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Learning a new role is difficult enough without depending on someone determined to keep you unprepared.

One employee’s assigned trainer repeatedly withheld projects, then raised concerns with management as if her trainee were avoiding the work.

Faced with a coworker who had mastered weaponized helpfulness, OP devised a way to make that enthusiasm impossible to fake.

Check out how the sabotage unraveled.

Sabotaged the sabotage

Several years ago, I was trying to learn a new role at work.

The problem was that my training solely depended on someone who really didn’t want to train me.

For context, she was kind of an awful person and would intentionally try to sabotage people to make herself look better.

When I would try to initiate shadowing with her, she would, in a falsely friendly voice, chirp “I don’t have anything for us to work on right now, but will be sure to let you know when I do!”

However, days later, she would complete projects that she could have been using to train me.

And it got worse.

This went on for a few weeks, so I gave her a call to follow up.

Clearly this time our boss was sitting in the room with her, because then, speaking loudly and slowly to me like I was a howler monkey instead of a coworker, she says:

“Now, you know I told you that anytime you are free that you need to come to my office so that I can train you”.

So not only am I not getting the training I’m supposed to be getting, but now she’s making me look irresponsible and lazy.

She had to do something.

She had management charmed, and I was a chicken, so there was no seeking direct help from them. Instead, I decided to put matters into my own hands…

The next morning, I came in extra early, conveniently borrowed a chair from my boss’s office so he would know what I was planning to do, and plopped it right down next to her desk and waited for her to arrive.

She would have no choice.

When she came in, I gave her the biggest smile and said:

“I have great news! My supervisor turned me loose and said that I was free to shadow you all day, every day for the foreseeable future, so I figured I would go ahead and be ready to go so I didn’t miss a thing.”

“Isn’t that awesome?!”

This woman was completely horrified, then was pretty icy to me for several days after because I not only interrupted her paid online shopping time but also thwarted her attempts to keep me from learning anything.

It has been nearly a decade since then, but it is one of the most deliciously petty things I have ever done.

Super satisfying.

Let’s see how Reddit feels about this.

A reader shares some thoughts.

This commenter shares a personal experience.

A compliment.

Food for thought.

From another perspective.

Another reader chimes in.

After weeks of denied shadowing and public blame, OP arrived early and planted herself beside her coworker’s desk for unlimited training.

Her constant presence interrupted the trainer’s online shopping and eliminated every excuse for keeping OP uninformed.

The trainer wanted management to believe OP never appeared, so OP practically became a cheerful new piece of office furniture.