Employee tricks slacker coworker, sabotages spreadsheets, gets coworker put on leave: 'I guess he’ll be doing his own work from now on'

Author image for Ben Weiss
Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Feb 2, 2025 8:00 AM EST

Taking credit for someone else's work is an easy way to become disliked. We wish we could say that this was the type of behavior people learn to outgrow after leaving school, but unfortunately, that would be expecting too much responsibility from fully grown adults. 

This employee's story about their petty revenge on their slacker coworker is giving… elementary school level of laziness. This was definitely the kind of student who could never keep his eyes on his own paper and somehow managed to go through his entire adolescence without ever getting caught or learning how to think for himself in a meaningful way. Check out this tale of their comeuppance, which was better late than never.

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    Oktober November Dezember Januar 0,00€ 0.00€ 0,00€ 0.00 € 3.025,22 € 7.525,22 € -3.025.22€ -7.525,22 € 578,25€ -2.946,97 € -3.04 -5.972,18 € take the credit" work while I "Do all the 00€ 0,00€ 0,00€ 0.00 0,00 € 0,00€ 0.0 7.525,22 € 3.025,22 € 3 -7.525,22 € -3.025.22€ 27.073.05€ ände der nächsten 12 Monate. haben).
    via Unsplash+ (Mika Baumeister)

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

  • Here's a little backstory before the employee recounts his vengeance. For starters, this coworker frequently requested the employee's help, and let's just say that “help” was a clever word for what he was actually asking. What he was actually asking for was not to do any of the work but to take 100% of the credit for the employee's contributions. 

  • 02
    I work in an office with a guy I'll call "Seth." Seth is that coworker everyone knows: lazy, always passing his work onto someone else, and somehow always getting away with it. He'll sit
    via SeagullFanClub
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    around on his phone or go to the bathroom every 10 minutes. He's the kind of guy who will show up late, make some lame excuse about traffic, and then disappear for "lunch" for two hours.
    via SeagullFanClub
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    For the past six months, Seth's favorite target has been me. He'll send emails asking if I can "help out" with a project, but what he really means is, "do all the work while I take the credit." I
    via SeagullFanClub
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    complained to my boss a couple of times, but somehow Seth always managed to weasel his way out of trouble. The final straw came when he passed off a major report that was due to a client in two days, dumping it on me last minute.
    via SeagullFanClub
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    One day I casually asked him if he was good with Excel, and he admitted he didn't know much about it. Perfect. The next time Seth tried to dump a bunch of spreadsheets on me to organize for his next report, I agreed.
    via SeagullFanClub
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    But this time, I embedded a series of hidden formulas into the documents. These formulas didn't do anything important, just enough to mess with the numbers if someone didn't know how to check for hidden cells. It took
    via SeagullFanClub
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    me a little time, but I was careful not to make it too obvious. The kicker? Every time Seth tried to copy and paste the data into his report, it would scramble everything just enough to be completely useless.
    via SeagullFanClub
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    Cheezburger Image 10462004736
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

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

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    On the day the report was due, Seth slacked off like usual, assuming I had handled it like always. When the client called, furious because the report was filled with nonsense numbers, Seth panicked. He rushed to fix it, but every time he tried to fix one part of the report, something else would break. He
    via SeagullFanClub
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    came to me, frantic, and asked for help. I acted confused and said, "Oh, I don't know what happened! Maybe it's a glitch?" I gave him some vague advice and watched as he spent the entire day trying to salvage his mess.
    via SeagullFanClub
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    Our boss found out, and for once, Seth couldn't talk his way out of it. He got lambasted for scr☐ up such an important project and was put on temporary leave without pay. I guess he'll be doing his own work from now on.
    via SeagullFanClub

  • Here's what other folks in the online community had to say about Seth's outcome at the company and the employee's clever ability to bring justice to his workplace. Let's be honest: these stories rarely end up going the way of the person who actually works hardest, so we have to take soak in this moment and live vicariously through the employee's triumph!

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    Medi... Perhaps every time you're asked sh ot your manager an email saying that you're happy to help, but you're asking the manager what other projects he or she wants you to delay to work on your coworkers project.
    via SeagullFanClub
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    Verwilderd1 .. If he's just a coworker, why even bother agreeing to his "requests" for help? Just tell him to pound sand.
    via SeagullFanClub
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    yaypopbo⚫ If only he knew how to paste values instead of just regular paste. What an idiot. Good job getting him caught.
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    phdoofus. I feel worse for you because you still couldn't just tell him to f off.
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    SAW_blade_963 · Careful, though. Someone could access the spreadsheet's metadata and see that you're the one that added the nonsense formatting. It's not hard to access in Excel...
    via SeagullFanClub
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    weareallmadherealice This isn't pro or even finally growing a backbone and saying no. This is doing his work and then extra to frame him. Next time say no first.
    via SeagullFanClub
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    Hughley_N_Dowd. I'm an old, old corporate vulture, but when I was a little hatchling, trying to scavenge my way up the ladder, my mentor told me something that really stuck.
    via SeagullFanClub
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    "Learn how to say 'No!'. People are always going to try and foist off their work on you. And if there's no way of avoiding it, make sure to do a really, really sh job. It's their delivery, they get to eat the consequences."
    via SeagullFanClub
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    Words of wisdom that shielded me from a lot of do-work throughout the decades.
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    And kudos on the excel work! It's fun to be all least slightly better than your peers at it, because of things like this.
    via SeagullFanClub

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terrible coworkers getting fired workplace-stories fired work stories toxic-workplace job work coworkers karen coworker company toxic-work-environment
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