AITA for getting pissed at a work prank?
I work in a corporate office on a small-ish team. When one of the corporate bigwigs comes in, he always orders us food from a Chinese restaurant and we have a bunch of fortune cookies left over, and they’re left at an empty desk. I’ll typically grab one per day, and a lighthearted joke my coworkers will play on me is to put the fortune cookies in various spots on my desk. It got funny at first, but the joke got a little stale. I’d still say something like “haha, pretty funny, never saw this before” and then moved on about my day.
The bigwig was in town last week and ordered food from the same restaurant, and you guessed it, we had leftover fortune cookies. When I left work recently and got in my car, I saw a fortune cookie on my steering wheel column. Another one was in the visor on the driver side, and a third one in the glovebox. I instantly got a little pissed because I lock my car everyday going into work, and the only way someone would’ve gotten in is taking my key fob off my desk while I was away, which I do because I don’t like how it feels in my pocket when I sit. At any rate, why would someone take my key fob off my desk? Why take anything off of someone’s desk that doesn’t belong to you?
We have a group text and I first typed “very funny,” then was about to unload on them for taking stuff off my desk that they shouldn’t, but held off. I figure just cool down and then address it later the next day. But it still bothered me that someone took my fob and entered my car without permission. That’s disrespectful.
When I got in the office the day after, a lot of people were seeing me and snickering/giggling at me. I just got to my desk, and put in my earbuds and got to work. When my boss and another teammate got in, they all came to my desk, laughing their asses off about it. I took my earbuds off and unloaded on them. Told them they crossed a line, they had NO permission to take anything off my desk let alone enter my car, and called them
A bunch of clowns. There were some F-bombs in there and I could tell my voice was raised because other people stopped what they were doing and watched me.
I put my earbuds in and went back to work in what was the quietest day in the few years I’ve worked there. The coworker who actually went into my car sent me a halfhearted apology via text and said “it was all in fun, we can be done with it.” My boss sent me an IM apologizing and said it was his idea, then forwarded me a contact for HR if I wanted to file a formal complaint.
I probably could’ve handled my reaction better, but the lack of respect is what really bothers me here. Why would grown adults think taking personal items off my desk and entering my car without my permission was okay?
AITA?
Posted Aug 12, 2026, 10:56 AM UTC · locked