In today’s story, a man is excited about his job, but his co-worker is making one aspect of it difficult by refusing to tell him the code to a door he needs to open.

Instead of getting mad, he found a way to get even.

Let’s see how the story unfolds…

Don’t tell me the code? Come open the door for me then

At my job, there’s a tight-knit group of people who are qualified to operate the small boats we use to support numerous other jobs.

Things like environmental inspections, security checks, seaside pickup and drop offs, and god forbid, oil spills in the local area.

This year I finally finished my training and am now a proud member of the team.

There’s no pay benefits or anything, but it means I get to drop any other job I’m currently on to go do boat stuff!

Especially during the summer, it’s amazing!

They shared some important details about the Boat Shed…

The small boat team has a very nice shop/garage building separate from the main hangout called the Boat Shed (very original name, I know) filled with supplies, tools, everything you’d need before heading out on the water.

Most importantly, they store the life jackets, the prelaunch safety checklists, and the Coast Guard Compliant radios we use for communication in the shed.

The shed is kept locked because of all the nice things kept inside, and people will take anything that’s not bolted down if given the chance.

There’s a big difference between day shift and night shift.

On to the main story.

Most of the team works the traditional day shift.

Me and one other work the night shift.

Day shift does most of the work, so night shift doesn’t get a lot of boat time. But when we do it’s almost always me and a coworker we’ll call Red.

They had a big problem whenever Red called in sick.

Red is a nice enough guy. We work well together, but for some reason he adamantly refuses to tell me the combination to the boat shed.

It’s not a problem when we work together, but if he’s out sick that day, I can’t get in!

That is, until I figured out the code myself.

Red doesn’t know he knows the code.

Through trial and error, and a lot of patience, I painstakingly found the correct code.

So now I can get in whenever I need to, hooray!

But then I had a thought. If I tell Red I know the code, life goes on.

But if I don’t tell him, then he has to come open the door for me each and every time I need to go in. And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

They goes out of his way to make Red open the shed.

So for months now, I’ll just find an excuse to get in the shed.

“Hey Red, I got my own waterproof jacket, can you let me in the shed to hang it up?” Or “I noticed one of the mooring lines is frayed, can you let me in the shed to get a replacement?”

My favorite one is “Red, can you go grab a checklist and a radio for me please? It’s my turn to drive, so I gotta do the checks.” And every time, he goes out and opens the door for me.

Even their boss is on board with his revenge.

The best part is one night when Red wasn’t there, the boss would come out with me.

We go to the boat shed, he offers to get the door, but I tell him no need and open it myself.

I’ve complained in the past about Red not telling me the code, and he said he can’t force Red to tell me the code. So now he asks “Did he tell you the code?”

I say no and explain my petty revenge. He laughs, calls me an evil genius and we go on with the work.

Life is good.

What’s really interesting here is that Red doesn’t seem to mind opening the shed himself each and every time.

They didn’t say anything about Red getting upset about it.

Let’s see how Reddit readers responded.

This reader has a suggestion assuming Red eventually shares the code.

Another reader wonders why the boss didn’t share the code.

This reader also thinks the boss should’ve been the one to share the code.

One person would prefer not to know the code.

And this person points out a security issue…

It seems like it might be a security issue that the code was so easy to figure out.

But their solution worked just fine, too.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.