Competitive coworker tries to get engineer fired, ends up getting fired himself: ''[He's] trying to play games with my career!'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Jul 22, 2025 8:00 AM EDT

There is a fine line between healthy competition and toxicity in the workplace. More often than not these days, we find that there are far more examples of the latter. Sure, competition can be a good motivator for employees to do their best work, but that can quickly turn into people feeling like they have a target on their backs. When that happens, the worst aspects of your coworkers can become apparent. 

Such was the case for this engineer, who learned that an overly competitive coworker fabricated a ridiculous myth that the engineer was stealing data from the company. There was an investigation, which ended up being an unnecessarily stressful couple of weeks for the engineer. At the end of this period, HR concluded that there was absolutely zero evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the engineer.

One might think that this would mark the end of the rivalry between the engineer and his scheming coworker. However, the engineer felt that justice had not been fully served. It was time for the coworker to experience the frustrating and excruciating turbulence of what it's like to have your job on the line like that. 

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    Cheezburger Image 10532646656
    via Vitaly Gariev

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

  • It turns out that the coworker actually. deserved to be investigated, as he was engaged in ethically questionable behavior with clients. I guess making enemies on his own team backfired in more ways than this guy could have ever anticipated, as the only person who got fired in the end was himself. Sounds like Icarus flew a bit too close to the sun there!

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    "How I Took Down a Career Saboteur"

    It all started when a new colleague joined our ragtag bunch of systems engineers deploying ground based radars
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    around the world. From day one, I could tell there was something off about him. He had these weird mannerisms of always trying to one up someone
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    else's story and be the center of attention. He struck me as one of those guys who would look you in the eye and smile as he sinks the ke into your back and kiss the wound
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    after getting what he wants. He was also one of those guys who tried to steal everyone else's thunder.
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    Needless to say, he was overly ambitious, constantly trying to undermine me and take credit for my work. I tried to brush it off, hoping it was just a phase, but things only escalated.
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    One day, I discovered he was spreading false rumors about me to senior management,
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    trying to sabotage my career. Basically this snivelling bi punk tried telling management I was drg on the job, appeared, was very combative and threatening, and an
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    insider threat as he saw me always carrying around external hard drives and must be stealing corporate data.
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    My manager confronted me about the rumors and told me I was on restricted duty for two weeks while they investigated.
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    Cheezburger Image 10532646912
    via Vitaly Gariev

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

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    I was furious but decided to play it smart. I took PTO (vacation) for two weeks and came back to an unfounded report. Instead of confronting him directly, I started documenting everything.
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    Every lie, every deceitful act, every instance of him trying to play games with my career. I also did something in the gray area by setting up surveillance cameras with sound around my area (think nanny cams).
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    One day I catch him on video speaking to a competitor and divulging proprietary information ]. without an . I then heard him talking to a vendor about an all expense paid trip to Hawaii during his vacation
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    time for helping them make a sale with our company. Oh...that is an organizational conflict of interest burn. I knew I needed to act carefully.
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    Using the company's ethics hotline, I anonymously reported his behavior, providing all the evidence I had gathered.
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    The investigation took a few weeks, and during that time, he continued his underhanded tactics, completely unaware of the storm heading his way.
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    Finally, the day of reckoning arrived. I was at my desk when I saw two HR representatives and a security guard walking toward him. They escorted him out of the building,
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    and as he passed by my desk, he gave me a cold, knowing stare. He knew it was me who had reported him.
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    I stood up, looked him straight in the eyes, and said, "Next time, find a toy and don't play with me."
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    Yeah...HR did write me up for that line after taking out the trash...at the time I thought it was well worth it.
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    Piddy3825. 14 hr. ago Petty revenge - best served well documented!
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    LiveandLoveLlamas 15 hr. ago Next time find a toy and don't play with me. Adding that to my arsenal, thank you!
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terrible coworkers getting fired workplace-stories fired work stories toxic-workplace job fired story work coworkers engineering petty revenge company toxic-work-environment
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