Every office has a Mason.
You know the type.
The guy who thinks he’s hilarious, the one who lives for cheap laughs at someone else’s expense.
And when you finally snap?
He grins that smug, punchable grin and says:
“Relax, it’s just a joke.”
Management lets it slide.
But Mason’s version of fun isn’t harmless. It’s humiliating. It’s sabotage.
And he never stops to think that one day, the joke might be on him.
The King of the Office Clowns
Mason liked to think of himself as the office comedian.
He wasn’t.
Real comedians know their audience. Mason didn’t care.
If a joke made someone uncomfortable? That just made it funnier.
If it embarrassed someone in front of management? Even better.
He wasn’t picky about his targets, but he had favorites. And for the past year, I had been at the top of his list.
The first time he messed with me, I let it go. Everyone did.
I came back from lunch to find my desk chair missing.
Not just moved. Completely gone. Like it had vanished into thin air.
I checked under desks, around corners, even near the breakroom.
Finally, I found it. Locked inside an unused supply closet, buried under a pile of empty printer paper boxes.
Mason was across the room, watching me struggle, barely holding in his laughter.
“Dude, you should’ve seen your face,” he cackled. “You looked like a lost puppy.”
Everyone laughed. Even the ones who probably didn’t find it funny.
Because in an office like ours, it was easier to laugh than to be the next target.
So I laughed, too. Shrugged it off. Retrieved my chair. Didn’t make a scene.
And that was my mistake.
Because with Mason, if you let him get away with it once, he’ll keep going.
The Prank That Went Too Far
Most of his pranks were annoying but survivable.
The missing chair. The “accidentally” deleted emails. The time he swapped my phone charger for a dead one, just to watch me struggle through an entire day at 1% battery.
But then came the day he went too far.
It was a Wednesday morning, and I had a big meeting with the regional director. The kind of meeting that could actually get me a promotion.
I was reviewing my notes when an email notification popped up.
Subject: Immediate Termination Notice
My stomach dropped.
I clicked it open, hands suddenly clammy. The email was from HR: official letterhead, perfect formatting, legal jargon about “policy violations” and “effective immediately.”
I sat there in shock, my heart pounding in my ears. What the hell had I done?
Then I heard it.
A snicker.
I turned and saw Mason at his desk, watching me, barely holding it together. His shoulders shook, lips pressed tight like he was seconds from bursting out laughing.
And just like that, I knew.
I checked the sender’s address. Fake. The whole thing was a joke.
Mason had pranked me into thinking I was fired. Right before my biggest meeting of the year.
And that was the moment something clicked.
I wasn’t going to yell. I wasn’t going to complain to HR. I wasn’t going to fight him at all.
I was going to do something better.
I was going to sit back, do my job, and let Mason destroy himself.
The Unraveling Begins
Mason had no idea what he had set in motion.
I didn’t need revenge. I just needed patience.
Mason’s biggest weakness wasn’t his love for pranks. It was his laziness.
He skated by on charm, doing the bare minimum and relying on everyone else to pick up the slack.
When he made mistakes, people covered for him because it was easier than dealing with his excuses.
That was his real safety net.
So I stopped helping. And I wasn’t the only one.
The first time it bit him, he didn’t even realize it was happening.
He was responsible for sending the monthly client reports. Simple enough, but something that required actual attention to detail.
Normally, I double-checked them before they went out. Not because it was my job, but because I’d seen him almost send a spreadsheet full of errors to corporate before.
This time, I let him handle it on his own.
The report went out riddled with mistakes. Wrong figures, outdated projections, formatting errors that made it clear he had slapped it together at the last second.
When the angry email from upper management came in, he tried to pass it off as a “technical issue.” But the finance team wasn’t buying it, and for the first time, he was in real trouble.
Then came the client presentation.
Mason had been bragging about it for weeks, acting like this was his big moment to prove he was more than just the office clown.
The night before, he sat at his desk, absentmindedly spinning a pen between his fingers.
“Hey, Josh, can you send me the latest numbers? I think my report’s missing some stuff.”
His report wasn’t missing anything. He just hadn’t bothered to read it.
I looked up from my screen. “Oh, I thought you had it. Didn’t you get the email?”
His face flickered. “Uh… I don’t think so.”
“Huh. Weird. I sent it a few days ago.”
I hadn’t.
I watched him dig through his inbox, frustration growing by the second. For once, he had to do his own work.
The next morning, he went into the meeting completely unprepared.
It was painful to watch. He stumbled through his slides, misread key figures, and fumbled answers to basic questions.
The clients grew visibly impatient. Mason started sweating.
By the time he reached the end, it was clear to everyone in that room that he had no idea what he was talking about.
The meeting ended in an awkward, tense silence.
As the clients left, I saw the regional manager shake his head.
Mason walked out looking pale, his usual cocky grin nowhere in sight.
For the first time since I’d met him, Mason wasn’t laughing.
The Final Punchline
The fallout came fast.
Mason tried to shift the blame, complaining that he hadn’t been given the right numbers, that someone must have sent him the wrong file.
But he had burned too many bridges. The same people who used to cover for him had stopped. No one backed him up.
Management started looking closer.
HR pulled up old complaints. Missed deadlines. Sloppy work.
And then there were the pranks: the fake emails, the hidden files, the tampered reports.
They had all seemed like “harmless fun” at the time, but now, when stacked against his actual incompetence, they painted a different picture.
Mason had spent years making other people’s jobs harder. Now, the only thing management saw was a liability.
The email came two days later.
Subject: Termination Notice
A real one, this time.
I saw him packing up his desk, his usual bravado gone.
No jokes, no forced laughter. Just quiet, seething defeat.
He barely made eye contact with anyone as he shoved his things into a box. No one offered to help.
As he reached for the last of his stuff, I clapped. Slow. Deliberate.
The kind of applause you give someone who’s finally landed the punchline of their own joke.
Mason glared at me. “Screw you.”
I smirked. “Relax, man. It’s just a joke.”
He stormed out without another word.
The guy who spent years treating everyone like a joke had finally become one himself.