I’m the manager at an office job so all of my employees are pretty well acquainted. We all generally get along and they know that they can come to me with work related issues. I’m an easygoing boss, it’s obvious to them. 

For Valentine’s Day, everyone brings in some snacks to kind of celebrate the day. Usually stuff like brownies or cookies. I thought it would be funny to get the bean boozle jelly belly beans as a prank since basically everyone was bring something. I bought a few boxes of the beans and spent an hour or so picking through them and tasting which beans were regular and which were the nasty ones. Definitely wasted a lot of the nasty ones but oh well lol. They weren’t that bad, so I didn’t think anyone would react the way they did. 

I wrapped up around 20 jelly beans per person in Valentine’s Day plastic bags. There’s 9 people in my office. Valentine’s Day comes and I pass them out while work is slow and everyone came to the break room to snack on everything else there was. I told everyone happy Valentine’s day, that I appreciate them, and to enjoy the jelly beans. I saw a few people eat the beans and made weird faces which I thought was hilarious, and then they put them down lol. Eventually everybody was eating them around the same time. One worker came up to me and said he thought it was the funniest thing ever. Then, another worker that was sitting at a table says “what the fuck is this, throwawayquestions220?” 

I was honestly shocked, not only because of the attitude but because he cursed at me over a joke.. Next thing I know, three more people are complaining. A few people were laughing and some didn’t care, but it seemed like the majority of the break room was mad at me. I told everyone it isn’t a big deal while laughing, and I got a lot of stank faces and scoffs. After a few minutes everyone cleared out except the guy who was laughing with me. 

Now a few days have passed and people are acting resentful towards me. Not really engaging in friendly conversation, only work related bullshit. One worker keeps bringing it up and complaining, it’s been so annoying. I’ve thought about transferring him because he’s been such a downer about it. 

Anyways, AITA for this harmless prank? 