Entitled coworker gets fined $18,000 for changing the locks to the storage room when her manager was out: ‘She thought she got revenge’

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Jun 30, 2025 2:00 PM EDT

There is always that one coworker who has convinced themselves that they are in the right no matter what the circumstances are. She could have broken all the rules and displayed an objective level of unprofessional behavior in the workplace, yet still this type of person would think they were either the hero or the aggrieved in the situation.

This coworker was the kind of person who did absolutely no work on the job but convinced herself that everyone else was slacking while she was the hard worker. We've all dealt with people like this. When her manager instituted a policy change, in which new company shirts for volunteers were locked in a storage room so they wouldn't constantly go missing, the coworker threw a fit about the change… not that it bore any effect on her workflow considering she wasn't a volunteer in need of a new shirt! Keep scrolling below for the full story to see what happened when she changed the locks to that storage room when no one was looking!

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    Cheezburger Image 10522983168
    via Unsplash+ (A F)

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

  • The funniest part of this lady’s so-called “revenge” is that it cost her big time. Literally. She now owes the company an estimated total of $18,000 between the costs for the damage she made to company property and the education program her company had been paying on her behalf. Guess her triumphant quitting story backfired!

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    I work for a small municipal department in a rural area. We have ten employees and some volunteers. I am in charge of daily operations, and I answer to someone else. One of my team decided what she did not like me anymore when I was promoted to this position a couple years ago
    via Paramed***head
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    and had generally been a pain in for everyone. She the complains about everyone endlessly, about how nobody ever does anything except her. When I
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    work with her, I'm in my office from 8am until 9 or 10 PM working while she sits on the couch and watches TV most of the day. Most days she'll clean for an hour,
    via Paramed***head
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    occasionally she gets in a mood and cleans for several hours. She worked with a volunteer the day before but had already left work by the time I got there at 0645 for my 0700 start time.
    via Paramed***head
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    So, we have a rather loose uniform standard in my department for the volunteers. Basically, they need to wear a T-Shirt identifying them as a part of our department. When they're responding in an emergency, that requirement is extremely lax. These are all kept in a closet in the station and issued
    via Paramed***head
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    to new volunteers (full time personnel have a $500/yr clothing allowance). I replenished these t- shirts far too often for the amount of people being onboarded. I don't
    via Paramed***head
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    think anybody is stealing them, I think it's more along the lines of "I'm here to respond, but I don't have a T-Shirt with me" so they grab a new shirt.
    via Paramed***head
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    So we are approaching the end of our fiscal year, and I still have money in my uniform budget. I place a large order of shirts and these get folded nicely and organized then placed into the same closet, but this time the door
    via Paramed***head
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    get locked so a hundred shirts doesn't wander off in a couple months. I left a note on the door that I had locked it and to contact me off access is needed. This went on for a couple weeks, and my pain in the employee was extremely vocal that she believed
    via Paramed***head
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    it was stupid that the door was locked. There were a few other things stored in there, but mostly just junk that needed disposed of properly and couldn't go into the trash (old laptops, computer monitors, etc).
    via Paramed***head
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    The way our schedule works, I was out of the office for a week. I got off work at 7am on Friday, and I was not due back in the office until 7am the following Friday. I worked one day covering at our north station, and then the Friday I returned is my weekend to work.
    via Paramed***head
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    On the Monday where I was out of the office, I received a phone call from my pain in the employee stating that she needed to get into that closet. I didn't ask for a reason
    via Paramed***head
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    why because I didn't think it was necessary. So I told her that the key was in the safe (which all FT employees have access to). I really thought nothing of it.
    via Paramed***head
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    0000 AW
    via Fotos

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

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    So, Friday rolls around. I have a meeting with a county administrator at 0700. I get to work at 0645 and open the door to find a large pile of things that had all been in storage with a note "we need to get rid of this stuff".
    via Paramed***head
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    Okay, it's springtime, we're probably due for some spring cleaning, but if you're going to clean, have a plan to get rid of the that you're pulling out of storage, don't just pull it out and hang a note on it for someone else to deal with.
    via Paramed***head
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    Some of it was from that closet, some of it was not even ours to get rid of, and some of it was stuff we are absolutely not getting rid of and still needed. I found the original blueprints to our station
    via Paramed***head
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    buried in this pile of stuff to get rid of... So the county administrator walks in... he's instantly p[ because the pain in the
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    employee spent all day the previous day whining about how I hadn't been there, and nobody is doing anything, and she had to clean this whole station by herself,
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    same old same old. Her big pet peeve is garbage cans. If there is a single piece of garbage in a garbage can when I leave, she will call the administrator and complain... when she leaves, if she
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    collects the garbage, it's all stuffed into one can and not taken out, but I'm more the type to just take it out and move on with my day.
    via Paramed***head
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    Take the high road because the low road will get flooded eventually.
    via Paramed***head
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    So, instead of having our meeting, we start digging in to this pile of stuff because we aren't going to be able to do anything to get rid of it on a Friday. The dump isn't even open, and there's no place around
    via Paramed***head
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    us that recycles electronics. I got to put some of this stuff back in the closet... I go to the safe, the key is missing. Weird. Whatever, there's a spare in my locker. I go get it, and try to stick it in the door and the doorknob has been changed to one that doesn't lock or even accept a key.
    via Paramed***head
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    I'm stunned. She was so annoyed by that one closet that she changed the entire doorknob. The levee just breached. The low road is under a flash flood warning.
    via Paramed***head
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    County administrator calls her immediately. Tells her to turn around and come back to work and change the doorknob back.
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    She tells him "no, I have an appointment and even if I didn't, I don't want that door locked, and I quit".
    via Paramed***head
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    The best part is We are paying for some education on her behalf, and she's going to owe us about $18,000 now.
    via Paramed***head

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terrible coworkers workplace-stories work stories toxic-workplace job work coworkers company entitled people toxic-work-environment
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