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The boss only hired her because he plays golf with her dad.
By Ethan Cotler — Written on Apr 17, 2023
Not receiving the proper credit for your work at your job can be frustrating. Especially if someone else takes ownership of what your hard work went into. However, it’s seemingly common for people to do this to look good in their boss’s eyes.
One man, however, got revenge when a coworker tried it with the head of the company.
A worker exposed a colleague who tried to pass off his work as her own to the CEO.
He posted to Reddit's “r/pettyrevenge” subreddit, which is a place for people to share “stories of small victories over those who’ve wronged [them].” In his job, he wrote 15 or more page reports detailing his company’s performance at trade shows. Seems like something that would take a lot of time, and you wouldn’t want someone to take credit for it!
Well, that’s when a young woman comes in, whom he names “B---h” for anonymity and as a slight to her character. He explained that she was young and the CEO hired her purely because her dad plays golf with him. On top of that, she was a poor employee — to say the least.
“She regularly blamed her team for her numerous mistakes, and took all the credit for their hard work,” he wrote. One day he saw an opportunity to expose her lies and took it.
He was handing out the report to staff around the office, and when he gave it to her, she did something shocking. “She marched straight into the CEO’s office and said, I kid you not; ‘Here Boss, I just put this together for you,’” he wrote.
What makes it even more damning is she doesn’t even work in the same department that handles reports on trade shows! Luckily, he was quick thinking. Instead of outright explaining her lie, he exposed her more cleverly. He walked into the office and feigned a mistake on the report.
“‘Oh, B---h, I just realized that my report has some numerical errors, let me have it back and I’ll get you a revised one,’” he said to her.
He glared at the CEO with a cocked eyebrow, insinuating that his colleague was at fault since he stated the report was, in fact, his.
He called the CEO’s following words 'wonderful.'
As he left the office, his boss asked him to shut the door. Therefore, the CEO was about to talk privately with his lying coworker. When she came out just five minutes later, he described her face as red as a “ripe tomato.”
In a final show of revenge, he asked her a simple question. “How was your little tete-a-tete with our Boss?”
People replied to the thread to share their own workplace revenge stories. A couple of people shared similar stories of coworkers stealing computer code.
One person told a story of their dad when a colleague stole his code and was presenting it at a meeting. Fortunately for his dad, he named all the variables after his family members. Which we can assume was hard for the lying coworker to explain!
Another person shared a similar story of stolen computer code, but how they proved ownership was a bit different. At the bottom of the app, they had a copyright stamp naming the person’s team who actually wrote the code. The deceptive coworker had forgotten to remove it and also called him out in the middle of a meeting!
But knowing what to do in situations like these can be difficult. So, what should you do? Lindsey Lathrop, a communication expert, told YourTango in 2021 that you should “always advocate for yourself” for all relationships in your life.
It can be difficult and awkward to do so, especially in the workplace, but it’s necessary to put yourself first, always! No coworker has the right to strip you of credit for your hard work.
Ethan Cotler is a writer living in Boston. He writes on entertainment and news.