23 Deliciously Petty Ways People Got Back At Their Evil Coworkers
We all have frustrating people that we work with, and there's nothing quite as satisfying as getting just a littleeee bit of petty justice when it comes to them. Like the woman whose boss kept taking credit for her work, so she put a watermark on it.
@cristinasevcenco Watch me get urgent calls “Cristina, there is a watermark on the ppt, could you please attach?” #fyp #businesstok #corporate #businesstiktok #job
♬ rumour has it x maneater - allie bennett
Now, obviously we're not suggesting y'all do anything illegal here...but most petty revenge is pretty harmless while also being SUPER satisfying.
Fox Searchlight Pictures/Paramount Pictures
If you want some ~secondhand satisfaction~, here are 23 stories from the BuzzFeed Community (and r/pettyrevenge) about people getting justice when it comes to someone they work with.
1."Earlier today, a coworker was walking around with a can asking for spare change donations. From what I could see of the label (I realized afterwards he was likely obscuring the full label on purpose), it was a kid's charity. Okay, cool. He got to my desk, and I did have some loose change, so I dug it out of my purse. As he held the can out and I put the change in, I saw the full label and noticed it wasn't a kid's charity; it was an anti-abortion foundation. I am quite fiercely pro-abortion rights. Maybe I gave about 30 cents (I held the rest of the change in my palm once I realized what it was), but it was the clear deception that pissed me off. And I know a good bunch of my other co-workers tend not to ask details about donations, so he got a lot of mindless donations.
"So, I pulled out my phone and made a nice donation to my state's local abortion fund, and they let you do it in honor of someone, so I wrote, 'In honor of (asshat coworker's name) who thinks he can pull one over on busy office people.' Suddenly, Monday doesn't seem so bad."
2."Coworkers constantly misspell my name, so I have just started misspelling or completely making up new names for people in return. I don't do this when first meeting someone if they get my name wrong, but if it's someone I've worked with for years, I will call you Carla even though your name is Carrie. No regrets."
3."Three months ago, I decided to quit my job — as a parting gift, I worked extra hard to raise our targets. Long story short, I was transferred to a team with bad statistics, bad workflow, attitude...bad everything. It came to the point that when I said to a colleague, 'Please get back to work, there’s backlog,' it blew into a fight how I’m a princess who thinks I'm better than the rest. ... After a year and half of arguments, attempts to tell HR how I ruined the team (for making them work), I left my notice at my manager’s desk. For the last three months of my notice, I’ve been working extremely hard, giving my 150%. Our higher ups raised monthly targets three times already and will do it once again. But this time, they will not achieve them. They have never achieved them before I came. Petty? Very much. Do I care? No."
4."One of my coworkers is a huge choosing beggar. Like, aggressively choosy to the point he will bully people who are buying him free things to get exactly what he wants. ... Unfortunately, the person who does all the food ordering and general paperwork stuff in our office is a super sweet older lady that isn't comfortable telling people no. One day we had pizza for a lunch meeting, and we all realized that the favorite pizza of everyone in the office...was obviously different. ... She straight up told me that [my coworker] had stood by her desk and basically berated her until she changed half the pizza to be what he wanted. ... The straw that broke the camel's back was when I noticed that he hadn't even touched the pizza. He was eating a different one.
"I decided to casually ask why he wasn't touching it. Come to find out he didn't actually want any during that lunch. ... He figured he might want some leftovers later in the week, so he had her change the order. So basically, this motherfucker bullied a sweet old lady...on the off chance he might want leftovers later.
"So you want to guess what I did. I ate it. All of it. I didn't want more than one piece, but I ate all six pieces...just so he couldn't have any. You can bet your ass he complained about it, too. I just looked back and was like, 'Oh sorry, did you want some during this meeting? 'Cause if I had known you wanted it today, I would've saved you some.' He glared at me for about a week and I felt like I just ate Thanksgiving dinner, but [it was] worth it."
5."Signed her up to stairlift company mailing lists, incontinence pad mailing lists, soft food meals on wheels lists, anything I could find that would be useless and annoying because when my daughter died, she said ‘Surely better aged 2 than aged 22.’"
6."Among the many egregious sins my former boss committed (including gaslighting me into returning to the office mid-2020 when literally no one in said office wore masks or believed the pandemic was real), the worst was when he attempted to deny my bereavement leave request after my grandfather, who helped raise me and whom I was close to, passed away. He could see I was clearly not okay, then had the gall to say, 'It's just a grandparent. So what? I lost mine, too, over the weekend.'
"I saw red and nearly snapped, but somehow managed to stay mostly calm with only some sobbing. I had been struggling not to cry all day at this point. Fast forward about five months later as I'm approaching my final days with the company and I had accepted a new job closer to home and a far better fit. In a fit of pure fuck around and find out, I changed the lock screen image and desktop wallpaper on my work laptop to the most terrifying image of Gritty I could possibly find. Now my ex-boss, despite being a young Gen X person, is not good with technology. So now he wound up trapped with cursed Gritty staring at him with those cold, dead eyes."
—Anonymous
Gritty, for reference:
7."My ex-manager was a total nightmare. I worked at a small office for about three and a half years, and I trained about five people during my time there, but none of them stayed because the manager was a complete hell-on-wheels supervillain. She was really getting on my last nerve one day, and I knew she had a zoom meeting at 3 o'clock. She would always take her work laptop to the back of the office, where the bathroom is located, for these meetings. Around 2:50, I got up from my desk and went to the bathroom. I took a very large, very smelly dump and did not use any air freshener afterwards. When she went to the back to start her meeting, she FLIPPED out! She immediately went to the front of the office and swung open the front door and turned on the A/C. She muttered curses under her breath while I sat at my desk holding back my laughter. I had to put up with her shit all day long; I figured she deserved to put up with mine for an hourlong zoom meeting."
—Anonymois
8."My girlfriend and I both work at a large grocery store. ... A few nights ago, my girlfriend called me, crying and upset. ... She was walking to the bathroom minding her own business, and our coworker (we’ll name Cameron) shouts out to her randomly, 'Damn GF, you’re hooking up with OP now?! How many guys does that make it this month?!' ... When my GF got home, I had already planned my revenge. I helped her through her anxiety as best I could, went to work, worked all night like normal. The next day, however, Cameron was overnight, and so was I. Hence, my revenge. I again worked all night, and when I clocked, out, I used the bathroom.
"It was like 1 in the morning, so the store was closed. Cameron was on shift until around 2, so was a closing store manager (CSM). ... I went into the bathroom, locked the door, squatted down into the urinal, and shit...smearing my sticky, leftover shit in the back of the urinal. ... I found the CSM, acting concerned, and told her that there must’ve been a guy on meth or something that came in, because there’s a turd in the urinal. ... [I said], 'Yeah, it’s really gross, and I know you’re busy, but I couldn’t find Cameron, so I thought I’d let you know so he could clean it.'
"She agreed, a sly smile on her face. She hated Cameron as well. ... And since he was a courtesy clerk, he was trained on how to clean bio hazards. It’s part of his job since our janitorial staff doesn’t come in until later in the night, around 2. So between 1 and 2, it’s his job to clean bathrooms. Period. End of story.
"'Cameron, to the front please, thank you.' I heard the overhead intercom buzz as I exited the store, my unsavory business complete. ... Cameron cleaned up my disgusting shit, but he threw a fucking gargantuan TANTRUM. ... I felt giddy knowing that it was me."
9."An unfriendly coworker used to use my Keurig in my cubicle all the time. She brought her own pods in, so I really didn’t care. Then she started emptying my Brita pitcher to fill her water bottle up every day after I left and never refilled it. Annoying, but whatever. Then one day, a friendly co-worker was standing at the entrance to my cube talking to me about a serious operation his wife needed to get soon. He was clearly worried and needed to talk to someone. The unfriendly walked up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and snapped, 'You’re in the way.' The guy seemed embarrassed, apologized, and walked off. She walked in, started her coffee, and walked off while it brewed. I grabbed my bottle of MiO blackberry water flavoring and squeezed probably 1/3 of the bottle in her cup as the coffee filled it. She never used my Keurig or water pitcher again."
Pixar
10."They told me that if I were to leave tomorrow, no one would notice. Well, I quit last week, took all my stuff in the middle of the night, including the microwave, all cutlery, all spices, and all the pots and pans from the break room. I think they WILL notice."
—Anonymous
11."I work with a guy, we'll call him Bob, who is a bit of a prick. ... The quick rundown is he's very abrasive, he talks down to people, he's creepy about women who visit the office, and he looks down on people who do manual labor for a living. ... He doesn't really know how to do data analysis, so I find myself more often than not crunching numbers for the guy. It's not something I mind doing, I actually like data analysis; I just don't really like doing it for him because I don't like dealing with him.
"I have, however, found a way to entertain myself with the way in which I present the data to him. You see, Bob is a die-hard Ohio State University fan. He grew up around there, he went to college there, and he will sing the praises of the only FBS Team not to score a point in a bowl game last season.
"My revenge: All charts and graphs I create for him are in the University of Michigan's color scheme of blue and yellow, and every chance I get, I try and slip a quote related to Michigan, wolverines, or media that references wolverines in any form. I'm not sure if he's noticed it yet, but it's getting harder and harder to subtly insert Red Dawn/X-Men quotes into my emails these days. Either way, I am entertaining myself, and that's all that matters."
12."I (22f) work at a kiosk in the mall, and A (20s M) works at the kiosk right beside ours. I disliked him from the first month I started working there. ... He's a douchey guy and says a lot of misogynistic things. I usually ignore and don't partake in the conversation, but when it's a joint conversation with my coworkers (who are all men) and I'm talking, if he gets bored or doesn't want to wait till I'm done, he'll face the other guy and stop me halfway so he can talk about whatever he wants. The other guys don't pick up on it or are used to doing this as well, so I completely stopped engaging if he's around.
"Recently, a new girl started working, and he tried to do the same to her, and she picked up on it. The very first time he tried to interject four times. He actively tried to stop her from talking four times, and she would not budge — she continued talking to me and our other coworker. At that point, I just decided 'fuck him.'
"So now, whenever he struts over to our kiosk to talk or he tries to talk to anyone, i interrupt him midway and start a new conversation or pull my coworker into doing a task. Every time without fail. It's enough to keep me content at work. We also don't let him get a word in when it's just the girl and I, and I full on ignore him if it's just me at the kiosk."
13."I bartend at the airport. This happened last night, and it felt absolutely glorious. The security line through TSA was wild. There is an employee line, but it's mixed in with the regular line (hard to explain, but it's basically not any faster). After a coworker and I had already been waiting 25 minutes, we finally hit the front of the line. Two employees apparently thought they were more important than everyone else, and cut in front of us. I was furious. I remembered their faces. We have hot grab and go burgers and sandwiches at my store, and what we don't sell at the end of the night, we usually walk around and hand them out to employees or random people flying out. One of the line cutters came up 20 minutes after close, and we had, like, 30 hot sandwiches left. She asked if she could order food still, and I said we were closed.
"She says, 'What are you going to do with those sandwiches?' I replied, 'That's up to my manager.' She told me I better find out fast because her break was almost over. I was counting my till, and had just finished it. I told her I couldn't ask until I finished counting my till. I recounted it six times until she left. Then I bagged up all the sandwiches and handed them out to every single other airport employee I could find, with a smile, like I was Santa Clause. Take that, you line-cutting jerk."
14."I work at an animal shelter, and lots of dogs that come to our shelter don't have names, so we get to name them. Last week, we got a transfer of about 20 dogs from a shelter in New Mexico, all without names. It's kind of an unspoken rule that whoever bathes the dog on intake gets to name it, and it's common courtesy to not argue unless it's offensive. So my coworker named a dog Bentley because she thought it was cute. One of our really mean coworkers was really annoyed by this and said, 'Can you not give our dogs basic names?' (This same coworker has been known to give the dogs stupid names like 'Dooper.') So we proceeded to name all the dogs things like Spot, Benji, Rosy, Ruby, and Bella because fuck her."
15."The second I clocked in, my boss (let's call her K) pulled me aside for a serious talk. She handed me a write up for discussing salary with other employees. I am paid a good bit more than others, being cross-trained and having relevant experience and education to back it up. The issue is, I'm paid more than the assistant manager, and she's pissed that I make two more dollars than her and has eight years with the company while I've been here only two months.
"My boss says it's a final notice — next time is termination as per company rules. I pointed out this is in violation of not one, but two federal laws, and she retorted, 'This is a right to work state. I'll fire you for chewing gum; don't press it!'
"I got home, did a little research, and found the exact place to help me: The National Labor Relations Bored. I talk to an agent who helped me through the process of filing a claim and helped me upload both the pieces of incriminating evidence, both with corporate approval, and my manager's signed confession of retaliation and corporate policy in clear violation of federal law. They can't really defend themselves when they drafted the incriminating paperwork to intimidate me. The real kicker is the penalty — on top of restitution to employees affected (me), they also lose government contracts. ... This hurts my job extra hard as a pharmacy. As a pharmacy tech, I know for a fact that 50+% of our money is from Medicare and Medicaid programs that we will lose permanently. I've already got a job lined up, and I was planning on jumping ship the day my new one started, but I couldn't be happier to burn the ship down on the way out."
16."On the night shift, we nap — there’s nothing to really do from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. I always would nap in this one area. Everyone on their shift has their designated spot that they always go to. No one would use that chair because it wasn’t reclining correctly. I looked up how to fix it, and it was reclining properly again. The next time I worked, I saw my coworker's bag and blanket on the chair. I asked her when she was leaving the spot since that’s not her normal spot (not even thinking she was trying to sleep there). She goes, 'I’m watching a movie.' I found another spot that night. The following day, the same thing — three days straight! I’m like, this girl really took my spot. So before she got in, I removed the cord I fixed it with and put it back in the upright position and was already sitting in her old spot. I would come in slightly early every time she worked to claim her old spot."
17."The first thing a coworker I normally work nights with does is put a sticky note on the break room saying they're using the room for their break. It's normal on night shifts to take all your breaks in one go and take a nap. But normally, you talk to your coworkers about where everyone's gonna go. This one coworker is the only one who just puts a note on the door calling dibs. After months of kinda just being a little annoyed and finding other random weird spots to break, I found my inner petty self. Now I make sure to get to work 30 minutes early, and if it's that coworker on, I put a note on the door exactly like the ones they always did. It brings me great satisfaction to see them approach the break room sticky note in hand to then just walk away. And I sleep very well indeed."
18."I use my Deliveroo plus account at work to get me and my colleagues lunch, who then transfer the money to me. ... This week, I realized that one colleague hadn't sent money for his lunch in four months. I told him he hadn't, and he replied saying I should have reminded him. He again ordered lunch with the rest of the group. I told him his total; he said he'd pay later, but didn't. I reminded him two days later, and he still didn't send the money for that week's lunch.
"I realized not only is he not going to pay for previous lunches; he also doesn't care enough to start paying for his lunches either. I created a spreadsheet with everyone on the lunch run's name on It, and all the different amounts people owed me. Obviously, everyone else was on zero, or a small amount. And this coworker was owing me just under £150. I then shared that spreadsheet with my coworkers. ... My colleague freaked out, and I told him that until he pays his outstanding balance, he won't be allowed to use my account for his orders and will need to pay his own delivery charge each and every time. He has since said that I'm mistaken on how much he owes, and I've told him I'm quite happy to give him a full cost break down."
19."A group of us would go to lunch every week, and one of the guys always figured the check. After a while, it was obvious that he was overcharging the rest of us for his own benefit. One time, I insisted on figuring the check, and I overcharged him. After stuttering around for a few minutes, obviously uncomfortable but unwilling to point our my math error, he pulled out his wallet and paid. He never cheated us again."
—Anonymous
20."I worked in a kitchen briefly — summer job. The sous chef kept saying I was throwing away her cooking chopsticks even though I most definitely wasn't. She would go on to berate me and call me names. ... I had left a bracelet at work, and when I went to go get it, she said she didn't know anything about it. I ended up going through bags of trash before finding it at the bottom — she was the only one working that morning. I'd had enough of the treatment, and on my last day, I went in and took all her cooking chopsticks and left. I walked to a trashcan in town and threw them out."
21."I used to work in a warehouse where one other girl and I worked in one area together, except I did all the work while she played on her phone all day in between occasionally yelling at me for stuff I didn't do. I'd hustle to get the job done, and I cleaned up on recognition from supervisors who saw me hustling. She tried to blow it off when she got busted for slacking but never did clean up her act. She even occasionally had the nerve to tell me to 'calm down' because I work fast and she looked bad in comparison just standing there. Eventually, I found another job, but I made a point of not bothering to mention to this girl when my last day was.
"I knew she was going to be unpleasantly surprised by suddenly having to take over my job the next day, so I set her up to have the worst first day ever. I used up all the good packing tape and left out only the identical looking stuff that tore easily, I hid the good tape gun and left out the identical looking but broken one, and I unhooked the UPS scale. (When you unplug the scale, you have to restart the computer.) And I changed the password. Resetting the password was a massive headache because IT was terrible and inevitably took a couple of hours to do anything. The whole thing took less than 30 seconds, and I sabotaged at least half a day for her. I later learned she got fired for not doing her job. :)"
22."For a little backstory, I work construction. When work is slow, I deliver pizzas with a company, whose name is synonymous with a table top game. I knew this coworker from the construction job. When I was very new, he was my lead. He was the kind of guy that would watch you make a mistake, then berate you and call you an idiot for that mistake. Not a nice guy by any right. But one thing he loved to do was brag about how doting his wife was [and] how she was a homemaker. But also bragging about how hot his girlfriend was, and how much they sacked when his wife thought he was working overtime. I got a delivery with a familiar name (we’ll call him AC). I arrived at the house, knocked, and he opened the door. He looked quite surprised. AC: 'Hey, I didn’t know you delivered pizzas!' Me: 'Yeah, when work gets slow. Anyway, that’ll be $15.' AC: 'Here you go.' He hands me $16 and looks kinda smug about it.
"I take the cash, am about to turn around and say just loud enough that anyone inside might hear, 'Hey AC, is this your girlfriend’s house, or you and your wife’s place?' The color drained from his face, and he handed me an extra $20."
23.And finally..."I quit smoking to get even with a coworker. She and I shared an office, but she wanted my job (which was higher), so she began complaining vociferously to management that her health was being affected by sharing the office with me. (This was back in the '80s, when you could smoke in your office.) Since I knew that she lived with a boyfriend who smoked, I knew her complaint was bogus. So one weekend, I quit smoking. When I entered the office on Monday, I had not been smoking for three days. I continued for the week, waiting to see when she would notice. She never did, and she continued complaining to management. After two weeks, my boss sat her down and told her that despite her statements, our office had been smoke free for two weeks, and she never saw it. He suggested that perhaps she needed to find a job with a different office-mate since she had pretty well poisoned her relationship with us.
"I still don't smoke, and it's 40 years this year. So I thank her for her deviousness!"
—Anonymous
Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.
