People Tell Us About Their Sassy Revenge Stories
14. Won't Consume "Ethnic" Food? Eat A Loaf Of Bread Then
“This happened about a year ago now when I was in high school. My calculus class was very chill. About 20 kids who were all friendly with each other, a laid-back but enthusiastic teacher, and a light enough workload that we could afford to goof off in class but still learn and do well.
At some point in the year, I got really into cooking. It’s my stress reliever. My family couldn’t possibly eat the amount of food I made, so I started bringing it into school and “hosting” Friday parties in my calc class, with my teacher’s approval of course. Now, I’m Vietnamese, and I live in a predominately white town. This is only important because it meant that most kids from town only ate American or European foods and weren’t used to eating other ethnic foods.
Last year around Lunar New Year, I wanted to bring in some Vietnamese foods to celebrate. It is a very important time of year for my family. I ended up making a bunch of Bánh Da Lợn, a steamed layer cake, and a traditional Vietnamese dessert. Some of my friends from class found out I was going to bring in a traditional dish and brought in their own traditional dishes from their own cultures, whether they celebrated the Lunar New year or not.
We had different Indian, Korean, Filipino, and Spanish desserts. It was great, and I was really excited that my friends wanted to celebrate with me.
Apparently, this was an issue for one girl in my class.
I would say Bánh Da Lợn is an acquired taste, so when not a lot of people ate it, I wasn’t offended. I knew not everybody would like it.
There was a lot of other food anyways. During our lunch period, one of my friends (who wasn’t in our class but knew I brought food in) overheard a girl from my class complaining about the food while in the lunch line. Apparently, she was saying really negative things about how I “forced everyone to eat weird Chinese foods.”
Later that day, I texted her just saying I heard she didn’t like the food and wanted to know why.
I don’t really care when people don’t like the food (I make it for myself and bring it in when I have extra anyways), but her calling it “weird Chinese foods” (when she knows I’m Vietnamese) didn’t sit right with me.
Welp, she texted back that it was rude of me to bring in weird ethnic foods that nobody would have liked except for me and said I should know better since most of the class was white.
I told her that I bring in food to share because I feel like it and that I don’t have an obligation to cater to her tastes. If she has an issue with it, she literally does not have to eat it, and other people can bring in food too, so if she wanted to, she could bring in something more to her tastes. After that, she just told me that I shouldn’t bring in ethnic and foreign foods and stick with American foods, “because we’re in America.” Excuse me?
Like? How much you wanna bet if I brought in jambalaya, which originated in Louisiana, she would call it a “weird foreign food.”
Fine. She only wants to eat American foods? Then she can eat American foods.
The next week, I brought in a bunch of Oliebol, a Dutch doughnut, and started passing them out at the beginning of class. When I got to her desk, I pulled out a loaf of Wonder Bread and plopped it on her desk, saying, “Sorry, but these are Dutch, too ethnic.
Here you go, all American cuisine.”
Later, she texted me asking what on earth my problem was, so I told her that almost every single food I brought in this year was ethnic and that it angered me she only had an issue when it wasn’t European. She’s entitled to not liking Asian foods, but if you’re going to complain about it being ethnic, then you better have that same attitude when the ethnic food is white.
And especially don’t call another person’s culture weird.
She didn’t complain about the food again.”
13. You Should Probably Read The Fine Print Next Time
Fine print is more important to read than you might have ever imagined.
“I am the landlord of some apartments in the city. I sign the lease agreements, and go over the basics with tenants, although they don’t usually want me to spend hours delving into the fine print.
99% of the time, it’s a breeze, and everything is fine.
One lady, let’s call her Karen, had been paying her rent via a new bank account and new checks for the last several months.
All of a sudden, we got several chargeback fees on our account– she had put a stop payment on the checks, and closed the account. I immediately called her.
Me: ‘Hey, Karen, it looks like your checks bounced for the last few months. I just wanted to make sure everything is ok.’
Karen: ‘Oh no! I promise I’ll get this fixed.’
Me: ‘Ok. You’ve been a good tenant in the past, so I’ll give you a month.’ Needless to say, a month passed, and she didn’t pay.
So I called her again.
Me: ‘Hey, Karen, we still haven’t received payment, so I’m afraid we’ll have to file for eviction.’
Karen: ‘Oh god no, I’m an old woman, I can’t afford to be evicted. I’m trying so hard to pay! Can you give me another shot?’
Me: ‘As long as you pay before the court date, the eviction doesn’t have to go through.’
The court date arrives, and guess who hasn’t paid yet? At court, the judge rules for a 24-hour notice to vacate. Karen, in tears, comes up to me afterward.
Karen: ‘Can you please give me another chance? I can’t afford to go anywhere else.’
Me: ‘I’m sorry, Karen, but the only way I could do that is if you paid off the debt, signed a new lease agreement, plus a first month’s rent, plus a new security deposit.
And I don’t think that’s going to happen. Goodbye.’
So I left, and I thought that was that. My maintenance guy would come in in a few days to do the inspection and clean up, and then we’d put it on the market. He shows up a few days later, and there’s a problem… they’re still there. So I call the sheriff, to schedule a set-out.
A problem, though.
According to the sheriff, the 24-hour notice was no longer valid, as we had struck up a deal afterward, so the court had reversed the eviction decision. I had no recollection of having decided that this would happen.
I called the court, and they informed me that the eviction was no longer valid, as apparently, I told the sheriff that I was giving her more time, invalidating the decision, etc.
What happened was that Karen had called the sheriff, and told him that the court had reversed the decision, because of a non-existent deal. She had then called the court and told them that the sheriff could not evict her, as I had waived the notice. And she had used my words- twisting my denial of an extension into a deal.
I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt.
I sent Karen a copy of a new lease agreement, asking for the debts, in addition to rent for the first month, and a new security deposit. Her lawyer then contacted me – yes, she had the finances to hire a lawyer, somehow – informing me that, in fact, her old lease agreement was still valid, as my ‘deal’ (you know, the one that would require a NEW lease agreement) invalidated the eviction decision.
So I filed for eviction, on the grounds that she had not paid for several months now, 5 to be exact, and therefore had invalidated her old lease agreement.
And then, I read her old lease agreement. I already know these contracts pretty well, but as I said, I don’t usually delve into the minutiae. This time, I did. We show up at court. Karen has her lawyer.
Karen is bursting, grinning like a fool, like she’s won the lottery. Her lawyer looks fairly happy as well. The judge asks me to speak.
Me: ‘I would like Karen to leave the apartment, but she is refusing, despite the fact that according to the court’s last decision, she should have left over a month ago now.’
Judge: ‘And, Miss Karen?’
Lawyer: ‘Miss Karen cannot be ejected from her home without a new notice.
Yes, she has not yet paid past due rent, however, she and the Landlord struck up a deal, giving her the time she needed to pay via verbal agreement. This deal made directly after the last court date invalidated the last decision, so Miss Karen will require a new decision, and therefore, a new notice before she can rightfully be evicted from her home. Until then, her lease agreement is still valid (insert legal crap).’
Judge: ‘And Landlord? What do you have to say?’
Me: ‘Well, your honor, I have to agree. They have made a very, very compelling argument. Karen and I did indeed make a deal, giving her the time she needed to pay. And yes, her old lease agreement is still valid, I guess. Well, according to the terms of the still valid lease, there are some additional things that the court needs to be aware of, that I’d like to go over for clarification.
I’m sure you have a copy, your honor?’
Judge: ‘Yes, I do.’
Me: ‘And you have a copy, Lawyer?’
Lawyer: ‘Yes, I do.’
Me: ‘Excellent. Well, your honor, if you look at section 4, subsection A, on page 2, you will see that after 10 days of nonpayment, a late fee of $100 is applied. If you continue reading to subsection B, you will see that after 15 days of nonpayment, additional late fees of $10 per day are applied, until full payment is rendered.
If you continue to subsection C, you will see that failed payments necessitate a chargeback fee of $50 per failed payment. If you will continue, your honor, to page 4, section 7, subsection F, you’ll see that if a tenant is in any way responsible for a loss of rent, including leaving an apartment in less than move-in ready condition, failed payments, or, lastly, refusal to vacate in the case of an eviction, the tenant is responsible for payment of said loss of rent, in addition to any other debts owed. In addition, on page 8, section 14, subsection A, you’ll note that the tenant is responsible for any and all legal fees resultant from the eviction process, including attorney’s fees, such as for the attorney I hired to help me review this lease agreement.
Finally, on page 10, the last page, section 17, subsection B, you will see that the tenant is responsible for all HVAC services rendered on their unit. As we sent in a company to fix the unit in Karen’s apartment at her request, we have the invoice here for the replacement unit – in addition to the totals for all of the fees listed.’
At this point, the lawyer has gone completely pale – it’s clear that he was more concerned that I would fight the whole ‘deal’ thing, than the terms of the lease he thought he’d have to fight to keep valid.
Karen looks utterly shell-shocked, her mouth slightly agape, like a child confused by a game of peek-a-boo. The judge, meanwhile, is completely unfazed, until I hand her the invoice, alongside my maths, a spreadsheet, and a piece of paper with the total debt owed circled and highlighted at the bottom of the page. Her eyes widen to the size of her mouth, as her jaw dropped with an audible gasp.
Me: ‘As you can see, your honor, the total owed is in excess of $16,000. I will happily accept the payment in the form of a cashier’s check. I’d hate to have to charge yet another $50 fee for failed payment, should another personal check bounce.’
Judge: ‘Lawyer, do you have anything to say?’
At this point, the lawyer looks like he’s about to pass out.
Karen seems to have stopped breathing. The judge remains silent for a moment and then collects herself.
Judge:’ I’m afraid you’ll have to address that matter of debt in a different court than this one, Landlord. We are here only to judge whether Miss Karen is to be evicted from her home today.’
Me: ‘Oh, if she wants to stay, I’d be happy to let her.
As long as she agrees to continue to abide by the terms of the lease agreement, specifically those clauses outlined above. And pays the debt owed today.’
Judge: ‘I’m going to rule for a 24-hour notice to vacate unless Miss Karen can produce payment at this moment.’
Karen sits, still, quiet, speechless even.
Her lawyer is eyeing the window, I like to think contemplating his decisions in life that led him to this point.
Maybe thinking about jumping, I don’t know.
Judge: ‘Right, a 24-hour notice to vacate. And, Landlord?’
Me: ‘Yes?’
Judge: ‘You’ll want to file those charges in small claims court… or a higher court, if it exceeds the amount that you can legally pursue in small claims.’
Me: ‘Already filed, your honor.’
The case has now been resolved, and needless to say, I got a fairly significant bonus, in addition to a slight raise.
I then used the terms of her old lease to get a payout of (at the end of it all) about $20,000, and my boss gave me a big chunk of it as a bonus. Boom.”
12. Can't Fix My IT Issue? We Need A New CTO
“I just want to state that this IT issue is going blow some people’s minds. The security flaw that this presented was nothing short of incredible. And the fact that we never had a major security breach is astounding. It truly is.
The flaw you may ask…
Everyone in the entire company password was the same password. Yes, folks, you read that right: every single password to every single employee login was the same password.
It was like this before I joined the company and for quite a few years after.
Now what about the username?
That must be the trick right?
Oh yea, that was a trick: the username was the employee’s email address.
I did point out this flaw to my management, and their response was, “That’s not our area to be concerned about,” so whatever; it paid well, so I’ll do my job.
And then one day, we had a Windows update which caused a piece of the software I used at work to break. I submitted a help ticket, and after escalating this issue, I got to the CTO (it wasn’t a huge company).
The CTO said, “I don’t want to spend the time fixing this. Use this workaround,” to which I pointed out the workaround slows things down, makes my job harder, and this Windows update has to affect more than just me.
I was told to******* up.
Now at the time, the CEO was the son of the founder and a bit of a doorknob. I legit feel at this point in time, he was just collecting a paycheck and letting everything run on auto and didn’t pay attention.
But I was mad at the CTO for brushing me off, so I penned an email to the CEO.
It was a short email I simply said:
“I discovered a massive security flaw that could potentially expose us to huge liabilities. When would be a good time to discuss this?”
The response? What security flaw?
I decided to demonstrate the flaw. I picked two random salespeople (I didn’t know them). I got their username, and I logged into their systems. and I pulled two random customers’ personal information.
The kind of information that would have easily allowed me to commit identity fraud, pull out credit in their names, etc., all kinds of bad stuff.
I emailed the CEO, and I explained, “Anyone who knows the URL to log into our system, can log into anyone’s account, pull up customers’ information, and everyone has the same password. To prove this, I logged into two employees’ random accounts and pulled two different customer profiles, and I’ve attached them.
One single disgruntled employee could screw us over.”
25 minutes later, my phone rings. It was the CEO, he was nice and very interested in how I did this (this guy isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer), and I pointed out the flaw in plain English and the liability that it presents to him. I walked him through the process of “hacking” my own account as he called it.
I’d hate to call it “hacking” ’cause it was so easy.
Now it dawned on this CEO that this liability was huge. I pointed out again in our conversation a single upset employee could destroy us. The fact that it hadn’t happened already is nothing short of a miracle.
I get told they want me to present this to the executive team, so they can discuss a solution (honestly, the solution is freaking obvious).
So a day later, we have the conference call. It’s the CEO, the CTO, COO, CFO, the company lawyer, the senior VP, etc., and on the call. I demonstrate the flaw, and I lay out how I as a layperson with very little IT background am able to figure this out and that it’s incredible that we have this flaw. Everyone is in agreement that is a HUGE ISSUE.
Except for the CTO.
The CTO gets very, upset at me he wants me fired for “hacking” the system he says that per our employee handbook what I did is a firable offense. I point out that I’m not abusing this loophole, and I’m only doing it to expose the flaw because I care about the company, and I think this is something that needs to be brought forward.
I point out that a former disgruntled employee could log into an account and steal customers’ personal information and if that were traced back to us the liability would be huge. I could tell our Corporate attorney agreed with me and was shocked at what I was demonstrating.
The CTO pointed out that former employees’ usernames are disabled to which I pointed out that every employee username is their email address, and it would be trivial for a former disgruntled employee to use a different employee email address that they remember to log in, and since everyone’s password is the same, they don’t even have to guess.
The CTO points out that we would know who did it cause of the IP address. I pointed out that VPNs are indeed a thing. The corporate attorney actually wasn’t familiar with what VPNs do, and I explained it.
And what shocked me is that the whole time, the only person in the meeting who didn’t agree that this flaw needs to be changed was the CTO.
The CEO made it clear that this issue would be fixed by the end of business that day, and there were no ifs, ands, or buts about this. The meeting ended.
After the meeting the CTO called me privately, HE WAS MAD. I just exposed his incompetence because the system was his design; the decision for everyone to have the same password was his decision.
And I know why he did it: he did it cause he was freaking lazy. And I said to the CTO, “You’re a crappy CTO. You shouldn’t be in the position you are in, and you’re lazy. You should have found a better solution for my help ticket.”
He stops and asks, “So this is about your stupid help ticket?”
I go, “Yes, yes it is.” He laughs and says he’s going have me fired, and I laugh and go, “I’m pretty sure someone is getting fired. I’m also super confident that’s not going to be me.”
Well, sure enough, later that day, we got an email stating that everyone was to change their passwords to something unique.
A week later, the CEO announced that the old CTO stepped down to spend more time with his family.
On the first day of the new CTO tenure, he sent me an email telling me he wanted to personally work on my help ticket and find a solution around the Windows update, which I’m pleased to say he did.
And I later had conversations with our attorney at a meeting. We legit never had a security breach. Which is simply astounding. The attorney admitted that was just plain dumb luck on our part, and if we would have had a security breach, it would have been very bad for us.”
11. Ghost Me And Won't Give Me Anymore Shifts? I'll Give You The Worst Night Of Your Life
“So a while ago, I was working at a bistro in a pub. At this point, I’d been there for a few months and learned the entirety of where I usually got put (register and dishes). I was hired as soon as restrictions were lifted as the pub was expecting business to boom and have every man and his dog come down.
This was not the case. The pub was and still is, lucky if it gets one busy night a fortnight. So, they had more staff members hired than they needed, and most nights I was working, I was just doing basic cleaning around the area (basic sanitizing, sometimes doing the same tables three or four times a day even though we had no customers come in).
Of course, because of how slow business was, we would try to get all the cleaning done before the clock-off time, so we could leave at closing. One of our most hated things was when someone would come in 10 minutes before closing and order food (never do this to a place that serves food; you ruin their day). Because of this, the chef had a rule that no steaks could be thrown on 15 minutes before closing.
So, because of how slow business was, eventually I got let go. BUT, it’s not that simple. I was not warned that I would be let go or given notice. INSTEAD, they just stopped giving me shifts, and the head chef (my manager) blocked my number and wouldn’t answer my calls. I even called their number off a pay phone to get them to answer, only for them to hang up when they heard my voice.
Now, if I had been given notice or given a warning that I should start looking for work elsewhere, I would’ve been upset but understanding. I mean, business was slow at the time. But because they chose this path, I was furious. So, I hatched my revenge, by supporting my local pub.
I started calling a few friends and emailing others, asking them what they were doing next Thursday night.
After asking and setting a time to head out on the following Thursday, I had a group of 14 people ready to join me in my revenge. Some arrived early, though they waited for the rest to turn up. We had all assembled and went up to order at 7:35 pm, and the bistro closed at 8 pm. All but two of us ordered a steak that was at least medium well, which would’ve angered the chef enough, but we each ordered a different sauce.
All these sauces were made from scratch, so six different sauces needed to be made from scratch, and only four burners were available. And the tip of the iceberg, I ordered not only a main, but also ordered an entree, and a dessert, all of which were to be bought out at different times, meaning they had to wait until we finished our mains before they could bring out our dessert.
Now that would’ve been enough to satisfy my petty spiteful side, but I specifically got everyone to go out on a Thursday night. Remember how I said the pub got one busy day a fortnight? Well, at this time, the local football team was coming off of practice. And as we had lined up to order, they turned up behind us, and wouldn’t you know it, the majority of them also ordered steaks with the surf and turf sauce.
And because they lined up to order steaks before 7:45 pm (pub closes at 8 pm), the chef had to make them the steaks as well.
They were still taking orders from everyone who lined up behind us at 8:15. And they didn’t finish cooking orders until 9:40 at night. Around 9 pm after some of the football players sent their food back because they got the order wrong, the chef lost it and threw a frying pan across the kitchen.
The stress they went through on one of their busiest nights brought a smile to my eye and made my drink taste even better.”
10. Always Act Like A Jerk? Hope You Like Being Iced In
“I went to a boarding school in Pennsylvania for sophomore through senior year of high school.
One of the dorm monitor guys was a ROYAL butthead. Any day he was on duty was a nightmare.
He would stick you with ‘on campus only’ (a.k.a. grounded) for the littlest thing, and complaining about it got you ‘in sight’ (have to be visible, can’t hide in your room even to do homework, etc) until bedtime.
Typical ‘I’m in charge’ bullying nonsense.
One year, he got bad news right after we got back from Thanksgiving: A family member on the other side of the country was in bad shape, so he had to go take care of them (we never got the exact details).
He lived in a crappy neighborhood and didn’t trust his car to be in one piece when he got back, so he asked the school administrators if he could leave his car at the school while he was away for six weeks. They let him, the only stipulation being that he had to leave the keys with Maintenance so they could move the car if the parking area needed plowing.
He parked his car on the grass around the side of our dorm the second week of December and left.
He didn’t get back until the end of January.
Because the dorm was full of teenagers with bad ideas, the spigots didn’t have regular handles on them. Instead, they used a strange square key that was kept in the ‘office’ and was only used with permission from the dorm monitors.
However, a pair of flat-ended pliers worked well to turn the water on.
We hid a hose in the bedroom closest to the car, which was also right next to a spigot. The kid who was supposed to be in that room slept elsewhere so he wouldn’t get woken by someone coming in every 20-30 minutes, unrolling the hose, hooking it up, turning on the water, giving the car a good misting, and rolling up the hose again.
Every day, from the minute we got back from classes to the minute we had to leave the next morning, that car got misted. We even got help from a couple of kids in our classes who lived close enough to bike over during Christmas vacation. One even showed up with a lawn chair and a book so he could just stay there and mist it again as soon as the last layer had frozen over (no staff was in any of the school buildings during vacations, so he didn’t get caught).
In the middle of the night two days after we got back from Christmas vacation, I was one of the 2 people ‘on duty’ with the hose when the monitor for that night comes outside for a smoke (we didn’t know he smoked, so we thought he was in the office, which was on the other end of the building).
He sees me with the pliers in hand and asks, ‘Did you forget something?’ and holds out the spigot key.
That’s when we realized just how much royal butthead was disliked. That monitor actually offered to help ice his car during the day while we were in classes!!!
By the time royal butthead got back, the car was ENCASED in a block of ice. It had to be at least 3 inches thick.
When he complained to the administrators, they told him that because he hadn’t dropped off the keys, everyone had assumed he had changed his mind about leaving the car there.
When he went to try to get his car out of the ice, he couldn’t just attack it with a hammer; doing so would break every window and destroy the paint job.
The only way to get rid of the ice was the same way it went on: slowly. He tried using a small blowtorch, but that didn’t work because he got too impatient and tried to put the torch right against the ice, which kept putting it out.
He got the smart idea of hooking a hose to the dorm’s hot water heater. It was stalled at first because all the hoses on campus ‘miraculously’ disappeared (who needs a hose in Pennsylvania in the middle of January?). Then he was told he could only do it while we were in class because we needed the hot water for showers in the morning and evening, plus the dishwasher.
That didn’t work too well because he had a regular job he had to be at Monday through Friday, 9-5.
Weekends were out because we had to do our laundry. The line, ‘The tank can barely keep up!’ was our favorite.
He ended up running back and forth with a couple of teakettles, melting channels so he could chisel out the ice between them.
We kept turning the burner off when he left the kitchen. He stopped working for the school at the end of June.
Answering some questions –
Why was this so easy for us to do and hard for him to undo? He put the car on the north side of the building. Almost zero sun compounded by bitter cold. We couldn’t have asked for a better setup.
How long did it take him to release his car? He would pour warm water so that it would melt a channel, pour some more to melt another, then chisel out the stuff in between with a screwdriver (maintenance wouldn’t lend him a chisel and he was too cheap to buy one just for this).
Depending on where he was working, it would come off in big flakes – about the size of a playing card but no more than 1/3 the thickness of a deck.
He could only work on it when he wasn’t on shift, which was 10-15 minutes in the morning (after we went to class, but before he went to his other job) and another half hour or so at night (after we were supposed to be in bed but before he had to go home to get some sleep) so around Valentine’s day, he finally got it to the point that he could get it towed to a local car wash that could keep it indoors long enough for all the ice to melt (we had made sure to freeze it to the ground).
He had no friends who would do it for him (big surprise!) and he didn’t trust us any farther than he could throw us.
When did he quit? When the school semester was over in June. He had a contract with the school – he couldn’t quit early without a good reason and they didn’t really want to fire him. If he had left, they would have had to get other dorm monitors to cover his shifts (which means paying overtime hours) or get someone new (finding someone, full background check, certain minimum training requirements, etc.).
It would be expensive no matter what.
Why no salt, heaters, etc? Cheap jerk. ‘Nuff said. Did we get in any trouble? Pfft. NOPE. All, and I mean all the staff vouched for us (one gave us the spigot key!)”
Another User Comments:
“He’s lucky about the hot water. That would have cracked his windshield and all his windows.” thekingdomcoming
9. Force Me To Take A Random Survey? I'll Give Random Answers
“Firstly let me begin by saying I have no issues, in general, with feedback surveys.
I get them all the time via e-mail and text whenever I buy online, visit a restaurant or some point of interest, etc. I also like to smack the little smiley face button as I go through an airport.
I generally give feedback if they have exceeded or, conversely, not met my expectations. For me that’s the point – feedback should be optional, not mandatory.
However, a few years back, before they were numerous free services, I subscribed to a prominent credit check service here in the UK. It was only £7 per month and for that I got regular reports on my creditworthiness and advice on how to improve my credit rating. All good.
After a few months, I realized that, since my credit rating was OK, I wasn’t really using the service that I was paying for so decided to cancel the subscription.
After speaking with a representative (who tried to persuade me to continue my subscription for a lesser amount) I was passed to the cancellations dept.
Cue the following conversation: –
Him: Hi Mr. Jags, I understand you wish to cancel your subscription.
Me: Yes Please. I am no longer using the service.
Him: OK, we can do that. I just need to run through an exit feedback survey first.
Me. Please just cancel my subscription. I am not interested in taking your survey and I have given you the reason for wanting to cancel.
Him: I am afraid it is part of the process. We have to do the survey before we can cancel your subscription.
Me: That’s ridiculous I am not canceling because I am unhappy with the service. It is because I am not using it.
There is your feedback.
Him. I am sorry but it is a requirement.
Me: Fine.
Him: So what is the reason you want to cancel your subscription? (really!?!)
Me: Because it’s Green.
Him: Sorry?
Me: Because it’s Green.
Him: But that does not make any sense.
Me: Neither does forcing me to take a survey I don’t want to take. And I will be supplying similar random answers to all your questions.
(Slight Pause)
Him: Right. I have now canceled your subscription. You will still have use of our service up to XX date.
Me: Thank you. Goodbye.
There may be some who will say he was only doing his job and he probably was but forcing someone to give feedback before they agree to stop taking your funds is surely counter-intuitive and would rarely end in positive feedback.”
8. Trick My Brother? Deal With The Police
“This isn’t really my story but it’s my brother’s. However, since we’re very close siblings, he asked for my help to get the upcoming revenge and this is how I know this story so well.
This happened a couple of years ago when my brother was selling his brand new laptop he bought for work shortly after he graduated college with a degree in computer sciences.
He’s very, very smart. Anyways, he posted his new laptop on ‘Offer Up’ seeing as how the company that just hired him said they’d buy him an even newer computer because every employee needs this specific one and the company provides it for them.
So he gets a couple of offers. All lowballing him. It’s brand new and barely used. So he’s not having it. But this one guy, we’ll call him A, doesn’t even make an offer. Just asks if my brother uses Venmo (the money exchange app). At the time, my brother and I both used it to pay each other for phone bills and whatever else someone might owe the other person.
It’s pretty useful. So since we trust the app, he responds yes.
The guy says he’ll Venmo the full amount he was asking for, right then and there. This is a 2015 MacBook Pro and it’s around August of 2017. So this model is still one of the best on the market at the time. Worth almost $2,000. My brother was selling it for $1,500. To get $1,500 of the $2,000 would have been amazing for him seeing as how no one is gonna buy his laptop at full price from Offer Up.
My brother is stoked. He agrees, contacts the guy on social media makes the transaction and meets up with him to give the laptop to him once Venmo notified him and said, ‘A has paid you $1,500.’ My brother is satisfied and moves on with his life.
Later, over the next few days, he notices that Venmo never put the funds into his bank account and the app no longer said it was paid to him.
He called Venmo to ask them why, and they said that the funds bounced! He already gave the laptop to A! My brother is furious. He went off on them about why they would even have the app say the funds are available when they don’t even know for sure. They told him, ‘It’s a family and friends app to repay for little things,’ which only angered him more because that’s just a stupid way to say, ‘Sorry we lost the funds we said we had for you.’ So my brother tried to fix it himself.
He tried contacting A to see if it was just a simple mistake on his end. Wouldn’t ya know? A deleted his profile on Offer Up and blocked him on social media.
Just so you know – you don’t just get a degree in computer science for free. My brother is one smart dude. He asked his coworkers at his job if they were also selling a computer they bought since the company bought them all laptops.
Some were selling theirs too and he asked if they were using Offer Up. One said he was and my brother wanted to know if anyone had asked him if he used Venmo instead of making an offer. At first, he was confused as to how my brother knew that.
He said the first response he got to his post was from someone asking if he used Venmo.
His coworker never heard of Venmo before and just ignored it and waited for another offer. It all started to make sense to my brother now. This guy was scamming people for their stuff (very expensive stuff) and turning around and selling it even cheaper for a profit. So my brother sets up a little trap.
Enter little bro. Me. I just got out of the Marines and was attending college when my brother dropped this whole story on me.
I was livid. No one messes with my brother like that. So I’m already on board to get this dude. So the plan was simple.
I make a post on Offer Up for the same laptop at a similar price and wait for one, AND ONLY ONE, response. ‘Do you use Venmo?’
I was skeptical at first. My first thought was, there’s no way this guy is that dumb to use the same line in EVERY scam.
But thank God he was! Not even 20 mins after I posted on Offer Up and There. It. Was. ‘Do you use Venmo?’ I quickly text my brother with a simple ‘got him’ and he tells me exactly what to say to set up this meeting. I get out of school and we head over to the meeting together. On the way, he’s asking me, ‘should we just teach this dude a lesson?
I mean you know exactly how to mess someone upright? They taught you that in the Marines right?’ I’ve never seen my brother this angry about anything before.
But I’m on board all the way and I told him, ‘Well duh. But is it worth possibly going to prison over? I mean I’ll definitely do it. But this might bite back at us.’ (Someone had to talk at least a little sense).
My brother hearing that calmed down a little and thought it might be best to get the police involved. So we Google where the nearest police station is to the meeting place and I couldn’t believe it… A lived right next to a police station! You can’t make this stuff up. So we went into the police station and told them the whole story, showed all the evidence we had on our phones, and said we already have a meeting set up and just want to bring him in and get the property back.
They were surprisingly helpful. I didn’t think they would be that quick to help us but they didn’t even hesitate. However, they told us we couldn’t go along due to personal involvement but they will have two detectives handle it so no one gets into a physical confrontation. But we persuaded them to let us ride along so they know they got the right guy.
The revenge.
The time to meet had finally arrived. My brother is with one detective camped out up the street in a sleek black car with all tinted windows that just screamed ‘I’m a cop!’ while I’m with the officers in a patrol car down the opposite side of the street. I told the cop about my service and that I can help if needed but he insisted I stay in the car.
I told him obviously if he is in trouble, I’m gonna help. He smiled and said he understood. Meanwhile, the other detective is waiting patiently for A. A sends me a text saying, ‘Sorry I can’t meet up I don’t have enough money.’ I think oh crap, we’re losing him. We didn’t just go to all this trouble getting the police involved to back out now.
Heck no.
So I respond with ‘I can accept a payment plan. Half now half later since I’m already here.’ I’m so. Goshdarn Glad. This guy is an idiot. How much more obvious can a trap be?! He agrees and sends me (what I assume) a fake amount of $680 of the agreed $1300 and comes strolling out of his apartment head held high like he’s about to make the biggest payday ever.
I hear over the radio from the detective who’s waiting for him ‘got visual. Blue shirt, camo shorts…………………………………………. Making contact.” The silence between those two phrases was deafening. But as soon as we heard ‘making contact’ the cop I’m with FLOORS IT from our position. Flips the lights on, zips past 5 cars and sees the dude standing in front of the detective ‘making small talk.’ He jumps out and grabs the dude’s arms, puts them behind his back, and starts repeating himself, ‘Don’t fight back.
Don’t make this harder for yourself.’ Over the radio, the detective says ‘detained.’
A GOES BRIGHT WHITE AND IS SO CONFUSED AND SCARED I ALMOST POOPED MYSELF LAUGHING.
The sleek black car my brother is in drives by and I hear over the radio, ‘that’s him’ (It was my brother.)
He was so pumped our plan actually worked. Shortly followed by the detective he was with, ‘100% confirmation.
Make the arrest and bring him in.’ They were actually really surprised at how well we set this up for them and how smoothly it all went down. They didn’t have to do anything but show up and make the arrest.
Back at the station, A is being questioned by police. Meanwhile, my brother is like, ‘I just want my stuff back.’ So the cops raided A’s apartment and forced A to give back my brother’s $2,000 laptop.
Luckily, he still had it but we later learned that it was for sale on A’s new Offer Up account. Afterward, the police told my brother since he got his stuff back there was not much else they can do except give him a citation and let the court system handle the rest.
My brother sat and thought about it for a second and he WOULD NOT ACCEPT THAT.
During the questioning, he opened the door to the questioning room to find the detective and officers all turning to the door ready for a fight, then relaxing when they saw it was just him (apparently you don’t wanna just barge in unannounced, they don’t like that). But he asks the detective to talk for a second. My brother goes over the evidence one more time and literally shows him the three times in ONE WEEK that jerk has scammed people.
1) Him, 2) his coworker (who luckily didn’t fall for it), and 3) me (the setup). There’s no way this guy hasn’t been doing this for a while.
The detective agreed with my brother that it’s blatantly obvious this guy had a system in place and they decided to do more digging. Last I heard, A owes $30,000 in stolen goods and is serving time in prison.
I don’t know for how long. But it felt so good to see the satisfaction on my brother’s face.”
7. Can't Keep Your Mouth Shut? Lose Everything In Aunt's Will
“A bit of a context here. I work as a lawyer for an excellent and famous law firm here in northern Italy. My family went through some tough times; in the last 9 years, we had to face a brutal divorce with my dad having depleted every single cent he had, one of my aunts was killed because of a $180 cautionary deposit, my granddad was diagnosed with cancer, and some other stuff in the middle.
Because of that, our bonds became stronger and stronger. Must say that with “my family,” I mean my mother, her parents, and my 2 aunts. This year, both my aunts passed away. I loved them to the moon and back, but one of them was married to a complete doorknob. He always considered himself to be better and smarter than anyone else. And so were his relatives.
My aunt and her husband (I straight up refuse to call him uncle) lived in a huge house and so did his brother with his wife and son. He died around 7 or 8 years ago and left almost everything he could just to his brother and his family, completely ignoring my family because “OP’s granddad is already rich, so why should I leave anything to his daughter and grandson?” basically.
I was grieving since I really loved her and cared about her, and I already lost another aunt prior. When the notary called us to read the will, both my mother and I came out completely astonished. She left us just a few things, even though she always said she would have left us basically everything.
I don’t need the money involved that much, as I already inherited from my other aunt, and my job pays me REALLY well, but my mom always struggled, financially speaking.
It would have been a HUGE help since she doesn’t want anything from me (I tried to give her some money in the past, but she always sent them back, being stubborn as she can be). As we walked out, I pulled my cousin by my side to ask him just one thing.
Me: Hey, Cousin, listen.., I know it’s a dumb question. But, when I last saw her, I brought my aunt a little ceramic bell, shaped like a lady.
She held it to her chest all the time. I’d like to have it back; it would be a memory of her.
He, smiling at me as if I was the most stupid person on Earth, said: Yeah, sure, whatever. I don’t know what I could do with that stupid bell; take it. But don’t expect us to give you anything more. We had to sweat bullets for this will to work!
Me: I’m sorry, but what do you mean?
He realized he screwed up, so he just left. My mom went back home, and I headed back to my office to take a closer look at my aunt’s will. It was bulletproof, and the handwriting was, without any doubt, my aunt’s. So, what the heck did he mean? It took me several weeks to finally get the clue.
“As previously mentioned by my husband.” It was just this small phrase. My aunt’s husband died 7 years before, so how the heck could he mention anything? Since zombies are still nowhere to be seen, and I don’t know of any deceased person talking from his grave, I started to scan the whole will once again. Things I never noticed became as clear as the sun.
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There were missing pages. My aunt numbered them, but the second and fourth pages were missing with sentences left hanging there.
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Some of the corrections were legit, but looking closely, there were a few of them where the uncertain hand of an 81-year-old lady suddenly became stronger and more precise.
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My aunt’s husband was mentioned every time my aunt was talking about money and valuables.
He did say something about the savings, but apparently, his ties that were to be given to charity didn’t need his approval. Strange, huh?
When I talked to my mom and her parents about this, my granddad (who is 74 and still has more strength and lucidity than your average 40-year-old dude) mentioned my aunt’s husband’s will. “We don’t know what he said. His family never let us even take a look at it, and it wasn’t worth it to sue them.” I went back to the notary the next day, asking to see the will since I was a relative, and he let me but asked what was going on.
I simply said, “You’ll know soon enough.” When I read it, I started laughing so hard that even the secretary came to see what the heck was going on. I rushed back to my office and started to write everything down. Crap was about to hit the fan but not for my family.
After a few days, my mom, her parents, my aunt’s relatives, and I met once again in front of the notary.
I already told him what was happening. I could see him trying not to look disgusted as my aunt’s husband’s beloved ones walked in.
Notary: we are all here. Apparently, OP has some things to discuss with us, concerning inheritances.
You could hear a pin drop a mile away. I stood up and opened my bag. My family was smiling, my relatives were staring daggers from their eyes.
Me: As we all know, Auntie left everything to you. Nothing is wrong here, as she didn’t have any direct relationship with anyone in this room. What is wrong is the reason behind it.
I handed a copy of the will to everyone, with some parts being highlighted.
Me: As you can see, pages are missing. Some corrections are… different, to say the least. But, most importantly, my uncle is cited quite often.
This led me to his will.
At this point, my relatives turned whiter than snow. My cousin tried to stop me, telling me I couldn’t possibly use my uncle’s will, as more than 5 years passed. The notary told him that I totally could, as the allowance to contest a will is 10 years. He kept silent.
Me: He left to my aunt everything he had IF she would have left it to you as she died. You see, in our state, it’s not legal to make such a kind of contract.
So, I want to let you know that you just lost all your rights on my uncle’s will, and you are all to be sued for false declaration in public deed and attempted fraud.
They started screeching and screaming, calling me names and wishing me an obviously pleasant and late death. All because one of them wasn’t clever enough to shut his mouth. Now they lost EVERYTHING they had, since their farm, their funds, their house, and their cars were all my uncle’s.
They have been forced to leave the house they were living in, and all their bank accounts have been blocked and even their farm had to be closed since it was also my uncle’s previous activity. Since the corrections they made were actually very precise and some items (jewelry, ingots, cash) are now mysteriously missing, they even have to pay for an equal value. They had a little empire but managed to lose everything over greed and stupidity.
Ladies and gentlemen, please, listen to me. If you want to screw with someone, at least have the courtesy of not doing it with a lawyer!”
Another User Comments:
“It is so weird to me how many people turn into miserly vultures over dead relatives’ money, to the extent of being willing to destroy relationships with the rest of their family for it. Like, I get it that lots of people don’t really have a sense of closeness or duty with their relatives – I’m in that boat 100%.
But I really hope that I wouldn’t turn out to be the sort to screw family over funds I didn’t earn if an elder trusted me enough to involve me in altering their will.
I have an aunt who lied to her 5+ siblings about how much there was in their grandfather’s estate, and by all appearances after the fact took advantage of his dementia to get the will changed towards the very end, giving her the lion’s share of a considerable sum.
An outline of an early version of the will that had been shared with family not long before he went into hospice. It had all his grandchildren receiving an even split of his estate, and because there had been a lot of trust at that time, no one had really questioned how much that would come out to. She was named the executor of his will and informed her siblings before he passed that they would all – herself included – be receiving ‘only’ $30,000.
Immediately after he passed, she said she hadn’t realized how many costs there were, and they would each only be getting roughly $20,000. When the time actually came, the actual amount was about $10,000 – still nothing to sneeze at! But everyone became very suspicious when Aunt suddenly completely paid down a house valued over $200,000 that she would never have previously considered (she had not worked in over 15 years, and her husband’s income was such that they had depended on WIC and food pantries many times over the years), 3 brand new vehicles, a tropical vacation with her spouse and their adult son, etc. After a lot of infighting, the latest version of the will – drafted during a time in his life when he usually had no idea where he was or who was around him – was revealed to split the pie very heavily in her favor, basically taking 80% of each sibling’s previously outlined share and granting it to her.
Now, less than 5 years later, her savings have been utterly drained by medical issues that sprang up, and no one is willing to step up and help her or spend time with her – even if the world wasn’t on pause right now – because she burned all her bridges with her closest family, and the money she inherited is all gone because she wanted to live well beyond her means instead of making modest improvements to her living situation and saving the rest. They already had to sell one of the new cars and may have to sell the house to move into something smaller – but it’s very hard to show a home right now, and with many people out of work in our area, it’s very hard to find buyers for a place that big.
Money does such weird stuff to people. I won’t pretend to think I’d be immune to temptations, but it was still a shock as each part of the drama unfolded.” AmbiguousSkull
6. Wrongfully Accuse Me? I'll Ruin The Curve
“So, this was back in high school, 10th grade, honors chemistry.
The first day of class, the teacher spelled out the rules and some info:
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If you had an “A” going into the final exam, you do not have to take the final.
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The final is so tough that it will be graded on a curve. 75% was the highest grade EVER in 20 years.
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So, if the highest grade was 75%, then everyone would get +25% added to their score.
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Also, if you were caught copying, you received a 0% for that test and got in trouble with the dean.
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Talking during a test was OK as long as it was not sharing answers (weird rule, I’ll admit).
No problem, I thought. I love chemistry. I’ll have an A going into the final, and I will not have to take the dreaded final. It did sound scary, after all.
Trouble started with the first exam. I finished – it was not that hard – and I was bored waiting for class to end.
Being an immature 15-year-old, I whispered to the person next to me, “Look at this.”
I showed him my calculator (old days!), which had numbers 7734, which upside down looked like “heck.” I said, “That was what this test was.”
A few days later, I got my test back, “Copying: 0%. Please see me after class.”
Long story short, that “heck” joke was the reason. I took it to the spineless dean, who rescinded the 15 days of detention (I was allowed to talk, after all) but did not remove the 0%.
The teacher even admitted at the disciplinary hearing that he knew I did not copy (he said I had a 100% on that test, and no one else did), but too freaking bad; rules are rules.
So, the rest of that semester, I worked my butt off, and a week before the final, it was clear I would still fall 1 or 2 percentage points below an A.
I’d have to take the terrible final exam. All because of my immature stupidity and that 0% for non-copying.
Now, I am all for rules, but I am also for common sense and fairness. Making me take that test was really about the teacher’s ego, pride, and saving face – he admitted as much. He was actually still furious I did not get 15 days of detention for (by his admission) NOT copying!
I first talked to the principal – I offered to receive a “B” for the class and not take the final because I knew it would help others with the better curve. I did not want an “A” with other students mad at me. The principal said too bad. OK then…
I then approached the teacher, and said, “Look, you know I deserve an A.
(He nodded his head in agreement) If you make me take the final, I will get at least 95%, and I will kill the curve for everyone else.” I was a bit cocky, for sure, but I knew I could back it up. He said, “Tough, and you won’t get above 75%, Mr. Smarty Pants. No one ever has.”
Challenge accepted, and malicious compliance initiated…
I studied as usual, and I told everyone else that there was not going to be a curve for the final, and DON’T BLAME ME for what is going to happen to your grades – I am being forced to take this test.
Before the final exam, some of the students who had to take the final pleaded with the teacher (they had no doubt in my abilities as a curve wrecker), but he was one stubborn dude. No dice.
I got a 98% on the final. Everyone got 2 points for the curve adjustments, which in the past, would have been at least 25 points. Kids were angry, parents were angry meetings full of shouting and swearing were held.
Through it all, I made sure no one was mad at me – after all, I told everyone this was going to happen – before it happened!
The rest of the year, the principal, dean, and teacher were all mad at me for my “stunt” – HUH? They had to deal with a lot of irate parents, I guess.
15 years later, I found out the “75% max score” held up every year before and after me, except of course for my year.
So, in the end about 100 innocent kids got penalized so a teacher and administration could save face. I got my “A” and ended up class salutatorian.
I did feel really bad that some classmates became “collateral damage” in this drama, but I made sure they understood there were 2 easy solutions (just give me a B, or let me out of the final requirement) that the teacher and admin rejected. All the decision-makers had a chance to avoid the outcome.
After all, I was not going to purposely tank the final just to improve the curve.
My parents were involved, but this was the mid-1980s, and teachers/admin were still considered above reproach (private school also). So they did not really fight for me. In the end, it worked out, so I guess I am OK with that. But if this ever happened to my kids, my reaction as a parent would be a LOT different!”
Another User Comments:
“”If you can get an A in the class, you don’t have to take the final!”
“Nobody ever gets above a 75% on the final.”
Apparently, it never occurred to the idiot that the two might be related.” fading__blue
5. Steal My Full-Bred Dog? Lose Your Job
“I adopted a full-breed husky in the Pacific Northwest.
We named him Toby but after a while, he developed the name Real Big Toby. He wasn’t a huge husky or malamute but boy did he look beautiful and boy was his personality ‘really big.’ He had one blue eye and one brown eye which never failed to trip people out.
On top of that, he was a huge ham, loved attention, and would actually talk to you about how his day was going.
It got to the point where it was kind of stupid to put him on a leash. I would tell him to stay when I went into class for example, and he’d be passed out or getting the chicks to scratch his belly when I came out.
Every time. The dean of the college even knew him on a first-name basis and started to bring his dog into work after watching Real Big Toby do his thing.
At the time I lived in a mountain town, attended college, and was an avid mountain biker so having a dog that would happily and easily do 30 miles in a day was cool. He would follow us everywhere we went.
My mountain bike was my only source of transportation so we became very in tune with one another. He was a husky, after all, so you could tell when he ran that this was exactly what he was born to do.
Toby was such a super good boy. He listened, paid attention and never left my side. He had a seat designated for him on the deck at the local coffee shop which meant you had to walk by him and try to resist giving him a scratch if you wanted to go inside.
It got to the point where just about everyone in this fairly small town got to know Toby on a first-name basis.
Every once in a while on mountain bike runs we would get separated or Toby would just get sidetracked on the way down the hill. It was such a small town that, in the few times it happened, he was back with me by the end of the day.
The police all knew him from around town, the pound knew him so if anyone called they’d just give them my number.
One day it happened again. He got lost on the way down the hill. Only this time, he didn’t come back. No call. Nothing. For days. It got to the point where I started asking around town. If you’ve ever lived in a small town you know it’s hard to keep a secret.
After about a week, a friend says he saw Toby and tracked the guy down and gave him my number. He never called. After searching, trying to find this guy I finally got a breakthrough.
He worked at the college!
Now, I am aware of how stupid people can be when they receive an animal. Toby was RIPPED. You could see his muscles bulging out of his fur.
He didn’t have an ounce of fat on him because he was in excellent shape. I fed him mostly a raw diet and what kibble he did get was the best you could buy. The first thing out of this guy’s mouth was to tell me that he’s keeping my dog. ‘You don’t take care of him. You don’t even feed him and he’s such a good dog.
He will be better off with me,’ he said.
I became enraged.
Well, as I mentioned, he worked at the school I attended. I also mentioned the Dean hammed it up with Toby on a nearly daily basis. I didn’t mention I had the Dean’s home number, though so a call Saturday morning resulted in Toby being returned to me later that day.
This guy had the nerve to, along with Toby, bring me a 50lb bag of the crappiest store brand of dog food you could buy. ‘I bought you this so you could feed him.’ Rage.
Come to find out this guy was in charge of a research project for the school.
It was very easy to figure out where his office was. I went to his office with a plan for returning his food and chewing him out in front of his colleagues.
He wasn’t at his desk so I did the most natural thing I could possibly do… I turned the 50lb bag of dog food upside down on his desk, computer, and stacks of papers to the point where it formed a perfect mountain on top of his keyboard. Truly an awesome sight.
Knowing loose lips sink ships, I didn’t tell anyone but my close friends.
The school brought misconduct charges against me.
The hearing was in front of a board of other students and staff and well ‘I don’t know what happened to the bag of dog food. I was telling the story to a bunch of guys and one of them asked me for the bag. That’s the last I saw it.’ All charges were dropped.
The jerk that tried to steal Real Big Toby had it much much worse. 50 freaking pounds of dog food on top of your research project, as it turns out, doesn’t bode well with management. For reasons unknown, 2 days later he was fired from the college.
Not only did they fire him but put a restraining order on him and had to change the locks to the building.”
4. Homophobic Parents Have To Pay Up Thousands Of Dollars
“So back when I was fifteen, I had a “father” who we’ll call Deadbeat Joe.
Deadbeat Joe was the stereotypical deadbeat father as he almost never contacted me of his own volition, and he resisted paying my mother child support whenever he could because he hated her as she left him and took “his” baby away from him, so he took it out on me (his words not mine).
My mother, being the saint she was, never talked bad about him and tried to endorse a relationship between us throughout my entire childhood.
I did love Deadbeat Joe and would often want to spend time with him but to no avail, because he was always busy getting it on with some rather questionable women, so I was basically forgotten about by him until the few occasions when he realized he remembered that he did have an older son.
Because of that, I was raised by my mother and my stepfather (who I call Dad).
They really loved and still do love me, and they worked their butts off to make sure that I was well cared for and provided for.
Unfortunately, my family and I had to move away to another state when I was 12 which meant that my parents ended up buying a house that we moved into. Now, something to mention up to this point is that we were very poor, and my parents ended up buying a house after getting a great deal for it.
However, the house was and is very poor quality, and my parents didn’t know that, so we ended up basically getting scammed. My mother lost her job, and over time, we ended up becoming so poor that we ended up having to rely on food banks to supply us with the food necessary to survive.
Luckily (or rather unluckily), Deadbeat Joe and his new wife (who we’ll call Chris) said that they’d take me in and that they had a good, decent quality of life which my parents bought because to my mother, Deadbeat Joe didn’t really seem like the type of guy who would lie about something that big, so despite my objections (I hated Deadbeat Joe by this point), I went to go live with Deadbeat Joe and Chris plus their kids due to the fact that my real parents were about to lose our home at the time, and they didn’t want me to be homeless along with them.
At first, they were very welcoming, but after a few weeks, things started to change. Both Chris and Deadbeat Joe had lied, and they were just as poor as my parents were. Over time, Chris started to show the volatile side of herself, and Deadbeat Joe found out I was gay, which was a problem for him due to the fact that he was VERY Christian.
They both really hated how I was LGBT despite claiming otherwise as Deadbeat Joe felt that I needed mental help because he felt that being gay was an illness. They tried to force me to conform to their beliefs that being gay was wrong, but I refused, which made them VERY angry.
Chris also ended up just being horrible and manipulative to me on a regular basis as she would do things like set up a schedule for the time when us kids could do certain things, refuse to let me go to school for no good reason, threaten to isolate me from her entire family if I didn’t do what SHE wanted me to, etc.
Due to all of this, it caused me a lot of stress and anxiety over the two months I stayed there, and I would cry a lot in the corner of my room wishing that the fuses that kept breaking would set the house on fire and take me with it. It built up a lot of anger and resentment within me and all of the things that Chris and Deadbeat Joe would do and say to me.
After a while, the hostility in the house built up. Deadbeat Joe ended up taking away my phone and threatening me with knives, which culminated in me taking my phone back and running away to hide in the bushes outside of the trailer park we lived in.
The cops came, and my “parents” manipulated the situation to make it seem like I was a terrible child and they left. The next week was a living nightmare afterward as Chris and Deadbeat Joe kept trying to get a confession out of me and kept threatening me, but I held my ground and was able to leave their house and move back in with my parents.
By this point, I was seething with rage but I didn’t do anything to them as I wanted to move on. However, a month after I left her house I remembered the smug face Chris made throughout the week she kept me a prisoner in her house and kept trying to ruin my life. I decided that I hated her too much to not retaliate against her and her husband.
So that’s what I ended up doing.
I decided that I would sign Chris up for all the spam/junk mail I could find using the information I could find online and on the school directory of the school she worked at. Looking to hear the sacred word of Scientology? Signed them up! Want to hear about our crappy products that will fall apart after one use?
Signed them up! Want to see some hot, attractive women get it on with each other? Signed them up! Signed them up! Signed them up!
Next, I decided to send Chris’s family some recordings I took of some of the things that she would say to me. During my stay at Chris’s house, I had recorded the things that she was saying to me, so I had evidence to show my parents that she was awful to me.
I ended up sending those recordings to all of her close friends and family before blocking them. They were VERY bad, so it wouldn’t have surprised me if some of them ended up distancing themselves from her after listening to it.
Lastly, I decided that I would continue to make Deadbeat Joe pay my mother for what he owed her in child support. I was originally going to ask my real dad to adopt me, but after learning of how much money Deadbeat Joe had to send my mother (around $1,200 per month), I did the math and concluded out of spite that I would let my mother keep on milking him for what he was worth until I turned 18.
It’s going to be quite a bit of time before I become an adult too, as currently, I am 16, so by the time I will have turned 18, DJ will have to legally pay my mother $25,000 over the next few years of my life, which is definitely NOT something to sniff at.
I never heard back from my evil “parents” after I carried out my revenge against them, so I don’t really know how their immediate reaction to what I’d done.
However, after going back to the school directory to see if any changes were made to it, I discovered that almost all of the teacher’s info was scrubbed from the site, and my stepmother’s name was nowhere to be found.
I connected the dots, and it made me realize that I had caused an entire site-wide change, and the reason why I’d never heard back from my awful “parents” was because of how badly I had humiliated Chris, and I knew that Chris would’ve flogged Deadbeat Joe if he dared try to talk to me again.
After realizing this, I laughed so hard that I almost peed myself, and I left the school’s website. Currently, I am studying for an exam that will earn me certification in an aspect of design which is important for the field I want to get into. I am taking my education seriously, and I now have opportunities that I wouldn’t have been afforded had I stayed at Chris’s house.
I have made some new friends and have now moved on from the things that my “parents” did to me.”
3. Can't Pay Me For A Holiday? Then I Quit
Just like that, they were gone and never looked back.
“In my 20s, I was working in government contracting. The company I worked for, while they had treated me well, was unfortunately not doing well, and I was worried about being laid off.
A friend invited me to interview with the company she was working for. This new company was small but on the cutting edge and really seemed like my next big career step. During my interview, I was asked about my primary skillset (we’ll call it Skill Set A or SSA) but also another skill set (SSB) that I had little experience in. I was told that SSB would not be my primary job, but I might be tasked with a project or two on occasion.
I told them as long as they understood that my expertise was in SSA that I was happy to learn and work on expanding SSB. I received an offer 40% higher than what I was currently making. I promptly accepted the offer, put in my two weeks, and bid a fond farewell to my old company, and threw myself into my new position.
Upon starting at the new company, I discovered my job title was actually “SSB Manager.” I was assured that I would still be doing SSA work; it was just that they needed someone to fill the SSB Manager slot, and since I was going to be working on learning more about SSB, that it shouldn’t be a problem.
Though intimidated, I was young and gung ho about my career, so I decided to simply throw myself into my new job duties and be the best SSB Manager I could be. There was a lot to look forward to with my future in this company. Within the first few months, I was already being booked on business trips across the country (even told I should acquire a passport for some international trips), and we had regular company retreats and dinners to fancy local hotels and social hotspots.
The office itself was an industry nerd’s dream (imagine being a NASCAR fanatic, and your office sits on the racetrack). Also, when I asked for direction on my project, I was told that I had a full creative license to run them as I saw fit. Sounds like a dream, right?
Very quickly, the dream turned into a nightmare. I never did a single piece of work in SSA, which sucked because I really enjoy SSA work.
I did the best I could with SSB but without direction or any further training I was floundering. My project ideas were shot down, and I was scolded for not bringing more professional work to the table (again, had very little experience in this area, and they knew it when they hired me). I went from trying to stand out as a stellar employee to doing my best to be not noticed. My every move became about covering my butt.
I became depressed, anxious, and, in full disclosure, my work ethic suffered as well. What’s the point in trying hard if I can’t do anything right?
Ultimately, none of this was the fault of my co-workers or immediate supervisor. The problem came from the department VPs of the company who constantly squabbled among each other, tried to undercut each other, and shifted the focus of the company from one area to the next in short, unexplained, and unannounced bursts.
Processes were frequently changed with little to no warning, and if you happened to use an old process for something, you would be dragged into a VPs office and chewed out. The company president, while I never personally had an issue with him, seemed disinterested in reining in the VPs.
Eventually, I was transferred to a different department. I considered this a win as I would no longer be doing any SSB, and the work was a little closer to SSA.
I was placed under a manager who I got along well with on a personal level, but we butted heads professionally. Honestly, it wasn’t her fault. I’ve come to believe that the toxic work environment we were all in brought out the worst in people. The chaos of the workplace caused by the VPs was no different in the new department so my work and mental health continued to suffer.
Eventually, I reached the end of my rope. For the first time in my life, I put in my 2 weeks’ notice (in writing) without having another job lined up.
My manager was shocked and quickly became overwhelmed with the idea of taking care of my duties as well as hers (the higher-ups had no idea when they would be able to get a replacement for me).
Because I try not to be a crappy person, I told her I would stay on an extra week (I was even considering 2 more weeks) so that hopefully she would have someone else lined up before I left. By this point, the VP of the department had been made aware that I had put in my notice, so they had to approve my offer to stay longer.
The extra week happened to include a Monday holiday, and I was salaried so under normal circumstances I would have been paid for it. The VP came back and said that if I wanted to stay past my original “last day” according to my notice, I would be considered a temp and therefore would not be paid for the holiday. I opted to stick with my original final day and informed my manager that I would not be staying an extra week.
On my last day, the office took me out to lunch. My coworkers asked me what my next job was going to be, and I told them I didn’t have one, but I had enough savings where as long as I lived off ramen and water, I’d be ok for a couple of months until I landed something new (I’d already had a few interviews at this point).
They responded with lighthearted comments about being jealous and wishing they could do the same. The VP showed up for a bit but didn’t speak to me the entire time she was there.
The fallout: I doubt this had much to do with my departure, but more just the sorry leadership and toxic work environment of the company in general. The VP for my first division was fired not long after I left. Most of the experienced workforce, including my manager, also left over the next year or two.
The company was sold and changed hands a couple of times. During the last change of hands, about 70% of the employees were laid off, including my friend who had recommended me. I never kept in contact with anyone from the company except for my friend.
As for me, my last day was on a Friday. The following Tuesday (remember, that Monday was a holiday), I was called and offered a job from one of my interviews.
This new job ended up being not only an exponentially better work environment but introduced me to a group of colleagues and supervisors who truly valued me and each other. The first time I made a mistake, I had so much anxiety left over from my old work environment that I nearly had a panic attack in front of my new boss. He sat me down, got me a cup of water, explained how to fix the situation and that everything would be OK, then chatted about mundane topics with me until I calmed down enough to return to my office.
Even though I’m no longer with this company (for reasons that are neither my fault nor the company’s fault, just the life of a contractor), I’m still good friends with my boss and coworkers and would go back to work with them in a heartbeat if the opportunity presented itself.”
2. Try To Fight Me For Asking You To Move Your Cart? I Know Where You Work
It wouldn’t have ended up like this if he acted like a decent human being.
“I have spent the last 5 or so years grumbling, as you do, about people not putting shopping carts in the cart returns of parking lots, because for some reason, there have been more and more cases across 2 different states (I’ve moved way too many times recently) of people putting them in places where they block parking spots.
I recently made a promise to myself that the next person I see abandoning their shopping cart, I would call it out.
Anyways, our story begins at a… You know what, but we’ll just call it a “House Warehouse,” which is absolutely not a homophone for any real store. I’m shopping there for cardboard boxes alongside my girl since we’d severely underestimated how many we’d need (and no, what we got wasn’t enough anyway, but we would later go to another store to pick up more to avoid any fallout drama).
We come out to the parking lot and head back to our car. Well, as fate would have it, the gentleman in the neighboring spot was finishing up his shopping trip too. And he just so happened to be abandoning his cart right in front of our car, and also right in front of me, blocking me from getting to the driver’s door of my car without moving his cart.
So I’d finally had enough and decided to simply go, “Really?” muffled through a mask but loudly enough for him to hear it.
Now if you were expecting this to resolve itself with any bit of civility, like I naively did that day, you’re in for a ride.
“‘Really? What?” came his incredulous response.
“You’re just going to leave the cart there?”
And here is where things just went crazy.
The man shouts, full-on shouts back, “I don’t get paid to push it back!”
At this point, I moved the cart and realized that this man is 85% anger, and I resolved to just keep ongoing. I’m headed towards my door, and he’s on the opposite side of his van from me.
He then continues to shout, “Do you?!” as though it were an insult to push carts back… or get paid to do it?
“No, I just-”
“YOU JUST WHAT?” He shuts his open van door at this point and is now standing slightly in front of his vehicle.
Unfortunately, my brain is operating off autopilot, which in my case means bad jokes and snark.
“I just do it because I’m a decent person.”
The man full-on roars, “I THINK YOU’VE GOT A SMART MOUTH, HUH?!” as he rounds his vehicle, and I get to fully see this strung-out but rage-filled man.
And he’s wrong because I don’t have a smart mouth, as evidenced by my terrible comeback, “And I think you have tiny feet. Can’t even walk it back.”
Look, I said bad jokes. And even then, they can’t all be winners.
Now, this is the point where upon hearing that line, you’d expect anyone else to laugh at how dumb that was and maybe just get in his car and drive off, but apparently, Tiny Feet was the worst insult I could’ve used.
“YOU WANT TO FIGHT?! RIGHT HERE?! HUH?!”
I do not. My partner is here, and we’re about to move, and I’ve had exactly zero House Warehouse parking lot fighting experience in my life (I’m sorry to let you down, Internet).
So I get in my car as he rounds his van. My brain has also regained control of my mouth to stop it from commenting on not wanting to smell his maskless stinky breath, which might have gotten a fist through the window.
Instead, I just nod at my girl that, clearly, we’re leaving.
I get to hear him go, “Yeah, then just stay in your car.” He then peels off absurdly fast for a van.
A van… with his company’s name and number on it.
So we look them up, and online there’s a story on their Yelp of all things saying, “I haven’t used them, but one of their drivers almost ran me and my kids off the road, and when I motioned for them to pull over, they flipped me off and drove off.”
I groan and figure there’s now an equal chance that this company is going to protect their own as there is that he’s going to face consequences, but I figure I’ll risk it.
So I call up the company, and in the interest of protecting who they are since I don’t want internet sleuths to use that Yelp review that I paraphrased, I’ll say they’re one of the following sorts of companies: Roofing, thong repair, plumbing, or electricians.
There that should cover things.
So I consult with my girl before calling because even though I got a good look at the guy, I’ve got a little bit of “almost got into a fight in a House Warehouse parking lot” adrenaline in my system, and I want to verify some details. So we both recall what the guy looked like since we, unfortunately, didn’t get a van number.
So the phone call goes like this.
“Hello, this is (Roofers, Thong Repairers, Plumbers, or Electricians), can we help you with anything?”
“Yes, I’d like to report an incident with one of your employees who wanted to challenge me to a fight in the parking lot of House Warehouse off of (large road) just a few minutes ago.”
“…Oh, oh I’m sorry sir. Unfortunately, a lot of our boys use that particular House Warehouse.
Did you happen to get the name or the number of the employee?”
“No, but he was wearing a blue shirt, balding-”
“Did he wear glasses?” She asked, knowingly.
“That’s the one,” I say, slightly relieved to know that the number I called wasn’t just going to get me into a shouting match with an entitled small business owner.
She gives a long sigh, “I’ll go talk with his supervisor.
Again, I’m so sorry!”
So anyway, the moral of the story is one of the following:
- Respect store workers and put back your carts.
- Don’t underestimate how much someone cares about their shoe size.
- And don’t threaten to fight someone in a parking lot with your work van right next to you.”
1. Take My Dream Girl? Get Disowned And Arrested
“In high school, Dina and I broke up. She started seeing this dude (let’s call him Gido).
I was angry, but I kept it lowkey, so I could gather information about him. Eventually, she told me that his parents were SUPER religious and wouldn’t allow him to go to parties, and he could only leave the house after 11 pm if it was for work (night shift at a Tim Hortons). They were pretty much going to disown him if they caught him again.
So I went to about 15 Tim Hortons during the time when she told me he was working and finally found which one he works at. I found out everything: his manager’s name, the store’s number, everything. I came back later on and also found out by being friendly to the manager (this is important) that they were hiring for an overnight position, and currently, they were having a hard time getting employees to fill those spots, so they were on a skeleton crew.
So then I waited for a night when I knew they were going to go and stay over at a friend’s house (I was invited to that party). A few days before, I called from a blocked number and pretended to be Gido and said that I was available to work the night of the party. The manager was happy and said that he would see me there starting at 12 am.
So I went to the party and saw both of them. I called his cell phone from a blocked number and saw him pick it up and saw which pocket he put it in. Then later around 12 when he was pretty inebriated, I “bumped” into him and managed to get his phone. I had the same Blackberry as him, so I swapped my dead battery with his.
I left the phone on the floor knowing that someone would bring it to the host.
Fast forward a day later, everything went perfectly. The manager called his phone, found out it was dead, then called his house and woke up his parents whom he had told that he was working till 5, and the parents lost their crap and called the cops and the manager was worried too.
He comes back home to the police, and his worried family and had to explain where he ACTUALLY was. The guy lost his job, was kicked out of his house, and his parents took away all his savings. He slept on some friends’ couches for two weeks.”
