‘Tiffany, who'd been posting 15,000 steps per day, posts 65,000 steps’: Workplace nemesis cheats to win the office fitness competition, then their coworker calls out their unscrupulous tactics to HR

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Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Mar 7, 2025 9:00 AM EST

We all have that one coworker that drives us crazy. 

Even just reading that sentence, you probably pictured their punchable face, smelling their microwaved salmon and the scent of snootiness. If you're lucky enough to be besties with all of your colleagues, you're a minority, because the rest of the world is forced to coexist with at least one nincompoop during our workday. 

Likely monopolizing the copy machine, brown-nosing with the managers, or lazily dumping their work on others, the most hated office nemeses are impossible to avoid. However, sometimes karma can come around in the form of a 'friendly' work competition, pitting employees against each other in a fun new way, expanding on the usual inter-office competition for a raise from the salary pool. Read on to see how this workplace drama unfolded under the guise of a fitness competition. With the grand prize of an Apple Watch on the line, things got dirty in the cubicles and the gloves finally came off. 

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  • UPDATE
    via pixelshot

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

    The stalemate continues between coworkers in this next tale after a vicious competition for the most steps. On my best day, I can walk somewhere between 18,000-20,000 steps—like when I walked through Manhattan for an entire day or when I went to an enormous amusement park—so when this coworker started logging 65,000-step days, the office got rightfully skeptical.

  • "AITA for reporting my coworker for cheating in the company walking competition?"

    At our last company meeting they announced there would be a step competition. Participation was voluntary, if the average number of steps is greater than or equal to a 5K per day all participants get a Friday half day. The person with
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  • the most steps overall wins an Apple Watch. We would log our steps during work days only for 20 days. Ive been in a funk lately and was glad for an excuse to get back into my fitness routine. I love running
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  • and asked if steps from running could be counted. Matt, who volunteered to manage the competition said it did. My goal was 20,000 steps a day thinking this would easily put me in the lead but on day 1 this guy Dave posted 23,000. I sent him a
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  • message on teams, saying something along the lines of "it's on!" The next day I put up 24,000. He answers back with 25,000. Another coworker Jenna also joined in. The 3 of us started having daily chats about our workouts
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  • By week 2 it's looking certain 1 of us will win and the whole group is absolutely getting a half day off work Then I checked the log and out of no where, Tiffany, who'd been posting 10-15,000 per day, posts 65,000 steps
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  • For perspective, a marathon I ran resulted in 52,000. So I'm skeptical but also, maybe Tiffany ran a casual ultra marathon on a workday? Who knows. I sent her a teams message "That's a lot of steps, what's your secret?"
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  • She said she plays volleyball and wanted to count the steps from her games but can't safely keep her phone or watch on her to keep count. To solve this problem, Matt looked up a chart online that gives a step equivalent for other activities
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  • Ex: volleyball = 89 steps per minute Tennis = 133 spm Etc Fair enough but the math still ain't mathin so I said "wow, you must have played for like 8 hours!" Her reply "well i also road my bike"
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  • so l Now this is where I call bulls clarified "you counted riding your bike?" Turns out she didn't just use the chart for volleyball, she used it to count everything she did and convert it into steps
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  • Bike riding, stretching, yoga, washing the dishes. All great but those are not STEPS. This seemed pretty lame to me and I just said "I don't think that's really in the spirit of this competition"
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  • And immediately went to Matt to ask about this chart. Specifically if bike riding counted towards steps. He said bike riding didn't count, it was too different and also unfair since not every employee has access to a bike. I thanked him for clarifying and told him that Tiffany may also need some clarification
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  • Not 2 minutes later I get this message from Tiffany "Really, you complained about me? That's actually not in the spirit of the competition. I lost a pet recently and have been so depressed. I've been struggling to lose weight and
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  • I was so proud of my steps from yesterday! Not everyone can be a marathon runner like you, really uncool" I knew I was being a little cheeky going to Matt but Tiffany's message really took me by surprise. Am I the a ?
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  • Optimus Prime-Ribs Nah, you're good. If there's a prize up for grabs that you're competing with others for and someone else is going out of their way to undermine everyone else's efforts then you're in the clear. If
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  • she's allowed to pretty much write down anything she wants, then it sets the precedence that everyone else can also scribble in whatever number they feel like.
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  • Now, if there wasn't a grand prize and it was just the half day participation prize, you'd be the a h le since it wouldn't impact you or others in any way.
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  • ONE-MONTH LATER

    UPDATE Tiffany won the steps competition. After I spoke with Matt he tried to clear things up with Tiffany but in his words she was "combative and rode" so he ended up looping in our HR rep, Jill. Jill decided
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  • that Tiffany could keep her 65,000 steps and the rules would just be clarified for everyone going forward. Well going forward Tiffany continued to post 35,000- 40,000 steps every single day. Less ridiculous then
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  • 65,000 but still ridiculous considering we all sit at desks 8 hours day. It was still a tight race between the 4 of us, because we (Dave Jenna and I) had been posting higher then Tiffany prior to the 65,000
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  • step day. Then Dave got sick. He only posted 4,000 one day and that was enough for him to fall too far behind. Then I had something urgent and time consuming come up at work and only got 10,000
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  • steps that day. That was enough for me to fall too far behind too. So it was basically up to Jenna at that point and she was really working for it. Even got up at 4am the last couple days of the competition to try and max
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  • out steps. The highest she ever got to was about 41,000 and in the end Tiffany beat her by about 250 steps overall. Tiffany had zero issue happily accepting her award at the next company wide meeting and gave this
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  • super annoying speech about how "everyone did so great" and how in the end she's "just glad we all became more active and healthy."
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  • At the end of the day, this is my job and I'm not trying to get into some messy and weird fight over an Apple Watch and an extra 4 hours on a Friday.
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  • StAlvis Jill decided that Tiffany could keep her 65,000 steps BOOOOOO.
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  • schattentanzer gave up a walking competition due to similar abe of the competition. The amount of steps per day being posted was 80K-100K by a couple people in a particular department. NOT POSSIBLE! No one is working eight hours a day and walking over 40 miles as well. I complained. Nothing was done. Shoulders were shrugged saying it was fine.
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  • One_Ad_704 As annoying and frustrating and this might be, this is one of those times when you take the high road and remind yourself that a person like Tiffany must have serious issues if she is cheating during a walking competition. That is pretty sad if you think about it...
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