Have you ever worked with someone who really didn’t respect other people’s boundaries?

Imagine having a rule in place to keep an expensive piece of equipment clean and in working condition. If a coworker kept ignoring this rule, how would you handle it?

In today’s story, this person handles a situation like this by proving a point.

Let’s see what happens.

Be respectful of others

I design and make leather gear that I sell at renaissance faires around the country. I do this with a couple of business partners, and we travel together in a large rv that we use as both living quarters and workshop.

I, and one of my partners, do most of our work on large, very expensive, very persnickety industrial leather sewing machines. She and I have a rule that no one may touch our machines or place anything on the attached sewing tables without our express permission.

They’re our livelihood. They’re easy to break. They’re both expensive to purchase, and costly to maintain or repair.

When they break down it means we can’t produce more products, we can’t keep up with sales, and it can be very difficult to find a specialist qualified to make repairs, hence the no touch rule.

A former partner did not respect this rule.

We used to have a partner who refused to respect this boundary.

Oh, he’d have a meltdown if anyone touched his work area, but zero consideration for anyone else’s space or work.

He would constantly pile anything and everything on and around our machines. He always claimed he forgot, or the area was clear so it was ok for him to use it.

His lack of respect for this boundary led to more work.

He had an all cast iron, non-enameled Dutch oven that he would use, clean, oil, and leave on the sewing tables.

I’d have to scrub the work surfaces every time to be sure the cooking oil didn’t stain into the leather.

Not to mention that he always banged into the machines and we’d have to fix and readjust them before they would work again.

Time for revenge.

The first time this happened we asked him, nicely, to not do it again.

The second time we told him to stop his disrespectful actions.

There was a third time. So, I took his extra oily, giant, heavy pot and put it on his bed. Under the covers. Half on the mattress and half on the pillow.

Oil and cooking grease soaked into everything.

He finally got the point.

He headed to bed late and had to change all his bedding before he could go to sleep.

He had an enormous fit.

I told him the area was clear, so it must be ok for me to put stuff there.

He never put anything on our sewing tables again.

We severed ties with him not too soon after that. As you might expect, this was not the only manifestation of his penchant for being a jerk.

That was perfect revenge that actually got the point across.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person would’ve handled it differently.

Another person would’ve done something similar.

This person has another idea of how to handle it.

This person is relieved at how the story played out.

It’s not the Dutch Oven’s fault!

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.