There was this guy in my office who constantly “borrowed” my pens and never returned them. It wasn’t just one or two pens-it was a regular thing, and I was tired of losing my favorite ones. So, I decided to turn the tables. I went to the store, bought a pack of the cheapest, most obnoxiously bright pens I could find, and left one on my desk every day. But here’s the twist: I subtly marked each one with a small dot of permanent ink only I knew about. It wasn’t visible at first glance, but after a couple of weeks, I noticed that every time one of my pens “disappeared,” he had a bright, garish pen that definitely wasn’t his. I never said a word—just quietly swapped out the pens. He eventually stopped “borrowing” them. Sometimes, petty revenge is all about finding a way to make someone’s choices a little harder to ignore.
Comments
Satisfying form of revenge. Bet the office thought he was a real tool
Perfectly petty. Nice.
Swapped out the pens for what?
next step, exploding pens
I thought maybe the new pens would leak glows of ink everywhere or had pink ink… whatever, it worked!
Very satisfying and subtle
Better tip: work in a place that requires blue or black pens ( as they are legal documents) buys a bunch of pens but 1/2 are RED. Swap out the inks. Place on desk and watch folks lose their minds. I know they are red- I keep them to jot notes…why are you at my desk, again-?
I didn’t get it. Can someone explain? TIA.
So you purchased pens for him ?
Brightly coloured pens….
Okay.
I worked as a tech and constantly had to write, this was before the prolific use of computers.
I would just got get a box of blue pens out of the supply cabinet and put them in the lab for anyone to use. Inevitably, I would frequently stuff one in my shirt pocket and only see it still there when I got home.
So, I just saved them up until a had a full box of them and bring them back to work and reuse them all again.
I never used them at home though.
❓
Ohhh love this!
My work does 4 conferencing weekends a year at a specific hotel.
My favourite pens are the ones this particular hotel gives us to use (standard pad/pen/mints water at every seat). I used to keep my pen (allowed not stealing) and take it back to the office, my boss thought it was funny to “borrow it” and not give it back or make big show of taking it when I wasn’t round and then sling for a pen to see my reaction. (not malicious we often joke with each other).
On one of our last trips to the hotel I asked the event person for a bunch of extra pens, then stashed them in my drawer at work, it was fun to pull out a spare whenever she tried to steal it or ask about it – super nonchalantly.
Should have bought some of those pink pens for ladies,Google reviews tell me he would grow boobs from using them,that would teach him
Well, the penis mightier than the sword.
u/bot-sleuth-bot
My Pen!
https://youtu.be/yQ1pO-tZbYA?si=iFQfCvodssExJIah
I just want my stapler….
I probably would have spent some quality time running those pens dry before putting them out to be borrowed.
What????
Just buy a large quantity of normal pens and superglue every single tip closed. Will drive the mark nuts..
I buy pens at estate sales. I frequently find gallon baggies for a dollar or two with dozens of pens.
Often, many of the pens do not work. That’s fine.
I fill the pen holder on my desk with these pens and keep one good pen under my keyboard and a spare in my purse.
Mr. Pen Borrower will take a pen daily, give it a try, it won’t work, so he will use his own pen that day. The next day, rinse and repeat.
Eventually, they get tired of my non-working unreliable pens and move on to another victim.
Once upon a time I had this problem. Like 25 years ago.
Bought a cheap pack of Bic’s, gently heated a few of them up, then left them on the desk.
I’m assuming they got the point as they were seen one day with a large blue splotch on their hand.
For those who are too young to remember these things, the old Bic cheapos had an air holes. And after they got heated, the ink would be more likely to flow out the top of the straw during use and leak out these holes. A real PITA if you left these in a car on a summer day.
Sounds to me like you’re just buying him pretty pens.
I don’t get it. Why the dot? Couldn’t you have seen that he had your pen because it was bright?
I dont get why you needed to mark them with permanent marker when they were already an obviously different color from all the other pens?
This sounds like AI trying to write a funny revenge story
What do you mean you swapped them out?
Where’s the revenge? You just supplied him with pens for two decades..
I would have taken out the ink and left them.
Reminds me of when I worked retail grocery. My department was right next to the break room, so when people wanted to write down their schedule, they would ” raid ” my desk for paper and something to write on. So I put a box on the corner and marked it scape paper, then I kept all the pens that didn’t write very well or at all, put them in an old cup next to the scrap paper. The day after the new schedule came out, I would gather all the “dead ” pens from the break room and put them back on the cup.
I should add that this was long before cellphones.