20 People Shared Their Genius Petty Revenge Plan To Get Back At Annoying Coworkers

In life we meet plenty of annoying people as we go out in public, maybe at the grocery as someone tries to cut in front of you at the cashier or while you’re driving. You’re just trying to get through your errands but there’s just someone or something that could bug you. Its part and parcel of the experience, so you just more often than not bite your tongue and get on with it in the hopes of ending the unpleasant experience sooner.

#1 Guy Was A Cocky Jerk, So I Had Him Promoted

Image source: nsmith0723, Andrea Piacquadio

I worked at an auto parts store and we had just hired a new guy that seemed to have prior experience in the buisness but christ was he a cocky bastard. He was super jealous of my position and I had gotten a raise and I’m not shy about it. So anyway I’m a sales lead and hes under me. He constantly undermines my authority and is just a general pain in the ass all the time. Ignores my instructions and always tries to threaten me with policy. So what I did was drop a hint that there was a store manager position I was considering, which normally was a good position, but this store was a wreck and everyone knew it. Never held a manager for over a month. So ofcourse he applies for the position just because he thought I did and got it by default, nobody else had applied in over a month of it being open. Pretty soon he was working 120+ hours on salary with no OT and the store barely broke even so he didnt even get very good commissions, which is supposed to be like a 1/4 of their pay. I was making over double per hour with all the chill cushy shifts in a fully staffed store that made bank. The store ended up shutting down and he got moved somewhere else. Didnt ruin his life, but it had to be miserable for a while and he made less money per hour than he did before. Dont assume your smarter than people you dont know.

#2 Petty Revenge

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!

#3 3 Months Ago I Decided To Quit My Job, As A Parting Gift I Worked Extra Hard To Raise Our Targets

Image source: GloomyCoconut5823, Mikael Blomkvist

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 Dyed My Hair Blue So Boss Would Stop Blaming Me For Hair In Customer’s Food

Image source: throwaway7261518993, Luis Quintero

I used to work for a sandwich shop. All the other employees there were Indian women with very long black hair. Mine was sort of similar I suppose? Medium length and brown. But every time a customer would complain about a long black hair in the food, my boss would immediately blame me without any hesitation or investigation, despite the fact that I was the only person who wore my hair up and netted. So one day I dyed my hair blue with the sole purpose of not being blamed for black hair being in the food. You guessed it, it happened. And how huffy and annoyed my boss got when I said it couldn’t be my hair because mine is blue, was beyond amusing

#5 How Do You Take Your Coffee?

Image source: Melancholiholic, Brigitte Tohm

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.

#6 Petty Revenge

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 s*** all day long; I figured she deserved to put up with mine for an hourlong zoom meeting.

#7 Petty Revenge

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.

#8 Coke On A White Shirt

Image source: Passgo1955, Karolina Grabowska

Did this to a fellow correctional officer (captain) back in th day. Our office had a refrigerator used by all captains in our office. I worked days and would keep some plastic bottles of Coke on hand. The captain on nights would always help himself to my Coke so when I got down to my last bottle I heated up the end of a straightened paperclip and poked three evenly spaced holes into the bottle just down from the cap. Wish I was there to see it, but a coworker said he took a swig and dribbled coke down the front of his white shirt.

#9 Coworker Constantly Taking First Dibs On Break Room For Night Break, So I Get To Work 30 Minutes Earlier And Take Their Break Spot

Image source: rorochocho, Sam Lion

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.

#10 Food Thief Will Never Steal Someone’s Lunch Again

Image source: ChaoticForkingGood, Erin Wang

I worked in an office where there was a break room food thief who would not quit no matter how many angry meetings were held about it. For some reason, the thief really liked my sandwiches. So one day, I finally had enough, and I liberally doused my sandwich with the most ridiculously top Scoville rated hot sauce that I could find. Like so hot that the reviews from people who loved really spicy things were saying that they couldn’t handle it.

The thief didn’t think anything was wrong, because I often put hot sauce on my sandwiches. We found out who the thief was really fast, because all of a sudden, an employee who I knew did not like me started yelling “Oh my god” again and again and trying to drink a million glasses of water. They never stole a lunch again.

#11 Calling Her “Fake Quitting” Bluff

Image source: 10S_NE1, RODNAE Productions

This happened years ago but still makes me smile. I started working in a corporate office in a secretarial position for my first job after college. There were two older ladies who were also secretaries working in the office. One of them was just fine, but I spent most of my time sitting beside and working with Agnes. Agnes was quickly approaching retirement age but wasn’t going anywhere without a big push. This was in the days where we just started getting computers and she was absolutely hopeless. She’d pull stuff like “I can’t answer the phone – I’m on the computer.” Multi-tasking was not in this woman’s repertoire. She was super fussy, and annoying. If I ever came back from lunch 5 minutes late, she would exclaim loudly “OMG – there you are! I was wondering what had happened to you!”, making sure the whole office knew I was late. Meanwhile, she was usually late coming in in the morning, and often left early for various appointments. If I made a typo in a document, she would make sure the rest of the staff knew about it, loudly.

She tended to pout when when things didn’t go her way, and she would “quit” her job when someone pissed her off, and then my boss’s boss would talk her into staying. I’d heard about this tactic of hers and one day, our boss did something that annoyed her and she “quit” again. My boss’s boss was away that day so I had my chance. I quickly advertised and planned a big retirement party for her. It was a done deal by the end of the day. People were dropping by and congratulating her and everyone looked forward to the party. At that point, I guess she figured it was too late to pull her usual shenanigans and she actually retired. I told my boss to not bother replacing her because it was damn easy to cover the little work she actually accomplished every day.

#12 Write Me Up, I Love A Good Paper Trail!

Image source: Deus-system-failed, cottonbro studio

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.

#13 Coworker Took My Night Shift Napping Reclining Chair So I Removed The Cord So She Can Never Recline On It. Then I Took Her Old Napping Chair So She Couldn’t Go Back To It

Image source: _soulbrat

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.

#14 A Coworker Would Kick My Lunch “Seat” Across The Room Every Day At Lunch And I Got Him Back.

Image source: Ok_Present_6508, Pixabay

For lunch a group of my coworkers, our foreman, and myself would sit and each lunch in the foreman’s little hut everyday. My seat was an empty lidded 5 gallon bucket and everyday as I was getting ready to sit one coworker would kick it across the room before I had a chance to sit down. Everyone found it hilarious. It was funny the first couple times but it got old.

So one day I thought it would be hilarious to cut the bottom of the bucket off and then fill it with nuts and bolts and put the lid back on.

That day at lunch we go in he tries to kick the bucket, of course it goes nowhere and he angrily picks it up and tosses the bucket across the room. And of course as he picks the bucket up all the nuts and bolts go spilling out of the bottom. It was hilarious and everyone in the hut was laughing. I had brought in a camping chair pulled it out and sat down and said, “Damn man looks like you have a mess clean up!”

#15 Petty Revenge

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.

#16 Guy Interrupts Me Whenever I Spoke So I Do The Same To Him

Image source: red_eye1999, LinkedIn Sales Navigator

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 ‘f**k 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.

#17 Coworker Complains About Free Pizza

Image source: anon98199, Cats Coming

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 motherf**ker 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 a** 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.

#18 Slacker Coworker Gets Her Comeuppance

Image source: [deleted]

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.

#19 Petty Revenge

Image source: [deleted], Tima Miroshnichenko

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.

#20 A Got Some Payback On A Annoying Coworker!

Image source: crabshack4, Norma Mortenson

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.