People Discuss Their Most "Off The Rocker" Revenge
12. Family Is Supposed To Care For Other Family Members
Only real family members deserve an inheritance.
“This story is the story of the grandfather of my dear friend, and how he dealt with doling out the family’s inheritance in a very unique way.
The grandfather had two sons, and each of them also had two sons. In the last half-year of his life, my friend and I visited him every morning and every evening. You see he did not want to go into a retirement home, and apart from getting ready in the morning and in the evening, he did not really need help.
Now I need to explain something real quick.
Back in the day we still had mandatory service in the army for 12 months, but there were several ways around it. I will only explain the most common way since it is connected to our story. You see instead of going to the army, you could say you refuse to go to the army for ethical reasons (which was really just a formality, you simply wrote a 1-page essay why you think you being in the army would violate your personal ethics, and they pretty much had to accept it).
BUT that meant you had to go into civil service. Civil service could be any kind of job that in a wider sense that is a service to society. So these jobs ranged from kindergarten to retirement homes and anything in between like hospitals, homes for the physically or mentally disabled, meals on wheels, pretty much anything you can imagine. You would be paid for that time the same amount you would get in the army, and had the right to certain perks like a free room, health insurance, work clothes, etc. the same stuff any soldier gets.
Plus since soldiers get free food, you either got free food or a food allowance. I did my time in a retirement home, and it was an awesome experience.
I think a job like that really broadens your horizon as a young arrogant brat, and really matures you and shows you what is actually important in life.
Back to the story. I was just done with my time in the retirement home, and for one year, simply wanted to job around and make some dollars.
Then one of my best friends comes to me and tells me he needs my help. His grandpa can no longer do everything by himself, but really only needs help in the morning to get ready and in the evening. Since I have learned how to do this from real professionals, he asks me to show him, so his grandpa does not yet have to go into a retirement home (he later admitted grandpa said he would rather kill himself than get into a nursing home, and he seemed really serious about it.
He did not tell me at the time since he did not want to pressure me in to help like that, which I really appreciated).
He was one of my best friends, and I really liked his grandpa (when I was younger, I did not have a grandpa, but we visited him all the time and I became his unofficial 5th grandson) so of course, I said yes.
The original plan was to show him for 2-3 weeks and then observe him for another 2-3 weeks, then he would do it on his own. But we ended up doing it together for over half a year, then grandpa had a stroke and died within 2 days in the hospital.
Only days later my friend asked me to come with him to the lawyer.
His grandfather had specifically asked that his will should be read the day before he gets buried, which is quite unusual, but not illegal. I asked why he wanted me there, and he told me the lawyer had officially invited me since grandpa had left me something as a thank you for my service.
I was a bit embarrassed, but also happy that grandpa had thought so highly of my service he even put me in his last will.
Now my friend’s dad is an entitled b******e and the same goes for his uncle. We arrived there and went into the room.
Dad (to me): ‘Why the heck are you here? I know that dad called you his 5th grandkid, in jest, but this is for real family!’
Uncle: ‘I bet the little gold digger hoped he would get something in the will.’
Me: ‘I was asked to be here by the lawyer, take it up with him. I have no idea why I am here.’
Dad: ‘IF YOU PULLED SOMETHING TO GET AN INHERITANCE, I WILL SUE YOU SO HARD EVEN YOUR KIDS WILL STILL NEED LAWYERS.’
Friend: ‘Show some respect and stop shouting.
I know you 2 did not really care about your dad but show at least a minimum of respect.’
Uncle: ‘HOW DARE YOU TALK LIKE THAT TO YOUR ELDERS YOU LITTLE JERK.’
Friend: ‘You two get exactly as much respect from me as you showed your own father – NONE.’
He really shouted the last word, and it finally shut the two up.
We sat down and still had to wait for the other 2 grandkids to arrive. They sat right behind us, and what they talked about really made my b***d boil.
Apparently, they had both gotten new cars, new jewelry for the wife and had planned a huge holiday. All that was paid for by credit and they had planned to pay for it with the inheritance.
None of them even said a word about missing him, being sad that he died, NOTHING. ONLY me me me me. They seemed to be in competition over who could spend the inheritance faster.
Then finally, we were all there and the lawyer read out a short letter, what I tell you here is a much-shortened version, but the real thing was several pages, but it boils down to this:
In recent years I more and more realized that some people in my family cared a lot more about me than others.
I am especially disappointed in my two sons, but I wanted to be really fair and not biased, so I came up with a point system –
A letter/phonecall: 1 point + 1 extra if it is very long
A visit: 2 points per hour plus 1 point per hour of travel to me and back
Helping me out with something: 3 points per hour
This is the final result over the last 3 years of my life:
Dad: 8 pts.
Uncle: 10 pts.
Uncle’s Kid 1: 150 pts.
Uncle’s Kid 2: 133 pts.
Friend’s Brother: 288 pts.
Friend: 7,341 pts.
Me: 5,883 pts.
My lawyer has already liquidated most of my assets except the house. Once it is sold, the inheritance will be divided by the points, so we know what each point is worth, and then every person gets a share according to his points.
For about a minute you could hear a pin drop, then both Dad and Uncle started shouting at the same time that they knew we would have pulled something and this will would never stand. Of course, they tried to sue (Uncle, his kids, and Dad together), but they lost, and there was a secret clause (not really secret, it was simply not read to us that day, so nobody realized it was in there since we all assumed everything was read to us on that day by the lawyer) in the will that if someone sues against the will, that person loses his share of the inheritance.
It took nearly 3 years until all the lawsuits were over. I was blown away when we finally got the amount, I am not naming a sum, but it was way more than I felt comfortable accepting, so I wanted to give at least some of it to the other three grandkids, but my friend finally convinced me to accept by saying to me: ‘You cared for him when he needed you, without expecting anything for it, which makes you 10 times more his family than any of those losers.
They got what they deserved.”
11. Think Before You Talk About A Woman's Body In A Workplace
“About 4 years ago now, my mum died of breast cancer, and as both my grandmothers had also died of it I saw a specialist for a screening.
I found out I had some cells in one of my breasts that could have turned cancerous at any given moment.
I was told I had a few options:
I could have regular screenings every 3 or 4 months until it does develop into cancer (I was told the risk of the cells becoming cancerous was very high due to family history) but it could also potentially never turn so I’d just be getting these screenings for no reason.
I could get a single mastectomy on the breast with the bad cells, but they’d need to keep an eye on the other one, so I’d still need regular checkups for the other breast
I could get a bilateral mastectomy and remove all of my breast tissue, basically eliminating the risk.
I went for a bilateral mastectomy. It was admittedly the most drastic option but after seeing what cancer did to my mum and grandmothers I didn’t want to risk it.
I was warned about scarring but told it should be fairly minor. It wasn’t and I was left with 2 huge, pink, jagged scars on either side of my chest, each about an inch long and half an inch wide, and it caused me to go into a severe depression, where it got to the stage of me not even leaving my flat because I didn’t want people to see me, throwing out my mirrors, and getting physically sick looking at myself.
I went to a therapist, who suggested a plastic surgeon. The therapist said they’d never normally do that but it was clearly something I was struggling with and I might never get over it, and the therapist could see why I struggle with it. Although I’ll admit the therapist did send me to ask about scar reduction. The plastic surgeon suggested a cream, a laser, or implants.
The cream didn’t work, and the laser was both expensive and risky, so I went with the implants. My natural b***s were an F cup so I went with a slightly smaller DD. Since then my mental health has improved and I feel a lot better about the way I look.
My confidence has gone up, as has my self-esteem. I know I shouldn’t put so much into my appearance but I wasn’t exaggerating about these scars.
Huge, bright pink, jagged, raised, just really awful to look at and I hated seeing myself, and they are now nicely hidden away and you can barely feel them.
In the present day, I’m 28 years old and working in an office. I’m doing a lot better than I was. My coworker, Jill, found out I’d had a b**b job (but not about the cancer thing) when myself and my friend from years before the mastectomy were planning a holiday and she made a joke about me going on a plane with my implants, and Jill overheard.
By the end of the day, the entire office knew I’d had a b**b job, but not why, and half a dozen people confirmed Jill had told them. In the next few months, Jill made many ‘jokes’ and comments about my chest to coworkers when I was in earshot, at one point saying I had ‘more plastic than Barbie’ and calling me ‘fake in two ways.’ I didn’t hear this one myself but a friend in the office told me that Jill had at one point referred to me as a ‘sack of silicone.’ IDK what her problem was exactly but at one point she mentioned the NHS so I assume Jill thought that I’d got my breasts done for free (I’d gotten the mastectomy on NHS but gone private for therapy and implants).
I asked her to stop more than once, but unfortunately, the places I’d talked to her were places like the lift and the women’s bathroom, where there weren’t any cameras, and Jill just kept making comments no matter how often I asked her not to. I wouldn’t say it was every single day, but I heard at least 3 comments per week for 3 months. I hit my breaking point when Jill, a few other coworkers and I were having lunch, I referred to something as being shallow and Jill said: ‘You’d know all about being shallow’ while gesturing to my chest.
I snapped.
I said: ‘Do you know why I have these? A few years ago the doctors found potentially cancerous cells in my breast tissue, I was advised to get a mastectomy and was left with huge ugly scars on my chest. I went to see a therapist who sent me to a cosmetic surgeon, who advised me to get implants to hide the scars, and I did just so I could look at myself in the mirror without crying.
So maybe next time you want to judge someone for having cosmetic surgery, you should ask them why they had it first.’ And feeling like that was a mic drop moment I picked up my food and left.
For the rest of the day, I had about 1/3 of my office come up to me and offer support, and the rest tell me that Jill was just joking around and I was being a witch.
I replied that Jill was being a witch long before I was.
I then got an email from HR saying they wanted to talk to me the following day, and when I called for clarification they mentioned a ‘hostile work environment’ (Note: this is apparently an American term and holds little weight in England but it’s what was said over the phone). I knew the person who signed off the email and I’d spoken to.
Her name was Debbie, and she was Jill’s friend in HR so I was fairly confident about who had reported me. I realized that if this was already being sent to HR, I needed as much ammunition as possible, so I went about collecting my information.
As Debbie had dealt with me so far, it was safe to assume she would be the person reviewing the complaint with me, and if that was true I was screwed. However, I vaguely remembered a section on complaints that was in my contract when I first signed with the company.
I flicked through the contract and there was a part in the complaints section that said I was contractually allowed to request a change of reviewer if I felt my allocated reviewer was biased.
It was called an ‘impartial overseer.’ I photocopied the page and highlighted that part. Then I messaged the people who had offered their support over social media and said basically ‘HR has asked to see me.
Do any of you remember Jill insulting me to your face and are you willing to write and sign something saying what you heard and when?’ Not everyone was willing to help as Jill is somewhat feared in the office due to her befriending HR and management but about 20 people were willing to help me.
I guessed roughly when I’d asked Jill to stop previously (the 4 asks over the last few months, some timings were easy to guess as they’d happened on my break or when I’d first arrived at work) and I wrote them all down, along with a rough time of when the lunchroom confrontation happened and a list of names of who was there for the lunchroom confrontation.
I got to work slightly early the next morning. I went round everyone who had messaged me and most of them managed to give me a printed and signed letter (some didn’t manage to write one but no big deal). These aren’t the exact words as there are 16 letters to sum up here, but the gist was:
‘My name is (their name). I work with Jill Lastname and OP.
On (date) at (time) (approx), I spoke with Jill Lastname, during which she referred to OP as (quoted insult). I felt this was inappropriate as it directly related to OP’s appearance and am willing to go on record further to establish that Jill Lastname has been discussing OP in the workplace in the same manner for 3 months now, causing me discomfort and creating what I feel is a hostile work environment.
Signed (their name).’
I wound up with about 16 letters, all from different people, and one of them was in the lunchroom for my conversation with Jill. Some even had bullet-pointed lists of everything Jill had said to them about me or other people, as it turns out Jill has issues with a lot of people’s appearances. She apparently made comments about one coworker’s weight, and something antisemitic about a different coworker’s nose, all of which were put in these letters.
There are about 45 people in the office so while 16 wasn’t a majority, it’s still a decent amount. The letters weren’t hugely long, most were only a paragraph, but they had all the necessary information.
I was asked to come to HR at 10 am. I took the letters from coworkers, the photocopy of the page in my contract, and my dates and times in a little folder with me.
I got there and Debbie was the one overseeing the interview. She got up from her desk, ready to lead me into another room.
I immediately turned to the other HR worker that was currently there and said: ‘So is my meeting with you, then?’
Debbie said: ‘No, you’re with me.’
I replied that this wouldn’t sit well with me, as ‘my contract states I have a right to an impartial overseer’ and as I said this I took the contract page out of my folder.
Debbie read it (I wouldn’t let her take the paper when there was a shredder so close by) and said she could be impartial. I replied that I really didn’t mean to be a pain, but I had it on good authority that the person on the other end of this complaint is her friend, and my contract does say I’m allowed an impartial overseer.
Debbie stomped off to get Supervisor. Supervisor asks how I know she can’t be impartial and I tell him that I have it on good authority that Jill, who was on the other end of this complaint, is a close friend of Debbie.
He asked Debbie if this was true, to which she only replied: ‘I can be impartial.’
Supervisor took a deep breath, asked the other HR rep to come with him, and the four of us all went to review the complaint.
I thanked them for being so accommodating (I was worried I’d annoyed them), Debbie took out the complaint and all 3 of them went through it with me. Debbie looked homicidal the whole time the interview was happening, as she had clearly anticipated firing me (or at least recommending me being fired).
The interview went something like this. It took like over half an hour and they kept asking me the same questions but phrased different ways so this is a really drastically condensed version.
Q: ‘You said outside that you think Jill Lastname reported you. Why is this?’
A: ‘Jill has had an issue with me for about 3 months now..’
Q: ‘Why didn’t you come to us when you realized Jill had an issue?’
A: ‘I had no issue with her.’
Q: ‘What issue does Jill have with you?’
A: ‘Four years ago a specialist identified potentially cancerous cells in my breast tissue.
I had surgery to remove my breast tissue, thereby removing the cells and the risk. After the surgery, I was left with large scars on my chest. I went to a therapist for low self-esteem and depression. The therapist suggested a plastic surgeon who suggested breast implants to cover my scars. All of this is in my medical history which you have a copy of in my file and my full permission to review.
Jill found out about my breast implants but didn’t know about the cancer. Jill had a problem with my breast implants, and decided to communicate this problem to our coworkers.’
Q: ‘Why do you feel this is true?’
A: ‘Here’s 16 signed statements all from different coworkers, all testifying that Jill told the entire office I’d had breast implants on the day she found out and has since made comments about these implants frequently.
They have quotes of what Jill said to them about it and rough dates and times.’
Q: ‘Rough dates and times?’
A: ‘No one knew this would be escalated to such an extent so no one really took notes as and when it happened.’
Q: ‘What events do you think directly led to this complaint of harassment?’
A: ‘For me, the harassment began when Jill told everyone about my breast implants without my consent, but as to the complaint placed against me, it would probably be what happened at about (time) yesterday in the lunchroom.
Jill made a comment about me being shallow while gesturing to my breasts and I replied by giving her an abridged version of my relevant medical history and ending with a comment about the importance of getting the full story. There are cameras in the lunchroom, so I’m sure you’ll be able to find that conversation. I’ll admit I could have handled the situation better, but after 3 months I felt I had to put my foot down.
Here’s a list of names of people who were also present. There were 6 people at the table, including myself and Jill. One of these people is also in those letters, and has written their account of the conversation and signed it.’
Q: ‘Had you had a conversation with Jill prior to this regarding her comments about you?’
A: ‘Several, spaced out over the last 3 months.
Each time I communicated to her that I felt uncomfortable and upset with these comments she was making and would appreciate it if she were to stop.’
Q: ‘To your knowledge, was Jill made aware of your former cancer at any point in this time?’
A: ‘No. It wasn’t mentioned in the conversation with my friend she overheard and I didn’t tell her because frankly it’s none of her business and I did not feel the need to detail my medical history to a coworker in order to avoid further harassment.’
The supervisor stands up and says, ‘Well I think we’re done here.’ He shakes my hand and sends me back to my desk saying that I’d hear from them after they reviewed the evidence (letters, CCTV, medical history, and anything they had already) and made a decision on the case.
I got back to my desk, pulled up my CV, and prepared to start the job search again.
About an hour goes by, then the person who wrote the letter and was there for the lunchroom conversation gets called for a meeting with HR. They come back 10ish minutes later.
The other people who were also there for the lunchroom conversation get called one by one, except Jill. All of them are gone for about 10 minutes then come back, find a coworker, and say that HR wants to see them.
Then the people who wrote letters but weren’t there yesterday are also called one by one and are each gone for about 10 minutes each, some longer, some shorter.
By about 3:30 it looks like everyone who wrote a letter or was there in the lunchroom has been interviewed.
Then, finally, Jill gets called in. She’s gone for about 30 minutes and comes back fuming. She glares at me while I work, but I ignore her.
4:30ish, Jill gets called into HR again. 5 pm rolls around, everyone is either leaving or getting ready to leave when Jill storms back into the office. She glares at me the whole time she packs up her desk. She then starts telling anyone who will listen that I got her fired before shoving her way onto the lift.
An email comes in from HR. My case is closed.”
10. Bully Flunks High School And Loses His Football Scholarship
“I stole my teacher’s grade book to alter the scores for a different kid.
This caused him to flunk his final year of English with no time to retake the class, which caused him to not graduate on time which lost him his scholarship to Oregon to play football (yes, that Oregon football program).
Here’s why: This football-playing jock was a permanent bully to kids.
Always slapping weak kids in the back of the neck and yelling ‘red neck!’ He and his friends would often drag other kids into the bathroom and give them swirlies (holding them up-side-down and dunking their heads in a toilet while you flush). Daily, low-level, high school bully stuff.
Administrators never really did anything outside of verbally warn him to stop because he’s hot stuff on the football team (I want to say Tight End or Linebacker, I never really knew).
One day, he and his friends take this little Mexican kid into the nice basketball gym, which was off-limits to all students and only used for the basketball team games so they knew no one would be coming around for a while (there was a second ‘main’ cheap and nasty basketball gym that was used for Physical and practice). They held him down while he slapped this kid around then hung him from the basketball rim by his underwear.
Now, this Mexican kid was not physically or mentally disabled, but he was definitely physically limited due to some sort of inherent illness; we’re talking 4’9″ and 80 pounds.
He hung on that basketball hoop all afternoon, from about lunchtime until the janitor found him before the basketball game that night (so, like 5 or 6 pm).
The school didn’t do anything because the little kid’s family didn’t pursue any charges (in that neighborhood, most likely were there illegally and did not want to stir the pot, which really sucks, but that’s the reality for immigrants in this country).
While there was never any formal investigation, he and his friends would brag about the incident.
So my friends and I on the hockey team figured this was enough.
I knew he had the same English teacher as I did in a different period. My friend was a Teacher’s Assistant to another teacher so the administrators were quite used to seeing him going around the school with the teacher’s grade books.
One day, I swipe my teacher’s grade book from her desk by placing my books on top to talk to her (I was the ‘new kid’ still having just transferred back to the United States midway through the year and the teacher liked me) and then walked away with the whole stack; handed it off to my buddy the T.A.
He altered just a few big test scores slightly to push his mid-60s (bad but passing) grade down to a 55 (fail and not “just close enough” to deserve a bump).
Then we left it in her office mailbox (where the grade books get filed anyway), she never questioned anything (T.A.’s would have to deliver these grade books to the office daily anyway, so I guess she just figured her T.A. did it correctly).
With no time to make up the scores, he failed his 4th English credit and did not graduate high school.
He had to make it up over the summer from what I hear but lost his big-time football program scholarship.
Don’t know what happened to him much after that, all I know is that he was not starting for Oregon Football. He should not have picked on the tiny Mexican kid so hard.”
9. Extremely Noisy But Refuse To Do Anything About It? I'll Help With The Process
“Back in the Eighties, I lived in a flat in South-East London.
The flat was located in a small tower block ten stories high with four flats per floor, one per corner as it were. The flat overlooked a local park and afforded very nice views of the area.
The neighbors were generally very amenable but everybody tended to keep to themselves, so no one had any problems with anyone.
That all changed when a new family moved into a flat down on the second floor on the same corner of the building where we lived (we lived on the eighth).
They were not the most gracious of individuals, frequently leaving rubbish bags strewn around their floor’s lobby for days, rather than depositing them in the communal bins, and parking their cars in other residents’ allocated parking spots—in other words, the epitome of the appellation “chav”.
Complaints to the local council were invariably ignored.
They soon developed a reputation for hosting loud, intoxicated parties at the weekends which tended to go past midnight.
This was pretty annoying for us and the other residents, but we were somewhat less affected due to the distance between our respective flats. One particular Friday evening, however, proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
At around 10:00 pm we heard the music start back up, but it now appeared that the hosts had recently purchased a new sound system because the bass was now intolerably loud.
I can only surmise that a peculiarity of the building’s design, coupled with what sounded like much larger bass speakers, appeared to magnify the effect in our bedroom to the point where it made it quite impossible to sleep.
At about 11:30 pm, I trotted downstairs and knocked on their door. It was flung open by what I could only assume to have been the male resident, looking somewhat the worse for wear.
I politely asked him if he’d mind turning the music down as it was very loud, rattling the furniture in my flat and making it difficult to sleep.
“Screw off!”
Charming, I thought.
So I go back upstairs and call the non-emergency police number and explained the situation. They assured me that someone would be around in due course—being a Friday night, I reckoned it might take an hour or two.
So, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, we sat there waiting for the cops to rock up. Sure enough, about an hour later, I saw a patrol car pull up and a couple of London’s finest enter our building. A few moments later, the music gets turned down and the police leave.
No sooner had the car disappeared up the street than the music went back up to its previous level.
We endure it for another half hour—no change, so once again I call the cops. This time it takes closer to two hours for them to turn up—yep, definitely a busy Friday night.
They finally arrive around 3 am and once again the music is reduced to a sensible level. Unfortunately, shortly after they depart, back up goes the volume to its previous furniture-shaking intensity.
As you might imagine, by now I was royally livid. ‘Er indoors too (someone not normally prone to displays of anger) was positively foaming at the mouth, and looked like she was single-handedly going to re-enact the Battle of Austerlitz in glorious Technicolor, together with full orchestral accompaniment.
It was then that I had a Dazzling Idea: one so fiendishly cunning and yet devilishly simple—a guaranteed cast-iron, 100% pure, 24-carat stonker of an idea so brilliant that I felt certain that within a few minutes, I could stop this once and for all, and execute my plan in such a way as to make it impossible to trace back to me.
Grabbing my toolkit, I crept down the stairwell to the second floor, just to double-check the actual flat number. Having confirmed the number, I went back up to the fourth floor. In the stairwell just next to the exit door to the fourth-floor lobby was a wooden access door that concealed one of the two electrical distribution panels for the entire building. The door was only secured by dint of a simple square-key fitting, and the application of a large flat-blade screwdriver would pop the latch no problem.
Thus I opened the door to reveal the distro itself. Pulling the cover open I was presented with a large panel containing twenty large 80 amp fuses, one each for the lower set of flats. Each one was neatly labeled with the flat’s number and t’was but a moment to locate the appropriate one.
Now by one of those happy coincidences that usually only occur in the more egregious examples of the Hollywood B-movie, I just happened to have in my toolkit a dead fuse of exactly the same type and capacity.
A few weeks previously I’d had to replace a similar fuse in the theatre where I worked, and I’d tossed the dead fuse in my toolbox where I’d promptly forgotten about it—until now.
Now, with all my ducks in a neat row, I pulled the fuse carrier for the miscreant’s flat out…
Instant.
Blessed. Silence.
I rapidly swapped the live fuse for the dead one and reinserted the carrier.
Securing everything back up again, I casually strolled back upstairs to enjoy a few hours in the hallowed arms of Morpheus. Some weeks later, the troublesome family was moved out of their flat. It transpired that the local council had received so many noise complaints over the previous six months that they were obliged to rehouse them elsewhere.”
8. Consider Our Bookstore A Daycare? Whoops, You Just Lost Custody!
Served her right!
“I used to work in a small chain of Bookstores/Stationery shops.
We’d sell books, pens, paper and so on. It was a quirky little store, straight out of a romantic love novella (or a Stephen King book, if you prefer).
Mom walks into the store with Little Girl. It’s rather early in the morning.
Mom looks around and asks me if I could watch her child.
Me: ‘Oh no, I’m terrible with children, sorry.’
Mom tells me that it’s not for that long and I shouldn’t make such a fuss about it. I still politely refuse. It’s not my job to watch children, I’m afraid to do something wrong.
So what happens? Mom leaves the store.
Who do I find hidden in the corner? Little Girl who seems to be rather shy/fearful.
This happened back in a time before everyone had smartphones.
The kid obviously didn’t have a mobile on her, and I suspected the mother also wouldn’t. I wasn’t too surprised that Little Girl didn’t know her home number. I sigh. What are you gonna do?
If something happens to that kid while being in the store and you’re the only present employee, you’re gonna have a bad time.
Me: ‘Hey girl, what’s your name?’
Little Girl: ‘(her name)’
Me: ‘I’m (my name and surname).’
Little Girl, happy like only kids can be if they think they did something smart or they knew something: ‘My surname is (surname).’
Now, this rang a bell. I had a good customer with the same surname. It turns out he’s her dad. I didn’t get paid enough to babysit. In fact, I didn’t even get paid enough to do my normal work.
I call her dad at his workplace since we saved that number in our system. The call went along the lines of:
Me: ‘Hi Nice Dad, it’s Me from bookstore XY.’
Nice Dad: ‘Oh hi (me), how’s it going? I don’t remember having any open orders.’
Me: ‘Yeah, erm, look, listen, do you have a daughter?’
Nice Dad, confused: ‘Yes, why do you ask?’
Me: ‘What’s her name?’ (I just wanted to ensure it’s really her dad and not just a stupid coincidence.)
Nice Dad apologizes for Mom’s behavior and tells me he’s gonna pick Little Girl up as soon as possible.
While waiting for Nice Dad, I picked up one of our sale books (box with damaged books that we try to sell with huge discount before throwing away).
It’s a picture book from Disney. Little Girl tries to read a little, I read a little.
Nice Dad arrives, Little Girl runs to him and hugs him, crying that mommy was mean to her. Nice Dad soothes her and thanks me for babysitting her. He gives me a bottle of wine and buys something small from the store.
Nice Dad: ‘If Mom shows up again, could you NOT tell her that I picked up Little Girl?’
Me: ‘What. Why?’
Nice Dad: ‘If you don’t feel like it, you don’t need to.
It’s rather complicated and you already did so much for us.’
Nice Dad leaves. In the evening Mom shows up. She dropped Little Girl at about 09:00. It was 17:45.
Mom: ‘Where’s my daughter?’
Me, already chugged about half the bottle of wine and was thus a little boozed: ‘Your WHAT?’
Mom: ‘My daughter. I dropped her in this store and you were here.’
Me, way too wasted for work (but already decided to go for another job or homeless, both would have been better): ‘YOUR WHAT?’
Mom was on edge, so I did what I thought was the smartest thing to do:
Me: ‘A guy came into the store and picked her up. He seemed nice. Gave me some wine for her.’
At this point, I expected her to explode/attack me, but she just left the store.
A few weeks pass and Nice Dad and Little Girl come to the store. Both happy to see me. Nice Dad asks me if I got a few minutes. An excuse not to work? Obviously, I took the time for…customer service. Gave Little Girl the same book we read the last time and had a talk with Nice Dad.
Mom and Nice Dad were in the middle of a divorce when Mom dropped Little Girl at our store.
One of the reasons Nice Dad wanted a divorce was that Mom ‘wasn’t nice’ to Little Girl. Now in my country, as a male, it’s rather hard to get custody of your child. No matter what. Little Girl wanted to be with Nice Dad but that doesn’t matter. Mom dropping Little Girl in our store was a gift from the heavens.
Nice Dad took Little Girl to his sister’s overnight.
Mom pretended that Little Girl was sleeping at one of her friend’s houses. Nice Dad wanted to call them just to ensure that Little Girl is fine. Mom didn’t want that. Little Girl’s friend didn’t know where Little Girl was.
Mom claimed she dropped Little Girl at Little Girls friend’s place. Nice Dad faked panic and involved the police. Mom insisted that Little Girl’s friend kidnapped Little Girl.
Police asked Nice Dad and Mom separately and Nice Dad told the police what happened. Mom still insisted on her dropping Little Girl at Little Girl’s friend’s house. Nice Dad had proof of it being otherwise since he already called the police when he dropped Little Girl at his sister’s house.
Now in court, Nice Dad apparently said something like, ‘Mom can have all she wants, even my wine collection.
I just want to be with my daughter.’ Mom, knowing that Nice Dad had some very expensive wines, agreed.
The daughter ended up with Nice Dad, her mother paying alimony. What Mom didn’t know: Nice Dad replaced his wine collection before the divorce with the cheapest wines he could find at different discounters, gifting away the expensive ones. He knew that Mom was either gonna take everything from him or break his wine collection.
We both laugh. I gifted the book to Little Girl who seemed very happy. When Mom dropped her she was shy, seemed small and now she had such a big smile on her face and was curious about everything. She could read much better than a few weeks ago. She seemed like a bird taking off to fly towards the sun.”
Another User Comments:
“It amazes me how people are just willing to drop their kids off on others and assume they will take the responsibility.
My grandmother works at a (Big Name Bookstore) at a local strip mall. She has people drop their kids off (8-15) all the time and usually in large groups. These kids then proceed into the store in large groups and pocket all sorts of little things, then make a run for it. Groups are so big that they can get a lot without really know who has and who hasn’t stolen.
She isn’t supposed to chase after them, press any sort of charges (her boss is an idiot and doesn’t want people to stop shopping there because they pressed charges on their little thieves), or really do anything. She just has to run them off or keep as good an eye on them as possible.
She had one not too long ago, and a cop was in store.
Ended up with the girl in the restroom with all the merch as her friends abandoned her. They finally talked her out of the bathroom, and she tried to make a run for it and assaulted the cop while doing so. The store refused to press charges, but Cop said. ‘That’s fine; she going to be booked for evading and assault of a police officer.'” snake1000234
7. Don't Want To Help Clean Up Around Here? Time To Turn This Place Into A Prison
“Let’s take a look back, waaay back, to the time of the first stirrings of the y2k bug where people believed that the world was going to end in a nuclear war because the computers were going to hit 00 when the year 2000 came around.
It was almost the summer of 1999. I was just a twig of a child, mostly gangly limbs and big eyes, and all of eleven years old or so.
Now my mother re-married a man (we shall call him RG) when I was about 8 years old. Due to the whole ‘soap incident’, he delegated all forms of discipline to her when it came to punishing us all as a whole. So due to her working long 13-hour days to support us all and the lack of allowance for doing chores because let’s face it, 6 kids tend to run you dry if you try to keep up with it all, we, the children, started slacking off.
This did not sit well with my mother, who used her usual threat of, ‘I WILL go into your rooms and whatever is on the floor, goes in the garbage.’ This is something we had heard all our lives but us younger kids, as in me and all below me, totally believed she would do it…
…until THIS one faithful day.
It was gorgeous outside, the sun was shining, spring had brought new leaves to the trees and all the neighborhood kids could be heard screaming through the streets because the 90s were a time of uncontrolled childhood chaos where parents happily released their spores into the wild and drank while they didn’t have to think about their devil spawn until the street lights flicked on.
Unfortunately, for us, MY mother decided that this gorgeous weekend day was best used for picking up the slack that we let get away from us. She demanded we clean our rooms while repeating that well-known phrase we all knew and despised. We groaned, we whined…we relented and started to comply.
But then my sister N, the stonecold and wisest of the elder sisters, just shrugged and IGNORED THE ORDER!
She and A shared a room, practically having one side of the upper floor, which had a wall knocked down and renovated into almost like a mini apartment sans kitchen, all to themselves and at the all-knowing age of 13 (N) and 15 (A) they both decided they had better things to do that day than listen to our Mom. ‘A’ left to go on out with her man and N sat in her room on her computer (a giant PC of a thing linked into a separate line so the dial-up wouldn’t mess up our phone systems.)
When we, the younger kids, started bugging her, shocked at her audacity my sister N said these words.
‘It’s not like she’s actually going to throw all our stuff away. She paid for it all, she’s not just going to toss it all out because that’s a waste. This is a home, it’s not a prison. She’s not the warden and we don’t HAVE to do what she says.’
Then, she left us standing there with our puny impressionable minds totally blown.
We DIDN’T have to do what mom said? Is that even possible?! My younger sister K and my brother Lu took this at face value and immediately took off. They were 11 (Lu) and 9 (K) and had friends waiting on them, they didn’t have TIME to waste cleaning their rooms on an empty threat.
L, only seven years old, was more hesitant but was as easily distracted as I was and we ended up playing barbies for the rest of the day totally forgetting about our worries until dinner time.
Silence.
Dinner was quiet, awkward. Mom was angry the house did not get cleaned and RG was ready to lay his hammer down at my mother’s command. The interrogation went as expected and K, our more…erm..
expressive sister blew up (figuratively) at my mother.
‘This is a HOME, Mom! Not a PRISON! And it’s MY room!’ With this, dinner was concluded. K stormed off. Mom went quiet and with the most Stepford wife smile ever just asked us all if we felt this way. My elder sisters agreed immediately, not really caring because of teenage angst and we younger kids slowly nodded at their insistent stares.
‘I see.’
And that was that. No punishments, no scoldings or groundings, and the rest of the weekend went off without a hiccup. We should have known something was up. Mom sent us all off to school Monday herself, which was unusual because she usually woke up before us and was gone by the time we finished brushing our teeth. We then wouldn’t see her until dinner later in the day but she made us a biiiig breakfast, hinted at a surprise for us when we get home from school, kissed us goodbye, and sent us happily out the door.
Mom’s revenge:
While we were at school Mom, RG and some of his friends came in and got rid of EVERYTHING that would be enjoyable to a child. The basement was emptied and cleaned, all computers, video games, Gameboys, CD players, radios, and TVs were taken. Dressers and closets were emptied, toys upon toys were tossed, colorful blankets and sheets removed from beds, decorations, pencils and coloring tools, papers and scissors, glue…basically any and all craft supplies, GONE.
When we returned home, RG was in his military uniform and accosted us as we came in through the door, pinned us to the wall, and frisked each of us. Backpacks, candy, and everything we had on us were taken. My mother then handed us some grey pajamas and ordered us to march into the bathroom to change.
Terrified, we complied.
The living room seemed so bare.
The piano/recorder was gone, along with the tv…the puzzles and games usually kept in the room were gone from the shelves. The bathroom was no better. Bare except for a bottle of Head and Shoulders and a bar of soap on a string for some reason. It smelled strongly of bleach. We were then sat down on lawn chairs, the couch occupied by my stone-cold mother, as we waited for every child to arrive in silence.
Welcome to the month of nightmares.
We watched as my mother tossed all our clothes into a garbage bag. All toys and art supplies from our backpacks followed, and RG was in uniform and with his scariest expression as my mother went through our new itinerary for life from now on.
Wake up at dawn, physical training in the mornings through the town, led by RG.
Oatmeal with no sugar for breakfast then off to school. Drop off made to the classrooms by RG and pick up the moment the bell goes at the end of the day. Lunch is roast beef sandwiches, barely any mayo, and wilted lettuce. The school has been informed to not give us anything else and to take away anything not given to us by our parents.
Once home we are each assigned a room to clean, our bags taken and checked for contraband. Room clean? Physical training in the back yard, a deflated soccer ball as a toy, nothing else, leave the fenced-in area and you get extra punishment.
No friends, calls, or escape. Dinner was cold peas, corn, beans, and mystery meat. No butter, salt, or ketchup allowed.
‘You don’t take care of your home you don’t deserve your home.
Welcome to prison.’
Homework was done at the table, use of pencils and paper regulated and inventory counted. Bedtime was at 6. Lights out at 7 and the doors locked until morning. The bathroom must be used before bed or you have to go in the pot put in your room. It is up to you to keep it cleaned. We had two sets of PJs we went to school in, all grey, and a set for bed. It was up to us to keep them clean.
Uniform must be maintained, hair must be maintained, our grades must stay high.
No excuses, no exceptions.
By the time a week was up she had broken us. N and A had stayed stubborn but even they broke by the second week. Then the appeals. You want release? Write us an essay on why you think you’re ready to return to society. Then an interview to determine leniency.
My younger sister L and I managed to be allowed outside beyond the yard, it took several days for the others to follow. By the end of the month, we were ready to do anything my mother asked us to.
Then on the same day as last time she and RG came into our rooms and dumped garbage bags upon garbage bags, every book to every lego was in there, marked with our names.
All our stuff was brought back and my mother dumped them all out onto the floor and said ‘when I come back up here whatever is on the floor, goes in the garbage.’
We cleaned that STUFF UP FAST. We never ignored our chores again.”
Another User Comments:
“Wow! You lived in a sitcom episode! The small child in me is weeping and crying about how unfair that sounds!
The adult/parent that I am is cackling about how freaking awesome that is.” rabbittdoggy
6. It's About Time You Know The Truth, No Matter How Much It Hurts You
“Ever since I can remember I have been completely and utterly under the thumb of my father.
All of us have been, us being me, my younger brother, little sister, and my mother. My father is a raging jerk. A male chauvinist, over-the-top macho type of guy. And I’ve always been the victim because I didn’t really fit in with his image of ‘the ideal son.’ I was, for lack of a better word, a bit of a girly boy growing up.
I wanted nothing more than to dance and frolic around in dresses.
When I was four or five, my mother had this big box of dress-up clothes. She brought it down from the attic and I immediately picked out the prettiest, frilliest golden-colored dress I could find. I pranced around in it and declared myself a princess. And that I was now a girl. This went on for a few months, but strictly during the day when my father was away at work.
I watched ballet videos with my mother, a soft-spoken and open-minded woman who worked part-time as a social worker in those days. I was happy. Careless.
My father was and is an authoritarian figure. He had himself legally emancipated at an early age just so he could join the army ahead of time. After three years in the army, he left as a lower-level officer and started a career as a seaman.
He was a captain when he and my mother met and had me. Later he left his naval career and became a traveling salesman. Think Don D****r, if Don D****r was a 6’4″ Western European man with curly greying hair and piercing blue eyes. I’ve always found him incredibly intimidating and I think my mother did too.
Anyway, long story short… he came home early one day.
He saw me in my dress and told me in an icy cold voice, ‘Go and take that off. After you take it off, go sit on the sofa.’
So, I took it off. Little hands trembling. Next, he summoned my mother into the room, and demanded to know, ‘what the heck she had been doing to his boy.’ I’ve never seen a person shrink so much so quickly.
I myself was like a little tiny fly on the wall at this point, barely present.
He took the box with clothes up to the attic. Put a lock on it and informed us that we were not to touch it ‘until my wife gives me a daughter.’ It stayed there in the attic, untouched until my sister was born ten years later.
My father took more of an interest in my upbringing after this point.
He took me to see navy ships, races, made me take a martial art. He seemed determined to ‘make a man out of me’ and in some ways, he succeeded. One thing he allowed me to do was keep my hair long. Knowing I was bullied at school for it and wanted at times to cut it off for that reason. He insisted I kept the long hair, face the bullies, and beat the life out of them every time they called me a girl, to ‘show them how much of a girl I was.’
I did just that. It toughened me up, in some way. But it also damaged me in other ways.
By the time I went to college, I had grown into a pretty normal dude. I wasn’t gay, I wasn’t even a crossdresser although deep down inside I still had those urges. I tried desperately to fit in and be what he wanted me to be but… I also grew more and more resentful.
In college, I made a lot of different friends. Including some guys I met in an acting class we all took. One of them was pretty much your typical ‘flaming and fabulous’ type of guy. He was as over-the-top gay as my father was over-the-top straight. I told him one night when we’re drinking about my upbringing and my terrible father.
And my friend, let’s call him Paul, suggested I should ‘get back at him.’ I asked him how.
Basically, why not pretend like I wasn’t straight? But not just, say it over the phone or something. Or even to my father’s face in person. No, much better… I’d hint for weeks in advance about ‘having met somebody’ and ‘being in a relationship.’ I’d say it was a girl. I would ask if I could bring ‘Paula’ over for dinner. At Christmas. When the whole family would be there.
And I’d arrive at the house with ‘Paul’ instead. So I did exactly that. I went to the house, at Christmas. Dressed to the nines. I told my father and mother that ‘Paula was caught up, she’s about to come. I’ll just open the door.’ So I sat down with my family. Cousins. Uncles, aunts. My grandparents, just as conservative as my father.
Waited a while.
Heard the door and rushed to open it. Walked into the living room where everyone was gathered and introduced Paul. My partner. I’ve never seen a room go so quiet. People literally gasped for air. My sister, brother, and mother looked both scared and amused, but everyone else was in shock, my father seething… he just completely lost it. Right in front of everyone. Veins bulging in his neck to the point where they looked like they were about to pop.
He told me to leave. Ordered me, essentially. My grandparents urged him not to make a scene but he made one.
I just replied calmly how he should do it. Call the police and explain the situation to them. I knew he never would. He knew some of the officers well; it wasn’t a call he would be willing to make and it wasn’t a situation he was willing to explain.
I called his bluff and he just… sank. Like he shrank before my eyes. My mother and grandmother had to calm him down. He walked out of the room, defeated. I just stood there, not believing my own eyes. I finally felt free. He had scared me for so many years, terrified me, and now I could see him for the caricature he really was.
It felt amazing.
Paul and I stayed the whole evening.
He played his part perfectly. He eventually managed to charm some of my aunts and even my grandmother, who told me unironically how she was glad, ‘I found such a delightful man,’ and that he reminded her of her favorite TV character, ‘Mr. Humphreys from “Are You Being Served?” such a doll!’ My father later came back to the room.
Sat in a corner, sulking, refusing to meet my gaze. He drank too much whiskey. My mother kept talking to him in a hushed tone of voice, and he kept making a ‘go away’ gesture with his hand.
I stayed away from home for a while. I’ve already explained to everyone how it had been a prank. How I had to make a point and get back at my father for how he had treated me.
Pretty much everyone sympathized. I didn’t lose anyone in my family over what happened. But my father lost a lot of respect in people’s eyes, I feel. He was always in control of things, he always directed the scene, but now he doesn’t anymore. I do my own thing. My sister does her own thing. He cannot order people around anymore. And I feel like a fool for ever letting him.
I can now wear whatever the heck I want to wear, enjoy whatever hobbies I want to enjoy and nothing changes. He threatened to disinherit me that night. He threatened a lot of things but in the end, something inside him just broke. All of my relationships since have been with women, and I have since married and had children of my own.
My younger brother came out as gay eventually, but by that time, my now aging father had mellowed down somewhat and as he already has grandchildren and his legacy is thus ‘secured,’ he didn’t seem to mind much.
It helps that my brother is a muscular gym rat and that they can bond over sports, more than my father and I ever did. But whenever the subject of s*******y comes up my father is still incredibly awkward. I don’t think it will ever change. But I feel my ‘revenge’ has been pretty successful in the end.”
5. If You Owe Me, I'll Do Everything In My Power To Get It Back
“I met her through a relationship site. I was widowed; she was divorced. When I was growing up, there were hardly any kids I went to school with whose parents had divorced, so there was a kind of stigma attached to it. But, I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
She didn’t get on with her ex (by whom she had 2 daughters).
They’d separated after about 3 years of marriage. The eldest saw her father occasionally; the youngest (born about 12 months before the separation) didn’t really remember him despite seeing him when her older sister visited. She and her 3 daughters (the youngest from a new relationship) moved in with me and my son 8 months later (we were engaged by this point).
One night, her eldest daughter left her mobile lying around.
I know I shouldn’t have, but I saw a text which came from her father. It said, “I’ll give it 6 months before she’s got his house” (my mortgage had been paid for 10 years previously when my first wife died). I told my ex about it, and we laughed. We married 12 months to the day we met.
We also laughed a few times more about that text, and on our 6-month anniversary, I said, “Shouldn’t you have my house by now?” and we laughed again.
Less than 6 months later, she left me, and after some snooping around, after she’d moved out (but before collecting her stuff before moving into a new house), I found a few things out.
I didn’t realise just how much debt we (I) were (was) in. She’d been an undischarged bankrupt when we met (I knew about it), so all finances were in my name (although, she was an authorised user, and had a bank card to my account).
I discovered I was $35,000 in debt. I had to juggle my finances pretty quickly to appease those who I had to pay on a regular basis to allow me to stay in my home (gas, electric, water, council etc) and to those who I paid that I could do without (white goods insurance, magazine subscription, etc.) I cancelled.
Whilst going through her stuff that she’d left behind in her haste to get out, I found a few interesting pieces of info.
3 days before she was due to move in with me, she was due to attend court to answer a summons that she’d not paid her council tax for the whole of the 12 months before we met. She’d also told her council that her eldest daughter had “moved out” on the day of her 18th birthday despite the fact that she hadn’t (there was a 25% reduction for single adult occupancy).
Her middle daughter also “moved out” on her 18th birthday (she hadn’t) just after we met. She also hadn’t paid her water rates for the previous 12 months. I was beginning to understand just what kind of person she’d been.
She didn’t change her email password (which she’d told me), so for quite some time, I was checking her mail. I didn’t act on any of it; I just read it.
She hadn’t told me why she left, so I was hoping to find some evidence of an affair. There was nobody else (and I know that to be true 7 years later), but what I did discover is that she’d been applying for credit cards with higher-than-normal interest rates (aimed at those who had poor credit ratings because of, amongst other things, bankruptcy) and also payday loans.
One day, my home phone rang. I answered and it was a robotic voice. “This is a call for X. If you are that person, press 1.” I couldn’t work out what “metallic name” was saying, but if you’re calling me, I want to know who you are, so I pressed 1. A moment later, a human voice came on the line and said, “Is X there?” I said, “No, she wasn’t.
She’d walked out on me and obviously not bothered to inform you. She also hadn’t told you that we were married and that she now had a new surname.” “Ah, no bother, we have other numbers for her.” I said that if any of those numbers began (and gave him the dialling code for her previous address) or end with (and gave him the last 3 digits of her mobile number), then there was no point in dialling them as they were no longer valid.
You could hear the disappointment in his voice.
“But I can give you her current home address if you like?” I said, and his voice changed to a level that it might be if he’d won the lottery. “Oh, that’d be great!” he said, so I gave him her new address. A couple of days later, she sent an email to the company saying, “You’ve written to me in my previous name, but I have no idea what it’s about,” so I knew I’d hit the jackpot (searching the company name/phone number, I discovered they were a debt collection agency).
Time to twist that knife further.
I phoned her old council and told them that she’d been not attending court when she was supposed to as she’d moved in with me (and the reason she’d given to her council for giving up her tenancy was “problems with neighbours,” not “moving in with fiancé”), and told them that she’d been claiming single-adult occupancy when she wasn’t supposed to and gave them her current address.
Her eldest daughter had moved out of our house and moved in with her father some 9 months before her mother moved out, and I suspected that he wouldn’t have told the council that she’d moved in (he was living alone and claiming single-adult occupancy) and gave them his address (I’d dropped her daughter off there a few times before she moved out).
The council thanked me for that.
I then phoned our own council and told them that she was more than likely claiming single-adult occupancy with them. They asked why I thought that. I told them that I’d found some info online that suggested that and that she also had the previous form, so it was a fair bet she was doing it now. A few months later, while searching online, I found that miraculously, her two eldest daughters were “living” with her.
Whether they were or not, I didn’t care. She was now paying what she was supposed to.
I also phoned the water people and told them about her unpaid bill and gave them her new address. They promised to investigate too. I estimated that within 6 months of moving out, she’d managed to accrue somewhere in the region of another £10k of debt that she’d somehow manage to be able to talk her way out of.
We’d also been claiming benefits as a couple (that we were entitled to) that had been previously paid individually to us. When she moved out, I had to claim as a single parent again (and so did she), but we were left with an overpayment. Due to the inefficiencies of the staff in the department dealing with the benefit, it took me nearly 3 years, with the help of my MP (who is someone I consider a friend, having worked with him 20 years previously), and the Ombudsman to be paid what I was rightfully owed. Trouble was, the way the claim was worked out, she was also entitled to something too.
I knew she’d lied on the claim for the benefit too, and when the Ombudsman phoned me to tell me that the department had finally admitted they’d screwed up, he told me what I was owed, but the bad news was that she was owed more than me! I said that I didn’t consider that fair and that I thought she’d lied in the first place.
He said that he couldn’t discuss her circumstances with me, but the way he said it, I knew that I was right in my thoughts.
He confirmed it although he shouldn’t, so I asked why she was getting what she wasn’t entitled to, and that I’d fought for (and she hadn’t). He said that although she was legally entitled to it, the fact that she had a bigger overpayment than what she was due (that needed to be paid back) meant that she wouldn’t see a penny.
It’d be deducted from what she owed.
I said that the system should have detected when she made her new claim but had obviously missed it. He said I was right and that the department had now taken steps, based on my dogged determination to prove I was right and that they were wrong, to make changes to the system to prevent it from happening again.
So one small guy caused the government to make a sweeping change. Did I feel good about it? You bet I did.
I think I can safely say that I got the revenge (and justice) that I was owed. And she learned that you DMWAPUYWTBSB (don’t mess with a person unless you want to be screwed back). If you owe me, I will do everything in my power (without the need to involve solicitors) to get it back.”
4. Get Me Fired For "Stealing?" One Day, You'll Get Fired, And I'll Be Interviewing You For Your Potential New Job
“So I worked for Company A for almost a decade that had a small team consisting of ten people, doing commissioned work for businesses in my city. The owner treated us like family, knowing that we worked long and hard days, sometimes up to 60 hours in a week. He paid us better than expected, bonuses and perks, he negotiated with businesses that commissioned our work, even gave the whole company a week off paid when his son was getting married so we could attend it.
We had our squabbles like any other family, and things weren’t always bright and perfect, but this is to show how nice the Owner treated his employees. And didn’t screw me over.
After working there for years, the manager position came open. By then I was one of the most senior workers with Company A, so I thought I would apply, which had a few others interested as well.
I didn’t get the position, mainly because, despite my experience at Company A, I didn’t have a Business Administration degree. Someone who worked for the Owner did, so he got it. Realizing the education I would have to get, and the demand of this job, I thought long and hard and concluded that, if I wanted to go anywhere in life, I would have to get that degree.
Coming right out of high school to work for Company A was great, but if I wanted to do something more I would have to go to university. I talked to the Owner and gave my two weeks notice. When I explained what I wanted to do and why he understood that I was trying to make something of myself. This all becomes relevant later.
Going to university, I found that I had tuition covered through government grants but not things like food, rent, etc. So I looked around and eventually found work at Company B. Company B was a retail store, with a bigger staff than I had been used to, somewhere around 50 employees but had such a huge employee turnaround that it was scary at times.
They dealt with a wide arrangement of goods from groceries to very expensive items. They had a certain niche clientele that they could order items for and catered to.
I ended up working part-time in their warehouse and answered to the Warehouse Supervisor, who answered to the Manager. There were other supervisors for other parts of the store, but for this only the Sales Supervisor is relevant.
Skip forward seven years. In that time I got my BA degree and worked at Company B the whole time, going from part-time to full, and eventually applied for the Warehouse Supervisor position.
I was interviewed, got the job, been a supervisor for months when the Manager and I hired K as a warehouse clerk.
K isn’t the one to get the revenge, but she played a crucial part in the revenge.
Then B gets hired.
B started out as a cashier, working quickly up the chain and brown-nosing as many co-workers as possible, including the Manager.
When a sales rep went on maternity leave, B quickly jumped at the chance to work in sales and ended up permanently being a part of that team then the Sales Supervisor soon after.
B and I got along like oil and water. We butted heads over things constantly; she would tell the Manager all the small things that I did, but called me a snitch when I reported the issues she was causing.
She would badmouth me and my warehouse staff, talk over me at meetings and try to take credit for my ideas.
She openly told co-workers that I was the cause of many issues and couldn’t wait for me to leave. Oh, and she was NEVER at fault. It would be the customer’s fault, my fault, the delivery driver’s fault, another co-workers fault, etc. There were times when we got together well, but far and few between.
So one day, a very, and I mean VERY, expensive ring set (over $5,000 I found out later), ordered by one of our customers, comes in. Years ago, I set up a procedure for any type of jewelry so that it will not get lost or stolen. The last step is, once we have done everything with it in the warehouse, we take it to the office and have someone put it in the safe immediately.
This particular time, I was the one who received the rings so, once going through the procedure, I told K that I was taking them to the office. The only one available who had the combination to the safe was B. I asked her if she could open the safe, she looked at me, looked at the jewelry box in my hand, then said, ‘put it down here on my desk, I’ll put it away once I’m done this email.’ Keep in mind that B and I had had a serious spat over something earlier that day, and I generally didn’t feel like being close to her if I could help it.
So I never saw her put it in the safe myself.
The next day, I get a call from the Manager to come to the office. I head there to find Manager, B, and the HR consultant. Manager tells me that said ring set has disappeared. I tell them the procedure I followed and the last I saw them was with B. Manager tells me that B checked the box and that said box was empty.
Manager then pulls the box out. Sure enough, the box the rings were in was indeed empty. I swear to Manager that the rings were inside when I checked them before being given to B. At this point, it’s my word against hers. By a stroke of bad luck, the in-store video recorder had broken down days before the incident so there was no way to verify what happened.
We all know someone has to take the blame for this, and that’s when B strikes, saying that it was my fault, since it was last seen in my hands. Manager asks if this is true, then I realize that, yes, I was indeed the last person to touch the thing, and I never actually saw B pick up the box. B gives me the look that screamed ‘Gotcha!’ Manager and the HR consultant ask us both to leave.
After what seemed like forever, I get called in. Manager tells me that, since I was responsible for the rings at the time and now are lost, they would be firing me. But, since they had no proof as to whether I stole the rings or not, they wouldn’t press charges (which scared the life out of me as this was the first time I heard of them thinking this).
I went back to the warehouse, told K and the other warehouse clerks just what happened, grabbed my personal belongings, and left that day.
After a couple of weeks of trying to get my head around what happened and weighing my options, I decide my first priority is to try to get some sort of job, and consider it lucky if I get a job flipping burgers with the bad rep I’ll get when they ask Company B about my previous work history.
I call the Owner of Company A to get a good reference from them and explain what happened and why I was calling, only to get the shock of a lifetime. The manager position was about to be open; the guy to who I lost the position was retiring soon, due to complicated health reasons.
Owner had kept tabs on me while at university and understood when I didn’t immediately come back to him, but with a golden opportunity like this, he wanted me back and I wasn’t going to say no.
I dive into the new job I originally wanted with an Owner I enjoyed working for. I thought, then and there, everything would be behind me, not knowing it would come back, not to bite me, but to pay dividends.
This I found out later. After I was fired, K knew she had to do something about B. K knew that I wouldn’t lose or steal something like the rings.
But also knew that, without proof, B would deny that she did it and have K in her cross-hairs to attack next.
So, after talking with her husband, she hatched a plan.
She started hanging out with B telling her things like ‘I’m SO glad he’s gone!’ or ‘Wish he had been fired MUCH earlier!’ B, feeling high from getting rid of one of her thorns in her side, soaked it all in, and after a couple of weeks, invited K and K’s Husband (from now on KH) for drinks at her place with her and B’s Husband (BH).
Months pass, K and KH do things regularly together with B and BH, including drinking on weekends and couple-related events. When together, K would occasionally bad-mouth me, and B would agree. Finally, after over a year of playing nice, when K and KH were over at B’s for one of their drinking parties, K randomly bad-mouthed me, mentioning the rings in passing.
Then B says something that K was waiting for: ‘I wanted those rings, so I stole them.’
K, upon hearing this, asks for more details. KH looks at her, tries to wave her off with one hand, then gives up when B keeps talking. That day, B had stopped writing her email and was going to put the rings in the safe. The safe was open and she was about to put the rings away when B had an idea. See, as mentioned above, B wanted me gone from Company B.
She also wanted those rings. She also knew that the cameras weren’t working. She figured that she could pocket the rings, tell the Manager they were missing, and spin it so I would take the blame.
K then asks where are the rings now, and B being too wasted and not seeing a reason not to brag, not only tells her but shows her where they are in her room.
All while KH had been RECORDING THE WHOLE CONVERSATION on his phone (the hand waving was him saying he started recording).
K gives a copy of the recording to Manager the next workday. Police are called immediately, B is arrested and her house is raided. They find the rings. K and KH give the recording and testimonies to the police. B’s reckoning has begun.
I eventually get a call from the prosecutor’s office after B is arrested and charged with theft of over $5,000, among other things. He wants me to testify about what she did to me.
I didn’t skip a beat in saying yes. Fast track to the trial, the prosecutor has me, K, and KH testify and plays the recording of B admitting that she stole them.
Her attorney tries to throw out the case saying that K got B deliberately intoxicated, but the judge didn’t buy it since there was proof she drank all the time. The judge was lenient and gave her five years in prison, which she yelled was unfair, but I personally thought she got off easy.
Meanwhile, as the trial was happening, I was talking with a lawyer to sue B for setting me up like she did.
We were also going to sue Company B for wrongful termination, but they settled the day they got notice of the lawsuit and knew they would lose.
B wasn’t so lucky. They tried some trickery by having BH divorce her and he received everything in the divorce, but my lawyer added him into the lawsuit as well. My lawyer asked overall for $3,500 for emotional distress, back pay from when I was fired until I started up with Company A again, and legal fees.
And now, you are wondering where the metaphoric cherry is on this story? Well, years after all this, we had someone leave Company A, so we were hiring someone to replace them. The owner was going over the resumes and set up interviews for the job this week. Lo and behold, B was one of the people to apply, but he didn’t know that.
I looked at the resume, was about to trash it, but then smiled.
Owner set up the interview. She came in at her slotted time, looking to brown-nose her way through. Then she saw me. I smiled an evil smile, she went white. All I said was, ‘Ah, B how are you? Remember me?’ A deer in the headlight look from her. I look at her resume and say ‘I’m sorry, I do not think you will be a good fit for our company.
Thank you for applying.’”
Another User Comments:
“One thing that nettles me… “Judge was lenient and gave her five years in prison”…for $5000? Holy, seems unduly harsh… Is this a normal sentence, anyone?” Donkeyvanillabean
3. Fired For No Reason? I Already Accepted Another Job Offer
“I had taken over running a small development team of 9 for a relatively big company.
We were there for basic, quick little bits of software that wouldn’t make sense to outsource (web apps that quiz employees on policy, fancy interactive projects to show off at conferences, or just an extra pretty PowerPoint, etc).
The guy I took over from ran the team like we lived in the 1980s, so I brought us into the modern age, and surprise surprise, within a few weeks our team was finishing projects left, right, and center.
Everything was going great, my coworkers could take smoke breaks and listen to music, our internal clients were kept up to date with their projects and my boss thought I was some kind of software prodigy as productivity had gone through the roof. Honestly, this was more indicative of how bad it was before rather than anything I did.
Then comes Richard. Now you know Richard, you probably have a Richard at your office.
They’ve been there too long to fire and delight in slapping people in the face with their seniority, regardless of whether or not they have anything to do with you.
First, he sends us a project and marks it Critical, as in ‘Everyone stop what you’re doing now this needs to be done yesterday.’ I politely send him a message and ask him if I can move it down to medium priority as there was little to no time limit and we had other projects to deal with.
He replies, ‘No, it needs to be done now. Get to it.’ I’d like to remind everyone that he is not my boss and has no authority over me or my team.
So I CC my boss and the other department heads who we had projects for at the time. ‘Hi all, hope you’re enjoying your day. Richard has asked me to work on this project for his department, however, he wants it to be done now which would delay your projects.
Would that be ok with everyone?’ Turns out that’s a no and I downgrade his project.
A week or two later I check our task management software system and notice Shia (fantastic programmer, great person) was falling a bit behind. I go to ask her what’s up and she looks like she’s about to have a panic attack.
I ask her what’s wrong and it turns out Richard had threatened TO FIRE HER if she didn’t start working on his project immediately.
I calm her down, let her take a break, tell her to start working on her regular projects, and to send Richard to me if he gets uppity. I then fire off an email to Richard and my boss reminding him that:
1. Any threats of termination need to go through me and HR first
2. Who works on what projects and when is determined by our schedule and myself
3. If a project’s deadline is moved up I should be informed directly not via my team
Turns out Richard is infamous for making threats like this but because nobody took them seriously, I was the first to remind him he had no authority over other departments.
I didn’t find out until later, but apparently, he had a meltdown at the boss about how incredibly disrespectful I was.
He tried to file a formal complaint but it was rejected because doing my job properly isn’t actually a problem. Who knew?
Around this time, I accepted a better job and was going to put in my notice. But I wanted to wait until after our latest project (let’s call it the Ninja Report) was done as it was a big deal for my team.
This Ninja report was part of a presentation by a company big wig (boss’ boss’ boss) and was marked critical so all of us were working hard to make sure we did a good job and got it in on time.
Now finally we get to the revenge part.
I’m plugging in a switch under the desk when someone taps me hard on the shoulder, ‘Just a minute mate,’ I say.
I stand up and stare directly into the red face of Richard, erect with fury and ready to expel his rage all over the office. ‘I’M NOT YOUR MATE, YOU NEED TO LEARN YOUR PLACE IN THIS COMPANY BLAH BLAH BLAH.’ As this grown man is screaming at me in full view of my team it suddenly dawns on me that I get severance, have another job lined up, and really have no reason to deal with this.
‘I WANT MY PROJECT DONE NOW!!!!!’ he continues to yell. Now I could’ve told him about the Ninja Report, I could’ve said a lot of things but I just smiled, looked him in the eyes, and said, ‘As long as I’m working here the schedule isn’t changing.’ Predictably Richard responds, ‘THEN YOU’RE FIRED.’ I grab my things and leave. As I’m leaving, one of my team comes up looking like a deer in the headlights and asks what they should do.
Easy, ‘First I want everyone except you to stop working on the Ninja Report, second at the end of the day send an email to the boss and the bigwig, let them know what happened, and explain that the Ninja Report is going to be a week late. See you all for drinks on Friday!’
I wake up bleary-eyed the next day to a call.
Me: ‘Hello?’
Boss: ‘Hi look I’m sorry about what Richard said. He doesn’t actually have the authority to fire you and the Ninja Report can’t be late, we need to fix this!’
Me: ‘Ohh I’m sorry I’ve actually accepted another job, but don’t worry I figured this would happen. I asked one of my team to work on it privately.
If they start working on the Ninja Report again should be able to get it done on time.’
My boss tries to get me to come back but I made it clear that wasn’t going to happen.
Recommended one of my team take my job and thank him for the opportunity. He’s pretty cool about it, confirms I’ll be getting a severance, and tells me I can use him as a reference.
Friday drinks roll around and we have a lot to celebrate. The Ninja Report was done on time and given everything that happened, it made my team look great. I got a new job, my teammate got a promotion and the big wig was really eager to learn why his subordinate’s subordinate’s subordinate fired the lead of the team he picked himself and nearly tanked the project.
I’m proud to report that the office is now 100% Richard-free.”
2. She Learned The Hard Way To Stop Stealing Food
“At college, I shared a three-bedroom house with two other people, who over time, were not always the same two. One housemate was a female (I’m a guy) who I’ll call Beau. She was a spoiled, little rich girl but seemed pretty nice most of the time. We had two refrigerators in the kitchen, one large one that was originally in the house and we all had shared, and a small older one that a friend gave me before he moved away, which became exclusively for my use while my space in the larger fridge then became available to the other housemates.
Win-win.
Even though the house was in a nice neighborhood just across the street from the backside of the University President’s mansion, it was pretty woodsy, and we did occasionally have a rat problem with them getting into the house, which I solved with rat traps. The regular kind that looked like large mousetraps. One time I caught two rats simultaneously in one trap which seemed so unusual that I wanted to show them to my other two housemates, but Beau was so horrified and disgusted that she refused to even look at them and ran from the room to be away from two dead rats hanging from the trap I was holding out.
Hers was not any kind of aversion on the basis of thinking it was animal cruelty or anything like that; this was before PETA, and while I was already a vegetarian mainly for those kinds of reasons, it would still be a few years before I would even meet another vegetarian, so that’s how far back we’re talking, mid to late ’70s. I didn’t enjoy killing the rats, but there was no other effective way of dealing with them, so I did what I had to do.
Beau was just a squeamish little drama queen who felt she had to make a big show about how disgusted she was by the thought of being anywhere near a dead rat.
Fast forward a few weeks or months, I don’t remember exactly, and I eventually became aware that Beau was stealing my food! We didn’t normally share food in the house but each bought and made our own.
If she had asked nicely, I’d have readily shared with her, or if she was obviously starving, I’d have offered, but like I said, she was a spoiled, little rich girl with plenty of means to get her own food (which she did), and she never once asked for any of mine.
One time, I remember I had just made a plate of steamed fresh vegetables with melted cheese and soy sauce on it (yum), and out of the corner of my eye, I watched Beau stab a nice cheesy Brussel sprout off my plate with a fork and pop it into her mouth.
She didn’t realize I had seen her do that, but for the next few minutes, I gained some delightful schadenfreude at her expense by talking to her while looking right at her, and she had a very difficult time trying to reply meaningfully with a whole Brussel sprout still in her mouth. I knew what she’d done, and it was kind of trivial, so I didn’t blow up about it or anything like that, but that incident alerted me to how stealing my food was kind of a game to Beau, like she thought I was stupid compared to her cleverness and that I would never figure her out.
She kinda had that kind of personality, and even though she had plenty of her own food, I guess she enjoyed getting into mine. I used to buy some pretty nice cheeses, so maybe that was a big draw for her.
So I started having to pay better attention to my food and marking containers and things like that when I caught on that Beau had been the sort of person who’d steal from the woman housemates.
In no time, I started to notice telltale indications that she had gone through my refrigerator while I happened to not be at the residence, using little nibbles and shavings from everything she could. The cheese especially ended up being obvious that she’d slashed pieces off because she’d take action in sloppy methods I never ever would. I was thinking about placing a padlock to my fridge but thought which was not something I should ever before have to do, and I didn’t desire to raise the concern to an eventual conflict with Beau, preferring to stay on otherwise great terms together.
If I’m gonna wreck a relationship with someone we share a house with, it offers a bigger problem.
After that one day, we got even more rats in the home (it will be a while before I would personally find out their particular entry hole behind the top refrigerator, searching just like the upside-down U you notice in old comic strips), and I caught one in a rat pitfall once I had been truly the only person home.
Out of the blue determination stumbled on me, and I covered the dead rat inside the tiniest bit of aluminum foil that could just barely protect him up in a single level, with only maybe 1/8″ of overlapping seam at most. I quickly put that installation into a tiny plastic baggie with a rubber musical organization around it, with one hair beneath the rubber band thus I could easily tell if my little dead rat bundle was established.
You are able to most likely tell where this story is going, but I’ll finish it anyway, and I also didn’t also require the tresses to inform myself the bundle was exposed. It was just the 2nd day once I had left it on the bottom rack of my icebox that I arrived home from college and saw that the aluminum foil ended up being all crinkled up and the baggie wasn’t covered efficiently around it anymore.
We only wish I could be a fly on the wall seeing Beau gagging in revulsion and suppressing the desire to barf as she rewrapped the bundle, specifically as it required many dealing with to get the skimpy little bit of aluminum foil to cover up the dead rat totally.
Even after all these years I, however, get a belly laugh occasionally when I take into account the vexation degree my thieving meals mooch housemate must-have skilled, oh she was such the entitled little princess!
For some time afterward, I’d place secret detective tresses underneath the gasket of my refrigerator before going to college each day, but it was never disrupted, and my mozzarella cheese never got sliced on in funny techniques again often, so I knew Beau learned her lesson and stayed away from my icebox. She never ever mentioned anything about the events and neither did I, and she quietly found another spot to live at within two months.
It was great to see the girl go.”
1. Agree To Go Out With Me, Only To Find Someone Else? Hope You Like All The Texts Coming Your Way
People who lead others on are the worst.
“It was my sophomore year of high school, and I was overrun with puberty and hormones, you know the worst things ever, and I thought it would be a good idea to go out of my comfort zone and ask out a boy a year younger than me. My best friend had been seeing a guy who could drive us to see a scary movie (it was The Woman in Black, which was actually really scary), and I invited this boy to come along.
He readily agreed and I looked forward to the upcoming weekend because I couldn’t believe someone actually wanted to go OUT with me.
The day of the movie, I got ready with my best friend, and we giggled and gossiped about all of the future outings we would go on!
My friend’s man pulled up with my man, and we drove to the movies. Everything was going great, my guy and I laughed and got along really well.
We watched the movie, and the boy grabbed my hand during a scary part, and I was floored.
After the movie, we goofed off in the car, and I made a move and kissed the boy on the cheek.
And that’s when it changed.
My guy went quiet and started to withdraw. When we stopped at a restaurant, he pulled my friend’s dude aside, and they talked for a few minutes.
My man came back and pulled me aside.
“I asked out (name redacted) yesterday, and she is my girl. I just thought I would tell you. We can be friends, though?”
This really set me off. I called my mom, and she came and picked me up.
I was SO angry and hurt. I thought for so long about it, and one day, I just…
snapped.
I went on an online anonymous chatting site, and I started engaging with many users. I would pretend to be someone else, and I would ask them if they wanted to text dirty. They always did. So I told them to message me with pictures first because I wanted to see… you know? But the catch was, I wouldn’t give them my number. I would give them that boy’s phone number.
And I did that over and over again.
When we met again for the summer (it was band camp), the boy was talking about how he had received an obscene amount of dirty pictures, to the point where he called the police. But they could never do anything about it because it was from different phone numbers each time.
I heard this, and since we were friends, I got his new phone number, waited two months, and then I did it again for a month.
Be a jerk? Get some dirty pics.”
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