'You amuse yourself in little petty ways': Underappreciated office manager sabotages photocopy machine with a paperclip

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
May 9, 2023 2:00 PM EDT

Who knew that paperclips had such power? This office manager decided they were sick of being underappreciated at work. They explained how their job basically included being receptionist, payroll, office manager, assistant, etc. all in one position. Not exactly sustainable and not exactly fair.

 

It turns out that their boss had an unruly habit of finding office issues for OP to handle, so OP developed ways to subtly get their revenge without any consequences. One way was to lower the length of their boss's office chair while they were out of the office getting lunch. The other way, however, is far more memorable. OP decided to photocopy a blank sheet of paper with a paperclip on it and hide the copies in the copier tray. That meant that whenever their boss used the photocopy machine, no matter what, there was a mysterious "ghost paperclip" on the copy. It turns out nothing was more infuriating for this ungrateful boss!

 

For more stories like this, here's one about a freelance worker's bad job interview.

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  • 01
    Sleeve - "Office Manager's low-tech petty" DADER
    via ageing_better
  • 02
    Font - r/pettyrevenge. Posted by u/Culmination_nz 12 hours ago Office Manager's low-tech petty You know how some small to medium sized businesses have a person that is the receptionist/payroll/accounts/offic e manager/boss's PA/social club/general dog's body all rolled into one? Yeah, I've done a few of those jobs.
    via u/Culmination_nz
  • 03
    Font - If you are good at what you do, most of the people you work with don't know 90% of what you do. They come to work, the lights are on, milk is in the staff fridge. All is well. No one should notice anything until something breaks. Which works until you get a boss trying to be a self-proctologist on the regular. Then they think because they don't see it, you don't do it. Annoying.
    via u/Culmination_nz
  • 04
    Font - So you amuse yourself in little petty ways. I had two favorites. The first was lowering his office chair by 2 inches when he was out at lunch. Especially when it was a long boozy client smooze. The best fun was the timebomb.
    via u/Culmination_nz
  • 05
    Font - Photocopying a blank sheet of paper with a paperclip in the corner a few times, then shuffling those pages into the ream of paper in the copier tray so random print jobs would have ghost paperclips on them. It of course wouldn't affect "important" jobs as they would be printed on nicer paper that would be loaded separately. He never worked out the paperclips. Even called in the serviceman
    via u/Culmination_nz
  • 06
    Gesture - C mrsbatsinherbelfry. 12 hr. ago That paperclip idea is genius.
    via u/Culmination_nz
  • 07
    Font - 700 Culmination_nz OP. 12 hr. ago I was shown how to do it in my first job out of high school. I saved it for special occasions ever since
    via u/Culmination_nz
  • 08
    Font - _wjaf +2 12 hr. ago Brilliant!!!!! . Makes me wish I could go back in time to when I worked for holes.
    via u/Culmination_nz
  • 09
    Font - Inshpincter_Gadget +3. 11 hr. ago Something poetic about a micromanager getting stuck on a paperclip.. Like, get out your microscope and find the smallest thing you can complain about, because that's all you're capable of. "Minister of rubber bands". "Grand Vizier of Post-It Color-Coding".
    via u/Culmination_nz
  • 10
    Font - OwnAd8929. 8 hr. ago At the other end of the spectrum, my husband ran his own business so he was technically owner and CEO. On all internal documents he always put his job title as "Director of Lightbulb Procurement"
    via u/Culmination_nz
  • 11
    Font - lunatikdeity 10 hr. ago Oh my goodness I never knew about the paperclip idea. That would have been glorious to use from time to time at a few of my jobs in the past.
    via u/Culmination_nz
  • 12
    Rectangle - sergybrin 11 hr. ago paperclip aggregator starts here
    via u/Culmination_nz
  • 13
    Gesture - misskittypie 4 hr. ago oh my. I'm stealing that paperclip idea, thank you xD
    via u/Culmination_nz
  • 14
    Font - CoderJoe1 +4. 1 hr. ago Reminds me of IT jobs. If they do their jobs well, people complain they're sitting around.
    via u/Culmination_nz

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