Our boss was a petty tyrant. He would do things that put us in difficult situations then yell at us while blaming us for the hassle. Best of all he was impatient man-child. My coworker, Thom, was stuck in the office more than I was. Poor bastard. Thom's petty revenge was driving our boss more insane yet our boss had no idea he was doing it.
Our boss had the nice big office up front. The printers were in the back. Thom and I sat in the cube farm between them. The boss would print out something then quickly and impatiently sprint to pick up what he printed. He was hyper-focused on getting that printout.
Most times the laser printer spun up and our boss moved from his office, Thom would get up from his cube and get in his way. He would walk slowly to the printers, or he would be carefully carrying a coffee cup that was filled to the top, or waddling awkwardly towards the bathroom.
Sometimes he would do that side "which way are you gonna go" hopping as they tried to dodge each other - but Thom never got it right and they ended up running into each other.
I watched this happen whenever I was in the office. Thom was doing this multiple times per day. Our boss had no idea but his blood pressure went up every time he went to retrieve a printout.
Thank you Thom. Against all odds you made that place a tiny bit more tolerable.
Thus began the first event in the office Olympics. 🥇
Gold medal in slow walking, silver in awkward dodging, lifetime achievement in raising blood pressure 😂 Thom was truly ahead of his time.
He took his cue from the resistance fighters in World War II! 1 million wasted moments...a "dropped" paper...a "misplaced" file...tiny micro-aggressive acts, innocent-seeming enough, but with a calculated intention. Way to GO, Thom - you inspire beleaguered cubicle farm occupants across the land!!
There is great potential for a new category of "spontaneous question generation" - have questions prepared which you can intercept boss with as he's sprinting to the printer. Extra points if you are able to engage him in a drawn out discussion of whatever it is.
In the meantime, another office worker quickly prints something to the same printer and goes to pick it up along with big boss's item...oops then realizes doc should have been printed double-sided/single-sided and so - into the shredder the stack goes, try again. 😆😆😆
Talk about innovative team/morale-building measures.
Second event should have been who can submit extra print jobs before the boss gets there.
With Terry Tate Office Linebacker as the judge.
Flunkerton
thank you, delegate from iceland.
Let me guess: Boss is really Dwight Schrute and Thom is Jim Halpert. This would have been a really funny scene on the show.
And a very Jim Halpert thing to do... I can just see the innocence on his face...and Pam dying trying not to laugh.
😂
How could he not see through Thom when he was doing this multiple times a day???
Never underestimate the perfection of the Peter Principle. Never.
I have an uncle, my last living one, who absolutely believes he's the picture of Mastery Of The Pareto Principle , but in fact is the most simultaneously vehemently disgusting and hilarious example of the Peter Principle ... Everywhere. In. His. Life.
I have been 1000% NC with him and my aunt for 3.5 years, and I have told a few other family members that, unless they *both* grow and change in behavioral health, *and* i first get verification to my liking from two external third parties, the next time I interact with them will be after the second one dies and I go to funeral to see if I may be of assistance to their sons.
My life has started to smooth out for the first time since I was 17
The boss was kinda dense, fixated on getting his printout, and had a short attention span. Thom was careful to not be excessively obnoxious or do it every time.
I'm sure he was thinking some unprintable remarks...
Man, my dog does this to me like every single day, and is so chill about it that sometimes I don’t even notice or I wonder why I feel all stressed out after just getting some coffee and making some toast.
Is his name Thom?
When we try to walk past our dog she'll panic, stand up, and move backward into us.
My desk used to be situated right next to the office printer, within arm's length. The pos's in my office would often print stuff and just leave it on the printer or forget about it. Sometimes they would come to the printer grab what they needed and leave all the other forgotten copies on my desk which just pissed me of. I decided that it was time for some payback so I would take three or so printed copies that were left behind and feed them back into the paper tray so that they would print on the already printed side. I loved sitting there looking at my computer screen pretending to be engrossed in whatever was up there and listen to them grip about wtf just happened. They were so stupid that they never figured it out that I was playing with them. Sweet fucking justice!
Had a similar co-worker who nabbed the biggest office for himself, and brought in the biggest and heaviest desk you’ve ever seen. When he was out, several of us would move his desk about an inch a week. After several months, he was almost pinned against the back wall. When he finally asked if we could help move it, we claimed it was too heavy. Additional fun with loosening the caster and seat bolts for his swivel chair, tilting his framed pictures on the walls slightly out of level, etc.
Somebody disconnected the office printer cable from his computer, removed a pin with pliers, and plugged it back in. After days of troubleshooting, he resorted to asking others to print for him. Oh boy….we would print odd pages only, two sided prints, anything to drive him nuts. Random subtle watermarks in the corners…
I had a boss who worked in a central air-conditioned office. We were relegated to desks in the adjacent warehouse area, not air conditioned, with windows we weren't allowed to open. His office wasn't always cool enough for him so he had a through wall air-conditioner which backed right into our area. When it got really hot he would fire up the wall unit, which spewed more hot air right into our area, adding insult to injury. One hot day his air conditioner rumbled to life again. Fed up with this, I took some large prints and placed them on the back of his air conditioner which sucked them tight against the air intake. It had convulsions for a while and then tripped the breaker. There was a pause as he fiddled with it and finally reset the breaker. Repeat the process. He waddled out to see what was happening on our side. Nothing, except us diligently sweating at our desks, hiding smirks. He finally gave up.
I wasn't expecting something a little less obvious since you specified the douchebag boss had no idea.
Maybe it's just me but you'd only get the benefit of the doubt one singular time, if you physically put your body in my path a second time consecutively, then it's obvious you're doing it on purpose.
I think it would be much more rewarding to grab the printed document(s) and move them to a different printer somewhere in the office, a different printer each time. Then let him search for it.
He'll flame up the IT guys for his printer destination constantly changing, and then when you see the IT guys you can just stop doing it so that douchebag boss starts questioning his own reality.
A few years of that are enough for a psychotic break.
Until the IT guys pull the printer logs and confirm the document printed there so suspicion immediately falls to someone in the vicinity of the printer so IT sets up a sting operation because dont waste our time.
Dont fuck with IT.
Sincerely, IT
I was in IT support for years.
IT fucks back, hard, and possibly with Fight Club vibes.
[removed]
And sometimes if the logs don't exist for that specific event, IT will convince you that they do just to keep you in line.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
There was only one printer area. Sabotage is overt action that would be punished. There was no making this boss better. We definitely could have made him worse.
The beauty of Thom's revenge is that it can be explained away by extreme coincidences and it is so petty that it seems silly to think it was intentional.
Maybe it IS you.
I had a boss once who was such a stupid a.hole. How we all hated him! He printed out everything, sometimes even spam 🙄
Our printer had a „follow me“ feature: you send the print job to the printer and could later go there and print your stuff by clicking at your name on the display. I very often just deleted his print job when I took my own print. A very petty pleasure 😇
It would be nice to leave the printer low on paper constantly.
It would be funny to have the printer print the documents but while boss is dancing with Thom, somebody swipes the printouts and they take a scenic tour of the office.
A helpful someone runs them to the boss's office by a different route.
Does Thom perhaps know Colin Robinson?
Fucking guy!
Waddling awkwardly 💀
Well, done, Thom! Best revenge!
Anyone named "Thom" deserves a ton of credit
Everyone loves a Gleeman
That was a truly brilliant idea!
This is the kind of petty revenge we need more of in this world. Well done
Lol good one 😆✅
I’m giving this petty revenge a huge Thom up!
::: slow clap ::: Long live Thom 🏆
That hopping back and forth until you figure out who’s going which way is actually a dance called The Indecisijig.
I have found interesting documents left in printers, I wonder what the manchild was printing?
Not all heroes wear capes. I Hope Thom did though. LEGEND
I did the same thing to a guy for months and he never got on
That is simply exquisite!!!
Well done Thom!!!!
The "block the jerk" dance! A corporate favorite of mine also, lol.
Now that’s petty
how could the boss not know he was being messed with, multiple times a day by Thom ?🙄
Who cares?!?! Thom is a HERO to us ALL!!!!
The boss was kinda dense, fixated on getting his printout, and had a short attention span. Thom was careful to not be excessively obnoxious or do it every time.
Bc Thom is actual H.A.L ....Ai
That’s a boss move, and I’m not talking about the boss.
Dwigt?
Thom.
Did he expect people to pronounce it 'Tom'?
Like in "Thomas the Tank Engine", yeah?
No, like in RougeT'need.
I think you meant RogueT'need, actually. I like T'need. Maybe it's my Vulcan name!