When you’re just getting started in a new workplace, it can be difficult to establish yourself – and if you’ve got an unusual name, you’ll be very familiar with having to repeat it time and time again until people get to know you.

But if, like the employee in this story, you’ve worked in your office for years, you expect that you won’t have to remind people any more.

So when a new employee deliberately referred to him over and over by the wrong name, he felt pretty annoyed.

When he took action, though, a whole load of drama ensued that he never could have predicted.

Read on to find out how he ended up being framed as the bad guy.

AITA for ignoring a coworker who refused to use my actual name?

I’ve worked at my office for eight years, and I’m on good terms with management and most of my co-workers.

Five months ago, a new guy was hired on a six-month probationary period.

I’m not his supervisor, but I’m definitely a senior employee. I’ll call the guy Ted.

When his supervisor was going around introducing Ted to people, he got to me and said “this is John,” and described my job.

Let’s see how this simple situation became a problem.

Ted: “Hi, Jack.”

Me: “It’s John.”

Ted: “What?”

Me: “My name’s John, not Jack.”

Ted: “It’s close enough for me.”

Supervisor: “His name’s John, not Jack. Let’s move on.”

But this weird situation didn’t end there.

This continued for a few months. Despite reminders from supervisors (when he referred to me when I wasn’t present) and myself, he continued to use the name Jack.

I finally told him, “You either use my name, or I ignore you completely, no matter what the situation is.”

His response was, “Sure thing, Jackie boy.”

Since I don’t work directly with him, I figured “screw it” and that I’d ignore him.

Eventually though, Ted’s weird choices caused some real drama.

Recently he had a two-day business trip that required car rental.

The rental office closes at 6pm, but there’s a drop-box.

I work late some nights, and Ted came to me and said, “Hey, Jack, I’ll be dropping the rental car off at 7pm when I get back. See you there for a lift back to the office!”

As promised, I ignored him.

Let’s see what happened when he dropped off the car.

7:15 rolled around on the night he was dropping off the car, and I got a call. I recognized his number, so I ignored it. He called seven more times, then started e-mailing.

The first one was along the lines of “Jack, I’m at Enterprise. Come pick me up.”

E-mails poured in every five to ten minutes, addressing me as Jack, Jack-o, Jackie, and Jackie-boy. The emails also started being laced with profanity and a couple of threats.

I signed out and went home. It was raining hard.

But this employee was not prepared for what would be waiting for him the next morning.

The next morning, I saw that Ted had sent a few more e-mails. I printed them off.

At 10am, he stormed up to my desk and screamed, “Where the **** were you? I told you when to pick me up! I HAD TO TAKE A CAB! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT COST ME?!”

He went on like that for a bit until his supervisor came and hauled him away and asked to speak to me.

Supervisor: “Ted tells me that you ignored his requests for a pickup when he dropped off the rental. He was caught out in the rain.”

Let’s see what happened in the subsequent meeting.

I relayed what happened, and showed him the printed e-mails. I’d highlighted the threats.

Supervisor: “I can see why you wouldn’t want to spend time around him. But it was still kind of inconsiderate to leave him stranded in the rain. That’s not the greatest neighborhood and he could have been hurt.”

He sighed and said, “with the threats and him being on probation, he no longer works here. Just try not to be an ******* in retaliation to your coworkers.”

A few people at the office have commented that I’m the jerk for ignoring Ted and getting him riled up, which got him fired.

AITA?

If it was a one-off and he’d ignored him because he just didn’t feel like picking him up then sure, he’d be in the wrong.

But this was a months-long issue between the two co-workers, with Ted showing John a complete lack of respect throughout.

It’s no wonder he went through on his threat to ignore him.

Read on to find out what folks on Reddit thought about this.

This person agreed that Ted was the only one to blame here.

And others highlighted that he could at any point have used John’s actual name.

Meanwhile, this Redditor suspected that perhaps this was a lesson Ted needed to learn.

From the outset it was clear that Ted simply is not a good guy.

Who, on their first day of work, decides to call a senior co-worker by a different name?

Either his ego is too big for his own good, or he’s simply a disrespectful character whose behavior was likely to just get worse and worse as he got established in his role.

They can do without him.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.