People Recount Their Grand Moments Of Revenge
16. I Sent One Video And The Store Turned To Chaos
“I worked at a fairly large store that sells all sorts of stuff.
If you need it they probably got it unless it was a highly specialized item. Anyway, for a year I worked at the store. 8 hours a day. Still part-time with one week off. Somehow never promoted to full-time. That was strike one for me.
But I needed the money and did not want to raise a stink, so I kept on going.
Most of what I did was check people out and do inventory and tidy up. That’s it. 8 hours a day. Except for the last two where I straight up just tidied the department.
Or got pulled into another. I would say 4 hours a day at most was actual work, and the rest was actually mindless.
Strike two. I wanted to be transferred to another department, one where I excelled after I was put there temporarily after a coworker called in sick for a few days.
That departments manager, Nick, liked me a lot. He was a cool dude. And a great manager. Worked hard to make that department shine. And I wanted to be transferred there. For weeks I was putting in requests. They went nowhere.
Both my manager, Tony, and Nick wanted me there. Or so I thought. I caught Nick during one of his walks through the store and asked why I wasn’t transferred.
‘Tony keeps denying it.’ I WAS ANGRY. But didn’t make any scene and kept on going.
We hired some new guys, one of whom is now a good friend. So it wasn’t too bad. Nick was soon replaced by Mark, who was kind of a jerkhead. And my dreams of transfer really were gone.
Strike three.
For a few months before summer classes for university started, (before my immediate departure, as you will see why in a second) I submitted my summer schedule to HR repeatedly to make SURE it was put in. I was NOT going to miss class.
Hard stop.
Two weeks before June 1st that summer (2017) was the first day the classes started, and within two weeks of the anniversary when I was hired (pay rate increase. yay!) My schedule was shown to me. I was working during every single one of my classes.
Tony never approved any of the requests. Oh God no. This is where I got mad.
I submitted an emergency leave of absence due to university classes knowing HR would fully approve. They told me to call in every time I was scheduled and state the reason was the leave of absence while it was being approved. For a week, my manager had to take my shifts.
Those ladies at HR had my back. They are among the few people I miss from the store.
It gets a little better, and NOT because of me.
HR filed it in error. And had me fill out another form, and add some stuff, to be absolutely sure it would be approved. BOOM.
Another week of taking my shifts, jerk.
I left that company and to my knowledge, I am still on leave. I have no intentions of going back.
So, my fellow coworkers had a chat where we talked about all kinds of stuff.
It was also a massive gossip and rumor mill.
I never really spoke besides blasting memes at them, and it never served a purpose. Long after I left the company, I kept in touch with one coworker from that chat, another friend.
But not the one I mentioned earlier.
He sent me something privately. Something amazing. Something I never knew I wanted. Things happen. But this was like walking up to Bill Gates and him giving you a billion dollars. I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears.
I was overwhelmed with the urge to just… break stuff.
A WHOLE D**N COMPILATION OF VIDEOS OF MARK, TONY, AND ANOTHER JERK MANAGER, SARAH, SLEEPING WITH THEIR EMPLOYEES!
Mark and Tony made GREAT targets, with Tony being the main focus.
Sarah was just collateral, but very much deserved it for a multitude of reasons, not that she slighted me, but others.
(Sidenote: Sarah was a manager who once told me that she didn’t take maternity leave after she had a kid because the job was more important than her family, both husband, and child.
Yea. I know. She told me this right after I let my supporting coworker clock out and leave me alone with all of the work after his girl was in a serious car accident. She ended up being fine and making a full recovery.) I weaponized this.
I was salivating at the damage I was going to do. These 3 managers were all married. And it gets worse from there. I kept some email addresses from corporate after detailing and outlining some ‘policy and company issues’ in my contacts.
I long had forgotten them until now. They were all sent these videos with a burner email. I also shot a few out to other managers in the store that were competent and hard workers, and the head of the store.
HR got the email as well. All in all, about 15 people saw that email. Not only did I want to cause some havoc, but I also have a sense of decency and want people to be held accountable for their actions.
Also, infidelity REALLY ANGERS ME!
The aftermath was amazing. And it was just dominoes falling. One after another.
All managers involved were immediately terminated. No severance either. Major breach of contract and policy and whatnot. And it made a scene.
Coworkers I never really talked to reached out to me and told me the news. But it remained inside the store and really didn’t make any waves outside of the store. Within a day, the store went down half of its department managers and began to BURN.
Metaphorically of course. The rest transferred out of that store within the coming months. I recognize no one in that store now, aside from the head of the store. And he is in hot water now too. What came next was relayed to me via the confidant and friend who sent me that nuke.
Mary, one of the associates who was sleeping with Mark (and Tony), decided that she was in love with Mark, and was hoping that he would leave his wife for her, and was surprise surprise livid when he wouldn’t. She angrily sent his wife the videos (no idea where she got them).
Mark’s wife was devastated, but furious, and came unhinged. Mark’s wife then sent the videos to Tony’s wife and Sarah’s husband.
Three terminations, and three quick and b****y divorces, with the managers being left with d**n near nothing.
Careers destroyed, money gone, and their families destroyed.
I do genuinely feel bad for the kids and the spouses. I really really do.
But the managers got what they deserved. By rights, I never thought of doing this, nor ever felt the need to cause so much havoc.
But that nuclear football fell right into my lap and I was overwhelmed…
And I let those missiles fly!”
15. Have An Affair? Get Deported And Arrested
“My ex and I are both native-born citizens of the same country in North America.
We got together when I was still in post-secondary working towards my degree, and he was taking some time before he started post-secondary to work and save up funds.
Our relationship was basically perfect from my perspective; we had similar goals and expectations, we both seemed mature and able to work through any problems we had, and we both were happy to be together and enjoyed each other’s personalities.
We were together for three years prior to this incident.
Our relationship hit a bit of a rough patch though when he told me he wanted to study for his degree at a University in Europe. I, of course, was a little bit upset because it meant that we would be apart for four years (my job field (medical) would require me to retake schooling if I was to go with him), but he was super excited about it and we determined that we loved each other and no amount of distance could change that.
With time I graduated and got my dream job, and I could now afford to rent our shared apartment with just my income, so I didn’t have to move when he was no longer there to pay his half.
He was having some problems with his student visa for the country, but it was determined that he could get a temporary visa for the first semester while we waited for the other one to be approved. So with that, he left. I remember balling my eyes out at the airport when I hugged and kissed him goodbye, and parked outside of the airport to watch his plane take off.
We talked on the phone almost every night.
As unlucky as it was, about five weeks after he left, I found out I was pregnant. Horrible timing, I know. When I told him I was pregnant he immediately accused me of being unfaithful to him while he was gone.
I thought it was a bit odd, since he had never even mentioned such a thing, and it seemed really out of the blue. That obviously led to a big fight, and I felt offended and disgusted that he would even consider it a possibility.
When he came home for Christmas, he was super happy and lovey-dovey with me, saying he was excited. He even proposed to me on the car ride home from his parents’ house on Christmas eve. I was so happy and overjoyed that it felt like everything would work out okay.
When he went back to school, it was again stressful to go through the pregnancy without him, but both his parents and mine were incredibly supportive. They helped me get everything I needed for the baby and even threw me a surprise baby shower.
When I gave birth, my ex watched it over skype from his mom. When he finished his exams, he came home to be with us. He immediately started talking negatively about our daughter, saying things like ‘why is her hair that color?
My hair is brown’ and ‘doesn’t she have (your friend’s) eyes?’ and he again accused me of being unfaithful. So I reluctantly agreed to perform a paternity test to calm his suspicions. Wow, could you believe it, she was his.
He agreed to pay informal child support (sending me funds to pay for the baby without a lawful order to do so) while he was overseas. Now for the fun part.
His student visa had still not been approved, so he had to reapply for another temporary semester visa for the next semester.
Since he did not have a permanent residence in the country, as he was staying in student accommodations, and he didn’t trust the university to not go through official-looking mail, he redirected all of his mail to me, which I would forward to the university in his care packages.
When he came to visit us, he had applied for a new passport, as his was going to expire in six months. I was tasked with picking it up at the office and sending it forward. However, around midterm exam season, I decided our daughter and I would travel to deliver the care package in person and visit.
I had to get her an infant passport and book the tickets, but a couple of months later we were getting on a plane. Side note – traveling with a baby sucks and I’m sorry to everyone else on the plane.
When we got to the country, I settled into our hotel but was too eager to see him. I taxied to his university (only about 45 minutes from the airport) and went to his dorm room on campus. I knocked on the door, holding our daughter.
A woman answered the door. At first, I assumed it was his roommate or something, but I don’t remember him mentioning he had one. Denial is a powerful thing, I guess. I asked her where he was, and she said he was inside and called out to him.
I heard a ‘who is it, babe?’ as he came to the door, and when he saw me, he froze. He went pale and his eyes widened. The woman asked him ‘honey, who is this?’ and I just turned and walked away.
He called out after me and eventually caught up with me. He basically told me that he’s been so lonely without me and he couldn’t help it and that he loved me and not her, to which she started yelling at him calling him a pig and stuff.
My baby started crying because I was crying and so I just left without saying anything. I stayed in the hotel for another day, while he continuously called me on my cell phone. I booked last-minute tickets home and left early and ignored him every time he called me.
I gave myself a week to grieve and then I put my big girl pants on. I immediately hired a lawyer and asked him what I could do to legally separate my life from him (in my country we were considered common-law married).
My lawyer advised me to begin the legal separation process, and apply for a hearing about custody and child support. I sent him a thick manila envelope with separation papers and a notice for a hearing about custody in his next package.
We talked on the phone on speaker with my lawyer, and he eventually agreed to sign. He sent me a copy. The hearing was scheduled while school was in session, so no surprise he didn’t show up. I won full custody and he was given an order to pay child support appropriate for his income (he was paying for his college with a grant mostly, so he had to pay based on the grant).
Now, this is some revenge, but it went a little further.
Remember when I went to see him, I was bringing a care package? That package contained his new passport. His passport expired, and he was still in Europe, so he couldn’t travel back to our home country legally.
He yelled at me on the phone to send him the passport, but I got an idea. He hadn’t been paying the child support, probably because he couldn’t afford it with tuition and wasn’t working, so he had a warrant for his arrest in my home country because of it (contempt of court, or something).
And he had never been approved for a student visa, only the temporary one. And since his final exam concluded and it was summer, he technically wasn’t supposed to be in Europe. BUT he couldn’t travel home because he didn’t have a passport.
It would be a shame if someone anonymously reported him to the embassy for overstaying his visa, now wouldn’t it?
He got deported back to our home country, where he was arrested at the border. I don’t know exactly what happened, but he spent a couple of months on probation and with a criminal record, can no longer apply for a visa of any kind to study abroad.
Sorry about that future of yours, but I guess you shouldn’t lie to someone who loves you to the ends of the earth, the mother of your child. Have a nice life, because we sure will. Oh, and don’t forget to put that cheque in the mail, it’s paying for a little girl’s future education.”
14. Jerk University Teacher Gets Revenge From Angry Students
“I graduated university a few years ago and this story comes from my first year from my degree. I was in a Business degree course having enjoyed studies of Business in school and enjoying researching business-related topics in my own time.
Before I go further I should say I am Autistic, this will be important later. It also explains why what I consider an interest in the business for me, may be considered an obsession by others. I am considered high functioning, whilst I occasionally struggle in social situations, it mainly comes off as me being rather blunt.
So for the degree, we had several classes, every class makes up a portion of the overall grade, etc. In the first year, we had no choice in regards to classes, the majority of the classes were really fun and engaging.
My teachers were very supportive of me and my classmates were too. I felt I belonged at university, whereas I hated school with a passion. At university, I could study and argue points beyond a linear construct of a syllabus.
Basically, I am trying to say so long as you could prove your argument with academic credibility, you could make it, and that debates were fruitful. I also had good relationships with my support worker who is there to aid disabled students and my personal teacher, someone every student is assigned who is head of a specific degree/discipline.
One class however was horrid. On the first day of class the teacher, who we will refer to as Mrs. B came into the class and we all had out or laptops or notebooks. She began scrawling what I could only describe as hieroglyphics on a whiteboard.
It looked like algebra, only worse. I have never been good at Mathematics, breaking the age-old, Autistic=good at math stereotype. I was just typing notes blindly trying to write everything down but it made no sense to me. At the end of the class, I introduced myself and explained I had a learning disability and that I might need some help going forward.
She seemed dismissive saying ‘It’s okay this stuff is easy you would have learned in high school’ and then abruptly left.
A few weeks passed and I was taking down all the notes and still not understanding it. I logged onto the student portal website.
It was there all our content was hosted e.g. assignment briefs, reading lists, points of contact, etc. I was confused to find her class was the only one with nothing on the reading list. Every other class had several textbooks, journals, and other sources students could go to for extra information/clarification.
After a class one day I went to Mrs. B and asked if there was any reading material e.g. textbooks I could read so I could try to understand said theory as there was nothing on the student portal website.
She said in a very confident manner ‘As I said to you before, this is high school level stuff, anyone would be able to do this, simple work’. I explained I struggled at math in school and that as an older/mature student my school days were almost a decade ago.
She shrugged and left the classroom, and I was feeling very frustrated.
In any other classes, if I didn’t understand something from a lecture, I could look it up in the textbooks, online, etc. to get a different perspective.
If I still didn’t quite understand I could go to a teacher and ask. They were happy to help me as they could see I had attempted to understand said theory.
During one of the classes, I raised a hand and asked a question about the value of the letter ‘X’ as I didn’t understand a certain equation.
Mrs. B looked at me smirking saying it was ‘simple’ and asked if anyone else in the class was confused. No one else raised a hand or spoke so she continued. At the end of class, I went to lots of classmates asking for their help.
They confided in me that they also didn’t understand that class, but were afraid to speak out.
This carried on for a month or so with me asking for help, writing the notes blindly, etc. until we were given our first official assignment.
What I did work-wise I was not proud of, however in my defense with not understanding the content I was just trying to cobble something together.
I would email Mrs. B asking to clarify bits, ask for help, my emails would be read (read receipt) but not replied to.
I asked her about office hours, to which she replied ‘I don’t do that’. For context, office hours are a time where teachers allow students to come to them with anything e.g. academic problems, questions, career options, etc. All teachers offered them… just not her.
I tried to hand in the work online. Our university has a policy all work must be submitted online for plagiarism detection software and many other reasons. Mrs. B told us she would only accept paper versions and that the online portal was not to be used. When myself and other students questioned her, she said she needed to see the work and its true potential and left it at that.
So we complied, printed, and handed it to Mrs. B on time.
A few weeks later in class, she calls out students to collect their assignment papers, with grades. The thing is she reads them out not by name, but by grade order.
We were all shocked. It meant the sooner your name was called out the higher your grade, and the longer you waited, the lower your grade would be. I waited and waited until I was called forward. I was very anxious and went back to my seat, I tuned out of the class and read over the paper.
I had just scored a pass mark, but I was annoyed. Mrs. Be had written comments such as ‘shows no understanding of the content’, ‘no efforts made’, ‘poor aptitude of the relevant theories’. At this point, I was shaking with anger.
I marched out of the class. She asked ‘where are you going?’ I didn’t say anything, I didn’t stop. I knew if I did I would have got angry.
I immediately went to see my personal teacher and support worker, it took them a long time to calm me down, and said they would look into matters.
After that, I went to speak to classmates who were read out before me asking if they could explain the theory. All of them explained they had no idea how they even passed, let alone get a high grade. Keep a side note of this.
A week later Mrs. B comes into class looking agitated proclaiming a reading list of a single textbook was available on the student portal much to the relief of other students. She also exclaimed she would now offer office hours for students with the same level of enthusiasm as someone would have for watching paint dry.
Unfortunately, the book was not in our university library and we would have to buy it ourselves, which all students know, textbooks new are very pricey. I bought the book, but it made little difference with my lack of understanding.
I spoke to classmates who did the same, they too didn’t understand it, it felt like the book and the class were completely different.
The office hours were another thing, I asked when I could see her, she informed me her next available spot was in three months’ time.
I asked a classmate to ask her, she told him she could see him that afternoon, another classmate was told it was a four-month wait. Something was amiss.
She also exclaimed some students were struggling with ‘basic high school math’ and she would put some basic math on the student portal website.
The problem was she photocopied them from a book, the pictures were buried so even if they did have useful content, they were illegible.
Shortly after this, we had an exam on the subject, again I was worried I had no idea what to expect.
I was in a different exam room to the other students as I get support in exam conditions as I struggle with some aspects of reading (I am also mildly dyslexic) so I get a reader support worker. Partway through the test, Mrs. B comes in and asks if I am okay.
I was a bit shocked, I never had teachers in an exam before. But maybe this is how they do tests at university? I stated honestly I understood nothing despite buying the textbook, despite coming to see her, despite seeing my support worker, and despite consulting with my classmates.
Mrs. B then proceeds to tell me the answers. Stunned I say ‘what’. She orders me to write, I look over to the support worker whose jaw has dropped. Mrs. B leaves and the support worker stops me and says ‘I have to report this.’ I acknowledge and the test is stopped. Afterward, I speak to other students.
Other students with special needs she came and told the answers to, but not to other students. I was very concerned and confused and unsure of what this meant for my grade.
Months passed again of the same old, I would furiously take down notes blindly, my classmates and I in a state of despair.
However, one day I asked another question in class and Mrs. B in a very snarky tone said something along the lines of ‘you’re the only student who doesn’t get this simple equation.’ She looks out to the rest of the class stating ‘everyone else gets it’.
Slowly, one other student says ‘I don’t’ then another, and another. I was reminded of the famous ‘I am Spartacus’ bit. She looked mad as 28 students of a 30 student class raised their hands and objected, saying they didn’t get it.
Mrs. B looking annoyed stopped the lecture stating we couldn’t behave so she wouldn’t teach and left.
A few weeks later Mrs. B gave us what would be our final assignment for the class. She explained we had to write a report on a choice of reports as to how they use, whatever algebraic theory we were meant to understand and we had to do this in groups.
In the assignment brief, we were meant to write the report on the report but we weren’t allowed to cite the original report. We asked Mrs. B for clarification. She explained it was ‘academically lazy’ to cite any of the reports directly and that instead, we had to find the original citation from the report and cite that.
Making it a lot more work. We spent the next week just panicking, the reports were so confusing, there was no ‘easy’ one to choose from.
All of this bubbled up, in all my other classes I was achieving high grades like 80%/90% average, despite this, this class so far I was barely passing at 40%.
The whole thing leads to a very bad mental health crisis, I won’t get dark here. It leads to intervention from local government mental health services.
After this, my classmates and I arranged a meeting with high ups at the school to discuss our issues.
Up till now, we had done all informal processes of talking to the tutor, reading the textbook and this new assignment was very, very hard.
At this meeting, they asked why we wanted to see them. We explained it was about the class as a whole and the second assignment.
They looked confused citing there was no second assignment. We gave them the brief. These higher academics, professors, etc eyes widened. They told us there was to be one assignment and one exam. They asked to see the reports we were to analyze.
One of the professors’ mouths dropped, the suspense and silence were palpable. They explained to us the reports we were to analyze would be set for master’s degree or Ph.D. students, and that 1st-year undergraduates were not expected to meet this level of work.
They told us to cease the work immediately. They told us to put together a formal complaint and showed us the paperwork (single A4 sheet) to submit.
Moments after leaving the meeting an email went out to the whole year group from one of these professors citing work on that assignment was to stop immediately.
Mrs. B replied all stating students could still do it for extra credit. The professor replied to all students stating that was false, and that she needed to meet him immediately. To any other student, they must have thought about what was going on, to me though I was just singing internally, I was not done.
The complaint, I went to homework on. I filled in all my academic notes, all the emails I ever sent her in this report. I went to classmates for witness testimonials for what she did in class. I approached and got a statement from my exam support worker, and a copy of some classmates’ exams who got a high grade.
Reading the tests I noticed we had similar answers to my work and that of other students. The grading was sporadic and random to be polite.
For example one of the answers to a question was 4X. I wrote 4X and got 1 point, my classmate wrote 4X and they scored 3 points.
I then discovered something very interesting.
When searching her name online, I found she was being paid by our university to do research into methods of using mathematics to make relative decision processes in a business environment. I decided to look into some of the aspects of that particular research grant and noticed they were very, VERY similar to the work she had assigned us in our unapproved assignment 2.
With this, I added this into my complaint report and decided to copy into my report the contact details of the funding bodies included (mainly European Union grant sources due to my country) which included what repercussions would come about if funds were used improperly.
Over a week I collated my masterpiece, what should have been at most a 3-page report was now a fully bound 120-page complaint report with an appendix, contents, etc. in full academic report style.
I had some friends with a law degree go over it and advised me to seek compensation of some sort due to my mental health crisis as a result of Mrs. B.
So I enclosed my request for some gesture of goodwill to be made by the university, I was not specific as although I was high on the adrenaline of getting back at Mrs. B, I was still battling with newly diagnosed depression (thanks Mrs. B).
I submitted it, having it bound especially for the occasion.
Two weeks later all classes with her were canceled. Not just for our classes, but University-wide.
It turned out she broke a lot of academic rules. Mrs. B had forged exam results, bullied an international student (or as I thought, was being racist), and many other things.
It was revealed she was using students to aid her in research she was being paid to conduct, which was the nail in her coffin. In other words, she was being paid to do research, and passing said work onto her students, without disclosure, consent, compensation (as she was being paid to do it), etc. It was a massive no-no in not only our student body but other teachers as well.
She was dismissed/fired with all professional accreditation lost. In other words, no way of coming back to the field of teaching/academia.
All students got an automatic pass and a portion of our student loans repaid as compensation.
We lost many battles, but we won the war.
I still battle with depression to this day, but I graduated with first-class honors. So I guess I wasn’t that stupid after all. I am fine now, happily in a great job, with a great wife and kids.”
But it is oh so satisfying.
13. Bully Landlord Lost The Case
“My first husband was a not very nice man. For 6 years I was belittled and basically a baby-factory for him. He was a fantastic father, but a horrible husband. After he finally got his ‘heirs’ I was then treated even worse until I finally ‘woke up’ and decided to leave his butt.
This revenge story is NOT about him. I just had to set the scene.
I moved out of the house, taking just my clothes, the car (4K value, no more) and the computer. I had nothing, stayed at a friend’s for a couple of weeks before I was able to line up a crappy town-house with roommates.
I had nothing, and my bed was a cat-pee-smelling free couch I was able to score. I wound up having 3-4 jobs with one of them being full-time and once a week I would not even be able to sleep between jobs.
Now, fast forward one year. My divorce was finalized and I had fulfilled my year’s lease for the townhouse. By this time I was able to furnish the home and my bedroom and my kids’ room when they would be with me for visitation.
The jerk landlord (will just call him SBL) was a nice-ish landlord during the time of my tenancy and I was a good tenant, never being late with my rent. Although I had roommates, I was the sole name on the lease.
SBL would show up often, with some guise that he had to work on something like plumbing tests or whatever excuse he could come up with just so he could be all creepy and hang around trying to converse with me with mildly inappropriate undertones that made me quite uneasy at times.
FINALLY, the lease was fulfilled and I was now onto a month-to-month contract to which at that time I was ready to move out of this crappy townhouse, and found a great house in the mountains nearby and I was simply thrilled now that I got my feet on the ground and can afford a bit better than slum-living.
My lease stated that I had to give one month’s notice in order to move out. Unfortunately, I was able to get the house and I was to move in the next month… only 3 weeks away.
I sent an email to SBL stating that I intend on moving out at the end of this month (in 3 weeks) and he can try to find another tenant.
but I did state that IF he didn’t find a tenant, I would still fulfill my legal obligation and pay next month’s rent.
Within one week (2 weeks before I was moving out) he emailed back and stated that was very generous of my offer but he was able to find a new tenant for the beginning of next month and I would be off the hook.
He even tipped his hand by stating that he already collected a deposit from them.
Now, something happened within a couple of days after that which was no fault of my own, nor my roommate’s. The townhouse came with its own appliances (fridge, oven, etc) including a clothes washer and dryer on the main level.
My roommate had put a load of laundry in and went to the living room to have a nap. He awoke to find that the washer had malfunctioned with the sensory switch which never stopped the water fill stage… and there was an inch of water in the kitchen and living room!!!
He splashed through the water to turn off the washer and called me to come and help deal with this.
I was just getting off of work and I whipped home to assess the damage.
It. was. bad. There was standing water on top of the living room carpet and a good inch of water in the whole kitchen.
I called SBL and told him the issue. By the time SBL showed up, I had already got most of the standing water out with the help of my roommate and friends that showed up with shop-vacs.
SBL didn’t seem too upset, which was surprising for me, and had an appliance repairman come to look at the washer.
The repairman even said ‘yep, here’s the culprit’ and showed how the dial would stick on the fill stage and wouldn’t click over to the agitate stage. After replacing the dial and lubricating the whole deal, he left.
The next week was chaos as I was busy trying to pack and SBL had insurance guys in assessing and workers taking out the carpet and cutting 2 feet worth of the lower drywall of the whole main level.
On the day of the move, though I was still supposed to be there for a couple more days, SBL had let himself in as movers were moving out my stuff with a camera going around taking pictures of everything.
I honestly thought that it was for his insurance claims etc. I actually felt bad for SBL (I’m too nice) and told him that I would not ask for any of my deposit back, and he responded in front of the loading crew and my roommate ‘Thank you, that’s very generous of you’.
We parted ways and I thought that was that.
I was wrong.
Two weeks into my new home location did SBL show up on my doorstep with a summons to appear in arbitration because he was SUING ME! WHAT???? On what grounds???
He stated it’s all in this paperwork and handed me a manila envelope with 18 pages of everything he was charging me with. All including photos (now I know why he was going around taking pics). Nickle and diming me on everything from a bent Venetian blind (that was like that when I had moved in) and some scuffs on walls, etc, etc. but then he ALSO wanted me to pay his insurance deductible and that following month’s rent!!!
He claimed that the tenants that he had lined up backed out at the last minute (claiming that they didn’t think the place would be ready in time with the new drywall and paint and so on), so he still wanted me to pay that month’s rent.
REALLY??
Screw. This. Nonsense. I knew I was more than generous of giving him my whole deposit and then for him to come back and sue me for thousands?? He was not only claiming the damages caused by the flood, but improvements he needed to do that should never be or have been my responsibility in the first place.
EVEN CRACKS in the living room wall that was from the building settling…. HOW SHOULD I BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT??? Even new lighting, faucets, etc… All mainly on the accusation that I was negligent. I wasn’t going to have that.
I know it was a slummy townhouse complex and most of his tenants were just welfare cases, and maybe he could get away with this with others, but not me. No Way! I had just gotten out of a marriage that made me feel insignificant and gave me horrible self-esteem, but now I had my dignity and felt strong for the first time in a long time.
No way was I going to let any more nonsense happen to me without my doing something about it.
I had 10 days before the date of my arbitration meeting.
I immediately got to work, first getting a signed deposition from the very repairman that had shown that day stating that the appliance was quite in need of maintenance work and the last time he had done ANY maintenance for him was almost 5 years before.
From thoroughly reviewing my rental contract and local laws, SBL is obligated to have all appliances maintained/services EVERY YEAR.
I had also talked to some of the other tenants and had heard that this wasn’t the first time SBL had sued tenants after the fact.
I hunted them down and got sworn statements from them also. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t know what to do and mostly didn’t show up at arbitration hence SBL winning by default. NO WAY I WAS NOT GOING TO LET HIM DO THIS TO ME.
I then drew up a rebuttal to each and every claim he had, including photos from the year+ that I had lived there, printed out all my email correspondence, and even convinced my ex-roommate and one of the movers that heard my interaction with SBL about him stating how ‘generous’ it was of me letting him keep my whole deposit (which was a significant amount) to come.
DAY OF ARBITRATION… I dressed up in my power-suit and with my ex-roommate and worker in tow, showed up at the meeting. Now, in Canada, arbitration is not held in a courtroom per se, but it is still held AT the courthouse in a conference room with a judge.
We had one hour with this judge. Since SBL was the plaintiff, he got to go first with his case. He spent over 40 minutes going over everything and I sat quietly until he finished.
Once he finished, I then hauled out the rebuttal in multiple copies, handed to the judge, to SBL, and anyone else that wished to have one and I quickly went over each point.
SBL was irate and interrupted almost every second sentence I spoke. I would pause the moment he would start talking and say sweetly ‘I was quiet and polite during your time to present your case, I hope you grant me the same respect.’ SBL started to get red in the face, ESPECIALLY when I got to the deposition of the Maintenance worker for the appliance.
I included with that the tenancy/landlord act sections pertaining to appliance maintenance and stated that this was the only record of maintenance that had occurred, and unless he can come up with more recent records from perhaps another company, it was over 5 years since anything had been looked at.
With my defense, I had also then countered that I would like my deposit back, and my day’s pay from work since I had to take that day off to go to this meeting.
The judge then made his statement, and I will always remember this for the rest of my life.
He stated that first, he was very impressed with my presentation and that I obviously have a good handle on things and can tell that my nature is of kindness and respect, especially with photos of how I had the townhouse furnished and clean and pride in whatever home I would live in.
Bottom line… Not only did I win my case, but I also wound up having SBL owing me over 80% of my deposit back, including interest. SBL’s face was PRICELESS. The judge then proceeded to tell SBL that they will be reviewing again all his previous filings, and if there was enough evidence of harassment, he would be reported to the board of landlords and tenants.
I don’t really know if anything came out of that.
Now… I walked away that day feeling on top of the world. Completely justified and he got a taste of his own medicine.
BUT… it didn’t stop there.
OH NO. Knowing that this guy has a history of suing tenants… I printed up my final results (and judge’s signature) and gave a copy to each and every tenant in that complex. I wanted to warn everyone about his practices and to keep notes, photos, etc so that he couldn’t do that to them.
But I didn’t stop there… He still now owed ME funds (hehe) and I asked repeatedly for the payment. He never responded. He had until a certain day to pay me back my deposit, and on that day I had gone to his house (I looked up his residence under public records as he is a landlord and had to file under a certain address) and knocked on the door.
He didn’t answer, though I knew he was home. I rang the bell a few more times and knocked loudly. He then turned his house alarm on, which at first startled me, but quickly turned to humor seeing how much of a coward this bully turned out to be.
I then yelled out loud enough that I am not going anywhere. He yelled out, ‘get off my property or I will call the police!!!’
OK… no problem. I got off the property but camped out on the front sidewalk.
I had a fold-up chair, a cooler with water and sodas, a few sandwiches, and all my paperwork with me. I was set to stay there forever. I then would tell anyone that would walk by (already there were some people there from the house alarm fiasco) about how I was a tenant and wrongfully sued me and that I have a claim against him and he now owes ME funds.
I let anyone look at the paperwork just to back up my claim.
The police DID SHOW UP! They first went to talk to SBL and he was claiming that I was harassing him, slandering him, and wouldn’t leave his property.
I was on public property (sidewalk) and it isn’t slandering if it’s true, of which I had all my court-signed paperwork to back me up. I wasn’t disturbing the peace, I was simply and quietly seated outside his home and just talking to neighbors about his actions.
He was out YELLING that I need to leave, and I quietly stated that I would be happy to leave once I am paid which he was legally obligated to do by that date. I was not going to leave before I got my money in my hand, and I was more than willing to stay there and tell anyone that would listen to me why I was camped out.
The police stated I wasn’t doing anything wrong, that it’s public property, I wasn’t disturbing the peace and it isn’t slandering if it’s true.
Finally, after an hour of SBL yelling on his front lawn at the policemen (and at me, of course) did his wife come out with money.
She handed the stash to the police, which in turn handed the funds to me, and signed off documenting final payment was complete. I sweetly smiled, thanked the police deeply, and went home.
I have no idea whatever happened to SBL, and if he is still pulling stuff like this on others, but I hope that I helped put the fear of God in him that he just can’t screw with people because eventually it will come and bite him in the butt.
Sometimes, nice guys (or girls) finish last, but with patience… they finish with a WIN!”
12. Think I Look So Funny? You Won't Be Laughing Soon Enough
“Back in high school I worked at a local grocery store, I cashiered/stocked/collected carts, the whole nine yards.
Well, I was HEAVILY involved in the punk and metal scene and dressed as such, combat boots, plaid pants, band shirts, dyed Mohawk, huge gauged ears, etc.
One day I’m out collecting carts and this jerk preteen kid is going into the store with his mom, as he passes by me he points and laughs and calls me some cliche derogatory name under his breath.
I flip him the bird which turned his sheepish smile into a look of fear.
I finish getting the carts put up and start stocking one of the aisles and hear my name called on the intercom to come bag a customer’s groceries.
I go to the front of the store and guess who it is? That’s right it was the jerk preteen and his mom. I proceed to bag the groceries and muster up the evilest look I can and proceed to give the death glare to this kid who’s doing his best not to look at me because he can obviously see it in his peripherals.
I walk the cart out to this lady’s car and start loading groceries in the very back. I run out of room so she tells me to put the rest in the back seat next to her son. I open the door and he has a look of absolute terror on his face, so as I’m putting groceries next to him I roll my eyes back so the whites are exposed and start gnashing and grinding my teeth like I’m a ravenous cannibal and he starts to cry and sob.
His mother never saw any of this and was very kind to me, she even gave me a few bucks for helping her with the groceries. I hope he learned his lesson.”
11. Brag About Your Man? Excuse Me, I Know The Bouncer
“I lived in a large city where I went to grad school and bartended. The service industry was really well connected, and everyone helped each other out.
One summer, our hockey team won the Stanley cup, and as per tradition, The Stanley Cup spent the next week touring the city with the players – whatever club the Cup ended up in was the most popular and exclusive club of the night.
My best friend, Sarah, and I were hanging out and decided we wanted to go clubbing. She called one of her friends, Amy, who told us she was at a pregame and was heading to Studio, one of the most exclusive clubs in the city.
Sarah asked how she was getting in, and Amy told us her partner was a socialite. Sarah asked if we could come to the pregame, but when Amy found out I was with them, she freaked out. Basically saying I was an embarrassment and wouldn’t get them in.
Unphased, Sarah and I headed to Studio and happened to arrive at the same time Amy did. We quickly found out the Stanley Cup and the entire hockey time was partying at Studio, and there was a throng to get in.
I leaned over and asked Amy if she needed my help getting in. I guess she misheard me and goes ‘Honestly, you’re not my responsibility and I’m not going to ask my partner to get you in’. I look towards the front of the line and see her partner fighting with one of the bouncers.
The same bouncer that works at my bar.
I grabbed Sarah’s hand, went up to him, and gave him a bear hug. He quickly opened the rope for me and Sarah, and I saw Amy trying to get in with me.
The bouncer looks at me and goes ‘Is she with you?’ To which I turned around, looked Amy in the eyes, and went ‘Nah.’
Amy didn’t get into Studio that night, but Sarah and I got a lot of texts apologizing and asking if we’d talk to the bouncer for her.”
10. Block My Promotion? Get Busted
“I got a job in a cinema, I was 4 or 5 years older than most of my co-workers whom it was most of their first jobs.
Having had a couple of jobs previous and a few years of maturity under my belt, I quickly became a very valued employee, so much so, I was given a promotion to Supervisor within 6 months.
The general manager loved me.
I was a Swiss army knife. I would take care of projection duties when the projection manager was at our other sites. I dealt with the busy periods very calmly and was able to defuse potential situations from getting worse.
I was very good at my job. I would be ‘in charge’ of the building when whatever manager was there had to step out.
We had one GM and four-floor managers. They all liked me because I made their jobs a lot easier.
When I was working they didn’t have to work as hard and when it wasn’t busy, they didn’t have to work at all.
Two more years go by and one of the floor managers says she’s leaving in 3 months. Without having to say it, I know I’m going to get her position.
They always hire internally and I am head and shoulders above my co-workers.
This is where it gets interesting. Let’s call this manager, Blobby! So Blobby does a stock take every Thursday. I always worked Thursday mornings in projection so for the last couple of years had a standing arrangement to drink with my pals on a Thursday night.
I loved my Thursday drinks. I worked most weekends so this was my Saturday night.
On Thursday I’m doing my projection checks and the GM says that Blobby is sick, would I be able to do the stocktake. Screw it, I’ll do it, a 9 am to 11:30 pm (we have to count the stock at retail after we close hence the late finish).
It’s a horrible shift but the brownie points are worth it.
So next week comes along and instead of doing my projection shift on Thursday, I’m in to do a stick shift. I ask the GM what was going on and he said Blobby requested me in.
Even though I and the GM get on really well, he’s gonna side with his manager over his supervisor. I explain I go out Thursday nights and Blob says, ‘Listen, dude, I’m actually doing you a favor. When the manager job comes up and you know how to do the stocktake and orders it will look fantastic and you’ll 100% get the job.’
I grit my teeth and go along with it. It makes sense to learn another avenue of the job. So Thursday nights come around and Blobby sits at his desk with his feet up while I basically do his job.
It’s not a difficult task and after a month it’s a piece of cake.
Let me paint a picture of Blobby. He’s short, fat, and balding. Ear pierced, thinks he’s cool but he really isn’t. Think David Brent from the office.
Keep him on your side and work is a lot easier because he can be quite petty but what he did next was far from petty.
3 months go by and we’ve one week left before our manager leaves. They start the interview process but for some reason, the owners decide to sit in and do the interviews.
Really strange!
So the interview starts and I’m hit with ‘How do you expect to be our manager if your timekeeping is so poor?’ They have a list of times I clocked in late. 5 minutes here, 7 minutes there. The thing is, timekeeping wasn’t an issue.
You come in late the odd time and then if they needed you to stay back, most would. Take a penny, leave a penny scenario. But these guys go to town on me! They have surveillance footage of me taking in a delivery (which isn’t part of my job) without wearing a hi-vis jacket.
‘Your complete lack of concern for safety regulations is appalling.’ Emails from a few irate customers over the years that complained about me, I have done the right thing in all those circumstances but taken out of context look like I was in the wrong.
I’ve given up fighting my corner. I know I’m not getting this promotion.
My co-worker got it. If it wasn’t me I was happy it was her. She was also very good at her job and would no doubt make a fine manager.
So after giving so much for the company over 3 years I found myself doing things lazily. Why go the extra mile when it wasn’t appreciated.
So I’m still on stock duty on a Thursday night. While Blobby is down dealing with a customer, I’m in the office inputting the stock figures.
I accidentally close the program. I open ‘Blobby’s folder’ where the program is and see a file saying ‘discrepancies’. I don’t know why I clicked in but I did. I see my name ‘OP’s folder’ of course I’m going to click in and see what’s going down in funky town.
I’m shocked! There are about 5 subfolders in my folder. ‘Lates’, ‘Dangerous Delivery’, ‘Potential Stealing’, ‘Associates’, and ‘Hungover’!!
We’ve already talked about Lates and DANGEROUS DELIVERY! The stealing one is me leaning over a closed till but looks like I’m trying to hide something (which I wasn’t).
Utter nonsense. ‘Associates’ is pictures of me standing with my co-workers chatting when it wasn’t busy and ‘hungover’ was screenshots from my social media when I was out the night before and then at work the next day. It was clear as day that this jerk handed this information to the owners.
Finishing up that night was so tough. I wanted to rip that earring out and pop his baldy head like a pimple but I played it cool and finished my shift. Monday comes around and I ask to talk to GM.
I explain what I’ve found and it’s really serious because it’s an invasion of privacy. CCTV should only be used to review footage when something goes wrong, not used to stalk me! The GM says he only found out after the interviews were over.
The reason he didn’t do them was because he was also leaving. He was a good man and didn’t mess around. He said Blobby hated me, don’t know why but he was always bringing up issues with me. He then recommended I get a new job because more than likely Blobby was gonna be the new GM and my life there would be unbearable if he got it.
So I talk to my brother and sister who are a lot smarter than me about what roads to go down. File a complaint? What’s the point when the owners used his dossier against me. Bring him to court? Too much hassle for very little payoff.
If you’re still reading I applaud you! High five! This is where it gets fun. Blobby wants the GM position more than anything. He has a bit of competition but he’s the front runner. I could spend the next two months looking for work or could be ambitious and try to bury this piece of trash.
I chose the latter!
So I’m drinking with my girl one night and we’re joking around about how to get revenge. She scared me a little with her suggestions. Some tame ones like key his car and then a straight jump to ‘burn his house down’.
If any authorities are watching, we were only joking!
And just like that fat boy signed his own death certificate. Whilst I’m on the stock shift he makes a passing remark. ‘We have to start nailing this stock takedown to the last popcorn kernel.
The yearly stock take is in 6 weeks and (owner) is doing it and she’s a ball breaker.’ I know all about her, she ripped me to pieces in the interview.
‘Don’t worry Blobby, OP is on the case, those numbers will be perfect,’ and he goes for the oscar with this line ‘You’re a good worker, d**n travesty you didn’t get the manager’s job, but when I get the hot seat you’ll be made a manager as soon as a position comes up.
No interview required.’
What a jerk!
I’m so good at the stocktake that he doesn’t even check my work. I’m making the orders and counting the stock. So over the next 6 weeks, I start to mess things up! I put the orders in on a Wednesday for our Friday delivery.
I normally eyeball it and see what movies are coming out and we always had a nice bit of stock on hand. Not too much, not too little. That’s about to change. I start adding 25% to every order we get in.
I show Blob the dockets, he signs them, happy days. Then when I’m doing the stock on Thursday I put in that we ordered our usual amount. The system balances on the computer but what we have in the stock rooms is a lot more!
I do this for the next 4 weeks. I’m royally screwed if he ever actually looked in the stock rooms. They’re nearly exploding with product! Lucky for me and unlucky for him, he’s a lazy jerk!
It’s the last week before the ball breaker does the end-of-year stock take.
I balance everything on the computer as usual, before we call it a night I tell him to check the presales tomorrow. We’re gonna have a busy weekend so I say to him ’email our suppliers and get a bit extra, it will all get used anyways and we’re looking perfect on the stock count’.
Granted I’ve been adding on 25% for the past month or so but he goes ultra blobby and sends out an emergency email to our suppliers asking could they double the standing order for tomorrow! Checkmate!
When I get home that night I type up my resignation letter.
I ask the GM who has a couple of weeks left if I can leave immediately due to unforeseen circumstances. He agrees because he’s a good man and gives me his personal number and an amazing written reference, wishes me the best, and thanks me for all my hard work.
Like Andy Dufresne, I’ve crawled through a sea of trash and came out clean on the other side!
I confide in one of the regular workers what I’ve done over a couple of pints. He said the next day when the delivery came, they couldn’t fit it all in the 4 different stock rooms. The rule of thumb would be about 3 weeks stock on hand.
We must have had about 8. Now I know you’re gonna say I’m really hurting the owners. I’m not, all of the stock will be used. Except for maybe a few bags of popcorn that will expire everything else will get sold for an exorbitant profit.
Word on the street was that the yearly stock take went into the wee hours of the morning. 3 am to be precise. Blobby was boxed in. The stock was mishandled. Tens of thousands of euros off. He could take the blame himself and look incompetent or say I did it, to which he looks worse considering he was behind the dossier to slander me.
I don’t know what he did. All I know is he didn’t get the GM position and within 6 months was working selling furniture! I never spoke to him about it but one would hope he knows it was me who screwed him.
Screw you Blobby you rotund walking bean bag!”
9. Try To Mug Me? Enjoy The Wheelchair
“In 1989 I was a 19-year-old kid living in NYC. I was working as a delivery guy at a dingy hole-in-the-wall pizza place that’s long since gone out of business, and living paycheck to paycheck.
I had moved to New York looking for work after my uncle’s construction company went under, and had found a tiny trash hole of an apartment which was the only thing I could afford on the salary I got from the pizza place.
The only reason I took the job was I needed funds and it was extremely close to my apartment, only a short walk down a back alley (hint hint, the alley is important).
I want you all to keep in mind while reading this, the New York of 30 years ago was not the touristy New York of today.
Murders were a lot more common, Times Square was a cesspool of bars and adult theaters, gangs would rob people on the subway, and it was almost every day where I lived that you would see an addict passed out in an alley or along the side of the road.
The whole ordeal started just after closing one night in July. The guy who owned the joint, Paulo, said that I could take some leftover pizza home with me that had been sitting under the heat lamp all day, but hey, at least it was free.
I had been working at the pizza place for about a year by this point, and I was on really good terms with Paulo and his brother Joseph who both ran the joint. Paulo was easily pushing 300 pounds and had a habit of smoking while cooking.
Joseph was always in the back handling the financial side of things and taking phone orders. The restaurant had an exit into the alley which I would take to get back to my place. There would usually be a homeless vet named Alfonso that would sleep next to the hot air vent behind the place who would bum a smoke off me and we would talk for a few minutes after my shift. After talking with him I started to walk home, and after I had gotten quite a distance away down the alley I heard some bottles rustling behind a dumpster that was right ahead of me.
My first thought was it was some rats until this crazy-eyed dude swung out from behind it with a hunting knife in one hand and a metal bat in the other.
I remember this guy looked like your stereotypical addict, track marks all over his arms, disgusting clothes on, wild dirty hair, and fidgeting like no tomorrow.
He started yelling and half screaming at me to give him my wallet. At that point, my adrenaline was through the roof as I had never been mugged before. I was carrying the pizza box with two hands, and when I shifted it to my left hand to reach into my back pocket for my wallet with my right, he started advancing on me.
He started muttering to himself asking why I was doing that and sort of grunting while jabbing at the air in front of him.
He was really close to me by this point, and before I could take my wallet out he loaded up his right arm and slashed me across my face just below my left eye.
At first, it didn’t really hit me, and I was stunned for a second. It was at that point I started thinking, ‘this is it, I’m gonna end up in an alley over the 4 bucks I have in my wallet’.
That’s when I decided to start fighting, if I was going down, I was doing it swinging.
I threw the pizza box in his face which made him step back a little bit, and using both hands I grabbed the bat out of his left hand that he was still holding.
I flipped it around and aimed for the outside of his left knee which was the one closest to me. It connected. This brought him to one knee, but he started to get back up again like he couldn’t even feel it.
I swung as hard as I could and hit the left side of his temple and he crumpled to the concrete.
I remember being so incredibly scared, absolutely terrified. I don’t remember much after this. Years after this happened when I went to see a psychiatrist for other reasons and this was brought up, she told me it is likely because my mind was trying to shield me from the trauma of the whole experience.
The next thing I remember is standing above this guy. I knew he was still alive, as his chest was still rising and falling. His right hand and arm that had been holding the sharp weapon was a mangled mess.
I dropped the bat and half stumbled, half walked back to the pizza place. Alfonso had heard the screaming and came to look. He told me that I had a glazed-over look to me and I was a mess. He led me back to the pizza joint where Joseph started calling the cops and Paulo grabbed a bottle of cheap Prosecco we had from below the counter to douse my slash.
I spent the night in the hospital because apparently I was disorientated and so confused I didn’t know where I was. The next day I was doing better, and there were two cops that came to take my statement.
After I had told my side of the story the older-looking of the two cops said that after 10 years on the job that guy took the worst beating he’d seen anyone take and survive. The younger-looking one started telling me what I had done to the guy.
He also told me that I had hit his skull so hard.
They said that they had spoken to Alfonso, Paulo, and Joseph, and they corroborated my story that the bat was the junkie’s and I had most likely acted in self-defense.
Although I had no answer to their question of why didn’t I stop after he went down besides ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I don’t remember’. After a couple of days, I was discharged and after just a little while I was back to working at the pizza place.
Although I now had a massive scar running down the side of my face and Paulo jokingly called me scarface all the time. I was also super jumpy right after the fact whenever I heard bottles clanging together, which unfortunately happened a lot because Joseph used to take the empty soda bottles to the recycling plant at the end of every week.”
8. Abusive Mom Gets Destroyed And Is Now Wanted
“The first example of how evil my mother was was what my older brother told me. Back when I was really young, my dad was in the Army and managed to score some leave (vacation time) from Desert Storm to surprise my mom for her anniversary.
When he knocked on the door, all my mom said was ‘Why aren’t you gone, I need the money.’ Her new beau then started backing out of the garage in my dad’s mustang cobra.
He got revenge, but that’s a story for another time.
The divorce was pretty much what you expect, mom got custody of me. My dad later tricked her with some money and got me for a visit, then filed for custody since my mom had warrants out for her arrest.
A few years later my dad remarried your typical evil stepmother who doted on her daughters and hated her stepson. For example, for Easter, my step sisters got huge baskets of candy and chocolates, a couple of toys, etc. I got an old soup can with my name painted on it (poorly) that ‘I could use for pencils.’
This witch managed to talk my dad into sending me back to my mom, and here the story begins in earnest.
Where my mom was living was an old two-bedroom, one-bath house. My sisters shared one room, my mom and stepdad shared the other, my brother got the whole basement, and I got a ‘room’ so small that I could touch fingertip to fingertip each wall, and it was double that length.
I had a curtain instead of a door.
I got nothing. I hated living there. I was one of only a few white kids at school, so I got beat up a lot for being white, it was a low-income area in Michigan, so I was the one who always had to shovel, rake, mow, and then my mom would ‘rent me out’ to the neighbors, and they all just paid her.
I did all the chores and was ‘grounded until she felt like ungrounding me.’ I basically sat on my bed for six years anytime I was not in school, cleaning, or making her money.
I learned this later, but my mom was ‘extorting’ funds from my dad.
She would demand $3000 for a school photo, and he willingly paid $700 a month in child support, even though there was no need to. (He worked in the oil field business after he retired, on a corporate board). She would make stuff up like ‘Our car broke, etc’ and demand funds.
My dad had to fork over $12,000 for me to go visit him for a week. He couldn’t take me in at the time, he wasn’t home enough (lots of travel) and he was single, but I found out he was sending me Christmas and birthday gifts every year, and I later found out from my brother she pawned them all.
He bought me a brand new Color Gameboy, which was promptly taken away because ‘I was grounded.’ She pawned that too. She would often hit me for stupid reasons, like when I once put the dishes away a bit damp or if I managed to get chocolate milk from the school cafeteria.
Once I got fed up and pushed her, she called the police and chided me.
In short, it was miserable.
Meanwhile, my sisters got upgraded to a private school and received lots of amazing toys. She took custody of my grandfather who had MS from the waist down and couldn’t even use the bathroom by himself.
She got power of attorney and took all his funds and blew it, as well as taking half his pain meds and giving them to my brother to sell. This will be important later, kinda.
In my junior year of high school, I got to work in the library.
My teachers were amazing and supportive and knew my situation. I got my dad’s email, and we started planning. He figured once I finished high school, he would personally come up and get me. Finally, when my mom decided to have a ‘graduation party’ for me, complete with inviting all her friends and none of the like two people I could call a friend, a couple of days before my graduation ceremony.
About two hours before the party was going to start, my dad pulls up. I invite him in, and he looks around, looks confused. He leans in and asks me ‘Where is she?’ I point. She was right in front of him lying on the couch.
He screwed up his face and said he’d wait in the car.
While I was gathering all my stuff in a single garbage bag, my mom finally realized who this stranger was, and lost her mind. She tried everything from bribing me with Nascar tickets (I hate Nascar, she liked it but I knew she didn’t have any) to physically obstructing me.
She had pulled out all the stops for this party, spending a couple thousand and lots of time cooking, err making me cook. I get outside, throw my stuff in the truck, and we take off.
(Side story. We get halfway down the street and my dad has to pull over.
He laughs uncontrollably for a while. I asked him what’s up, and in his Texan accent says ‘Boy, when I was a kid I always wanted to marry a movie star. I just didn’t think it would be Jabba the Hutt.’ Evidently, they didn’t recognize each other at first, she put on A LOT of weight after they divorced.)
We get to his place, and it starts. I get updates from my sister-in-law. The party was messed up. She was humiliated. Since she didn’t have me, my dad stopped sending funds. They had months worth of unpayable bills.
She had to pawn her jewelry, pull my sisters out of the private school and back into public school, sell one of the cars she had. Soon she started calling for funds claiming someone stole the mail all the time so they couldn’t pay their bills and needed funds to replace the mailbox so they wouldn’t steal it anymore.
It was refreshing knowing I was free, and I could say no with no repercussions. I was happy to live and let live. I vowed to leave her be and let her sink or swim by her own hand. I was elated to be free and had no desire to look back at that part of my life.
But she wasn’t done with me.
I decided to follow my dad’s example and join the service. I decided the Navy was the place for me. My job required a top-secret clearance, so they do a very thorough background check, including a credit check.
Turns out I was delinquent in mortgage payments, I was receiving social security, and I owed a power company a huge amount among other credit card debts. That witch stole my identity and ran me into debt since she couldn’t get any more funds.
I knew about identity theft, it just never occurred to me that a parent has everything they need to do so.
This couldn’t stand. After I finished basic training and my technical school, I spoke to my Chief (supervisor).
Chief was awesome. She managed to wrangle me a ‘temporary assignment’ to a recruiting station in my old town where my mom lived so the Navy would buy my plane tickets. I spoke to the police and filed a report.
One by one I managed to clear most of the debts from me and send all the debt collectors after her.
Then I made a visit to the social security office. I was in uniform at the time and spoke to a clerk about how I was somehow getting payments when I never got anything.
She looks up the account and boom. My mom was here. She claimed I was permanently mangled and disabled in an accident and I was physically unable to sign, giving her permission to cash my checks. The clerk read that last part out slower as it dawned on her that I was clearly more than able.
She opened a case. For the monolithic bureaucracy that was the government, they move pretty fast when someone’s stealing funds from THEM.
Turns out when they went to investigate, she had already skipped town. They issued warrants for her arrest and she is on the run.
I got cut a check for $20,000, the amount that was garnished from my wages for what she stole from the social security administration, and she now owes that much to Uncle Sam.
So this was ten years ago.
So evidently my brother found out that not only am I doing great, I am very successful.
I recently left the service and I am starting an even more exciting job. So he told Mom, and she came crawling out of the woodworks via social media for funds for a ‘doctor’, but I told her prison gives free medical care, and it felt good.
Turns out when my aunts (her sisters who lived in another state) found out about how she treated me, she was cut out of everyone’s will, including my grandmother. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to my grandfather before she cashed in on him.
So heavily in debt, with no family to turn to, no way to get a job, with fraud on her record as well as selling prescription medication, and warrants out for her arrest, my mother, Jabba the Hutt, is receiving hers.”
7. They Didn't Know Their IP Addresses Were Being Tracked
“Anyone who has to moderate a forum or sub might be able to commiserate with this: So about 15 years ago, I ran a fan site devoted to a popular film trilogy – it was a fairly popular site, and we had a lot of content, from useful information relating to the books/movies, a huge image gallery, and fan fiction.
And of course, we had a forum…
This film series tended to get a lot of fans on the younger side, and I made a conscious decision to have pretty strict rules about what was allowed on the forums – my site, paid for out of my pocket, so I get to set the rules.
One of those rules was no racist, homophobic, or other hate speech allowed.
As you can guess, we’d sometimes get some obnoxious little twerps coming and posting vile things; most of the time, the IP information and/or email address would be a dead-end, and the best we could do is block them, and hope they wouldn’t come back under another IP.
Well, at one point, we had a pair of kids come along that really took the cake – they spammed a bunch of terrible racist things in the forums, along with some nasty images and other nasty stuff.
When I looked up their IP info, for once I had hit the jackpot – the IP address led back to a middle school.
So I gathered up all the information, including screenshots, IP addresses, date and time, and the usernames and email addresses associated with the two accounts, and sent it on to the school.
I heard back from the school a few days later – they had found the kids who had done the posting.
They had apparently been using the library computer during lunchtime – which had a sign-in sheet, hence they were able to track them down. When confronted, the kids confessed. The school revoked their computer privileges for the rest of the term, contacted their parents, and actually made them write me an apology letter!
I honestly thought nothing would ever come of it, so it was a nice surprise to actually have a resolution; I guess maybe I should feel a little bad about getting a couple of 12-year-olds in so much trouble, but on the other hand…they were being little turds.
Hopefully, they learned some sort of lesson, even if it was to use a proxy in the future…”
6. Be A Credit-Grabber? Nobody Cares
“Some years ago, when I was in 8th grade, I was lucky enough to participate in a program that allowed middle schoolers/high schoolers to do some very fascinating engineering and science work. This program was unique enough to be a major factor in college decisions.
The program was very team-oriented, and all the students had their own ‘jobs’, just like in the industry. For the most part, everyone did their own jobs and was able to own part of the project.
While this project was taking place, the college race was in full effect.
Everyone was trying to figure out how they would differentiate themselves so they could get into a top 100 college.
For most of us, just being in the program was more than enough to put on our resume, and we were content with what we were given.
However, one girl whom I shall refer to as K was not.
She was relatively popular and the team leader of one of the two teams. Her parents were the textbook definition of helicopter parents, and she didn’t seem to mind.
K was consistently trying to hint to teachers that she was better than the other people in her group, but was subtle enough to stop people from noticing.
Now, the head mentor was a retired engineer who decided to help the program mostly out of boredom.
He was essentially the main teacher, even though he wasn’t paid. However, he took his work really seriously and didn’t tolerate people that tried to backstab each other.
Near the end of the project, he found out there would be two meetings.
The first of which was mostly BS public relations with some random people who were big in the field but really didn’t care about the project, and the second was vastly more important with some very big companies.
The mentor was worried that K would try to ruin someone else’s chances of ‘marketing’ themselves to a college or company, so he came up with a plan.
He put a huge amount of stress on the importance of the first meeting, insinuating it could get people into a top college if they did well. He later told me (we were quite close) that he was checking if anyone planned to try to backstab for their own gain.
Sure enough, everyone bought it. They all discussed their speeches and selected who would get to go. When the presentation came around, K was one of those chosen because of her popularity. She was supposed to discuss how everyone did their part and stuff along that path.
Instead, K got on the podium and spent the whole speech talking about how she had done nearly everything in the project, taking credit for work that other people did.
Everyone was furious at her, and she lost a friend or two, but she thought she had gotten what she wanted.
Then the next meeting rolled around. Its importance was revealed, and K was informed that there wasn’t room for her to go, since there were limited spots and she had gone to the last meeting.
Nearly everyone else in the team was able to go, and they all made contact with scientists and engineers.
A few got internships and college offers out of it in the future as well.
Just to rub things in: of the scientists that listened to K’s speech, several attended the larger meeting and some of them offered internship opportunities- but none to her.
K dropped out of the program the next year, as nobody wanted to work with her once the news spread, and she never got an internship out of the program.”
5. Disturb My Shower? Get Bullied At Summer Camp
“I suffered a lot of bullying due to being fat and socially adapted to adult situations instead of children because of my young interest in science and math. I resolved to figure out how it was that bullies came out on top, and after a few years, I got it: fear and social force multiplication.
I was sent away to summer camps (I was always getting sent away somewhere and held against my will – a recurring theme) and I was always the new kid and always fat so I was always the butt of the jokes, for many years.
Well, new summer, new camp, this time it’s going to be different!
Nope. Same crap. Extreme invasions of my privacy in the group showers were particularly bothersome. To avoid these unwanted intrusions, I started skipping meals to take showers undisturbed. This worked for a while until another kid caught on and decided he would do it too.
This kid comes into the shower where I’m trying to enjoy some solitude and starts yapping. Yap yap yap about this and that and me and blah blah blah. I tell him to shut the heck up, and he starts making jokes about me.
Particularly, he called me smelly while I was taking a shower! This just got under my skin, and I told him for the umpteenth time to shut up or I would ruin him. He laughed off my threat and I knew it was time for some serious crap.
Up until this point, I was not ‘cool.’ This was the day I became cool.
I called a meeting of all the boys in our year except for ‘Stinker’ (as we’ll call him) and I announced that it was OPEN SEASON on this guy.
That meant anything that happened to him, I would step up and take the blame when the adults showed up and someone had to get in trouble. The only thing containing this group of sadistic animals was the threat of getting in trouble, and since I was willing to get in trouble for anything they did, it really unleashed them.
The first night, to show I was serious, I waited until Stinker was asleep, then in front of all the other boys, I dumped honey on him and his bed. Obviously, he didn’t sleep very well that night! I slept like a baby because no one would mess with me after seeing that.
I was a hero to them that day.
The next night, more abuse. Talcum powder, saucy chicken wings, shampoo – and those were just the things I saw. Having seen that I was serious, the boys really let loose on Stinker.
His stuff was defaced or misplaced. On one of the later nights, he was dragged into the forest – I wasn’t there for that one. There’s a rotation of pain on this kid, and no one is letting him get any sleep.
On day four or five, he comes to me to BEG me to make it stop. Obviously out of the question, and sort of out of my hands. I tell the boys, and they get even more vicious. I am basically the king of camp at this point.
Things continue to get worse for Stinker, as he is kept from being able to sleep a single wink, and his every waking moment is lived in twitchy fear. They messed with his food, they messed with his stuff, they messed with his schedule, there’s nothing out of bounds – they really messed with him!
He lost hope around day 7 and could be seen shambling through camp with sunken eyes. No one ever insulted me again for the rest of my camp career with those boys. They loved me. Also, since I had declared open season and accepted all blame and responsibility, it was actually impossible for me to get in trouble because it was clear I wasn’t even there for the stuff I was accepting guilt for.
Even things I did do, I couldn’t be held accountable for. I never once got in trouble during this time.
On day 8, he was seriously in pain, and I realized that things had gone a little too far. I called a meeting with the boys and told them we had done enough, and it was time to let him sleep.
We agreed he had ‘learned his lesson’ and it wasn’t fun anymore.
When I went to tell him it was over, he didn’t trust me and thought it was just another cruel trick (like so many others) but I reassured him I had put an end to it and he could go to bed. I’m glad I put a stop to it.
His fear of me never went away, and there was a point later where I got in trouble for some unrelated crap (different story) and he was called as a sort of witness against me because they heard a few rumors about what happened. When the Admins asked Stinker about the abuse he had suffered at my hands, he replied ‘Him?
No no no you got it all wrong! We’re best friends! He’d never do something like that! haha! You must have heard wrong…’ Later that day he came to me to make sure I found his testimony acceptable: ‘I did good, right?
We’re good, right?’
I regret those days, but I was a trapped animal and I had no escape. After years of suffering, I was able to make it stop, but only by transferring it to someone else. I learned an important lesson I’ll never forget.
And I finally got to take my showers undisturbed.”
4. Embarrass Me In A Game? Get Endless Calls From Strangers
“I was in high school during the peak popularity period of Halo 3 multiplayer. Everyone from school played, and one day we got a pretty full custom game lobby going on (16 or so people) and the final one to join was this particular jerk of a kid from our football team who I’d had problems with for years.
His name was actually Meredith.
He joins our lobby, notices I’m present and that he has an audience of about 15 people from school then just starts to show off by abruptly berating me with the most personal insults possible, making fun of me and my family using the worst slurs the internet had taught him, then demanded I leave the lobby.
To my disadvantage, the verbal attack was so unexpected and loud most people in the lobby began laughing. I muted him and stayed to play but all I could hear was the continuing laughter of those listening to his constant insults.
After that game, I quit out, got his phone number from a mutual friend, and made a new online profile with it as the Gamertag (account name). I played on that for 2 days before deleting it. He apparently had to get a new phone number from all the calls he was getting from random people and his parents made him pay for a new phone himself, and he couldn’t afford a nice one as he had before.
He also went as far as to file a police report and warned everyone that he was going to find out who did it but I was too busy laughing to care.
The cherry on top was me knocking the wind out of him during football practice the following Monday.
10/10 revenge moment, still remember it 6 years later.”
3. Jerk Manager Got Saran Wrapped To His Car
“I worked for Wal-Mart for a number of years, one of which I worked an overnight shift. Night shift workers are usually pretty unique, especially in factory/stocking settings.
We had an assistant manager that was a jerk. Super creepy toward the female employees, blamed other people for his s******s, threatened people’s jobs, super micromanager, etc. A few months after I started he announced his retirement.
One of the things we had to do in the shift was round up all the carts because our turnover rate was so bad that none of our cart pushers stayed more than a few weeks. On the night of his retirement, we had another manager radio him and say there was an issue with his car in the parking lot.
Asst. Mgr jerkhead came running out and we all congratulated him on his retirement. Then we used a huge roll of saran wrap from receiving and wrapped him to his car. He didn’t have a coat on. It was January.
About 45 minutes he’d managed to cut through the wrap with his car keys. No one bothered to check on him or help him during that time, although a couple of customers mentioned it to the front-end employees.”
2. Best Friend Calls Electrician Because Of A Prank
“My best friend and I had been playing practical jokes on each other for a year when I saw an ad for a small electronic device called an Annoyatron. It’s a circuit board about the size of a matchbook and has a magnet to hold it in place on a metal surface.
It randomly chirps or beeps and drives the victim crazy. So my buddy (Mike) calls me and asks me to come over to his mobile home and help him install a wireless router so he can get on the internet for the first time (he’s not a tech person).
As we are setting things up he takes his dog out for a minute and I slip the Annoyatron into a pocket door track and push it along the metal track so it is out of sight. Unfortunately, I don’t hear it the rest of the time I am there.
I call a mutual friend and he loves the idea and tells me he will let me know if Mike says anything about the beeping. I’m out of town for 2 weeks and no mention of the beep so I stop by Mike’s place and again he takes the dog out and I rush to the doorway and pull the circuit board out and fiddle with the switches… it immediately buzzes and I slide it back in place and go back to sitting on the couch.
Mike comes back and as we are talking he grabs the TV remote and hits mute and says ‘did you hear that?’ I play it cool and decide I better leave before I start laughing so I leave and head home.
The next day our mutual friend calls and is laughing so hard I can’t understand what he is saying. I finally understand the buzzing is driving Mike nuts so I give him a call. He answers the phone and before I can say anything he says ‘I have to call you back, it’s starting to rain and all my stuff is getting ruined’.
So I call the mutual friend and he explains that Mike has been hearing the buzzing going on for 2 days and he thought he had it tracked down to a dehumidifier in his gun safe. When that didn’t end up being the cause of the noise, he ended up taking every device in his home that plugs in the wall or has a battery in it outside and laying it on the lawn.
So when I had called to check on him all of his electronics were outside and it had started to rain.
The next day I called again and he answered real quick and says ‘sorry can’t talk right now, I have an electrician here and he is trying to find the short in my wall’ and hung up.
I call him back and he explains the electrician has pulled all of the breakers from his panel and they still hear the noise so I ask him if the buzzing is really driving him mad and right then the electrician pulls the unit out of the door track.
So he laughs at first and thinks it is funny but then he tells me his landlord paid for the electrician and I owe him for the service call.
The next day I call to see if he calmed down yet and asked about the cost of the electrician and he told me when he explained the situation to the landlord he thought it was so funny he is not going to charge for the electrician.
It took a few weeks but he finally forgave me. He tried pulling a stupid prank on me a few weeks later but it failed before he even got to spring the joke. We finally agreed it had gone too far and quit pulling pranks.”
1. Annoying Kid Neighbor Snaps At Us
“When I was about 14 a new kid moved in a couple of streets away. He was always coming up to me and my friends and would forcibly join in our games.
He never waited to be invited to play with us and he never asked if he could join in. In fact, most times he barely spoke to us. But when he did speak he was always exaggerating and just really irritating.
I remember he’d often get told to get out of the way, stop staying with us, nobody wants you there, and just to bug off, etc. He never listened and just carried on like we were all best mates.
Looking back the poor kid likely had some mental and/social issues (Aspergers/autism).
Anyway, one day a friend and I were walking past his house. It was on the corner of a street and was on the way to the park. There were other routes to the park but this was the shortest route.
Plus, we knew he got really wound up if we walked past his house. So, why not!
On this occasion, he was playing in the garden and started giving out insults and general complaints about us being near his house.
Both sides were giving it out, and he was getting worked up and being very verbal.
At the back of his house, the driveway cut into the land, and the fence was lower so we walked up the drive and stood at the fence giving him grief.
Next thing he launches into full-on zombie rage mode and starts throwing large stones at us. Somehow I managed to catch one and instinctively throw it back at him. At this point, he turns around screaming for his Dad, and heads to the door.
(Causing trouble then screaming for his psychotic Dad was a common tactic for him. He’d plead all innocence, and Daddy would go all Hulk Smash!)
So this large stone is now flying through the air at speed, and… WALLOP! It hit him on the back of the head and he goes down like a sack of spuds.
My friend and I both look at each other and split up heading to our homes at full speed.
Hours later the Dad is pounding on my front door in full-on Hulk Smash mode scaring my parents to death, telling them how I attacked Hulk’s poor little innocent baby boy.
And, that he’d apparently had to go to hospital and have 10 stitches put in the back of his head.
To make things worse I had to go around to baby annoyance and Hulk Dad’s house to apologize to the little jerk!”
