People Share The Time They Got Revenge Just By Keeping Their Mouths Shut

It’s so difficult to keep your mouth shut sometimes, especially when it’s obvious you know better or you’re right. Some people just don’t want to hear it. They don’t want to be told their way is wrong. They think they know what they’re doing and the mere idea of being told that they’re wrong may just ruin their fragile ego!

It’s too bad. If people understood that the reason we have two ears and one mouth is because we need to use them in proportion to their existence, maybe the world would run a little more smoothly. On the other hand, however, there’d be a lot less malicious compliance happening! Where’s the fun in that for the rest of us? Cheers to the people who know better but choose to keep their mouth shut and let the revenge play out naturally. Kudos to you! It ain’t easy and takes a lot of patience.

29. Don’t Want Listen To My Knowledgable Forecast? Ok, It’s On You Then

“I have worked in aviation for nearly 20 years from small airports to large commercial hubs. Like any industry, it is full of Type A personalities and those promoted up to their respective level of incompetence.

To protect those involved I will not name the airport or the company I worked for. At the time this story occurred, I  had worked my way up in a company that is contracted to pump the fuel into the aircraft at one of the busiest airports in the US. My job was as a supervisor,  in charge of fuel quality and safety adherence.

The airport I worked at was growing rapidly.  It went from the middle of the pack to being in the top 10 for total operations in about 3 years.

As such, there was (and still is) a lot of construction going on in order to have more gates and parking areas. This has involved restriping the gates and adding more jet bridges onto the existing terminal. This usually is a pain but works for the most part when there is only so much room to work with.

For fueling, a hydrant system is commonly used as it is way faster and more convenient than having tanker trucks go up to every plane.

Instead, a piece of equipment is staged at each gate and hooks up to a “pit” in the ground where fuel is delivered directly from the storage tanks and can be pumped to the plane. These are large underground pipes and once in place, are rarely, if ever, moved. If you move your gate, that pit stays put and isn’t as conveniently located as it first was. Might be too far away from the plane, might be under the plane, etc.

When the airport authority decided to add a new gate at the end of a terminal I was invited to the meeting. I guess I was expected to just sit and nod or something since every time I pointed out that the new gate would put the pit under the jet or on the wrong side, I was basically told “We will make it work,” or “This is the only way we can do it.” After being shut down a few times, I gave up.

4 months of construction to expand the passenger waiting area and attach a jet bridge brings us to the first day of use. There is a ribbon-cutting ceremony and the first arrival is brought into the gate. The fueler calls me because he doesn’t like how he had to run his hoses and wants me to “sign off” on his solution. I pull up and see that the pit is under the left engine (737 fuel panel is on the right-wing) so he has to run the pit hose under the fuselage which is full of passengers.

This hose is a 3-inch inner diameter and is capable of delivering around 800 gallons per minute (equipment slows that down as appropriate per aircraft). Should a tug or anything hit that line it will get bad and fast. I say there is no way we can use that pit and there isn’t another one to choose from.

I advise the airline and they say. “Use a truck then.”

I responded, “We can’t, the jet is within 20 feet of a wall of the terminal and we can’t get a truck in front.

If we are behind the jet, we will block the taxi lane and no aircraft are getting in or out of 8 gates. We can’t safely fuel an aircraft at this gate.”

Well, you can imagine how this went over. Within 15 minutes, I have the highest level person in town for the airline, the Airport Duty Manager (who brought a couple of Airport Police with him for some reason), my GM, and the manager for the baggage loaders all at the gate.

I explain the issue and state that I will not allow fueling as it isn’t safe to run pressurized jet fuel under an aircraft and that the pit is underneath the engine itself. Both of these violate numerous regulations. My GM looks at it and agrees. The airline head starts yelling and the Duty Manager says he will have the Fire Dept. come look and if they say it is good, we are responsible to fuel.

Fire Battalion Chief comes up, hears the issue, and walks over to look. He then gets a rolling wheel measure and walks it from the pit to the building and then back to his truck. He comes back with a red tag and puts the pit “permanently out of service” as it was too close to the building. He tells everyone that as he sees it there is no way to legally fuel at that gate as it is too close to the building and the fuel truck would block a fire escape path.

For the next 2 months, the airline used the gate as overflow with no fuel (meaning they had to bring the plane in with enough fuel already, or fuel it out on a cargo stand). Then, it was cordoned off and demolished and then old lines were restored. Not sure how many millions that cost, but it had to be a few.” Ima314lot

28. You Want To Go Through Insurance? Ok, Totally Works For Me

“This happened years back with I was a high school sophomore at the time.

The bell rings to let us all out and being a sophomore, I was able to drive to and from school. I rush to my car so my friends and I could go to a local concert. We are pulling out of the parking lot fairly quickly when I stop to wait by the main road for someone to let me out. As soon as I come to a dead stop, one of my lovely classmates backs directly into my truck and immediately gets out of her car p*ssed off.

Like most stupid 16-year-olds in a hurry, I was thinking of how to get out there quickly, so we exchanged insurance info and I didn’t tell my parents until returning that night.

The next morning, my dad calls her dad since they know each other and politely asks if it’s ok if he goes through a well known mechanic friend in the area to appraise damages to my car. Insurance free. No issues with anyone’s premiums rising.

No brainer right? WRONG.

Her dad refuses and then tells my dad about how his girl said she did nothing wrong and I was “flying through the parking lot and she didn’t have time to see me.” My dad is getting pretty frustrated since it’s clearly his daughter’s fault, but the man doesn’t budge. He yells at my dad to let insurance sort it out so we can pay for their damages.

Cue Malicious Compliance. My dad simply says, “Sure thing.”

The next day I get a call from the Insurance agency wanting to know the exact story.

I gladly gave every detail and within a week, their insurance was paying for all my damages and her premiums went up I’m sure.

P.S. she hit another classmate two weeks later doing the same thing. Gotta love idiots! “Mozilla 2323

27. You’re The Worst Customer Ever So We’ll Be Extra Nice

“I work at a very small ISP that offers DSL internet. At the time of the story, I had been working in the support call center for about 1.5 years (I think).

Rewind to 5 months prior and I had my first run-in with this gem of a customer. I knew when we were dealing with a total idiot once I realized who he was later.

Me: Hello IT
Customer: My internet is SO slow. You need to fix it!
Me: Okay, what are the speeds you’re getting?
Customer: TOO SLOW CANT STREAM NETFLIX
I politely ask him to run a speed test, we even have a speed test server in house. And he indeed was getting slow speeds.

About 6/10 Mbps. And I can see total upload saturation. (Usually cloud backup). I tell him this and he doesn’t buy it. Nothing could ever be his fault.
Me: Do you have a laptop with an Ethernet port? Let’s try directly connecting your laptop and disconnecting your NetGear (for his wifi)
Customer: So what I’m hearing is you don’t support net neutrality?!
I’m totally confused at this point,  shrug his weirdness off and state that, in fact, yes our company name fully supports net neutrality.

Customer: *scoffs* Okay, it’s connected it says 11mbps.
Me: Great! I’m glad to hear that!
Queue 5 minutes of me explaining 3rdy party equipment and asking if he uses his own wifi equipment – I can’t provide the same level of support as if he just used the router/modem’s built-in wifi. He doesn’t believe me and the call ends with him being able to stream again.

5 MONTHS LATER
A co-worker I enjoy working with was on the evening shift that night.

She was new to the call center but I don’t think this was her first call center job. I usually half-listened to all my coworker’s calls so in case I picked up something they didn’t know, I could offer a fresh perspective, or I learn something myself. I listen to what my coworker was telling the customer and everything seemed normal; slow speeds have you tried turning it off and on again ETC. I tune out and go back to scrolling.

25ish minutes go by and she’s still in the call. At our call center, we don’t worry about lengthy calls. Just that progress is being made and that the problem is solved, this is because we serve many elderly and have to go slow sometimes. I disregard and figure it’s a problem with some nice old person who can’t find their router.

I hear a coworker in a less spunky tone than usual, “Hey, OP? Can you take this call for me?” She’s nearly in tears!
Me: (the nerd to the rescue!) “Of course! Transfer him!”

I ask what is going on and leave him in call queue limbo for a moment and pull up his info.

She goes on to explain how he won’t listen to her and keeps saying how she clearly doesn’t know what she’s talking about and keeps saying he needs someone who knows more (while at the time I was more knowledgeable than her with computers and networking, this call was so far well within anyone in the call center’s capabilities that I knew this customer was full of crap). How he’s basically putting her down for being a woman, huffing a lot and despite everything, the problem persists with his connection.

And then how he became a whirlwind of profanities and blaming the company for having a terrible product and it’s all our fault.

I crack my knuckles. Cue malicious compliance. Looking back, this was my first tech support call fueled by spite. This guy was a bigot and I was going to p*ss him off as best as I could by throwing the book at him, and being so nice it made me sick. No one gets to treat my shift-mates like that.

I checked some things to try to paint the picture of what the **** could be happening. I looked at his ping time from our center to his router, it was an acceptable delay time when it did check-in but was only making the round trip about 50% of the time. So low latency but high packet loss. I looked at his actual connection strength (attenuation, margins, retrains, etc) from the DSL equipment’s port to the router, and something was funky.

I knew my coworker had covered her bases and he might need a ticket or a router swap.

I take the customer out of the clutches of our dry hold music. In my most considerate voice possible, “[Company name tech support], My name is OP how can I help you?”
The customer was now suddenly very calm and polite but seemed like he was on edge. So I start with the basics. He explained his problem and how its SO important that he gets it working again.

Me: “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”
Audibly taken aback at me asking him that, he replies, “Of COURSE I have, do you think I’m STUPID?” Knowing he surely doesn’t want the real answer, in a grossly positive and helpful tone I respond, “No of course not, we just need to go through all the steps, I won’t believe anything until I see it! And your connection seems funky so let’s start from the ground up.”

Customer: “Well we don’t need to, I KNOW what’s wrong already.

It’s your guy’s crappy lines. I’ve had trouble since the day you installed!”
Hmmm, I then quickly start to look at his documented history farther back than before.
Me still 100% enthusiasm: “Oh that DOES sound frustrating! Did you call?”

I then continue forcing him to do every basic troubleshooting step there is (as per required before a ticket can be submitted hehehe) and can now see that he complained before (4 months prior) but refused to pay the company for the trip or time.

During troubleshooting now his connection dropped and no matter what I do it won’t come back. And I knew I had him where I wanted him.
Customer: “Yes you guys even came out. But wasted your time and didn’t fix ANYTHING.” (He didn’t let us)
Me: “Was it just like this before?”
Customer: “NO it was slow and sh*tty before! But now you’ve broken it! And you will fix it before 7 PM!”
At this point, I had done everything phone troubleshooting could accomplish (30 minutes due to his attitude).

He blew his top when I told him that it’s going to be one of three things, his modem/router, the inside wiring of the house itself (after the Demarc) which he would have to pay for (he blew up even more at the thought), or it would be the lines. He was P*SSED and refused to listen that if it was not company property then he would be financially responsible for any rewiring done inside the walls of the house.

Customer: “THEY ARE YOUR LINES YOU INSTALLED THEM! NOT ME! IM NOT PAYING FOR YOUR SH*TTY WORK!”
Next up was either swapping the modem/router for FREE because he could come to our building and we can hand them out as long as the old one is returned (call center 24/7). Or a trouble ticket is placed and an installer goes on the next available day (usually the next day for irritated customers). And looking at the time it was 5:30 PM
Me: “Okay, I don’t think we will be able to get it working by then unle-”
Customer: “YES you WILL.

You WILL call one of your tech people and have them come fix it by 7 PM!”
Me: “Look, we have done everything we can on the phone. The only next step you could take is if YOU drive here and swap out your router and its cords for a new one. Or we submit a ticket and looks like there is an opening for tomorrow. There’s no fee for the swap if you come by and – ”
Customer: “So you’re going to deliver a router before 7 PM?!”
Me: “No you have to come to pick one up.”
Customer: “Well IM not doing THAT, [company name] can come out and do it!”
Me: “Sure can, tomorrow in our next available slot.”
Customer: “So what you’re telling me is that [company name] is interested and reimbursing me?”

I was SO confused about what he was talking about at this point.  He sounded like I was supposed to be afraid.

It was also this phrase that made me realize he was net neutrality guy LOL.
Customer: “My wife has a VIDEO CALL scheduled for 7 PM and we had to pay a lot of money to schedule it. If you don’t fix your sh*tty internet by then and we miss the call [company name] is going to pay for it!
Me: “Inn here we are just tech support for billing questions, you will have to talk to our billing department during business hours.”

The customer refuses to accept this and we go in circles of “it’s YOUR fault FIX it!” He eventually gives up and I was able to schedule at ticket.

I sling an email off to my supervisor and our CO department so they know what to expect in the morning. The CO supervisor had not left yet, I walk over and explain verbally why this ticket was extra special.

I wheel back over to coworker who now looks much less distressed and I spill ALL the hilarious and petty details.

THREE DAYS LATER
It was coworker and me again, she was back from her weekend and she asks what happened to our special customer.  TBH I had almost forgotten he existed.

I pull up the ticket and it looks like he was very rude to our installers that went onsite, TWO very senior installers went. And using the thorough notes I left they started with the simple thing.

They replaced the 4ft phone cord going from the phone jack to the modem/router. BINGO internet fixed and speed back to nominal. He is billed for the full charge for the trip (usually if the call takes less than a few minutes the installer will waive the minimum service fee and labor charge.

But in the end it up to the installer’s discretion). Meaning he paid nearly $200 for a phone line he could have had for free before 7PM the night of the call. We both laugh to near tears and drink more coffee in celebration. We usually NEVER get such a satisfying outcome.

I’m pretty sure this is the customer that made me realize how much I love talking to the angry customers. I’m pretty bored at work and angry ones are usually a hilarious change of pace; since its almost always easy fixes.” Reddit User

26. Won’t Let Me Live With Dad? Watch Me

“This was a few years ago, but at the time I was underage and living with my abusive mother.

She had gone to great lengths to keep me living with her, which I have no idea as to why as we did nothing but fight.

One day she tells me that she’s leaving for a week down south for work or something. At first when she said she wanted me to spend the week at my father’s. I protested. I was 16 at the time and could easily take care of myself. However, she truly believed I could not handle being alone for a week.

At the time I wasn’t very close with my father (something she worked hard to make sure of), and just wanted to be home for alone for a week. Eventually, I saw that I would not have a say in the matter.

Then the idea dawned on me. I could sort of move out. I packed up everything I really cared about, which was really only enough to fill a suitcase and a backpack, and then was picked up by father (as my mother refused to do anything when it involved him).

After the week ended I simply blocked my mother’s phone number and continued to live with my dad, who was actually quite pleasant living with.

That was about four years ago, and is probably the best decision I’ve ever made in my life.” astral_crow

25. It’s My Pizza Dough Or The Highway

“While I was studying, I started working for a successful bar, which also served gourmet wood-fired pizza. I was employed as a kitchen hand, and my main duties were helping on the pizza section during service, helping with food prep, dishwashing and cleaning.

After 6 months, I had slowly taken more and more initiative in the kitchen, until I was eventually promoted to Cook, which meant I learned how to cook all the dishes in the kitchen (even the fancy stuff), and usually ran the kitchen on late-night service with the help of a more junior kitchen hand.

Around 1 year in, my boss, the Head Chef, decided we needed a better pizza dough recipe. He bought a dough recipe from a popular pizza place in my city, and it tasted great, but the problem was that it didn’t last long in the fridge, which meant lots of wastage.

So, HC decided to tweak the recipe to make it last longer. He changed the type of yeast, and changed it to a cool proof instead of a warm proof, along with many other things.

Now to give some context, by this point I had become one of the better pizza guys on the team, and quite a few of my colleagues had commented that the dough I made always came out the best, which I attribute to a quite a few modifications I had made to the recipe over 12 months of working at it.

I had changed almost every part of the recipe, except for the actual basic ingredients used. I made the recipe adaptable, too. If we suddenly needed an extra batch ready to use in 4 hours, I would make it completely differently than a batch that would sit in the cool room all week. HC never said a word about me quietly tweaking the recipe, because the feedback from the customers was almost always great, and he was getting all the credit.

HC initially came across as a nice guy, pretty chilled out, but he was a terrible boss and very disorganized. This led to us never having the necessary stock to prep all the menu items, and always having poor staffing ratios and skill mix. These faults alone would be forgivable, after all, he was a nice guy under a lot of stress, but he was consistently jerking staff members around. He promised full-time contracts that were never signed, pay rises that never hit the bank, staff parties that never happened, and constantly rostering us to work on days that we had specifically asked to have off.

One chef was employed on a sponsored visa, meaning that if he lost his job, he would likely have to leave the country, and this poor chef got worked into the ground, basically abused, because the boss knew he couldn’t do anything about it. Safe to say, morale got pretty low in the kitchen, and lots of the staff were looking for jobs elsewhere.

It gets to Christmas, and its end-of-year party time for a lot of businesses, which means our venue was booked out every day and night for a month.

We had all been working crazy hours doing prep work, and while I was at home, finally chilling out after a double shift, my phone starts blowing up. HC is blasting us all on our work group-chat because one of the batches of dough had turned out crappy (not my batch of course), and he was demanding that we all had to follow the recipe to the letter. I spoke to HC the next day, to remind him that we didn’t have the right kind of yeast for that recipe, and to ask if we were having some delivered.

HC told me I was to use the yeast we had, that it would be fine. I tried to point out that the original recipe was written for a different type of yeast, and proofing method but he shut me down pretty hard –

“I’m the head chef here, and you’re a dishwasher. I said it’ll be fine.” OK Chef, let’s do it your way.

The next day I prepped 20 batches of dough, which for our small kitchen was a massive amount.

On a typical weekend I would have gone through 1, maybe 2 batches, but for the next week all the customers had paid in advance and they wanted huge amounts of food for their end-of-year parties, and why not, when its company coin. As explicitly instructed, I made all 20 batches exactly as stated in the original recipe, just like I’d been told. I used precisely zero of my hard-learned tips and tricks.

The first big night comes around, and I already know it’s going to be a disaster.

The dough is terrible. Like really, really bad. I seriously felt ashamed sending them out, but there was nothing to be done at that point.

Then the complaints started coming in. It was one **** of a night, let me assure you.

The next day, after presumably getting chewed out by one of the event organizers from the night before, HC comes into the kitchen and tells us to throw away the entire weeks-worth of dough, and that we would all be offered overtime for as many additional hours we had to stay back to remake it all (we were almost exclusively on fixed rates until that point).

On top of that, in a sublime piece of sweet satisfaction, I overhear HC quietly tells the Sous Chef to “get them to make it the other way” before walking out of the kitchen. SC is the aforementioned visa holder. He turns to me with a knowing grin and nothing more is said.

I continued working in the kitchen until I completed my studies, mainly because the late-night shifts rarely interfered with my curriculum, but almost all of the other staff moved on from that place.

I’ll never know just how much it cost the bar to replace all that dough, or how much revenue they lost reimbursing the customer, or how HC explained it all to his corporate bosses (probably blamed us). But I like to think he got exactly what he asked for.” RageQuitAltF4 

24. I Tried To Show Him A Better Way, But He Wasn’t Having It

“I had a customer who wanted to rent a Uhaul to go to city A, which is 550km south of here, and back, so 1,100km round-trip.

There’s city B, which is the middle of nowhere a little over 250km north of here.

The truck would have been $190 for a one-way to City B, and then Uhaul offers a $40 discount if you bring the truck back round trip to my city. It would be $150 for a truck with 3 days and 560km included, plus 40 cents per additional km for the extra 540km he needs, I was going to give him the truck for less than $400.

I was trying to explain that to him, but he kept interrupting me. “Why are you talking about city B? I’m not going to city B, I don’t have anything to do with city B. Stop talking about city B.” I told him twice to relax and let me finish a sentence, but he wasn’t having it.

I got fed up and gave him the in-town rate. $39.95 for one day plus 69 cents per km, I charged him $800 for the truck.

He seemed pretty happy about it though, that I stopped mentioning city B.” Kaje 

23. Change Up Our Agreement? You’re Not Gonna Like It

“I work for a company that specializes in railroad maintenance, construction, and solutions.

Naturally, I travel for work a considerable distance. Currently, I stay in a hotel 1000+ miles away from my house (an 18-hour drive, 20 if there’s traffic.) and work a 5-2 schedule. Now my agreement initially with the said company was that instead of getting to go home every weekend like everyone else (they all live within 6 hours away) I get to go home one week out of the month, sometimes one week out of two months.

Come to the end of me being out in the field for a month, my foreman gets a phone call from my superintendent saying that I do not get to go home. I have to be at work the following Monday and I only get the weekend to go home just like everyone else, regardless of the fact that it’s impossible for me to make that drive, do anything more than sleep, and then drive back to work on a weekend and the previous agreement when I got hired.

Now for a few bits of background. When we go home in a personal vehicle we MUST claim the mileage to come back to work and we MUST get paid for said mileage. Now here’s the caveat, you can go stay wherever on those weekends, but you must always claim mileage from your home to your site no matter what. If you won’t let me go home once a month and only claim mileage once a month, then I will go “home” every weekend and claim my mileage, you guessed it, every god **** weekend.

I get 700+ each mileage claim, and they cannot dispute it because their policy is; every laborer gets to go home every weekend and everyone must be paid for their mileage to their job site. So instead of going home and seeing my family once a month and charging mileage once a month, I’m now forced to wait until the offseason, w*ork the ot*her 10 months* of the *year, so yo*ur **** right* I’m claimi*ng my ****** mileage for my weekend home visits all the other 44 weekends of the year.” SgtHaddix

22. Tell Me To Speak About Something I Know?  Hopefully, The Audience Is Ok With My Chosen Topic…

“I train search and rescue/human remains detection dogs, which basically means we wander around disaster sites, crime scenes, and wilderness area searches looking for bodies or other remains, to put it very simply.

This story is a couple of years back. When I was in college, I was required to take a public speaking course. I have stage fright and social anxiety, so this was basically torture. My instructor was pretty jaded and didn’t much care that I was having a panic attack on stage. She suggested I talk about something I’m more comfortable with, and to toughen up.

The final was supposed to be a demonstrative and informative presentation, and 30 minutes long.

Fine.

My dogs have clearance by campus police to train on the university grounds, and I have clearance from city and county police to bring biowaste materials with me throughout the county. I prepare a fancy Powerpoint presentation and bring in my big, crazy cadaver dog and scent samples, including a human toe, *****, and bones. I spend half an hour showing how to train a dog to detect human corpses, along with a few vivid anecdotes about some of my past searches.

We even let some members of the audience come handle my dog and give clicker training a try (audience involvement in the demonstration was required).

I got an A, but the mildly horrified look on my professor’s face was far more rewarding.” NylakOtter 

21. Say I’m Not Pulling My Weight On The Job? Oh No You Didn’t

“This story takes place in my current job. I am the assistant manager in one store of a local chain of Bodega/gas stations.

One of my co-workers is a very young kid who just graduated high school this summer. He is where this story begins.

I took up this job back in May 2019 and have been doing some combination of the strangest shifts ever. So, some days I’m opening the store. When I’m on my day shifts, I attempt to make the night shift employees’ lives easier by doing a considerable amount of their shift work, before I leave for the day.

For example, I sweep, mop, change coffee, vacuum the rugs, take out the trash, clean the parking lot, and stock tobacco products (were in a dry county, so no alcohol here).

I have done my job like this since arriving here, and, I do it for everyone. I have never had a complaint until this week.

The younger co-worker who I’m going to call Pita decided he was going to throw a holy **** fit about how I do things and went to the manager about me.

His complaints were, I don’t do enough work, I don’t properly stock anything, and I take too many breaks (our shifts literally cross over for maybe an hour).

He went off on my manager in the most Karenesque manner believable.

Now, me being…well me…means I don’t take *** from anyone. But, (big but) my manager is my best friend, so I do my best not to create more issues for her.

So, it’s malicious compliance time. See, if I’m not doing enough work, but I’m doing all his busy work, I suppose it’s time for me to focus on tasks that need to be done so the manager can go home at a decent hour.

It’s been a week and I have done none of his work, but the cooler and paperwork are on point.

The best revenge came when just before I had to leave and I looked at him to say “Pita, the coffee is out of date and burning, you need to change it.”

That boy hasn’t had to do coffee before this week because I’m always doing it for him. The chest fallen look made it completely worth throwing off my schedule.

Of course, he still complains about me, but my work is beyond approach, and my customers love me. I won in the end.”  Ahrivictoria 

20. I Tried To Tell My Manager But It’s His Gridlock To Deal With Now

“I work the vacuum cooler in an industrial bakery. I take racks of muffins out of the oven to a vacuum cooler to cool before being injected with syrupy goodness.
I pass racks of muffins to the injector team who passes racks of muffins to the packing team that passes empty racks to be washed.

We’re all in one building.
Towards the end of the workday, the packing team had more racks than they could handle. So much they could barely move. Injector team also had so many racks they could barely move.
I decided to slow down and help packers move empty racks so the whole place isn’t cluttered with them, making it easier to pass racks from team to team.
As I’m doing this, I see the manager giving me the stink eye and calls me over.

Manager: “Why is the vacuum idle?”
Me: “There’s no room to put cooled racks without blocking the ovens.”
Manager: “Don’t worry, the injector team will get rid of those racks faster than you can give ’em.”
*sure they can*
Manager then takes me to the back and shows me the vacuum pump. And talks about how even when the machine is idle it cost a lot of money. Gives me the warning to keep the vacuum going.
Machines are on 24 hours and only turned off on Saturday.

Even if I finish cooling all my stuff, the vacuum would still be idle after.
I let the teams know what the manager said and if there’s gridlock it ain’t my fault.
I stop moving empty racks from packing and spend 100% of my time on the vacuum. After 15 minutes, the packing crew has so many empty racks they can’t empty anymore.
Injector crew can’t pass racks to packing because the empty racks are in the way. I’m passing so many racks to injectors that ovens are now blocked.

I can’t empty ovens because of racks in the way.
WE HAVE GRIDLOCK.
Look at the time, time to clock out. Remind the injector team it’s not my fault. Wave bye to my manager as the 2nd shift employees see the mess.
Vacuum cooler is sat there idle.” Ark_night 

19. Ok, I’ll Take The Overtime, Thank You Very Much

“I work for a very large big box store. We are given a 9-minute ‘cushion’ where we can punch in or out without penalty.

So since my shift starts at 1 pm I can punch in at 12:51 and not be considered early and can punch at 1:09 without being considered late. The same goes for our end of shift punch outs.

My department is encouraged to take the 9 minutes before to get set up before the shift starts (we work in the backroom, sorting new product off the delivery trucks). Since we are not allowed to have over time, we’ve also been punching out 9 minutes before shift end.

My store has recently reorganized the management team and my department got a new manager. In a department meeting, we were told that we are no longer allowed to punch out at 9:51 pm (it is still allowed by corporate). She feels that we can still get a lot of work done in those last ten minutes. I asked, “what if we punched in at 12:51?” She said “That doesn’t matter. The shift ends at 10 pm, you punch out at 10 pm.”

Ok, fine.

The first paycheck after this new rule has me with almost 2 hours worth of overtime.” RealFarfalleAlfredo

18. She Didn’t Want To Listen So The Whole Office Found Out

“I have worked in IT for most of my life. One day, it was slow so the manager asked me to check the firewall logs for anything dodgy. Pretty soon I find indications of a female staff member accessing some racy content of the adult nature. This staff member had a reputation for blaming her slow productivity on her computer/network/mouse, etc.

I go up to the large office where she was is surrounded by many other staff members but here monitors are facing a wall and only she can see them. I politely ask to speak to her in private for a moment in a meeting room.

Her response, “No I don’t have time I’m too busy.”

Again I quietly said it would be in her best interest to have this conversation discreetly. Her, “Look! Stop wasting my time and say what you need to say.”

I pause.

Clear my throat and say loud and clear, “OK the IT manager has asked that you stop accessing ******* p*rn sites on your work computer.”
|
There’s a moment of stunned silence where the staff member turns scarlet red and everyone looked at her including her manager. Me, “Ok, see you later.”

And I turned and left the office.” Warmmachine83uk

17. Shorts With No Pockets? So, Like Pajamas?!

“My school’s intramural flag football league had a problem with people reaching for the flags to “tackle” someone else, but accidentally grabbing people’s pockets instead.

So they banned shorts with pockets. But instead of just flag football, they decided to ban pockets in all intramural sports. I am in intramural volleyball and I don’t own any shorts without pockets. The first week of the season, the no pocket rule was loosely enforced. (Basically, if they didn’t get in the way of you playing, they wouldn’t do anything about it. And this was volleyball, so nobody’s pockets could get in the way anyway.) They also allowed you to tape your pockets shut if you wanted.

But then the next day, the following email was sent out:

Subject: Rule Clarification

Hello,
After 1 week of volleyball, there has been a little confusion about a ruling for this year. I allowed taped pockets on shorts for the first week of volleyball. This way everyone could have time to hear the rule and make appropriate changes to your Intramural attire.
From here on out for ALL intramural sports, there will be NO POCKETS allowed. Even taped pockets will NOT be allowed for any activities moving forward.

Please plan accordingly.
Thanks and let me know if you have any questions/concerns moving forward.

Now, I do not own any shorts without pockets. So yesterday I was forced to go shop around. But I searched three different stores and struck out each time. What could I do? My time to find some was running out.

Then last night, when I changed clothes for bed, I realized that I actually DO own one pair of shorts without pockets! So, I am going to wear my pajamas to the second game tonight.

” Joe_Zt 

16. Put $20 On Pump 5? Ok Lady, You Better Be There Too!

“An angry old lady came into my gas station and had a simple request: Put $20 on pump five. One problem: No one was on pump five. I pointed that out to her and asked her what side of the building she was on, so I could figure out which pump she was on.
So, like a logical human being, she proceeded to cuss me out, tell me that backtalking the customer “wasn’t a thing back in [her] day.” I said, “I’m sorry, you’re right, let me put $20 on pump five.” She went out to the other side of the building and tried to pump.

By this point, someone had pulled up to pump five and started pumping. There’s no system in place to tell people that there’s cash on the pump, so he went through the motions of paying with his card, but it never charged him.

Old lady comes back inside yelling at me, “Why won’t it pump for me?!?” I just pointed at the sign on the counter that explains that the cashier is not liable if you tell them the wrong number pump and let her scream until she was done.

Not my problem, lady.” Reddit User

15. No Colored Hair? How Do You Like Rainbow?

“I worked for a very popular supermarket chain in Australia. I had been shunted thereafter their sister company went belly-up.

Now, I LOVE dying my hair crazy colors. It’s a quirk. It makes me feel more confident in myself; and as someone with social anxiety, it was a great pick-me-up when I was feeling down. When I first got transferred there I had blue dreadlocks, and we had a male manager.

There were never any issues with my hair or dress standards, and I took pride in my work and worked hard.

About a year after, we got a new store manager. Let’s call her Sara. Sara had very clear cut ideas about how her store should be run, and importantly, how her employees should look. At this stage, I had taken my dreads out and just had short, purple hair.

According to the employee guidelines, employees should “appear professional and hygienic at all times.” No mention of hair color whatsoever, however, the phrase ‘professional’ is open to interpretation by management.

You can see where this is going.
It began as passing comments on my hair such as, “wow, that’s bright!” But as other employees began coloring their hair, Sara sent out a memo that no unnatural colors were allowed.

I was very sad. Colored hair was a part of my identity, and gave me the confidence I needed to interact with 200+ customers a day. I decided I would bleach my hair snow white. So I did.

Now, if any of you have done this before, you would know you need to use purple shampoo to counterbalance that brassy, ‘bleach yellow’ tone to keep it white.

This is a fine balancing act. Don’t leave the shampoo in long enough, and you have yellow hair still. But too long and your hair can get tinged pastel purple.

On a few occasions, I left it in a little too long, and my hair was the slightest shade of purple. Not even pastel; only just off a light gray color. Well, that was all Sara needed to gun it for me, going as far as to threaten to send me home without pay.

As this was going on, I had become friendly with the bottle store next to the supermarket. (Under the same parent company, but a different chain of command.) I would cover their staff’s breaks, and instead of standing around as the others do, I would face up the store and help out.

Well, the manager had noticed my efforts and poached me. The best part? Because they had a different chain of command and a different interpretation of the employee guidelines, I was allowed to have colored hair again!

I immediately took up the offer, and the night before my first shift there set about making my hair a F#@ING RAINBOW.

I get in there. My new manager loves my hair. My customers are raving about it, asking how I got it so bright, what brand of dye, etc.
Well good ol’ Sara spots my beacon of a head from across the supermarket and beelines it straight for me. But I was ready for her. I printed the employee guidelines and called our HR team just to get further clarification that I was correct in my interpretation.

I had customers in the store, but this didn’t stop her from trying to tear into me.

Sara: “You can’t have hair like that!
Me: (hands her the paperwork) “Actually, I can. My manager has no problem with my hair, and the guidelines say nothing about hair color.
Sara: “You are going to make my employees think that is acceptable.”
Me: “When your employees mention my hair, I tell them straight out that it is not allowed in your store.”
Sara: “This isn’t the last of it. I’m going to HR about this.”

My new manager later told me that Sara had gone over her head to try to have me relocated to another store, and went to her area manager and complained to him about me.

She was told in no uncertain terms that my hair color is not against the rules, that she is out of line to even reprimand me in the first place and that if she does not cease her harassment she would have to take a permanent vacation.

Over the next year, I would change my hair to some other crazy color combination at least weekly. I loved the look on her face every time I walked past.

My mental health has gotten so, SO much better since leaving that toxic work environment. I feel bad for my ex-coworkers who still live under her tyranny though.” PsyReign 

14. I Am Female So It’s Impossible For Me To Know Where The Drillbits Are…

“A couple of years ago I worked at the big blue and yellow superstore as a member of the remodeling crew. Our team consisted of about 30 workers from 4 different stores in the area.

Our job was basically to move all the product and shelving around and putting up signage while also directing confused, frustrated customers to the new location of a product. About a fourth of the employees on this team were Hispanic and spoke either very little or no English. I was (and still am) a Spanish minor so I liked hanging out with them because they really helped me with my Spanish speaking skills. This is relevant later.

So one day, as I’m moving some cosmetics to their new home, I overhear a man say he hates this remodel because all the products are moved (we heard this basically 5 times a day every day) and he doesn’t know where the drill bits for a DEWALT drill are. Luckily, I was moving the hardware product last week and knew exactly where the drill bits he wanted were. Our conversation went like this:

Me: “Hello sir, I can help you find the drill bits, I just put them away last week.”
Rude Guy: “I’m looking for a specific set of drill bits.”
Me: “I know what section they are all in and I’m sure I can help you find the ones you are looking for!”
Rude Guy: “Well I was actually going to ask a male employee, they know more about this stuff.

Plus I see you’re busy putting makeup away.”
Me: “Really sir, I’m not busy, let me show yo-”
Rude Guy: “No! I want a male employee! You won’t know what you’re talking about. Just find me one!”
I felt a bit defeated as this happened with female employees a decent amount of the time even though we all know where all the products are. Luckily for me, I knew the perfect employee to ask. I went up to one of the Hispanic workers I got along with well, I will call him Mr.

L, and it my best Spanglish explained the situation. He just smiled and nodded.

I took Mr. L over to Rude Guy and the conversation went something like this (at the time my Spanish wasn’t great so I’m paraphrasing what Mr. L said):
Me: “Here you go sir, Mr. L will be able to help!”
Mr. L: “¿Cómo te puedo ayudar hoy?” (How can I help you today?)
Rude Guy: “What did he say?”
Mr. L: “Puedo ayudarte a encontrar las brocas.” (I can help you find the bits).

Rude Guy: “This guy only speaks Spanish! This doesn’t help at all!”
Me: “Well sir, you wanted a male employee and I got you one. Everyone else in the area is busy so either he helps you or I help you.”
Mr. L: “Estaría encantado de ayudarte, cabrón. “(I would be happy to help you, b*stard).
Rude Guy: *huffs and turns to me* “Fine, I guess you can show me where the drill bits are.”

And I did! I knew exactly where they were, Rude Guy found the exact set he wanted and left.

It just goes to show, you shouldn’t undermine any employee because many of them know what they are doing. I didn’t stay at that job long and now work a job I love at my university’s library.” MaddChica 

13. Push Until It Starts? Okie Dokie, Sir!

“So my dad was in the military in the Czech Republic back in the 60s. One time, a diesel-powered electric generator mounted on a wheeled chassis refused to start in the winter.

When informed of this, Master Sargeant told the soldiers “You fools, push it and jump start it, like you do the trucks!”

So the soldiers, not wanting to disappoint the Sargeant or making him angry by pointing out his ignorance, dutifully pushed the generator once around the parade ground then reported that the generator did not start. The Sargeant barked back “KEEP PUSHING IT UNTIL IT STARTS, YOU’RE JUST BEING LAZY.”

When the Senior Lieutenant walked by and incredulously watched the soldiers pushing the generator around in circles, he asked what in h*ll they thought they were doing.

The soldiers jumped to attention, saluted, and replied in semi-unison “Sir! The generator won’t start and Master Sargeant instructed us to push the generator around the parade square until we were able to jump-start it Sir!”

Although the soldiers got into trouble for being such a*ses, it was worth it for the fireworks the Lieutenant dished on Master Sargeant.” Mariospants

12. We Tried To Help The Lady, But She’s Not Really Good At Math

“I was a teenager then but saw how my family just maliciously complied together.

This was ~eight years ago.

My grandparents own a small business selling this sticky rice treat. It was a family business based in their home, so we all help out once in a while. We usually have people buying from us in bulk to sell in markets for profit. We could do it ourselves, but, you see, being a family business, we really don’t have much manpower and have to stick to selling it in this house.

Cue old lady (OL) who was buying around fifty boxes of this snack (it was called tikoy, for all y’all who heard of this) to sell. This was around Christmas so she would have no problem selling all these since it was a traditional Christmas staple.

How our business works is this: We have boxes that are 1kg, 2kg, and 4kg each that you could buy for cheap (since you’re buying more) but we also sell small portions if you just want something for yourself to snack on, which were about an eighth of the standard kg box.

She came in with the standard way of ordering (translated; OL = old lady; C = one of my cousins):

OL: Hi! I would like to buy 400 pieces.

C: That’d be 10,000 bucks. (local currency)

OL: That’d be good.

C: You know, you could buy it per box with 50 boxes for just 9,000 bucks.

OL: No, no I know what I’m doing.

C: But it’s 1,000 bucks cheaper.

OL (with raised voice): You’re a child. Don’t meddle with adult things. This is what I want.

This is cheaper.

This was the Philippines so you hear a lot of things about how young people should just let old people have their way.

Normally, this is where malicious compliance beings, but we were a family business and we were nice enough to let her know she was paying more.

In my country, when it’s a family business, uncles and aunts, and all the cousins would normally help the business. Being a small town, a small commotion would mean your relatives peering through the window while others would be nearby to help.

An uncle (U) approached her and put boxes to the left of her while individual pieces were to the right.

U: See, these 50 boxes would cost you 9,000 but individual pieces would cost you 10,000 bucks.

Normally, I’d think this would work, but being just a small business, the boxes were uneven and in different sizes. Some were just used cartons, so I guess the savings were not just apparent.

OL: Stop trying to screw me! I want 400 individual pieces!

Most Malicious Compliances, again, would start here, but we’re just trying to help the old lady.

Another cousin came in with a pen and paper and drew diagrams to show how what she wanted was much more expensive. At this time, you could see the cousins peering through the windows. All the aunts and uncles were sitting nearby watching the drama unfold. I was one of the older cousins so we were also in the better seats to watch the drama unfold.

OL: (Now she begins to scream) You are all crooks and liars.

You all deserve to go to ****. Give me what I want before I report you.

If you’ve grown in a Philippine household, there are only a few things that would unify a household against an enemy: 1. saying you would go to **** and 2. being called a bad person when you’re genuinely trying to help. You could literally feel the mood change. My parents looked at me, as if telling me to watch and learn.

This is the point in my life (I was about 15 years old I guess then) where I learned people would rather be wrong than be corrected. All of us just maliciously complied and just waited for her to pay more for her order. I mean, 1,000 pesos more? We could buy more pancit and puto (noodles and bread) for the Christmas party.

U: Okay then! Lemme get these for you. So my uncle painstakingly boxes up 400 individual pieces (the same boxes that would be used had she ordered in bulk) and loads her in her tricycle (sort of like a motorcycle with a makeshift a side-carriage attached).

OL takes her purchase to the market where the additional 1,000 pesos would eat away at her profit.

Around a month later, she comes back and orders in bulk, the way we suggested during the Christmas rush, not saying anything, not even a chat.” kenjix 

11. You Like To Date? Ok, I’ll Let Your Girlfriend Know

“I’m a bit older than most college students (30, going on 31) so I live off-campus in a four-bedroom apartment with three other students, all of them in their late teens or early 20s, and all of them guys (I am not, so there is some degree of awkwardness here regardless of circumstance).

Anyway, one of my roommates, we’ll call him Matt, is a fairly good-looking and charismatic premed student. It’s in his nature to date frequently, and I see/hear him bringing a new girl home what seems like three times a week. Good for him, right? I would agree, except that he has a habit of “hooking up” with his bedroom door open-loudly-as if to advertise to us roommates that he is, indeed, getting jiggy with it. To make matters worse, I have had to confront him about leaving his used, gross-a*s “protection” lying around in various open-air containers, as though he was a house cat presenting me with a dead bird to say, “See? This is how you hunt.” What’s more-the fact that he’s always dragging girls through the apartment results in our front door being left unlocked more often than not, which makes me feel very unsafe.

So anyway, I confronted Matt the other day as casually and as calmly as possible about his nasty antics, and suggested that he consider taking the girls elsewhere or, I don’t know, keeping the volume down a few decibels when he’s with them. His response was, essentially, “Yeah, sorry. I really like to date, and there’s nowhere else to go. So can you just deal with it?” Naturally, I was rather incensed by Matt’s reluctance to work with me on any level, but as I’m not a confrontational person, I resigned myself to a few more months of forced *********** exhibition.

But I must have internalized my anger, because this afternoon I was in the kitchen, preparing my meals for the week when this small, skinny blonde sauntered in with her own **** key to the apartment, unaccompanied by Matt (or by anyone, for that matter). Taken aback, I stared at her for the space of a breath, my expression, no doubt, a mixture of curiosity and contempt.

“Oh, h-hey,” she said, startled.

“Hi,” I acknowledged her.

“Is Matt here?”

“He is not.

Who are you?”

“Oh, um… I’m Amanda. Do you live here?”

“Yeah, I do. Can I ask why you have a key to our apartment, Amanda?”

“Oh, yeah-uh, Matt gave it to me. He said no one would mind.”

I smiled at her, then went back to stirring my green pea soup. Casually, and without a shred of malice in my heart, I asked her, “So you’re one of his girls?”

Amanda didn’t seem to catch the phrasing of my question, at least not immediately.

She smiled back. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m his girlfriend.” And with that, Amanda began to shuffle across the linoleum floor toward Matt’s bedroom, neglecting (of course) to lock the front door. But as her fingers curled around the doorknob, her body froze solid. Amanda’s head turned to face me, her gaze settling on my own, her expression awash in the light of a sudden and dramatic epiphany. “Wait,” she said, pausing as if to allow the realization to crystallize.

“One of…?”

Anyway, enjoy the rest of your semester, Matt.” Wytchee 

10. Insist On Being Rude, Abrasive And Impatient? Hope Your Wife Likes Your Photos!

“Once upon a time in my computer repair shop days, a man came in with his wife and his desktop. It’s been a while so I can’t remember the exact complaint, but the system was generally misbehaving. I expected we would have to reload the OS, so I explained this to the couple and walked them through the backup procedure.

The husband was quite insistent that he had some very important Office documents on the hard drive we would need to back up if it came to that. He explained the exact folder they were in. As I always do when I hear the word ‘important’ I offered them rush service, which they politely declined. We chatted a bit, the wife talking about some bake sale or something she was running for their (very conservative) local church.

I had them sign the requisite paperwork and sent them on their way.

A day or two later I get called into the back. My tech is working on their repair and the hard drive is going bad. He wants to know if we should switch to a data recovery, which is more expensive, but our only option for retaining any files at this point. One of the downsides of this is we now have no control over what data we are able to recover, so we just grab everything.

I try to call the customer and get voicemail. I tell the tech that he had mentioned some important files, so we start the recovery anyway. Worst case, if he doesn’t want it we just destroy the data.

A few minutes later I get called into the back by our tech guy (I run the front desk and answer phones).

Me: “Hey T, what’s up? Were we not able to get any data from the client’s hard drive?”

Tech guy: “Well, uhh… that’s not the problem.

We got data. There’s a lot of it. Plenty of Office docs in there that look like they came from the folder he mentioned.”

Me: “Awesome, that’s great news! Looks like it’s still running, why did you call me back?”

Tech guy: “Well… the file recovery worked, but we weren’t able to save the directory structure. It’s been completely flattened. We… we wound up recovering a bunch of files beyond just the ones in that folder.”

Me: “Ok, no problem, I’ve talked customers through that before.

I still don’t understand why you called me back.”

Tech reaches up and angles his monitor towards me.

Tech guy: “Is that… the customer?”

Me: “Yup.”

Tech guy: “Is that… the customer’s wife?”

Me: “Nope.”

Tech guy: “So… I guess we ought to… uhh…”

Upfront, the phone rings. I run to escape the awkwardness answer it.

Me: “Hello, thank you for calling A Computer Repair Shop, this is Me, what can I do for you?”

Dave: “Hey. You called me. Is my computer ready yet?”

Me: “I can certainly check for you.

If y…”

Dave: “Then check already.”

Me: “If you would please provide me your phone number?”

Dave: “You called me.”

Me: “Yes, I’ve called about 10 customers in the last hour. I need to…”

Dave: “Stop ****** around. My time is valuable and the documents on that computer are very important. Is it fixed yet?”

Me: “I need to confirm your identity. Is this about the [computer model]? I nee…”

Dave: “Yes. Obviously. Is it done?”

Me: “Sir, I need to con…”

Dave: “I asked if it’s done.

You aren’t answering me. Yes or no. Is it?”

Me: “Once again, sir, I need to confirm who I am speaking with.”

Dave: “This is ridiculous”

Me: “Sir, we have 3 computers with that model number in right now. What is your name?”

Dave: “Dave”

Me: “Thank you. Now, the repair is not y…”

Dave: “What!? I told you this was important! I need those documents tomorrow for work! When will it be fixed!?!?”

Me: “Since you declined the rush service, I…”

Dave: “WHAT!?!? I TOLD YOU IT WAS IMPORTANT! GET IT DONE! WHEN WILL IT BE DONE?”

Me: “Sir, we are working on it.

Now, the reason I called was that your hard drive is bad. We wi…”

Dave: “MY FILES!?! You don’t understand; they are very important!”

Me: “We will need to perform data recovery. Be aware tha…”

Dave: “DO IT!”

Me: “There will be a charge of…”

Dave: “JUST DO IT!”

Me: “When we do this, it may flatten your directory structure. What wi…”

Dave: “I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE JUST FIX IT AND GET IT BACK TO ME!”

silence

Dave: “Did you hear me? Are you going to fix it?”

Me: “Do you approve a charge of $x.xx?”

Dave: “Yes, When will it be done?”

Me: “Most likely tomorrow.

We’ll ca…”

click

Sure. Will do. I went back to the tech and paraphrased the convo. He shrugged and kept trucking along on the repair.

Bright and early the next day, before we even had a chance to call and confirm that repairs were completed, guess who walked in alone to pick up the machine? I explained about the data recovery, how we lost the directory structure so all recovered files were just in a folder called ‘backup’ right on the desktop, with no user credentials or password or anything.

I explained that we recovered the requested documents, but also a large number of other miscellaneous files. I suggested they check the files as soon as they got home to make sure what they needed was there.

“I will absolutely do that for him, sweetie! Thank you so much for all your help! God Bless!” said the (STBX-)wife as she walked out with the desktop.” BaldBeeredandBeardly

9. In This Case, Respect Comes Before Rank

“I used to serve in the Royal Air Force and as a junior non-com was expected to do a stint of guard duty.

It usually came round once a year and due to the Gods being cruel and unkind, my turn was at the tail end of the calendar when the weather in Blighty is slightly sh*tty.

Part of our duties was manning the gate to check IDs and car documents. Most folk coming through knew the score, roll down your window, show the ID to the guy with the rifle, get waved through. 99% of the guys had done guard duty and knew what a ball ache it was.

So one wet and windy winter morning, when I have been stood there for well over two hours and was p*ss wet through (the waterproofs, they do nothing) a car approaches at a fair rate of knots. Slams the brakes on right next to me and my oppo and pushes his ID card against the window. I had had enough, decided the disrespect I had received for the past two weeks would be meted out on this buffoon that didn’t have the decency to roll down his window.

So I stare at him with a curious look on my face. Our eyes meet and he taps his ID on the window. Clearly not getting through to the neanderthal I make the internationally recognized sign for a roll down your window. After much huffing and puffing, he opens his window a crack and jams his ID through it. I thought our fun was over at that point until he uttered these fateful words, “Get on with it, I’m late as it is.”

Rank is a curious thing in the military.

It should always be respected and obeyed. However there are certain circumstances where a junior rank can order a senior rank around, this was one of those circumstances.

I ask him to roll his window down further, adding that I need to properly identify him. Reluctantly, and with much huffing and puffing, he complied, taking a face-full of North Yorkshire rain in the process. I take his ID card and saw that he outranked me by 2 tiers, so being the good little Airman, immediately start calling him by his rank.

I returned his ID after confirming it was him and he rolled up his window without even thanking me. Unfortunately for him, my job was incomplete. I tapped on the window and gestured for him to roll it down once more. He did, getting wet again, and I asked him for his car pass.

And here is where my malicious compliance for his blatant disrespect comes in; it was out of date. Not by a long time, in fact, as I recall it had only expired the day before, but it was out of date! Now I’m a fairly casual guy, relaxed to the point of lying on the ground.

Generally, in situations like this I point out that it’s expired and advise them to get a new one before returning it, but not with this plonker. Looking up at my wet faced sergeant, I told him with nary a smile on my face that I had to confiscate it.

And he exploded, started screaming obscenities at me, threatening to have me charged (military punishment) for insubordination, etc. None of this was washing with me though as I placed his car pass into the lockbox, for which I didn’t have the key.

There was no way he could get his car pass back now even if I wanted to give it to him.

So he had to join the queue in the guardroom with the visitors and contractors to get his temporary pass, adding to his lateness. And he would have to come back during the working day to get a new permanent one, wasting his precious time.

Not being vindictive, after he got his temporary pass, I did wave him through.

Well, the first edict of identification is recognition.” Vibroguy 

8. Prove That I Think Your Test Is Wrong? Ok, Watch Me

“I almost failed (like passed with one spare point) Algebra 1, so I expected trouble when I had to take Algebra 2 the next year. The teacher for Algebra 2 was a nice person, who liked me and was not shy about making me the obvious teacher’s pet. I quickly realized that her teaching style did nothing for me, but she worked the sample problems from the book on the board in class and wrote down each step she used.

I would basically watch her and read the book at the same time to puzzle out how the answer worked out. I had lunch right after her class and sat with the girl who was right behind me in class. I would explain what I figured out in class to her, and explain the thought process behind where the answer came from. She loved this, as she was taking the class for the second time and it was the last math class she would need to graduate.

Story: When I was in 10th grade, my Algebra 2 teacher gave us a test with a section for multiple choice answers. My class was her third class of the day with the same subject, so all of the students who had her for the first two classes had told everybody how hard the test was. No one had come close to finishing the test, nobody thought that they had passed it, etc.

So, my class goes to take the test.

I finish everything but the multiple-choice part because my answers didn’t match the choices available. Not even one of those “oh, I got 120 and the closest answer is 150” kind of answers, where you guess and move on. So the bell rings to dismiss class, and I wait to turn my test in because I wanted to ask her about it. I knew we would have to finish the test the next day because the other classes had already told us they were getting another day to finish.

The teacher looked at my test and noticed that I had almost finished. So she asked “why didn’t you finish? I thought you would know the material well enough to be done.” So I told her that my answers didn’t match the answers she gave us. She told me that I could just finish the next day. I paused for a second and then told her that I thought that her answers might be wrong for that section.

Obviously taken aback, she told me to prove it. So, the malicious compliant person inside me said, “Okay, I will” on the outside for the first (and only) time in my sheltered nerdy life. I got some clean notebook paper, sat in the corner, and worked out every single problem in the multiple-choice section. Step by tedious step. I turned it in and got to the cafeteria just in time to see them close the lunch line.

My friend had heard me and got everybody else at our table to save parts of their lunch for me. The next day in class, the teacher calmly announced that we were going to re-learn the entire section of the material and re-test at a later date. Nothing else was ever said about the whole thing.” marla_tonictoe 

7. Your 5-Year-Old Self Wants To Go To The Haunted House? Pass This Test First

“When my youngest was 5, his older brother (9 at the time) and his nephew (8) kept talking about going to this really big haunted house by where we live.

It was this two-story indoor haunted house inside of a closed-down Montgomery Ward’s department store (it’s gone now, this was ten years ago), supposedly the biggest haunted house in the state. This was before they had all the rules where the haunted house workers couldn’t touch people and all that. These people would run at you with revving chainsaws (real freaking chainsaws but without blades) and things like that.

At the time my youngest was still afraid of the dark.

So one day we’re driving home from somewhere and he’s yammerin’ on about how he’s “a big boy now” and he can handle scary things and all this. This goes on for about 15 minutes, I keep reminding him that he still won’t sleep without a night light and such. Finally, I had heard enough. I lean over to my wife and whisper, “I’ve got an idea. When we get home, we wait a few minutes and then send the kid to our bathroom to grab something for you.

I’ll do the rest.”

Our house has double doors leading to the bedroom off the main hallway, and our master bath is on the far side of the room. To get to the bathroom you have to go all the way across the room, which means you have to also pass the closet. So when we got home I waited to go in last. I went to our bedroom, left the light off, and stood in the closet with the door open, but back far enough so I was completely in the shadows.

A few minutes later, here comes the kid. Zoom, right past me, doesn’t look at the closet, just runs through the bedroom. Doesn’t even turn on the light. Perfect. He goes in the bathroom, turns on the light, finds whatever my wife sent him in for and turns out the light. I hear him take three steps before I step out of the closet and go “BAAAH!”

He dropped to the floor, curled up in the fetal position, screaming in terror.

I walked over and picked him up and held him while he cried for thirty minutes straight. After which I said, “Now do you see why we don’t want to take you to the haunted house?” He nodded vehemently, and he never asked to go to a haunted house ever again.” Scorpious187 

6. So You Want To Be A Terrible Manager? Hasta La Vista, Baby

“I’m a floor manager at a busy fast-fashion retailer. I’ve posted about my sh*thead supervisor in a few places, but basically, she’s the worst person I’ve ever worked with.

Was supposed to train me in my FM role and has done sweet all for six months and is such a *** to me that I’m transferring stores and states in a week to get away from her.

Anyhow part of my job at the moment is training new managers on the admin side of the business. I used to be the admin manager at my old store so I’m the one who knows the most about it and am qualified to train people.

This means I have to be off the shop floor for most of the days this week, conducting training sessions where I teach new managers how to do all the shop admin and security rules, etc. My supervisor has been complaining non stop about me not being on the floor to help her, ignoring the fact that our store manager has explicitly instructed me to spend as much time in the office as possible.

Yesterday she was being sh*ttier than usual because my Saturday close wasn’t up to her standards.

I was trying to train this poor girl in the office and my supervisor kept coming in and asking us when we would be done, and if she could get our help with stuff. After one hour in the office (we were supposed to have six of the eight hours of our shift dedicated to training) she strops in and tells me that we’ll have to move the training to tomorrow because she needs us RIGHT NOW on the floor.

I explain as patiently as I can that I already have training planned for tomorrow, and there’s no other time to do it. She refuses to listen, so I ask for half an hour just to get the essential admin done for her day. She orders me and the trainee out of the office and says she’ll deal with it.

Now, I knew that she wasn’t going to do any of the admin. She never does, because she’s not good at it and thinks it’s boring.

I also knew that because it was Sunday, all the employees’ hours for the week had to be confirmed and finalized in the office computer so payroll could, you know, pay everyone. So, every hour I radio her asking if I can go back to the office to do the admin. After the third hour, she snaps and says not to remind her again, she’s going to do it. I comply.

The trainee and I had started early, so our shift ended about two hours before the shop closed.

As I was leaving, I poked my head into the office. The unfinished shop reports were still sitting on the desk, and the payroll sheets still hadn’t been processed, not to mention a bunch of other stuff hadn’t been done. I might have warned my supervisor that this all needed to be done by the end of the day, but she’s already told me not to remind her, so I go home without saying anything.

Cut to this morning.

I arrive at work before 9, and my store manager is running the morning meeting, the key focus of which is her apologizing to the staff because their pay will be a day late next week because the payroll didn’t get closed the night before. The staff is understandably annoyed. The SM takes me aside after the meeting and asks me what the **** happened yesterday and why I didn’t do any of the payroll, security checks, reporting, or communication with the head office.

I tell her that my supervisor refused to let me train my trainee or do anything in the office and that she explicitly told me she would “deal with it”. My boss goes very quiet, and thanks me for telling her.

My supervisor rolls in at 10 am and is immediately called into the SM’s office. They shut the door, but from the admin office it’s pretty easy to hear what’s going on, and my god, our boss laid into her so hard.

The SM called her behavior “childish and ridiculous”, and she said a few times that she couldn’t understand why my supervisor would think she knows more than I do about store admin, given that she never paid attention in her own admin training. I was just twirling around in my spinny chair, enjoying listening to the rampage. Eventually, the supervisor comes out of the office, clearly crying (she does this a lot when she wants to get her way, so no one really felt sorry for her) and then tried to claim she was too emotional to work and needed to go home, but I guess the SM stepped in on that too because she was present (and fuming) all day today.

I was excused from all floor support for the next few days in order to make up for the hours I lost yesterday. Amazing day.” clairewil 

5. You Want All The Paperwork? You Got It! ALL Of It!

“This happened about 18 months ago, I found the paperwork this morning and thought about it.

I was going through a nasty divorce, complete with disappearing prenups and my ex was making threats against my small business. When the deposition came it requested tons of information about my business.

Bank transactions, tax returns, etc, and ALL documentation regarding asset sales or acquisitions. First I pushed back and said the administrative burden was excessive, they responded with “tough ***.” Then I resisted with the argument that I refuse to supply information that will harm my business and the other stakeholders. We finally agreed that only the attorneys will have access to the business records.

I asked several attorneys what exactly my rules for compliance are. Short version – each numbered request has to be presented separately so I can’t just throw all my responses in a box together.

“Do I have to send a box?” No. “Any other organization required?” No.

I responded with a zeal they did not expect. I gave them everything that matched their requests. As this was requested from the business, I was justified in using payroll to prepare my responses. So 5 of us went to work. So I printed off bank statements and bank transaction reports for 7 years for 10 accounts. Threw them in a pile, shuffled the whole lot.

One question, one response.

As an inventory-based business, every sales transaction is a change of asset, so I added all my sales records to that request.

I printed full-page bright orange labels clearly identifying the case, the question, and “BUSINESS DOCUMENTS ATTORNEY EYES ONLY” then I banded the stacks very tightly together in piles about a foot tall with 500 lbs packaging straps. This makes a paperwork bomb that explodes with about 3000 sheets of paper when you cut the straps.

And there are no boxes to put them in after you open them.

So on the last day in the afternoon, I delivered a pickup truck load of paperwork calmly to a group of expensive attorneys who were freaking out at the sight of the cart after cart worth of paperwork being stacked up in their conference room. I purposely put all my personal documents and the smaller questions on the bottom.

There’s not enough money in the city to pay the attorneys to even touch this mess, let alone go through it.

We settled soon after and I sent a few employees to recover my documents, unopened.” Lxs7328 

4. Don’t Want To Heed My Neighborly Advice? Okay, You’ll Probably End Up Paying For It

“Gramps had just moved into a retirement park with a lot that backed up to county land, a nice nature preserve. His backyard was basically non-existent, but he didn’t mind as he got to look out over the preserve, however, he did marvel at how his next-door neighbor’s backyard extended a good 8ft past his, giving the neighbor a nice space back there.

Gramps tried to be friendly with all his new neighbors, exchanging phone numbers and the like, and one day he noticed the next-door neighbor was putting down expensive pavers that extended from his back door all the way to the old fence posts that designated the preserve boundary. Gramps watched the neighbor yank the three rickety fence posts out of the ground and move them back an extra two feet into the preserve before pounding them back in, then started to clear the land, intending to gain himself more area for his pavers.

Gramps used to work for the national park services as a young lad, so he thought he had better warn his neighbor of the consequences of his actions, so he heads out back for a little chat. Neighbor is immediately defensive and before Gramps says much, neighbor tells him “you’re new here, I’ve been here 10 years” and to “mind your own **** business.” Gramps decides not to press the issue.

Nothing happens that year, but the following year when most of the park emptied out to head north for the summer, the county comes by to check on the preserve.

Gramps notices them going back and forth behind his neighbor’s house, the workers are pulling out maps and taking photos and making phone calls and soon more guys show up. Turns out the neighbor has moved the posts several times over the years, and in reality, his backyard is supposed to be even smaller than Gramp’s backyard! To make it worse, neighbor put pavers in the back specifically to park both his golf cart AND a cherry red sports car back there for the summer, so the county will have to move them before they can do anything else.

They tape a notice to the front door and leave.

Gramps goes over to read it, and it states that neighbor was in violation of encroaching onto protected lands, he has 30 days to move his car, tear up the pavers and pay a fine of $11,000 (because of damage to endangered species who inhabit the protected lands, as well as trespassing fees). Failure to do so within 30 days will result in golf cart & car being towed and impounded, pavers will be dug up and carted off at neighbor’s expense and the fine will be increased for every additional day past the deadline.

30 days comes and goes, so a week after that, Gramps has quite the show as first the car and cart were towed, pavers were dug up and hauled off, and the old fence posts and ropes were replaced with metal posts embedded into buried cement bases, connected by steel cables. The whole process took several weeks to finish, but the preserve looked a lot more legit when they were done. A few solar cameras were installed so the county could monitor the wildlife (and encroachers) remotely, meanwhile, more notices were taped to the front door of neighbor’s house.

By November, the snowbirds were flooding back into the park, including neighbor. That was Gramps’ 2nd show of the summer as neighbor reads all the notices, digging down until he reads the first one, then runs out back and starts screaming and cussing up a storm before running back to his car to dig out his cell phone so he can call the county to find out where his car and golf cart was. Gramps stays indoors to avoid the guy as he is frantically trying to unload his car, turn on his water and electricity, get the ac and the toilets going, and all the while trying to get someone at the county to pick up the phone and give him some answers.

He finally gets a live person and proceeds to scream at them while on speakerphone about his car and cart, so the call keeps getting kicked to other people because who wants to help a screamer? Basically, neighbor is told to come to the county office to get this straightened out.

Three days later neighbor catches Gramps outside and asks if he was here when the county “stole his car and destroyed his backyard.” Gramps said he was, and neighbor says, “Well why didn’t you call me when you saw them putting notices on my door? You had my number up north!” Gramps said he had thought about doing that, but figured neighbor would prefer him to “mind his own **** business,” so he decided against it.” MCL2001 

3. Butt The Line To Get A Tattoo? Enjoy The Artwork!

“A few years ago, I was with my friend Liz who’s my primary tattoo artist and an especially Karen type lady and her Kyle-Esque boyfriend (double K for both) who came in to get cheap *** tattoos.

I watched this whole thing go down but wasn’t involved.

So Liz was doing a quick custom job on me and my buddy Chris (yes we got matching tattoos, Star Wars Yin/Yang for those wondering). I went 2nd so Liz and I could catch up. Double K byp***ed the m***ive line out the door and down the stairs and walked straight up to the artist area to try to skip the line. This was shut down pretty quick and they were told there’s a huge wait in front of them and they’ll have to go to the back of the line.

Well Double K didn’t like this one bit and started to throw a fit. Like legit tried to pull me out of the chair because “he’s getting what he wants and I was here first”, she wasn’t, I was there at 8 am to help Liz load in OJ and Doughnuts and the 10 people in line before me knew this too.

Well, one of the artists just finished and said, “I’ll take you two.” We were all kinda flabbergasted by this but Liz got this big sh*t-eating grin on her face so I knew something was up.

I figured the dude would do a terrible job, go too deep, use the wrong needle, something to just royally *** up their day but he did none of this. He pulled his flash sheet and said “pick one.” Karen picked something and he asks where she wants it. Back of her ankle. The dude gets to work free handing it while Double K keeps looking at the line like they won something.

Well, they did win something, the smallest tattoo I’ve ever seen.

This thing was no bigger than a dime, from 10 feet away all I could see was a little black spot on her leg that looked more like a mole than a tattoo. Double K lost it. Screaming about him ***aulting her and forcing her to get a tattoo and they’re gonna call the cops and all that. Then they tried to skip out without paying. They were rather impolitely informed that theft of service is a felony and that cops are only 10 minutes away.

They tried to pay up the $13 but that’s where the guy’s brilliance really shone through.

His sheet said “Custom” at the top. All custom tattoos were $31. Not only did this lady have a very tiny, and very intricately detailed tattoo, she only had a $50 on her and they had a big *** sign at the register that said simply “NO CHANGE.”. Double K ended up paying the shop minimum anyway, but she got her tattoo ahead of the line.” Reddit user 

2. Want To Be Jerk Neighbors? Ok, We’ll Keep Quiet But Let The Pigs Do The Talking

“I grew up on a horse ranch in Colorado.

We had a long piece of property, about 80 acres, and we raised Missouri fox trotters. We had lived there for almost 20 years when some folks bought a strip of property way at the back of our land. It was a strange plot of land as it was very narrow, and was sandwiched between our back fence, and a busy county road. We were surprised anyone would buy it actually, as it forced the house to be pretty close to said road.

Well, we never met these new neighbors until one day my dad gets a notice from a lawyer telling us that after having surveyed the property lines, our back fence encroaches on their property between 3 and 6 inches depending on the spot along the fence line. These folks had never met us, never introduced themselves, our first introduction was this legal demand.

My father was a salt of the earth kind of man, very kind, but also very strong-willed.

He called these folks, arranged a meetup, and tried to talk some sense into them. First did 3 to 6 inches really matter that much, and why had they not come to us to talk it through? He even offered a number of different compromises. These folks were hostile from the get-go. They demanded he move the fence immediately, or they would sue. Apparently, the law stated they had to put their house so far away from our fence line, and they wanted to push it as far back from the road as they could when they built it, so they wanted that 6 inches very badly.

I still remember when my dad got home from the meeting. He hung his hat up and shook his head when he told my mom in his slow way, “Well looks like we got the kinda folks for neighbors you don’t ever want to have for neighbors.”

They sued, and won, and we were forced to move the fence in 2 weeks. I say we because I was the free slave labor as all farm kids are in this kind of thing.

All that fencing material, and the time, were a big cost for my family. But we got the work done that late fall.

Here is where the fun comes in. So the new neighbors broke ground and built all through the end of winter and into spring. The very next weekend after they had moved into their house, Dad rousted me out of bed and we took the big truck into town to the lumber yard. I was extremely puzzled as we loaded up a bunch of fencing material, and building supplies.

We didn’t have any big projects going that I knew about, and I kept asking him what it was for, but he just told me to wait and see with a devilish smile on his face.

We built a pen and a small enclosure very near our back property line, directly behind the neighbor’s new shiny house. The next day one of our farm friends delivered a half dozen pigs to their new home. Dad insisted on feeding those hogs table scraps and all the things that would go in the composter, as well as some good balanced hog feed to keep them healthy.

Now you may not know this, but the smell of pig excrement is directly related to what they eat, and their pen conditions. Table scraps make them smell BAD. I mean BAAAAAAD. I had to drive the four-wheeler back there every day to take care of them, and within a month halfway to the pen and my eyes would start watering it smelled so bad. When we mucked out the pen with the bobcat, we also made the pile right next to the pen.

I can’t even imagine how bad the smell was living in that house.

The neighbors, of course, freaked out and again without ever even trying to talk to us, went the legal route. They lost the case asking to have the pen removed as the area was zoned agricultural, and my dad had done his homework to make sure he was NOT breaking any laws or regulations. The pigs were far enough from us, and our other neighbors that it didn’t bother anyone but the people he wanted it to bother.

Come fall when winter moved in we sold the pigs to slaughter, and dad stacked up a bunch of building supplies next to the pen and let the neighbors know we would be expanding the profitable operation in the spring. He smiled the whole time, speaking in his slow steady way as they screamed at him.

The new neighbors sold their new house in January when the ground was frozen and the new owners would not smell the pen.

Though as soon as the old neighbors were gone we tore down the enclosure, spread the nasty stuff on the hayfield, and the new neighbors never had any bad smell come spring. They also were great neighbors and are still life long friends. Never mess with a rancher.” Drumbubba 

1. Can’t Speak Russian? Well, I’ll Curse In English Then!

“This story happened a few years ago. I used to work for a well-known alarm company doing installs when we got a new guy in.

He seemed very new, barely spoke English but because we both spoke Russian, we got paired together.

I had been working with Ivan for a few weeks before the malicious compliance, we spoke Russian between each other but changed to English whenever the customer was around to maintain professionalism. Most customers were ok with this as you could tell Ivan was struggling with the language and I would do all the talking to the customer until we got to Karen.

That day started out just like any other, we get to the house, a lady greets us at the door (didn’t know at the time this was Karen as there were no signs), do a walk around and everything seems fine, Ivan has not spoken a single word yet. We get to work in the basement and I start talking to Ivan like usual. Not even 5 minutes later, Karen comes running down the stairs demanding that we stop talking in whatever and this is an English talking household and she does not want her kids to hear it.

We apologize and continue working. Ivan is mostly staying quiet until he tries to ask for a tool he doesn’t know the name of in English and says the name in Russian.

Karen runs out of the laundry room and starts berating Ivan for breaking her rules. Ivan is stumped but mumbles an apology and Karen huffs away in triumph. A couple of hours later, while running wire, Ivan was drilling through the studs and came in contact with a household electrical wire.

A flash and pop and Ivan starts cussing in Russian. Immediately, the laundry door bangs open and Karen is standing there and without missing a beat, Ivan turns to her and switches to swearing in English, probably to explain what he is saying. I was amazed by his vocabulary there and it seemed like he was swearing for a solid minute before starting to run out of choice.

Karen turned red and started yelling at us to get out and I knew there was no saving this dumpster fire so we just packed up and left.

On the road back to the office I found out Ivan is a fan of English crime and gangster movies where he learned his share of profanity. Getting back to the office, we got written up but the boss still had a chuckle. Ivan stayed for a few more months before leaving the company and I never found out if he realized how malicious his compliance was. As for the customer, I have no idea what ended up happening to her as I never went back.” Reddit User 

Sometimes it pays to keep your lips zipped, doesn’t it? Revenge doesn’t have to be this big show, rather just putting a sock in it when it counts sure can have a lasting effect! Have you ever done this? Got a story to share? Tell us everything.