Coworker sends entire office into fabricated crisis looking for “missing” item she hid to teach one worker a lesson: ‘I honestly don’t know whether to be annoyed or just baffled’

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Etai Eshet • Editor
Mar 14, 2025 7:00 AM EDT

I'm all for a good prank once in a while. You know what I'm not for? Doing more work than I'm already doing, Emma. Some of us are trying to survive this endless cycle of meetings, emails, and last-minute requests without losing our minds, but apparently, you decided our time would be better spent running around solving a mystery you created for your own amusement.  

Imagine a manager so determined to prove a point that they deliberately manufacture chaos, sending multiple people scrambling to fix a problem that didn't even exist. That's Emma—corporate puppet master, part-time scavenger hunt organizer, and full-time headache. Instead of doing her job, she spent days watching her coworkers tear through records, panic over "missing" items, and slowly descend into frustration, all because teaching a "lesson" was somehow more important than actual work.  

No one should take themselves too seriously. Life is hard enough as it is. You know what's also hard, Emma? Work is hard—so maybe try keeping your petty ego games to yourself next time, because the rest of us have enough to deal with without you treating the office like your personal playground. 

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  • Whatever lesson Emma thought she was teaching, the only takeaway the rest humanity got is that some people will invent problems just to feel important. Corporate life is already a mess, Emma—thanks for showing us your self-esteem is, too. 

  • "My colleague just wasted everyone’s time for a power trip"

    "My colleague just wasted everyone's time for a power trip" TRAINING
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • So, I work at a tech company, handling samples. Up until a few months ago, I was responsible for managing all product samples, but now I only deal with those for a specific business unit after a promotion.
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  • This week, one of the managers (let's call her Emma - she is in the same job level as me) asked me about the whereabouts of a specific product sample from last year. I vaguely remembered that one had been defective, but since I was super busy, I told her I'd check when I had time.
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  • Just breath people, if you exhale loud enough you won't hear your own thoughts about Emma

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

  • The next day, I was on-site for an event and didn't get a chance to follow up, but Emma kept pressing for updates.
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  • By Friday morning, I finally had time to dig in. I went through our tracking system, checked old messages with the person that had the defective unit, and
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  • OHMMMMMMMM... EMMAAAAAAAAAAA!

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

  • combed through internal logs to track it down. After all that effort, Emma tells me the sample is "missing" and even implies that I didn't follow procedure when handling it. Meanwhile, the actual
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  • sample coordinator that took over from me (let's say she's Sarah) was panicking, trying to find it, and asked for my help.
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  • Then, Friday afternoon, Emma calls Sarah into a boardroom and casually admits that she had taken the sample out of its box while the storeroom was open
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  • and handed it to HR weeks ago. Basically all to "teach Sarah a lesson." and to check how bad the current processes are.
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  • So basically, she made multiple people -- including me, who isn't even responsible for these samples -- waste time searching
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  • for something she knew wasn't lost. And for what? I honestly don't know whether to be annoyed or just baffled.
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  • Tasty_Switch_4920 So, what I'm reading from this is, Emma intentionally broke a specific procedure (removing an item from what I assume is supposed to be a "secure" area without checking it out),
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  • didn't report that the store room was left open, and then placed the sample somewhere it wasn't supposed to be? Is that correct?
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  • Unhinged. Also sounds like she's creating work where there isn't any.
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  • Average Hoebag I would email HR and just literally type of the whole thing and at the end just say I'd like it documented that she wasted company hours all while breaking protocol and you had nothing to do with all of this.
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  • TheGhostWalksThrough Dude. This sounds like someone who's trying to pass blame for something she's already messed up. Careful, she's looking for a scapegoat.
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  • itspotatotoyousir is she a psychopath? what was the point of that whole exercise
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  • Competitive-Watch 188 Definitely document this, tell your boss, keep it simple, framed as a 'something happened this week that I think you need a heads up.'
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  • She's dangerous, a liar, a thief and she's setting up her own little internal power structure.
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  • kevin r13 Being lost due to an error in the process or error in following the process is not the same as having it be found, but stolen so that it wouldn't be found, especially if it was supposed to be where it should have been, but it's no longer there.
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  • Psychological-Fox97 Speak to your boss/ hr and be on guard, Emma is looking to cause problems. Asking her to out everything in email so there is a record would be a good first step.
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  • Christine1200 I would corner her and tell her that you are not a toy to be played with and to never involve yourself in anything remotely close to that again.
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management boss workplace-stories hr toxic-workplace manager bosses work PTO managers supervisor workplace Horrible Bosses work-life balance
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