Roommate Hell·
THE ZOOM TENSION
A room-sharing conflict erupts when one sister's remote Zoom interviews clash with the other's off-hours, triggering rude replies and mounting frustration as everyday tasks collide with work hours.
Was the reply too much, or fair in the moment?
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The problem started with a living room desk, and ended with a rude reply after an unexpected Zoom interview at home.
The poster, writing on a throwaway account, says, "throwaway account just didn't wanna post on main." They add, "I live w my sister," and explain that a few months ago she moved her remote workspace out of her room and into the living room "so that she could only use her room for resting."
At first, the poster says, it seemed fine. "I was totally fine with it at first but it's been causing so many issues."
The tension comes from a schedule mismatch. "I work in service so I mainly get weekdays off and work weekends," the poster says. That means their downtime falls in the middle of the standard workweek, right when the sister is often in meetings.
That's where the complaints began. The poster says that whenever they try to do ordinary things, "heat up food in the micronwave (NOT cook), bring in groceries etc while she's in meetings", the sister says it's too loud or noisy.
Then came today.
The poster says they went to the gym and came home to find their sister in the middle of a Zoom interview. "Today I went to the gym and when I got back she was on a zoom interview (which I was UNAWARE OF before I got home)."
They did what they could to keep moving quietly. "When I got in and heard her on the phone I quickly took out my bathroom trash, grabbed some cleaning supplies I needed for my bathroom and then just went to my room to shower and was just gonna chill in my room till she finished."
But then the sister messaged them.
"Then she sends me this??" the poster wrote, after describing the text that set them off. The exact contents of the message weren't included in the brief, but the response was enough to make the poster bristle.
"I will admit my response was kind of rude," they said.
The frustration, as they put it, is that every normal part of the day now seems to collide with the sister's work hours. "I'm just SO frustrated because yes I get that I'm off on days that normal M-F 9-5 ppl are working but it feels like I can never do anything before 5pm."
Now the poster is left asking the same question they opened with: "I'm just wondering if I could've handled this better or if any of you have dealt with something similar?"