Dropping a “Yikes”: When Petty Revenge Meets Office Design Drama
There’s nothing like a group chat on the eve of a holiday—everyone’s checked out, ready to mentally clock off, and then…someone drops a bomb. Or in this case, a single, devastating “Yikes.” That was the minimalist masterpiece of petty revenge delivered by Redditor u/Responsible_Lake_804, whose post on r/PettyRevenge ignited a firestorm of hilarious commentary, design war stories, and a few spicy workplace truths.
The story? A design team torn apart by sabotage, gaslighting, and the kind of font drama only designers will truly appreciate. But the real artistry here wasn’t in kerning or color palettes—it was in the deliciously subtle, no-effort-needed execution of a petty power play.
Picture it: You’re on a design team with two coworkers. One’s a 10-year veteran whose insecurity and cultural cosplay would make even the most dedicated method actor blush. The other? An erstwhile “friend” who skipped the loyalty part of friendship and dove straight into screenshotting your DMs for management clout. After months of being undermined and misrepresented, you see these two drop their “masterpiece” project into the group chat—except it’s riddled with errors, ignores every established template, and is, in design terms, an absolute dumpster fire.
So, as you log off for the holidays (and secretly eye a better job elsewhere), you respond with a single word: “Yikes.”
The beauty of this move is its restraint—just enough sting to let everyone know you’ve noticed the chaos, but not enough to invite a direct confrontation. As u/Gold_Au_2025 applauded, “Simple. Subtle. Effective. Perfect.” Minimalism, at its finest.
Of course, the Reddit peanut gallery had thoughts. Many, many thoughts.
Font Fights and Design Sins
Designers are a special breed—ask any and they’ll tell you fonts are more than letters; they’re identity, branding, even politics. When u/PhDTARDIS joked, “‘Our standard font has ALWAYS been Comfortaa Medium, 12 point in B0B0B0. Why did you use Calibri 11 point in A3A3A3?’” it kicked off a mini-thread of inside jokes, war stories, and even font trauma therapy. As u/squee_bastard sighed, “It’s comforting to run across another designer that has been personally victimized by the Comfortaa font.”
For those outside the design world, it might sound trivial. But as the OP pointed out, these “mistakes” weren’t just typos—they were strategic, an attempt to make her future work look “wrong” by shifting the standards under her feet. “On future deliverables that I do according to established standards, they’re going to start saying this new trash pile…is the new standard and I’m wrong,” OP explained when asked how this was a setup.
Office Politics: Gender, Power, and Pick-Me Energy
Much of the comment section grappled with the gender dynamics at play. Why did the OP keep referencing “the men” as the authority? As u/SoonerRed and u/emmennwhy pressed, it seemed odd to frame coworkers this way. But OP clarified: these were client-facing authority figures, and her coworker’s sabotage often happened in front of them, leveraging old-school gender dynamics. “To reiterate…she specifically waits to give random negative feedback until either me or my other female coworker are on the phone with any man or multiple men we work with,” OP wrote.
Some, like u/todayismysaturday, jumped to OP’s defense: “Only note is for the whacko commenters saying you’re sexist for saying ‘the men’ repeatedly as if we don’t live in a patriarchal society where MANY jobs have this exact dynamic??”
Others, meanwhile, saw echoes of a universal workplace experience. “The workforce has many of these types, I call them energy vampires,” wrote u/iccohen, advising to “CYA [cover your ass], otherwise go about our business.”
Petty Revenge or Just Petty?
Not everyone agreed this counted as revenge. “Where’s the petty revenge?” several users asked. But OP held firm: “It’ll make them feel bad about something they ‘worked hard on’ and embarrass them in front of the men.”
For some, the schadenfreude was enough. As u/ablemount wryly observed, “It took me many, many years to learn that coworkers are NEVER my ‘friends.’” Others, like u/ReddituserXIII, simply needed a translation: “What the hell is a yikes?” (Don’t worry, the crowd quickly explained: “Yikes is like ‘oh boy’ or ‘oh dear’…basically letting them know it looks awful and was a mistake to submit that.”)
And, in a moment of poetic justice, the OP’s nemesis apparently found the post and blocked her—proof, perhaps, that even small acts of pettiness can have real-world ripple effects.
Wei Wu Wei: Action Without Action
One of the deepest takes came from u/terdferguson, who drew a parallel to Taoist philosophy: “The use of strategic restraint, known as wei wu wei (action without action)…using minimal effort to achieve maximum results.” In other words, sometimes the best revenge is simply letting your enemies self-destruct—then pointing it out with a single, elegant “Yikes.”
The Takeaway: Minimalism Wins
The brilliance of this story isn’t just in the drama, the gaslighting, or the font wars—it’s in the lesson that sometimes the most effective response is the least effortful. No rants, no receipts, just a gentle nudge that says: I see you, I see the mess, and I’m not bothered enough to fix it—because I’m already moving on.
So, next time your toxic coworkers try to throw you under the bus, remember: sometimes, the only word you need is “Yikes.”
What’s the most “minimal effort, maximum impact” move you’ve seen in your own workplace? Drop your stories below—bonus points for design disasters and petty revenge!
Original Reddit Post: Dropping a “Yikes” in the group chat before holiday