwitting character in her story.