Office worker details their Excel revenge on ‘slacker’ coworker: ‘Guess he’ll be doing his own work from now on’

An office worker says they spent six months covering for a coworker who allegedly dodged his own assignments while taking credit for the results. The worker, who calls the coworker Seth, says they finally struck back with hidden Excel formulas that scrambled a client report, according to a Reddit post by u/SeagullFanClub in r/ProRevenge. The setup appears to have landed Seth on temporary, unpaid leave.

The worker claims Seth frequently showed up late, took two-hour lunches, and spent his time on his phone, all while offloading his assignments onto others. Complaints to their boss reportedly went nowhere, as Seth always seemed to talk his way out of trouble. The tension reached a breaking point when Seth allegedly dumped a major report due to a client in two days onto the worker at the very last minute.

The worker reportedly decided to take matters into their own hands after Seth admitted he did not know much about Excel. When the coworker later asked for help organizing spreadsheets for his next report, the worker agreed but reportedly planted hidden formulas throughout the files. The formulas were apparently designed to scramble the data whenever Seth tried to copy and paste it, so the numbers would end up useless.

Seth reportedly could not talk his way out of this one

Disaster struck on the day the report was due, as Seth allegedly slacked off while expecting the worker to handle the heavy lifting. The client reportedly called in a rage because the document was packed with nonsense numbers. Seth panicked and tried to fix the errors, but the embedded formulas seemed to have caused more issues each time he touched the spreadsheet.

The coworker eventually approached the worker in a frantic state to ask for assistance. The worker claims they played dumb, suggesting it might be a glitch and offering only vague advice while Seth struggled for the rest of the day. However, the fallout did not stay between the two coworkers for long.

Their boss reportedly found out, and this time Seth could not escape the consequences. According to the worker, Seth received a harsh reprimand for botching the project and was placed on temporary, unpaid leave. The punishment appears to be the first time management held him accountable after months of complaints.

Commenters offered their own takes on dealing with a lazy coworker. One suggested emailing the manager every time Seth asks for help, asking which other projects should be delayed to make room for his work. Another questioned why the worker agreed to help at all, since Seth is only a coworker, not a supervisor.

Some pointed out that Seth might have avoided the disaster if he had known how to paste values instead of pasting normally. However, he apparently never checked the spreadsheets for hidden cells. That gap may have cost him more than a single bad report, as the client saw the errors before anyone inside the company did. Seth’s unpaid leave will likely end at some point, but the worker appears confident the lesson will stick, writing, “I guess he’ll be doing his own work from now on.”