So this happened a few months ago but the shame still haunts me.
Our office has this little “green initiative” where we’re encouraged to bring plants to our desks. I’m not really a plant person, but someone gave me a succulent, and I figured, cool, low maintenance. The problem was, I didn’t have a pot. I didn’t want to go out and buy one because I’m lazy and also cheap.
Anyway, I was staying late at the office one night and noticed this mug in the communal cabinet. It had a weird cartoon cat on it and said “Hang in There.” It had been there for months. I assumed it was abandoned, so I took it, drilled a little hole in the bottom with a nail (yes, I know), and planted my succulent in it. Boom. Desk plant achieved.
Fast forward two weeks. My coworker Jess comes back from maternity leave. First day back, she walks by my desk, stops dead in her tracks, and goes, “Is that my mug?”
I laugh, thinking she’s joking. She is not. Turns out, it was a custom mug her husband made for her with an inside joke from their first date. I had put a hole in it. For a succulent.
She was surprisingly calm about it, but you could feel the disappointment radiating off her. I immediately bought her a replacement, but obviously it wasn’t the same. Now every time I see her, I remember that I murdered her sentimental mug in cold blood.
TL;DR: Thought a mug was abandoned, turned it into a plant pot, destroyed my coworker’s sentimental keepsake.
Comments
wow you really managed to do something thats “not that big of a deal” and extremely bad at the same time. kudos
I mean, yeah. You could have asked around to see if it was anyone’s personal mug. Would have been pretty easy. But I may have done the same thing as you TBH
I understand bringing a sentimental mug to work, so every day when you’re working you can look at it and think of the person who gave it to you.
I would not, however, put it in a communal cabinet. When it was not being used (or actively being washed by me) I would keep it at my desk.
Yeah, you messed up by taking something that wasn’t yours. Just go to a thrift store to get a mug if you’re going to drill into it. But she messed up by leaving it in a communal area too
Her fuckup if you ask me — who brings something that sentimental to work, and then leaves it in the cupboard unlabeled for months? Anyone could have dropped it and it would have been gone.
Next time use a plant pot though, or if you’re set on using a mug, suspend a plant pot with holes inside the mug so you have drainage.
Give her the plant and drilled pot as well. Its not the same but at least she will still have it
Why not gift Jess the mug with the succulent plant in it? Then she’ll still have her gift but obviously altered but the original item back.
This is a Seinfeld episode. You are George
I don’t understand people who just take stuff they “find” at work without doing their due diligence to figure out who it belongs to. It didn’t just materialize out of thin air, someone put it there.
And if the office does have dishes that are available for anyone to use, that means take a mug, use it as a mug, clean it, and put it back where you got it so someone else can use it. Not take a mug and drill a hole in it.
Did you gift her her mug with the succulent in it?
Just give her the plant and mug bro
Maybe buy a pre potted plant next time. Or at least ask before you drill a permanent hills into something.
YFU but sounds like you’ve learned.
Reddit confessions are worth .05 heaven points. Only 10^100,000,000,000 more to go!👍 Keep up the good work!
That’s why I keep my mug in my locker or at my desk at work. It’s clear it’s mine.
Maybe it’s be but I could not imagine bringing that mug to work, putting in a communal area where anyone could easy use it and break on accident, nor would I leave it at work at all (even on my own desk) if I was gunna be gone for months 😭
Succulent Chinese meal? aah yes, you know your judo well..
Did you at least offer her the plant?
There is a gag in the manga-anime Detective Conan where a girl made a large tea mug for her long distance bf and the bf sent her a photo with him holding it… as a vase.
It couldn’t have been that sentimental if it ended up in the communal cabinet for months.
However you def FU by drilling a hole in a work mug. You can buy mugs for like $1 at the thrift store
At least now she can have one with a plant in it!
It seems to me she gets the succulent now