Office systems are meant to keep the job efficient, not create chaos out of thin air.

So when a toxic manager escalated concerns over a missing product sample, multiple employees scrambled to fix an issue that never actually existed.

Keep reading for the full story.

My colleague just wasted everyone’s time for a power trip

So, I work at a tech company handling samples.

Up until a few months ago, I was responsible for managing all product samples, but now I only deal with those for a specific business unit after a promotion.

Soon, one of her managers started stirring up unnecessary drama.

This week, one of the managers (let’s call her Emma — she is at the same job level as me) asked me about the whereabouts of a specific product sample from last year.

I vaguely remembered that one had been defective, but since I was extremely busy, I told her I’d check when I had time.

Emma just wouldn’t let up about this issue, so the employee got to work.

The next day, I was on-site for an event and didn’t get a chance to follow up. Despite that, Emma kept pressing me for updates.

By Friday morning, I finally had time to dig in. I went through our tracking system, checked old messages with the person who had the defective unit, and combed through internal logs to track it down.

Turns out, there were important details Emma was withholding.

After all that effort, Emma told me the sample was “missing” and even implied that I hadn’t followed procedure when handling it.

Meanwhile, the actual sample coordinator who took over from me (let’s call her Sarah) was panicking, trying to find it, and asked for my help.

But the drama didn’t end there.

Then, Friday afternoon, Emma called Sarah into a boardroom and casually admitted that she had taken the sample out of its box while the storeroom was open and handed it to HR weeks ago.

Basically, she did it to “teach Sarah a lesson” and to check how bad the current processes are.

So, she made multiple people — including me, who isn’t even responsible for these samples anymore — waste time searching for something she knew wasn’t lost.

And for what? I honestly don’t know whether to be annoyed or just baffled.

Sounds like Emma isn’t the best boss.

Redditors chime in with their thoughts.

What Emma is doing here just isn’t right.

Company leadership definitely needs to be made aware of this.

There’s definitely something fishy going on here.

This situation could have been handled with a lot more tact.

The mystery was solved, but what it revealed raised some serious questions over this managers competence.

In this office, the only thing truly misplaced was common sense.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.