I (23M) work in a small office. We’re the type that celebrates birthdays with supermarket cake and a card everyone signs.
There’s this guy on our team (mid 30s M) who LOVES “banter.” He’s not malicious, but he pushes things.
Last week it was my birthday. I don’t like big attention, but whatever. I came in and my desk was completely wrapped in tin foil. Keyboard, mouse, chair, monitor. Even my water bottle.
Everyone was laughing. Someone filmed my reaction.
I smiled at first because I assumed it was light. Then I realised they’d also changed my desktop background to an old LinkedIn photo of me that I hate. Like zoomed in. Slightly distorted. And they printed it and taped it to the wall behind my desk.
Everyone was watching me.
I just… stopped smiling.
I said, “Can we not do this?”
The “banter” guy said, “Oh come on, it’s your special day. Take a joke.”
I said I didn’t find it funny and started unwrapping everything quietly. No yelling. No swearing. Just not playing along.
The mood got weird fast.
Later my manager pulled me aside and said I “killed the vibe” and that it was meant to be team bonding. Apparently they spent their lunch setting it up.
Now some people are acting awkward around me. One said I could’ve just laughed and moved on. Another said I made it uncomfortable by being serious.
Here’s my thing: if I had fake-cry laughed and pretended it was hilarious, I’d be rewarding it. And I genuinely felt embarrassed being filmed while everyone waited for a reaction.
I didn’t insult anyone. I didn’t storm out. I just didn’t perform gratitude for something I didn’t enjoy.
AITA for refusing to play along?
NTA, what a ridiculous, bad sitcom-style way to approach a workplace. Your manager is definitely an ah for allowing this to happen and then demanding you be happy about it. Life is not an episode of The Office.
They need to grow up.
This happens to me once. I didn’t take any of it down and left it. The manager came in and asked when I was going to remove it. Said never. Why should I be involved at all?
NTA document what they did and what your manager said to you and take it to HR. A prank is when everyone is laughing, bullying is when everyone is laughing at someone. You didn’t kill the vibe they put you in an uncomfortable, unwanted, and unwarranted position for their entertainment and disrupted your work day to do more unwanted work. You’re 100% right that if you laughed and played along they’d just do it again and you don’t want that.
NTA. This is weird hazing.
NTA – your tem has clearly not ‘bonded’ or they would know you don’t think this stuff is amusing.
Humiliating a member of a group is NOT a ‘team bonding’…
NTA. You are not obligated to enjoy their prank
Your manager says you killed the vibe? Maybe their prank killed your enjoyment of the birthday celebration
Or the vibe of OP wanting to get back to work.
This is textbook workplace harassment, coordinated by your Manager, presumably with the approval of higher management.
This needs to be reported to HR, in writing, and you need to get an employment lawyer.
Being made the butt of an elaborate joke for management’s entertainment and to provide grist for the gossip mill is workplace bullying. Because it was related to your age, it’s now age discrimination.
I guarantee that once you report this to HR, your manager is going to start looking for a reason to fire you.
Let him. It preserves your eligibility to collect unemployment benefits, and it will give rise to a wrongful termination in retaliation for complaining about workplace bullying.
NTA and your manager is a bad manager.
NTA
people need to learn and remember that people in their office are not frat house buddies.
Ive been around this kind of “fun” environment. And it quickly became quite toxic quite quickly
NTA. A prank is only funny if everyone is laughing. Maybe just the tinfoil would be okay but the picture was just mean. And your boss is an enabler to bullying.
If you have HR, I would talk to them about this, because how far will the next “prank” go? Will someone who said they’re on a diet be met donuts strewn around their desk and an unflattering picture of them from behind taped to the wall? Will someone who’s said they’re scared of clowns be met with pictures of Pennywise all over their desk?
Putting someone’s stapler in jello is a prank. Putting pictures of Gilbert Gottfried over every family picture on someone’s desk is a prank. This went beyond that.
NTA
This just sounds awful to have to put up with. I hate ridiculous sh*t like this disguised as “team building”.
Wrapping your desk up in foil is wasteful of not only foil but your own time and energy to remove it. And posting unflattering pictures of you is so very awkward.
And filming it? Without your permission? To do what with? Share around as the “fun joke”? “Look how uncomfortable we made Jane, isn’t it hilarious?”
So much cringe.
NTA. The problem with “pranks” is that the line between “good, clean, fun” and “harassment/bullying” is not always clear, and those perpetuating the “prank” usually are the most tone-deaf and unable to tell the difference (which is why their “pranks” usually suck).
The manager’s response was reprehensible. It’s obvious where the toxic work culture comes from.
Humiliation IS NOT a celebration!