When I was 17 or 18, I worked at a cheap low class department store while I was finishing high school. I worked in the little cafe, mostly washing dishes and doing whatever else needed to be done.
There was a guy who worked at the store who was just an obnoxious jerk. He was the sort of person who could make an otherwise tolerable shift miserable just by being around. Nobody liked him, and people generally avoided him whenever possible.
One day, I got an idea for a prank.
I took two packets of ketchup and carefully placed them underneath the toilet seat in the men's bathroom. You couldn't see them just by looking at the seat. The idea was that when someone sat down, their weight would crush the packets and squirt ketchup everywhere.
I thought it was hilarious. It was stupid, childish, and completely unnecessary, which was probably why it appealed to me at that age.
Unfortunately, the person who sat down was the store manager.
I wasn't there to witness it, but word spread pretty quickly. Apparently, the ketchup went all over him and his clothes while he was sitting on the toilet. He was absolutely furious. He vowed to find out who had done it and get to the bottom of the situation.
Now, this was a department store that sold cheap stuff, so it's not as though the man had suffered some permanent catastrophe. He could buy another pair of pants and underwear. But obviously, nobody wants to have ketchup squirted all over them while they're using the bathroom, especially not at work.
The funny thing was that there was absolutely no way to know who had done it. It could have been an employee. It could have been a customer. There were plenty of possibilities.
But somehow, suspicion settled on the obnoxious guy I worked with.
He insisted he hadn't done it. The problem was that everybody thought he was exactly the sort of person who might pull a stunt like that. Even people who realized there was no evidence against him didn't seem particularly interested in defending him.
I certainly wasn't going to volunteer any information.
The manager was so angry that he actually fired the guy right there on the sales floor, in front of everybody.
It was a scene. The guy kept insisting he hadn't done it, but the manager wasn't having any of it. I don't think he was interested in hearing another word from him.
The rest of us just watched.
And here's the really ugly part: nobody seemed particularly upset about it. Even though there was no evidence that the guy had anything to do with the ketchup, people were so fed up with him that they were practically relieved to see him go. Nobody stuck up for him. Nobody said, "Wait a minute, how do we know he did this?"
I certainly didn't.
I stood there and watched a guy get fired for something I'd done, and I didn't say a word.
The atmosphere at work improved after he left. People were friendlier, the shifts were more pleasant, and I had no reason to complain about the outcome. As far as I was concerned, I'd pulled off a stupid prank and somehow gotten rid of a coworker I couldn't stand.
I didn't really think about what it must have been like for him to be fired in front of everybody, insisting he was innocent while nobody believed him. At least, not at the time.
About a week later, I got called into the manager's office.
I was nervous as hell. I had no idea whether somebody had figured it out or whether there was some other problem. The manager told me to have a seat.
He asked if I knew why he'd called me in.
I said no.
He asked whether I'd heard about what happened the previous week with the ketchup packets.
I said yes, trying to sound as though this was an entirely ordinary conversation.
He paused and said, "You work in the cafe, don't you?"
I said yes.
"Well," he said, "I'd like you to personally keep an eye on the ketchup packets. Be on the lookout for anything suspicious, and feel free to report anything that doesn't look above board. You can drop by my office whenever you notice something. Don't hesitate, even if it turns out to be a false alarm. I want to know about it."
I was sitting there wondering whether this was some kind of elaborate trap.
Then he thanked me for doing such a good job and told me I was getting a small raise.
He also said that if I was interested in a promotion after I graduated from high school, he'd be happy to recommend me.
I thanked him and left the office.
I had gone in expecting to get caught. Instead, I'd been promoted, essentially, to chief ketchup investigator.
I never told him what I'd done.
Looking back, the part that bothers me isn't really the prank itself. It was a dumb thing to do, and the manager was understandably furious. What bothers me more is that another guy paid the price for something I did, largely because everyone disliked him so much that nobody was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
And I walked away with a raise and a manager who thought I was trustworthy.
I don't know whether the guy ever realized that he hadn't been responsible for the incident. I doubt he did.
I do know that I never put ketchup packets under a toilet seat again.
I also never corrected the manager's impression of me as a particularly responsible young employee.