The Time I Made My Co-Worker's Life Hell For a Month

Anonymous Charming Wallflower #973 · General

So, I have this coworker named Rachel who sits across from me. She has the best job ever, she's an accounts manager and gets to do all sorts of exciting stuff like handling big client contracts, while I'm stuck coding away in the back corner for hours on end. It’s not that my work isn’t important, but let’s face it: her life seems way cooler than mine right now. To make things worse, Rachel has this habit of chatting and laughing with anyone who comes by. She's always smiling, cracking jokes, sharing stories. I’ve never seen a single client complaint about her service, she even manages to get along well with the most difficult customers out there. It’s like she was born to do what she does. One day, after Rachel had a particularly good week and everyone was congratulating her for sealing another big deal, my annoyance boiled over. I decided it would be funny to plant some fake office supplies under her desk. Just silly stuff, a cheap water bottle filled with rice instead of H2O, an empty cup that looked like she spilled coffee on herself during our weekly video call, and a couple of prank stress balls that would pop when you squeezed them too hard. At first, I felt pretty good about myself for pulling off these little pranks. I watched her reactions from across the room and it was hilarious seeing how confused and frustrated she got by all this chaos. But after a few days, I started to feel guilty. Maybe it wasn’t as funny anymore when other coworkers seemed upset because Rachel was too stressed to focus on her job. Then came the day when things went beyond pranks. During one of our team calls, a co-worker asked about why we had so many meetings lately and suggested cutting them down since everyone felt overwhelmed. I couldn't let that pass without making a sarcastic comment, saying something along the lines of 'I guess it's nice to take time off from planning the best client strategy possible,' clearly directed at Rachel. Now every day feels like this cycle of me trying to laugh it off while still secretly feeling bad for what I'm doing. I know I should just leave her alone and let everyone else see how amazing she is, but my ego keeps pushing me forward. Am I really the asshole here? How do I make things right with Rachel without making things worse? What would you guys say if you were in my shoes?