People Describe Their Most Well-Timed Revenge Story
10. Publish My Personal Information Online? I'll Work Quickly To Get You Expelled
“This is several years ago now, back when I was still in high school, living a HECK of a life in the bad sense. I had no friends, no support, nothing a kid in school really wanted. It was an international school in Germany, so it was full of entitled and elitist kids, which just made it worse.
On top of that, I was being bullied by several people in my year, as well as a few from the year above me. Now, I’m a big, tough gal on the outside, 6’3″ tall and built like a freaking tree, but safety comes in numbers, and I wasn’t violent; I just looked the part, so they took advantage of that.
I was bullied daily for being too big, not looking good, being erratic (due to my ADHD), and several things I had done when I was much, much younger (like once biting a kid in self-defense, and using my thumb to bite on during times of stress which looked like suckling).
I was also ostracized from pretty much all schoolyard activities, lunch groups, clubs, and anything else where people congregated. I lived life on the fringe of my school, but I eventually got comfortable with that and made it my lot in this part of life to be alone and not expect or depend on friendships.
Now, one day, I realized people were actually talking to me, and acting like I was their friend or something, even though none of these people had ever said anything nice to me in my life, nor had I ever spoken to them before, so there was no reason we would be friends.
I, being the guarded, paranoid teen I was, just kind of played it off awkwardly and went about my business.
This went on for about 3-4 weeks until I was cornered outside in the schoolyard, sitting by a tree, reading a book, by a guy from a year above me.
I still remember the conversation that occurred to this day, as I do the others, so I’ll be writing them down for extra detail.
Bully: “So, why the heck are you ignoring me?”
Me: “Because I don’t like you, have never liked you, and we don’t even know each other beyond you bullying me in previous years.”
Bully: “But that’s in the past, so it doesn’t matter, right?
Why won’t you just accept me, and stop ignoring me?”
Now, being the lone, socially awkward girl that I was, I thought this dude was asking me out, and I freaking PANICKED that he was trying to force me into a relationship with him, so I closed my book and got up.
He was taller than me, so that wasn’t too easy.
Me: “Accept you!? Are you freaking nuts? No, no freaking way, Uh Uh, I’m not with you.”
Bully: “What? What are you talking about?
I meant my friend request on (Let’s call it Friends as it’s English for the German Freunde, which was a social network site that I had never been on and never would be).”
So now, I just looked at him confused, and shook my head at that, but, being paranoid, I also said: “I didn’t get that yet.”
To which he replied. “Oh, I’ll send it to you again, then.
Sorry.” And then he just… walked off nonchalantly, like he didn’t just corner me against a freaking tree in public. There were some people around, staring at me with wide eyes, and I printed all their faces into my brain.
Fast forward about a week, in which this same thing kept happening with several of my bullies and people I had never so much as known to even EXIST, simply because I never shared any of my classes with them.
I grew more and more paranoid as time went by until finally, I decided to look at the website to see what the heck was going on. And THERE I WAS, at least, a profile for me was.
There were school pictures in it, pictures that had been taken during class trips, pictures that my PARENTS had had on their social media accounts, of me, with everyone else cropped out.
There was my age, my height, my name, but no birth date or anything else. My heart dropped into my freaking shoes, I was destroyed… but then, there was a spark of revenge coming on.
See, I knew who the people that had started badgering me about this profile were. I knew which of my bullies at the time were most active on the social media platform.
I knew the people they hung out with and called their friends (I was a very, very observant teenager due to always having to be on guard). So, I started compiling a list of all the pictures that had been pulled from social media and otherwise been placed without my prior knowledge, with my dad, who did photo-editing to make his nature photography really stand out, as well as him knowing a good bit of computer stuff.
I worked with him for two weeks to put everything together with time stamps and all. I didn’t go to the counselor, whom I had a terrible relationship with, since he had, on several occasions, told me to simply “forget that I was being bullied” and instead took it straight to my school’s principal, a man who has publicly said, to my face, that “Maybe I should fail myself for the year because I obviously wasn’t cut out for this yet” (I had serious issues following a lot of classes because I was being attacked in them sometimes, and I didn’t do homework which was a part of one’s grades, because I just couldn’t bring school home due to the stress it caused.)
The Principal LAUGHED IT OFF as a harmless prank. My identity being stolen and used on social media was harmless. He said this to my face, WITH my dad present in the room with us.
While I sat there in stunned silence, my dad went on a rant that identity being stolen wasn’t ‘harmless’ and that this was no way a school’s principal should be reacting to news about a pupil’s distress about that fact.
The principal went on to say that if it bothered us that much, we could just MOVE SCHOOLS. This was the only international school even remotely close to where we lived at the time, with the next nearest one being AT LEAST a two-hour round trip commute, so he would have known that moving wasn’t an option, he just didn’t care.
My dad and I left the meeting, with my dad looking very angry, and with me feeling weak and defeated. Then my dad said: “Do you know who is behind this?” I told him I didn’t know exactly, all I knew was the people who had badgered me about it first, and the people they were friends with.
Then, my dad suggested we go to the police, and me being the angsty high schooler was terrified at the thought, but at the same time, I wanted this to end, so I agreed.
Turns out that meticulously piled picture evidence of pictures I never made, nor wanted to be made, nor wanted to be posted, along with my vehement testimony that I never made nor wanted that profile, was enough for the chief of the station that we were at to be able to consider actually beginning to investigate into the identity fraud case.
The testimony of my father against my principal was also enough to have the police work together with the School’s Administrative Board to investigate the Principal for negligence.
I helped the Police with frequent descriptions of people who’d haunted me about it, and about the several smaller things I had heard the principal say, as well as what he’d said to my face on several earlier occasions (The “isn’t fit for this school” statement.) I was relishing this ability to finally speak out about the things that I had felt, the things that had been said, the things that had been done, and was going into full, complete detail of EVERYTHING that my bullies had ever done even before this identity fraud thing.
Somehow, this seemed to spur the investigating officer to look deeper, even pull in a cyber consultant to start tracking who made the account.
Cue two more weeks later. The person who first approached me, a guy who I share my Second Language English class with, comes up to me, and, in this barely sarcastic tone, asks me why I stopped being active on the Friends website.
I told him I’d never been active there, and he walked a little too close. “Oh come on, you’ve been talking to people for weeks, and then a few days ago, you just stopped. What gives?” This set off all the alarm bells in my head.
I told him the same thing again, that I’d never been active on the site, nor that I’d ever wanted to be, and left, elbowing my way past him as he tried moving closer to block my path.
Several days later, I’m called into the Director’s office, over the school’s intercom system. I call my dad on the way there, and he tells me he’s already there. I walk there, dreading what was going on.
Once I got there, this is what I saw inside: My dad, standing next to a police officer. The Director sitting at his desk. The Principal was in front of the desk, looking smug as all heck.
Three kids, and their parents, were also in the room. One of the moms look like she was about to murder someone, one dad looked very defeated, and another mom looked super smug.
I realized this was a Disciplinary meeting, and smiled. The Police Officer looked at the Director, who then looked at my dad, who gave a nod to me.
I was asked to tell my whole story again.
I told all the stuff I said about the others here, the account online, the bullying, and the principal’s repeated telling me to my face that I wasn’t fit to be in that school.
The Police officer then talked about how there was evidence that these three kids had worked together to fabricate the account and that the parents stood to be charged with negligence, with the kids standing to be tried as minors for identity theft if I were to press charges.
The Smug mom then tried to leverage me by observing that the kids had been nicer to me because of it and that I should let them be kids. The principal just kind of… sat there, defeated, and was subsequently fired, and told to vacate his office and the premises.
My dad wanted to say something to the mom, but I beat him to it. I still remember the glee in my heart: “Well, I would also like to be a kid whose likeness isn’t used online without me knowing, or wanting it there.
I would like to not have to fear for my own life and people’s thoughts of me, but you don’t care about that, so why should I listen to you?” I then turned to the Police officer and said that we wanted to press charges.
More Police officers came in, and the parents and kids were taken away.
I stayed at school, and some people actually looked at me like I was a hero after that, while some resented me forever after that.
I have never one moment regretted suing those people, and getting the principal fired… and to this day, it is one of my proudest moments.”
Another User Comments:
“In Germany, bullying AND identity are taken VERY seriously.
Schools actually have a responsibility for their students’ safety (including to protect the students from bullying) that you may call “duty to care.” If they do not act, they make themselves criminally negligent.” hans902
9. Attempt To Get Me Fired For Anything You Can? I'll Catch You At The Perfect Moment
“Four years ago, I was hired by this company that made generic versions of prescriptions to be their part-time IT person. They recently bought an office that happened to be across the street from where I lived. It paid well, and I could hold it and a full-time job at the same time after everything got stable in the next three months while I helped corporate convert them to their network.
Upon my arrival on the first day, I was introduced to the staff there. The HR Manager for that branch and his assistant were the first. We’ll call him Christian and his assistant Mariel.
From the start, I didn’t really trust him. He seemed shady and gave me a bad vibe that I could never shake when he was around. Mariel was pleasant, but never really said anything.
He showed me the picture of his young son doing well at soccer and his even younger daughter as if I care about kids. After the initial meet and greet, I was placed in my office (yes, a whole office to myself as a part-time person).
He called the corporate office from my office phone and asked them why they didn’t tell him I was coming to work there. They said the reason is because I was to report to the Director of HR at the corporate office and the Manager of IT there at corporate and not him.
He did not like this at all. He shot back at them with arguments of, “what if discipline is necessary” and all sorts of things like that in front of me.
They told him not to worry about that as he’s not responsible for me; they are.
Now, a little about me… I’m a tall, darker-skinned male and I get along well with people from all walks of life.
I also read and understand spoken Spanish pretty well, but never had much practice speaking it. So, I don’t do it. This is an important point. You would do well to keep this in mind.
A few weeks go by and I get to know almost everyone in every department very well. I am very well-liked by everyone in the office and in the warehouse area.
The warehouse area is comprised of mostly Hispanic men and women mixing the chemicals, boxing and shipping the prescriptions, and other tasks of that nature. We interact only because some of the computers out there tend to have odd issues because of the software they use.
While I’m troubleshooting, we talk and that’s how we develop a good working relationship. The one thing everyone who works in the warehouse and in the office consistently warns me about is to not anger Christian because he is a corrupt person and will try everything in his power to get you fired if he doesn’t like you.
Sometimes, they say, he will enlist the help of his other friend in the office. We will call him Juan. At least half of them also tell me that they’re at least 99% sure he is hooking up with Mariel and one other woman in the office who we will call Jasmine.
I’m not the type of person to get involved with office drama, but I’d be a fool to not heed the exact same warning from everyone I get to know there.
One day, I came back from my lunch break five minutes past when I should have as I lost track of time. When I got back to the office, Juan calls over to Christian, in Spanish, “he just came back in and he’s five minutes late.” I made no visual cue that I understood what he said, but I turned my head in his direction to let him know I heard him speak and continued to walk into my office.
Since I now know that they’re watching me, I now wonder to what extent they’re watching me.
The next day, I come in and do my rounds to check equipment.
I go into the server room (which is connected to Christian’s office for some stupid reason) and find that the AC is off. He does this more than a few times because “it’s too cold.” Giving not a single care that the equipment can overheat and bring down the entire site.
I’ve told him multiple times not to turn it off. So has corporate, but they can do nothing because no one catches him in the act. As I’m walking out, Juan is walking in and I hear him say to Christian in Spanish, “he’s rarely ever late.
This might be difficult.” To which Christian replies, “Don’t worry. I’ll get him. I told corporate about him being five minutes late yesterday.” All right, jerk. It’s on. I called my manager at the corporate office and told them that Christian turned off the AC in the server room and it felt like it was about 80 degrees in there.
My manager says, “I wish we could put a camera in there and catch him in the act.” I replied with, “Me too…” Already, my plan was formulated from his one wish and I was about to become the mother freaking genie.
The following day, I came in armed with a wall surge protector that doubles as a hidden camera. I made sure I put a hefty 64GB SDHC card in there as I planned to do some long-term recording even if it was in black and white.
I put it in Mariel’s office which was adjacent to his, turned on the AC again, and left. I let it record for the remaining two weeks during the holidays just before New Year’s.
I retrieved the device on the last day before the end of the year and reviewed the 16GB of footage. Lo and behold, I did catch him turning off the AC.
However, I also caught him hooking up with Mariel one week and Jasmine the next. On the desk. The operation was a massive success.
The first day back to the office, I called my manager and said that I walked into my office with an envelope on the floor and an SDHC card in it that had Christian being involved in “extracurricular activities.” He asks, “what do you mean?” I asked him to get with IT Security and take a look at the folder named “O**G” on my hard drive for further details because I didn’t want to say it over the phone.
He does and gets really silent for a while before saying, “Oh boy… I’m going to have to call you back.” About twenty minutes go by and I get a call from him and IT Security.
They ask that I close the door and then the questions came in a flurry. Was there any indication on the envelope who sent it? Any markings? Does anyone else know about this?
Do I have any idea who might have done it? I replied to all of them with no and that it was “slipped under my door” because I saw the envelope as soon as I opened the door.
I was then told to keep this very silent, and they will contact me further if necessary.
Two hours later, I receive a call from the Director of HR and IT Security and they ask that I close the door.
The Director asks me again if anyone knows about this and I tell them no because I’m not getting in trouble for anyone since this seems to be a serious infraction (corporate offices love when you do exactly what they say).
He said it is and they will be investigating further. I was then instructed to continue my normal duties and they will take it from there contacting me if they need to.
I’m as giddy as a schoolgirl with a brand-new iPhone at this point with a smile that probably rivals the Cheshire Cat himself.
The day after that, I do my rounds, turn on the AC in the server room again, and say hi to people.
Lunchtime comes, and I head out. About thirty minutes into my lunch break, I get a call from one of the warehouse guys asking if I know why the corporate office is here suddenly.
I tell him that I don’t, but I’m sure we’re going to find out. Seems like a good time to come back from lunch early. I get back and the whole office is secretly talking about why the HR Director came in and demanded a meeting with Christian.
One of the girls asks me if I know and I said I did not as I came back because someone there told me what was going on and it sounded interesting.
One of the guys from IT Security came into my office and closed the door saying that they were taking his laptop with them and to not worry about it because they were going to remove it from my inventory here.
Later on, they called me into the conference room saying that Christian would be terminated because this type of misconduct falls on upper management and not those under him. Shortly after that, the entire office was ecstatic when they heard the news (except Juan, of course), but kept it under wraps.
One girl was in tears because she said Christian used to relentlessly harass her because she turned down all of his advances but was afraid to report him for fear of retaliation.
He was dismissed that day and told that he could come back the next day to gather his things after they put them in a box.
True to their word, I came in the next morning and did my rounds with the AC being on and all of his crap was put into one box.
I saw him park his car and came out of it smoking (he doesn’t smoke to my knowledge, but he did that day at least) and left crying. Corporate asked me if I would consider moving to join them at their office up north, but I declined. I ended up leaving myself soon after and found out through one person I still keep in contact with that Juan, Mariel, and Jasmine all quit one after another in that order.
Honestly, I feel bad for Christian’s wife and kids assuming they found out why he was fired, but better they know the truth that he’s an unfaithful, controlling, jerk now than later.”
8. Refuse To Let Me Get My License? Your Next Electric Bill Is Going To Be Ridiculous
“In the mid-80s, I responded to an ad for a company selling “affordable retirement benefits” for people that didn’t have jobs that offered a 401K or any other kind of retirement savings.
It was a good concept, and I’d been exposed to it before, so I thought it would be a good job that would let me go to school and make a salary since I could essentially set my own hours and appointments.
The job turned out to be selling insurance-based annuities which are essentially insurance-backed savings accounts that mature at a set time and will pay out a monthly stipend when you retire.
I was still in because I understood the concept and still thought it was a good thing to do for people. That was before I really dug into the company and who ran it.
I worked for a guy named “Michael” (obviously changed). He was a slimy manager who was in for himself, and if he had to screw you over, that didn’t cause him to lose any sleep.
Michael also liked to be dishonest with pretty much everything (this comes into play later) and then brag about what he’d done.
Since I was a new salesperson, I didn’t have a license to sell insurance products yet, but part of the process was to eventually send every new person to a quick class and then on to the tests to become licensed. The class they would send people to was a quick, “how to pass the test without actually knowing anything” type of class that amazingly worked. As long as you could sit in a chair, write your name, and hold a pencil, you could pretty much be guaranteed to pass and receive your license which doesn’t make me very confident about the insurance industry in my state.
Until we were sent to the class and passed the test, we had to take one of the licensed agents with us to our appointments. The licensed agent would be the official name on the contract.
Once the deal went through, the licensed agent would receive the commission and was supposed to then split it with us on the deals that we brought to the table.
I went on multiple calls with an older gentleman from the city closest to us and closed several deals. While the commission wasn’t going to be big, it was still earnings that I was owed. After the agent got paid, he quit showing up to our small office and wouldn’t respond to any calls or requests for my part of the deal. After speaking at length with Michael, he told me it was essentially my problem and I had to deal with it as he wasn’t going to do anything about it.
Basically, it was, “too bad you got screwed.” That was strike one.
The second strike was when it came time for me to go to the class and get my license, I was rescheduled. And then rescheduled again.
There was always a reason that I couldn’t go and then an inquiry as to why I wasn’t scheduling any appointments to write contracts. I let them know that I’d start producing again when I felt that I’d actually be paid for my work so all of my appointments were pretty much on hold.
My manager then assured me I was on the rotation for the next class in 1 week and so would I please start getting appointments lined up for the week after that?
Being new in the business world, I thought he was actually going to come through with his end of the bargain, so I put some very nice small companies on the board, which, if I’d closed even half of them would have resulted in some great business.
Unfortunately, when it came time to take the class, my spot was again given to someone else, and I was told that “there’s nothing I can do about it; maybe next time” by Michael.
That was the final straw, so I told him I quit. He wanted to know who I wanted to handle my appointments, so I told him not to worry; I’d take care of it.
I went in and erased all of them off of the whiteboard and walked out.
I know you’re at this point and thinking, “That’s not even petty revenge;” although, it would have been a fairly large amount of revenue.
Remember the liking to screw people over and then bragging about it from earlier? Here’s the revenge part.
Michael, during a conversation with the new guys where he wanted to show us what a stud he was, bragged that he’d figured out how to jam his electric meter so it wouldn’t count the electricity being used. Apparently, the seal on his was broken enough that he could unclip it, jam the meter, and replace the seal so it looked like the meter hadn’t been tampered with.
He knew that his meter would be read on the 2nd or 3rd day of the month, so he’d unjam the meter and let it run for a couple of days and then open it back up and jam it again, so he’d get free electricity for the rest of the month.
He’d then set his AC to as low as it would go and run it 24/7. This was in a very hot southern state in the summer, so his meter probably looked like a CD player with the disk spinning at what was very probably a world record rate.
With his little trick, he’d usually only have what would be considered a very normal electric bill after 2-3 days of running it. If you extrapolate that to 30 days, you’d have an “OH MY GOD!!!” electric bill.
After I left, there were several other guys that he’d done the same thing to, so they left shortly after I did. Since we were mostly business majors at the college, we saw each other quite frequently.
A week or so after the exodus, we were all sitting around talking and the subject of his electric trick came up so we hatched the revenge. Since it was after the meter reader came around, we took a little road trip to his house when we knew he’d be at the office and unjammed the meter and let it run.
You could literally watch the dials turn, so we knew he was going to be in for a surprise. To add to the mystery, we came back at the end of the month and re-jammed the meter so he’d have no idea what was about to happen.
Since we still knew some people that had stayed on the job, we did get to hear the fallout. He got his next electric bill, and it was pretty close to $900 (this was the mid-80s, so that was huge).
He freaked out and called the electric company to complain about the incredible jump in his bill, so they immediately sent out someone to check the meter. Since he wasn’t anticipating this, he wasn’t able to go back to the house and fix the meter, so they found out he’d been jamming the meter.
Not only did he have to pay that bill; they re-figured his previous several months and made him pay that too, so he was out thousands of bucks.
All he had to do was send me to a class and let me get my license.”
7. Act Super Important? I'll Expose You At The Worst Time Possible
“My first week on the job at the gym – one of the front desk girls needed to use the bathroom and asked if I would cover. Just take their card, swipe it, and offer them a towel.
If they don’t have their card, look them up on the computer. Can do.
I swipe a few people in, it’s around 4:30 and some people are coming from work. An older guy, probably in his 50s walks in.
He is in his suit, indicating he is coming from work, with a gym bag over his shoulder, and the angle at which he is walking indicates he has no plan at all to attempt to swipe in.
I professionally say “Excuse me, sir, can I see,” and he glances at me and continues to walk into the gym.
Keep in mind, I was new and I had gone to a 3-day training (overkill) on different ways to sell the gym, and one of the key points was safety.
Saying things like “we only let members in; we have everyone’s licenses and information on file,” etc. I think of these points, so I come out from behind the desk, thinking I will gladly look this guy up if he forgot his card.
As I approach him I start to again say how I need to swipe him in, and he FREAKS THE HECK OUT ON ME. It’s been over a decade, but the main points were he comes here every day, he never swipes in, and everyone knows who he is, and I am an idiot – all as loud as he could be, in my face, and very aggressive.
I am completely taken aback, embarrassed, and angry.
The gym manager comes out of his office and settles things down and tells the dude, Gene, he can head on in.
The manager tells me Gene doesn’t like to swipe in, and that when they see him, they just search for him and let him walk on. I’m livid, but the manager seems to just accept it as something that happened.
I continue to work at the gym for 6 months, seeing Gene a few times a week and never saying a word to him. Eventually, while I was gone, one of the other sales reps took one of my prospects and signed them up.
The sales girl told the prospect she was my manager, and she would make sure I got the commission. She was not a manager and did not. The only reason I know is because the gym member told me.
I call her out on it; she defends it. At this point, I had already put in my two weeks’ notice, and the manager tells me not to come back in.
Fine with me – that place was TOXIC.
4-5 months later, I get a job at an asset management company and I am thrilled. I like my work and the boss who I directly report to is pretty high up in the company.
I work on a building that has 16 floors and the company I work for occupies the floors 14, 15 and 16. I rode the elevator with my boss a few times and saw him interact with the big wigs from the other companies that are on the other floors of our building – they had an informal group that would often go golfing and to dinners with each other.
One day I am waiting for the elevator to leave for the day when my boss comes out and gets on the elevator with me. We start to go down, picking up more and more people who are trying to get home, and 3 of them are executives in my boss’s social circle.
We stop at a floor and who should get on the elevator, complete with his gym bag, but Gene. He and my boss shake hands, begin discussing weekend plans, etc. My boss then introduces me to Gene, and I give zero craps.
I’ve been thinking about this guy for months.
Me: “Oh, Gene and I have already met” (I say in a tone that dictates Gene and I have some history.)
My boss is taken aback by my tone.
Internally I hesitate for a moment, but my boss likes me and this guy mortified me. I had been in enough customer service/retail jobs since I was 15. I’ve taken a lot of crap.
But this guy was one of the worst, it really stuck with me, because it was completely and totally undeserved. I was just trying to do my job.
Gene is having trouble placing me.
Me: “I worked at (INSERT GYM NAME). My first week there, you berated me with obscenities at me at the top of your lungs because I asked you for your membership card when you walked into the gym.”
Gene’s jaw has now dropped – my boss’s head turned from me to Gene. Gene does not try to deny it; he stammers.
Gene: “I…I never bring my card, and everyone there knows me, so I always just walk in.”
Me: “Yep. The manager told me after our incident. Anyway, like I’ve said, we’ve met.”
I just go back to riding the elevator. No one is speaking. Elevator gets to the ground floor we all go our separate ways.
It felt good, but I was regretting it now because we are going into the weekend, and I will have to wait until Monday morning to see if my boss is upset with my behavior or not.
I still waited tables, went right to work, told my co-workers what happened, and we proceeded to get trashed in my honor once the restaurant closed.
Monday morning, I get to my desk and eventually in my travels through the office I have to pass my boss’s office, who calls me in.
He asks for more details about my encounter with Gene.
Me: “I pretty much gave all the details in the elevator. It was my first week selling gym memberships (he knew of this job, it was on my resume), and I was covering for a front desk person who needed to use the restroom.
Gene walked in and I was told to scan EVERYONE into the gym, I tried to tell Gene this and he went off on me. Honestly, I’ve been thinking about him for months and was blown away when he got on the elevator.
I’ve never really said anything like to that anyone and I didn’t plan on it, it just came out as soon as I saw his face.”
My boss was blown away that it happened and that Gene’s excuse on the elevator was, “Oh yeah I never bring my card.” I said yeah he could have said that, he could have explained it to me, could have told me his name, could have said talk to the manager since everyone knows me, but he chose to explode over something like this at a 22-year-old just trying to do his job.
Eventually, my boss told the other executives, and they cut Gene out of their circle. I got on the elevator a few times with me and Gene only, and each time, I was sure to give a smile and say “Hi Gene!”
He got what he wanted – I never forgot who he was.”
6. Have An Affair? I'll Wait Until The Baby Is Born To Leave Your Sorry Butt
“I have some buddies at work that like to go out with their SOs sometimes. I was invited on several occasions but let them know I’m not currently seeing anyone.
So what do they do? They get me a woman, of course. It’s a co-worker of my buddy’s. We’ll call her P.
P was a very shy quiet girl from a family that wasn’t too strict or super religious.
She seemed out of place at first, but looking back, I think she fit in with the crowd more than she let on.
We hit it off, and become fast friends drinking the night away and I end up kissing her and paying for a taxi to take her home.
6 months later, P and I are living together. She moved in with me, and we are great together. We don’t fight, and if we do, it’s something silly that blows over seconds after it begins.
One night after we had “done the deed,” I looked down and noticed the rubber broke. PANIC MODE ENGAGED.
I start freaking out and tell her what happened, and she immediately calms me down and says she’s on the pill.
I get relieved, but then relief turns to surprise. She never mentioned this to me before, did she?
She passes it off as something she mentioned to me, but I was busy with Fallout New Vegas at the time (yeah, this was around when that game came out).
So I probably didn’t notice her say anything. Again looking back, this should have been a red flag. I chalked it up to extra precautions on her part and felt really good about how well we worked together.
She was being responsible for both of our sake. We should be extra safe right? NOPE.
She gets sick a week later complaining that she is always in the bathroom and can’t hold food down… Yeah… you know where this is going.
The P stands for pregnant. Now, I am usually a pretty calm guy, but man oh man was I flipping my crap (not at her, mind you). I make a pretty good salary, enough for her to only work part-time and go to school.
I don’t go to school; I worked (and still do but in a much higher position) in a trade career which I won’t name for anonymity’s sake. Babies change things though.
That meant she would have to stop school, stay home for several months, and then get a full-time job. I wasn’t worried about myself but her. I can manage, but she wanted to finish school and be stable enough so that if we ever decided to have kids, it wouldn’t be in this kind of situation.
Well, she ends up not keeping the baby, and begs me not to tell her parents, who again are not super religious, but this is a big negative to them.
It took months of her talking to them and me courting her to let us live together (she and I were both 21 at this time). So of course I wasn’t going to say anything.
I was almost shocked at her decision. That’s right, hers. I would have stayed and raised that child with her through hard times because I loved her.
For about 4 months, we barely talked. I thought things were over.
But then one night, everything just magically went back to normal. I thought YES, we are okay again. This was also a red flag, but in my excitement, I don’t think I realized it.
Now, having a big scare like that and knowing she was on the pill led me to the decision some of you may or may not cringe at. Vasectomy, I had one.
Now, I went in for the consult with my primary care doctor and was referred to where I had it done. A week of ice and paid vacation. Now, I know what you are thinking, and I saved some juice for later just in case.
And although I should have, I didn’t tell P. Now, I know that you’re thinking what the heck? but honestly? She was on break at the time visiting family. I wanted to wait and let her know when she got home and not discuss it when her parents are around.
Wasn’t sure how they would react if they overheard. I’m sure you can see how much her family opinion matters, and that will come up later too. I was back at work on light duty and business picked up fast. I had no time to even text or call her letting her know I needed to talk to her about something important.
By the time she got home, we both got so busy that I didn’t even mention it. This may seem odd since it’s a major game changer for a relationship, but I was also a young man whose life was (and still is mostly) full of constant go go go work work work.
Stuff just vanishes to the cold storage sometimes.
Fast forward 2 1/2 years. I was promoted a few times. Was high off life, loved my SO, and we were thinking about getting married when she finished school.
By this point, our relationship had progressed enough that we no longer used any form of protection. Now, she said she got an IUD to prevent pregnancy. I thought that was odd at first, thinking about how I was snipped. Oh well, maybe she just wanted to be extra sure.
Well, not so much.
About midway through August 2014 and she gets sick again. This time, we have no idea what she could have. I rush her to the ER and become that guy who took his SO to the hospital, to find out she is pregnant.
Now, the first thing most of you guys probably think I did was scream SCREW YOU, LIAR. Nope. I acted just as surprised as she did, told her it’s fine, we can get through this, and I’m with her 100%.
Now, state laws differ, and your results may vary. But here, unless the father signs a birth certificate himself in person. It doesn’t count. I made sure. Because the first thing I did after getting some time alone from her was see my company’s attorney for a consult.
He recommends me a good person to seek legal counsel in paternal matters.
A week and a half or so later, I meet him and make sure if I have undeniable proof that I’m not the father, I would have no responsibility for the baby or P according to our state laws.
So I had my assurances. And as far as she knew, it was probably mine, right? After all… We were not using any BC at all. None.
Turns out, she had scheduled the appointment, had it put in, but was removed because of complications that caused pain and swelling.
This I was not informed of. Now, normally I leave personal belongings alone. I trusted her and did not want to be the overbearing SO that looks at your crap by “Accident”.
We both had our own phones, PCs and tablets. So she didn’t suspect a thing when I searched through literally, no joke guys, HUNDREDS of emails of her back and forth setting up dates, times… And prices.
That’s right – she was screwing for pay or so I thought. Turns out, she was actually sleeping around for free and selling meds that she stole from patients. The first child she gave up was not the first. Oh, did I mention she was in school to become an RN?
She would sneak meds in any way she could. She would take them from old people, young people, and cancer patients. She was a sneaky one too; she hid all of this from me and her teachers.
As well as her parents. Her biggest supply was using people she had previously screwed/sold to. She would have them get hurt or help them get hurt. And then get them proscribed pain pills.
For the entire time of her pregnancy, I said nothing. To her, her parents, her friends, her teachers. She was close to graduating and close to being a mom. Everyone was so happy for her.
Everything was going great. Well, I got an apartment and paid rent for it secretly. The place we lived was in her parent’s name. The reason being at a moment’s notice they wanted to be able to kick me out for wronging their daughter, this turned out to be an amazing blessing.
Started “selling” my stuff to put into a fund for the baby, but was really moving it to my new place. She thought I was crazy when I “sold” my gaming rig, laptop, and Xbox.
I said… “it’s all for us baby.”
Now, this next part was risky, but I had no choice. I needed some help. I talked to the buddy who got me with her to begin with.
They will be B and SO. B had left the company I worked for, so this would not negatively affect him in any way. I needed more info on P’s part-time job so that I could get back at her.
SO was her boss, and she was exactly the same to them on the outside as she was to everyone else. To this day, I kinda admire her ninja ability, but it’s also why I have no regrets or guilt.
I told them everything, showed them everything. B, and SO were shocked, sad, sorry for me, and sorry for her. Then freaking furious with her. How dare she manipulate them like this.
SO stated things go missing from the workplace, cash drawers are short, but P is always covered in some kind of way. She had been framing people, and was just very careful and calculated in her plans.
SO said she in all honesty never looked real hard at her either, her facade had everyone fooled. Well, lucky for me, SO said in P’s maternity leave, security cameras were replaced, and better quality.
We made our plan then.
In comes the week that she is due. She is wheeled into the hospital and stays for 3 nights before she births him. I have no problems with the child, as you will soon find out, but at the time, he was a symbol of misplaced trust and a broken heart.
They have to take the baby away after a few minutes. He has Jaundice and although he seems fine, want to make double-sure. She reluctantly lets him go.
P: “What should we name our son?”
I tell you, readers, I must have looked like the cat from Alice. I sure felt like I was.
“Our? You mean your?”
What color she had left drains. And she stammers to speak before I put my hand up and tell her…
“I got snipped 6 months after we started seeing each other.” Her face almost seems to cave in. “That confirms for me the baby is only your baby. Not ours, baby, but yours, and yours alone.
ALONE.”
Tears, nothing but tears. I told her that she was never to speak to me again and walked out. I told the medical staff that under no circumstances was my name to be on that certificate.
I was a concerned former partner that she had an affair on, and she was a junkie (lab reports on the cord b***d unfortunately later showed this to be true, but the baby was fine) and that I was only here to make sure her baby was alright.
I was not to be contacted, and if she says I’m her partner, don’t believe her. If I needed to prove that to them, I would. I left, packed my crap, and left for my new apartment.
I know what you’re thinking: that was not really that harsh at all. I didn’t think so either.
I waited until she was back at home. I left my keys, and $400 in an envelope at her place so that she had something to spend when she was out and also to bait her.
I knew that she would either…
A. Buy some more pills. B. Try and sell herself. C. Maybe just maybe get her crap together and fix herself? D. Cry To mommy, work, and school.
I’ll take A, B, and D for $400, Alex.
That’s right, she did all three. Now, I know at this point, I’m okay on the work front. I’m also okay with the parent situation.
The moment she was released, her parents picked her up because I wasn’t there. She called them, complained, and told them everything. I was going to be thrown out, but what’s this?
I’m not there. She was probably upset she didn’t get the joy of kicking me to the curb. Instead, there was the envelope for her with $400 and the keys. I don’t know what went through her head, but she was already back into her normal routine before long.
She must have thought I skipped town completely. Calling work leads to a “not here.” They were informed. Asking SO leads to “B hasn’t heard from him.” She thought she got off the hook, with one baby, and nothing else.
A while later, she gets fired; security footage shows her manipulating drawers and framing other employees. She tells her parents it wasn’t her, and they believe her. Next, her school gets a big package from an anonymous source letting them know she was recently fired for stealing and substance use.
Now, I am not sure how she got through school and the hospital without the substances in her system popping a red flag. I know they tested the cord b***d from the baby, and I specifically stated she was a junkie.
I never dug into it, probably should have. Her school has a 0 tolerance policy against substance use. The package also contained the emails, as well as messages to and from buyers, sellers, and anyone else she did shady crap with.
Did I mention that the hospital she worked at also got a package? And the police… Her parents disowned her, fired, expelled, and CPA was on her case.
To wrap it up.
She lost everything, including the baby. He’s fine now though. His real dad was found. She basically went back and looked for anyone that could have possibly been the father at that point in time.
Kinda impressive considering the guy was 29 – call him D. Had been divorced and was lonely. I understand. He had a great house and income, so he was given custody after a paternity test.
Best part? The other couple we were with on the first outing? She got with that guy. That’s right. He’s actually still at my company too. I remember when he went through the divorce.
I didn’t talk to him much, so I had no idea he had interactions with her. It only took one time. She never told anyone she met up with that she was in a relationship.
He had no idea we were together. He didn’t talk with me enough, and I was in a different part of the workplace at that point.
So, in the end, she has no home, no friends, no job, no career, a rap sheet, and now her kid is with his dad and she gets zero visitation.
I’m single and still hang out with her parents, SO, And D. Have my job, my apartment, and best of all?
I’m not the baby daddy.”
5. Attempt To Take Over My Wife's Job After Her Maternity Leave? You'll Be The One Pushed Out Of Your Job
“We live in a country that needs a lot of improvement on laws, their application and enforcement…. we are a lot better than a few years back, but still sometimes people can get away with forging some types of documents, like medical records, education degrees, etc.
According to our country’s labor laws:
- All female employees are entitled to 3 months paid maternity leave.
- Employers, at their own expense, are expected to cover for the employees on maternity leave, usually with temp workers.
- Severance payments are mandatory when firing employees (without justified cause… crime, fraud, etc.) with more than 3 months on their jobs, so that’s the time limit to be considered a temp employee.
- Severance payment calculation is rather complicated, but for firing people employed for 4 years or less, it usually boils down to about 4 months of salary.
- To fire pregnant women, employers have to pay them 6 months of salary on top of the severance payment they’re entitled to.
- If an employee quits voluntarily, they effectively forfeit all benefits previously mentioned.
My wife has been working for a non-profit for 10 years now. I don’t want to give out much detail, but the company deals with, among other things, basic women’s healthcare (first care ob-gyn, birth control, pregnancy tests, etc).
The company has 3 locations within 10 or fewer miles from each other.
I own a small tech support firm and we’ve been offering services to this company for about the same time (hence my small involvement).
We actually met through this professional relationship. This is her second kid, my fourth… and first baby girl!
My wife is a very easygoing, introverted person. She can be shy when you first met her, and on first impressions, she gives out a vibe of being a pushover.
In reality, she takes no crap, from anyone, including (or especially?) me.
She was hired as the company’s receptionist originally, but thanks to her hard work, ethics, and professionalism (which I’ve witnessed myself even before getting together with her), she’s being promoted constantly.
Her apparent pushover personality has been a recurring theme on her job since for years she worked as an office manager (in charge of overseeing the company’s vehicles, managing the drivers, janitors, dealing with some external contractors, etc.) out of the receptionist desk (this is a small to medium company).
Sometimes when a new manager was hired, they tried to make her run phone errands (set appointments, pay bills, etc.) and other petty stuff (like serving coffee, etc.), and you usually have a low-level secretary Director of Operations thinking she was only a receptionist.
She promptly called for a staff meeting every time, having the Director of Operations set these jerks straight.
She foresaw the company’s need of having a human resources manager, so she talked me into helping her (financially and with domestic duties) get a master’s degree in human resources 3 years ago (she’s a business major).
I contributed to the cost and did my best to take care of the kids and the house when she was in class. She graduated with very good grades, and the investment paid off.
The position was created last year, following advice by external assessors, who promptly recommended the company give my wife the job, with a significant pay raise involved. YAY!!!
A few months later, we got pregnant again, so my wife and the Director of Operations hired this Temp girl (Temp Witch) to cover for my wife during her maternity leave.
My wife was very worn out on her last days of pregnancy when she trained the Temp Witch, and she also may have commented how relieved she would be without work stress for a few months while enjoying our baby girl… Temp Witch probably got my wife’s pushover vibe as well.
Temp Witch turned out to be an opportunistic, backstabbing stank of a woman that thought that she could take over My Wife’s position… she also turned out to be somewhat stupid.
As a weird coincidence, my employees knew her! A few months prior, she was employed as a consumer electronic salesgirl for another company that uses our services, and they knew she was not in fact a human resources/business major as she claimed to be.
She was a marketing major fresh out of university. At the time, my wife let it slide (didn’t alert the company) as she was after all a temp employee, and exposing her will mean my wife would have to either scramble to vet and train another candidate in less than a week or reschedule her c-section for a week later.
While my wife was on leave, some of her coworkers started alerting her in private, that the Temp Witch was starting to get more and more comfortable in my wife’s position.
Among other things:
- Overriding some of the directives and procedures my wife had put in place, trying to implement her (often inadequate/wrong) own.
- Giving employees advice and directions that directly contradicted my wife’s instructions.
- Giving heck to some of the suppliers the company and my wife have been satisfactorily dealing with for years.
Temp Witch had the audacity to change the email footer on my wife’s computer, as well as the wording on the emails themselves, to appear as SHE was the OFFICIAL HR manager, not my wife.
She was specifically told that she had to let everyone know she was acting On Behalf of the actual HR Manager.
She did this on specific emails to certain employees and suppliers, changing it back when she emailed or copied the bosses… I know, this sounds very stupid as she was leaving written evidence that easily proved she was misleading people.
Some of these emails were forwarded in private to my wife by her coworkers.
This witch is a class A sweet talker, so she convinced the bosses to let her stick around for another month after My Wife returned to work, to organize and help finish up some procedural handbooks my wife started writing (but were actually the Director of Operations’s responsibility).
Her contract was renewed for another month so she could perform this very specific task. As this boundary was not defined in writing, she started to overstep it in every way she could:
- Sign herself up for a training course on the company’s dime.
- Set up onsite training courses for the staff (already quoted and kicked off by my wife with the external providers before her maternity leave), to take credit for the coordination effort… leaving, however, loose ends.
My wife decided to pick up the slack as letting it slide would have affected both the employees and the training providers.
- Tell my wife in several instances (in front of other employees) that she needed to stay after hours to finish up certain tasks pertaining to her position (as a way to mark territory/establish dominance?)
- Question my wife’s decision (again, in front of other employees) about scheduling meetings within tight schedules, as well as her ability to keep up with them.
- Publish a “before and after” manifest, detailing all the “improvements” she supposedly made to the HR managing position, contrasting her tenure against my wife’s.
- Treat representatives of various supplier companies unjustifiably like dirt, in a twisted/sick way to assert dominance, maybe? A particularly nasty phone call was overheard by the Administrative Director.
- Several similar instances of these 6 examples.
Here’s where my wife got fed up, and she started her revenge. from each of the above instances these actions were taken:
- My wife contacted the training company to let them know that an error was made with the trainee’s name, which should be the company’s HR manager.
So my wife set the training course for herself (as she was entitled to, being, you know, the ACTUAL HR manager) and deferred it for a later date. She let her bosses know but not Temp Witch, who showed up for the nighttime course only to find out she was not allowed to take it.
- As My wife had way more time interacting with the onsite training provider, on the first day of the training week, the trainers came in looking for My Wife to help them set up everything.
on the last day’s wrap-up meeting, they commended her for all her effort taken to make the training week a success. Temp Witch left the room in a huff.
- My wife replied to Temp Witch right then and there, on each occasion, that she was in no way taking her precious family time to work after hours, and that she had enough ability to get done all tasks and meetings within her normal working hours… and then do exactly that, on some days even with time to spare.
My wife had a private meeting with the Director of Operations to talk mainly about the “before and after” manifesto, as well as everything else mentioned above. My wife’s point of view was that the company should not have allowed all this to happen unless, of course, they intended to fire my wife and keep Temp Witch as HR manager.
The Director of Operations apologized profusely to My Wife, assuring her that this was not the case at all, and told her that the Administrative Director, after overhearing Temp Witch’s nasty phone call, decided she didn’t want her to be part of the company in any way, shape or form and commissioned Director of Operations to take care of it.
The Director of Operations called Temp Witch to a private meeting on a Friday, during which she informed her that her services were no longer needed. The Director of Operations replied she was aware Temp Witch was past the 3-month mark, so she was entitled to some severance compensation.
Temp Witch asked to be able to respond to this the next Monday.
On Monday, Temp Witch presented the Director of Operations with a Positive Pregnancy Test (yes, you read that right) and told the Director of Operations they now had to “negotiate,” citing the 6-month salary compensation law for dismissing pregnant employees.
Temp Witch expressed that she saw “no need for her to be fired”, and she very much preferred to remain in the company as an employee. The Director of Operations told Temp Witch that she needed to get back to her about this and scheduled a meeting for a few days later.
The Director of Operations met with the Administrative Director, who reiterated she felt Temp Witch should not be part of the company, so the Director of Operations turned to my wife to start the dismissal and compensation procedures.
Here’s where my wife’s revenge gets really pro:
- With the help of my coworkers, my wife got more detail about Temp Witch’s previous employment and marketing major background, which allowed her to get publicly available info (from a job search/application website) about Temp Witch, which constituted irrefutable proof she falsified her credentials to get hired by the company in the first place.
My wife didn’t even bother to tell me about this at the time, as at the moment I was in the middle of a very stressful work trip.
- Made a Dossier of printed-out emails on which Temp Witch was making herself known as the HR manager to lower-level employees, suppliers, and contractors (She was told when hired that she had to clear up to all suppliers, both verbally and in writing, she was acting on behalf of the HR Manager — my wife)
My wife met with the Director of Operations and presented her with all this evidence. My wife said that it took a great effort to pry the Director of Operations’s jaw off the floor.
My wife stressed that it was in the company’s best interest, that Temp Witch should be required to retake the pregnancy test within the company’s healthcare facility.
As I’m sure you already guessed, tests came back negative, with no evidence of a recent miscarriage.
The Director of Operations purposedly scheduled Temp Witch’s meeting on the same day My Wife had to meet with the company’s employees at one of the other locations, basically to avoid any uncomfortable situations, but she was told later that Temp Witch somehow managed it to keep it together until she was shown the door.
As it is part of her duties, My wife knows for a fact that a resignation letter, signed by Temp Witch, is on file with the company, and that no monetary compensation whatsoever was paid to Temp Witch.”
4. Steal Property? I'll Wipe All The Files Off Your Computer
“I was in the process of joining the military, simply waiting for the date to enter service. “It would take at least a month but no more than a year.” Apartment lease had expired, no month-to-month payment option.
Looking for some short-term housing. I was single, worked 2 part-time jobs, and had savings. I’m quiet, flexible, simple needs. Just needed the simplest of accommodations. I went to Craig’s List.
Met with a woman who advertised a room for rent. We’ll call her “Jill”. Jill was 20-something, single, and came from a wealthy family who bought her this small 3-bedroom house, gave her a nice car, paid her bills.
Jill didn’t like to work, she just “sold her art”. She made awful graphic art fan fiction on her PC, probably never sold anything but was completely obsessed with her own work and would talk about it constantly.
Jill had pets. So. Many. Pets. Like 20 cats, 4 dogs, a room of birds out of their cages, and several aquariums. A bit weird/slightly skewed version of reality, but seemed nice, had a room available and the price was okay.
I would pay a flat rate for rent and utilities, provide my own food, and come and go as I please. Neither of us ever signed anything, just details via text and email.
She benefited from my moving in as I had transferred my cable internet connection to her house. Got the modem hooked up and used my own wireless router and let her use it for free.
I also have carpentry experience so I helped her repair some door frames and some wood trim in addition to patching up some drywall. Helped her out a lot, all while requesting nothing in return.
The first week was nice.
Things fell apart rapidly after that. She became manipulative and started making financial demands. The electric bill was high, I needed to pay “my part”.
She had bought enough groceries for both of us without informing me, but now that milk had soured and bread molded I needed to pay for “wasted groceries.” Old, busted-up door knob on the side of the house broke off while taking out the trash, so I needed to buy a new one.
Etc…
Individually these didn’t bother me much, but there was a pattern. After just weeks, living expenses had tripled the agreed-upon amount. I told her that this couldn’t happen anymore.
I would pay the agreed-upon amount and buy my own food. Period. This settled things…for a week.
Got back from work. In my room, my guitar was gone, and in its place, a bill.
A bill from a plumber who had installed a toilet. “My bathroom” needed some work done. Jill had “lost all trust” that I would fulfill “financial obligations” after I “freaked out about finances before.” My guitar was hostage, locked in her bedroom until I paid for her toilet upgrade.
She literally added a padlock to her bedroom door.
Time to get out. I told her I was moving out the next day (a friend already offered me his guest room).
She could keep the guitar (it was a $100 pawnshop guitar). I wasn’t going to pay to fix her house anymore.
Upon packing things came the modem discussion. She was taking an online class since she now had an internet connection.
She would get her own connection “in a few days”. I was angry with her but not yet vengeful. I agreed to let her use it until my connection got transferred.
A week later, called Jill the day before the cable transfer. She said she would drop off the equipment, but oddly, only while I was at work. I texted a reminder, “Please don’t forget to drop off modem,” and she responded, “Left it in a bag outside your front door.” Weird, but whatever.
I get home that night. No bag. No modem. I text, “did you leave it at the right house? can’t find it”, she responds, “yes”.
Cable got installed, still no modem.
It’ll cost me if I don’t turn in the old one. Now I’m vengeful. She’s extorted funds. I’ve been nothing but helpful and considerate. She’s stolen my things, and now she’s probably lying and stealing more things – which will cost even more.
Jill took a pottery class on Thursdays, out of the house for 2 hours. Her front door had a combination keypad for entry instead of keys. She claimed she would change the combo when I left, but probably didn’t know how to do that.
Waited until after the time she left. Drove past. No one home. Parked a block away, walked to the front door, and entered the code. Still works. Straight to her bedroom.
Not padlocked anymore. Look, there’s my router and modem, right where they shouldn’t be because they’re in a bag outside my friend’s place. Weird. Grab my modem & router, grab my guitar, insert a spare old burned admin copy of Win’98 into her cdrom, boot to CD, set it to work formatting her hard drive.
She can complete Win’98 installation later, complained about Vista anyway. Probably won’t be able to retrieve her “art” and homework.
Back in my car within 5 minutes, at my friend’s place 10 minutes later.
Jill’s pottery class still had another hour. I texted, “finally found the modem, bag must’ve blown into the bushes! Thanks for dropping it off!” I love to imagine whatever flurry of emotions she must have experienced at that moment…
Called me in a frantic rage 30 minutes later. “YOU STOLE FROM ME!!!” “What?? Jill…What are you talking about?” “YOU BROKE INTO MY HOUSE AND STOLE FROM ME!!!” “Wait… Someone broke into the house??
I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about that… What did they take?” Her remarkable psychological gymnast skills. Walks right up to the ledge of almost admitting that she lied to me and stole my things (after all, such an admission was required for her version of events to make any sense at all) and then psychologically backflips away.
She couldn’t do it. Her story was not compatible with reality. All she could muster was rage and empty threats and that phone call was the last time I ever heard from her.
Honestly, at that point, the stuff involved was worth less to me than the fact that she had so much rage but couldn’t do anything about it. It brought me a little joy.
The strangest part is that she never mentioned her computer at all…”
3. Do A Lazy Job For Easy Commission? You'll Lose Your Commission At The Last Minute
“So, I’m helping a guy sell his condo. The place was absolutely gorgeous. The guy was a general contractor, bought it as a dump, gutted it, and turned it into a palace.
What makes this even more entertaining is that the guy was 84 years old. His wife died, he sold his house, bought the condo, and figured he’d die there. Nope, he ended up meeting some spry little 77-year-old hottie and they were going to get married and live at her house.
Let’s call the seller Mike.
A guy, who we will call Big Freaking Jerk (BFJ) comes to see the condo which is somewhat overpriced, but it was severely over-improved, and I thought we could get that price.
I didn’t notice BFJ’s appointment time when I went to visit Mike for a signature on a price reduction. So, I just happened to be there when BFJ shows up.
BFJ shows up and doesn’t have an agent with him. This is a no-no, but since I’m there, I walk him through it. He mentions that he called his realtor because he saw my sign.
So, this wasn’t a property that his agent actually found for him. Oh well, whatever. He seems unimpressed and leaves.
Mike drops the price to $235,000 and wants $225,000 minimum because he doesn’t want to owe anything after closing.
BFJ’s agent calls me and says BFJ wants to make an offer, but she’s busy. She wants ME to meet with her client to write up an offer. I point out the legal issues with this and she’s like, “I won’t say anything if you don’t.”
I call my broker and explain the situation. He asks his wife (also a realtor) to handle writing up the offer. Illinois allows dual agency (where I can help a buyer and seller at the same time for the same property), but I can’t do it for a realtor with another brokerage.
After my broker’s wife gets done, BFJ tells her he’s having second thoughts and to hold off.
During the next two weeks, BFJ shows up at Mike’s condo SEVEN TIMES unannounced, with no appointment, and has no realtor with him.
Mike is a nice guy and thinks he’s got a hot buyer, so he lets the guy in to look around, measure, write notes, take pictures, etc. I had no idea this was going on or I would have put a stop to it.
Anyway, BFJ talks to Mike who’s ready to move. BFJ says he knows Mike only bought it for $100,000 three years earlier. Mike tells the guy, that the lowest he’s going is $225,000 because he took out a construction loan and put about $100,000 into the full-gut remodel with high-end materials and appliances.
I’m not kidding. The place was spectacular. 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, living room, huge chef’s kitchen, wet bar, jacuzzi tubs, formal dining room, vaulted ceilings, family room, loft, and every room was wired for phone, cable, surround sound, and Internet (which was a relatively new thing at the time).
Mike also showed BFJ the net sheet I gave him which showed that at $225,000, Mike would walk away with $1,900.
BFJ calls his realtor who calls me to have me make the offer that my broker’s wife wrote up.
However, BFJ calls my broker’s wife and tells her to lower the offer from $230,000 to $223,000 because “that old man can afford to bring a hundred bucks to closing.” (The way the numbers work based on the net sheet and market time, Mike still would have walked away with a few bucks.)
I get the offer from my broker’s wife and she tells me to “enjoy the little gift and I’m not taking anything away” (I’ll explain this later). I present the offer to Mike and Mike tells me to just hold onto it because he has another appointment scheduled and wants to see if they’ll make an offer.
They don’t, but Mike waits anyway. At this point, BFJ has inconvenienced him multiple times and gave a low “I’m gonna screw this old man so he walks away with nothing” offer after having a very frank discussion.
BFJ is calling every day to ask about his offer. I can tell that he loves it. His agent? Nowhere to be found. Never got a call from her. Finally, 3 weeks later, BFJ’s calls have gone from innocent inquiries to angry screaming.
(No, there’s no time limit on Illinois real estate contracts unless you put one in and he didn’t.) Mike finally signs off because he feels bad for me. He would have left BFJ hanging another 3 weeks if he didn’t feel bad about me having to deal with the calls.
BFJ does his inspection and tries to renegotiate. Mike tells him to drop dead since Mike is a general contractor and knows the work is done to code despite what BFJ’s inspector said.
By the way, BFJ’s inspector was a friend of his. BFJ still moves forward.
BFJ drags his feet with his bank and the closing keeps getting pushed back. Mike is so mad BFJ.
FINALLY, we close. Instead of being in a room together, Mike and BFJ are in separate rooms because they hate each other at this point and no one wants an explosion.
BFJ tries to renegotiate at the closing. Mike literally yells, “He wants $100 because I don’t have low-flow toilets? I’ll give him $100, but I’m going to jam it up his butt to my freaking elbow.” I don’t know if BFJ heard it, but I would have loved to have seen the look on his face.
Now the revenge had on my behalf…
The closer comes in near the end and says, “Jane Doe from XYZ realty called to tell me to send her commission check to her office… I don’t see that she’s getting a check.”
I give her a copy of the contract and addenda and show her what my broker’s wife added to it… Not only did she have him sign an Exclusive Buyer Broker Agreement naming her as his designated agent, but she also got him to write (and sign), in his own handwriting, “I inquired about this property because I saw OP’s sign.
My agent didn’t accompany me when OP showed me the unit. Broker’s Wife drafted my offer.” This basically showed that the other realtor didn’t do her job, so I wasn’t paying her.
(Buyer’s realtors are paid part of the seller’s agent’s commission.)
So, I explained all this and on the advice of the seller’s attorney, I amended my commission statement to give the other realtor a $50 referral fee.
She cashed the check and called for WEEKS demanding her payment. The Chicago Association of Realtors reviewed her case and told her to get lost. As a side note, many years later, I saw that she had her license revoked for multiple ethics violations.
And now, Mike’s revenge…
About ten years later, Mike’s new wife died and he called me to sell that house because he was going to move into an assisted living facility.
While talking with Mike, he told me about the things he did before leaving the condo.
The fans had no chains or switches. They were operated with remote controls. He taped the remotes to the tops of the fan blades and turned them on high before leaving the last time.
He removed the super high-quality garbage disposal that was super quiet and installed the cheapest and loudest one he could find.
He shut off all the water valves for the sinks and toilets.
He poured straight bleach into the toilet tanks. He claims that will destroy the mechanisms in the toilet tank or at least drastically reduce the life expectancy.
He put water restrictors in the showers.
He removed the wheels from the bottoms of the sliding glass doors and left them in a kitchen drawer assuming BFJ would just throw them out assuming they were junk.
He turned the little pins on the igniter for the attached grill, so they wouldn’t create a spark.
He disconnected the igniter on the oven. He didn’t break it, he just loosened the connection.
I think there were a few other things, but I can’t remember what they were.
He said he got a nasty letter from BFJ’s attorney about the doors, oven, and grill demanding to be paid for the service calls for the repairs.
He ignored it and never heard anything else about it.”
Another User Comments:
“Could’ve also reduced BFJ’s life expectancy if he used it while bleach was still in. The ammonia in urine mixed with bleach makes toxic chloramine vapor.” natergonnanate
2. Be The World's Worst Landlord? I'll Get Your House Foreclosed Before Anyone Else Rents It
“It’s 2011, and my partner and I decided to rent a house with our best friends – an engaged couple with two kids. I’m changing names here: I’m Kylie, my partner is Jim, and our couple friends are Brad and Angelina.
Jim, Brad, and I are active duty military.
After over a month of searching, we found a really cute house – 1,850 sqft, nice yard, great neighbors, only $1,350 a month, hardwood except for 1 room, 7 minutes from our base.
The landlord is in a different state but tells us she pays one of the neighbors to manage the keys for her. It’s a military town, and that’s not uncommon.
We all met up with him, toured the house, and decided to sign the lease.
We moved in sometime in August. We liked the house, but there were crickets coming into one of the bedrooms through a crack in the window sill.
The landlord didn’t want to fix it and said to caulk it. It worked, no problem.
We noticed the carpet in the living room was a little dingy and asked her if she would mind paying someone to clean it since we moved in that way.
We even made a note of it and took pictures when we moved in. She said no. I bought my own cleaner, and the carpet lightened a few shades.
In October, we went to put the heat on, and it didn’t work.
So we realized the oil tank was empty. Part of the lease states when we move out, we needed to leave a full tank of oil, which isn’t really a problem as long as we start with a full tank and use all the oil in it.
Call the landlord and ask her to have the oil company come fill the tank – which it’s 2011, so it’s going to cost $1,200 to do. She says no. We told her fine; we wouldn’t be leaving a full tank when the lease was over though.
She got mad and said we had to because it was a clause in our lease. We had the oil company provide statements to say the last time it was filled was that prior January, and it was empty when they came to fill our tank that month.
We filled the tank, but the heat still didn’t work. It’s been 2 weeks and it’s really getting cold, so we asked the LL to get a repairman out to the house.
Brad and Angelina have two small kids that need to stay warm. My landlord took another week to fix the heat, and the people that did it were… questionable. It worked for a month but then quit.
We called in our own repairmen to come to handle it since the last ones creeped me out, and he noticed some major issues with the chimney that needed attention right away.
Like it was unsafe to run the heat at all, the darned thing was about to collapse. We let her know and emailed scans of the paperwork from our nice Honeywell tech and two quotes from contractors to get the work done.
(it’s going to be $3,000-3,500ish). It’s an emergency repair, and at that point, it’s December, and we are really cold. We were using space heaters. The kids have chest colds and Angelina is ready to fly into our landlord’s state to handle her physically.
I mailed all of that information to her (Angelina’s bodily threats omitted) with signature confirmation and a letter stating the issue.
A few days pass and nothing from our witch LL.
I got onto Google and read the landlord-tenant act and local landlord court cases just to see if I had a leg to stand on. I also spoke to my JAG, whose brother happened to be a real estate lawyer, who was also friends with my next-door neighbor (the keyholder dude, who surprise, never got paid to watch the house) and decided to come over for dinner with all of us at their place.
He gave me some really good info.
The next morning, I called our landlord and told her, “Look, you get this repair done or I will condemn the house and not pay a dime of rent until it’s done.” She says she doesn’t believe me.
I overnighted a certified letter to her explaining the issue and requesting the repair be started within 5 business days since it was an emergency, and I had already reported it a week prior.
5 days go by, nothing. At this point, I’m ready to walk out on the lease but don’t have quite enough legal issues to back that up so – Jim and I requested 20 days of vacation from the military.
I drafted a letter to LL telling her she had 10 days to get the repair done, or we would terminate the lease, and we would not be paying rent while the heat was in disrepair.
I cited the previous letter and included her signature confirmation for it also. 4 days before we go on vacation, I overnighted and signature confirmation the letter. Two days before we are set to go on vacation, I called a city building inspector, set an appointment, he came and condemned the house – it took him less than 15 minutes to decide.
Brad and Angelina took off to Angelina’s mom’s house and Jim and I headed out to spend a few weeks in WARM, SUNNY Florida with his Cuban family. (Mmmm, the food).
We prorated rent for every day the house was condemned. I called the building inspector every few days to see if the work was done. He also demanded that my landlord do a few minor electrical repairs.
Several days have gone by… I spent half that month’s rent on good food, drinks, and Disney World tickets.
On the 6th day in Florida, the landlord calls me threatening eviction.
I told her to please take me to court because I was ready to embarrass her. I cited the landlord-tenant act, told her I was going to sue for travel costs to Florida and hotel costs, and at that point, she was already looking at $850, and it was just going to get more costly.
(Longshot, but I was mad). I also said we were prepared to just walk out if it wasn’t done by the time the certified letter stated it should be, again, I wasn’t kidding.
I had already reserved a Uhaul. Oh, and she would be reimbursing me for that $1,100 in oil I hadn’t been able to burn. She said fine and finally replaced the chimney two weeks after the place was condemned. My neighbor told me she had to borrow funds from her family to get it done.
Not my problem. She also told me I was a horrible person who was torturing her and her 5-year-old who were victims of domestic violence. She also told me we were only slightly better than the last tenants.
I’m sorry for your situation, but your husband has been crappy to you since you got together. How do I know? Turns out, one of my supervisors is friends with her old supervisor and he and other members of her chain of command had responded to fights where she and her husband hit each other.
Apparently, the husband is an addict too. They tried to get her to leave him but she is just as bad, she busted out his windshield one time and burned all his stuff another.
Turns out she got a general administration discharge. She seemed so nice and sweet when we were getting ready to sign that lease. I still can’t believe what a bucket of coo-coo for coco puffs she turned out to be.
Whatever, we came home to a house with functioning heat. Brad and Angelina decided not to move back in, but that was all cool with Jim and me. We notarized an agreement between us and told them we totally understood and would take over the rent.
Missed them after they left, though.
Later on, in March, a realtor knocked on my door and said he wanted to show the house to a couple. I said, you have the wrong place buddy; I’m renting this right now.
He’s like no, the owner wants a short sale hopefully by July. I explained I had no notice and was a little confused, but it was okay. He was very uncomfortable and unhappy to have walked into a situation where a tenant didn’t even know he was coming.
I told him it was totally fine and went on to divulge some details about his new client. He was pretty appalled. He leveled with me – it’s a cute house but really only worth $90k due to the market crash.
It had last sold for $124k, according to Zillow. She’s asking for 120k and is on the verge of foreclosure. Seriously? I let the couple and realtor in the next day.
Didn’t worry about it after that. He came to take detailed pictures, so he wouldn’t have to bother me with flaky potential buyers. He was so nice that I let him help me find a new house to rent when my lease was up.
We are still friends on social media.
Then, in July, the realtor called me and asked if he could show the house to a client. Absolutely. I cleaned and made sure I looked nice for her visit….and when they got to my house, I noticed the lady was black.
And she wanted to rent. I said, ma’am, call me later today, and don’t tell anyone. She did! I told her what my LL said about how she couldn’t believe her past tenants were white because they left the house trashed when they left. I said, “I don’t think this is a good house for you.
I know a great guy who is renting out his beachside condo for the next year while he goes out to Africa, why don’t you call him?” I text his listing to her, she calls him, and ends up renting his house.
None of that is really revenge. Before we moved out, Jim and I cleaned the house. We left the carpets sparkling clean (had professionals come in and do it), paid a gardener to come in and make the yard spiffy, patched up some small nail holes, and even painted some window trim that was chipped when we moved in.
we basically left it better than we found it, we had already repainted 3 bedrooms in flattering colors when we first moved in (that was approved by the LL no problem of course).
We took pictures before and after we moved in. A month goes by, we are all settled in our new condo, and she didn’t give us a dime back of the freaking deposit.
$2,400 down the darned drain, plus the cost of little repairs we made out of pocket, so we couldn’t have to deal with her crazy butt.
I was angry. I began organizing to go to court.
Then suddenly Jim is told he’s deploying soon. The crap. A week goes by – Also, I’m pregnant. Which we were casually “not trying but trying” to do. We were happy about that part, but I was puking every day twice a day and emotional. Then Angelina calls me and guess who is on Craigslist slinging her poop hole slum?
My LL. I lost it. I got on the same forum her ad was on and posted about the house, every single problem we had, every phone call, every snotty email, how many weeks we went without heat, the crickets, LL’s messed up relationship with her off and on again husband, the oil tank, and the racist comments.
I never said “don’t rent or buy,” just shared my experience as a tenant. I didn’t name any names but I did link her ad. Received 7 emails thanking me stating LL seemed really nice on the phone, but they would be dodging that bullet.
The house foreclosed a few months later.”
Another User Comments:
“Deposits that aren’t returned without reason are (depending on the state) punishable by treble the cost! That would have been $7,200 (although getting the payment is a different issue).” lurkingbehindyou
1. Steal Newspapers To Use To Bribe People To Vote For You? Wait Until You See The Next Headline
“Southern small town with a population of around 25,000, give or take a couple of hundred. My grandparents’ newspaper route (ran it for 38 years; I was their substitute for the last 11), which was 520+ customers, and a surprising reason/excuse for the theft. Nearly all of the carriers were middle-aged or a little older, and I was 17 at the time.
This happened about 24 years ago, so my memory might not be the greatest.
We never had many problems with the stores on our route (there were 3 of them). Whenever I ran the route so that my grandparents could deal with doctor’s appointments and/or take a small vacation, the deal between my grandparents and I was that I would get to keep whatever I “raided” from the stores.
Monday through Friday, the newspapers cost 50 cents each. Sunday papers cost $1.25 each. (Mondays were the most fun and well-paid.)
Anyway, this was a 6 day per week newspaper. Saturdays were our days off.
It was just a couple of weeks into the school year when we noticed something a bit strange. At the time we just thought it was normal until we noticed a pattern to it.
Somebody was coming around and paying for only 1 single newspaper, but taking ALL of them. Now 25 X .50 = 12.50, but all that was in the machine was 50 cents. There were only three keys to the lock on the machine, one was my grandmother’s, one was on my grandfather’s key ring, and the third was on my key ring- which was never off of my front right belt loop unless it was in the ignition of my truck or one of the other three vehicles that I drove.
At the last store on the route, we put 25 newspapers in the machine, including the one in the window. We put the 50 cents in to open it and then got our change back when we did the meter on it (raided it).
One morning before I left for my two classes, I was asked if I knew anything about “stolen” papers, and they wanted to verify how many I was putting in the machine when I got there.
I replied that I ALWAYS put 25 in the machine. I was then told to keep an eye on it and to check back after I finished with the rest of the route to see if I needed to add more if I had the extras to do it.
So, I followed orders and checked back when I got done with the route. More often than not, the machine was emptier than a vegetarian’s plate at a BBQ.
I found out a couple of weeks later that this was an ongoing problem for us, as ours was the only one that had their papers stolen.
But here’s where the fun begins. Never try to be sneaky with a WWII Submariner, whose favorite grandchild happens to be the substitute carrier and a bit of a weasel themselves.
My grandparents and I talked it over, and we came up with a plan.
I was to run the route like normal but then come home and change clothes and vehicles.
Then I was to head back to the store with the missing papers and run a bit of surveillance for a couple of hours to see what we could find.
So that is exactly what I did. When I stopped at the store to put the papers in the machine, I went inside and asked the cashiers if they could keep an eye on the machine for me.
They said that they would, and they even asked the staff of the chicken place attached to the store to help. I came back out with my usual drink and snack, dropped them off at the truck, and went to the office of the auto sales lot next to them.
The owner, who happened to be a good friend of mine, said that he would keep an eye out as well.
So I did as planned. I finished the route and sped home (halfway across town).
I washed my hands and my face, changed jeans and t-shirt, changed my hairstyle and grabbed my backpack. Instead of taking the “Silver Beast” as my truck was known, I chose to take the “aircraft carrier”, our Dodge Ram 1500 full-size van.
I rocked on over to the store, pulled up where I normally parked, went inside to get a drink, and checked if anybody had seen anything. Then I decided to get a little creative with my surveillance.
I pulled my backpack from the van and sat down at one of the tables for the chicken shop.
If you were to ask anybody what I was doing, they would probably tell you that I was just a regular kid doing their homework while waiting for a chicken order.
In reality, I had already finished my homework and was just “reading” for show.
Ten minutes after I took up my vigil, I saw a familiar car pull up. The occupant looked around to make sure that no one was watching her.
She then proceeded to put 50 cents into the machine, and then grabbed EVERY SINGLE NEWSPAPER, INCLUDING THE ONE IN THE WINDOW!
Unfortunately for her, the clerk from the store and I were both surreptitiously taking pictures of her while she did this.
And my friend from the auto sales lot used an instant Polaroid camera to get the evidence. After she left, he brought them down to me.
I smiled. I knew this, no other way to put it, witch all too well.
She just happened to be,
wait for it,
wait for it,
ANOTHER FREAKING CARRIER!!!!!
Because school was out for the next few days because it was fair week, I got the film developed, and the girl who was working at the chicken counter gave me a video of the incident.
We took it to the office and turned it in, explaining what was going on. They said to come in the next day and we would find out what was what.
I decided to be a little, um how shall we say, “impish”. I wore the same outfit that I had during the surveillance, did my hair the same way and the boss had me sitting at one of the desks, pretending to do my “homework”.
They had sent a note to the thief to come into the office when they got there. This is how it all went down. My grandparents were out of town that day, so this was way too much fun for me.
Thief- “Hi boss! What did you need me for?”
Boss- “We need your help explaining something.”
ME- literally biting my pen to keep from laughing.
Thief- (not recognizing me just yet) “Sure, what is it?”
Boss- “We have a complaint from one of our carriers that their papers are being stolen from a machine on their route.”
Thief- “So what does this have to do with me, Sir?
It’s most likely that little witch who substitutes for them.”
Boss walks over to where I’m sitting and picks up a large number of photos, plus a videotape. He taps me on the shoulder for me to take over the convo now.
ME- “Look. Not only do we have photographic evidence, but we also have you on videotape taking all of the papers from our machine without paying for more than one.
And I would be very careful who you call names and what you call them.”
Thief- “You made all of this up, and you’re trying to frame me. I knew you hated the fact that I’m so much better than you will ever be, but I didn’t think you’d stoop this low.” (Yes, she actually said that!)
Boss- “Actually, Thief, we know that you’ve been trying to get her family to stop using her as their substitute, but why?”
ME- (snorting) “Because I’m more popular with the other carriers than she is.” I love to throw nonsense at people who try to ‘get rid of me.’
Word comes down that the papers are off of the press and ready for pickup, so I go ahead and grab my backpack and head around to the other side of the building to get my load.
I didn’t hear what happened after I left. Until the next day…
I knew that she was going to be disciplined, but I didn’t think it was going as far as it did.
The next day, all of the other carriers were talking about what happened when I got there.
The headline on the papers that afternoon was: NEWS CARRIER FIRED AFTER SHE IS CAUGHT STEALING PAPERS FROM OTHER CARRIERS.
HER REASON- She took them to give them to people on her route that were not customers in order for them to vote for her to be on the school board.
I took a copy of the photos along with the newspaper of that day and secretly sent them to the members of the school board. She was dismissed from her position immediately, losing the large paycheck that she was getting.
I saw her around town a few times, and she always glared and snarled at me whenever we crossed paths. I just smiled and went along my merry little way.
Just a few months after that incident, I’d heard that she was now in the only nursing home in town, and passed away about a year or two later. I had a couple of friends who were staff members at the nursing home tell me that she cursed me for everything that had happened; her losing her job as a newspaper carrier, losing her position on the school board, and all the health problems that she’d developed since.”
