Really Maid Him Live Up To His Word

A few years ago, we had a new developer who had been with us for a few months and frequently joked about how he was “too cheap” to do things. During one of our standups (brief daily status meetings), the subject of Halloween came up.

New Guy: “So, are we all going to dress up for Halloween?”

Manager: “No.”

New Guy: “Aww, you’re no fun.”

Manager: “Let me rephrase. I have no intent to dress up. If you want to look ridiculous, you’re welcome to come in whatever costume you want.”

New Guy: “I’d totally do that if I wasn’t too cheap to buy a costume.”

Manager: “Really? You make it sound like we don’t pay you anything.”

New Guy: “Hey, if costumes are so cheap, you’re welcome to buy me one.”

Coworker: “You know what? If you promise to actually wear whatever I get you, I’d be more than happy to find a costume for you.”

New Guy: “You know what? Sure. I have no pride, so bring it on. Let’s see what terrible costume you can find for me to wear.”

We took him up on it, and he actually got not one but two different costumes brought in by different coworkers. One was a dress worn by one of the characters from Frozen. The other was a sexy maid outfit, with an emphasis on sexy — even by our work’s non-existent dress code, it was rather questionable whether he could have gotten away with showing up at work dressed in that thing.

He wasn’t daunted, and on Halloween, he showed up wearing both costumes, with the majority of the maid outfit put on over top of the dress.

Me: “You look ridiculous. I can’t believe you actually wore them.”

New Guy: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ll have you know I feel pretty and witty and gay!”

We spent the next year joking about what terrible outfit we could force him to wear the subsequent Halloween, but sadly, that’s when the global health crisis hit, and none of us was working in person for Halloween. [New Guy] did post a photo of himself in the princess dress on our work chatroom to cheer us up a little that Halloween, though he claimed to have “mysteriously” lost the sexy maid outfit.