Bosses Are Not All-Knowing

(I work in the stockroom of an electronics store. For the holidays the company is running an overnight shift. At my store it consists of me and a temporary supervisor. I set aside two left over cardboard boxes at the beginning of my shift, from the stock team at an earlier shift, as I need boxes to transport presents 50 miles and two towns over without my six-year-old brother seeing them. I leave the stock room to do my duties but upon my return at the end of my shift I notice my boxes are gone.)

Me: “Where are my boxes?”

Supervisor: “What boxes?”

Me: “I had two large boxes sitting by the workstation with my jacket over them.”

(This is the jacket I wear every day, and it is now sitting on the desk.)

Supervisor: “Oh! Those were your boxes?”

Me: “Yes! That is why I had my jacket was on them. I need them to hide my brother’s presents.”

Supervisor: “Oh, I didn’t know. I thought they were [Coworker]’s leftover boxes from when he did [task that usually requires large, black, plastic totes].”

Me: “No, [task] takes black totes not cardboard boxes. Besides, my jacket was on top of them in a way that was clearly deliberate.”

Supervisor: “OH! I didn’t know!”

Me: “My jacket was on top of them. What did you do with them? Did you put them in the compactor?”

Supervisor: “No, they’re right here.” *walks over to compactor and shows me there sitting right next to it* “I didn’t crush them yet. I didn’t know!”

Me: *face-palm*

(Thankfully they weren’t crushed, as we don’t keep boxes around and we wouldn’t have more until the next week — after Christmas.)