People Recount Their Most Built-Up Revenge Story
14. Trash Our Relationship? Hope You Enjoy Playing Your Favorite Video Game Now
This is every guy’s worst nightmare. Be careful what you do to a tough lady!
“My partner and I had met online well over 6 years ago through an online game by the name of RuneScape.
It had felt like we had been friends forever.
We both played the game very often and connected through it, eventually leading us to start a long-distance relationship. Things began to escalate as the years went on and we began seeing each other in person every few months or so. We were about 1,500 miles apart, so one of our main priorities for the future was moving in together and closing the distance. My job had prevented us from doing that, but we had finally set a date for me to move in with him in December of this year.
Our relationship never had any serious issues and I was more than happy to have him in my life as he was happy to have me. As I got older, I began to play RuneScape less and less, as work took up most of my time. He continued to play regularly, if not more than he had when I first met him. He could never really hold down a job and barely had an income, but I supported him throughout the years and even paid his rent from across the country after he moved out of his parents’ house a few years ago.
I never really minded it because he was a sweetheart, but we began to have problems.
In November of last year, I couldn’t help pay his monthly rent. I was struggling financially after having to pay my own living expenses alongside car repairs and bills I owed to the state, and I just couldn’t afford to support him at the time. When I called him one night to discuss it, he freaked out and started crying that he didn’t want to live with his parents again.
I tried calming him down and even suggested that I could help him find a temporary job until I could start providing for him again, but he wasn’t having it.
He claimed his parents would mistreat him if he returned home, which I know for a fact isn’t true because he and his parents have stayed with me several times. They’ve given him the world.
I eventually did calm him down but he remained passive-aggressive the entire night and we eventually hung up.
Because I cared about him, I reached out to his father the next day and informed him that he would probably be moving back home after his lease expired that month. I explained how I wouldn’t be able to afford to pay for his living for a month or two.
I asked if there were any local jobs he could work in order to… y’ know, MAKE AN INCOME. Apparently, a friend of his father’s needed help managing a small warehouse for his business and was looking to potentially hire my partner for the season. It paid $15/hr and was super easy (lifting boxes, sweeping the floors, and taking inventory). I brought it up to my partner that same night and he was not having it.
Not only did he not want to work in a ‘trashy warehouse,’ but he didn’t want to work at all. All he planned to do day in, day out was play RuneScape.
I brought up a few other job listings I had found in his area and he immediately shot all of them down as well. He then had the audacity to comment about how he thinks I should work harder and possibly work a second job.
I kept my composure and simply argued against it until we eventually hung up. I collapsed on my bed and cried for a good hour or two afterward because of the intense emotional stress I was under. Not only do I work 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, I’m also an industrial meteorologist. If I remember correctly, that’s a lot more work than playing RuneScape every day and using my Hulu account.
I really considered breaking up with him right at that moment, but I changed my mind and decided to give him another chance. Looking back on it, big mistake.
I messaged him throughout the night and we sort of made up, but I was still a little uneasy about the entire event. He had moved back with his parents by the time December had come and I began to help him look for jobs while he wasted his life away playing video games.
I eventually persuaded him to start working at a small retail store near his house and he thankfully began to make an income! I would still buy him video games and transfer him funds like normal because I spoiled him. Our relationship began to feel somewhat okay again.
Last month, both he and I put our dough together to fly him across the US to stay with me for 4 days.
We hadn’t seen each other in person since last summer, so we were both looking forward to it. He arrived and we had a great time for the first few days because he could actually take me out for once with his new income. Everything was perfect until I caught a glimpse of his phone’s lock screen while he was taking a shower.
‘When are you gonna leave herrrrr?’ the Discord message read.
I could have run into the bathroom and snapped his neck at that moment but I kept myself together as best as I could without killing him. I had never felt so used, disrespected, or hated in my entire life. When he came out of the bathroom, I gave him a fake smile, but I genuinely hated him from that moment on.
He could have dropped dead on the floor and I would have spat on him. I spent the remainder of the night watching him play RuneScape and I remained very quiet. He took notice of this and asked me if everything was okay, and I lied and told him I was fine.
When it came time to go to sleep, I let that jerk climb into bed with me and he tried initiating physical affection because it was our final night together.
I rejected as politely as I could. He was disappointed but went out like a light.
Immediately after he went to sleep, I reached over and unplugged his phone, and started digging through his messages with that girl. I feared that I had misinterpreted the message I had seen, but I was completely right after all. Not only had he been unfaithful to me, but he had also been going behind my back for nearly six months; leading me to believe that he hooked up with another girl directly after I couldn’t pay for his living in November.
I scrolled through probably 100,000 messages and wanted to vomit my insides out by the end of it. He had talked trash about me, claimed I was emotionally abusive (just as he had done with his parents), and even sent this girl my personal photos so they could pick me apart physically.
When morning came, I had slept in because of how late I was up reading his messages.
I woke up to find him on my computer playing RuneScape and eating my food. It was like our entire relationship had been wiped from my mind and he was now an evil stranger sitting in my house.
I wanted to scream at him, I wanted to tear him apart and kick him out of my house onto the street, but I didn’t. In fact, I gave him as much love and attention as I could muster that morning because I wanted to leave things feeling normal between us.
I dropped him off at the airport and we had a quick and somber goodbye before I left him forever, unbeknownst to him.
I drove back home as calmly as I could before crying my eyes out in a mix of complete anger and emotional pain. I ended up kicking my bedframe so hard that the wood split and I had to buy another one recently.
If only it were his face. I wanted to break his heart by the time he arrived back home, but I wanted it to really hurt.
I logged into our joint RuneScape account that we had made several years ago, where he and I would work on training the same account and raising it almost like our ‘baby.’ We had always joked that if we were to ever split up, he would take half of the account’s bank contents and I would take the rest. I took my half and transferred it to my main account before taking his half and giving it away to random people throughout the game.
Every last bit of it. Even items I couldn’t normally trade away, I used a spell to convert the items into coins which I then gave away as well. The bank was now empty.
It then occurred to me that the credentials to his main account were written down in my desk, as he would frequently have me train his Farming skill every so often.
I didn’t hesitate at all and logged into his precious 14-year-old RuneScape account. I immediately took all of the contents of his bank and sold it all on the Grand Exchange, a marketplace in the game. It took an extremely long time to clear out his bank, but he would still be flying home for about another 4 hours so I had plenty of time.
By the time I had sold/destroyed everything, I had four stacks of coins totaling over 8.5 billion. Now what to spend it on, hmm…
I wanted to waste his ‘life earnings’ on the most useless, stupid thing I could think of besides him. I logged back into my main account to reach out to a friend of mine that collects massive stacks of burnt food.
For the unaware, burnt food in RuneScape has no use. You can’t ‘unburn’ them, eat them, or even sell them on the Grand Exchange. They are, however, tradable amongst players. I’ve always poked fun at this guy for collecting burnt food, but I was now more thankful than ever to make his acquaintance in my revenge.
I asked him what the most obscure, unwanted item of the burnt food variety was and he replied “Burnt spider”.
Lo and behold, he had roughly 6,000 of the item “Spider on shaft (burnt)” in his bank that he was willing to sell me. Feeling generous with my ex-’s coins, I gave my friend a full stack of 2.147 billion coins and left a very happy customer. I dropped the 6,083 burnt spiders in his bank, but still had about 6 billion coins left to spend.
With the remaining coins, I decided to treat myself.
I went onto the Grand Exchange and ended up going on a shopping spree! The first thing I bought was 100 bonds. If you’re not familiar, a bond in RuneScape grants you 14 days of in-game Membership. After trading all 100 bonds to my account, I now have almost 4 years of Membership paid for me. I spent a majority of his coins on extremely nice armor and weapons, all of which went straight into my account.
He still had about an extra billion, so I spent it on the supplies I needed to level up an expensive skill of mine. By the end of the afternoon, he was left with a measly 150,000 coins in his bank, all of which I gave away to a guy cooking pizzas outside of the Exchange. Nothing was left, so I decided to pick up a pile of bones off the ground and leave it solely in his bank.
It might sound petty, but I laughed for a while.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. This is so cruel, you ruined the tens of thousands of hours he had put into a game! Well, it was time he learned that I can be a jerk, a MEAN jerk. On top of spending every last coin he had ever made, I leveled his Defense skill.
This may not sound bad; in fact, it sounds like a good thing! I helped his account progress, right? Well, no. Unfortunately for my ex, he had what players commonly refer to as a ‘pure’ account: meaning he never, EVER dared to level his Defense skill from Level 1, in order to keep the lowest defense stats but have high offensive stats. Well, not anymore. Have fun with your permanent Level 6 Defense.
Cycling through hundreds of possible forms of revenge in my head, I settled on getting rid of his house. It’s quite an achievement in RuneScape to have a nice house of your own, in fact, he had one of the nicest I had ever seen in the game. In order to have built it, he must have spent well over a few billion coins.
Too bad I had disassembled it all in a matter of minutes, deleting it all into cyberspace. And there’s no insurance either, he’s going to have to rebuy everything with his non-existent coins if he wants a new house. Bye-bye, Casa de jerk.
Scrolling through his friend’s list, I decided to act like him and pay a visit to his friends who were currently online and admit that I had been unfaithful to my partner and was fully proud of it.
If his friends hadn’t removed him by that point, I removed them. All of them.
Lastly, to add a beautiful little cherry to this revenge-filled cake, I changed his username.
You’re able to change your username once a month on RuneScape, so I changed his to let everybody know that he’s a dirty loser. I obviously won’t drop his username here, but I did the best I could to embarrass him with a 12 character limit.
He should be able to reclaim his previous username in about three weeks, but if he waits too long, I’ll be able to swipe it and slap it on a throwaway account of my own forever.
He sent me a very hateful and aggressive message later that night, followed by pictures of him crying. I wrote him a sincere message officially ending the relationship, while also scaring him away by threatening to ‘take him to court’ for sharing my personal pictures and possibly filing a cease-and-desist if he were to contact me any time soon.
I don’t plan on doing any of that, I just don’t want to speak to him ever again.”
13. Call Me Out On My Mistake? I'll Call You Out On All Yours Until You Get Kicked Out
It goes both ways, sweets.
“I am living in a block of flats with slightly higher standards – meaning we have a gate and our own parking spaces, trash cans, camera system, and everything. I work as a programmer and remotely.
I’m also single, and I keep mostly to myself – try to never harm anyone, not get into any drama, just live slowly and steadily alone, barely leaving home except doing groceries, so my neighbors know me as that homeowner that never causes ANY problems and is always helpful / polite.
One time, I had to replace my current bed. It was old and dirty, and I just wanted something better.
So I ordered a new bed and dismantled my old one, ready to be taken out. Once every two weeks, a truck comes in and check through the neighborhood to take away all the “big things” set beside the trash containers. That day was tomorrow.
Sadly, I live on floor 3, so taking my old bed alone would be just too hard for me alone – I asked my brother for help, but he couldn’t have done it tomorrow, so he helped today.
Now, before this, our block’s “terms of service” say that you are not allowed to put out big trash except on the day the truck comes. So, not wanting to make an outburst, I asked my favorite neighbor for a favor if I could put it on his parking spot day before, because, well, I wouldn’t be able to do it on the correct day.
He gave me a thumbs up. Then I checked with another member of the housing cooperative board if it’s fine since the owner of the spot knows – he also said it’s okay for him.
I moved on with the plan – my brother came in, we moved my old bed outside, occupied the spot, and called it a day. That’s when Karen came in.
She’s around 50+ years old from looks. You know, the type that sits the whole day in the window and tries to find something to complain about.
She got into my home and tried to explain that it’s against our community rules, so I had to have it taken away RIGHT NOW. I, in exchange, tried to explain to her why I did that, how I got approval from people and whatnot.
She was not having it. She threatened to call the police on me for littering if I didn’t get it done today. I said, sure, okay, I guess I am technically in the wrong here, so I’ll just comply. I called a private company to take away the bed today. I also SPECIFICALLY went to her home and told her it would be done today.
She said it’s fine.
So, the truck arrives, they start taking away the bed and so does the police. Apparently, she already did call the police without waiting for me to do anything. I am livid and literally panicking, not because I was afraid of a fine or anything, but just because it was the first time in my life that someone did something hostile for me, even though I said I’d do what she wants.
I explain the whole situation. The police see no problem; they don’t even cite me for anything, they just give me a handshake, pat my back, and leave. The “lady” that called the police looks out the window and yells, “Thank you, officers!” with a grin. I am ever more upset at this point. I think to myself, “You want to perfectly obey the law?
Fine, I’ll make sure you do.”
I got the community rules from the council and studied them thoroughly to find potential reasons to make her life heck.
I see her taking out the trash. I clearly hear glass bottles in the bag. I look out the window – she throws it in the wrong container. I call the community board. Bam, your rent went up, because you don’t comply with our sorting garbage rules.
The next day, I come back from the grocery store. I see her car. She parked a little over the line, so it’s basically like taking up two spaces. I call the police. Bam, she gets a fine.
She walks out her dog in our private space, as I watch her through the window. I see her dog pooping, but she doesn’t scoop it up.
Oh, did you just do that? I call the community board with a complaint.
She came to me and wanted to apologize. Now here’s the part that makes me look bad – I said, “No, I don’t accept it.” Why? Because I’ll admit, I am vindictive to people who try to create trouble for others without a very good reason. I said, “All I’m doing is making sure you are following the community rules.
Is that wrong?” and she scoffed at me something rude and went away.
I’ve been doing that for like 3 months now. A month ago, she was kicked off the board for too many rules violations. Today, she moved out, but before she did, she made sure to put a bag of trash on my doorstep while I was away. Sad for her, she’s stupid, and the trash contained a letter with her information on it.
So I had the last laugh by reporting it to the police.
I know, rules are rules. I was technically in the wrong first for breaking them. But the moment she went out of her way to “enforce” them and then screw me anyway, that’s when the line was crossed. I have no shame for bullying her out of here. I was just doing God’s work and ensuring that the rules are not broken.”
12. Jealous Of Grandpa's Mechanic Skills? He'll Take Down Your Business
“My grandpa was a successful man, and in his mid-60s, he decided he wanted to take a step back, so he started selling off his businesses.
He sold his various businesses and spent the next few years traveling.
As he approached 70, he got bored in addition to a few new grandchildren, so he needed a bigger house. He sold the old home that he had bought after he got back from Vietnam and bought this massive house on this large piece of land. This property also came with a massive steel barn.
Not sure if he had ever told anyone about his plans, but right after he got the property, he dumped A TON OF BUCKS into tools and equipment and converted his barn into a mechanics dream. Some things I remember having:
He had a professional lift, capable of lifting full-size trucks.
He had those professional oil catchers you see at quick lubes.
He had a dedicated air compressor system that was designed to power all his power tools.
He had a tire machine to mount new tires.
He had so much equipment.
His tool corner was a massive corner of this massive barn.
His plan? To fix cars, especially for people in need. He lived in a rural community; if you didn’t have a car, that was a big problem. So he let everyone know at his local church that he was willing to work on their cars if they provided the parts.
He only took a few jobs a week. He was doing this to enjoy himself and help those that needed it. He’d of course change oil, change the transmission fluid, and all kinds of various repairs. My grandpa was a talented mechanic. However, he kept the amount of work limited. He was also selective. If you were in need, he’d want to fix your cars.
If you had the means to pay, he’d decline and ask you to go elsewhere.
One day, the owner of the local car dealership came by and told my grandpa he needed to stop fixing other people’s cars cause he wasn’t properly licensed, didn’t have the proper insurances, and was hurting his business. My grandpa explained this is just his hobby; he only does a few cars a week.
The owner told him he needs to cut it out, or he’s going sue my grandpa out of business. My grandpa said he laughed over this. What business was this guy going to sue him out of?
The owner walked out. A little while later, my grandpa got served; he was being sued by the owner of the car dealership. My grandpa thought he’d take a trip down to the dealership and try and reason with the man.
My grandpa hoped he could come to an understanding.
My grandpa spoke to the owner and basically explained:
He only works on people cars who are down on their luck. The fact is the people cars he fixes probably couldn’t afford to pay a professional dealership to fix their vehicle.
He only does a few cars a week.
He’s not all that interested in getting into a fight over his hobby, but he ain’t going back down.
Well, they ended up in court. By this point, my grandpa had hired a lawyer, who was able to get the city to approve a commercial garage on his property. It helped that he lived on the outskirts of town and had 6 acres of property.
The court told my grandpa his auto repair shop is operating illegally. If my grandpa wants to continue, he’s going to need to get a business license, get the proper insurances, and if he does that, he will be good to go.
Now, what do you think a man who has nothing but time and funds in this situation is going to do? He’s going to get his business license and insurances, of course. Which he did, and that surprised no one… but he went further.
Got a dedicated phone line ran into his shop.
Hired a full-time mechanic.
Put up a professional sign.
Set up a little waiting area with a water cooler.
What shocked everyone even more…
He ran a local TV ad, saying he was a pay what you can mechanic shop, reservations only.
Put ads in the local paper, saying the same thing.
Yes, folks, that’s right: my grandpa is not only a licensed, legal auto repair business, but he has a certified mechanic on his payroll… and he’s running ads. As for his prices?
They were quite simple you either:
Bring the parts yourself and pay the mechanic whatever you wanted (mechanic got a separate wage from my grandpa, so if you couldn’t pay anything that was fine).
Had my grandpa source the parts, and he’d charge you for the parts, and you’d pay the mechanic whatever you want.
My grandpa started taking jobs, and boy did that shop gets busy.
It was impossible to beat Grandpas’ price. Grandpa was essentially PAYING to fix YOUR CAR for YOU. My grandpa would spend his days with the mechanic that he had hired working on cars. He loved it.
The owner of the local car dealership was FURIOUS. He sued my Grandpa again. They went to court, and the judge basically said my grandpa owned a licensed, insured, auto repair business.
What he charges his customers for his services is completely up to him. Even if that means doing the work for free.
About a year or so later, my grandpa gets a call from a lawyer who says he’s representing a potential buyer of the local car dealership; however, the buyer wants to speak to my grandpa. My grandpa agreed; he sat down with the new potential buyer who expressed his concerns about buying the dealership.
Service is a major profit center for a dealership, and he’s considering buying the local dealership. However, he doesn’t want to buy the dealership if my grandpa is going to keep operating the way he is, cause it’s impossible for a for-profit business to compete against someone selling their services for free.
My grandpa agrees that there’s no way someone looking to make a profitable business could ever compete against him.
So they came to an agreement. The owner buys the dealership and my grandpa would:
Only work on a few cars a week, maybe 5-6.
Only work on people’s cars who are down on their luck and probably too poor to be able to pay a professional dealership to fix their car.
Any parts he needs he will buy from the dealership.
Any work he declined, he’d refer to the dealership.
The new owner of the dealership agreed to:
Dealership must agree to let my grandpa be, stay out of his way.
Dealership must hire his mechanic.
They shook hands. The local dealership was bought out, and for the next 9 years, my grandpa would fix people’s cars who were down on their luck if he had to buy parts he’d buy from the dealership, and as for that mechanic my grandpa hired?
He ended up becoming the service manager and did quite well for himself.
As for my grandpa, when he was 80, he had a heart attack in his shop. Luckily, one of his grandkids was there, and they got him to the hospital, and he made a full recovery. But the doctor told him his body couldn’t handle working in that garage anymore. He ended up shutting down after that.
For the next 3 years, he looked out his kitchen window staring at his shop remembering all the fun he had in his garage. He passed away at 83 surrounded by friends and family.”
Another User Comments:
“I like that when people have a big enough wallet they use it for good unselfish deeds.” Obi-one
Reply:
“He did have a nice wallet. My dad was concerned with the fact that my grandpa was paying a mechanic a full time wage, yet not bringing in any revenue to even off set the mechanics cost. My grandpa said, “Son, I could write that man (the mechanic) a check right now, so large, that he could live comfortably for the rest of his life and never work again.
So don’t worry about what I’m paying him.”
My grandpa was a successful businessman, but he always had compassion; he did a lot of things throughout his life for the benefit of others.
He once told me he believed in karma and what goes around comes around. So if he helps someone out, even that person can never repay him, one day, someway, he will get repaid.
I’m just rambling.
But as an example, there was this family husband/wife 3 kids. Well, the husband was killed in a car accident. The wife was struggling to make ends meet. At the time, my grandpa owned a grocery store. For the first month after her husband’s passing, my grandpa refused to charge her for the groceries she bought. The woman got a job. It didn’t pay a lot, but it was a job.
She insisted she pay, and my grandpa agreed, but she’d get a 50% discount (any grocery store that is giving a 50% discount on everything is losing big bucks). When she got promoted at her job several years later, my grandpa went back to charging her full price.” SonDontPlay
11. Get Printer Toner Regardless Of The Cost? That'll Cost You $500
“The first real job I ever had was as a legal assistant for a sole practitioner family law attorney. I was twenty years old, fresh out of college, and had never had a real job before. I had zero legal experience, zero office experience, zero secretarial experience. The attorney, who we shall call Karen, knew this when she hired me.
Karen was at least 60 years old and had had her private practice for 20+ years. When she interviewed me, she had told me that she had just lost her third legal assistant of the year. That is a HUGE red flag that I wish I had not missed. My first day at work, I realized that Karen was a disorganized, chaotic, manipulative liar and an absolute disaster to work with.
At the time of the malicious compliance, I had spent the last three months being more or less bullied by this woman – called incompetent repeatedly, yelled at for not knowing things I had never been trained on, talked down on, demeaned. I took it all because I was young, and I didn’t want to leave my first job so soon because it had been drilled in my head that if you left before a year, it looked bad on your resume (hindsight is 20/20 – if you’re in a similar situation, find a new job.
Future employers only care if you leave multiple jobs after short time periods working there).
It was the morning of a day that Karen had an afternoon trial, and in her truly disorganized and awful fashion, she had waited until the night before to finalize the exhibits. For those who don’t know, you typically need to submit exhibits at least a few business days before a trial or hearing so the court has time to process them.
The day of the hearing, most attorneys bring two copies of the exhibits in binders with them – an attorney copy for them, and a bench copy for the judge.
That morning, I came into work to a post-it note on my desk that said she had submitted the exhibits electronically last night, and she wanted me to make her attorney copy and the bench copy and put them in three-ring binders.
Okay, can do.
I started printing two copies of the exhibits. I got the bench copy taken care of and ready, and then started to print the exhibits for Karen’s copy. About halfway through printing Karen’s copy, the printer said that it was out of toner. Okay, no worries. I knew for a fact that we had another box of toner in the storage area because it was my job to do inventory, and I had just done inventory and made note of a box of toner.
I went to the storage room, grabbed the box of toner for the printer (RICOH black toner cartridge, can’t remember the exact model so let’s say it was Model X), and went back to the printer. When I opened the box, the toner inside was not Model X. It wasn’t even for a RICOH printer. And, it was clearly empty. I have no idea how long it had been in there for, but it definitely predated my time there.
I got that awful, cold-wash feeling and went back to the storage area. I tore through everything. There was not another box of toner. I remember how sick to my stomach I felt. She had to leave for trial in an hour, and her copy of the exhibits wasn’t finished.
After I was done freaking out in the storage area, I walked into her office and informed her that we were out of toner.
I explained that we had the right box, but it had an empty bottle of toner of the wrong variety in it.
She leveled me with the coldest, meanest stare I have ever had and said: “That’s supposed to be your problem to deal with.” Tone like ice. Face like stone. I was completely crapping myself.
I tried to explain again that the box was correct, but the toner inside was not, and she held her hand up in my face.
“I am going to take the bench copy and my incomplete copy, and I am going to trial,” she said. Her voice was like steel. “Are you even capable of understanding how badly you have screwed up?”
I nodded.
“Do you understand that I should fire you? Because this is completely your fault? Because you’re incompetent and incapable of listening?”
I nodded again. She stood up from her desk, pushed past me, and went to my desk to pick up the binders.
When she came back to her desk, she handed me her personal credit card.
“I don’t care what you have to do or who you have to call or what it costs, but if I come back at the end of the day, and the printer has no toner, you better not be here, and I better not see you again.”
Then she left. I stood there for a few minutes absorbing what the heck had just happened and then I started to get mad.
I was smart, I was a good employee, I put up with way more crap than I should have put up with, I bent over backward to help this disorganized, crazy witch, and also who the heck puts an empty toner cartridge in the wrong box and puts it back in the storage area?
She said to do whatever I had to do to get the toner.
So. Cue malicious compliance.
It’s important to note here tha, because Karen was disorganized and bad at running her business, she hadn’t gotten any payments from any clients at least since I had started. So, at least three months. I knew that she was running low on funds in her business spending account and wracking up debt on her personal account for business expenditures because I had access to her email and saw a credit card statement.
I knew she was tight on funds because she would get overdue bill notices in the mail all the time. At that moment, I also did not give a crap.
So I get on the phone with RICOH supplies and explain to the nice lady on the phone that I am in desperate need of toner. The nice lady informs me that they can’t get me any today, and the earliest that I could get it in the mail with regular shipping would be three days from then.
That simply wouldn’t do.
“Is there a rush option?” I asked.
“There is a rush, and there is an overnight. Rush will get it to you in two days; overnight will get it to you tomorrow morning,” she answered.
“How much is overnight?” I asked as the first feelings of evil satisfaction fluttered in my chest.
“Overnight shipping is going to run you $185.00 plus tax,” she informed me.
I grinned.
“So, overnight shipping with the cost of two Model X toners will be how much?” I asked.
“About $450.00 plus tax.” Perfect. I gave her the credit card information and placed the order happily.
I was happy that I had managed to burn almost $500 that Karen did not have, but it still hadn’t solved the problem of having toner there today. So next up, I placed a call to our printer repairman, who I had become very friendly with because he also hated Karen.
She was technologically incompetent and rude to him whenever he came to repair the printer.
I explained the situation to him and asked him if he happened to have a spare Model X toner on him. To my delight, he did happen to have a toner on him.
“But I’ll have to rearrange my route to drop it off to you. So there’s a delivery fee,” he told me.
“And you’re gonna have to pay for the toner, obviously. It’ll be about $200.”
“Not a problem,” I said. “Come on by.”
The printer repairman brought me the toner, happily ran Karen’s card for another $200, high-fived me, and left me to my own devices.
Later, when Karen came back from the trial, she came back to the printer happily chugging out some new disclosure we had gotten from clients, and she seemed honestly angry that I had managed to get toner.
She dumped her stuff on my desk, went into her office, and I didn’t see or speak to her for the rest of the day.
The next day, things were very quiet all morning. Just before lunch, the overnighted toner came in. Karen only communicated with me through post-it note instructions and through emails. When I came back from lunch, Karen was on the phone, and her door was cracked open just enough for me to hear her on the phone.
“So there’s no way you can cancel the order?” I heard her ask. Silence for a moment.
“Yes, I understand that we already have the toner, but I don’t want to pay that much for it!”
More silence.
“No, the order was not fraud; I authorized my assistant to place it.”
More silence.
“Fine!” then I heard the phone slam down.
I know that, in the grand scheme of things, my malicious compliance was not all that fantastic.
But, at the time, I felt like Andy Sachs staring down Miranda Priestly, telling her that the twins both had a copy of the Harry Potter book.
My malicious compliance also had the additional benefit of somehow making Karen a lot nicer to me going forward. She still sucked to work with and I still hated being there, but she never called me incompetent again.
She also never told me that I was incapable of listening again because I did exactly what she asked me to do.
I got the flipping toner.”
10. Order Enough Spark Plugs To Fill Our Shelves? $2,000 Dollars' Worth Of Spark Plugs It Is
“I’m the parts manager at a boat dealership that’s, frankly, sinking. Owner has had to take savings from his retirement account to cover payroll, service costs more than what it brings in, etc. I’m moving to another town and trying to secure a new job, but that’s besides the point.
Every Tuesday, we have a manager meeting, where myself, the owner, the General manager, and the service manager establish some goals for the week, and on Thursday, we reconvene and talk about our progress. Or that’s what’s supposed to happen, anyway. It instead usually turns into a shouting match between the service manager and the owner, with occasional chime-ins from the general manager, all while I quietly drink my coffee and wait for a lull, so I can share my ideas that’ll be ignored.
Two important things: 1) the service manager (Sam) is a stubborn, jaded old jerk. Been in boats for 30 years and is rude, superior, cannot take any responsibility for his mistakes, and will attempt to shove accountability onto someone else, and 2) the owner (Owen) is a micromanager on things that don’t matter and completely absent/unaware on things that do matter. He also has drilled it into me that we shouldn’t order uncommon/expensive stuff just to stock and should only order that stuff when specifically needed, otherwise we’re spending without a clear timeline of breaking even (plus some), which I agree with.
So, in a typical Tuesday shouting match, Owen is yelling at Sam about no jobs being completed and therefore being unable to collect on, and Sam whines that we’re waiting on parts, which is my department. Me being halfway decent at my job, I know we are waiting on parts for exactly one job, and it’s just an oil filter and some spark plugs. We have a large shelf of oil filters and a large shelf of different spark plugs, but as unluck would have it lately, mechanics have been asking for weird, uncommon spark plugs that don’t cross reference to anything more common, so I’ve had to order them.
We get them next day regardless of where I order from.
Anyway, the order for the spark plugs and oil filter was put in at the end of Saturday, service is closed Sunday and Monday, so Sam is complaining that we’re waiting for spark plugs about 2 business hours after they’ve been ordered. He then goes on to complain that I’ve had to order a lot of spark plugs recently.
Owen asks if I’m not refilling the spark plug boxes as they’re being used, and I try to explain that we haven’t been using the more common spark plugs lately, and I’ve had to order in uncommon ones. I, of course, am not heard, and Owen tells me we have the boxes for a reason, and we should have 16 of every spark plug that we have a box for and 24 of the more common ones.
He says that that’s my only action item as he needs these jobs done (despite we’re waiting on spark plugs for exactly one job). Sam sits back smugly, the anger no longer directed at him.
So I shrug and say I’ll take today to inventory spark plugs. And that’s what I do. From noon to 4:30, I count and organize spark plugs.
Thing is though, we have 4 shelves of spark plugs, 12-15 boxes per shelf.
And a lot of these spark plugs are dusty and haven’t been touched since I’ve been here (so 5.5 months). But hey, I was told to order spark plugs. So those 4 that are dusty? Gotta order 12 more. We have 7 of a kind that have been here so long the box is starting to disintegrate and also doesn’t cross to any other spark plug? Put me down for 9.
Honda-brand spark plugs when we haven’t serviced Hondas in 2 years? Let me call up Honda.
Trying to be a nice guy, I take my estimate of how much it’ll cost to fill up all these boxes to Owen and try again to explain that this is unnecessary, that I replenish spark plugs that are taken from boxes, and we just haven’t been using ones with a box lately, but I’m met with, “I don’t have time to talk about spark plugs.
If it has a box, we need it, so just order them and stop bothering me about it.”
So I did. I went ahead and ordered a little over $2,000 worth of spark plugs and only maybe $250 of that is spark plugs we were low on that we’d actually need.
They arrived the next day, and I spent another day just putting them all away. Oh, and bills from our main supplier from the previous month are due on the first, so Owen got a supply bill for about $3,000 for the entire month of November.
Sam got a talking to (or shouting to), as Owen realized I tried to stop this, so he decided the spark plug conversation was Sam’s fault in the first place. I meanwhile had built a neat castle out of empty spark plug boxes but found it gone when I came in this morning.
And that’s only one of the dumb things that have happened here, but I think that’s my only malicious compliance tale.”
9. Pass On Your Bogus Excuse? I'd Be Glad To
“I was a medic in a light infantry battalion in the U.S. Army in the early nineties.
In our infantry battalion, there were two sets of medics in the headquarters company who all belonged to the same platoon.
Most of the squads in the platoon were in the first set and were referred to as “line medics.” They were constantly lent out to the various companies in the battalion for field exercises and so forth. For all practical purposes, line medics did just about everything the other infantrymen did out in the field.
For the most part, this entailed trudging through snow for long distances while lugging our belongings around on our backs in a rucksack and pulling a sled with an arctic ten man tent. The “light” in light infantry alludes to the fact that we traveled light enough to not need a vehicle. In reality, there was nothing “light” about it.
One squad in the medical platoon permanently remained with headquarters.
In the field, they were in charge of maintaining medical records, setting up and staffing the Battalion Aid Station in the field, driving the ambulances, and keeping the battalion pharmacy stocked. We had some guys who had served for quite a while in Alaska, and they knew all kinds of tricks that enabled us to set the battalion aid station up as the warmest tent in the field.
Given that most of our training took place in subfreezing temperatures, the aid station was the place to be. We often had officers from the other companies just come and hang out simply to get warm for a little bit.
Needless to say, if you could get a position with the aid station squad, you were set for field exercises: far less walking, far more warmth, and a far happier life.
There was a fellow line medic in my unit who I’ll call Slug because that’s the generic term we used in the army for someone who was a waste of space. I actually liked Slug when I first met him. He was friendly, easy going, and he seemed to be an all-around nice guy. Over time, my respect for Slug waned more and more. He always seemed to be broke, and he was not shy about asking to borrow change.
He gave his girl my phone number because he didn’t want to pay to maintain his own, and she would always call me to vent about him on the numerous occasions that she caught him being unfaithful her. If there was ever work to be done, he always found excuses to be elsewhere.
To put things in perspective, avoiding work was a highly respected art form known as “shamming” in my unit, but there were caveats.
Avoiding work at your buddy’s expense was frowned upon, and clumsy excuses that put you or your buddies in a bad light were also considered to be in poor taste. For example, getting four guys together for vehicle maintenance at the motor pool when in reality they were each simply going to get on a creeper (a board that rolls under vehicles) for a mid-morning nap was a highly regarded form of “shamming.” Slug loved to sham, but he was terrible at it.
More often than not, his attempts made the rest of us look bad, and they often brought more work on us to boot.
For whatever reason, the stars aligned in Slug’s favor, and he was given the opportunity to attend SUSV driving school for the purposes of driving an ambulance (a SUSV is an all-terrain vehicle that was invaluable to us in the snow). This golden opportunity was poised to deliver him from the harsh life of the front line medic into the luxury life of the rear medic.
It just so happened that the first day of driving school happened to fall during the daylight savings switch-over. The change was such that anyone forgetting about it would have shown up to work an hour early.
Slug thought that he would use this to his advantage to sneak in an extra hour of sleep, seemingly unaware that the change had already brought him an extra hour of sleep.
I had just come in from shoveling the snow outside the aid station around fifteen minutes before his class was scheduled to start when the following exchange took place between me and the aid station’s squad leader:
Squad Leader: Have you seen Slug around today?
Me: No, sergeant, I haven’t.
Squad Leader: Can you call him? His driving class is scheduled to start very soon, and he’s going to be late.
Me: I’ll do it right now, sergeant!
Realizing this was urgent, I quickly found his girl’s number and called him up. The following conversation then ensued:
Me: Hey, Slug? Squad Leader is asking where you are. Apparently you have a driving class that’s about to start, and you’re late for it.
Slug: Yeah, tell him I forgot about the time change, so I’m running an hour late.
Me: (Knowing that if he had forgotten about the change he would have been an hour early) Are you sure that’s what you want me to tell him?
Slug: Do you think I’m BSing about this or something? Just tell him what I just told you!
Me: OK. See you in fifteen minutes.
So I hung up and made my way back to Squad Leader.
Me: Sergeant, I just got off the phone with Slug.
Squad Leader: And?
Me: He said he forgot about the time change and is running an hour late. He’ll be heading in soon.
Squad Leader: Do you have a driver’s license?
Me: Yes, sergeant.
Squad Leader: Can I see it?
Squad Leader: Great! Take this packet, head on down to the motor pool, and tell them that there’s been a last minute change of plans.
Slug is unable to make today’s training session, so you’ll be taking his place.
And that’s how I went from living the miserable life of a line medic to the relatively easygoing life of ambulance driver and guy in charge of the battalion pharmacy. Whenever I’d see Slug in the field complaining about how cold and miserable the last few days had been, I would commiserate with him, expressing gratitude about how good I had it back at the aid station, with regular meals and near constant warmth.
“That should have been you,” I’d tell him. “It’s too bad you weren’t able to make it to your training on that day!””
8. Don't Hide Anything From This Woman
““I thought I was in a slightly tumultuous but overall fun relationship for a year.
I had gotten out of a 12-year relationship when I met Slimeball. He was so charming and handsome I thought I won the lottery! He was super pushy about saying, ‘I love you’ first and defining our relationship.
He introduced me to his family. His niece started calling me Auntie. He tells me about his 3 children and their mothers and tells me about how the mother of his oldest hates him and is keeping him away from the kid.
But then things started getting weird. His ‘ex’ started calling ALL the time, multiple times a day. They had children together, but the grandmother had custody.
I was told, to make it seem normal, that both of them had jobs where they traveled a lot, so they signed legal guardianship over to the grandma to make schooling and emergency issues easier. Then the mom moved down to the city we were living in for ‘work training.’ She was moving down permanently without the kids. When I asked why the kids weren’t coming, I was told they need to stay in the same school.
Um, they are 6 and 4. I’d say staying with parents is more important at that age than their peer group. It was weird, but I’m cool and it wasn’t my place to tell them where their daughters should live.
He worked out of town a lot. So, when he tells me he’s going to Oregon I think nothing of it.
After a week in Oregon, a lot of stories aren’t adding up, like his phone is always dead even though he carries a power bank with him.
THEN one of his ‘friends’ starts posting cuddled-up selfies with him. I quickly put 2 and 2 together and dump him for two-timing me with this chick in Oregon.
After I dumped him I made a messy post on his social media wall, when the mother of his oldest child sees it and she contacts me and lays out the truth!
He never contacts his oldest daughter, even though he has her cellphone.
No one is keeping him from her.
He owes $20k in back child support for her as he has never once made a payment. He moves around a lot and works under the table, so the mother was never able to collect garnishments or anything.
He has a huge criminal record, all these charges I knew nothing about!
His ‘ex’ who moved to our city was his of 9 years who was very much still in a relationship with him and they willingly gave up the 2 children.
There is a FOURTH child!?!?!?! He and the mother conspired to pin the paternity on another poor sap and it’s been 17 years now that this other man has been paying for a kid that is not his.
Oh, and I was this slimeball’s side chick.
His family knew and played along in the lie and included their 10 and 16-year-old children in the lie!
His chick in Oregon is actually his star-crossed lover from childhood! And every time they would try to be together, one or the other would end up in jail! The Oregon chick ALSO has criminal record highlights.
This shocked me, so I paid for a criminal background check which is how I learned of their records.
I PROFUSELY thanked the ex for telling me the truth about the situation.
I mulled on it for a bit trying to convince myself to simply consider myself lucky and just walk away with my dignity intact. But then he’d be winning and I knew I had everything in my power to come down on him like Thor’s hammer.
I gave the ex ALL of his info – SSN, State ID#s, current and past known addresses.
With this, she contacted her state’s Child Support Services. He will now have his driver’s license revoked and can’t get one regardless of which state he moves to until he is current with his past payments. If he ever gets a real job 25% of his wages will be garnished. He now has a warrant for his arrest in the state his oldest kid lives.
He’s trying to play house with his new partner and contacted the mother of his oldest to arrange a meeting with his kid and his partner’s child. The mother is ‘playing nice’ and pretending it’s a-go. He is planning a trip to visit his daughter. He will not see her, at the ‘meeting,’ he will be seeing the police and they will arrest him for failure to pay, and he won’t get out of jail until he pays a sizable chunk of the $20,000 past-due PLUS bail!
I gave the ex his info THE DAY BEFORE his federal tax refund was set to go out.
She was fast enough at getting his info to CSS that they INTERCEPTED his full tax refund and now, for the first time, has to pay something for his child. His past due child support is also going on his credit report.
I know the name of the business his ex-brother-in-law owns, so I dropped a dime to the IRS.
So, he’s losing his only steady income soon and can’t get a job at Walmart due to his criminal record, and if he DOES manage to find someone that hires without criminal background checks he will lose 1/4 of his paycheck.
I told this story to two of my ‘hacker’ friends and they got into contact with hackers more talented than themselves and are now going to ‘take care of’ a few more things for me – like finding the guy who was conned into paying for a kid that’s not his!!”
Another User Comments:
“”Men” like this infuriate me. Our relationship broke down when my son was 2 months old. From that first month she left, I was helping to cover his expenses. Despite a year of exypoo’s nonsense, I STILL PAID EVERY MONTH. Despite her refusal to let me see my son, I STILL PAID EVERY MONTH. She threatened to involve the police when I tried to pick him up for a holiday weekend.
She then stated that if I ever want to see my son again to take her to court. Guess what, I STILL PAID EVERY MONTH. I took her butt to court, settled that nonsense up.
Good on you for taking him to task.” ermergerdberbles”
7. Won't Pay For Breakfast? Then Spend $8,000 On A Coffee Machine
“I work for said pretty big engineering company with around 2,500 employees spread around the world. The main part of us, I guess around 2k, works in our home country, with the main bulk stationed in 4 big offices. Besides the big offices, there are also some smaller ones scattered around the country – I work in one of those. In total, we’re 18 people employed at our office.
This is obviously not enough people to warrant a reception desk, canteen, IT department and so on. That means we get on by ourselves for the most part unless it’s a bigger problem we can’t solve, in which case we have to call one of the “main” offices for help – it’s a bit slower sometimes, but it’s okay, and we don’t make a fuss.
This also means that there are some differences in how stuff is done in different places. For example, in our office, the “office tasks” (ordering paper, organizing the storage area, arranging office get-togethers and stuff like that) is just something we all do to make things run – none of us mind as its just small stuff that doesn’t take a lot of time. In the bigger offices, there are people employed to handle all that stuff.
Well, one of our company perks is that every Friday, we get a 30-minute, paid breakfast in the office. In the bigger offices, there’s a canteen where they arrange the breakfast, so the employees just have to waltz down, eat, and go back to work. In our office, we take turns going to the nearest bakery and buying breakfast, then go to a grocery store and get stuff to put on the bread, all in our own time before coming in.
We’ll get the breakfast reimbursed but not the time. Again, we didn’t mind the arrangement, and neither did the facility managers stationed in the main offices.
What they suddenly did have a problem with, is that we have a habit of buying some morning cakes, cinnamon buns, or whatever we felt like that day (might sound weird, but it’s a tradition where I’m from – and it’s delicious!) to go with the breakfast. One day my boss got a mail from them with a list of what the breakfast could contain – and nothing else – and also a budget for each person, because it had to be equal for all offices!
That meant we couldn’t get our cakes anymore and neither cold cuts of meat for our bread. Both because it wasn’t on the list and because we often went a little bit over budget.
The office was in an uproar, I tell you! (Don’t mess with an engineer’s breakfast!)
So we comply and only buy the stuff we’re allowed to. But we hatch out a plan – if they want it all to be equal, ALL will have to be equal, which means:
All of us start putting 30 minutes each Friday on the company as we are entitled to (before we often just put a smaller amount of time down, or we just didn’t, and the time disappeared to other tasks which to company could bill to clients). 18 x 30 minutes = 9 hours each week of lost time (already a lot more than what the breakfast cost extra).
We ask for somewhere to put the time we spend collecting breakfast and cleaning afterward, as the other offices didn’t have to do it themselves – and it had to be equal!
We make a list of other stuff we don’t have that the other offices do. We named every small thing we could come up with, including, but not limited to: IT department, receptionist, kitchen worker to help collect and make the breakfast, facility worker to keep stores stocked up, fancy coffee machine (what we had was an old school regular coffee maker – other offices had fancy automatic ones with different blends and stuff).
I think around 15- 20 bullet points of varying pettiness.
My boss sends the list to the main office and tells them we need this, for all things to be equal, as YOU wanted!
Well, we now have a fancy coffee machine, costing around 8k to get installed because a new water line had to be drawn to where it’s placed and a much bigger maintenance cost because of different blends, cleaning, and so on.
Meanwhile, we’re all waiting for our IT department to get set up – but I’m guessing we’ll get our cakes back before that happens!”
6. Won't Let Me Run The Generators On Your Property? No More Electricity For You, Then
They always want it their way until their way doesn’t work, then they come crawling back to you.
“I am also NOT very technically minded when it comes to electrics, so please bear with me and I shall explain as best as my layman’s knowledge allows.
So I live not far from Milla Milla in North Queensland up in the mountains and rain forest. On my property, I am blessed with a strong mountain stream that never goes dry and was perfect for a small hydro-electric setup to produce power for my house.
Now to place it on my property, I would only get a small “head” of water meaning the hydro system would not be running at full capacity and produce a lot less power that it was actually capable of.
To ensure I never was left dry, I instead installed two hydro systems which essentially meant I could now run everything as much as I liked. To burn off excess power produced, I mounted a row of heating elements from old hot water systems on the roof of my shed. (I could not feed the excess back into the grid as apparently it is illegal to do this from hydro for some reason but is apparently perfectly alright from solar panels?)
A pretty nice setup once complete, and apart from a very small amount of maintenance, I never paid a cent for power ever again.
I was on very good terms with my downhill neighbor, and eventually, we struck a deal to place the generators on my neighbor’s property where there would be a higher head from my weir and the turbines would run at full power, easily providing enough electricity for both houses.
So we poured a new cement slab for the generators and ran a new feed pipe from my weir to the new generator site. Wired everything in and hey-presto, free power all round.
Everything was good for nearly a decade until my neighbour finally sold the place and moved south to be with his kids.
At first, the new neighbor seemed ok. He had been told about the power-sharing arrangement but apparently had not grasped the bit about the generators being on his property.
They were down by the creek and in the forest, so it may not have been immediately obvious where they were located.
Unfortunately, when he did discover them, he appeared to take it as a personal affront and came storming to my door one night.
N: “Why are there two freaking great machines on my place with a pipe coming from your place?”
Me: “Uh?
Do you mean my hydro turbines?”
N: “Is that what they are? Why are they on my property? I don’t want them there! You need to get rid of them or I will!”
Me: “Wait a minute, those turbines are where our power comes from. We can’t just rip them out.”
N: “That is not my problem! I don’t want YOUR CRAP on MY land.
You have one week to move them or else!”
The discussion went on some more as I tried to get him to understand why they were there and what they did as well as the original deal to share power because of where they were. He was either too stupid or too rude to care, so I finally agreed to move them the next day.
So the next morning, I shut off the drive pipe, disconnected the turbines, and loaded it all onto my ute. I then went to the original site on my property and reconnected the whole mess. Of course, I had to use the original wiring setup to connect them, which only supplied my house. In any case, there was now only enough power for one place anyway due to the lower head supplying less pressure.
All good and my place had power again by the evening.
My neighbor came home after work to a dark house and defrosting freezers… and went mental!
N: “Where the heck is my power? I am supposed to get free power at my place! You can’t do this!”
Me: “As I repeatedly explained yesterday, the DEAL was you get power in return for me being able to site the generators on your property.
Now that you forced me to move them, you get nothing. In any case, they now can only supply enough power for one house because of their location, so I guess you are going to have to sort out something for yourself.”
Neighbor stormed off to buy a petrol generator.
In the coming week, he had an electrician come in to do a quote to supply mains power to his house but wasn’t happy with that as the house had been off-grid for a decade and would need extensive modifications to get back on the grid (they would need to put a new pole in on his property at his expense as well as a new fuse box, around $15k).
He then got a quote for his own hydro electric turbine but discovered he did not have sufficient head on his property. The salesman suggested he talk to his uphill neighbour (me) to see if he could run a pickup pipe from that property.
Guess who came to my door, cap in hand and very apologetic, to ask if I would mind putting the generators back on his place so he could have power?
When I told him there was no way in heck I was going to do that, he asked if he could have permission to run a drive pipe from my weir instead.
Me: “Gee, I don’t know if I want your crap on my land.”
I eventually let him do it; although, I did make him sweat a bit first. However, there was a condition attached. If he ever made trouble with me again, that drive pipe was going to come out immediately!
Haven’t had so much as a peep from him since.”
5. Try To Make Me Pay For Upgrades After I Move Out? I'll Force You To Return My Deposit
“I moved to California in 2010 and had lined up a house on a 3-acre property with a nice size detached barn. We were on a rent to own to allow time to get settled and secure the loan to buy the property. So we had a standard California rental agreement. With the handshake agreement, it would not be needed once we purchased the house.
A couple of little things to fill in.
The female owner was a realtor, so there was a reasonable expectation she knew what she was doing. The husband was… weird. I cannot explain it past that. But the odd part was, we actually bought the horse that was boarded on the property, and also they had the detached barn full of their old crap, with the agreement that it would be removed by the owners once we purchased.
So we move in, things are going fairly good. We have several cats at the time but keep the house cleaned up, and we had one cat prone to accidents, but for the most part, we kept everything good. Sometime during the winter, we have an issue with the septic system. The owner proceeds to let it slip the septic was not put in legally and was not correct.
Okay, they still paid for the repairs. A month or so later, a water line the husband installed to use for watering the horse broke, and again, find out it was not done correctly, but this time, I was forced to pay for it. Okay, cool.
Once I found out about the septic, I started looking for other houses and found one available, and we were able to get it.
At this point, I give the owner about 2 months’ notice. We had done some improvements on the property, including a tack shed (for all the horse gear, my stepdaughter loved horses, and the horse was hers). So almost immediately, the owner’s attitude changes, and I realize we are in for a long 2 months. We are slowly moving into the new house, as we have time.
During this time, the owner was randomly showing up without 24 hours notice (CA law), attempting to show the house with zero warning, and the best one, she started “inspecting” the house before we were even moved out.
At this point, we were about 75% moved. The new house was on 12 1/2 acres, and we did not have a pen to put the horse and goats into. One day, I get home from work, and we have to call a vet out.
The owner’s daughter, who use to own the horse, decided to give the horse and our 2 goats a years’ worth of glucosamine supplements for the horse. We ended up with a several hundred dollar vet bill.
So we sped things up and ended up clearing a few weeks early. Because of this, there were a few odds and ends left behind, including a wooden run-to for the goats.
I spent about 500.00 on cleaning alone to make sure we got our deposit back. I even brought in a professional cleaning service to finish the house up. (I spent many times moving from base housing while military; this is common.) So we complete the final walkthrough with the owner, and she seems happy. She says she will figure everything out and send me a check.
Okay, cool.
About 4 weeks after the original move-out date, I get a LARGE manila envelope in the mail from the owner. Strange, but okay, cool. I open it, and she is trying to charge me in the neighborhood of 2,500.00 on top of the 2000.00 deposit she is keeping. Okay lady, let’s see what you got. In the envelope is about 10 small mailer envelopes and about 300ish pictures of various things on the property and in the house.
Along with a 6-page letter outlining what I owe her for.
So I start reading, couple hundred for trash removal, including a list of items removed, and the receipt for removal, several hundred for paint, (during the walkthrough, I offered to paint the rooms we had painted; one was an obnoxious cotton candy pink), and the owner said no; it was fine. There is also a charge for close to 3,000.00 for brand new carpeting and high-end padding from Lowes, as well as the receipt, and also an itemized charge for labor.
I believe there were a few other items, but I don’t have the paperwork in front of me.
Now, my first reaction was pure rage. I was seeing red. I wrote the nastiest letter to her 3 different times and took a step back. She had threatened to take me to court. Cue MC. I pulled up California rental laws, and at the time, there was a great website that explained what an owner could legally charge you for.
So I sat down, and I believe the entire letter I responded to her with was around 15 pages.
The highlights:
I was not responsible for the painting or labor associated with it as I provided the final inspection that did not note any issues with paint color.
I was not responsible for the trash removal, as she listed one item that was ours (the plywood run-to in the field), and the items actually listed were all her personal items removed from the detached barn, and it was not my responsibility.
I was not responsible for paying the emergency plumbing repair (mentioned earlier), and I provided the bill and the fact it was an emergency, as it was flooding over half the property, and making an entrance to the property impossible.
The best one was the last one. The carpets. So in her letter, she mentioned a horrible smell of cat urine, which she proceeds to explain occurred during the illegal inspections.
She also had provided documentation on the cost of materials, including all her purchases. The best part? They were all marked PRIOR to our final walkthrough. No matter the result, she was replacing that carpet. So California law is very specific on what the owner can charge for carpets. At the final walkthrough, she was okay with the carpets but then changed her mind a few days later.
So I explained, to the letter, that I was responsible for roughly 1/30th of the cost of replacement, as she graciously showed me the 10-year-old carpet was good for 30 years. So due to the fact it was normal wear and tear, I agreed to cover that portion (it was only a couple hundred)
Now in her letter, she threatened legal action as well. So I put everything together, including a final breakdown of what was owed to her and what was owed to me, and it was close to 1,500.00.
I also informed her I was ready to take the case to court if she didn’t agree with me, as that was the next legal step.
About a month later (she had 30 days to respond), I get a check for 1,250.00 and a short note saying she expected this issue was considered resolved. I have never smiled so much cashing a check.”
4. Make Us A Half Hour Late To A Surprise Birthday Party? I'll Prove A Point
“A few years ago, I (22f) had a friend, “Alex,” (24f) who was always late.
She was also the kind of person who would tell you “I’m on my way!” when she was not, in fact, on her way. That one trait of hers caused me quite a lot of inconvenience.
One time, we both were invited to a surprise birthday party for our mutual friend. Clearly written on the invitation was something along the lines of “Be sure to arrive at 6 pm.
Do not be late, or you will miss the surprise!”
Come the day of the party, she and I had agreed to meet at my house and drive over together. Around 5 pm, I asked her when she would be at my place. She told me she would be there around 5:30, which was great because the party was about 30 minutes away.
At 5:30, I called her to ask where she was, and she told me she had not even left yet.
She then promised that “[she would] be there in 5 minutes!” I figured that was okay because she lived fairly close by.
Long story short, she ended up getting to my house at 6. I was mad. We left immediately and made it to the party around 6:30. By that time, the surprise had obviously taken place and the party was in full swing.
I mentioned to her that I was really bothered that she had been late.
Not only that, but she had strung me along and lied to me and prevented me from being on time.
She responded by saying things like, “It’s not that big of a deal,” and “We were only 30 minutes late,” and “Don’t be so dramatic.”
At that point, I was sick of her being late and her attitude. Being late, lying, and downplaying someone’s feelings are all rude.
So, I went to a nearby steakhouse and took a gift card without putting a dollar amount on it. I wrote “$30” on the card and gave it to her a few days later, telling her it was a random gift for being my friend.
A few days after that, I got a text from her asking if I was sure I activated the card. I told her yes, I was sure, and asked her why she was asking.
She responded by saying she had gone to the restaurant with some friends without her purse and tried to use the gift card, but it wasn’t working.
It was at that point that I gave myself away by responding with, “Oops! I guess I was wrong,” and “It’s not that big of a deal,” and “You’re only $30 short.”
She immediately picked up on what I was doing, and I proceeded to receive a few very angry texts about how embarrassed she was and how rude and disrespectful I was for doing that.
“All of this just because I was a few minutes late?” blah, blah, blah.
I simply responded with, “So you’re saying if I tell you one thing then do another and it directly impacts your life in a negative way, that is disrespectful? And if you get mad at me for it and I downplay your feelings, that is rude? Am I understanding you correctly?”
She didn’t respond. I found out later that none of her friends were willing or able to cover her dinner, so she had to stay about 30 minutes later for her parents to rescue her.
We didn’t talk much after that. Hopefully, she learned a valuable lesson! I sure had a great time teaching it!”
3. Pick On The Temps? Someone's Getting Fired
Temporary worker or not, they still can be the reason you get booted!
“Sit back and enjoy a story about some revenge I achieved at the US Postal Service back in the 1990s that cost a bullying full-time carrier his union job.
In the summer of 1991, I found a summer job as a “casual carrier” for the USPS. They used to hire summer temps to cover for all the full-time carriers who mostly took their vacations in the summer.
The USPS had (has?) rules that things had to be delivered within certain time windows. People could get fired if they took too long to do tasks. Carriers were both openly and secretly monitored and timed on tasks, and we had the first computerized time system I ever saw. They would be secretly followed a few times per year to be sure they were working hard the entire time they were outside the post office.
The post office building even had secret back hallways, passive sound monitoring, and hidden raised viewing areas where they could see the sorting floor unobserved – cameras and microphones were super expensive back then, so this was all done using tricky architecture and the eyes and ears of the postal inspectors.
We were supposed to walk over and punch in and out of tasks so that they could track productivity to the second.
People walking a delivery route were expected to do it FAST, and better routes went to faster carriers. Slow carriers got mercilessly hassled to be faster and were disciplined for slowness. Look at Newman on Seinfeld. “Going postal” due to overwork was not really a joke there, because people would flip out and murder their bosses. I hear it’s worse now with GPS.
Pre-Internet, there used to be a huge volume of mail that got shuffled around the country every day.
Quantities of mail that you would find hard to believe compared to what we see now. I was a broke college student home for the summer and was willing to work any hours they gave me, so the supervisors liked me. I was also very friendly with most of the Full-time (FT) carriers because I was a good worker and didn’t rock the boat. Also, for other reasons that you’ll see below.
I’m a fairly big guy (6’5″ or about 195cm, about 210 lbs back then), and I could carry a lot of weight, so that also made management happy. I was also in my early 20s with long legs, so I could move fast carrying a lot of weight. Sorting mail back then was labor-intensive and took a lot of time to learn. I had a regular route that I would deliver in the afternoons that was sorted by a regular.
I would usually do oddball delivery stuff in the mornings, help move heavy things around, do special deliveries, etc.
I would also deliver for FT carriers that went on vacation or whose T6 was on vacation. Side note – mail delivery is 6x per week but FT carriers only work 5 days per week. The T6 is an FT carrier who did the sixth day for five routes.
That way it worked out that everyone only worked 5 days per week.
At the time, a lot of retail catalogs were mailed to houses. A LOT of them. Some were substantially bigger than current magazines. We also delivered magazines, ads, packages, and samples. A lot of companies would mail samples of products like laundry detergent, shampoo, and other liquids to be delivered to every house on the route.
These were the bane of the carriers’ existence because they were bulky and heavy. This slows you down and is physically taxing. Usually, carriers would divide the very heavy stuff up and deliver it throughout the week.
On to the revenge.
I was assigned to do the T6 work for Dave (name changed) for a few months. Freaking Dave. Picture a failed Phys Ed teacher in his 40s.
Bad mustache, about 5’7″, wore knock-off sunglasses like Magnum PI’s, and had an opinion about everything. Dave learns he has me as his T6 and decides he will leave all of the heavy stuff for me. So, once a week, I got confronted with the entire week’s worth of heavy mail for this ********* route. I confronted him about it, and he basically laughed and said there was nothing I could do about it.
The other FT carriers didn’t like Dave much, but I was a temp and he was there permanently, so I was encouraged to just******* up.
I went to our boss and escalated to our postmaster but was told that he was FT and I was a temp, so I just had to deal with it. If the mail needed to be delivered that day to meet the deadline, I had to make it happen.
The postmaster’s exact words were, “Just deliver every piece of mail for the route as fast as you can, and don’t worry about the time it takes or anything else. You’re making huge OT on this route.” They did talk to Dave and the most egregious stuff stopped, but I was still doing most of the hard work on this route.
I mentioned earlier that everyone was always on the clock and tracked. In my first week, some of the nicer people took me aside at the beginning of the summer and made it clear to me that I was not to move quickly when delivering FT carrier’s routes because it could make them look bad and cause trouble for them.
As a temp, I should always take longer than the FT carriers because (1) my job was limited and the USPS did not really track temps closely; (2) I had zero experience so everything should take me longer; (3) this was a union shop and they would hate to have to kick my butt for messing up their jobs; and (4) most of these people were awesome and I wanted to be a team player.
So, I was incentivized to move slowly and not make the FT people look bad. Side note – I am very pro-union and pro-labor, so this is not intended to knock unions, but the context is needed.
I decided to wreck Dave’s job since he was such a bullying little tool. I requisitioned two additional mail carrier bags. These are the over-the-shoulder satchels you see all the time.
I was asked why and I specifically told them it was to be able to carry all of the heavy items on Dave’s route without having to keep going back to my jeep to reload along the way. The postmaster personally approved it.
After doing Dave’s route 1 to 3 times per week (he called in sick a lot, too) for a few weeks, I knew it very well and was staying on top of the heavy stuff.
Once I was comfortable with the route, I started RUNNING it. I would literally load up 3 mail bags for each segment of the route and jog or run his entire route. Dave’s route took him about 4.5 hours per day to walk. This was probably accurate for him, and he’d been on the route for several years. I would finish it in 3 hours or less. Every day.
Rain or shine. No matter how many magazines, samples, or packages were waiting.
No one really noticed I was coming back so quickly and punching back out of delivering his route when I was only doing it a few times per week. I would come back, pick up other work, and get that done. The fun started when Dave took a 2-week vacation, and I handled his route 6 days per week.
Since I was doing the work right, there was never a backlog of heavy items landing on me once per week. This made it even easier to jog or run his route as I was back to using one mailbag and fast-walking/jogging was enough to get it done quickly. I frequently got it done in under three hours and never took longer than about 3.5 hours.
My personal best was under 2.5 hours.
I got pulled aside by my supervisor and the postmaster after the first week. They asked me about my timekeeping practices, and I confirmed that I was doing things correctly. I would punch into his route on departure, keep the appropriate logs, and punch back in when I got back. The Postmaster then asked me about Dave’s route. I played completely dumb.
He noted that I complained about the mail volume several weeks ago and that I used to take 6, 7, or more hours to get it delivered. I explained that I was spreading the heavy deliveries out over the whole week and that had really made a difference. He asked me if I was really delivering all the mail and whether I was hiding or throwing away mail – a serious problem if true.
I got very offended and told him I delivered every piece of mail for the route, every day.
Then I dropped the bomb.
I told him I was having trouble understanding why this route was budgeted 4.5 hours to deliver when it clearly could be done much faster than that. I pointed out that it was a lot of dense multi-family housing, which means less walking.
I told him lots of people on the route seemed surprised that I did not want a soda pop or to sit down and talk for a minute like Dave always did with them (pure lies). All in my innocent, gosh-I-want-to-help-the-USPS voice. I told the postmaster that I was delivering all the mail as fast as I could and not worrying about anything else.
I jogged the route again for the next 6 days and kept getting it done in much less time than Dave.
Dave did not know about any of this. He made a point of finding me on his first day back to ask how I enjoyed doing all the hard work for him while he was vacationing. I told him I’d learned a lesson about how to treat your coworkers. He laughed at me and went back to sorting mail. He came back a few minutes later and said he got me a souvenir.
He then pulled his middle finger out of his pocket. Classic, Dave.
That was my last week at the USPS, and I headed back to college. I kept in touch with some of the friends I’d made there, and one of them was very happy to tell me that Dave was fired about two months after I left. Due to the massive discrepancy in how long it took me and him to deliver the route, the higher-ups audited his route and discovered that he actually was lollygagging, taking unauthorized breaks, and apparently having an affair with a woman on his route – all on the clock.
I, on the other hand, was in great physical shape after all that running and had full pockets for that semester. His regular T6 also got most of the heavy stuff dumped on her, so she didn’t get into any trouble for her delivery times because she was swamped with heavy mail on her day. She actually bid for and got the route full time when Dave was shown the door.
I have more stories of my glorious summer at the USPS, but crushing Dave is one of the high points.”
2. Fire Me And Refuse To Give Me My Last Check For A Month? Speak To The Judge
“I got a job as an EMT after a 6 month Community College training course. I was woefully unqualified, I barely knew the basics, but the teacher kept saying, don’t worry, the new job will train you when you’re hired.
I got hired at an ambulance transport place that just took people to dialysis and things like that, not emergency services. But there was no training.
I was told to figure it out myself, etc. I didn’t know what I was doing and I quickly realized this wasn’t a fit. But I continued to try.
On day 4 I was let go. I had worked 4 days total. I signed a paper with reasons they were firing me, all of which I agreed with so I signed. I asked if they had my check ready, the man who was doing the paperwork said they didn’t, but they’d send it to me.
Not exactly legal, but ok.
I waited and waited. No check. I called to see where it was. I knew they were supposed to get that to me pretty quick by law. I called a few times to see where it was. The boss lady was so rude, hanging up on me, not taking calls, when I did get someone they’d say, we’ll mail it.
I started researching labor laws because it was getting ridiculous. That’s when I found out they have to give me a day’s pay for every day my check is late, which was 150 bucks. So I stopped calling and started waiting.
I finally got a check, but it was a payroll check. And it turns out I had worked 2 days in one pay period and 2 on the next one.
So I called again to tell them and got yelled at by the boss lady.
Waited another 2 weeks, got my last check, and filed my claim with the labor board for not getting my final paycheck in the time allowed by law. It had been about a month by then.
The first meeting was a mediation where we try to settle. Boss lady wasn’t having it.
She kept saying she didn’t owe me anything and her offer was 500 dollars. She said this was all a setup by me. I knew they owed me closer to 3000 and she didn’t have a leg to stand on so I refused. She stomped out and said I’d be hearing from her lawyer. Next, we went before a labor judge.
This time evil boss had done her research.
Every excuse an employer can use for not paying me the last check, she used. She said I moved. She said I never tried to call them, that they tried to call me numerous times. She said they tried to call me to get my address but my number was changed. She said her husband was a cop and she was an honest person and I was a liar and did all this intentionally.
She said I purposely didn’t clock in and the times were messed up. She also claimed a ton of reasons why I was fired, (she claimed I almost killed one of the patients) none of which were listed on the paper they made me sign and the judge called her out on that.
I went home, printed my phone records and highlighted all the calls, letter from my landlord saying I hadn’t moved, etc, and took it back to the labor board and dropped it off.
I didn’t get to see the judge again so I don’t know if the judge ever saw it, but I did win the case. Plus the judge added 4 days because the last check was sent on a Friday before a 3 day weekend. I was only supposed to be paid until the postmark date, but I got paid till the following Tuesday. Over 3k.
Also, the evil lady wasn’t paying the ambulance drivers double overtime after 12 hours.
So I let that slip while I was in the mediator’s office and she said she’d look into it. I hope they did.”
Another User Comments:
“I had something similar happen when I left an agency years ago. The guys running it were doing all sorts of shady stuff. Paychecks arriving 3 weeks late, not paying vendors, etc.
I reached out to the labor board and started taking detailed notes about it all.
When I finally quit after not receiving 2 paychecks in a row, I was ready and filed knowing that each day they didn’t pay me, I was making my day rate. I ended up holding onto their laptop and monitor since I was working from home for collateral. When we finally got to mediation, the idiots didn’t even show up but “called from the car.” I won and got 3 weeks of pay, plus all my vacation days they owed me and didn’t include in my final check but on the condition had to return their equipment.
That was a funny meetup to give them their stuff, and the owner is trying to be all friendly and crack jokes. I just handed him his crap and told him to screw off.
They ended up not paying all their other designers eventually, and they all reached out to me to find out how to report them.” bigcityboy
1. Want A Plain Cheeseburger? Enjoy A Cheesy Nugget Sandwich Instead
“This is a past story from when I was 16 and had my first job at a McDonald’s.
I was closing and the store came down to me and 2 other people, a manager and a guy to help us clean and walk us out at night. It’s 12:30 AM and our drive-thru closes at 1.
A car pulls to the speaker and I take their order of a single cheeseburger.
I make the cheeseburger.
I get the woman’s change and hand her the food, we are both polite and sleepy.
She opens the bag and pulls out the food and lets out a long sigh and says, “Hey, I’m really sorry, but I actually meant to order this plain.”
I say, “Oh, like you want no condiments? Okay, give me one second.”
I go in the back and make a plain cheeseburger, I take the one she didn’t want and hand her the new one.
She opens it and is now visibly angry.
“What the heck is your problem?? Obviously, if I wanted it plain, that means no cheese? Are you really that dense??”
I am about to close the window and tell her tough nut, lick a butt, start the strut before you get cut. She takes another deep breath and says, “Look, I’m sorry, I’m six months pregnant and I get really hormonal. I just want a plain hamburger.”
At this point, it is now 12:50 AM and my fidelity to this business is now on a 10-minute ticking clock.
She tosses the burger back through the window, I make no attempt to catch it. It hits me and opens on the floor. I leave it there pretending to not notice and I say, “Don’t worry about it, I understand. We are all tired and it is very late at night.”
I go into the kitchen, take the original ketchup-mustard-pickle-onion stuffed cheeseburger, I open it and lay three chicken nuggets on the patty. Wrap it in a hamburger wrapper, put a sticker on it that says plain, and I hand it out the window to her.
She didn’t even open the burger to check, just looked at the paper that said “hamburger” all over it and the sticker that said plain gave me a snarky “Thanks” and drove off.
I shut off the drive-thru and the exterior lights, as it was now 1:00 AM. When she came back around and pulled up to the windows screaming at us cleaning, I told my manager she was just some late night tweaker who had come through earlier and we all openly ignored her until she left.”
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