Employee Reported a “Class Clown” Coworker to HR Twice for Repeatedly Barking at Her Like a Dog Despite Knowing She Had a Sensory Disorder

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She took a part-time warehouse job hoping for something simple: clock in, do the work, clock out. Instead, she says one older coworker turned her shifts into a running gag she never signed up for—complete with barking noises in the aisles and a steady push for her attention even after she tried to shut it down.

In the source post, the 38-year-old employee describes reporting the man to HR twice, not because she wanted to “get him in trouble,” but because she wanted documentation and for the behavior to stop. It did stop, she says—but it also flipped the social temperature at work, leaving her dealing with backlash from coworkers who insist he was “just being friendly.”

She thought he was just chatty—until the jokes became a routine

A couple weeks after she started, a coworker she calls Shane, 56, began gravitating toward her. She describes him as the “class clown” type: constant joking, pranks, and intentionally annoying people. He also had a close partner at work—an older coworker she calls Jane—who played along with the dynamic even when it seemed to frustrate her.

At first, the new employee tried to interpret Shane’s attention as friendliness. But she says his energy felt exhausting, and as he started directing the same prank-heavy behavior at her, it went from casual chatter to feeling “socially suffocated.”

Her goal at this job was straightforward, she explains. She wasn’t there to build a big social circle. She just wanted a calm shift where she could focus, not a running bit that required her to react on command.

The barking and “messing with her” kept escalating

What bothered her most wasn’t a single joke—it was repetition. She says Shane would bark at her like a small yappy dog when passing her in an aisle. If she didn’t respond, he would keep going: barking, snarling, growling, and making high-pitched noises until he got a reaction.

She says she told him directly that she has a sensory disorder and that the barking could make her feel ill. According to her account, he still did it multiple times after that. In her mind, that detail changed everything. It wasn’t just annoying; it was him continuing after being told it had a real impact.

The other behaviors she describes were smaller, but constant. She says he would mumble under his breath near her so she’d think he was talking to her, prompting her to take out an earbud, only for him to say he was “just messing with” her. She says he shook the lunch table while she was sitting at it to irritate her, and made exaggerated faces while passing by on a forklift, sticking his tongue out and crossing his eyes.

Even ignoring him didn’t help, she says. If she didn’t respond, he’d repeat the behavior or keep saying hello until he got eye contact. She felt like the message was clear: he expected engagement, whether she wanted it or not.

Then it shifted from pranks to personal comments about her looks

Alongside the clowning, she says Shane started complimenting her hair—at first in a way she brushed off. He told her she had beautiful long hair. She said thanks. Then, she says, he told her to never cut it, and later repeated the idea that she wasn’t “allowed” to cut it.

She describes another moment in the lunchroom when they were alone: he told her she was a “pretty lady” and had “beautiful eyes.” She responded with a polite acknowledgment, but the pattern made her uncomfortable. At one point, she says he emphasized that he’d been married for over 30 years and “you don’t ruin a thing like that,” which she interpreted as unnecessary and unsettling—especially paired with repeated compliments.

Trying to fade him out only seemed to intensify his focus, she says. After she looked away and continued working when he made faces from a forklift, she says he parked it and confronted her: “Look, I’m trying to be friendly, do you understand?”

She told him she couldn’t be expected to react every time he demanded it and that she was exhausted and had real life on her mind. He walked off, but she says the overall dynamic didn’t improve enough to feel sustainable.

HR stepped in twice, and the behavior finally stopped

She decided to go to HR and asked for documentation. She says she wasn’t looking for punishment; she wanted a formal record and a boundary set by management. HR “sat him down” and told him to ease off.

For a moment, it seemed like that might work. But soon after, she says he resumed personal comments, including complimenting her tattoo and then returning to telling her her hair was beautiful and that she should never cut it.

So she went back to HR. Again, she says, they sat him down. That second meeting appeared to do what the first one didn’t: Shane finally stopped talking to her. The relief, however, came with a new problem—she says coworkers started treating her like she’d harmed someone everyone else liked.

Once the gossip spread, the backlash started showing up on the floor

She says Jane, the coworker closest to Shane, became openly angry with her. The employee describes Jane talking loudly about Shane whenever she was around, repeatedly saying his name to others as if to signal what had happened without discussing it directly.

She also describes Jane getting physical with a cart. According to her, she was logging her cart into the computer when Jane decided it was in her way, pushed it into her body, and walked off. Another moment stuck with her too: Jane walked into the lunchroom expecting it to be empty, saw her, said “Oh my GOD,” and left until she was gone.

Meanwhile, another coworker she previously liked told her that Shane did nothing wrong and that she had misunderstood his intentions. The coworker’s argument, as she recounts it, was that Shane “loves his wife,” would never hurt her, and that people were now scared to have fun at work.

To the employee who filed the reports, that framing missed the point. She wasn’t judging his marriage, she says. She was trying to stop a repeated pattern that continued even after she clearly asked him to tone it down and explained the sensory issue.

Most reactions focused on boundaries, not “fun”

In the way she tells it, the workplace split into two tracks: the one she lived through, and the one her coworkers believed based on gossip. In her view, only she and Shane know the full list of behaviors, including the barking after she disclosed a sensory disorder and the repeated focus on her hair.

The pressure campaign from coworkers also created a practical problem. Even if Shane stopped, she now had to navigate a workplace where people saw her as the person who “hurt his feelings.” That can make everyday tasks—lunch breaks, passing in aisles, sharing space—feel tense and unpredictable.

Her story also points to a second layer of risk: retaliation-by-proxy. When one person stops but their close friend becomes hostile, the target can end up feeling just as cornered as before, only now it’s harder to explain without looking like they’re “creating drama.”

For now, she’s left with the thing she originally wanted: to do her job and be left alone. The problem is she may have to fight for that quiet in a room full of people who think quiet means she can’t take a joke.