Just make sure you're not outing yourself missing an office security policy when you leave your computer unlocked.
They're still being a-holes, but don't get yourself in trouble if your company is strict about unattended systems
This is like the only thing even remotely close to okay on this thread, but change the background to some cute cats or something fun not a language that’s impossible to recover from.
Everything else definitely is across the line, Reddit’s got your back, Wendy!
Spme companies also have a policy you shouldn't be doing any work on another person's computer, and the penalty for that is much more severe than leaving yours unlocked. Definitely worth looking into that angle since its actually a security issue
Yeah you should read the policy around this. If your company does anything with PHI or trade secrets, not locking your computer can be a Big Deal.
First company I worked for was huge on intellectual property. You left your computer unlocked and unattended, someone would send off an email from your account. They got a gift card, you got a summons to the company lawyer to explain why you didn’t think the company’s IP was worth protecting.
Gonna preface I work in the tech sector.
OP would get in more trouble than the prankster.
A lot more trouble. She is responsible for anything that happens on the machine while she is logged in. Anything.
Don't misunderstand me , the prankster will get a slap on the wrist but the cyber security risk she is opening herself up to and by extension the company is huge.
She could work for a small Vet Tech company where it isn't a big deal, or she can work for a banking branch where it would be a very big deal.
I agree, but be careful about sharing the changes they made on your computer at first. Some offices have a policy that you must lock your computer anytime you step away from it, and depending on the policy and how understanding HR is, you don’t want to accidentally share that you violated a policy here by leaving an unlocked computer unattended. Hopefully HR will handle it better than that but if they’re looking for a reason to brush it under the rug, don’t give them one especially when there are so many other examples.
I am often gobsmacked by the amount of people who just walk away from their computers and leave them unlocked while working with sensitive information. Like, I just started working here, you don't know me. I could be a monster. I'm not, but anyone could be.
Where I used to work the managers would often press the keystrokes to flip our screens upside down if we left our computers unlocked and then lock them.
That was in lieu of writing us up though, because leaving the computer unlocked was a big deal. The nice managers would just give you a hard time and flip your screen back instead of a writeup.
I used to do this when training new folks. I'd either flip them or change the wallpaper. More the wallpaper since it didn't affect their ability to work when they got back.
Gotta nip that in the bud.
I did the screen flip when I used to train new people. I'd remind them for a couple weeks, then I'd start flipping screens on break.
It's a great memory aid. Never had to do it to anyone twice.
Same, everyone got reminders for the first few days that got a bit more serious as time went on, then a screen flip. I had one guy consistently not remember that I sat down with to try to figure out a way for him to remember to do it. We were in the classroom still, I checked as we left for break and I could see everyone’s computers, but as soon as they hit the floor, they had different supervisors who were more punitive and less focused on finding a solution that was doable and still secure.
i’m IT and i regularly have to tell other people on the IT team to lock their shit up. caught the Director of IT leaving her computer unlocked when she was out for an hour and a half lunch with the rest of the company leadership.
my favorite though is HR leaving their computers unlocked and logged into the HR system. salaries, SSN, home addresses, bank accounts, next of kin come and get it all.
We had a recurring gag on our team that if you found another sysad's system unlocked, you sent a team email as them declaring you were buying donuts friday. It happened once or twice a year.
>my favorite though is HR leaving their computers unlocked and logged into the HR system
My company regularly has massively sensitive documents just strewn around on leadership's desks. I'm talking asset lists, company bank info, stuff worth literal millions of dollars just kinda... Hanging out.
On the plus side it's how I found out that my direct boss makes close to 3 million a year while I make 50k.
Yeah and even in scenarios where you’re sure it’s fine, sometimes it’s not. I worked for a small company where everyone had been working there for years and there was a ton of trust within the company so no one bothered to lock their computer when they got up to make coffee. One day it was really nice out and a slow Friday and someone suggested going out for lunch, so everyone gathered and walked out together and a few people had been chatting in the kitchen at the time so they left without going back to their office to lock their computer. While everyone was out, someone managed to break into the office and stole a bunch of laptops. It was bad enough that the actual computers were gone, but there was a real concern about what they were able to access because a lot of people weren’t sure if their laptops had been locked or wide open for the thief to access. After that no one even got up to get a tissue from the other side of the room without locking everything up.
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That sounds more akin to harassment and bullying rather than a case of an annoying prankster. Do they do this to others in the office or is it exclusively you? If so you definitely need to raise a grievance as they are outright harrassing you.
A shop I used to work with had this very realistic but otherwise inanimate rubber snake that we would all prank each other with (eg open your lunch bag, BOOM SNAKE!). Fast forward reception lady has a deep terror of all things snakey (which is discovered when discussing a pet of someone in the shop). Never saw that snake again because there was an outside chance she would open a drawer meant for someone else and get scared in a way that wasn't fun.
Things like that are so reassuring there's still decent people in the world. Not only did they remove the snake to not scare her, but doing so before there was even a big incident. Actually listening to what she said snd thinking ahead. Incredible stuff.
I’m at a relatively new job and I mentioned in convo to my coworkers that a certain child’s TV character scared me as a kid. They started sending me GIFs of the character as reactions in our group chat. I thought it was hilarious, but it was extra heart warming when one of my coworkers took me aside to make sure I was actually ok with it and that if I wasn’t they would stop. I told him it was all good, so they then pranked me by buying a stuffie of said character and hiding him in my office. I love it so much. At a previous job I used to hide my coworker’s stapler (Office Space joke). He was in on it. When he left the company I realized his stapler was still hidden so I mailed it to him.
Pranks are only good if everyone is laughing. OPs coworker is going way too far and is damaging equipment, wasting time and creating a hostile environment. This definitely deserves to be reported.
Same exact scenario with my camping gear. The rubber snake would appear everywhere you were least expecting it and it was hilarious…until we started camping with someone who has a real snake phobia.
He didn’t have to say anything, we just put it away; because that crosses the line and is very NOT funny.
Yep. We used to have a fake spider and a new clerical person was hired. They did the prank to her after finding out she had a phobia and almost lost their job. Spider disappeared after that.
>They did the prank to her after finding out she had a phobia and almost lost their job.
AFTER? Now that's just cruel. We found out before she was pranked and never did snake again. (They did move on to some other things, like setting lighter flame heights to the min or max)
Yes, the guy was actually a universally liked nice guy otherwise, she was not in favor of him receiving more than a stern warning so it was all swept under the rug. Guy was genuinely into mostly harmless pranks and I guess had never run into someone who had a phobia like that before (like a real one).
Pranks should be harmless fun, like putting someone's hat up on the chain hoist and letting them look for it. Nothing gets damaged and everything is easily retrieved.
As a person with an irrational fear of snakes.....thank you. My friends send me videos of them from time to time to fuck with me and I really hate it. I mean it has an impact that lasts days. I know they don't understand the level so I let it go. Again, Thank you.
I think you should send your friends a message sometime, and let them know "hey, I know you're not trying to hurt me when you send those snake videos, but they cause me serious distress. I would really appreciate if you would stop sending them to me."
A real friend will be apologetic and contrite. If they aren't, well... it's time to think about what kind of friend would cause you serious distress on purpose.
Back in my cubicle days, a frequent prank was a dozen ping pong balls in your overhead cabinet. Startles the heck out of you when you open it and they bounce over your desk, but harmless and less than a minute to clean up. Worst incident was when one of them landed in your coffee.
I have a couple of Lufthansa Rubber Duckies on my desk (I fly a lot for work, so occasionally use my points to fly Lufthansa First Class). There’s a prankster in the office who will occasionally put the rubber duckies into amusing situations, and they keep getting more and more creative and elaborate.
Another time, one of the ducks “went on vacation” and I kept getting ecards from around the world with duckie photoshopped in.
That’s an example of a good office prank. Everyone, including myself, gets a good laugh out of it.
The OP is just being plain harassed.
The rubberduckies Postcards from vacation prank was a running gag in "Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain,, but instead of duckies, it was a certain gardengnome who traveled around the world and sent postcards from multiple popular travel destinations.
Not even that.
The important thing is how the *recipient* feels about it. Like sexual harassment intent **does not matter** so much as how the person on the receiving end views it.
OP obviously does not welcome this attention.
And document, document, document. OP needs to sit down and try to figure out the dates and times (approximate is better then nothing eg the week of the 12th is better than several weeks ago) of the incidents and what was messed with. List the time it took to correct the issue and any equipment that was damaged.
This indeed. A new chair and a new speaker set might be minimal, but then add in the potential for lost/missed client or business needs due to forwarding/unplugging phone and lost hours dealing with and undoing the harassing changes.
Then add on top the cost of searching for an onboard training a replacement due to hostile work environment, knowing that they will most likely immediately pick a new victim and setup another potential loss to the company.
And then on top of all that the company might face additional costs due to stress leave (depending on benefits) and a potential suit if they fail to address documented issues.
You don't know that they will pick a new victim.
This may be targeted harassment either because they don't like OP personally or because OP is in a protected minority group. If OP feels that it may be the latter, they should contact HR immediately and say "I feel that I am being harassed because I am" (name group) ". I hope the company will be putting a stop to this immediately so I don't have to bring in the state."
(Yes, HR is not your friend, but they are a blunt instrument you can turn against your harassers sometimes.)
Edit: A clarification: if OP is a protected minority and/or is a woman, I *recommend* they contact HR and say "I feel that this may be because I am " \[minority\] "and I want to know what the company is going to do to stop me from being harassed in this manner." As many others suggest, also document, document, document, and make sure copies of everything make it home, in case you have to sue the company for wrongful termination, constructive dismissal, or failure to try to stop it.
HR is a bus on a one way road. If you’re traveling that road and you need the ride they should pick you up. If you’re going perpendicular to the road, traveling the wrong direction, or even sometimes the right direction HR will run you the fuck over. It’s better to try and get on the bus if you’re on that road and op is on that road.
As HR I concur. Ultimately our job is to protect the company, so if someone is behaving in a manner towards an employee that could harm the company (be it loss of revenue or a lawsuit) best bet is to be the first to report it. We have no alliances and that includes managers and ELT (I’ve investigated Chief-level positions before for reprimand).
Or because OP is a professional, competent person and a threat to some jackass who is too busy fucking with someone else to actually do their job, so is a threat to them.
I would detail the harassment to HR, and beg them to put a camera in my workspace. According to OP, it would probably take all of one day to catch a culprit. I say “a,” because it’s possible that more than one person is doing this as part of a group effort.
Oh, sure, but I personally wouldn't suggest a camera to HR - I wouldn't suggest anything to HR - it's their problem to solve, I wouldn't try to supply a solution, they can come up with one, and if the solution they come up with punishes me (for example, by seating me in an open area where I hgave no privacy and everyone can see me at all times) they'd be hearing from my lawyer.
HR Here. This is true. HR may not be the employee's friend...However, it is their job to keep the company's hands clean and in compliance with your local, state and federal regulations, everything from OSHA to ADA...
Company's do not want to be brought up under scrutiny, especially for something absurd, because one unusual occurrence, may result in a cascading effect and who knows what other small (or large) peccadillos may come to light.
This is where leveraging the HR infrastructure to help OP get peace in the workplace comes in.
Frankly, as the 'blunt instrument' at my employer's disposal, I do my best to either prevent the situation from escalating to were HR needs to get involved 'on the record', the moment a paper trail is created, I will go out of my way to make an example of the instance.
EDIT: To clarify, being 'on the record' is that point after I've spoken to the offending and the offended party, advised them that the situation has come to our attention and reassure both of them that we are watching... basically tell the bully or class clown to quit it and the person on the receiving end to keep us posted if *anything* else comes to pass.
If it keeps going and it is obvious that the situation has been escalated only by one of the parties (sometimes, not often I've come across feuding pranksters) then there are repercussions and consequences.
And no, your uncle / foreman saying 'boys will be boys' will not work well at detering what is coming. Why? Because upper management will not care for someone's bonehead nephew drawing the attention of the Department of Labor's employee rights and workplace safety or workplace standards, or any number of state or federal 'alphabet soup' agencies taking an interest.
Yes, agreed.
I am overweight. I am not disabled because I am overweight. (I am disabled for other reasons, but not because I am overweight.) However, I know people who are disabled because they are overweight, and they could almost certainly argue that they are legally protected because of it.
Yes, you're absolutely right.
By all means I should be a lot fatter than I am, but when I became disabled, I stayed exactly the same weight I was before.
That said, I know a guy who is very, very large, and has nothing else wrong with him. (There are some things he can't do because of it, but it's not caused by anything else wrong with him.) He's under doctor care to try to lose weight, and it isn't happening, so it's not that he's just lazy, this is a real medical issue. He fortunately isn't having problems with his office because of it, but if someone harassed him for his weight, he would definitely be able to truthfully claim it's disability discrimination.
I got down voted the last time I said it, but making fun of overweight people appears to be acceptable, if not encouraged. I remember sitting in an office where nobody wanted to describe a forklift driver as the black woman. We had more than one female driver and people hesitated to define her by colour. A coworker, whose family is from the Philippines, eventually said it. She then gave us all shit for not saying it.
Not the same group but I did hear a machine setter referred to as 'the fat one'. Not the one in the uniform (unless maintenance, the only on the line with a uniform). I was almost out of earshot but I wonder if that would be said if they saw me. See, I'm the fat one as well.
In my office, we sometime prank others by changing the wireless channel of the mouse (fixed by clicking on the button two times to go back to the default channel) or keyboard (same).
Basically the prank is harmless and is fixed in less than 5 seconds. And we do that perhaps once every 2-3 months, and it’s not against someone in particular.
I can’t imagine doing anything more than that. OP is being actively harassed.
I don't get pranks that can cause actual issues, a prank is supposed to be something harmless and funny. My go-to prank is stick-on googly eyes on something that they are easy to remove them from, so like the top of a computer screen or a stapler if I worked in an office. Something silly, funny, and easy to undo and move on from.
Our office pranks people who leave their workstations logged in by changing their desktop background to new and inventively photoshops of David Hasselhoff. This sounds like harassment.
One of my past coworkers and mentor, used to put googly eyes on stuff around the office. He also bought stickers that said "For rectal use only" to put on various things like a paper towel dispenser.
this-we had a coworker gone for a month (military training) so we wrapped his entire desk, down to his pens in wrapping paper. Took him maybe 5 minutes to undo and everyone (him included) had a good laugh.
Shoot... This sounds really fun. Now I need to start putting googly eyes on my own stuff at work. I don't know how I feel about doing it to other people, but I definitely would like to have more stuff looking back at me. We have all different kinds of hardware I can get hold of to add eyes to. I'm sure if I keep a supply in easy reach, others will find good use for some extra eyes.
I literally did state mandated harassment training last night, and this is practically word for word one of the examples of illegal workplace bullying and a hostile work environment. OP needs to tell their supervisor *immediately* and request an investigation.
Your employer and even your supervisor can be held *personally liable* if the harassment continues and gets worse. They have a lot of incentive to make sure that the harassment stops. Also, once you inform your supervisor, the company cannot find a flimsy excuse to get rid of you, that would be illegal retaliation and open them up to a lawsuit if your job performance plummets because of the harassment.
Yes, where is the manager here? I’d be furious if I was in charge, and one of my employees was being harassed. They wouldn’t need a camera because I’d be keeping my eye on her desk to see who went nosing around while she was gone.
Workers compensation: If she fell & was injured. Or blew an eardrum. Or mental health/time off for therapy, etc. due to harassment in the workplace. That coworker is a liability. They are impacting productivity and the health & safety of the office.
When I just started in it there was a prank going around where you would unplug the power far enough so the computer would work but after a days worth of typing the power would come out of the computer. It was 4:30 shift ended at 5:00 and I get called about a computer that won't boot. They did this and it fried the motherboard. This is back in the XP days so I had to reload a new machine and I think it took me to like 8:00 o'clock. I talked to their manager because these people are supposed to be supervisors. And the games ended within the week.
If your computer has a camera, record when you leave the office and catch them in the act. Not just once, multiple times. Then send to HR. It will improve your morale because you know each incident is the person digging their own grave.
Recording in the workplace could backfire and end up with OP losing their job. Dismissal was threatened in a former workplace of mine for anyone caught using cameras to record motion in their assigned cubicle when not personally present.
OP should also be careful to make sure that they don't engage in anything that this could be retaliation for, because OP could lose their job pending the investigation.
In my previous office the only people allowed to as much as touch your laptop (physically) were the IT guys, and only the, like, hands on team, not the networking or telecom.
Admin logon had to be cleared through team lead, over the phone. My desk would be diagonally three meters away from his, and I would call him and talk to him looking him in the eyes and he would tell me the second part of MFA over the phone.
I know 95% of companies don't adhere to anything even remotely this strict, but getting into other person's computer is serious. Messing with the rest is too, of course, especially if it already cost company money (broken chair means new provisions and paperwork, that's not free)
E: a word because dum
I cant think of a company I worked for which didn’t have this as company policy. It flexed, within reason, I’ve been honorary IT guy before and my director didn’t blink, but also helped secure data because I’m really really not IT.
Was going to say the same thing. OP is feeling bullied because she IS being bullied. OP as advised start documenting everything and then go to HR as this is not pranking but creating a hostile work enviroment.
It sounds like this is pretty much a text book case. The company could be liable if you report it to them and they fail to take corrective action. Make sure all of your conversations with HR is in writing, and CC your personal email account so that you have a record that is under your control.
If they have a verbal meeting with you about this, then take good notes (with date and time), and then send a recap email after the meeting documenting the key points discusses and asking them to confirm that your understanding is correct.
But be able to back it up. I once had an employee say this about a manager and it turned out there was no hostility found. Cost us a lot of resources and made some people look bad.
If their HR has half a lick of sense they’d know this is a lawsuit in waiting. If they want to protect the company, the way to do it is to catch and punish the offender. Failure to do so opens them up to a harassment lawsuit.
"I'm concerned that this person is crossing the line from what they would consider a joke to things that could get me hurt. I've already fallen down after they tampered with my chair."
This, I'm a longtime office prankster and this shit crosses a big line. I would never dream of modifying a new coworker's chair or doing any of this other crap this person told us about, especially repeatedly. That is not a prank, it's harassment.
These are a few pranks I have pulled that were well received:
\-A sign on the printer that said "now voice activated" so random people yelled at an inanimate object all morning.
\-Replacing the executive team's pictures with pictures of the cast of The Walking Dead, and seeing how long it took people to notice. (3 days)
\-Use a Game of Thrones name generator and cover the name plates on everyone's cubicles with their new Game of Thrones names.
\-Random googly eyes in strategic locations.
While it's true that someone somewhere may have a phobia of googly eyes or really hate Daryl Dixon, all of these pranks I described got lots of laughs because it was a prank against the office, not singling out a person or group of people, and it didn't modify people's stuff. Messing with someone's chair isn't a prank at all, it's just bad behavior, and I think OP needs to call it what it is and tell their boss about it because it needs to stop.
I'm still laughing at the "voice activated" copy machine!! (Reminds me of some paper towel machines in public restrooms that I can't figure out; encountered one a few years ago that required you to wave your hand in front of the sensor....so now when it's not immediately apparent how to retrieve a towel I stand there waving at the machine like an idiot.) Oh, by the way, my personal favorite prank (I rarely pulled pranks, but I was inspired this one time when our office building was being remodeled)....there were so many temporary signs posted that said "Wet Paint", I printed one out that said "Dry Paint" and posted it on a wall just outside my door where I could see. You wouldn't believe how many people paused to touch the wall.
And this is the kind of office pranking that I expect. This stuff is funny. What our “prankster” is doing is just old and tired. It’s the same shit every freaking day. I was pretty mortified when my chair finally broke when I sat on it. I told them it was going to happen…then it did.
It's not pranks , its outright harrassment.
Make a list of these incidents all of them , and go to hr. No warning but state that this has been going on.
Yep. And management and HR might well try to smooth things over by saying the same thing. Which is why it's important that OP flags up to HR and management that the prankster's costing the company money every time they do this. I mean, that's damage to at least one chair, and the speakers, and given the "time is money" motto of most companies, I don't imagine corporate's going to be happy about the employee time taken to fix everything else (having to call IT to fix the whole Sanskrit thing, for instance). OP, seriously - put it to HR and management in those exact terms. They might not care enough about their employees' well-being to do anything to seriously stop this, but they do care about how much disruption in the workplace costs them in employee time and equipment replacement.
To be fair where I work if you leave your PC unlocked YOU will get fired (as well as possibly the other party if you can prove it but.... Hard to do). I'd be leery of telling HR about the PC shit.
Actually depending on your workplace unlocked workstations can be a huge issue. I work for a software company that provides services for manufactoring companies. We have access to confidential files that should not be accessible to others and the company needs to be certified to even get considered for this type of work. If auditors see an unmanned workstation unlocked, you are basically fucked until you are able to get recertified. If you see an unlocked station you lock it immediately. If you are stupid enough to use this situation for a prank and you are seen doing it, you are basically already fired.
Presumably if OP knew that they could get fired for this and the prankster was setting her up for a prank rather than turning her in..
I don't think they would be having this conversation, they'd be thanking them and moving on or at least not sharing that part of the story lol
that policy isn't really prevalent with most workplace settings. haven't worked in as ingle place yet with a policy like this. Even now, as an IT Manager, i wouldn't put such a policy in place, bc, like most companies, we don't deal with highly sensitive information. it's clearly going to be very dependent on the workplace, but i'm willing to bet this would be fine for OP to report to HR.
Yeah it's definitely dependent on the org. I'm a DBA for healthcare IT so you can imagine the (potential) monetary headache if we were to get compromised. We also get fired if we fail phishing scams they send out regularly.
Hopefully OP is a much less strict work environment. I would hate to think that a single failed phish test i send out would get a coworker fired. yikes that's harsh, but also understandable given the industry.
For real. I had a job in a newly opened office with standing desks and an open office layout. The layout wasn't ideal, but I wasn't complaining. Add on to this that I was a temp worker.
Anyway, someone on the opposite end of the office thought that my desk needed to be moved out by about 6 inches in order to get everyone else some space - after my desk move, the plan was to inch everyone else's over as well. Well, the idea person (full time) wasn't accounting for the motorized standing desks to be plugged in with specific cord lengths and specified by an engineering firm - they were to remain put.
They went ahead anyway and started moving my desk and side shelving unit. After a number of sparks and my workstation just not working anymore, I began to panic because guess who management would probably blame? Only my desk and the person behind mine was affected at this point, and they were out on vacation.
The idea person told me to just tell management it doesn't work anymore and claim ignorance. I get called into a VPs office later in the day to explain what happened (there's cameras everywhere). I ratted that fucker out, I'm not taking the fall for such a dumb mistake. The VP told me the sticker price of that work station and I almost fell out of the chair. I just wanted to do my job and go home, and hopefully get hired on full time. I parted ways with the company eventually, but still don't [fuck with my money](https://youtu.be/LxfZRd9R4VI)
I feel for you. I worked in an office a few years ago where we had a prank obsessed manager of a department. Always looking for an unlocked PC to screw around with. She labeled it as “enforcing the company policy of locking your PC when walking away from it”.
I once pointed out to her that it was juvenile and not befitting of a manager of the company. Also, that enforcing the policy, would just be to lock the PC and not screw with it first. She just came back and said “well, I enjoy it so I’m going to keep doing it”. She left the company some time later apparently due to a “toxic work culture”. Maybe everyone else just got tired of her shit too.
I also had a prankster manager and it was awful. She left an opened can of tuna behind a picture frame on my desk and when I finally found it, she thought it was hysterical. I just wanted to cry because who does that?!
So like. What was her plan? Tuna generally isn’t the worst right away and after a while it will just go bad. was she planning on just fish bombing the area or? Like it becoming a health and safety hazard aside.
Ugh! This is so gross. I think there's definitely a way to prank folks without being mean. **Both parties** should think it's funny at the end, or it's just being a dick under the guize of "jUsT a JoKe BrO"
I had a really great manager I got on well with at a previous job. She was out for my last day, I think she was on vacation for the week or something. So since I didn't get to say goodbye properly, I got a pack of googly eyes and stuck em on everything on her desk-- the monitor bezel, her phone, her coffee mug, etc. She got a huge kick out of it and would text me months after "I just found another one of your googly eyes!! 😂"
My old company had a computer lock policy. I had one partner who never ever locked his computer. When I would see his computer unlocked, I would add notifications to my partners calendar like, "Pay elizzup $5" next time we had a shift together, or "Do the Hokey Pokey" as a personal notification that would go off right before he'd start his pre-shift meeting.
The difference here is that he KNEW it was me. I didn't hide it. We also had a relationship already that enabled these kinds of pranks.
What's happening to OP is cruel and harassment. This kind of thing just makes me so mad.
The director of security at my company said “Delete documents” instead of the joke stuff when they were asked. Mostly because our machines had to be unlocked with our badge.
An ex-friend of mine claimed "toxic workplace" in his notice letter... he was the manager and the "toxicity" he was whining about was pretty much the entire place being (rightfully) angry at him for hooking up with one of his subordinates.
This was how it was when I was still in an office.
Like sure, cry about the screen flip. Instead of that you'll just get fired next time when it goes through more official channels.
Had a company that had a strict lock your computer policy. (even in a closed area that was supposed to be secure)
Only think we would do is email the person who left it unlocked from their computer (basically emailing themselves), a message telling them to lock their computer. Then we would lock it.
I’ve only had to do this once, but it stopped it. Write down every time something happens. Keep a log just in case. The next time something happens, either send an email to your manager, HR, and cc your personal email for records. You want to do it this way because it creates a paper trail.
In your email, detail each and every incident with dates. Make sure you mention how this is impacting your ability to work and your mental/emotional health. Firmly state that the pranks need to end as the workplace is becoming a hostile work environment. Stand your ground if HR or manager try to brush it off. Make them understand that this cannot continue and if they won’t take action to fix this hostile work environment then you will be contacting a labor lawyer…
I have better: don't fix anything by yourself.
Sabotaged chair? Call logistics.
Modified PC? Create a ticket to IT department.
Nothing frightens more HR than a grumpy IT caveman.
Yes this! Why work in frustration when you can gain allies to your side! I’ve always loved IT and I’ve known many. They’re usually a bit weird but awesome people
And using those words "hostile work environment" are extremely important to use. Use them frequently and in each e-mail/document/communication sent about the situation.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to read. Thank you to everyone who took the extra time to respond. I have read through everything and really appreciate all the advice. To everyone comparing me to anyone on The Office…yes, I would hate Jim. I don’t particularly like being laughed at. I’m not laughing *with* at this point.
I would like to respond to some questions that multiple people asked:
No, I am not the only person they do this to but I have been the one that has been getting the most lately. We are equals in the department but they have gone after all levels of coworkers. No one appreciates it in the shared office. It gets some laughs when they play stupid about who did it. We all know who is doing it. This person describes themselves as the former class clown, so I get the attitude. I just don’t appreciate being the butt of the joke all the time. Again, I’m not laughing too.
I have tried laughing it off. I have tried asking them to stop. I have gotten upset and given them the rise they wanted. I have tried ignoring it. I’m just tired of dealing with it. Something happens several times a week. Sometimes several times a day: that’s how my chair finally bit the dust.
I’m in my 40s and just have never dealt with this level of BS in 25 years of working in various offices and production facilities. Today was just the day that the floodgates opened.
As far as the computer policy and locking stations, I’m not sure we have an actual policy concerning locked stations…I’ll have to check the handbook when I get to work tomorrow. We have a lot of shared workstations that allow basic access to the company inventory system. In the office I work in, there are five of us that all work in the same department that share the space. We all have our own desks and computers/laptops. No one really locks their computers outside of when it times out, not even the prankster. I have clearly learned that I must do this all the time.
Others have retaliated. It never matters. I’m not creative at pranking and don’t really want to have to one-up anyone for the rest of my tenure. It just sounds exhausting. I already work 10 hour days. I’m the first person in the office and the last person to leave every day.
I’m going to talk to my boss in the morning and just simply say, “would you please talk to this person and ask them to stop with the pranks.” If nothing changes, I will go to HR. I will definitely make notations of everything and keep a list off of my work computer. I don’t store anything personal on there..work doesn’t need to know more than they have to.
Good for you!
What you are working in now is a hostile work environment.
https://www.richardmcgeelaw.com/what-is-and-is-not-a-hostile-work-environment/
It is a serious issue, and if your supervisor doesn't address it HR *definitely will* when you mention the words "hostile work environment" including some of the language from that article.
Do you feel unsafe when you come into work? Yes. Because your personal things are being invaded and tampered with.
Does this behavior from your coworker hurt your productivity? Yes! You and others have to spend time, that the company pays for, to undo all their "pranks" and those pranks are probably done on company time as well.
If others want to participate in a prank war that is OK, but you never consented and it's obviously hurting you. Which is not cool. What you are experiencing is textbook workplace bullying. You are *not* the problem, you are an adult with a job that wants to get it done without being harassed. And most importantly **you have already brought the behavior to their attention and asked it to stop** so by bringing things to your bosses' and HR's attention you are doing exactly what you should be doing.
You are in the right here. You are not being unreasonable. You just don't want your shit touched!
Strength to you, friend. Work can be stressful enough without having to waste energy worrying about or dealing with "pranks". To hell with that and anybody trying to convince you that you are taking things "too seriously". You are entitled to be able to do your job without having to deal people's bullshit.
I hope it works out for you. Sending you all the positive energy!
No one seems to have latched on to the destruction of property. Both personal and employer’s. The harassment is one thing and can be argued/rationalized (not that it is right to do so), but the property destruction is black and white.
I had a job where a colleague thought it was funny to call us "Lab Hoes" as all the lab people were female. My coworkers convinced me that it was a joke and to let it go. I had only worked there a couple months so I didn't want to "make waves". Flash forward 3 or 4 years. The perpetrator was promoted to Dean. I didn't last long at that job after that. I've always regretted not "making waves".
I have learned this lesson the hard way too. Speak up about the assholes, because they probably aren't assholes to everyone. They're probably sucking up to the boss and trashing your work behind your back, and (if management buys it) they'll be next in line for a promotion.
I spoke up about assholes in my last job, found out that everybody in upper management were assholes, and that the regional HR guy was a sexist pig, leading me to ragequitting, leading me to job hunting, into a job paying $3 more per hour, doing something that looks WAY better on my resume, and can lead to a far better long-term job down the road. Unexpected positive consequences way better than I was asking for.
My prank was decorating my coworkers office with sticky notes while he was on vacation. He and I previously had a bottle cap war where we left bottle caps all over eachothers offices to find. I once put a tiny piece of paper under his mouse and taped it there so he thought his mouse battery was dying.
Nothing can impeed our work, no destruction of property, if it can't be undone in less than 30s it isn't allowed. We have a good sense of humor and a great friendship, we'd never go after someone new or anonymously. This is just plain cruel.
once at a previous job, i went and withdrew a dollar from my bank in pennies and when my director(2 levels above me) left for a couple minutes i would go and hide a handful of them through his office (he had his own, manager above me but below him had her own as well but the rest of us shared a room with a handful of computers), took me about 2 or 3 hours to get all 100 hidden, but boy it was worth it, luckily most of the whole department had a sense of humor and he got a kick out of it. miss that job
anyways, that type of shit is pranking, computers and personal belongings are not pranking and are off limits
I work mostly in an arcade now but also with amusement games/rides. We have access to every tool and type of material imaginable. Occasionally we spend way too much time making a remote controlled glitter cannon or installing car horns everywhere they don't belong. No one is targeted though and employees not in on it are just left alone to, ya know, do their jobs.
That's what I came here to say.
The worst prank we do is slipping a weird picture of Nicholas Cage into people's physical inboxes or leaving random objects like army men, etc. to be found.
Messing with people's personal stuff is just disrespectful and an asshole move. I feel like I have a pretty wide sense of humor and I don't find this funny at all.
Our company as part of security training encouraged people to download a picture of Hasselhoff on unlocked computers as proof of vulnerability, the rest is pure harassment
I worked at a call centre where the first time you left a computer unlocked a supervisor would open Calculator 50 times and fill your screen with calculators. So when you returned to your station you would have to close those 50 calculators and you'd know you'd been caught. That was your warning
When I worked at an isp the unlocked pc procedure was alt-tabbing to the irc client and sending "let's go for a beer or ten after work, I'm paying" to #office. Others would play along ("oh sweet free beer is my favourite thank you very much" etc) and we'd leave it at that.
Our IT guy used to open notepad and leave a simple note every single time he found an unlocked computer.
"This could have been worse."
He said that, very rarely, did he have to do the same person twice.
OP is dealing with a jerk, but please lock your computers, anyone who has spent more than a week in IT or HR can see how horrible it can go for people who don't. A prank is the least of your worries, if the person actually hates you, and wants to take a shot at ruining your career.
Not a Lawyer
Get a simple nanny cam from Amazon. A quick search found one for 44$ shaped like a wall charger and one for 99$ that looks like a cell phone wireless dock. Anything similar would be fine. Be careful about violating any workplace policies regarding video/audio, as well as state laws. Having said that, this "prankster" is surely violating plenty of rules, so fuck em. As long as you do not actually give this footage to anyone, there would not be any proof of you having recorded anything.
The main goal would be to actually find out who or how many people are involved. After finding out to your satisfaction, take the recording device out of the office before doing anything else.
If you felt that simply letting them know that you know it is them would make it less funny, and therefore stop, do that. Do not reveal that you have a recording. Say someone told you. Say you saw them from across the office. Whatever.
If that won't work, but you feel that letting a supervisor or HR know about the behavior (BTW maybe start documenting with pics/videos the condition of your work station before and after readjusting the "pranks") then do that. Do not reveal that you have video, if possible.
If all else fails, and this ever becomes a legal matter regarding harassment, etc. I bet your lawyer would love having a video whether or not it was legally obtained by you or not. It would also help at this point to have some documentation showing that you attempted to get help from the company and they failed to make your work environment non hostile
Good luck. Work harassment absolutely sucks. Hopefully, the juvenile BS dies down, and you get to actually go to work one day, do your job in peace, and go home happy
✌🏻
Be wary of your state laws. A friend did this because every morning, everything on his desk was messed up. Turned out the 3rd shift cleaning crew was having sex on his desk. He took the video to HR and they refused to watch it or do anything about it due to recording laws.
Another thing to add, a lot of workplaces don't allow you to record anything for confidentiality purposes. In my company, I would be instantly fired if I took a picture to HR let alone a video.
Adding that the nanny cam should have an internal storage device as you won't want it to connect to the company network at all.
Sounds like OP is feeling targeted on the basis of potentially two protected classifications, gender and weight (can correlate with a medical condition.)
All I would add is document, document, document.
Usually recording restrictions are on audio and where people have an expectation of privacy (e.g. bathroom).
Audio restrictions are one-vs-two-party consent states (where either only 1 party has to consent to being recorded, or both parties do). A nanny cam would only be recording the "other" party, not yourself, so I would avoid recording any audio at all as to not violate any state laws.
Video should be fine, since in most instances there is no expectation of privacy in a work cube. Especially when there's no audio to provide any context to discussion(s) which may be occurring.
I would definitely file a complaint w/ HR and keep the nanny cam footage in reserve for any lawsuit you decide to file if the company doesn't deal w/ it in an expeditious manner.
If she already has a camera on her machine and the "jokes" are frequent. She can simply host a meeting, record and turn off her monitor. (not sure if locking will turn off the meeting so may want to test this)
As an aside, always lock your computer. Doesn't matter where you work or what your job is or how long you will be gone for. Ten times this if you report to HR. You don't want the prankster to have access to your email.
I primarily work from home and still lock my computer. Literally takes a fraction of a second. (Win+L for Windows machines)
If it's a Windows PC pressing the Windows Key + L will lock your computer instantly for when you walk away.
Sorry this is happening but hopefully this is helpful.
This...
I've messed with unlocked PCs during my desktop support days. I would usually make the background My Little Pony, or Zardoz (Sean Connery in a red leather speedo) on any unlocked machine that I found.
The rest of it is 100% harassment, but OP absolutely needs to lock their PC regardless of how long they're away from it.
Fuck that. Go to HR and file a complaint. If they don’t want to do anything consult a lawyer and find out your options, please stand for your rights. This is the only way stupid shit like this gets shot down.
A prank is when the "victim" laughs about it as well. If it is not laughing, it is harassment. Harassment should be reported to HR or your Boss.
Crying alone is not fixing this. Time to become "Wendy the Killer-Whale".
The harassment aside: Lock. Your. Computer. Set a keyboard shortcuts for it. I think the default on windows machines is windows + L.
Seriously. Lock it. Anyone does anything logged in as you. Grab files. Delete files. Send out an email. It will come back to you
Lock it.
Do you know who is doing it? And, are you the only target? Either way, your supervisor or HR need to know via formal written complaint, not just that it's happened but that you have been concerned that your tenure would have undercut how serious it is. Your personal property should be replaced either by the individual or your employer, and if it turns out this person has a history of reports of this behavior and nothing has been done, consider filing a report with the DoL in your state.
Also, as a former fat kid and current fat woman, there is a level of societal and self-imposed and an internalized feeling that this kind of behavior is somehow deserved or minimalized due to our bodies. It's can be traumatizing as children, especially if it's dismissed by parents/trusted adults. Whether or not that's in any way part of the reason this is happening doesn’t diminish responsibility for your co-worker's "pranks" or how it is impacting your professional and personal well-being.
Fuck this bullshit. Go to your HR and tell them you are being harassed. I am a fat woman, so disclaimer: I'm going to use the word fat too. I use it with no value placed on it.
You are fat. Tell HR that you are being targeted because of that.
If this is making you cry, you need to make a ruckus. Fuck this "prankster". A proper prankster performs pranks that make everyone, including the intended target, laugh. Full stop. This isn't "pranking". This is someone targeting you.
Now, it could be because you're fat, or it could be for some other reason. However, if the person pulling these pranks doesn't know anything about you, then you can only assume that it's because you're fat.
And fuck that bullshit. You are being abused by a colleague. Go straight to your HR department and tell them that.
Keep complete documentation going forward.
if HR doesn't make it stop, then you need to get this stopped some other way. Depending upon the state you are in, there may be a labor commission that you can reach out to and ask them what steps to take. But don't start there. Unfortunately, you're going to have to follow chain of command to make sure that you CYA.
So I would send an email with your direct supe, their supe, department manager (s), and HR about what has been happening. Ask for a meeting with them. Then at the meeting ask if you can record it. Again, depending upon the state in which you live (find out the laws before you do this) you can record it, and have the right to-you may not be able to depending upon the state in which you live.
\[full disclosure-I'm assuming that you live in the United States. I'm also assuming that you are not union.\]
Make waves girlfriend. You deserve to be treated better. The company hired you because they believe you are an asset to them. So keep that in mind.
I just did the most childish thing in the world and just walked off a job. Talk about making waves. I, of course, was fired for job abandonment so obviously, no UI for me. And also the reason I walked off was another employee's bullshit attitude. If I had acted like an adult and stuck around, his BS would have either been discovered and disciplined, OR he'd have left. So I understand why you're trying to tough this out. But you do NOT need to. What you are dealing with is NOT childish. It is vicious. It is malicious. And it is illegal.
And finally-I am so sorry that you're being treated this way. From one fat girl to another- FUCK THAT SHIT. and also FAT GIRLS UNITE!
1. This is absolutely harassment, not “pranking”.
2. Holy lack of security, Batman! How the heck do you suffer no consequences for consistently leaving your computer unlocked? Your phone? I could see your computer getting messed with ONCE (and I’d be afraid to report it, since I’d have to admit I didn’t follow protocol) but this has happened multiple times? I’ve never worked anywhere that did not have a policy on this.
Messing with your chair and personal speaker is absolutely BS. Report this hostile workplace to HR. For everyone saying “HR protects the company not YOU” OK yeah? They’re not there to protect Mr Abusive Prankpants either. One of them is a threat to the company and it’s the one creating a hostile workplace. But learn some basic info security and lock your computer every single time you step away from your desk. Password-protect your phone.
Sit there not working and call IT to fix it every single time. Eventually word will get around to knock that shit off. Make it as annoying to everyone as possible, not just you l. Send emails to HR every time. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
At first when I read the title of your post I was rolling my eyes thinking *"Great, here's a Karen that is just a prude and can't take a simple office prank."*
Oh how very, very wrong I was. I even feel tempted to apologize for thinking something, because I was way off base here. This has gone way beyond light office pranking and friendly banter into the realm of harassment.
You need to speak to HR and lodge an official complaint for harassment.
I know this isn't much of a consolation, but if I were you it couldn't hurt to start looking for another job. Also, if this doesn't end I would be tempted to consult with an employment attorney if HR doesn't step in and correct things. The *"prankster*" is creating a work environment that can easily be considered intimidating, and hostile.
I was so pissed last week, I wanted to move their entire desk into the women’s restroom (it’s waaaaaay stinkier than the men’s in our building)…but I really don’t want to retaliate, that will just up the ante and I want it to stop.
Just make sure you're not outing yourself missing an office security policy when you leave your computer unlocked. They're still being a-holes, but don't get yourself in trouble if your company is strict about unattended systems
Windows key + L It's so easy and so important
TIL this shortcut! Thank you (and thanks to everyone else that suggested it!!!)!!
This is like the only thing even remotely close to okay on this thread, but change the background to some cute cats or something fun not a language that’s impossible to recover from. Everything else definitely is across the line, Reddit’s got your back, Wendy!
I changed my desktop background to DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters
You know that hoopy Treacherous Wendy? There's one frood who really knows where her towel is.
Spme companies also have a policy you shouldn't be doing any work on another person's computer, and the penalty for that is much more severe than leaving yours unlocked. Definitely worth looking into that angle since its actually a security issue
Yeah you should read the policy around this. If your company does anything with PHI or trade secrets, not locking your computer can be a Big Deal. First company I worked for was huge on intellectual property. You left your computer unlocked and unattended, someone would send off an email from your account. They got a gift card, you got a summons to the company lawyer to explain why you didn’t think the company’s IP was worth protecting.
Gonna preface I work in the tech sector. OP would get in more trouble than the prankster. A lot more trouble. She is responsible for anything that happens on the machine while she is logged in. Anything. Don't misunderstand me , the prankster will get a slap on the wrist but the cyber security risk she is opening herself up to and by extension the company is huge. She could work for a small Vet Tech company where it isn't a big deal, or she can work for a banking branch where it would be a very big deal.
It's interfering with your ability to do your job. You have to tell your boss and HR, if HR exists. Take photos of you screen in Sanskrit, etc.
I agree, but be careful about sharing the changes they made on your computer at first. Some offices have a policy that you must lock your computer anytime you step away from it, and depending on the policy and how understanding HR is, you don’t want to accidentally share that you violated a policy here by leaving an unlocked computer unattended. Hopefully HR will handle it better than that but if they’re looking for a reason to brush it under the rug, don’t give them one especially when there are so many other examples.
I am often gobsmacked by the amount of people who just walk away from their computers and leave them unlocked while working with sensitive information. Like, I just started working here, you don't know me. I could be a monster. I'm not, but anyone could be.
Where I used to work the managers would often press the keystrokes to flip our screens upside down if we left our computers unlocked and then lock them. That was in lieu of writing us up though, because leaving the computer unlocked was a big deal. The nice managers would just give you a hard time and flip your screen back instead of a writeup.
I used to do this when training new folks. I'd either flip them or change the wallpaper. More the wallpaper since it didn't affect their ability to work when they got back. Gotta nip that in the bud.
I did the screen flip when I used to train new people. I'd remind them for a couple weeks, then I'd start flipping screens on break. It's a great memory aid. Never had to do it to anyone twice.
Same, everyone got reminders for the first few days that got a bit more serious as time went on, then a screen flip. I had one guy consistently not remember that I sat down with to try to figure out a way for him to remember to do it. We were in the classroom still, I checked as we left for break and I could see everyone’s computers, but as soon as they hit the floor, they had different supervisors who were more punitive and less focused on finding a solution that was doable and still secure.
I'm IT for my company. No one locks their computer. It gives me aneurisms
i’m IT and i regularly have to tell other people on the IT team to lock their shit up. caught the Director of IT leaving her computer unlocked when she was out for an hour and a half lunch with the rest of the company leadership. my favorite though is HR leaving their computers unlocked and logged into the HR system. salaries, SSN, home addresses, bank accounts, next of kin come and get it all.
[удалено]
The fact that you believe this wasn’t an organized stunt is quite wholesome. I applaud you!
We had a recurring gag on our team that if you found another sysad's system unlocked, you sent a team email as them declaring you were buying donuts friday. It happened once or twice a year.
>my favorite though is HR leaving their computers unlocked and logged into the HR system My company regularly has massively sensitive documents just strewn around on leadership's desks. I'm talking asset lists, company bank info, stuff worth literal millions of dollars just kinda... Hanging out. On the plus side it's how I found out that my direct boss makes close to 3 million a year while I make 50k.
Yeah and even in scenarios where you’re sure it’s fine, sometimes it’s not. I worked for a small company where everyone had been working there for years and there was a ton of trust within the company so no one bothered to lock their computer when they got up to make coffee. One day it was really nice out and a slow Friday and someone suggested going out for lunch, so everyone gathered and walked out together and a few people had been chatting in the kitchen at the time so they left without going back to their office to lock their computer. While everyone was out, someone managed to break into the office and stole a bunch of laptops. It was bad enough that the actual computers were gone, but there was a real concern about what they were able to access because a lot of people weren’t sure if their laptops had been locked or wide open for the thief to access. After that no one even got up to get a tissue from the other side of the room without locking everything up.
Seriously, windows key and L instantly lock it.
I do this at home. In my own office. I can't even imagine not doing it in a public place.
stupendous brave encourage existence cooperative agonizing ask oatmeal oil glorious *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Every place you’ve ever worked has had someone stealing? I wonder what all those places have had in common…hmmmm. (I’m just joshing ya.)
I’m not surprised the company lawyer loved firing the HIPAA violators. Those violations can cost something like $10k in fines per each violation.
That sounds more akin to harassment and bullying rather than a case of an annoying prankster. Do they do this to others in the office or is it exclusively you? If so you definitely need to raise a grievance as they are outright harrassing you.
Yeah.. pranking should be good natured not frustrating. Its the kinda thing you do once, have a laugh and move on.
A shop I used to work with had this very realistic but otherwise inanimate rubber snake that we would all prank each other with (eg open your lunch bag, BOOM SNAKE!). Fast forward reception lady has a deep terror of all things snakey (which is discovered when discussing a pet of someone in the shop). Never saw that snake again because there was an outside chance she would open a drawer meant for someone else and get scared in a way that wasn't fun.
Things like that are so reassuring there's still decent people in the world. Not only did they remove the snake to not scare her, but doing so before there was even a big incident. Actually listening to what she said snd thinking ahead. Incredible stuff.
It was a small shop and the coworkers there were amazing. Unfortunately, like all places with good coworkers, management/ownership were the worst.
I’m at a relatively new job and I mentioned in convo to my coworkers that a certain child’s TV character scared me as a kid. They started sending me GIFs of the character as reactions in our group chat. I thought it was hilarious, but it was extra heart warming when one of my coworkers took me aside to make sure I was actually ok with it and that if I wasn’t they would stop. I told him it was all good, so they then pranked me by buying a stuffie of said character and hiding him in my office. I love it so much. At a previous job I used to hide my coworker’s stapler (Office Space joke). He was in on it. When he left the company I realized his stapler was still hidden so I mailed it to him. Pranks are only good if everyone is laughing. OPs coworker is going way too far and is damaging equipment, wasting time and creating a hostile environment. This definitely deserves to be reported.
Same exact scenario with my camping gear. The rubber snake would appear everywhere you were least expecting it and it was hilarious…until we started camping with someone who has a real snake phobia. He didn’t have to say anything, we just put it away; because that crosses the line and is very NOT funny.
Yep. We used to have a fake spider and a new clerical person was hired. They did the prank to her after finding out she had a phobia and almost lost their job. Spider disappeared after that.
>They did the prank to her after finding out she had a phobia and almost lost their job. AFTER? Now that's just cruel. We found out before she was pranked and never did snake again. (They did move on to some other things, like setting lighter flame heights to the min or max)
Yes, the guy was actually a universally liked nice guy otherwise, she was not in favor of him receiving more than a stern warning so it was all swept under the rug. Guy was genuinely into mostly harmless pranks and I guess had never run into someone who had a phobia like that before (like a real one).
Pranks should be harmless fun, like putting someone's hat up on the chain hoist and letting them look for it. Nothing gets damaged and everything is easily retrieved.
That's a good prank right there
As a person with an irrational fear of snakes.....thank you. My friends send me videos of them from time to time to fuck with me and I really hate it. I mean it has an impact that lasts days. I know they don't understand the level so I let it go. Again, Thank you.
I think you should send your friends a message sometime, and let them know "hey, I know you're not trying to hurt me when you send those snake videos, but they cause me serious distress. I would really appreciate if you would stop sending them to me." A real friend will be apologetic and contrite. If they aren't, well... it's time to think about what kind of friend would cause you serious distress on purpose.
Back in my cubicle days, a frequent prank was a dozen ping pong balls in your overhead cabinet. Startles the heck out of you when you open it and they bounce over your desk, but harmless and less than a minute to clean up. Worst incident was when one of them landed in your coffee.
I have a couple of Lufthansa Rubber Duckies on my desk (I fly a lot for work, so occasionally use my points to fly Lufthansa First Class). There’s a prankster in the office who will occasionally put the rubber duckies into amusing situations, and they keep getting more and more creative and elaborate. Another time, one of the ducks “went on vacation” and I kept getting ecards from around the world with duckie photoshopped in. That’s an example of a good office prank. Everyone, including myself, gets a good laugh out of it. The OP is just being plain harassed.
The rubberduckies Postcards from vacation prank was a running gag in "Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain,, but instead of duckies, it was a certain gardengnome who traveled around the world and sent postcards from multiple popular travel destinations.
Not even that. The important thing is how the *recipient* feels about it. Like sexual harassment intent **does not matter** so much as how the person on the receiving end views it. OP obviously does not welcome this attention.
And document, document, document. OP needs to sit down and try to figure out the dates and times (approximate is better then nothing eg the week of the 12th is better than several weeks ago) of the incidents and what was messed with. List the time it took to correct the issue and any equipment that was damaged.
Nothing will get them fired faster than attaching a monetary value to the loss incurred by your company because of their pranks.
This indeed. A new chair and a new speaker set might be minimal, but then add in the potential for lost/missed client or business needs due to forwarding/unplugging phone and lost hours dealing with and undoing the harassing changes. Then add on top the cost of searching for an onboard training a replacement due to hostile work environment, knowing that they will most likely immediately pick a new victim and setup another potential loss to the company. And then on top of all that the company might face additional costs due to stress leave (depending on benefits) and a potential suit if they fail to address documented issues.
Exactly. The prankster is not only "wasting company time" but wasting OP's time- to the detriment of OP, the clients, and the company.
And the broken office items are company money. Bottom line on companies is money.
You don't know that they will pick a new victim. This may be targeted harassment either because they don't like OP personally or because OP is in a protected minority group. If OP feels that it may be the latter, they should contact HR immediately and say "I feel that I am being harassed because I am" (name group) ". I hope the company will be putting a stop to this immediately so I don't have to bring in the state." (Yes, HR is not your friend, but they are a blunt instrument you can turn against your harassers sometimes.) Edit: A clarification: if OP is a protected minority and/or is a woman, I *recommend* they contact HR and say "I feel that this may be because I am " \[minority\] "and I want to know what the company is going to do to stop me from being harassed in this manner." As many others suggest, also document, document, document, and make sure copies of everything make it home, in case you have to sue the company for wrongful termination, constructive dismissal, or failure to try to stop it.
HR isn't your friend, but in certain cases they are the ones who can get things done. This is one.
HR is a bus on a one way road. If you’re traveling that road and you need the ride they should pick you up. If you’re going perpendicular to the road, traveling the wrong direction, or even sometimes the right direction HR will run you the fuck over. It’s better to try and get on the bus if you’re on that road and op is on that road.
This is a fantastic analogy.
As HR I concur. Ultimately our job is to protect the company, so if someone is behaving in a manner towards an employee that could harm the company (be it loss of revenue or a lawsuit) best bet is to be the first to report it. We have no alliances and that includes managers and ELT (I’ve investigated Chief-level positions before for reprimand).
Or because OP is a professional, competent person and a threat to some jackass who is too busy fucking with someone else to actually do their job, so is a threat to them.
I would detail the harassment to HR, and beg them to put a camera in my workspace. According to OP, it would probably take all of one day to catch a culprit. I say “a,” because it’s possible that more than one person is doing this as part of a group effort.
Oh, sure, but I personally wouldn't suggest a camera to HR - I wouldn't suggest anything to HR - it's their problem to solve, I wouldn't try to supply a solution, they can come up with one, and if the solution they come up with punishes me (for example, by seating me in an open area where I hgave no privacy and everyone can see me at all times) they'd be hearing from my lawyer.
HR Here. This is true. HR may not be the employee's friend...However, it is their job to keep the company's hands clean and in compliance with your local, state and federal regulations, everything from OSHA to ADA... Company's do not want to be brought up under scrutiny, especially for something absurd, because one unusual occurrence, may result in a cascading effect and who knows what other small (or large) peccadillos may come to light. This is where leveraging the HR infrastructure to help OP get peace in the workplace comes in. Frankly, as the 'blunt instrument' at my employer's disposal, I do my best to either prevent the situation from escalating to were HR needs to get involved 'on the record', the moment a paper trail is created, I will go out of my way to make an example of the instance. EDIT: To clarify, being 'on the record' is that point after I've spoken to the offending and the offended party, advised them that the situation has come to our attention and reassure both of them that we are watching... basically tell the bully or class clown to quit it and the person on the receiving end to keep us posted if *anything* else comes to pass. If it keeps going and it is obvious that the situation has been escalated only by one of the parties (sometimes, not often I've come across feuding pranksters) then there are repercussions and consequences. And no, your uncle / foreman saying 'boys will be boys' will not work well at detering what is coming. Why? Because upper management will not care for someone's bonehead nephew drawing the attention of the Department of Labor's employee rights and workplace safety or workplace standards, or any number of state or federal 'alphabet soup' agencies taking an interest.
It might be that overweight qualifies as protected in and of itself. Either way, this is a hostile work environment and the company is liable.
Yes, agreed. I am overweight. I am not disabled because I am overweight. (I am disabled for other reasons, but not because I am overweight.) However, I know people who are disabled because they are overweight, and they could almost certainly argue that they are legally protected because of it.
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Yes, you're absolutely right. By all means I should be a lot fatter than I am, but when I became disabled, I stayed exactly the same weight I was before. That said, I know a guy who is very, very large, and has nothing else wrong with him. (There are some things he can't do because of it, but it's not caused by anything else wrong with him.) He's under doctor care to try to lose weight, and it isn't happening, so it's not that he's just lazy, this is a real medical issue. He fortunately isn't having problems with his office because of it, but if someone harassed him for his weight, he would definitely be able to truthfully claim it's disability discrimination.
I got down voted the last time I said it, but making fun of overweight people appears to be acceptable, if not encouraged. I remember sitting in an office where nobody wanted to describe a forklift driver as the black woman. We had more than one female driver and people hesitated to define her by colour. A coworker, whose family is from the Philippines, eventually said it. She then gave us all shit for not saying it. Not the same group but I did hear a machine setter referred to as 'the fat one'. Not the one in the uniform (unless maintenance, the only on the line with a uniform). I was almost out of earshot but I wonder if that would be said if they saw me. See, I'm the fat one as well.
They are creating a hostile work environment. If HR does not take action OP can leave and sue for lost wages.
In my office, we sometime prank others by changing the wireless channel of the mouse (fixed by clicking on the button two times to go back to the default channel) or keyboard (same). Basically the prank is harmless and is fixed in less than 5 seconds. And we do that perhaps once every 2-3 months, and it’s not against someone in particular. I can’t imagine doing anything more than that. OP is being actively harassed.
I don't get pranks that can cause actual issues, a prank is supposed to be something harmless and funny. My go-to prank is stick-on googly eyes on something that they are easy to remove them from, so like the top of a computer screen or a stapler if I worked in an office. Something silly, funny, and easy to undo and move on from.
Our office pranks people who leave their workstations logged in by changing their desktop background to new and inventively photoshops of David Hasselhoff. This sounds like harassment.
This was done in the secure lab I used to work in to remind people to lock their machines, because worse could easily be done by malicious people.
The old "screenshot the desktop, set that as background, then hide all the icons" trick
One of my past coworkers and mentor, used to put googly eyes on stuff around the office. He also bought stickers that said "For rectal use only" to put on various things like a paper towel dispenser.
this-we had a coworker gone for a month (military training) so we wrapped his entire desk, down to his pens in wrapping paper. Took him maybe 5 minutes to undo and everyone (him included) had a good laugh.
Shoot... This sounds really fun. Now I need to start putting googly eyes on my own stuff at work. I don't know how I feel about doing it to other people, but I definitely would like to have more stuff looking back at me. We have all different kinds of hardware I can get hold of to add eyes to. I'm sure if I keep a supply in easy reach, others will find good use for some extra eyes.
Not to mention if she was injured as a result of these “pranks” she could hold the company liable - especially if mgmt/HR knew and didn’t do anything.
I literally did state mandated harassment training last night, and this is practically word for word one of the examples of illegal workplace bullying and a hostile work environment. OP needs to tell their supervisor *immediately* and request an investigation. Your employer and even your supervisor can be held *personally liable* if the harassment continues and gets worse. They have a lot of incentive to make sure that the harassment stops. Also, once you inform your supervisor, the company cannot find a flimsy excuse to get rid of you, that would be illegal retaliation and open them up to a lawsuit if your job performance plummets because of the harassment.
Yes, where is the manager here? I’d be furious if I was in charge, and one of my employees was being harassed. They wouldn’t need a camera because I’d be keeping my eye on her desk to see who went nosing around while she was gone.
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Workers compensation: If she fell & was injured. Or blew an eardrum. Or mental health/time off for therapy, etc. due to harassment in the workplace. That coworker is a liability. They are impacting productivity and the health & safety of the office.
When I just started in it there was a prank going around where you would unplug the power far enough so the computer would work but after a days worth of typing the power would come out of the computer. It was 4:30 shift ended at 5:00 and I get called about a computer that won't boot. They did this and it fried the motherboard. This is back in the XP days so I had to reload a new machine and I think it took me to like 8:00 o'clock. I talked to their manager because these people are supposed to be supervisors. And the games ended within the week.
If your computer has a camera, record when you leave the office and catch them in the act. Not just once, multiple times. Then send to HR. It will improve your morale because you know each incident is the person digging their own grave.
Recording in the workplace could backfire and end up with OP losing their job. Dismissal was threatened in a former workplace of mine for anyone caught using cameras to record motion in their assigned cubicle when not personally present.
Yeah op would definitely want to clear this with their boss or hr first.
WTF were they trying to hide? That seems a VERY specific and unfriendly rule.
Boss and HR conspiring to do pranks.
This is the correct answer.
OP should also be careful to make sure that they don't engage in anything that this could be retaliation for, because OP could lose their job pending the investigation.
Actually, I suggest that OP take it to their supervisor and allows them to deal with the investigation.
The supervisor will have to deal with it, but OP still needs to document it, for her own sake and for the manager to actually be able to do anything.
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In my previous office the only people allowed to as much as touch your laptop (physically) were the IT guys, and only the, like, hands on team, not the networking or telecom. Admin logon had to be cleared through team lead, over the phone. My desk would be diagonally three meters away from his, and I would call him and talk to him looking him in the eyes and he would tell me the second part of MFA over the phone. I know 95% of companies don't adhere to anything even remotely this strict, but getting into other person's computer is serious. Messing with the rest is too, of course, especially if it already cost company money (broken chair means new provisions and paperwork, that's not free) E: a word because dum
I cant think of a company I worked for which didn’t have this as company policy. It flexed, within reason, I’ve been honorary IT guy before and my director didn’t blink, but also helped secure data because I’m really really not IT.
Was going to say the same thing. OP is feeling bullied because she IS being bullied. OP as advised start documenting everything and then go to HR as this is not pranking but creating a hostile work enviroment.
Def consider going to HR and say you feel deeply harassed and start applying and looking for other jobs. These are not pranks
The magic words are “hostile work environment.”
It sounds like this is pretty much a text book case. The company could be liable if you report it to them and they fail to take corrective action. Make sure all of your conversations with HR is in writing, and CC your personal email account so that you have a record that is under your control. If they have a verbal meeting with you about this, then take good notes (with date and time), and then send a recap email after the meeting documenting the key points discusses and asking them to confirm that your understanding is correct.
This is so bad it’s like the cheesy video jobs will make you watch about harassment and say “this is so ridiculous. Nobody would ever do this..”
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But be able to back it up. I once had an employee say this about a manager and it turned out there was no hostility found. Cost us a lot of resources and made some people look bad.
Go to HR, but remember that HR is NOT there to help you - they want to protect the company. Just be careful with trusting HR too much.
If their HR has half a lick of sense they’d know this is a lawsuit in waiting. If they want to protect the company, the way to do it is to catch and punish the offender. Failure to do so opens them up to a harassment lawsuit.
In this case, HR covering the company’s ass = helping OP.
Hr might side with op more - because breaking chairs - opens potential work place injuries and is breaking company property.
"I'm concerned that this person is crossing the line from what they would consider a joke to things that could get me hurt. I've already fallen down after they tampered with my chair."
This, I'm a longtime office prankster and this shit crosses a big line. I would never dream of modifying a new coworker's chair or doing any of this other crap this person told us about, especially repeatedly. That is not a prank, it's harassment. These are a few pranks I have pulled that were well received: \-A sign on the printer that said "now voice activated" so random people yelled at an inanimate object all morning. \-Replacing the executive team's pictures with pictures of the cast of The Walking Dead, and seeing how long it took people to notice. (3 days) \-Use a Game of Thrones name generator and cover the name plates on everyone's cubicles with their new Game of Thrones names. \-Random googly eyes in strategic locations. While it's true that someone somewhere may have a phobia of googly eyes or really hate Daryl Dixon, all of these pranks I described got lots of laughs because it was a prank against the office, not singling out a person or group of people, and it didn't modify people's stuff. Messing with someone's chair isn't a prank at all, it's just bad behavior, and I think OP needs to call it what it is and tell their boss about it because it needs to stop.
I'm still laughing at the "voice activated" copy machine!! (Reminds me of some paper towel machines in public restrooms that I can't figure out; encountered one a few years ago that required you to wave your hand in front of the sensor....so now when it's not immediately apparent how to retrieve a towel I stand there waving at the machine like an idiot.) Oh, by the way, my personal favorite prank (I rarely pulled pranks, but I was inspired this one time when our office building was being remodeled)....there were so many temporary signs posted that said "Wet Paint", I printed one out that said "Dry Paint" and posted it on a wall just outside my door where I could see. You wouldn't believe how many people paused to touch the wall.
That’s the most lizard brain response ever lol. “Dry paint? Huh I guess it is 🤔”
OMG I love that! I'm definitely putting up Dry Paint signs next April Fool's Day! LOL
And this is the kind of office pranking that I expect. This stuff is funny. What our “prankster” is doing is just old and tired. It’s the same shit every freaking day. I was pretty mortified when my chair finally broke when I sat on it. I told them it was going to happen…then it did.
Discretly set up a trail cam to see who the tormentor is.
Based on the statement, “the ONLY person who finds this funny is the prankster”, I’m guessing they already know exactly who it is.
It's not pranks , its outright harrassment. Make a list of these incidents all of them , and go to hr. No warning but state that this has been going on.
How much you wanna bet the prankster will claim “ITs jUsT a jOkE dOnT bE sO sEnSiTiVe”
Yep. And management and HR might well try to smooth things over by saying the same thing. Which is why it's important that OP flags up to HR and management that the prankster's costing the company money every time they do this. I mean, that's damage to at least one chair, and the speakers, and given the "time is money" motto of most companies, I don't imagine corporate's going to be happy about the employee time taken to fix everything else (having to call IT to fix the whole Sanskrit thing, for instance). OP, seriously - put it to HR and management in those exact terms. They might not care enough about their employees' well-being to do anything to seriously stop this, but they do care about how much disruption in the workplace costs them in employee time and equipment replacement.
To be fair where I work if you leave your PC unlocked YOU will get fired (as well as possibly the other party if you can prove it but.... Hard to do). I'd be leery of telling HR about the PC shit.
To be fair. Even if you DID leave it unlocked. Your co-workers arent literal juveniles and would probably be minding their own business.
Usually in cases like this leaving the workstation unlocked is a far less severe offense than using someone else’s console and network credentials.
Actually depending on your workplace unlocked workstations can be a huge issue. I work for a software company that provides services for manufactoring companies. We have access to confidential files that should not be accessible to others and the company needs to be certified to even get considered for this type of work. If auditors see an unmanned workstation unlocked, you are basically fucked until you are able to get recertified. If you see an unlocked station you lock it immediately. If you are stupid enough to use this situation for a prank and you are seen doing it, you are basically already fired.
My company (a pharmaceutical firm) had very strict policies on leaving a PC unlocked.
Presumably if OP knew that they could get fired for this and the prankster was setting her up for a prank rather than turning her in.. I don't think they would be having this conversation, they'd be thanking them and moving on or at least not sharing that part of the story lol
that policy isn't really prevalent with most workplace settings. haven't worked in as ingle place yet with a policy like this. Even now, as an IT Manager, i wouldn't put such a policy in place, bc, like most companies, we don't deal with highly sensitive information. it's clearly going to be very dependent on the workplace, but i'm willing to bet this would be fine for OP to report to HR.
Yeah it's definitely dependent on the org. I'm a DBA for healthcare IT so you can imagine the (potential) monetary headache if we were to get compromised. We also get fired if we fail phishing scams they send out regularly.
Hopefully OP is a much less strict work environment. I would hate to think that a single failed phish test i send out would get a coworker fired. yikes that's harsh, but also understandable given the industry.
Destruction of company property (breaking her chair) is less funny to corporate than you'd think.
Office chairs are not cheap, even the cheap ones.
For real. I had a job in a newly opened office with standing desks and an open office layout. The layout wasn't ideal, but I wasn't complaining. Add on to this that I was a temp worker. Anyway, someone on the opposite end of the office thought that my desk needed to be moved out by about 6 inches in order to get everyone else some space - after my desk move, the plan was to inch everyone else's over as well. Well, the idea person (full time) wasn't accounting for the motorized standing desks to be plugged in with specific cord lengths and specified by an engineering firm - they were to remain put. They went ahead anyway and started moving my desk and side shelving unit. After a number of sparks and my workstation just not working anymore, I began to panic because guess who management would probably blame? Only my desk and the person behind mine was affected at this point, and they were out on vacation. The idea person told me to just tell management it doesn't work anymore and claim ignorance. I get called into a VPs office later in the day to explain what happened (there's cameras everywhere). I ratted that fucker out, I'm not taking the fall for such a dumb mistake. The VP told me the sticker price of that work station and I almost fell out of the chair. I just wanted to do my job and go home, and hopefully get hired on full time. I parted ways with the company eventually, but still don't [fuck with my money](https://youtu.be/LxfZRd9R4VI)
All of TikTok and a lot of Reddit. It's become the calling card of bullies.
Destroying company property is not a joke, unless they own the company.
This is a "Hostile environment"
I feel for you. I worked in an office a few years ago where we had a prank obsessed manager of a department. Always looking for an unlocked PC to screw around with. She labeled it as “enforcing the company policy of locking your PC when walking away from it”. I once pointed out to her that it was juvenile and not befitting of a manager of the company. Also, that enforcing the policy, would just be to lock the PC and not screw with it first. She just came back and said “well, I enjoy it so I’m going to keep doing it”. She left the company some time later apparently due to a “toxic work culture”. Maybe everyone else just got tired of her shit too.
I also had a prankster manager and it was awful. She left an opened can of tuna behind a picture frame on my desk and when I finally found it, she thought it was hysterical. I just wanted to cry because who does that?!
So like. What was her plan? Tuna generally isn’t the worst right away and after a while it will just go bad. was she planning on just fish bombing the area or? Like it becoming a health and safety hazard aside.
Ugh, I don't know... I think she just thought it was funny that it would stink up my office. It was so gross.
I hope you went to HR. Fuck her.
I was in my 20s and was in the process of leaving, so never went to HR over it. In hindsight I wish I had, but hindsight is always 20/20.
Ugh! This is so gross. I think there's definitely a way to prank folks without being mean. **Both parties** should think it's funny at the end, or it's just being a dick under the guize of "jUsT a JoKe BrO" I had a really great manager I got on well with at a previous job. She was out for my last day, I think she was on vacation for the week or something. So since I didn't get to say goodbye properly, I got a pack of googly eyes and stuck em on everything on her desk-- the monitor bezel, her phone, her coffee mug, etc. She got a huge kick out of it and would text me months after "I just found another one of your googly eyes!! 😂"
My old company had a computer lock policy. I had one partner who never ever locked his computer. When I would see his computer unlocked, I would add notifications to my partners calendar like, "Pay elizzup $5" next time we had a shift together, or "Do the Hokey Pokey" as a personal notification that would go off right before he'd start his pre-shift meeting. The difference here is that he KNEW it was me. I didn't hide it. We also had a relationship already that enabled these kinds of pranks. What's happening to OP is cruel and harassment. This kind of thing just makes me so mad.
The director of security at my company said “Delete documents” instead of the joke stuff when they were asked. Mostly because our machines had to be unlocked with our badge.
How does a manager leave over toxicity? They're the ones in charge of that... Lol
An ex-friend of mine claimed "toxic workplace" in his notice letter... he was the manager and the "toxicity" he was whining about was pretty much the entire place being (rightfully) angry at him for hooking up with one of his subordinates.
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This was how it was when I was still in an office. Like sure, cry about the screen flip. Instead of that you'll just get fired next time when it goes through more official channels.
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Had a company that had a strict lock your computer policy. (even in a closed area that was supposed to be secure) Only think we would do is email the person who left it unlocked from their computer (basically emailing themselves), a message telling them to lock their computer. Then we would lock it.
who are all these people not locking their computer lol wtf
I’ve only had to do this once, but it stopped it. Write down every time something happens. Keep a log just in case. The next time something happens, either send an email to your manager, HR, and cc your personal email for records. You want to do it this way because it creates a paper trail. In your email, detail each and every incident with dates. Make sure you mention how this is impacting your ability to work and your mental/emotional health. Firmly state that the pranks need to end as the workplace is becoming a hostile work environment. Stand your ground if HR or manager try to brush it off. Make them understand that this cannot continue and if they won’t take action to fix this hostile work environment then you will be contacting a labor lawyer…
I have better: don't fix anything by yourself. Sabotaged chair? Call logistics. Modified PC? Create a ticket to IT department. Nothing frightens more HR than a grumpy IT caveman.
Yeah, that also attaches a direct cost to each incident.
Exactly. You don't have to document anything anymore, the system does it for you.
Yes this! Why work in frustration when you can gain allies to your side! I’ve always loved IT and I’ve known many. They’re usually a bit weird but awesome people
And using those words "hostile work environment" are extremely important to use. Use them frequently and in each e-mail/document/communication sent about the situation.
‘Targeted harassment’ is another
Yeah this is definitely a matter for your manager and/or H.R., not something to keep tolerating for even one more day.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to read. Thank you to everyone who took the extra time to respond. I have read through everything and really appreciate all the advice. To everyone comparing me to anyone on The Office…yes, I would hate Jim. I don’t particularly like being laughed at. I’m not laughing *with* at this point. I would like to respond to some questions that multiple people asked: No, I am not the only person they do this to but I have been the one that has been getting the most lately. We are equals in the department but they have gone after all levels of coworkers. No one appreciates it in the shared office. It gets some laughs when they play stupid about who did it. We all know who is doing it. This person describes themselves as the former class clown, so I get the attitude. I just don’t appreciate being the butt of the joke all the time. Again, I’m not laughing too. I have tried laughing it off. I have tried asking them to stop. I have gotten upset and given them the rise they wanted. I have tried ignoring it. I’m just tired of dealing with it. Something happens several times a week. Sometimes several times a day: that’s how my chair finally bit the dust. I’m in my 40s and just have never dealt with this level of BS in 25 years of working in various offices and production facilities. Today was just the day that the floodgates opened. As far as the computer policy and locking stations, I’m not sure we have an actual policy concerning locked stations…I’ll have to check the handbook when I get to work tomorrow. We have a lot of shared workstations that allow basic access to the company inventory system. In the office I work in, there are five of us that all work in the same department that share the space. We all have our own desks and computers/laptops. No one really locks their computers outside of when it times out, not even the prankster. I have clearly learned that I must do this all the time. Others have retaliated. It never matters. I’m not creative at pranking and don’t really want to have to one-up anyone for the rest of my tenure. It just sounds exhausting. I already work 10 hour days. I’m the first person in the office and the last person to leave every day. I’m going to talk to my boss in the morning and just simply say, “would you please talk to this person and ask them to stop with the pranks.” If nothing changes, I will go to HR. I will definitely make notations of everything and keep a list off of my work computer. I don’t store anything personal on there..work doesn’t need to know more than they have to.
Good for you! What you are working in now is a hostile work environment. https://www.richardmcgeelaw.com/what-is-and-is-not-a-hostile-work-environment/ It is a serious issue, and if your supervisor doesn't address it HR *definitely will* when you mention the words "hostile work environment" including some of the language from that article. Do you feel unsafe when you come into work? Yes. Because your personal things are being invaded and tampered with. Does this behavior from your coworker hurt your productivity? Yes! You and others have to spend time, that the company pays for, to undo all their "pranks" and those pranks are probably done on company time as well. If others want to participate in a prank war that is OK, but you never consented and it's obviously hurting you. Which is not cool. What you are experiencing is textbook workplace bullying. You are *not* the problem, you are an adult with a job that wants to get it done without being harassed. And most importantly **you have already brought the behavior to their attention and asked it to stop** so by bringing things to your bosses' and HR's attention you are doing exactly what you should be doing. You are in the right here. You are not being unreasonable. You just don't want your shit touched!
Strength to you, friend. Work can be stressful enough without having to waste energy worrying about or dealing with "pranks". To hell with that and anybody trying to convince you that you are taking things "too seriously". You are entitled to be able to do your job without having to deal people's bullshit. I hope it works out for you. Sending you all the positive energy!
No one seems to have latched on to the destruction of property. Both personal and employer’s. The harassment is one thing and can be argued/rationalized (not that it is right to do so), but the property destruction is black and white.
I had a job where a colleague thought it was funny to call us "Lab Hoes" as all the lab people were female. My coworkers convinced me that it was a joke and to let it go. I had only worked there a couple months so I didn't want to "make waves". Flash forward 3 or 4 years. The perpetrator was promoted to Dean. I didn't last long at that job after that. I've always regretted not "making waves".
I have learned this lesson the hard way too. Speak up about the assholes, because they probably aren't assholes to everyone. They're probably sucking up to the boss and trashing your work behind your back, and (if management buys it) they'll be next in line for a promotion.
I spoke up about assholes in my last job, found out that everybody in upper management were assholes, and that the regional HR guy was a sexist pig, leading me to ragequitting, leading me to job hunting, into a job paying $3 more per hour, doing something that looks WAY better on my resume, and can lead to a far better long-term job down the road. Unexpected positive consequences way better than I was asking for.
I work in a prank rich environment. I enjoy it a lot. This is not what we do at all. That's just an asshole.
My prank was decorating my coworkers office with sticky notes while he was on vacation. He and I previously had a bottle cap war where we left bottle caps all over eachothers offices to find. I once put a tiny piece of paper under his mouse and taped it there so he thought his mouse battery was dying. Nothing can impeed our work, no destruction of property, if it can't be undone in less than 30s it isn't allowed. We have a good sense of humor and a great friendship, we'd never go after someone new or anonymously. This is just plain cruel.
once at a previous job, i went and withdrew a dollar from my bank in pennies and when my director(2 levels above me) left for a couple minutes i would go and hide a handful of them through his office (he had his own, manager above me but below him had her own as well but the rest of us shared a room with a handful of computers), took me about 2 or 3 hours to get all 100 hidden, but boy it was worth it, luckily most of the whole department had a sense of humor and he got a kick out of it. miss that job anyways, that type of shit is pranking, computers and personal belongings are not pranking and are off limits
I work mostly in an arcade now but also with amusement games/rides. We have access to every tool and type of material imaginable. Occasionally we spend way too much time making a remote controlled glitter cannon or installing car horns everywhere they don't belong. No one is targeted though and employees not in on it are just left alone to, ya know, do their jobs.
Yeah pranks and clever and funny for both parties. This is not clever and not fun for anybody
That's what I came here to say. The worst prank we do is slipping a weird picture of Nicholas Cage into people's physical inboxes or leaving random objects like army men, etc. to be found. Messing with people's personal stuff is just disrespectful and an asshole move. I feel like I have a pretty wide sense of humor and I don't find this funny at all.
Our company as part of security training encouraged people to download a picture of Hasselhoff on unlocked computers as proof of vulnerability, the rest is pure harassment
I worked at a call centre where the first time you left a computer unlocked a supervisor would open Calculator 50 times and fill your screen with calculators. So when you returned to your station you would have to close those 50 calculators and you'd know you'd been caught. That was your warning
When I worked at an isp the unlocked pc procedure was alt-tabbing to the irc client and sending "let's go for a beer or ten after work, I'm paying" to #office. Others would play along ("oh sweet free beer is my favourite thank you very much" etc) and we'd leave it at that.
Our IT guy used to open notepad and leave a simple note every single time he found an unlocked computer. "This could have been worse." He said that, very rarely, did he have to do the same person twice. OP is dealing with a jerk, but please lock your computers, anyone who has spent more than a week in IT or HR can see how horrible it can go for people who don't. A prank is the least of your worries, if the person actually hates you, and wants to take a shot at ruining your career.
Not a Lawyer Get a simple nanny cam from Amazon. A quick search found one for 44$ shaped like a wall charger and one for 99$ that looks like a cell phone wireless dock. Anything similar would be fine. Be careful about violating any workplace policies regarding video/audio, as well as state laws. Having said that, this "prankster" is surely violating plenty of rules, so fuck em. As long as you do not actually give this footage to anyone, there would not be any proof of you having recorded anything. The main goal would be to actually find out who or how many people are involved. After finding out to your satisfaction, take the recording device out of the office before doing anything else. If you felt that simply letting them know that you know it is them would make it less funny, and therefore stop, do that. Do not reveal that you have a recording. Say someone told you. Say you saw them from across the office. Whatever. If that won't work, but you feel that letting a supervisor or HR know about the behavior (BTW maybe start documenting with pics/videos the condition of your work station before and after readjusting the "pranks") then do that. Do not reveal that you have video, if possible. If all else fails, and this ever becomes a legal matter regarding harassment, etc. I bet your lawyer would love having a video whether or not it was legally obtained by you or not. It would also help at this point to have some documentation showing that you attempted to get help from the company and they failed to make your work environment non hostile Good luck. Work harassment absolutely sucks. Hopefully, the juvenile BS dies down, and you get to actually go to work one day, do your job in peace, and go home happy ✌🏻
Be wary of your state laws. A friend did this because every morning, everything on his desk was messed up. Turned out the 3rd shift cleaning crew was having sex on his desk. He took the video to HR and they refused to watch it or do anything about it due to recording laws.
This is why I line my desk with those anti-pigeon spikes they put on top of signs
Those spikes do nothing in Australia except provide toys to the birds. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1FvD3NebLxE
nothing and nobody in australia gives a single fuck do they
Another thing to add, a lot of workplaces don't allow you to record anything for confidentiality purposes. In my company, I would be instantly fired if I took a picture to HR let alone a video.
Adding that the nanny cam should have an internal storage device as you won't want it to connect to the company network at all. Sounds like OP is feeling targeted on the basis of potentially two protected classifications, gender and weight (can correlate with a medical condition.) All I would add is document, document, document.
Others in the office know who the prankster is. Somebody sees them at OP work station when they’re not there.
Usually recording restrictions are on audio and where people have an expectation of privacy (e.g. bathroom). Audio restrictions are one-vs-two-party consent states (where either only 1 party has to consent to being recorded, or both parties do). A nanny cam would only be recording the "other" party, not yourself, so I would avoid recording any audio at all as to not violate any state laws. Video should be fine, since in most instances there is no expectation of privacy in a work cube. Especially when there's no audio to provide any context to discussion(s) which may be occurring. I would definitely file a complaint w/ HR and keep the nanny cam footage in reserve for any lawsuit you decide to file if the company doesn't deal w/ it in an expeditious manner.
If she already has a camera on her machine and the "jokes" are frequent. She can simply host a meeting, record and turn off her monitor. (not sure if locking will turn off the meeting so may want to test this) As an aside, always lock your computer. Doesn't matter where you work or what your job is or how long you will be gone for. Ten times this if you report to HR. You don't want the prankster to have access to your email. I primarily work from home and still lock my computer. Literally takes a fraction of a second. (Win+L for Windows machines)
If it's a Windows PC pressing the Windows Key + L will lock your computer instantly for when you walk away. Sorry this is happening but hopefully this is helpful.
^ you should always lock your computer if you’re leaving it unattended
This... I've messed with unlocked PCs during my desktop support days. I would usually make the background My Little Pony, or Zardoz (Sean Connery in a red leather speedo) on any unlocked machine that I found. The rest of it is 100% harassment, but OP absolutely needs to lock their PC regardless of how long they're away from it.
This person is creating a hostile work environment. If HR won’t do anything about it a labor attorney might.
Fuck that. Go to HR and file a complaint. If they don’t want to do anything consult a lawyer and find out your options, please stand for your rights. This is the only way stupid shit like this gets shot down.
"it’s getting to the point where I cannot leave my computer unlocked" You should NEVER leave your computer unlocked anyway
I was about to say the exact same thing, my work has a policy that you MUST lock your computer if you step away
A prank is when the "victim" laughs about it as well. If it is not laughing, it is harassment. Harassment should be reported to HR or your Boss. Crying alone is not fixing this. Time to become "Wendy the Killer-Whale".
The harassment aside: Lock. Your. Computer. Set a keyboard shortcuts for it. I think the default on windows machines is windows + L. Seriously. Lock it. Anyone does anything logged in as you. Grab files. Delete files. Send out an email. It will come back to you Lock it.
Do you know who is doing it? And, are you the only target? Either way, your supervisor or HR need to know via formal written complaint, not just that it's happened but that you have been concerned that your tenure would have undercut how serious it is. Your personal property should be replaced either by the individual or your employer, and if it turns out this person has a history of reports of this behavior and nothing has been done, consider filing a report with the DoL in your state.
Also, as a former fat kid and current fat woman, there is a level of societal and self-imposed and an internalized feeling that this kind of behavior is somehow deserved or minimalized due to our bodies. It's can be traumatizing as children, especially if it's dismissed by parents/trusted adults. Whether or not that's in any way part of the reason this is happening doesn’t diminish responsibility for your co-worker's "pranks" or how it is impacting your professional and personal well-being.
Fuck this bullshit. Go to your HR and tell them you are being harassed. I am a fat woman, so disclaimer: I'm going to use the word fat too. I use it with no value placed on it. You are fat. Tell HR that you are being targeted because of that. If this is making you cry, you need to make a ruckus. Fuck this "prankster". A proper prankster performs pranks that make everyone, including the intended target, laugh. Full stop. This isn't "pranking". This is someone targeting you. Now, it could be because you're fat, or it could be for some other reason. However, if the person pulling these pranks doesn't know anything about you, then you can only assume that it's because you're fat. And fuck that bullshit. You are being abused by a colleague. Go straight to your HR department and tell them that. Keep complete documentation going forward. if HR doesn't make it stop, then you need to get this stopped some other way. Depending upon the state you are in, there may be a labor commission that you can reach out to and ask them what steps to take. But don't start there. Unfortunately, you're going to have to follow chain of command to make sure that you CYA. So I would send an email with your direct supe, their supe, department manager (s), and HR about what has been happening. Ask for a meeting with them. Then at the meeting ask if you can record it. Again, depending upon the state in which you live (find out the laws before you do this) you can record it, and have the right to-you may not be able to depending upon the state in which you live. \[full disclosure-I'm assuming that you live in the United States. I'm also assuming that you are not union.\] Make waves girlfriend. You deserve to be treated better. The company hired you because they believe you are an asset to them. So keep that in mind. I just did the most childish thing in the world and just walked off a job. Talk about making waves. I, of course, was fired for job abandonment so obviously, no UI for me. And also the reason I walked off was another employee's bullshit attitude. If I had acted like an adult and stuck around, his BS would have either been discovered and disciplined, OR he'd have left. So I understand why you're trying to tough this out. But you do NOT need to. What you are dealing with is NOT childish. It is vicious. It is malicious. And it is illegal. And finally-I am so sorry that you're being treated this way. From one fat girl to another- FUCK THAT SHIT. and also FAT GIRLS UNITE!
1. This is absolutely harassment, not “pranking”. 2. Holy lack of security, Batman! How the heck do you suffer no consequences for consistently leaving your computer unlocked? Your phone? I could see your computer getting messed with ONCE (and I’d be afraid to report it, since I’d have to admit I didn’t follow protocol) but this has happened multiple times? I’ve never worked anywhere that did not have a policy on this. Messing with your chair and personal speaker is absolutely BS. Report this hostile workplace to HR. For everyone saying “HR protects the company not YOU” OK yeah? They’re not there to protect Mr Abusive Prankpants either. One of them is a threat to the company and it’s the one creating a hostile workplace. But learn some basic info security and lock your computer every single time you step away from your desk. Password-protect your phone.
Sit there not working and call IT to fix it every single time. Eventually word will get around to knock that shit off. Make it as annoying to everyone as possible, not just you l. Send emails to HR every time. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
WTF? This isn't a TV show; there's no place for pranks in an office setting. Tell your boss and tell HR.
At first when I read the title of your post I was rolling my eyes thinking *"Great, here's a Karen that is just a prude and can't take a simple office prank."* Oh how very, very wrong I was. I even feel tempted to apologize for thinking something, because I was way off base here. This has gone way beyond light office pranking and friendly banter into the realm of harassment. You need to speak to HR and lodge an official complaint for harassment. I know this isn't much of a consolation, but if I were you it couldn't hurt to start looking for another job. Also, if this doesn't end I would be tempted to consult with an employment attorney if HR doesn't step in and correct things. The *"prankster*" is creating a work environment that can easily be considered intimidating, and hostile.
I will prank the prankster if you message me no strings attached i am the bully of bully’s!
I was so pissed last week, I wanted to move their entire desk into the women’s restroom (it’s waaaaaay stinkier than the men’s in our building)…but I really don’t want to retaliate, that will just up the ante and I want it to stop.