People Tell The Time They Got Revenge By Following The Rules
21. Change Your Kid's Ribbon From 2nd Place? Sure, Get A Worse Ribbon
I can almost see the steam coming out of Karen’s ears.
“Back in the late 1980s, I was invited to help judge the vegetable contest in a neighboring county for their 4H Fair. Nowadays, we judge the garden entries by interviewing the child, discovering what things they learned working in their garden, and giving them bonus points for nice-looking vegetables.
Back then, the job was not quite as simple: each crop had different score sheets, and different points were awarded for different attributes (were the tomatoes ripe? were the beets trimmed? were they all uniformly sized? etc.) Each scorecard totaled to about 50 points. If a card totaled 45 or more points, they got a blue ribbon. If the card totaled 35 to 45, they got a red ribbon.
25 to 35 was a white ribbon, and below that got a tiny green participation ribbon.
Not only did we not get to interview the kids back then, but in fact, nobody was supposed to be in the building with us while we judged (this is important).
Anyway, I got started. I was looking at green (snap) beans first. There had to be 20 on each plate; the beans had to be uniform (all straight, or all curved); their stems had to be trimmed to less than 1/2 inch.
Lots and lots of rules. And I had maybe 40 or 50 plates of beans to look at.
I’m working along, minding my own business. I did notice several people walking through the building…fair officials, most likely. Most of them ignored me, and so I returned the favor. But one woman (we’ll call her Brunhilda) stopped and watched me work for a while. She asked me what the points meant, and I (being a good educator) explained that each attribute was rated 1 to 10, and that this plate got an 8 for uniform shape, a 6 for stem trimming, a 9 for cleanliness, and so on.
She seemed OK with my explanation and left.
Next, I’m working on sweet peppers. Again, I had 40 or 50 plates to examine and was now rating them for uniform size, uniform shape, uniform color, the same number of bumps on the bottom, etc. Brunhilda stops by again and watches me for a bit. She then points to a plate I had already finished and asked why it got only 40 points.
Being a good educator, I explained the points I gave for that plate (7 for not-quite-uniform size; 4 for different colors (greens and partial reds), etc.). She “humphed” and left.
I move on to other veggies, scoring, and grading as I go. And every so often, Brunhilda would come back and question what I was doing and why I was scoring what I was scoring. I tried to remain polite and explain what I was doing, but I was beginning to notice she was asking about specific plates (all of the names and personal identification were hidden from the judges, so I didn’t know whose plate was whose…but apparently, she did).
I was beginning to get a little annoyed with her constant questions, and became more annoyed when she suggested I was being too tough on my judging (“That cucumber is trimmed JUST FINE, why are you picking on that poor kid?”) At one point, I mentioned that I was supposed to be in the room by myself and that I shouldn’t be talking with anyone, and I didn’t want her to get in trouble for disrupting a judge.
(See…I can be tactful!)
Brunhilda sniffed at me. “Don’t worry about me. I’m the wife of the fair board secretary (or something). Nobody will DARE to say anything to ME.”
Fine. I continue on with my judging.
After a long while, I was doing my last crop: tomatoes. I was nearly done, when Brunhilda swooped in again, this time with a young boy in tow.
The kid was looking around, picking his nose, and altogether didn’t seem to care about anything being judged. Brunhilda looked over the plates and then screeched at me. “Why did that plate get a red ribbon?? What is wrong with those tomatoes??? Those are excellent-looking tomatoes to me!!!!” Now, don’t get me wrong, these were perfectly fine tomatoes if I was going to slice them up and eat them…but compared to the other tomato entries, they weren’t quite up to snuff, certainly not what anyone would call a “blue ribbon tomato.”
She continued screeching at me about how unfair I was being. And I finally had enough.
“Let me understand…you don’t think these are red ribbon tomatoes?”
“No!” she snarled.
“You want me to change the ribbon?”
“OF COURSE I do!” she said smugly.
“Fine! I will.” And I did. I took off the red (2nd place) ribbon…and put on a green “thank you for showing up and participating” ribbon.
Then I turned to her son.
“Young man…4H is meant to be an educational association, and you are supposed to learn something. I hope you learn to leave your mother home next year.” And with that, I gathered up my scorecards and walked out. As I was leaving the garden crops building, I looked back. The boy was still looking around aimlessly, not caring about anything going on… but Brunhilda looked like a catfish someone had hooked and left on the side of the creek…her mouth opening and closing and her throat puffing up, like she was gasping for water.
I don’t think anyone in her entire entitled life had ever talked back to her before.
I turned my scorecards in, collected my judge’s fee, and never heard a word from anyone at that county fair about taking Brunhilda down a peg or three.”
20. Yell At Me Over Filing? I'll Make Sure I Never Have To File Again
“Setting the stage: This story takes place in the summer of 2020. I joined my significant other on a camping trip to the woods, planning to relax while he worked. We both work in tree removal, but I didn’t have a current project.
I accidentally got a job as admin support for my partner’s boss after hanging around the office one day and giving Excel tips. (He didn’t know what control+F did.)
At first, I helped with building spreadsheets, reports, and sending emails for him. Every day, he asked for a new task from me, and every day, I did it well. Eventually, I had developed a schedule and even included running programs to check for mistakes while I took calls to increase productivity.
My boss (owner of the company) decided he had nothing to do with me there, so he went home (different state & time zone), and I ran things. There were about 3 months of this. I wouldn’t really hear from him except for the occasional, “How much did we make this week?” Or “ Has anyone told you you’re doing a great job?” I’m a very modest person, so believe me when I say, I was great at this job.
Nothing got by me. I kept everything organized and always knew where to find any kind of information I needed.
A few weeks into the fourth month, my boss came back and brought his family. His wife would hang around the office and watch me like a hawk. If I took too long of bathroom breaks or doodled while on conference calls, she would tell me that I was on company time.
And honestly, I didn’t mind too much; she was very nice a lot of the time, and I’m pretty easy-going.
During a stand down, my partner and I went home and were having dinner with his family when my boss’ wife called. She was angry from the start of the call. “Where is X employee’s paperwork?” I told her it was scanned and in the locked folders in our company files.
Walked her calmly through how to find it. She then yelled at me for not organizing files. Like I said, I always knew exactly where everything was. Everything she asked for, I told her where to find just off the top of my head. She demanded that due to my incompetence, she wanted to organize all files from now on because that was her job and this was her company.
I was a bit upset but didn’t let her know and apologized for any mistakes. Remember, she and her husband had not been present or in much contact for months.
Malicious Compliance: Following this call every file, paper scrap, receipt, etc. that needed filing, I sent her in an email stating that it needed filing. She eventually told me I didn’t need to send her everything and to just file it, but I let her know that due to my history of “incompetence,” I didn’t want to jeopardize the company or create issues by misfiling and that it was important to me that she did her job, so she could be present in her company.
She hated filing. I don’t know why she did and what she did, but I never let her get out of that hole she dug.”
19. Come In For My Shift? But You Just Suspended Me
“This happened about 3 years ago while I worked at a large pizza chain as a manager.
Background: At the time of this story, I was in college coming up on 5 years of service at this company and 4 years of it being management. At our location, I was the second-longest standing employee with one other manager having 1 more year than me, so it goes to say that we knew how to run the store smoothly and handle shift changeover and scheduling.
The old general manager left a lot of this work to us and only stepped in when things didn’t add up cash-wise due to someone miscounting. Our general manager (my boss) was relocated due moving, so we gained a new manager from outside our area and different corporate office.
It’s the middle of a dinner rush on Wednesday and I’m running the line where we make the pizzas.
Everyone is moving among and things are going smoothly. Then I hear our new general manager from across the floor talking to our manager in training.
General manager: Sure Hunny, if you want to leave early, that shouldn’t be a problem!
The only problem is it very much is a problem. She is one of two closers for the night and I like going home before 2 AM on a school night (I have a 7:35 morning class so no sleeping in), so I walked over.
Me: Hey, sorry to overhear, but did you just say the manager in training can leave early tonight?
General manager: Yes, is there a problem?
Me: Manager in training is scheduled to be a closer tonight with me to be trained on paperwork and help clean. Did you ask anyone else to take their place?
General manager: No, but that shouldn’t be a problem. It’s only Wednesday, and you can manage it just leave when you’re scheduled to and I can handle what’s left in the morning.
Me: Ok, Boss. If you say so.
Cue MC
So the night is ending and I and my one closer are scrambling to get things done. I got the paperwork and daily cash put together and inventory done while he cleaned. Right at the stroke of midnight, I looked at him and said, “Boss said it’s time to go. The new general manager said to leave when scheduled; they will handle the rest tomorrow.”
Needless to say, things were not finished. Dishes were piled in the sink, floors weren’t fully swept and mopped, and stations were not set up.
Come tomorrow morning, I get a phone call from the general manager screaming at me asking why the store was a mess, and at that moment, I need to come to the store and see him. Well, classes ended and I came into work (on my day off, might I add) to see the general manager and the manager in training staring me down.
Me: What seems to be the problem?
Manager in training: You left this store a mess! And you call yourself a manager!
General manager: She’s right; this is unacceptable.
Me: I just did as you told me and left at my scheduled time.
At this comment, the general manager blew up and screamed some slew about how the manager in training can replace me in a heartbeat and that I should have stayed and finished my job.
He then proceeded to tell me I’m suspended from work for 2 weeks, and to that, I happily said “Ok!” And walked out as I’m now suspended and not supposed to be at work.
Fast forward to Friday night (I normally close Friday and Saturdays), and I get a phone call from the manager in training asking where I am. I humbly reminded her I’m suspended and to enjoy covering it alone.
Not even 5 minutes later, the general manager called me demanding I come work my shift and how he can’t believe I’m skipping out. Again, I humbly reminded him that I’m suspended on his orders. At this, he stammered for a second, then just told me to come in anyway as they have no one to cover my shifts. I refused and said I will see him in 2 weeks.
I turned in my notice and was never scheduled a shift, even when I came back. I come to find our general manager ended up covering all my shifts working upwards of 18-20 hours a day as the other manager that normally worked with me was on vacation. It’s so nice to watch people stew in the mess they made.”
18. Have To Leave Because It's Past My Clock Out Time? Okay, Bye
“I work in a production facility that is heavily regulated by FDA rules and regulations. One of them is that anything that deviates from SOP has to be investigated. Strict deadlines have to be met and although extensions are allowed it has to be due to unforeseen circumstances.
I have worked here for close to ten years and I have a unique position that only I do what I do.
I do it well and need little if any oversight as long as I meet weekly goals. I also step in to help review investigations and route them in the system for closure when needed. I am hourly and refuse to work from home since I am not getting paid for it; plus, home is family time. I like to track my work through email, so if something unusual is requested of me, I ask people to send me an email, so I make sure to do it.
Cast: me as me. New associate supervisor as Jerk. Ps – not my supervisor but outranks me.
Jerk: It’s Friday and past your clock-out time. What are you doing here?
Me: Helping out a coworker who had to leave on time.
Jerk: HR wants us to reduce overtime and there is no reason why you should be here.
Me: Don’t worry about it. I am sure my supervisor will address it if it is a problem.
Jerk: You are just running the clock. As a supervisor, I know a lot of things that you are not aware of. I think you need to clock out and leave.
Me: I am waiting for an investigation to be signed off, so I can close it.
Jerk: Well, your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency.
Me: Do me a favor. Send me an email, so I can put it on my to-do list.
Jerk: fine! By the way, you will get nowhere in life if you need simple reminders for things like “go home.”
The email read something to the effect of “due to recent HR directive, personnel are asked to reduce overtime hours. You are directed to leave within 15 minutes as per our conversation at 5:30 pm today.”
Me: Ok.
Cue Malicious Compliance
I forwarded email to my supervisor and left.
I get a frantic call Saturday asking me what I was thinking having an investigation go overdue?! I say that jerk told me to leave and to please see the email I forwarded you.
I get a call back begging me to run in and close the investigation which literary would take me less than 5 minutes and that includes a quick email check. I say sure, but since rules are rules, I invoke call-in rules.
Instead of 1.5x my time, I get double pay for 4 hours minimum. My supervisor was ecstatic that I could go in that she immediately said yes. Took my family with and had them sit in the car as I popped in, click, click, close, left, and went for a nice family lunch.
Jerk got written up as is the rule for causing an investigation to go overdue and it directly affected his raise and bonus.
Oh and he never talks to me!!! That alone is a huge win.
What a jerk, right?”
17. Make Her Go Into Work When She's In The Hospital? She'll Be There
“So I was working at a cake store nearby that sells a very specific kind of cake.
Anyway, so the owners were literally AWFUL. Paid me $7.50 an hour instead of the $8.50 I was promised, kept my passport for three weeks when I started for “safety reasons,” yelling, shouting, etc.
Everything HAD to be perfect. Obviously, they never did any work themselves, just sat on social media all day. They also took any tips we got to pay for their lunch. They would order us to clock out, then make us keep working.
They would literally schedule me for shifts that started DURING my school day (I was still in high school), then got mad that I couldn’t be there on time. Ok, sucky bosses established.
So one day, I marked on the schedule that I wanted a certain day off. I marked this almost a MONTH in advance. They asked why. I said I had a doctor’s appointment.
They said ok, you won’t be scheduled for that day.
Now, back then, when I said I had a doctor’s appointment, it was honestly just a tactful way for me to say, “I’m going to be in the hospital for a while.” I was REALLY sick back then.
So the day comes and I go to the hospital like I had planned, when all of a sudden, I get The Call.
It’s from one of the sucky bosses, the wife. Let’s call her Susan.
Susan asks me where I am. I say it’s my day off. She says I’m written on the schedule. I had worked the day before, and I double-checked the schedule every day. I wasn’t on it, and I tell her as much. She says her husband, Rob, had written my name in that morning to work a shift because one of my coworkers was sick.
She can’t do my work because she’s MANAGING (sitting on social media). Obviously, I should have been able to telepathically see the schedule or something. I remind Susan I have the day off for an appointment. She says I should be done by now, and to get to the store for work. I tell her I’m in the hospital and am in no condition to work.
Is she SURE she wants me to come in? Susan tells me she is very sure. “That is NOT an appropriate excuse. I want to see you right here at 2 PM SHARP, or you’re FIRED.”
Fine.
I go into work.
It is glorious.
I am on so many pain meds I can’t walk straight. My eyes are red. Soon, I can barely stand up.
I’m in tears as I’m ringing up customers.
Susan is shrieking at me because I keep making mistakes. I’m just standing there taking it, mostly because I’m completely out of it at this point.
That’s when it happened. We had all known an inspector was coming sometime that week, from the regional department or something. We figured he hadn’t stopped by yet.
He was IN THE STORE. Undercover, I guess. He didn’t say anything. He just walked out. I later got an email from him asking what had happened, so, I told him. I told him Susan had threatened that I would be fired if I didn’t come in.
I found out later that week Susan was being fined a couple of grand. I found this out because she sent me a bill for the fine, a nasty note attached to it.
(I’d resigned already by the time she did.)
I never answered.”
16. Won't Pay Travel Time? I'll Play By The Law
“This happened a couple of years back at a retail store that has since closed down. I got the job only because I wanted extra funds as a college student and it was super easy to do.
Management was always bad, but this was the final straw of it all.
To help track who is who in the story Me (will be me), and HR (Human Resource Manager). For acronym sakes.
This all started near that point in a job where you just know you’ll either get fired or quit because it’s no longer worth it. However, I was seen as a fantastic worker since I did all the heavy lifting, shift coverages, and was very neat with making displays look perfect.
There was only one supervisor who liked me, and the Boss Lady absolutely hated me.
Well, the assistant regional general manager from corporate was going to stop by another location that was about an hour away from the location I worked at. I was asked by Boss Lady to go up there and work a day for them to help clean up the store and make it look as good as I did Boss Lady’s store.
I agreed but forgot to ask if she was paying travel time (laws for me were distance from my store’s location to the other one + distance back to the original store which could be concluded from the original departure that morning + clocked hours after clocking in at my location until I got back to the store, which was done by timing myself that morning all the way up to the other location = states required travel time).
Well, I asked the only nice supervisor about it since she was going too and did it before.
Me: “Hey, do we get travel time for this?”
Supervisor: “I don’t know. I never really asked and never really got any bonus pay, but I also don’t really care.”
The day comes I go to my store, clock in, and head to the other location about an hour away.
Worked the whole day making everything perfect. The next day I come to work and asked Boss Lady about travel time.
Me: “Hey, Boss Lady. Am I getting travel time?”
Boss Lady: “What? NO! You were on the clock the whole time, that’s what you get paid.”
Enter Malicious Compliance
I was doing business law at the time and knew the travel time laws in my state, so I decided to see if HR knew them too.
In secret, I called the HR number on the back wall and left a message.
The next day, my phone is blasting off with calls while I’m in a class, so finally, I call back.
HR: “Hello, is this Me?”
Me: “Yes, who is calling?”
HR: “You left a voicemail for the old HR manager, why?”
Me: “It’s the number we have at the back of the store.
Why do you ask?”
HR: “Well I’m the new Human Resources Manager and I’ve been in this position for the past month. Has your Boss Lady not posted my new number yet? It was required to be put up 24 hours after I was in the role.”
Me: “No, the Boss Lady hasn’t done anything back there, also I explained the travel time story and Boss Lady isn’t offering travel time pay.
Do I talk to you about it?”
HR: “Yes, I will look into this, and RM might call you later.”
The call ends, and the next day, I get another call.
Regional Manager: “Is this Me? I’m Regional Manager and I’m aware of the situation. Please know I will be taking care of this and that you can get your travel time pay anytime once Boss Lady calls you.”
The call basically went like that and ends.
(Side note I had already put in my two weeks before I reported Boss Lady, which was a week after travel time day).
Few days go by, and I finally get a call from work.
Boss Lady: “Come get your pay.”
She hung up before I even got to say anything.
Went in and got my pay in cash from the till, Boss Lady was angry and the other supervisors were sour as heck.
Luckily that was my last day too, and since putting in my two weeks, she never scheduled me once.
After I left, I found out a few months later upper management basically forced Boss Lady into retirement since rumors around work started spilling out from my bravery to talk up about her, and more people started ratting her and her minion supervisors out to HR.
15. Call Every Time I Drive? Will Do
If it makes you happy, Mom.
“I was the oldest of my siblings. So I was the first of us kids to get my driver’s license (in the US) at 16 during my junior year of high school. My mom was super controlling, and clearly the utter joy I felt at having some semblance of freedom was not okay with her.
The first day I got my license and was ready to go to school, my mom was furious at me when I got home because I didn’t call her.
I was confused because I did call her when I got home from school (she worked as a doctor and so wasn’t home until later). I even called her when I got to school in the morning! But oh no! In her rant she explained that she didn’t just want me to call when I got where I was driving, she wanted me to call her EVERY TIME I got IN OR OUT of the car.
I’m sure some of this was just natural parental worry about your child driving, but my mom was also a jerk and a pain about this, so I knew what I had to do.
Now, as a doctor, my mom’s days were very busy. Seeing patients, ordering labs, writing chart notes, making and taking phone calls, etc. Yes, there are free minutes here and there but not on any particular schedule.
So I knew my mother would absolutely HATE if I called her as much as she said was required. It would be interruptions nonstop for her to just say, “Ok, bye,” each time. But, she asked! (We had cell phones but this was before texting was a thing.)
So my school was about 20 minutes from my house in medium traffic. I went to a private high school where Soph-Senior students had an “open campus” – i.e. we could leave when not scheduled in class.
We also had a 15-minute mid-morning break and a 45-1:15 lunch depending on the day.
Making the most of my new rule, I said goodbye to my mother in the morning and called her 20 minutes later from the school parking lot. Then, at 10:00 am, I decided to make the most of my break and get a coffee. “Hi mom, I’m going to Starbucks!”
10:02 am “Hi Mom, I’m at Starbucks!”
10:08 am “Hi Mom, just leaving Starbucks back to campus!
10:10 am “Hi Mom, I’m back on campus!”
Then for lunch! Obviously, I’m going off campus because I have my driver’s license!!
12:15 pm “Hi Mom, I’m going to the deli.”
She couldn’t even make it one day. “Daughter, why do you keep calling me? Stop calling me. This is ridiculous.”
“But Mom, you said I had to call you every time I started driving and every time I got where I was going.”
“No, I didn’t. That’s stupid. Stop interrupting me. I’ll see you at home.”
And just like that. No more calls!”
14. Want Lemonade Without Sugar? Fine, But Don't Complain When You Try It
“I ran a lemonade stand at the time, and I was pretty young, maybe 19-20. I had been working this job for quite some time now, and while there was no official “manager” position for the stand, that’s the role I played. It was a pretty slow day, so I was the only one in the stand, my coworker being on an extended break (we often take 2-3 hour breaks alternating through the day.)
You know that meme, the original Karen meme? Yeah, that woman or at least very well could have been her, walks up to my stand to order a lemonade, followed by who I assume is her son, close in age to myself.
I have made literally thousands of lemonades at this point working fairs. There’s one simple recipe, and unless I’m asked prior to adjust it, which I’m happy to do, I make it per our recipe.
Well, I make the lemonade and hand it to her. After one sip, Karen becomes FURIOUS.
Karen: “Did you put sugar in this lemonade?”
Me: “Uh yeah, why?”
Karen: “You don’t put sugar in lemonade.”
Me: “Yes ma’am, that’s part of our recipe.”
Karen: “Well you don’t put sugar in MY lemonade.”
Me: “Well, if you’d like one without sugar, I’m happy to make you one, but I didn’t know-”
Karen: “I shouldn’t have to ask. You don’t put sugar in lemonade.”
Karen’s son is in the background mouthing apologies profusely; this is not her first rodeo.
Me: “OK. My apologies ma’am. Let me make you another one.”
I go to my cooler where I had stored away a 1-gallon jug of pure lemon juice I had squeezed the day before from lemons that would not hold up much longer in the heat, take a cup with some ice, and fill it to the brim.
No water to dilute it. Straight lemon juice. I hand her the cup and watch her take a sip, even MORE angry.
Karen: “What is this? Give me my money back.”
Me: “I’m sorry ma’am, but I don’t do refunds for custom orders.”
Karen (Almost yelling): “I need to speak to your manager RIGHT NOW.”
Me: “I AM the manager. Please leave my stand.”
A good 5-10 seconds go by while she stands there, incredulous and absolutely fuming before her son, trying to hold back a smile, convinces her to leave, so they can go try a different stand.
I still feel bad for the son to this day as he was incredibly embarrassed over the situation and seemed like a pretty polite guy. Beyond me how a woman with that sort of entitlement could possibly raise a son like that, but who knows what was going on in her life that day. Either way, it makes no difference to me, I got my “sweet” revenge.”
Another User Comments:
“I’m the kid of a semi Karen… I wanted to be NOTHING like that. I was always embarrassed and hated going anywhere with my mother because she would cause a scene…. That’s how that boy ended up being the opposite. Because it’s shameful being more of an adult than the actual adults.” Gothspite
13. He Wanted Directions, And He Got Them
“First off, before we start, this is in the UK. This happened in 2019 to me personally.
I live in the UK in a tourist town/city in the UK, and as such, when we are in the city/town center, we often get tourists asking directions to this thing and that. No biggy. Most of the time, I just happily point in the direction, give as good of a description as I can, and off I go.
This Saturday afternoon in mid-summer, I’m with my family and we are in town and looking for a place to eat when a tourist stops me and asks where can I find “The Citadel.” Now let me make this clear: I’m in the north of England, and the only place has what I know of as “The Citadel,” and that’s in Carlisle around 5 hours car or train journey away.
So I politely say, “Sorry, I don’t know what you mean.” The tourist and his wife stop me and in a thick American accent say again, “I want to go see Your Citadel.” Now, normally most US tourists are amazingly polite and nice, but this cantankerous jerk was anything but. I repeated, “I’m sorry. I lived here all my life, and the nearest Citadel is Carlisle that I know of, but that’s……” He turned red and began shouting at me.
“I don’t care what you think, you hillbilly! Now tell me how to get there!” This is yelled at the top of his lungs 6 inches away.
So I calmly say, “Ok, no problem,” and I proceed to give him directions that will eventually lead him to a station nearby (not in the town/city but a village outside). It’ll take him around 2 hours to walk there.
He notes them down. I even point out landmarks he will see, real things, I mean. I then say he will need to board a local train to a sleepily little place (actually it’s a larger city) then change trains to X (X being a town with a station around 1-2 hours south of Carlisle) and tell him he can get a connecting train from there.
He smirks and says, “Here you hillbilly. That wasn’t so bad to be nice, now was it?” and gives me a quarter! No kidding. I have it (cleaned off, of course), still in a jar in my office on a shelf full of other coins you can’t spend in the UK. You will be amazed how many dodgy coins you get from machines in the UK.
I have no idea if the idiot followed my directions or not or if he realized I gave him the most convoluted journey I could think of on the fly.
Still makes me laugh to think of the idiot and his poor wife stuck on a train to Carlisle wondering where it all went wrong.
Yes, I was a little awful, but if he had listened, I would have asked if he meant a local castle (but like I said, I’ve lived here all my life, and it’s never been referred to as a citadel) and told him how to get there in five minutes.
Lesson of the story. Don’t be a jerk.”
I was waiting for the bus and this guy asked me for directions to the airport. He asked which highway and exit . I said I wasn't sure. If you follow the local road it's about a 10 min drive. He yelling tell me which exit to take off the 287. I don't know man,why are u yelling. Should I just make directions n get u lost.
12. Want Me To Reject Crucial Supplies? Will Do
“About a couple of decades ago, I used to work at a concrete production plant for a reputable construction company. Our company, like several other construction companies, was awarded a portion of a larger project.
A large portion of land was earmarked for setting up temporary office buildings and concrete plants for the different construction companies.
The “sites” were separated by temporary barriers and had separate entrances.
As many of you may (or not) know, concrete is produced by mixing cement, water, sand, and stone grits (size 20mm + 10mm) along with special admixtures in a specific ratio. Our recipe also contained a special ingredient – stone dust. Turns out, only our company used stone dust in our concrete and the neighbors did not.
So a special truckload full of stone dust was specially shipped for us. This is important later.
My job entailed orchestrating concrete delivery to our project sites apart from regular quality control tasks like checking incoming materials for quality etc. Only after I had signed the delivery receipts, our store’s personnel would unload the trucks at designated areas. A log of all trucks entering and leaving the concrete batching plant would be kept by security at the gate (Relevant later.)
Since my job entailed checking incoming material before accepting, the suppliers would usually try to offer some petty bribes. I always declined such offers as once accepted, you became their dog and lose all respect in their eyes. Moreover, bad material also impacted the quality of concrete produced: strength, consistency, and setting time, to name a few. Since concrete delivery was also part of my job, it was in my best interest to only accept good material, otherwise, the client would chew me up during casting.
One night, a supplier truck entered the premises with 20mm stone chips. Upon testing, I found them to be undersized for 20mm and oversized for 10mm. I went ahead and rejected the load. The driver and supplier started pestering me, offering bribes and whatnot. When I didn’t budge, they called my boss who asked me what was going on. I explained that the quality of the material was unacceptable and I have rejected this.
When I mentioned it is too small for 20mm, he ordered me to dump it in a 10mm bin anyway. I knew what that meant. My boss was on the supplier’s payroll.
A couple of weeks pass by and my boss asked me to reject “a truckload” of material from a very reliable supplier. He knew that the supplier was only delivering stone dust that day and should we reject material, the entire load would be a waste and a loss to the supplier.
Once the stone chips or stone dust has left the quarry, they, for some reason, can’t bring it back. Hence my boss wanted to hit the supplier where it hurt most. Especially stone dust as there was no other company that would take it.
Cue – malicious compliance. I called the supplier, who had become a friend by now, and told him that I was under orders to reject “a truck”.
He panicked and told me that my boss was putting pressure on him for bribes. This particular supplier believed in providing quality material and always visited my lab to understand how I tested the material and what my requirements were. He would then go back to his quarry and adjust the equipment to deliver the best quality materials. Because he put so much effort into improving the quality of his product, he did not budge and bow down to my boss’s demands.
I asked the supplier friend to route a truckload of 20mm stone chips meant by some other company to my plant first. I would let the gate security log the trucks’ entry and then promptly reject the material. He was then supposed to send the stone dust which I would accept and be done with my “task.”
Everything happened as planned, I completed my remaining activities for the night and went home.
When I came back to work in the evening, my boss was waiting for me at the door. As expected, he had checked the entry/exit log as well as the material receipt history. He had noticed that I had accepted the stone dust and was chewing his anger, waiting for me to explain.
He very casually asked me if I had rejected a truckload.
I acted dumb and answered in affirmation. I told him that the very first truck, a 20mm was rejected. Now usually 20mm is never rejected, especially from this supplier, so he asked me what reason did I give while rejecting the truckload. I said flakiness index – a test we never do as a field test but is mandated by the client to be done once a quarter.
He knew that I was playing him, but he couldn’t do anything. I had done exactly what he had asked me to do, reject “a truckload.” I had covered my bases with the security log as well as the material receipt, so he just muttered something under his breath and never mentioned this to me again or asked me to do anything similar. 2 months later, he was transferred to a different site and I became the overall in charge – the same designation and pay, just more responsibilities.”
11. Sit On My Hands To Stop Fidgeting? Okay, But I Won't Be Able To Work
“So I’ve recently been going through the process of getting an ADHD diagnosis, and part of this requires me to look through old school reports to see if there were patterns present during childhood.
I got to one report that repeatedly mentioned fidgeting in each class by the same teacher, and it sparked a memory of 7-year-old me enjoying taking my teacher’s words literally.
I used to fidget, bad. I was a great student, but I just couldn’t keep my hands still because doing that stopped me from interrupting classmates and the teacher.
One class, I’m fidgeting and my teacher tells me off and says I need to sit on my hands to stop myself if I don’t have any self-control.
Me: For how long?
Ms. J: Until I say you can stop.
So I sat on my hands like she asked. Then she started handing out our workbooks and pencils, and I thought I should start working, but I realized she hadn’t said I could take my hands out from under my butt. But then I also can’t raise my hand to ask if I can stop because that defeats the point. So I turn to my friend and ask for their help putting the pencil in my mouth and opening the workbook.
I start writing with my head, which is when Ms. J notices.
Ms. J: What are you doing?
Me: You said I had to sit on my hands until you said I could stop. You didn’t say I could stop yet, so I’m making do.
She got really angry at that and sent me out of the class for being too literal, but she never asked me to sit on my hands again!”
Another User Comments:
“How do you get sent out of class for doing exactly what you’re told? That’s nonsense.” ESGBear
Reply:
“I was at a British all-girls school, so there was a lot of emphasis on no back talk and being quiet and polite. She said I’d taken her instructions too literally deliberately and said I should’ve used my head. Left that school 2 years later – best choice ever!” uwu_depwession
10. Make Me Deliver On Short Notice? I'll Take The Trailer To The Mechanic Like I'm Supposed To
“I drive a truck out of the same warehouse every night.
I show up at midnight, get my paperwork, and deliver the load on that paperwork. Most nights, I get the same run which is scheduled to leave the warehouse at 2:30. I show up so early in case they need me to pull a different load.
I’ve been there for close to 2 years now and always got along with everybody for my first year. About 9 months ago, they hired a new dispatcher (the person who hands me my paperwork), and she started implying she was interested in me.
She would compliment my looks and ask about my day and stuff like that. After a few months of this, I asked her out, she agreed, and all was well. When the night to go out came up, she canceled last minute and asked to reschedule. She never got back to me and I never reached out again. No big deal. This is pretty typical behavior in modern times.
We still saw each other at work and got along well enough. I treated her like any other coworker and she did the same. That is until about 3 months ago anyway. I came in and got my normal run which leaves at 2:30. Since I have some time to kill, I go hang out with a buddy who’s close by, something I do quite often and everyone is cool with it.
As long as I deliver on time, that’s all that matters.
I came back at 1:45 and found out my truck needed repairs, so I went in to dispatch and asked for a different one. The dispatcher gets snotty and starts yelling at me about how they couldn’t track me. We’re constantly monitored by GPS while on duty, but I wasn’t on duty yet, so there’s no need to track me.
I argued back for a little bit and eventually just sighed and said, “Can I please just get another truck, so I can deliver on time like I had planned?” She throws a key at me and I go do my job just as well as any other day.
All goes well for the next 2 months or so. I still see her every day, but I keep conversation to a minimum and do my job.
One day, I come in and find out they don’t have a load for me. That’s not uncommon and I get paid just to be on call, so I’m content. I go hang out with a buddy as usual and await the call to either come in for a load or get relieved for the day. She calls at about 1 am and says, “Come in when you get a minute.” I say ok and she hangs up.
I show up in about 5-10 minutes and she tells me that another driver didn’t show up for his shift, so she called me in for his run. He actually showed up a few minutes late (between the phone call and my arrival), so she gave him his usual run and said they didn’t have anything for me. She then proceeds to scold me for taking too long to get there saying the load would have been late.
I would have had about 4 hours to do a 2.5 hour drive. It wouldn’t have been late. At this point, I’m 99% sure she’s screwing with me, so I just say, “Ok” and I turn around and leave.
About 20 minutes later, I get another call saying I have a run. I go in and get the paperwork to start my day. This run was on a tight schedule due to poor planning.
It could have left the warehouse earlier, but it didn’t, and now there’s only a 15-minute margin of error. I notice there’s an issue with the trailer. It’s nothing dangerous, but it’s technically illegal and shouldn’t be on the road. Normally I would just pull the trailer and report the issue when I got back since it isn’t dangerous but not today! I bring the trailer to the on-site shop for repairs, but the mechanic couldn’t fix it.
At this point, dispatch is calling me asking why I haven’t left the warehouse yet so I fill them in. I tell them I’m not pulling a trailer with any flaws and we need to load the product into another trailer. They agree because it’s illegal for them to make me drive a vehicle I’m not comfortable with and we get started. It took about an hour to move the contents of the trailer into a new one, so at this point, I’m running about 30-45 minutes late.
I just sat in my truck browsing Reddit while the warehouse did all the work.
I ended up getting to my delivery about an hour late which makes dispatch (and the whole company) look bad. I apologized to the customer and explained the problem. I’ve delivered there before, and they like me, so it’s all good.
Dispatch hasn’t played any games with me since. I’m hoping they got the message that I won’t be a pushover.”
9. Refuse To Give Me A Raise? I'll Give You A Reason To Replace Me
Ooh, burn!
“Almost a decade ago, I worked in a call center doing over-the-phone tech support. I worked there for almost 7 years until I was fired because the desk phone they issued me malfunctioned for 6 weeks straight (despite my continued twice a week complaints). They didn’t even try to appeal my unemployment either…
Anyway, I started there in 2008, and by 2010, I had switched from a customer service role to a tech support role and then moved into a more senior tech support role (which did not come with extra pay).
My job consisted primarily of calling customers back who had an issue that normal tech support was unable to resolve. If I had time, I was expected to help call back customers who left dissatisfied surveys as well. I was also given certain blocks of time during the week to monitor the interdepartmental chatroom to help answer questions. I also had a lot of documentation to do to keep track of everything I did and said to a customer.
I take pride in my work. Once I learned the ins and outs of the system, I became rather competitive. Each survey or escalation had an associated ticket. We were expected to close 60 tickets per month per person. This equated to just under 3 per day. In order to close a ticket, we either had to resolve their issue (or at least note their additional survey feedback), escalate their issue to the corporate office (to die.
More on that later), or leave 3 voice mails over 3 days and send them an email.
Once I was comfortable with what I was doing, my goal became not to close the most tickets but to absolutely destroy everyone else in how many I got done. The minimum was 60 per month, and there were a couple of people in our 12 person department who never broke 100 and were normally doing 50-70 a month.
Most people were in the 100-200 range, a few sometimes getting up to 250. I regularly did 400 or more every month, for almost 3 years. I had days where I would make 75 phone calls a day. I also monitored the chatroom, often more often than required, wrote articles for our internal database, helped our slowest members with paperwork, answered incoming front line emails if they were behind, and had low-level agents directly transfer live customers to me rather than escalating them if I knew I could resolve their issue right away.
Towards the end of that 3 years, I also began helping out another department that dealt with customers who mailed their device in for repair. It wasn’t that I was so much smarter than everyone or ridiculously good at troubleshooting; I am just organized and driven. When we had a slow month where almost nobody called us at all, I only did 125 tickets and read probably 7 hours a day.
I read Stephen King’s Dark Tower series in a week, entirely at work.
The company I worked for (the one who signed my paychecks) was a contract company owned by a big multinational out of Canada. They took contracts from companies like DirecTV, Comcast, and USAA. I found out that the company I was doing contracted work for paid my company $35/hour for my time, but I only saw $10.50 of that.
I also was almost never allowed overtime, maybe 1-2 weeks a year for the entire 7 years. First-level leaders were salaried and, if they didn’t work any overtime, made about $12.70. I heard that the next level leader made about $60,000 a year and the building director doubled that.
The company that made the product I was troubleshooting was like a dumpster fire. They sold a product that developed a hardware issue, which they knew was a hardware issue, but they forbid us from telling a customer that and instead told them that we were working on a software update.
Despite being primarily in the USA, our website only offered user manuals in Spanish, and the website developer claimed that it was “impossible” to add a new tab for user manuals to the website. A co-worker re-coded the website, hosting new pages on a personal server, and linking EVERY outside link (like to another part of the website) in just 45 minutes and presented it to our corporate office.
Our warranty only allowed for repair. We would not ship out a replacement device and would not provide any sort of loaner device. The minimum repair time was 3 weeks and the customer was responsible for shipping the device in, including paying for shipping and a box. If it got lost on the way, it wasn’t our problem. Apparently, our repair center decided that first in, first out wasn’t a convenient system for processing the repairs, so they just pulled however they felt like it.
I had the pleasure of calling customers who had mailed their device in over a year prior because it wouldn’t even power on to tell them that it was now out of warranty and we no longer had any parts to repair it anyway and would they like us to mail it back to them?
Now comes the malicious compliance. The first came in when the company tried to launch an in-house made data backup service.
It was extremely poorly developed and failed miserably. Much better and free systems existed, and even if the company’s system had worked flawlessly, it had no benefits that I could see. When we started receiving complaints that it was not working, our corporate office told us to just immediately escalate to them; don’t even troubleshoot. I knew nothing was ever going to come of that, of letting cases just trickle in.
I knew that corporate would just let them die. So I came in one day and I took ALL of the pending cases for issues with the backup service and entered them into the ticket service program.
Now this is where it got really good. At the time, when you created a ticket, it would send you 3 emails by the time you had finished, that’s before leaving notes or closing it, just entering information.
I knew this, and I knew I could change the responsible person on the ticket from myself to the person at corporate in charge of this issue at the beginning instead of assigning it to them at the end. I entered 128 tickets for that issue alone that night (I was working the second shift at the time). It only took me a few hours. I had plenty of time to do real work after that.
That means the person at corporate who was supposed to handle these cases came in to work the next day with over 350 new emails in their inbox. When I got to work the following day, I was told we were no longer escalating those issues and instead just telling customers that we were working on fixing them. Those customers never got called back and the person at corporate later lost their job because they barely ever got anything done.
My last malicious compliance came when they started letting people work from home. They did this to save on operating costs as they expanded the workforce. By moving associates to work from home (this was 2012), they didn’t have to pay for electricity or as much bandwidth, etc. If you worked from home, you were issued a terminal and keyboard/mouse and a phone. You had to supply a monitor, and the system was a machine.
When an opportunity came up to switch to work from home, I put in for it (they moved people in groups as they purchased new equipment). When they found out that I wanted to work from home, they tried to talk me out of it because I wouldn’t be able to do escalations and surveys at home. I would have to be front-line tech support again.
I asked if I could have a raise then. I was already topped out and knew I would never get a raise ever. They said no, so I chose to work from home. My main reason for working from home was actually money. I didn’t get a pay cut and I was spending a lot on gas because I lived 25 miles from work, and gas was over $4 a gallon a the time.
Working from home was like a $0.50/hour raise because I was spending $20 a week on gas. Working from home was also great for me because I could work in my pajamas and didn’t waste over an hour driving to and from work. I never understood why they wouldn’t let me do what I had been doing before from home; I had all the same tools at home as in the call center.
When I left my old department to work from home, I was doing at least 25% of the work for the entire department. I was closing 400 and 500 tickets a month (and still wasting an hour or 2 every day). They ended up needing to move THREE people into the department to replace me.
I stayed with the company for 3 years after that, mostly because the work was easy and I wasn’t particularly motivated to find something better.
I ended up getting fired in the end. Like I said, they issued me a desk phone. It was like a landline phone but had an LCD screen with some configurable options on it, and you could plug in a headset, and it worked over the internet.
About 6 weeks before I got fired, my phone started having an issue where it would drop calls. Normally, it would ring and you would press answer.
But it started having an issue where it would ring once, or half a ring, or sometimes nothing at all, and then hang up on the customer. Sometimes it would then place me in a state where I couldn’t take calls again until I pressed a button on the phone. I notified my supervisor immediately when it first happened and continued to do so twice a week over the next 2 weeks.
Despite my repeated complaints, I was told to just “watch it” and she refused to send me out a replacement.
A week before I was fired, I was working on a day when my supervisor was not. A different supervisor saw that I was in this unavailable state, and despite me telling him that it was my desk phone and that it had been happening for weeks, insisted on giving me a formal verbal warning.
When my supervisor came in the next day, she immediately called me and told me she was upgrading my verbal warning to a final written warning. The company, like many, had a 4 step system of verbal, written, final written warning, and then terminated. She gave no reason for why she was upgrading it to a final written. A few days later, I noticed that one of my tools was not working correctly but managed to struggle through until lunchtime when I restarted my terminal. After lunch, when I restarted, I was unable to log back in.
I immediately texted my boss. We had to clock out for lunch. I didn’t want to be in more trouble and I didn’t want to be underpaid either. I then called our help desk, but I was back on second shift, so it was after-hours support and they were unable to help me. It was a Friday night and they said that normal help desk personnel wouldn’t be available until Monday morning.
I hung up and called my boss instead. It went to voicemail. I continued to try to reach out to my boss Saturday, Sunday, and Monday via text, phone, and email. I had been scheduled to work all weekend (I normally had days off in the middle of the week) but couldn’t do, so I was unable to log in to my terminal or phone.
Monday morning I called the help desk again and was told that I “wasn’t part of the company anymore,” but there was no reason listed as to why, and there was obviously nothing they could do to ask the help desk.
My boss finally reached out to me on Wednesday, via text, and said that I had been fired for “call avoidance.” I filed for unemployment.
It was denied, but when I appealed, the company didn’t even have someone call into the phone interview, so I won by default.
I was on unemployment for 6 weeks before starting at my current job. Since then, I have gotten 2 promotions and am currently making more than double what I made at my old job. To top it all off, last year, the company lost a class action lawsuit for making people sign into their terminals and open software before clocking in.
They didn’t want to pay people for those 5 or so minutes a day, and they lost millions of dollars. I got a check for a few hundred bucks out of it which was a nice touch.”
8. Imply I'm Out Of Dress Code? Let Me Remind You Of The Rules
“So a lifetime ago, I was in high school, and they had a fairly reasonable dress code.
They weren’t the kind of place that got offended at a female child’s shoulders. Thank goodness.
It was called the Cover the 5 B’s: Butts, Bosoms, Boxers, Bras, and Bellies. Fair enough.
I got a gift from my sister just before she passed away. It was a shirt and it was very special to me. The style would be… questionable these days, but for the time, it was super cute: a halter top with a little skirt at the bottom (intended to be worn with pants, and it was).
The only “problem” was a low cut back.
Being a halter top, it fully covered the front. It had a built-in bra, so no straps anywhere to show. Since it had the skirt, belly and butt were covered, and obviously, I didn’t wear boxers. The low cut back was about 6 inches above my butt. From the back, it may have looked like I was wearing a weird skirt belt and no top, as the neck strap was spaghetti style, but it was perfectly in line with the 5B’s code.
In comes the vice principal. Absolute Karen. Haircut, attitude, she had that sickly fake smile that Umbridge from Harry Potter had and everything. No one in the school liked her; even the counselor found her unbearable.
I’m walking down the hall during a break between classes when I hear a little “ahem” (seriously, they should have just cast her for Umbridge) and I ignore it because why assume that in a hall packed with students that it was meant for me?
Then I heard my name called. I turn to VP, and she has her stupid little smile on, and she does that patronizing “come hither” finger curl at me. I oblige.
VP: Copsa, do you know why I called you over?
Me: I don’t, no.
VP: Do you think that is appropriate for school? (Gesturing at my top.)
Me: Seems fine to me. Covers the 5B’s.
VP: (smile is more like a grimace at this point, she was the type to view literally anything that wasn’t bootlicking as backtalk) Your back is very exposed.
She’s making it sound like I am unclothed. She is also doing that thing where she talks very slowly and over-enunciates every word in a really condescending tone as if I am absolutely stupid. Cue me being a snarky little B.
Me, matching her baby-talk condescending tone: Well, Mrs. VP, while the word “back” does start with the letter B, it is not a part of the 5 B’s; you have listed in the dress code. As you can very clearly see, neither bosom nor belly nor butt nor bra nor boxers are visible anywhere on my body.
VP, looking a bit unsure: Well, I thought you might be cold…
Me with her own fake sickly sweet smile on my face: Nope, I’m fine! Thanks for your concern.
And I walked away.
It’s the only time I ever had a one-up on someone I really detested, and I still smile when I think about it. She also never brought up the dress code with me again even when I blatantly broke it with an unintentional bra situation (just didn’t pick the right cut for the shirt, happens), which was nice.
Ah, to be a sassy teenager again…”
7. Electric Bill Still In Our Name? I'll Make Sure We Don't Pay A Cent
“We moved out of an apartment 2 months early (school housing contracts, blegh). Since we couldn’t get anyone to move in for only two months, we were on the hook for the 2 months of rent which was a fortune to poor college students. We were told by the on-site manager (also a poor college student being paid in free rent) that we’d be responsible for the electricity bills in the apartment over the next two months despite already doing our official move-out.
No, they can’t be changed back to the landlord’s name.
Fine. I’ll pay the electric bills, but I’ll make sure they’re zero. So when we left, I turned off all the breakers.
I still had the keys because we were supposed to mail them back to the property owner (at our expense) since I guess he lives far away and only comes into town at the beginning and end of each semester.
A few days later, we realized we had forgotten some items in the bathroom, and since the apartment was on my way to school, I decided to swing by and grab them before mailing the keys back. When I walked in, I was startled to find someone inside. It was the property owner with a box of tools looking very dirty.
Apparently, the hallway lights weren’t working (and in violation of building safety codes), and he couldn’t figure out why.
The security system also seemed to be non-functional. It looked like something had tripped all the breakers, he said.
I said yeah, that something was me since the electric bill was still in our name. He pointed out that not powering the hallway light was a safety concern, and also that having the power off would ruin the refrigerator. I pointed out that I couldn’t care less about the safety of an apartment I didn’t live in; I already had a signed move-out document saying all the appliances were in good shape and also that him being there was technically a landlord violation since we were still paying rent and he hadn’t given us notice that he’d be entering the apartment.
We looked at each other for a few seconds. I was wondering if I was technically trespassing or not since I had already signed move-out documents. He was probably thinking about how much time he had wasted for something like 13 cents worth of electricity and how he couldn’t really stop me from simply dropping by any day after school to turn the breakers off again.
Finally, he said he’d take the electric bill out of our name.
I grabbed my loofah, left, and didn’t hear anything about it ever again. Most importantly, I never paid another cent (except, of course, the two months of rent, but small victories!)”
6. Don't Train Me Properly? I'll Do What I Can
I mean, all you can do is try, right?
“To clarify this was a little under ten years ago, so some details might not be 100% accurate, but I will do my best.
At the time, I was a high schooler in Texas and looking for a job to get some extra pocket change like a lot of high schoolers do. I ended up getting a job at a fast-food place where people don’t have designated official positions.
The manager would make the schedule weekly and you’d find out whether you were packing orders, working the drive-thru window, working the inside register, backwash (doing the dishes), or working “door” which essentially meant going out to cars in line taking their orders as our drive-thru speaker didn’t work (which also got us tips so it wasn’t all bad). Side note: the manager was a lazy jerk who would sit in the office messing around with their fantasy football team and making inappropriate comments about the girls.
Anyway, usually new hires were trained for 9 total shifts with 2 shifts for each position on everything except the drive-thru window where you only get one as it’s fairly easy to do once you know what you’re doing. I was never actually trained on the window because on my shift, to learn how to do it, the person responsible for backwash called in and I was told to take their place as the new guy, so the more experienced people could handle the part of the store directly impacting customers while understaffed.
Fast-forward to a Sunday 10 am to 5 pm shift which includes our busiest time of the week the after-church lunch rush. When I got in and looked at the schedule, I was assigned to work the window, and to the best of my memory, the conversation went like this:
Me: “So I’m supposed to work window, but I never actually got trained on it.”
Manager: “Everyone gets trained on everything; you probably just don’t remember it happening, but it’s easy anyway.”
Me: “But I didn’t get trained on it. I had to go do backwash beca-”
Manager: “Look, I have to help get ready for the lunch rush. You’ll be fine.”
At that point, I just decided to go attempt to work a station I didn’t know how to do.
The lunch rush hits and we’re extremely busy as to be expected, and I’m doing my best to try and do a job I wasn’t trained in.
Window job includes trying to cash out cars and give drinks to cars who ordered food (door handled just drink orders as they cost exactly $1) as well as handing out food when it’s ready. Once you cashed out the car at the window, you’re supposed to start going outside and handling the next car in line. This sped things up a lot so that when packing was done, you’d probably hand out 2-3 orders in a row right after each other.
Now since I had never been trained on the window, I didn’t know that 1. I was supposed to hand out drinks (I assumed Door did that because I was told to get people drinks when trained on door. In retrospect, Window probably didn’t say anything when I was doing that because it just made their job easier) or 2. cash-out more than the first car. Needless to say, things got really backed up really fast as I would constantly have people say, “Where are our drinks?” and would only do one car at a time because I didn’t know any better.
Fallout: 30 minutes into the rush, our drive-thru line is wrapping around the building almost to the point where the car at the window can see the back of the line. The manager (probably seeing people leave the line because of how ridiculous the wait is) comes over to me and:
Manager: “What are you doing?”
Me: “I don’t really know. I tried to tell you I didn’t know how to do the window.
I’m taking the people’s money and handing out the food. I think the door person keeps forgetting to give people their drinks.”
Manager: “YOU’RE supposed to give people their drinks if they got food. Why aren’t you cashing out more than one car at a time? Who trained you on Window?”
Me: “I tried to tell you no one did, but you didn’t listen.”
At that point, he just told me to go help the person on the door take orders (something I knew how to do) and he had to end up taking over the window to try to begin to catch up.
Not only that, but since we were so backed up, the lunch rush lasted at least an hour past its normal time since for whatever reason people wanted to wait that long for our food. It definitely ruined his usual routine of sitting in the office looking at his phone.
Also, I was trained on how to do window my very next shift.”
5. Can't Pay Me More For Doing More Work? I'll Just Do What I'm Supposed To Do
“I used to work in a medical lab, and all of my teammates were male and I am female.
I did almost twice as much as anyone else and got paid less than anyone else in the same position in the entire lab including females. Eventually, I noticed that I did more work when my coworkers were asking me to help them out with their job because I was efficient and had extra time. I asked for a raise or to be put on an easier project.
My boss said no because I made sure things were done on time and I was the only one who could actually do all the work.
I decided to do the exact same amount of work as the co-worker that makes the next lowest amount, so it’s still more than me but also pretty low. When I started doing this, I started getting behind in my work and had a meeting with my boss.
We all send daily updates to the team, so I pulled out my co-worker’s daily updates and my daily updates and showed him that they were exactly the same. I’m on a different project, but it takes the same amount of time to do the same work; it’s just that my project is more intensive. I asked to be bumped up to that co-worker’s salary and if I was bumped up, I would do more work.
He said no.
I went to HR, and they said to talk to him. I talked to his boss who told me to talk to him, who said no. He stopped complaining about being behind and asked my project manager to help me out on my project, but he ended up being utterly useless and acting like a child when I explained I was done with work and showed him my co-worker’s previous daily update and explained that’s all I got paid to do, so that’s all I’m doing.
He basically just stalked me to watch what I was doing, but my boss only wanted proof I was actually in the lab, not that I was doing work.
I decided to amp it up. My next lowest paid co-worker made 12% more than me, so I did 12% less than him. Now I still have all my previous skills, so I would just sit myself at a computer and just play games or whatnot for the remainder of my shift. It drove him up the wall.
Especially cause that’s all I could do in the rules, so if he asked me to not do that, I had email chains between him and me about where and what I could do during breaks. We had required 2, 15-minute breaks on the clock and an off-the-clock lunch. However, we can’t use our phones in the lab. Most chairs were in dirty (biohazardous) areas and clean chairs were limited, and it’d be rude to move those, but sitting on the floor in the locker room was unprofessional. We could use our phones in offices, but we couldn’t take breaks in there because we’d be a distraction.
The building was huge and had one break room that took 3-4 minutes to walk to from my lab and breaks were 15 minutes total, so that was useless. I tried sitting in the hall, but creepy guys kept coming by once they figured out my routine. So…I’m taking my breaks in the lab on the lab computer, BUT it’s 15 minutes uninterrupted; if you get asked a question or interrupted in any way, then you restart your 15 minutes.
There was no way I was going to be in the lab and it be quiet and I wouldn’t get interrupted, especially if I went down the Buzzfeed quiz blackhole. Everyone wanted a go at it as well. So I could take my 15-minute breaks in the lab and get them to last 2 hours within the rules. I was in the lab the whole time, and since my PM was keeping an eye on me, I could turn around and ask if he needed anything since he kept passing by then start my timer back.
Anyway, I got away with it long enough to find a new job, especially since I applied to jobs on the clock. I quit and am now making 45% more in salary, and now they are over 1,750 samples behind, which is 2 weeks worth even for me, a month at their current rate. I never got more than 400 samples behind at my laziest, and that almost broke my laziness strike cause I actually have an alright work ethic.
Upper management (meaning two or three people above his boss) is now getting involved to see why the samples are so far behind and action is taken to look into what can be done.
I am friends with two of my old co-workers. One apologized to me and said he thought I was lazy and not doing my work, but now it’s even affecting him since two people were taken off his team to replace me and I am no longer organizing and cleaning.
Messiness gives me extreme panic, so I’m always organized, just didn’t let my boss know, and now my old co-worker can’t find anything cause nothing is where it belongs. The other one passed my boss and said, ‘Bet you wish you just gave her the $2 hours she asked for?” and he made a nervous laugh but didn’t say anything.”
Another User Comments:
“Good for you for getting a job that pays you what you are worth!
It’s a bitter lesson to learn that going above and beyond at your job means nothing (no raises, no thanks, just criticism), except being taken advantage of. Enjoy your new role!” zoradysis
Reply:
“Right?! After a few months of working there, I actually asked to learn new processes. Specifically sequencing and my boss said no cause people who know sequencing get other jobs easier. So I had to organize files from 2016 (in 2019) and I never asked for more work in the next year or so I worked there cause I would get busy work.” haley4221
4. I Can't Work More Hours? Good Luck Having The Department Covered
Your rules.
“Last year, I was working at Best Buy as a mobile specialist. There’s a pretty reasonable learning curve to working mobile, what with plans, devices, and specialized systems of the different phone carriers. It’s also worth mentioning that mobile is one of the more profitable areas of the store. So much so that Best Buy once had standalone mobile stores in malls.
The store was clamping down on hours and got on your butt if you went over your prescribed shift. Also, if you went into OT without telling your manager, so they could remove you from the schedule, you were written up.
(Best Buy is not a great place to work.)
Anyway, mobile had been short-handed during the holidays, and that day, I had only been scheduled until 6. No coverage had come in for the remaining 4 hours of the night, and no manager had asked me to stay.
Mobile had been pretty busy the whole day with just me at the helm. I was running two and even three activations at the same time.
Well, with people still in the waiting queue to be seen, the clock struck 6. Got into the punch clock program, clocked out, and walked out as scheduled. I was almost giddy.
I KNEW I left a timebomb of soon-to-be angry customers in my wake and that managers would have to deal with them and NO ONE in the store would be able to assist.
But the store managers would write you up if you were over your hours without permission, and I wasn’t in the mood to find one to petition and explain that mobile had no coverage, especially since they were being stingy with my hours that week, which was my livelihood.
Fallout.
The next day, they tried wagging their finger at me for leaving without coverage.
I just brought up how the GM and the other higher managers had clamped down on hours and how I wasn’t allowed to go over. They sort of went quiet and didn’t say anything more.
I learned from coworkers just how screwed they were the previous night.
Apparently mobile got slammed less than an hour after I left, in addition to the waiting customers.
I was simply delighted to hear that. Let’s face it, they had to schedule, they had the power to see that there was no coverage, and could have asked me to stay on their own.
Eventually, when there were schedule gaps, they put the gaps in the morning or the mid-afternoon and not prime time evening.”
3. Can't Help Me With This Task? Fine, But These Customers Will Complain To You Later
“So this happened about a little over a year ago. I was living on my own for the first time while going to school and was struggling to get by after depleting what I had left from student loans. I started handing out resumes and filling out applications and got a job at a chain store.
My manager was a really good guy.
He’s in his late 20’s and from what I gauged during my time there, it was more inexperience than anything else that led to my undesirable instances working there. During the interview, he lets me know that they’ll have me starting out as a post office clerk because it’s the hardest to learn and that he wanted every employee, new or old, to learn it at some point.
This was because – when I arrived – there were only 3 people in the entire store that TRULY knew what they were doing with the alien postal POS system. So naturally, it was difficult to schedule, and they needed help.
The problem with working at the post office is – there are a bunch of things that are very simple to do – but there are also many things that aren’t, which have tons of options and menus and specifics and..
it’s just a lot when you start to learn it. Redirecting mail from old addresses to new ones, opening and closing PO Boxes, and even simply mailing something internationally all require an elaborate string of menus.. Think of it as a dungeon in the Legend of Zelda.. Sometimes you get close to the final room, but you forgot something along the way. It’s tedious and exhausting after a few hours when you sorta know what you’re doing and have an entire line of people concerned that you don’t know what you’re doing, lol..
The girl who trained me was around my age, and while she was sweet and meant well, she wasn’t trained to train, if that makes sense. So instead of going through things in a linear way so that it was easier to understand, we were all over the place the whole time. I spent most of my first few shifts taking notes of the simple and common things (and eventually more elaborate ones) and organizing away incoming packages for pickup.
I took notes for like the first 3 weeks (about 6/7 shifts). I addressed my concerns with the training but was brushed aside pretty quickly and was told to just ask questions. I was thinking, ‘I’ll learn this eventually,’ and I did fully.. over a month and a half after I started. In all honesty, I don’t know where the training shifts began and ended..
which is never a good sign.
So at this point, we’re about a month into me working there and I show up to work to see one of my AMs (assistant manager – she’s the focus of this here tale) with a new girl I hadn’t seen before. This AM was not one of the 3 people in the store that understood exactly how to do everything, but she could get by – a little better than I at this point, undoubtedly.
She introduces us and explains that today is her first shift.. and drum roll pleaseee.. that I’ll have the duty of helping to train her. “Well, I guess I’ll just leave you two to it,” aka I’ll sit in the cash office and do basically nothing for the next couple of hours. I do my best to give her the really easy stuff first and help her along.
She’s taking notes, looking at mine, and trying to help here and there before I just teach her how to organize the backroom, so I can get through the massive line that has conjured. I’m a little frustrated because I haven’t got a break, and it’s been close to 5 hours at this point.. me working alone at a post office without actually knowing how to do a third of what we do.
A woman comes in after the line disperses and explains she wants to send some gifts to a friend in France. She takes out an Apple Watch, a piece of clothing of sorts, and something else with decent value that escapes me at the moment. Anyways, we find an adequate box to ship it in and we get the address on it. Alright.. so let me look like I know what I’m doing until I don’t..
annnnnnd let me go ask my manager.
I find AM in the break room (which is where I probably should have been instead):
AM: What did you need?
Me: Yeah so, I haven’t done a whole lot of international shipping and this woman is sending out some pretty expensive things to France, so I don’t want to make a mistake.
AM: Well, nobody else is here that can work there..
and I’m on break right now.. you’ve been here for a couple of months (huh?), so you should be able to do it by now.
Me: Well, I’ve tried writing down notes and I’ve been doing transactions on my own a lot more. It’s just that there’s a lot of stuff to learn, so it’s hard to get it all in up there, y’know?
AM: You just need to go through it slowly.
I sigh and go back as I’m too tired to do anything but just get it over with. I ask the lady if she wanted to maybe come back tomorrow as I was somewhat new and may take a bit of time to make sure everything is done properly, hoping she would agree. She didn’t and explained she didn’t really have the time and wanted to do it now.
Totally understandable and I felt bad but.. What was I to do? I just tried my best.
What I haven’t mentioned to this point is the wild amount of customs stuff and different form types we have in our drawers under the POS. I didn’t really have the hang of which form was which for methods and duration of shipment. I deliberated with an inner monologue and thought I had found the correct form and proceeded to have her fill it out and finish a transaction that I was not supremely confident in.
AM finally shows her face a little later and asks me about it. I more or less just give her a thumbs up. I finally get a break a couple of hours before my shift ends and thankfully the rest of the night is dead and I teach the new girl to cash out and leave.
Somewhere around 3 weeks later, I get into work after having a couple of days off.
Trainer girl is there she asks me about a woman who wanted to ship some expensive stuff to France before I explained that there wasn’t anyone here and AM pretty much stuck me with it.
So, apparently, this lady showed up and went insane exclaiming that I hadn’t sent her package properly and that she was going to call the police before storming out once AM told her there wasn’t anything she could do about it and that if her address was on it, then it should return if there are complications and can be refunded.
I go to clock in and hear my name from the cash office to my left.
AM: David, I need to speak with you before you clock in.
Me: Sure AM, what did you need?
AM (clearly flustered): Do you remember the women who came in about a month ago sending expensive stuff to France?
Me: Yeah, I do.
AM: Well, she came in yesterday screaming at me about how she thinks you didn’t send out the package properly because they haven’t received it and I had to calm her down and try to figure everything out – and YOU told me it was fine.
Me: I was having difficulties figuring things out and honestly haven’t been formally trained, so I just tried to take it slow as you advised and do my best.
AM (knows she messed up): We- well, at least it’s sorted out and she didn’t call the police.
I clock in while chuckling in my head and get on to my duties as a postal clerk.”
2. Want Me To Clean Certain Wheels? I'll Clean Them All And Cost You A Lot
“A little background to begin. I work in a tire shop as a part-time job while I’m going to college. We are in a very snowy area that receives nearly 30 feet of snowfall a year, so as winter sets in, we become swamped with work as everyone wants their snow tires installed on vehicles. To keep up with demand and maximize profits, my boss “bossman” wants us to keep a 20 minute turnaround time pace.
This means in only 20 minutes we have to bring the vehicle into the shop, lift it in the air, remove the wheels from the vehicle and let the air out, change the tires on the wheels, properly inflate and balance the wheels, and then install them on the vehicle and park it in the lot while grabbing the next vehicle.
Bossman will sometimes ask us to wash the customer’s wheels if they are particularly dirty or on a high-end or brand new vehicle.
I understand this and always wash dirty wheels so they can be balanced properly, and will wash whichever wheels I’m told to as well. I dislike having to wash the wheels as if it’s done often enough, water simply ends up everywhere, in my shoes, on the bay floor making it slippery with mud, on the tire machines; it’s just a mess and isn’t necessary on all, but the dirtiest and nices wheels.
The problem is sometimes Bossman will randomly decide a wheel should have been washed after the fact or that it was not thoroughly cleaned. He will come from the front office into the shop nitpicking all the work and making sure it is all up to his standards. Earlier this week after being chewed out for not washing a rusty wheel with no visible dirt on it, I decided I would just wash every single wheel that came through the shop.
This would not only add about 5 minutes to the job that should be done in 20 thus affecting our output, it was also unnecessary probably 90% of the time.
So all week this week I took extra time and care making sure every single vehicle I touched had not a single speck of dirt or dust on them when they left. By the end of every day, my boots would be soaked and I would be behind my expected output and would have to work an extra hour of overtime to finish my work.
I had been waiting for Bossman to notice and tell me to just go back to washing the wheels I was told as I was costing him extra time and funds on every vehicle, and he is notoriously cheap. Yesterday as I was leaving work for the weekend, the bossman pulled me aside and told me he had noticed what I was doing and asked why I thought it was necessary to wash every wheel as it was slowing us down and causing me to work more hours.
I said something about wanting to do a high-quality job and not wanting to have to pull vehicles back in if we didn’t do a good job in the first place.
I was expecting him to be relatively mad at me and tell me to knock it off, but instead, he absolutely loved my extra dedication to the job and his expectations. He told me to keep up the great work next week, so I guess I’ll be getting some waterproof work boots with my extra wages.”
Another User Comments:
“More like malicious compliance backfiring.” Zoreb1
1. Make Me Come Into Work Despite A Bad Cold? I'll Prove How Loyal I Am
“This is a story about the worst cold I ever had, the worst job I ever had, and how my life loves to fill my dream experiences with an equal amount of nonsense.
Many years ago when the Nintendo Wii was still popular, my grandparents asked me to house sit for them for a week. This, for me, was awesome. They had a really nice two-story house and a really sweet dog and only lived a town over from where my family and I lived, so I could get help from my parents if needed. It would be my first, and so far only, time living on my own for more than a day, and it was going to happen in a home far nicer than anything I could hope to afford on my own.
Of course, I accepted. The only real issue was that I didn’t have a car of my own yet, so I’d be forced to ride my bike to my only shift that week and need a girl I was going out with that same night to pick me up.
Unfortunately, tragedy struck, and if not for the nice home and the experience of doing things my way for a while, it would have been the worst week of my mostly-uneventful life.
I got sick. VERY sick. Not pneumonia or the stomach flu. Just a very, very bad cold.
My first day was alright. I could feel something coming down, but it wasn’t major. That night, though, I couldn’t sleep. I was used to a single bed with a heavy quilt and a radio above my head softly playing music. What I had to deal with was a two-person bed with very light blankets and I had to use a different playlist on my tablet to even attempt to sleep.
There was also a very big window with plenty of moonlight streaming in, where I was used to near-pitch black. They had a bed downstairs that was more similar to my own, so I tried that, but the blanket was far lighter than it looked and something about sleeping in an underground room with no window at all ended up freaking me out for some reason, so I found myself going back upstairs.
I got maybe an hour of sleep tops that night.
The rest of that day, my cold just kept getting worse. For the first time, some glands or whatever in my jaw got so swollen, I couldn’t swallow comfortably, especially if I was swallowing food. My nose was constantly stuffy and runny at the same time, and no available medicine was helping much. Amidst this, I still had to walk the dog twice for at least an hour or two each day.
I couldn’t sleep quite right that night either, though, I slept better than the previous night due to pure exhaustion and being slightly more used to things.
The third day was Wednesday. My workday. My cold was even worse.
I developed a plan. I worked in fast food for the most popular and successful chain in the world associated with the letter M, so there was no way they’d make me come in with my condition.
I’d call out of work, spend as much time as possible resting and healing, and hope to be in better shape later to see a girl. I would have just called off everything, but it was my first time going out with someone in over a year, and she had admitted to heavily considering another guy, but she wanted to give me a chance, and I didn’t want to lose that chance to a common cold.
So I got home from the early morning dog walk and called my workplace. I told them everything.
They wanted me to come in anyway. They wouldn’t budge on this, at least not without begging me first, which sucked because I am a very loyal person. I hadn’t gotten along with management for a while, though, and decided I’d either earn their respect through hard work and dedication or by shoving their ignorance in their face.
I didn’t have much of a choice anyway, right?
So that’s how I found myself riding my bike a mile or more in the hot sun wearing an all-black uniform with a black hat while sporting a fever, runny/stuffy nose, weak physical strength, etc. to go work as a CASHIER in the most active and overworked fast food joint in the city for what was planned to be several hours straight.
Needless to say, I didn’t last long. My coworkers could tell I wasn’t in a very good condition when I arrived, but management had begged me to come in knowing the risks, so I was determined to stay. About an hour in, I had reached the point of ACTUAL exhaustion. Any physical exertion made me sick to my stomach, and it was taking all my focus to stay on my feet and properly help customers.
My coworkers noticed, my managers took notice, and finally, FINALLY, a replacement was called in and I was given the rest of the night off.
I ended up hobbling to an empty bench and curling up on it in discomfort. There was no way I could ride my bike back at this point, so I had to call my dad to pick me up. I also, sadly, couldn’t go out with the girl.
I spent the next few hours in my OWN bed sleeping my butt off before eating some homemade dinner later that night and going back to my grandparents’ place to finish the house-sitting.
Thankfully I slowly got better after that. My workplace never questioned my physical health again (mental health is a different story, though, I quit when that became an issue), and I am pretty sure at least one of my bosses apologized for putting me in that position that day.
As an aftermath to the rest of the experience, the next two days were better. I was almost back to full health by the last day of house sitting, and the girl I was meant to go out with, though she had devoted herself to the other guy, felt bad and offered to reschedule as just a day to hang out as friends, which I accepted because I had nothing better to do.
We’re still friends to this day, and last I recall, none of those managers are still working at that store, except perhaps the head manager who wasn’t involved in that fateful day.
In hindsight, I really should have just quit, but it was my only job at the time, and my loyalty convinced me not to.”
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