Employee pranks messy coworker by unplugging and putting an ‘out of service’ sign on the office microwave, keeping the appliance clean for all but her to use

Author image for Lana DeGaetano
Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."
Jan 15, 2025 6:00 PM EST

When you're existing in a shared space with others, common courtesy is to keep the environment clean. That's like, a universal understanding. Or at least it should be. Make sure to wipe down the spills you cause, sweep up the crumbs from your Taco Tuesday, and ensure that everyone else is doing the same thing. Easier said than done, though. Especially when other people expect you to clean up after them instead of doing it themselves. That's when petty revenge comes in handy!

The employee who posted this story had enough of their entitled, messy coworker and the ways in which they wouldn't clean up after themselves in their shared office kitchen. After several attempts to tame the messy bull, the employee decides to take matters into their own hands. Instead of continuously nagging their colleague, they unplug the microwave and put a makeshift "out of service" sign on the appliance. Now, this employee will never use the microwave again. It is unclear if others in the office were onto the employee's petty shenanigans, but at least the microwave was kept clean for all to use except for their entitled coworker with a cleaning aversion. 

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  • "The microwave was left unplugged for over eight months..."
    via Unsplash (Brett Jordan)

  • "Messy coworker who never cleaned up their mess"

    I was an office manager for a small family owned business. At the time this happened we only had about ten people working out of our offices, and some of those people
    via Wisdomofpearl
  • were only in the offices for a few hours a week. But we had five people in the office full time. We have a small break room area with a refrigerator and a microwave. Everyone kept
    via Wisdomofpearl
  • drinks in the refrigerator and a few people brought lunches occasionally, but only one person brought their lunch everyday. We
    via Wisdomofpearl
  • will call this person J, now not only would J bring lunch daily she would keep all kinds of food in her office and in the refrigerator. The problem
    via Wisdomofpearl
  • was often times J would leave food in the refrigerator for weeks at a time and it would go bad and start smelling and just taking up room needlessly.
    via Wisdomofpearl
  • Now J was also the primary user of the microwave but she would never cover her food and the microwave was always dirty which was why no one else used it.
    via Wisdomofpearl
  • So I had to set a new rule that mostly only effected J, the refrigerator had to be cleaned out every Friday and you had to take your stuff home or toss it.
    via Wisdomofpearl

  • Have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?

    Cheezburger Image 10454878976
    via Unsplash (Kelly Sikkema)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • Also J was instructed to clean the microwave every day. I was always the last to leave on Friday so I started tossing J's food on Friday after she left. This
    via Wisdomofpearl
  • got her attention quickly and she would take her stuff home from the refrigerator but she still wasn't cleaning the microwave. So once in
    via Wisdomofpearl
  • great while I went to use the microwave and it was disgusting and gross and J was gone for the weekend. So I ended up cleaning the microwave just so I could pop some
    via Wisdomofpearl
  • popcorn. After I popped my popcorn I climbed up and unplugged the microwave and put an "out of service" sign on it. The next week J came in and was shocked when the
    via Wisdomofpearl
  • microwave wasn't working. I told her I tried to make popcorn and it stopped working. She asked when it would be fixed, I told her it was pretty low priority so I
    via Wisdomofpearl
  • didn't know. The microwave was left unplugged for over eight months and the only person who ever asked about it was J. Finally she mentioned it to the owner
    via Wisdomofpearl
  • and he came to talk to me. I explained the situation and he just had a good laugh. J was later let go because of other reasons, after she was let go I plugged the microwave back in, and the microwave was always clean without J using it.
    via Wisdomofpearl

  • Petty revenge should be harmless but effective. This employee displays petty revenge at its finest. Sure, they could've kept nagging their messy coworker to clean the microwave and take their rotting food out of the shared refrigerator, but what would that do? This colleague made it clear they had no intention of respecting the shared space, so with that disrespect comes repercussions.

    It seems like “J” got hers in the end for other unnamed reasons, but the applause this employee received from their boss just proves that disrespectful behavior warrants some semblance of payback—and this employee is the master of dishing it out.

  • baka-tari You nuked her lunch plans. Well done!
    via baka-tari
  • Bayside_Father My cow-orkers & I often eat lunch in our shared office. Whenever I have something particularly fragrant, I make sure my trash goes into a trash receptacle outside our office. No way I want to stink up our shared space!
    via Bayside_Father
  • Janisseho She had it coming
    via Janisseho
  • Striking_Physics... Can you only imagine what HER kitchen looks like? Yuck!!!!
    via Striking_Physics1894
  • WeJustDid46 You should have installed an inline switch that you could turn off after "You or your other coworkers" used it.
    via WeJustDid46
  • S is Skittles See, j-walking is a good thing!
    via iS***Skittles

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terrible coworkers reddit stories workplace discussion cleaning workplace-stories petty-revenge-reddit work coworkers reddit story petty revenge petty Office entitled people karma messy workplace reddit thread Reddit coworker entitled people in the workplace
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