People Spill Their "Crème De La Crème" Revenge Stories
16. Lazy Manager Wants Me To Do Her Job? I'll Let Her Fail Miserably
Not happenin’, honey.
“This happened 2 decades ago.
As a young lad, my first job was at a fast-food chain. I worked hard, impressed the store manager, and got myself promoted. At the time, I was still 17.
So, I was promoted to “Team Leader” with the implication that I would get promoted further when I was older. I was still in high school, so I worked the evening shift which started at 4 and ended at 12. The evening manager was a good guy who also worked hard, and as a result, had gotten promoted to a store manager position at a different location.
Since they needed a manager (and I wasn’t old enough), they hired a new manager who I’ll call Karen. So Karen is hired and starts shadowing the current night manager learning the ropes. After 2 weeks, he departs, and she is now set to take over. That’s where this story really starts.
I normally get in around 30 minutes early. One of my responsibilities is to make a position chart (which tells the workers where they are working that night).
I need to hand it off to the manager for approval before posting it. As I arrive, I notice one of our night shift workers is already there. We’ll call her Jen. She is sitting in the lobby crying and being consoled by other employees. I always found her to be a bit manic, but she was a nice girl. She had a rough home life, so I didn’t hold it against her.
Come to find out she had just had a large fight with her mother, which ended with her getting kicked out. So, she is effectively homeless. Good reason to be upset. I ask her if she needs the night off. She says no; she needs the money. I can’t disagree and head off to get started.
For the night shift, the night manager typically runs the drive-through register after the day shift leaves.
There are a few reasons for this. First, this means that the manager has control of the drawer (and money) for the entire night. This eliminates the possibility of employees having short drawers. Second, this also puts the manager as the person interacting with the customers. I lived in a college town, so drunken guys drive through all the time and just want to chat up the pretty face behind the register.
Third, it gives the manager the least amount of responsibilities as far as clean up.
So, given what I now know, I make up a position chart and place Karen on the register and Jen on a fryer where she can get help if she can’t focus. I walk to the office to hand off the chart to the night manager and was surprised that he wasn’t there.
He normally is in at least an hour before shift to make sure everything is ready. That’s when I remembered that this will be Karen’s first night alone. I groan inwardly. This is gonna be a “trial by fire” kind of night. The day manager is there but no sign of Karen. It’s now 10 minutes to shift, and even the day manager is wondering what’s up.
I fill day manager in about Jen, show her the chart, and ask if it looks good. She agrees, and I said I’ll post it for now, and Karen can sign it when she gets in.
I had just finished posting the position chart when Karen shows up looking frazzled. She heads for the office without a word to anyone. Meanwhile, people start getting into position and ready for the shift. A few minutes later, Karen walks up, pulls my position chart, and replaces it with a new one.
Again, she walks off without a word. According to the new position chart, Jen is working the drive-through, and Karen is working… nothing. Her name isn’t there. She has another employee working 2 positions, and the whole shift working effectively one person short. What the heck? I head to the office where Karen and day the manager are talking and ask for some clarification. I explain there must be a mistake.
Karen: No, that’s right.
Me: But you’re not in a position, and [the worker] is working 2 positions…
Karen: Well, how am I supposed to be in charge if I’m in a position?
Dayshift and I just stare at her blankly.
Dayshift: You need to be in position. You are accounted for in the labor calculations.
Karen: Well, I have 6 years of management experience, and I have never needed to fill a position to get the job done.
Things are gonna change around here. We do things my way now.
Now, she just spent the last 2 weeks shadowing a manager that walked her through every step of the job. She KNOWS she should be in position and why. This shouldn’t even be a question. She just wants to spend the shift sitting in the office and everyone knows it.
At this point, the dayshift manager and I are sharing horrified glances at each other.
I tell Karen that she’ll need to go get people moved around if that’s what she wants because it’s her plan. She gives an exasperated sigh and heads that way. I turn to dayshift and plead with her to call the store manager and let her know what’s going on. She agrees. I head back to the line and start working.
After a short time later, the day shift pulls me aside and says that the store manager said it is Karen’s shift; she is in charge. She makes the decisions. Then she leaves for the night.
The shift proceeds to implode in a spectacular fashion. Less than an hour in, the employee working 2 positions is so far in the weeds that orders are taking 3 times as long to get out.
The drive-through is backed up, and the guys stuck at the window waiting are trying to flirt with Jen, who is having none of it and getting more annoyed by the minute. As the wait gets longer and longer, the people are becoming more and more irritated as they get to the window, and they are taking it out on Jen. Things are starting to get out of hand, and Karen is nowhere to be seen.
I go to the office to let her know we need help and find her watching a portable TV. I start to tell her what’s going on and she cuts me off. She tells me to get back on the line, do my job, and stop bothering her. I was about to try and explain when I just thought, “You know what, screw that.” Cue malicious compliance.
I turned, walked back to the line, and watched the situation unfold.
30 minutes later, a car at the window is giving Jen an earful about how long she has been waiting. She calls her worthless, and Jen goes off. She takes the large strawberry milkshake next to her, chucks it at the lady, and calls her a fat, ugly terrible person. The lady and the inside of her car are covered in pink goo.
Everything went so silent, you could hear a pin drop. Then the lady starts screaming. Jen closes the window on her and walks calmly to the back. The lady peels around the front and comes in the front door screaming for a manager. I go and knock on the office door. Karen appears looking angry and annoyed. She tries to snap at me, but I tell her she has a customer at the front asking for the manager.
Karen rolls her eyes and heads towards the front, oblivious to the disaster that awaits. I went and found Jen huddled in the back crying again. I tell her to get herself together and head back to the front when she is ready.
I head to the line where the now purple-faced lady is screaming at Karen about dry cleaning and upholstery cleaning and, “I want that girl fired.” At this point, I can see that Karen has finally realized that things have gotten WAY out of control.
She is trying to calm the lady down, but she is having none of it. Eventually, Jen comes back to the line, and the lady starts in on her again, calling her all kinds of nasty things. Karen just stood there and let the woman berate her. Jen just kinda deflated in front of us. Watching her crumble like that just broke something in me.
I walked over to Jen and said, “Just quit. You’re better than this job. And you can do better.” She looked up at me for a moment, then smiled. She lifted her chin, walked to Karen, said “I quit,” handed her name tag to her, and walked out.
Karen started apologizing to the lady who now seemed slightly mollified. Then, Karen started badmouthing Jen to her, saying how she was a terrible employee and how we were all happy she was gone.
That’s when I decided I was better than that job, too. I looked at Karen and said, “The only terrible employee here is you.” And I walked out. 2 other employees walked out right behind me. We all met with Jen in the parking lot and went to an IHOP where we sat and speculated on how Karen was getting along. Jen told me that was the first time in her life anyone had ever stood up for her.
The next day, I got a call from the store manager asking for an explanation. Apparently, Karen had struggled the entire night with service. Afterward, she had been there most of the night trying to clean and prep for the day shift and had done a crap job. The story she had given the store manager was that Jen, and I had planned everything with the intent to set her up because we didn’t like her and wanted to see her fail.
Karen had basically blamed the whole incident on Jen and I. The store manager told me she was investigating to get all sides of the story. So I told her. A few hours later, she called again and informed me that Karen was no longer employed and asked if I would be coming in that night. I asked if Jen was getting her job back.
She said no. The whole shake debacle wasn’t something she could overlook. I said then my answer is no. She was surprised. She tried to negotiate with me. I told her my price was Jen getting her job back. She said she couldn’t do that. And that was that.
If you’re wondering how Jen turned out, I married her. We are very happy and have 4 children.”
15. Moving Your Stuff Too Slowly? Okay, We'll Work Much Faster
“So I work as a mover for a very small moving company. My boss, let’s call him Mike, is a really nice guy. It’s really just a two-man operation, with me working as a subcontractor under him with a few regular guys we call in for bigger moves. It’s really physically demanding work sometimes, but typically our customers are super nice, and the pay is pretty good.
Most people are just happy to have someone else lift their heavy stuff and get it into a truck. And we’re always super careful to not cause ANY DAMAGE to the buildings we’re moving in and out of or the items we’re moving, which most people appreciate.
Not this lady. Let’s call her Darcy.
So Darcy booked a move with Mike and told him she had a small storage unit she wanted us to load up into a 20-foot truck.
We said, “No problem!” As the date of her move approached, though, so did a huge snowstorm.
Days before her move, the news started reporting that the weather was expected to take a severe turn for the worst. Not uncommon for the time of year in our state but also something not to be trifled with.
We called Darcy a couple days before the move to see about rescheduling to avoid the storm, and she said she absolutely HAD to move that day; no other days would work.
A lot of (probably much smarter) movers would have canceled but after talking, Mike and I thought it was no big deal. We move in the snow all the time. Just meant we would have to dress appropriately and be extra careful not to injure ourselves or damage any property.
Cut to the day of the move. We get to Darcy’s storage unit, expecting a 10 by 10 by 15 standard storage unit full of your usual stuff based on what she’d indicated on the phone, and load it into a 20-foot truck.
That’s a pretty easy job to get done in the 2 hours that she’d already prepaid for.
As we pulled up, the snow was already coming down pretty heavily, and the first thing that made us nervous was the truck. Instead of a 20-foot truck, there was a HUGE 26-foot truck. Darcy greeted us by the truck and showed us the storage unit.
Darcy: Okay! So, this is our unit.
We shut down our businesses, and I’m moving it out of town to pursue other opportunities, and I need all of this loaded up in 2 hours. The last movers I had got it unloaded in about that long.
Mike said something about the truck being bigger than she told us.
Darcy: Yeah, it’s the biggest one Uhaul had. Last time we used another company, and it was much bigger.
I’m worried about getting it all, but you guys will have to figure it out. I need all of it.
This was a HUGE storage unit. Like the kind you’d store a few cars or some farm equipment in. When we opened it up, it was filled with what appeared to be the contents of a couple of pretty decently sized businesses. A dozen of those huge floor-to-ceiling filing cabinets, several desks, office chairs, some really huge glass tables.
And all of it was incredibly heavy.
Now, our company safety guidelines for weight limits are 100 pounds per person lifting an item, but there’s no real practical way to enforce that in the field, so we usually wind up using our best judgment, even if the item is over that limit. Nearly everything there was over limit, but we had our equipment, and we were pretty confident we could handle everything, weight-wise.
Mike and I are both pretty strong. But in my estimation, this was definitely going to take a bit longer than 2 hours.
Mike told her that we would do our absolute best. To be fair, he should have leveled with her then and there that it would take a bit more time, but he probably wanted to see if we could just get it busted out as quick as possible and see where we were at before getting the customer needlessly worried.
Darcy sat in her truck nearly the whole time we were working, so she could stay warm. Perfectly understandable since it was -2°F outside and the snow was coming down pretty hard. Though she’d occasionally roll down her window to offer up critiques. Mostly about how much time we were taking going up and down the metal ramp of the truck, which was now COVERED in ice and snow.
About an hour and some change into the move, Darcy gets out of her truck and starts chatting with Mike about her previous movers and how they did cause some damage to her stuff, but they were SO fast. It was weird. She went back and forth between complaining about them and praising them for their speed. And she kept referring to them as “the professional moving service I hired,” which really bugged me, because the way she said it seemed to be implying that because we aren’t a big national company like Mayflower, then somehow Mike and I weren’t professional movers, despite the fact that this is literally our full-time jobs.
Now we’re far enough into this move that we could tell this was going to run long. Mike decides it’s a good idea to let her know that it’s probably going to take a half-hour or so longer than expected (which was still a feat, considering how much there was to move and how well-packed this truck was. I pride myself on playing a mean game of Truck Tetris).
Darcy was NOT having this. She started to get upset and started saying how we were just trying to get more money out of her, and we were “dilly dallying” (yes, those words actually left the mouth of a grown woman). Then she starts in on how “the professional movers got this same stuff unloaded in 2 hours; it should take the same time to load it!”
Mike explains to her that unloading always takes less time than loading because you’re moving it into a bigger space, and you don’t have to pack and pad the stuff to fit into a truck.
I also mention that there’s literally a blizzard coming down, and we’re only going to go a little over.
She gets quiet and seething. Mike can tell how angry she is and lets her know we won’t charge her for any extra time since it’s not her fault the weather is crappy.
He also brings up that they damaged her stuff, and we’ve done a pretty good job.
Darcy: I don’t CARE! YOU SAID TWO HOURS. I EXPECT IT DONE! JUST GET IT DONE! I’m going to leave you guys a TERRIBLE review!
She stomps back to her truck without saying a word.
I’m usually pretty chill, but I was already getting increasingly mad at this woman.
Her yelling at my boss and calling us lazy when we were risking our health and safety to move her stuff in a blizzard was just too much for me.
Mike thinks about this for a moment. I know customer reviews are super important to us as a small business. The booking site we use highlights the last handful of reviews, so a bad one takes FOREVER to stop showing up as basically the first thing people see when they click on your page.
So I’m expecting Mike to try and keep her happy, but instead, he just grins and turns to me
Mike: Screw it. You heard her!
Cue malicious compliance.
She wanted it all loaded in 2 hours? That’s exactly what we’d do.
The front half of her truck was loaded up neatly, with everything padded and stacked tightly floor-to-ceiling to keep it from moving on the road.
I pride myself on my ability to load a truck properly and safely without wasting any space. The second half of her truck was the worst, jankiest truck I’ve ever loaded in my life. We’re talking huge heavy office furniture haphazardly stacked on top of each other at the weirdest angles. Heavy stuff on top of light stuff, anything to just get the storage unit empty and the truck door closed. We even stacked REALLY heavy office chairs on top of glass tabletops.
By the end of it, the truck looked like you’d asked Escher or Geiger to draw you a picture of an office.
I just wanna be clear: we’ve never intentionally damaged a customer’s property, and we never would. We pride ourselves on our professionalism, courtesy, and specifically our ability to get your stuff where it’s going safely. But the particular combination of unsafe conditions and this lady’s outright disregard for our safety and feelings was just too much.
And technically, we didn’t damage anything. Nothing was broken when we closed the truck doors. But literally, the first bump in the road or decently tight turn was definitely going to cause hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars in damage.
We closed the truck door and walked over to Darcy’s truck and let her know.
Mike went to her truck. He told her that we were done and that he wasn’t going to charge her at all for the move.
She insisted that she’s “not poor and doesn’t need charity,” and Mike just said that it was clear that she wasn’t happy and that he didn’t need her $150 (that’s right, we charge $75/hr, so the extra half hour we needed to do it right would have cost her a whopping $37).
He canceled the job and refunded her what she’d already prepaid.
As we drove away in Mike’s car, I looked at him.
Me: You realize that by the time she gets where she’s going, she’s looking at a LOT of damaged furniture, right? She’s going to hit us with a bad review and maybe even try to sue.
Mike: She was worried about paying an extra $37. I doubt she’ll risk more money on hiring a lawyer. And besides, you can’t leave a review on the site if the job gets canceled. We just gave her exactly what she wanted. And besides, it’s worth losing out on the money I would have made just to see her face when I said I didn’t need her $150.
When he dropped me off he still paid me for my time because “Fudge that lady.” My boss, Mike, is a really nice guy.”
14. Take All So-Called "Suspicious" People To The Desk? Will Do
“This happened in the mid-90s when I was working for a software company.
Said software company was a major provider of logistic management software for the trucking and shipping industry at the time. They were founded by 2 computer science college students in the 60s who were able to build the company into a multi-million dollar company. Both gentlemen were wonderful to work with and were still there when I started working for the company. One took the sales side and managed the sales/marketing efforts; the other managed the software development teams. Together, they’d created a juggernaut of a software company.
The gentleman who managed the software development teams (official title was CEO), retired after putting in 25 years. We gave him a heart-felt send-off, with many of us being in tears at his departure – that’s how much we loved him.
They hired a new CEO who didn’t come from a software development background. Huge red flag – he didn’t understand the software development cycle.
The new CEO also regularly treated people poorly.
Insulting them in meetings, in front of their co-workers. Berating them. Setting unreasonable deadlines without consulting with the people who actually did the work to see if said deadline was even attainable. That’s not how you motivate software developers who have high levels of skill and experience. All the developers needed to do is reach out to a “head hunter” (slang term for employment recruiter), say “I have X years of experience with Major Logistic Management Software Company” in order to get a better job with more money.
Suffice it to say, I wasn’t impressed. After experiencing the “setting unreasonable deadlines” issue in my project, which resulted in me calling our customers behind his back in order to negotiate a reasonable deadline – something I was successful in doing that he never found out about – I was looking for ways to pay back.
The new CEO started talking about how insecure our facility was and how we were in need of a new entrance security system in order to reduce the risk of “corporate espionage.” We all figured he meant a mag key card with a gate.
Something state of the art for entrance security.
But no. He was cheap. His idea of “state of the art” security was giving us name badges. That’s it. Not even a photo ID. Just a badge with our names on it. We were to wear them so that they were visible.
He sent out an email stating that if we saw anyone throughout our campus without a name badge after a specific date, we were to treat them like they were a “suspicious person.” When we found someone without a name badge, we were to immediately escort them to the front desk.
(New CEO and high-level management had their offices in the front desk area – this is important later in this story.)
Trouble is, the entire rollout of the name badges was delayed due to production issues. Said deadline date came and went – about 1/3 of our employees didn’t have a name badge yet. The New CEO had also not rescinded his original email order regarding taking “suspicious persons” without a name badge to the front desk.
Que malicious compliance.
After that deadline, I was walking to the snack area and met one of the software development managers without a name badge. I initially made the joke “Hey, Dave! You look like a suspicious person!” We both laughed a bit – he commented on how mediocre the whole name badge thing was – and started walking back to his area of the campus.
I was suddenly struck by an idea. I went back to him and said “Hey, Dave! You really are a suspicious person. I need to take you to the front office.”
At first, he balked. “No, really. I don’t have time for this. I need to get back to work.”
I whispered: “Hey, Dave! Listen to me for a sec. Envision this: I take you to the front desk.
You go into the lounge there. Take a smoke break (we had lounges for smokers and non-smokers). Drink a coke. Watch some TV. And all on company time. Heaven only knows how long you’ll be there before someone notices you’re gone. Could be hours. Getting paid for doing nothing on company time.”
Dave’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “You’re right!” he replied. “I guess I am a suspicious person!
You’d better escort me to the front office.” So he reached out his arm to me, and arm in arm, we both walked to the front office where I left Dave to take a well-deserved extended break on company time.
Dave was the perfect first person for me to do this with because he was one of the software development managers. As I came across others without name badges, insisting that I needed to escort them to the front office, I told them: “This a gag against the CEO.
Dave’s in on it. He’s already there in the smoking lounge.” As soon as others heard that Dave was in on the gag, they willingly complied and followed me to the front desk.
I didn’t stop until I’d hunted down about 50 co-workers and taken them to the front desk. (We had a staff of around 250 employees.) By the time I’d dropped off my last person, it was quite the party atmosphere in the front desk area.
People laughing, joking, drinking soft drinks, and eating snacks. It was getting really loud. I looked at this jolly scene and thought: “My work here is done” and went back to my desk.
1 hour goes by.
Finally, the new CEO emerges from his office after hearing nearly two hours of this cacophony, angrily asking: “What on earth are all of you doing here? Why aren’t you working?!”
They all replied: “BillEvansTrioFan said that we were suspicious persons because we didn’t have our name badges, so she brought us here.”
The new CEO apparently got flustered and said: “Well… go back to work!”
Crowd disperses.
Sitting at my desk, I get a phone call from New CEO. “BillEvansTrioFan! Come to my office right now!”
Off I went to his office, taking a printed copy of his original email directive regarding people without name badges with me.
I sat down in front of his desk and New CEO, looking extremely irritated, asked: “What do you think you’re doing?!”
I calmly replied: “I’m following your orders, sir,” and handed him the email of his original name badge directives.
In reading his own email, he immediately realized he couldn’t do anything against me. He got even more flustered and sputtered: “Well… stop following my orders!”
I again calmly replied: “Sir, may I remind you that you ordered me to not follow your orders at a time that is most convenient for me to do so?”
His face looked like he was in brain lock and that he didn’t know how to respond. “Um… well… NO! Go back to work!”
I experienced no repercussions from that incident. There were other orchestrated incidents that followed, but they were behind-the-scenes practical jokes, not malicious compliance.
I left a year later for greener work pastures. About 6 months after I left, the new CEO was forced to retire under threat of dismissal.”
Another Users Comments:
“”Stop following my orders!” … “Go back to work!”
I would have gone home.” Broxios
13. Want A More Flexible Work Schedule? Get Demoted
“I used to work in an organization that employed around 6,500 people; it was a great place that did its best to value its employees. It had a really great flexible working scheme where they did their best to accommodate everyone’s wishes, providing you had a legitimate reason for requesting that shift pattern, as opposed to the one that applied for your department.
I was a supervisor in a department of about 300-350 staff providing 24/7 cover for customer contact. We get paid an additional 30% on top of our already decent salary for working this pattern.
I had about 20 direct reports. One of those was a lad called Joe (not his real name). According to his friends, Joe was a good mate. According to his family, a saint. But I was neither of those things.
I was his boss. Joe was a bit of a doorknob.
Now, another of the team member, let call her Sandra, had recently been granted a flexible working scheme that allowed her to have every weekend off. She was the envy of the team – because our shift pattern had us working 4/6 weekends.
Enter Joe. Joe is a bit of a football fan. And by a bit, I mean I’m pretty sure he would sacrifice his firstborn to give his team a better shot at winning the league.
Nothing wrong with having a passion though right? Joe and his family have apparently been season ticket holders for their club for many many years.
Now Joe is fairly new to our department but he’s settling in. Performance-wise, he’s a little below average. He requests every weekend off during the football season, but is denied – we already have the maximum number of staff permitted off on those days Joe!
Better luck next year. See if someone will swap a shift with you, so you can go – and that, I thought was the end of it.
But no! Joe needs those Saturdays off. The team will lose without him there drunkenly shouting them on! The sacrifice of his child will have been in vain! Joe finds out about Sandra’s flexible working scheme.
Now what the rest of the team don’t know is that Sandra’s dad used to look after her kids on the weekend, and he’s been diagnosed with cancer and can’t manage that anymore.
So naturally, work is doing everything they can to support her. Sandra has asked that her colleagues are not told about this, and she has been telling them she’s stressed due to workload as the reason for her application.
So Joe approaches me and says, “Hey! Mr. Bossman, I want to put a flexible working application in, exactly the same as Sandra’s! I’m struggling with stress and, uh, workload!” Are you really Joe?
ARE YOU REALLY? I take Joe aside and double-check with him that this application has nothing to do with the football matches he’s been complaining about for the last 3 months? No? You’re certain? He swears on the grave of his still-living mother (nice lady we met once. Smelled like apples.) Well, Joe, I say if it was, I think putting a flexible working application in under “improved work-life balance” and “allowing me to pursue a hobby I am passionate about” would be more successful.
“But, Bossman, I’m not guaranteed to have it approved if I say that! Sandra got hers through saying stress and workload! (She didn’t!) They’ll approve mine too; it’s guaranteed!”
Joe, ideally I think you should reconsider.
Nope! You have to put down what I say. This is my reason.
We discussed this round and round for a whole 90 minutes. I aged 3 decades.
Joe eventually states he will put a complaint in about me if I don’t put the application in – they had to be signed by managers to say we had discussed them with the employee.
I give up! Joe’s application goes in, exactly as he wants it. By this point, he’s burned through mine and the team’s goodwill.
But what Joe doesn’t know is that I’ve supported staff who have genuinely been struggling before. I know what comes next. Joe gets a meeting with HR who refers him to a stress counselor to assess. Joe apparently plays it up to the counselor thinking it’s part of the process.
The counselor decides that our role is having too much of an adverse effect on Joe’s mental health and states he needs to transfer to another department.
The only vacancies at the time were for a department paid a lower rate, who still worked 4/6 weekends!
Joe quit two months later after complaining every single day about being moved.”
12. Refuse To Take My Check? Here's $2,800 In One Dollar Bills
“This was back around 1996 or 1997. I went into what was, at the time, a major computer and electronics store. I had my heart set on buying a particular laptop. I had done my research, and they had the exact one I wanted. It was a Saturday, and I was looking forward to spending Sunday getting it all ready to take to work Monday.
Our company only provided desktop computers, and having a laptop meant I could take work home with me and not have to remote in as much over dialup modem and waste time downloading things. I could already envision how I would become the very model of productivity.
I picked up the laptop, plus the laptop bag, ethernet card (PCMCIA), and modem card. The total price for everything was around $2,800.
This was back when large purchases were still routinely made by check. Stores would validate that checks were good electronically with services like Checkfax, similar to the way credit card transactions are validated through MasterCard, Visa, AmEx, etc.
Well, the store’s modem was down, and they could not connect to whatever system they used to validate checks. I had a debit card, but back then, there was like a $200 daily limit on how much you could charge on your debit card (I know — the stone age, right).
I told the store manager that there was a number for my bank you could call (it was conveniently on the back of my debit card), and they would provide verbal authorization over the phone. The salesperson (who would get a commission for the sale) already had the bank on the line.
The store manager flat-out refused to accept a check authorization unless it came through their system (which was down).
He said he would not take my check, and I would have to come back on Monday when the system was working again. No matter how much I (and the salesperson) tried to reason with him, he was not going to budge.
Now, normally this would have steamed me so much that I would have taken my business elsewhere, but I really wanted that laptop, they were the only store in town that carried it, and I didn’t want to wait for mail order (MUST. HAVE.
NEW. TOY. NOW!).
So, if he didn’t want to take my check… fine. I’d pay in cash. Lots of it.
On Monday, I went to my bank and said I wanted to withdraw $2,800 in $1 bills (I thought about asking for quarters but figured no one would have that many quarters on hand). The teller asked me why I needed so many ones, just out of curiosity.
I told her exactly what I was planning to do with them. She was completely on board with it! That branch didn’t have that many ones. They had about half. The teller called ahead to the downtown branch, and they said they had the rest. She told them why I needed all the ones, and they got a big kick out of it as well.
Even though the tellers had to unbundle all the ones and run them through a counting machine (bank policy), they were more than happy to do so.
The money filled up 2 medium-sized brown paper bags. They were all nicely bundled in bricks of $100 each.
I drove to the store and, in the parking lot, removed the bands that held the bricks of cash together and stuffed the now-loose bills back in their brown paper bags.
I then walk in and found the same salesperson from that Saturday and confirmed with him that the same store manager was working that day. I had him pull the same stuff as before. I then showed him what was in the 2 brown paper bags I was carrying and told him to call the manager.
The manager was none too pleased when I started (carefully, so as not to lose any bills) dumping the $1 bills out on the customer service desk counter.
I reminded him that he said my checks were no good, so I brought cash!
He threatened to not accept all those ones, but the salesperson immediately jumped in on my behalf (he really wanted that commission, I guess). Besides, I don’t think he legally had a choice. It was US currency. “Good for all debts, public and private.” (That is literally printed on all US notes if you’ve never bothered to take a close look at one.)
Now, unlike the bank, they did not have a money counting machine. Every available employee, including the store manager and the salesperson, had to get behind the customer service counter and start counting ones. The store manager wasn’t happy. The salesperson was. He was actually happy about it (commission, I’m guessing again). The other employees were, shall we say, ranging between annoyed and peeved. It took them quite a while to count it all.
I then dropped the precise change on the counter to complete the sale price (82 cents).
As I was leaving with my new toys, I asked the store manager if he was going to give me any more trouble about taking my checks in the future. I did not wait around for his reply.
About a month later, a friend of mine stopped in the same store.
He said to one of the salespeople that he was a friend of mine and if he knew about what had happened. The salesperson just happened to be the same salesperson who sold me my laptop. He said that it had actually turned out to be kind of convenient. They had put all those ones in the safe, and ever since, they had not had to send anyone to their bank once to pick up $1 bills to make change.”
11. Of Course We'll Follow The Kid's Education Plan To The Letter
“I am a high school teacher. One of the things that teachers deal with are Individual Education Plans (IEPs). An IEP is for a student with disabilities (learning, developmental, etc). An IEP will outline exactly what accommodations a student is entitled to. These are very necessary and very important, legally binding documents that outline a student’s disability (as it relates to academic performance) and provide accommodations to help the student succeed in school.
Common accommodations include “may use a calculator on math tests,” “may have test questions read aloud to him/her,” “may receive extra time on timed tests,” and “may take tests in the resource room instead of the academic classroom.”
It is that last accommodation that is important for this story. If you are unfamiliar, a resource room is the classroom of the special education teacher.
While the special education students spend 90% of their day in the same classrooms as other students, they will occasionally return to their special ed teacher’s room (the “resource room”) for things like study hall, homeroom, or to take a test. The special ed teacher assigned to help monitor this student’s progress is known as the “Teacher of Record,” or TOR for short.
“Billy” was one of my students last year.
He was a bright, outgoing, and very active student. However, Billy also did have a few learning disabilities that caused him to struggle in class. Because of these disabilities, “may take tests and quizzes in the resource room instead of the academic classroom” was a very important part of his IEP. This cut down on distractions and was to help Billy concentrate on his test.
After about half a year of Billy doing well in class, he unexpectedly failed a test in my class. The TOR, “Mrs. Ratched,” was really upset that Billy didn’t do well on that test. She monitored his grades through our online system, so she knew he failed the test less than 10 minutes after I had graded it. In order to get to the bottom of why, she stopped by my classroom after the students had gone home for the day.
“Mr. Onyx, why did Billy fail his test?”
“I’m not sure. He normally does well on the tests, but this one seemed to stump him. I’m going to talk to him about it tomorrow.”
“Did you follow his IEP?”
“Yes, I did. I offered to let him take the test in the resource room, but he elected to take it in class since it was not a long test.”
It should be noted that IEP accommodations are generally “elective,” meaning that the student can choose not to use a specific accommodation at any given point if he/she does not wish to. This does not stop him/her from using that same accommodation later. The only time that an accommodation is mandatory is if the parents request that it be so. It is reflected in the IEP when that happens, but it is exceedingly rare.
“But,” Mrs. Ratched continued, “Billy’s IEP states that he gets time and a half on tests.”
“I’m aware,” I explained. “However, this was not a timed test. All students had as much time as they needed. If a student didn’t finish during today’s class period, they could finish the test tomorrow. All students, including Billy, finished today.”
“He gets time and a half!”
“Yes, he does.
But, as I said, this was not a timed test. There was unlimited time for all students, including Billy!”
“I’m not going to file a non-compliance report on this, but I want you to know that I expect you… the state expects you… to follow IEPs to the letter! You should NOT have allowed him to take the test in class. He should have received more time than other students.
You dropped the ball on this one, and I expect it not to happen again!”
She then stormed out.
Now, Billy had chosen to take the test in class, something he very rarely did. I’m not sure why Mrs. Ratched was so incensed that he hadn’t taken the test in her room, since it was Billy’s decision, but whatever. As for the time, that was a non-issue.
You can’t give time and a half for “unlimited time,” so I ignored that complaint.
A few weeks later, Billy had a quiz in my class. This was a very short ten-question quiz. Again, Billy elected to stay in my room. Again, sadly, Billy failed the quiz.
That triggered Round Two with Mrs. Ratched.
“What is wrong with you, Mr. Onyx?!,” she demanded as she stormed into my room the day the quiz grades were uploaded to our grading system.
“Billy should be in MY room taking these tests and quizzes!”
“Billy chose not to. I offered him the opportunity to take the quiz in your room, but he chose not to. I cannot force him.”
“I am getting very tired of your disregard of IEPs. I’m going to be filing a non-compliance report with the administration.”
I knew I had done nothing wrong, so I wasn’t worried. As I suspected, the administration dismissed her complaint as being without merit and I went on my way.
Then, about two weeks after the complaint was filed and dismissed, I got an updated IEP for Billy. It seems Mrs. Ratched was not happy about Billy failing tests and quizzes when he took them in the academic classroom as opposed to the resource room. As a result, she called up Billy’s parents and, through conference with them, got his IEP changed.
Instead of “Billy may take tests and quizzes in the resource room,” it now read “Billy must take tests and quizzes in the resource room under the supervision of the Teacher of Record.”
The last eight words of that mandate caught my eye “…under the supervision of the Teacher of Record.” This meant that, as TOR, Mrs. Ratched is now legally mandated to be present in her classroom every time Billy takes a test or quiz. Since special ed has instructional assistants (IA) as well as licensed teachers in the room at all times, it is not usually a problem if the TOR is out of the room, since an IA will be in there.
Nope, not anymore.
I was still angry at Mrs. Ratched for her “non-compliance” complaint against me, even though it got dismissed. I was also angry at her making demands of me as if I worked for her. I was following the law, following Billy’s IEP, and I would be d****d if I was going to let anyone tell me I wasn’t.
Enter the Malicious Compliance.
Every teacher, including special ed teachers, gets a prep period. These periods are periods in which we do not have a class. I use mine for grading and making copies. Some teachers use them to plan for the extra-curricular activities they coach or direct. Mrs. Ratched, I knew, used hers to hang out down the hall in the classroom of her BFF, a biology teacher with the same prep period as her.
If a student had a test/quiz to take, it wouldn’t be an issue normally. An IA would be in the room, so the TOR didn’t have to be. Well, except for Billy, now. You see, Mrs. Ratched’s prep period was the same period in which I had Billy in class.
About a week after the new IEP was handed down, I had another quiz in class.
Unfortunately for Billy, as I explained to him, his parents and Mrs. Ratched had decided that he had to take quizzes and tests in Mrs. Ratched’s room. He wasn’t happy, but his IEP was not vague on this point.
Knowing Mrs. Ratched wouldn’t be in the classroom, I took Billy down to Mrs. Ratched’s room myself, having my own IA (who was only in my room because of Billy) watch the class.
When I got there, I asked the IA where Mrs. Ratched was.
“She’s in Ms. Bio Teacher’s room,” she kindly explained.
“Alright,” I said. “Billy, have a seat, and I’ll go get Mrs. Ratched.”
“Mrs. Ratched,” I said a few moments later as I got to Ms. Bio Teacher’s room, “Billy needs to take a quiz. We need you down in your room to supervise.”
“Ms. IA is there,” she said with a dismissive wave. “She can handle it.”
“Oh, no, she can’t,” I explained with a smile. “You see, I am, as you reminded me, expected to follow Billy’s IEP to the letter. His IEP says that he must take tests and quizzes in the resource room under the supervision of the Teacher of Record. As his Teacher of Record, I’m afraid that you are required to be there.
It would be non-compliance for me to leave the supervision of his quiz up to Ms. IA.”
She looked livid but knew that she had backed herself into a corner. Reluctantly, and obviously fuming, she left Ms. Bio Teacher’s room and returned to her room.
For the remainder of the year, every test and quiz I assigned to Billy required that Mrs. Ratched give up her prep period in order to supervise.
There wasn’t a lot of them, but I really enjoyed twisting the knife every so often, just to remind her that it was her actions which forced this.
Later, from what I’ve been told, she tried to get Billy’s parents to change the IEP to state “may” instead of “must.” They liked the “must.” They kept it in.”
10. Cancel Your Services Because You Didn't Give Me Enough Time To Handle Your Complaint? Sure
“So about 5 years ago, I was working for a Cable/Home phone/ISP company in support for a frontline staff role. Part of this was faking being a supervisor, so the actual supervisors don’t have to be verbally abused. Garbage system, I know, but what can you do.
Well, I get a call from a front-line person telling me this guy (let’s call him Kyle) has asked to speak to someone about his 3 rental properties.
I take the call and get on the phone with the guy.
Me: “Hi there, thanks for choosing (corporate drone speak intensifies)”
Kyle: “Yeah, you said that I wouldn’t have to pay for long-distance on these 3 accounts.”
Me: “Ohm well, let me go have a look at the notes on the accounts and…”
Kyle: “NO, YOU WILL CANCEL MY SERVICES AT ALL THREE PLACES.”
Me: “I just need to look at the notes written on your account to…”
Kyle: “NO, YOU WON’T IF THIS IS THE SERVICE YOU ARE PROVIDING. JUST CANCEL THEM ALL”
Begin Malicious compliance. I need to make sure he is in fact the guy who can cancel these services at all 3 accounts I ask him when he would like the services to stop.
Kyle: “WHY ARE YOU STILL ASKING ME THINGS? IMMEDIATELY.”
Me: “Ok sir, I just want to make sure you are asking to me cancel all services, phone, cable, and internet?”
Kyle “(series of swears) YES, ALL THREE SERVICES AT ALL THREE PLACES.”
Now I should point out that it was pretty close to midnight, and these places being rental properties on a Friday night probably had people living there. Also, it didn’t seem that he lived at any one of them. So I went about going through each of the three accounts and shut down the services, the phone, the cable, and the internet.
Now before anyone says, oh, you took their phone away; that’s dangerous! Well, you can plug a phone outlet into anywhere, and even if it doesn’t have service, you can still call emergency services.
I went through and told the system to shut everything down. It also gives us the option to immediately stop the services from working. So, I told it yes. Now, this meant that everything stops at the properties at once.
Everything, immediately. Watching TV? Not anymore. Looking at memes? NOPE. Oh, were you making a phone call? NOT ANYMORE.
I can only imagine the series of panicky texts and cell phone calls that guy had that evening because everything was shut off.
The next time I was at work, I checked the notes on these closed accounts only to find that the tenants had called in and were told the services were canceled. Followed by notes from an actual supervisor because if you get loud enough the real supes have to do their job, that said after reviewing the call Kyle had with me they felt I did exactly what the customer had asked, and there was nothing else we would do.
Turns out, Kyle was mad at me for following his directions and then got his tenants to call him enraged after midnight about how nothing they had was working.”
9. I'm Suspended? You Might Lose Your Job, Though
“Several years ago, I used to work at a shipping warehouse. I was 19 when this story took place, and I had been there for about a year. The way this place operated was that they would have about 100-200 employees at any given time, with shifts changing out every 4 hours to cycle through everyone.
It wasn’t the best company to work for, but I was still new to the workforce at the time, and I was just happy to be getting a paycheck, so I could buy things.
I came in one day and one of the site leads had gone into labor, so she was on maternity leave for a while. Apparently, this wasn’t expected to happen so soon because the other leads were all scrambling to get her shift covered. They covered the shift when they could but eventually hired a temp manager, who we’ll call Jeff for the sake of the story.
It became obvious very early on that this guy had some sort of complex because as soon as he was introduced, he ran the employees there like a tyrant (imagine the drill sergeant from Fullmetal Jacket but even meaner and with no idea what he was doing). Naturally, I had the misfortune to work the shift he was in charge of. We all noticed that he was just assigning people to different stations almost at random, regardless if they were trained to work it or not, but I don’t think anyone said anything because they were too afraid or something.
I still have no idea why, but for some reason, the other site leads, and HR left him totally off the leash and unsupervised as soon as they introduced him to us.
Before this guy had started, I had been speaking with HR and my team supervisor about applying to be one of the site’s delivery drivers, and they directed me to the dispatch desk to apply.
Well, one day, I did that on my break and Jeff came up to me screaming about how I was ‘wasting his time’ and that ‘he didn’t pay me to just sit there and chat with people.’ I told him that I’d already gotten the okay from HR, and they actually directed me to have this discussion, plus I was on my break, so I wasn’t even on the clock.
This guy was not having it. He said that I could either do what he told me to do, or he would write me up. Again, I tried to explain that I was on my scheduled break, but he just cut me off. He said I was suspended until further notice (which wasn’t even something the company did). I asked if I could finish applying for the position as the delivery driver, and he lost his mind.
He kept saying for me to get out of HIS building and that he had better never see me again.
At first, I was freaking out, thinking I had just been fired. I thought to myself ‘He can’t do this to me!” Then I saw my team supervisor approaching after hearing the yelling. He just stood there, and when Jeff was done, he smiled and nodded at me, and it clicked. He actually CAN’T do this to me.
I had never gotten any write-ups before, and I was actually one of the top performers on my shift. This guy couldn’t fire me without any write-ups or a proper HR investigation. I instantly calmed down, realizing that I wasn’t the one who would end up being fired.
I just shrugged, said “Okay,” and went home, knowing the company didn’t have any kind of ‘suspension’ penalty and figuring the time would be taken out of my vacation pay or something.
About 5 days later, I got the call I was expecting from the warehouse’s HR department, asking me to come back. Apparently, my team supervisor and several others from the shift had reported Jeff for mistreating the employees and going against the warehouse’s safety guidelines, and he was fired. I grinned, realizing the position I was now in, and told them that I wanted to be paid at the overtime rate for the days I was forced to take off, and I didn’t want any of it to affect my attendance, which they agreed to after a bit of grumbling.
When I got back, Jeff was nowhere to be found, and the night shift site lead had taken over for the morning shift as well. I didn’t get to be a delivery driver, but the paycheck for that week was almost double what I usually got, and I got a bonus at the end of that month for perfect attendance. I left the job a few months later due to a different, unrelated issue.”
8. Ask For Directions After Mocking Me And My Work? Bad Move
Is this guy some sort of idiot?
“This happened back in the early 1980s, so all dialogue is condensed and paraphrased. I was a 19-year-old (Geek, sickening all-American Boy type, male) putting myself through school as a sweeper working for the Mouse in Southern California. We, Sweepers, are in every public area of the park, are the most approached employees for questions (not intimidating like security, swamped like the character actors, or isolated by queues/fences/walls like the ride operators/restaurant/store personnel) and are generally knowledgeable and friendly- it is very much a customer service position.
It was a good gig, and I found the Mouse good to work for.
My primary work area was centered around the “Pirates of the Caribbean” attraction which is a major traffic hub in the park. At busy times (most summer days), it was hot, crowded, and by shift end, you were glad it was done and ready to go home. I was late into the last hour of my shift. The crowds had thinned out (not disappeared- that would be hours hence), but the sun was down, and the night was pleasant.
I was happily cruising about keeping my area neat (Have Pan and Broom, will Travel) when a pair of thirty-something males struttingly approached. Let us call them Mocker1 and Mocker2. I am me.
Mocker1 – “Hey sweeper, there’s some popcorn spilled up by the Haunted Mansion. Better go clean it up.” Mocker2 laughs nastily. That is some hundreds of yards away, in another guy’s area.
Not only not my problem, but actually, unless some danger was caused by it, I SHOULDN’T go.
Me: With a friendly smile and a nod. “Thanks, we’ll get it.”
Mocker1: Tossing a cup on the ground (he had walked by at least 4 trash cans between where he was and the Haunted Mansion, “Here get this.” With a flourish, I popped it into my pan with my broom.
Mocker2: In a sneering voice, “When is the 3 o’clock parade?” This caused Mocker1 to laugh.
Believe it or not, this is a very common question. One that can be heard multiple times daily. Usually, it translates to, “What is the parade route, and when should I get there to get a good spot?” But this was at 8:45 pm (I was off at 9), so was just meant to annoy me and to waste my time.
Me: Cheerfully, “The 3 o’clock parade will be tomorrow at 3 0’clock.”
This pair continued on, in this vein, for another 5 minutes. Asking random, generally pointless, questions, pointing out the odd butt/leaf/piece of paper, and generally mocking and sneering at me, my work, and the park. Basically, mocking me for their own entertainment, and wasting my time.
I found it mildly annoying but had long ago (this was my 2nd summer with the Mouse) realized that if 995 out of a 1000 folks are nice, and are cheerfully set on having fun, you still get the other 5.
And when park attendance ranged from 12,000 (very dead) to 55,000 (screaming lunacy), that meant that you had 60 to 275 jerks running around on any given day. Knowing that helped me maintain a cheerful perspective: people are, by and large, overwhelmingly nice.
Still, as said, it was mildly annoying.
It was at this moment that the heavens opened and a choir of angels sang “Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,” and Mocker2 asked the single most common question.
Mocker2: “Oh hey, I gotta go. Where is the bathroom?”
Mocker1: Chiming in. “Yeah, where is it?”
Now, in a surprisingly warrenlike space behind me, there was a tiny and hard-to-find restroom. I never sent anyone there- it was well hidden (I think dating from park construction, and it was little used) only guided “urgent cases” personally. Nope, not this time. The next closest was to my right across Adventureland (straight walk can’t miss it at the end) 3 minutes, less if moving urgently.
Nope.
Me: With a nod and a cheerful customer service smile, motioning with my hand for them to turn around. “Turn around, see that rail? Go to it and follow it to the right. When it ends there will be a path on the right. At the end of that path is another path on the right. The restroom is there.” And they set off.
I am sure that they were quite expressive when they arrived, 2 lands away halfway across the park, to the tiny elderly restroom in Fantasyland. Ten minutes later, I was off, and I never saw those two again.
Jerk move? Arguably so, I can not deny. But I file it under “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” And is an example of the lack of wisdom of asking directions from, after mocking/belittling, a stranger.”
7. Double My Workload? Your Call
“So, this company was a bit different from what I was expecting as far as security goes. You know the stereotype, everyone is 40 pounds overweight, and all they do is the occasional walk around a building before going to a guard shack and sitting around all night. That’s not what this company was completely about, though; the company primarily did patrols for various clients and made stops at designated areas.
We also answered alarm calls on top of that. Now this company did have a few stationary sites that I worked from time to time but I was primarily a patrolman, which I didn’t mind.
Now the events. My overlords at this company were a charming couple. The owner was a lifelong policeman who took a chance after being denied a promotion and started this company in the ’70s while his wife handled the business side.
Both were nice enough, but listening to reason was another story. New accounts were regularly added to our routes, sometimes with little or no notice, and we were expected to adapt. Adapting to the changes was usually not a problem until they became a problem, that is!
On one of our overnight routes, the overlords updated an existing account. The owners of the account wanted more weekend coverage due to issues with disgruntled staff and had asked for 3 more stops at their site on Fridays and Saturdays, -normally not a problem until you take geography and basic timekeeping into account.
Now for those unfamiliar with the layout of the Kelso/Longview area, there’s a bridge that separates Longview, WA from Rainier, OR. We had a handful of accounts across the river separating the two states which was normally no problem. The problem started with one of the larger sites wanting 3 more stops, and you had to wait till roughly 1 am to hit the stops.
This stop alone took about 15 minutes since you had to unlock one of the main gates to enter, drive around to make sure there are no open doors, lock the gate, rinse and repeat. Our shifts ended at 5:30 am, and we still had over 100 stops and on a regular night drove around 100 miles, give it take.
So I wasn’t the first to try and conquer this; that honor went to another patrolman in our company.
This guy tended to be on the overlord’s crap list most days for his attitude, but he was a solid worker. He definitely bit off more than he could chew with how this route was redone. He attempted to try the route using his normal methods but ended up going 2 hours over. He was of course reprimanded for not being able to complete the shift on time.
The next time he had this route, he decided to cut his lunch hour in half and barely made it on time. He then got reprimanded a second time for not “using his lunch as intended.” He was fed up at this point and told the overlords he was refusing to do this route on Fridays and Saturdays anymore as he rightfully thought it was ridiculous.
Now comes my turn. I took a look at the sheet and started formulating a plan in my head for how to best tackle this route. After a few minutes, I think I was able to come up with a possible solution. I end up doing the first half of my shift cramming all of my normal stops into the first 5 hours, taking my lunch around 1 am, then taking care of my “extra” stops in the last half, usually finishing up around 5:15 am.
Of course, this meant I didn’t have time to wash my truck at the end of the shift but the bottom line was held up and the route was finished.
I did this routine for about 4 weeks when I was finally talked to by my immediate supervisor. Apparently, the overlords finally saw what I was up to and weren’t too happy. My supervisor tried threatening me with a write-up, but I didn’t back down and told him I’d keep doing it that way since there was no other way to do the shift. He dropped the issue and went on his way.
After that, the Overlords tried having someone they “trusted” do the route and he ended up being as late as the first patrolman. After this, the Overlords realized that “maybe this isn’t a feasible route” and took the extra stops off of the property. They weren’t happy for a bit, but they calmed down after a while. About two years after this, they again tried something similar, but that’s another story.”
6. Hit My Truck But Don't Want To Involve Insurance? You're Gonna Pay Something, Buddy
You should’ve just involved insurance.
“This happened just a week ago.
I am an over-the-road truck driver, and I was on off-duty mode since the day before, so I was stationary the whole time. While I was in my bed trying to sleep, I suddenly heard a loud crunch, following by a pretty rough rocking of my truck. When I got out and check, I saw a truck trying to park on the left spot and struck me on his blind spot (right side of his trailer).
The damage was, my driver side mirror was folded, and there were cracks on my left quarter fender.
The driver got out, checked the damage for both my truck and his trailer. I told him that I will need his registration, driver license, and insurance, the whole 9 yards. At first, he was a little hesitant to give the information but ended up following the rules.
I did the same for him. Then, he proceeds to tell me that he would prefer to pay the damage in cash or check. The reason was, if insurance was involved, his company would charge him $2,500 automatically, so it’s a huge loss for him.
Even though I don’t agree with that and still think insurance is better, I comply and talked to my manager about the whole situation.
At first, he wanted to claim through insurance too, but after seeing the damage (it was very minor), he settled and told me to charge the driver $1,200 if he wants to pay cash or check.
I told the driver what my manager thinks the cost of the repair is. He was more hesitant than when I asked for his information, so I told him, it’s either $1,200 or insurance.
Then he got this bright idea to try to get evaluations from the professional in the nearby shop, for the cost of parts and labor. He even tried to fix my side mirror, which to my surprise, was fixed. Okay, so no need to replace the side mirror, but the fender is still cracked, so that needed to be fixed. His reason to get professional evaluation is so he can get a receipt for tax purposes, so it’s understandable.
I told him that I will need to leave in 4 hours (which is true), so I won’t have all day to sit around in the mechanic shop, not to mention I didn’t get much sleep since I need to take care of the damage. He was very assuring that it will be very quick (it won’t – the shortest time I’ve ever been in a shop is 8 hours).
So I comply.
We drove to the nearest shop, which is 30 minutes away. Inside the truck, he kept saying that $1,200 is too much to fix a fender. I didn’t say anything in retaliation because I actually do not know how much it costs to fix a fender; I just trusted my manager. When we arrive, the tech said that he can’t fix the truck within 3 hours; it was fairly busy.
So we asked if we can just get an evaluation for the cost of parts and labor, which the tech said that he can do. After 1 hour, the tech came out and gave us a piece of paper for the evaluation. The total came out to be $1,440 for parts and labor, not including paint job (which is around $400).
He was shocked, thinking that he got ripped off by the evaluation.
He complained a whole bunch to the tech, but there’s nothing the tech can do about it. He asked for their evaluation; he got evaluation. Then, he went back to me and asked if he can still go back to the $1,200 cost. I told him:
“But I thought you wanted to get a receipt for evaluation done by a professional.”
To say he was stunned was an understatement.
He kept making up excuses about the cost, but again, I repeated, either this or insurance. He finally complies and wrote me a check for $1,440. After we parted ways, I mentioned to him:
“Remember to keep your word for the paint job. If not, my manager will claim the damage as hit and run.”
He looked at me with the dirtiest look he could muster, but he couldn’t do anything about it.
Oh well, at least he got his receipt.”
5. Flag Your Product Line As "Not Recommended?" Okay
“I worked many years as a hardware developer at a big electronics company. My roles spanned the gamut for an electrical engineer, but one thing I did often was board-level design for digital circuits. This involves designing microcontrollers, FPGAs, ASICs, RAM, and all the various power supplies necessary to provide the correct voltages to run all these components. For digital circuits, we generally didn’t want to mess with custom-tuned power supplies, so when little off-the-shelf supplies with everything built-in came on the market, we gave them a really close look.
This one small chip company managed to work their way into our supply chain. I’m not sure how they did it – they had local offices and the sales guy was the friend of a friend or something. Regardless, their parts were convenient, small, stable, acceptably priced, so over a couple of years, a handful of their parts got designed into some products. Meanwhile, some of the bigger chip companies (places like Texas Instruments) started designing very similar parts, ones that were a little newer, a little smaller, a little cheaper, a little more stable.
We were really incentivized to reuse parts to improve supply chain management and get volume price breaks, so despite the other options, the little guy kept winning business for a while.
Eventually, I ended up in a position talking to this sales guy, and he had to tell me all about their new product line. It was a little smaller, a little cheaper, a little more stable than their old line.
It was so much better; in fact, that he told me that we shouldn’t design their old products into anything again. I tried to clarify whether they planned to discontinue their old product line or if there were known quality issues with their old line, but he did the usual sales guy thing of not really answering the question, and he just insisted that the new line was better and we should use it exclusively moving forward.
Now, I don’t think there was anything wrong with those old parts, and as far as I know, those old products still ship with those parts today, but I couldn’t get an answer clear enough to satisfy myself as an engineer.
We had a way to flag parts in our internal system as Not Recommended for new designs. I told him that we always look internally before we design new parts and that I could mark the old parts as not recommended, ensuring they weren’t reused. He said that was a great idea, and I should absolutely do it to all their parts in our system.
I clarified that it would just mark their parts as Not Recommended, not suggest replacements, but he insisted we shouldn’t use those old parts and marking them was correct. So, given my other uncertainty, I complied, put in the change order, and this company’s entire product line was marked as Not Recommended in our system.
The fallout was pretty simple. The very next design I did, I had to design in a new supply, and the TI part had been on the market for a while at that point, they were a big, known, good partner, so it just made sense to design them in.
That part had a wide variety of drop-in versions for different voltages and loads, and since one version was in our system, it was easy to reuse its footprint and add the version needed. So for design after design, various engineers stuck with the new line. I assume that small company’s new products released eventually – they probably sent me the data sheets – but I don’t think I ever spoke to that sales guy again, and my company never designed another one of their parts.
The TI parts, after all, were in our system, and we were incentivized to reuse them for supply chain management and volume price breaks.”
4. Go Against The Terms Of Conditions? I WIll, But Your Promotion Won't Happen
“I was hired as a robotics process automation engineer at this relatively large company that operates in several countries worldwide. My job was to create bots and scripts to free up our workers from the mindless repetitive, manual tasks for them to be more useful doing activities that require critical thinking and actual brainpower.
A was still fairly new to the company, about 4 months in, and was doing quite a good job of automating report generation, email sending, data input, etc. Now my supervisor has been gunning for a promotion for about 2 years at this point and shared with me that one of his targets is a certain number of USD in cost savings, which is why he hired me.
He crunched the numbers and determined that if I automate the manual extraction of customer details on this external site we share with a customer, we can save up to 2 full-time worker’s worth of money. The platform is an order placing platform where we take customer details and input their orders into our system for processing. I said sure! Sounds great!
On my second day of working on the project, I was checking the site and notice a “captcha validation error” on the site after trying to log in twice in a quick session.
Captcha is a red flag in the world of automation ’cause it’s a measure to specifically prevent bots from operating on the platform. I reviewed the terms and conditions of the site and, lo and behold, written in all caps there was a clause there that specifically prohibits bot usage. I emailed this to my manager and got a pretty long response about how this initiative can help our workers be more fulfilled in their work by not being bogged down by this mindless task etc., etc. Full of neutral corporate-speak but pretty much just says, “Just do what I said.”
OK, Boss! So programmed the bot to log in at specific Intervals to not raise the captcha error and deployed the bot in 3 weeks. 2 months pass by without any hitches, and we get an email from our partner asking why the purchase orders are being opened and processed ridiculously fast. The upper management (my boss’s boss) proudly responded that we’ve implemented a bot and that it’s a great win-win for all parties.
Orders are processed faster and we save money.
The partner was not happy. They immediately requested the revocation of access from our end and called in a meeting to discuss the matter and included me. I was grilled for about 5 minutes until I showed them the email I had with my manager. They quickly let me go and had a closed-door discussion after that. Now I don’t know the specifics of the agreement, but from the g*******e, I heard that my company had to cut a 100k check to not be sued over potential violations of data privacy (the customer had no visibility over what the bot is doing with the customer data we extract).
Suffice to say, my manager lost all chances of that promotion. Sucks ’cause he’s not really a complete jerk. He can just get real pushy on activities to try and get closer to that promotion.”
Another User Comments:
“I’m just sitting here wondering how a human is genuinely considered safer than bots seeing all of the info. If it were a 3rd party bot, maybe, but if it is owned and operated by the company that will see the info anyway, it seems antiquated to trust only the employees and not the software.” jetandike
3. Let Go Of My Server? Deal With The Aftermath
“I worked for a large consumer electronics retailer for many years as technical support. I was also in charge of all of the internal devices and computers employees used at my location, not the computers that were on demo for customers to use (comes in to play later).
The retail stores offered technical support for computers and mobile devices.
Now for technical support, there were two laptops that I was authorized to configure for use by technicians, load useful software, and allow admin privileges.
One such useful tool is called RecBoot. This application was Freeware (I checked the license) and not an internal tool. Back in the days when iDevices had a physical home button, to put the device in recovery mode, the home and power button would need to be pressed. RecBoot allowed a connected device to be put in recovery mode by clicking the recovery mode button.
Easy and simple.
A lot of devices had this home button stop working. When you were able to access the device, assistive touch could be used for a virtual home button. If the device passcode was forgotten or too many attempts were made, and the device was permanently locked, a restore was needed. To do this, the device must be put in recovery mode. (Important for later.)
Two laptops with sometimes dozens of customers looking for support and needing to restore iDevices or reset account passwords was not great. Obviously, customers would get impatient having to wait longer for support.
This was brought up to management. Their solution, well, there are tons of demo computers, connect the devices, and do restores from them. There ya go – Bob’s your uncle.
These demo computers were loaded with a demo image and configured that any changes made would be reverted when the computer was restarted. Also, the admin password was a guarded secret (I had the password but was definitely not allowed to share it).
To run RecBoot after it had been downloaded from the internet required the admin password. So it only worked for restores.
So to do a restore each demo computer would have to download the restore image (many GB of download), and it would take 20+ minutes just to download one, not even complete a restore. Each device model would need a specific restore image. You can imagine this was not ideal, but to management, “Hey, it works; problem solved.”
What I started doing was, I would unfreeze a few computers, transfer all of the needed restore images onto them from a local server and freeze them again. I would also transfer RecBoot, launch it, enter the admin password so it wouldn’t require it again later.
This server was on the public network, and therefore, was not managed by the remote IT team as an internal computer and had no corporate policies installed. There was no confidential information on it.
I had passed this by the appropriate channels and was given some guidelines to follow. If all was followed, I was allowed to have the server running.
Everyone seemed to think it was a great idea, and it really helped.
It was a lot of upkeep. Every time a new software update was released I would have to unfreeze, transfer and then refreeze the computers.
If a new demo image was installed on the computers, I would have to redo it as well. It would take a few hours to get done. I was happy to do it. It saved a lot of time in the end, and we were able to offer better service to customers.
Well, the person in charge of the demo computers did not like it.
Apparently corporate didn’t either. I was told I could not modify the demo computers in any way…
I came up with a solution: with the server already running, I would share the logins with the technical support team. I could grant admin access on the server. They could run the tools needed (more specifically RecBoot), and should a restore image be needed, they could transfer it locally over the network to the demo computer they were using, much faster.
All was well until we got a new lead technician. Jeb. Now unlike other stories, Jeb was not an external hire but a technician who had been promoted. We had worked together for a few years at this point and he was actually a decent guy.
I’m not sure if the power went to his head, he just wanted to impress upper management, or if he was being pressured by management but after being promoted he became a different person.
Suddenly he was the boss and things were done his way and that was that.
During a physical inventory of the store, it was noted that my server was not a managed internal server nor was it a demo unit for customers. As such, it needed to be decommissioned and the hardware returned to the warehouse.
Jeb brings this to my attention as I am the one who takes care of internal devices.
He asks that I make it gone by the end of the next day.
I pointed out that I had followed the guidelines and that he knew full well how useful this was. I brought up that it would impact his metrics on customer wait time and satisfaction. Something I’m sure he was hoping to improve.
He wouldn’t have it. He cited that any computer on the network needed to be managed and my server was no longer approved. He also let me know that the two laptops that were being used by the technicians were going to have an image installed on them and now be managed units.
I tried to argue (at least for my server), and he threatened to write me up. Alright, I’ll let you dig your own grave.
He also sent out an email to the whole technical support team pretty much forbidding the use of any non-approved software.
I wiped my server and sent it back to the warehouse.
Without my server and now the two laptops being managed, no one had an admin password (except me and the IT team who was remote and tickets were usually only responded to in 24-48 hours), but being managed, no unapproved software could be installed anyways.
Cue the next night (first day without the server) when I get a call from Jeb in a panic, asking how he could get RecBoot working and he really needed it.
I had the pleasure of telling him that the server was gone and no unapproved software could be installed. As per company policy, the admin password could not be provided unless a ticket was opened with IT and his need for it was approved, which was likely to take a few days, if it was even approved.
Turns out a customer started throwing a fit. Not only one but multiple people over the course of the day and each time it was escalated to him to deal with. Each time having my server would have put a swift end to the problem.
This particular customer had an iPhone that was about a year and a half (only 1 year of warranty), and the home button stopped working.
They had been in previously and were given the options of the virtual home button (free), paying for a replacement phone (a few hundred dollars), or buying a brand new phone. Repairing the home button was not a repair offered. They had opted for the free option.
This time, the customer’s kid had played with the phone, entered the passcode wrong and the phone was disabled.
Of course, the customer doesn’t have iCloud set-up or a recent backup. So no remote wipe and no way of backing up the info. To top it off, they would have to spend hundreds of dollars for a replacement phone or buy a brand new one. Having had the phone less than two years, their phone contract was not up for renewal with their cell phone provider.
Needless to say, the customer was livid.
After that day, customer satisfaction and wait times tanked. He had to deal with a lot more escalations. He definitely was not looking good in the eyes of management.
After a few months, he was demoted back to technician.
I didn’t advocate to bring my solutions back. I left the company shortly after.”
2. Eff Off Even Though This Is A Group Project? Your Wish Is My Command
“I do a computer science degree at university.
We had a group work project which is set out in two stages. Part A involved making an application and writing a report about it (50/50 split). Part B, we got feedback from part A and had to improve upon it. In total it was 100% of a module.
It is also important to note that there is a group contribution report (GCR). Where each student puts in how much they think each student has done.
I was in a randomly selected group with 4 others. We each picked a part of the work that we wanted to do.
I was apparently the group’s most confident coder so assigned myself about half of the code. And finish up my work in about the first 3 weeks and work on other projects I have for other modules.
Then soon after I finished my work, the others ask me if I can do their parts of the code too.
I initially protest as I have my other coursework due, but eventually, I say fine but so long as it is noted in the GCR. They all agree. I sweat it out over the next 3 weeks or so alongside my other coursework.
I contacted my module organizer explaining that I had done half the work and they suggested if people weren’t pulling their weight to leave the group (taking my code with me) and do the report.
That would mean I would need to work flat out to produce the report and probably would mess it up. I didn’t want that. The deadline was in about a week. And I honestly I CBA.
Then I got asked to do some report too because they didn’t understand how the code worked. By this point, I felt pretty used by them. Didn’t really mind so long as I got the marks.
All in all, I worked out that I had done the workload of 3 people. There was talk amongst the others of all writing that we each contributed 20% of the workload to “make us look better as a team.” I flatly refused. They exploded calling me with every name under the sun, swearing at me, telling me to “fudge off.”
I sent off my GCR with 60 for me and 10 each for the rest. And thought that was that.
My module organizer then emailed me asking if I had any proof of this as they all put me at 0% and themselves at 25%.
I’d worked my butt off on this project putting in 150+ hours on the code and another 50+ on the diagrams and report. All while attending lectures 20 hours a week. Over 7 weeks, which if you do the math, that averages at an extra 4 hours a day.
On top of all my other assignments and commitments, etc. There was no way I was letting it slide.
I emailed him back linking him to the GitHub I used to share the code with the team (Github is a source control that shows who made changes to the code) and showed him that all the commits (version of the code) were done by me proving that I did all of it.
And thankfully, we did the whole report on Google Drive, so I could also see the history on that document and send him screenshots of all the alterations made by me proving that I wrote ~20% of the report also.
He added it all up and made a special exception for my group, saying he would give me most of the credit for the work.
I think I ended up with a 65, and they all get 11 for the whole coursework part A.
They would need 69% to even pass the module.
So, turned out, I messed up a bit on the code only getting about 50% of the marks with like a massive issue in it (dumb me – for anyone interested, I didn’t make an MVC structure correctly), but my report sections were near perfect. Spelling mistakes (a common thing I do) and formatting, etc. There were a few glaring mistakes from the report that they had written, but other than that, not bad.
When they found out their marks, they started calling me up and emailing me and messaging me almost for about 3 hours. I was happily out at the time and didn’t have my phone with me so didn’t respond. My module organizer sent an email explaining that they had lied, and he had proof about it so corrected the marks according.
When I got back to my phone, I screenshot all the messages they had sent and recorded, all the voicemails including the ones they had sent previously, including multiple occasions where everyone in the group told me to “fudge off.”
And f off I did. I sent all these voicemails and screenshots to my module organizer requesting that I leave my group and understand that it is more work for me but I’d rather not deal with that. He agreed and also escalated the messages to someone higher up.
At this point, I quit the group and decided to work on part B by myself.
TAKING ALL OF MY CODE WITH ME. Removing their access to all of it. I, of course, asked my module organizer first, and they said it was fine as it was my work, and if I was no longer in their group, the others couldn’t submit it.
I fixed the error in the code in about 2 weeks. Then did the whole report from scratch almost and added a load about the fix, taking me about 7 weeks.
I then get messages from the group to please come back; we really need you, kinda stuff during the end few days of the assignment. They even offered to pay me. I screenshot it and send it to the module organizer, just to let him know what is happening and then just ignored them.
I ended up submitting 2 weeks early for the deadline and got 100% on the whole section 2, which is basically unheard of at university, especially by yourself for group work.
Later that day, I get an email from a plagiarism and collusion officer, not someone you ever want to get an email from. Basically says I’m summoned to a hearing as an external body looked at both my group (me, myself, and I) and my old group’s coursework and thought it was very similar. I get the whole project that my group handed in and my own back as evidence, so I can look and prepare my answer to their questions.
I email my module organizer and ask if he supports me in this because, basically, they can punish all of you or 1 group (never nobody). He says yes, he supports me in this. Perfect.
I prepare for this meeting by going through the hundreds of comments I have made while they had access to find the one that is most similar to it. I find a PERFECT match, with 0 differences, not even a single character.
Through the thousands of lines of code.
So I turn up to this meeting. There is the VP of computing there (a guy who could basically do whatever the h**l he wants to us). My old group when asked to present their answer as to why this has happened to go on about how they did all of it by themselves, blah blah blah.
You get the point. This goes on for about 10 minutes. Then I am asked to present my argument. I ask if I can share my screen. VP: “Yeah… Okay…” puzzled. So I share it. Show all the screenshots I took as some of the people in the meeting weren’t aware that we knew each other, including them basically begging for me to come back offering money to do so.
And as if this wasn’t enough to convince them, I then showed me downloading a fresh version of what they submitted and a fresh version of one of my commits on the GitHub, and running it through a trusted comparison software. I narrated this to explain what I was doing just to be clear. Took a while but came up as I knew it would: 0 differences.
Everyone was stunned. One of the group members uttered, “But…”. I just laughed. And was quickly asked to hang up as I was no longer involved.
Turned out, they had cloned one of my comments and still had a copy on their laptop when I blocked their access not been able to fix it at all so just submitted it and hoped for the best.
One of my friends who is friends with one from my old group asked what grade they got, and they said that they failed the whole module as they got a 0 for the second section giving them just 5.5% overall for the module (you need 40 to pass) and would have to retake it over the summer, costing them and everyone in my old group their placement year jobs.
After all, who wants someone who failed a module so badly and who was intellectually dishonest working for them? This meant that they all lost out on being paid ~20k each for the year’s work, which goes a long way for a uni student, while I happily get mine.”
1. Don't Want Me To Work So Hard? I Can Follow That Order
Why work harder with a reduced raise? I don’t think so.
“I work in a corporate setting on a mixed team.
The team is made up of a few different roles, each with their own reporting structure. I am the only person reporting up to my manager on my team. I’m pretty much on my own for the day-to-day.
The story: For the first half of last year, I worked for Sr. Manager (that will be his “name”) on a mixed team. Some people on that team were rockstars!
Others were not.
I’ve always been a go-getter, perfectionist kind of person. So on that team, I didn’t let things slip through the cracks. Which meant that sometimes (often) I did things beyond my specific role.
Halfway through last year, I moved to a new team and thus reported to Awesome Manager for the second half. Again, I’m the only one for my role on this new team.
Cue the new year, and with it, performance reviews. This is the one time, outside of promotion, that you can get a raise.
I’ve busted my butt on the new team and everyone I work with has shown appreciation. And this company actually did well last year, so funds are not a problem.
Awesome Manager is the one conducting my review, and they asked Sr.
Manager for feedback since I did report to him for the first half.
Awesome Manager says I’m doing an amazing job, keep it up, here are some suggestions. A senior VP of the company loves showing off something I made!
Sr. Manager’s notes say to not pick up every piece, allow others to fail sometimes so that they can grow and learn and better themselves!
Then Awesome Manager informs me that the average raise percentage is 3.0%.
Awesome Manager tells me they recommended I get a 4.0% raise.
They then tell me that all of the senior managers met for the whole organization to coordinate, and coming out of that meeting I am getting… 3.0%. Awesome Manager cannot get a straight answer why my raise was decreased.
So since Sr. Manager was part of that meeting where they cut down my raise, I’m following his direction: take on less.
I’ve cut back to “okay employee” work ethic and am letting others “fail and grow.” Since I’m alone in my role for the team, and Awesome Manager just got moved elsewhere (I have another new manager!); no one can call me out. In the meantime, I’m spending that extra energy prepping my resume, for more reasons than just this.”
Another User Comments:
“Man, I feel this.
Busted my butt at my last job. Built some very useful tools saving the company loads of money. Over 9 years, my raises added up to $4,500. Breaking point was my boss saying he was going to give me an above-average review that last year, and after the big meeting, it came out as average. Had 0% twice in those 9 years too, due to cost controls. Very quickly got myself a 40% salary increase elsewhere, and my first raise there was more than $4,500.” EatMoreArtichokes
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