Where is the accountability?

It's quickly becoming a pet peeve: people who blame others for their own mistakes or wrongdoing.

I've mentioned that about Jacob before, how he seems to think his betrayal of me is somehow my fault.  Something similar brought this tendency back to my attention at work recently.

During the summer, my boss gives us a "work at home" day each week.  I can work in my pajamas once a week.  My coworker (the one my friend called The Oxygen Thief, or TOT) opted instead to alter her daily work schedule.  She asked to work 7:30am to 3:30 pm.

That's fine.  That adds up to 40 hours a week, which is what we are paid to work.

Unless you take a full lunch on top of that schedule. Then it's 35 hours a week.

Which is what she did.

Now, this is not complicated math. I figured it out in a matter of seconds, when she started taking a (generous) lunch each day AND leaving at 3:30. She didn't even keep it to one hour, most days. But policing my coworkers is not part of my job. I don't know what arrangements she made with our boss to do that schedule. Not my business.

Fast forward a few weeks. TOT and the boss get into a big argument about vacation time. Boss informs her that this altered schedule is not working for her because TOT is only working 35 hours a week.

TOT informs the boss that the discrepancy is her fault because she (the boss) didn't explicitly tell her that lunch was not included.

WTF?

Taking it a step further, TOT complains about this to me.  I said, "But that's a 35 hour work week, and we're paid for 40 hours."

TOT: "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU THINK THAT, TOO!" And informs me that it's now also my fault because I didn't tell her that she could work just 35 hours a week.

"Do the math," I said. "We're paid for 40 hours. You can't just decide to work 35 hours instead. It's not my job to police you.  You can do the math yourself."

As though I'd said nothing, she repeated that I should have told her.

How is this my fault?  Or the boss's?  TOT is (chronologically) an adult. Be responsible. Be accountable for your own damn self.

Honestly, I have to ask where the work ethic has gone, too.  When the boss isn't here, TOT comes in late, leaves early, and spends the time in between doing personal searches and full-color printouts of pictures she likes.  We have  new person starting next week, and she's new to an office environment. I don't want her to think that's normal work behavior.

But I suppose the lack of work ethic is my fault. Because, you know, I didn't tell her specifically that we do actual work here.