Some coworkers make your job harder simply because they cannot stand being held accountable.

So, what would you do if a junior tech spent months trying to “catch” you doing something wrong, only for you to find a hidden folder where he was saving cherry-picked emails to make you look bad?

Would you ignore it and move on? Or would you add your own content to the folder?

In the following story, one senior tech finds himself in this scenario and chooses the latter.

Here’s what he did.

Adding emails to the ‘secret’ share folder

I have a junior tech in my office who has been a huge pain in the butt since getting hired 16 months ago.

It was my job to train him, and once he passed probation, he dropped his fake attitude of being willing to take direction and be professional to being a complete jerk.

Part of the 180 is coming at me like I’m the devil. His complaints have gone nowhere bc it’s all nonsense, but it’s still a huge pain to deal with.

Too bad the folder isn’t really “private.”

One of the things he does is try to bait me and catch me in the act, but it never works cause I’m not guilty of any of his accusations.

The other day, I found on the share drive his ‘secret’ file folder with emails from me that ‘prove’ I’m so unprofessional. Oh, and it’s just part of email chains, leaving out his rage baiting.

Our shared folder systems let people in multiple locations have easy access to records and working docs. It’s not private at all. But he buried this particular folder under a couple of others, so I think he thinks it’s not gonna be easy to find.

He gave everyone some new reading material.

But I did, cause it’s part of my job to review his work, even if he hates that, so I get into the share, and I see what he’s doing.

To get back at him, I take his emails where he acts out, save them as a PDF, and drop them in there. The emails I sent detailing his aggressive, unprofessional, and sometimes harassing behavior went in there.

And all the incomplete emails he saved, I dropped the whole email chain in there with his rage baiting.

Whoever he’s sharing that folder with has new reading material.

Nice! That was the best thing he could’ve done!

Let’s check out what the people over at Reddit have to say about this.

He should.

This might be taking it too far, but here’s what this person suggests.

Here’s a great way to handle it.

This reader offers some advice.

He should think about this.

It may be best to remove the emails and go straight to HR.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.