People Spill Their Grody Revenge Stories
43. Company Can't Let Me Go Because Of My Skills And Contributions
“Many years ago I was a freelance musician and teacher. A small publishing company learned I had some computer expertise and hired me part-time (10–15 hrs/wk) to create graphics for their publications. When I started the job, I made clear that this was my ‘moonlighting’ job, and that my freelancing and teaching would always take priority.
They were cutting-edge in desktop publishing, and I learned a lot and enjoyed the work.
The company was owned and run by three partners: Mr. Tallman, Mr. Short, and Ms. Petit. Tallman was a tech genius, and I enjoyed my frequent discussions with him about the tricks of using brand-new software like Adobe Illustrator and QuarkXpress.
He occasionally commented on how much he learned just from watching me work.
I believed I was doing my best and giving them what they needed, but every so often I was called into Mr. Short’s office and reamed about how I had my priorities all wrong because I wouldn’t drop my gigs and my lessons to work extra hours to help them meet a deadline.
‘I have a business to run,’ he would yell. I was always deflated but insisted I had my own business, and could not miss a gig or a lesson because they needed more hours.
After 4 or 5 years of this, Short called me in and informed me the partners had decided to let me go.
He ranted for a while about how I had never even bought them a pizza. He was in the habit of giving somewhat expensive gifts (like a CD player—the latest new tech) which I would accept with gratitude and puzzlement, but I never knew he expected any kind of reciprocity, and still don’t know what pizza had to do with anything.
I was crushed but moved on with my life, which was getting busier anyway. At this point my wife had a good job, so we didn’t miss the meager income.
About 6 months later, I got a phone call from Mr. Tallman. ‘We’ve decided we need you back.
Can we meet to talk about it?’ After ascertaining I would be seeing only Tallman, I agreed to meet at a coffee shop.
At our meeting, Tallman (who was extremely suave and very persuasive) explained that my ingenuity, my speed, and my accuracy, were missed, and the partners had resolved to ask me to come back.
I stipulated that if I were to return, I would report only to Tallman, never to Short; in fact, would rather have no contact with Short; and I would need a higher wage. I also would never be expected to shortchange my regular job because they faced a deadline.
He agreed without hesitation. I did return, continued to enjoy the work and the camaraderie, and never got another criticism in all the next 15+ years until Tallman’s retirement, which corresponded with mine. My occasional contacts with Short were slightly awkward, but never too uncomfortable.
And the skills I developed in that part-time job still serve me almost every day. Life is sweet!”
42. I Threw The Dog Poop At My Neighbor's Window
“My ex-wife and I when married, bought our first flat in Stirling, Scotland. It was an old tenement building, the main door off the street led to one flat downstairs (two flats converted into one large one) with a front and back door, and upstairs there was our flat and our neighbor’s.
We both only had one entry door each. We went out food shopping one day and came back to a very large pile of dog poop at our door. We had a kitten, our neighbor had no pets but the neighbor downstairs had a fully grown German Shephard.
So it didn’t really take a large investigation as to who made the mess. I went downstairs and chapped their back door, the lady answered but refused to believe her dog had done it and said it was our cat! I mean the poop was twice the size of our cat!
I said she should really reconsider and come and clean up but she refused. I think she thought because we were young (early 20s) and they were older (late 30s) I would be afraid to do anything.
On the landing upstairs where her dog had made the mess, there was a large window that looked down on her back door and kitchen and then the communal back garden, so I scooped the dog poop up in a dustpan, opened the window, and launched it all at her door and kitchen windows.
Because it was relatively fresh and had a nice soft consistency it sprayed nicely upon impact and made a lovely mess over quite a large area!! We never saw or heard much of them after that and her dog never pooped outside our door again either.
I wasn’t caught in the act, but I can’t help but think they might have known who threw the dog poop at their door/windows!”
41. Cops Can't Do Anything About The Neighbor's Complaints
“Back when I was about 10 years old, I hung out with several other neighborhood boys, at least one of whom could be referred to as a ‘troublemaker’, but pretty innocent compared with today’s average.
There was a family at the end of the block of mom, dad, and two boys one of which was in the age range of our group. That kid was a real jerk, maybe even a budding sociopath. He seemed to like hanging out with us, but would break things belonging to one of us and then blame one of the others; a pathological liar.
One might surmise that he came by his unpleasant personality by way of his family since his parents were a couple that had a lot of the same attributes and none of the neighborhood adults liked them: arrogant, elitist, domineering, and irresponsible. They called the police numerous times for supposed infractions of the law, like someone stepping off the sidewalk in front of their house and walking on the edge of their lawn.
Needless to say, the police didn’t like them either. They were especially jerks to their next-door neighbors, a really nice family whose son was in our little boy group.
The tipping point came one December before Christmas when the boy-jerk went on a Destructo binge while his parents were out shopping and tore all the lights off the pine tree in the front yard and smashed the bulbs on the sidewalk.
The boy-jerk blamed the neighbor boy, one of our friends, insisting that he had seen the whole thing. This escalated into the police being called (again), taking down the whole story, rolling their eyes when they thought nobody was watching, and finally telling the boy-jerk’s father and mother that there was nothing they could do since the boy-jerk was not exactly a credible witness with holes in his story that would make a brick of Swiss cheese blush.
Both parents were absolutely apoplectic livid and vowed to take the neighbors to court… etc., etc., etc.
The one in our group who was the defacto ring-leader, I’ll call him Joe, came up with a clever idea to get even. The Jerk family had boasted about how they were going away over New Year for two weeks to a beach location and sneered at all of us rubes who were going to have to tough it out in the northern US Midwest winter.
Joe outlined the caper and the three of the rest of us agreed to go along after much nervous discussion because Joe’s plan actually involved house-breaking.
A key part of this plan was that this was almost 60 years ago when people in ‘nice’ neighborhoods typically didn’t bother locking their windows, sometimes not even their doors, unless they were going away.
Joe planned on them not being diligent enough to lock the window of the downstairs bathroom.
Two nights before they were due to come home, we snuck up to their house with a case of mixed flavor Jello boxes. Raised the bathroom window and climbed in.
We locked the bathroom door from the inside and filled the bathtub with hot water. Opened all of the boxes dumped the contents into the bathtub and stirred it a bit. Then we cleaned the bathroom to a pristine level and crawled back out the window, leaving it open about an inch.
The weather was perfect for this – it was getting down to about 25F during the night and into the 30s during the day, so the Jello set very nicely.
The family came home. They apparently got very concerned when they had to break into their bathroom because someone had locked the door.
They were really stunned, then spooked, then furious when they found their bathtub full of gray Jello (didn’t know until the night of the ‘crime’ that a mix of all the Jello flavors will result in gray). The police were called and they had their suspicions as to how this had happened, but since there was really no damage and nothing was stolen, there was no point in trying to pursue it further.
I made a point of walking my dog past their house the afternoon they came home and to this day get a smile when I remember them standing out in the cold on their front lawn yelling at the police to ‘do something about this!’ The inability of the police to take this case seriously led them to move away the next Spring, citing the need to relocate to a ‘safer’ community.”
40. Neighbor Puts Dog Poop On People's Windshields
“Many years ago I lived in a very nice condominium community and served on the Board of Directors (a thankless position). One of the neighbors, I’ll call him Randy because that was his name, would let his dog out to do his business and not pick up the evidence.
The landscaper kept complaining that the packages were clogging his mowers. The Board sent out a reminder to every condo owner about rules and regulations regarding dogs and their doody. Randy didn’t get the message. We sent him a letter to inform him, if he didn’t start picking up the mess, he would be fined. Still no compliance.
Finally, we sent him a letter informing him he was being fined $100.
A few days later, I went out to my car, and there was excrement on my windshield. And on another board member’s car also. I knew instantly that Randy had finally picked up after his dog, but he didn’t know where the poop was actually to be deposited after pickup, so he put it on the board member’s cars.
My husband was furious. He went right over to Randy’s, knocked on his door, and when Randy answered, hubby got in his face and threatened him with bodily injury should he ever decide again to pull that stunt. Not quite the end of the story.
About a year later, Hubby comes home with a big soul-eating grin on his face and hands me a ring with lots of keys. Safety deposit key, door keys, car keys, and several others of which who knows what they are for. He says when he went to get the mail from the postal bank of boxes, our neighbor Randy had accidentally left his keys in the mailbox lock.
He said these are yours, do with them what you want. I tossed them in the rubbish. That settled that.”
39. I Served The Rude Guy A Special Tea
“Whilst at college I had a part-time job in a shoe shop. The boss was an arrogant discriminatory man that would deliberately smack my bum or give me derogatory tasks all day. One day he announced I was fired for being female! He said, ‘If they had jobs in the basement I’d be the first pick,’ and then laughed. I was fuming.
He smacked me on the bum and said, ‘before you go, do what you do best and make me a cuppa tea.’ I was almost crying by the time I hit the halfway point of the stairs, but by the time I had reached the staff room and kitchen, I was rational but angry still.
I made that tea.
I had a pee first.
I took his favorite cup and filled it with my pee toilet water halfway.
Topped it up with hot water and a teabag.
Gave him the tea.
He loudly announced, ‘That’s what women are good for… making tea.’
I walked out of that stupid shop but first told everyone what I had done so that they laughed at him.
When he found out apparently he was raging angry. Told everyone he would sue me for poisoning him lol.
That was enough revenge for me.”
38. Be A Nasty Neighbor? I'll Ruin Your Perfect Lawn
“When I was younger, we had a neighbor who was a keen gardener, his lawn was well maintained and his flower beds and hedges kept in perfect condition.
He was also very nasty to all the kids who would play out in the street quite often screaming at them to play outside their own homes.
When his car wasn’t in his garage he parked his car outside his home on the road in what he claimed was his personal space, yelling at people to move their car if he wanted to park there.
One day I had nowhere to park outside my home so parked outside the neighbor’s house, less than a minute later he was out telling me to move it, threatening me and threatening to damage my car, he also told me I didn’t amount to much in life.
I just laughed at him, called his bluff which infuriated him more, I walked off and he stormed back into his house.
I can be quite laid back but while rattled will hold a grudge so this wasn’t the end of it. A few days later I was shopping, I was looking at weed killers when I spotted cress seed packets, a dozen packs later and I was off.
Middle of the night I went back to my neighbor’s house sprinkled the seed packs everywhere and waited. The seeds took and my neighbor’s perfect lawn was ruined, even if he cut the grass the cress grew back, he had no choice but to have the lawn removed.
The less sneaky part of my revenge, the neighbor rented his house from the local council, I made a complaint to the housing officer about his threatening behavior towards me, as it was a clear breach of his tenancy they had no choice but to issue him a warning notice which included reminding him parking on a public highway wasn’t allocated to any household and was first come first serve.”
37. Interrupt My Sleep? I'll Use My Audio Knowledge To Get Revenge
“Lee was a Roadie/Sound Assistant for Heavy Metal Bands in the 80s. A very quiet man who kept bat-like working hours, his Flat in Earls Court was quiet and he hoped for the same from others.
His neighbors below were noisy, not just the two Nurses but open party 24 hours a day noisy.
Tried the normal personal approach, with no joy. Persisted but with no success. Moving heavy Concert kit around whilst half-awake is dangerous so a solution had to be found.
This was the time of the BBC microcomputer whose video output was on a UHF channel similar to regular ITA/BBC TV frequencies, quick splice of TV cable and he could send bizarre messages from his PC straight to their TV.
This sadly failed to work.
Plan B.
Lee repaired the big PA speakers that the Company used on tour, some were so badly damaged as to be unrecoverable. A couple of kilowatt bass units were used, strip the cones off, remove floorboards and attach the drivers directly to the floorboards.
I’d have played Bach Organ Werken but Lee had some malice afoot and used a signal generator at 20 Hz.
Sitting in his large Cast Iron Bath he said that the standing waves in the water were two-foot-tall…The entire building throbbed end days stuff.
Nurses, females, and Male departed quickly.
Please do not interrupt the sleep of an Audio person, we have our methods.”
Another User Comments:
“Yep, sound waves will work every time. I got my neighbor to get rid of his constantly barking dog the same way by beaming a sound horn at a frequency humans can’t hear but drove the dog crazy.
Simple problems need only simple solutions.” User
36. They Fired Me So I Went Back To My Old Company
“I was fired from a job I was underpaid for and lied to. The manager said I would be given a position as supervisor once I learned the ropes.
I not only learned the ropes in a matter of days, but I also improved their archaic systems and had things flowing much better than they ever did. I was also severely mistreated by the current supervisor. I ignored all of it and remained steadfast.
Eventually, due to an error (which happened right after I reported said supervisor for harassment), I was fired. They thought I would be bitter or sad, I laughed my butt off on the way out. Not even 5 minutes later, I called up my old job, asked for the position back, and was given it.
The manager who promised me supervisor was fired and the supervisor who harassed me was fired as well. And currently, I received a promotion and now am making more than they did before.”
35. I Blackmailed The Bar Owner With Videos I Have
“We live next to a local bar, and a few years after we got there the bartender was feeding the feral and stray cats.
My son is autistic and he has a tendency to pick up anything from the ground and put it in his mouth.
We had 4 rescue dogs all under 10 lbs and two senior pups.
Our other neighbors were not happy about it as on the bartender’s days off, the feral cats would attack her two boys under 4 if they were eating outside in the summer for their sandwiches or nuggets.
Our dogs had been terrorized by cats bigger than they were and our yard was smelling of urine like our small fishing boat cover, camper pop up and the foundation of the garage.
Over three years I tried to stop her from doing this, reported to the police and the environmental officers of my township.
We videoed her doing this, we tried capturing them and fixing them but they didn’t want the cats and we’d have to let them go.
We went from seeing a random cat to seeing 25 to 50 a day in our yard. They used our yard as a path.
I began researching laws on my county and I found one that would be a good start, no one is allowed to be able to put a disabled child in harms way through any type of animal that is not protected from rabies (has been an issue for many Michigan towns in recent decades).
Still, no amount of support or kindness to the owner or staff would get this 40 something cat lady to stop.
When the cats had several litters on our property and our dachshund had found them, I lost it. My 12-year-old son was almost a witness to a kitty massacre.
I saved the kittens of course and the shelter took them at 6 weeks. We had to walk the dogs on a leash to make sure that they were not involved in handling the babies. We have no problem with cats or pets, but this was exploding fast.
So after being told no one could help us, I contacted our friend who is a huge Irish man who is a security guard for the local Community College, and asked him to deliver a letter.
I pretended my lawyer told me to write this letter and I gave reasons for suing and filing criminal charges against her and the bar.
Earlier that summer the owner had opened up a new bar in town with a former bartender, and the media found out he was a racist. In our town, we are 99 percent white in the Muskegon part and 99 percent black in the Muskegon Heights part, it’s odd.
Google it – but the entire area is very attentive to racism and it is not tolerated.
The bartender was bought out by the owner and he is not around the area anymore.
I told the owner in the letter that she was victimizing my disabled son and his Native American tribe was willing to pay for the court fees and lawyers to protect their own.
And her calling me a ‘witch’ was on the videos of which I was going to let every single media outlet have if he didn’t get it under control.
All lies, I was just so darn tired of the manner of things we had to do to make our home safe enough for our family and pets.
Our neighbors, too.
It worked, received a letter stating that the problem was resolved.
And it was.
Two years later and 8 months – nothing.
I’m not going to be proud of my actions, but I think I would do it again. Autism parents are not the best people to be screwing with and hassle, especially if they are witches.”
34. Neighbor's Grass Grew REALLY Fast
“I lived in a neighborhood where the lots were back to back. If you had a dog or a pool, you had to have a fence. I had neither and had no fence. The people living behind me had a dog and a 1M chain link fence.
On Thursdays, the HOA would inspect the properties and write up anyone whose grass was too long. The neighbors behind me would mow their front yard, but the grass in the back yard was always too long and would grow up into the fence. Shouldn’t have been my problem, but the ‘inspector’ was a 5-foot tall woman who weighed about 150 kilos and was far too lazy to actually get out of her car and SEE where the grass was too long.
She wrote me up for having grass in ‘my’ fence and the grass in the back yard being too long, but as I said previously, it was actually my neighbor’s fence. I tried talking to the neighbor, but he never did anything about it.
Did you know that Miracle-Gro sells an inline feeder that connects to a garden hose and automatically dispenses its product?
I acquired one of these feeders and several boxes of their product. I placed ratchet sprinklers on the back corners of my yard and used them to water my grass, but at night I would change the settings on the sprinklers to water THEIR yard.
Every night, I would run a bunch of Miracle-Gro through the sprinklers, watering their backyard.
After a couple of weeks of this, the grass in their backyard was vibrant and green. And about .5 meters tall. They had to start mowing their backyard twice a week due to it growing so fast. I never got written up again for the grass being too long in my back yard, since they were now keeping their grass mowed properly.
Problem solved, and I didn’t have to deal with the neighbors anymore. I don’t think they ever noticed that the greenest grass was in two arcs corresponding to the two sprinklers placed in the corners of my yard.”
Another User Comments:
“You are a nice person.
We had a neighbor that demanded the common property, (under the meters and water pipe entry), was his. He demanded that I never touch it or clean it. Had other issues with him, quite the unfriendly type, but he has passed.
It became overgrown with weeds which wound thru the fence adjoining my driveway.
The city came by and left notes on his gate, many times.
Then I was notified that I was going to be charged a clean-up fee.
I removed his cardboard boxes and trash cans from the area and placed them in his driveway, it was 65 feet wide and his car was parked on the opposite side.
I took my weed whacker and cut to an inch from the ground, put the trimmings in his trash cans. I did not sweep.
When I was done he came out, put his thumbs in the top of his jeans, and beamed like a kid with his first ice cream.
Got your number. It is your property unless there is work to be done. Next time I called the water department and asked them to turn off my water as I had a leaky valve. They do not like us to turn the valve ourselves.
He was left an unfriendly note by the city and the water company. He came out and cleaned.” User
33. He Destroyed My Van After Some Years
“I was working for a call center as a Systems Administrator (having moved from phone operator to supervisor and on into that role in around two years).
Six years in, I was, in some ways, keeping the company together. For example, I continued as Systems Administrator whilst also managing the teams (60+ people) on two of the biggest and most high-profile campaigns in the company’s history. Nevertheless, I became persona non grata in some quarters — for reasons I’m still not clear on — and it was enough to get me fired.
I took them to the employment tribunal for constructive dismissal and won. Once I got the settlement funds in my account I dobbed them into Microsoft for having close on 100 instances of unlicensed software – that would have attracted a fine of several hundred thousand dollars.
The business went under shortly thereafter.
A year or so later my (now ex) wife was being given a tour of a client’s premises. She ducked out of sight when she saw my former manager working in their call center. They asked what she knew about him because they’d been having trouble with him.
She contacted me and asked if it was OK to tell them about what had been done to me. I, of course, said yes. So, she told them about his involvement in firing me, how pivotal I had been to the company and that the company had subsequently gone under.
They already had grounds for giving him a warning, but this information was what decided them on firing him. I doubt he has any idea what happened.
Some years later, I was DJing the wedding of one of my former colleague’s daughters. One of the guests was the son of the MD of that business.
Upon seeing that it was me DJing, he went stony-faced and made a b-line for the door. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that, at the end of the night, when I went to my van to start packing up, my wing mirror had been smashed off my vehicle.
Yes, it was a public car park, so it could’ve been anyone… the prominent smearing of wedding cake icing on my window suggests otherwise. The individual in question continues to fail upwards from what I can tell (I no longer live in the country where this all took place).”
32. I Don't Want To Wear Earplugs So The Neighborhood Joined My Misery
“I was working the graveyard shift, building new pontoons for a bridge that had sunk in Puget Sound. When I would get home around 5:00 AM I was always dead tired and ready for bed. The problem was some nearby neighbors had about 3 or 4 hounds that would bark, sometimes seemingly for 8 hours straight without so much as taking time to catch their breath.
I stopped by several times to ask nicely, but all I ever got was a cursing out. Okay… I can play a game too. Their usual M.O. was to sleep until 9 or 10:00 AM or so, put the dogs outside, and leave for where ever they went for the day.
I had a varmint caller and arriving home a bit early one morning I set up speakers near their place, retreated about 100 yards or so, and activated the ‘wounded rabbit’ call. The inside of their house exploded with an angry mix of barks, growls, and howling.
Minutes later the man of the house staggered out the back door in his skivvies, bleary-eyed, barely able to remain erect. I let him go back inside, presumably back to bed, and gave him enough time to get back to sleep before activating the varmint caller again.
This I did three times before calling it good, collecting up my equipment, and going to bed myself. I did this three days in a row with little or no effect on their dog’s containment. I called the police and every other place I could think of and they basically all told me I was on my own.
However, the lady at animal control did suggest that I try earplugs.
A week or so later, by now I was pretty sick of the routine and walked over to their back yard in my bedclothes and slippers, let the dogs out of their pen, returned home, and went back to bed. I remember hearing those dogs as they raced through the neighborhood, fading in and out, howling and baying every step of the way.
For some reason, I think that made an impression on them and within the next week, they were moved out and gone. Oh yeah… and if anyone had a clue as to what I’d done, no one mentioned a word to me.”
31. Badmouth Me To The Manager? Be Careful With The Doorknob
“I was changing jobs from one department to another at a large Fortune 500 company.
I liked the work and was very good at it, but the reason that I was leaving the department was that the two ‘team leads’ were best friends with each other and they decided to have some kind of unreasoning personal grudge against me. I had always done what the two overbearing jerks asked, and I knew my job well, so well that I had completely trained one of those leads before they were promoted to lead.
The two sat together in a small office with a door and a nice brass door handle.
Those two kept badmouthing me to the upper-level manager. They said I was lazy, didn’t know what I was doing, yadda, yadda. I think they were trying to push me out just for the sake of it.
The new work area for me was in another building on the site, so I had the site moving folks move my office books and papers to my new station in the other building (after I had boxed them). It was late on a Friday night, and I knew that the site did not have camera surveillance in the standard hallways.
I was moving the last thing out of my office, a box of kleenex.
I went to their office door, blew my nose into a kleenex, and then wiped the door handle with what was on the kleenex.
I never used that doorknob again, but I am certain that they did.”
30. I'm Tired Of Trimming The Grass
“I was young and bought my first house, and it was a starter home. I paid $74,500, but it was in a good location. I bought it in February, and while the house next door looked a bit rough, I thought it was just winter and certainly the owner would make the place look good come spring.
Spring came and I learned that the owner was an unemployed attorney. He lied and told everyone in our HOA that we went to Harvard. This was pre-internet BTW, so lies were easier then. He was very active in the HOA, but none of the people there knew it was his house that was the worst one in the entire HOA.
When I told them they were shocked. Now our HOA was voluntary, as our neighborhood was older and HOAs were not common back then. His back yard was worse than the front and had grass that was four feet tall. I talked to this guy and he had no interest in taking care of his house.
Turns out he was a functioning heavy drinker, had been disbarred, and lost his job. The city where I lived was gutless in their code enforcement and did nothing. I trimmed the tree that was so big and so overgrown that it was creating a tunnel over the public sidewalk in front of his house.
As it was over the public property I trimmed it.
This went on for years. One day I’d had enough, the grass in the backyard was so thick I was scared he would toss something he smoked in the grass and the place would go up in flames.
So one day while he was out I mixed up a sprayer of roundup and sprayed his entire backyard. A few weeks later all the weeds are dead… unfortunately while I was in his yard I looked into the sliding glass door. I saw a house full of trash, floors covered in mud, and dog poop.
It was gross…
I did not get caught, I sold the house in February, and the buyer didn’t say anything about the neighbor. To be fair, I talked to the HOA and we did a ‘clean up’ day on this guy’s front yard. It helped me sell my home.
About a year later they found him dead in the house. It’s been totally renovated, and 35 years later my little $75k house that I sold for $100k is listed at $300k.”
29. I Charged Their Calls Until Their Debt Was Paid
“While working for an HVAC company, I told my boss that I was looking for another job.
He told me I didn’t need to come back and stiffed me on some pay owed.
So, knowing how the business worked, I called using apps so it was a different number each time, and made appointments for various reasons, giving fake names and addresses.
Some close, some far. When they would arrive at the home, obviously the homeowner had no idea what they were talking about, they’d call the number I gave when making the appointment, I’d answer, tell the technician that his boss owes people, he wastes peoples time and this is going to continue to happen.
I especially did this on weekends as it was considered emergency services, after hours when technicians were expected to leave home and go, unpaid unless they sold a service and they’d get a commission. Each time I’d tell the tech that his time was wasted bc his boss owes people and suggested he collect something from him for his time.
This obviously angered the techs who eventually would not accept a weekend ‘on-call’ job, a couple looked for other companies to work for. I know the GM was the one who eventually would take the emergency calls so his time off was ruined as no other tech would volunteer to go, guys left but it’s hard to know why as they would always come and go.
There was an initial charge just for every service call, I did this until what was owed to me was repaid by what they would have collected on the service calls.”
28. Dad's Friend Made His Neighbor Call The Exterminators
“This is a story that my Dad told me about what his friend did to a neighbor across the street.
The bad neighbor was very anal-retentive about his yard, especially his lawn. The type of guy that was out there every day looking at it, grooming it, etc. The guy was a real jerk to those that lived near him along with his own family.
Now, my Dad’s friend was a bear of a man that is still alive, a world-famous furniture maker, and is still a bit of a hippie. Loved smoking, had a great family, and could really care less about trivial stuff, especially people that loved their garden over people.
My Dad’s friend had a run-in with the jerk across the street earlier in the day. At about 2-3 am he went to his kitchen and got a large coffee tin (this was in the ’80s), poked a ton of holes in it, added a looped string to the top, grabbed his post hole digger, and walked across the street.
He proceeded to carefully dig two dozen holes in the guy’s lawn. He would place the dirt in the coffee can, put the can in the hole, and slowly pull up on the rope attached to the can while kind of shaking it so that it would create a soft earth mound that resembled a gopher mound.
He did this to all 24 holes, now mounds.
In the morning he made his coffee early and sat out on his front porch, waiting for the jerk to get his newspaper. The jerk lost his mind, screaming about gophers. The jerk called exterminators and lawn care companies to deal with the issue and probably spent a good amount.
My dad’s friend would wait for the lawn to be repaired and perfect again, and he would then do it all over again. He did this a few times up until the jerk fully ripped up his front yard, spending thousands of dollars. At that point, my Dad’s friend got bored and moved on.”
27. Breadcrumbs Indeed Attract Pigeons
“Back in the ’70s, it was 35° in the warm room. Neighbor-land lady would NOT fix the heating or patch holes in walls where you could see daylight through the bricks. Couldn’t keep candlelit it was so drafty. Mrs. S ignored all my pleas and complaints.
My hubby was notorious for being ‘out there.’ We had the baby in a snowsuit day and night. I was going nuts worried about the baby… this can’t go on!
Finally, I called the landlady and flipped out on the phone, threatening to call local tv news if she didn’t fix the darn heat.
My husband then took the phone and played the ‘reasonable husband of unhinged little lady’ and invited Mrs. S. to come up herself and decide if it was cold.
When she arrived, hubby was wearing a wife-beater t-shirt and was sweaty from working out. He smiled wide and swept her inside the apartment against her protestations, so gently, so deftly, so swiftly, and relieved her of her coat and scarf like a darn magician.
He ushered her to the table for a steaming cup of tea.
Uh oh. Yeah, you remember now… she’s the reasonable one. This guy’s the psycho and he’s moving like a crazed Burt Lancaster dancing ballet.
She was allowed to make a graceful exit even without having to sit down for tea with my maniac in the cold.
She said, ‘Oh, yes, you’re quite right. It’s much too cold. I’ll have the heater replaced today.’ (The heater we had had was not only inefficient, but it was also dangerous with an open gas flame.) By 3 p.m. our new Sears heater was making life much warmer and safer… Why didn’t Mrs. S respond to my many polite requests?
Hmph.
Where’s the petty revenge you ask?
Come springtime, I saw Mrs. S hanging clothes out on the line. I started throwing bread crusts on the roof of her porch in passing. All of a sudden for some reason, the pigeons kept flying over Mrs. S clotheslines to get the bread they had noticed appeared there from time to time.
Yeah. That’s not nice at all. Very petty of me. And no, I did not get caught.”
26. Workmates Wondered Where I Was And What I Was Doing
“I worked at the Latin American headquarters of a major telecom firm. I helped the head of HR pull off this massive meeting and she gave me a small token of her appreciation (I was onsite for another services firm).
It so happened that there was a new girl that started in HR the same day. She latched on to me. We kinda got involved, I helped her put together the corporate retreat (which was hugely successful)… then she ghosted me. I lost the job, lost the girl and 3 months later I got a job on a cruise ship.
Before I left I had one of the guys get me a mailing list of everyone at the company. My position made it so I knew all the admins… As I went from island to island I sent postcards to the different admins I worked with… but not to the girl from HR.
The best part was I never told them that I worked on a cruise ship. So the big mystery was where was I, and what was I doing. Each postcard would ignite this discussion. I returned to the city 5 months later, tanned, lost 30 pounds, in great shape.
Even bought a nice pair of cowboy boots, (I was already 6′3″) I didn’t need the height. Nice new Polo T-shirt, new jeans. Best I ever looked. I strolled in to meet one of my best friends for lunch. As I saw all my old gang, hugs and kisses all around.
I saw the head of HR and went over to say hi, I even gave her a hug… right in front of HR girl.”
25. Abusive Company Thinks Fear Management Is Good
“The departmental boss was a tyrant at work. People were intimidated by her. Yet, I liked her person very much and took opportunities to pick her brain about how she got to where she was at.
Unfortunately, her way of management caused some rifts within the department, resulting in us versus them tension that I cannot stress enough. There was a clique of favorites that ‘looked down’ on the others who worked hard. The atmosphere was horrible with added micromanaging. No feeling of teamwork with the whole group.
I feel strongly that is one of the reasons I got cancer. Long story, but it was that stressful. (It was so bad when I passed this building a year later, I got physically sick.)
Anyway, I gave my resignation and when an employee left, they gave a written-out exit interview.
My valued friend suggested being non-emotional. Me?!? Lol well, I am a very emotional person. I gave my all. In fact, I not only cited examples but I let my clairvoyance in. Didn’t mean to but it happens. I wrote in exactly what would happen if the way of managing wouldn’t change.
I even gave names of great employees that would leave. Guess what? Yep, exactly that happened. This type of management was old school. Fear management doesn’t make great employees. It wasn’t 4 years later this manager was gone. I was angry at myself, later. I felt being overly emotional probably hurt the chance of my letter being taken seriously.
I truly liked this manager, personally. But shoot, she needed to learn some new skills rather than falling back on what her past dictated. At the same time, how could I not be emotional? I learned a lot about myself and what I shouldn’t do.
One month later I was diagnosed with cancer. All that negative energy had to go somewhere. I do not feel regretful. That is where I was then. And I wasn’t feeling too great. I definitely could have written a better evaluation, as this was reviewed by many managers and went on to the main company for review.
I can say I am more mature now. Also, my clairvoyance isn’t playing fair, in this instance. I had very bad control then. I had to voice the truth.”
24. Too Bad The Neighbors Can't Wash Their Lawn
“When I was a kid, someone used weed killer to write a bad word on our neighbor’s lawn.
My dad found out who but told the lady next door he’d handled it.
When I was a teen I asked my dad if he’d talked to their dad or what. He said no, he poured three boxes of powdered milk on their lawn and when they turned on the sprinkler overnight it all turned to milk so they had white suds on the lawn the next morning.
That afternoon, after the Mississippi sun had baked it for 3-4 hours, it smelled like… sour milk. And you can’t really wash a lawn.
I’ve kept that idea for years but alas or thankfully no one has ever messed with my lawn.”
Another User Comments:
“About 15 backyards on my block had no fences, it was almost football field size swatch of sod that we could play football on or do whatever we wanted it was a lot of fun.
Tommy lived directly behind my house. He was a horrible person.
So was his sister, Barbara. Several of my friends and I came up with plans on how we could torture him.
One time we wrote stuff on the outside of his window with ski wax. It was pretty hilarious watching him try to remove it with hot water as the window shattered… it was 20 below zero.
They had this miniature poodle that was just an ankle biter and so obnoxious. We found it in the street once and wrapped it in toilet paper, put it on the front stoop of their house, rang the bell, and ran.
But the story I’m replying to reminded me of another interesting occurrence.
The first frost came and there was no snow on the ground. My next-door neighbor and I hopped carefully around and spelled a really great swear word that faced Tommy’s house by shuffling our feet on the frozen grass.
After the winter came and went the places where we scraped our feet had no tips on the ends of their leaves and they basically died leaving brown letters on a green background for Tommy and his family to enjoy.” User
23. Be Careful Being A Jerk Toward The Guys Who Made Your Boat
“I spent much of my career as a classic yacht ship right, in my early 20s I got to work on one of the restorations of the century over in Tuscany Italy.
I won’t name the yacht as this could impeach my name but it was one of the biggest z class classics GB had ever produced and is still about today.
I had worked for a pittance for almost a year, we were never able to take a weekend away or go back home for some time out.
The whole job became a choir and the contract manager was a beast of a guy and we suspected him of skimming huge amounts off the owner of the boat who was one of the richest men in Holland.
To pay me £8 an hour for such skills was a bit of an insult and on top of that to not get a day out or you’re done attitude started to wear on me.
So I came up with a plan to get some revenge. I fitted the 1st mate’s cab in out (also the contracts manager). The joinery was beautiful mahogany paneling and inside the wardrobes was lined with Cyprus to deter moths and such. I carefully executed my plan by placing runners behind the paneling and added my secret weapon of misery.
A ping pong ball.
Needless to say, when the boat was launched from the dry dock, that cabin was enough to make you go insane. As the swell moved the boat the balls would roll and knock the inside of the cabin wardrobe.
Some months later I got the call of fuming hate, I simply laughed. I’d had all my pay and references, too late mate.
You lose and next time perhaps you should think twice about being so stingy towards the guys that made the boat and then take all the glory.”
22. I Used Fox Urine To Get Back At Rowdy College Kids
“When my wife and I were new parents in our early 20s we rented a small apartment of a split home owned by a nice retired woman.
Next door to my side was a home rented to our local college kids. Generally, they had been ok up to this one semester when some very rowdy ones moved in. They would have loud parties well into the early hours of the morning. Police were worthless for intervention.
One evening, I went over during one of these events and asked if they could tone it down as my infant daughter couldn’t stay asleep and I worked early in the morning and needed rest myself as did my wife. What I was met with was threats of a beating and bottles thrown at me.
At about 3 am one kid came and puked under our bedroom window as onlookers laughed urging him on. Worn out, I started off to work around 5:30 am, as I walked past several of the cars belonging to these individuals I noticed all their car windows were cracked open.
Now, I am an outdoorsy type of guy and love archery. I would often use fox urine to cover my scent during the hunting season so I got an idea. I went into my apartment and retrieved my rather large, new bottle of the blessed fox whiz.
I pumped the spray bottle vigorously into each car in 3rds (as there were 3 cars) and off to work I went. I came home after work around 3 and a bunch of the guys was hanging out on their porch nursing hangovers. I stopped, looked at all the auto cleaning supplies on the front lawn, and simply asked, ‘so, are we going to have any more problems with keeping my kid up?’
The reply was way different than what I anticipated, ‘No sir, no more problems from us, promise. What is that stuff?’
‘Fox urine.’
‘Darn…’ was the reply. Never had a problem after that. Being organic I am guessing they never got it out of the cars, stuff is nasty, burning the car was probably the only option.”
21. I Hung My Presents On My Tree
“Years ago a neighbor, who had an indoor cat, would open his front door to let air in through the screen door. I had a naughty cat who would tear a hole in my screened porch to frolic outside. My neighbor complained about my cat using his yard as a toilet.
I guess my kitty was marking his territory to show the neighbor cat. My county has a pet leash law and the neighbor threatened to report my cat.
I patched my damaged screen and bought a cat leash. Problem solved, or so I thought. Each afternoon I would sit reading in my yard with the kitty on a leash to run through the grass and chase flies.
One day a plastic grocery bag sailed over the fence into my yard. I looked at it, it was used cat litter, I put it in the trash. Days later another bag was received and then another. So I took the presents and hung them on my tree in view of their back door.
And the bags stayed there for several weeks. I got no more presents.”
20. Company Hired My Replacement Before Letting Me Go
“I was fired from a job I had had for 10 years. New Medical Director was hired and he took an immediate dislike to me for some reason. (I filed for unemployment and it was found I had been unfairly dismissed.) My replacement had already been hired, and I knew it a few weeks ahead of time.
So I busily emptied all my files of information that would help this new person do their job, you know, also they would have a ‘clean slate’. So, when I left, there were only a few personal items on my desk and a few files of generic information.
The company had been going downhill for 2–3 years, and everyone in the department I worked in had left for greener pastures. The revenge: The entire company folded 3 years later. (The only good thing was that my friends that had hung in there until the end got some nice severance packages.)”
19. Establishment Built On Prime Property Can't Be Used
“I live in a 3rd world country at least that is the classification for us. As we emerged from colonial days the new crop of leadership took the term abuse of office to new heights. Cartel and power brokers cropped up and a lot of people were taken advantage of.
In 1992 we were living under a dictator who had just survived a coup d’état attempt a few years prior sponsored largely by western powers eager for regime change (no surprise there) and he was understandably resentful as he had actually been a pretty benevolent leader prior to this.
As a result, there was a down-low push to get rid of these foreign investors.
For background, we are a pretty welcoming people and foreign investment does make up a bulk of our economy so kicking people out was much easier said than done, plus the aid fund is pretty sweet so we try to play nice.
Anyway, a top politician contracted an Israeli contractor to build one of the first shopping malls in an emerging high-end area. At this time, the gap between the haves and the have nots was really massive with no middle class to speak about so the power and influence available to this top politician was incredible.
So the agreement was to build some sort of twin buildings with one to serve as the mall and the other to be prime office or residential space.
The mall was completed first and the residential space was almost through as well. Long story short, the politician then had the bright idea to deport the Israeli contractor without payment (again, no surprise here).
This would have been really simple at that time – trump up some charges, whisper in the president’s ear to handle the home country, arrest the guy, deport him before he knows what is happening and deny him re-entry to settle his affairs.
The contractor had other plans, on getting wind of the story, almost overnight, he poured thousands of kilos of quick mix concrete in all, and I do mean all openings in the building – from the droughts and lift vaults, to the toilets, sinks and bathroom drainages.
Several attempts have been made to remedy the situation to no avail, additionally, rumor has it that the building’s foundations are linked, therefore can’t bring one down independently.
So he was left with a large building sitting on prime property that can never be used and as far as revenge goes, this was served below freezing point.”
18. Don't Appreciate My Hard Work? I'll Quit Here And Now
“A long time ago I worked for a company that fabricated and installed all sorts of aluminum ramps, stairways, columns, etc. I was just a regular worker there but with experience on the different machines for die-cutting, cutting, etc. At some point the company I worked for decided they would start making aluminum windows as well.
So I told them that I had quite a bit of experience in that department which included glass cutting and manufacturing the frames and many other steps in the window fabrication. So the foreman asked me to show him how it’s done once part of the shop was put together to be able to handle the process.
2 weeks later, the big boss calls me to his office and tells me that he was told by the foreman that I was the only employee with the knowledge to fabricate those windows through all the steps required, so he asked me to train 5 guys on different steps of the fabrication.
I said yes but seeing that I would have much more responsibility a substantial salary raise would be required. He asked how much I wanted, I told him to double the salary I was paid at the moment, he agreed.
So during the next 2 months, I worked hard on getting that department ready to produce and I did a very good job, 4 of the 5 guys they had given me to train each were becoming very good at specific steps of the fabrication.
During lunchtime, one day I was having a chat with the foreman of the whole place and I mentioned that since I had put together the whole window department as well as trained the employees to work some of it, I thought it would be fair to make me foreman of that department.
So the main foreman who I got along with said that he would mention it to the boss. I did also mention that if I was not made foreman, I would most likely quit my job as soon as I found something else.
2 weeks later, the main foreman comes to me and tells me the chat he had with the boss about me becoming the window department foreman, apparently they had just landed a big contract to fabricate all the windows and balcony ramps for a very large condo complex and that I was asked to train a few other guys on some separate steps of production so that all those windows could be made in a specific time period, so I started on that right away, couple days later, the boss calls me to the office and tells me that he has something he wants me to do, he wants me to train his nitwit nephew to become the foreman of the window department.
I just got up, turned around, and left, I felt insulted that after all I had done I would not be made foreman. I just quit my job in the middle of the day, didn’t say a word to anyone.
Turns out, my leaving got them in trouble as I was the only one there that know everything about the whole process since I had trained the different guys to do specific steps of the process.
They had a multi-million dollar contract that was almost on standby. The following days I received multiple phone calls from the foreman and eventually the boss and owner of the company, to whom I said that there is nothing he can offer me that will make me go back there as I was certain that I’d be faced with under-appreciation at every turn and told him to go screw himself.
I don’t know how it all turned out if they managed to keep and fulfill the contract but I didn’t care. Within 2 weeks I found a much better job elsewhere. I’m sure that my leaving that company had some great cost and told myself that it would teach them something.”
17. Musician Neighbor's Late Night Practices Are Hateful
“In the early 70s I had a large rock’n’roll PA system the upper mid speakers of which were Bose full-range boxes, far higher quality on their own than the domestic stereo systems of the time, and a friend had a top-of-the-line Ferrograph reel-to-reel tape recorder, also much higher quality than the compact cassette recorders then popular.
A mutual friend had a problem. Her next-door neighbor in her apartment block used to practice the piano at full volume from about 9 pm until midnight, almost every night. Many residents had complained but the Body Corporate, dominated by non-resident owners, could not decide on any action.
The piano, we guessed, was right against the common wall.
So one night we had a sleepover with the tape recorder and sound system. We recorded his practice from 9 pm until midnight, and then played some of it back at a slightly louder volume from 2 am until about 2:30 am, and again from about 4 am until 4:15 or so, with the loudspeakers just against the common wall.
The reproduction was, by the standards of the day, quite superb.
He didn’t move out, but there was never any late-night practice again. We waited a few days before quietly removing the gear in plain cardboard boxes, and there were no repercussions.”
16. Here Are The Bolts You're Asking About
“I was moving house, and with my car activities over the years, I had accumulated a lot of metal, and it was a good time to clean up.
I arranged a date & time one afternoon after work, for the local scrap metal merchant to come around with his truck and meet me at the old house. I waited for him for over 2 hours. He eventually called & told me to leave it all out the front and he’d get it the next day (while I was at work).
So I moved all of it out to the front yard. Took me well into the night. Hundreds of old car panels, several engines, axles, transmissions, etc. It ended up being 7 tonnes all up. I also had 10 buckets (pails) that were 20L/5 US gallons in size.
All full of nuts, bolts, washers & assorted fasteners from cars, and DIY project work. They were heavy-duty buckets that my work regularly bought (hundreds per week) from Dow Corning, full of silicone. Once the contents were used, and the remnants left to cure, it peels out easily, and you end up with a fantastic, perfectly clean bucket.
I’d had dozens over the years, and used them for all sorts of things. The best part was that the lid had a rubber seal in it, and when you snapped it back on, the bucket was watertight.
Anyway, the next morning the scrap guy called and was very annoyed. ‘How am I supposed to pick up all those nuts & bolts?’ I replied with a chuckle ‘There’s a handle on each bucket.’ His reply ‘there ain’t no buckets, just piles on the grass.’ He ended up leaving with everything but the nuts & bolts.
That afternoon I went back & found someone had tipped out every bucket on the grass, and taken the buckets. I was really, really peeved. I had nothing else on me to put all of this in – the house was now empty, so too the sheds and garages.
I had less than a week before I had tenants moving in, and even if I picked up what I could, I still had a front lawn full of projectiles waiting for a lawnmower to fire them in every direction.
So I decided to walk down to my old friend’s place about 5 houses down & see if he had some boxes I could use, or at worst case, some plastic bags I could put small loads into.
I was also thinking about the speaker or hard-drive magnets to make it easier. Most of it was ferrous metal, and I figured I could look for the stainless & brass by hand. As I passed the house 2-doors down (who had always been pigs the whole time I lived there) I noticed all of my (now empty) buckets stacked into each other, and the lids all stacked in a pile, sitting beside his boat parked on the driveway.
I was going to take them back, but a better idea came into my head. I decided I would get more buckets from work the next day, but so those ‘stolen’ buckets would be useless for him, I borrowed my other neighbor’s cordless drill, and drilled several small holes around the base, right near the raised rim that keeps the bottom off the floor.
They weren’t easy to spot.
I also drilled the buckets that I took around for the cleanup – but I put 1/4″ holes in them, all across the base, and many up the sides, and across the lids. They never disappeared… And the stainless bolts I had to fish out of the grass by hand… They went across his lawn too.
Wasn’t going to make it easy for him to pick them up with a magnet.
I don’t know if my handiwork ever got any results. I hoped he would try to use a bucket to hold water for live fish, or to put valuable stuff in to keep watertight and have a nasty surprise later, but never found out if anything happened.”
15. Underpaid Coworker Moved To A Better Company
“I was asked to come back and train someone to take my place. At $50.00 an hour back when the minimum wage was at $6.35.
They were losing money and lots of it. Because they didn’t know the extent of my work when they let me go.
So they offered to hire me back at a pay raise, and I told them that I wasn’t interested after the way I was treated. So they asked if I would train someone to do my job. I said no. But after repeated tries and the price going up to $50.00 an hour, I said ok.
I did 5 days/8 hours each. I trained this person so well I told her she could get a job almost anywhere at double what they paid here. Now back step a little. She was a temp and a very smart one at that. She kept asking, ‘am I getting hired full time when my training is over?’ They kept blowing her off.
Well, Training was done that Friday, and I took home a pretty penny of $50.00 hour under the table for 40 hours of work.
That Monday, she didn’t show up for work as she got hired by a company that paid better than I was getting when I did work for them.
If they would have given her a little respect she would have stayed. But it went great. Loved it.”
14. Everything About My Downstairs Neighbors Were Loud
“For a short time in the 1990s I lived alone in a small two-story apartment complex, maybe eight units total. I had a downstairs unit and the couple directly above me were the noisiest neighbors you could imagine.
Loud conversations, loud music, REALLY loud lovemaking.
I never even considered knocking on their door and asking them to be more considerate because I figured people like this know they are loud and most likely don’t care.
So one night when they were watching TV and I could hear every word of dialogue through the floor, I slipped outside my back door and wandered over to the cluster of electric service panels.
I tripped their main breaker, then hurried back into my apartment. There was silence upstairs. I don’t remember even hearing a conversation. It was glorious!
The rest of the night was peaceful. I think they were too stupid to realize this wasn’t a widespread blackout.
They certainly weren’t smart enough to go check the panel.
This technique worked several times in the following weeks before I found a new place to live.”
13. Company Is Still Using My Work A Decade Later
“I was released in a corporate ’downsizing’ based on a merger. Almost right away, my peer in another region and my last boss were released and were asking me for referrals and advice on new assignments since they were fired, too. Less than a year later, the one who took over my role was walked out with an escort to avoid any conflict at firing time.
(Note that I was given 30 days on the job to depart and actually had to be reminded to stop coming in despite the fact that they were still paying me 30 days beyond that).
I came back to do some contract work for that company nearly a decade later, and the work that I put in place was still being used. Nothing my boss or my replacement did had changed it.
My team was a decade ahead of the industry in making that work happen for the business. Just seeing what we put in place still being used and just as effective as we intended for it to be was enough satisfaction, likely as much as any revenge could bring.”
12. Neighbors Had Open Windows During A 3-Day Blizzard
“It was when I was in university and the awful neighbors were the guys on the floor above ours in residence.
The guys on the third floor had been a problem for the whole first semester, frequently coming down randomly to the second floor with buckets and throwing water all over the second floor, getting our beds, clothes and of course books and notes wet, then running upstairs and locking their door to us before we could react.
This had happened every few weeks for months and we were getting sick of it. But we could never get them back.
Just before Christmas one of our guys was eating Limburger cheese when he had an idea.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Limburger, it tastes quite good but it smells horrible.
I won’t describe the smell in case somebody reading might want to try the cheese because it really does taste good – a LOT better than it smells.
Anyway, his idea was to wrap the cheese in cellulose and then, just before Christmas break, put the wrapped cheese on the coils at the back of the fridge in our small kitchenette.
We were away for Christmas for at least two weeks, maybe three. When we got back the Limburger lover went to check on his ‘babies’. He said it was ripe – REALLY RIPE!
So that night around 2 AM about a half dozen of us each put on some gloves (provided by me from the biology labs) and grabbed a block of cheese before heading up to the third floor.
There we quickly proceeded to grate the cheese into the electric baseboard heaters in the hallways of the third floor.
Then we calmly went back to our floor and bed.
The story that we heard the next day was that when the students on the third floor got up in the morning the air outside their rooms was so thick you could cut it with a (cheese?) knife.
What I did see though was that in the following week (mid-January, very cold) theirs was the only floor in the residence that had all their windows open in the middle of a three-day blizzard.
No, none of us got caught in the act and although they couldn’t prove it of course they know who was responsible.
They learned their lesson well though and never again did they raid us in any way, shape, or form.”
11. No One Claimed The Car Until It Just Disappeared
“Story 1: A company (that I will not name) occupied one or more sections in a long, continuous building made up of a large number of identical sections.
They had a meeting room on the first floor (second floor for Americans), immediately below the roof void/loft.
A planning meeting was taking place when the site engineer/maintenance man came into the room and whispered to the managing director to say nothing but come with him.
The engineer took the director up into the roof void and showed him a microphone hidden directly above the meeting room.
A hidden cable ran from the microphone to the wall separating their section(s) from the next, where it disappeared through a tiny hole.
Assuming that the cable terminated in a section occupied by a competitor company, the directors later held a series of fake meetings, in which misleading information was discussed. After they felt they had done enough of that, the engineer separated the two leads within the cable, and ‘tested’ it by applying mains (240 volts) voltage.
Sometime after that, the cable fell away from the wall, apparently having been cut on the other side.
Story 2: A car maintenance and repair company had a site that was on the outside corner of a right-angle bend in a road so that even though it occupied a large site, it only had a small entrance.
At some time a car appeared parked close to the entrance so that while not actually blocking it, made it very difficult for customers and the mechanics to get their vehicles in or out. The car was moved away but then started re-appearing frequently in a similar position.
No one ever saw the driver, so the mechanics left notices under the windscreen wipers, asking the driver or owner not to park there. It made no difference, so they measured the car, and the distances between various fixed items in the street, and used wheeled jacks to move the car out of their way to between a street lighting pillar and some other item (fore and aft), where it fitted with only about an inch to spare.
The car remained there for a few days, then disappeared for good.”
10. I Could Have Made The Program Work If They Had Contacted Me
“I was working for an actuarial company that created and managed pension plans and was running their billing system and managing their computers, this was in the mid-’80s.
They wanted to turn me back into a word processing operator. No thanks! A friend working for a state gov’t agency had an opening in his IT department, slipped his boss my resume, I interviewed and was offered a position, and moved on down the line.
One database that I created was for printing 1099 tax forms. When you get a disbursement from your retirement plan before you’re of retirement age, it’s taxable, and you’ll get 1099 at the end of the year with a copy sent to the IRS.
Well, we were the people who printed those forms if your plan was managed by us. The system was simple to use: the actuaries were given the information on the disbursements, and at the end of the year I would plug that info into a database, load up that tax year’s 1099s, and crank out the forms.
Keep in mind this was no later than 1988. We’re talking dot matrix printers, specifically Okidata. Marvelous printer! You can still see them chugging away at lots of tire stores and places like that where you need multi-part forms. Here’s the thing: printing forms is HARD.
On a laser printer, it’s easy because you’re not moving a form up and down to fill in a box precisely. But on a dot matrix printer, you’re dealing with something called micro-spacing, moving the form up and down in very tiny increments.
Let me tell you: writing the code to print those forms in dBase III was a major pain! It took a lot of work, but when I was done, that code worked perfectly. I documented that code extensively. And within the code, I had a comment that read ‘DO NOT TOUCH THE FOLLOWING CODE.
It does micro spacing, and if you mess it up, the 1099s will not print properly!’
You know what’s going to happen, don’t you?
But you need a little more story first.
My boss, let’s call her M, was a competent woman.
She knew enough about computers to know she knew nothing and let me get on with it. And everything kept working without interruption. Then, for some reason, her husband started working for the company.
And he was a ‘professional programmer.’ He worked for one of the big-name companies that made mainframes.
Not IBM, one of the other ones. He was an expert!
Except he didn’t really know micros. He certainly didn’t know dBase III, which was perhaps the biggest microcomputer database system at the time.
He was one of the reasons I left.
Now, I was in my mid-20s, and I admit I was wet behind the ears, this was my first real programming job.
I was extremely good with databases, I had a great natural talent for it that only grew with the years and increased experience. And as I said before, sometime later I left the company when they wanted to move me back into being a typist. I wanted to grow in IT and programming, I had to move on.
So I left. As it happens, there was a woman in the company who wanted to go out with me, so we went out and had a great time for a while, a lovely woman. And she told me about M’s husband.
He touched the code, specifically the code that did the micro spacing.
And he broke the code.
And the 1099 program never worked again.
I don’t know why they didn’t contact me, I could have gotten it working again and probably made it more idiot-proof. At a guess, the husband might have been embarrassed that a mere whelp of a programmer could write something that he couldn’t figure out and make work.
I have no idea what they did for 1099s after that: typed them one at a time?
I don’t know, and an instrument has yet to be invented that could measure how much I care about it.”
9. I Won't Drop My Bullhorn Until Someone Apologizes
“I live in a large million dollar ‘home’.
I’ve recently taken on a housemate who has a beautiful dog with separation anxiety. Ralph has whimpered a few nights. It sucks – he was whimpering at 3 am. I got 2 anonymous poison-pen letters today from neighbors complaining about Ralph. I’ve been listening for YEARS to my next-door neighbor’s dogs, and other neighborhood dogs booming non-stop all night.
So tonight when the neighbor’s dog started barking I got out my bullhorn and let off the siren announcing ‘dear neighbors THAT BARKING WAS NOT MY DOG I REPEAT THAT BARKING WAS NOT MY DOG!!!’ I’m going to do it all night – 3 am FULL VOLUME whenever I hear ANY dog bark until I get an apology.
For the next 3 years. Also, I’m going to start my 500hp drag racing car at 6 am after playing my ginormous stereo till midnight. Such rude jerks. Is it that hard to be polite?
‘UPDATE’ there has been peace in the valley with only a few socially acceptably hours bullhorn uses – however one valley neighbor started his 2 stroke lawn implement at 7 am sharp (earliest legally allowed) this morning (my sleep-in day) and as soon as he stopped, at 7:30 the neighbor’s dogs started barking.
Siren applied. The stereo and drag car has been left in reserve – but it does need a mechanical check and the mechanic does start at 7 am.”
8. I Dumped The Horse Poop At My Former Employer's Front Door
“I had been working in a moderate size company with national contracts to build store display modules for JCPenney, and Lord & Taylor. The mirrors cover the support poles in a four-sided unit, with slots all on another.
The shiny cherry 4×4 squares the mannequins stand on, etc. After getting one of the highest year-end bonuses in the company that year (based on overtime and overall efficiency on your job) I was called aside in late January and for no reason, I was not going to be needed at my job.
I was the only saw operator other than the guy that ran the CNC saw. I cut all his offal into usable stock. The job did not end. Someone else had to do it on Monday.
I went back to work the following day for a trainer at Churchill downs taking racehorses to Hoosier Park to race, bringing them back after the race.
Sunday night racing in Anderson Indiana leads to arriving in Louisville at 3-4 am. I passed my former employer going back and stopped off and backed up to the front door and mucked the horse poop into the front porch that management used. No cameras.”
7. Neighbor Thinks His Electricity Has Problems
“It was 1965 & I was a Senior in high school. Every day after school, I babysat two children until their mother got off work & Tuesday nights I spent the night because her weekly job at cattle auction kept her at work very late into the night.
There was a man who lived next door who had graduated high school about 3 years before I did. He was an arrogant man who treated us like we were little kids. So… my best friend & I discovered that his trailer electric was hooked up to the house that I babysat in.
So, one night, my friend & I snuck around the house in the dark & pulled the shutoff lever on the outside electrical box. Then we waited until he came out of the trailer & tried to figure out why his electricity was off. When he pounded his outside connector box in frustration, we turned the electric back on.
As soon as we thought he got comfortable in his trailer, we shut his power off again. After repeating the scenario 4-5 times, we could tell he was getting really angry. Then, he started following his wire to the house. Quickly, we threw the switch on & ran around the house & went in the side door.
Soon he was knocking on the front door. I opened the door & he demanded to know if we were messing with his electricity. I gave him my best innocent look & said ‘No. What happened?’ My friend told him that we were watching TV & didn’t have any problems & suggested that maybe he had a short in his electricity in his trailer.
Well, that was the end of that, but I have been giggling about it for more than 50 years. Later after I was an adult myself, we worked at the same school, but he never suspected that I was the Amp Imp…”
6. Don't Pay Me According To My Worth? I'll Transfer To A Better Company
“Unfortunately, I have never achieved revenge on unfair, inadequate managers or employers.
Take this thread as a documented warning that lying, unscrupulous and criminal managers and employers exist. I can tell you a story of unfair treatment by a major international corporation in 1971.
At that time IBM UK First Line Managers were similar to ‘Foremen’ in other UK industries but they believed that the title of ‘Manager’ made them superior, typical American hype!
Often ex-army Sergeants or naval Chief Petty Officers, they expected their orders to be obeyed even though their subordinates were superior, intelligent, qualified engineers.
Employed by ‘IBM UK’ in 1969 at a fair remuneration, after two years I moved to their ‘Prestige Havant Plant’ on the south coast. Their system of ‘Annual Appraisal’ consisted of being set goals to achieve and rating according to your performance against those goals.
At my first ‘Appraisal’ I had exceeded my goals by 500% but I had a new manager who claimed that the ‘Bar had been set too low’ and I was inadequate.
His hatred for me had several sources:
- Before he was my manager he would police arrivals and I was often five or ten minutes late for the 8 am day shift. I gave up my time to hand over to the 16:00 evening shift and was always early for my 16:00 evening shift.
- On one occasion he called his small department of a dozen engineers together to propose an ‘improved way of working’. After his first sentence I raised my hand to comment, he treated us as if we were schoolchildren rather than experienced engineers. He said, ‘Alan, I will take questions at the end!’ He continued with his ridiculous plan and at the end of his ten-minute speech, I advised him that his proposal was ridiculous and totally unworkable.
From then on he invited me into his office to obtain my approval for any change that he proposed.
- Obviously, I was discouraged by my lack of advancement and applied for and obtained a better position within the company. He then made it difficult for me to leave his department.
I argued that not only did I have the best quality and productivity over the three departments but also spent time supporting other engineers and pointed out that any manager worth his money should be measuring those quantities.
- He came back with ‘Your colleagues support your claims in respect of support and you do have the best productivity and quality record but you are not worth £2,000 per annum’.
I said, ‘That’s why I am moving to a job that pays £2,500 pa with good shift and standby pay and excellent prospects for advancement.’
- After months of delay, a representative from ‘HR’ said ‘Alan, you got that job through your own efforts. I am sorry that you had to suffer.’
The engineers in my department that were most successful sucked up to management or discussed common interests with them such as ‘Caravanning’.
Poor UK Management has resulted in the literal destruction of the huge ‘Spango Valley’, Greenock IBM Factory, and the demise of the previously ‘prestige’ ‘Havant Plant’!
Disgruntled ex IBM UK employee. Excellent employee benefits (better than Union rates). Extremely generous ‘redundancy payments’ and ‘early retirement’ with free support from first-class financial advisers. The American government destroyed one of their most successful industries worldwide.
Had I a bad word to say about IBM I would be pleased by their demise but they were amongst the best employers in the world!”
5. Resident Assistant Couldn't Prove It Was Me
“I was living in the dormitory at my University and had a neighbor that liked to play his stereo really loud. It didn’t help that he had terrible taste in music. This was in 1990 and he was quite proud of his console system. People just didn’t use earbuds back in those days.
So one day he had it up too loud and either ignored or couldn’t hear me beating on the wall. I had had enough. I went down the hall and gathered up hair dryers from several of my floormates. I had worked as an electrician during the summer and was confident that the shared wall between our rooms would also share a circuit breaker.
We plugged in a half dozen or so hairdryers into the outlets on that wall and put them all on High. The hairdryers blasted for a good 20 seconds and nothing happened. Then suddenly the hair dryers all shut off and so did his stereo! My floormates and I rejoiced at the sudden peace and quiet.
The noisy neighbor thought he had blown out his stereo.
Soon the resident assistant came around and suspected I had done something because I had talked to him before about my electrical experience. He grabbed a key and we went to the breaker panel. I was a little nervous because I couldn’t find it at first since it didn’t throw all the way.
Eventually, I found and reset the breaker. We never told the neighbor what happened.”
4. Trash Cans Block Her Car
“I have done a variety of jobs. Now being a salon owner/operator. But one time while in school I applied for a waitress position. Walking into the ‘restaurant’ I say it like that because she lived there and had a DOG in the kitchen.
She took one look at me and instantly said she’d hire me for the back of the house! I was shook. I’d never worked in the back of the house! So there I was the next day learning how this wacko lady required her dishes to be washed. I learned from her current dishwasher.
Who was black and older. (The owner lady was very racist/came from a rich family). The dishwasher warned me how the owner was psycho. I assured her I had seen psycho. I thought I had seen it all. Nope, not even close. Not to mention this lady would allow us to put a DROP of non-colored non-additive off-brand dish soap on the sponge while we ran the water barely even washing the plates much less the greasy pots and pans.
Then we could only use plain water to mop the floor. (Remember the dog?!?! yuck) Ok well, skip forward about two weeks in. I had already experienced a touch of her craziness. (She watched me constantly and talked under her breath.) No big deal. Until one day.
She’s under a lot of pressure cooking her elaborate fancy meals for her diners (she rarely had more than two tables at a time and they were reserved) until she SCREAMS at me to stop. (I had been given the task to take the bread out of the oven while she was cooking.)
I stopped thinking I was doing something wrong. It was wrong obviously to stand to the side. You had to stand in front to pull the bread out. I’m serious. She stopped her whole cooking to yell at me that I was standing in the wrong spot.
I couldn’t believe it and couldn’t wait to get out.
As I left that night I left her two big green trash cans behind her car. She had told me to take them to the end of the drive because she couldn’t move them.
Knowing she’d be stuck until the weekend when her help came. Lol, she still owes me 300$ IDC tho because it was so worth it to know the little old lady was stuck.”
3. Neighbor's Noisy Dogs Are Heard All Throughout The Neighborhood
“I had a good friend in high school/college named Donna. She lived with her family in a very nice house in a rural area where the houses were well spaced apart from one another allowing for plenty of privacy.
Next door to her house maybe 30 feet away was a small cottage that had originally been part of the big main property. However, it had been sold and turned into a separate property before Donna’s parents bought their house. For many years a quiet elderly couple had lived in the property but when they died their daughter turned it into a rental. The awful tenants moved in.
They were young, they had parties, they had barking dogs, they were clueless and oblivious and didn’t really care about their immediate neighbors. Calls to the property owner/renters got them nowhere. The police issued warnings with no teeth. The noise continued.
The worst problems were caused by the dogs, three of them who were left outside in the back yard at all hours of the day and night.
If one dog started barking the other two would join in and would keep it up for hours. Donna’s bedroom overlooked the back yard and the dogs frequently made it impossible for her to sleep. She often had to sleep on the floor of the den to get away from the chaos.
Donna dabbled in music and had been a singer for several local bands. She had the equipment stored at her house, mic, speakers, amps all the stuff to make sounds really loud. One night after being kept awake by the incessant barking she had had it.
She got out two speakers and dragged them to the side yard facing the neighbor’s house. She quietly got the equipment up and running and carefully rigged two mics to the high wooden fence between the two yards. While she was doing this the dogs were going wild and barking and making quite the racket.
Their owners were of course oblivious and sleeping peacefully at the front end of their rental. Donna cranked up the volume and made the speakers live. The mics picked up the dogs barking and carried it full blast to the cottage and the entire neighborhood.
Donna watched while the neighbors’ lights went on. She was careful to turn off the speakers as the neighbors came into the backyard. But as soon as they left she turned them on again. This went on off and on for an hour till they brought the dogs in.
A few nights later the dogs were barking and she turned the speakers on. This time the neighbors went out and yelled at the dogs but didn’t bring them in. Donna cranked up the volume and the awful neighbors did their best to ignore the noise.
A different neighbor called the police and when they came by the dogs were brought in again. This went on for several days until eventually, the dogs disappeared. The neighbors never figured out what was going on.”
2. Neighbor Pretends To Play Baseball
“When we lived in Las Vegas we had a next-door neighbor who was a jerk. His wife and kids had left him and he was on a substance-fueled downward spiral. His home and yard were not kept up and there were always strange people and noises at all hours of the night.
The HOA was apparently powerless to do anything.
This guy had physical altercations with a couple of neighbors, but local law enforcement was not very adept at putting an end to the situation because local courts pretty much had a revolving door policy. To his credit, he pretty much left me alone because he knew who I was, but there were still problems with him either blocking my driveway or plain out parking in my driveway making it an issue to either enter or exit my garage.
One morning, I saw where I wouldn’t be able to exit my garage because the idiot had parked in my driveway completely blocking it. I suppose I could have gone and told him to move it, but I decided otherwise. I simply had the car towed. After finishing breakfast and on my way out, the jerk approached demanding to know what I did to his car.
While verbally abusive, I didn’t see indications of any physical violence, though I was prepared. I simply told him that the police had it towed and he stormed off.
Upon returning home from work and parking my car, I went outside to the mailbox cluster to check the mail.
One of my other neighbors was there and we began to discuss the jerk and what happened with his car this morning. She found it amusing and was telling me that the main towing company the LVMPD uses is located over an hour away on the extreme north side of the city and towing fee would likely be well over $150.
Indeed, amusing.
As we were talking, I notice the jerk walking from the front of his house towards the street where we were talking with a baseball bat at his side. Since when does an addict play baseball? I told the neighbor to quickly return to her house and call 911.
As he continues walking towards me, he is using threatening language and threatening gestures with the bat bringing it up to waist high and parallel to the ground. As he got closer and he yelled that he would ‘teach me a darn lesson’, I told him I would shoot him, but he either didn’t care or didn’t listen.
That cost him a trip to the morgue.
Neighbors were not at all unpleased.”
1. Brother Freezes Tomatoes And Catapults Them
“One of our neighbors was a pain in the butt to us kids. Our parents were of the opinion that we should just stay away from him, or out of his way. They had no trouble, he just didn’t like kids I guess.
Anyway, he raised tomatoes in a greenhouse.
He raised other stuff too, but tomatoes were his pride and joy.
So when somebody started smashing the window glass, he would complain to our parents.
Trouble was, there never seemed to be any evidence to point to how it was being done.
My mother discovered a catapult/slingshot in my brother’s possessions, and she confiscated it.
The mayhem continued though, and as I said, there was no evidence to show how the damage was being caused. Or that it was him that caused it.
It went on for several years until we all grew out of it and went away to college.
He confessed to me several years later, it was him. He was putting tomatoes in the freezer, and when they froze solid he used them as catapult ammo. It was done late at night, and by morning the tomatoes had defrosted, so it just looked like they’d fallen from the plants.”
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