I caught 20 crabs from my last fishing trip and only ate 12 of them before my competition this weekend. The other 8 were still alive and since I'd be out of town, didn't want them to be dying on me before I got back. I got my coworker A to take care of them, but then I just remembered my 2nd coworker B has kids who love sea animals and I'm close to them because I show them a lot of interesting critters every month so I thought it'd be a good idea to let coworker B take them home so her kids would be excited.

So 24 hrs later as I'm getting rejected by the athletic trainer from my other thread I posted about, I call my coworker up and she told me she let them go because she couldn't handle seeing them suffer. I'm fkin livid, but I didn't want to blow up over the phone so I just asked whether the kids liked them... FK!!!!

-These were NOT her possessions
-She did this WITHOUT my consent
-She just DECIDED to do w/e she wanted with them as if they were hers to do so!
-Total lack of respect for other people's belongings and utter selfishness with her own feelings
-She did NOT contact me what to do, or even let me know what she was going to do - she waited for ME to find out!!!
-She should've just brought them back to the lab and let my coworker A look after them

My predicament:
Now I REALLY like this coworker because I admire her as a researcher. I don't have respect for many people in life, but she is one of them. Now I don't know what to do!!! I want to lash out, but I probably need to stay professional. I want to punish her for ruining my stuff without my consent and then waiting for me to find out myself. WTF was she even thinking?!? Did she think I'd be ok with that, "Ok, I'm just gonna do w/e I want with Ninshark's sh*x." Holeefkin sh*x brah!!! What do I fkin do?!?! Get revenge and make enemies with my coworker?? Be spiteful and end my mentoring relationship with her kids?? How am I gonna get over this disrespect?!? damx!!!

***update***

So I confronted her today and was as patient as kind as possible. I rate my performance a 5/10 for average, not bad and not good, just ok and acceptable.

First thing I said when I walked in:
Ninshark: Why did you get rid of my crabs? *pause* You know, I'm really unhappy about that.

when notified she couldn't do as she pleases with my stuff she said:
-Yeah they were in my care and I can decide what to do with them.
when notified that she could've just brought them back to the lab to let coworker A take over she said:
-Yeah I could've, but I didn't.

She continued to say shocking things like:
"Want to bring this up to the boss??"
"Want me to pay you for them and then never talk to me ever again?"
"I don't have time for this, can you just leave my office?!"
"Leave my office, RIGHT NOW!"
"You asked ME for a favor, you cannot treat me like this!"
"If you wanted me to do what you wanted, you should've PAID me!"

F&CK...THIS...B*XCH!!!

I'm so disillusioned and speechless. This was someone I really admired, for 2 years, and all of a sudden she's a total b*XCH!!! WTF man!!!

Bend her over and assert your dominance over her.

srs answers please, this could be any situation, not just this one, how do I go about resolving when someone messes my stuff up disrespectfully and forgiveness seems almost out of the question?

Yes, stay professional. Don't get revenge. Don't make enemies. However, this type of disrespect, I would not let slide either.

Instead, review your original agreement with her. Ask her if she understood your full agreement you intended to pick them up upon your return. Tell her she really let you down making unauthorized decisions with your property on your behalf with failure to obtain your consent.

And that moving forward you expect better judgement from her, especially when it comes to being considerate of other people's property, otherwise you will have to reduce contact with people who've proven themselves to be untrustworthy.

Don't let her get away with trying to downplay it with "it's just crabs" either. Any single act of disrespect, if not stopped in it's tracks, will likely lead to further, future acts of disrespect. Convey this is a breach of trust issue, that she really disappointed you, it's impacted your professional view of her and if she really wants to make amends, she will have to earn your trust back, surely and slowly.

wish I could rep you, but I'm on spread. Good answer bro. I will think carefully about what to say, try to maintain work relationship while letting her know I was really hurt by this and could lead to declining trust.

Send her an invoice for the cost of the destroyed items

What Rattlesnake said and this.

She probably was an animal rights type. As you stated, "has kids who love sea animals" and didn't want to see them eaten after possibly getting attached to them.

good guess, but she is not super liberal (she is moderate, so maybe she has some amt support for animal rights) and they know I'm going to eat them. You could be right about them growing attached since they've never had my animals in their house for so long, but I have shown them animals maybe 10x already, a few times a month since August. They're usually some sort of fish or live crustacean, and I believe they know I'm going to eat them because I always tell them (who knows though). I think she got freaked out and panicked, making a terrible and rash decision, but she has to face consequences regardless...

Dude, you have to bring that up, she clearly doesnt respect your stuff and took her own ideology as justification to do as she pleases.

Imagine leaving a dog with her and her taking it upon herself to feed the dog what she felt was right and it got sick or something.

Want to really know why she did that? Because some beta like you in a previous relationship never told her that was wrong. Youre about to do the same validation that shes allowed to impose her viewpoints on anything in her periphery, including your chit. Doesnt end here.

Exactly, except, I'm not a beta.

*UPDATE ABOVE.

And you didnt think to record this? FFS perfect opportunity blown

FML man... I was going to do it, SERIOUSLY, I was going to do it, but as I was walking to her office to confront her, I left my phone at my desk and decided, "eh it's prob not gonna be that crazy anyway." I TOTALLY blew it there, you right man...

Like I said she probably got attached to them and wanted to keep them from being eaten. I’ve been in the animal rights movement so I’ve seen and experienced what you’re talking about on the other side. People will break the law and go into labs and release animals out into the streets. They aren’t their property but groups like ALF work underground because they believe an animal’s life is more important.

I would just drop it and move on.

ok that's making more sense to me now. Still hate her though, she should go kill herself...

this is very ridiculous to me on her part to have the nerve to "set them free" without even letting you know first or running it by you.

especially if you two know each other fairly well and she knows that this is something you're passionate about and do regularly (you mention you show her kids interesting sea creatures sometimes)

so to me she's disrespecting the whole friendship and then getting defensive afterward makes it even worse. if her reaction was "my kids got all upset and i let them out in the heat of the moment i'm sorry" it'd be different. otherwise, unfortunately if i were you i'd just take the L on this and never really talk to her again. she's the jerk here IMO but there's not much else to do or say especially at work.

Really awful.

I would be firmer with her in the future since she sounds as awful as the typical woman. I used to work with some dudes who would simp for unimpressive female researchers. It limits them

I also agree you cannot really allow this stuff to start at all, or it will gain momentum. However, many coworkers probably live without mental consistency to 'learn their lesson' from one time. You more or less need them held responsible. Working with people you like makes this less stressful than any other solution I know.

thanks for your input. Yes, pretty much everyone is saying the same thing, they feel sorry for me and think I should just take the L and move past and not talk to her anymore. It's a tough pill to swallow, but unfortunately what I have to doIt is so ridiculous brah, not only the nerve to just do w/e she pleased with them, but moreso the nerve to argue about it later as if it didn't hurt me at all or that she didn't do anything wrong at all... she sucks...thanks for the input, I wish she could learn her lesson - tbh that's all I really wanted: for her to understand that I was hurt and felt disrespected when she just chose to do w/e she wanted with my stuff without either consent or notification afterward, didn't even want the crabs back, but unfortunately I can't. There is no future instance either, because while yelling at me, she told me she'd call the police if I ever said anything distasteful to her again.