There’s nothing wrong with pulling a harmless prank every now and then.
As long as the prank is, indeed, harmless, and doesn’t put anyone in any physical or mental danger, and the person on the receiving end of the prank finds it as or more funny than the mastermind behind it.
Should even one of these criteria not be met, the prank has officially gone too far.
Moving men hired by Redditor FeelingElegant9514 felt there was nothing wrong with having a tiny bit of fun at her expense while they were on the job.
Unfortunately, the original poster (OP) found nothing funny about the situation, nor did her husband.
Wondering if she might have overreacted, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I The A**Hole” (AITA), where she asked fellow Redditors:
“AITA? Delivery gone wrong.”
The OP explained how after two men she hired to help her with a job pulled a prank on her, her husband was compelled to call their supervisor, potentially putting their employment in jeopardy.
“Last week delivery men were at my house to deliver a long awaited sofa purchase.”
“Two men came into my house and seemed friendly enough.”
“I showed them what they needed to do, remove a sectional and then unpack a sofa and an oversized chair into my living room.”
“While they were at the truck, and coming back into my house, a man hollered: ‘Maam, did you want your cat to come in?'”
“I yelled ‘I don’t have a cat!'”
“I am also allergic to them and was leaving town in a few hours.”
“They indicated that the cat had gone upstairs, that it was a tabby cat, and that it just ran in.”
“I heard it meow several times.”
“During the 30 minutes that the men were in my house, I heard the meowing but couldn’t find it anywhere.”
“I was running all over the house, sweating and frantic.”
“At one point the workmen helped me look for the cat but it was nowhere to be found.”
“As the men were leaving and I was signing paperwork, the two men finally fessed up that they were the ones making the cat noises.”
“There was no cat at all.”
“I became distressed but they laughed after telling me that they played this joke on other women as well.”
“They thought they were really funny, a modern day Laurel and Hardy.”
“When my husband heard the story he insisted on calling the store and talking to the owner.”
“AITA for allowing my husband to complain about the workmen and potentially getting them fired?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
The Reddit community agreed that the OP’s husband did absolutely the right thing by filing a complaint, and she was in no way the a**hole for letting him do so.
Everyone agreed that the behavior of the movers was unprofessional and shouldn’t be tolerated, particularly as they openly said how they frequently pulled the same prank on multiple women, suggesting their motives were likely sexist, making their possible firing all the more deserved.
“NTA.”
“That’s creepy AF and they’ve done it to multiple women.”
“The deserve to be fired, though that probably won’t happen.”
“Leave awful reviews for them and tell everyone you know not to use that company.”- littlemissadams
“NTA.”
“I hate to be ‘that person’ but they played this prank on ‘other women’, like women specifically?”
“Why are these guys entering private residences and causing women specifically some amount of concern over a fictional animal?”
“If my friend did this I would think it’s funny.”
“If delivery persons on duty did it, I would have called myself the moment they were gone and I had carefully checked that all my windows were still locked.”- Wildly-Opinionated
“NTA.”
“That is a very bizarre ‘prank’.”
“Kind of makes me uncomfortable.”
“Do your job and get out of the house.”
“So weird.”- Que_sax23
“NTA.”
“Please follow up and get them in trouble at work.”
“This is grossly unprofessional and after seeing how frantic you were about it they should have realized they went too far.”
“I am worried this could escalate with bigger and bigger ‘pranks’ until someone gets hurt.”
“You paid them for a service, not a day of stress.”- BlackHeartIgnition
“They did it to other women.”
“Other WOMEN.”
“Not men.”
“They seem to get off on harassing women while doing their job.”
“Not only should you have filed a complaint, but they should be fired and get a one-star review on everything for this.”
“NTA.”
“And, as others have said, they may have been doing other things while you were distracted.”
“I’d ask the company to pay for a security consultant to search your house for devices and vulnerabilities.”- cmlobue
“NTA.”
“It was inappropriate and unprofessional to pull this on the clock on customers.”
“It doesn’t matter if their mark is allergic, cat phobic, or is like me thinking ‘ooh, looks like I have a new cat!’.”- Alia_Explores99
“NTA.”
“OP, let’s looks at this from your point of view.”
“There was something you were allergic to in this house.”
“Very harmful for you.”
“You thought there was a distressed and potentially trapped animal in your house.”
“You spent half an hour looking for the ‘cat’.”
“The joke wasn’t funny and if they saw it was causing severe stress they should have stopped and apologized.”- Budget-Ad56
“If it is such a good joke, they should play it on male customers as well.”
“Oh, they don’t?”
“So they are sexist and unprofessional only to women?”
“Yeah, they deserve to be fired.”- PanamaViejo
“NTA.”
“People can’t just prank other people whenever they want to.”
“Especially on the clock preforming a service.”
“They aren’t paid to prank.”
“Its very unprofessional.”- DANADIABOLIC
“NTA.”
“It was a very unprofessional joke.”
“Not at all suitable for someone on the job.”- lmchatterbox
“NTA.”
“What gets me the most is that they do this to women all the time.”
“Women are already more likely to be nervous being home alone with two strangers in their home.”
“They also take pleasure in watching women struggle and panic.”
“Now as for letting your husband complain I’m not going to lie it is worrisome that they know where you live.”
“But if you did complain you wouldn’t get an AH.”- angelxe1
“NTA.”
“Totally unprofessional and immature!”
“Are you sure these guys didn’t have a reason to distract you for 30 minutes? “
“Why would they want you running around looking for a cat?”
“Were they casing the place?”
“Looking for things to come back and steal?”
“Very suspicious, as it’s not even remotely a funny ‘joke’.”- profmoxie
“’AITA because two strange men bullied me and made me feel uncomfortable when I was alone in my own house?’”
“Nope, NTA.”- daric
“NTA.”
“As someone that is so allergic to cats that touching one makes my hands swell, I would be so pissed.”
“You don’t play jokes like that on people.”
“It’s incredibly unprofessional of them to play jokes on clients.”
“Joking between themselves is fine, but bringing you into it isn’t cool at all.”- Mullberries
“NTA.”
“What a stupid and unprofessional thing to do.”- Adorable_Accident440
“NTA.”
“I told my spouse who works for a furniture company doing IT and all he could do is shake his head.”
“He was not amused.”
“Call the company.”
“They have a manifest of all the deliveries that day.”
“It will state who the drivers were.”
“Explain everything they did and for how long.”
“What they did was immature and should be reported.”
“Especially since they have done it before.”- notsosimpleandsweet
“NTA.”
“You should absolutely call.”
“I’m sorry you were a woman home alone and they wanted to stress you out and watch you run around frantically.”- JCBashBash
“NTA.”
“Even if you hadn’t been allergic to cats, this was a dick-move from the men who delivered your furniture.”
“Majority of people would have experienced some intensity of distress upon hearing that a cat had entered their house.”
“I would have been mad too if they’d pulled something like that on me.”
“I have two dogs who freely roam around my house.”
“If either of them were to encounter a cat, the results would probably be fatal for the poor thing.”
“They were way out of line with this.”
“Their job is to deliver and place furniture at the customer’s house.”
“Pretending that a stray cat came in and settled on you bed isn’t part of that.”
“I don’t think they’ll get fired for doing so, but they’ll definitely face consequences for it, which they should.”- KontroleurVerbrugge
Pranks generally only work when you pull them on someone you know, and know rather well at that.
Making the fact that these men played this prank not only on a total stranger, but while on the clock, all the more shocking.
Who knows what their consequences were after the OP’s husband filed his complaint, but one hopes, regardless, it was the wake up call they needed to stop behaving this way ever again.