People Tell All About Their Rousing Revenge Stories
10. Refuse To Pay Me On Time? I'll Put Up A Fight
“In August of 2014, I left my job as a dispatcher to pursue a new position as a buyer for a major food packaging company in their production department. Dispatching was second to my job of purchasing, however, the dispatching aspect left me working 10-12 hour days and being on call 100% of the time.
The new company promised it’d be an easy 40-hour work week, with occasional OT here and there. Unfortunately for me, I did not get this in writing and took the position as a salaried employee. I tried to negotiate a 6-month review with the potential for a raise but was declined. Oh well.
The hours would be less, and I was cutting my commute in half. The first month, everything went well. I worked with some really cool people, and I was proving I could handle the workload with ease.
Well, right around the 1-month mark, the woman that did purchasing for their maintenance department put in her 2-week notice.
This was no surprise because everybody knew she was going to school to become an RN. What was a surprise was that I was now expected to learn and perform her job as well. I already had a pretty good grasp on the first position and figured taking on the second position would be a good challenge and further prove myself as a valuable employee with maybe an extra hour’s work per day.
I asked again for a 6-month review which they agreed to (again, I didn’t get it in writing, but it wouldn’t matter in the end).
Despite this company’s massive financial success, it never bothered to upgrade its purchasing system for maintenance purposes. There was no inventory system, nor any way to generate a proper purchase order (PO) in the system, so I had to manually type out everything onto an Excel spreadsheet, then generate a generic PO in the system.
Then, I had to track all purchases on a separate document. It was a very cumbersome system that led to me working 12-hour days again. There was no way to track a specific item to any vendor without searching through hundreds of files/POs and hoping someone wrote a decent description.
At this point, I was relying solely on the memory of the mechanics (most of which had only been there for <6 months). Needing to do constant stock checks and asking the mechanics to teach me about some of the processing equipment (so I could have some idea of what I was buying), I was not always at my desk.
Despite having a radio on my side at all times, the plant manager complained that I was never in my office, and I needed to notify him via email or radio every time I walked away with a reason. This included going to the bathroom.
This isn’t elementary school, and me not being at my desk does not put someone’s life at risk. I begrudgingly comply, but this is the first major strike in my mind. The rest I chalked up to a loss due to my incompetence (not getting things in writing).
Still, I wanted to turn this around and see if I could make this work.
I learned the system we used was actually quite versatile, and with a few hours of initial setup, I could build an inventory for the maintenance side of the system, and generate clear and trackable POs.
Since I was salary, I could come in on a weekend and knock it out. Halfway through my proposal to the plant manager, he cut me off and told me he didn’t want to do it. I tried to explain how this would help the company monetarily and time-wise (not to mention the sad sack that got the position after me having to deal with the same nonsense), but he flat-out said “NO.” Strike two.
We’re now at the end of November and into the early part of December. The company is rebranding its pasta sauce line and introducing some new recipes. I had to source several new ingredients and order huge quantities for their first run which would begin in January of 2015.
It was tough, but I was making progress while also barely keeping my head above water in the maintenance department. Then I am given the news that the woman in charge of purchasing all packing materials is taking a 2-week vacation for Christmas. My requested time off for my birthday (the week before Christmas) is being denied because I need to cover her position as well.
Why? The purchasing manager has not been trained on how to make a purchase order. So now purchasing anything for the entire plant rested on my shoulders. This is now strike three, and I begin posting my resume and applying for jobs again. I was going to continue working until I found something (anything) else to get me away from this place.
By this point, I had already discussed quitting with my partner, and my savings would keep me from putting her in any economic harm for at least 6 months with current spending.
When I got to work the day before my birthday, I opened my email to find 16 emails from the overnight crew throwing me under the bus for not ordering a certain part.
Before I could get through all of them, the plant manager was in my office explaining that I was underperforming and this couldn’t happen again at risk of being fired. I showed him the emails that proved the mechanics lied about when they tried to order the part, me following up with the vendor to get a status, and the fact that the mechanic only gave me half of the information the vendor needed. I again explained my plan that would drastically reduce these issues if I had any sort of way to view past purchases, and I would have known exactly what was needed. His response was, “Just deal with it.” Strike four, numb nuts.
I neatly stacked everything I was working on depending on their status; forwarded a few emails to back up my side to my personal email; and sent an email to the plant manager, HR, and the production manager explaining that I was leaving the company and where everything was that I was working on.
I included my address to send my final 2 checks to (it was always wrong on my paychecks, which I had several emails asking them to correct, but they handed them out on payday, so it wasn’t a huge issue). I collected my things and walked out the door, passing all of their offices which were all empty.
Had they been there I would have stopped to explain.
A few days later, on what was a normal payday, I received my typical automatic deposit. It was only for the last full period I worked and did not include the few days I worked into the next period or my accrued vacation time.
I had also not received the check stub, which arrived nearly a week later with the incorrect address. It was delivered to the address on the envelope, and then finally made its way to me after being returned to the mail carrier. Before I sent another email asking them to correct the address, I decided to look up state laws on payment upon termination of employment.
Oh, was it eye candy…
In my state, if someone quits, they must receive all owed payments within 72 hours. For every day late after that, they are to pay the person as if they were still employed (if they pay on day 4, they are to add 1 additional day’s pay).
Also, any previous agreement of automatic deposit is voided upon the termination of employment unless there is a written agreement at that time. There was also a list of state fines associated with each infraction. I composed my email to HR and explained the laws they were violating as well as requested they update my address, and if they would mail me my final check within two days, I would not pursue any legal action.
Hoping they would reply with reason, this would all be settled by the middle of the week (which was December 31, and also two days before the next scheduled payday). Their response the next day stated that I would receive my automatic deposit on Friday since I had agreed to that upon my initial employment.
This time I replied with direct links to the state’s website and laws they were violating and stated how simple this would be in court. All I wanted was what I was due, and not asking for anything extra. There was no response until the next day (the deadline I gave them) when FedEx knocked at my door with an envelope containing my check stub.
Not an active check. There were no deposits into my account until that Friday when the normal payday was scheduled. At this point, I’m actually impressed with their carelessness and oversight in messing with someone who literally has all day to himself. Now it’s time to make a real request for everything I can legally ask for.
This email again explained all of the laws they have violated and requested the full amount due. I even calculated the amount they owed me for the late payment (16 days minus the 72 hours rounded down to the nearest $5 because I’m a generous person). I kept every email professional because I know that if this does go to court, I cannot look like a complete jerk (I already had walked out on a job going against me).
Again, hoping they’d side with reason, I detailed how much extra can be awarded to me (up to 3x the late payment amount), plus a total of the state fines. Their reply this time was simply “No.” The court documents were downloaded and filled out the following Monday, but I was going to give them one last chance.
Another email, again detailing the laws, and the corresponding sections of their employee handbook citing these laws and how ignorance of the law is no defense, but explicit knowledge and failure to follow them would not be in their favor. To add a little additional spice, I copied the CEO on this email.
I concluded the email requesting resolution by the end of the week, or court documents would be filed. An hour later I received a response from HR that their lawyer would contact me by the end of the week. By that Friday, I had a check for the late payment, plus a second check for double the amount if I agreed to not take them to court (which I did agree to).
Back to what I alluded to in the beginning, since this was now reported income for the 2015 year, I would need a W-2 from the company in order to file my taxes. On the day I received those checks, I set a reminder to pursue whatever course I could if they failed to do so.
My dreams were dashed when my girl sent me a picture of the envelope last night. I even made sure to verify every cent just in case. In the end, I’m happy it didn’t resort to that. I now have a great job/career path, and I do not want to waste any more time on an old employer.”
9. Control And Manipulate Me? I'll Destroy Your Precious Vehicle
“This story takes place over the course of 2 years with someone I consider an evil person. It first began when I was 14. I met Derrick when he was 17 in the hallway waiting for my mom to pick me up because I was sick. We started talking, and he offered to take me home in his truck because I looked as if I was going to pass out.
On that ride home, I fell head over heels for him. He was good-looking, we had similar interests, and he seemed to like me back.
Now, to give you some clarity, I had never had a partner before this. I kissed my best friend in elementary school because of a coin flip, but I never did anything with anyone up until this time.
Before Derrick, I was as innocent as you can be. However, I was a hopeless romantic and a lonely nerd in a school where I didn’t feel like I fit in. I had 1 friend, and I wasn’t allowed to talk to her because of my parents.
This probably explains why I was as easily manipulated as I was.
Derrick was a senior in high school, yet he focused a lot of attention on me. He made me a little mascot of the senior class, and I made a lot of friends this way.
We also took the same math class at the time, College Algebra. He would convince me to do both of our homework, so he could finally pass the class. In my naivety, I agreed, making sure to change my handwriting and give him some wrong answers.
I was a nerd, so this was nothing new to me. Plus, I wanted to keep him around.
He asked me out 2 months after we met. This is where everything started going bad. First, Derrick started trying to control how I looked. He hated my short hair.
I would pull my bangs back in clips and put on a heavy amount of makeup, but he would still comment on how he felt he was with a 10-year-old boy. He wouldn’t talk to me if I wore the color yellow. He also made fun of my size.
I was small (I’m still small to this day), and I hardly had a chest to speak of. My mother bought my clothing, and she would buy plain color low-cut shirts, simply because they were the only ones we could get cheaply. One day, while hanging out behind the school with his friends, he yanked down my shirt by the collar, showing all his friends my small chest. He yelled at them, “Well, at least your girl has a chest.” His friends after that would call me a horrible name, which would then spread around the high school for the rest of my high school days until I broke down and got a GED, but that’s another story.
Now, remember how I said I was innocent? He was the opposite. Derrick would give me rides in his truck, and during those rides, he would ask for a kiss, a French kiss. I agreed, thinking no harm no foul. Then it escalated. He would escalate things and start feeling me up as we kissed. I was uncomfortable, and I would usually tell him no until I broke down.
Then he wanted me to return the favor. I told him no, and he threatened to throw me out of the car while he was driving. He threatened to leave me for Sarah, a cheerleader and band geek. I finally agreed. Nothing at that time went further than that, but I was highly uncomfortable.
He graduated that year, and we stopped talking. Then, two years later, when I was 16 and he was 20, I found him again. We reconnected, and I thought he had changed a lot. I was right in a way. He was a lot worse.
Derrick lived in a trailer park by the high school, so I would go over there for a couple of hours every day just to be with him.
I never lost that head-over-heels factor for him. Those days, my hair was longer, and I dressed a little more girly. He would tell me to straighten my hair, how to do my make-up, call me ugly, tell me how flat I was, and how I could never find anyone who would really like me like he did.
He would sometimes tell me that he hated me and that he would rather be with anyone else but me. I lost a lot of the confidence I had. I wasn’t a loner anymore.
He came between my friends. When my best friend passed in December, he wouldn’t let me go to the funeral and said that they deserved to die.
He threatened to leave me then. By then, I was broken enough to believe him.
One day, I was on social media, and I saw a picture of him kissing another girl, Sarah the cheerleader. I friended her, and I started going through pictures. They had been together for 3 years, longer than I have been in the picture.
Everything slowly began to click in my head, the weird hours, the fact he never took me out, the calling me “baby” and “honey.” And then I got mad.
That night, I went over to his house. We got intimate, and then he went to sleep.
He had two cars, his truck and a Dodge Challenger. He was in the middle of restoring that Challenger, and it was beginning to look pretty. I usually sat with him while he was fixing them, so I knew somewhat what I was doing.
This is when I became the crazy partner, or really, the crazy ex… because I had enough at this point.
I grabbed the bat he kept and smashed the windshield of that Challenger with as much force as I could. I kept smashing it until it was almost gone. I smashed all the lights. I poured a Monster energy drink where the oil goes. Any sort of wires or tubes I saw, I ripped up.
I went to the inside and ripped his dashboard and threw it in the back. I ripped the leather seats he had just installed with a crafter knife and then poured another energy drink on the foam. I ripped up the leather on the steering wheel.
I destroyed the carpet with his soda and poured some on the radio. I shoved a can underneath the brake pedal.
I broke the bat on his truck. I smashed everything I could there. I did the same thing I did with the Challenger. I poured his sodas in the oil.
I poured three cans into his gas tank. I smeared dog poop from his dog poop bucket all over the inside, the carpet, the steering wheel, the seats, the pedals. I smashed every window, every light, and attacked the body until the bat broke in half.
Then I punched it so hard, I broke my hand. I keyed along the side of the truck, “Liar, jerk.” I broke the back of the flatbed or whatever you call it, so he could not haul anything around. I loosened his tires, hoping they would fall off.
Then I grabbed all his tools and shoved them in the neighbor’s trash can. I also took his sets of keys and chucked them down the street.
I blocked his number and walked home that day. While I was at home, I sent every picture I had of Derrick and me and sent it to Sarah.
She wasn’t going to leave him, she was pregnant, but I hoped to warn her. I also called his job and let his boss know that he was seeing a girl that was underage.
I don’t know exactly what happened after that point. I broke off all contact with him.
I do know he married Sarah, and they have a little girl together. It’s a small town, so I do see him on occasion at my job. He pretends not to know me. I’m perfectly happy with that.”
8. Treat Me Like Trash While Piano Tutoring Me? I'll Betray You During My Performance
Nothing is worse than cold hard betrayal.
“This story happened 7 years ago when I was a freshman in high school. My family is American, but we live in a Spanish-speaking country because of my dad’s job. The size of my family influenced my parents in choosing to homeschool for our education.
With homeschooling came a need for academic help.
Our family joined a study abroad program that allowed graduated teachers from U.S. universities to travel to our home and help in our education.
It benefitted the teachers because they experienced the culture, received free room and board, and it looked impressive on a resumé.
We found it valuable for both parties.
Teachers usually stayed for a period of 3-6 months. My parents did this for many years, so we had around six girls and a couple of guys total (at separate times) in our home. They were usually all pleasant, and some had different odd ways of doing things, but we enjoyed having them.
Except for one teacher.
There was nothing that united us kids more than hatred for this one teacher as evidenced by her nickname, Poopy Pants. She had a grumpy resting face the entire time which was visible because of her pointed nose that pushed onto her lip.
When she walked, she had the most stuck-up way about her. This girl attempted to look all prim and proper but instead looked like she was constantly constipated, causing the nickname to stick.
Poopy Pants was only happy when we traveled into the city doing sightseeing extravaganzas.
Otherwise, she had a rotten attitude. She continually complained about everything, acting more like a teenager than all of us combined.
We often questioned whether she was really a 25-year-old. It did not matter how pleasant we tried to be, she did not care for us.
I’m not sure if the dislike was because she had to teach us and didn’t like teaching; or because in her mind, our education was impeding her from having bundles of fun.
At the same time, Poopy Pants was smart. Not once did she complain in front of my parents or our friends.
She was a master at making herself look like a saint with company.
Accustomed to getting her way, she could transform into a perfect smile and an innocent tone. She was a professional in her craft with a flawless way of forming sentence structures that sounded just right.
As it turned out, Poopy Pants knew the most Spanish out of all the teachers that we had hosted resulting in her becoming friends with our friends. Things got tense when she tried to convince many of them that I was difficult to endure because of a “rebellious stage.”
By lying, she made up stories saying I was intentionally trying to get on her bad side. Sure, I played pranks on her and teased her to get her to loosen up, but the real reason she disliked me was because I called her out on her attitude.
I once called her childish when she literally threw a fit when we had to get home earlier than expected from a shopping spree. I simply tried to show her that the world did not revolve around her. She didn’t like that! Not. One. Bit.
I tried to convince my parents that she was not the innocent angel that she appeared. It was futile to even try. She could turn the tables on me so quickly by using the smallest things I said and making me look like the problem.
My parents didn’t necessarily believe everything she said because of loyal siblings, but she was the older and more mature one.
I had pranked teachers in the past causing my parents to believe that I might be going overboard with some of the jokes. They were afraid that she was more sensitive than previous teachers and that I needed to ease up.
To them, she was in a place of authority which I had to respect whether I liked it or not. It was useless for me to argue as she had them fooled too. I figured it would be a passive-aggressive game until she left for America.
However, Poopy Pants took the game a step too far.
It started when she became my piano tutor. She didn’t want to teach us piano, especially to me, but she did it to appease my parents. We had a giant recital coming up at the end of 4 months.
The recital allowed promising piano students to further their education at a musical institute. It also gave credibility to instructors. The event happened once a year, and my parents looked forward to seeing us in it.
Making up for lost time, Poopy Pants got back at me through piano lessons.
The fútbol (soccer) tournament was starting up, and I eagerly anticipated the upcoming games. I am a proud, passionate fan, and there was nothing I wanted more than to watch those games! Poopy Pants caught on to when the games were played and scheduled our piano lessons for the exact same time.
When I tried to work with her on rescheduling, she said that her time schedule was the only time that worked for her.
The planner came out, and on it was video chatting with family, plans with friends, and more tasks. It could have been a coincidence if it had transpired in only that week, but the same thing happened for three weeks in a row.
Same as before, lessons were at the precise moment of the game. Believe me, I tried everything to move those classes! Literally everything! This is what I cared for the most at that time of my life! I tried to practice in advance and urged her to do the lessons earlier, but she scheduled me brilliantly and made me look stupid in front of my parents for not wanting lessons.
To combat her atrocity, I even tried to weasel my way out and go appeal to my parents after it happened the second time. She suggested to them that I didn’t care enough about piano in the first place. That was how motivated she was to not let me watch the games.
My parents were in a difficult position but sided with her. They agreed that I could show more effort with piano to prioritize it before fútbol.
I ended up taking lessons during that beloved time frame. It was like she had planned weeks in advance how she was methodically going about it.
I tried to focus during the games. I could hear neighbors getting all excited and start screaming with the crazy announcers. Matches got loud, which was usually an entertaining environment, except at this time. It absolutely sucked!
I could not replay the games without cable, and internet streams with recaps didn’t exist. Poopy Pants had the wickedest, smug smile on her face between those periods of torture.
She enjoyed my helplessness and seemed to get a high from it.
I had never held real grudges against anyone in my life. That moment after the third lesson (which happened to be during one of the best games ever in the history of the league), I felt so heated that all I could do was sit on my bed and take deep breaths.
The more I thought of the situation, the madder I became. Poopy Pants had just unleashed a whole new level of focus that I did not know lay within me. I formulated a plan.
Disclaimer: I can only play piano by ear. It is extremely hard for me to read notes.
Nothing upset the P**********r most than me figuring out a song by ear without notes. Sheet music was her preference which is perfectly her right as a teacher. However, she did not know or care about finding my strengths.
If she would have questioned me about my previous piano playing, I would have informed her of the numerous modern classical rhythms that I could play by memory.
I lacked the proper fingering and tempo for my playing to be truly great. I still thought that with enough practice, I could play anything.
I was shocked when “Moonlight Sonata” was assigned to me by her for the big recital. I have nothing against the song itself, but it was so slow.
I don’t think that I would have gotten upset if we would have talked through other options and communicated, but we didn’t.
There was a song that I absolutely fell in love with during the same time. The name of the song was called “Rue Des Cascades” by the composer Yann Tierson.
It was a modern classical song that had recently been written, and not too many people knew about it. I quickly became obsessed after hearing it and wanted to learn it! The technical aspects of the song were quite hard and totally the opposite of Poopy Pants’ musical tastes.
I refrained from asking her since I knew that if I mentioned it, she would have brushed it off without a second thought. I took matters into my own hands (quite literally) and started practicing the song on my own.
The more time I put into it, the greater the urge I had to keep playing it.
I was determined to learn the piece measure by measure without sheet music. With the help of YouTube tutorial videos and my own faithful ear, I made progress. It took thousands of pausing and rewinding moments on the internet to observe the notes and understand them the right way, but I kept playing!
Fingers would ache, muscles would cramp, but I kept playing! Hours would pass, days would pass, but I kept playing. I attacked this song with a fire and a passion that I only thought I had for fútbol. This became my personal secret that I kept from my closest friends and family members.
When I would get tired or discouraged, the fuel from the memory of the games propelled me to keep polishing.
Fortunately for me, I had a keyboard in my room that I could plug my headphones into and practice for hours on end without anyone knowing what I was playing.
I practice “Moonlight Sonata” on the grand piano when everyone was in the house, and would later rehearse Yann Tierson to myself. For every hour of Beethoven, I put two into Tierson. I loved weekends or occasional evenings when the house was empty. I could play my song downstairs without interruption.
Practice time on a real piano was a must to master the feel of the keys and pedal.
Life and lessons continued with Forrest Grump. The passive aggressiveness didn’t change on her part, but neither did my steadfastness to play both songs perfectly. I had to keep it cool and kept attempting minor pranks on her so that she would think that was all I had in the bag.
I went from acting like I struggled through lessons, to acting like I was passionate about finally learning it. Again, nothing against “Moonlight Sonata;” I love how it flows so peacefully.
In my mind, I associated that song with Poopy Pants and her dictatorial ways; which left a bad impression.
I figured if she could fake people out with her polite, smile combo, then I could also act and show fake passion for her song.
After 4 months of rigorous practice, the day of the recital finally arrived! As the event started, the coordinator reminded us of the importance of acting professionally for there were many representatives from music schools.
The news added to the buzz and pressure among those present to take the stage.
As I looked at the schedule, I realized that I was one of the oldest ones in the program. I was amidst a bunch of junior high students. Wait? Tweens?
Many 9th graders were listed with the high schoolers who performed the section after ours. I looked back to see Poopy Pants in the row behind me with other teachers. She was laughing and putting on a pleasant act before the start of the occasion.
The clock ticked down to four minutes before the performance started, so I leaped from my spot and shuffled to her end of the aisle. I inquired her as to why I wasn’t with the rest of the high school kids.
She responded by saying that there were too many high schoolers in the next hour, and the instructors had asked for volunteers to move down with the juniors for time purposes.
She had volunteered for me after talking to my parents, telling them that I was a “late bloomer.” She did not bother to tell me and ended our current conversation with “it really doesn’t matter; you have another year to get better.”
To this statement, I just stared at her with a quiet rage.
I knew that she knew that the schools primarily considered the high school group for scholarships. Not that music school was my ultimate focus, but it stung that her whole attitude toward my playing was plain indifference.
I bluntly walked back to my seat and sat down.
She knew I was upset, so she called my name and I turned. As we made eye contact, she gave me a subtle “you better do well” look. I gave her an assuring nod along with a thumb up and an innocent side grin. But as I turned back, I felt the b***d rising to my head, and I felt a quiet determinism.
There must have been close to three hundred people in that music hall. The tradition was for kids to state their name and teacher who would come up to the stage to a round of applause and reveal the song that was to be played. Many of the kids played well with good technique and rhythm.
However, the tempos were much slower and choppy as to be expected from junior high. A couple of kids attempted to play fast but messed up halfway. The girl two people before me messed up badly and had to restart causing my stomach to turn into knots.
The guy before me played quite the opposite and performed “Fur Elise” at a perfect pace. It was a hard act to follow.
It was time. I bounced up the steps with confidence up to the microphone. Poopy Pants was on the edge of her seat about to get up.
I stated my name, but instead of announcing my teacher, I said, “I will be playing “Rue Des Cascades” by Yann Tiersen, a song which I taught myself.”
I looked directly at Poopy Pants for a split second who sat stunned, not knowing what to do.
I caught the color flush from her face. My parents had the same expression a couple of rows back, and my mother gasped. I turned to the piano before I could see their jaws drop. The crowd seemed intrigued, and I heard a light murmur as I took a seat on the bench.
I took a couple of seconds to catch my breath, check my posture, and then went at it!
Like a flash, my left pinky and thumb struck ivory at an octave’s length while seconds later, my right hand started the riff that set the tone.
The first measures proceeded just as smoothly as I had last practiced. I attacked that piano with such an uncanny focus. I had memorized it so thoroughly that muscle memory took over. I was in the zone even at the hardest point in the middle of the song.
My speed increased, and my hands flowed faster in perfect fluidity. I did not let the fact of an audience present hinder the moment.
There was a time interval in the middle of the song when the pace became very slow. It was at this moment that I slowly turned to the crowd, and I saw her out of the corner of my eye.
Now it was my turn to give the ever so slightest grin that only she would recognize. This happened briefly right before the rhythm picked up again. I continued tickling the keys as my left hand played a staccato bounce while the right hand continued with a smooth melodious roll.
Again, my fingers moved easily at the recollection of the note progression. I arrived at the final forte that brought the finishing touches to a glorious finish!
I ended with seven out of ten fingers on the piano, a forehead dripping with sweat, and a gigantic smile on my face.
Standing up, I bowed before the crowd who sat stunned before they erupted in a fit of applause. My parents sat frozen. They had a confused look of utter amazement combined with a deep sense of pride. Poopy Pants sat like a paralyzed statue with a sickening face that looked like we could soon change her nickname to Puky Pants.
Here is the aftermath. The way home was quiet and awkward. Some siblings talked for a little bit to ease the mood, but it was tense! Poopy didn’t even look at me and sat in the back with arms folded the whole way home. When we arrived, my dad told me to go to my room and wait for him.
As I waited, I told myself that I wouldn’t be ashamed of how I acted no matter what the consequences were. My mom came up about 10 minutes later and walked into my room. Her eyes were red, and she looked at me for what seemed like an eternity, and then she just busted into tears and told me that she loved me so much.
My dad came in shortly, and he was frustrated because he thought the whole thing was a giant prank that I had done out of hatred for her and my purpose was to make her look bad. I explained to them my side along with the whys and the hows.
I actually got pretty animated about how I felt, and I let them know it! The night eventually ended with hugs, and they said they were proud of me and that they loved me very much.
As for Poopy, she tried hard to play the victim card acting like I was the terrible person for betraying her after all those lessons she had taught.
She was talking with them downstairs while I was upstairs. Her tantrums were more visible now that her true frustrations came to light. My parents were noticing this more with her actions even before the recital started. That was how she was as a person on the inside, and eventually, one’s character will reveal itself in due time.
These fits allowed my parents to stop and realize that there might be some truth to what I said in the past. There was a disconnect between outcomes and her word.
My parents are very good people and their main concern towards me was that my hate for poopy pants was so strong that it motivated me to do the impossible.
They are diligent and persistent people who are rarely controlled by anger. That was the subject of what we talked about in my room for about two hours together. We talked it out together as a family and relived the tough moments of the past four months.
We cemented trust and a connection for how communication should happen in the future. In hindsight, it was one of my best memories of bonding that I think I had with my parents. It was a moment that brought us closer.
Poopy was not happy with the outcome and was more than ready to leave.
For the remaining three weeks she never apologized, accepted responsibility, or wanted to talk about it with me or to me. She tried her best to ignore me. She would not even look at me! I’m not going to lie, I felt really good being in control and getting in her head like that.
My parents tried to counsel her and talk with her about becoming a better teacher for her own good. They went over things like listening, finding the root problem with students, and how to deal with those problems. She was polite with them and “talked” about things with my mom especially, but she still never talked to me about it personally.
I want to think that it was all a great lesson for her, but who knows if she ever changed. After she left, we only received a ‘Merry Christmas’ email from her, and that was it. I got blocked by her on all social media accounts and still do not know how she is doing.
Closure: As for me, I did get a scholarship to go to a music school. I spent six months at this school, and I was taught by a great teacher the entire time who taught me how to excel with my gift and showed me different techniques that elevated my sheet reading & musical IQ.
I am very thankful to him. Ultimately, I pursued my full time in the sport of fútbol that I love. I got a high school scholarship to play at a local high school in my city where I enjoyed my time tremendously. I still play piano, but it is only for fun during my downtime.”
7. Blackmail Us Out Of $1,800? I'll Cause You To Lose Half Of Your Rental Properties
“I rented the bottom floor of a three-floor house for 3 years. Paid the rent on time, and other than a few times something needed to be repaired, the landlords and I left each other alone.
Got a dog and a fiancee during that time that both started living there, documented everything through emails, and the landlords were very reasonable about the increases, no problems.
Cut to about 5 months before the end of the third year of the lease. We are getting married in about 6 months and decided it would make more financial sense to buy a starter house.
We actually have a conversation with the landlords to let them know we were thinking about not renewing the lease and why. An important note: The landlords were a husband and wife realty team that dabbled equally in rental ownership and being real estate agents with the seal of the national association of realtors prominently displayed on every page of their website.
They didn’t seem especially bothered by it but were very interested in being our real estate agents. We said we’d consider it.
We wind up going with a personal family friend and finding a house that was what we were looking for, in a price range we can afford.
Put in an offer, some back and forth, and they accept and we start the closing process. So we give 60 days’ notice to our landlords as required by the lease, down to the letter of the contract. They completely lose it.
I’ll skip over several weeks of drama and threats to the ultimate throwdown.
They sue me (as they hadn’t actually ever added my fiancee to the lease (an important point for later) for “damages” to the apartment before we had even moved out. Why? Because as they gloated several times, as real estate agents, they knew we couldn’t close on a mortgage with an active lawsuit against me even if it was completely frivolous, and gleefully pointed out they could easily drag out the appeals for years.
After talking to a lawyer, who very kindly gave us a consultation at much-reduced rate thanks to us being referred to him from the local bar association, essentially confirmed what they were doing was super unethical, but not strictly illegal and would be very easy for them to follow through with, even if the lawsuit was completely frivolous.
In the end, we paid them $1,800 in blackmail, and I had to sign a confidentiality agreement, but we were able to close on the house.
Now to the revenge part. Some important notes: I’m an engineer who routinely works with municipal agencies, including the code enforcement departments, so I’m pretty familiar with codes and how the system works.
The county law where I lived requires that all rental properties be registered with the local township for tax purposes and issued a certificate of occupancy, which requires a code inspection before it can be rented out. As most of the homes in the area are 50 to 100 years old, landlords routinely ignore these regulations, as the code enforcement officers are usually too busy with buildings that are actively falling down to enforce them.
So, after a few months of planning, I put my plan into action. Looking at the property records in that county (conveniently all online for free), I was able to compile a list of 15 rental properties they owned in the county (except the one we lived in, due to the NDA).
A quick weekend drive to take a few pictures of each one and a letter was compiled. A concerned citizen (aka my fiancee) had looked at a rental property but was concerned that cracks in the basement foundation (good luck finding a house that age without them) might be structural (unlikely but possible) and wanted to make sure they had been inspected for safety before the certificate of occupancy had been issued (extremely unlikely that one had ever been applied for, given our landlords).
A copy of the letter for each property went to the code enforcement officer, tax official, and township council for each township for every property they owned.
Condensing for space, she received several phone calls over the next few months from most of the townships’ officials.
She stuck to the same script of being a potential renter and wanting to make sure the houses were inspected. Not one of the ones she received a call back about had been registered or inspected and since all of this was now documented in their books, they were going to enforce the regulations.
I don’t have the actual numbers, but I imagine the costs of upgrading one 100-year-old house to the current rental code, much less 15, must be in the 10s of thousands, not even considering the fees and penalties for not paying the correct (higher) taxes for years.
Surprisingly, we never heard anything from our former landlords, though I like to think after that mountain of government hurt landed on them, they got a lawyer smart enough to tell them to stop poking the angry bear. I just ran a search in the property records for them again, and it seems they’re now down to eight rental properties in that county.
It looks like a majority were sold within a year of us moving out, several at a loss. So assuming we were the cause, it looks like 1800 dollars in blackmail cost them over 30,000 dollars, just in the sale of those properties at a loss, and almost half their rental income, not even considering the price of getting their other properties up to code.
The icing on the cake: I cc’ed my fiancee on a lengthy email chain from their business emails in which they conducted themselves in a completely unprofessional manner and admitted to some extremely unethical, though not illegal, practices, such as admitting the lawsuit was completely frivolous but it didn’t matter because I’d pay up if I ever wanted to get a mortgage.
They were stupid enough to reply back to all.
So a copy of that entire email exchange was forwarded by my fiancee to the ethics officer and president of the local chapter of the national association of realtors they were members of, as well as the national ethics officer, using the links to each organization they so helpfully had on their website.
Got follow-ups from both asking if she wanted to file an official complaint, however, she explained that due to the confidential agreement, we didn’t think we could file an official complaint without getting into shaky legal ground, but we wanted them to know what kind of people were using their organization’s name and reputation.
They said it was definitely something they would look into, but we never heard anything back.
When I went to their website tonight, all of the national association of realtors references had been removed, and according to the membership list on the website, they are no longer members of the local chapter.
I like to think we had a hand in that.”
6. Mistreat Me At Work? I'll Get You Fired In An Embarrassing Manner
“Years ago, shortly after I graduated high school, I got a new job to support myself during college. The new gig was in a pet store, and I was working in the department that sold fish, aquariums, reptiles, birds (etc., etc.).
The store manager was an awesome guy who I will call Kurt. Kurt was an old-school guy, he went to work, worked hard, and went home. That’s all he expected out of you as well.
My immediate manager over my department was this large snaggletooth witch of a woman.
I’ll call her Stephanie. We got off to a bad start because she quickly found out that I knew more about reptiles than her (she preferred the fish, whereas I had kept snakes for the past 4-5 years). Her ego couldn’t handle a fresh employee not needing her guidance.
From then on she was terrible to me, she singled me out to clean the goldfish tanks, and had the other employees cover sales EVERY day I worked. She would say rude things to me such as “you are the weak link in my team, you are the reason I’m having problems in this department.”
Fast forward about a year, my hours had been cut by about 25%, I asked the store manager what the deal was, and he told me that our department had lost too much profit between lack of sales and broken merchandise, etc. This puzzled me, but I didn’t think much of it because everybody’s hours were cut.
Simultaneously, a few coworkers and I noticed something strange. Stephanie had recently taken much more interest in the customers. She insisted on helping certain customers and sending us to do busy work while they were there. A customer came in one evening and was talking to us about “how nice Stephanie is…” Turns out, Stephanie was breeding mice and selling them to customers outside of the store.
We found out she was breeding all of her animals (her dogs, turtles, mice) and selling them to customers she met through our store. Not only was this taking business from us, but our store had a couple of corporate policies (we did not feed nor sell mice as live food for snakes, and we donated a lot of time and funds to shelters, and we condemned breeding dogs and cats for sale).
Stephanie was making bank by selling animals to the customers all the while her department had hours cut for all of its employees. It didn’t quite make sense how this was costing us so much until one evening, I thought I had figured it out.
Stephanie was an otherwise lazy woman, but when one of “her” customers came in, she was by their side the whole time. I watched closely as she followed a customer around helping them pick out a cart full of expensive aquarium decorations and terrarium supplies like lights and bulbs.
I followed and wrote down every item she grabbed. I wanted to see where this went. She directed the customer to a register and went to check them out (she’s lazy and would never do this for any other customers). I noted the time and went back to work.
I later spoke to other cashiers about Stephanie checking customers out and they said that she only ever rang up certain customers, and she acted weird when they did it. They suspected she was abusing coupons for them or applying hefty discounts.
I got my coworkers to corroborate my story about the under-the-table animal sales and suspicious behavior, and I went to talk to Kurt.
I handed him a paper with about 20 UPCs and the time written on it, and I said, “I think if you look up a transaction from register 2 at this time last night, you will find a large discount applied to it. These are the items I would expect you to find on that transaction.”
He was a bit puzzled, and I explained everything to him. I told him I didn’t want to make any accusations before because I wasn’t sure, but after seeing her in action, I was pretty sure something was going on. He thanked me and assured me he would look into it.
A couple of weeks later, I was at work, and I noticed Kurt was standing near the door watching closely. It just so happens Stephanie was coming in for her shift right about that time. The second she walked through the door, he called her over to his office.
Apparently waiting in his office was a regional manager from corporate.
He looked at the list I gave him and looked up transactions from the night before. He found one at the exact time I wrote, but it only had about half of the items I listed, but every item that was on the receipt was on the list I gave him.
This prompted him to watch her for a few weeks, and in that time frame, they found her to be taking “her customers” around shopping, personally taking them up to the register and scanning every other item, and putting the expensive stuff into the cart without ringing it up.
In that time span she had given away over $1,500 in merchandise and he looked back at the logs we keep for broken merchandise that is written off and found an excessive amount of aquarium supplies and decorations that were signed off by her. (It was something like 1,000% more written-off broken merchandise than was found at the same time last quarter.)
All in all, she was charged with stealing/defrauding the store of over $3,500 in merchandise, and it just so happened that Kurt had already arranged for police to meet them after firing her to escort her out.
I don’t know if she went to jail, but I did watch her get walked out by police with about 20 employees staring, I wish I could have said something, but I had to settle for her making eye contact with me as she walked out, to which I gave her a quick wink.”
5. Act Like A Jerk On The Road? They'll Spread Your Road Rage Video Across The Job Market
“Chiller is an MBA from a prestigious local university, and he spent quite a few years doing corporate jobs before finding his niche in digital marketing and started freelancing most of the time.
At some point last year, Chiller got a call from a mid-sized company to work as a marketing manager.
He wasn’t interested in the job much, but he was getting tired of freelancing and figured he could try working 9 to 5 again for a year or two, so he agreed to go for an interview.
The interview was at 9 in the morning, so he left at 8 to get there on time, as the office was across the city.
On the freeway, he was driving at the speed limit when this turd raced up behind him in a Mercedes and starts beaming him like a madman. Now this being the morning office traffic hour, there wasn’t any space in the next lane for Chiller to move over and the car ahead of him was at the speed limit as well, so Chiller ignored Turd and kept in his lane while Turd kept beaming and tailgating him.
This went on for a few minutes until the traffic thinned at the side. Chiller figured since he was at the speed limit and there were cars ahead of him, he could stay in his lane and Turd could overtake him in the slower lane if he had to breach the speed limit.
Turd wasn’t having any of that and started honking at Chiller, at which he begrudgingly moved aside.
Turd was on a vendetta now though and moved behind Chiller, still beaming honking his horn. Disturbed by this behavior, Chiller slowed down and moved even further off the lanes, hoping Turd would give up and move on to wherever he had to go.
Turd raced around Chiller and got in front, then slammed on his brakes. Chiller miraculously managed to stop in time without hitting Turd.
Turd got out of his car, throwing all sorts of profanities at Chiller, kicking his bumper and tires, flipping him off, punching his driver’s window.
Chiller stayed inside his car the whole time, he kept his sunglasses on and didn’t make eye contact with Turd. Chiller had turned on his Dashcam and didn’t want to come off as aggravating Turd if he needed to report him. Turd got back into his car showing Chiller the finger one last time and raced off.
Chiller got to the interview just a minute over 9 and went in, heart still racing and face red. After the initial round with HR and the former marketing manager who was about to leave the company, Chiller was scheduled for an interview with the regional sales director who he would report to.
You know where this is headed right? The regional sales director was mighty Turd himself. Miraculously, Turd didn’t recognize Chiller, and Chiller was extremely disturbed by how nice and congenial Turd was being. The interview was short and curt, with Chiller barely managing to keep his cool, and Chiller went back home after 15 minutes, with HR telling him they’d call him again if needed.
Chiller spent the next few days regretting not telling Turd to screw off or something along those lines. He went through multiple scenarios in his head where he could have whopped Turd’s butt, told him what a jerk he was, etc., but it was all spilled milk at that point.
Then he got a call from HR, he had been shortlisted for a final interview with the country director. Chiller’s gears got rolling, he wanted to destroy Turd. That was when he remembered the Dashcam video. Chiller extracted the part where Turd slammed his brakes in front of Chiller, got out, kicked his car, flipped fingers, and threw profanities (although there was no audio).
Chiller took his iPad to the interview with the dashcam video. At the interview, he was in a room with the country director, HR manager, and Turd. The country director started off by asking Chiller why he wanted to work with their organization. Chiller took a deep breath, puffed up, and said he didn’t want to work with them, not as long as they had employees like Turd.
There was an awkward silence in the room with everyone being shocked at this break from routine interview practices.
Chiller then turned on the video on his iPad and showed it to the panel. The country director asked what was going on, and Chiller pointed out the raging gentleman was sitting beside him.
Turd mumbled “freaking idiot” and walked out. The country director looked at the HR manager, who said, “I think we’ll stop here; you’ve made your point.”
“Not really,” said Chiller. “You need to do something about this guy.”
“We’ll look into this. Come, I’ll show you the way out,” said the HR manager and took Chiller out.
He never took the video from Chiller.
Chiller went home, feeling dissatisfied, and called the HR number the very next day, asking if they had done something about Turd. He got a generic, “We are looking into it and will take appropriate action if we deem it necessary.” That wasn’t enough for Chiller, and his friends working in similar organizations told him they wouldn’t do crap to Turd as long as he was making profit for the company.
So Chiller decided to go nuclear.
He uploaded the video to multiple places and started sharing it among his peers, on employment boards, and on social media. He hounded the company pages from multiple accounts and posted the video under all job advertisement posts from the company.
He reached out to his alumni network (prestige MBAs, so they were all very well connected) and informed them of the video and the kind of person they would be reporting to if they worked for that company.
He kept at it for many months, and as far as we know, the company couldn’t get any decent person to work for that position.
Chiller would find out anytime someone from their alumni got called for an interview, personally approach the candidate, send them Turd’s video and why they shouldn’t work there, then refer them to similar jobs and competitors.
Turd became somewhat of a celebrity in that industry.
He was never fired, but the company’s marketing performance went downhill considerably, their website page rankings fell over time, the content they published was more infrequent and typically useless garbage, and their social promotions campaigns were stopped. Chiller estimates he cost them anywhere between $5K to $10K in SEO ranking and digital presence.
This isn’t including the loss from potential business opportunities and leads that come from inbound marketing, which could easily be upwards of $500k.”
4. Make My Time At This Job Miserable? I'll Get Your Business Shut Down
“Once upon a time, there was this HVAC subcontracting company who did small-scale projects for the local municipality. Enter me, an 18-year-old girl fresh out of high school looking for a job. I got hired at this place as an administrative assistant with no experience whatsoever.
The person who interviewed me was this horrendous crapstain of a human being named Erica. She did not work for the company, she was just the owner’s mistress. This becomes important later. This was to be the start of a very long and painful experience, but one that I got my revenge on in the most spectacular ways possible.
My boss was this very tall, very intimidating Ghanaian (West African) man named Dave. He was huge (6’7″), his voice was deep, and he was quite an intimidating man. Despite this, he was a very calm and mild-mannered person who rarely ever raised his voice.
He did all of his shady crap with a smile and a tip of the hat, like a true gentleman. He owned the company and considered himself to be successful, but he was by far the shadiest person I’ve ever worked for in my life.
I didn’t realize at the time that many of the things he would have me do were illegal. Very illegal.
Now a very funny and ironic side note here is that both Dave, and his disgusting pile of crap sidepiece Erica, were very, very religious.
As in “I have a master’s degree in Theology and will remind you every chance I get” religious. Dave was married and had a wife and three kids back in Ghana but had his little plaything Erica here in the states to keep him entertained. His wife was not aware of Erica’s existence, and she did not consent to this arrangement.
Now, one would assume that since Erica was the one who interviewed me that she works at the company right? Wrong. This witch had a very good job with the US Government and would regularly email me (read: micromanage) from her .gov email address regarding my work back at the office.
She was located in an entirely different state and would visit every few weeks to see Dave and call it “work.” It was during one of these trips that she hired me to work there.
Erica was a master at mental torture. She was nasty, rude, and would dial back all her evil ways when Dave was around so he believed she was the perfect angel.
She was well into her 50s, and would regularly bully me, an 18-year-old girl. I lived 1.5 hours away by train from the office and had to be in at 8 am. I was also in college, so I would go straight from the office at 4 pm to take classes until 10 pm.
She would call at 7:55 am, sporadically, and if I wasn’t there yet she would leave a message asking why I was late. She would always make snide remarks at me when I needed clarification on something, like “do you speak English, or do you just not get it?” Mind you, I was an 18-year-old given the job of an HR director.
I was in charge of ALL office operations, payroll, union benefits, insurance certificates, IRS forms, bank accounts, child support claims, unemployment claims, the works. He had one 18-year-old running his entire business. I am a naturally very organized, punctual, and technologically savvy person, and they took full advantage of that.
These are some of the super-illegal/shady things he had me doing:
- Changing dates on insurance certificates to make them valid, even though they weren’t.
- Paying union workers off the books
- Falsifying payroll documents
- Using literally any method to avoid the IRS such as opening new bank accounts, putting things in his wife’s name, etc.
- Falsifying approval signatures for projects
- Pacify vendors that he owed payment to, while sweet talking them into sending us more equipment without paying.
And so many other things I can’t think of at the moment. He never gave me the context of what was going on when giving me these random “assignments.” It was only later on that I start putting two and two together to figure out that most of what he was doing was shady.
I worked at this place for a total of three years and regularly had mental breakdowns in the office because of the sheer amount of work, bullying, and pressure from Erica and Dave. I’m talking ugly crying while doing my work because I didn’t have time to just cry.
Anyone in their right mind would’ve quit, but I was in college and got paid under the table which kept me on my health insurance and able to pay for my textbooks and schooling with no debt. I went to a cheap city school, so I didn’t have to take out loans, and not going into debt was more important than anything in the world to me.
I would’ve slaved for as long as it took, as far as I was concerned.
Side note: During this time, I hired a lovely young woman named Lily to help me make copies and answer the phone while I ran the entire freaking company. She was a student and around my age and had a great work ethic.
Erica would bully her too, so we had a great friendship and a mutual burning hatred for this creature that calls herself Erica. She helps me exact my revenge on these people later on by giving me documents, information, and whatever I needed since she was still logged into the company email long after she left.
Now I have stories for days about the various screwed-up things they did to Dave’s various co-contractors, his employees, and myself included. But this story is already long enough so I will tell you about the time Dave told me to “take a vacation, you look stressed.”
He sent me on vacation with two weeks’ pay and said a lot of pleasantries about how hard I work for him, how he couldn’t run his business without me, yadda yadda. It was all lip service because when I returned the Monday after my two-week vacation, I see some guy sitting at my desk using my computer.
Of course, I figured it was a mistake or he was a new engineer using my computer for drawings. Well, tough luck for me because the next minute, I hear Erica and Dave walking to the front of the office where my desk was located. I had no idea Erica would be there, and she traumatized me so much that my body would physically react to her presence.
Heart racing, sweating, anxiety, everything. They took me into the back of Dave’s office and said something along the lines of “you’re fired.” To put the icing on this steaming poop cake, Erica made up some convoluted excuse as to why they couldn’t pay me what I was owed from working overtime the week before I left. I saved up my two weeks’ pay, so it wasn’t the end of the world, but boy did that last bit chap my behind to no end.
I stewed for two more weeks while I finished up finals. I kept going over the various scenarios in my head where I was belittled, talked down to, disrespected, shamed (for not being religious), and taken advantage of. These jerks have to pay, and so I started my beautiful waltz of revenge with the IRS.
I texted Lily and told her to start looking for a job asap because crap was about to go down. She replied that she was already putting in her notice as she got a gig at a hospital. Perfect!
I began by filling out all the whistleblower paperwork and memorized all of his information including his Tax ID number so that was a breeze.
Off to the mail that went. My next stop was the Department of Labor. Same routine, filled out the forms, sent it off with a smile. All aboard the revenge train! Next stop, the labor union. I sent an anonymous letter detailing how he was avoiding paying benefits by hiring union guys under the table.
But wait! There’s more! I then proceeded to sign up Erica’s government email address to every single marketing, adult website, and spam site I could find. All of them, ranging from inappropriate horse content to discounted Ray Bans from China. Then, I contacted the insurance agency whose certificates he had me alter, and told them not to work with him anymore because of what he was doing.
I stopped myself from making copies of Erica’s mortgage application and tossing them off a building, because that could be traced back to me and would be illegal. I’m glad I didn’t do that though, as the universe had plans for her. We’ll get to that in a bit.
I sat and waited for a few weeks, and slowly the responses from various agencies trickled in. Many violations were filed against him, and various liens were placed on every single asset he had. He no longer had insurance, so the major contractors would no longer work with him.
In less than six months the company went kaput. Yay! Let’s pour a drink to that!
Fast forward six years. I’m sitting in my apartment relaxing when I get an email on my super old AOL account that I haven’t used in years. It’s from Erica, but her personal email address, and I see it’s a mass email to everyone in her contacts list. It read something like this:
Please help. I’m stuck in Italy and have been robbed of everything including my wallet and passport. If anyone here could help me, I really would appreciate it! I am stranded here with nothing and don’t know what to do!
Cue my hysterical laughter for probably ten whole minutes.
And yes I did reply back to her email. My reply was short and simple:
Lol, is this real? Lol.
And that’s the story about how you shouldn’t take advantage of young employees.”
Another User Comments:
“The stuck in Italy and robbed actually sounds like a scam… You hear it quite a bit over in the UK where all contacts are emailed with something similar saying send funds via Western Union as I’ve been robbed and don’t have my wallet or something, and the actual recipient isn’t the person that emailed…
But a scammer…
So I don’t think she was actually stuck there, just hacked…” KrashKrunal
Reply:
“Ah, but wait! Hacked email accounts are often first found via spam – so signing her up for spam may well have initiated her account being hacked! Not as terrible as being trapped in a foreign country, but still super annoying.” I_Arman
3. Bully Your Younger Co-Workers? This'll Be Your Last Day
“This story happened back in 2014, which was my first year in Japan. I had originally moved to China back in 2012 but was headhunted by this Japanese firm two years into my Chinese contract. I come from Europe and had gotten a job in the Far East working in marketing.
You see I have a particular set of skills that are quite sought after in Asia, hence the headhunting.
Anyway, during my first week in the new company, I was scheduled to go on a factory tour with all the other new employees, and this is where I meet Mr. Yamaha.
Mr. Yamaha was a young guy fresh out of college and ready to take on the world. Although I was older than him by 7 years or so we got on well. For a kid out of college, he was very mature and very respectful, and I must admit I took an instant liking to him.
He did have his flaws, such as he was very naïve, had no backbone, and had issues with confrontation. This is important later.
I should point out that although I am working for a Japanese firm the company is very much an international company which means everybody is speaking English.
That is, of course, except for middle management. Now Mr. Kawasaki enters the story, Mr. Kawasaki at first seemed like a really nice guy. He was not my boss as he was in the corporate department, and I was in public relations, but he could not speak a lick of English, and I could not speak a lick of Japanese.
Somehow we kind of bonded over this for the first few weeks as we both do a gosh darn awful job of speaking each other’s native tongue, but I progress quickly in Japanese.
I was lucky to land my job and had the opportunity to take Japanese lessons on company time, which basically meant 3 days in the office and 3 days in a classroom.
Over the year, I progressed quickly and could start to hold conversations in my 3rd language (My second being Chinese). Now Mr. Kawasaki was Mr. Yamaha’s boss, and over the months, I had started to notice a big change in Mr. Yamaha. He came into work looking like crap, his suit was always dirty, and his face always looked tired. He just looked so bummed out all the time, and the sad thing is, I really never saw him that much around the head office as our jobs both take us to different parts of the country all the time.
So it was rare to see him, but when I did, he just looked like crap.
3 weeks had passed, and everybody in the company was told the company will have its 80-year anniversary party the following month. Great! Can’t wait for a mass company party should be a good time.
The company party comes up and everybody had a good time, after the main party the sales boys from Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, and France ask us if we guys from Public relations want to join them in an after-party. Heck to the yeah I’m going out drinking with the sales teams. I’ve known from previous experience going out with the sales team usually ends up in the legends of time.
This is where I bumped into Mr. Yamaha; he’s young, so the sales guys and girls asked him to come along. He’s also a good-looking dude plus a native of Japan, so he was an instant summon to this after-party group.
We all had a good time, and yes it was a very messy night; all I can remember was making out with a girl from Colombia and pulling one of the sales guys off a girl from Taiwan (I think Taiwan).
Anyway, the last men standing ended up being me and Mr. Yamaha, and we had a very deep conversation about our company. This is where Mr. Yamaha just let loose with all sorts of information.
Now I’ve been around a while, I’ve even worked for a major car manufacturer, so I’ve gotten to know people like to complain about their boss, but this was with passion and hate.
Mr. Yamaha told me how Mr. Kawasaki basically bullied him every day. Telling him how useless he is, how he would not even spit on him if he was on fire. He even threatened physical violence against him. I was kind of shocked by what he was telling me and I’ll be honest it was difficult to believe as I have hung out with Mr. Kawasaki a few times and not once did he come across as a bully or even a crappy boss but of course please remember my language ability at this time was not on point.
So, maybe I’m missing context to this situation?
Anyway, I go home, sleep for the entire weekend and go to work on Monday. Now, I’ve been having a bit of a thing with the chairman of the company PA, Ms. Suzuki, just like the sports bike was smoking hot and hard to handle, but I dig it; I’m always up for a challenge.
We had coffee plans later that week where I mention Mr. Kawasaki and Mr. Yamaha’s situation and how for me it was difficult to believe. She laughed and said I had no concept of tradition in Japan and that Mr. Kawasaki is an “old school” Japanese businessman and that’s why he’s working in corporate because “everybody in that department has an old mind about business.” Ok, I had no idea what that really means and ask her to fill me in.
She tells me in the old days it was common for the newer members of staff to bend over backward toward the higher-ups and do anything they say without question. “Obey, Obey, Obey” was the quote she used. She then said it was not uncommon for the newer recruits to do their boss’s laundry on a weekend or wash his car that sort of stuff.
Gobsmacked by what she is telling me, she then states Mr. Kawasaki is a little bitter at head management because he was always passed over for director for two reasons. 1st he never bothered learning English which meant he could never lead a team of foreigners, and 2nd, even upper management knew of his old-style ways, and even they thought it was out of touch with globalization.
You have to remember that upper management in a Japanese company usually consists of old men above 70-80 years old. I tell her about the bullying, and she says she can’t do anything about it but might be able to earwig it to Mr. Honda the chairman, but she will need evidence of it going on.
I had to think about this, and although I liked Mr. Yamaha, I was not sure if sticking my neck out for him would be a bad political move on my part. Not only this, but I had not seen anything that would question Mr. Kawasaki`s honor as it were.
A few months down the line and I’m doing well in my job and up for promotion. As I am heading to my weekly meeting, I bump into Mr. Kawasaki and Mr. Yamaha on the stairs. Mr. Kawasaki was red in the face with anger, clenched fists with a very aggressive posture with little respect for Mr. Yamaha’s personal space.
Mr. Yamaha was feeble in posture, face and eyes red with tears pouring down his face.
I asked if everything was ok, to which both replied they were fine and there was an accident but Mr. Yamaha is ok now. I smelt bullcrap; I’ve hung out with enough sales & marketing guys to smell bullcrap a mile off, but coming from the corporate department that usually doesn’t spin tales, and it was easy to see they were bullcrapping.
I did not push the matter and carried on to my weekly meeting but took note of what I had just seen. At lunchtime, I made it my mission to seek out Mr. Yamaha and ask what the heck is going on. He told me I had just saved him from Mr. Kawasaki as he was about to physically harm him.
I had enough by this point; I’m going to crush this man.
You need to remember the country I am currently living in, if this was a US office or an EU office confrontation would have been sorted out face to face. But in Japan, people like to do things in a passive-aggressive manner but try and avoid confrontation as much as possible.
So I know if I went up to Mr. Kawasaki and threaten to beat his butt, all this would do would cause me problems. I needed another way to destroy him.
A few months pass, and I’m now in charge of marketing and directly report to the chairman of the company.
Now how I got this position to some extent can be seen as a little suspicious. You see the Chairman’s PA was also his daughter, they don’t share the same last name so you would never know from the outside and it was known that I was romantically seeing her around the office (You could argue I slept my way to the top, but I would disagree with this as in the beginning I had no idea).
Regardless, I was in a position of power and the corporate department directly responds to me now. This meant Mr. Kawasaki responded to me, he did not like this as you could imagine. He had been working at the company for over 10 years and I was promoted to a higher position than him in 3 years.
This guy made my life difficult for months on end and refused to do stuff I had asked (reports, etc., nothing dramatic – just usual company crap). Now I know what you are thinking, it might be a communication problem as we did not speak the same language.
This was my 3rd year in Japan and by then I had a grasp on the concepts of the language, so I can honestly say it was him being a jerk not a communication problem.
Anyway few more months down the line, I’m having dinner and a few drinks with the board members and mentioning my “disdain” for Mr. Kawasaki.
Which gained a bit of attention from the board members to which of course they ask why? Now I could’ve gone down the route of just telling them “oh he’s bullying staff members, refuses to do the work I set for him yadda yadda yadda” but I grew up in a house with a father who was the CEO of his own company and a mother who was a lawyer for contract law so I responded that “this guy would make it difficult for the company to grow in the foreign markets as his way of doing things is very old fashioned and would be difficult to fit in with the globalization of most companies and this is probably why we keep losing our contacts to Chinese firms.” I also suggested that he might be better off working for the accounting team as that has no effect on our front-line business.
You need to remember this is about as passive-aggressive as I could get. There are no fights, no anger, just pure venom being spewed out of my mouth about how this guy is going to affect the company’s bottom line. The board members took notice and listened to not only my complaints about him but my view on how to deal with it.
A week later, I get a memo saying Mr. Kawasaki will be leaving the company to “pursue his own future.” Score, the jerk was fired!”
2. Don't Do Anything About Your Dog Biting Me And My Dog? We'll Take You To Court For More Than What You Owe Us
Two words of advice: control your vicious dog, and take responsibility if and when they attack someone.
“We (husband and I) moved to the city and rented a house in an older, middle-class neighborhood.
Every day, regardless of the weather, I took my dog on the same 1.5-mile walk when I got off work. I met a lot of people in the area this way, and also their pets. It got to the point where I would say hi to the dogs by name and they didn’t bother us.
So, I’m on my daily walk with my Golden Retriever and notice a house down the street has a dog in the backyard I’ve never seen before. She didn’t bark or fuss, so I didn’t worry about it. Until we were on our way home, and this dog is sitting on the stoop out front and isn’t in the fenced-in back yard anymore.
The kicker is, the front yard/stoop area has those “Invisible Fence – Dog in Training” flags so I’m skeptical because I know from experience that those will never stop a dog who really wants to leave the area.
I take appropriate precautions, putting my dog on the opposite side of this random mutt, and hold his leash (a 6-foot one) so he is walking right next to me.
Finally, I keep my eyes on this dog the entire time we walk past the house. We make it past the house and onto the neighbor’s stretch of sidewalk without incident. That’s when it hits me, 100 pounds of English Mastiff barrels into my leg and heads straight for, you guessed it, my dog.
The mastiff is snarling and biting and my dog is trying so hard to run away, but I know I cannot let go of the leash, if he runs it will just be worse.
So I manage to grab the Mastiff’s collar in one arm and lock my elbow to hold it there, and I do the same to my dog and just hold them apart.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was screaming the entire time this was happening and neighbors start rushing out of the houses around us, but no one from the Mastiff’s house. Someone grabs the Mastiff and puts her in the backyard, while I’m getting talked down by another neighbor.
I’m literally sobbing, looking over my dog’s face with the light on my phone when the dog owner pulls into the driveway. She’s my age and immediately freaks out when I tell her what happened. I ask for the rabies shot documentation and city licensure, and she brings it out.
Finally, I’m calming down, it turns out my Golden was fine, and we’re talking about how much we love our dogs and how she is “saving up for training” and how the Mastiff is “a rescue with a bad past” when, I KID YOU NOT, the Mastiff opens the backyard gate and skulks down the driveway.
“GET BACK IN THE YARD!” the owner shouts at the Mastiff. I bet you can guess how that went.
The Mastiff goes right for my Golden and pins him to the ground. Have you ever heard a dog scream? I have. So what do I do?
I jump right on top of it all. (Because my dog has been there for me for a lot of crap, and he’s a baby and needs Mom to step up sometimes.)
The Mastiff has her jaw locked around my dog’s head, so I wrapped my fingers under her jaw and into her mouth and clamped down on her tongue and teeth until she let go.
The nice neighbor helps the owner drag the dog inside.
I’m crying again, and this time, my dog is from cuts across his face; they’re around his eyes, under his lips, and down his cheeks. But he seems okay otherwise. No eye damage (thank God), and as soon as he sees the Mastiff is gone, he is looking to get belly rubs from the people assembled. I tell the girl that we seem okay for now, and I will let her know if anything changes and head home.
Cue the adrenaline dump.
We get home, and my husband is gone on a business trip, so I start flipping out. So I call my very first superhero, my dad. He helps talk me down enough, so I can clean my Golden’s face and get him wrapped up in a blanket and settled. That’s when I realize that my jeans are filthy, and have b***d on them.
So I got to change into comfy pants, so we can get some serious snuggles going on when I realize that I’m the one bleeding on the same leg that was next to and facing the Mastiff. Well crap. I’ve got a puncture wound and bite bruising around my thigh, and now b***d is running down my leg.
So I call my dad back (Husband was in a different time zone and literally could not answer), and we decided to call the Ask-A-Nurse number run by our insurance. Now I really didn’t want to go to Urgent Care, as it’s 8ish at night now, but apparently, dog bites are a huge freaking deal.
So I interrupt my sister’s evening class at grad school, and she comes to take me to the ER, leaving my Brother-In-Law with my Golden, so he wouldn’t get upset and be alone. (Yeah, I’m that dog mom.) I let the other owner know about the puncture on my leg and that I was advised to get it checked out, and we head out.
Two hours later and I’m back home with some takeout and antibiotics and snuggle the heck out of my dog. The next morning, my dog goes to the vet to get everything looked at as well, and I log the necessary reports with Animal Control.
They get a small ticket, and the Mastiff has to spend a week in the house but nothing major. My Golden has no repercussions.
Fast forward to when my Doctor’s bill arrives.
I deliver a copy to the Mastiff owner and advise her to contact her renter’s insurance because it should cover something that small, like $400.
I bet Pro Revenge can guess what happens next. She refuses to pay my bill, and has her Mom write a letter about how “Insurance rates mean that bill was inflated”. Oh. No. She Didn’t.
This is where I literally start the revenge. I call my dad.
Did I mention he’s an attorney?
We begin sending letters, letting them know they can either pay or face a lawsuit. Still, they refuse to pay. We gave them so many chances, but after 18 months said “screw it” and filed a lawsuit. Suddenly they have an attorney too, and really want to settle out of court…… for less than my Hospital bill and Vet bill, after I have already paid out of my own pocket.
We decide to screw them to the wall instead.
Here’s the thing though, from the second I got home after the bite, I saved photos of every bite mark, every bruise, the vet bill, and doctor’s bill, and what my dog looked like after treatment (he had huge bald patches), the cost of my antibiotics, I saved the letters and recorded the interactions between the Mastiff owner and myself.
Why? Because I know how easily this crap can go wrong, I grew up on stories of it.
Finally, our court date arrives and we submitted article after article into evidence and kept track of each individual filing fee.
In the end, they had nothing to stand on.
I was the only witness to the initial incident. They tried to say I was trespassing. How did they know, since they weren’t home? (Also, I wasn’t.)
They said my dog is the one that bit me. Then how come they didn’t contact animal control and report it during the officer’s investigation?
They dragged it out for four hours until the judge threw the book at them, for “wasting the court’s time” and “irresponsible pet ownership.”
The Mastiff owner paid all of my medical bills, the vet bills, the court fees, AND emotional and physical damages to the tune of $1,000.
The courthouse even validated my parking.
Needless to say, own up when you screw up because you never know how much worse life will get when you try to lie.”
Another User Comments:
“I am so very sorry that this happened to you and your gorgeous dog.
(Thanks for the dog tax!) I’ve rescued maltreated dogs for years. As much as it pains me to say it, that dog should be euthanized. A calculated attack like that that escalates twice is a huge red flag that the dog isn’t mentally stable. I hope they have had to put up a tall strong fence to keep this from happening to anyone else.” irishspice
1. Try To Sue Us For Damaging Your Car After You Signed A Liability Waiver? Get Shot Down In Court
Waivers exist for this very reason.
“One of the most entertaining things in a customer service/dealing with the public role is the husband and wife dynamic.
Sometimes the husband is the more reasonable of the two.
Sometimes the wife is the calm and understanding one.
Other times, they’re both a bunch of crazy apples.
On this particular day, I had a lovely wife with an extremely aggressive husband come into the warehouse and pick out a storage ottoman they wanted.
Now the storage ottomans were a frustrating item, as the metal mechanisms that allowed the lid to be opened and shut made the ottomans extremely heavy, needing at least 2 x people to lift them.
Naturally, the aggressive jerk husband flat-out refuses to pay delivery for the ottoman he’s just purchased. In his words:
“We’ll just pick it up.”
Yeah right, buddy… More like, we will drive our small car round back, and your warehouse staff can do it.
The husband and wife conclude the sales process in-store, and the sales associate passes a copy of the paperwork to me.
I scan it over and make sure they’ve ticked off and signed off on the Terms and conditions:
- that all clearance sales are final
- that all clearance sales are “as is”
- that warehouse staff/sales staff are not covered under any insurance for loading or unloading customers’ goods and customers are responsible for the pickup of any items they purchase / order etc., etc.
The customer pulls their car round… and it’s a smallish car but should be fine.
The husband walks over, and I show him where his freshly bagged ottoman is and hand him a trolley.
Man – what’s that for?
Me- to load your ottoman, sir.
Man (chuckles) – no no no, you’re helping me.
Me – there’s two of you sir, you’ll be fine.
Man – well, then I’m canceling my order and filing a complaint against your company.
I just sigh… I don’t want to cost this salesperson a sale, but my gut is trying to tell me something.
I quickly go into the office and grab a release form which we use for anyone picking up clearance but make a few handwritten notes of my own.
I bring the paperwork back out and show it to the customer.
Me – sir, could you fill out your full name, contact details, and initial these handwritten comments, and sign this release?
Man – why?
Me – it just says that you’re happy to have me help you load up your ottoman and that if anything happens, you won’t hold us liable.
Man (smirks) – wow, you guys sure take things seriously.
I just smile as he signs the document. I pass it to my offsider, asking him to make a few photocopies for the sales associate, the manager, the area manager, and the general manager.
The wife grabs one end along with her husband, and I grab the other end.
We all lift it up and begin walking it toward the trunk of the car.
The wife seems fine, but the husband is struggling. He keeps asking to put it down, so he can take a break.
We pick up the ottoman again, and as we are just about to reach the car, the husband lets go of his end, the lounge tips to the right, I lurch forward, and the ottoman smashes into the back of their car, taking out the right-hand side tail light.
The wife immediately starts laughing as the husband loses his crap. He is inspecting the damage and is looking at me with wild eyes, wanting me to offer him an admission of guilt.
I calmly stand there as they load up their ottoman and drive away.
Is that the end?! Absolutely not…
The next day, the husband calls the store. He is filing a lawsuit against the company for damages and has provided HR and head office with excessive estimates.
Immediately I am called into the board room upstairs. There’s the general manager, the manager, HR, and a legal representative who is there for the shareholders.
GM and HR explain to me that they’re not risking a lawsuit, that they’re going to pay for this guy’s car, and that they’re going to fire me.
Without a word, I take out the document the customer signed. I hand it to the HR rep, who hands it to the GM.
Me – the customer signed off on a release form after I explained that the company didn’t cover or expect me to load his goods. The customer clearly stated here that if I helped him he was absolving me of any liability including vehicle damage.
The GM hands the document over to the lawyer who scans it. And his face changes – they know they can’t do anything.
Me – (I couldn’t help but add this) ask your lawyer over there… I did EXACTLY what the customer asked me to do… I helped them.
It was the customer who dropped his end of the ottoman… he caused the damage … not me.
There’s silence in the room.
I turn and walk out. I’ve had enough.
I go to the warehouse, grab my bag, get a bus home and play some Dead Space 2.
There was an aftermath… I went to my best friend who was a lawyer and put my own lawsuit against the company, for a variety of issues, and also sent a few emails out for the company to be investigated…
After this bullcrap transpired I got together with my best friend and we started looking into the company and the safety procedures they were breaking:
- the fact they were not hiring enough staff to safely lift items
- no lift access in the store which breaches safety laws regarding moving heavy items and also breaches a few laws around access for people in wheelchairs or with disabilities
- no overtime pay when people are forced to work OT
Now a few other things that my best friend uncovered in his investigation…
General Manager ran a special promotion during my time there that proceeds would go to a Cancer Charity… and guess what? The $50,000 meant to go to charity disappeared… and somehow found its way into his bank account.
There were also some claims made about the furniture that were false, made in Italy (made in China), 15-year warranty (2-year warranty), unlimited cleaning for the entirety of your owning the sofa (claims were always denied), stuff like that.
Armed with all this, my lawyer and I went to a mediation, where their legal team tried to pressure me into NOT taking a payout of my wage, my holiday pay, and a payout of all my other benefits if they made this lawsuit against me “go away.”
Imagine their surprise when my lawyer began bringing up all the safety violations, staff wage discrepancies, not to mention the outright lies and stealing carried out by management. The meeting was quickly postponed, and the lawyer for my ex-employer, and General Manager asked for a private conversation outside.
They asked me what it would take for me to not go ahead in court… My lawyer asked for all my benefits paid and to pay out the rest of the year as if I had been working a 5-day week.
They deliberated for 15 minutes before they agreed.
What they didn’t agree on is that we couldn’t send off the violations to all the necessary government bodies.
Last I heard, the GM AND MANAGEMENT team were fired, and the company was fined $250,000.”
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