January 28, 2025 at 11:35 pm

Engineer Secretly Swaps His Boss’ Hat Sizes For A Year, Making Him Think It Was His Head Rather Than The Hat

by Heather Hall

Source: Reddit/Petty Revenge/Pexels/Elziroy Porter Jr.

Some managers are so obsessed with perfection that they don’t even realize when it’s being used against them.

What would you do if your overly meticulous boss took pride in something as small as a new hat? Would you let him enjoy it in peace? Or would you find a way to turn it into a long-running office prank?

In the following story, one engineer found himself facing this very dilemma and couldn’t help himself. Here’s what happened.

Top of the morning, to you.

Not my story, but a story told to me by my friend (MF) about his father (FF). For context and relevance, MF and I are boomers, and this story took place in the 1950s.

During the 1950s, a hat, usually a fedora, was part of everyday business attire and was worn while outside (JFK’s inauguration in 1961 was the beginning of the end of this style trend).

FF was an engineer and spent most of his time working in an office doing design work. When in the office, all engineers were required to wear business attire, which meant wearing a hat to work.

Here’s where he hatched a plan.

FF’s manager (let’s call him irritating manager or IM) was not a particularly bad manager, but he was a perfectionist (not a bad trait for an engineer) and tended towards micromanaging, which FF and other engineers found to be irritating.

One day, IM came into work with a new fedora that he was particularly proud of and showed it off to the whole office. FF, seeing an opportunity to use IM’s perfectionism against him and get a little petty revenge, went out that same day and bought two hats exactly like the one IM bought, with one exception: the sizes were different.

One hat was one size smaller, and the other was one size larger than the one IM purchased. He cut the size tags out of these two hats, and when he had the opportunity, he cut the size tag out of IM’s hat.

Unfortunately for the manager, he never caught on.

About twice a week, FF would swap out IM’s hat with one of a different size. Whenever IM put on a hat that was not the right size, he would take it off and put it on a few times and grumble to himself about it not feeling right and wonder if his head had either swollen or shrunk.

When he wore the wrong size hat home, he would come in the next day and do the same thing before he hung it up. Most of the office was aware of the prank, and it became a routine for almost everyone to surreptitiously watch to see if it was going to be “one of those days” whenever IM came in or went home.

This went on for about a year until IM purchased a new hat, and he never caught on.

Wow! That poor manager!

Let’s check out how the folks over at Reddit relate to this prank.

This person thinks it’s a Masterclass.

Source: Reddit/Petty Revenge

Too funny!

Source: Reddit/Petty Revenge

This is so punny!

Source: Reddit/Petty Revenge

Here’s someone who really enjoyed the story.

Source: Reddit/Petty Revenge

It’s amazing he never figured it out!

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.