'AITA for reporting my coworker for cheating in the company competition?' 'What’s your secret?' UPDATED

"AITA for reporting my coworker for cheating in the company walking competition?"

At our last company meeting they announced there would be a step competition. Participation was voluntary, if the average number of steps is greater than or equal to a 5K per day all participants get a Friday half day. The person with the most steps overall wins an Apple Watch. We would log our steps during work days only for 20 days.

I've been in a funk lately and was glad for an excuse to get back into my fitness routine. I love running and asked if steps from running could be counted. Matt, who volunteered to manage the competition said it did.

My goal was 20,000 steps a day thinking this would easily put me in the lead but on day 1 this guy Dave posted 23,000. I sent him a message on teams, saying something along the lines of “it’s on!” The next day I put up 24,000. He answers back with 25,000. Another coworker Jenna also joined in. The 3 of us started having daily chats about our workouts.

By week 2 it’s looking certain 1 of us will win and the whole group is absolutely getting a half day off work. Then I checked the log and out of no where, Tiffany, who’d been posting 10-15,000 per day, posts 65,000 steps.

For perspective, a marathon I ran resulted in 52,000. So I’m skeptical but also, maybe Tiffany ran a casual ultra marathon on a workday? Who knows. I sent her a teams message “That’s a lot of steps, what’s your secret?”

She said she plays volleyball and wanted to count the steps from her games but can’t safely keep her phone or watch on her to keep count. To solve this problem, Matt looked up a chart online that gives a step equivalent for other activities. Ex: volleyball = 89 steps per minute Tennis = 133 spm Etc.

Fair enough but the math still ain’t mathin so I said “wow, you must have played for like 8 hours!” Her reply “well I also road my bike." Now this is where I call BS so I clarified “you counted riding your bike?” Turns out she didn’t just use the chart for volleyball, she used it to count everything she did and convert it into steps.

Bike riding, stretching, yoga, washing the dishes. All great but those are not STEPS. This seemed pretty lame to me and I just said “I don’t think that’s really in the spirit of this competition." And immediately went to Matt to ask about this chart. Specifically if bike riding counted towards steps.

He said bike riding didn’t count, it was too different and also unfair since not every employee has access to a bike. I thanked him for clarifying and told him that Tiffany may also need some clarification.

Not 2 minutes later I get this message from Tiffany “Really, you complained about me? That’s actually not in the spirit of the competition. I lost a pet recently and have been so depressed.

I’ve been struggling to lose weight and I was so proud of my steps from yesterday! Not everyone can be a marathon runner like you, really uncool." I knew I was being a little cheeky going to Matt but Tiffany’s message really took me by surprise. Am I the ahole?

Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:

Big_Flamingo4061 said:

Your company is the ahole for making you all compete against each other for a measly half day off.

plaignard said:

NTA. Digesting ice cream also uses calories, doesn’t mean I should convert that into steps.

Top_Diamond5312 said:

NTA. She’s cheating and she knows it. You called her out for everyone’s benefit. The minute the bike riding went in there, it became ludicrous.

Ghostthroughdays said:

NTA. OP didn’t complain about Tiffany. She asked for clarification what could be counted and recommended that Tiffany gets information what can be counted.

StragglingShadow said:

NTA. A walking contest is a walking contest. Not a fitness contest. You don't get to convert activities into steps like that. That's cheating. Cheating is an asshole move, especially when prizes are involved. You going to the ref and calling foul is Fairplay when someone is cheating.

juliabelleswain said:

NTA. My job did the same thing last winter and we had one jerk who 100% ruined it for everyone else by doing that. Same deal: he logged yoga, stretching, vacuuming, laundry, everything, and was tossing in 50k+ every day. It legit makes it no fun for anyone else.

UPDATE:

So the feedback on my last post made me feel like less of an ahole for sure but what happened next definitely got rid of any remaining guilt I may have had. Tiffany won the steps competition.

After I spoke with Matt he tried to clear things up with Tiffany but in his words she was “combative and rude” so he ended up looping in our HR rep, Jill. Jill decided that Tiffany could keep her 65,000 steps and the rules would just be clarified for everyone going forward.

Well going forward Tiffany continued to post 35,000-40,000 steps every single day. Less ridiculous then 65,000 but still ridiculous considering we all sit at desks 8 hours day. It was still a tight race between the 4 of us, because we (Dave Jenna and I) had been posting higher then Tiffany prior to the 65,000 step day.

Then Dave got sick. He only posted 4,000 one day and that was enough for him to fall too far behind. Then I had something urgent and time consuming come up at work and only got 10,000 steps that day. That was enough for me to fall too far behind too.

So it was basically up to Jenna at that point and she was really working for it. Even got up at 4am the last couple days of the competition to try and max out steps. The highest she ever got to was about 41,000 and in the end Tiffany beat her by about 250 steps overall.

Tiffany had zero issue happily accepting her award at the next company wide meeting and gave this super annoying speech about how “everyone did so great” and how in the end she’s “just glad we all became more active and healthy.”

I never responded to the message she sent me about being depressed about her dog or whatever. At the end of the day, this is my job and I’m not trying to get into some messy and weird fight over an Apple Watch and an extra 4 hours on a Friday.

Here's what top commenters had to say about the update:

schattentanzer said:

I gave up a walking competition due to similar abuse of the competition. The amount of steps per day being posted was 80K-100K by a couple people in a particular department. NOT POSSIBLE! No one is working eight hours a day and walking over 40 miles as well. I complained. Nothing was done. Shoulders were shrugged saying it was fine.

Feeling_Week_8575 said:

Everyone in your office should be pissed at Tiffany for cheating. It's slightly (but not fully) out of HR realm, but gossip gets around at any company. There are rarely any secrets, you don't have to spread them for everyone to know.

Meta2048 said:

35-40k steps per day is ridiculous, especially if you're sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day. You'd almost have to be in constant motion every minute that you aren't sleeping. I'm pretty sure even people like David Goggins, who does ultra marathons, doesn't get 40k steps in every day.

Fntsyking655 said:

NTA, as a manager myself, I can understand why Matt seemingly chickened out as few people, even management are paid enough to deal with people like Tiffany. I would just not participate in the next competition and make it clear that it was because certain people cheated in the last competition but name no names.

Cynical_Cat13 said:

Still NTA- but I'm petty enough to post bogus steps as well. If cheating is allowed then game on. You all let Tiffany win and she'll continue to manipulate people.

No_Profile_3343 said:

Ugh, you and your friends are the winners here. You know what it really takes to preservere! I’d avoid here as much as possible going forward. NTA.