Having a crush on a coworker can absolutely scramble your brain. We have all experienced that weird blend of infatuation and jealousy when the person we like starts paying attention to someone else in the breakroom. It is a completely normal human emotion to navigate. But one 20-year-old university student in the UK recently let her workplace jealousy turn her into a complete supervillain. Her desperate attempt to publicly humiliate her bilingual coworker completely backfired, and the internet is rightfully dragging her for it.
The Original Poster is a 20-year-old student who decided to stick around her university town for the summer. She landed a job at a local cafe to make some extra cash. The cafe mostly hires other university students, meaning the entire staff is around the same age. Like most young hospitality crews, the workers are a very tight group and frequently go on nights out together. The Original Poster had only been working there for 2 weeks when the drama officially kicked off.
One of the other girls working at the cafe is a student named Ivy. Ivy happens to be from Poland and moved to the UK for university. Her English accent is incredibly good, so the Original Poster had absolutely no idea she was Polish until she actually heard her speak her native language. Instead of just thinking that was a cool fun fact, the Original Poster admitted she felt weirdly cheated by the revelation. Feeling cheated because a coworker did not immediately disclose their nationality to a new hire is a massive red flag.
Despite her bizarre internal monologue about Ivy, the Original Poster was invited to join the cafe crew for a night out. The group met up at Ivy’s house for pre-drinks and games before hitting the local pubs. This is where we meet Mark. Mark is a Spanish coworker, and the Original Poster has a massive, bubbling crush on him.
The jealousy officially took over when the Original Poster overheard Ivy and Mark bantering. Ivy was casually throwing some Spanish words into her private conversation with Mark. He clearly did not mind and was actively participating in the bilingual banter. The Original Poster admitted she took some Spanish in school but is definitely not fluent. She was incredibly annoyed by the interaction because she knew she could not join in, completely letting her crush cloud her judgment.
Instead of just flirting with Mark like a normal person, the Original Poster decided to play a deeply weird game. While the group was hanging out, she brought up the topic of languages. It turns out Ivy is a linguistic powerhouse who speaks Polish, English, Spanish, and some Dutch. The Original Poster pretended to be impressed but secretly pulled up Google Translate on her phone to interrogate her coworker. She started firing off translated questions to test if Ivy was actually telling the truth.
Ivy played along perfectly and answered the questions without breaking a sweat. But when they got to the Spanish portion of the interrogation, the Original Poster saw an opportunity to strike. She assumed Mark was simply being too polite to tell Ivy her Spanish was terrible. When Ivy replied to a question in very fast Spanish, the Original Poster aggressively interrupted her mid sentence to publicly announce that her pronunciation was surprisingly bad.
Both Ivy and Mark looked completely shocked by the unprovoked insult. Ivy calmly defended herself and explained that her pronunciation was not wrong at all. She revealed that she learned to speak Spanish as a child by watching Argentinian telenovelas, which means she naturally speaks with a specific South American accent. Any logical person would apologize and back down right then and there.
The Original Poster chose chaos instead. She looked Ivy in the eye and demanded she stop lying and just admit her Spanish was not good. That is when Mark finally stepped in to defend his friend. The native Spanish speaker firmly told the Original Poster that Ivy did in fact speak with an Argentinian accent, her pronunciation was completely correct, and her Spanish was absolutely excellent.
Even with a native speaker actively correcting her, the Original Poster refused to take the loss. She actually told Mark that he did not have to pretend just to protect Ivy’s feelings. She then turned back to Ivy and told her she just needed to accept that she is not good at everything. Ivy simply laughed right in her face, called her an a**hole, and ended the conversation entirely. The rest of the party was incredibly awkward.
By the next morning, the Original Poster found herself completely blocked from the group chat and all social media. She tried to cry to her own sister, but her sister bluntly told her she was completely in the wrong. The internet fiercely agreed. You do not use Google Translate to aggressively test a bilingual person in front of your crush just to make yourself feel superior. The Original Poster completely destroyed her own summer social life over pure jealousy, and she has absolutely nobody to blame but herself.