How I Met Your Mother: 10 Worst Things Lily Ever Did

After losing her passion for teaching at Kindergarten, Lily struggles to find what she wants to do in life and in the meantime works an undignified job as a waitress in a Hawaiian eatery. Ted very kindly offers her a good job as secretary at his architectural firm.

Lily doesn’t warm to her new role because her boss, Hammond Druthers, is very rude and abusive to all his staff, particularly Ted. She decides to teach him a lesson by stealing one of his most prized possessions – a baseball that was autographed by Pete Rose. She refers to it as “Aldrin Justice”, based on her experiences at Kindergarten when she would take away toys from naughty children. Lily justifies her actions because he was being mean. Druthers retaliates with the threat of firing three people an hour the next day if it’s not returned to him.

Whilst it’s great that Lily wanted to stick up for her friend, she didn’t put a moment’s thought process in hiding the ball. It’s not only very condescending to treat your co-workers like children, it’s incredibly reckless to risk everyone’s job just because you want to teach someone a moral lesson.

We also later find out Lily stole the screws of Ted’s desk chair because he (rightfully) fired her for stealing their boss’ possessions, another act of immaturity.