People Admit The Ways They've Gotten Back At A Bad Coworker
47. I Became The Boss Of My Old Boss Just So I Could Fire Him
“I had a horrible boss back when I worked for a logistics company.
We will call him ‘David.’
This particular company did not hire directly for dock workers—you had to go through a temp-to-hire service, and Logistics Company had a 90-day window in which the dock super (in this case, David) could call your temp agency and tell them your stint at Logistics Company is over.
The temp would be called into the office, where David would look at them and say with a large grin, ‘It’s just not working out.’
This jerk would ridicule new temps about the way they dressed—industrial temp workers usually are quite poor—talked, mannerisms, you name it, in front of everyone at shift meetings.
When a new batch of temps would start, he would pick an unlucky one out and ride him or her until they quit or made some minor mistake that he would chalk up to the temp agency as the reason this person was not working out.
David was married to some big-shot at a hospital in town. She was the breadwinner, so he had problems with keeping some low-level super job. To top it all off, David was also the only minority with a supervisory position so Logistics Company didn’t want to fire him.
David was simply a shift super for the dock and had no desire to be promoted because he had absolutely no responsibilities except to post an end-of-shift report, which he had one of the receivers do for him (that was my job).
For 2 years, I typed this jerk’s nightly reports, knowing full well he never witnessed any of it going on— he just sat in his office eating or riding the dock on a golf cart and looking for reasons to fire new people.
Anyway, I was hired in as a temp, kept my head down through David’s crap, and eventually got promoted to head of a different department away from him. Three years later, Logistics Company decided that receiving (David’s department) was lacking direction, and decided to hire a department head for them.
I got the job. I was now David’s boss.
He turned pale when it was announced the next day at work. I thought he was gonna die on the spot. He knew that for years I witnessed every bit of the terrible things he had said and done to the temps.
I showed up nightly for three months on his shifts to ‘monitor’ how David ran his shifts, watching him make stupid mistakes one after another—any one of these things I could have easily terminated him for. But I held out and documented everything.
When it finally came time, I called him into my office, armed with months (years, really) of stuff to fire him for, but I simply looked at him and told him, ‘David, it’s just not working out.'”
46. Moving Stuff Around On My Desk? Careful, I'll Record You Doing It
“I had been working as a second-tier support technician for a fairly large corporation for about six months, supporting both Mac and PC users.
The support team I was on consisted of a hillbilly imbecile—we’ll call him Keith—and a bitter, middle-aged grumpy jerk—we’ll call him Bill.
Well, I sit in a cube, and opposite the wall I face is Bill’s cube.
Across the aisle is Keith, who always speaks as if he is at a rock concert. In other words, I can hear him through concrete walls. Bill hates me with a passion because I took half of his responsibilities as well as the role of Mac Technician to help the creative team stay productive, which he argued that we didn’t need in the first place.
Keith hates me because he spouts socio-political hate speech all the time and I call him out on it every single time. The guy couldn’t stand to be wrong, even when presented with mountains of evidence proving it.
This is where it gets good.
For about three weeks, someone had been moving stuff around on my desk. At first, I thought it was one of the interns (who were all really cool and friendly) but I figured out it couldn’t have been them because we would go to lunch together and my stuff would be moved. So that means it was either Keith, Bill, or a ghost.
One day, I go to lunch and have a brilliant idea. I turn on photo booth on my MacBook! I stuff my laptop in the corner facing the doorway of my cube and off I go. It took me a couple of days, but I finally caught both Keith and Bill rifling through my stuff, moving things around on my desk, and I catch them talking crap behind my back to each other while they do it.
Now, I’m not a violent person, nor am I someone that would react irresponsibly towards this event. But this made me absolutely furious! I compiled the data into a single movie on my Mac, slapped it on a DVD, and walked on over to HR.
The human resources guy was taken aback by the footage I was able to get. He’d never seen someone come in with actual video evidence of their complaint regarding another co-worker.
Fast forward a few months, Keith left the company because he got denied a managerial position (big surprise there) and Bill is still working the same crappy position he had before with a dot on his record for harassing a fellow employee.
I left the company shortly after Keith to finish my bachelor’s and now I have a cushy engineer position with a small, yet awesome software company.”
45. My Work Didn't Give Me My Promised Raise, So I Took It In My Own Hands
“I was a typesetter when it was still done on dedicated typesetting machines and not desktop. This is pretty specialized work and demanded pretty good pay.
I agreed to take one job at less than my usual hourly pay for six weeks while I learned their system—one I hadn’t used before.
Well, six weeks came and went, and I didn’t see my promised raise.
In the meantime, the horrible shrew of a paste-up ‘artist’ went out sick and I was left doing both type and layout. A very important project came up, and there was only me to do it.
Without me, they’d be totally done for—even if they could find a typesetter who could do paste-up, there was just no time to run the ad, then hire and train one.
I reminded the owner and manager of the raise I’d been promised when I was hired, and how long ago that was.
Then I put all my personal desk tchotchkes in a box and told them they had until the end of the business day to make a decision.
I got my raise—retroactive to my hire date—by 5 P.M.”
44. When My Manager Told Me To Work With Our Worst Guest, That Was The Last Straw
“Once, I was working as one of the two laundry persons in a hotel.
The other laundry person had just quit and I was training in a new guy, who was not capable of working the job, let alone holding an intelligent conversation.
I just got another job offer and asked for them to match the salary of the new job to keep me on.
The manager not only refused my raise but then asked me to work on my only day off so she wouldn’t have to come in and train. I put in my 2-weeks notice and grudgingly told her I would work the extra shift.
At this particular hotel, there was a guest who stayed there each month, and we called him the ‘Food Man’ because he refused to use anything but the sheets and towels in the room to wipe the poo off his butt.
So every night he stayed there, he covered 2 sheets, 4 towels, and 2-4 hand towels and washcloths in his feces. I have no idea why the hotel management let him stay there but they were always the worst days of work.
The day before the shift I had covered, the manager comes and tells me, ‘Prepare yourself for tomorrow, the Food Man is staying here tonight.’
Pretty much the last straw. I finished the day, and then just didn’t set my alarm.
The manager got called in and ended up working a nearly 11-hour shift with the most annoying trainee ever.
I feel a bit bad for sticking it to the trainee, but there is always collateral damage.”
43. Playing Games In The Office? Maybe You Should Check Your Work Ethic Instead
“A lady on our team never did any work.
Instead, she would whine her way out of stuff or go on endless lunch breaks where she just played solitaire. Eventually, it got to the point where we were uninstalling the games from her computer accounts via the local admin accounts.
One day, I noticed she still had a game on her PC, even after we removed the default ones. That same day she left the office and left her PC logged in—a big no-no.
I got on her PC and found the game linked on the desktop.
I went to the shortcut properties and changed everything so that when she clicked on the game, it would open the Wikipedia page on work ethic instead of the game.
She doesn’t play games in the office anymore.”
42. Trying To Ruin My Career? Think Twice Before You Do That
“I’m an apprentice plumber for the county schools and got stuck with a true waste of tax dollars for two weeks. This ‘licensed journeyman’ had a reputation for laziness, poor attitude, crappy work ethics, and more, but couldn’t pin him on any of it because he was a person of color and always pulled the race card.
Yet, I had to work with him because he did his usual shtick on the boss, saying he didn’t have help when he needed it.
So they put me with him, and he said I would learn how a ‘real plumber’ works, so I should pay attention.
Well, to him, real plumbing consisted of finding an empty classroom to sleep in for two or three hours every day, demanding that I do everything for him while he sat around and made ‘business calls’ on his blackberry all day.
And if I ever had a question about something, he’d lose his crap and say I was worthless and should just go back to being a helper.
After the first week was over, I mentioned to my foreman that I wasn’t getting along with him—we’ll call him Jim.
He assured me that it would be fine and I should just deal with him for a few more weeks and he’ll settle down. Well, that didn’t happen, needless to say. In fact, I deliberately acted dumb, intentionally putting toilet parts in backward, forgetting to tighten faucet handles so they would spray at him when he tested them, and my defense was that he never taught me anything.
Well, that ticked him off—a lot. He actually shouted at me in front of a third-grade class, cursing at me, and the whole nine yards. We were asked to leave the school immediately, obviously.
The following morning, we had a meeting with Jim, my foreman, my supervisor, and myself about the mess that was the day before.
He started off by calling me a racist (I expected that one), that I was worthless, stupid, and should be fired on the spot for being a jerk.
Well, my supervisor and foreman turned to me, asked me what my side was, and I looked directly at him.
I responded with, ‘Well, I’m sorry I ticked you off, Jim, but maybe if you didn’t take a 2-hour nap every morning, deal with your private business on the phone during work hours, and actually showed me that you are a plumber, I’d actually respect you as a journeyman.
But instead, you’d rather be a lazy piece of crap, try to mess up my career before I can even start, and then you want to blame me for it! Screw you!’
He actually tried to jump across the conference table and take a swing at me, but my boss pulled him back and asked me to leave the conference room until they settled him down.
They ended up suspending him without pay for 10 days, and they won’t allow him to work by himself anymore, and he hasn’t even so much as looked at me since then.
Sweet, sweet justice was finally served.”
41. My Dad's Boss Wouldn't Let Him See His Wife Give Birth, So He Became His Boss
“This is not my story, but my father’s.
Back in the late sixties, he was working hard in an early IT/computer company. This is back when IBM was still known as International Business Machines.
He was the only one who knew how to support and manage some of the large microcomputers that some of the customers had.
His boss was giving him crap over my father wanting personal leave, as my mother was just about to give birth to her first child, my eldest brother.
He didn’t even want to allow my father to leave when my mother went into labor. My father lost his temper, told him off about how incompetent he was and how he was riding on other people’s talent. He quit right there and then left for the hospital.
I still remember my mother telling me that my father came in, congratulated her on the birth, and told her he had just quit his job. She laughs about it now, but you can imagine how she felt!
A day later, the owner of the company called my father and offered him his old boss’s job.
The kicker? The old boss now had to report to my dad.
That’s got to hurt.”
40. My Crappy Boss Had An Attitude With Me, So I Quit On The Spot
“I was hired on contract by a small 3-man start-up to do a particular job.
A year later, after they’d hired a few extras—including a product manager who was technically my boss—I was scratching around for things to do and thinking about moving on.
One day, my ‘boss’ (I didn’t like him at all) sat me down and proceeded to explain my next task.
Now I had absolutely no interest at all in this new work—it was mundane, boring work, and not at all related to what I was originally hired to do (and since completed). When I tactfully explained that it really wasn’t my area of expertise, and I didn’t really have any interest in that type of work, he told me that I ‘simply have no choice but to do what I’m told.’
Now, to be clear, it was more of a ‘How dare you defy me’ type of attitude, rather than an ‘If you want to continue working here, then you will have to work on this’ situation which, by the way, I would not have had any problem with at all.
Well, I all but laughed in his face and told him I had no interest in doing it. I could tell he was angry, and no doubt he was deciding how to get back at me. But before he had time to engineer his revenge I had cheerfully informed the CEO that, given I wasn’t actually working on anything, it was my last day.
And he was good about it.
It felt so good to then inform my ‘boss’ that I was finishing up that day. The look on his face was priceless! I somehow refrained from remarking that I ‘actually didn’t have to do what he told me after all.'”
39. My Old Jerk Of A Boss Got Told Off By My New And Better Boss
“A few years ago, I had a huge jerk as a boss—the kind of guy that would hire pretty young girls just to try and sleep with them, and leave early to dump the work on everyone else. Every time there was a problem that had been caused by him not being there, he would throw the assistant manager under the bus for him.
He even refused to pay me for a shift (I rang head office and got it sorted) for some crappy reason.
However, the worst thing he did to me was cancel my Christmas Holiday just so his significant other, who was breaching company policy by working there, could have it off.
This wasn’t the first time he’d played with my holidays to give them to a member of staff he liked more on the week or so I wanted off. When I called him on it, he told me that as my holiday was never on the board, I clearly had never been given it.
Also, my page was conveniently missing from the holiday request book. So I had very little proof and it boils down to my word against his.
I decided ‘Whatever, I’m going home anyway’ and I disappeared.
When I get back, a full-fledged storm is going on at my work.
Not only was I not the only one he screwed over, but head office was now aware of his lady friend working amongst us (considering he’s one of the reasons there’s a rule about people in the workplace not being allowed to go out with each other).
Nothing much happens to me. I get a short verbal warning from the assistant manager, who is clearly just happy his failings have been forced on head office. Employee opinion turns, and soon after my boss accepts a job at another store, despite it meaning he’ll have to spend over an hour on the train each morning and no extra pay.
I thought this was revenge enough. But nope.
Roll on last weekend. I still work at the same place but have a new manager with a very dim view of incompetence and favoritism. I’m the first one in after him in the morning, and I discover soon after, our management cover for the day was my old jerk boss.
On top of this, I had a holiday booked, and since him, I’ve always taken extra care to make sure they go through properly. I didn’t actually realize my old boss was standing behind me when all this was said as he’d just left with a clipboard.
My new boss obviously did though.
‘Any chance I can have a look at the new Rota?’ I asked. ‘I just want to make sure my holidays have gone through properly.’
My boss replies, ‘You had from this date to that date in the book.
I just gave you that.’
‘Great! It wasn’t up on the board so I freaked out a little bit.’
‘Never worry, I always remember. Guess I’m just that good.’
I thank him, then go to turn and walk away.
‘Wait,’ says my boss. ‘I guess you’ve had a problem getting holidays before then?’
‘Yeah, a few times when I started.’
‘With both the old managers or just the one?’
‘Just the one,’ I said.
‘The very old one.’
At this, my old boss stormed into the office like a man on a mission. Then he quite clearly forgets what he was going to say, or realizes neither of us is his employees and there’s very little he can do without owning up to his past behavior, so he just stands there, looking dumbfounded. Single-handedly the best moment I’ve had at work in a long time.
Later on, I turn to my boss and ask him if he was aware of the old managers being stood there. He replied with ‘Aware? I spent half the conversation making eye contact.’ Then he topped it off with, ‘He’s an incompetent fool—that was my way of letting him know that everyone in the companies has been warned to watch for him playing funny tricks.’
I think I might have hi-fived my boss after this.”
38. It Felt Good To Tell That Jerk I Was Leaving For A Job That He Couldn't Get
“I worked in a place where the management structure in each store consisted of a manager and three assistant managers. I was one of the assistants. The other two consisted of a pretty, thin blonde and a guy.
All of us, including the manager (who was also male), were in our early 20s. The manager definitely had his little ‘boys club’ going on with the guy. The girl was pretty and flirty and was treated very differently from me.
The two guys were definitely out to get me fired. I was constantly getting written up by both of them without being told and my manager finally scheduled a surprise meeting with the area manager (who was a real witch) to confront me and let me know that if I was written up just once more I would be fired. I am positive that my job performance was better than most people there and in no way did I deserve the treatment I was receiving.
We were not unionized, so at this point, there was no recourse for me but to quit, which I couldn’t do because I was finishing college and had living expenses to pay.
Soon after the ultimatum, I found a position in corporate to apply for and ended up getting the job.
I let my boss know that I would be out of there in two weeks and told him the new position I had gotten. Come to find out that this was the third time the position had been available.
My boss had applied for it twice, and both times didn’t get it.
They had even called him to let him know it was being posted the third time to see if he wanted to interview again. He didn’t because he was angry that he kept getting passed over. It was totally awesome to find out that I got the job on my first interview, and he couldn’t get it.
He left the company shortly after I left. The other two assistants are still assistants.
It felt so good to tell that jerk that I was leaving for a better job that he couldn’t get.”
37. Complain About Me Not Doing Triple The Work? I'll Triple The Amount Of Ice In This Bin
“A million years ago, I was waiting tables at my first job, and enter ye old standard jerk boss.
I could easily talk about how dumb he was, but I’ll skip to the straw that broke the camel’s back.
We were short-handed one day, and I was pulling double closing work for my shift (remember, as a waiter you make $2.63 hourly plus tips, so anything that doesn’t involve tips is essentially just slave labor that they can get away with pulling on you to keep your job).
After I finished up my work, I ordered and paid for lunch (something I would often do, since 1/2 off is a decent deal). My boss comes charging into the side room that employees would use to eat and relax in before and after work and just explodes at me (with an off-duty cook watching).
Another employee had simply bailed on their work, and he was blaming me for not having done triple duty before punching out.
Essentially, he tells me that if I don’t do the cleanup and restock before I went home that I would be fired (this was a waiter’s side station—restock glasses, straws, coffee cups, ice, etc).
I wanted to keep my job, so I did the job. But when it was done, I felt that it could be better. I opened up the ice bin and got another bucket of ice. Then another. And another. I filled the ice bin up to the ceiling, then I went home.
I had a message from him waiting for me when I got home, but laughed and went about my day. When I went in to work the next day, I had been fired, then an investigation had taken place, and I was rehired. My old boss’ hiring and firing privileges have been revoked, and had subsequently given his 2 weeks’ notice.”
36. I Gave Tootsie Pops To Everyone But My Crappy Manager And Assistant Manager
“This is fairly tame, but also somewhat childish, which is why I felt it would be amusing.
Back in 2005, I was leaving my job as the night auditor of a hotel to go to school in Arizona. The whole staff, with the exception of the manager and assistant manager, were pretty bummed out because I had made it my mission in the year and a half I was there to treat them all like people and not paid slaves like a lot of the guests & management did.
The day before my flight, I went to Wal-Mart and bought a big bag of Tootsie Pops. I went to the hotel at about 6 o’clock that night and got the set of master keys from my friend working the front desk.
Starting with the comments section of a guest reservation due to check in the following day, I left a trail of little riddles all over the grounds of the hotel. The back office, several guest rooms, a closet by the pool, in a bush—you name it.
It would require pretty much everyone working to get the game finished before most of the staff went home at 5.
The very last clue led to the maintenance tunnel that bisected nearly the entire building. At the very end of the tunnel, taped to the wall, was a heartfelt goodbye letter and a bag of Tootsie Pops.
The letter specifically ended with, ‘In this bag, I’ve put one Tootsie Pop for every single person that works at this hotel, except for the manager and assistant manager, because forget them.’ Then I signed it with my name.
A week later, I called up the hotel when I knew my friend who’d given me the keys that allowed me to set up the game would be working again. She told me that the game was a huge hit.
Thanks to the walkie-talkies that we used every day to communicate back and forth, the entire staff (front desk, maintenance, housekeeping, and even the breakfast hostess) had gotten in on it and were following my clues to the prize.
I also called my mom, who worked at the hotel next door (which, funnily enough, was where the assistant manager had started as a desk clerk).
I told her about what I had done and, after she stopped laughing, she revealed to me that Assistant Manager had been trying for a week to get my new number because ‘they wanted to talk to me about something.'”
35. My Boss Wouldn't Let Me Work Days, So I Made A Mess In The Stockroom
“I worked at a gas station when I was eighteen. Usually, it was on night shifts, which I didn’t mind so much until I realized that the craziest of crazy people came out to this place for their post-clubbing munchies.
Every night I had to deal with their crap, which is fine, but my manager was a nasty old man with a god complex. I was expected to stock and clean the entire cooler, mop and dust the entire floor, disassemble and clean every machine, scrub the bathrooms (which were disgusting every night), and do his dishes every night by myself.
This man would order takeout every day (which employees weren’t allowed to do, even on their breaks), bring in his own dishes, eat everything on them, and then dump them in the sink. If they weren’t washed every morning he’d flip something serious.
I was also yelled at numerous times when I first started for not having things done that no one told me about.
Anyway, I was sick of working nights, and I told him I’d like to be put on days since one employee had just quit and he said he was hiring a new night person.
He never got back to me on that, even after months of complaints from me about having to deal with people literally knocking over shelves because they thought it was hilarious.
One night, things got too rowdy. Three fights in the parking lot, crazy people running in and out ruining the store, the usual craziness of a Saturday night.
The cops were called down that night three times (also a pretty common thing), but one disgruntled weirdo wasn’t happy about having the law shoved up his behind and decided to run away.
He came back around 5 A.M. when my shift was ending and robbed me in the parking lot while I was walking to my car.
After that, I told my manager I refuse to work nights and that I wouldn’t come back to work until he put me on days.
Well, he did—for one day. We were both working together, and he asked me that night to stay until 5 A.M. again, which I refused to do.
He told me I’d be fired and that he’s ‘sick of having to deal with everyone’s crap,’ and just flipped out in general.
Having had enough of this mess, I agreed to stay, under the condition that I would be allowed to go home for half an hour so I could clean up and get ready for a double.
Before leaving, I went in the back and hid the employee files in a storage closet under a bunch of stuff so he wouldn’t be able to find anyone’s phone numbers to call them in. I then unplugged all of the soda machine syrup bags and let them flood all over the back room.
Then I went home, got changed into normal clothes, and went back to the store.
Confused by my attire, he confronted me. ‘Why aren’t you in uniform? Go get changed! There’s soda leaking all over the stockroom!’
I handed him my shirt and told him politely to do it himself.
I ended up making my boss clean up a mess of soda off the floor and work overnight without any help.”
34. In The End, Karma Is Always The Best Way To Get Back At Someone
“I used to have a baking job in a local bagel shop and I also did some prep work.
I was an ‘unofficial’ manager—I had worked at the shop for years and made more income than most employees.
Because my shift started early, I got to leave early. Some of the other employees didn’t like this, particularly a new girl and her significant other.
They always had attitude problems towards me, I never know why, they just didn’t like me I guess. Which is totally fine!
One day, it’s 11 A.M. and the significant other starts his closing duty and I tell him, ‘Sorry, man, but you can do all of your closing duties if you want, but you still have to stay until close.’
He runs and tells his partner and she starts yelling at me from the front while I’m in the back, calling me all sorts of rude names in front of customers. I asked her to come to the back if she wants to talk to me and she comes back shaking and I seriously think she is going to punch me in the face.
I am all done for the day so I go home and cry about it. I’m a sensitive person. She ends up quitting and leaving a note to my boss about what a horrible person I am. My boss crumpled up the note, threw it away, and told me what a great person I am.
Fast forward to recently, my boss runs into her stocking groceries in another town where she has moved back in with her parents and her peon significant other. In the end, I didn’t really have to do anything but turn to my friends (my boss) who helped me believe that I am a good person and others are just rotten.
I’m happy in a relationship, going to school and I have my life together (for the most part).
In the end, karma is the best way to get back at someone.”
33. My Boss Fired Me Without Warning And Unemployment Was Like A Victory
“A company I worked at for many years fired me without warning.
My boss was a strange guy, and I had seen him fire other people without warning as well.
He always offered to let people stay on for 60 days so they could find new work. But they would have to sign a document stating that they were ‘voluntarily’ walking off the job and waiving all rights to unemployment.
When he fired me, he also gave me the option.
I did not accept, as it seemed to be a much better deal to have unemployment in case I could not find work inside of the 60 days. The company tried to appeal my unemployment, but after several years of loyal service, the only black marks on my record were being less than 15 minutes late to work three times.
I let the judge in the unemployment hearing know that they offered to keep me on if I had signed away my right to unemployment. She let me know that it was against the law to do so and ruled in my favor.
Every weekly unemployment deposit was like a tiny victory until I found a new job.”
32. Guy Wanted To Fire Me For No Reason, So I Got Him Fired Instead
“This is a true story, I absolutely swear. It’s also past any statute of limitations and probably before any real laws existed in any form.
I had a jerk-wad that started at a failing dot com with me. Within the first week, he decided he wanted to fire me even though he had no idea what I did. I was actually the only IT person at this point and was probably one of the more productive people in the entire building.
He told me I had a week to ‘turn things around’ or I was gone. First of all, there was no explanation as to what needed to be ‘turned around’ or what in particular was wrong. My assumption is that he had his own guy he wanted to bring in.
I basically told him if he didn’t like it, I’d walk out right there. He was a bit taken back by that and after another nine months of being there, he was not quite a jerk, but still a jerk.
Fast forward another three months and we decided we were going to fire him. The decision was based on information I had provided to them in regards to his lack of performance and wasting of company resources. Irony, right? The owners (against my recommendation) gave him advanced notice of their decision and let him stay for an entire day in his office without any supervision.
As I didn’t trust him, I was monitoring his activity very closely. I discovered that he was copying a large amount of data from our servers and deleting it. Additionally, he was cleaning out his contacts and other client-related information (not personal).
He was copying all of this to a USB drive.
On the final day, the owners took him to lunch right before he was going to leave. I took the opportunity to ‘return’ all of the data he took (I had backups that I was going to restore.
However, I didn’t want him to walk away with stuff that didn’t belong to him).
Finally, a couple of very incriminating emails accidentally got forwarded to his wife. I was not snooping his private stuff, they were in his work account and when I was removing the items that he took, they were discovered. He was seeing another woman behind her back for months and was talking to the other woman about ditching her and leaving her with the kids.
Not sure how that worked out, but hopefully for the better.
Guy was a bit of a scumbag.”
31. You Want To Sleep On The Job? I'll Let You Get Caught In The Act
“I work nights in a group home for mentally disabled people, and I couldn’t stand one of my old coworkers.
When I had to work with her, it felt like I was working with one of the residents—she was just straight-up dumb.
Every single thing she did, she did poorly. Cleaning, medical care, cooking—she even burnt Jello one time. I took to doing all of the direct care work with our residents because I didn’t trust her to care for them safely.
Anyway, she had a habit of sleeping on the job. A lot. Over the course of an 8-hour shift, she’d be asleep on the couch for 5 hours. At first, I didn’t even say anything because I was just glad that I didn’t have to listen to her idiotic banter, but after a while, I started mentioning it to other coworkers, and my manager.
She got a warning for it, but that’s it since it couldn’t actually be proven.
One night, one of my residents got sick and had been taken to the hospital. She was released in the middle of the night, so my manager was bringing her back to the home at around 4 o’clock in the morning.
He called the house to let us know that they were on their way, and somehow the phone ringing didn’t wake up my dumb coworker. I told him that she was sleeping, and he told me to let her sleep so he could catch her in the act.
Just for fun, and to make the point that she wasn’t just ‘resting her eyes,’ I balanced a throw pillow on top of her head. He walks in and I take our resident to her room to put her in bed. As I walk back out into the living room, he’s just staring at her, shaking his head.
Finally, he jumps up and stomps both feet on the floor as hard as he can, and yells her name. She bolts awake and realizes the deep crap she’s in. I totally lost it, and couldn’t stop laughing.
She was fired shortly thereafter, and a coworker told me that she had been complaining, saying that she was going to sue the company for discrimination.
Apparently, she wasn’t ‘sleeping,’ she was ‘having seizures.’ Seizures that happened on a nightly basis, lasted for 3-4 hours at a time, and she didn’t bother to mention to anyone.
Yeah, she tried to pull that crap on a company full of people that take care of folks with seizure disorders.
What an idiot.”
30. This Ungrateful Boss Got What Was Coming To Him
“While taking time off university, I decided to work on a vineyard.
After doing a bit of research, I managed to find the ‘right place.’ This was contract work and the backpackers I was staying at was owned by the contractor who got you work on different vineyards.
Most of the time it was minimum wage, but occasionally you got commission work. One of the commission jobs was called ‘wire lifting’ which involved lifting rows of wires one notch up to support the vines (which is very difficult if you do it all day).
Anyway, with the ambitions to strike it big, I jogged the entire morning, ensuring I would get more rows done and get paid more. At our lunch break, the boss rocks up in his car and informs us that we are going too slow and only just cutting minimum wage.
We were running and getting the job done literally as fast as possible and this moron comes and takes the air out of our sails. Needless to say, I walked for the rest of the day.
Everyone hated this boss and finally, it reached a tipping point.
He turned up one morning to pick us up (late as usual, we got up at 6 A.M. to get ready for this guy only for him to get there at 7:30). So we went on strike. Not one of us worked. He needed 11 people for the job and had to call up family members for it.
His family are all lazy themselves and apparently struggled with the most menial of chores.
I quit the place a few weeks later before my birthday and then gave them a verbal lashing over the phone. All the backpackers made off with the kitchen utensils and left the place in ruins.
Some food for thought for that useless excuse of a boss.”
29. My Screwball Coworker Screwed Herself Over By Getting Coffee
“I was relatively new to this workplace and I had to open on a Sunday (not bad-11 A.M.) and my co-worker was due to come in at noon.
Our shifts overlapped about three hours, and she was closing that night.
We were the same age-19 at the time-but she was a major s******p with just about everything. She had been written up numerous times for coming in late and taking long lunches.
Once, she even went home and fell asleep during her lunch break. She was also known to take substances in the bathroom during her shifts. We were make-up artists in a department store. I had only been there a few months but would pick up her slack when she slacked off like this, and I wasn’t pleased about it.
Anyway, we had worked together several times at this point but this was the first time a manager wasn’t scheduled to come in at all this day. The night before, she had remarked how she was excited for us to work together, just her and me.
I knew what was going to happen already.
It’s 12:05 and the phone rings. I have a customer I’m working with, but I answer it. She asks me if I want anything from Starbucks and if I’ll go ahead and clock her in.
I tell her I’m good and am hesitant about clocking her in but tell her I will anyway (and I do).
15 minutes later, I’m still working with the customer but manage a second away to tell a girl at another counter (we didn’t work for the same people) that my co-worker still wasn’t in and I was worried because I’d clocked her in and effectively put my job on the line for her.
You can see how well-liked she was because my friend decides to get my boss’ cell phone number, calls her up, and spills.
5 minutes later, the counter phone is ringing again. My co-worker is now 30 minutes late, and my boss flat-out asks to speak to her.
Am I supposed to lie? Screw that, I’ve already clocked her in which is blatantly against policy.
‘I don’t know,’ I tell her.
A bit of drama later, and she was canned. By the way, it turns out that she was out in the parking lot smoking and drinking her coffee the whole time.
And I received a warning for clocking someone in without them being there.”
28. I Like To Think I Had A Part In My Teacher's Dismissal From Her Job
“Well, I haven’t worked at enough crappy places to hold a decent story, but I can say how I got revenge on a college teacher who was also head of the department.
She was the kind who would instruct you to do something after showing you an example, but not how to do it. This became frustrating when she wanted us to replicate an action in JavaScript or Flash, and we had no previous experience.
For one of our assessments, we were told to create an animation using only the software provided by the college computers. Okay, I’ll use Adobe Director since I wasn’t comfortable enough to use Flash and had previous experience with Director for a good few months.
So the class works on their own individual assignments for a couple of weeks and months, and the time comes to show them to the class. I get called up and plug in my USB, launch the final Director file, and suddenly realize that the college computers hadn’t had their Shockwave player updated to the latest version, preventing me from playing the darn file.
The teacher said it was my fault and I replied that all she needed to do was update Shockwave. She refused and would dock me 50% of my marks once I could show it to her.
I complained to the head of the college and the next day I was called in to meet with head office.
I repeated what had happened and they said they’ll look into it.
The next week, all of the computers were fully updated with the latest Shockwave player and we no longer had that teacher for that class. After completing my certificate, I came back a year later to discover that she had left the college and was replaced.
I like to think I took part in that.”
27. The Owner Of The Shop Was Lazy And Didn't Trust Me So I Quit And Left Him Desperate
“Just out of college, I had a job in a local DIY shop (small place, family-owned, the sort of place where you know 80% of the customers).
Far too often, I ended up covering the owner’s shifts when he’d gone out the night before and was too intoxicated to drive in, or delivering items that the owner had promised to customers but couldn’t be roused to get out of his office to run his business.
I even ended up walking his dog that he brought in most days.
One morning, I woke up and had a bad stomachache. I decided that after two years with no sick days, I was entitled to the day off, so I phoned the owner and advised him that I couldn’t make it in.
That afternoon, I had to make a trip to the shops for some vital supplies. The owner saw me driving and phoned my mobile from a withheld number, demanding that if I’m well enough to drive, then I should be at work.
To cut a long argument short, I told him that if he couldn’t trust me when I told him I’m too ill to work, then I quit. He demanded that I work out my notice period—at which point I remind him that he never bothered to give me a contract.
He even phoned me up later that day to beg me to cover the weekend shift.”
26. This Guy Talked Crap About Me In Meetings, So I Gave Him A Taste Of His Own Medicine
“I used to do IT work for a large University.
A few years back, they decided that having specific IT people assigned to specific departments, and being paid by those departments was a bad idea. Everything would be better if IT were centralized, then parsed back out to the departments.
(I argued that it was better to be paid/accountable to the people you were supposed to be helping, but that wasn’t really the goal in hindsight).
In many places, that might work. At this place, it was going to be a disaster for reasons that aren’t relevant to the story.
I knew it was going to be a mess and didn’t want to work someplace where a user is required to fill out a ticket before I can even look at their problem, so I decided to leave.
I found another job and gave my two weeks’ notice.
As I was cleaning out my office on my last day, a professor comes running down the hallway in a panic.
This guy had been a huge pain in my butt for years. He was a jerk, he was condescending, he thought he knew everything that mattered about computers.
The standard blow hard. I also knew he had been one of the biggest proponents of switching up how IT worked, and that on at least two occasions he suggested that the best way to save funds for the department would be to cut my position.
He always claimed that a central system would lead to faster response times. So while I had always been professional with him, there really was no love lost. (Although, I don’t think he knew I was aware of all the stuff he’d said in faculty meetings).
Anyway, back to the story. He’s huffing and puffing down the hallway, and says, ‘Oh, I’m so glad I caught you before you left. I’m giving a big presentation in 30 minutes to the Administration! My computer won’t turn on, and my only copy of my presentation is on there!’
I told him, ‘I’m sure if you fill out a ticket with the central IT desk, someone will be with you shortly.’
He just stopped dead still, and I think he suddenly pieced together that I knew exactly what crap he’d been saying when I wasn’t around.
He turned beet red and walked down the hall back to his lab, and slammed the door shut.
His stuff wasn’t fixed in time.”
25. I Got The Entire Engineering Team To Quit Because I Didn't Get A Proper Raise
“I took a low-ish paying job as a Process Engineer at a startup with the promise of a nice raise after my three-month review.
They said the company couldn’t afford to risk hiring someone and paying a large salary if it wasn’t going to work out.
Unfortunately, I was too young to get the raise promise in writing from the hiring manager and the CEO transferred him to a different location about two months into my employment there.
The entire engineering team was now working directly for the CEO—a total narcissistic jerk.
Three months after I started, I got no performance review and no raise. The engineering team started mumbling about similar problems and watching their savings accounts dwindle while they waited for promises to be kept.
Finally, about 6 months into my employment, I demanded my performance review from the CEO and went to HR with my concerns. About two weeks after arguing with HR and my boss, I finally got my review. I was the only one on the team to get one.
My review went excellently, and I even got Employee of the Month that month.
Once my promised ‘giant raise’ came around, I found it to be 10%. Let’s just say that 10% of crap is still crap.
I got with the rest of the engineers and told them openly what had happened and how much the raise had been.
Within one month, the entire engineering team—about 13 people—put in their notices.”
24. My Old Boss Was Committing Crimes In Front Of Me But Karma Paid Its Price
“When I was a wee nipper (back in the 90s), I worked in a computer shop as a Saturday lad.
As time went on, I started to discover what type of person the boss was.
Though he was generally okay with me, I started realizing how he would rip people off. Selling used games as new, burning gold CDs off, and selling them under the counter. He had obtained a load of PCs from somewhere and was selling them hundreds of euros cheaper than anywhere else.
One time, police had raided the shop and removed a load of items because they had been reported as stolen.
But the true moral insult came when a young man with a cognitive disability bought a computer from us. He was thrilled to bits with it, and he had gained quite a friendship with me.
I was showing him all these things it could do, and I downloaded a heap of educational software for him which he was finding really inspirational to learn from. Biggest job satisfaction in computers I have ever had.
A couple of months later, a guy comes asking if we want to buy a computer.
We power it up and I instantly recognize this system as being the young man’s. Without even asking a question, my boss jumps in, pays the guy a ridiculously low amount for it then puts the system round the back.
I was quite confused, but then the penny dropped when a week later, the original young man came in and asked us if anyone had tried to sell us his computer, as his flat had been burgled and it was stolen.
I was just about to say, ‘Yes they have! It’s right here!’ when my boss jumps in again with, ‘Nope! Sorry! Nothing! Will let you know if we hear anything!’
Unbelievable! He then stripped down this man’s computer, formatted it, and rebuilt all the bits into separate systems to make it untraceable.
A month later, the man comes back with his grandmother and they buy a new system from us.
I felt it was so wrong. Karma played its price though. He actually decided to ‘let me go’ as he didn’t need me anymore a few weeks later.
So I confessed it all (and everything else he was up to) on a website. Back then it was incredibly easy to manipulate search results. So my website came up before his did. It received thousands of hits. I spammed it everywhere I could!
Police raided his shop again, he was shut down, and he actually went to jail (again).
I also posted a sincere apology to that young man for not acting at the time. They didn’t have much and I dread to think how they found enough to buy a new system.
I felt like an accomplice. This was now 15 years ago and I still feel bad about it. However, I was only 15 at the time and my boss was powerful and basically a lot bigger than me.
Even months after, I was still getting threats that if I went anywhere near that shop I’d ‘get my head kicked in’ and I should watch my back anywhere I go.
The site had to be removed as I received a letter from his solicitor saying I had to substantiate my claims.
I just hope my site really helped spread the word and exposed the immoral jerk for who he really was.
I’ve since moved far away and can only hope he never started a new business when he got out of jail.”
23. My Job Wasn't Paying Everyone The Same Amount, So I Got My Revenge
“I worked in construction through one of the largest temp firms in Norway.
After a while, after talking to some of the people I worked with who came from the same temp firm, I discovered that people weren’t getting paid the same wage.
I asked my colleagues if they thought it was fair, and they didn’t. But like me, they had been instructed not to talk about their salary. And no one wanted to make a fuss about it, in case they’d just end up losing their job.
So I called up the firm and asked our supervisor why that was, and he gave some crap excuse about how people with more education and experience would get paid more than those without—for a job that required no education or experience (we more or less just did all the crappy jobs nobody else wanted to do at the construction site).
I told him that they needed to pay everyone the same, and he told me to stop causing problems.
So I talked to the firm which was running the construction site instead. The temp firm ended up terminating my contract (my supervisor told the construction firm that I had asked to quit earlier, and they believed him), while the construction firm ordered the temp firm to give everyone equal pay.
This ended up in a raise for everyone (except the one who previously earned the most), and my supervisor lost his job and was replaced with someone who was a bit more straightforward.
Some months later, I did some more work for the same construction firm through the same temp firm (but at a different site), and the pay was still good.
I felt great.”
22. We All Quit At The Same Time Just To Make My Boss Furious
“In college, I got an internship with a small-time furniture manufacturer. My guy and another person from school also got an internship there. Boss sucks. He gives no directions but expects everything. Comes in late, really flaky.
Asks us to steal images and logos from other companies to use for his website.
Well, my guy gets sick. He goes to the doctor, gets medication, and gets better. He was out for like two days and on the third day, he calls Boss to let him know he’ll be in today.
Boss is like, ‘No! You’re sick! Don’t come in!’
My guy says, ‘I took my medication and the doctor says I’m better.’
Boss gets mad and hangs up. Since we’re trying to save up to move out, my guy comes into work.
Boss gets there and loses his mind. So, we all three quit. Walk out at the same exact time. It was sort of a big deal since we were in the middle of making these marketing packs so the guy could start selling his furniture.
Screw that guy. He then refused to send my guy his last check. I call and threaten to get lawyers involved. Check was in the mail that same day.
Boss was previously fined a lot for making some people work overtime and not paying them.”
21. My Manager Made Me Do All The Work For Her So I Planned My Sweet Revenge
“I worked for a healthcare system as a supervisor in their call center.
They let my boss of seven years go for no real reason so we operated without a manager for several months.
One of the other supervisors was promoted to manager and she totally went on this power trip and was always asking me to do projects which were her job but above her knowledge level. When we had meetings with senior management, she would always present these completed projects and pass them off as something that she had put together.
I held my tongue time after time until I was fed up.
One day, senior management sends an email asking my manager to put this big spreadsheet together showing call volume trends across the day and then comparing the call volume against our current staffing levels.
I could see the panic in her eyes so again she came to me to put this project together.
Over the period of a week, I put this project together making it look real good. I then made a second copy and then went back to the original and really skewed the numbers really badly and changed up some of the formulas which did the calculations.
The day before the big meeting, I forwarded the project to her knowing that she was going to be out of the office most of the day and would not have time to review it.
The next morning we go to our meeting and she presents this project and hands out copies to all of senior leadership.
Within minutes I could see everyone’s face looking at the messed up numbers and such. They begin to ask her questions about the errors and I could see her once again start to panic and sweat pretty heavily.
I then spoke up and handed out my project which was correct and stated that I also decided to do one of my own.
She was on the verge of climbing under the table at this point but I had saved the meeting. A few weeks later she fired me for some bull crap but I had my small victory.
I now hear back from co-workers that she is totally lost and things are all messed up, people are quitting and she is now feeling the wrath of upper management.
Also catching grief was my former director who promoted her.
Ah, sweet revenge.”
20. My Boss Cut My Hours So I Stopped Showing Up Completely
“Before you ask, I was dealing with a crippling inferiority complex and some pretty bad depression which is why I didn’t do anything sooner.
I used to work for this local coffee and sandwich place down in Florida.
There were multiple locations and the one I worked at was in a library.
We would regularly be short on supplies or change or something, but it was the only job I had been able to find and it could have been worse so I dealt with it.
Then they moved all of my hours to a different location, half an hour away from my home, in a hospital. It was the only source of food for hospital employees (they only had kitchens for patients). This one was run far worse than the other, and I routinely had to go to the grocery store to make sure we had something to feed the people in the hospital. I’d be reimbursed for the cost of the groceries, but never gas, and usually I would be yelled at for getting ‘the wrong thing’ no matter how often I tried to compare it to what we had on hand.
They had always ignored lots of labor laws, but it got way out of hand here. I would be literally the only person on shift for eight or more hours, so no breaks. Ever. Bathroom breaks had to be fast and I had to run because the register was stuck open and the owner refused to give me a key to lock up or to fix it.
He would even have me open and would scream at me for being ‘late’ even though he knew I had no key. For a while, he made me have security let me in until security put their foot down and pointed out that it wasn’t their job and then he had to come himself.
He didn’t like that and did eventually give me a key (grudgingly).
I worked way more than 40 hours a week and never saw a dime of overtime, but I couldn’t find any other jobs so I toughed it out.
Then, suddenly, out of the blue, he cut my hours.
At first, I was glad to only work 20ish hours for a little while, but then it kept on going. Eventually, he had me working about 5 hours every other week.
So I told a coworker who worked before me that I wasn’t showing up on a certain day and then I didn’t.
I found out much later that he does this regularly to people to drive them to quit so he doesn’t have to fire them and pay unemployment.
What a jerk.”
19. My Workplace Was Super Childish So I Sent Them A Rejection Letter
“The semester after I had graduated from college, I started a teaching job at a K-6 academy that just opened up.
It was a bit of a rush job, as to how I was hired. I function under another business essentially as an independent contractor and the school hired me through my direct boss (who is an awesome woman, taught me a lot).
The admins ran into her at a clothing store and essentially hired me within a month. I couldn’t complain—I was in need of a job and I’m good at teaching kids.
It would’ve been better to have taken the time to understand how they wanted to run the school because during that first semester, I was put under a ton of stress.
I had only assistant teaching experience and was paid as such, but was expected to teach as a 14-year veteran. On top of that, they didn’t voice their issues directly with me, but with my boss, who was furious and entirely supportive of me.
I think they were trying to coddle me, but come on, if you want me to teach like an adult, be honest with your feedback and—as promised during the month before their classes started—actually help me improve my teaching.
No go, that promise went unfulfilled.
Cut to winter break. Several of the kids I had been teaching had already decided to leave and take classes where I regularly teach to this day. As January rolled around, my awesome boss got an email from the admins, also sent to me, that detailed the 50% cut in both my pay and time, relegating me to an after-school program.
Both my boss and I would have none of that crap, so I waited until the day before classes started to confirm my coming back. I sent them a rejection letter instead. They were pretty furious, but it was worth it for the childish, insulting email the principal sent to me afterward.
In the end, after all the health problems I suffered, I recovered. Now I’m teaching at two wonderful places (although a little short on funds, it’s worth it) and loving my job(s).
As an addendum, I went to pick up my last paycheck from them in person.
My mom had come with me because we were getting lunch, and while she waited and talked to the parents of my students, I went to grab the check and get out.
We were walking back to the car and my mother asked, ‘Was that your boss?’
‘Yeah, that was him.’
‘He looks like a loser.'”
18. Sending Your Little Spies To Watch Over Me? I Don't Think You Know Who I Am
“I worked for a pizza joint before and during university, about 8 years on and off, and became assistant manager. I also managed the shop for a time. All was good.
I then got a salaried job a fair distance away and left on good terms.
Fast forward a couple of months, I decide to make a few extra bucks by applying for a job at a pizza joint of the same chain.
I neglect to mention my experience and stay quiet sticking to answering the phones.
So a big Saturday night rolls around about two weeks into the job—I guess it must have been a sporting event, or a TV show final, and the shop gets super busy.
I watch the manager struggle for a little while, as the staff continued to lose confidence in him. I take a deep breath, grab an apron (I wasn’t wearing one to start as phone operators don’t need one), wash my hands, and tell the manager to go into the office and chill out for 10 minutes.
I then re-organize the entire staff so that they are most efficient, and start having fun. I told them, ‘Guys, if you all can make all these pizzas in this amount of time, I will buy you all a pizza tonight.
GO!’ (They managed it, but I managed to bag all the food for free).
The manager comes back out a few minutes later and just accepts that it was all sorted. From then on, I had people approaching me about Rotas, asking me what they were to do next, and all sorts of things.
Having worked there two weeks, it was pretty intense to do that.
So the manager starts taking advantage of my awesomeness, getting me to run shifts while he’s not there, etc. He then started letting people go, and bringing in his cousins and their sons and lots of other family people, always on my shifts and reporting back to him.
So I ask him, ‘So, am I having one of your spies on shift today?’
He flips out. How dare I accuse him of doing that? He goes on a 30 min rant while I just smile.
When he finishes, I say, ‘You still have no idea who I am, do you?’
‘No, and why should I care?’
‘I work for this company, who is in charge of store audits.’
I then lecture him about how badly he’s running the shop, walking around pointing out what was wrong, etc.
He kept apologizing and stuff, and later got in trouble because his cousins were illegal immigrants.
Luckily, the chaps that lost their jobs got them back fairly sharpish and I ended up helping out in a different store with a whole bunch of awesome people.
After a little while, I was like, ‘Screw that.'”
17. I Knocked A Foulmouthed Coworker Off His Feet And The Supervisor Took My Side
“I worked maintenance for the Housing office at my local University for 2.5 years.
There was another employee whose job was to dump all of the dumpsters in the residence halls every morning. I got trained on the job when he was on medical leave for 6 weeks.
This guy would cruise all across campus in the 4-wheeler looking for dumpsters to empty, pick up trash, etc. This was part of his job, but the problem was he would take 3 to 4 times longer than anyone else on the job.
It turns out he would do laps around the campus.
Since his last name was Fruit, we started calling him Fruit Loops. He was foulmouthed and would say the rudest things because there were a whole bunch of terminations a few months before I started working there, and most of the senior people got canned for embezzling funds and cutting corners on safety.
He was not fired because the former corrupt director denied his involvement with anything illegal—lies.
Handling dumpsters is pretty messy work, and so we wore heavy leather gloves. There were only two sets of gloves, and my coworker refused to share one set, so when the other set got really greasy and nasty, I had to clean them.
One day, I asked him to use his gloves since a bunch of fryer grease got on mine, and he threw them at my face knocking my glasses off and giggling like a child at what happened.
I leaned over to pick up my glasses, and then lunged forward, putting my shoulder into his chest. He fell to the ground and was shocked that I floored him (this came after months of him telling me he could beat me up).
I helped him to his feet and told him that if he didn’t stop talking crap to me, I’d do it again. The supervisor saw it happen and told the guy that he had been warned about being a jerk and that now he should learn to listen.”
16. Our Boss Was Planning On Firing Us All, So We All Quit Together
“In December 1999, I along with some of my school friends at the time used to wash dishes for a large hotel in my hometown.
The hotel had hired a new head chef a few months earlier who seemed okay at first, but as the weeks went on we started to notice a change in him.
It all began when he convinced all of us KPs (kitchen porters) to help him move his furniture into his flat with the promise of a few extra dollars in our pay packet. So we helped him move and lo and behold, come payday, not one penny extra.
Needless to say, we were not amused!
He used to mess about with our hours and would regularly get try to get us to work extra hours with the promise of overtime come payday, which never materialized. After a while of this, we started to flat out refuse the extra hours and that’s when the threats started.
Moving forward to December 1999, most of us had big plans for the millennium new year’s eve and had in fact booked the time off many months in advance. He decided to cancel all leave that night and threatened to sack anyone who didn’t like it so, grudgingly, we faced the prospect of washing dishes on the millennium eve.
Just before Christmas, however, I overheard him talking to another chef about how he was going to sack us all just after the new year. I spoke to the other chef who confirmed it was true so I promptly rang all the other KPs and told them what was happening.
We all agreed to quit there and then but not until later in the evening when the kitchen would be rammed with pots and pans. It was a beautiful thing to behold seeing the kitchen looking like a war zone and seeing the head chef’s reaction as KP after KP phoned him and quit.
He turned to me in desperation and I told him he could wash his own pots before storming out with a huge grin on my face.”
15. Throw A Fit Because I Called In Sick? Have Fun Working At The Gas Station In A Few Years
“My first job when I was 16 was working for a new fast-food chain that opened up in town.
Everything went great for the first few months, but then a few of the managers left and this one woman took over as assistant manager. She was a total witch. Drove a lot of young kids working there to tears on a daily basis.
We even had customers complain about how she was treating employees in front of them.
I ended up getting a ‘promotion’ (quotations because while I got more responsibility, I didn’t get any more pay) to Weekend Opening Supervisor. About this same time we had our store/employee review.
Mine went absolutely great.
A couple of weeks into my new position, I got bronchitis and went on mandatory medical leave. The day I came back, witch manager has me go outside and change the sign in front three times, in the middle of December, in Wisconsin.
I got sick again from being in the cold for three hours straight. Me missing all this work got her super ticked off, and she re-did my review.
The next weekend, I opened and noticed that one of the lunch products that takes 15 minutes to do was not prepped. It happened to be the one thing I did not know how to make, so I tried to call witch manager, and she yelled at me for calling her when she wasn’t on shift. When she did come in to start the lunch shift, she threw a witch fit and threatened to fire me, and talked about how I was useless and would never amount to anything.
So, I decided to quit.
During the lunch hour, the owner decided to show up. I talked to him privately and told him what happened, and he said he supported me and would give me a letter of recommendation wherever I went, and the best possible way to quit.
At the end of my shift, I went into the office, put my key on the desk, wrote ‘I quit,’ and walked out. All the kids in the kitchen saluted me as I drove out of the parking lot.
Fast forward 6 years, witch manager is now working at a gas station, and I am one of the lead front-end web developers at a very successful dot com.”
14. Think I'm A Horrible Teacher? Think Again—I'm Teaching In Korea Now
“I had a bunch of jerk-face bosses who were looking all school year for reasons to fire me.
It got to the point where I was turning in three times the number of lesson plans and had less freedom to do my job than any other teacher at that school. It was all personal, too. Very unprofessional stuff like, ‘My son is in this guy’s class and he does it this way, so you should do it that way also.’
Meanwhile, I walk by said teacher’s class and he is showing the Peanuts Christmas special. They said my lesson plans weren’t detailed enough, so I asked for their best lesson plan from any other teacher, and mine were more detailed—a fact which shocked even me.
They spent so much time telling me I was a bad teacher that I actually began to believe it, and still kind of do.
Now, this school had a free years license to Rosetta Stone, so I switched my language to Korean and learned Hangul.
Almost weekly, there would be someone who would say, ‘Korean! Who the heck knows Korean! What will you ever do with that?’
At the end of the year, they told me not to come back, and I said, ‘Thank you, but I just got a job in Korea.’
They had the dean in there to make sure I didn’t make a scene, and I think even he was surprised that I was almost laughing as I walked out of the office and shook hands with everyone with a huge grin on my face.
Right now, I am sitting here at my desk in Korea as the only native English teacher at my school, and they love me. To tell you the truth, I might have stayed at that job another five or ten years.
Getting asked to not come back was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
13. My Boss Refused To Give Me Time Off, So I Pulled The Fire Alarm
“I used to work as a developer for a company that makes EDI software. My boss was a paranoid, penny-pinching, micromanaging jerk.
For example, he would say something like, ‘I know your contract says you can take an hour for lunch, but most people take just 15 minutes and I think you should too’ or ‘I don’t see any reason why you should not make a habit of coming in 30 minutes early and leaving 30 minutes later.’
My main grievance with him was that he refused to give me time off to be with my wife when her mother had only a few days left to live.
Our office was in a converted factory that was split into several units.
My boss’ brother owned the building. Within that building, there was us, a karate studio, and a children’s nursery.
I had noticed that the fire alarm panel at the main door to the building never had any lights lit on it.
It looked like there was no power going into it.
So I called the fire brigade.
The surprise inspection came 30 minutes later due to the fact that there was a nursery in the building. The building owner got himself a conviction and a €10k fine (I had hoped it would be bigger) and had to pay a ton to get a new fire alarm system installed.
A few months later, when I was made redundant in questionable circumstances I told my boss who called the fire brigade. It was a lovely feeling watching the color drain from his face.
I then launched a legal claim against him for unfair dismissal and my case will be heard by the employment appeals tribunal in a few weeks.
I have enjoyed punishing him for the horrible way he treated me.”
12. I Caught My Boss In A Lie, Then Quit And Partied It Up In Europe
“I worked in the IT department of a rather large law firm. A guy I was sort of friends with, that worked a couple of desks down from me had a sort of bad attitude and ended up getting into a long feud with the tech support manager, who was, admittedly, a stupid cow.
He ended up getting fired over the feud (and I think just his general attitude). He called to tell me about it the night it happened (I was working on a project after hours, so I wasn’t there when it happened).
The next day, my boss calls the department into a meeting to tell us that my pseudo-friend had quit, but that because he was in IT and had access to all the passwords, they were not allowed to give him 2 weeks’ notice.
This was, of course, complete bull. Everyone knew that he got fired, and everyone knew our boss was lying through his teeth. So, fast forward about six months later. I had just come through being scapegoated big time for some stuff I wasn’t even remotely responsible for, and I could see the writing on the wall that they were working on building a case to get me canned.
It just so happened that I got a job offer through a referral from a friend that worked at another company. So, when the offer came through for about 6K more, I did a little dance, and then I shut myself up.
My significant other was a flight attendant at the time, so we planned a little last-minute getaway between jobs.
The day before we were scheduled to leave for Europe, I came into work, did my best to close out all my issues, put out any fires I could (for the sake of my coworkers), and then I marched in and handed my boss my letter of resignation, effective immediately.
He read the letter—there was a long pause—and then he asked me when I wanted my last day to be.
I looked at him for a minute, savoring the trap, and reminded him that ‘because I had access to all the sensitive system passwords, I wasn’t allowed to give/take two weeks’ notice.’ His jaw hit the ground, he muttered some sentence fragments, and it was pretty clear I caught him in a lie.
The best part was, while we were living it up in Italy a few weeks later, I checked in on my bank account at a cyber café, and saw that my direct deposit had cleared a check for the pay period for two weeks after I left.
So even though I didn’t work it, I was given my two weeks’ notice in salary. That extra paycheck essentially paid for an extra week in Europe. And that extra week was by far the best part of the trip.”
11. My Work Refused To Give Me Time Off, So I Made Them Clean Big Time
“I worked at a restaurant similar to a Perkins or Denny’s as a dishwasher back when I was 16.
I was finally fed up with the manager scheduling me all the time when I asked for fewer days.
I looked for another job and got one (McDonald’s, and sadly, yes, the job was better). I put in my 2-weeks notice and requested not to work Valentine’s Day. I wanted to ask a girl out even though I was ‘Forever Alone,’ but she scheduled me anyways.
I was angry because if I’m going to be Forever Alone I at least should have the option to be otherwise, right? So I’m working on a Saturday night and the line cook orders me to clean out the grease trap, which she had specifically left full the two previous nights (when it was her working and her job to clean it out).
Cleaning this thing out is the most dreadful thing I have ever done for a job. The smells that ooze out of this thing would literally make me gag, and I had to scoop out the grease with a small cup into a bucket and lug it to the grease dumpster.
Considering this witch left this for me, I said, ‘screw it,’ and walked out.
She likely had to stay until 3 or 4 A.M. closing both the kitchen and dish area, plus had to clean that grease out like she was supposed to.
There were only two other dishwashers, and one was a smoker who showed up to only half of his shifts (and they fired him a few days before I put in my 2 weeks).
So the next day they call me and tell me they still want me to work because they were desperate.”
10. I Secretly Put Condescending Messages On The Braille Signs
“I worked at a sign company once and my supervisor had a nervous breakdown. She would sleep at the office, not shower, not change her clothes, wouldn’t work, wouldn’t do anything. Even though I was a temp I took over like a boss, going to meetings in her place and doing everything in the whole department myself.
Time came for my contract to be over, so the manager of the whole operation had to decide to hire me or not. She calls me into her office and offers me less than I was making through the temp agency.
I point out to her that I’m a good worker, that I had increased output by over 200%, as well as basically doing the supervisor’s job all at the same time.
She sticks to her guns, so I said, ‘No, thank you,’ and decided to just leave at the end of my contract.
In the meantime, every sign you see anywhere has braille on it as well. It was part of my job to engrave the braille text into each sign, so whenever I did one that wasn’t a number, I would make it say, ‘I hate this job and my cheap manager.’
No one but me could visually read braille, so no one ever knew. And before anyone calls me out, I didn’t do that to the fire and emergency-related signs.”
9. My Old Company Got A Visit From The State Health Department For Their Crappy Absentee Policy
“This wasn’t a prank planned by anyone where I used to work, just a nasty consequence of very bad policy.
I used to work in a cubicle nightmare. This particular company had a nasty late/absentee policy. If you were late by even a minute three times every six months (even if you called in as a courtesy) you would be fired. If you were absent more than one day a month, even for being sick, you were fired. A doctor’s note didn’t have much effect.
Basically, you could be fired for being sick and there was nothing anyone would do about it.
That led to a lot of people being sick with the flu at work. I had days where I threw up in the garbage from stomach flu and still had to work.
Well, this one day, a guy had a lot of coughing spells and was very sick, but due to the company policy, kept dragging himself to work every day anyway. Eventually, he got much worse. He ended up at the hospital, where he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.
A company-wide storm ensued. Anyone within coughing distance had to be tested for this disease. About a half-dozen other employees tested positive and had to end up in the hospital themselves.
The state health department came in and demanded a meeting with the employees.
We had that meeting, all right. The state got to hear all about the bad late/absentee policy that encouraged infection and made everyone sicker. As a group, we all let the official know that if the company had a better policy, that one guy could have stayed home and made the chance of infecting everyone else less dangerous.
I left the place around a month later to move to a new city. I have no idea if they changed the policy or what. I do know that the airflow in the place suddenly seemed to smell a lot fresher before I left for some reason.
The air in that place was pretty stuffy before then.”
Did anyone notice lasm1 didn't have anything to say? So pleasant.
8. Under No Circumstances Was I Going To Let A Boss Speak To Me That Way
“One summer I worked as a Car Marshall as a temp, where cars would be inspected/fixed for three car manufacturers.
Cars would turn up and we’d move them to the appropriate place. Pretty easy work.
One morning, a car turned up and it didn’t show up on the system. It was a bit of an odd case. My co-worker had just driven off in another vehicle so I jumped in the car and followed him (but a little bit over the speed limit).
The boss of the depo flagged me down and started to swear and shout at me, giving me a piece of his mind.
Yes, I was in the wrong. However, under no circumstances will I accept a boss swearing and shouting at me.
So I just responded, ‘Excuse me, Sir. Can you please speak to me like a human being?’
Well, that line got me the sack but honestly, good riddance. As I walked away, the boss was puzzled and asked, ‘Where is this car going?’ to which I responded, ‘Well that was what I was trying to find out.’
Oh, and I was a hard worker who never messed around with the cars, whereas the rest of the workforce was high all day and raced the cars around the depo.”
7. Thanks For Letting Me Go—I'm Now Happier Than I've Been In Years
“I was running a store where the owners regularly changed the books so it then looked like the store wasn’t doing so well and blamed it on me.
Fine, I dealt with that. I was still making a pretty good income and my store was toward the top of the heap of the almost 20 they owned.
One day, they decided that I was firing the entire staff for some pretty awful reasons such as being ugly, old, and all that.
If they weren’t fired and replaced within the next four months I’d be fired. The only problem was they were good at their jobs.
I couldn’t tell the staff what was going on and they slowly started back-biting me and trying to sabotage me when I was forced to cut hours a little.
The owners kept charging me for advertising that they refused to give me which was the one thing that would help business. I’d worked there for 9 years and had many customers that would only work with me.
Well, the owners are coming out again and I know I’m getting fired but tell no one.
I know that everyone on the staff will be fired within the next two months and tell no one. They didn’t deserve to know after all the crap they gave me for four months and they were all gone within 30 days of me leaving!
So the owners come out and most of the employees—right in front of me—throw me under the bus, straight-up lying to save themselves! So they nicely let me go, I thank them for the nine years and left with a smile because I know what was going to happen next.
They hired some hot-shot to replace me who came in and proceeded to steal over 100K from them and after weeks of phone calls from my customers, they’d lost nine years of wealthy customers I had great relationships with. All in all, they lost almost a half-million dollars in about eight months!
Now I’m no longer a stressed-out insomniac working 60 to 70 hours a week and even though at 40 I had to take a minimum wage job, I’m happier than I’ve been in years.
I’ve also been having a good time watching their entire company fail because of their idiocy and greed!”
6. My Manager Didn't Have My Back, So I Told Him Off And He Cried
“Best way I’ve gotten back at a boss? Brutal honesty.
I worked at a bookstore. I used to be on the overnight shift, shelving books. But they did away with that to try and save some money and brought us all to daytime.
Despite shelving books, therefore knowing all the sections and knowing the stock contained within those sections, I was doomed to 8-hour shifts—usually by myself—at the registers.
Now, our store manager at the time was a total sleazeball. He’d lock himself in his office filled with pictures of his ballerina significant other and do God-knows-what during his shifts.
One morning, in particular, I was at the register and I had a line. I tried paging for backup but no one came. I assumed everyone was busy, and I did my best to bust out the line. Meanwhile, our phone starts ringing.
No one gets it, because everyone is busy helping customers. Or so I thought.
After three rings, our intercom system beeps, and the manager’s voice wafts over it to ask for ‘back-up to phones… back-up to the phones.’ The brilliant part is, you had to pick up the phone to even use the paging system.
Meanwhile, I’m nearly through my line, and a sweet old lady totters up and says she ordered a book and got a phone call about it being in. I got her details and went hunting through our order shelves. I couldn’t find it.
I verify that I had all the info right, and tried again. Order wasn’t up there. So I page for a supervisor or manager.
As I get a call from the other supervisor in-store, the store manager pages for me to call him at his office extension.
I ignore this and speak to the supervisor who actually called me. I tell him the issue, and he tells me I’m going to have to get the store manager to help because he’s in the stock room taking a delivery.
So I hang up, call the manager’s office, and I explain it to him. He tells me to look at the hold shelves again. I try to tell him I’ve done that, but he hangs up on me.
The lady is looking angrier and angrier, and I’m worried I’m gonna get yelled at.
So I page for the manager again, asking him to come to the front register.
He pages me back, telling me to call him at his office extension. I do. He asks me what I want. I tell him I still can’t find this order, our computer says it was received, I could really use some help—and he cuts me off to tell me he’ll check in the office to see if there are any additional orders back there.
Then he hangs up.
Meanwhile, I keep telling the woman how sorry I am, and I ask her if she can move aside while we keep looking and I continue ringing up other people. I’m nearly done, there are maybe two people left in line, I’ve handled three more pages from the dumb manager—all of which tell me he can’t find this book—and I’m forced to tell the lady we can’t find it.
She still looks angry, but she pats my hand and tells me she knows I did all I could.
She called the manager a useless piece of crap for not getting off his behind and coming out to help like a good manager should do, and then she breezed out of the store.
Two minutes after this happens, the line is gone, and I’m alone. Three people come up to the registers, claiming that the manager sent them up here to ‘help me out’ and he told one of them to have me go into the back ‘to talk’ when I had a free moment.
I get back there, and he’s all buddy-buddy. ‘Hey, what’s wrong? You sounded stressed. Everything okay?’
I remembered that old lady. And I told him that no, it wasn’t okay. So he asks me to tell him what’s going on.
What’s troubling me. And I tell him exactly what frustrated me. I said it was the first incident ever where I felt a manager didn’t have my back. I said it was unprofessional and complete bull. I said it was clear we were busy, and he didn’t do crap to come out there and help us.
He didn’t even answer the phone from inside his office to help us out.
I also told him—word for word—what the old woman said. He just stood there and stared at me. I asked him if I could go back out there and do my job—it was awfully busy out there (I sort of expected him to fire me).
He didn’t speak, just nodded. So I flounced back out.
Apparently, he locked himself in his office and cried for the rest of the day.”
5. This Lady Was A Real Witch To Me, So I Had Her Fired—And Possibly Evicted
“At my last job at a hotel, I knew a few months beforehand that I was going to be losing my job. My manager’s manager wanted to have someone with marketing know-how or something like that. I wasn’t really worried about it, and I took getting laid off like a champ.
But, for about a three-week period, I basically had to train this person who was taking over for me. Which I, again, took like a champ… until we had to work together on a double shift New Year’s Day, which was supposed to be my last day of work.
I was basically around because it was going to be really busy, so they got me in there to give her a hand on her first double shift of working at this place, and to transition her into working alone.
Until this point, she’d been a pretty decent person to be around, but for some reason over the course of that day, she became more and more unbearable, and just started acting like a total witch. Also, I realized she was a complete idiot.
Every time she opened a new window on Internet Explorer, she didn’t know how to close the old one. Every time she took one of her (frequent) smoke breaks, I would go onto the computer and close out the 50 tabs she had open but wasn’t using anymore.
Whenever I talked to her, she was just dripping with sarcasm. We were supposed to fold some laundry in the back room during the day, and when I asked if she needed any help, she just kind of rolled her eyes at me and said something rude.
I don’t even remember what it was now, but I had to leave the room because it was just enough that it made me want to punch her in the face.
I had to end the day by asking my boss if I could leave an hour early because I was actually shaking from rage, and I wasn’t sure if I could manage to remain calm for the remainder of the time around her.
Now, here’s where I get my revenge. I knew my manager for years before I had this job—she’s actually a very close personal friend of mine, and when I called her to ask her to leave work early that day, that was actually the first time she’d ever heard me that angry.
So, already, I had the boss on my side that this person they were hiring to replace me was a complete witch. I actually temporarily got my job back for about a month after that while they found another replacement, and my manager’s boss even gave me a dollar raise in the meantime as an ‘I’m so sorry you had to deal with her’ sympathy thing.
Icing on the cake? In that month of time, we got a call from the apartment’s landlord that this lady was living at. Apparently, she had an altercation with another tenant, and when they went to investigate the claims, she was just really fake-nice about it.
Like, she was covering herself very well. So, they called her last job to get a character reference. And my boss told the landlord all about how she had a very well-mannered employee leave work early because they couldn’t stand dealing with this person.
So, I basically got this witch fired from a pretty nice job and I might have gotten her evicted, or possibly just on her landlord’s no-good list. What a win.”
4. Decided I'll Be The Shop Scapegoat? Thanks For The Extra Paychecks
“I worked for a tire shop years ago that was in the midst of changing corporate owners.
I was 17 at the time and since I was young and inexperienced, I was basically the shop scapegoat. I didn’t mind much since everyone was the shop scapegoat at one time. You got to pay your dues.
After waiting the month to get paid (you get paid every two weeks and they hold back your first paycheck, not to mention if you start working there in between pay periods), I came to work excited to get my first paycheck.
The end of the day arrived and the supervisor couldn’t find my check in the stack. I was completely broke. I was told that there was a mistake in payroll and that they’d get it sorted out and I’d get a two-pay period paycheck next week.
The next week rolled around and the same thing happened. I complained but wasn’t taken seriously because of being a 17-year-old kid I guess. The third week came and no checks. This time, I insisted they pay me what I was owed for that pay period from the register.
This took some approval from corporate and some smooth-talking. I also had to write my name down on paper so I’d pay them back when I got my check.
The following two pay periods came and no checks still. They paid me from the register those two times.
The last payday came and no checks. They paid me from the register and I told them I wouldn’t be back. I was told that my missing two checks would be mailed to me.
About two and a half weeks later, I opened my mailbox to find a paper-clipped stack of 7 paychecks.
They had sent me all the checks I missed despite them paying me from the register! I cashed those things that day.
A few days later I get a call from the district manager who says that he knows I got all the checks and that he’d like to be paid back.
Being the young jerk that I was, I told him that I never got any checks and that I had no idea what he was talking about. He told me that he knew I got paid from the register and that he wanted his money back.
I told him that I want a copy of the paper that says I was paid from the register. He could produce no such paperwork. I never heard from them again.
Apparently, when the place went from being ‘Tire Shop A’ to ‘Tire Shop B,’ they remodeled the shop.
They also threw away a bunch of old paperwork. The paperwork that proved I owed them was tossed out too.
Working 8-hour shifts every day in your jeans and ruining pair after pair with oil and grease, especially when they’re the only clothes you own, and spending what you don’t have on gas to get to work is bad enough when you have to wait more than a month for your first check.
But then being denied a paycheck and treated like it’s no big deal week after week is straight bull.
Forget those guys.”
3. My Ex Had A Horrible Manager So He Left Ketchup All Over The Floor
“One of my exes worked at a fast food joint in high school. Manager was a typical jerk, leaving early, never doing his job, letting the friends he hired go home early, leaving my ex to do four hours of clean up and prep for the next morning all by himself on weeknights—sometimes until 4 A.M.
Keeping in mind, he was still in school and had an hour’s walk home from the place. Sometimes he barely had time to get home, shower, and get ready for the bus to pick him up for school.
After several months of this, including pulling this late-night thing the day of SATs, he had enough.
He lined up ketchup packets from the front counter, through the kitchen, and out the back door and ran, stomping all of them on the way out. He ran all the way home.
The night shift manager was in the office counting the money before he ditched out as usual and had let all of the other employees go.
So he had to clean it all up by himself.”
2. Withhold My Paycheck? I'll Take That Company Gas Card
“I once worked for an outdoor furniture company in which my job responsibilities included loading the truck, driving to mansion, unloading truck, assembling furniture at mansion, and returning to store.
The store was going out of business my second summer there and the boss was beyond uptight and was losing his mind.
He flipped out on everything that happened and it made the workplace unpleasant.
One day, I hit a curb driving the big box truck and it popped one of the back tires (4 in the back, 2 in the front). I didn’t even notice the tire was flat until I finished my day and returned back to the store.
I then noticed it, a few co-workers noticed it, and then I told the boss. The boss flips out on me and holds my check (illegal to do) until I paid for the tire ($273, my check was just over $300, what a jerk).
Well, little did he know I had a cousin who was a lawyer and he wrote my boss a letter warning him that it is illegal to hold someone’s check and, furthermore, unethical to have an employee (even though it was my fault) to pay for asset/capital goods damage because that is the employer’s end responsibility.
So he asked him to mail me my paycheck, plus compensation of the days I was without paycheck, and to pay for the tire. The boss then gave me my paycheck via mail and compensation funds. I was then ‘let go’ the next day I had work and the reason was that they were going out of business (and they did one month later).
To get back at the boss, I took the truck’s gas card and used it on my own vehicle for a month or so and kept all the receipts totaling over $500 (this was in the thick of the recession in 2008 when the average price per gallon was $4/gallon).
Winner = me.”
1. The Cook Made Fun Of Me So I Poured Meat Juice Into His Drink Cup
“I knew a cook who would make fun of me constantly. Whenever we were slammed he would start insulting me, pushing me around, and later on tell the boss that I was the problem, not him.
He would get other employees to make fun of me as well, when in reality I was cool with all of them.
One day I left my wallet at my station (we shared the station) with $40 in it (I usually never have any cash on me).
When I went to pay for gas to go home he had ripped me off. I had to call a friend to come pick me up because I did not have enough gas to get home.
This is how I got him back.
I took all the juice from steaks and chicken in the meat drawers and poured it into his drink cup before he went home. The next day he came close to beating me up. I think about it now, and I could have really messed him up.
Nevertheless, I waited right until we were at our busiest and just slipped out the back door.
He was such a tool.”
