My Colleague Offered Me $50 For My Designer Bag

Late one night, someone tagged me in the company’s after-hours group chat.
“@LilyLin-Design, that Hermès bag of yours, is it the global limited edition?”
“I have a major gala next weekend and I’m in desperate need of a bag. Yours is just sitting there anyway, so lend it to me. I need to make an impression.”
The sender was Mandy Wang, the star saleswoman. She had a habit of talking to people like she owned them.
I typed back a simple reply: “No.”
A string of voice messages immediately followed, her tone sharp and acidic.
“Aren’t you a petty little thing? We’re colleagues, what’s the big deal with helping me out?
Don’t worry, I won’t use it for free. I’ll give you fifty bucks for a rental fee. That’s more than generous, isn’t it?”
I had to laugh. Fifty dollars to rent a bag worth tens of thousands?

1
It was ten o’clock at night when “The Water Cooler,” our company’s unofficial group chat, lit up.
A message tagged me directly.
“@LilyLin-Design, that Hermès bag of yours, isn’t it a limited edition?”
The sender’s profile picture was a polished corporate headshot, her name listed as “Mandy Wang - Sales.” She was the company’s ace, consistently ranking number one in performance. Her every word and action carried an air of absolute authority.
The chat instantly buzzed to life.
A girl from Admin posted a star-eyed emoji: “Wow, Mandy’s taste is always top-tier!”
Another salesperson chimed in: “Any bag would look a level up on Mandy!”
I stared at the screen and said nothing.
Mandy, it seemed, had little patience.
A second message followed on the heels of the first.
“I have a major gala next weekend and I’m in desperate need of a bag. Yours is just sitting there anyway, so lend it to me. I need to make an impression.”
Her tone wasn’t a request. It was a notification. As if lending her the bag was a privilege she was bestowing upon me.
A few of her cronies in the chat started to hype her up.
“Come on, Lily! Mandy herself is asking, you have to say yes!”
“Yeah, the fact that Mandy even noticed your bag proves you have good taste.”
I looked at the messages, my fingers tapping out two words before I hit send.
“No.”
The chat fell dead silent.
The peanut gallery that had been so vocal moments before was suddenly mute.
After a full thirty seconds, Mandy’s icon popped up again.
This time, it was a thirty-second voice message.
I pressed play, and her sharp, grating voice drilled into my ear.
“Well, well, Lily, aren’t you a petty little thing? We work in the same company, we see each other every day. What’s the big deal with helping a colleague out?”
“Do you have any idea who I am in this company? You’re new, you should have asked around. Me asking to borrow something from you is me giving you face.”
The message cut off, and another one started.
“Don’t worry, I won’t use it for free. I’ll give you fifty bucks for a rental fee. That’s more than generous, isn’t it? That’s enough to cover your take-out for a few days.”
Fifty dollars.
I was so taken aback by her sheer, unadulterated entitlement that I laughed out loud.
A bag worth tens of thousands, and she thought she could brush me off with fifty bucks.
I was about to type back, to inform her just how many zeros were in the bag’s price tag, when another message from her appeared. This one was text, dripping with menace.
“Don’t be ungrateful. I’m giving you a chance here. You’re new. Getting on my good side will make your life a lot easier.”
“Besides, that bag of yours is probably gathering dust. I’m doing you a favor by taking it out to see the world, and you even get a free meal out of it. What’s not to like?”
“It’s just a bag. Why are you being so cheap? Think about the big picture.”
I stared at my phone, my expression growing colder by the second.
It wasn’t just a bag.
It was the only thing my mother had left me.
Just then, a few private messages came through.
One was cautionary: “Lily, Mandy runs this place. You’re new, don’t cross her. Your life will be hell.”
Another was supportive: “She’s insane. Fifty bucks to rent a Hermès? The audacity!”
I ignored them all and replied directly to Mandy in the group chat.
“First, my bag is not for loan, especially not to you.”
“Second, my bag has probably seen more of the world than you have.”
“Third, keep the fifty bucks. Buy yourself a clue.”
After sending those three messages, I didn’t bother to look at the chat’s reaction.
I knew I had just made a powerful enemy.
Sure enough, less than a minute later, my private messages were bombarded by Mandy. All voice notes, each one seething with rage.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean, Lily!”
“How dare you talk to me like that in the group chat? Are you trying to get fired?!”
“Fine. You’re good. Just you wait!”
I blocked her.
And the world went quiet.
I thought that would be the end of it.
But just before I went to sleep, Mandy tagged me one last time in The Water Cooler. Since I had blocked her DMs, she resorted to shouting in public.
“Lily, be in my office tomorrow morning. We’ll have a chat, face to face.”
“Don’t make me come down to the design department to ‘invite’ you myself.”

2
The next morning, I had barely clocked in when my department director called me into his office.
Director Lee was a man in his forties, usually all smiles. Today, however, his expression was grim.
“Lily, did you have some kind of conflict with Mandy Wang from sales?”
I nodded. “She wanted to borrow my bag. I said no.”
Director Lee sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Mandy is an incredible salesperson, but her personality is… a bit aggressive.”
“She called me first thing this morning. Said you were a new hire with an attitude problem, that you don’t know how to respect your seniors.”
I stayed silent, waiting for him to continue.
“Look, the client she’s meeting next week is critical to the entire company. She just wants to represent us well, make a good impression. That’s why she wanted the bag.”
“So why don’t you just…”
I cut him off. “Director Lee, that is my personal property. It has nothing to do with the company. And that bag has immense sentimental value. It cannot be lent out.”
My polite but firm refusal clearly irritated him. His face soured.
“Fine. Handle it yourself. Just don’t let a petty issue like this affect your work.”
I walked out of the director’s office and headed straight for the sales department.
Mandy’s office was at the end of the hall. It had a glass wall, and I could see her inside, leisurely painting her nails a shade of bright red.
I knocked.
She glanced up, looking at me as if granting an audience. “You’re here.”
She blew on her freshly painted nails, not bothering to lift her head.
“You wanted to see me, Mandy?” I asked, getting straight to the point.
Mandy pulled a beautifully wrapped box from her drawer and pushed it across the desk toward me. “Here. For you.”
I didn’t move.
She finally deigned to look at me, a smirk playing on her lips. “Go on, open it. It’s the latest perfume. I had someone bring it back from Europe for me. You can’t even buy it here.”
“You’re a young girl, don’t be so stingy. The way you spoke in the chat yesterday made things so awkward for everyone.” She glossed over the incident, as if she wasn’t the one who had been throwing a tantrum.
I still didn’t move. I just watched her perform.
Seeing my lack of response, her patience began to wear thin. She steered the conversation back on track.
“Let’s talk business. The bag. Have you reconsidered?”
“Let me be clear. The client I’m meeting is the founder of the L&M Group. If I land this account, the company’s revenue for the year is secured. This is huge for everyone here. As an employee, you should be willing to contribute to the collective good, right?”
She was trying to wrap her selfish desires in the flag of corporate interest.
I finally spoke, my voice cold. “It’s my personal property. It has nothing to do with the company.”
Mandy’s face fell instantly, the facade of friendliness vanishing. She shoved the perfume bottle toward me again, her voice rising.
“Lily, don’t push your luck! The profit I generate in a single month could buy ten of your stupid bags! Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I’m telling you now, you’re lending me that bag. You don’t have a choice!” She stood up, looming over me, her voice laced with threat.
“If I want to make someone’s life in the design department a living hell, believe me, I have my ways. You think a fresh-out-of-college brat like you can fight me?”
I looked at her face, twisted with rage, and I suddenly smiled.
I reached out and picked up the exquisitely packaged perfume.
A triumphant grin spread across Mandy’s face. She thought I’d finally caved.
“There, you see? If you’d just…”
Before she could finish, I let my hand go slack.
The bottle of cheap perfume she claimed was “impossible to find” arced through the air and landed with a distinct clink in the trash can beside her desk.
The smile froze on Mandy’s face.
I looked her dead in the eye and said, enunciating every word, “My things, even my trash, are not for you to touch.”
Then I turned and walked out without a backward glance.
Behind me, I heard her enraged shriek and the sound of things being violently swept off her desk. As I reached the door, I heard her snarling into her phone.
“Hello, Director Lee? That new girl, Lily Lin, has a serious attitude problem! Yes, her! Zero respect for her seniors!”

3
Mandy didn’t confront me again in the following days, but my life at the company became significantly harder.
The design project I was in charge of was for none other than Mandy’s “L&M Group.” It was a massive account, and nearly all the company’s resources were being directed toward it.
But my work was being blocked at every turn.
The data I needed from Admin was perpetually “in processing.” For three days straight.
The samples I requested from Purchasing were suddenly “out of stock” from the supplier, with no new shipment until next month.
Even the printer seemed to have a personal vendetta against me, jamming every single time I tried to use it.
My colleagues in the design department saw it all, but no one dared to say a word. They just gave me sympathetic looks.
Director Lee called me in once more, hinting that I should try to “make peace” with Mandy.
My only response was, “It wasn’t my fault. I won’t apologize.”
He gave up on me after that, adopting a hands-off approach.
I ignored the petty sabotage and poured all my energy into the design proposal. I knew it was my only chance to prove myself.
Friday was the final project review.
I walked into the conference room, my arms full with a thick binder of schematics and a physical model.
As head of sales, Mandy was, of course, present. When she saw me, a malicious smile curled her lips.
Ten minutes before the meeting started, I went to the breakroom for a glass of water. On my way back, I ran into someone right at the conference room door.
It was Mandy.
She was holding a steaming cup of coffee. It tilted, and the entire scalding contents spilled directly onto the design proposal in my arms. The white paper instantly soaked up the dark brown liquid, wrinkling and warping.
“Oh my god! Lily, I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to!”
Mandy’s mouth said sorry, but her eyes showed no remorse. She even made a show of grabbing a napkin. “Here, let me help you clean it up…”
Her hand smeared across the wet pages, transforming the soaked drawings into a blurry, indecipherable mess.
The room was utterly silent.
Everyone stared. Director Lee’s face was so dark it looked like it was about to storm. Everyone knew how important this project was. With the proposal destroyed, weeks of work had just gone down the drain.
They all thought I was finished.
Mandy’s eyes gleamed with triumph, waiting for my inevitable breakdown.
But it never came.
I just stared at her, my face a blank mask, as she finished her little performance. Then, I reached into my laptop bag and pulled out a USB flash drive.
“It’s a good thing I have a backup,” I said, my calm voice echoing in the quiet room.
The smile on Mandy’s face froze solid.
I walked past her and whispered, so low that only she could hear, “By the way, Mandy, I think they just installed a new security camera in the breakroom. HD. With audio.”
I saw the color drain from her face. For the first time, her eyes flickered with genuine panic.
During that review, I delivered a flawless presentation using my digital backup. My design concept and proposal received unanimous approval from all the senior executives, including the Vice President who had flown in from headquarters specifically for the meeting.
When it was over, Mandy was the first one out of the room, practically stumbling over her own feet.
Back at my desk, my phone buzzed.
It was a text from an unknown number.
“I need that bag tonight.”
“Or next time, it won’t be coffee I spill on you.”

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