People Discuss Their "Cray-Cray" Revenge Story
15. Abuse Your Class? I Think Not
“So, this happened when I was in the 10th grade.
You gotta know that this story takes place in Germany. We have 4 kinds of high schools: gymnasium, Realschule, Hauptschule, and Sonderschule (best to worst based on your social standing).
Students who were in the Hauptschule would usually only go to the 9th grade, but they CAN go into the 10th grade if they want a higher education. I was one of those students.
Until that year, I had the best English teacher. He was kind, cared for his students, would always speak English with us, and so on. I loved his lessons! English was my favorite subject until the 10th grade started. He was still my class teacher, but the class got split into English and Math.
The good students would go into the E-course, the bad into the G course. I was terrible at math but quite good at English, so you can guess where I landed. Sadly, Mr. Awesome (my favorite teacher), got to lecture the G course, and Marie and I got into the E-course… with Karen.
The first day we had her, we already got annoyed. She was TERRIBLE at English.
You think my English is bad? She couldn’t even spell words we learned in elementary school. I won’t even talk about her pronunciation. When she tried to say THE, it was ZEH, and we hated it. That wasn’t that bad though.
But her personality was what made us want revenge. Every month, we’d get our grades (I don’t know how it is in other countries, but here, you get two grades.
One for every test you write and one for how much you say and do in classes and how correct it was), and when she told me my grade for what I did in classes, I was shocked. I got a 5! You could say that’s an E. Marie got a 4 or D. Some other great students got terrible grades too. I’d always get the right answers, would be done first with everything, and all in all, I was a model student.
My only competition was Marie, but we BOTH got terrible grades. Simon, another classmate with who we got along very well, got a 2 (B) even though he never did anything. He’s always on his phone or busy talking with other students. Even he himself said it wasn’t fair. We and the other students were complaining to Karen, but she only said, ‘Stop being such pains.
I am the teacher, and YOU are the students. If you have problems with that, you can always go into the G course,’ well knowing that we couldn’t. We needed to be in a better course to be able to graduate.
Marie and I went to Mr. Awesome since we knew him very well, and he knew that we were great students, so we told him everything.
He sighed and scratched his head. ‘I’m sorry… I know how much this means to you two, but my hands are tied. I think that you’re in the right. I really do, but if I’d talk to her, I have the feeling that it could get worse for you. Just do your best,’ he said quite sad that he couldn’t help us.
The next months, we’d go along with it until… we had our first test. When we got it back, I went pale.
My first 6 (F) I EVER had in English. Marie and THE SAME STUDENTS that had problems before had bad grades too. It was all digital, so you couldn’t see it, but we KNEW that she did something to the tests. We immediately went to the principal, but he didn’t believe us. Only Mr. Awesome did, but again, his hands were tied. Finally, we had enough.
All her victims talked together and tried to figure out a way to get revenge, and we had a plan. She’d often get very aggressive, and we knew that. That morning, we asked Mr. Awesome to open our class door since Karen was late again. We used all of the time we had. Simon placed a small cam on the cupboard and turned it on.
When Karen came in everyone sat down and was quiet. She started the class and asked the first question. No one answered. She was confused but went on. NO ONE answered ANYTHING, so she got angrier every minute. A few minutes later, she yelled at us again. Everyone was looking at her silently, and she was going on screaming. When she said we were the worst class ever, the quietest, shyest, and the biggest teacher’s pet opened her mouth, ‘Maybe if you’d be a better teacher, everyone else would be better students.’ Everyone laughed and agreed. One of the boys screamed, ‘YOOOOOOOOOOO’ as the clown he was.
Karen. Was. Livid. She walked up to the quiet kid, my hero, and SLAMMED her ruler on the girl’s hand. She immediately started crying, holding her red hand. Karen realized what she did and tried to talk herself out of it while Marie, Simon, and I took the cam, comforted the girl, and walked out with her without saying a single word to Karen.
We went to Mr. Awesome first and told him what happened. He comforted the girl as well and went to the principal with us.
We showed him EVERYTHING. You think that’s good? It gets BETTER. We had a substance problem at our school. They literally found substances in Karen’s bag. She got arrested, and she lost all rights to teach. Plus, the quiet kid pressed charges and got $350 from her.
We got a better teacher then. I went from a low-grade student to the CLASS BEST.
Why do I tell this story now?
Marie and I MET Karen today in the city. She was an addict and had a lot of problems back then but is better now. She went to therapy and got clean. She’s sorry for everything and wished us well when we said goodbye.”
14. Get Me Fired By Accusing Me Of Stealing When You're The One Who Stole? Get Fired Years Later
Be careful how you treat other people because it will come back to bite you in the butt eventually.
“So I worked for Company A for almost a decade that had a small team consisting of ten people, doing commissioned work for businesses in my city. The owner treated us like family, knowing that we worked long and hard days, sometimes up to 60 hours in a week. He paid us better than expected, bonuses and perks, he negotiated with businesses that commissioned our work, even gave the whole company a week off paid when his son was getting married so we could attend it.
We had our squabbles like any other family, and things weren’t always bright and perfect, but this is to show how nice the Owner treated his employees. And didn’t screw me over.
After working there for years, the manager position became open. By then I was one of the most senior workers with Company A, so I thought I would apply, which had a few others interested as well.
I didn’t get the position, mainly because, despite my experience at Company A, I didn’t have a Business Administration degree.
Someone who worked for the Owner did, so he got it. Realizing the education I would have to get, and the demand of this job, I thought long and hard and concluded that, if I wanted to go anywhere in life, I would have to get that degree.
Coming right out of high school to work for Company A was great, but if I wanted to do something more I would have to go to university. I talked to the Owner and gave my two weeks notice.
When I explained what I wanted to do and why, he understood that I was trying to make something of myself. This all becomes relevant later.
Going to university, I found that I had tuition covered through government grants but not things like food, rent, etc. So I looked around and eventually found work at Company B. Company B was a retail store, with a bigger staff than I had been used to, somewhere around 50 employees but had such a huge employee turnaround that it was scary at times.
They dealt with a wide arrangement of goods from groceries to very expensive items. They had a certain niche clientele that they could order items for and catered to.
I ended up working part-time in their warehouse and answered to the Warehouse Supervisor, who answered to the Manager. There were other supervisors for other parts of the store, but for this only the Sales Supervisor is relevant.
Skip forward seven years. In that time I got my BA degree and worked at Company B the whole time, going from part-time to full, and eventually applied for the Warehouse Supervisor position.
I was interviewed, got the job, been a supervisor for months when the Manager and I hired K as a warehouse clerk.
K isn’t the one to get the revenge, but she played a crucial part in the revenge.
Then Witch (B) gets hired.
B started out as a cashier, working quickly up the chain and brown-nosing as many co-workers as possible, including the Manager.
When a sales rep went on maternity leave, B quickly jumped at the chance to work in sales and ended up permanently being a part of that team then the Sales Supervisor soon after.
B and I got along like oil and water. We butted heads over things constantly; she would tell the Manager all the small things that I did, but called me a snitch when I reported the issues she was causing.
She would badmouth me and my warehouse staff, talk over me at meetings and try to take credit for my ideas.
She openly told co-workers that I was the cause of many issues and couldn’t wait for me to leave. Oh, and she was NEVER at fault.
It would be the customer’s fault, my fault, the delivery driver’s fault, another co-workers fault, etc. There were times when we got together well, but far and few between.
So one day, a very, and I mean VERY, expensive ring set (over $5,000 I found out later), ordered by one of our customers, comes in. Years ago, I set up a procedure for any type of jewelry so that it will not get lost or stolen. The last step is, once we have done everything with it in the warehouse, we take it to the office and have someone put it in the safe immediately.
This particular time, I was the one who received the rings so, once going through the procedure, I told K that I was taking them to the office. The only one available who had the combination to the safe was B. I asked her if she could open the safe, she looked at me, looked at the jewelry box in my hand, then said, ‘put it down here on my desk, I’ll put it away once I’m done this email.’ Keep in mind that B and I had had a serious spat over something earlier that day, and I generally didn’t feel like being close to her if I could help it.
So I never saw her put it in the safe myself.
The next day, I get a call from the Manager to come to the office. I head there to find Manager, B, and the HR consultant they pull in when some real trouble hits the fan. Manager tells me that said ring set has disappeared. I tell them the procedure I followed and the last I saw them was with B.
Manager tells me that B checked the box and that said box was empty.
Manager then pulls the box out. Sure enough, the box the rings were in was indeed empty. I swear to Manager that the rings were inside when I checked them before being given to B. At this point, it’s my word against hers. By a stroke of bad luck, the in-store video recorder had broken down days before the incident so there was no way to verify what happened.
We all know someone has to take the blame for this, and that’s when B strikes, saying that it was my fault, since it was last seen in my hands.
Manager asks if this is true, then I realize that, yes, I was indeed the last person to touch the thing, and I never actually saw B pick up the box. B gives me the look that screamed ‘Gotcha!’ Manager and the HR consultant ask us both to leave.
After what seemed like forever, I get called in. Manager tells me that, since I was responsible for the rings at the time and now are lost, they would be firing me. But, since they had no proof as to whether I stole the rings or not, they wouldn’t press charges (which scared the life out of me as this was the first time I heard of them thinking this).
I go back to the warehouse, tell K and the other warehouse clerks just what happened, grabbed my personal belongings, and left that day.
After a couple of weeks of trying to get my head around what happened and weighing my options, I decide my first priority is to try to get some sort of job, and consider it lucky if I get a job flipping burgers with the bad rep I’ll get when they ask Company B about my previous work history.
I call the Owner of Company A to get a good reference from them and explain what happened and why I was calling, only to get the shock of a lifetime. The manager position was about to be open; the guy to who I lost the position was retiring soon, due to complicated health reasons.
Owner had kept tabs on me while at university and understood when I didn’t immediately come back to him, but with a golden opportunity like this, he wanted me back and I wasn’t going to say no.
I dive into the new job I originally wanted with an Owner I enjoyed working for. I thought, then and there, everything would be behind me, not knowing it would come back, not to bite me, but to pay dividends.
This I found out later. After I was fired, K knew she had to do something about B. K knew that I wouldn’t lose or steal something like the rings.
But also knew that, without proof, B would deny that she did it and have K in her cross-hairs to attack next. So, after talking with her partner, she hatched a plan.
She started hanging out with B telling her things like ‘I’m SO glad he’s gone!’ or ‘Wish he had been fired MUCH earlier!’ B, feeling high from getting rid of one of her thorns in her side, soaked it all in, and after a couple of weeks, invited K and K’s man (from now on KH) for drinks at her place with her and B’s man (BH).
Months pass, K and KH do things regularly together with B and BH, including drinking on weekends and couple-related events.
When together, K would occasionally bad-mouth me, and B would agree. Finally, after over a year of playing nice, when K and KH were over at B’s for one of their drinking parties, K randomly bad-mouthed me, mentioning the rings in passing.
Then B says something that K was waiting for: ‘I wanted those rings, so I stole them.’
K, upon hearing this, asks for more details. KH looks at her and tries to wave her off with one hand, then gives up when B keeps talking.
That day, B had stopped writing her email and was going to put the rings in the safe. The safe was open and she was about to put the rings away when B had an idea. See, as mentioned above, B wanted me gone from Company B.
She also wanted those rings. She also knew that the cameras weren’t working. She figured that she could pocket the rings, tell the Manager they were missing, and spin it so I would take the blame.
K then asks where are the rings now, and B being too intoxicated and not seeing a reason not to brag, not only tells her but shows her where they are in her room.
All while KH had been RECORDING THE WHOLE CONVERSATION on his phone (the hand waving was him saying he started recording).
K gives a copy of the recording to Manager the next workday. Police are called immediately, B is arrested and her house is raided. They find the rings. K and KH give the recording and testimonies to the police. B’s reckoning has begun.
I eventually get a call from the prosecutor’s office after B is arrested and charged with theft of over $5,000, among other things. He wants me to testify about what she did to me.
I didn’t skip a beat in saying yes. Fast track to the trial, the prosecutor has me, K, and KH testify and plays the recording of B admitting that she stole them.
Her attorney tries to throw out the case saying that K got B deliberately intoxicated, but the judge didn’t buy it since there was proof she drank all the time.
The judge was lenient and gave her five years in prison, which she yelled was unfair, but I personally thought she got off easy.
Meanwhile, as the trial was happening, I was talking with a lawyer to sue B for setting me up like she did.
We were also going to sue Company B for wrongful termination, but they settled the day they got notice of the lawsuit and knew they would lose.
B wasn’t so lucky. They tried some trickery by having BH divorce her and he received everything in the divorce, but my lawyer added him into the lawsuit as well.
My lawyer asked overall for $3,500 for emotional distress, back pay from when I was fired until I started up with Company A again, and legal fees.
And now, you are wondering where the metaphoric cherry is on this story? Well, years after all this, we had someone leave Company A, so we were hiring someone to replace them. The owner was going over the resumes and set up interviews for the job this week. Lo and behold, B was one of the people to apply, but he didn’t know that.
I looked at the resume, was about to trash it, but then smiled.
Owner set up the interview. She came in at her slotted time, looking to brown-nose her way through. Then she saw me. I smiled an evil smile, she went white. All I said was, ‘Ah, B how are you? Remember me?’ A deer in the headlight look from her. I look at her resume and say ‘I’m sorry, I do not think you will be a good fit for our company.
Thank you for applying.”
13. Truck-Proof A Mailbox? Sure Thing
“Years ago, back when Uncle Dale and Dad were university students, their engineering professor came to their class with a problem that needed solving. His mailbox was getting broken by someone driving by every night. He and his woman had put up something like four or five mailboxes, and all four or five times, the mailbox had been knocked over by someone driving a red truck.
This professor offered extra credit to any group of students who could come up with a truck-proof mailbox that not only fit with city regulations but within a budget of $20 (which back then was a good size chunk of change).
Well, if anyone here knows anything about engineers (as Dad puts it), they love solving problems. And if it’s engineering students, they’ll make it an experience to remember.
Dad and Uncle Dale got together and got to work. They found a steel bar that fits within mailbox regulations (posts have to be a specific height, width, and depth) and filled the inside with a mixture of concrete and steel rebars. Once the concrete had cured, they welded 8 rebars to the sides of the bar, bent them in half, and stuck it inside a bucket.
To add extra weight, they filled the bucket with the heaviest rocks they could find.
As a finishing touch, they painted it brown and black (to look like wood) and put “the ugliest mailbox we could find on sale” on top, welding it down for good measure.
They brought this monstrosity into class (more dragged it because it was so heavy) and told the professor to bury the bucket where the mailbox stood.
Since they were the first to turn in their project, the professor agreed to give it a try.
That night…the professor and his woman were awoken by a metallic BANG, followed by a lot of cursing. They went outside, and wouldn’t you know it, there was that red truck speeding away, and the mailbox still standing. At the base was a broken wooden baseball bat.
Two days later, the professor gets a bill in the mail for a hospital visit. Turns out, when the passenger hit the mailbox, he did some serious damage to his arm and shoulder. They were planning on suing the professor, but the professor hired a lawyer who basically told the plaintiffs, “You’re just going to admit that you were vandalizing the mailbox multiple times?” That shut them up.
To the best of my Dad’s knowledge, the mailbox is still standing. The other students who still brought in mailboxes had theirs gifted to different professors throughout the town and are also still standing.”
12. Think You Can Cut Our Salaries By 10%? Um. No
“A few years ago, I was working in a company that was bought out by another company based in the US. Apologies to our friends over the other side of the Atlantic, but some folks over there don’t get that things sometimes work differently in other countries.
I’ve always been a bit of a hothead, and I’m also a big fan of trade unions.
Not long after the takeover, there were hints of some issues with the company margins. It seems the original management had hidden some costs in the takeover talks, and there was a shortfall. We all got an email telling us there was going to be a 10% reduction in salaries to cover this.
Now, this didn’t go down too well, and I immediately raised the issue with local HR. They told me the decision had come from the mother ship in the US, and they had been told all discussions needed to go via the US.
I contacted someone in the US HR team and said you can’t do this; it breaks our laws in this country. The response was, “You work for a US company now.
Our rules apply.” I said I was pretty certain that’s not how it worked, and if my salary was cut, I would be taking this further and would be discussing this with my union. The person in HR told me to do what I want and that they don’t recognize unions and to knock myself out. I spoke to the union office and was told exactly what to do.
They effectively told me what the exact steps for malicious compliance were going to be.
Sure enough, my next salary was 10% short. I immediately submitted a format grievance report stating the company was in breach of contract. No changes to my pay and conditions can be imposed without first renegotiating my contract and I had to agree to that. The response from HR in the US was, let’s be kind here, not backed up by an understanding of employment law in this country.
I was told there was nothing I could do about it; they set the rules, and that was it.
The next stage of malicious compliance then kicked in. I had all their emails. I had my formal grievance and their response. I sent an email to my line manager, our HR, and HR in the US stating I considered that I had been placed in a situation where the company was in breach of contract and that I had no option other than to leave the company with immediate effect.
I also stated that I classed this as constructive dismissal and would be filing a case at an employment tribunal for wrongful termination as a result.
Roll the clocks on a couple of months, and we are in the employment tribunal. The company has sent the head of HR across, and I’m waiting there with my support from the union. We walk into the tribunal and the relevant parties are introduced, the head of HR with his smirking face, the local head of HR looking less relaxed, myself and my legal representative, a Barrister.
As soon as the head of HR heard I was with a Barrister, his smug look evaporated. HR presented their case, and then my Barrister set out every single aspect of employment law here to the tribunal. He pointed out every mistake they made, every local law they broke, that the law in the US only applied in the US, not in any other country.
He pointed out that I had a long unblemished record with the company and that this case had come at a very high personal cost to me and that finding another job would need more training and could take up to a year.
It took less than 10 minutes to find against the company. They had to repay the deducted wages to every single employee in this country rather than fight a significant number of similar cases.
I was asked if I wanted my job back but told the tribunal I didn’t feel I could work there without being subject to reprisals. I was awarded the maximum basic award and a significant compensatory award of a full year’s salary which let me take a year out to complete some additional technical training at their expense. I also got a glowing reference for my next employer.
It cost me nothing for my Barrister; that was all funded by the union. Those guys are the royalty of applying malicious compliance; they can apply the law down to its very finest point.”
11. The Cheerleaders Can Break The Dress Code? I Can Too!
“Waaaaay back in 2013, I was a sophomore in high school, and there was a tradition that on Fridays, the cheerleaders, football players (without their pads of course), band members, and the other groups performing wore their uniforms to class.
This wasn’t a written tradition, and only the cheerleaders and dance team’s uniforms broke “dress code;” nobody really batted an eye to it.
I wasn’t a skirt person, but I liked dresses once and in a while.
As one can tell by my user, I grew up in Texas, and it’s still significantly hot in August/September. So one time while wearing a casual sundress in September, I was pulled out of class and reprimanded because the end of my dress was 4 inches above the knee when the dress code said no shorter than 2.
I pointed out the cheerleaders’ and dance teams’ uniforms every Friday and how they reached mid-thigh at their longest but was told that was okay because “students can wear official school uniforms.” And was sent home to change.
Clearly, somehow someone had forgotten I was on the golf team. Immediately, my mind was turning to the next Friday.
The school had recently upgraded the golf team uniforms the year prior, and the girls’ team uniforms consisted of a short sleeve collared polo shirt and a skort.
If you don’t know what a skort is, it’s essentially a skirt and short shorts combined. It looks like a skirt, but they essentially act like built-in bike shorts, and these were SHORT. I’d argue shorter than the average cheerleader skirt.
So that next Friday (about 3 days later) to my parents’ surprise, I was ready to go that morning in my golf uniform, as compared to taking a bag to keep the clothes in to change into after school.
But I just said, “Fridays, we can wear our uniforms to class,” and they accepted without question and took me to school.
Well, by the second period, I was sent to the office yet again, and the first thing the assistant principal asked me was why I would “deliberately disobey her right after our last conversation” and threatened in-school suspension and that I’ll never get anywhere in life by not listening, yadda yadda yadda.
When I finally had a chance to get a word in, I said, “But this is my school golf uniform,” and I pointed to our school’s logo that was sewn into my polo shirt. “You said students can wear official school uniforms to class, so why are the cheerleader uniforms okay and mine isn’t? This isn’t even a skirt; it’s a skort.
It has pants!”
I still remember how angry she was. She stared me down for what seemed like a millennium. Then she snapped and told me to get out of her office and go sit in the lobby area.
That I knew what she meant and she would be calling my parents about this blatant disrespect. So I waited and played on my iPod and chatted with the nice secretary, trying to keep myself distracted, because, in reality, I had been really trying not to cry.
I had massive anxiety when it came to authority, but I still had my naive sense of injustice, and I didn’t just want to let this go.
After about 20 minutes, she popped her head out, and in a very monotone voice, told me I could go back to class and to let teachers know I had gotten permission from the front office to wear my uniform.
Then she went back in and closed the door before I could even think to respond. I spent the rest of my day dealing with teachers questioning me about my outfit and 1 or 2 calling the front office to double-check my claim that I had in fact gotten permission and went to practice after school as normal before being carpooled back home.
My dad met me at the front door with a small smirk and I asked him what in the world happened because I knew he was the go-to contact for my school, so I knew she called him.
He explained that when she called and tried to get him to come to the school and get me and talked about punishments for my insubordination, he immediately began to argue with her and admitted he raised his voice quite a bit, asking why I wasn’t allowed to wear my sports uniform that the school provided to me as a dress requirement at my golf practice and mentioned taking this all the way to the school board and resolving this “obvious favoritism.”
He then asked me not to do that again but that he was proud of me and told me, “I know I had told you never to start a fight but to always fight back. I always thought physically, but you darn sure took the advice.””
Another User Comments:
“My school was the same way, and the track team could wear their running shorts – aka spandex underwear – and crop top cheer uniforms. But I got yelled at for wearing my oversized, neon orange soccer uniform (our colors were actually burnt orange and royal blue…) because I had to roll the shorts up, so they wouldn’t fall off me being 2 sizes too big.
Apparently, being 4 in above the knee was unacceptable in my giant baggy, uniform, but somehow, skin-tight spandex wasn’t?” S3xySouthernB
10. Eat My Food? Miss Your Trip
“Throughout most of my school career (UK year 5 – 9), I have been bullied. It has led me to be moved classes multiple times to get away from certain people.
I’m also autistic, so I believe some of my behavior would have prompted some of the bullying. It was nothing physical but would be mocking me, imitating me, etc.
In year 8, there was an upcoming trip to Harry Potter Studios for people taking a certain subject at the end of the year. It was a few days before the trip, and I had a food tech lesson (cooking food, etc.) where we could cook what we want since it was coming up to the end of the year.
I ended up cooking brownies. It had gotten to the point where I was finished and cooked my brownies, so I started cleaning up the equipment and getting ready for the end of the day.
At one point, I was walking back towards my station and realized a piece of the brownie was missing. I then had Bully (B) walk up to me going, “Hmmm, that was nice.” Obviously, I was not happy, so I told my teacher about it.
She told him off, but nothing really happened because of it. So after school, I went and reported him to the student support team where I had to write a statement. When I was writing the statement, I was thinking about the trip, and I knew he was planning to go on the trip as well. So I started writing about how I would feel very uncomfortable with them on the trip because of everything they’ve done to me.
I handed the statement to student support and started talking about the trip as well and saying how I was worried about him being near me during the trip, etc. They told me they would get this sorted as soon as possible.
Later on in the day, my mom received a phone call from the school. It was from someone at the student support talking about the incident.
They were calling to apologize for what had happened earlier in the day. They had spoken to B’s parents and told them that B was not allowed to go on the trip in the upcoming days. Obviously, this had made me very happy due to the anxiety they had caused me over the past years.
I ended up very much enjoying the Harry Potter trip with my friends and ended up going back a few years later.
I also ended up getting moved classes away from B and a few other people in the next school year and into a different school pathway in the following year, so I had very little interaction with B later on.
While B and the other people would upset me around this time, I would say it has made me stronger in the past few years.
B and the other people ended up going to a different school for the sixth form while I remained at my current school. Next year, I will be going to a Russell Group university in the UK to study Maths with (hopefully) a set of results of stellar grades to be confirmed in 10 days’ time. I haven’t seen them in two years, but I hope they’ve become a better person.”
Another User Comments:
“I was bullied relentlessly, and for years in school, although back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, all the adults in my life said it was “just teasing,” and it was because the other kids “liked me.” I could spend hours describing the living nightmare I endured from the end of my third-grade year until my freshman high school year, and it only ended then because we moved to a completely different location where I could make a fresh start.
I could, but I won’t. I will say only this: the awareness of bullying that has developed recently is DECADES overdue.” daylily61
9. Threaten My Job? I'll Let You Waste Your Precious Time Lecturing Me When I Already Quit
Talk all you want, but it’s going to change nothing.
“This happened about 3 years ago. I had recently graduated college but hadn’t been able to find a job in my field (engineering), so I started looking for another job in the meantime to pay my bills.
I get hired by a machine shop as a CNC machine operator. I was working there for about a month when the foreman decides he needs to teach me a lesson about punctuality.
I admit I was late more than I should have been (maybe once a week), but it was almost always by less than a minute, and the latest I’d been was by 2 minutes, but I always made sure to make up for it by staying a few minutes after my shift. For context, this job was 7-3:30, and I had a 50-minute commute so traffic was often unpredictable.
After he gave me a friendly reminder/warning, I started to leave about 5 minutes early to avoid being late.
About a week later, there was an accident on the highway that slowed traffic down. I arrived at work and clocked in. 7:03 am. I turn around and see the foreman standing there with his hands on his hips. The conversation went like this;
Foreman: “You’re late.”
me: “Yeah, I know; there was an accident on the highway.”
Foreman: “I don’t want to hear an excuse.”
me: “Sorry, I’ll make up for it by staying late like I always do.”
Foreman: “Oh! So now you’re trying to justify being late? You don’t get to show up for work just when you feel like it!”
me: (getting angry at this point) “No, I’m saying I’ll make up for it!
Now you’re accusing me of not caring when I show up?”
Foreman: “You know what, why don’t you go home? I’ll call you when I decide I want you back.”
I said “screw it” and left not wanting to waste any more of my time on this pointless argument.
I called the employment office and told them what happened. They start looking for a new job for me.
I get a call from them the next day, and they told me that the machine shop owner wanted me to come in for a meeting. Cue the petty revenge.
I drive over to the machine shop, and while I’m in the parking lot, I make a phone call (more on that later) and make sure to clock in before heading into the meeting.
As soon as I sit down, the owner’s phone rings, and he ignores the call.
It turns out, this was less of a meeting and more of a chance for the foreman to lecture me about diligence, punctuality, and respect. (I get the feeling he was some ex-military CO.) “If you expect to get anywhere in life, you must have respect for your superiors!”
I try to explain myself mentioning the commute, the accident, making up for lost time at the end of my shift, how the guys on the floor are always saying that I’m doing a great job, but he’s having none of it.
He keeps getting angrier and angrier and finally decides that I’m a lost cause and officially fires me.
I look him in the eye with a grin on my face chuckling.
Foreman: “You think this is funny.”
Me: “Yep.”
I turn to the owner: “You got a phone call from the temp agency earlier, didn’t you? Why don’t you play the message they left?”
Temp Lady: “Hi Bill, this is Carol from Employment Solutions.
I just received a call from DarthRaxius saying that he isn’t interested in working for your company anymore. If you could send me over the rest of his time cards, we’ll start looking for a new machine operator for you.”
They both look at me dumbfounded.
Me: “We’ve been talking for, let’s see, 52 minutes. I checked all of my time cards, and it turns out that I have only been late a total of 8 minutes and 32 seconds since I started working here.
Since you decided to die on this hill, I thought I’d see how much these precious minutes meant to you. You have wasted 20x the manhours on this pointless meeting. I hope you’re happy. Learn how to pick you battles, Corporal.”
I walked out, clocked out, and got on unemployment. I never heard from them again.”
8. Create A Hostile Work Environment? Good Thing I Have This Recording Of You
“I’m a paramedic, and after many many years of working regular ground ambulance, I decided I had enough; my whole career, I was either a glorified Uber driver, being spit on by intoxicated people, or chauffeuring people between hospitals (though, once in a blue moon, I saved a life).
There isn’t a lot of different jobs you can parlay an EMS career into, so I elected to move into the private sector and got a job doing basically the same thing at a mine in a remote environment, worked 2 weeks straight with 2 weeks off, less stress and an enviable salary.
On the surface, this was a sweet gig, almost heaven compared to the regular stretcher jockey job I come from, and it would have been such if not for the absolute psychopath who managed the EMS services out there.
I didn’t work directly from the mine’s operator. Instead, I was employed by a contractor. The coordinator (my local boss) as he was called was a golden boy as far as the Mine Co. was concerned. There wasn’t a butt he didn’t kiss or big wig he wouldn’t suck up to, and I admit he could be charming, quite adept at impersonating a human being actually.
It wasn’t long before I discovered he reserved decency for everyone but his subordinates.
His behavior started out as petty micromanaging, which was irritating but then progressed to insults, putdowns, name-calling (“hey dumbo” was his usual way to get my attention), and outright hostility. The man clearly enjoyed being a small-time workplace despot and knew he could get away with it because of his reputation with our paymasters.
It was around the 2-month mark before I really warmed up to my coworkers, there were 8 of us including myself and the jerk in chief, and not a single one of them spoke a nice word about him.
Most were resigned to him acting like a massive jerk because of the 2 week holiday every month along with the pay rate, they also told me every complaint was ignored, provoked retaliation, and again his relationship with the client made him untouchable.
This is when I started recording everything and did so with these two assumptions: 1. The company would only act with serious proof of malfeasance 2. His acts of jerkery would only escalate. Neither assumption proved false.
I had nearly 3 months of audiotapes of him being just his regular jerk self before he went too far.
About a week into the shift I showed up at our station and was called into his office only to be informed I was being let go and my replacement would be there in a few hours.
I was to go back to our accommodations, pack my stuff up, and report back there. “Well heck,” I thought before doing as I was bidden. Upon arriving back to the office with my suitcases this sadist started laughing and said, “No one’s coming to replace you! You’re so freaking gullible!” It was a mock firing.
I was livid and let loose on him finally ending a tirade with a malicious hint: “can you imagine what the office would do if they could have heard all this nonsense?”
Unrepentant to the last he coldly stared at me before replying, “can you imagine what they would do if a bunch of empty cans turned up and I told the office I saw you drinking?”
Having recorded all this and knowing my glorious victory was assured, I feigned capitulation to carry on with my day. On my first day off I sent in a detailed letter to the company along with recordings and as expected they fired his butt.
What came after was righteous cackling laughter…for hours.
I wonder is this how Napoleon felt after winning at Austerlitz?”
7. Act Like A Bully At Work? Get Your Clothes Burned
It’s not that hard to just be nice to people, you know.
“When I was working in a lab in MD on an important project, I had someone there harassing me. It was not physical harassment, just workplace hostility. The first thing he did was try to get me fired because he screamed at me as loud as he could. I think he was afraid I would go to HR so he struck first.
Let’s call him Dude.
Dude was in the hood working while I stood off to the side waiting for him to finish so that I could determine some information on sampling. If he did sampling I had to be ready with chemicals to detox his highly toxic waste once he prepped the sample for the Gas Chromatograph. It had to be done immediately after prepping.
He finally turned to me and said ‘What do you want Kruba?’ I asked him if he would be going out to sample today.
He turned to me and started screaming at me as loud as he could. I had quit smoking two weeks before that. After he finished berating me and calling me one name after the other, I started crying and went outside to smoke.
He reported me to HR and I had a meeting with the bosses and him. They felt like his claim was frivolous at best.
How was I supposed to do my job if I couldn’t communicate with him? There were too many witnesses for him to lie. Other employees had told HR how he yelled at me and I did not yell back. My co-workers had my back.
They warned him he needed to get along with other employees and they would be watching him. In our line of work, teamwork was a priority.
We all had to keep each other safe. This was not what he expected at all. He thought I would be the one disciplined.
Dude was very upset and took the opportunity to start harassing me. If no one was around, he would whisper in my ear, ‘I haven’t forgotten Kruba.
I am going to get you.’ He started stealing my lunch every chance he got. I was on a volunteer safety team.
We met once a month at lunchtime. As a reward, I got to order lunch once a month. I had a family emergency and could not make the meeting. Dude went to the meeting and told them I had asked him to pick up my lunch for me.
He took it and ate it himself. I don’t know how he knew I was not going to be there. I definitely did not tell him anything.
We both had a job interview in Utah after we finished the project we had been working on. The company we worked for was committed to finding us all work after the completion of our mission. There were plenty of jobs in Utah and we were not in competition.
When he found out when my interview was scheduled, he made arrangements to go before me. My boss told me about it.
It was the worst interview I have ever had in my entire life. When the interviewers looked at my resume and kept saying negative things over and over again, I knew he had told them some lies during his interview. I could not prove it.
Every line on that resume was true and not embellished. I could not figure out what happened.
Arguing with the people interviewing me was not going to help. Dude got one of the positions and I got none.
Now for the revenge part: On the way to Utah, the moving van was involved in a fire and every stick of furniture, every piece of tech, and all of his clothing was burned. Since he was moving right into his new abode, he sent all of his clothes on the truck except for the ones on his back and one change of clothing.
He did not get the money from the insurance company for months. They gave him the minimum allowed. He refused to buy anything until he got the insurance money. He slept on the floor the whole time.
Dude did not last long on that job. The Company eventually found out who had been embellishing who’s resume. He was a very abrasive individual and eventually he was asked to leave.
The reason I have all of this information is because of my wonderful former co-workers. They also got positions there. They have kept in touch with me via social media. I am still in touch with them today.”
6. Let Me Go? Your Information Is About To Be Sold To A Competitor
“Several years ago, I was hired as a Business Development Manager by this tech company (we’ll call them Company X) who headhunted me out from a competitor (Company Y).
They were several leagues above company Y, and being young and ambitious – I jumped at the opportunity. I then discovered that they had a high turnover rate, but it didn’t really bother me at the time because I was pretty naive and cocky and got along great with most people there.
Company X had somewhat of a small workforce, around 40 people. The CEO, CTO, and General Manager ran a pretty tight ship and were very involved with everyone, micro-managing almost all aspects of the business.
Several months down the road, I had already closed several new accounts and brought in new revenue streams to the company. Then one day, they announced that they were going to shift the company strategy.
It’s been a while, and I can’t fully remember all the details, but the plan was pretty risky, and had everyone on edge, simply because it involved putting everyone under financial strain for almost a couple of years until the strategy matured and Company X would blast off exponentially.
This meant no salary increment, no bonuses, no inflation adjustments, and so forth. For the next potentially couple of years, we’d all be working on a stiff.
They promised everyone compensation for their patience and loyalty, but at the end of the day, this was a decision made on their end and we didn’t have any say in it.
A week after the announcement, my General Manager tells me I need to head up to meet a panel of companies who were vendors to one of our biggest clients.
The deal was that these companies were required by our client to use our tech if they wanted to keep their contracts, as part of their standardization protocol.
These companies had already installed some of our tech, and my job was to head over and provide training on using our tech, as well as upsell on more of our stuff.
It was primed as a troublesome job.
The panel companies were already unhappy about being forced by our client to engage our tech because it meant additional work and cost on their end. And I had to sort out 14 companies across three states over a period of five days.
It seemed like a nice challenge and I was gung ho about it. I went off to meet with the panel and it turned out a success.
Frankly, I was very proud of myself. I built a pretty good rapport with each of them and had even upsold on our packages and units.
I came down with a fever on Monday after returning to work, most probably brought on by exhaustion.
I came back to work on Wednesday, submitted my clinic-issued medical cert to HR, and continued with my job. After lunch, I was called in by HR and was advised that I have been terminated due to faking a medical cert.
It was absurd! Even the HR lady looked sad about it. I asked what was going on and she could only reply it wasn’t her call, but my CEO’s.
I confronted my CEO demanding an explanation, and he said that he KNEW that I wasn’t sick and that I had lied to the company. I told him that was ridiculous and flat-out wrong.
And even IF I had faked it, surely my contributions to the company and my most recent success would have made up for it. But he wasn’t hearing it and gave me two days to pack my stuff and sort out my affairs.
Devastated, crushed, and totally embarrassed, I went outside for a smoke. The HR lady and another manager joined me shortly after.
It was then that I found out that the bosses, as part of their shift in strategy, wanted to let go of employees to reduce the overheads but did not want to offer exit packages. The trip to the panel companies was meant for me to fail and used as grounds for termination.
But me succeeding merely meant more revenue streams for them and they just had to fire me over whatever trivial grounds they could find.
I was furious! I spent the next couple of days continuously being furious over the matter. I spent another day or so at home wallowing in self-pity over my stupidity, ignorance, and sheer naivety. I wanted to sue for wrongful termination, hostile work environments, and so forth, but I decided that it would take too much time and effort because the labor laws here are awful, and I needed to focus on rebuilding my career.
But they still needed to feel my vengeance! So I decided to be petty instead. I was their Business Development Manager for heaven’s sake! I had my own copy of their data, inner workings, client list, and so much more. I contacted my ex-colleague over at Company Y with whom I still had good relations, and told him what had happened, and what I wanted to do.
I was going to sell them the full set of information, which I had valued close to USD175,000 (amount converted) of potential revenue, for only USD5,000. Charging this low meant that Company Y could afford what I was offering, all in cash, so there would not be any digital traces, it could be done within a day, and ultimately, it would be an insult to company X.
And that’s exactly what happened. I dropped whispers to Company X that it was me, but there was no way they could prove it, and by then I was already well beyond their radar. I don’t regret it the least, and quite honestly, I had fun doing it. It felt so dangerous, so undercover.
The last I heard of them, they were forced to file for bankruptcy because they were swindled out of a deal by one of their Senior Managers.
It’s Karma jerk.”
5. Don't Promote Her Like You Said You Would? She'll Refuse To Do Extra Work
Why should she have to do more work if she’s not getting paid any extra to do it?
“This isn’t my story but my woman’s. Allow me to set the scene.
My woman – Harper – official title is Mental Health Professional, or MHP, has been in this position for three years at a live-in care facility for adults with mental illnesses.
Before that, she worked for several years at the mental health ward at the hospital, so she had more experience walking into her current position than anyone else they had hired.
Within her first year, she got 2 lifers to progress in their treatment plans so thoroughly that they both got the okay to move out into the sister program that has more freedom and independence.
She was working with a third “lifer” who was about ready to apply for the sister program and the transfers between housing, or even non-AMA releases, were suspended.
All this is to say that she has made some very serious and positive changes to this facility from the moment she started working there. They made her the Lead MHP, and her direct supervisor’s boss started giving her more responsibilities; like the morning team report for the whole facility, handling client money, making decisions on big changes to help the overall workload, etc.
Her yearly review happened in December, which was promised to come with a large raise to reflect all the added responsibilities she has been gradually given.
Of course, it didn’t. She stayed on HR about her raise for a month or so after the review itself until the big boss finally brought her into his office to discuss with her a promotion. It would be a bit tricky because she has her Bachelor’s in psych and social work but not her Master’s – which we’re working on getting her back in school soon to complete and which she needs to officially fulfill the job title they had in mind.
Still, she was clearly leaps and bounds beyond her coworkers, often staying over to help clients or to help finish paperwork, filling in wherever she’s needed.
So, promoting her would be cheaper than hiring someone new, and of course, this would come with an even better pay raise.
So, for the last few months, my woman has been doing even more for her supervisor’s boss and the big boss.
Anything they ask of her, dangling that official promotion over her head, constantly saying it would be a “gradual transition,” and she needs to learn this or that – do this or that – to train for it.
Out of her own pocket, she bought new binders and other supplies that made the various parts of her job and theirs easier. She planned, reorganized, filled in, whatever.
The supervisor’s boss even told her verbatim, “I don’t know what I would do without your help!” several times. All this with the promise of an official promotion and a raise.
Then it happened. Last week, Harper was tasked with sorting through potential new hires – as they had been hurting for more MHPs for some time, and the bosses had taken some of Harper’s clients off her workload to make room for the new responsibilities – she noticed that of the stack she was given, all applicants had a Master’s or qualifying credential in social work.
Hrmm… Worrisome.
Two days ago, it was business as usual for most of the day until about an hour before Harper was supposed to clock out. She called me in angry tears ranting about the conversation she had just had with the supervisor’s boss. He told her she would, unfortunately, be taking on more clients, and the promotion would be put on hold for the time being.
She said he didn’t come right out and say he had decided to hire one of the people with a Master’s instead for the position, but what he did say was, “You’ll have to relinquish any added responsibilities and return to being just an MHP.”
Okay. Bet.
After trying to calm her down, I gave my normally frustratingly accommodating woman a nudge in the malicious direction.
One of the first added responsibilities she was given was the morning report.
It was her job to have all the staff gather during the clients’ breakfast to relay what happened during the 3rd shift, the plans for the day, coordinating client appointments, etc. She would have to be in the facility before the 3rd shift clocked out to get their notes and then plan a traveling and gas budget for all the appointments, review any safety concerns or incidents, and this all added about an hour to her morning.
So, how happy was she the next morning when she got to snooze her alarm and sleep in a bit longer.
When she got to the facility at her usual clock in time as an MHP, she said the place was already in chaos. A fight had broken out and someone had some cash stolen out of their room (all normal events for this place) but no one was exactly sure on the who or why of it because 3rd shift had had no one to pass along the notes so they just filed them and left.
Of course, Harper knew where they had been filed because she organized the filing system no one had thought to check.
As soon as the supervisor’s boss saw her clock in, he asked why she wasn’t there for the report. See, he is always a seemingly sweet and soft-spoken man, which made the sudden change of mind all the more surprising. Harper just stared him down, trying not to grin, and said “I’m just an MHP.
I can’t handle the morning report.”
She then spent the rest of the day giving him the cold shoulder; relaying only necessary information to him while focusing on her clients and paperwork. I want to be clear, it isn’t that they chose a more educated person for the hire position. That makes plenty of sense. It’s that they promised her that position, spent the last few months transitioning her responsibilities to that position, promised her the pay raise to go with it, and then ripped it out from under her.
That’s some underhanded nonsense.
Oh, and since she isn’t getting the promotion, she went to HR to see about her over-due yearly raise. She was told no one is getting a raise at the moment.”
4. Refuse To Pay Us Beyond Our Shifts? See Ya
“I met Grumpy in a support group for addicts. He volunteered there after they helped him and he became my sponsor. Seeing that I was trying to get my life together, he offered me my first job out of high school. Grumpy was the manager of a store for a company that sold everything you needed to build a house from cement and bricks to custom-made cupboards.
I started as a “loader,” filling the trucks that were making deliveries.
A little background for the company (it plays an important for later): when they started back in the early 80s, they sold everything you needed to build a brick-and-mortar home wholesale to professionals.
During their first expansion, they got a really good reputation for their prices of power tools, custom cupboards, and landscaping (including custom-made garden furniture).
The stores were basically big warehouses. In the mid-’90s, they opened their doors to the general public accompanied by a rising tent of DIY, which skyrocketed their sales. That brought a second, smaller wave of expansion and the opening of the online store (first only with phone orders and later with a proper site). When I joined, they were doing a third shift on their business plan.
They had cut down on things that weren’t a big seller (like bricks and concrete) and were focusing more on the big sellers (custom-made furniture, landscaping, tools, and, for some weird reason, plumbing).
My first 8 months on the job were a dream. Grumpy was an excellent manager. Having started in the company roughly the same age I was and being promoted through the ranks, had developed a very distinct managerial style.
His concept was simple: “If my employees are happy, they work better and provide better services, which leads to better sales.” That meant that while Grumpy managed one of the inner city stores, meaning medium to small size compared to others, we were fourth in revenue nationwide and first in customer happiness.
And then the reason for his nickname; a stroke.
While everyone called him Grumpy (a nickname he was kind of proud of), he was far from it.
The reason was he had a medical condition that affected his nerves and had left him with a permanent frown on his face. He had declined promotion due to that condition (knowing the extra stress would make his condition flair up, meaning he wouldn’t be as effective as he would like). His medical condition flared up unexpectedly, and Grumpy had to be hospitalized and be on sick leave for a time.
HQ decided to not have one of Grumpy’s assistants be an Acting Manager for the duration but bring in a regional manager to take over the store for the duration. Let’s call him Wilhelm.
Wilhelm was the exact opposite of Grumpy. He was younger than Grumpy (he was in his late 20s; Grumpy was in his late 30s), had a business degree, and hadn’t worked the floor at all.
He was hired from the beginning as an office drone and climbed his way to regional manager.
The reason he was put in charge of our store had to do with the change of the business plan of the company.
You see, the change of focus had created a lot of empty space in the stores. A supermarket chain had approached the company with an offer to rent the empty space, especially for inner-city stores.
The company had accepted and placed regional managers in key stores to help with integration. The thing is, the supermarket chain had a reputation of being bad employers. That was reinforced by one of our tellers, who had worked for them for three years before quitting to join us.
Wilhelm didn’t help also. His managerial style was based on only one concept: make more cash in any way possible.
He started by changing our schedule from monthly to weekly, raising the sales targets to unrealistic heights, and always demanded more. In the first two weeks, six experienced people had left (four quit and two fired) and were replaced by young, inexperienced people that were easier to manipulate.
And then, the integration happened.
The floor was the first to feel the problem. The supermarket opened its doors and was understaffed. Wilhelm started sending people over to “help” for four to six hours, while also demanding to work their regular shifts.
If someone declined, he/she was written up. Two write-ups in six months, and you were fired.
Then Wilhelm came to “lay the law” in the loading bay. The loading bay was shared between the two stores. Wilhelm declared that we had to help the two guys of the supermarket unload their trucks first because their products were “perishable” and then start loading our own trucks.
That would throw our delivery schedule to the wind. The loading crew worked from 05:00 to 13:00. We loaded first the trucks that had longer to travel, so they will be ready to leave at 07:00 at the latest (the company had a next-day delivery policy for a 150 miles radius). What Wilhelm declared meant we couldn’t start loading our trucks before 07:30, and they couldn’t start their route before 09:30.
We said as much, but Wilhelm didn’t care. He said we had to do both jobs.
When someone inquired about overtime, Wilhelm said no. He said we already made too much with unsocial hours (05:00 to 08:00) and leaving “early,” so he wouldn’t approve overtime.
So, from a nice environment that you wanted to work for, we all started getting miserable. We lost ten people in the loading crew in a month because of the new rules.
The new hires didn’t last long. The floor was a mess also.
Anyone who is staying is either looking for another job, is afraid of unemployment, or is too young to know better. The sales had a very small decline, but customer happiness is plummeting fast.
After almost six months, all the “Old Guard” that was left was ready to quit. But our “savior” came back.
Almost six months from the day he was hospitalized, Grumpy walks into the store to claim his rightful position. He isn’t a knight in shining armor, riding a pure white horse, carrying a legendary sword. He is in normal attire, slightly limping, and holding a cane. We have a “welcome back” party and have a small glimmer of hope now he is back. We are informed that Grumpy will be on light duties for two weeks before he becomes the manager again.
Despite Grumpy being back, Wilhelm still remains the regional manager, which means he outranks Grumpy and makes it very clear in private meetings with all of us. If he caught us complaining to Grumpy, we were as good as gone.
Still, a few of us are planning to have a meeting with Grumpy after the weeks (letting him get his “sea legs” back). But another department had other ideas.
During his “Reign of Terror,” the only department that Wilhelm couldn’t control was the workshop. He knew that if he treated them as bad as he did to us, they would quit, and the sales would go from a small decline to the bottom of the barrel real quick (as I said, custom-made furniture was the number one seller).
So, the head carpenter has a meeting with Grumpy on his second day talking about “the future of the workshop.” In reality, the guy spilled the beans on Wilhelm.
With the pretext of “catching up” with the changes, Grumpy has meetings with everyone, learning what Wilhelm had done and why we had so many new staff. You could feel he was getting angrier with every meeting. He had also had an eye-opening meeting with the manager of the supermarket. Finally, the time had come that he is the manager again.
On his first day back as a manager, Grumpy notifies everyone of a mandatory meeting after the store is closed.
He has a solution. So, gather in the store after closing hours. And Grumpy lays out the plan. For the next couple of days, nobody except him is coming to the store. If anyone calls us, we should direct them to him. Which we did, when we started getting calls about the store being closed.
Grumpy’s answer to the HQ was simple: the staff was working on a second job during their shifts, which is a breach of contract, so I had to fire them all and find new staff.
That caught HQ’s attention because nothing of the sort was reported in the past six months.
They asked Grumpy for evidence, which he happily provided with our written testimonies, which brought a storm on Wilhelm.
You see, Wilhelm had an “arrangement” with the supermarket manager. He got a kickback from our unpaid labor for the supermarket and the manager offered the same thing to Grumpy.
He also included that Wilhelm regularly declined to sign over time, which meant that if any one of us went to the Labor Department, the company would get a really huge fine.
Wilhelm quickly got fired.
We all received calls to “interview” with the company for an open position. We all received severance pay for our “firing” plus most of the unpaid overtime (about 80% of it).
Almost all of us went back to work with a small pay raise based on experience. The company took a long, hard look at the supermarket chain and distanced themselves from them (they stayed until their lease was over but no shared employees anymore and a lot of theirs jumped ship to our side). The next time Grumpy had to take time off, one of his assistants took over.
Two did a stellar job, leading to being promoted to managers in other stores. Grumpy brought back his usual managerial style, leading again to a rise in sales and customer happiness.
I left the job three years later for a better paying position, but I still remember Grumpy as one of the best managers I ever had.”
3. Okay, I'll Zip My Lips When You're Driving
“Let me tell you a short story of me and two former friends on a short trip to France. We live in Germany and are only an hour away from the border, so we agreed on a quick day trip by car.
Let’s call the friend that is driving her car Brenda (because I know she would hate that — no offense to Brendas that read this), and the other friend in the back sneaky Patricia. Her name will make more sense in a minute.
Brenda doesn’t have her license for long, maybe a couple of months, and doesn’t even have the necessary experience yet to justify her reckless driving in general. We’re talking about turning without speeding down enough trying to compensate it with steering and going “whoops” every time instead of using the FREAKING brakes like a person that cares about their passengers.
She was also texting and smoking while driving, sometimes simultaneously, and it didn’t matter what kind of road she was driving on. She behaved like an experienced driver in any way just without the experienced driving part and neither did she try to take more care while driving. So as a co-pilot and the responsibilities that come along with it, this woman puts me in a difficult situation because how else would it be?
Brenda does not take criticism well.
On the mentioned day, we’re approaching a red light with a car in front of us, and Brenda is reaching for her phone.
I hold back thinking she is checking the time or whatnot. She gets stuck on the screen; although, I already let her know that it makes me uncomfortable, and I yell, “WATCH OUT!” She hits the brakes, and we don’t crash into the car in front of us.
She begins to lash out at me saying: “What the heck? I got it under control. Stop irritating me, and just shut the heck up when I’m driving cause you yelling around is gonna make me crash, not me!” It was something like that I think.
I’m completely irritated at this point because not only is this woman putting us in danger but also not capable of learning from her apparent mistakes.
So I “shut the heck up.” I’m silent for the rest of the drive through the city we wanted to visit and we reach a parking garage.
Back when I was a beginner, I remember parking garages as narrow nightmares, seeing my dad yelling at me for the scratches I would get the car at the next turn. Luckily, it never happened to me because I was cautious enough until now, but I bet you can guess who is not feeling so cautious today.
Brenda sees a parking spot she likes and just goes for it. Judging from her confidence, one would assume that she has been driving since preschool. Unfortunately, this only applies to her confidence. I think back then, she didn’t grasp the concept of parking yet which is to make your car go slower, so it comes to a freaking stop, girl! The result speaks for itself.
She is too fast and turning into the spot like a cool driver in a movie scene. I see it coming, yet I hold back… and it happens. The front right forcefully caresses the concrete pillar which separates the chosen parking spot from another. Imagine the long, loud, and gruesome sound every car owner fears. Imagine the echo carrying it to the farthest corner of the garage.
Imagine my face going stiff from trying to keep my posture. And now IMAGINE the first thing this MANIAC said after she recovered from the shock: “You saw it happening but didn’t say anything on purpose.”
Of course, I’m not surprised and take a deep breath to do what I had to do. I lied the nonsense outta her, claiming I didn’t say anything because she knows the car better when it comes to parking, so I didn’t want to irritate her with that either.
This is where sneaky Pat comes into play. I’m sure you already forgot about her being all passive and stuff. She jumps in only to raise suspicion and retreats to the back seat because she immediately remembers how Brenda can get. She sensed the danger but had to up her chances for car privilege. She wanted to drive back because she too had made her license in the recent past but was even more of a beginner.
I stuck through my lie for a certain reason. I wanted to take myself out of the situation to have Brenda assess the result by herself. I did not want to give her a chance to shove the blame off on me, so she can avoid reflecting on her behavior. Even sneaky Pat confessed afterward that she had been worried about her safety too and realized she had to sit this one out quietly as to not offer any vulnerabilities which could hinder Brenda’s mental metamorphosis towards a responsible driver.
In the end, Brenda had no choice but to accept the situation and deal with it herself. The outcome was disappointing, the trip was ruined, and we had to drive back because she wasn’t in the mood for it anymore. I can’t say I didn’t feel bad for her. I can’t say she didn’t deserve it. I can’t say what I did was right.
But what I can say is that karma is awesome!”
2. Think You Can Betray Me? Good Luck Passing Chemistry
“So, I (19M) and my (now ex) partner (18F) have been together for more than a year. We were in the same class during middle school and high school now, a 2-year friendship eventually evolved into a relationship – y’all know how it is.
We were happily together (at least so I thought) since December 2019. I thought everything was great between us the whole time.
Although recently (about March), I noticed her becoming very distant and barely writing first, dry texting, etc… I asked her multiple times if everything is ok and gave her some space, but it continued for the next few months. I was naturally very upset as I’ve been through tough times with her when she was going through depression and was having a really hard time at the end of 2020.
It suddenly felt like all this time was wasted and worth nothing. I, as a naive high schooler, truly believed that she was the one; it was serious after all. We matched perfectly together, and we spent about 3 full months crying together at night when she was going through a rough time. We had similar plans for the future, similar interests, and it seemed we were meant for each other.
My partner (let’s call her Caroline) was studying to become a lawyer, so she was mostly into humanity subjects. I on the other hand am studying bio-chem for medical school (I apologize if this is all confusing/different; we live in Europe). She was required to attend at least one science subject to graduate (physics/biology/chemistry/psychology). She always hated these subjects and just took them because they were necessary to graduate.
She ended up picking Chemistry as I was a natural and tutored 9th and 10th graders’ chemistry in my free time, and I always helped her with assignments, etc. It started as helping her before exams and assignments, so she could get a good pass grade, and after her rough time, warped into me writing half of the assignments for her. In February, she started to do everything with me again though.
Anyways, enough backstory.
After noticing Caroline started to get distant, and she never properly answered my questions regarding her behavior, I wanted to see how far it would go. For one week, I didn’t invite her/call her/text her first, and in a total of one week, she called me three times… twice to ask me about her assignment, and once telling me how she felt insecure and bad.
I’m not a jerk; I helped her out with her school stuff and comforted her when she felt down. Me being the naive ‘love is perfect’ lovebird I am, I chalked it up to her feeling depressed again but feeling embarrassed about it. I continued helping and comforting her for the next month until nothing changed, and she never opened up. I was honestly doubting everything by then, “Is it me,” “What am I doing wrong,” etc…
I tried everything I could, eventually, I asked her friends if something happened, but they said she was the same as always towards them. I knew something was up, but I didn’t know what it was yet.
One day when she came over to my place (it was only the second time she did that in March; usually she came at least twice a week), we were sitting in my room and talking.
After she went to my kitchen to make herself something, I hear a notification from her phone. I’m usually not a snooper, but I had a quick look at her screen that lit up; I wouldn’t be able to read the message or who it was anyway. It was a Discord notification. I was very surprised. I knew for a fact that she didn’t have it a month ago.
Plus, she only plays Minecraft once in a while; she never uses Discord or anything. So the next morning, I did some snooping, and sure enough, I found a whole other Instagram account of hers where she branded herself to be an aesthetic gamer girl (not that there is anything wrong with that). She had never told me anything about this; I couldn’t find any of her friends following her on that account either.
Sure enough, she had her Discord username in her bio, and curious me decided it would be a good idea to create a throwaway account and try to text her to see what she was all about (before you complain to me, I know I was a b******e here).
After texting her on my new account, we talked for a bit until she became flirty (we played a few bedwars games together, once again on a throwaway account I bought for $1, haha), I kinda broke down and started questioning my sanity.
I had been with her all this time and through so many hard times, I couldn’t believe she would do this to me. After the sadness, came the anger, I wanted to know how far she’d betray me. I found it hard to believe that she would just casually flirt with guys like this. After setting up my first recon mission plan, I found out more about her until I found out about her supposed man.
At that point, I had a huge emotional breakdown, and I felt I’ve wasted so much time helping someone who would betray me like this. And from her stories, I would later find out they were sleeping with each other for a whole month by now (about when her behavior started to change). At this point, I started hatching my revenge plan. I knew I would not let her off the hook this easily.
I spend two weeks pulling all-nighters making sure I had all my work done till the end of the year (until graduation).
I spend all my remaining time creating fake chemistry textbook pages, so I could make my revenge more believable. All of the information was wrong; I knew I had to give her a taste of her own medicine and betray her like she had me.
For the remaining 2 months of the school year, I fed her all this fake information and made sure she got all of her assignments wrong.
I knew she wouldn’t be able to tell anyone she was copying off me as our high school had a very, very, very strict rule for plagiarism; as much as three small attempts on small exams could get you expelled. So after letting the pot stew for those 2 painful, awful months I let the poop hit the fan.
As our teacher had to handle an outrageous amount of classes, she always checked our assignments late often by 2 or 3 months all at once.
I knew I could use this fact to my advantage. After she submitted her final assignments that were worth a huge percentage of our final graduation grade, I told her I knew that her shenanigans had been still ongoing for 3 ENTIRE months by now.
I told her how she hurt me and how it will come back to haunt her; I made sure of that.
She mostly brushed me off and acted as if I were the villain as I couldn’t just leave her and that she “was only friends with that guy.” Although I told her something was going to happen, I never told her what it would be.
Trust me, she never saw it coming.
One week later, the end-of-year results rolled around. When we received our final grades, I was over the moon as I passed with flying colors, and on the other hand, her, not so much.
Due to her final assignments and all quarter 4 work equalling to an F, she called me crying and asked for help. She told me she wouldn’t be able to graduate if she wouldn’t receive at least a passing grade for this year.
She told me our teacher gave her a final chance after telling her how disappointed she was. Caroline has two more months at school with one online lesson with our saint teacher.
Honestly, props go out to her.
To be honest, I felt really bad for her and her situation, knowing very well if she didn’t work her butt off in these two months, in a subject she hated, she would have to repeat the last year, without someone constantly helping her with her chem.
That compassion quickly went away, and I told her I would help her, but only if she apologized and paid me my regular tutoring fees. Caroline went full-on ballistic after that and screamed at me, how I could do this to her.
I hung up, and she called me a few seconds after, apologizing and agreeing to pay me for my help. She now has two months of intense memorizing with her ex if she wants to graduate.”
Another User Comments:
“I really feel sorry for you. This girl was using you the whole time to do her school work and for emotional support while she was two-timing you. You’re a young guy, and it feels like you’ll never love anyone again, but you had the ability to put this revenge together. I wish you had the heart to follow through. You don’t owe this girl anything.
She should have been doing her own work the whole time. The fact that she didn’t call you during that week, only twice to ask about an assignment and once for emotional support shows you how much she didn’t care about you. I don’t care if she’s paying you or not; you need to cut all ties with this woman cuz this is going to set a bad precedent in your life.
You’re going to let women walk all over you, then stand up for yourself and then fall right back down and let them walk over you again.” New_Lemon4923
1. Clean Equipment While We're Super Busy? Bad Call, But Okay
“As my current job begins to start back operation, my memory brought me back to my previous years as a long-suffering line cook.
For those of you who have worked this job, you know it is simultaneously the best and worst job in the world.
The people are great, but if it wasn’t for the low pay, long hours, working conditions, stress… anyway!
I was in management training at this time, and this was used constantly to coerce me into doing many downright dangerous things such as in this story.
But this time, it bit them in the rear.
The Story:
On this particular Friday, I was working what we called “salad side,” which meant I was in control of the salads, pizza oven, and fryer.
While it could be a lot to juggle during busy hours, I had managed to get into a pretty good groove through the morning shift.
With no orders in the window, no tables on the floor but a bar regular, the day’s prep all finished, and the area cleaned and restocked, I was looking at a good thirty-minute break between my shifts. (We didn’t get one scheduled nor were you guaranteed a meal on a double shift; you only got one if you finished on time.)
I figured that I, for once, had a good chance at a break. After checking with the other line cook on duty, I let the General Manager or GM know I was ready to go on break and to check my part of the kitchen. From now on, she will be referred to as Lazy Daisy because that is what she was, lazy.
She is the source of many terrible events in this building, and her nickname used here comes from these.
She walks and immediately goes to the deep fryer which had been forgotten about by the previous night’s crew as is tradition.
Lazy Daisy: “Why hasn’t this been cleaned out?”
Me: “Because it’s in the middle of the day. We can only clean it out at the end of the night shift, and the night cook didn’t do it last night like it is scheduled. I can do it after we close tonight, though.”
The oil was too viscous in the morning when I arrived, and the sickly pump could not cycle the thick oil through the “gunk trap” properly. Therefore, the oil must be heated up first, but it has to be allowed to cool down enough to safely cycle the oil. Even if we tried anyway, the time spent cleaning the fryer prevented a lot of essential prep work to be done before opening and then you had to hope the fryer would be ready before opening.
While this may not be a problem with some fryers, this old girl has seen better days and took forever to get started. Often, the opening manager coming in at 8 am had to turn it on to make sure it was alive for the 11 am opening.
The current roster managers usually refused to allow it to be taken offline during normal hours as they didn’t want to have to deal with the “but my nuggets” problems, so I didn’t think to come to her about it.
No idea what possessed her to want it done now of all times.
Lazy Daisy: “Quit being lazy and swap out the oil and clean this fryer out. It’s disgusting. This is not the attitude I want in future management!”
Me: “And good future management would know not to change out fryer oil that is currently sitting at almost 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). I could lose a hand doing that!
It will take a while to cool and clean.”
Lazy Daisy: “If you don’t change the oil and clean it up right now, I will have a talk with (area director) and discuss this promotion of yours.”
She then proceeded to strut back to the office to ignore her job and eat her lunch. This was doubly insulting as I have not had a chance to have my own lunch now.
I sat there for a moment, kind of just seething until the other line cook came over and said, “Don’t. It’s not safe. Mucho caliente.” I nodded in agreement trying to figure out what to do. I have ignored her in the past on these kinds of things, but it never ended up with me on top.
We stood there for a moment silently trying to figure out what to do.
He was a good man and very concerned for my safety and was adamant I not even try since I had a bit of an injury reputation. That’s when light bulbs popped up in my head. Oh, I’ll make sure the fryer is clean alright, and I’ll make sure that oil is replaced.
Me: “You know, the rush starts not too long from now.
And since my night shift starts in a few minutes, no need to do it quickly.”
The other line cook stood there for a moment looking at me like I was crazy, then smiled, eyes closed, shaking his head at me as if to say, ‘You are an idiot, and you are gonna hurt yourself.’ He then shouted out. “Heard. Servers, 86 fried!” (him letting the servers know we couldn’t do fried items.)
I put no effort into doing the next steps swiftly. I cut the heat then headed out to the back dock and grabbed this metal tube on wheels we used to transport the old grease. While the grease typically was not insanely hot when transporting it out, it was still at a mean temperature and needed a lot of precautions as it would quickly heat up the metal.
I won’t bore you with the steps required of changing and cycling grease, but know that several times hot speckles of oil popped onto my face and arms. It was painful, but I knew this sacrifice will be worth it.
As I am perfecting the art of gunk poking, several tables walked into the door including a 12 top (12 person table) of mostly little kids.
I was able to see them because the majority of the kitchen was visible from the dining room and vice versa because of the open-concept design of the restaurant.
One server’s section groaned because the night shift was still several minutes away from arriving, and she hadn’t even finished looking at her snaps. Oh, how fortuitous.
Lazy Daisy began to stir in her office, so I knew I had to rush this next step.
I pulled the gunk trap out, slid in the wheeled grease tube, and began to drain it, making extra sure the flow wasn’t strong enough to splash and burn my feet off.
Since it was only a two-slot fryer, this happened very quickly, just quickly enough that she arrived as the last drop went into the tube. The distant childish chorus calling out, “I want cheese sticks!” could be heard in the background.
Lazy Daisy: “What is taking so long! We have customers now, and the grease isn’t swapped out. Why did you waste so much time cleaning!”
I simply shrugged as the night shift began to walk in. “It takes time to clean it out with it being so hot. I had to be extra careful. You demanded I clean it, and I haven’t even had time to wipe it with the towel yet.
But it’s still too hot. I would need to wait.”
I wasn’t lying, the metal was still extremely hot, and she knew that. As if on cue, I heard a ticket print, and despite my pretty bad eyesight, I could see plain as day what was on the ticket. Three orders of the best mozzarella sticks. I guess the server was too busy playing on her phone to hear the other line cook call 86.
Oh well, that is not my problem.
Lazy Daisy turned and looked at the ticket then gave me a death glare. “How long?”
I shrugged again. “Usually takes a bit. The left fryer is still acting up, but I can crank up the right. Still gonna take a bit with the new grease.”
Lazy Daisy puts her hand to her forehead frustrated. “Just put the old grease back in.”
Because of the rapidly rising heat of the wheeled grease tube and lack of hand grips beside the one next to the opening and the significant number of obstacles in the cramped kitchen, it was now impossible to put the grease back in without severe risk to anyone nearby, and she knew that.
Me: “No can do. If I try, the grease will be spilling everywhere, and I will probably have to go to the hospital if I try.
Even if it doesn’t spill, I will still have burned hands. And do you really want all these guests seeing me pour grease from this dirty, grease encrusted tube?”
Lazy Daisy had this look of absolute defeat, and she marched over to deal with the table as I dumped the cold, thick new grease into the fryer then poured the old grease into the grease bin on the back dock.
The left fryer took forever to heat back up and wasn’t ready until well after the rush was in full swing. The right side was much quicker but still took quite a while anyway. Aging and broken equipment were common in this building, and commercial grease fryers are not often prized for their turn on the speed.
The parents of the little kid army were complete and total Karens and began shouting obscenities at Lazy Daisy which could easily be heard over the growing bustle of the restaurant and the snickering of the line cooks.
The other morning line cook even found an excuse to stay a few extra minutes to watch before he headed out for the night. Lazy Daisy then spent a good part of the night going from table to table explaining that there were no fried items as servers never pay attention to any ‘86’ call no matter how many times it is repeated. (And as a current server, I admit to doing this far too often to be this judgmental.) This only infuriated and stressed her out even more.
Once the right side fryer had finally heated up, she spent even more of the night explaining why all the chicken parms, eggplant parms, nuggets, wings, fries, mozzarella sticks, etc. were running so far behind. After all, we only had half the usual frying capacity. She ended up having to buy a lot of food for the tables and stay late to “put out fires” as the other manager Lucy was terrible with tables, all of which were in perfect view of me.
Thank you, open concept kitchen.
After closing, I got a stern talking-to from Lazy Daisy and Lucy, but they knew I had won this round and knew that Lazy Daisy was the one who demanded I clean the fryer so soon before the night began.
I never ended up eating lunch that day, but before I turned off the fryer for the night, I made sure to sneak out with one quick item: a batch of five delicious mozzarella sticks.”
Another User Comments:
“Oh man, I’m glad you didn’t get hurt!
When I was a cook, we had an owner who was so cheap that during closing, we had to use one of the paper soda cups to scoop directly into the hot, just-turned-off fryer oil to bring over to the flat-top griddle a station over (because of course, if you waited at all for it to cool, you were going to get yelled at for staying too long to close).
We used the hot oil to help loosen and scrape stuck bits during cleaning, and it was fairly effective, but every time we did, it was a massive risk – I could always hear the glue in the paper cup starting to pop and let go from being heated so quickly.
One night, my luck ran out, and I had a 400-degree fryer oil splash all over one of my hands when the seam of the cup split before I could drop it.
I was okay, thankfully, though to this day the skin on that part of my hand is extra fragile. That oil is no joke.” trilliath
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