People Put Their Greatest Revenge Story On Blast
21. Force Me To Quit? I'll Destroy Your Gas Station Chain
“At one point in my life, I found myself bored. I needed spending cash, but at the same time, like any typical college student, I needed a job that would work around my class hours. Enter C-Corp (not the real name). C-Corp was a locally owned chain of gas stations in the south-eastern part of Georgia and parts of Florida. I forget the total number of stations, but it was under 50, if that matters.
I applied and was given a simple clerking position, where I would work weekends and two nights a week. For a total of about 32 hours a week, on average (sometimes more, sometimes less).
I worked there for about a year when I was offered a position to help re-open a store (renovated after a fire), with the promotion to assistant manager. My hours were going to obviously change, but by the same token, I gained better pay and a new day shift which would help things out.
To be quite honest, I even debated taking some time off from school to concentrate on the job, as it was entirely possible I would be promoted to manager of my own store before long. There were veiled hints and suggestions of that very thing happening in a few months as it were. I never got that far, but I’m getting ahead of myself here.
It didn’t take long for me to start noticing some issues with the store, and the company as a whole. Issues which I did my level best to correct. We were nearing hunting season (turkey and then deer), and in an effort to cater to this, the stores started getting in several pallets of ammunition. So, now we had to figure out how to display the various types of shotgun shells, and rifle bullets, while also doing our level best to ensure things didn’t get in the way.
It was around this time that I found myself speaking with the store manager, having been ‘called on the carpet’ (as the saying goes) for refusing to sell ammunition to a customer. I explained to the manager that I had attempted to check ID on the customer, who refused to give it. So, I told the manager that I knew full well this was illegal, as ID was required by state law, and furthermore, you had to be 18 to buy them.
That started me on the path that would lead to my termination a few weeks later.
I started noticing company memos popping up in the office, all that dealt with ‘company’ practices regarding ammunition. One even went so far as to say that it was a terminable offense to refuse a sale of shotgun shells to a customer, regardless of age. That one actually vanished a few days after it went up, with me suspecting someone in the legal department realized the trouble they could get into with it.
However, the flow of ammo didn’t stop.
A week before my termination, things got worse. The state in question has the lottery, of which the lion’s share is ‘scratch off’ tickets. You know the type, pay a buck scratch off and hope you win something. Now, the lottery states on the back of every single ticket, that the retailer who sold it must pay up to 599 dollars in winnings.
Anything above that has to be claimed at the central lottery office in the state’s capital. Retailers are warned, that should they refuse to pay this (there are instructions on how to do this with a order), then they can be fined by the lottery commission, or worse. Imagine my surprise then when I’m written up for following the lottery commission policy and paying out on a 300 dollar win for a customer.
I was told, point-blank, that company policy was not to pay out anything more than 100 dollars. Regardless of what the lottery commission said.
The final straw, before my eventual termination (though, honestly, I quit; they still listed me as terminated) came when training another cashier. The very next day, the count came up short by exactly 100 dollars. I refused to sign the write-up, which meant the company would HAVE to investigate it, or so I thought.
The same day, the district manager called the store and made some veiled threats about calling the police over this, and left me with the note that, “If the count comes up 100 dollars over today… he won’t say anything.” Oh heck no he didn’t. I waited till the manager returned from her meeting, dropped all my keys on the counter, and told her directly, “I’m done.” I walked out and didn’t really look back.
I was angry. Angry at the treatment I’d been given over my time working there, mad at being called a thief, angry at what I knew the company was doing to my little community… and angry that as far as I could tell, they’d get away with it. That’s when I hatched a plan of revenge.
First and foremost, I needed to talk with a friend.
One of my college buddies also worked for the county sheriff’s office. So I plied him over with some good BBQ and a few beers, and then asked him, “hypothetically speaking” what would happen to a company if it was found they were doing something illegal. Like, oh, selling ammunition when they shouldn’t be, or something like that. He knew I’d recently left C-Corp, and the circumstances of why I left, so it didn’t take long for him to ask just what was going on.
So I spilled the beans, even including the reported ‘theft’ I had been accused of. He was on the edge of his seat, even going so far as to note that the district manager’s actions itself was illegal, and told me to come to meet with my friend’s boss the next day to give a statement.
So I did just that. I laid out everything, told about the memo about not refusing sales (against state law), and then gave detailed information about the DM’s call, the incident itself, and other things I had witnessed regarding illegal practices by the company, though not mentioned here.
It took the better part of four hours to get everything told and typed out. By the way, the detective acted, I got the impression I had either given him one of a caseload or broken some case right open. Fun fun. However, I wasn’t really done yet. I had one more call to make. That one would prove pretty simple and short, and involved me calling the lottery commission and telling them about the company’s policy which went against the lottery agreement.
I was assured they’d look into things, and that my information would be kept secret. I just had to sit back and wait.
Two or three weeks later, our local paper ran a story on the front page, talking about a multiple department sting that happened in our area. The sting was investigating illegal sales of weapons, adult drinks, and ammunition to minors. In that raid, C-Corp had been hit hard, with several of their stores being shut, and several managers and district managers being arrested on various charges tied to this illegal activity.
The company itself was facing SEVERE (in the 7 figure range) fines from the state, and it was being called into question whether or not they had the proper licenses to sell ammunition and firearms in the first place. The only mention about what the DM had said to me, came in the form of one of the investigating officers noting that the company had resorted to blackmailing in an attempt to silence anyone who dared question the company policies or practices.
The stores did remain open, but you could tell that the managers were seriously nervous about what the future held. Sales of ammunition and guns stopped completely, and overnight though.
About a week after the raid by the police, lottery tickets of all kinds simply vanished from the stores. Big signs out front simply read “We do not sell Lotto.” The validation machines were gone, the scratch-off ticket areas lay empty.
The lottery was not in the building. I can only guess what happened in that case, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the lottery commission sent people in with winning tickets only to have those people turned away. The fact that they lost their lottery sales, would point to it being a serious issue at the very least, that or the lottery commission decided to distance themselves from the company which was already under federal investigation.
Yes, the ammunition and guns thing… went federal.
Ultimately, the company was a shell of its former self. About half the gas stations ended up closing due to no longer being profitable, and what stations didn’t close were just shells of their former selves. The company eventually declared bankruptcy after a final scandal brought them another round of state and federal fines. In that case, they were busted for price-gouging after raising the gas price per gallon to about 6 dollars a gallon in cities where they had no other competition.
This happening just prior to a pending tropical storm.
Today:
It’s been close to fifteen years since this all went down. C-Corp doesn’t exist any longer. After declaring bankruptcy, most of the stores were sold off to a competitor, who ended up closing all but five or six of the stores due to redundancies. A whole host of, honestly, innocent people ended up out of work simply because the store decided to over one guy who wanted to do the right thing by the law, and state policies.
Several of the corporate staff were given 2 and 3 year suspended sentences, while others ended up paying personal fines on top of what the company was facing. The company has become something of a warning to others, about what not to do when an employee voices a concern; and above and beyond that, why it’s a good idea to follow the letter of the law exactly as it’s written; regardless of if it hinders your bottom line, or not.
I sometimes think back on the whole affair and wonder, just what they hoped to achieve with that blackmail attempt. Some part of me thinks that the DM honestly thought it was the best option and may have even been trying to help out an employee he liked. That was something that always bugs me, looking back. Every interaction I had with the guy was a good one.
Right up to him grooming me to be another store manager. So maybe he was trying to protect me. Then again, he could have just been the I assumed, and that was him showing his true colors. I guess we’ll never know. He moved out of the area a few years later, and I sure as wasn’t about to talk to him again. Not after everything that had happened.
So that’s how I destroyed an entire gas station chain.”
20. That's What You Get For Undervaluing A Great Employee
“Back in 2010, I got a job working for a company that has an unofficial food item where you put one dollar menu sandwich into another. I worked there for a year and a half. During that time, I learned everything. I could open, close, work the grill (very well), and work front counter and drive through as well, if not better, than most who worked there on a consistent basis.
I’d been promised a review when I was hired that was to take place after six months of being there. Being the kind of employee that wants to move up in the company, I never pushed the issue, but instead kept pushing to learn everything I could so that when I did get my review, I would get a good one. In my time there, I called off once, because I was recovering from emergency surgery to get rid of a pilonidal cyst that had ruptured. On the same token, I was always the first to volunteer to pick up a shift if it didn’t interfere with my college classes.
After being there a year and a half, they announced everyone would be getting a review. My general manager came to me and told me the time she wanted to schedule me for my raise. I told her, at that time, that I would be needing a quarter raise (ten dollars a week) in order to make it, so I could sustain working there while going to college, and she said she understood.
When my review came, I was floored.
Despite all of the work I had put in and the energy I had poured into my job hoping to reach management while going to college, she assessed me as a ‘meets expectations’ employee. I don’t mean to sound cocky, but I knew my own value as an employee. I knew more than the exceeded expectations of an employee of that company, and I said as much.
She tried to claim it was based on the consensus of the other managers, but I knew myself to be a favorite employee of every manager but her. She then told me that she would be giving me a fifteen-cent raise. I told her I had requested a quarter, and she said that fifteen cents was the best she could do.
The wheels turned in my head, and I knew I was undervalued by her, and I would never have a chance to move up, so I told her I would be putting in my two-week notice.
She looked at me as if I had slapped her, and said, “You’re leaving over ten cents?!?!” I looked her right in the eyes as I said, “No, you’re losing a fully cross-trained employee who loves her job over ten cents.” I then stood up and walked out to my car.
I did write out a two-week notice and immediately began looking for work. During my search, when she worked with me, she’d frequently tell me how someone of my experience couldn’t hope to get a job making the $8 I’d requested of them.
Well, I did, and then some. I applied to a gas station that was obsessed with the letter ‘Z’ on the east coast and was to work in their kitchen overnight. I’d be making $12 an hour if I got the job. I called literally every day until I got an interview. I had my interview the night of my last call and was given the job on the spot.
With 5 days left on my notice, I informed her that I had gotten a job, where I’d gotten it, and how much I’d be making. If looks could kill, I’d have never been able to start at my other job because of the dirt I’d be buried under.
To get back at me, she wanted the one thing I treasured most. As an employee working for that company, they’d give you pins you could put on your hat to show your accomplishments.
In a year and a half, I’d earned over thirty pins. I was proud of them and considered them a collection. She told me that after my last shift, I’d have to return my uniforms… and all of my pins. I claimed the pins were mine, as payment for things I had done, but she told me she would make sure I’d be docked the cost of the pins out of my last paycheck if I didn’t return them.
She did it. Despite everything I’d worked for to turn this in my favor, she got under my skin. So I decided to get her back. Not wanting to completely burn a bridge, I came up with an idea, an idea I can confidently say was my own, but had been done before on some shows I’d never seen at the time. I decided to suspend them in jello.
The night before my last shift, I cooked up a large bowl of jello. Before putting it in the fridge, I tied strings around my pins and suspended them at various points throughout the bowl by taping the string ends to the outside of the bowl. I let it cool overnight.
After I finished my last shift, I told my manager I was running home to get my uniforms and pins.
I returned half an hour later with my jello overturned onto a plate (I’ll always miss you, plate!), then I put the uniforms on the floor next to her desk, and looking her dead in the eye, placed the jello on her desk, and said, “Here are your pins.” I walked out without waiting for her response and decided never to go there again. My roommate, who also worked there, told me that it was all her coworkers could talk about all day.
I was at least able to take some satisfaction in the fact that maybe I would inspire some other shenanigans from my coworkers if they, too, decided that company was not for them.
As a reminder, people don’t quit bad jobs; they quit bad managers.”
19. Steal Other People's Food At Work? Lose Your Job
Not only did they lose their job, but they got a VERY spicy bite.
“This story is what happened to my darling husband, but I know the people involved very well, as I used to work in the same warehouse. Recently upcoming stories from food thieves reminded me. It happened in 2018.
Until April this year, my husband, let’s call him Mike, worked in a warehouse for a big, international furniture company in southern Germany.
He liked the work, even if it was hard labor carrying 150kg (330lbs for the Americans) pieces of furniture around. Because of this, the staff turnover was pretty high. One of his colleagues, we will name him Steve, started at the same time as my husband. They weren’t friends as Mike didn’t like him, but he respected him as a hard worker.
Due to customers coming in all the time, the warehouse staff didn’t have required breaks, they just took their lunch break when it was possible.
Some used the break room with the basic kitchen, some went out to eat, go to the supermarket on the other side of the road, or did errands in the 60 minutes they had. But either way, you had to clock out and back in. This will be relevant later.
Soon they realized that brought-in lunches went missing from the fridge in the break room, as did sweets they had bought to share and also drinks.
Since it was rare that two of the workers took their break at the same time, they weren’t sure who stole them. They also were not allowed to bring up a camera. So Mike and the warehouse manager decided to take matters into their own hands.
Once in a while when it was slow, they decided to order food. Mostly pizza, sometimes burgers. And my husband (me too) loves hot, spicy food.
I’m actually pretty sure that there is no b***d in him; that has to be hot sauce flowing around. Anyways, we have a nice assortment of powders and sauces, ranging from a little tickling to “will turn your b******e in a Johnny Cash song if you don’t get that surgically removed right now!” Hubbs of course had some of the sauces at work.
You all know where this is heading, right? When the thefts got more and more regular, they decided to order pizza – just Mike and the manager; the others didn’t want to or had something else. The pies got delivered and smelled delicious. Miraculously, both my husband and his manager were able to take their lunch at the same time and enjoyed their pizza but didn’t finish it.
Mike took out one of his sauces with a scorching 2 million Scoville (for those not familiar: regular Tabasco has about 2,000-5,000 Scoville) and distributed a generous amount on the leftovers, which blended in great with the red tomato sauce. Then they left to have a smoke and continue working.
They hadn’t had a chance to clock in again when Steve emerged from the break room, running for the bathroom, head in a very nice shade of red, gagging.
When he came back out a few minutes later, he was white as a sheet, reeking of vomit, and left without a word to get something to drink from the supermarket.
Just then the local store’s manager, boss of the warehouse manager, happened to drop by. He noticed Steve is absent and did not clock out – the big no-no. What nobody knew: Steve had already two write-ups for being absent without clocking out.
If you get three write-ups (“Abmahnung” in German) for the very same reason, you can be terminated without notice. When Steve returned, clutching 3 packs of milk closely to his chest, the third write-up and the termination was already printed and ready to be signed. Steve left immediately.
He now works in another warehouse, where a good friend of mine is employed, too. None of their food has gone missing yet.”
18. I'm The New Store Manager? Hm, Okay...
“So this happened some years ago. I had gotten a job working as a stock person loading the shelves for a craft store.
The hours were… unholy…. 3 am to 9 am. It took quite a bit of getting used to, and because the hours were evil, the pickings for such shifts were understandably slim. So it should be no surprise that the manager was the rotten scrapings at the bottom of a very dilapidated barrel.
The store had this training system in-house on a computer, where you got an account, read what amounted to slide show notes on safety, about not setting yourself on fire, and a quick overall cliff notes about OSHA saying not to twist your back while lifting.
Now see, that’s what the AVERAGE employee read, and even the slowest reader could zip through in 15-20 minutes or so.
But that’s NOT what my Training Manager gave me. She pulled up a training module, didn’t check that it was accurate, and walked away, telling me to read it so I could get to work.
The very first line of a MASSIVE training module said:
As the new Store Manager, you must know and understand the laws you must follow…
Me: “…Uhhhh…Hang on…”
So I called over the walkie-talkie.
Me: “Uh, Training Manager, I think you gave me the wrong..”
Training manager: “[My Name], I gave you the same training module that I gave everyone else.”
Me: “Training Manager, I really think you should double-check…”
Training Manager, now snapping: “Stop making excuses and get to it!”
Malicious compliance! Now let me try to help you envision this monstrosity before me. Imagine a phone book scanned into the computer, divided into over a hundred sections. Every section has 20 sub-sections. Every subsection had between 5 and 20 sub-sub sections. Every. Single. Sub-Sub-Section was 20 pages long, in size 10 font, single-spaced. Details involved laws covering all those delightful little things like discriminatory practices in hiring and managing employees, inappropriate harassment, and all the ways a Store Manager could get themselves and the business sued by all and sundry and how to avoid this fate at all costs.
Or at least, that’s how far I managed to read before my MC ended. There was still a LOT left to read.
Half an hour in, the Training Manager kicked me off and had me help shelve, berating me for taking so much time. I again told her that I had the wrong module, and again she told me to shut the heck up and stop making excuses.
She then went to the computer and closed my module, clearly without even acknowledging the gigantic screen of text instead of the neat little slide show with pictures and big letters for 5-year-olds to read.
Malicious compliance again! I tried twice, and she wasn’t listening. That was all I owed her. A MONTH into my employment and training, I still had not completed reading the phone book, having been given only 30 minutes each day.
Finally, Store Manager… the ACTUAL store manager, came to see why I was incapable of completing a module that should have only taken me 15 minutes and that I really needed to improve my reading skills.
Me: “Store Manager, I can read just fine. But as the New Store Manager who will be taking over for you, I really must insist on reading the entire module.”
[SCREECH! Cartoon sounds of automobile accident here]
Store Manager: “…I’m sorry?”
Me: “Training Manager told me to read the Store Manager training module. And I need actual time to get through it. If I’m NOT the store manager, then I need to be given the correct module.”
Store manager: “…Did you TELL her that she had given you the wrong one?”
Me: “Yes, and I quote, (and here, I pitched my voice to imitate her angry-snapping voice) ‘I gave you the same training module that I gave everyone else.
Stop making excuses and get to it!’ (back to normal voice) I told her twice and she just wouldn’t listen.”
The Store Manager went very quiet. He silently took me into the break room, got me on the training computer there, and removed the Store Manager Module from my account and put the Regular Employee Module up.
I zoomed through that bad boy in less than 10 minutes and got on with my work.
The Store Manager and Training Manager disappeared for a long time.”
17. Don't Stop Until All The Snow Is Removed? Okay, But You'll Be Paying Big Time
“This wasn’t me doing the malicious compliance, nor the request, but the middle man who witnessed this gloriousness. I worked for a movie theater company in a state that snows every winter.
We had a contract with a snow shoveling company, but my boss refused to use it because the costs of each removal had a possibility of hurting his yearly bonus by a couple of percentage points (like $300 max out of $20,000). “Only if it snows more than six inches,” he would say every time.
Unfortunately, this meant that one of the ushers would have to shovel snow on the sidewalk.
Since it’s a safety hazard to block the emergency exit doors of a theater, it meant you had to shovel a path around the entire building and for each exit door. It’s about a quarter-mile around the building. No one likes doing it because it’s cold, and shoveling a simple one shovel-length path can take two hours.
During a snowy Christmas week (the busiest week for movie theaters of the year – imagine Black Friday shopping for two weeks straight), it had snowed just under six inches.
We were extremely busy, and my boss demanded to take one of our much-needed ushers to go shovel snow. (I was an assistant manager.) When we asked if the company could come out instead of us doing it, we were told no, to which one of my co-workers (we’ll call him Dan) said he would do it.
An hour later after he had gone outside, one by one, my boss pulled each usher in and wrote them up for “refusing to shovel snow.” When Dan came back in, the other ushers complained to him about it.
Dan asked our boss why, and our boss said that it was because no one wanted to shovel all of the snow, and if Dan didn’t shovel all of the snow, he would get written up as well. This all happened at the beginning of my shift, around 5 pm.
Cue the malicious compliance. What my boss didn’t realize was that it was the last day of the payroll period.
Being Christmas week, Dan had already accumulated 40 hours of work earlier in the day. My boss left right after telling Dan to make sure ALL of the snow was removed. We worked the rest of the shift, and everyone assumed Dan had finished and left.
It’s 3 am now, and we go to punch out for the week but can’t because there is a shift that hasn’t been approved yet.
Someone is still working and is at 12 hours of overtime. It’s Dan. I go out to investigate since it should only be myself and my manager. As I walk outside, I see Dan coming back in, smiling the biggest grin on his face and the driest, un-snowed path I’ve ever seen in my life. It looked like two pictures cut together; there was not a spec of snow on the entire front path of the theatre.
Dan spent ten hours outside. He sure removed ALL the snow from the walkway. We had a good laugh, clocked out, and left.
We didn’t hear anything until later that week when I was called into the office by my boss and had to write out a statement as to why I let Dan work twelve hours of overtime.
My boss had this smug look on his face like he had “beaten” us.
He was not too pleased when he found out that all of our statements included him saying the phrase “remove all the snow” and that he refused to call the snow plow company. My boss was transferred to another theater soon after.”
16. Show Up At 8:30 Everyday No Matter What My Schedule Says? I Can Do That!
“I was working for a child care center while I was in college. We staggered staff in and staggered them out so that we were always fully staffed when all the kids were there, and they all had various arrival and leaving times. So, staff could be scheduled to arrive anytime between 7:30 am and 2 pm.
I worked M-F 8:30-4:30. Even though my schedule was fairly permanent, I would check the schedule that got sent out every Sunday evening.
(It would always get sent between 6 and 9 pm, and it would be for that current week, so we had less than 24 hours notice for our weekly schedule. It was a hot mess express if you ask me, but I’m not in charge, and my schedule is set, so I don’t raise too much heck about it).
One week, I get the schedule, and it says that my arrival time is 9 am instead of my usual 8:30 for the entire week.
I figure they’re just trying to make minor cuts, and they really like having everyone under the full-time threshold, so I just assumed they were barely cutting my hours, so they could get away with it. No big deal, but I knew that most of the kids arrived at 9, so I would need more time to set up.
So, I get there at 8:45 on Monday and set up quickly and go about my day.
I do a little prep Monday night, so I don’t have as much to prep in the morning. And on Tuesday, I get there at 8:55, clock in, and begin my day.
My week goes on like that with me prepping in the evening and getting there at 8:55 until Thursday when my boss calls me into the office and reprimands me for my “tardiness.” I tell her the schedule tells me that my arrival time is 9, so I’m actually arriving early every day.
She says that the schedule says 9 just to indicate that you are the morning shift, but if you’re scheduled for classroom time, you need to arrive at 8:30 regardless of what the schedule says, so you have time to set up the classroom.
I don’t agree with this at all, and it’s obviously not true because not everyone arrives at 8:30 anyway. There has to be more distinction than just morning crew versus afternoon crew on the schedule.
But she admits that she’s “partially to blame for the mixup” and doesn’t turn it into a formal write up.
I started arriving at 8:30 every morning (just like I had been before the week in question, I’m not a late person). One week, I was going to be scheduled for the 1-6:30 shift because another coworker needed to switch with me, and we had both agreed to this.
So, the schedule comes out and says my arrival time is 1 pm.
I arrive at exactly 8:30, clock in, and sit my pretty butt in the office chair, and wait.
Well, eventually my boss notices that I’m just hanging out in the office and asks what I’m doing. I say, “Well, I was told to arrive promptly at 8:30 no matter what the schedule says, so here I am.” She says, “We don’t need you here for the morning.
so you can clock out and come back when your shift begins.”
Um, nope. I say, “You can find a task for me to do until my shift at 1 starts, or I can sit here, but I’m staying clocked in. You were the one that said that I have to be here at 8:30 no matter what. I’m just following your instructions.”
I had to deep clean the entire school until my shift actually started, but it was so worth it because I still got paid for the whole day, and my boss had to admit to me that she was full of it.
Watching her try to backtrack was the funniest thing that’s ever happened to me!”
15. Sure, You Can Have Your Hand Sanitizer Back...
“So, I have this friend, sorta.
Let’s call her Karen even though she is the same age as me (a teenager).
When we were younger, I caught her a few times having stolen stuff from me and her friends. She was generally a stealing, lying witch. But we sometimes got along, and our relationship is complicated, and she thinks we are fantastic friends, so I don’t tell her otherwise.
(She also set me up with my current girl, but that’s a different story.) I also have really good peripheral vision, and people often got mad when I could see them do stuff out of the corner of my eye that they thought I couldn’t.
So, I went shopping with my friends late last year, and my friend (not Karen) drags me into a certain shop for body products.
As it was one of the last shops we could go to, and I still had a decent amount of left, I bought a lip balm and two small, scented (expensive as heck) bottles of hand sanitizer. I never use them, so the size of them didn’t bother me. It was just for random occasions when I needed them or wanted my hands to smell nice.
I got home, put them on my desk, and used them about three times the rest of the year. Then in about March, Karen came over and asked, “Hey, can I have one of these bottles of hand sanitizer?” and I tell her, “No, I bought them myself, and they are very expensive.” She looks and me, fake smiling, and says, “Oh, ok then,” and I swear I can see her grab one off of the desk very obviously as soon as I turn back to my computer.
Without looking at her, I say, “Put that bottle the heck back. I said no.”
Karen is surprised and quickly puts it back looking at me innocently saying, “What do you mean?” At this point, I look up and say, “You know I have good vision. Don’t try and take my stuff when I have told you no.” I then reached over and put the bottles in my desk draw and go back to what I was doing.
The next day, she comes over again, and her mom is with her. The mother starts getting mad at me, saying Karen told her I stole HER hand sanitizer and that I locked it in my desk. I told her I don’t have a lock on my desk and that I bought that hand sanitizer last year.
She was still mad and shouting at me to give her the hand sanitizer.
No one else was home as my family was all shopping or at school (I go to online school, and Karen is homeschooled), so no one could back me up or save me from her.
I finally get fed up, go inside, and grab one of the bottles of hand sanitizer and an old lotion tube I never threw away ’cause I’m messy. I screw off the cap of the lotion lid and squeeze the sanitizer into the bottle, sealing it back up and putting it in my desk.
I put the bottle in my pocket and walk back to the door, “This’ll just take a moment. I forgot I put it in the kitchen.”
She nods, still mad, and Karen is smiling in success as I walk off again.
I reach the kitchen and grab a bottle of ketchup mixing it with chunky aloe-vera gel and awkwardly shove it into the hand sanitizer bottle.
(This makes a sorta translucent pink gel that looks like a strawberry hand sanitizer as that was the scent for this one. The smell of the original hand sanitizer is very strong and it overpowers the ketchup, making it seem convincing.)
I come back and hand her the tiny bottle of ketchup and aloe-vera, looking directly at Karen and saying, “I’m so sorry I stole.
I don’t know what came over me.”
They both looked smug and turn to leave, her parent saying, “She won’t be returning again. I don’t want you stealing more of her stuff,” and “You’re lucky we don’t press charges on you because you’re a kid.” I put on a sad face and say, “That’s a shame” before slamming the door in her stuck up face.
I hope she enjoys her “hand sanitizer.””
14. Force Us To Get A Haircut? Fine, But It Might Not Be What You Have In Mind
“This was while I was serving my drafted army duty (one-year conscription in my country). My hair was a bit long before entering, and I had to cut it, so it didn’t reach or cover my ears or the top of the shirt at the back of my neck.
At first, I didn’t mind much and neither did my fellow draftees.
After basic training, however, things started to change. I got some officers who were on power trips and were very meticulous about all the most minute rules. It didn’t take long before we got tired of it. At one inspection, some of my fellow draftees were told their hair had grown too long, and they needed a haircut before the platoon would be given weekend leave.
‘A soldier must always look tidy and spotless, especially when mingling with civilians,’ they said.
At almost every weekend we had leave, they managed to find something that needed improving before they let us go. We were always the last platoon to leave camp, and we found we had reached and crossed a line, and something had to be done.
A fellow draftee had a buzz-cutter, a small machine that could cut our hair really short.
He charged us a small amount to cut our hair if we wanted, but few had used his services until now. So, most of us had a regular but short, civilian haircut. Almost none had gone for the army look or buzz-cut.
We read up on the regulations and found that the only relevant points were that hair should not cover even the top of our ears nor touch the shirt in the back of our necks.
We also couldn’t use bright colors in our hair. Cue malicious compliance.
Almost everybody in our platoon decided to join in on the fun, and we got creative. There were mohawks aplenty, not all of them symmetrical or straight, weird patterns were cut, sporadic long and short hair all over our heads.
One even made sure to shave a big bald spot in the back, leaving only two dots and a horizontal line of hair at the back of his head.
The officers were impatient as we took our time getting this done, but they had said something to the likes of, ‘Don’t show yourselves here until your hair complies with the regulations!’ So, we let them simmer a bit.
We eventually formed up on the parade ground with our berets on, mostly covering our creativity. A few smirks and snickers could be felt among us as we waited for the command to bare our heads for inspection.
I will never forget the look on my officers’ faces when they realized what we had done, and it dawned on them that we were all compliant with the regulations.
About half of us kept it up for the rest of our service, trying out various patterns and looks every month or so. It was always a pleasure to see the regret in the eyes of our officers whenever we were indoors, and regulations had us go bareheaded without our berets.
Particularly after getting a new cut showing of our new patterns and unbridled creativity, it was like constantly rubbing our malicious compliance in their faces.
When we finally had finished our year of service, one of the officers complimented us on our creativity and perseverance.”
13. Talk Smack About Us In French? We'll Make It Known That We Understood Everything You Said
“First, a little backstory first: I’m an Irish-American woman living in a southern main Francophone country.
I am also perfectly bilingual in French and English. (English is my first language, but I’ve been learning French since I was about 10.
I’m now 34 and have been in the original Francophone country for 5 years. Sufficed to say, my French is basically flawless at this point.) Now, in this Francophone country, there is a subset of the population that is… less than kind to foreigners.
Now, I work in a steel foundry machine shop, and my company has another American woman in the office staff, who is also one of my close drinking buddies.
Because we both (at the time) lived in the same district of our city, we often rode the same bus home. Because she is not quite as fluent in French, we often speak in English when together.
It’s easier for most subjects (anime, clothing, other esoteric topics, etcetera, and all that).
Well, one day, this didn’t go over very well with two older women.
We had gotten on near our worksite and had taken a seat, happily discussing a new anime that had come out on Crunchyroll a few months before. They must have been on since the beginning, as the bus originated from a small village on the other side of the country from the city. 10 minutes after boarding, we began to hear… them. Now, remember, despite speaking English to my friend, we both understand French perfectly.
And, oh boy, the comments.
Now, it’s been a bit over two years, so I don’t remember the exact phrasing, but it all basically came down to them being jerks.
“Speak French; you are in THE Francophone country!”
Woman 1: “Ugh, listen to these stupid Americans!”
Woman 2: “I wish they would actually learn the language…”
W1: “You know how they think, always need to be center of attention.
They have the IQ of an oyster!” (A particularly French way of saying stupid)
W2: “Surprised they aren’t dressed like a pair of 2€ [Insert Derogatory term for a specific kind of worker].”
This went on for the entire journey. Now, I have just as low an opinion of most American tourists. (I’m from a US west coast state known for being green and weird, and while we are a friendly bunch, I often joke about how folks from a state known for Apple and the film industry are the most invasive species in my state.) And, so, I take exception of being compared to garbage tourists.
I’m also a petty jerk. And both my friend and I knew these women did not speak English, as we had tested the theory by calling them bitter, old dingbats and other insults that don’t translate easily into French.
So, we hatched a plan. We had basically had enough, and wanting to pick up some pastries from downtown (I am a total pushover when it comes to eclairs), decided we would shame these two in the most obnoxious way possible.
As my friend pressed the button to request a stop, I quietly turned around and faced the two witches.
Me: (in perfect region-specific accented French) “I hope you two have something else to talk about after we get off. I really do enjoy being the center of attention.”
The look of shock and horror on their faces was priceless.
They were talking loud enough that the dead could hear.
This was where my friend joined in.
Friend: “I guess as dumb American [derogatory term]s, we should start learning French. Say, I know a song we can practice with!”
As the bus stopped, we stood up, singing ‘Frère Jacques’ at the top of our lungs, loud enough that everybody could hear. We got off the bus, still singing as the bus pulled out, the driver grinning like an idiot, and several other passengers laughing as these two women tried to hide their embarrassment.
Pretty certain a guy who was sitting behind us had joined in the song.
We got eclairs at one of my favorite local places (which was still a ways from our homes, but dang, the walk was worth the pastries).
Moral of the Story: Don’t assume that the foreigners speaking a different language don’t understand you.”
Another Users Comment:
“Oh man, I got to enjoy this for the first time the other day in Spanish.
I lost my cat, and the first night, we were frantically walking around looking for her. We asked this couple who are Hispanic, and we asked them if they have seen our cat.
The wife just looked at us. Like I get it if you don’t speak English, but jeez, I was bawling. It was obvious something was wrong. We walked away, and I heard her husband ask in Spanish what we’re looking for: a white dog.
I was freaking livid. It hurt so bad that this person just stared and didn’t even have the decency to say, “Sorry, I don’t speak English” or “No hablo Inglés.” I’m a blue-eyed, super pale redhead. I don’t look like I know Spanish, but after 8 years of studying, it stuck. I screamed back cat (gato) at them, and the tension I felt behind me felt like a bomb, and I’m the cool guy walking away.
That high is something I’ll live on forever. And we found my cat.” XenaSerenity
12. Don't Take Advantage Of A Highly Skilled Employee
Watch them leave.
“At the time this story took place, I was a 22-year-old female.
At work, I used to refer to myself as “a team of one,” which was my preferred way to say that I had no help on a day to day basis with anything I did.
My manager had a vague idea of my responsibilities, but that was about it. (He once asked me to type out a How-To Guide for my job, and when I handed it to him, it was 17 pages long!)
When I say I kept this office running, it is no exaggeration. On my own, I was in charge of greeting, sitting, and making drinks for guests; ordering supplies for the kitchen, all tea/coffee/sugar supplies, stationery, and paper; liaising with the building manager, mechanics for the printers and workmen for broken lights, water leaks, and power cuts.
I also had to open, sort, and distribute all incoming posts, as well as collecting, pricing, and bagging up outgoing post. We had a large room that we booked out to people in our organization for meetings, training, and conferences. Many of these meetings would need computers, which would need to be set up ready for when the meeting commenced. Fine. But, the floor manager was insistent that these particular computers be taken down and boxed up when they weren’t needed to keep the room looking neat and tidy.
Depending on how many meetings we had during the week, this could mean that it would be down to me to come in early to set up for a meeting on one day, stay late to take them down again ready for another one the next day, and then come in early again for them the day after that.
Needless to say, those computers were the bane of my existence, and if the windows could have been opened on our floor, I would have taught them all how to fly.
On top of all that, almost no one spoke to me. In an office of close to 200 people, I was only talked to if they needed something from me and ignored otherwise.
Basically, I was overworked, underappreciated, underpaid, and underestimated.
Cue petty revenge!
We had to go through an internal system to book vacation days, but we always had to ask our respective managers first to see if they knew of any overlap and make sure it was ok to request it.
I had done this, like the good little doormat I was, and didn’t think anything else of it… until a time where we had need of those e****g computers every other day for 2 weeks.
I had early starts and late finishes every day with no word of thanks, and I snapped.
While plugging in those computers, admittedly a little harder than was strictly necessary, I hatched my plan.
I had a week of vacation coming up, and I fulfilled my duties as well as I could until that Friday where I left at my normal time. I hadn’t reminded anyone about my holiday, and as no one had spoken to me, I had a sneaking suspicion that no one had remembered.
I had a few good friends dotted about the floor, and I trusted them to spy for me and report their findings back, so they were the only ones I told.
There were perhaps 4 or 5 people total out of 200.
According to them, it took 4 hours for people to notice I wasn’t there on Monday morning. And that was only because the morning post had been delivered and dumped in a pile on my desk. One of my spies sat at the desk next to mine, and when my manager asked him, “Hey, where’s OP?” he just said, “She’s on vacation, remember?” (This friend was also overworked and underappreciated by the higher-ups, so he was glad to take part in my scheme!)
Apparently, my manager stormed off to his desk to check, grumbling as he logged in to the system. Then he went very pale as the system politely told him that, yes, I had booked this vacation, and yes, he had written it on his calendar, and yes, everything had been done properly.
Several of my spies reported seeing my manager running around like a headless chicken, grabbing people off his department, and shoving them at my duties to ask them if they knew what to do.
No one did.
For a whole week, they had to work out how to handle my workload, sort out all the things that they had taken for granted, and, of course, sort out all those darn ‘puters!
For several days after my holiday, I had people swarming up to me, saying how glad they were that I was back, and how poorly things had been handled in my absence.
That was the occasion that sparked my boss to ask for the aforementioned How-To Guide. Once I handed it to him, he made copies for every department manager on the floor and for every member of his team.
And, before you ask, no, this did not cause any significant improvement in my working circumstances. It still took me over a year to get out of there.”
Another User Comments:
“Sounds a lot like my old job where I solely ran the entire online operations for a homewares department store. I put the stock on the website, stock checked, picked orders, packed them, organized delivery, dropped them off at the courier, provided customer service, wrote blog posts and content…
Eventually, you have that eureka moment and leave. They’ve got 6 people trying to do my old job and haven’t hit half of the revenue I used to bring in, so they’re making a huge loss.” byjimini
Reply:
“Same! My spies report that none of the people they hired to replace me have lasted six months.
I worked that job for 5 years!”
11. Can't Take Care Of Your Dog's Droppings? Then I Will
“I moved into my first condo about a year and a half ago and noticed pretty quickly, because of the horrible smell, that the thin strip of woods right behind my patio was THE place for dogs to crap. As this was maybe 5 feet from my patio, it obviously couldn’t continue. The first thing I did was figure out which dogs, and more specifically which owners, were frequenting my 15 yards of space.
Lo and behold, it was one black lab and one teenager who just never bothered to clean up the poop.
I caught him by saying, “Oh hey” from behind my fence when I saw them, thinking I would just be like, “Oh hey, it doesn’t bother me that your doggo goes back here, but would you just mind cleaning up after him?” But I never got the chance.
He heard me and booked it. By the time I got my gate unlocked, he had scampered back to his condo, which was only two doors down. Two doors down! That’s not even the bare minimum for exercise for a dog like a lab!
Well, so I figured he got spooked by me catching him, and I waited for him to come back the next day.
He didn’t, for another 2 weeks. When he came back again I tried to get his attention again, and again, he ran away.
I thought, this is so silly; I’ll just go knock on their door.
So, I went and knocked on their door and didn’t get an answer. Maybe his mom wasn’t home. But his mom is pretty chill, and she’s usually at the neighborhood grill days, so I figured I’d just talk to her there.
In the meantime, I looked up dog-aversion products to spray behind my condo. Maybe I could convince the dog that it didn’t want to go there. One site recommended apple cider vinegar as a smelly deterrent, and I thought it seemed the least harmful to the dog and the wildlife. I sprayed about two cups of the stuff and saw no new poops for a week.
It seemed like it worked, but rain would wash it away. And I thought, dang it, I shouldn’t have to spray vinegar once a week to keep this area free of dog crap!
I finally saw his mom and brought it up to her, letting her know her teenage son just needed to bring along some bags when he took the dog out. She seemed embarrassed but agreed her teen should be picking up the poop.
So, the bags lasted about a week, and then he obviously didn’t care anymore. Big ol’ poops being left by my gate again. So, I bought one of those little signs that says, “Pick it up” with a little poop emoji and put it back there.
I had hoped to talk to his mom again, but I haven’t seen her, despite knocking on their door again 3 or 4 more times.
I walked out there a couple of days later, and there was a poop in front of the sign. I stared at it for a minute, and then I looked around at all the accumulated poops of several months. And then I got my shovel and systemically picked up all the poops and piled them outside their gate.
It’s been 3 weeks now, and I haven’t seen any new poops.
But I’m sure this kid has not given up. One day, I’ll talk to his mom again, but the next poop I see will go over their fence and onto their patio.”
Another Users Comments:
“One night, my uncle got a shovel and starting flinging dog crap across the street to the neighbor’s house. I’ll never forget it.” dragongirl132
10. Think I Need "Help" Parking? Yeah, Good Luck
“Back in secondary school, I (then 18F) went to a friend’s 18th birthday party. The plan was to have cake and give presents at the birthday girl’s home, then drive into the city for a meal, followed by drinks in a bar.
Since I did not live close by, and I would have to drive there and back home in my car, either way, I volunteered to be one of the drivers for the night.
The two other people that would drive the party guests around were a family member of the birthday girl as well as a guy I will call Peter.
Peter was the partner of Amy, a girl in the same friend’s group as me and the birthday girl. Our group had the rule that, unless something was explicitly labeled as a girl’s day, all invitations included our respective romantic partners as a +1.
From what I could tell, Peter was not close to anyone in our group other than Amy, but they only ever showed up together. I am not kidding, Amy once refused an invitation to my birthday party because Peter would be busy with his studies that night. I never got along great with Peter, but I always acted civil and polite around him.
Anyways, the birthday girl lived in a part of town I had never been to before.
While driving from her place to the restaurants, we drove through a stretch of road that had several hard to see curves with several intersections and traffic lights and several lines of road in each direction. The road is crowded with cars that drove at the speed limit. I did try not to drive too slow as not to block traffic, but I had to drive a little below the speed limit.
When we reached the restaurant, Peter pulls me aside.
Peter: “You do know that you can cause accidents by driving too slow, don’t you?”
Me, annoyed, since I am an experienced driver, and he has no reason to lecture me: “Yes, I know. But I’ve never driven on that road before, so I could not go full speed while navigating safely in that traffic. Also, I am not sure that driving between 40 and 45 km/h in a 50 km/h zone can be actually considered too slow.”
He sneers and leaves to join Amy at the tables.
Later, we drove to a different part of town for drinks. Mine was the last car to enter the parking lot, so the other cars had already parked by the time I found an empty spot.
Now, there is something you should know about my car: It was a solid working car but a bit on the older side.
It drove well but was missing some amenities newer cars had. Most annoyingly, it did not have hydraulic power steering. As a result, it was very hard to adjust the wheels while that car was standing still.
It was possible but did require some elbow grease. I was used to it and could move the steering wheel while standing with little problem, but I had also adjusted the way I drove to make it possible to do most adjusting while the car is still moving.
Among other things, I was very careful while parking, as in correcting the car’s position mid-parking required wheel adjustment while standing still.
I was letting my car roll slowly into the right position to get into the parking spot in one move. Just before I got to the spot where I had to start turning the steering wheel to get the right angle without having to stop, Peter left the group waiting for us and walked over to my car.
I lowered my window.
Peter, in the most condescending tone I have ever heard, said: “Well, how about I help you out and park that car for you, huh?”
I was about to explain to him just what I thought about condescending b*******s like him when my eyes fell on his car, his brand new car his parents bought him when he got his license.
His nice car with all the amenities you could imagine. Cue the malicious compliance:
I let my car roll up further, to the exact spot where the wheels had been fully adjusted in order for the car to fit into the spot. Then I shut off the motor, smiled, and said, “You know what? That sounds like a wonderful idea!” and exited my car.
He took my keys, started the motor, grabbed the steering wheel, and suddenly froze.
His face turned to me with a scared look in his eyes.
Peter: “Does your car not have power steering?”
Me, with the biggest grin: “Nope. Now go on, show me how to park my car!”
He had to adjust while standing several times until my car was finally in the spot. The friends in my car had a very hard time suppressing their laughter.
He exited, handed me the keys, and did not even look at me for the rest of the night. I think I even saw him rubbing his upper arms in pain a couple of times. He never bothered me again.”
9. My Close Friend Got Engaged To My Ex, So I Showed Up To Her Wedding Uninvited
“I had fallen in love for the first time. I was head over heels for him, deeply crazy in love.
But at about the two-year point, he began acting distant and frankly, like an *****. Although he would not TALK about his feelings, he made it clear through his actions that he wanted out. I broke up with him. He actually gasped and smiled. I was devastated.
Six WEEKS later, I learn through a mutual friend that he has gotten engaged – to one of my closest friends.
“V” and I had grown up together since we were five years old. She was one of the friends I had obviously been confiding in and crying to since the breakup. I was floored and my heart broke at an even deeper level.
About a year passed and I did my best to move on, avoiding contact with both of them and many of our mutual friends.
Two weeks before their wedding, I get an out-of-the-blue message from V on my answering machine that I better not show up to her wedding or she will have me arrested. I found this comical and knew it was the result of a funny conversation I recently had at a party where I expressed my fantasy of being that person who “objects” to a union at their ceremony.
I called her back, and assured her I would not be there and to have a lovely day, bee with an itch!
One week before the wedding, the local animal control officer shows up at my home, expressing they had an anonymous tip that I was abusing my pets. At the time, I was running an all-volunteer animal rescue and was well known in the community and local press.
The ACO inspected the fat, happy and healthy animals and made the comment that although she could not tell me the name of the person who called in, the caller ‘appeared to know me very well.’ We talked later, after I racked my brain about who the caller could have been, and I suggested it was V.
Maybe V was thinking she could get me tossed in jail perhaps?
The officer did not disagree.
The animal control officer commented just how serious the complaint could have been had she not known who I was. Putting my pets and my foster animals at risk was completely unacceptable.
Although my conversation to go to V’s wedding was a total joke, now, my mind was made up.
On the day of V’s wedding, her ex (the guy she was with when she got engaged, yes, she had a bf at the time) and my best friend got in the car and drove the two hours to the wedding.
I had lost weight since the break up (yes, still heartbroken) and honestly: I was dressed up and looked smoking hot.
Lol.
So ten minutes before the ceremony, I walked in. Alone. Between the 25lb weight loss and new hair color and style, I was shocked that V’s mother recognized me.
I sat down next to her and she apologized for her daughter, but also stated how angry V would be that I was there.
I had grown up spending a lot of time in her home and did not want to disrespect her mom. So I walked outside to the garden and sat down on a bench that overlooked the entire facility.
Police were called. I was escorted off the premises and went to lunch with my friends. We ate, we drank, we laughed. Several days later I was served a restraining order.
V had spent her 3-day honeymoon back and forth at the police station to have the restraining order written!? The order was based on lies and tossed out of court by a judge.
They divorced three years later.
To date, this is the only mean and vindictive thing I have ever done. Honestly, it was my proudest moment. I’m not one to stand up against those who hurt me.”
8. Explode At Me? Just Wait Until I Interview You
“I still contract for these guys, but back in the day, I was the lead programmer for a small website shop. The members of an outside club I was in knew this and asked me to handle making them a website.
I said sure and was looking forward to designing it as well, mucking around with CSS, etc., when another member, Paul, piped up that he would design it.
Oh well.
So, in about two weeks, I created a content management system and a basic website in a different language to 1) learn that language and 2) not steal from my company. As soon as the guy gets me the design, I can wrap my code around it.
I called him. No design yet. I call him a week later. No design. One more time! Nope! I say screw it. I make a very basic but clean design, even creating some graphics that had to do with the club. It’s live.
The next meeting, he explodes at me, and I tell him that as soon as he gets off his butt, the site will change.
As it is, it’s serving a purpose with a calendar for the members, a mailing list where we can send them updates, etc.
He has no one to blame but himself. He’s fuming. Two weeks later, he sends me a HORRENDOUS design and even some outdated HTML that he had written that he wanted me to use. I’m no designer, but I work with good ones, so I can tell bad when I see.
I wrap my code around it but leave some of my stuff in, otherwise, it’s just going to be a lot of blank space and text. A day later, I get a phone call from Paul yelling at me that the website is not his vision.
Another meeting and he’s complaining about me. The board (which he’s part of, but I’m not) is trying to make peace.
I stand my ground that I worked very hard getting everything set up, and some of my graphics should be allowed to stay.
Paul throws a tantrum, and they side with him, and I say that that is fine. The code is mine, and I’ll be removing it. Since Paul knows HTML, he can program you all a static site. “You should have it in about a year, knowing him.”
A month later, my company is having an open house to show clients what we do as well as hunt for new talent. Who shows up? Paul. He didn’t realize I worked there, so he’s a little shocked but tries to play nice. He gets an interview scheduled for the next day, and I ask the boss if I can sit in on it, which surprises him as I normally don’t do things like that.
So, a normal interview. He’s showing us some of his work, etc., answering questions from everyone, and then it’s my turn.
Me: “So… Paul. We often have to turn out sites pretty quickly for clients. How are you at working fast?”
Paul: “I think I’m very good at turning out fast, quality work.”
Me: “Oh, you think that, do you, Paul?”
I stare at him for a few seconds while he gets red and stares daggers at me, and right before, he starts to speak again…
Me: “So… Paul. Even though for the most part, developers and programmers don’t interact too much in each others’ areas, when we do have suggestions – like I might suggest that part of a design be changed to better incorporate something – the other team is always willing to listen. How are you at listening to suggestions not only from clients but also from co-workers?”
Paul: “Well, I think I am open to suggestions from all sides…”
Me: “Oh, are you… Paul?”
Another uncomfortable pause before Paul tries to speak again
Me: “Well, I don’t have any more questions. Thanks for your answers, Paul.”
Later on, my boss asked me what was going on, and I explained it to him. He laughed, and Paul wasn’t hired. No one on the board really liked me after all this, but I would catch Paul staring at me angrily a few times in meetings.”
7. Argue All You Want, But It Comes At A Price
“I am a web programmer (among other things) and used to be a consultant at a very high-end, very expensive agency.
I once had a client who was incredibly precise about the exact wording on their menu.
At the time, pretty much every website had a section on its main menu that said “About us,” and they wanted to be different and wouldn’t have that (but had to have that section, only not with that name), so we got a writer and a graphic artist and a programmer together, and we sat down and came up with a new label for that section: “Portraits.” We told the project manager, who told the client, and we all went about our lives.
The client got very agitated about it, probably because there was one person there who felt he had to have his finger in every pie. The client insisted that they had to decide on a name and the new scope of work their decision would entail. What they didn’t bother paying attention to was that the contract said very clearly that they had to keep paying the entire team or they’d lose us, and the moment they asked for any change of scope, all work would stop, but they’d keep paying the entire team full time.
So, the project manager was working at $300 an hour, me at $300 an hour, the artist at $200 an hour, and the writer at $200 an hour… $1,000 an hour total.
Normally, we wouldn’t all be working full time on the project every day and would only bill the client for actual hours worked, but the contract was very clear that once they told the project manager there would be a scope change, everyone billed for 8 hours a day until they decided, and all work had to stop until the client either approved us to resume on the old terms or finished negotiating a new contract or fired us.
We stopped and billed them 8 hours a day. We wanted to keep working because there was other stuff we could do, but the project manager (who I adore) insisted, they had signed, they could deal with the consequences, and we had to stop work.
(The client was a Fortune 500 company who is mega-successful; they really could afford it.)
Meanwhile, the client paid $8,000 per day while they thought about it.
And they thought about it for 4 days before they announced that on the morning of the 5th day that they’d have a teleconference to discuss it.
On the teleconference, we spent perhaps a minute describing our deliberation process over words, gave a list of words we had rejected, and made sure that we were all in agreement that “Portraits” was the word for the job.
Then the client people started arguing with each other over whether this was the right word, isn’t this other word better, no that’s boring, well how about this one, no that’s overused.
We all sat in our conference room and looked at each other like, “Are they out of their minds?” and waited as they kept arguing. Literally, an hour later, I got a word in edgewise and told them that it was no problem to me how long they wanted to argue about it because I got paid either way, but this meeting was costing them $1,000 an hour in our time (plus I don’t even know how much for theirs), so perhaps it would be to their benefit to just let us use “portraits” and get on with it.
The boss at that company (who had been very quiet on the call) chuckled and told his people to******* up, and they gave us the approval to go on.
To be fair, he didn’t even balk when he got the bill for $33,000 for one word, although I expect he probably had to look at it twice to believe it.”
6. If You Don't Tell Us When To Present, We Won't Present At All
Makes sense to me.
“Let’s set the scene.
It’s 2017, I was in a 3-month internship that turned out to be…not exactly what I thought it would be. Two other students and I were sent down to work with an environmental group. Before going there, we were given about zero prep but were told that once we got there, the organization would have all the details and everything worked out.
So, that was a lie.
We get there, and immediately it’s a huge chore to get them to give us anything to do. They’re good people, trying to do good, but they had no idea what to do with us. Several times I go in to meet my supervisor at our designated times, and he’s just not there; no one knows where he is. I ended up cataloging all the books in their library.
It was frustrating, to say the least, to go in every week and beg for them to give us tasks. Towards the end, we started giving up, just dealing with the minute plans they do give us.
Now the story.
We’re set to leave in a couple of weeks, so our supervisors tell us that we should give short presentations on our work over the past 3 months.
Cool, whatever, I can talk about cataloging for 5 minutes. All our work was in Spanish, which is my second language, so I’m being sure when making my PowerPoint that everything is grammatically correct and stuff. We go in a week before our presentation and have the following convo:
Us: “What day should we do the presentation?”
Supervisor: “I think Friday is best. That’s when everyone is in the office.”
Us: “What time?”
Sup: “Hmmm, not sure. I’ll call you before the day.”
I’m sure you can see where this is going. The days go by, no phone call.
Thursday night rolls around, and we decide that we’re tired of getting jerked around by this organization. If they don’t call before noon tomorrow (we flew out on Saturday and had to pack and say goodbye to people), we wouldn’t go.
Well, one of the supervisors finally calls us at 12:30ish. Asks why we’re not in yet.
“Sorry boss, you said you’d call before the day. We have early flights. We’re not coming in to give our presentations.”
There wasn’t much fallout, and our academic advisors back at university were a bit angry with us, but they couldn’t get us in trouble for anything, and we three already had other references.
It was a bit crappy, but it felt very liberating.”
5. Whatever You Do, Don't Eat My Food
“In 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 dough 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, maybe that was a big draw for her.
So I started paying closer attention to my food and marking bottles and things like that once I caught on that Beau was the kind of person who’d steal from her housemates.
Soon enough I began to notice telltale signs that she had gone through my fridge while I wasn’t home, taking little nibbles and shavings from anything she could. The cheese especially was obvious that she’d cut pieces off because she’d do it in sloppy ways that I never would. I thought about putting a padlock on my refrigerator but felt that was not something I should ever have to do, and I didn’t want to raise the issue to a level of confrontation with Beau, preferring to remain on otherwise good terms with her.
If I’m going to wreck a relationship with someone I share a house with, it has to be for a lot more important reason.
Then one day we got some more rats in the house (it would be a while before I would discover their entry hole behind the big refrigerator, looking exactly like the upside-down U you see in old comic strips), and I caught one in a rat trap when I was the only person home.
Suddenly, inspiration came to me, and I wrapped the dead rat in the smallest piece of aluminum foil that would just barely cover him up in one layer, with only maybe 1/8″ of overlapping seam at the most. Then I placed that assembly into a small plastic Baggie with a rubber band around it, with a single hair under the rubber band so I could easily tell if my little dead rat package had been opened.
You can probably tell where this story is going but I’ll finish it anyway, and I didn’t even need the hair to tell me the package had been opened. It was only the second day after I had left it on the bottom shelf of my refrigerator that I came home from school and saw that the aluminum foil was all crinkled up and the baggie wasn’t wrapped smoothly around it anymore.
I only wish I could have been a fly on the wall watching Beau gagging in revulsion and suppressing the urge to barf as she rewrapped the package, especially because it required a lot of handling to get the skimpy piece of aluminum foil to cover up the dead rat completely.
Even after all these years I still get a belly laugh once in a while when I think about the discomfort level my thieving food mooch housemate must have experienced, oh she was such the entitled little princess!
For a while afterward, I would put a secret detective hair under the gasket of my refrigerator before going to school in the morning, but it was never disturbed and my cheese never got chopped on in funny ways again either, so I knew Beau learned her lesson and stayed out of my refrigerator.
She never said anything about the incident and neither did I, but she found another place to live within a couple of months.
It was nice to see her go.”
4. Wife Betrays Me Big Time, So I Live My Best Life
“This happened 6 years ago, but I was thinking about it yesterday and decided to write it now.
So once upon a time, I was married. It was a good relationship for the most part. Good communication and seldom any arguing. Over time my wife meets a guy, let’s call him Dan. Dan, on the surface, seemed like a cool dude.
He and my wife worked together and seemed very close. I didn’t really care, they were co-workers. Everybody has that co-worker they’re close to, right?
Over time, I sense that Dan and my wife are getting too close. She texted him constantly and I started getting suspicious, but I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want to come off as jealous.
One night I snooped through her phone and found some explicit texts she sent to Dan.
It basically confirmed that a) she was being unfaithful to me, and b) she wanted to leave me for him.
Even though I was upset that she was unfaithful towards me, I also wanted to get out of this marriage ASAP. The next day I sat her down and told her I knew everything.
There were a lot of tears on both sides and denying on her side but she finally confessed her affair. She basically told me that she loves him and not me.
We agreed that we would get divorced amicably. No alimony and whatever was ours before the marriage is ours after it. It was a very quick divorce.
Now, as much as I wanted to kick the crap out of Dan, I didn’t want to risk going to jail.
At this point, they were in a relationship living together. Considering she has known him for less than a year at that point, I knew things were going to end badly.
A couple of months after the divorce I moved to the west coast. I had no communication with my ex from then until a month ago. She messaged me on social media and told me she was sorry for how she treated me and that she’s miserable and misses me.
I decided to look through her profile. She’s married to Dan, has 3 kids with him and they’re both horrendously fat. Apparently soon after they moved in together she became pregnant with his kid. She had to quit her job because of the pregnancy and since then hasn’t had a job.
They got married while she was still pregnant and had 2 more kids.
They’re living off food stamps and government aid too.
At that point, I felt vindicated. I wanted to get revenge on her and Dan for so long. To see they messed up their own lives so bad was good enough.”
3. Drive-Thru Jerk Doesn't Get His Special Donut Order
“This isn’t my petty revenge, but I was a witness to it.
As you all know, a lot of 2020 graduates got screwed over when it came to, you know… graduating.
To lift our spirits, Krispy Kreme decided that, on national donut day, every 2020 graduate who could prove they were a graduate with a cap and gown, grad merch, a diploma, etc., would get a free dozen donuts.
There is ONE Krispy Kreme in my town. Additionally, you should not underestimate the will of t*************g adults and their desperation for free donuts because, my God, there were cars in droves, wrapping around the Krispy Kreme and into the road for free donuts.
Now, I need to describe the Krispy Kreme in order for this to make sense. There’s tiny building, and there are two entrances, one closer to the drive-thru and one to the parking lot.
Due to the overwhelming amount of customers, people were entering and getting in line through the parking lot entrance and wrapping around in a zig-zaggy-like line around the parked cars.
My sister and I were waiting in line like good noodles, but as we inched closer to the front, this Karen-esque obese woman in a muted, orange jeep rolled up beside us through the drive-thru entrance.
We laughed. No way was anyone gonna let her in, because like I said, young, broke adults and free donuts. Plus, some of us have been waiting there for over an hour, so if Karen here thought us ravenous children were gonna just let her scooch on in, she was SORELY mistaken.
Well, Karen didn’t stop trying to merge in.
And what you’ve yet to know, readers, is that my sister takes NO bullcrap from the people who think they can just ram little cars over and get their way.
So, she floored it and got on the tail of the car in front of us, glaring at Karen. Karen is screaming at us, blowing on her horn, and inching closer and closer. Insert a what the crap look. Suddenly, Karen floored it and screeched towards the passenger door where I was sitting, slamming on the brake just as her car was about to hit us.
Both of us, and probably a lot of other people, screamed “WHAT THE CRAP?!”, but she continued to lay on her horn, claiming we cut her off.
I decided we should not engage in crazy and ignored her. My sister, however, is not like me. She was boiling that this woman almost hit us. Karen had merged in behind us because I guess the car behind us didn’t want to be almost hit like we were, and Karen refused to back up.
So, she rolled down the windows. I’m like “B, don’t do anything stupid. She’ll rear-end us.” and B said, “Let her; she can pay for it then.”
Karen wanted to order special donuts, apparently and was being stupidly specific with each one. Or at least, that’s what little I heard over my sister’s petty revenge.
B had pulled up a playlist of “graduation music.” You know, the type they play as you walk across the stage to freedom (or to a 9-5).
And watching in her rear mirror, every time Karen opened her mouth, she cranked the radio as loud as it would go, drowning her out. Karen would lay on her horn demanding we shut up. B would turn it down. Karen would start to order again. B would turn it back up. I was laughing hysterically for the few minutes it lasted, and B was grinning until I said, “Listen, B, the people behind us want their donuts.”
Reluctantly, B gave in and rounded the corner to get our donuts. We could hear Karen screaming her order and how “THEY BETTER GET THEM RIGHT!” As we pulled up, they asked for proof, and the girl said, “One dozen donuts, gotcha!” and ducked back inside.
We waited. Karen rolled in behind us. A different worker appeared at the window. She leaned out. “Did you get helped?” she had asked. “Yeah,” I answered. “We did.
We’re just waiting.”
The worker glanced out of the corner of her eye at the orange jeep. She looked at us, then back at Karen. Karen blew on her horn again, likely demanding we hurry up. It was like a lightbulb flashed, and a grin spread across her face.
“Here you are!” she exclaimed, passing two boxes of donuts through the window. “Enjoy and congratulations!”
My sister and I were too stunned to say anything, assuming she saw the two of us and presumed we were both grads. So, we took our donuts and left, laughing at our good fortune.
Wanting to eat a donut, I popped open the top box and gasped. A special 12 dozen donuts. I was staring at it, then glanced at B. These were specifically ordered, not an assorted dozen, nor were they the special 2020 box that we received as me being a grad.
On top of the box was written “Special Order.”
“B,” I said, a quivering laugh escaping my lips. “We stole Karen’s donuts.””
2. Refuse Rolled Coins As Payment? Here, Let Me Unroll All Them For Ya!
“The first time my wife and I moved, we decided to do something “fun” with the change in our change jar and purchase scratch-off lottery tickets.
We were from a small town in Kansas and did not have a CoinStar machine, so we figured it would be much less annoying for the businesses if we rolled the coins for them.
We stopped by our bank to get a few of those paper coin tubes and then spent half an hour counting and rolling the change. We ended up with $10 in various denominations and were actually getting excited about purchasing 10 “Scratch ‘N’ Win” lottery tickets.
Armed with our bagful of coins, we drove to the local gas station. Unfortunately, they would not accept the coins in rolled form.
The lady was helpful though and suggested we go to a bank and exchange the coins for bills.
It was just after 4:30 our bank was closed, but there was another bank next to the gas station.
Once at the bank, we asked if they wouldn’t mind swapping out the coins for bank notes. The lady said they could, but since we didn’t have an account with them, they were going to charge a fee.
The “fee” was… you guessed it… $10.
So, onto option 3… We drove to the local grocery store (which had a bank inside it). We figured this was the best of both worlds: they have a bank AND sell lottery tickets. Once it was our turn in line, we asked to purchase the lottery tickets. Once again, it was another company that doesn’t accept rolled coins as payment.
Instead of being helpful like the lady at the gas station, or apologetic like the lady at the bank, she was quite rude and snapped at us, “Rolled coins are not valid payment!”
Please imagine the satisfying sound of 4 rolls of pennies being broke open onto her counter…
There are a few things I should have mentioned:
#1 – We were only spending the pennies, nickels, and dimes in this way, as the quarters were easier to consume normally.
#2 – Before hatching this idea and due to the naivete of my youth, it didn’t even cross my mind that people would screw the system and slip other coins into the roll. My thought was the coins were legal tender but knew trying to buy something with 200 pennies alone was not socially acceptable.
#3 – The lady at the bank (not our bank) explained that they charge a fee because someone has to break open our rolls and put them into a machine to be recounted and re-rolled.”
1. Scam Me For Free Food? It Won't Be Worth It After I Do This To You
You’ll regret even checking the mailbox.
“I had just moved home from a big city to my home village because I was poor and had to move in with my parents. This also meant that I was no longer using my Deliveroo account because no one delivers to my village.
NO ONE.
I was therefore surprised to get an email saying I had just ordered over FIFTY QUID ($68 USD) worth of Thai food to an address in Birmingham (where I have never lived). The people using my account had failed to change the email address for confirmation before making their first order. They had, however, realized their mistake and changed the account email, so I could no longer log in.
I contacted Deliveroo, got the dough refunded, and they closed my account. Turns out, I had used the same password for it as for a Linkedin account from 6 years before, which had been hacked. (This is why JustEat is better because you have to put in your 3 digit card code to make a purchase.)
Now I am a Taurus and a person with too much time on my hands at a low-grade admin job.
So, obviously I am not letting this go. First things first – that address gets reported to their local police for card fraud, and the police basically say they can do nothing. Fantastic. I also report them to the local council on the off chance that they are council renters (no shade, I am too) because reports of criminal activity can pile up and make you lose your council spot.
I also report them to the restaurant so that they know this address is linked to fraudulent purchases. No idea if any of that did anything, but it made me feel a bit better.
Still doesn’t feel like enough though, so I find a website where you can sign someone up to receive bunches of junk mail and input their address.
I also find a website where you can order any university prospectus you want to be delivered to you (you know, those massive brochures that will fill up your recycling and just generally be annoying to hear thumping through your letterbox).
I order all the ones I can. I use fake names like ‘Anthony Thief’ and ‘Arnold Fraudster’ on some of them for lols.
I also use mail merge to create a letter to everyone on their street with the details of what happened, titled ‘A Thief Lives Near You’ because I have access to the company franking machine; this costs me nothing to do. I also send a copy to the thief with a printed picture of the Mulan meme that says, ‘Now all of China knows you’re a moron.’
LASTLY, I fill a box with coal from the shed, add a picture of Santa with ‘I hear you’ve been bad’ written on it, then post it to the thieves with only a single, second class, stamp on it.
This means that they will get a slip in the post saying that they have a parcel waiting at the post office with insufficient postage.
It is around Christmas, so I’m pretty sure they will think it is a gift or something and go pick it up. This means they will have to go to the sorting office, wait in line, and pay around £2 to get a box of coal.
I know they might have ordered the food while at a friend’s house, but to be honest, I don’t care.
If they were friends with a thief, they either knew and deserved it or didn’t know and I let them know what garbage they were hanging around with.”
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