Coworker kept taking credit for shared work at hotel front desk — so she stopped reminding him about one task and let it play out
She kept ignoring his pretentious nature until he decided to throw her under the bus
The invisible contributor is a staple of the modern workplace. Well, we're talking about that one colleague who masters the art of looking busy while others juggle the real work. Eric, a free-riding restaurant worker who loved taking credit for things he never did. He not only pretended to contribute to the workload, but Eric doubled down by accusing his colleague of being forgetful in front of their manager. Frustrated, the coworker (u/pimp_lord) decided to take a step back and watch him fall for his own trap. The story was shared on April 25 and has received 23,000 upvotes on Reddit.
My coworker kept taking credit for closing tasks, so I stopped reminding him about the one thing that made him look useful
by u/Pimp_Lord in pettyrevenge
The subtle art of 'looking busy'
The female employee used to work at the front desk of a small hotel. She and Eric were responsible for handling the night shifts together, but he barely did anything other than float around and act busy. The female employee shared that Eric avoided the boring stuff like wiping the coffee station or getting the breakfast setup ready. Yet whenever the manager came around, he pretended to have equally contributed to the work. The female employee ignored Eric's pretentious nature for the longest time, but then he crossed his limits and called her 'forgetful' in front of the manager. Well, every night before wrapping up his shift, Eric got the breakfast counter ready for the next day. "...but the only reason it ever got done was that I reminded Eric every shift around 5:10," the woman said.
Eric told the manager that his coworker was forgetful and that he always had to double-check things behind her. That's it — this was the last straw, as the woman stopped reminding him about the breakfast preparation. Three shifts later, the breakfast attendant realized the handover team hadn't taken the waffle batter out of the freezer. Soon, the manager got involved, and when he asked about the situation, Eric immediately tried to blame his coworker.
Caught in a web of lies
Before Eric could justify more, the manager said, "I thought you said you always double-checked behind her." The room got really quiet fast. Although he didn't get fired or anything, from that day, Eric stopped acting like a supervisor and even started helping his coworker. So, the story did have a happy ending after all. Nonetheless, dealing with such colleagues isn't uncommon.
Toxic workplace behavior
A survey across 2,894 employees by Kickresume found 85% have had an annoying coworker. When asked about the most annoying workplace habits, 33% cited peers stealing their credit as the most annoying, while 32% mentioned micromanaging as the most troublesome office behavior. Similarly, 27% of respondents mentioned stealing lunch, and 30% mentioned personal space intrusion.
Meanwhile, people in the comment section were so happy that the female employee got her revenge from Eric. For instance, u/lowermains wrote, "I’m sure the CCTV footage was reviewed on a regular basis. Therefore, the morning manager knew who was working and who was the main character." u/Dragonfly_Peace commented, "It’s not the quietly efficient ones who get recognized, it’s the vocal ones. Who often do very little, but they’re vocal."
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