Entitled coworker insists she's the only one who can handle repairs, employees maliciously comply by offloading their work onto her: 'If that’s what you want, Mel!'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Oct 25, 2025 8:00 AM EDT

This infuriating coworker literally asked to take on more work, so you can imagine how that turned out.

Not only was "Mel" insistent upon handling all the repairs at the furniture shop where they all worked, but she was also obnoxious about her reasons why. Her justification for taking on all this extra work was that she was far and away the best at it, despite there being little evidence to support this claim.

Well, Mel got her wish, and let's just say that she should have been careful what she wished for. She quickly ended up becoming overwhelmed with tasks and responsibilities that her coworkers would have ordinarily done themselves. But hey, she was supposed to be the best at repairs, right?

This kind of malicious compliance was necessary on two matters. Firstly, it proved to Mel that she's not the best when she's handling all the repairs herself. Secondly, it's not like she was going to have an easy time requesting the help of the people who work with her after she insulted their abilities so openly. That's what you get, Mel!

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  • A man in a warehouse reaching for a shelf.
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  • Thankfully, the author and his fellow employees had a decent manager on their side. We've seen far too many instances in which those in charge fail to read the signs and support the wrong employee. However, it sounds like there was no way to argue that Mel wasn't the problem here. 

    Hopefully, she learned a valuable lesson here, and it's not just that she can't handle all the repairs by herself. The real lesson is not to badmouth your coworkers because they can make your work life a total nightmare…

  • "She wanted to be the only one doing returns. Fine by me."

    I work at a furniture store. We rotate return desk duty so no one gets stuck there all day. One coworker, Mel hated how we handled returns and bragged constantly that she does it better than everyone.
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  • One day she told our manager that she should be the only one allowed to handle returns. Manager rolled his eyes and said, If that's what you want, Mel.
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  • Cue malicious compliance. The next day, we sent every return her way. She got swamped twenty refund requests, phone calls, and customers wanting
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  • price adjustments. Meanwhile, the rest of us were chilling, selling furniture and earning commissions.
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  • By noon she was almost in tears, asking if we could help a little. I reminded her, Sorry Mel, you said only you handle returns. She
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  • lasted until 3PM before telling the manager she changed her mind. The manager said, Good now you know why we rotate.
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  • imnotk8 9h ago Brilliant. And bonus that the manager had your back.
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  • Illuminatus-Prime 12h ago Manager obviously knows. how to handle crap like Mel's. How long has he been there?
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  • CoderJoe1 · 11h ago • Pivot!
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  • lulack-23 3h ago . They have to learn somehow, sounds like your manager has been there done that before.
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  • SeraphiM0352 • 4h ago I mean, if you're constantly getting such a high volume of returns/refunds it ultimately says a lot about the crap you're selling
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  • iLiveForTruth • 4h ago play stupid games, win stupid prizes. hope Mel enjoyed her day as the returns queen.
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  • . Johnson JohnilyJohn • 4h ago I get that she was supposedly annoying, but she decided to take on the hardest part of work, and you punished her for it so that you could again do the worst part? Is that really a win?
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  • SweetBekki • 3h ago If she starts her bragging nonsense again then brag about that time she bragged about doing it better and when she comes to it she barely lasted a day and was in tears.
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  • A man and a woman looking at mattresses at a furniture store.
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terrible coworkers workplace-stories work stories toxic-workplace manager job work coworkers karen coworker toxic-work-environment
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