People Tell Their Impressive Malicious Compliance Revenge Stories
27. Only Essential Crew Can Use The Internet? Yeah, Good Luck With That
“I used to work as a broadcast technician on a cruise ship. Part of the job was running the passenger TV system and making sure the right thing was on the right channel at the right time. Most of the channels ran prerecorded programs, but 4 of them were live channels that we got off a satellite (CNN, ESPN, and 2 others I forget).
The ship’s satellite dish was supposed to automatically track the satellite as the ship moved, but when the ship would do a 180-degree turn pulling out of port, the dish couldn’t keep up, and I’d have to go to the broadcast room and manually retune the dish.
This meant going onto the internet to look up the azimuth and elevation for the satellite, which was different depending on where we were on Earth. Without the AZ and EL, I had no way to know which way to point the dish.
In an effort to save resources and bandwidth, one day the company decreed that between 8 am and 8 pm, the ship’s internet would be limited to the passenger internet cafe and essential crew use only, and the broadcast technician was one of the jobs not on the list of essential crew.
I made a case to the cruise director and hotel director that this would cause problems if we lost the satellite dish during this time, but they were unconvinced.
So I waited.
A few days later as we were pulling out of port around noon, the satellite dish lost contact with the satellite.
I sent an email to the cruise director and cc’d the hotel director to let them know that our satellite TV channels were down, and I’d be able to get them back up just as soon as I had access to the internet at 8 pm that night.
About 15 minutes later I was cc’d on an email from the hotel director to the IT department that said, ‘Please turn on the broadcast technician’s internet access and add them to the essential crew list.’
Edit: You could send emails to addresses within the ship’s network without a connection to the internet.
You couldn’t send emails off the ship without a connection to the internet.”
26. Unqualified Manager Demands Password Change, Gets Locked Out Instead
“Back when I was working at a small company, the company didn’t really have a ton of support staff so I’d take a break from the various programming tasks I was doing and would help out.
The “manager” of the support team was completely unqualified and basically got the job because he was also the head of sales and it was a customer-facing team.
He was also a lazy luddite who refused to learn how things worked and generally made our lives more difficult.
One day I was covering on the support desk because they were short-staffed and got a call from him that he needed his password changed. I was confused at first and started to walk him through the steps to change it himself.
And he shouted angrily, “No, just change it, write it down on a Post-It, and give it to me.” And hung up.
So I sat there for a minute and remembered I don’t report to him at all. So I changed his password for him.
I made it 18 characters long and it was a combination of I, l, 1, ! and |.
He was not happy. Especially after he mistyped enough times to lock his computer and he couldn’t log in the rest of the day. Because the support guy who had the access to do a hard password reset was out for the day.”
25. Forced To Attend Drill With Pink Eye, Sergeant Learns A Contagious Lesson
“National Guard. I got Pink Eye once the day before Drill weekend. Called my Sgt. and was told I still had to come to first formation. I told him that’s a bad idea because it’s very contagious and I could spread it to the whole company and that I’d be happy to make up the Drill when it clears up.
He says, “I don’t care. You’re not a doctor. It’s probably nothing. Your butt better be here in the morning.” I even offered to send a photo of my eye. No dice.
I drive an hour to my unit Saturday morning and no one with any authority will see me, cause they’re too busy or not there yet.
Then about 5 minutes before first formation, I find the company First Sgt. and ask him if I can see a medic about my pink eye. He looks at me, looks closer, and blows up. “Why are you here if you have pink eye!!! You could give that to everyone here!
Why didn’t you call in sick?!?!”
“I tried First Sgt. I called yesterday and Sgt Moron said I’m not a doctor and ‘my butt better be here this morning,’ so I’m here.”
“Darn it!” Then he flags down a different Sgt, tells him to take me up upstairs to our little in-house Medical office and get checked out.
Then he left to go chew Sgt Moron a new one but not before turning back and yelling, “And Don’t Touch Anything!”
So we go, Doctor immediately says, “Yep, you have pink eye. These are the drops you need to buy. You’re dismissed from this Drill.
Head to CVS, get these drops, and go home. Get with your leadership and you can make up this weekend when your eye clears up.” (Note: This was just an Armory so we didn’t stock any actual medical supplies beyond band-aids and ibuprofen.)
“Yes, Sir!”
So I leave, get the drops, and drive an Hour all the way back home. It was just such a waste of time and gas. Found out Monday that by Sunday afternoon, 3 other Specialists had pink eye symptoms and left early and Sgt Moron got an official dressing down by the Company Commander for this mess up.
All of it could have been avoided. His excuse? “I thought OP was lying.” Ugh. Never missed a drill in 6 years but sure, I’m gonna start now.
I did make up the Drill weekend 2 weeks later over a Tuesday and Wednesday, and Sgt. Moron wouldn’t even look at me, let alone apologize.
Just gave me a list of simple chores to work on and left me to it for 2 days. Smh. Some people shouldn’t be in a leadership position.”
Another User Comments:
“I was on jury duty when the Judge asked if everyone was physically ok as we were packed in like sardines.
A guy raised his hand and said “I think I might have pink eye. My kid has pink eye and I would be at the doctor’s but I was told I had to come here.” Never seen someone discharged from jury duty so quickly. (Thankfully I was many rows away).” D_Mom
24. Disrespect My Ship? Clean Up Your Mess Before You Get Paid
“I work on an LMSR. That’s a (Military) vehicle carrier for you laymen. Ever seen those ships that look like giant floating shoeboxes? That’s what I work on.
They have a tiny living area, a tinier bridge, and a decent-sized engine room. In the industry, We call them Ro-Ro’s (Roll-on, Roll-off), as they don’t crane cargo on and off, they actually have a massive Stern Ramp to allow cargo to drive on/off itself.
All of these flaws I mentioned were designed to give as much space to the (massive) cargo holds. And they are massive.
We were in a shipyard in North Charleston, SC for repairs a few years back. Of the MANY jobs we contracted to get done was the chipping/painting of the interior cargo holds.
Now, again – these Cargo Holds were massive – imagine 2+ football fields laid end-to-end with an overhead of 12 feet. Now imagine 5 decks (floors) of that. The ship is BIG. To lash (tie down) all of the vehicle cargo, we have ‘chain boxes’ throughout the holds, which are 4′ x 4′ x 3′ (Metric- 1.3 x 1.3 x 1) aluminum boxes.
These hold all of the ship’s lashing gear and are strategically located all over the ship’s cargo holds. Unfortunately for me, the shipyard workers decided these made GREAT trash cans. There was always one within tossing distance, and best of all it hid their garbage, why toss it onto the deck when there was a ‘chain box’ nearby?
After 2 weeks of nagging the contractors to stop tossing their trash into the bins, I fumed to the Captain next door. He suggested I read the ‘contract’ we had with this painting company. I was not smart enough to see what he wanted me to do, so he dumbed it down for me.
SO-AND-SO Coatings was to provide me with transportation (just an electric golf cart) up-and-down ALL 6 decks to ensure the work is being done and levels of cleanliness are being maintained. I even had a ‘driver’ (whom I will call RADAR, like the dude from M*A*S*H* the TV show).
I showed him the contract – “ALL RUBBISH BROUGHT ABOARD BY CONTRACTORS WAS TO BE DISPOSED OF BY THEM. They naively assumed this meant “those garbage cans we ignore for the chain boxes…”
And so, I did just that. I made RADAR stop at EVERY SINGLE CHAIN BOX and empty them out, and there were about 90-100.
The first 2-3 days he tried to claim that the garbage (almost all Monster Drinks, coffee cups, water bottles, and smoke packs) was ‘There already’ but he cleaned them up as a token of goodwill. Naturally, they were ‘full’ the NEXT day, as well. And the day after that.
And the day after that. After about 10 days of this, RADAR had enough. He tried to complain to HIS boss about the workers tossing their trash into the chain boxes, and the solution was to ‘let the workers toss their stuff in the chain boxes, we’ll clean it up at the end.”
Come the end of the job, and SURPRISE, SURPRISE! RADAR tried to drive me right to the painting job, right past the garbage-strewn chain boxes. Imagine his surprise when he realized I had NOT forgotten about the rubbish. As a matter of fact, I told RADAR I wanted to see the chain boxes before anything else.
When I realized they were still full of rubbish, I told RADAR, “Empty that stuff, and don’t call me until it’s done.” SO-AND-SO Coatings were not happy about this, and any question they asked about the ‘quality of paint work’ was shot down by me.
As they wanted to get paid, the owner of the company joined RADAR and one other guy, and they spent all afternoon emptying the rubbish from 100 chain boxes. I made it clear no painting approval would be considered until all rubbish was removed, period.
So, RADAR and the BIG BOSS spent a half-day emptying the chain boxes of the trash his workers had filled. Why BIG BOSS?
Apparently, all of his workers had some big US NAVY rush job to attend to, and he wasn’t getting paid until I was happy. And I was not happy. At least not until BIG BOSS was very unhappy. I got my good paint job…and my clean chain boxes.”
23. Rude Customer Demands Glove Change, Gets More Than She Bargained For
“So this story is pretty simple and it happened at my work, we are an assembly line type food place (like Subway) and we get a lot of customers coming down the line some evenings.
For some backstory – of course, as we serve food, we have been drilled about our cleanliness. We change our gloves as often as we possibly can and wash our hands in between glove changes, we actually are still getting the lectures for it and likely will continue to.
It was an evening night, and an older couple came in. I watched them arrive through the doors so I was standing and waiting to greet them immediately, but my cheery “Hi! How are you guys!?” was ignored. That’s fine though, happens all the time, so I then begin to take their order.
The lady looked at me, and the first and only thing out of her mouth was loudly “Umm, shouldn’t you change your gloves?” Now it doesn’t translate to text well but the amount of force and attitude literally had me taken aback for a second, it was a bit humiliating to basically be accused of being unsanitary even when I had just changed my gloves.
Also in front of my manager and other coworkers. But of course, the customer is always right, so I turned around to go wash my hands and change gloves while flushed tomato red.
I was upset at her rudeness, though, so I decided to do her a favor and follow our full protocol.
I used plenty of soap, scrubbed for 20 seconds, rinsed under hot water, and used paper towels just to turn off the sink. It was an entire ordeal, and she had front-row seats with a nasty look on her face. Unfortunately for her, during the minute I spent washing my hands and putting on gloves two separate coworkers came to help and finished making her food.
I’m sure their gloves were clean, but she doesn’t know that and she looked livid. Looks at me, looks at the coworkers, looks at her food, all with pure rage while I’m trying to hold in the laughter and glee of the rude woman getting upset.
She didn’t even bother mentioning it to the other employees, and then I had the glory of ringing her up and taking her payment. I was sure I was going to get a Karen rage fit, but I guess she got knocked down a few pegs because by the time she got to the register she just seemed really embarrassed.
I understood her outlook, but there’s really no reason to speak to food service employees like we’re the scum of the Earth. Also, maybe just ask if we have fresh gloves instead of assuming we’re all gross.
Edit: Gonna throw out there that she paid with a card, I didn’t actually physically touch her cash and I never even got to handle her food lol.”
Another User Comments:
“The only time I’ve ever called a food worker’s cleanliness into question, I saw a drive-through worker emptying trash and then reaching for my food immediately after returning the bin without changing gloves or washing hands. I called her out on it, and she washed up and replaced my food.
Didn’t go back for a looong time. I definitely believe employees like that are the exception, though.” HalcyonEve
22. Dad Says Get Whatever You Want, Mom Plans An Epic Prank
“My father was a welder. He worked for a union and at times they would hire him to go to another country and teach welding techniques. He would usually be gone anywhere from 3 months to 6 months. He would always get a big sign-up bonus before going and this was for Mom to take care of household things while he was gone.
He was supposed to be gone for around 4 months this trip and got a massive bonus. I don’t know the exact number but we lived off of it for the next six months and there was still some left that went into their savings. Mom told Dad she wanted new furniture for the living room and he told her to redo the whole room the way she wants.
Over the next 2 months or so Mom added everything she wanted to the living room. And it looked fantastic. But with some of the money she bought some second-hand, but still looked brand new, furniture as well. It was the ugliest floral pattern and the color of baby poo green.
All of it still had the plastic seat covers that had turned yellowish over the years of just sitting. She got the sofa, loveseat, and recliner. It was rather cheap or she might not have done this.
Mom’s MC:
Dad called from the airport to get someone to pick him up.
From our house to the airport was a bit over an hour to get there. So Mom left to go get him and while she was gone it was my sister’s husband and my job to switch out the nice furniture with the ugly set.
We had all the furniture in a room just down the hall.
After a couple of hours Dad walked into the house. The door we used as the main door opened into a small foyer and then right into the living room. He stepped around the corner and saw the living room set.
Brand new lamps on brand new end tables with a matching coffee table, a new TV., v.c.r., some new plants, and some wall hangings.
He turned to Mom and asked how much it all cost. She fibbed a bit and added $500 more to the actual price.
Without saying a word other than, “I’m going to unpack and shower,” sounding totally defeated.
While he was in the shower my sister’s husband and I switched the furniture back to the ones Mom had originally bought. After his shower and getting dressed he walked by the living room without looking in and sat at his chair at the kitchen table.
Mom came out and asked why he wasn’t in trying out the new living room set. Again he had the defeated look on his face but agreed just to please her.
The look on his face when he saw the “real” new set, he loved it.
Especially the recliner. He sat in every spot on every piece and told Mom she did perfect picking things out. Within half an hour he was sleeping on his brand-new comfy recliner.
The ugly furniture Mom donated to her church yard sale. Some person with zero taste bought it for the same as Mom paid, $75 for all of it.”
Another User Comments:
“My parents used to prank each other all the time, too. Married 61 years when Dad died. Dad used to tell this story from the first year they were married. Dad was in the habit of picking up his newspaper and reading at breakfast, while Mom would pour him some cereal and milk and put sugar on it.
He liked Corn Flakes. Well, on April Fool’s Day, she put Fritos in his bowl! He took a bite, too. After that it was on. Every year one of them would get the other. One time he came into their room at 8 am, woke her up, handed her a cup of coffee, and told her that the school had called and her 11 am faculty meeting had been moved forward to 9.
Let her dance around like a crazy chicken for five minutes and then “April Fool!”ed her.” RobertER5
21. Try To Be A Know-It-All? Get Schooled
“This story comes all the way from the late 90s when I was the chief editor of my high school’s literary magazine. I’d been more of an artist all my life, but in senior year, my love for English, editing, and creative writing really blossomed. We paired students’ prose and poetry submissions with other students’ artwork.
After a long year of working on the mag, it was finally time to take it to the printers.
This print shop had worked with our high school for about 20 years (along with the lit mag, they also printed our newspapers, bulk take-home flyers, and I think the yearbooks, too), and the chief printer had excellent advice, but he kind of acted like a know-it-all, and hated to be second-guessed. We were working on captions for the illustrations (e.g., “watercolor by Jessica L.,” “oil painting by Sulaiman B.,” etc) when he came across a canvas board painting.
He said some kind words about it, and then scribbled a note, acrylic painting, before putting the work on a separate pile.
“Uh, I’m sorry, that’s an oil painting,” I meekly said.
The guy regarded me over his half-moon glasses. “Young man, I’ve been doing this work for 20 years, and that–,” he jabbed a pencil towards the painting, “–is an acrylic.”
“It’s kinda not, though,” I said, but before I could say anything else, he huffed angrily, and set the painting back over to our side of the counter.
“Go talk to the artist,” he said to the club advisor, “to double-check that it’s an acrylic, and get them to sign off on it, then we’ll print it.”
My advisor, without missing a heartbeat, turned to me, and asked, “Hey, is this an acrylic?”
“Nope,” I said, and signed the release form he placed in front of her. “It’s an oil painting.””
20. Abusive Sergeant Gets Demoted After Ignoring Important Report For Petty Task
“Way back in the late nineties, I was serving out my initial enlistment with the United States Army (USA), assigned to a unit at Yongson Garrison in Seoul, South Korea when I was pulled kicking and screaming from my platoon to serve as the company’s Training Ammunition Manager (TAM).
Enter Master Sergeant (MSGT) PainInTheButt. MSGT PainInTheButt did not get along with anyone in the rear echelon and would find any reason to interfere with your day; assigning tasks such as cleaning the latrines, servicing the company vehicles, general custodial duties around the office, regardless of what projects you were working on or the deadline to have it completed.
One fine fall morning, I was working on a report headed to the battalion (BN) TAM. This report (literally MS PowerPoint slides) was time-sensitive and needed to be completed as soon as possible (ASAP) so that the BN TAM could write his report (yup, more slides).
MSGT PainInMyButt walked into the Company area, took one look at me at said, ‘Specialist (SPC) OP, if you have time for coffee, you have time to sweep the parking lot.’
I stood to At-Ease and said, ‘MSGT, I need to complete this report to….’
‘I didn’t ask for your excuse, SPC.’
I raised my voice so that the entire office could hear, ‘MSGT, Buck Sergeant (SGT) BN TAM wants this report ASAP.’
As anticipated, MSGT PainInTheButt also raised his voice. ‘SGT BN TAM can wait.’
Cue MC: ‘Yes, MSGT.’ And out to the parking lot I go.
Yes, I managed to suppress my grin.
About an hour later, I see SGT BN TAM walking across the parking lot, ‘SPC OP, I need your report!’
“Yes, SGT. MSGT PainInTheButt assigned me to sweep the parking lot.’
‘Did you tell him that I need your report?’
‘Yes, SGT. MSGT PainInTheButt told me that ‘SGT BN TAM can wait.”
‘Oh he did, did he?’ (Yes, MSGT PainInTheButt had previously annoyed SGT BN TAM and SGT BN TAM knew that I had teed this one up for him.)
And off SGT BN TAM goes.
I continue to, rather slowly, sweep the parking lot. Right around lunchtime, I hear the BN Commander’s voice coming from the Company area… on the other side of the parking lot. While I can’t make out what’s being said, or to whom, someone is getting torn a new one.
Remember the adage that stuff rolls downhill? Turns out that SGT BN TAM went straight to the BN Commander and informed her that he would not be able to generate his report because MSGT PainInTheButt had me sweeping the parking lot even though I had informed MSGT PainInTheButt that I needed to complete my report… and tells her that MSGT PainInTheButt said that she can wait while MSGT PainInTheButt has me sweep said parking lot.
BN Commander goes and rips the Company Commander a new one, Company Commander rips First Sergeant, First Sergeant rips MSGT PainInTheButt, and… MSGT PainInTheButt screams at me to come see him “right the heck now!”
I slowly jog (not run, not walk) over to MSGT PainInTheButt and stand at Parade Rest in the Company area.
MSGT PainInTheButt proceeds to scream at me, with spittle flying everywhere including on me, and while poking me in the chest with his finger accuses me of lying. Unfortunately for MSGT PainInTheButt, everyone had heard him say ‘SGT BN TAM can wait,’ including as it turns out, the Company Commander and First Sergeant.
MSGT Operations comes running over and pulls MSGT PainInTheButt off of me, tells me that I am free to go to lunch and to return at 1300 hrs. I tell First Sergeant, who had come over too, that I will be going to the Inspectors General’s office immediately after lunch.
A police report was also filed.
When the dust settled; I was reassigned back to my platoon (huzzah!) and MSGT PainInTheButt took non-judicial punishment (reduction in rank to Staff Sergeant, forfeiture of pay for 30 days, extra duties, and rehabilitative transfer to Camp Humphreys) for Conduct Unbecoming, Assault, Battery, etc, etc.
A month later I was told to show up at the NCO Club there at Yongsan. Everyone, including the Battalion Commander(!), was very, very grateful for the departure of MSGT PainInTheButt and it was a much more pleasant working environment for everyone. And since I don’t drink, everyone bought me all the free Designated Driver soda that I could handle.
My enlistment ended two months later.”
19. Refuse To Share Maintenance Costs? Enjoy Your Waterless Labs!
“I work at a large University with many colleges and departments. I had become sort of a de facto building manager for 2 of the buildings that my Department had labs in just because I knew where everything was. One of the buildings was shared between 3 or 4 different departments.
We moved in when the building was built, about 15 years ago. All of the departments had labs of some sort, but not all of them were “wet labs” with sinks, chemicals, analytical apparatus, etc. Ours originally had the most web labs, another was mostly computer equipment, and the other was mostly structural models and stuff.
One of the building’s “amenities” was a centralized source of De-ionized (DI) water. DI water is used in many analyses where the water must be very non-reactive and non-conductive. An outside company maintained and swapped out the resin exchange tanks that processed the water. Because our department used about 90% of the DI water, we paid for the maintenance of the system, which probably ran a couple thousand dollars a year.
It wouldn’t have been worth it to try to transfer $100-$200 per year from the Departments, and we had no issue with this. However, maintenance is important, because if untreated water is used in systems needing DI water, it can invalidate experiments and foul filters that can cost $500 and up.
Fast forward 10 years. Some of our labs have moved to a different building, and another department (medical research related) moves into those labs. I don’t know specifically what research they are doing, but there’s a good probability that they are using DI water in the labs.
DI usage goes up about 1/3 to 1/2 after they move in. I mention to our fiscal staff that we ought to try to get them to share maintenance costs, but no one pursues it.
Fast forward another 2-3 years. Due to some internal politics and some mechanical failures (the hood ducts were corroded out), our remaining labs were set to move to a remodeled building elsewhere on campus.
About 1.5 years before the move-out date (the remodeling took a loooong time!), I contact the other Department’s chairman and tell him that we will be leaving, so someone needs to take over the maintenance of the DI system, and that since our contract was due for renewal, this would be a good time to do it.
He refers me to their fiscal head, who, in no uncertain terms, tells me “we’re not interested”. I try to impress upon him that we are not going to maintain a system in a building we are not even in, but he pays no attention.
I mention this to our fiscal staff, but again, they don’t pursue it.
I try to contact them again 6 months before moving out. This time I push harder, but again the chair defers to the fiscal head, who assures me that they do not use any DI water in their labs, and they won’t be taking it over or paying anything.
I try to argue, but he’s completely uninterested.
What I haven’t mentioned is that we were forced to move out by the College, so they were paying for the remodel in the other building. They continually underestimated the costs of the remodel. Just before our labs were going to move over there, they realized they hadn’t cost in a new DI system.
The quote from the DI company was about $10K to install a new system, and the College was already continually whining about cost overruns.
I suddenly get an epiphany! If I could have grown a handlebar mustache, I would have twirled it! I ask the DI company, “can we just move the existing system over to the new building?” They basically say “Sure, no problem, that wouldn’t be much more than a normal service call.” Our Staff is skeptical, but I show them my past emails where the other department had emphatically said they didn’t use it.
So, it’s a go!
The day comes, and they move the system over (surprisingly easily). I sit back, chuckling to myself, trying to figure out how long it’ll be until we hear something. A week? 2 weeks? A month? I have no idea how often they use DI water.
Well, I was wrong, I got an e-mail the next day! A researcher from the other department contacts me over email (I didn’t know any of their staff) and says he was told to ask me if there was a problem with the DI water in the building.
I innocently explain to him that the system was moved. He blows up! “That system is part of the building, you can’t take it!” I ask him if he had ever contributed to the maintenance of the system. He says no, that we had never asked. I send him all the previous correspondence where I had asked both his chair and fiscal head to take it over, and their claim that they didn’t use it.
“But they didn’t ask me!” he says. At this point I shrug and say I’m sorry, but you’ll need to speak to your chair about that.
I was laughing so hard after that conversation, the lady in the next office came over to ask me if I was ok!
I have never had such a pure sense of schadenfreude!
Could we have moved the DI system back to the original building? Probably, but forget that, I gave them every chance to do the right thing, and they were greedy little jerks about it. Suck on them apples!”
18. Overachieving In English Class To Silence A Superiority Complex Professor
“A few years back I was in my 3rd year of university. Due to some miscommunications during my first year, I was forced to go back and take lower-level English classes that I thought I had tested out of.
This story takes place in my English 201 class, which was mostly freshmen, a few sophomores, and me, the lone junior.
This class was well-known as a “filter out” class – that is, it was intentionally made difficult and frustrating so that people who had declared as English majors, thinking it would be an easy degree, would be discouraged and give up, switching to a different major.
I don’t agree with the concept of filter out classes, but I understand the intent behind them. In any case, I wasn’t too concerned. I was a junior and this was supposed to be a freshman/sophomore class. I was also taking a 350 level English class at the same time, so 201 should be a breeze.
Wrong.
The classwork wasn’t too difficult, but the professor was irritating, at best. Completely infuriating would be more accurate. He had a bit of a superiority complex and nothing was ever good enough for him. I detested him but kept my mouth shut because, of course, he was also head of the English department.
Here’s where the malicious compliance comes in.
During class one day, we were supposed to go through the material we had chosen to write our next essay on and identify “a few” literary devices. No sweat – I had chosen my favorite poem to analyze, so I skimmed over it (it’s one of Tennyson’s epics) and pulled six or seven examples of literary devices.
The professor walks by as I’m doing this and says something to the effect of “that’s not good enough, you need to give me more.”
This was in-class work that we were supposed to do as a head-start on the homework that night, which was, iirc, to write two to three pages on the literary devices used in the piece we were analyzing.
Six or seven devices identified in about 15 minutes isn’t good enough? Okay. Game on.
What my professor didn’t know was that this poem was my absolute favorite and I had actually memorized most of it due to how often I reread it. So that night, I sat down at my laptop, pulled up a webpage that listed all 30-some literary devices (which, in class, the professor had only gone over like 10), opened up a blank Word doc., and got to work.
In under 40 minutes, I had three pages of three columns of tiny, tiny type, and over 130 examples of literary devices neatly listed. I submitted it with a note that read something like “apologies for the small type, but I didn’t want to go over the page count” (this prof was a stickler for page count minimums and maximums, because of course he was).
This was a Thursday, class didn’t meet again until Tuesday, so I waited.
Tuesday rolls around, and when I get to class, the professor basically doesn’t acknowledge me for the entire hour and a half. That’s fine, I don’t like speaking up in class anyway.
Wednesday night, I get an email from the professor. I don’t remember the exact wording, but it essentially said “thanks for all the hard work on your pre-essay.”
He never bugged me about in-class work again.”
17. Company Won't Pay For Weekend Travel? Enjoy Paying For My Mini Vacation Instead!
“A little background; I took a position within my company that required a cross-country relocation from the West Coast to the East Coast along with a change in corporate divisions. I knew as part of this deal I’d have to return to the West Coast once or twice a year, a total of maybe six to eight days a year, to handle some integration things.
So, I packed up, left family and friends, and got happily settled in at the new job. A few months go by before the topic of a return trip to the west coast pops up in a meeting. The guy who organizes our release schedules has pulled some dates out of his hat for the trip; it’s a Monday to Thursday.
We coordinate with the customer and carve all this into granite.
Let me take a quick detour here. The guy who maintains our schedule is Dean. Dean is paid a princely sum to maintain an MS Project schedule and do a couple of other simple things.
Dean doesn’t seem willing to use the MS Project feature that allows you to import holidays into your schedule so he once picked some arbitrary dates for a couple of hardware techs to do work over what turned out to be Thanksgiving.
It happens that this division of Mondo Corp doesn’t pay us to travel on weekends and Dean has me meeting the customer on Monday morning.
I bring it up in our next staff meeting to confirm that, indeed, unlike my old division, they won’t pay for weekend travel. My manager says nope, no pay for weekend travel. I’m not happy I have to donate half a day on Sunday to the company.
I have a little epiphany. I ask if Friday travel is authorized. My manager says, “Sure, why not?” I ask again, “I can fly back to the West Coast on Friday morning, get a rental car, stay three extra nights, and Mondo Corp will pay!?” The answer is still yes.
I spent the weekend revisiting my favorite eating haunts, visiting family, visiting friends, and in general having a good time; all paid for by Mondo Corp. I get to work Monday morning with a nice tan and a bit of a hangover.
Epilogue: Dean stopped scheduling things for Monday mornings.
He now prefers we meet with customers on Tuesdays.”
Another User Comments:
“Your manager was probably thinking “maybe we can finally get Dean to pay attention to what he’s doing” running through his mind during that meeting. Was there, perchance, evidence of a suppressed (or blatant) grin on said manager’s face during that conversation?” kagato87
Reply:
“He was pretty droll to begin with so it’s hard to tell what he was thinking. It’s entirely possible he wanted to get Dean’s attention.” absintheortwo
16. Underwriter Refuses Help, Gets Left Behind In Loan Applications
“I’ve been working as an underwriter for several years. I evaluate loans that are submitted through the queue. I also forward some loan applications (apps) to senior underwriters should applicants apply for a higher amount. Part of our expectations as underwriters is to decide on at least 3 apps each hour.
If we do not meet this request then we are put on warnings and are subject to being fired.
I work alone with another underwriter on Sundays. He let me know that he was very low on his decisions per hour and in the spirit of cooperation – and because my numbers are always well above that due to experience – I ask him how many apps he’d like to work out of the main queue and it is first come first served for apps.
At first he was appreciative of the help and would let me know how much he was going to do and I’d be sure to leave the apps for them.
A month ago – he IM’d me and told me to stop asking him how many apps he was going to do that day as he was feeling micromanaged. I let him know that I was just trying to help him meet his numbers and that I was only asking to make sure I didn’t get in the way.
He told me to stop communicating with him and to just work the queue. (I made sure to document the conversation should there be any backlash for the upcoming malicious compliance.)
From that day on – I just used my experience to my advantage and claimed as many apps as I could.
On a normal Sunday there are around 150 apps. Under our arrangement before – I did half of them and left the other 75ish for him. The queues and how intense the applications can vary which is why I’d always communicate with him. After that – I did as many apps as I felt I could while still being accurate as that is another thing we are judged on.
For the last 3 Sundays the amount of apps the other underwriter did has gone down to around 20 apps each Sunday due to how fast and accurately I was able to get through the rest of the queue. I also stopped answering his questions in the chats and said that I was too busy working to answer his questions.
He is now on a verbal warning – and he is too prideful to tell me he was wrong or apologize – so I’m keeping course. I was able to change shifts and no longer work Sundays due to how good my numbers look so I will no longer have to work with him alone on Sunday.
I still refuse to answer his questions the other days of the week we work. I have not been approached by my management for my malicious compliance and have only been praised on my work thus far.”
15. Trapped In A Pest Control Contract, I Used Their Own Terms To Escape
“We moved into a new house in February 2019, and I had twins in April 2019. I was on maternity leave for 3 months and pretty sleep-deprived, as you can imagine. One afternoon, a pest control company came and knocked on my door asking if we had pest control, and offering a discount for signing up.
In my altered mental state, I didn’t research/think enough about it and signed up for a one-year contract, with service every 3 months, which they advised I could cancel at any time with 30 days’ notice (unfortunately I did not get this in writing). Also, they indicated that my children, pets, and I would not have to leave the house when they sprayed.
The first service comes around. They tell me right before that children under 2 have to be out of the house for two hours after spraying. I am unprepared for this and tell them to just spray outside and they agree and say they will come back another day to do the inside.
They never do. The bugs get worse instead of better. I call them and they say it’s because they didn’t spray inside and all the bugs are getting in. They offer to come out again. I find somewhere to take the babies for the afternoon and they spray inside.
Bugs are worse yet. I call and ask to cancel and they tell me I can, but they will charge me the remainder of the contract. I ask for a manager to call me back (spoiler alert: they don’t).
I forget about it because I’m going back to work and dealing with my kids.
The second service comes around and I decide to let them try one more time. Bugs get worse again… I think they may have been spraying sugar water. I call to cancel again and get the same answer. I do get escalated this time, and they tell me there is no one in the entire company who has the power to cancel my contract without further payment.
It’s at this point that I realize that I don’t have a copy of my contract and I feel dumb. I ask them to email me the contract, which they do (which was also dumb because the contract itself says that to be binding they had to provide me a copy upon signing with a 3-day rescission period, so it basically was already unenforceable).
I read it and notice it has an arbitration clause that says I can’t sue them (not that I was planning on it) until we undergo 4 hours of arbitration, with them providing the arbitrator. Where I live, arbitrators cost about $400/hr, and the remainder on the contract was $240.
I immediately email and demand arbitration. I get a call within an hour that they’ve canceled the remainder of my contract and there will be no charges, plus they’re refunding my last service. Then, I posted how I got out of it on their social media page to help all the other people complaining of the same issues.”
14. Denied A Refund For Delayed Delivery? Chargeback To The Rescue!
“A couple of years ago, I ordered an express parcel delivery from the UK to the USA via one of these third-party parcel shipping companies. For those who are unfamiliar, they are a ‘middle man’ and they hold huge accounts with UPS, DHL, FedEx, etc. They then offer cheaper parcel rates and pass some of this discount onto the customer.
So I ordered an Express 48-hour delivery with one of these delivery companies for my two parcels to the USA. This cost me around £100 for the two boxes and from experience using this delivery company in the past, they have a delivery guarantee which offers me a full refund of all carriage charges if any part of the shipment is not delivered within 48 hours.
A few days later, I was told by my customer that the boxes had arrived two days late.
Not a problem – I checked the tracking number and it had been held up at the UK-based air freight terminal which entitled me to a full refund of the carriage charges.
I then contacted the delivery company, but I was told that although I was fully entitled to a full refund, I’d have to speak to the third-party shipping company.
I contacted them by phone and I was told that they don’t issue refunds for delayed parcels.
I explained that this was a guaranteed service and the delivery company said that I was entitled to a refund. At this point, I was passed onto a manager by the call center operative without even asking!
The manager was very obnoxious and wasn’t bothered that my parcel had been delayed. In his opinion, I shouldn’t expect it to get there on time when I had paid such a low price.
“So you want a full refund just because your parcel is delayed?!”
Yes, I do because that is what was in the terms and conditions.
“But you didn’t buy the extra insurance!”
No, I didn’t because the delivery already included £1,000 of insurance anyway.
“……. Well, we don’t do refunds for delayed parcels, and especially if you haven’t paid for the insurance.”
At this point I was getting pretty annoyed because he was making up this idea of buying insurance to cover for delays – the insurance only covered total loss and damage anyway.
So I explained that if I didn’t receive a refund, I would simply initiate a chargeback on my credit card for the payment.
At this point, he raised his voice and told me
“Fine! Try to do a chargeback then! We will fight it and you won’t get a refund! Yeah, your parcel was late but that doesn’t mean you get a free delivery!”
I ended the call and got straight on the phone to my credit card company.
They went through a rigorous process with me and asked for a copy of the original invoice, the terms and conditions, etc.
Within 24 hours, they’d refunded the full amount back to my card and sent me a letter giving me the reasons they found the chargeback in my favor.
It also explained that the merchant (the shipping company) had 30 days to contest the chargeback.
However, 30 days came and went and the money was still showing as refunded.
6 weeks later, I received an email from their customer service team telling me that they were willing to give me a partial refund of 10% to compensate me for the delay.
Obviously, somebody hadn’t realized that I’d initiated a chargeback and now it was too late!
So I replied and politely explained that I was told by the manager (stating his name) to initiate a chargeback because their company doesn’t issue refunds even when their terms and conditions say they do.
Therefore, as far as I was concerned, the matter was now closed as my credit card company had given them 30 days to reply to the chargeback and they had not replied; therefore the chargeback was granted.
Not only did I never hear anything back from them, but I haven’t used this company since.”
13. Unfair Sick Leave Policy? Enjoy Shutting Down Your Business For A Week
“This is a story my Dad told me the other day.
My Dad has been working for the same company for about 30+ years now. My Dad is extremely smart. I don’t say that lightly. When he was 3 years old (yes, 3 years old) he rewired my grandmother’s toaster oven when it broke.
He graduated high school early and has always excelled in mathematics, physics, and most tech-related areas.
My dad began working for Company X after finishing his associate’s degree. He was taking some time off before going back to school as he and my mom had just got married and he needed funds.
So my dad began working in Company X’s printing pressroom as he did not have the academic credentials to apply for the job he really wanted at the time. This company printed everything from books to magazines, newspapers, and the like. According to my Dad, he actually really enjoyed working in the pressroom, it was a lot of manual labor and he was stuck on 2nd shift but he really liked his coworkers and he enjoyed learning about the machines they used, as well as how to run and repair them.
My Dad has a great work ethic, he always works hard as did most of his coworkers. Apparently, the management at the time was kind of lousy. My Dad had been working at the job for several months when he got the flu. He was informed by a coworker that while they were able to call out sick, it would count against them when it was time for reviews.
It was clearly an unfair and ridiculous rule.
So my Dad came into work the next day with a fever and nausea, he carried around a trashcan with him for most of the day. It was a long and brutal shift and he was thrilled to finally leave.
By the time he left though, everyone on 2nd shift had been exposed to the flu as well as everyone coming in for 3rd shift.
The company ended up having to shut down the printing press for almost a whole week because nearly every press room worker was sick with the flu.
While I’m not sure my Dad had planned such a glorious outcome, he was very smug telling me this story and said he would do it again.
My Dad went back to school and finished his degree and got a job much higher in the company and now has quite a few people working beneath him.
He never gives his employees a hard time about taking sick days.”
12. Decide You Want To Fire Me? Good Luck Getting That Project Done
“I worked for a small company for the last 2 years as a Software Developer. And with small I mean, that I was the only employee, so for many projects my boss had, I wrote the main part of the code base. In March, I made a mistake in one of the updates, and from then on, my boss made it a habit to yell at me at least once every day and tell me how stupid I am.
Additionally, he started to call me outside of my working hours, to demand fixes for problems, that for the most part were his own mistakes (to be fair, my code quality started to go downhill after I had several mental breakdowns thanks to behavior).
At the start of May, he said to me that he didn’t want to fire me, but would recommend that I find another job in the next month.
So I applied to several companies and was waiting for the responses when he decided to terminate me nonetheless 2 weeks later. He wrote a termination letter and sent it to my home address, but didn’t say a word to me. So I was quite shocked when I received the letter which stated that I was fired, starting July the first, and that I should take my remaining 20 vacation days (which is the rest of my annual leave) in June.
But in Germany (where I work), the employer is only obliged to give you the rest of your annual leave if you worked MORE than 6 months in the company for this year. Additionally, an important project, which I had been working on since February was due in mid-June and not even close to finished because my boss had prioritized tickets from other projects.
So, I wrote my boss, that I would like to take the vacation days immediately, as written in the termination, but if he needed help finishing the current project, I would be willing to have the remaining vacation days be paid out to me. As soon as I sent the message, I saw in the chat program that he was typing.
He answered, that the number of vacation days in the letter of termination was a “minor spelling mistake” and that I only had 6 days left. After a quick chat with an attorney (a friend of my parents), who started laughing, when I told him of my boss’s reaction, I wrote my boss a formal mail, in which I informed him, that I would definitely take the vacation days, as stated in the letter and because the termination also stated that the remaining vacation time will not be paid out, I will withdraw the regarding offer.
The next week, he grudgingly accepted the 20 vacation days and I will never forget the expression of defeat on his face on the last day when he realized that the project he took a loan for was about to phenomenally fail because I was the only one working on it and he didn’t even try to understand how it works (his slogan always was: As long as it works, I don’t care).”
Another User Comments:
“My brother’s boss fired him for no real reason. He had an employment contract signed by the boss. They both go to HR who didn’t have a copy of it. My brother had a copy on his phone and sent it to HR.
The HR woman, who hated the boss, said that they were halfway through the three-year contract, and since the firing could not be shown ‘for cause’ the place had to pay out the rest of the contract. So my brother got to stay at home getting paid by them monthly for a year and a half while also collecting unemployment.
I think by the time the unemployment ran out he found another job (he was in a high-income profession where it does take a while to get a job due to competition and the vetting process). He had no debts and his wife had a high-paying job so most of the money went into savings.” Zoreb1
11. Complain About Free Lawn Care? Enjoy Your New Responsibility
“Background: This happened a while ago when we lived on a city block of semi-detached houses with tiny front yards. At one point the older guy who lived next door (there was an alley with sidewalks and grass separating our house from his, which had another house attached to it) passed away and a flipper got hold of the house.
They basically did a cosmetic pass and sold it for tons more than they paid. New neighbor seemed nice but immediately began having tons of problems with the house and a couple of years later had moved across the country and abandoned the property.
I had their number and called to ask if they minded me cutting the grass in front because it was really long.
They were super apologetic and explained they just couldn’t afford to keep up with the repairs and the mortgage, the house was going to be foreclosed on, and even tried to pay me for cutting the grass which I refused. It only took about 5 minutes extra (these are city yards we’re talking about) and kept it from looking like there was a vacant house on the block.
One day I had just gotten done cutting the grass and went back inside when there was some knocking at the door. I look out and it’s the neighbor two houses down, with the vacant in between us attached to their house. They were sort of urgently/angrily demanding that I “come look at something”.
Thinking there was something consequential going on I came out and walked with them to the front of their house.
Neighbor, looking at their yard in irritation: Do you see what’s going on here?
Me, looking around, having not a clue: uhhhh….?
So it turns out that each time I cut the grass I was inadvertently blowing grass clippings onto the neighbor’s landscape pavers and they were really not pleased with this.
I tried to explain how I was just trying to help keep the block looking nice by cutting the grass and that as soon as a mild breeze came by the grass clippings would vanish from the pavers. Well, they weren’t too happy with that and demanded that I keep the clippings off their pavers or sweep them off whenever I cut the grass.
At that point I was pretty annoyed but just said in my nicest neighbor voice “no problem at all, I’ll take care of it, you won’t have any more issues”. Went to get a push broom, swept their pavers off real nice, and then proceeded to comply with the request. I made darn sure ZERO grass clippings got on their pavers by not ever cutting the grass in front of the abandoned house (attached to their house, remember) again.
It looked atrocious until it dawned on them it was now their responsibility and ended up having to pay someone to keep cutting it until the house went through foreclosure.”
Another User Comments:
“The spring after I moved into my current house, over 20 years ago, I got an “anonymous” letter telling me/my household that if we couldn’t keep our yard under control ourselves, we should hire someone to do it.
We had moved in that fall. The previous tenants were a pair of brothers, and that previous summer one had “lost his battle with depression.” The reason the yard wasn’t taken care of was because the surviving brother was in mourning. And the neighbor wasn’t as anonymous as he thought, because it was pretty obvious that it had to be the owner of the only house for sale on the block.
If he had bothered to come talk to us, or even to the brother, maybe I wouldn’t still remember him with disgust. Thankfully he’s left, and in his place is a gentleman who not only had his children out and about mowing everyone’s yards, (until they got into high school), for very reasonable rates, but still mows the lawn of another neighbor who isn’t able to, nor able to afford to hire someone.” CostumingMom
10. Want To Fake A Dog Allergy? Get Moved To The Back Row
“Yes, I know people have legitimate allergies. Don’t nitpick this story, the woman may have had allergies, but they only popped up when it was convenient.
This was in 2000. I was traveling with my service dog and my family. We had seats in the back of the plane.
At the check-in, an entitled business class ticket holder Karen spotted my service dog, went up to the desk, and demanded we be bumped off the flight because she was “highly allergic” to dogs.
She began wheezing, sneezing, and gasping on cue. (Side note: we had been sitting within 2 feet of her for over an hour. My dog was under my chair, as he was trained to do. She spotted him when he came out to get water).
The CSR stated he would be happy to bump HER to a later flight.
Karen pitched a fit (forgetting she needed to cough, wheeze, and sneeze). Karen requested a supervisor. The supervisor came, listened to her, and stated that if she wanted to stay on this flight, they would do everything in their power to move the seating so that my dog was as far away from her and her family as possible.
She happily agreed.
She and her family got moved to the back row. My family got put in the empty first class, where my dog got his own seat. (Yes, they covered the seat with a blanket and I put my coat on it as well to keep the fur off.)”
Another User Comments:
“LOL. Excellent result for you. I am quite familiar with the convenient “allergy.” Yeah, my sister claims to be deathly allergic to cats and dogs . . . to the point that she refused to visit our house for YEARS after we had lost our last cat.
She refused to come even though I told her that my SO’s son is VERY allergic to cats, and he could come in for hours with no problem (the carpets had been replaced, the interior repainted and we had mostly new furniture and deep vacced the old stuff, etc).
Oh, no, sister claims, she would still be risking her life due to the old cat dander — she said it was just impossible to get it all. Cue to BBQ at my parent’s neighbor’s place a few months later and sister is sitting in a deck chair for a good 30 minutes with the neighbor’s cat laying right underneath her (unbeknownst to sister) — literally inches away from her feet.
Not a sniffle or sneeze the whole time, and she kept going into the house for food and drinks without a sniffle or sneeze even though that cat lived in that house for years and it was covered with visible cat hair. I guess the good part was that we didn’t have to clean up for my very persnickety sister to visit.” phreeeman
9. Disrespectful Assistant Learns The Importance Of Exit Interviews
“I’m the HR Manager of a medium-sized company based out of the United States. We are in an industry that relies heavily on most people having an assistant to manage their schedule, handle their phones, etc.
I had someone tell me on a Wednesday that their assistant was leaving.
Let’s call the assistant Andy. I talked to Andy who said his last day would be the next Friday. It’s less than two weeks’ notice, which is annoying but not illegal, and I understand that things happen, so I’m not gonna put up a stink about it.
Andy was a nightmare for the next week and a half. When trying to schedule interviews for replacements, he kept insisting on prioritizing certain candidates because he wanted to do it his way. He wouldn’t follow our recruiting protocol and complained to his boss that we were pushing back, when we most certainly weren’t.
But the worst part was scheduling the transition meeting/exit interview.
At my company, our policy is to conduct a transition meeting and exit interview together. I do these meetings, and they are usually pretty harmless. I’ll give the employee their final paycheck as required by law, tell them about how to sign up for benefits after they leave if they want (COBRA), share info on porting over their retirement, etc. After going over all the transition information, I’ll conduct a brief exit interview asking them about how we can improve the working experience, etc. I always tell them that this exit interview is for their benefit as a final means of giving feedback to us, but I also make it clear that they don’t have to share anything they don’t want to.
All in all, these meetings usually take somewhere between 15-20 minutes.
At first I had a time on hold with Andy to do an exit interview on his last day. He then emailed me and said he wouldn’t be able to do an exit interview because his priority was wrapping things up for his boss (let’s call him Ben).
I let him know that I needed to be able to give him his final paycheck and additional information; he told me to just leave the paycheck on his desk.
By this point I’m fed up with him because his emails are incredibly rude, so I cc my boss, the Head of HR (let’s call her Carol).
I tell Andy that there’s more than just the final paycheck that I need to share, and that I’d be more than happy to share more about our company policies in our meeting. I also said he’s welcome to reach out to anyone on the HR team to ask.
Andy ignores my email. I follow up the next morning. I run into him in the elevator and he literally refuses to acknowledge me—not even to say good morning or smile awkwardly. He ignores this email too.
By the afternoon I’m over it. I tell Carol, who calls Andy.
Carol says, “Hey, I heard from OP that she’s having a hard time getting a hold of you to schedule an exit interview.” He responds that he’s just soooo busy wrapping things up for his boss and he really appreciates us following up but no, he won’t be available, and if there are any issues, we can reach out to his boss.
Cue the malicious compliance.
Carol lets him know that this isn’t optional, and that it’ll only be 15 minutes, but if he’s so busy we can certainly reach out to Ben to make sure there’s time carved out. He stutters and isn’t able to make a coherent sentence, then says we don’t have to do that.
Carol says it’s ok, we understand the need to make sure Ben is on board, so we’ll call Ben on his cell—and she hangs up.
We then call Ben, and she tells him, “I’m so sorry to do this, but Andy let us know he won’t be available for an exit interview.
Could you make sure he has time for it? We’re trying to schedule something and are having a hard time.” He asks how long, and she says 15 minutes; he says “That’s really ridiculous, he should have 15 minutes. I’ll call him and take care of it right now.” Carol thanks him and we continue to have our meeting.
A few minutes later, Andy comes by and is fuming. He demands that we do the exit interview at that moment; I calmly tell him that there are important documents I need to prepare which is why we are trying to schedule time. Carol then calmly tells him that there are policies and procedures to follow when you leave a company.
The assistant says he doesn’t appreciate us going to Ben, and that he felt really disrespected; Carol gently reminds him that he said it was ok to check in with Ben, and we’re glad it’s a priority now, and how does 10 am sound tomorrow?
Andy stormed down the hallway, and we had our exit interview the next day at 10 am.
Best part? It would have been a brief 15 minutes, but then Andy got argumentative and we went over time.”
8. Didn't Expect Many People To Ace Your Tests? Your Questions Should've Been More Original Then
“When I was in college I took a class with this gem of a professor.
On the first day of class he asked how many people thought they would make an A. This being a tough engineering school where a C actually was average, something like 5 students out of a class of 60 raised their hands. He then announced that’s how many A’s he would give out that semester.
All of our tests for that class were multiple-choice exams we took online. We were allowed to refer to our notes during the test and we were allowed to study from old tests as long as we didn’t refer to the old tests during the exam.
Fair enough.
I studied for the first test but didn’t have access to any old exams so I did fine but not great. By the time the second exam rolled around I had made a friend who was in a fraternity that had multiple copies of old exams from this professor.
We and a couple of others took advantage of the rule allowing us to study from old tests. We quickly discovered that on these 50-question tests the professor had a repertoire of about 75 questions he pulled from. On the first copy of the test we studied from we took the time to work through the answers to make sure we understood.
By the time we got to the 4th copy we could answer before we even finished reading the question.
Exam time rolls around and, just as with previous years, he pulled from the same pile of questions. I think it took me 12 minutes to answer everything correctly.
In hindsight I probably should have let the clock run for a bit (we had an hour) but I went ahead and submitted it because I had other things to do. I checked in with the others I studied with the next day and all of them had gotten 90%+.
Sweet, definitely using that plan for test 3 and the final!
The next day we all received an email from the professor letting us know we were being reported to the Dean for an honor code violation. He claimed he had never had anyone make better than an 80 on one of his tests before, so the fact we all made 90%+ was clear proof in his mind that we were dishonest.
This being an engineering school we were all nerds who were pretty scared about receiving such an email, but we agreed the best course of action was to talk to the professor before he went to the Dean to tell our side of the story and see if we could sort things out.
We reached out to him and he agreed to meet with us after class.
When we met with him and laid out our case he was surprisingly receptive to our explanation; I think in reality he didn’t want to go through with the hassle of reporting us to the Dean.
So we left the meeting feeling pretty good and agreed within our study group we would keep studying from the old tests.
Well, about a week before test #3, this guy announces to the class that because some of us had found the previous test so easy, the next one would have twice as many questions in the same amount of time.
Being the cheeky jerk I am, I asked him as I was leaving class what would happen if someone made a 100 on this test. “God help you on the final” was his response.
So we used the same approach in studying for the test and found the same pattern of a limited set of questions.
Of course, in addition to the extra questions he had promised all of the questions on this test would be new. So while we again got to the point where we had the questions and answers memorized, we tried to make sure we understood the concepts as much as possible to deal with what we expected to be his wrath.
Test day comes around and lo and behold 87 of the questions are pulled directly from old tests. 10 are from a guest lecture where he basically pulled the question and answer directly from the slides, and 3 were filler questions like “1 + 1 =” and “The Earth revolves around the Sun, True or False.” I knew I had everything right.
I also knew I didn’t want to screw myself and everyone else for the final. I purposely answered the filler questions incorrectly so if he looked at the results he would know what I had done. I got my 97. I never heard from the professor about that third test, but I like to think of him rage-scrolling through the results.
I don’t remember details about the final, but do remember the format being the same as what had been announced at the beginning of the semester. My study group also worked together on a group project which we also made A’s on, so if he really only gave out 5 A’s that semester, we received them all.”
7. Ruin Our Shared Sewer Line? Pay $75,000 For Our Property Damage
“The house I grew up in was built on the side of a hill. Great views, but the geography posed some challenges for the city utilities, sewage in particular. Their solution was to put all the houses on the hill in what was called a “shared line.” Essentially, one big pipe ran through all of our backyards, just below the houses’ basements.
Effluent would flow out from the houses, into the shared pipe, and then down the hill to the city sewer line by the bottom-most house.
When we moved in, we were at the highest point that it was possible to build on and still be part of that shared sewer line.
But a few years later, someone bought a lot just over the crest of the hill and linked up with ours- without being part of the planned community that had an HOA that took care of the sewer line (among other things). And in fact, they did so without the HOA’s approval.
And so for the next two decades, my family would be the subject of near-constant harassment over the state of the sewer. Their end of the line was lower than ours by just enough that it would stop flowing and clog, often backing up into their basement bathroom and shower.
They’d accuse us of “diverting” our effluent to their line (because I guess we were some kind of plumbing wizards).
Now the reason nobody built a house on that part of the hill during the original development was that the soil was unstable. Something hydrology-related. Sure enough, over the years, that house would occasionally separate from the hill and slide down a couple of inches.
But our neighbors had connections in the code enforcement agency, so the place never got condemned like it should be. They just had to shore it up and reconnect all the utilities. The thing is, the further down the house moved, the steeper the negative incline was from their sewer connection to our junction box, making the clogs and backups even worse.
At one point, it got so bad that their sewer barely flowed. Some days, it got completely clogged. Somehow, this was OUR fault. They spent the next year calling us every time they tried to flush a toilet and stuff came out in their downstairs shower.
They called a plumber, who said they had to redo their part of the shared line. And to do it, they’d have to bust through our two-story masonry wall so they could get a backhoe onto our property and dig out the line. Of course, we had issues with this.
We said no, you will NOT come onto our property and tear it up with a big piece of construction equipment. Hire human laborers or something.
But instead, they hired lawyers who started slinging paper around. According to them, we were in violation of state law that specifically gave an implied easement granting a homeowner access through another’s property to maintain their own.
So we hired lawyers of our own, who said that we basically had a choice: we could win the case – but pay a ton of money – or just let it happen. Either way, we’d be in trouble.
But they pointed out one important fact: that 20-year-old masonry wall wasn’t in the greatest of shape anyway, so…
A few months later, we presented them with a bill for $75,000 for the rebuilding of the wall, installation of a new set of stairs, replacement of the entire wrought-iron fence that had separated the two properties, re-sodding, replacement of ornamental plants and shrubs, and some minor repairs to OUR sewer (which they had messed up while re-laying their pipes).
I’m not a general contractor, but my guess is that they could have hired pick-and-shovel labor to dig out that pipe and replace it with a new one for a fraction of that price. But no. They had to have a giant caterpillar tread machine do it.
They balked. But then we handed them a photocopy of the letter that their lawyers had sent us with “pursuant to paragraph blah blah of the common code of blah blah blah” citing the NEXT paragraph which stated that the person USING the easement was 100% responsible for any damage that might be caused. They still balked, but my parents put a lien on their property that stayed there to the day they tried to sell, at which point they HAD to pay up or the purchasers’ creditors wouldn’t underwrite a mortgage.
I think they had to pay interest too, but I’m not 100% sure about that.”
6. Teaching The New Teacher A Lesson In Compassion
“Background: my father is a teacher at this same school who has received multiple crystal apples and changed many kids’ lives because of his compassion, dedication, and understanding. He’s also been a teacher for about 25 years at this point.
I am very much my father’s daughter and have never gotten on with malicious teachers in the past, other than that, I was a model student. I was also mistreated by my mother in secret, my dad didn’t know because I was too scared to tell him, but whenever he saw it he always intervened on my behalf.
A major problem with her was my grades (I only got a C three times in twelve years of education, and those were all in advanced math classes but even high B’s were practically a sin to this woman).
So, onto the story: It’s junior year, late winter.
My school had this thing where every so often every quarter the teacher was to print out a copy of your grades (including every single assignment) and you were to take it home to get it signed by your parents because “parental involvement leads to positive academic progress.”
Obviously, this being a high school in a rural town with a lot of kids who had less than great parents, almost nobody ever did these, hadn’t since 5th grade. Most teachers accepted this and just made it extra credit. Obviously, admin didn’t like this, however their hands were tied as all they’d told the teachers to do was make it some kind of assignment so kids can get a little easy credit, which they’d done, and most of them were smart enough to be union teachers and were kind enough and had done this long enough to know what could happen to kids when you make these mandatory.
But not James (not his real name).
No, James was young, just started his teaching career a couple of years prior, and way too sure for his own good. He also didn’t believe in unions, and so was not shielded by the administration’s wrath even a little when lo and behold, for the third year in a row, less than 10% of the class actually got these darn things signed and turned in.
So we walk into class, and James is sitting at his desk pouting with steam coming out his ears. He basically yelled at all of us about how we were ruining his job and how with his newborn baby at home he didn’t have time to pester and shepherd us into doing this sort of stuff.
So instead of learning, we were all gonna go to the really cold computer lab and write essays about personal responsibility.
Needless to say, this annoyed me, but, we had to do it. So we get there, he’s throwing his little tantrum in the corner, and I’m staring at a blank page trying to think how I want to do this.
And I get a wonderful, glorious idea for some malicious compliance.
For reference, I got a five out of five on my AP writing exam later that year, I am a darn good writer when it comes to essays and such. So I wrote an essay absolutely eviscerating him for doing this and explaining why he had a personal responsibility to protect his own job, union up, and do his job as a teacher to help kids succeed with compassion rather than force.
Of course, this was in much nicer terms, and written in such a way where it was just general enough to not be a personal attack, but he would still get the point.
I’d technically done the assignment, it was a 3-page essay on personal responsibility, and I’d made sure at the beginning to admit to and list the personal responsibilities of the student in the first paragraph, and it was general enough that it didn’t talk about the consequences I faced at home directly, so I felt safe on all counts, and confident that this was the right move.
I finished this essay about half an hour into the period, printed it, and put it on his desk without saying anything. About five minutes later he comes over and asks to see me in the hall. I’m anxious but obviously I comply, and to my surprise he was awkward and seemed to have understood the scolding and apologized to me, saying he hadn’t considered that some kids’ parents could behave that way (he grew up in a rich neighborhood, with rich, well-to-do parents and likely wouldn’t have known it even if his best friend was being mistreated).
Feeling a bit braver I told him it was alright, but he shouldn’t do this kind of stuff, and if he didn’t want to join the union, he should at least talk to teachers like my dad and try to see how they were getting around admin’s rules on this.
He just kinda nodded and shuffled his feet and we went back into the lab after that.
He called the essay off in a hurry and we all went back to the classroom and got to have about 20 minutes of free time before the period ended.
As far as I’m aware, he listened to me and did in fact join the union so admin couldn’t put him in that position again, and while he’s still a bit of a jerk from what I’ve heard since I’ve moved away for college, he’s toned it down a bit and hasn’t given anyone crap about this since.
Moral of the story: don’t be too proud to talk to senior members of your field or members of your union whether you’re in it or not and have compassion for your students.”
5. Unjust Library Fine Leads To Unexpected Solitude And Redemption
“It was the late nineties, I was still wearing too much flannel and continuing my historical trend of keeping books from the library much too long. I had a paper due for my sophomore Global Studies class, so I naturally took out more books than I could read, wrote the essay, and completely forgot about the books piled in the corner of my bedroom.
After a series of overdue slips sent to my homeroom, I eventually did return the four or five books one sunny afternoon in the anonymous drop book during a study period. Promptly moved on to bigger and better things.
About two weeks later, I was called down to the assistant principal’s office in that space of time before classes officially started that was reserved for one thing and one thing only – the reprobates and delinquents were in trouble.
I walked the halls thinking that surely this was just a timing mishap and I was being summoned to receive congratulations for some kind of award I didn’t know I had entered into competition for. Yup, he just wants to prepare me for the surprise ticker tape parade.
I was wholly unprepared to hear that I was receiving lunch detention, to start immediately, because I had not returned a single book, that I still remember was slim and had a white and red cover, from my GS paper research. I tried to argue that there was a mistake, since I was sure, like I am sure that I have fingertips, that I had returned it.
But he could not be moved, and I was sentenced to indefinite lunch detention until I either returned the book or paid the sixteen bucks to replace it.
I left the office, late for first period, defeated, but kept my head held high at lunch later that day as I walked past the entirety of the cafeteria, which held a couple hundred of my peers.
Plastic food tray in hand, I went down the hall to the old shop classroom that had since been moved and the awaiting detention. I checked in with Mrs. Brown at her desk in front and took an inconspicuous seat in the back. Staring down at my canned peach slices, I braced for the worst. A murderous ruckus was going to break out any minute, I could tell.
But once my ears stopped ringing, I discovered that it was really a calm escape from the crowded and rowdy lunchroom. I ate slowly that day, enjoyed my young thoughts in blissful quiet, and wondered what kind of heaven was this.
To be fair, I did search far and wide for that book that first day.
Attempts to find it in my locker, bedroom, and backpack were fruitless and the general consensus in my home was that the school was being ridiculous. I certainly wasn’t going to pay for something I didn’t lose. So the next day, considering my brief brush with the law and the invisible stain already attached to my reputation, I went armed with a book and my lunch past the maddening crowds to the detention room.
I sat there, day after day, for nearly two months of lunches.
In retrospect, to this day those remain some of the most relaxing lunch breaks of my life. I had around forty solid minutes to recharge in (mostly) complete silence with my reasonably priced lunch and whatever book I was currently reading.
I had to recount my origin story a few times, since no one could figure out how the quiet bookworm of a girl who had never been in trouble before had landed in the wilds of detention, but I was mostly left to my own devices in this newly found peaceful retreat.
I was friendly with Mrs. Brown, who had worked for the district of my small town since I was in elementary school, and even hooked her up with a sweet Horse Whisperer poster that she loved from my family’s mom-and-pop video store. She must have felt bad for me, because somewhere around the one-month mark she started up a collection to cover the cost of the book.
She added the initial donation, but teachers who would stop by to chit-chat would add loose change to it, and the race to buy my freedom was on. After a few weeks she handed me just under seven dollars.
My love of solitude was no match for the guilt of carrying around that money or my mom who had just started a new job in the school district, so with a heavy heart I paid in full for the missing book and went back to my old lunch table in the thick of the action.
Months later, during the last week of school, I was called down to the library at my convenience and with sweaty palms forced myself to face the music over what was inevitably going to be yet another overdue book at the end of the day.
Well lo and behold, the end-of-year inventory check had located the book as waylaid in the wrong section of the library. I received a few sheepish looks from the librarians as they refunded the money and apologized in a backward way that still made me the bad guy, as overdue books are the real blemish on one’s character, so how were they to assume that I didn’t lose the book.
Remember my mom’s new job in the school? Well she just happened to be walking by the library just as I was finishing up and to say that she laid into them is far too extreme sounding. But she did scold some stern-faced librarians into giving me a proper apology.
She also demanded that they look into reforming their system and, my favorite part, take the proper measures to expunge my record – she was very concerned about me carrying around the albatross of false accusation apparently.
And just like that my life of crime was over…”
4. Outsmarting Classmate's Snack Day Rules With A Box Of Potatoes
“Back in high school (around 2010) I used to work the closing shift at Dunkin’ Donuts on Sunday nights.
Per company policy, I could box up two dozen donuts to bring home with me before throwing the rest out. One dozen went with my dad to work in the morning, one came with me to school – specifically my Spanish class, which was a pretty small and pretty tight knit group (tends to happen when a lot of course work is practicing conversations with each other).
This practice of bringing donuts every Monday sparked an idea in one of my classmates’ heads (she’s Anne in this story). Since it’s so nice to have donuts once a week, we should do a weekly snack day where everyone can bring something in! They decided this would be on Thursday, and I said I’d just continue bringing in donuts every week on Monday as my contribution.
Everyone was very OK with this, except for Anne.
No, no, no… this snack day was Thursday, and if you aren’t going to bring in a snack on a Thursday then you aren’t welcome to participate. I was pretty upset, but what can you do, it’s only one snack one time.
Then I got to thinking about it. I was only required to bring a snack, not something sweet or delicious or even palatable. As long as it was edible then it counted.
My next closing shift I grabbed an extra empty dozen box. I went to the store on Wednesday night and got a five-pound bag of potatoes.
I washed them and put them right in the box, and dropped off the box early in the morning to my Spanish classroom so nobody would get wise to the actual contents. Apparently the earlier classes had seen the box sitting on a shelf and had told our class that we had donuts.
Everyone was excited. I brought them up and put them on top of the Elmo projector, trying my best not to betray the extra heft.
They all scurried up excitedly and Anne herself was the one to open the box. A blank expression turned to raw frustration.
“You were supposed to bring a snack today!” she protested.
“I did!” I said, walking up to the box and grabbing a potato, biting into it while making direct eye contact with her. “You don’t have to have any if you don’t want.”
Everyone shuffled back to their desks, and Anne tried desperately to grasp a new argument out of thin air but it was not coming.
I finished my potato triumphantly and brought the rest home for my mom after school. The box was checked, and she could not try to exclude me from the weekly snack day anymore. Everyone else in class who thought she was a bit over the top thought the antic was hilarious after they got over the initial disappointment.”
3. Deny Me Safety Equipment? Watch Your Packages Pile Up
“I work for a large shipping company in Canada. I work early in the morning loading trucks but as needed would go out and deliver packages. At first it was here and there but it soon became normal that after my regularly scheduled shift I would go out and deliver.
This wasn’t a requirement of my job, I was basically doing it as a favor because it looks really bad on the managers to have packages go undelivered and I thought it would look good on me. I did this for a few years without any issue.
One winter one of the drivers at a different depot slipped and hurt himself while out delivering. This caused a new initiative to force all drivers to wear super slip-proof boots that have glass embedded in them. These run about 250 bucks. All of the drivers received vouchers that would cover the cost because they are requirements for doing the job.
When I went to the manager to ask if I would be getting a voucher, he replied with “no sorry you’re not a courier” and walked away. I went and told the other employees who were in a similar situation to mine and they were pretty displeased.
The next day, as usual after my shift the manager started telling me the things I would be delivering that day. I waited for him to finish and responded with “sorry I’m not a courier”.
He looked very confused, like he didn’t remember our conversation from the day before.
So I explained that I wasn’t going to go out delivering because I wouldn’t have the proper safety equipment. He had that “I just smelt a fart face” and just looked at me for a second. He said “if you just work a few extra shifts then you can afford to buy the boots yourself”.
I was actually stunned and I didn’t know what to say so we just stared at each other for a minute. I eventually replied, sorta laughing because of how ridiculous this is “so you want me to work without the safety equipment you made mandatory until I can afford to buy it for myself?” He scoffed at me like a 14-year-old girl and walked away without an answer.
A few others followed suit and when the managers asked them to go out delivering after their shifts they replied with “sorry I’m not a courier”.
After all was said and done they had so many leftover packages, that a few companies started dropping contracts (which directly affects the managers’ end-of-year bonuses).
They ended up having to give promotions to a lot of the workers that were doing double work for half the pay, to cover all the backlog. So we all ended up getting paid more to do less and best of all we finally got our safety boots lol.”
2. Don't Want Me To Leave? I Look Forward To Spending My Last Days Doing Nothing
“Last month, my manager drops a bombshell: the company has decided to scrap the big project that my team has been working on for the past 2 years.
We must wrap up everything and, starting in June, we will all be moved to different teams.
Now, I’m a data analyst, and the company doesn’t have any open projects that require a data analyst. So they looked at my profile, saw I had some basic knowledge of programming, and decided to move me to the dev team.
Both I and the dev team think it’s an insane idea because I will need lots of training before I become useful (and I don’t even want to be a full-time dev!), but upper management hasn’t bothered to ask for our opinion before making all the arrangements.
I immediately start looking for a new job, and as luck would have it there is an extremely high request for data analysts in my area. Within a few weeks I have an offer in hand and I give my notice.
My contract (I’m in the EU) is very strict regarding notice periods: a resigning employee must give 2 months’ notice.
This is entirely for the benefit of the company which will need to find a replacement. (The same applies when a company fires an employee, they must give the employee 2 months’ notice.)
However it’s possible to shorten the notice period by mutual agreement, so when I sit down with my manager and HR I tell them I’d like to give only 2 weeks notice and leave at the end of May.
I tell them that I’ve already started wrapping up my activities before my move to the dev team, and I don’t have any ongoing projects that I need to transfer to my colleagues, so 2 weeks would be more than enough to finish documenting everything.
They say absolutely no, I have to stay here for the entire 2-month period.
Which… is fine by me?
My new job doesn’t start until August and I don’t mind being paid in the meantime. The only reason I suggested shortening the notice period was because I thought I was doing the company a favor. I thought I’d be stealing their paycheck if I stayed for 2 months even though I don’t have anything left to do.
But since they pretty much told me I was being unprofessional, or that I was trying to cut and run… okay, I’ll take their money in exchange for sitting around doing nothing for a few more weeks.
You may think: but OP, they’re going to find some boring task for you!
Well, they can certainly try, but the projects they’re working on are so different from what I do that I’m pretty much useless to them. For example, someone will ask “can you do XYZ?” and I will honestly answer “I’ve no idea what a XYZ even is, but I will be happy to help if you teach me.” At that point, they’ll say it would take too long and it’s not worth it to train me since I’m leaving soon.
So, my working days now go like this: I show up at 9 am sharp and go to my office, where I’m the only person since the others were moved to different teams. I have a leisurely second breakfast, check my email, then send a message to our Teams group letting them know that I’m free and to ask me if they need help with anything.
Then I remote into my home PC and play until lunchtime. I have lunch, coffee, and I chat with my coworkers (they’re quite nice, it’s too bad that upper mgmt is crazy, I’m going to miss them). In the afternoon I usually check Reddit, I chat with my friends if they’re online, play a bit more, and I’m out of the door at 5 pm.
By the way, they would like for me to vacate the office so they can use it as a meeting room, but they can’t until I leave. There are no empty desks anywhere, the dev team already hired someone else and has no space, so… tough luck…”
1. Overbearing Boss Demands Minute-by-Minute Updates, Office Turns Against Her
“Last week I was working from home one day and got up to use the bathroom and make a cup of coffee. Took 10 minutes, tops. I get back to my computer to a bunch of messages from my boss, getting increasingly nasty about something and why I wasn’t answering quick enough for her.
I sent a message back with whatever it was she needed to know, and “apologizing” for not getting back to her soon enough.
When she finally answered me (about half an hour later) she said if I’m not going to be at my computer for any amount of time, I need to send an email to everyone in my office (including high-level executives) that I’ll be unavailable for X amount of time and why.
So that’s what I’ve been doing. My normal phrasing for the message is “Hi! I’ll be unavailable from this time to this time as I’m going to use the bathroom/make some coffee/etc.” Every single person in my office has told me it’s fine and I don’t need to tell them when I’m going to be gone for a few minutes, I then forward them the original exchange between me and my boss and apologize but say this is what my direct report has told me to do, and this is the result if I don’t.
They all dislike her as much as I do now.”
