Office dynamics are ever-changing and sometimes hard to grasp when you’re new.

Over time, though, you figure things out – and sometimes, how to beat the system.

OP’s boss had a policy of paying for any use of the private printer.

Many years ago I worked for an organization providing front-line customer service. It was a decent place to work but our manager had lots of rules.

One of the rules was that we could not do any personal printing with the printers at work. If we did, we were expected to pay $0.50 per page for black and white printing and $1.00 per page for color.

I’m not sure who made this rule but the manager was constantly reminding us.

Our desks were not assigned. Meaning, any day you could be sitting at any desk, depending on your assigned tasks for the day.

He used it to run off his resume for an in-house interview, which he figured was business, but she made him pay.

One day, I was interviewing for another job within the organization (but at another location) .

Prior to the interview, the manager of the other location asked me if I’d mind printing a copy of my resume and bringing it with me as their printers were down for the day.

I said no problem and figured I’d print it at work since it was work related.

I was sitting at a desk that did not have a printer at it. The closest printer was located between my managers desk and an employee desk. So I printed it and stood up to go get it.

Before I go to the printer, my manager got there first. My print job went ahead of hers. When she saw what I had printed she said, “OP, this looks like a personal print job.”

I explained it wasn’t but she disagreed and said since it had nothing to do with our day-to-day work, I had to pay. $2.00 for four black and white pages.

I begrudgingly paid up. I asked her what happened to the money and she said she always put it in the Christmas party fund. Alright.

Then he caught her running off hundreds of personal pages.

A few weeks later, I was sitting at the desk with the printer at it.

It was lunchtime and everyone except my manager agreed to go to a nearby restaurant for lunch. I had walked out our building and realized I forgot my wallet. So I quickly ran back in to get it.

When I got to my desk, I could hear the printer going. I was curious what was being printed as it was spitting out page after page.

I quickly glanced at the pile and saw at least 100 pages printed in color, announcing a sweet 16 for Trista, our manager’s daughter.

It very obviously belonged to my manager. My manager came out of the bathroom a moment later and seemed shocked to see me standing there.

I picked up the pile and passed it to her and told her our Christmas party fund was going to be getting a big boost.

She said nothing but looked really uncomfortable.

When he pointed out that they should have a great fund going for a party, she had to pay up.

A few weeks later, our district manager made his quarterly visit. He talked about the upcoming Christmas party and how excited he was for it.

I decided it was time for some petty revenge. I

raised my hand and said, “just wondering how much we’ve accumulated this year for the Christmas party from print jobs?”

He looked so confused and asked me to explain what I meant.

So I told him our manager’s rule. He got really quiet and said he’d have to review this.

The next day my manager sent an email saying the printing rule was something she was misinformed on and would be abolished immediately.

Me, being the little disturber I am, hit reply all and asked what would happen to the already accumulated funds? Someone else said we should have a nice healthy fund for a pizza lunch and everyone agreed.

The next day I hear my manager ordering 10 pizzas for lunch. Also used her own personal credit card to pay for it all.

Do I think she was pocketing the printing money all along? Absolutely. But it was fun making her sweat and then having to spend nearly $300 the next day to make up for it!

The top comment points out how rare a “worth it” pizza party is at work.

There were enough bitter jokes to go around.

This person thanks OP for getting them through the work day.

And this commenter totally agrees.

But they also kind of think some bigger revenge is in order.

This is such a satisfying ending.

Bravo for the innocent act working out.

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.