People Tell Their Unforgettable Tales Of Malicious Compliance Revenge
24. Attempted Parking Lot Scam Backfires
“Family member recently was in a parking lot accident. Supposedly Fam was backing out, Other Driver got impatient and tried getting around them, and Fam backed into them.
No injuries, but some bent sheet metal. They exchange info. Not 20 minutes later Other Driver starts blowing up Fam’s phone trying to shake them down for $$$ and saying it is Fam’s fault, they’re suing unless Fam meets them right now and pays them, etc. Fam doesn’t have much experience with this stuff and is genuinely scared. Thankfully instead of giving in, Fam has Other Driver call me.
Ring ring and cue ranting and raving about accident and gonna sue etc etc.
I asked Other Driver to tell me his side of the story. According to him, it is all Fam’s fault, he was sitting perfectly still 50 feet back and Fam backed into him burning rubber, or some such.
Other Driver said he “doesn’t want to involve the police” but if someone doesn’t pay Other Driver RIGHT THIS INSTANT Other Driver is gonna “follow the law”, call the police, and SUE.
Follow the law you say?! Why, WHAT A GREAT IDEA! LET’S DO THAT!
Me: Speaking of following laws; Other Driver, was the damage to your car over $1,000?
Other Driver (clearly rubbing mental hands together): Uhhhhh… yeah, sure it was!
ME: You filed a police report then?
Other Driver: Naw no like I told you I dun wanna get your family in no trouble I just wanna fix my car.
ME: If damages were over $1,000 then by law we have to report it.
I have your info and phone number, I’ll get the report set up and have Fam give their statement, and they can contact you for your side.
Other Driver: Um, uhhhh, naw we ain’t gotta go through all that trouble, it’s an ol’ car I bet it ain’t a grand.
ME: But earlier you said …
Other Driver: Son I know what I said but we ain’t gotta get the law involved.
ME: Well, I want to make sure our insurance doesn’t deny your claim so I’m going to go ahead and have a report done anyway, I’ll give ’em yer number.
So, I call the police non-emergency line, give Fam’s info and explain Fam is a little shy and not used to this. Officer Friendly calls Fam to get their statement, Fam gives info and Other Driver’s contact info, DL, plate number, insurance, etc. Also describes phone incident demanding pay.
Officer Friendly asks for my number and we talk. I detail the above conversation. Officer Friendly says he’ll get back to me. About five minutes later, I get a call from Other Driver.
Other Driver: OMG I AIN’T GONE MAKE NO CLAIM I AIN’T GONNA SUE JUST TELL THE COPS IT WAS A MISTAKE AND I WASN’T THERE!
ME: Other Driver I can’t do that, I’m not about to lie to the police.
Other Driver: RUDE PERSON.
A few days later, get a call from a buddy I know on the force.
Buddy: Hey, did Fam get into some kinda trouble with a troubled person?
Me: ?!?!
Buddy: Accident?
Me: OH! Parking lot? Yeah, made a report a few days ago.
Buddy: I know. I saw Fam and ‘helped out’ a bit. Other Driver didn’t own the car. Owner had no idea the car was even in (our city) or that it’d been in an accident; they thought one of their grandkids had it in (their home city).
Buddy: Called the grandkid and he said his partner had borrowed the car to go see her mom in (other city). Asked grandkid if he knew Other Driver and, ‘uhm, that’s her ex’. Grandparents said OK to partner driving the car back to them when I explained that otherwise I would have to impound it until someone authorized to drive it picked it up.
Me: What about Other Driver?
Buddy: Turns out he had a bench warrant out of (other county) which is why he didn’t really wanna talk to us nice officers. He was believed to be in (other state entirely). Partner told us where to find him, and we picked him up.
(Other county) is sending someone to transfer him. They move kinda slow so he’s probably gonna be here another week or so if you wanna meet him.
Me: Nooooooooooooo that’s alright, just glad that’s taken care of.”
23. Demand Impossible Delivery Or Lose My Job? I'll Choose Unemployment And Watch Chaos Ensue
“About 10 months ago I worked dispatch and transport for a company who was in the steel reinforcement industry. I generally worked with customers to have their steel arrive when they needed it so they wouldn’t be delayed as best I could and occasionally would have to ask other customers if they could reschedule or if their delivery was time critical.
My original supervisor had left for a better opportunity at a rival company about 5 months prior and I now had to report to the higher-ups because they refused to either promote me or hire someone to fill his position and instead just transferred someone from interstate who was from another department (not transport) to do the easier parts of my job; (calling customers who had multi-level buildings to pre-plan an approximate date of when they would need certain work plans put into production) while I had to continue to do the bulk of the delivery planning, truck scheduling, Driver Manifests and booking any small courier work.
Although during the week leading up to this MC she was on leave and I had been doing everything.
Now rule of thumb was account customers who paid a premium delivery got priority, then standard account customers followed by one-off or “cash sale” customers unless the customer happened to pay for the premium delivery service.
Unfortunately, sales and management had started getting the idea that they could get every delivery done whenever the customer said jump because I had been hitting the target with about a 99% hit rate with the exception of when weather or machine breakdown became a factor.
Sorry for the backstory but I feel it was needed to get the full context of the job (those in transport understand).
So I got a call from one of the customers we’ll call him John Doe who happened to be a cash sale telling me he needed his steel on site approx 80 kilometers away (50 miles for those not yet caught up with the rest of the world) at 7 am on Monday on a truck with a crane but couldn’t accommodate a Semi as there wasn’t room on site, problem was that this was on Friday… in the afternoon … 90 minutes before my finishing time!
I tell the customer I’m sorry but there is no way I could get 23 tonnes of steel produced and delivered to him by 7 am as his site was at least 60 – 90 minutes away depending on traffic and our crane truck drivers start at 6 am so they first need to check and tie down their load before getting the OK to leave by the safety officer on site but also, all our production capacity was full and his steel which was originally booked for Tuesday afternoon was pre-approved for a semi with no crane as they had one on-site.
Now the silence was deafening as I knew exactly what was coming, JD had started a huge tirade about how his steel needed to be there or he’d miss the concrete pour and his steel fixers needed it ready to go the moment they finished their site meeting (I guess they had an hour-long site meeting?) and that their crane was not arriving on site until the following week when the prefab walls arrive.
Now to be fair I had just had a week of extreme difficulty already and this guy was the last thing I wanted before I was to enjoy my weekend so I simply responded with the “I’m sorry sir but my hands are tied at this point, if you had called yesterday and I had time to try and rearrange some jobs it would have had a slight chance of being pushed up but as it is now I wouldn’t be able to; A) have the steel produced or B) have two crane trucks spare to dedicate to one delivery.”
Before he can resume his rant I tell the customer “I can try for Tuesday morning but again at this point only half of the order would get there and I would first need to have a driver agree to start early to be there by 7 am.”
John D: “That’s not good enough, I’ve paid good money for this steel so I expect it when I need it.”
Me: “I understand you need the steel however you’re asking me to prioritize your work over another that was already booked and confirmed.”
John D: “And your point?
Just get me my delivery!”
Me: “My point is you’re asking me to sit here at my desk for another 2 hours while I attempt to find the trucks needed from outside hire companies, ask the production team to work overtime tonight and tomorrow to complete the extra work loading onto two separate trucks and try to convince two drivers to start at least half an hour earlier to have a chance at being there by 7 am if they are quick at tying down their loads.
As well as the extra work the morning crew will have on Monday to load two other trucks that couldn’t get pre-loaded as they’re outside hire and won’t get here until 6 am at the earliest and that’s assuming I can even find the trucks on such short notice considering most companies have their trucks completely booked out by midday for the next business day.”
John D: “Screw you, don’t tell me you can’t do it, last week I ordered 50 lengths and it was here 3 hours later, so don’t freaking tell me you can’t do it.”
Me: “May I ask who you ordered it through?” – (we have a few sites around the state that hold stock materials that can be couriered and assumed correctly that this is what had happened)
John D: “Dave is the guy I normally speak to about that stuff.”
Me: “Oh from our site that is literally 20 minutes from you that had the stock on hand so only needed to put it on a truck that was going that way?”
Apparently this is where my smart-aleck nature had pushed him over the edge because he hung up on me and I had wrongly assumed he got the message that he was asking the impossible and conceded but no…..
I had gotten a call from the “Big Boss” asking me to come up to his office about 10 minutes later. When I got there the sales manager was there also.
Boss: “What’s this I am told you refuse a customer their delivery?”
Before I can respond
Sales Manager: “I just got off the phone with a customer who I was about to put on account telling me that you were rude and offensive and he expects his delivery.”
Me: “Hmmm OK, so in answer to your question boss yes I have refused a customer their delivery on the grounds that we can’t make that time slot as we are already booked up till Tuesday afternoon and no SM I wasn’t rude or offensive but if he took offense to anything I said then that’s on him as offense is taken not given.”
Boss: “OK, why can’t we make that delivery?”
Me: “Well because the 23 tonnes of steel he ordered was originally confirmed for Tuesday afternoon on a Semi with no crane as they apparently had a crane on site however he asked for it to be Monday morning at 7 am split onto two rigid crane trucks only 25 minutes ago.”
Thinking this was a satisfactory answer I had assumed they would realize what a jerk canoe this guy was.
Sales Manager: “What do you mean? That’s no reason we can’t get the steel to him!”
At this point, I had lost my patience as the sales team seemed to think they could get their way no matter what because management always backed them.
I don’t know what it’s like in other countries but here in Australia we have two ways of reacting once we lose our patience…. get angry or become a downright smart-aleck, I chose the 2nd path.
Me: “Apart from the fact we have 280 tonnes of steel already booked for other customers, all our crane trucks are booked to confirmed slots and I would have more chance of meeting the Queen of England at a local pub while Ozzy Osbourne was biting the head off a bat then getting another two trucks booked before I finish.”
Boss: “There’s no need for that, but surely we can resolve this so everyone is happy.”
Sales Manager: “Get the steel to the customer and I’ll be happy!”
Me: “Stop thinking that I have a magic truck spawning wand that I wave every time you guys place an “URGENT” order or a customer rings complaining they can’t change the date and time of their delivery and I’ll be a little less annoyed.”
This is where things went south.
Boss: “Well this is a potential account customer so here’s what needs to happen, you will find a way to get this done or you will find another job effective immediately.”
Me: “Well looks like I’m finding another job because there is no way I can get 2 trucks from here to site by 7 am Monday morning and keep my other job deadlines that I have already confirmed.
I then stood up and walked out of the office back to the dispatch office where my desk was, wiped my personal files (my own notes and spreadsheets I kept that helped me in my job) from the computer I worked on, shut my computer down and collected my personal belongings from the tea room and desk drawers.
The guy who also worked in the office (he worked as the driver safety check and made sure the trucks were always maintained and compliant – Maintenance guy or MG) asked what was going on to which I shrugged and responded.
Me: “You know that Clyde North guy from before?
He just complained to his Sales rep who in turn complained to Big Boss and they told me to find a way of getting it done or find another job so I guess I find another job.”
Maintenance guy: “Yeah but you haven’t printed any of the Manifests or done the courier bookings for Monday morning.”
Me: “I’m just following instructions and finding another job effective immediately because they did tell me to do that if I didn’t find a way.”
The desk phone rang but I didn’t answer because it was the sales manager then it rang again this time Big Boss but I still didn’t answer because as far as I was concerned I was now fired effective immediately.
My mobile rang next from a number I didn’t recognize but I answered because of my Karate School and being a potential new student, however, it was Big Boss on his personal mobile.
Boss: “Why didn’t you answer your desk phone?”
Me: “Oh because effective immediately were the words used hence I no longer work here and am not obligated to answer the phone at the desk I no longer am employed to sit at.
Thank you for the employment Boss….. btw you may need to send someone to organize the manifests and courier bookings for Monday as I normally do that in my last 90 minutes to ensure any cancellations are caught before I leave and good luck finding a way of delivering that steel to Clyde North at 7 am on Monday morning.”
I hung up the phone and said my goodbyes to the few people I actually liked and got along with on my way out however, as I finished putting my things in my car I had the SM and Big Boss stop me at my car telling me I had to finish out the day to which I smiled and responded with “Effective Immediately are words I am happy to comply with” got in my car and drove to my Dojo where thanks to my leave payout I can now run Full-time Karate and Kobudo (traditional weapons) classes.
As far as I was told they had to pay a stupid amount to the competitor to help them cover the various deliveries that had to be moved around to accommodate the jerk canoe that wouldn’t accept his original agreement.
(Clyde North is the suburb of the delivery.)”
22. Refuse To Find My Account? Lose A Major Contract And Gain A Lesson
“My dad works for an employee-owned civil construction company, they make water processing plants among other public utility buildings. Contracts can range from 10 to 50 million dollars and more after expenses. They spend the vast majority of said budget on materials. Again millions of dollars.
One company they get parts from is their main supplier of pipes and plumbing doohickeys.
They spend about a third of their budget with them, again specialty in water treatment plants. He has even received awards for being one of their top 5 customers, 2 years ago it was a fire hydrant cookie jar which he found hilarious.
This particular job was on the east coast in a state where my dad has yet to work.
As such he goes to the office personally to meet these people, on principle mind you. He’s just that type of guy. He meets the staff, or most of them. What he didn’t know was that one lady was out that day, her day off.
Eventually, the budget has been worked out and the structural base has been mostly completed.
So my dad calls the suppliers to place his order. You know exactly who he gets, the one lady he didn’t get to meet. So the conversation goes a bit like this;
Dad: Hello, this is Dad, I need to order some parts.
Lady: Of course, do you have an account with us?
Dad: Yes, this construction company.
Lady types a bit: I’m sorry but I don’t see an account for this construction company.
Dad: Yes, we do.
Could you please check again?
Lady: I’m afraid we don’t have an account for this construction company.
Now, it is important to note that, A. My dad takes no nonsense, and he knows she didn’t recheck because he couldn’t hear her rather loud keyboard typing and B.
To create an account requires a credit history check which can take 5-10 business days to get done. This company, my dad included, runs a tight ship so this is entirely unacceptable.
Dad: Look, can I speak with Owner, I met him yesterday and I would like to clear this up quickly.
Lady: I’m afraid Owner is unavailable right now. I could create an account for you if you’d like.
Dad: Look, I need to buy 70,000 dollars of prep materials, and I need them by next week. Please try again to find our account. This construction company is one of your top clients and if you ask me to create a new account I will go elsewhere.
Lady, still not trying again says: I apologize for the inconvenience, If you feel that you could get better service elsewhere then you are free to do so.
My dad immediately hung up fuming. He had to take 2 more days and 10,000 more dollars but he got the parts on time.
He then came into the office a week later, passed by the front desk, and knocked on Owner’s door. “Sir, you can’t be back here.”
Wouldn’t you know it was the Lady from before. My dad just waited and when Owner opened the door, he greeted Dad like an old friend.
After explaining the situation, the owner immediately called the lady in, calmly berated her, and showed her exactly how to find this construction company in the future (My dad isn’t someone to get people fired, better to humiliate them into competence).
The owner then called corporate who authorized a 10% discount on piping as an apology.
This contract had a piping budget of 9 million dollars so that discount went straight to profits. As a stockholder that goes to my dad’s pockets as well. He’s never had a problem before nor since.”
21. Boss Tries To Belittle Me, Ends Up Embarrassed In Front Of Entire Store
“I work at a medium-small jewelry store with eight other people.
Today, my boss tried pulling one of his typical power moves by loudly berating me in front of my coworkers and customers… it didn’t work out well for him.
As a goldsmith, my job is to create, repair, renew, and adjust various items to customer specifications.
Even though I’ve been in the industry for about twenty years, I’ll be the first to admit to my limitations. I don’t know everything and I need help sometimes.
Unfortunately, my boss is a bit of an alpha and feels the need to assert dominance in the most petty ways.
One of his favorite methods of demeaning people at work is to loudly declare how easy a repair is and how little time it would take him.
Today I found I had a particularly difficult repair and asked him for advice. I was told to do it the way I assumed but then my boss noticed a few coworkers were around and decided to squeeze a little posturing into his explanation
Boss: and you just reinforce the link by the clasp before running the first axle through. I know it’s damaged, but it’ll work just fine and (now that he sees he has an audience) I don’t know why you’re even asking, this job would only take me ten minutes!
Ten minutes?!?
Now I knew I was going to be working on this bracelet for at least twice that time because it required four cuts, four soldiers, four drilled holes, two pins, an acid soak, filing, polishing, and an ultrasonic bath.
His intention was for people to see it took me much longer than ten minutes and assume I was slacking or inexperienced. The store was quiet when I answered.
OP: really? Ten minutes? You should do it then! I’d love to learn how to be as good as you.
Boss: uh… you should know this. I’m not going to pay to teach you what you should already know.
(So quiet now. Everyone’s listening. Even the sales girls and customers went silent to hear the rest of the exchange)
OP: of course! I wouldn’t expect you to. I’m willing to forfeit an hour of pay to learn how to do this so quickly. I’ll still work after the ten minutes.
Boss: I’m actually very busy and…
OP: I’ll pay you TWO hours of my wages to teach me for ten minutes.
Earlier, you spent twenty minutes lecturing a coworker on the housing market in our city so surely you can find ten minutes to complete this repair while I watch and learn, right? The job isn’t due until tomorrow. I’ll stay late with everyone. We can even bring in the other goldsmiths to learn on my dime!
Boss: no… I have payroll to do and, um, a bunch of other jobs. (At this point he’s backing away and the rest of the staff has turned their heads to hide their smiles) just do your job!
OP: how about three hours’ pay?
No answer as he scurried off.
It felt soooooooo good. Job ended up taking about a half hour spread throughout the day. He avoided me until I finished.”
20. New Head Of History Learns To Respect Mental Health Struggles
“Bit of context: I’m a second-year history student in the U.K. and last year, the head of history had the same name as someone I was mistreated by as a kid so I struggled to go into his lessons.
After my fiancé went to the university to explain this to him, he was completely understanding. See, I have really, really bad mental health issues. Depression and anxiety, PTSD, and DID, as well as psychosis. The head of history last year was the nicest, most understanding person and apparently all my fiancé said was the basic “she has PTSD and got mistreated by someone with your name so it’s giving her a lot of flashbacks and anxiety” kinda thing.
Nothing with too much detail, and most importantly for him, nothing I wouldn’t be comfortable with telling him myself when I was a little better. But alas, he left over the summer and we had a new HOH.
Now this guy taught us last year, and he was alright.
He witnessed one of my alters stick up for me when I was being bullied in the lecture and he started to stick up for me too. I had to write him an email explaining that I have mental illnesses and sometimes they cause me to be late (dissociations are a sucker for this!) and sometimes I can’t leave my house, and he thanked me for clearing things up.
But this year is different. We all joke about how the power has gone to his head now that he is HOH. We’re all in a group chat for history because it’s just easier sometimes, and I noticed that he was refusing people extensions on mental illness basis because “you need to get help, not an extension” and “I don’t see how this will stop you from completing the assignment by the deadline”.
This happened a good 6-7 times, which is pretty bad since our class is small.
So I emailed him because I got physically sick about two weeks before my deadline and I couldn’t get a doctor’s appointment. He said as long as I provide as much detail as possible, he’ll give me a week to make up for the week I was sick.
His tone came across as “if you’re making me do this then fine but I’m not happy about it”.
The issue came during the week leading up to the deadline. My mental health was… awful. I was having intense flashbacks pretty much every hour or so, panic attacks, my fear of germs and bugs came back in full force so I couldn’t go outside.
I was still taking my meds, I planned to go back to counseling once I could leave my house. I just needed time. And I could NOT do anything when I was having flashbacks.
So my fiancé cuddled me until I napped and off he went to explain to HOH that it got really bad and I might need an extension but I might not even be able to apply for one because I can’t do anything right now.
HOH apparently just rolled his eyes and said that I have to apply for the extension three days before the deadline (this is wrong, the policy is 24 hours) and I had to provide as much detail as possible, and if I didn’t, I couldn’t get an extension.
So I got better enough to do a few admin tasks. Call my parents and the doctors, reply to emails, etc. I emailed HOH and asked him exactly how much detail he wanted in my extension form. He replied with as much as possible. I triple-checked with him.
If I’ve learned anything from Reddit, I know that I need a paper trail.
I sent him my extension form detailing how I was physically and emotionally mistreated as a child, and that started in January so I wasn’t having a great month. I went into detail about how I had to go to the hospital because of my past. I provided him with the dates and the hospitals in case he wanted to check (sometimes – most of the time – having alters really is a blessing).
I then went on to say that it’s coming up to the date where I got mistreated by my ex on our first date, also in January, and I again provided him with the location and date but warned him that when I called up about it, I got told that I was trying to ruin someone’s life and hung up on so maybe he’ll have better luck than me and if he does, let me know.
I went on and on and on about how January is and always has been the worst month for my mental illnesses. I explained that just like a physical wound, if you aggravate it, it’s going to get worse and my triggers are the smallest things.
I also made the point of adding that I was on medication but they dropped me to the lower dose because of seizures, and I am 100% planning on going back to counseling when I leave the house. I THEN went on to explain how when I was really little, I got bullied a lot.
They used to put bugs in my food, my hair, my bag, anywhere they could, so now I just can’t go outside when my mental health is bad because I’ll have a panic attack if I see an ant or a spider or something that’s inevitably going to be there as soon as I step out of the door.
Between me and my whole system, we went into some pretty intense detail overall.
He gave me an extra 2 months for the assignment I was applying for, and an extra month for one that I thought I would be able to get in on time. He was only technically allowed to give 3 weeks tops, but I’m not complaining.
He also apologized a lot over email, asked if he can let my lecturers know I won’t be in and when he saw my fiancé next, he apologized if he came across as uncaring.”
19. Ignore IT Advice? Pay $6k
“I work in IT. 4 years ago, as the last line of escalation for a 3rd party IT support company I worked for at the time, I received a ticket for a business management program not working on a server we managed.
I remote into the problematic server and check the logs to see what’s up and there isn’t anything that stands out. After updating the ticket, I give the requester a call and ask to remote into his workstation to see the problem. I get the go-ahead to remote control his computer and see the error and what he was doing to get it.
It’s a database error that’s easily fixed by an update that I have a script for. No biggie.
He tells the person in charge of this business management program in their office about what’s going on and that person gets on the phone and starts yelling at me to leave it all alone and to call the vendor to have them look at it and fix.
I tried to tell him that it’s an easy fix and we’ve had to do it before due to a previous database update and it’s fine. Nope. Demands that the vendor be called and they need to fix it. I once again try to explain that I can knock this out in a few minutes and the vendor will charge because of the company not having the support plan.
Person doesn’t care so I say I’ll send person an email stating that any problems caused by the vendor while they’re attempting to fix the issue will be billable if we need to get involved. Person authorizes it and I connect the vendor and original ticket requester so they can hash it out and just stay on standby if they need anything.
Because of the troubleshooting steps vendor is apparently required to do, they end up being charged $900 to fix the issue, but end up bringing down some of the network due to an IP address change that wasn’t authorized by us being done by the vendor tech.
We bill at $150 and had to get the vendor back on to reinstall their business management program since it apparently couldn’t handle the constant network changes. Total bill ended up being like $6k for this.
My boss and the user company owner had a chat with me and I showed them the email chain and had the original requester back me up.
All purchase requests over $1000 had to go through the office manager for the client from then on.”
18. I'm Expected To Be At My 8 And 1/2 Hour Shift? Don't Expect Me Any Other Time Then
“I work as a supervisor at a manufacturing plant, and I was hired for an 8-hour shift as the night-time supervisor. As soon as I started, they changed and said they really considered the shift to be from 11 pm to 730, so they would need it to be 8 1/2 hours.
I’m salaried, there wasn’t much I could do, and it wasn’t a big deal, so I said okay.
As I get into a groove working there, I find out that the 2nd shift supervisor is a train wreck. No one would describe him to me, just saying I had to meet him.
He leaves an hour or two early from his shift 2-3 times a week. Friday nights he leaves the plant at 530, and tells them to call him if there are any problems. He calls out, at a minimum, once a week. It’s psychotic.
Every time he is out, I come in at around 8 pm to cover the last 3 hours of his shift and my full shift. At least once a week, I just do it.
I figure the company is going to deal with it, but as time passes, they obviously aren’t. Structurally, the company is just as bad as him. Infighting, rivalries, backstabbing, all of that, but I stay on nights so I don’t see it much.
Then Sarah starts as my boss.
I actually have 2 bosses, which is how every successful employee works. Sarah is a nightmare. Sarah wants me to work 11-11 on MTW, and 11-10 on Friday. I dig in my heels, document like crazy, and after a couple of months of harassment, HR actually backs me up and she has to stop.
But now Sarah is angry, and she sees me leaving at 715 one morning after coming in 2 hours early. She sends an email clarifying our time expectations. 2nd shift train wreck calls in that night, so I come in at 8, and the next morning, Sarah sees me leave at 7:10.
I get an email saying she is coming in early to talk to me, and when she shows up, I’m getting a formal warning for my early departures, going into my personnel file. I’ve never been written up in my life.
During the meeting, with HR in attendance, she said I am expected to be there for my 8 1/2 hour shift. I made sure that the expectation was on record for an 8 1/2-hour shift, which HR documented.
The next week, the 2nd shift supervisor is out two days. After the first day, Sarah asks me the next morning why I didn’t come in early, as there were problems on his shift, and I said I fulfilled my 8 1/2 hour shift, and I’m not responsible for his.
They had to hire a contractor at $125 an hour to cover all of his missed time, which amounted to 19 weeks this past year. Eventually they hired a 4th supervisor at $85k per year to cover his gaps. Sarah got demoted, and I only ever work 8 1/2 hours.”
17. Manager Tries To Steal Credit, Ends Up Exposing Her Own Incompetence
“I recently started working with an old co-worker and was reminded of a story from the place we worked at 10 years ago.
I was a junior/mid developer for a mid-sized company. The different managers had been in the company for a long time. They knew the old system and could keep it limping along.
They understood the business just because they were there for so long. But they never kept up with the changing technology. None of them understand the newer concepts and refused to learn anything.
The company started to rewrite the app from the ground up using all new technology and good practices.
The old guard sat back and did minimal work, laziness or not understanding what to do, no one really knew. They would come to the morning meeting, assign the work. Take no tasks but take all the credit at the demos.
One thing that was a massive pain point for clients was bulk data loads.
Some clients would need over 4 hours to load the data from that day. This was unacceptable in the new system. We had a prospective client come in, they loved the system but would not sign on unless we can get data loads down to minutes.
Because of the client we refocused and started work on data loads.
The team was myself, 2 other devs, and my manager. She wanted to be on this because it was so high profile and figured it would look great for her. The three of us figured she would do no work and just demo the features like normal. Wrong, this time she started to take critical tasks.
We each worked our tickets making sure to add plenty of tests and check the performance of all the code. Slowly my manager would hand her work off to us. This was fine with us as we did not trust her code. At the end of the cycle we had it down to 20 minutes to load what used to take an hour.
This was not good enough.
The CTO said we had to get it under 10, my manager jumped on his side and said the work we did was poor and she would fix it. The CTO left, she turned to us and told us we had to figure this out within a week.
We noticed right away that it did not scale correctly, if 10 items took 1 second, 20 would take 4. We all knew what happened. We found the little bit of code my manager wrote and she was recursively checking data. What was even better is that the entire function was unneeded. We commented out the call and 20 minutes was now seconds.
We took the four-hour file and loaded it in 2 minutes. We said nothing to my manager and she never asked because she thought we had no chance of figuring it out. I heard her speaking to consultants. She wanted to be the hero and have them all ready to come in and fix our code.
The next demo the CTO wanted an update, we told him we had made updates and it should be a little better. We selected the large file and it was done in 2 minutes. My manager lost her mind, I could see her ready to kill us.
If it was fixed the credit should have been hers.
The CTO asked what the fix was. I did not want to hurt my manager anymore, I figured stealing the glory was enough. I replied we just cleaned up the code. That was not good enough for my manager.
She pressed whose code caused the problem. She had forgotten she has any code in the project since she never finished a task. I smiled and replied, “it was your code”.
Her head exploded, nothing else was said the meeting moved on. She pulled me into her office after and started to yell.
She could not say anything to the other devs, they had a different manager. But I was under her. Why did I not tell her, I’m supposed to report to her my findings, how could I make her look like that. I just sat not saying anything.
Once she was done I put in my two weeks notice and walked out.
Days later she and the CTO called me in to beg me to stay. I said I’d like to go somewhere with a manager who wants my success not failure. I still smile thinking about her face when the process ran and telling her that she was the weak link in our group.”
16. We Can't Have The Door Propped Open? Whatever You Say
“I work for a small moving company in my city. We move furniture and decor to many different places throughout the city.
We got a call about moving a large load of bookshelves to a rather large industrial building. We loaded up two 18-foot box trucks full of shelves and were ready to move.
When we arrived at the building, we pulled around to the loading dock and began off-loading the shelves.
As we were bringing stuff off the truck, I went to building security to open the door. (There had been a recent string of incidents in our area and everyone was locking all the doors.) They handed me a doorstop and told me I could prop the door open since we have a large load.
So I propped open the door and we got going.
We no more had the first pallet off the truck when the building’s maintenance manager came running towards us. He screamed at us “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! YOU CANNOT HAVE THAT DOOR PROPPED OPEN!!!” Now this man looked like he was somewhere between the ages of 76 and 105.
He was as red as I’ve ever seen anyone. I calmly told him that security gave me a doorstop and told me since we have such a large load, we could keep the door propped open. Of course, he wasn’t having it. “I DON’T CARE WHAT SECURITY TOLD YOU, YOU CANNOT HAVE THIS DOOR PROPPED OPEN!!”
At this point, my Native American temper got the better of me. I replied, “Yes sir!” I walked over to the door and picked up the doorstop. I walked back to security and explained the situation. They rolled their eyes and explained that this crotchety old fossil is always causing problems all over the building.
They told me I could still prop open the door but now I was mad and was feeling petty. He doesn’t want us to prop the door open? Alrighty then.
There was a buzzer outside of the door so I buzzed security asking them if they could open the door.
Well guess who’s office was right by said door and thus guess who security called to open the door and let us in? That’s right, fossil man that was two days older than dirt.
He opened the door and let us in. We made our delivery and came back to grab another pallet.
I again buzzed security and they again asked fossil man to let us in. This happened twice more before he stopped me and said “You know if you wanted to keep that door open, you can since you have such a big load.” I replied with the biggest smile on my face “Oh no sir, this door cannot be propped open.
I wouldn’t want to upset anyone by doing that.” He looked at me with a look on his face that was somewhere between murderous and the realization that he had made a huge mistake.
18 pallets later, we had the load delivered. And every single time, guess who had to let us in?
It took us a little over 2 hours to get everything finished. The last pallet we delivered, I poked my head into fossil man’s office and said “Thank you so much for your help.” I’m pretty sure he popped a b***d vessel.”
15. How I Outsmarted The Department Chair
“This happened about ten years ago and I still get annoyed, and I laugh thinking about it. I worked at a public university as a professor and researcher.
I did not yet have tenure, which means you work like an indentured servant at the beck and call of all the tenured faculty. We had year-round instruction, so I put in 60-70 hours per week for years to reach tenure. I eventually did achieve tenure.
One of the great parts of my job was teaching a course for undergraduates that involved performing community service work. The students always got to select and design their project. This was an overload class for me, which gave me a little additional pay. The wages for being a professor are lower than if you work in the profession, so the little extra income really mattered. But I loved training new researchers and making discoveries through my own research.
One of the services I provided was consultations with colleagues about their research and publications. I kept my calendar open to be readable so others could book appointments with me and so they could see where I was, what I was doing.
We got a new department Chair.
It was only a matter of weeks before the administrative assistant (a sort of Grima Wormtongue personality) to the Chair decided to try to get me in trouble. I’ll call this assistant Grima because that name is hilariously apropos.
Grima showed my calendar to the new Chair who then met with me to insist my percent of time spent on the undergraduate course not exceed the allowed amount.
But, the fool of a department chair didn’t realize I was putting in LESS than the allowed amount because it’s a percentage! I was working so many hours I could have doubled the amount on this course. So, you bet I complied!
First, I turned off everyone’s view of my calendar, which was hilarious on its own — I’ll say more about that in a moment.
Second, I showed the Chair the actual hours were less than allowed and the Chair ended up crying and apologized. I think the Chair felt stupid and humiliated for trying to discipline me. But, this wasn’t the first time I had been treated this way and I was pretty angry.
So, I increased my hours on the undergraduate course and spent more time in volunteer work. This ended up getting some local media attention and even wound up making the Chair look good. So, Grima wasn’t able to mess with me anymore!
About my calendar, Grima did try one last time to get the better of me by going to the Chair about my calendar no longer being readable.
Grima had to schedule meetings and appointments with me and it was now really hard to do. When the Chair came to me about opening my calendar up I said I would if it is a policy and if everyone else has to do the same thing.
Of course, it wasn’t a policy and the Chair wasn’t about to make everyone do that. So, for the remainder of my time Grima had to work extra hard. I often kept my calendar full with work for the undergraduate course now that I was putting in all my allowed hours.”
14. Manipulative Daughter's Food Scam Foiled In NHS Hospital
“So I work in an NHS hospital. For those unfamiliar with the NHS, it’s the healthcare system in the UK, where most aspects of healthcare are paid for by national insurance, which comes out of your wage slip and funds the NHS.
As well as this, all food provided by the NHS is covered. I can honestly say I’m very proud to work there, and hope I do for many years to come.
I was in work when the kitchen staff were asking patients what they would like for dinner.
I heard Patient B request a roast lamb dinner and an egg custard (some pastry thing, Brits love it, I think it’s vile). Patient B had full capacity, but her daughter usually sat with her in the hospital, even after visiting times because most of the staff were too intimidated by her to ask her to leave.
Her daughter spent most of the time criticizing the hospital and its care to her mum, as if her mum was the only patient in the entire hospital.
Dinner time approaches and I was helping the healthcare staff, and I approached patient B with her Roast Lamb Dinner and vile Egg Custard.
The scene goes something like this:
Patient B: What is this? I didn’t order this?
Me: Yes you did, you asked for Roast Lamb Dinner and Egg Custard.
Daughter: I don’t think so hun, my mum doesn’t eat Lamb, and thinks Egg Custard is disgusting (so one thing we agreed on).
She would NEVER eat that.
Me: Sorry Patient B, but you definitely ordered this, but if you’ve changed your mind I can see what’s leftover on the trolley and you can pick from there. I also think there are sandwiches in the ward fridge if you want to have something light.
Daughter: HOW DARE YOU? Do you think a sandwich would be enough to fill my mum for dinner? You give her the wrong order and try to palm her off with leftovers because you can’t be bothered to fix it yourself. I demand you bring me a menu now!!
Patient B: Listen to my daughter, I would never order this. You’ve clearly made a mistake.
Patient A (in the bed next to her): No, she did ask for it, I heard her.
Daughter: I’m sorry, did anyone ask for your input?
So I spoke to the manager who told me to reorder a meal to save the hassle of them making a complaint.
So I complied with their request and I brought a menu down to them, where the Patient reordered a Turkey Dinner and chocolate cake. So I went to remove the Lamb Dinner (that remained covered and untouched) from the table.
Daughter: Excuse me? Where are you going with that?
Me: I’m putting it back on the trolley because your mum doesn’t want it.
Patient B: Leave it there anyway, in case my new dinner doesn’t come up.
Daughter: Yes, leave it here. I don’t want my poor mother to starve.
Suddenly, everything clicked into place.
Patient B clearly ordered the dinner time meal for her daughter, then would proceed to kick off when the ‘wrong’ meal was given to her. So when she got the right one she assumed I’d leave the wrong one there, so the daughter could have a free meal. She thought I’d be too scared (because her daughter was intimidating) and would leave both meals at her bedside.
Me: Sorry, but if your mum doesn’t want this dinner, it has to go back onto the trolley. Just in case we have new patients arriving (which was a lie because we had no new patients scheduled to come up).
Daughter: This is disgusting, what’s going to happen if her new dinner doesn’t come up!
She’ll starve!
Me: But I thought you said she would NEVER eat this? If she wasn’t going to touch it, why would you make me order her a meal.
Patient B: And I thought you were such a lovely girl, you’re going to leave me hungry now.
Me: No I won’t Patient B, your dinner has arrived.
Daughter: I TOLD YOU LEAVE THE LAMB DINNER HERE!
I very calmly went over and lifted the tray off the bedside table and placed it back on the trolley. I watched the Daughter fume and scowl as I placed it in the trolley and went to the hot counter to bring Patient B her new dinner.
I even ordered an extra side of gravy just in case. I went over with the new dinner and placed it on the table next to her.
Me: (Sickly Sweet) Anything else I can get you?
Daughter: Just get out of my face! NOW!
Just as I was walking away, Patient A’s sister came out.
A’s Sister: Excuse me, I’ve been sat with my sister all day and I’m a bit peckish. I’ve not enough money with me for tea in the canteen, would it be possible for me to have a sandwich off the trolley if there is any left over?
Me: (Looking over at B’s Daughter) Well, as luck would have it, there’s a spare Lamb Dinner going if you want it?
Sister: Oh no I couldn’t, honestly a wee sandwich is all I want.
Me: No I insist, it’s not been touched and is still covered so it will still be warm.
Hang on and I’ll get it. It will only go to waste if it’s left on the trolley.
A’s Sister: Oh that’s lovely, thank you so much!
I then got to witness B’s Daughter throw a massive temper tantrum and storm off the ward.
So a lesson here folks. If you ask politely you may receive. If you’re rude and sneaky about it, you shall not.”
13. Refuse To Pay Pharmacy Prices? Lose Your Chance At Rare Medication
“For context, I work in a pharmacy in Canada and the way pharmacies make income is to charge a slight markup (which varies) on a medication and also add a professional dispensing fee, which can vary store-to-store, but most are ~$9-10 per medication.
Of course, people ask for discounts all the time because of this variation. I try to work with people as best as I can, especially someone who takes multiple medications very frequently. I do my best to charge them a reasonable amount because I know these fees can be hefty and medication is important.
Often people ask to match Costco’s pharmacy price which is ~1-2% markup and a $3.99 fee. Anyone in the industry knows that this is basically ridiculous and Costco is not making anything from their pharmacy. Their pricing is to get people in the store to pick up other items on the way.
In addition, finding parking, navigating the aisles and hordes of people, and having to wait a very long time before you get your prescription usually deters a lot of people from going.
So a new lady, M, whom I’ve never met comes into my pharmacy, with a prescription for a medication; let’s call it X.
It’s an older medication that’s been phased out over several months because there were other similar medications introduced that cost significantly less, so demand dropped and the company stopped producing it. However, there are a few people who swear by it and still want X because it worked better than its alternatives for them.
When these patients on X heard the manufacturer was stopping production, many people got prescriptions for months/years and bought out basically every bottle. So all the major stores had 0 stock left over.
I just so happened to have a few bottles in stock, that were good for another 5 years.
Likely the final batch made.
So I tell M that she’s in luck and that I happen to have it in stock. She asks me how much, and I gave her our standard price which has a 10% markup on the cost and a $12.99 fee (it’s a mom/pop store so usually the dispensing fee is on the higher end).
She scoffs at me and tells me “I better match Costco” or she’d never come back. I said “Look I’m sorry, if you were taking other medications frequently, I could work with you and help reduce the fees, but I can maybe bring it down a few bucks at the most, since it’s just a one-time pickup.” She literally starts screaming that she’ll give us the worst reviews, etc. How I’m being completely disrespectful and she’ll never do business with me again.
I knew this medication was likely not available anywhere, so I stuck to my guns. I told her again, I’m sorry but I couldn’t match Costco, we’d basically be making nothing if I did.
She asks for her prescription back, literally snatches it from my hand.
Calls me rude, and that I had the worst customer service ever. And I just lost a ton of business and storms out.
Over the next few hours, I receive 4 calls from 4 separate Costco pharmacies asking me if I could provide a source of where I bought X from.
Because their wholesalers don’t have it and they have a patient who claims I had it in stock. Poor employees were just trying to help this lady, and of course I told them it was honestly just extra stock and I had the same wholesalers as them.
They all thanked me and went back to dealing with this lady. She was clearly shopping around for it.
As luck would have it, a very frequent patient of mine came in and had a prescription for X for her son that he’s been looking everywhere for.
He had tried every pharmacy in the area and had his mom bring it to me. I filled it for her and she happily paid the full price and was so thankful and even brought me some baked treats the following week!
Two days later, as I’m at work, I see M come into the store.
Not making eye contact. She gave me the same prescription, now crumpled up and stained after likely being handled by several other pharmacies. She says “Alright, whatever, I’ll pay your extra ridiculous fee. Thought I’d give you some business after reconsidering…” At this point there were 3 others waiting, so I told her to have a seat and wait because technically the prescription still has to follow the workflow which involves an electronic stock check (even though I know we don’t have it).
I’d usually give people a heads-up if I knew in advance to avoid waiting… But she can wait.
25 minutes go by and it’s her turn. I call her name to the counter, and with a pretty big smirk, I said “Unfortunately ma’am, we’ve completely run out of X and have no way of obtaining it at this time.
You’ll have to try another pharmacy…” She interrupted and said, “But you just had it 2 days ago! I was just here!” I informed her that another patient had depleted our final stock after she insisted on going elsewhere.
She hung her head down. Meekly took her prescription back, and went out the door without a peep.
Dragging her feet the whole way. She had wasted at least 4-5 hours going to pharmacies for what basically amounted to ~$14 difference. And in the end, she didn’t get her way.
Oh, it felt so good.”
12. Rude Passenger Ignores Train Guard, Misses Crucial Announcement And Pays The Price
“I work on the railway as a guard, so my job involves checking and selling tickets, giving people travel information and advice, and, most importantly, keeping them safe and looking after them if there’s an emergency.
Sometimes this means telling them off if they’ve got their feet on the seats as well.
I was working a train down from London one afternoon, checking tickets and trying to be helpful, when I came across a gentleman in an otherwise empty coach who had his feet on the seats, and massive noise-canceling headphones on his head.
I asked if I could see his ticket and if he’d be so kind as to remove his feet, but of course, he couldn’t hear me. I asked again, slightly louder, and again, he ignored me. I took my carriage key and used it to rap upon the window, creating a loud and clear knocking sound that normally cuts through headphones and sleep alike, but even this did nothing.
So, the final resort; I took a firm grasp on the back of his seat, and gave it a shake. This was enough to get his attention.
‘Good afternoon Sir.’ Said I. ‘Tickets please? And would you mind keeping your feet off the seats?’
‘What the heck do you think gives you the right to disturb me?’ He said.
‘Well sir, it’s my job to check your tickets, so if you’d be so good as to show me yours, I’ll be happy to leave you alone. But I still need you to take your feet off the seats.’
‘Oh get lost, you jobsworth,’ he said, while getting out his ticket, ‘I don’t want to be disturbed again, do you understand?’
‘Absolutely Sir, but please, take your feet off the seats. Or how about we put a newspaper down first? Or you could take off your shoes, perhaps?’
Grumbling, he found an old newspaper and spread it out on the seat opposite, before placing his still-be-shoed feet back up.
‘Also Sir,’ I said, ‘it might be a good idea to turn your headphones down a tad, otherwise you might not hear important announcements.’
‘I’ve made it quite clear that I don’t want to talk to you. Now get lost.’
Now, one of the key skills in my job is knowing when to pick your battles, and I had no desire to make more work for myself by dealing with this gentleman, and so off I went.
A few minutes later, I had a call from Control, letting me know that due to a signaling issue further down the line, my train was going to be diverted just after our next stop. As a result, we would be missing out on about 90% of the stations that we had been due to call at and would be running directly to our final destination.
I called up my driver to let him know about the change in plan and then made an announcement to my passengers.
‘Good afternoon, everyone, this is your guard speaking. I have just received word from Control that, due to a signaling issue at Station B, this train will now be diverted between Station A and Station G, and will no longer be calling at Station B, Station C, Station D, Station E, and Station F, and will instead be running fast directly to Station G.
Any passengers for Stations B, C, D, E, or F should change at Station A. If you have any questions, I’ll be walking through the train, so please do not hesitate to ask. Thank you.’
And so I walked through the train, talking to the passengers, making sure that they all understood what was going on, and where they would now need to change in order to get to where they were going.
Some of them were understandably annoyed, but I did my best to explain it all to them and to let them know that it was beyond our control. By the time I had walked through the train, every single passenger knew exactly what they needed to do.
Well, all the passengers but one.
We arrived at Station A, and quite a lot of people got off. I had an eight-coach train, and now only about twenty or so passengers, so it was nice and quiet. I made one last announcement about the diversion, then shut the doors, and gave the driver 2 on the bell, the signal that we were ready to start.
I happened to be in the same coach as the gentleman from earlier, who now had his eyes open, and was looking out of the window. I watched him as he watched the world slide by as we pulled out of the station, and I watched him as he felt us bounce over a set of points that we would not normally have crossed over.
I watched him as he began to realize that the view out of the window was wrong and that we had gone down a different line than usual. And I watched him as we started to zip past stations that he had clearly never seen before, as we took the diversion down to Station G.
After a few minutes, he walked up to where I was sitting in my little guard’s office and asked me what time we were due to arrive at Station B.
‘Well, like I said in the announcements, we’re not going to Station B anymore. We’re running non-stop to Station G.
I did make plenty of announcements about it!”
‘Well I didn’t hear anything! Why didn’t you tell me?’ He shouted.
“You made it perfectly clear that you didn’t want me to disturb you, Sir,’ I said, ‘and I had warned you about being able to hear the announcements.’
‘Well I need to get to Station B! How am I going to get there now?’
This was perfect, this was the moment that I had been waiting for. I explained to him that he was now going to have to stay on this train until we got to Station G, wait around for half an hour or so, get another train from Station G to Station A, wait some more, and then get a bus from Station A to Station B.
‘How long is that going to take?’ He asked.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘from Station A to Station G, along the diversion, is about an hour and a half each way, plus the waiting, so if the buses are good, about four hours or so, give or take.’
Well, needless to say, he was not happy about this, but there was nothing that I was able to do to help him out. And after all, he had made it clear that he did not want me to disturb him.”
11. Entitled Mom Demands Her Kid Tries Ultra Hot Sauce, Regrets It Immediately
“So a little backstory, I work in a store that has samples, one sample is a really, really spicy hot sauce.
It makes grown men cry. Well, kids are not allowed to try that sauce unless they have permission from a parent.
So this one boy and his mother (Entitled Kid (EK) and Entitled Mom (EM) as you probably know). EK tries some of our sauces, mostly mild ones slightly spicy but he found that spice way too hot.
EK eventually notices the super hot sauce and starts to try it to which I say;
Me: “Oh you can’t try that without parent permission. It is insanely hot and causes grown men to cry.”
EK: “Oh ok.”
I thought that was the end of it, boy was I wrong.
EK tells EM what I said in some twisted way or something but didn’t hear, EM comes up to me and says;
EM: “How dare you tell my baby boy he can’t try the hot one! He is way stronger and smarter than you. He got all As in 3rd grade, a stupid retail worker at a tourist town is too stupid to understand!!
So just do your job like you are trained to do and let my boy try.”
Me, already annoyed: “Ma’am I told your son it is very hot and very painful and he shouldn’t try it but if he had parent’s permission it’s ok, (this is when I had the idea) under one condition of course.”
EM: “Well hurry up and tell me what to do your presence is killing my precious baby boy’s brain cells.”
Me: “Well all you gotta do is sign a form saying you knowingly and willingly allow your child to try the hot sauce, I just have to write one up of course.”
EM: “Yea yea whatever just hurry up.”
So I wrote out a basic form along the lines of
I ______ hereby allow my son to try the very spicy hot sauce at _______, knowing fully well how hot and painful this sauce can be.
____ (for her signature)
_____ (for my signature)
Now she had already bought something in this store using her card and had to sign the receipt so I asked her to sign the form the same way she signed the receipt (for extra proof that she agreed).
She quickly signed the form I wrote and EK dunked his sample stick into the sample as far as it could go, (about an inch deep) and cleans it off in one go.
Now when I said this sauce is Very Very spicy I wasn’t kidding. Jalapenos rate out 1,500-2,000 Scoville units whereas ghost peppers rate out at 1 million Scoville units. This sauce rates out at a whopping 750,000 Scoville units and uses pepper extract to reach that heat. And if you didn’t know pepper extract is an oil, and oil will linger in your mouth.
So this sauce will burn for a good 20 minutes.
A good 1 second goes by after EK tried the sauce till you saw his face contort into sheer terror and agony. He started crying/blubbering/screaming/incoherently speaking at the same time, it was quite the sight to behold.
EM: “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY BABY!! HE EATS HOT CHEETOS ALL THE TIME HE CAN HANDLE HOT, YOU MUST HAVE POISONED HIM!!”
Hot Cheetos don’t even really get as hot as jalapenos..
Me: “This sauce is far hotter than a habanero and at least a few hundred times hotter than hot Cheetos.”
EK: (in barely recognizable English) “MOMMY IT HURTS!!”
EM: “I’M GONNA SUE YOU FOR POISONING MY BABY NOW GIVE ME CHOCOLATE MILK FOR FREE!!”
(We sell chocolate milk for $1.50)
Me: “I’m sorry ma’am but I can’t do that, I was trained to only sell the chocolate milk for $1.50 per bottle, so you have to pay just like everyone else.”
At this point she is screaming so much you could probably mistake her for a flock of chickens all getting strangled or something. But I just ignored her till she stormed out in a huff.”
10. Using My Special Ed Privileges To Turn The Tables On Unfair Punishment
“OK, quick preface, I’m in my 30s. I went to high school in the 90s, and schools had a very different climate back then.
Quick background info: I was in special ed. Not from any disability, but due to extreme hyperactivity (and I mean extreme). Though I was pretty much over the hyperactivity by the time I hit high school, it’s not easy to get out of special ed.
By this point though I was in 100% regular classes, and just had one ‘class’ a day, instead of a study hall, with a special ed teacher, who was basically there to help me if I needed help with any of my schoolwork.
Because I was in special ed, I had what was called an IEP (no idea what it’s an acronym for), which was basically just a list of learning aids I could use if I needed them, things like extended time on tests. I never actually used any of them, but I always had the option.
One day another kid did something, and I got blamed and sent to detention.
Now… Like I said, I was a hyperactive kid, and ended up getting detention in school a LOT, but… I was also very headstrong… If I felt that I had done something wrong, I’d accept whatever punishment without complaint (which, to be fair, happened pretty frequently, lol); but if I felt I was being punished unjustly… Well I usually ended up raising enough stink to warrant a real punishment, lol.
So I get in detention with a teacher I’d never seen before, and for the first time in my life I had a teacher tell me to write lines… (a punishment which I thought had died with the ’70s)
Remember those aids I had access to but never used?
So I say, “OK, I just need to use computer transcription from my IEP, so I’ll do the lines on the computer.”
I proceeded to type out the line once, copy it, paste it 100 times, look over at the teacher, and say, “done.” I was a fast typer back then, 130 WPM fast (you’d be surprised what hyperactivity can be channeled into), so this was all of 20 seconds after I sat down at the computer.
Teacher…. wasn’t exactly happy with that, refused to accept it, and told me I’d have to do it by hand, she wouldn’t let me use the computer for this.
Now understand, a teacher could decide not to accept one item from an IEP for a given assignment (within reason, and with cause), but they can NOT, by law, deny multiple things meant to address the same issue (in my case, I had… ok have… barely legible handwriting, so I had multiple options to allow me to not hand-write my assignments); if requested they HAVE to make accommodations for said aids.
Me: “OK, I’ll use dictation from my IEP then.”
Teacher: “…Meaning?”
Me: “I say the line verbally, and a staff member writes it down for me… and it looks like you’re the only staff member here!”
And that’s how I got a teacher to write 100 lines for me.
I actually have to give it to her for sticking it out and writing all 100 lines, rather than dropping the assignment entirely, lol.”
9. Neglecting PCI Compliance And Backups Leads To Lost Transactions And Lessons Learned
“We have a customer who apparently got scared into finally becoming PCI compliant. My company handles this by using a 3rd party gateway that tokenizes the credit card data and we store that token, ensuring that even if a hacker got their data and decrypted it, there would be no credit card numbers or cardholder information obtained.
Anyway, this customer was one of our last holdouts to ye olden days when you were able to enter credit card numbers to be seen by all. They had been refusing to update their software for years because of this. Because there was so much preparation required on their end, primarily going through the software and transcribing credit card numbers from comment and note fields into actual credit card fields to be tokenized, we gave them 90 days from the software update until we enabled PCI compliance and wiped the database of credit card numbers.
Each week we send their management a warning email reminding them that all credit card numbers will be wiped and only the ones entered into the credit card fields will be automatically tokenized while the rest will be purged.
Day 0 arrives and they tell us they’re ready to flip the magic switch.
We do some spot-checking of customer data and see that almost no credit card numbers have been entered into the proper credit card field. I believe the actual number of properly handled credit card numbers was under 15%. We let them know what we found and provide about 100 examples for them to double-check, telling them that they need to check the rest of their accounts as well.
A couple of hours later we get an angry call from their general manager wanting to know why their fancy new credit card machines still haven’t been enabled so we explained the situation to her and forwarded the previous emails to her, which she had already been included in but whatever.
She tells us what a huge disappointment we are and that for what she’s paying us we need to get this done now. We have her email back that she understands our concerns and that she is authorizing us to go ahead. 5 minutes later the irreversible deed is done.
I say irreversible because this customer didn’t use our backup service and had neglected to maintain their own backups despite our insistence that it be done before the update and before forcing PCI compliance.
A couple of weeks later and the GM calls us wanting us to figure out why their credit card deposits don’t reflect the business they’ve been doing.
She’s noticed a trend, she says, that only credit cards processed since the implementation of PCI compliance measures are showing up in her batches. This is when we remind her of our previous communications and her insistence that we proceed despite our protests. She demands that we recover her data for her and again we have to remind her of our previous communications that they are responsible for all backups.
Apparently she hadn’t been reading anything at all and just thought making demands was going to get the job done properly. Thankfully they only lost a couple of weeks of transactions and learned that from that point on to ask for a credit card when the card on file is missing.
This person is still the GM but has started using our hosted software solution which at least now guarantees proper backup.”
8. Fired Due To Recession, Hired Back At 10x The Pay
“Way back in 2007/2008, I had a job that used me as a Jack of all trades but the majority of my duties were to do some reporting and analysis for the owners/managers.
Before I started, the in-house systems cranked out the reports in separate spreadsheets and were emailed to the management team who looked at them on actual printouts and correlated the data as best they could.
They finally decided to hire someone to do that (me) and, being the product of my generation that I am, I decided to just do it electronically through Excel by way of pivot tables and vlookups (that is what I knew and had access to). I was able to crank these reports out inside of a couple hours when it used to take them days to get half of what I had.
But the important thing to know here is that I did this on my personal laptop since the company was too cheap to invest in something as simple as Microsoft Office (or whatever it was called back then).
I really didn’t mind using my own laptop and no one ever gave me grief for it but I tried to convince the management team several times to just spend a little bit of money and get Microsoft Office.
I would do demos of the different programs (Excel, PowerPoint, Word, etc) and everything they could do with it. They were always interested in it but the owner was an absolute cheapskate when it came to spending money and always said no. He finally told me to just keep doing my job and never bring it up again.
Yeah…ok…sure thing, mister.
Well, as the story usually goes, I was let go due to the recession and the owner and his kids thought that all my knowledge/how-to was on my work computer so they never had me train the guy inheriting my duties.
A few months go by and I get a phone call from cheapskate owner. He was offering to hire me back, part-time, to do my reporting/analysis tasks. But I’d have to do it at a 40% pay cut. I decided to bite my tongue instead of telling him to kick rocks and just informed him I already had a full-time job and didn’t want to give up my limited free time for that little pay.
Thanks, but no thanks.
He called twice more and made the same offer only for me to give the same answer. Finally, he asked me what it would take for me to do the job. Just trying to get rid of him forever, I told him it would need to be $150/hour (which was 10x what I made before being fired) and, no matter what, I would need to be paid for a minimum of 15 hours a week and that I would only be available Tuesday through Thursday.
I thought surely no one in their right mind would accept such a ludicrous offer, right?
He accepted and I worked there an additional 10 months before he sold off the company and the new owners brought in their own analysts.”
7. Stay In My Lane? If You Say So
“Backstory: I made the poor decision of getting a BS in mathematics and was not able to get a job upon graduation because everyone was looking for either a computer scientist or engineer. My buddy managed to hook me up with a job at a Federal Contractor in Business Management, specifically Contracts.
It worked out better than expected because they had many processes that could be automated and needed systems for data tracking so I spent most of my time making tools in Excel using VBA.
One of my assignments was as a liaison to our government customer and they loved the tracker tools I made for them and the technical support I provided.
We had a tool for pricing that was built in Excel and used macros. The coder was about to retire so the Pricing manager got my boss’s permission to have me trained to take over as the coder.
Apparently, higher up the chain it was decided that they couldn’t have a Contracts person doing a Pricing job and that the Pricing Tools group needed to take over.
They made it very clear that my help and input were not welcome and that I was to stay in my lane. The manager of the tools group made a big show of how much more expertise they have than a person in Contracts. The only coder they had did Access and not Excel so she was taking time to get familiar with the tool.
I was told that I was not allowed to touch or make any changes to the tool. Now, I knew that there was an issue with the tool and I knew how to fix it. It was an activeX issue I had run into with some of my other tools including the tracker our customer used. I fixed the issue for them on the tracker.
The customer also had a version of our pricing tool. So now the customer has a tool that doesn’t work because of an issue they have seen me solve before so who do they call?
Cue malicious compliance: I politely told them that the pricing group was taking over the tool and I was told to stand down.
Then I went for a long lunch.
I returned from lunch to utter chaos. The customer had sent the pricing manager and her director a very strongly worded email explaining that they don’t give a crap about our internal politics. They have an issue, the pricing group can’t fix it and I can.
They demanded I be sent to fix the issue immediately or complaints would be sent to a higher level. Complaints from the customer are taken extremely seriously so this would be very detrimental to the pricing manager’s career.
I also had a frantic voicemail from the developer who was tasked by the pricing tool group with fixing the tool.
She was having trouble fixing the issue. My manager gave me the go-ahead to see the customer. I was able to quickly fix the issue and make the customer happy again. A few months later I was contacted by the pricing manager offering me a job but I turned it down.
I did eventually end up transferring to a systems engineering role and from there to my current job as a database application developer which I love.”
6. New Sales Guy Demands Source Code Printout, Gets Overwhelmed By The Result
“I work IT and software development at an engineering firm in the city of country music and tourists in cowboy hats.
Last month, we hired a new sales guy.
He’s young, over-enthusiastic. I shall call him Young Buck. Young Buck thinks he knows everything, yet every time I try to explain to him – even at the most basic level – the inner machinations of the customizable software package we offer to customers, it is as if I am shooting a laser into a black hole.
I have had to show him how to minimize a window on his computer.
So, when he asked me, one morning last week, to print out the source code for our software so he could read it, I, of course, asked him to repeat himself, as I was unsure I had heard him correctly.
“Yes, I need to understand this thoroughly so I can sell it to our customers. You want more billable hours, don’t you?”
“Yes, I don’t make commission like you do, but those always look good on my review. A printout, however, would be a bad idea.
I could show you how to open the files with Notepad if you–”
“I’d rather have something physical.”
Now, there are a few things to note about our software package’s source code. It’s been cobbled together from years of development, even before my time, though I’ve refactored and rewritten most of it.
There are main “modules” which I customize and deploy according to our customers’ needs; the base source code is just a genericized version. We almost never deploy all the “modules”, so the packages we deliver are usually simpler. With all the base code, which, might I add, is heavily and meticulously commented/documented, the printout would easily reach 400 pages.
There’s reason one.
Reason two would be that our source code is a trade secret, and for the sake of the company, I don’t want it floating around in meatspace.
I tried to convey both of these to Young Buck. I could almost see my words shooting right out the opposite ear.
He did not like it when I told him I would not do it, no he didn’t.
So, I was already half-expecting it when the general manager called me. The current general manager is a guy in his 60s – balding, bespectacled, but with an imposing build, talks with words clipped by a northern midwest U.S.
accent.
“Iris, Young Buck is telling me you won’t print out our source code for him.”
“Yes, and that’s because–”
“Iris, we take cooperation very seriously at this company. You need to cooperate with Sales so they can sell your product alongside our projects.”
“That’s not a good idea because–”
“Listen, I don’t want excuses. We need more sales. Just get on it. And make me a copy too, it sounds interesting.”
Now, Young Buck is computer illiterate. General Manager is twice as bad. They’re fine people, good at what they do, but they would see my source code as eldritch runes in a Necronomicon.
Alright. Time for some malicious compliance.
“Can I get that in an email, then?”
Two minutes later, the email appears in my inbox. I save it, and print myself a copy.
Then, I open Visual Studio. Open my base code project. Open the main class. Print.
MSSQL handler? Print. TCP handler? Print. OPC handler? Print. TCP Listener? Print. Oracle handler? Print. ZPL/EPL/IPL handler? Print. Main logic loop? Print. The Code-Behind for the interface? Print. The Winforms designer for the interface? Print.
I ran out of paper twice before I had ONE copy ready.
The final product was pushing two inches thick, and made quite a satisfying thump as I set it down on the general manager’s desk.
I wish, dear reader, you could have seen his face when he realized what he’d asked for.
I never ended up printing a second copy.
General Manager shredded his copy because I had flabbergasted him enough to be able to explain, without interruption, that the source code was a trade secret and reassured him that it’s on our network drive anyway. I gave both him and Young Buck access to the folder as per a second email request.
In ten days since, nobody has accessed that folder but myself.”
5. Disregard Employee Concerns? Lose Half Your Staff And Watch Your Business Crumble
“So about 2 years ago I was working as an assistant manager at a small business, about 20-25 employees overall.
I had been there about 5 1/2 years, 3 as an entry-level position and then as the business grew the manager was getting overwhelmed so they created the assistant manager position and put me in it. Now I was their jack of all trades covering multiple positions in the business when needed, built and maintained a new website (old one had not been updated in several years), served as the entire IT department, got a new phone system installed along with replacing another major critical piece of equipment, DIY minor building updates, inventory management, distributor relationships and more.
Well owner number 1 was fed up with owner number 2’s nonsense (o1 was the responsible one that knew what was going on, o2 was just along for the ride) and said either sell me your half or buy my half. Well O2 ended up choosing to stay.
A few staff left (including the manager) while the rest of us braced for the disaster that was coming while we decided what to do.
On to the malicious compliance, as assistant manager the staff had brought some concerns about quality and staff safety to me so I brought them to the owner, the response I got was I don’t care about staff concerns they are all replaceable anyway.
I was also told to tell the staff they should no longer bring their concerns to me but to the new manager (her hire that had been there 2 weeks and no one trusted yet). Well I went home that night, shared the entire conversation with most of the staff, and typed up my 2 weeks’ notice (handbook said 4 weeks required but I refused to work for her longer than 2 weeks more) and turned it in the next morning.
The fallout: so in addition to losing me and everything I normally did (had also taken over scheduling since we were short-staffed and the new manager didn’t know the staff yet and what we needed) another 3-4 people quit over the next month leaving the owner overall with about 50% of the staff that place needed and even at full staffing we were barely managing.
The website has not been touched since I left, still has the old owner and other outdated information up. I have gotten multiple questions about where something was or how to do something because no one else knows how to run certain things, a number of their clients I know have left because things have been getting worse in their product, and overall I give it a couple of years before she has to sell or close because I can’t imagine it is going to go well.”
4. Senior Developer's Ego Leads To System Crash And Job Loss
“I work as a developer in a company that creates very fast automated systems for moving around funds electronically. So obviously we have very strict testing and error checking for any code that goes in a production system. And I’m one of the guys who does this verification.
So 3 months ago I found a little bug in a patch that was written by this one other guy who had been working at the company for only a year longer than me. He has the title of “Senior developer” while I’m just a Developer. It didn’t really make any difference though, that was just something you get with a small pay raise once you do 3 years at the company as a Developer.
Anyway, I notice this bug, so e-mail him and tell him about it so he can fix it and re-submit the patch. But he turns the responsibility on me, tells me his code is correct, and that I’m just testing it incorrectly. I try to explain to him but he doesn’t budge.
Tired of the pointless arguing, I suggest that we should clear it out with our project manager.
At this point he pulls the Seniority card and says I should just do as he says because I’m his junior. Now that just annoyed me. This guy has absolutely no authority over me, who does he think he is?
Cue malicious compliance. I knew that the bug would not manifest itself immediately, there were certain conditions that had to be met for it to show itself in a production environment. And it didn’t do anything wrong, it would just crash the system unexpectedly. I asked him one final time in the email thread whether he’s sure he wants me to go ahead with the patch.
He says yes. Alright, yay! Now we have buggy code running on a production machine that moves a million dollars every minute!
Nothing happened for 3 months, life was as usual. Then last week it finally happened. Our system crashed. Well, we have protections set up for such failures that roll back the binaries automatically.
However, the crash still cost the company a few hours of downtime which means potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars lost. The crash was traced back to the patch that Mr. Senior Developer had written. I had the email trail to absolve myself of fault. The resolution was quick, and needless to say, Mr. Senior Developer no longer works with us now.”
3. Told To Dress Better At My Dirty Job, So I Show Up Overdressed
“OK, here’s a bit of background.
I’ve worked in construction and service for 15 years. I recently gave up that career for a job in Special effects for TV and movies.
Last year I started a production with people I’ve worked with in the past. I’m a known quantity, and my smart-aleck attitude usually precedes me.
This production (which isn’t out yet, so the details will be sparse) is mostly set on a train. This set has to wag, shake, and wiggle like a real train would. So we built heavy teeter totters on wheels. All heavy gauge steel, castors, and bearings.
Now, these gimbals (common name for a motion platform) have a tendency to make noise; which, as you would imagine, would affect production. So one of my jobs was to crawl under the set, on a concrete floor, and grease joints, tighten the bolts, etc. Safety checks were daily.
This usually left me somewhat dusty and dirty though the day.
Typically I’d be wearing Carheart pants and shirt (both black, of course, gotta stay hidden in the dark as much as possible). Most film departments that have to do something physical quite often wear black on black, so anything else is abnormal. This is where we lead into my MC.
One day I got a small hole in my shirt, just a little smaller than a dime, right on the front. So the first assistant (friend of mine that I’ve worked with before) says I really need to dress better as there should be an image we should attain.
I just look at him unbelievingly for a second, and he re-insists. So I agree. I usually agree to things immediately to keep drama down in the workplace. I immediately know what I’m going to do for the rest of the week (this was on a Tuesday)
The next day, I show up in my best dress clothes. Shirt, tie, dress pants, and dress shoes. Completely, 100% wholly overdressed. Nobody dresses for a wedding in any film department, unless it’s a ‘theme’ day (like tropical shirt Friday).
Dressed like this I cannot do my job, so I just direct co-workers on how to do it.
I spent the next 3 days dressing like that until the SPFX coordinator mentioned that maybe I should dress down now, as I had “made my point”. I also got a lot of compliments from more than a few people, and every couple of Fridays people would come in with suits for “Formal Fridays”.
It was nice not getting my hands dirty, but spending close to 50 hours with a tie and dress shoes is something I’d like to avoid for a while.”
2. How I Turned A Tyrant Manager's Orders Against Her
“I used to work in a large DIY store and had a manager (I’ll call her Janet) that would run her department like a tyrant. I was her least favorite employee and she made this clear from day one. One day in an annual performance meeting she expressed how disappointed she was in me and that I should go the extra mile for customers and they’re always right, this went on my personal file.
(This store had lots of younger staff and would regularly get unreasonable requests from customers especially on timber cutting)
This is when I had the genius idea to do every request a customer gave to see how far I could push it. A couple of weeks later an elderly couple came in wanting a fireplace.
I showed them the display model (it was high up on a wall) and the gentleman wanted to see the boxed wood color to see if it would match his furniture. He says the display is perfect, but this one is wrong. I informed him it’s because the wood was coated in a special varnish so it looks fresh on display.
He says can I have that one up there. I say of course you can it will be ready by 8 pm tonight as I have to take it apart and replace it with a boxed one. 3 hours later Janet walks in and I’m building the full fireplace in the middle of the store.
Janet- “Why have you taken that down, it was fitted a week ago!”
Me- “The customer wants this one and they are always right, so I’ve gone the extra mile.” She storms off and I spend a full shift replacing it, taking my time.
The Customer was so happy I did it they gave me £20 in a thank you card.
The following Friday a local gospel choir came in at 19:30…… 30 minutes from closing.
Customer- “Hello child, could you do this timber order” (it was almost a full pallet of timber sheets to be cut into lots of pieces)
I explained it would take me a couple of hours and we closed in the 30 minutes.
“We don’t mind waiting and you will be doing the lord’s work! Jesus was a carpenter’s child.” (who am I to deny the lord’s work, even as an atheist)
I ask the store manager if I can do it, as it’s for a local church and they’re doing a new stage for Sunday.
Store manager said yes! Please stay late and Janet can stay late too to lock up after you and I’ll lock the rest of the store, just get them to pay before we close.
Janet was annoyed (she was meant to go out to a party), but the choir was so happy, they were singing gospel songs with my name put in them for 3 hours.
When I was done, I loaded their van and they hugged me. A very nice review was later posted online and my store manager was happy, not Janet she tried to give me a written warning for making her late and I refused to sign it and I said the customer was right, so I was right.
The store manager was informed of my refusal to sign and he went mental at Janet for giving me a warning. He said she was undermining his authority and he told me to do it and she was giving me petty warnings for nothing. My previous warnings by Janet were removed, Janet got a serious talking to and a warning.
I still did the occasional unreasonable request for customers, if it would kill some time or was for a good cause, like building a full rabbit hutch out of scrap wood for a single dad and his little girl and charging £1 for it, as we decided the price for off cut wood.
Most importantly Janet learned to be careful what she pulled staff up on and left me alone.
Janet eventually got me fired.”
1. Power-Tripping TV Show Coordinator Gets A Taste Of Her Own Medicine
“A little background. I work in the film/tv industry.
At the time of this story I was working an entry-level position called production assistant (PA for short) on a failing tv show. My duties included office upkeep, stocking the kitchen, research for coworkers, various paperwork, picking up supplies from vendors, and picking up lunch for everyone in the department (among a long list of other tasks).
Now, I really liked my immediate boss, Coordinator #1. The two of us had a system to keep the office running and were starting to become friends. The problem? Our Department Head was a sexist and racist jerk. At the height of the #MeToo movement, I might add.
After one too many demeaning “darlings”, winks, and sneaking his significant other into the office, Coordinator #1 reported him to the higher-ups. But in typical Hollywood fashion, they gave him a gentle slap on the wrist and sent him back to the department. So, Coordinator #1 left the show in disgust.
Enter Coordinator #2. I knew #2 and I wouldn’t get along immediately. She had been fired from her previous tv show for “attitude problems”. On her first day she chewed me out for, I kid you not, hanging the actor photos 11 inches too low on the wall.
It only got worse from there. This woman sucked up to the Creepy Dept Head, found faults with everyone around her, and loved power trips. She quickly made herself a nuisance to everyone in the department. But Creepy Dept Head was too busy with his side chicks to do anything.
Between her constant berating, treating me like I was stupid, and unprofessional rudeness, she made my life a living nightmare. The final straw came when she screamed at me in front of the entire department for a small mistake. I almost packed my bag and walked out right there.
In hindsight, I should have. But she told me I’d be replaced at the end of the month, so I thought I’d hang in there and collect a paycheck while I could. From then on, I counted down the days and made no attempt to hide my misery.
The thing is, the tv show had barely started filming and we were already severely behind schedule. The poor construction department was building sets 24/7, and the first episode was supposed to air in the next few weeks. For everyone in our department this meant extremely long hours and working 6 days a week.
Not my problem. I was leaving soon. #2 reminded me on the last week. “Friday is your last day.”
It ended up being a horrible week. More long hours and running behind schedule. The department would need to work another Saturday. Well, Friday came, and I gleefully counted down the hours.
At the end of the day #2 realized her mistake. She hustled over to me on my way out the door. “Can you work Saturday?” Cue malicious compliance.
“Nope. You said Friday is my last day.”
That’s when she got huffy. “I’m trying to get you some extra pay.”
Giving up one day of my measly PA paycheck was well worth the look on her face when I said, “No thanks. Friday is my last day. Bye!” and walked out to happily never see her again. I took a job on a much better tv show a few weeks later with the nicest crew.
To this day I’ve worked on lots of other shows, and I always warn my coworkers not to ever work with her. Turns out she has quite a bad reputation around town even without my help.
The fallout after I left: Now that there was no PA working Saturday, #2 had no choice but to do both her job and mine.
Years later I’m now a coordinator. And I can tell you it’s a job that keeps you BUSY. There’s no way I’d be able to get anything done without the help of my amazing PAs. So it gives me extreme satisfaction to know she had to get off her high horse, halt her Very Important Emails©, and go get everyone lunch and snackies until my replacement was found.”
