People Hit Us With Their Great Time Revenge
17. Abuse Me All This Time? You'll Miss This Employee
“I used to work for a manufacturing company who makes waste containers, dumpsters and such, and at first it was a good job with a good manager and no problems. I enjoyed the work, it was a dirty, physically demanding job but kept me in good shape, I could just put in my earbuds and cruise through the day without any issues.
My initial job was to prep the units for painting by polishing imperfections with a sander and grinding down the areas that were too rough, as well as cleaning them up after the welders were done with them, but after a while, they kept laying off so many people and dumping their jobs on me that eventually towards the end of my time there, I was quality control, helped the painter, was a warehouseman, finisher, grinder and also janitor.
Oh and for no additional pay beyond the small cost of living raises we got once in a while. After about a year of working for this company (prior to having all these jobs dumped on me) without any issues, new management showed up, and as they like to do, they started making all kinds of changes just for the sake of making changes, things that made jobs harder with no benefit, cutting corners that should not be cut and generally hurting productivity and workplace safety.
The change in management was bad, but it was not the end of the world. It made things harder for no real reason but all in all, things were still manageable – until I ended up off work for about a month with a collapsed lung that I still, to this day, believe was caused by working conditions there and lack of ventilation and PPE.
When I came back to work, I was on light duty for quite some time since I had surgery to repair the lung and prevent it from collapsing again.
I went from the golden boy who they called on when things had to get done to the redheaded stepchild of the company, and management was doing everything they could to get me to quit.
They would throw my tools away, hide my stools so I couldn’t use them while I was working, hassle me over things like my earbuds citing ‘safety’ as to why I couldn’t use them, even though OSHA themselves told me it was not an issue.
The production manager would lie about things and write me up for non-existent violations, refused to fix my bay doors that had been crashed into by forklifts numerous times that had to be closed and opened with a crowbar by 2 people since the track was mangled. Other things include the company giving everybody in the plant raises except for me, catching me 5 minutes before leaving work to go on my weekend and ‘informing me’ that we had to work the next day and selectively enforcing safety rules, and even making rules up on the fly.
After about 6 months, I had had enough and decided that if they want to constantly cite policy and safety rules to mess with me, then I could play that game too.
I would make this manufacturing plant the safest company on the planet and ensure the policy was followed to the exact letter. This was now my mission.
I began to slow my work WAY down and only do the jobs I was hired and paid to do.
Instead of doing the workload of 10 employees with nothing in return, they now got exactly 1 person’s worth of labor out of me. Customers’ orders began stacking up, deliveries were late, bad welds and welds that got missed during production were overlooked causing the units to have to be repainted when they had to go back to the welding lines to be fixed.
The warehouse became a wreck with containers backed up to the point that people did not even have room to work.
I went from completing a large unit in 30 minutes to it taking me 2 and a half hours on the same one, not to mention all the repairs that needed to be done that were missed during production, when before I would have caught them before the units even left the production line.
Other petty things I did included not showing on Saturday to work when the manager would catch me at the last second and tell me I had to.
I took to cutting out the text in the employee handbook citing that working unscheduled hours required management to notify you 3 days in advance and leaving a letter with that portion of the handbook on his desk the following Monday. There was nothing they could do since I was following the handbook to the letter. At this point, it was a game of who would blink first. They could lay me off and I could draw unemployment on them, or I would quit.
Next on the list was safety. They liked to hassle me so much about trivial things that I figured they would appreciate me going through the plant and documenting every single last OSHA violation, safety violation, and anything else that was not right.
I had a notebook that was FILLED with violations from one end of the plant to another, things like crane lifts that were being used improperly with J hooks that OSHA previously warned the company about, the same J hooks they liked to hide every time OSHA came through the plant.
Welders that had frayed cords around puddles of water, tools being left on top of units that could fall off and hit someone, lack of ventilation, particle counts that were too high, forklifts that were not serviced enough, I tagged out equipment that technically shouldn’t be used in its current state, and locked out the forklifts that needed brakes or any sort of maintenance.
Eventually, the production manager took the bait and untagged one of the forklifts I had locked out due to having bad brakes. Anybody who knows the lockout procedure can understand what a massive mess-up that is.
Once I compiled my list of improvements, I went to the government official who was overseeing safety and procedure since we often worked on government orders. I gave him my notebook, informed him of my manager taking the lockout off a defective forklift, then went on break and waited. About 30 minutes later, I saw my manager walking back from the head office and looking angry beyond belief.
Later, I heard from someone who knows him that he got punished severely, especially for the forklift. From then on, he avoided me and wouldn’t even speak to me or look at me. After that, I continued to slow my work pace down and got a bit of satisfaction each day from the complete nightmare the place had become and how backed up it was every single day.
After I left the company, I heard they hired 5 guys to do my job and that they still did a bad job at it. Had they treated me better instead of coming at me as they did, they would have been still getting the top quality of work from me that they got when I first joined them, and things would have gone along just fine.
I can’t even imagine how much I must have cost that company by sticking to the exact letter of the rules”
16. Can't Pay Me What I'm Worth? It Won't Turn Out Good For You
Don’t take a good employee for granted.
“So years ago, I was working for a laboratory that did a lot of testing for the military. It was a terrible job for a number of reasons. Despite having enormous responsibility, they never gave me credit for anything. In meetings with the department head (DH), they frequently blamed me for problems that they had caused — but I had solved and they could not.
They also hired consultants to come in and tell me I was wrong only to have the consultants say I was right (and the consultants would get paid 1/4 of my yearly salary for one day’s worth of work!). I only stayed as long as I did because it was my first real job, and I honestly didn’t know better. But before I left…
By their own standards, I was severely underpaid.
HR agreed. They claimed there was nothing that could be done. Meanwhile, other people were given off-schedule raises.
Well, I wasn’t the only one that was underpaid. There were a number of others as well. But none of them were critical to the operation of the laboratory. Eventually, the DH went to the director with a list of all the underpaid people. I found out that my name was on the top of the list as the most underpaid person (not surprising).
Using this list, the DH got permission from the director for one-time raises. An announcement was made.
Well, guess who didn’t get a raise? This despite the fact that I had made massive improvements in some of their processes that easily saved them millions per year (and their budget was just over 10 million dollars.)
I was livid. I had enough and left. They hired two people to replace me at more than double my salary.
One of them had just graduated two weeks before. From what I understand, they had a lot of difficulties. That would have been enough for most people and maybe even for me for most of my life. But it wasn’t enough for me then.
So, I arranged a meeting with one of the project managers (PM) from the department of the military that we had done our tests for.
I “casually” mentioned to him that I had left my old job. He was shocked. Remember how I said they never gave me credit for anything? Well, the military PMs considered me an invaluable expert and could not understand why the lab had driven me away. They immediately pulled several million dollars worth of work from the lab and gave it to the competition (several labs were involved) because they had no confidence that the lab could do the work anymore.
When I ran into one of the lab managers (the only half-decent guy there), I “casually” mentioned my meeting with the PM and I could tell he figured out how the military knew I had left.
It took them years to recover — and honestly, I don’t know if they ever really did. The last time I checked their web page, it hadn’t been updated in at least 12 years.
I would have been happy with a $20K raise. Ecstatic even. But they weren’t willing to spend $20K and lost $2 million to start and more in the long run.
I started my own business and now make at least 5 times what I would if I had stayed there until now (and more than 10 times what I was making when I left).”
15. Fine, Here's Exactly What You Ordered, Nurse
“My job is a bit strange, I work for a company that provides equipment (beds, O2, wheelchairs, etc.) to patients on hospice care. This can be one of two ways, one in-home with family or two in an assisted living facility. This story involves the latter. I got an order today for an emergency 02 set up, this normally includes an O2 concentrator (think specialized air compressor), a couple of backup tanks, a tank cart/pouch, and all the tubes and equipment for those.
I immediately notice that this order is odd. First, on the order are 2 of our biggest O2 tanks outside of liquid O2 (M60 for those in the medical/gas field). These are large 24-pound tanks of O2 that are reserved usually for high liter flow patients or those who live in excess of 2 hours from their nearest warehouse; while this on its own isn’t odd that fact that it was relatively close to my warehouse and the concentrator was only a 5 liter one had me questioning.
On top of that, the order also had 1 of our smallest tanks (B tank) which are the kind you usually see people carrying in pouches while out walking. Third, there was a tank cart for a third size of the tank (E tank) that is our standard but wasn’t on this order. And finally, to top it all off there were no regulators, which are devices that are needed to extract the O2 from the tanks in a controlled manner, and given the order, there should’ve been two different kinds as M60s take a different regulator than E or B.
Obviously, this order was wrong and I wanted to make sure I was providing the correct equipment. I figured either the hospice company had non-nurse input orders (pretty common) which resulted in accidentally getting M60 instead of E tanks (a standard O2 set up for our company is 2 E tanks and 1 B tank with each concentrator in case of emergency or travel) or they had forgotten to add the regulators and just added the cart out of reflex.
I decided to call the hospice nurse (KN for Karen Nurse), whose number was in the patient notes, and clarify what equipment was needed.
OP: HI this is OP with Health Company, I’m calling in regards to your order for Patient.
KN: Yes? (with the nastiest tone you can imagine)
OP: (Telling myself she’s had a stressful day as Healthcare is brutal) I have a few questions regarding the equipment ordered, some of the equipment is incompatible and/or missing-
KN: I know what I ordered. Just hurry up and bring it. Can’t you see it’s a STAT order?
OP: Yes ma’am I’m just trying to ensure that we’re providing the correct equipment for the patient. Some of this equipment doesn’t seem needed and others are missing key parts.
KN: I’M A NURSE AND YOU ARE JUST A FREAKING DELIVERY DRIVER YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!
DO NOT QUESTION MY DECISIONS AND JUST BRING WHAT I FREAKING ORDERED NOW!
OP: Right away Ma’am I’ll be there in ten minutes.
Now I may not be a nurse but I’ve been doing this a while. So I go ahead and load up the order. But I also load the regulators they might need as well as the standard O2 tanks just in case, while I was down to maliciously comply I didn’t want to endanger a patient.
I figured I’d let the facility staff know, give them the extra equipment, and let the hospice nurse suffer when the facility reported on her incompetence.
I get there and screen into the facility where I’m directed to the nurse’s station for the patient’s unit. I have all the equipment ordered by KN on a cart and am going to give her one more chance.
When I get to the nurse’s station the facility nurses point me in the direction of the hospice nurse. I stop to talk to her trying to show her the issue. She immediately shuts me down again and tells me to “just do your freaking job.” She then tells me the room number and walks off. I get to the room and am surprised to see the regional supervisor for the hospice company (who I had met a few times before as she liked to greet all the new patients when she was in the area).
We got to talking and this is how it went:
AM(awesome manager): Hey OP are you here to get the patient set up?
OP: Yep. Although there might be an issue with the order. (I then wheel in the cart)
AM: Why do you have those tanks? The patient is on 2 liters they don’t need that!
OP: I figured it was a mix-up and tried calling KN to confirm but she very rudely insisted that I bring this out exactly as she ordered it.
She also didn’t order any regulators.
AM: What?! What if the facility loses power or the concentrator goes down??
OP: I tried explaining but she just insisted to bring this. Don’t worry though I’ve got extras in my truck. Do you want the normal O2 set up?
AM: Yes. Thank you. I’ll be sure to look into KN’s conduct.
I did my order, chatted with the facility staff, and left, didn’t see KN or AM again.
I thought that was the end. But it turns out that AM called my boss while I was out doing the rest of my orders. Apparently, he wanted to thank me for knowing what I’m doing and letting him know. They started looking into KN’s other patients and found that she was constantly ordering incorrect equipment and the other techs were just quietly correcting it for her (easier than calling honestly and what I would’ve done if my day hadn’t been so light).
AM told my boss that he had let KN go and that she would no longer be an issue. Apparently, I had saved the hospice company thousands of dollars in potential malpractice and neglect lawsuits.”
Another User Comments:
“You didn’t just save the hospice company $$$ in potential lawsuits, you probably saved someone’s life. (Yes, I know it’s hospice, but they are still human beings, and extra time is a gift).” shady_ostrich
14. All Expense Paid Vacation? Sure!
“Ages ago, I was the senior developer for a company that revitalized other companies.
Think of it as a sort of mini Shark Tank; we would find small businesses that had a great idea but were struggling, and we’d help them achieve their goals in exchange for a cut. Sometimes this meant providing development or engineering talent to get a product off the ground, sometimes it meant providing literal capital, sometimes it meant providing staffing services (support staff and experienced executives were commonplace needs).
We were also a relatively small company, so it wasn’t uncommon for our people to have multiple hats; there was one time when I was working as development lead for one client while acting as interim CTO for another client. It could be a bit chaotic, but it paid pretty well, was a great experience in a wide variety of things I normally wouldn’t have had, and was usually pretty fun.
So one Friday afternoon we get a call from a client who was particularly frustrating; a “frequent-flier” if you will. They seemed to make every thirty-second fix into an insurmountable problem. I’m going to be intentionally vague about the specific industry the client was in; it’s a tiny industry anyone in their industry would be able to identify them just from the industry and city.
This particular call comes in early in the afternoon: they recently moved things around, and now none of their printers work. Obviously, it’s mission-critical. We do some remote troubleshooting, but can’t even get a flicker of life from the device. We spend an hour or so trying to work through what happened before discovering that there’s a really good reason it won’t work; the cable didn’t reach where they moved it to, so it wasn’t actually plugged in.
Well, that’s about as stereotypical as an IT problem can get, right? Just plug it in, and you’ll be good to go. But… management says that’s not the solution they want; while it’s totally possible to run a CAT-5 line to the new location, they really want it wireless since that’s the big thing these days. OK, that’s easy too; most of our comparably sized clients had switched to wireless networking for parts of their offices, so we already had the right procedures in place, deployment scripts setup, etc. All they had to do was plug in the device, which could be very easily acquired at any electronics store, and we could remotely handle everything else in a matter of minutes.
But nope, management dictates that we absolutely have to have a person on-site in the morning to set it up for them. At this point, it’s very late afternoon on a Friday, and everyone but me and my boss (the CEO) had gone home for the day. Boss isn’t about to lose his weekend, and stuff rolls downhill, so I drew the short straw.
We reached out to the client to make sure that they knew what they were asking; they were in Chicago, we were several states away in the midwest, nearing the end of the day on a Friday.
If they wanted me to be there by morning, they’d have to pony up for whatever flight we could arrange at short notice, and there was only one flight left that night going from our relatively small airport to Chicago, and the only available seat was in first class. Additionally, it would be taking off in just under two hours, meaning I wouldn’t have time to get home and pack anything if I was going to make the flight.
They reiterated that it was absolutely crucial that I be there in the morning, and they would happily pay for whatever flight was necessary. Additionally, I was told that they would have a room pre-booked at the Palmer House (they regularly used a room there for VIPs and such), and I could charge whatever I needed to the room. Further, they said that if I ended up needing to stay longer than the day, they’d reimburse me for any clothing or essentials I had to purchase since it was so incredibly last-minute.
OK, I can live with that. I get to the airport ten minutes before boarding, make it through the vacant airport, past the TSA checkpoint, and to my gate as they’re closing the door; literally the last person on the last flight of the day.
I arrive in Chicago and shockingly, there is a company car (effectively a limo – literal black car service before Uber was a thing) waiting for me.
He takes me to the hotel, as promised, and hands me an envelope before pulling away from the curb. The envelope contains a prepaid debit card and a note saying it has $250 on it for “incidentals,” but please charge anything I can to the room. Sweet, was expecting it to be a long weekend in grungy clothes. Checked in and went to bed.
The next morning, I show up at their office bright and early.
I sit around for half of the morning before anyone shows up to let me in. They then show me the new “printer area” which is, as expected, well outside of the area of the office which was originally wired for networking, in what was once a “break area.” I go, “Yep, that’s not gonna work with your old wired hub,” run across the street (literally – door to door was one street apart) to the closest electronics store, pick up their shiny new wireless router, run back to their office, plug it in, then get on the closest computer, run through the thirty-second setup, run the script that updates the configs for their quirky, antiquated software so it picks up the “new” printers in the office, and tell the owner that it’s all set up.
He gets this sort of confused look on his face and says “already?” I respond by pointing out that we did tell them in advance that we could do it remotely if they were willing to actually plug the device in for us, and he finally realizes how silly the call-out was – but now he feels obligated to save face. I’m instructed that I’m to remain in Chicago until the close of business Monday to ensure there are no issues with the new hardware under actual use; obviously, it’d be fiscally irresponsible to fly me out twice in a week!
I ask for clarification; they’re instructing me to stay checked into the fairly expensive hotel, and keep billing things to my room through Monday night? Yes. What am I supposed to do with the rest of the weekend? Is there anything else at their local office that I can fix while I’m here? No. Go eat a hot dog and play tourist, just keep my phone handy and make sure I show up at opening time on Monday.
OK, can do!
I go back across the street, pick up a charger for my phone, find a nearby department store and pick up a few changes of cheap clothes, stop by the hotel to drop off my purchases, and spend the rest of the weekend playing tourist. OK, I did a tiny bit of sightseeing and spent most of the time catching up on sleep; but I did ensure to avail myself of room service for every single meal at their expense, before showing up bright and early Monday morning.
I sat in their office for the majority of the workday before the owner came and found me to give me the travel details for my return flight. He even suggested that I’d done a great job (really, I didn’t do anything but plug a device in!) and should get a drink before heading to the airport and bill it to the room. As suggested, I went back to the hotel, packed my stuff in my laptop bag, stopped in the bar for a drink (who knew hotels had $100+ drinks?), and headed to the airport.
All told, they shelled out about $1000 just for the room, probably 2/3 of that in room-service fees, several hundred in transportation to and from the airport, not to mention the flights… because they didn’t want to walk across the street, pick up the easily-obtainable piece of hardware, and plug it in. I got a three-and-a-half-day vacation with first-class travel (one way anyway) halfway across the country for doing just that.”
13. Force Me To Work Despite A Splitting Headache? You Asked For It
“I suffer from migraines, and unfortunately when I get one, they tend to last 3-4 days, leaving me completely incapacitated and unable to do anything more than lie in bed in my dark room and cry and vomit. This means that when I get one, I basically know straight away that I’m not going to be able to do anything for the next few days.
I have a casual retail job in addition to other work, which I’ve had for almost 20 years across different stores. I was always the one who worked extra hard and stepped up to do extra shifts or stay back when someone else couldn’t come in, but the department manager we had at the time of this story was a narcissist who got off on bullying staff but really disliked me because I stood up for myself (the funniest part was that she loved to try to ‘stand over’ people to intimidate them, but with me, it failed miserably because I was about half a foot taller than her).
About 15 years ago, I started to get a migraine in the middle of the day before I was meant to have a shift starting at 5 pm. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to work the following day, I called the manager to let her know I wouldn’t be able to come in, thinking it would give her plenty of notice to find a replacement. Her response:
“You can’t call in sick the day before your shift! You don’t know that you’ll still be sick tomorrow! If you’re really sick tomorrow THEN you can call in.”
Okay, fine. Went to bed dosed up on prescription painkillers, woke up at 10 am still feeling like a railroad spike had been driven through my eye socket, so I called up again. The manager:
“Your shift doesn’t start for another 7 hours!
You’re just trying to get out of work! You’ll probably be fine by 5’o’clock so I’m not going to replace you yet.”
Alright. Went back to bed and was so wiped out I didn’t wake up till about 3:30 (we’re supposed to give 2 hours notice, so by this point, it was half an hour too late, or it would have been if I hadn’t already given notice twice previously).
Anyway, I was still in no shape to even get to work, let alone work, so I rang up for a third time and asked to speak to the department manager again. She was not happy.
Her: “You’ve only given me an hour and a half notice! That’s not enough! You’d better show up to work!”
Me: “I’ve told you twice over the last two days that I wouldn’t be able to come in – (at this point, I literally had to stop and be sick) – I can’t come in.
You’ve known that since yesterday.”
Her: “If you’re not at work at 5 pm, I’m going to make sure you don’t get any extra shifts.”
This was when I decided to be maliciously compliant (though I hadn’t heard of that term back then). I asked my mother to drive me to work (she asked if I was “really that spiteful I’d go to work sick just to make a point” and, well, yes.
Yes, I am that spiteful), clocked in, and then went and sat in the fitting room under the bench instead of doing what I was supposed to be doing. My colleagues were horrified, asking what I was doing there in that condition, and I told them that I’d tried calling in sick but Manager had threatened to stop giving me shifts if I didn’t show up (those colleagues were great; one brought me a glass of water and another let me borrow her sunglasses, so I could try to cut out some of the bright shop lights).
After about half an hour, the manager came in, saw that I wasn’t doing any work, and bent down so she could scream in my face… And I leaned forward and threw up all over her shoes. (At this point, I could have held it in until I was able to get a cleaning bucket out of the cupboard, but I decided to just let her have it instead.)
She went absolutely nuclear and started screaming even harder (“Why would you come to work like this! You should have stayed home!”), and I was feeling so sick and miserable and her screeching was reverberating in my head and making the pain worse, so I started crying and ended up being sick again all over the floor. As she stormed off, my colleagues called the store manager over, who was immediately horrified that I was at work in that condition and called my mother to come and collect me and said that Manager would be “sternly talked to.” Luckily she was in hiding somewhere when my mother arrived, or she would have ripped her a new one.
Because managers/HR will always look out for each other no matter how awful they are, the department manager didn’t face any real consequences as far as I know, but after that, she pretty much pretended I didn’t exist, which suited me right down to the ground (and not long afterward, I was able to transfer to another store, so I didn’t have to put up with her constantly throwing her toys out of the pram anymore).”
Another User Comments:
“My partner suffers from migraines the same way. When she gets one she says it’s like an ice pick is in her skull. But people wouldn’t take her seriously when she says she can’t do something or go to work because the lights are too bright or the smell of someone’s cologne makes her throw up. That is until her boss saw how bad she felt and that she was throwing up at her desk.” Zerostar39
12. Don't Be So Hard On A Good Employee
“This one took place back in 2002.
I had been an Over The Road truck driver and engaged for a year. I thought I would try to get a local job so I could be home every night with my soon-to-be wife. The wedding was only a few months away.
She lived in a pretty small town. There wasn’t much in the way of local truck driving jobs except for oil field or hauling dirt. I did find a dirt hauling company that was hiring.
The supervisor was a jerk from the very beginning of the interview. He informed me that payment was $9/hr, and that’s it. No raises, no benefits, even if you work there for over 20 yrs.
Well, I decided to just go on and accept it as I knew that after we got married, my wife would be moving back to her hometown to accept a job, and there was plenty of driving jobs there.
On my first day of work, the super-jerk has me fill out the paperwork, and tries to force me to sign a waiver to decline Worker’s Compensation should I get injured. He ‘promised’ their insurance was far better, but I had already learned about many of those scams and refused to sign it.
This utterly angered him (a telltale sign that they are trying to screw you).
So, I have to train with another driver for a week before getting assigned to my own truck, which is good so I can learn the routes and roads. I hear him tell the trainer to nit-pick everything as he doesn’t want me on the crew. Unfortunately for him, everything I do is to perfection.
The only complaint the trainer had was I tended to ride the clutch a little hard when taking off on the first day (was trying to get used to the extra heavy loads and very sensitive clutch), otherwise, I floated gears like a 50 yr pro vet.
So, I finish the week and get assigned my own truck. I do my pre-trip safety inspection as required by DOT regulations, and I noticed one of the steer tires is almost to legal wear.
Me: ‘Hey boss, Unit 12 Left steer is almost to regs. It’s at 5/16.”‘
Bossman: ‘Sounds to me like you just don’t want to work.’
Me: ‘No, it’s legal for now; just informing you that it’s going to need to be replaced real soon.’
Bossman: ‘Are you stupid? I just replaced both of those steers 2 months ago. Now get in the truck, or clock out and go home.’
Me: ‘I will drive it until it is illegal or unsafe to do so. But if I get fined, I have enough witnesses here, right now, to put right it back on you.’
I got in the truck and went to work. Bossman was peeved. But, two days later, I noticed a new set of steer tires during my daily inspection.
The next week, Bossman informs me that we are on nights for the next few days:
Bossman: ‘When on the ranch land, watch your speed. If you hit and kill one of the landowner’s $45.000 prize-winning steers that he makes $20,000 when breeding, I’ll run your butt off and you lose your pay.’
I bust out laughing – HARD. This makes him furious.
Bossman: ‘What are you laughing at? You don’t think I’m serious? Get your stuff and get out.’
Me: ‘Is that what the landowner told you?
Does he breed his prize-winning steer for $20k a pop? And you believe him?’
Bossman: ‘Yeah.’
I was nearly on the ground laughing so hard.
Bossman: ‘What’s your problem. Fine – go home.’
Me: ‘Sorry, I meant no disrespect. It’s just that, I imagine that you’re from up north, right? From the city?’ I could tell from day one from his fake southern accent, but I kept quiet about it.
Bossman: ‘Yeah, what of it?’
Me: ‘Well, I’m a city boy as well, but even I know that a steer is a castrated bull. While it’s true that a prize-winning steer can be worth tens of thousands of dollars, they can not be bred. Ask anyone here, they’ll confirm it.’
Trainer: ‘Yes sir, it’s true.’ My trainer just happened to walk by when he heard me laughing so hard.
Boss turned white. ‘Don’t matter. Watch your speed or you’re down the road.’
The second weekend and the third begins. About the 3rd day, another truck breaks down, so the Bossman decides to have me give my truck to the other driver and ride with my trainer again. For some reason, Bossman decides he wants this to be my last day, but he can’t due to no reason.
So, he makes something up, only to have it backfire on him. At the end of the day, he’s waiting for us at the yard when we pull in and get parked. I head to the office to get my check for the first two weeks, and he’s waiting for me outside.
Bossman: ‘You messed up today, boy. You almost got someone killed.’
Me: ‘Really.
Please, do tell.’
Bossman: ‘I received a call from a man who said that you cut him off and ran him off the road. He gave your truck and trailer numbers and identified you as the driver by the cap that you wear.’
Me: I smiled. ‘Really. About what time did this incident happen?’
Bossman: ‘Why’re you smiling. You nearly killed a man.
I’m letting you go right now. You’re an unsafe driver.’
Me: ‘No, first you need to answer my question.’
Bossman: ‘What does it matter? I don’t have to answer you. You’re fired.’
Me: ‘No, you do need to answer. Remember, there were two drivers in that truck today.’ Just then Trainer walked up. ‘And FYI, I know that I didn’t cut off anyone today, as I did not drive at all.
I can also vouch that Trainer did not cut anyone off, nor ran anyone off of the road. So, either: 1, the guy misread the numbers of the truck and trailer and identity of the driver; 2, is lying, or 3, you’re the one lying because you have been trying to find fault in everything I do and run me off since day one when I refused to sign the waiver for Workman’s Comp.’
Bossman: ‘ You, you little jerk.’
Trainer: ‘He’s right. I drove all day, and don’t recall any incidents or near misses. You know I’d have called as per policy.’
Bossman: ‘Well, alright. I guess you still have your job. But know, I’m keeping a real close eye on you.’
Me: ‘Thank you, and I don’t doubt it. My b******e has already been feeling your nose hairs tickling it since day one.’
I opened my check and looked at it as Bossman began to walk away fuming.
Me: ‘Wait a minute. There’s a $59 deduction on here for insurance. We don’t have benefits, remember?’
Bossman: ‘That’s for the insurance against injury, remember?’
Me: ‘You mean the one I declined and refused to waive the Worker’s Comp for.’
Bossman: ‘Yeah. It’s mandatory.’
Me: ‘I see.
So it’s deducted whether I sign up for it or not.’
Bossman: ‘Yep. Don’t like it? Don’t let the door hit your butt on the way out.’
Me: ‘That’s illegal.’
Bossman: ‘No it ain’t. Now get off my property.’
I decided to end it right there, as there is no point in arguing with a spoiled child. It’s best to be the better man and walk off… Yeah, right!
Now for the ProRevenge:
It turns out that the Captain for the TX Dept. of Public Safety (Department of Transportation for you truck drivers, or state trooper for everyone else) of the precinct just happened to live about 4 houses down from the apartments that my fiancee lived. He just so happened to find an anonymous note on his windshield the next morning. The very next morning, there were 5 state troopers with all 15 of the company’s trucks pulled over on the side of the highway right in front of the company, being thoroughly inspected (I was parked on the shoulder in my car across the highway watching it all unfold while sipping my coffee).
Of the 15 trucks, 11 of them were shut down for safety violations. Thousands of dollars in fines were written and the Boss plus two other drivers were taken to jail for warrants. Boss also had an expired Commercial Driver’s License (He was forced to drive since I didn’t show up for work that morning).
As you can imagine, Bossman lost his job. I had moved to my fiancee’s hometown and got a job in the oilfield driving tanker trucks.
I heard that Trainer got the Bossman’s job. And everyone lived happily ever after. Well, maybe not Bossman, as he also popped positive on a substance test…
As to why I was a jerk to Bossman, I just needed to let Bossman know that I wasn’t a pushover and that I wouldn’t drink his Kool-Aid.
I’m normally a nice guy, even to those who are jerks to me.
I was nice at first until he pushed me too hard.
I did tell my trainer that I was behind the State Trooper attack, and he thanked me. He told me that most of the other drivers wanted to thank me as well. Some were worried about the safety of the equipment as they had been told off for reporting things as well. Many were brand new to truck driving and got their license through the company.
They said that through me, they learned that they did have rights and that it was okay to stand up for them.
They had been suspicious of the waiver but feared declining it. All but 2 immediately had pulled their worker’s comp waivers and due to that, one driver was saved. She was involved in a bad accident about a month later and wound up on permanent disability.
Had she stayed with the company’s insurance, she would have been screwed, as they did not offer long term, let alone, lifetime disability benefits, and she had learned that most of her medical claims would have been denied.”
11. Supervisor Doesn't Take "Sick" For An Answer
They’ll learn the hard way.
“Someone else’s puke story reminded me of this one. Back in the early 2000s, I worked at UPS, loading trucks. I’d been there over a year, was well known throughout the building for picking up shifts and being a good worker, and had gained a bit of seniority in the union.
Our normal shift was 5 hours with anything over 25 hours a week being overtime, so I tried to pick up as many extra shifts as I could. Anyone working in a union shop knows a lot runs on union seniority and picking up extra shifts at UPS was the same way – most seniority got first pick, and it went down the line until the shifts were filled. Early on, I made a reputation of working my butt off, so some of the shift supes would delay asking for a fill-in until some of the senior guys left. As could be expected, this upset a couple of people when they got passed over, and I got some facetime with the union reps on every shift.
Ultimately though, this just led to me becoming friends with the reps and doesn’t have any bearing on this story until later.
So, as I mentioned, I had a reputation through a lot of the supes of busting my butt, working hard, and always being available. That said, my normal shift sure hated me for some reason. I think it was because he was an old retired military vet, and I was a punk 18 year old with hair down to my shoulders, piercings, and didn’t care about impressing him in any way except through loading trucks.
With us butting heads, I’d brought up a couple of issues with my union rep friends, but nothing was ever serious enough to push the issue. That is until I got sick.
I was in that state where things were coming out of both ends, non-stop. I wasn’t getting out of bed for anything if I could help it, so I called in. UPS policy at the time was as long as you let the supe know something like an hour or more before a shift, it wasn’t considered a no-call-no-show.
I called right at the hour mark, and my supe told me if I didn’t come in, I was going to be written up for a no-call. Malicious compliance time. I rolled up to the warehouse looking like death. I’d decided to load up on fluids on the way in, in preparation for loading trucks after a day of non-stop puking and pooping. We had to go through security and metal detectors before a 1/2 mile walk to the building, then another 1/4 mile or so to my load once inside.
Those fluids started coming up just through security, and I also had to stop in the building on the way to my load to avail myself of the commode.
At my load, my supe started going over pre-shift stuff while I’m standing towards the back next to a trashcan. Those that hadn’t been near me on the walk-in had already heard about my compliance, so I had a nice ring of free space around me when I started projectile vomiting into the trashcan and over the surrounding area.
Immediately, my supe shut down the meeting, told everyone to go to work, then asked me what I was doing there in that condition. “I don’t know supe, it may have had something to do with you telling me I’d be written up if I didn’t come in…” I got sent home.
Does the story end there? Would I still be typing if it did?
The jerk decided to still write me up for a no-call-no-show. I questioned him when he handed me the writeup, and he said to take it up with the union if I had a problem. Ok, ding ding, round 2. Remember those union rep friends that I’d made from picking up shifts and working my butt off? Yep, I went in search of one and had a chat.
He had already heard about my ordeal (a mile’s worth of warehouse space, and word still traveled faster than it would have if we shared a cubicle). He knew I had been in the warehouse puking, and if I was there, how could I have not shown up? And if my supe was the one that sent me home after I showed up, how could the writeup be my fault at all?
So he roped in HR. HR was involved in all the official writeups and hadn’t heard the story, but was aware of the write-up. So union rep and I told her the story. She called down and asked the supe to come over to her office. He came and recounted the same story. When asked if I’d called, he said yes. If asked if I’d still showed, he said yes.
When asked if he sent me home, he reiterated that he had. When asked how I could be a no-call-no-show when I’d called, showed, and been sent home, he didn’t have an answer. I was dismissed to go back to work. He was not.
Unfortunately, I don’t have details on what exactly happened with him. My union rep buddy did say that I wasn’t the only one that had been passing along issues for a while, but this was the first they could really do anything about.
Being management, supe wasn’t part of the union, and the union rep wouldn’t say much else other than it was settled. When a union rep tells you it’s settled and they can’t say more, my experience has been that they’re absolutely right. The supe kept his distance and didn’t speak much to me afterward outside of what was absolutely necessary.”
10. Big Boy General Has To Apologize To Little Ole Me In My Lowly Position
“Well, let me give you a bit of backstory; this was back in 2014. I was just settling into a comfortable, yet unfulfilling task of being a secretary for a high (but not that high) ranking officer (let’s call him Mick) in airforce intelligence. I LOVED Mick and the other officers in his unit, but I didn’t like the job because I was supposed to be drafted into a frontline intelligence unit but broke my arm BAD during the first day of boot camp.
Anyway, I was just doing my thing and in the process of “fighting” to be allowed into officer school with 2 metal plates in my arm and a titanium bolt in my knee and all that time working hard to keep my commander’s schedule the way he liked it.
Now, my commander had 1 strict policy; no matter who it was, no matter how high ranking or low, if he was requested to join a meeting, an explanation (like meeting agendas, priorities, etc.) had to be delivered to me, as his secretary, at LEAST a week prior to the meeting, to help him review it.
If it was TOP SECRET or TOP PRIORITY, the week prior rule was not applied, but still, we requested the explanation ASAP before we could say yes or no.
Well, as you would imagine, he being a high-ranking officer meant that other, maybe even HIGHER ranking officers, might request a meeting with him. Most of the time, it went smoothly- except for one.
One morning, I was receiving a call on the mainline from a certain secretary of a certain high-ranking officer.
(Let’s call her Betty, and him, Benny.)
“Hey OP, I need Mick to head over to a conference meeting tomorrow at our office.” (Their office is in a different city, like a 30-minute drive.)
“Um, hey Betty, what’s this all about? I haven’t seen an email invite with the details.”
“Oh, we can’t send it. It’s TOP SECRET.” (This wasn’t surprising when things were TOP SECRET, usually, it was explained over the red line, and in some cases, sent by fax connected to the red line.)
“Ok, wait, a second then.” I switch to the red line and call her office.
She picks up, I can literally FEEL her scoffing through the phone and say, “OP, this really isn’t necessary. Just tell Mick to head over tomorrow by 10:30 AM.”
“Sorry Betty, I can’t do that without being given an explanation, written or verbal.”
“WHAT?! DO YOU EVEN REALISE WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO?!”
She then goes INTO me, yelling that she could have me on trial for not following orders from a superior officer. (I was a mere corporal, which was unusual for a Colonel. She was a major, and a secretary of a Brig. General.)
I then go into “anger management mode” and keeping my tone the calmest and reasonable I say: “If your commander isn’t pleased with my reasoning, he’s more than welcome to settle this with Mick.
The thing is, Mick isn’t available until 2 days from now, because he’s in active training” (almost all airforce commanders in high ranking offices are also pilots, and need to go to their respective bases to train once a week).
“WHAT?! YOUR COMMANDER WILL HEAR OF THIS!” CLICK.
Well, figuring this isn’t over, I send a page to Mick, saying he might receive angry calls soon.
He’s a really chill guy and knows to trust my judgment by now.
Also, a side note- Mick’s office is so unique, he doesn’t have a direct commanding officer that’s Brig. General. His direct commander is the COMMANDER OF THE ENTIRE AIRFORCE.
15 minutes later, I get a conference REDLINE call from the Airforce command office. In it was me, Betty, and the secretary of the commander (let’s call her Angela) out-ranking both me and Betty by a lot and 100% NOT INTERESTED.
Angela: “Hey OP, I’m here with Betty. I understand they requested Mick to come to a conference tomorrow?”
Me: “Yes, she did call me, and as I explained that without a reasonable excuse, I cannot change his schedule like that.”
Betty: “And as I’ve said, I can’t divulge that info to a CORPORAL. It’s TOP SECRET.”
Angela, now getting MORE annoyed by this: “You do know there’s no officer acting as Micks’ secretary, right?”
Betty: “It’s not MY problem, I have orders not to divulge TOP SECRET INFO” (which is TOTAL NONSENSE; I have clearance levels higher than most, as Mick’s role is head intelligence advisor to the AIRFORCE COMMANDER HIMSELF, sometimes representing him in meetings with top-ranking officials across the globe).
Angela: “Well then, even if you’re right, why didn’t you fax it via the red line? Send it now or Mick won’t arrive.”
Betty: “OMG, what IS IT with you people?! Don’t you get that my commander’s meeting is important?! Send Mick and that’s it!”
She then goes into YELLING AT THE SECRETARY OF THE AIRFORCE COMMANDER, BLAMING HER FOR INCOMPETENCE.
Suddenly, we hear rushing steps and a different voice comes up from Angela’s phone: “Hi, yes? Who is it?”
Betty: “It’s Betty from Benny’s office. I understand you’re the secretary of the Airforce commander?” She then opens up on a tirade of lies about me and Angela.
The voice cuts her: “I’m sorry Betty, but this is The AIRFORCE COMMANDER. Remind me who’s this ‘Benny’ you’re so arrogant about, that you decide to yell at two of my most trusted secretaries?”
Betty, grasping at straws right now, mumbling: “Oh, sorry sir, it’s just that they weren’t very nice…”
The Airforce Freaking commander, while I can hear Angela laughing her butt off in the background: “Betty, listen closely.
I do not like your attitude and do not approve of your demands. You can tell Benny that until he PERSONALLY apologizes to both my secretary AND Mick’s. He can expect NO attendance from the airforce in ANY meeting. Good day.”
Click.
1 hour later, I receive a knock on my office door. Here enters Benny, a Brig. General, asks for me, apologizes for his secretary’s behavior, and asks if there’s a way to get Mick in his meeting.
I stammer out that I’ll check with Angela…
We eventually sent a low-ranking officer that told us the things spoken in the meeting were NOT TOP SECRET and had NOTHING TO DO WITH THE AIRFORCE. He just came, ate some pastries, drank some coffee, and left.
Betty never called us again, only Benny, and he always asked for me.”
9. Don't Say The Wrong Thing To The Wrong Person
”This is a story a friend of mine told me a number of years ago and I was reminded of it.
Some of the details are a little iffy, so bear with me.
Said friend had applied to a company (I can’t remember which one) and was waiting with other applicants for an interview. Everyone was chatting to kill time and relieve some of the tension, and the secretary had mentioned that she started fairly recently and was still getting used to the job. It was pretty jovial. That’s… when Entitled Pansy (EP) walked in.
He had the kind of attitude that screamed, ‘I shouldn’t have to inhale; the air should just flow into my lungs.’
EP walks to the secretary’s desk and gives his name and that he was there for an interview. He adds that he wanted to be the next one seen because there was somewhere he needed to be. The secretary told him that she couldn’t do that and that he’d just have to wait his turn to be called. This irritated EP and he said something along the lines of she must be new or stupid and that he didn’t feel like waiting.
He berated her a bit more and told her again to just mark him as next, or he’d make sure she’d get canned as soon as he was hired on.
Everyone was shocked that this jerk would say this to her. He berated her a bit more, turned like he was going to sit down, but the boss walked out with the lady he was interviewing.
He thanked her, then called on EP for his interview. In retrospect, this was a big red flag. The secretary never told the boss who was next; he just said EP’s name. Before anyone could say anything, the boss took EP into his office, and they were gone.
The secretary just sat there, she was definitely holding back tears. After a bit, she got back to work doing whatever she could.
Can’t cry if you’re busy. Everyone said she should go into his office and explain what happened, that they’d back her. She was about to say something when she looked at her desk, smiled, and then said, ‘No, I’m good.’ One of the others was about to say something, but she told him it was OK.
An hour later, EP walked out of his interview and had no color on his face.
He said not one word to anyone and just left. The boss called the next few people, the secretary wishing all of them good luck with a smile. Dan was called in, and they got through the interview, and then the boss thanked him for his time, and he would be in touch. Dan told him he just had to ask about EP and what happened. The boss stopped what he was doing, said no problem, and explained everything.
The secretary, being new, was still working on figuring out the phone system and had a hard time remembering how to reach him over it. So, he came up with a solution for during the interviews: they’d just leave the line open, mute his end so people couldn’t hear what he was doing, and turn down his speaker. During the lady’s interview, he needed to ask his secretary a question.
He turned up the speaker and was about to unmute his end when he overheard EP’s tirade. He was fuming and asked the interviewee if she would be OK with rescheduling. She had no argument and just wanted to get out of the way.
When he got back with EP, both sat in silence for a while. Boss then told him that he heard the stuff EP said to the secretary.
Before EP could say a word, the boss told him that he wanted to hire someone that he could depend on, so he hired his PARTNER. Cue the biggest chewing for the history books. He then told EP that not only was there no way in heck he was hiring him, but he was also going to call the HR of other companies that were in the area and let them know what he did.
This would effectively kill any chance of him getting a job with any of those companies. When EP said he couldn’t do that, the boss told him that what he said wasn’t said during HIS interview, so he wasn’t under any kind of protection, if any. The boss then told him to get the heck out.
The friend didn’t get the job, but he was content with the experience.”
8. Ex Accuses Me Of Stealing Cash, So I Spam The Lawyer With My Financials
“This happened several years ago when my ex and I were going through a heated divorce/custody battle. While we were married, we had a couple of conversations about how rich people hide their assets to avoid paying taxes. I’ve never had enough assets to do this, but she somehow got the idea that I was and told her attorney that I was laundering and hiding income.
It was more likely the heat of the moment as divorce/custody battles often come down to. I couldn’t even afford my own attorney so I represented myself.
Her lawyer wasn’t a total jerk, but he clearly was out to get me, and he talked down to me like I didn’t deserve to breathe the same air. One day, I get a letter in the mail from him requesting an updated income declarations form and 3 years of financials.
It had a long list of things to include.
I own a communications tech company that was in super startup phase back then. Cash was already tight. I was trying to get this business off the ground with no financing, I was finishing my MBA with scholarships and loans, so paying for copies and postage or driving this 30 miles to his office meant eating peanut butter and saltines for a week.
So I called him to explain my situation. He all but called me a liar and didn’t believe I couldn’t afford it.
I was put off by that, and I said this was taking time away from business I needed to handle. To which he replied (and I’ll never forget this), “Well, according to your income declarations, you’re not that busy. What do you do all day?” He then said if he didn’t get these documents, he would consider my previous filings as fraudulent, tell the judge, contact the DA, and also alert the state tax agency and IRS.
Probably an empty threat, but I’m no lawyer.
Efax is one of the services my company provides, and at this time it was relatively unknown. So I asked him if he has a fax machine. He said he had a fax/scanner/copier device, then said what law office doesn’t have a fax machine? And I suddenly got an idea. Okay, I said to him, I’ll put together and fax whatever I can.
Okay, jerk. You want 3 years of financials? You got it.
I scanned to PDF every receipt I could find. McDonald’s receipt from 5 years ago? It won’t hurt to include it. CVS receipt? It’s 3 miles long, perfect. They get the $1 off toothpaste coupons too.
I downloaded every bank statement, credit card statement, purchase orders from vendors, and every invoice I sent to clients. I printed to PDF the entire 3-year accounting journal, monthly/quarterly/annual balance sheets, cash flow statements, P & L’s.
Not only did I PDF 3 years of tax filings, but every single letter I received from the IRS and state tax agency, including the inserts advising me of my rights. It took a while, but I was a few days ahead of the deadline!
I made a cover page black background with white lettering. Wherever I could, I included separator pages in all caps in the biggest, boldest font that would fit on the page in landscape: 20XX RECEIPTS, 20XX TAXES, etc. I merged everything into a single 150+ page compressed PDF and sent the document using my Efax system.
Every hour or so, I received a status email saying the fax failed. Huh, that’s weird. Well, they’re getting this document. So I changed the system configuration to unlimited retries after failures to keep redialing until it went through. Weird, I was still getting status email failures. I’ll delete the failure emails and keep the success one after it eventually goes through, I thought. Problem solved.
Two days later, a lady from his office called and asked me to stop sending the fax. Their fax/scanner/printer/copier had been printing non-stop. It kept getting paper jams, kept running out of ink and they had to keep shutting it off and back on to print.
I explained that her boss told me to send this by the deadline or else he would call the DA and IRS.
Since I didn’t want a call from the DA or the IRS, I would keep sending until I get a success confirmation. I suggested they just not print until my fax completes, but she didn’t like that.
She asked me to email the documents, and I told a little white lie that my email wouldn’t allow an attachment that big. Unless her boss in writing agreed to cancel the request or agree to reimburse me for my costs to print and ship, I said I would continue to fax until they confirm they have received every page.
She put me on hold, and the attorney gets on the line. He said forget sending the financials. I said that I would need this in writing, so I will keep sending the fax until he sent that to me. He asked me to stop faxing and he would send it in writing, and I said send it in writing first and then I’ll stop.
Long moment of silence… click.
About 20 minutes later, I received an email from his assistant with an attached, signed letter in PDF that I no longer needed to provide financials. The letter then threatened to pursue sanctions in court or sue me for interfering with their business. Every time I saw him after that, the lawyer never brought up sanctions, lawsuits, criminal referrals, or financials again.”
7. Karen Wants Me To "Hit Everything Green" In Her Yard
She said “everything.”
“This story happened about 10-ish years ago.
When I was in high school and still living at home, we were required to do community service in order to graduate. Those who did more than the minimum 10 hours were granted a recommendation from the high school to any college they applied to on their application into university where they would recommend as a “contributor to society.”
I had been working my own lawn-care business…better phrased as a community service since I was in 9th grade. As it came to my 12th-grade year (senior year in high school), all of my neighbors were having their yards mowed and trimmed by me. Come my final year of primary school before university, I was still mowing the lawns of my neighbors free of charge, but I had also become alternate captain of my primary school’s hockey team.
Come my final year before university, I was still taking care of yards for my neighbors. Most of them were old enough that they couldn’t take care of them without help. Of course…there was always one person who always had extra things for me to do, regardless of what I had to get done after their yard (theirs was normally the last one since it was the closest to my home at the time).
Let’s call her Karen.
Initially, it was just small things, like moving their yard furniture, so I could mow their whole yard without missing anything. Then, the day I was sick of everything.
I had mowed 5 yards in 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celcius) after I had completed an hour conditioning session for hockey and an additional conditioning session for lacrosse. Honestly, I was in a bad mood.
I had gotten through all of the yards without a hitch because the people I was mowing for knew it was essentially for free… Then it was Karen’s turn.
I was already going to be late for practice, and I knew it. As I started wheeling my mower out of her yard I hear a: “Where do you think you are going?”
I was a little stunned because I wasn’t used to people just randomly running out and yelling at me, and at this point, I had completed mowing and was about to put the spray jug of round-up away since I was done spraying all the bad plants in their yard.
I responded with “I am done, I am going home.”
Karen: “You’re leaving without completing my yard? There is a lot of green that I am not approving! I won’t sign off until all of the green in the yard has been hit!”
Cue malicious compliance:
I looked at her and said, “You want me to hit everything that is green before I leave?”
Karen: “I want you to hit anything green before you leave.”
I think some of you can already see where this is going…
As a high-schooler who was told to spray “anything green,” I started spraying everything green.
The next day after school, my dad called me into a room. When I walked in, Karen was there scowling.
Karen: “You killed all of my yard!”
Me: “You told me to round-up everything green in your yard.”
My dad: “Is that actually what you told him?”
Karen: “Absolutely not!”
Dad: “Ok, what did you say?”
Karen: “I told him to…” She gets really quiet. She starts to bring up that the yard wasn’t as short as she wanted and then walks away.
Dad: “What did you tell him to do?”
Karen: “I told him to hit anything green in the yard.”
I haven’t seen such a big poop-eating grin on my dad’s face since.
Dad: “You didn’t…”
Me: “I did…”
I ended up spraying round-up on Karen’s entire yard. Anything green… round-up. Grass… round-up. Any flower with a green stem… round-up. Her prized orchids… round-up.
Since I was already going to be late, I didn’t just do the recommended level of concentrate. It was twice as strong as it should have been.
Fallout: Since I had a whole neighborhood of people who would say I did an amazing job taking care of their yard, when Karen called the cops to report me for property damage, she got a warning for falsifying police reports as well as a scolding by the cops to not tell someone to do something if they don’t want it executed to the letter.
I have since moved back into the same neighborhood as I grew up in and see Karen around. She glares at me every time I see her. Her yard has not recovered.”
Little info: I was using a weedkiller on the driveway called Crossbow. This stuff is WAY stronger than any Roundup will ever be. It's so strong that it's not made anymore in the concentration I was using because if it wasn't diluted properly, it would STERILIZE THE GROUND. Literally nothing could grow there for almost a decade.
She DEMANDED that I use that on all the places I had already pulled up weeds for some ungodly reason. I tried to tell her that was a horrible idea and why, but she just Karen'd harder. So I may have "accidentally" used it UNDILUTED. I never went back because I was somewhat afraid of what she might do, but favorite neighbor (who warned me she might be a jerk, paid me when her sister refused, and thought my revenge was hilarious) told me her planters are still barren and empty to this day.
6. Kill A Company? Prepare For Your Life To Be Ruined
“I worked hourly at this franchised company maybe 6 or so years ago and had been working there for 4 years. The first 3 years were fine, had some good people and the annoying ones were easy to ignore. But then a lot of people retired or left and the new people hired were much harder to ignore. It became a place that reminded me of one big high school clique because everyone acted like a spoiled rotten popular kid aside from some of the ‘veterans’ of that branch.
But these people were in their 30s-50s acting like children and took any opportunity to brush off work. They’d go on nightly drinking sprees, and because the higher members of the branch were in the clique, work would end early. And if you are hourly, when work closes, you don’t get that cash. You get a lesser paycheck than anyone else, who were all salary.
It also doesn’t help the wound that none of us were ever invited to join in these parties.
The worst of those higher members were in positions they really had no business being in, and I’ll be focusing on two of them. We will call them Small and Bighead. You will see why. They were what made the place specifically hard to stay at for my department (if we weren’t in need of the cash) as a lot of the extra work that they couldn’t figure out was shoved on me and my colleagues, also hourly.
I’ll start with Small. Small was the sort of guy that was clearly self-conscious of how short he was, and so he wore big clothes. The big clothes made him look smaller, honestly. If you can’t fit into triple-X clothing, don’t wear it. But he did, and it made him look like he had parachute pants.
Small also had another complex going.
He was divorced, and really had a liking for stupid younger women. He was always bringing in new interviewees, and they were always girls ten years or so younger than him. And they were always hired. If you were a stupid woman ten years younger than Small and only worked in fast food your whole life, you’d earn yourself a 65k salary job with him as long as he thought you were pretty.
The worst of them were women I’ll call Anime and Hilda.
Hilda had more experience under her belt than Anime (granted, Anime didn’t have any at all) but she was a total witch and was actually banned from one of her positions because our customers hated her. She thought she was motherly or something, petting me when she had the chance. I stayed far away from her.
Far, far away.
Meanwhile, Anime was a woman that acted like she was 4 years old. She skipped around our tiny office building, barely ever did real work and got raises anyway, and would cry and pout around if Small wasn’t available for her to talk to. Because she never worked a job like hers in her whole life, Small had to do everything for her.
I highly doubt she even did any work for herself. She was simply hired because she made Small… Feel less small.
Well, Small was eventually let go because the company changed hands and the new owners didn’t like him. That eventually lead to Hilda quitting, though she really should’ve been fired. Anime, on the other hand, stayed. But she latched on to someone else; Bighead.
Bighead was this kind of guy that just expected things to sort of fall into his lap. He was one of the big-shots at work and had a position that he really didn’t deserve. If he needed something fixed, he would never do it himself. But Bighead was a family man. He had a wife, a young child, and a new baby. While I didn’t care for him, I at least respected that he had a nice family.
His kids would come to visit him at work once in a while, and they were the cutest things.
Without Small, Anime was lost but obviously didn’t leave because she wanted to keep those raises that he had gifted her. So, Bighead was the one to start covering for her and do all her work for her, be the subject of her pouting fits, etc.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, at one of the drinking hours… Anime got super wasted and started boasting, really loudly, that she was in bed with Bighead and that she was going to ‘ride her way to the top’. She started showing everyone else from the company with her the inappropriate texting between her and Bighead, pictures included.
Do you know how if you see an accident happen you just can’t look away?
Well, after that whole thing, management received several reports about her… Announcement. To make it even more hilarious, when Anime was brought in to have a talk, she stormed out of the meeting room screaming at the top of her lungs ‘I NEVER SLEPT WITH BIGHEAD’ so the WHOLE building knew what was going on. That was the only reason I knew because with an outburst like that of course the gossipers are going to circle the word around.
Well, yeah. She was sleeping with Bighead. They were inappropriately texting on the company phones, so management was able to see the evidence for themselves, even IF they decided not to believe the 10 people who came forward.
Needless to say, she and Bighead were fired. And I have no idea if Bighead’s family even knows. It’s not really my problem, anyway. I left the place after that because it was not worth it.”
5. I Wouldn't Want To Harass A Customer
“I work in health IT; specifically I assist people with getting into various Patient Portals to access their health information, make appointments, message doctors, etc. 95% of the people who call us are nice and often grateful when we’re able to help them get back into their Portal. Some start as frustrated, but once they see we’re able to help them and get them what they need, they transform and become sweet as pudding pie.
Then there’s the other 5%… hoo boy.
A note here that the company I work for is excellent; they put an emphasis on customer service first, but also have our back if there are any genuine issues with a customer misbehaving. Everything is recorded so if there are any questions, quality assurance or management can go back, hear for themselves, and make recommendations as needed.
All this leads to our caller for today.
Mr. Jerk was having problems getting into his Portal. He calls me, literally yelling about how broken and garbage “your system” is, with a tone implying I personally picked the EHR and portal for a medical organization in another state just to spite him. Hey, no hurt feelings here… there are some things I don’t like about the Portal either. But he continues on and on about how much he hates it, all his friends (LOL) hate it, his neighbors hate it, his pets hate it, and so on.
When I can finally get a polite word in, I ask him for his name so I can look him up in our system.
He spits out his name. “Bob Jerk!” Per HIPAA, I also have to ask for two secondary identifiers to make sure he is the right Bob Jerk. I ask for his date of birth and the last four of his SSN per procedure.
He rants about why can’t I get him back into his chart NOW and screeches out the rest of his info. I try to find him in the system as he continues babbling angrily, and lo and behold, he’s not in there. I politely ask him to spell his name. “Geez! Don’t you know how to do your job?” Turns out his name was spelled differently than I thought.
I finally find him and open his file.
“So you can’t get into the portal, sir?” “YES! Didn’t I just say that?” “Okay sir, I see your username is JerkNozzle86. I can’t look up old passwords, so would you like me to give you a temporary one?”
Screaming intensifies. “I’M ALREADY IN MY PORTAL!” he cries in fury, completely contradicting what he said mere seconds ago.
“I NEED HELP FINDING MY INFORMATION!” I am now holding my headset away from my ear in pain. If my cubicle neighbor had not been at lunch, I’m pretty sure he’d be able to hear this guy just as clearly as me.
“I’m sorry, sir, I thought you just said…”
“DON’T YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING?”
“Well, sir, what are you…”
“WHY DO YOU KEEP ASKING ME THESE QUESTIONS!
YOU’RE HARASSING ME!”
Oh. Oh, well now. I can’t be harassing my customers. That’s just not appropriate, and against our company’s policies, of course.
Deep breath, clear voice. “Well, sir. I’m trying to assist you, but if you feel I’m harassing you, then I’m afraid I need to end this call.”
The screaming had become unintelligible at this point, though I hear a couple of curses thrown in.
Remember how I said our company has our back? If abusive language is used, we’re allowed to disconnect after a warning. And I had already told him I was going to end this call.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you, sir. Thank you for calling Patient Portal. Have a good day.” Push end call.
Per procedure, I immediately notified quality assurance of what had just happened in case the guy called back with complaints or started bellowing at other agents.
QA listens to the call and comes back with, “Wow, that guy started angrily and he never let up. You tried to help and you had more patience than I would have. You’re fine.”
I went on to help many other lovely customers through the rest of the day. He thankfully never called back; I would not be surprised to find he filled himself with so much rage he spontaneously combusted, leaving a vacuum of bitterness behind in his place.”
4. Don't Want To Have An Awkward Conversation? Extra Days Off It Is
“The company I worked for had a quite old-fashioned attitude to the workplace. The workforce was divided into ‘boiler suits’ and ‘suits’ or ‘workshops’ and ‘office’
They regarded office as educated, professional and honest and workshop as stupid, lazy and petty thieves. This was not a view I agreed with, I had come from a company where everyone from the janitor to the general manager were treated the same and could have an input; if something went wrong in design or manufacturing it was often the guy working the machine or fitted the parts who spotted it and came up with the correction.
In my new place, the office would not accept input from workshop unless they really really had to.
Workshop had to clock and account for every minute whereas office was on the honour system, we were trusted to input our own hours and we usually just entered our 8 hours per day despite usually working more, sometimes a lot more because we were professional in our work ethic.
In my old place everyone clocked, it was no big deal but suggesting that it happen here was like suggesting that office workers were untrustworthy.
Then there was Bob. Bob turned up about 8:30 and left about 3:30 and somehow still managed to log 8 hours per day. We had a half-hour lunch break (we could extend it but had to log it and work the time back).
He took long lunches of about an hour or so. He was also a heavy smoker and about 3 to 4 times an hour Bob would pop outside for a smoke.
Everyone knew about Bob including HR. We knew that Bob was on a shaky peg for a while because his working hours were getting shorter and shorter while still being charged at 8 hours. Something had to give.
HR had an easy job; have a word with Bob and get him to work the hours he claimed, put him on an RA (Remedial Action plan) or else fire him for mis-accounting hours.
Instead, HR decided to instigate a new policy that everyone on-site would clock and would have to account for their hours on site. At no point did HR actually talk to anyone in the office, they just seemed to come up with this plan based on what they think went on.
Engineering was generally happy with this although a few did grumble about honour and trust. HR just shrugged their shoulders and shifted the blame onto the European Working Time Directive and said that it was the new normal, nothing we can do… honest. You don’t pull nonsense on engineers because we like rules and sure enough some of the engineering team researched it and found out that HR was just using EU law to railroad through a new process.
We did need to record worked hours but nowhere did it say we had to use an electronic clocking system to do it. The old system fulfilled the requirement of the law just fine.
The new clocking machines were fitted in every entrance to the office block, we were all given swipe cards and training on using the new system. We could have pointed it out to HR and indeed some people tried but the decision had already been made and they pushed ahead with it.
We all knew what was coming and we continued on as normal waiting for the end of the month.
At the end of the month, the project billing controllers went nuts. While one or two people were genuinely stealing time from the company the rest of us were under-accounting for our time. Engineering was on a flexible working day, as long as we did core hours and did our 8 hours then we were OK, anything over 8 hours was banked and at the end of the month was either paid as overtime or flexi-time.
I nominally started at 7 am but I was usually in by 6:40 and we worked to the job so I could leave at 3:30 but it was often closer to 4. Most of us were the same but we usually just rounded to an 8 hour day.
Suddenly the projects lost 3-4 hours of free overtime per person per week and with an office of around 300 people that is a hit-load of time and that had to be paid as OT or banked as flexi as per our contract.
One or two managers suggested we just adjust our time to the previous hours but falsifying clocking hours was gross misconduct and a sackable offence so they went back in their box pretty quickly. HR told it to log our time accurately and so we did.
HR refused to back down because “EU law” which we knew was rubbish and so the productivity figures went down, in some cases by over 10%, costs went up as we had to be credited with all the extra time and so we all got at least a flexi-day per month that we never had before.
Thanks, HR. All you needed to do was to have a word with Smoky Bob and his like and all would be well but because you wanted to avoid an awkward conversation we all get extra holidays. WOOHOO.”‘
Another User Comments:
“Why would you log fewer hours than you actually worked in the first place?
I am in engineering myself, and while I like my employer and will not log every single minute, I am sure as not giving away 3-4 hours/week of my time for free.” Zombie-Giraffe
3. Did You Want Salt With Those Fries? Oops
“Just a bit of a background, in my hometown the first McDonald’s opened about 2-3 years before the story took place and it instantly became a popular spot for kids, teenagers, and young adults to hang out.
Due to its location, it was very common to see someone you know working there. At this specific McDonald’s my friend’s second cousin was a manager and someone they know from high school was a normal member of the staff.
So to the story. My friend (16m at the time) ‘Clark’ started going out with this gorgeous girl from school and at the point of the story, they have been together for about a month.
I think she was about 15 or 16 as well. She used to do modeling, came from a wealthy family and I think at the time had one of the latest iPhones, which we peasants couldn’t afford, so had to use old androids or classical mobile phones without a touchscreen. Clark was walking the girl (I’m going to name her Chloe to give her some personality) home and she wanted to stop by McDonald’s to have a milkshake and fries.
Clark had no issues with this and left her at the table to order food and pay for it while she was on her phone.
As it’s his time to order, Clark’s cousin takes his order and tells him the girl he is with constantly hangs out there with a bunch of dudes, and judging by his description one of them is her ‘ex’ who Chloe claimed to have broken up with and can not stand.
Clark hates being lied to, so he asks for her fries and the milkshake and asks for no salt in her fries (she likes her food salty) and the milkshake of the wrong flavor. His cousin agrees and makes the order.
Inauspicious Chloe starts eating her order and makes a face when she realizes her fries are not salty. More so when she tries the milkshake.
She gets up and goes looking for salt packets but there aren’t any, the cousin is holding off from filling them up as he is curious how it will end up.
Chloe returns to the table and starts moaning that she got the wrong milkshake and her fries are not salty, so Clark suggests that she go up there and change them. She does and since Clark’s cousin is on the watch she gets fries without salt again and he informs her they can’t redo the milkshake as the milkshake machine is broken.
Well, imagine Chloe’s surprise when she realizes again her fries are not salty. She asks Clark to help her, and storms to the till ready to sort things out. As soon as Clark’s cousin sees them together he pretends he doesn’t know who Clark is and acts all surprised, whilst calling Clark her brother. When Chloe tries to correct him, he acts confused and asks her who the guy she was kissing there the other day was and apologizes for any confusion, as he wasn’t aware they were in an open relationship.
Chloe goes pale and vanishes from the place faster than Clark can blink. Clark gets free food from his cousin, an extra milkshake, and a ride home as he missed the last bus when walking Chloe home.”
2. Cut In Front Of Me And Demand A Discount? Leave With Nothing
“This actually happened today at a home improvement store where red vests are worn.
I was in the garden department, in line to check out my 4 small plants, when up saunters a Latina lady, heavily made up holding one plant.
It was my turn next, but this woman immediately walks in front of me, cuts me off, turns to me, and says in a heavy accent, ‘can I go first?’ Not a smile. Didn’t look like an emergency. I thought I must be mistaken in what I heard since it was so weird. I barely had anything in my cart.
Having lived in Mexico as a kid, I speak fluent Spanish so I said to her in Spanish, ‘is there something wrong?
Did I misunderstand you? Why would you want to cut ahead of me? I don’t have much.’ She replied in very broken English, ‘because I want to go first and I only have 1.’ Then she walks straight up to the Latina cashier (important later), gives her a knowing look, and smugly plops her plant on the counter.
The cashier ignores the woman, leans past her, and says to me, ‘I’m sorry, weren’t you next?’ Surprised, I told her a bit bemused that ‘yes I was, but that lady seems to be insistent that she goes first.’ Continuing I said, ‘I don’t really care that much and I’m not in a hurry, so I guess she can go first.’ The lady with the plant just ignores me.
Not a ‘thank you’ for letting her cut. Nothing. No grace at all. She just totally ignores me, shoves the plant towards the cashier, and tries to hand her $2. The cashier looks at the $2, scans the plant, then deadpans to the woman, ‘I’m sorry ma’am, that plant is $4.’
The lady starts to argue. First in English, then in Spanish that ‘the plant is on sale’, ‘it’s wilted’ (it was), and that ‘the plant was $2, she won’t pay $4.
Why should she?’, but the cashier wasn’t having it. She stared her straight in the eye and said dryly, ‘sorry, I don’t speak Spanish. That plant is $4.’ I did not offer to translate, but by this time I’m trying not to laugh out loud. The cashier would not budge. Neither would the woman, who finally stomped off angrily, leaving her one plant on the counter.
As I rolled up, the cashier had stopped being so dry and controlled. She was steamed. She says to me, ‘You know I did that on purpose. I hate people like her. The plant really was $4, so nothing I could do about that, but I’m Mexican. I speak fluent Spanish. People like her? I flat out refuse to speak Spanish.’ ‘I’m not her bro.
I hate people like her!’ The cashier was royally annoyed.
When she finally simmered down, she asked me how I knew Spanish so well, and I told her a bit about my childhood in Mexico. Her family was from a town not far from where I had lived. When we finally both stopped chuckling and stopped complaining about the rude woman, she scanned my purchases.
As it turned out, 3 of my 4 plants were magically on sale! Score! …..Totally worth the wait.”
1. Need To Deal With A Rude Customer? Kill Them With Kindness
“I work for a pet supply company (let’s call it Petsmert) and despite it being retail, you actually get a lot of polite customers. As a bonus for me, they bring their pets into the store and I get to play with them when we have time. One morning I was cashiering when a man who looked a lot like a 50-yr old steroidal Daniel Craig came in with his dog in a headcollar (a type of collar that loops around the dog’s nose as well as its neck for additional control; usually used for training).
I noticed that the top nylon strap was put on wrong so that it was pulling upward underneath the dog’s eye and causing him discomfort. As the guy walks up to check out, I quickly comment on the position of the strap so he can fix it and that was all I was planning to say about it before cashing him out as usual. No big deal to me, I just know that most dog owners would have appreciated the head’s up because they care about their pet’s well-being.
But not Jerk… No, he angrily set his box of treats down on the counter and said, ‘Why don’t you just do your job?’
Now, I’m not a clever man but I was also a former MP in the military and I know when it’s worth pressing an issue. So I politely apologized and pointed at his dog (which he hadn’t bothered to even look yet) and said ‘It’s just that the strap is pulling up under his eye and it looks like it’s bothering him.
You can see–‘
‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’ he said, cutting me off. I look up and he just glares at me like I’ve just challenged his manhood; those beautiful Daniel Craig eyes were hot with what I’m assuming was steroid rage. ‘I didn’t come in here to have my time wasted. Are you just going to stand there or are you going to ring me up?’
Eh, I tried. I felt like I had done my duty but there was clearly some sort of miscommunication going on so I decided I’d just go ahead and finish the transaction and get him out of the store. I scan the treats he’s purchasing and was about to punch up the total when he decides he’s not done yet. Without any provocation from me, he says, ‘And you know what?
I don’t appreciate you making accusations against me. How would you like it if I went and got your manager about this?’
Now, I know his type: he’s tall and intimidating-looking and probably gets his way by being threatening without having to actually back it up most of the time. I’ve dealt with jerks like him the whole time I was in the service and I’ve discovered that these sorts of people are used to either 1) having people cave in immediately, or 2) having other testosterone-laden guys try to get into a contest with them.
Little does he know that I always go for Plan C in these situations.
I set the box of treats down calmly and just make direct eye contact with him for exactly three seconds too long, smiling as politely for the camera as I possibly can just in case this goes south and someone needs to review the footage later on. In fact, I’m secretly hoping he does take a swing at me because there’s nothing that would please me more than to use my police training on this smug jerk (or at least, try to.
He’d mop the floor with my butt but I’d still enjoy the attempt).
I could tell for about a split second that he was surprised by the eye contact. I guess I was supposed to cower in fear or something. But he continued to try and stand tall over me and he didn’t back down either. Right as he was about to say something else, I went straight into the one weapon that I can use without fear of reprisal but guys like this absolutely can’t stand: my bubbly happy voice that you can’t make shut up.
‘You’re absolutely right, sir!’ I said with as much excitement I could muster without it being sarcastic, my facial expressions matching my enthusiasm. ‘Why, on a day like today I imagine you’ve got a lot to get done. Why else would you be getting such an early head start like you are? Where are you and the little lady off to today, anyway? (the dog was male and I deliberately confused his gender) I certainly hope I didn’t insult you before; certainly wasn’t my meaning, after all.
I just hope you know that we here at PetSmert love pets just as much as you do! Let’s just go ahead and finish ringing you up so you can get on with your day!’
I never paused to let him answer any of the questions I asked and from his facial expressions, the longer I talked, the more it seemed to physically hurt him to hear me speak.
He started waving a hand as if to say ‘fine, fine, just get on with it!’ So I finished up my audible assault and realized that this transaction wasn’t even over yet!
‘Well, there we go now. Your total is x. Do you have your pet rewards card?’ I asked impossibly happily.
‘No,’ he grunted out.
‘Do you have a phone number that I could maybe look up for you?’ I said impossibly eagerly.
‘No!’
‘Do you have any coupons?’ I asked impossibly delightfully.
Wouldn’t you know it? The jerk had a coupon. He handed it to me and I fumbled with it a little bit, gleefully realizing it had expired yesterday. I pressed a whole bunch of buttons on my till that really didn’t do anything and cycled back and forth through the screens as if I didn’t know how to punch in his coupon.
I tried scanning an unrelated barcode on the backside of the coupon and the register made all sorts of unpleasant beeps back at me.
‘Well?’ he demanded when it was becoming obvious that I was either incompetent or messing with him.
‘Oh no! I’m sorry sir, but this coupon has expired!’ My feigned disappointment was palpable.
‘UGH! I’M NEVER COMING BACK HERE AGAIN!’ He hurriedly paid with his card and stormed out, poor dog in tow.”
