Cleaner walks out of office over 'mortifying' Elf on the Shelf prank by workers

bathroomscleaning
08/04/2022
401 Views

Pranking unsuspecting members of the public idly going about their day has (sadly) become big business.

All you need is a phone, an innocent victim and a social media platform to upload to.

Sadly, the immediacy of social media appears to have made people forget that carrying out cruel pranks on strangers isn't funny - especially when they end up feeling humiliated.

One woman was left feeling devastated after workers at an office she cleaned decided to 'prank' her - by wrecking the men's toilets and filming her reaction.

They added a festive twist by pretending the mortifying stunt was carried out by an Elf - rather than grown adults making a cleaner's job more difficult.

Get the news you want straight to your inbox. Sign up for a Mirror newsletter here

Even worse, they've uploaded the footage of her reaction to social media - and ignored her requests to take it down.

Writing on Mumsnet, the woman asked if she was in the wrong after refusing to clean up their 'stunt' which included toilet paper and chocolate sauce.

She explained: "I’m a cleaner. Got to work yesterday and other members of staff kept following me around - they ultimately recorded me going into the men’s toilets.

"On the floor was wet torn up toilet roll, toilet roll “balls” splattered on the walls, toilet roll slung all over the toilet and what appeared to be s*** smeared all over the toilet and floor (turned out to be chocolate syrup).

"There was also an elf on the floor holding an empty toilet roll tube.

Cleaner walks out of office over 'mortifying' Elf on the Shelf prank by workers

"The other staff members were in hysterics recording my reaction. I didn’t see the funny side at all and walked out suggesting they clean up their mess so I could get on with my job.

"In my defence, I didn’t feel that well to start with, hadn’t slept well and had slipped on the way into work and hurt my hip. "I was called a misery, reminded that it was Christmas and told to lighten up. They have now uploaded the video of my reaction to Facebook and it has been shared twice already and I’m worried it will end up going “viral”.

"I have asked them to remove it and will be going to management if they don’t."

After asking if she'd acted unreasonably, people flooded her post with support and useful advice.

One person wrote: "They sound pathetic, I would have also refused to clean up a mess they'd purposefully made in order to film a video and post it online."

Another added: "Go to HR. It's bullying."

In the comments, the women explained that she'd asked them to remove it - but they had refused.

She wrote: "Their excuse is that numerous members of staff have been pranked by “the elf” and I’m the only one that has had a problem with it.

"What they fail to realise is that everyone else doesn’t clean as their actual job. For me, it was simply adding to my work."

A third commented: "They pulled this prank deliberately to humiliate you and make your job harder.

"Then, rather than apologise when they realised you were upset they tried to make out that you were the one with the problem.

"Then they have filmed all this and shared it on Facebook without your permission. There were several of them and one of you. Report it to management or HR."