'Are you refusing to help your coworkers?': Manager pressures employee to help with holiday decorating competition, employee resists then maliciously complies

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    "Decorate instead of doing my work? Sure sure..."
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    "Decorate instead of doing my work? Sure sure..." MOC Told this story as a reply in r/antiwork and a few people mentioned it should be a post here.
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    Several years ago, I was working for an organization, and they were having their annual holiday decorating competition between the different departments. There were a couple of departments that basically took turns winning every year because a few of the staff there went absolutely nutty with decorating. The departments gave a little budget toward this event,
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    but a few staffers from those 2 departments put in their own $$ on top of the department funds and just created some insane, over-the-top displays. I saw pics from a few years. Some of them were very cool, but also probably took a few staffers a few days to set up...and probably cost at least $500 or more (for decorations, that's not counting the staff hours that went into it).
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    So my department had its own new office that year (in previous years we had been in a small area BEHIND another department....some people didn't even know we were there). But that year we were in a nice office space AND on the ground floor. So my executive director decides we are gonna compete...I think she just wanted to show off to her boss...
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    So she tells me: CageyCapybara, since you'll be in the office working this weekend, you can make a good start on decorating the office for the competition...
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    Me: I will be in the office this weekend, but that's because I'll be working on these projects....remember, we need to be in a good place with these projects before the New Year....
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    Boss: well no reason you can't do both. Spend a few hours decorating and the rest working I had only planned to be in the office about 4-5 hours anyway, so "a few hours decorating" wouldn't leave me much time to devote to the projects
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    Me: I'd like to get these projects to a good place before our holiday. I'm also not much of a decorator (this is actually true, I moved 14 times in about 17 years, I think it killed any desire I may have had to decorate. And I'm a tomboy - not very feminine in how I dress or present myself, which I think always bothered boss lady, and not very good with decorating)
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    Boss: Are you refusing to help your coworkers with this? Note: "refusing to help coworkers" was a phrase she pulled out most any time someone pushed back on her ideas....she came from the business world to a different industry and wanted to incorporate business ideas that didn't always work.
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    Me: Nope, I'll try to spend some time decorating then That weekend, I stopped at a dollar store and bought several rolls of wrapping paper, put it on the department credit card. When I went into the office, I spent about 2 or 3 hours wrapping everything I could think of that was a stable object - wrapped most of our desks, our filing cabinets, some bookshelves, some end tables we had in the front office
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    area... Basically making them unusable. Someone would have to break through the wrapping paper and "ruin" the decoration to get into their desk...or the filing cabinets...or the book shelves.
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    Everyone spent the next week not being able to functionally do some of their work because they couldn't get into their desk or filing cabinet. Our office had a very easy week right before the holiday. We didn't even place in the competition and I heard boss lady got scolded the next month by her boss because we were behind on the projects.
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    JonahNude 1 hr. ago This is a fantastic story, good thinking! She definitely deserved a lesson for that "refusing to help your coworkers" bit. I wish people would just be honest, as in: "refusing to do whatever stupid pointless thing I'm telling you to do" instead.
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    Rhamona_Q 16 min. ago Boss: Are you refusing to help your coworkers with this? "I'd be helping my coworkers more by working on the projects, as per my original plan."
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    cageycapybara OP. 12 min. ago Wish I'd had the presence of mind to come up with a reply like that on the spot...but I was not great with confrontation back then
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    Equivalent_Annual314 16 min. ago I absolutely detest office decoration. Good job!
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    NightMgr 9 min. ago I'm sorry. I though filling the toner cartridges with glitter would make for a very decorative workplace. Which ones? I filled all of them, of course.

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