After coworker refuses to stop taking employee's office chair, employee forces him to stop by swapping the chair with a broken one: ‘He hasn’t touched it since’

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Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Aug 17, 2026 12:00 PM EDT

Why is it so hard for people to act like respectable grown-ups?

Growing up, I went to an elementary school that was… how do I say it nicely… struggling financially. Even though it was a relatively good school (I mean, you can tell by how I turned out, thank you very much), it didn't have a lot of money to invest in things like a working AC in most classrooms, or desks that didn't have 20 years' worth of gum stuck to the bottom.

This meant that in every classroom, we had about 4 chairs that were big enough, comfortable enough, and didn't have some part of them broken. So, every morning, a class of 25 children would fight over these 4 functional chairs. Some respected the concept of dibs, others would use popularity to gain control of a chair, while some of us simply stayed out of trouble and managed with a chair that was either missing a leg or had no backrest. There wasn't much to do about it, and since we were children, the wars over the chairs were honestly kind of fun. The teachers didn't take us seriously, and we eventually made it work as a class.

Why can't the same happen with actual adults working in an office?

Even though most offices are not as poor as my old elementary school, you are likely to find the same issues in them, including a shortage of comfortable chairs. If an office doesn't have to invest money in something, they won't, which means they would let employees sit on broken, faulty chairs until there is absolutely no choice but to replace them.

But even though the employees are not at fault for working in an office with no comfortable chairs, that doesn't mean they can't be civil towards each other when it comes to the distribution of the "good" ones. The story below, revolving around two coworkers fighting over one office chair, proves that some adults can be as childish as an actual kid, creating workplace disputes and resorting to petty revenges in order to get what they want.

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  • 01

    My coworker kept taking my desk chair so i slowly ruined his favorite one

    We have those office chairs where some are fine and some feel like they were built as punishment. I finally found one that didn't destroy my
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  • 02
    Employee sitting on an office chair at work.
    via Getty Images

    Employee sitting on an office chair at work.

    Models pictured are not representative.

  • 03
    back and kept it at my desk for months. Then this guy from the row behind me started taking it whenever I worked from home. At first I
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  • 04
    just rolled it back in the morning. Then one afternoon I was on my phone playing Big Roller standing outside the meeting room while
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  • 05
    waiting for a meeting to start and watched him walk over, grab my chair and roll it back to his desk like I wasn't there
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  • 06
    because apparently his chair sked. I asked him twice to stop but he kept doing it.
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  • 07
    So one Friday before leaving I swapped my chair with the worst chair in our section. Same model, looks almost identical, except it slowly
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  • 08
    sinks while you sit in it and one wheel randomly locks up. I left that one at my desk and moved my good chair into an empty office nobody
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  • 09
    uses. Monday morning he came over, grabbed the chair from my desk like usual and rolled away without even looking at me.
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  • 10
    sinking. Eventually he got annoyed enough to stop stealing it and went back to his own chair. My good one came out of hiding the next
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  • 11
    day. He hasn't touched it since although i actually think he was doing it to annoy me bc who fr en uses a bad chair for that long just out of spite.
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  • 12
    Office chairs.
    via Raj Rana

    Office chairs.

    Stock photo unrelated.

  • 13
    alk_adio_ost This is the kind of petty revenge I'm here for. Brilliant!
    via alk_adio_ost
  • 14
    ferocioustigercat I had a coworker who actually got a special chair from the hospital due to back problems. If anyone else took it, he would just go up to them and say that
    via ferocioustigercat
  • 15
    it's his chair and could you switch to one of the regular chairs. People might have been annoyed, but everyone is really non confrontational. And he had management actually backing him up if someone put up a fuss.
    via ferocioustigercat
  • 16
    controlmypad I had something similar with a parking spot, didn't matter if I gave up the spot each time they stole it, next they'd think whatever spot I was in was better for some reason, so if I just kept letting them take each spot I'd eventually end back up in my spot.
    via controlmypad
  • 17
    Educational_Win714 I got tired of the "good chair fight" many years ago, so I bought my own. I always had the best chair in the office after that.
    via Educational_Win714
  • 18
    III_Shape_7642 ruining his favorite chair is a solid move, some people need to learn respect for others' things
    via III_Shape_7642
  • 19
    Various Factor295 You basically turned his theft into a long-term ergonomic punishment. Beautiful. Maybe slap your name on it now for emphasis.
    via Various_Factor295

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Tags

chair office chair desk workplace employee job work coworkers petty revenge
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