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When you don’t like a manager at your company, you have to be careful not to cause problems that can get you in trouble.

The employee in this story knew how to walk the fine line between annoying the manager and breaking policy.

She knew how to really push her buttons without ever violating any policies, which let her really enjoy her days at work.

Read through the full story below and see how she was able to drive her HR manager crazy.

Gave self-important HR manager something else to fuss about besides the office coffee machine.

The HR manager where I currently work is a superficial, controlling, self-important snob who only pretends to give a care about employee satisfaction, and even then, only when it makes her look good.

Well, some people are just terrible at remembering names.

She once attempted to introduce me to a new staff member and didn’t know my name, and I’d already been working there for 4 years (she’d been there for 5).

And I recall even wearing my name badge at the time so she didn’t even think to pretend she knew my name to at least try to save face with me.

This is not something that the employees want to do.

She once tried to revive the long-dead workplace social vibe and distributed an email to our office informing them of a morning tea for a staff birthday.

But then we all had to “register by COB” if we planned on attending, and she was actually chasing up people who hadn’t responded.

She should never have had this party at all.

Like… there was no organised external catering or anything that she needed numbers for (heaven forbid she spend too much of her department’s budget on boosting staff morale).

It was literally a 12-piece store-bought cake and a cheese platter in the staff kitchen on a Thursday afternoon. Not to mention the staff member who’s birthday it was, was notorious for not wanting to celebrate his birthday, which she would’ve known if she’d bothered to care.

Just buy a new coffee machine.

And the coffee machine. One day it wasn’t working and this HR manager comes into my area in a flurry saying it wasn’t working and that she’s “got better things to do” than to try and fix it herself.

She was clearly posturing in a way that implied she expected me to do something about it, without her having to ask (me being a lowly admin officer which, to her, I guess was equivalent to “coffee expert”).

Sorry, this person is not going to be helpful.

I slowly get up, not in any particular hurry. I give it a look, open whatever compartments will open, taking my time, and she’s getting more flustered by the second. I kind of waffle on about what could be wrong with it, not really doing anything to fix it or act as if this was the emergency she was making it out to be.

I eventually made my escape after someone else came in and let her make a fuss to them (sorry, Graham!). If it had been anyone else (because anyone else would’ve asked politely), I would’ve absolutely stepped up and done my best to assist (and probably would’ve fixed it too as I do happen to know most of the quirks of that particular coffee machine).

She really seems like a miserable person.

One day I learned that this woman (unsurprisingly) doesn’t even trust her own staff. In HR. Like… you are hiring your own people, are you not? Like why would you not hire people you can trust?

Anyway, with this information, I made it a point from then on to send any HR correspondence to the generic HR email (instead of her personal, manager’s one), with the reasoning being that people often go on leave and it’s important that no HR correspondence ‘falls through the cracks’ if it gets sent to an individual who isn’t in the office for whatever reason.

I bet this is driving the HR lady crazy.

Any hard copy things get placed on a central table in the HR office for whoever is there to attend to it (if something is marked confidential, I will of course leave it in the envelope but unless it has a particular person’s name in the address field, it’s going on the centre table).

I’m the admin officer… from the mail room.

She is just doing her job.

I deal with tons of incoming correspondence every day – electronic and paper.

I just love thinking of this woman squirming every time an email comes in or something is left on the table and trying to micromanage her team so they don’t come across anything they ‘shouldn’t’. Might as well give her something else to make a fuss about besides the coffee machine.

I love that she knows that she is annoying this HR lady, but she isn’t breaking any policies or anything, so she can’t get in trouble.

Read what the commenters had to say about this story below.

Here is an important lesson that everyone needs to remember.

If the coffee maker is broken, throw it away.

I assume that would be the office administrator.

Get maintenance in on the revenge, though.

There is no rebellion like a rebellion against a hated manager. It is funny the lengths that people will go to in order to get simple revenge on a manager that they hate.

Employees will learn every rule and how to skirt around it, just to be a thorn in their side. And it will be a lot of fun.