There’s always that one coworker who manages to get under your skin, isn’t there? For one office worker, this annoyance came in the form of a colleague who thought she was the boss of everyone, even though she was far from it. Let’s call her “Karen” for simplicity. Karen supervised her own team and handled various administrative tasks to alleviate stress from their actual boss. However, her overzealousness often led to conflict, especially around timecard submissions.
Recently, the team had to work on a Sunday afternoon, and the boss made it clear that employees could choose between “Flex Time” or “Tracked Time” to compensate for those hours. The difference? Flex Time allowed employees to leave early on Friday in exchange for hours worked on Sunday, while Tracked Time meant logging the hours directly on the timecard for both days. Our protagonist opted for Flex Time, thinking it was an easy way to manage acquired hours—until Karen stepped in.
“You’re supposed to use Tracked Time,” Karen insisted, as if she was the one making the rules. “I’ve told my team that’s the only acceptable way.” But here’s the catch: our hero wasn’t part of Karen’s team, and she didn’t have to follow Karen’s arbitrary instructions. “No, I don’t,” she firmly responded. While rolling her eyes at the absurdity of Karen’s insistence, she planned to convince Karen it wasn’t worth her time or energy.
But then things took a turn. Later that afternoon, our hero found herself summoned into a meeting with their actual boss, who was concerned about the stress Karen was experiencing due to the whole timecard debacle. “Why are you causing her stress?” he asked, clearly caught in the crossfire. Instead of letting it slide, she explained the situation calmly, pointing out that she was simply following the instructions their boss had given, not the nonsensical rules Karen was trying to enforce.
Once the meeting wrapped up, our hero decided to reach out to Karen directly. “If you have a problem, just come talk to me about it,” she messaged. Karen replied with a vague, “I did and you didn’t do it. I have to get these things signed. It stresses me out.” That was a new twist—Karen was worried about her own stress, but the underlying facts were clear: their timecards didn’t need to be submitted until the close of business on Wednesday. Yet, Karen had been using the metric of signing them by Wednesday to create some illusion of efficiency, making it a point to show off that she was always ahead of schedule.
Our hero quickly realized there was a prime opportunity to flip the script on Karen. So, she set a new strategy: she would submit her timecard at 4:55 PM every Friday. That way, she’d be just under the deadline but would have enough time to watch Karen spiral into a frenzy. Since Karen left work at 4:30 PM, this little tactic became her own sly form of revenge.
As time went on, the situation evolved into a back-and-forth battle. Karen started trying to get her in trouble by complaining to their boss that our hero was submitting her timecards late. “I’m not late,” she would simply reply, attaching the office policy that outlined the submission deadlines. Rinse and repeat—it became a game of cat and mouse.
Just when it seemed like things couldn’t get better, Karen’s friend reached out one day to ask, “Have you completed your timecard yet?” With a smirk, our hero replied, “Nope! Super busy, but I’ll get it done before close of business today.” It was all too satisfying, eating her lunch while watching Karen whirl around the office, stressed about being “late with the timecards again.”
Although leaning into pettiness may not be the most professional route, our hero found some joy in watching the control spiral. Karen wanted to take on the role of the boss, but our protagonist wasn’t having it. Instead, she chose to embrace the chaos, all while following the rules. Sometimes, a little office mischief is the best way to deal with an overzealous colleague.
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