People Recount Their Shabby Revenge Stories
20. Arrogant Builder Had To Move His Road
“This happened while I was still married to my second ex and living in New Hampshire. We lived on top of a hill we called ‘Heck’s Hill’ and for many years, ours was the only house within several miles.
A builder in town, known for his rude arrogance, bought a huge parcel of land behind and beside us. He intended to build a road around us, ending in a cul de sac to the right of our hill, where he would build eight homes.
Since the road would go up the left side and wind around our property in the back before continuing to the cul de sac, the builder claimed an easement for some of our land for a cut, down to where he would put his road.
Otherwise, he would have to curve his road more to go around the hill and it would cost him more.
We were told this would take about 150′ from the back of our property to allow for the necessary slope because the road would be cut into the hill with a 25′ drop.
Our home was totally surrounded by woods and most of the trees were old, huge, and established. Just inside the tree line was a rock and stone wall, which went almost entirely around our home. In the back, the stone wall was only a few feet from our in-ground pool.
In the State of New Hampshire, it was against the law to destroy or remove an existing stone or rock wall. I think rock walls were deemed to be historical.
Anyway, on the day the bulldozer and other machinery arrived to make the cut, the bulldozer operator came to the house to let me know he would start cutting trees in an hour and if we had a pet, to make sure it was kept indoors.
When they left, curious me went out to the back of our property where they had placed orange ribbons around the trees that were to be bulldozed. Two of the largest trees were within a foot, or so, of the rock and stone wall — only a few feet from the pool.
Horrified, I called the builder on his cell phone and told him that was NOT what we had agreed on when we spoke with the Planning Board — not even close. I told him, per our agreement, he would have to move his road further out, because he was NOT going to make the cut that close to the stone and rock wall.
(By taking out the marked trees, it was obvious he was planning to take part of the stone wall, too).
He said something obnoxious like, ‘Plans change. The additional feet of moving the road further out would make it cost-prohibitive. Get over it, lady. The road is going in where I say it’s going in.’
I told him we were going to put it back in front of the Town Planning Board and let them decide. We would leave it to them to determine because there was no way my husband and I would allow the builder to do it this way.
He said the Planning Board wasn’t going to be meeting for another three weeks and he didn’t have time for stuff like this from me — he had a job to do and the equipment was already there, and then he hung up on me.
Now I was angry. I went inside, got a rifle, loaded it, planted myself on the rock and stone wall behind the pool, and waited.
When the drivers came back, I told them to get off of our property or I would shoot. They complained and I told them to go call their arrogant bully of an employer and tell him I was going to sit there until the Planning Board met and I didn’t care how long it took.
It was said with all the bravado I could muster. Oh boy, I thought. The police will be here any minute and I’m going to be in so much trouble…
Okay, the short answer is, no police came and The Planning Board put an immediate hold on the whole project until they could convene and review both sides of the agreement, which would be in two days.
They heard both sides and the arrogant jerk was told he had to move his road!
Satisfying… oh yes, so very satisfying.”
19. Don't Want To Let Me Tinker? Let's Do Business Then
“My grandpa was a successful man and in his mid-60s he decided he wanted to take a step back so he started selling off his businesses.
He sold his various businesses and spent the next few years traveling.
As he approached 70… he got bored in addition to a few new grandchildren so he needed a bigger house. He sold the old home that he had bought after he got back from Vietnam and bought this massive house on this large piece of land.
This property also came with a massive steel barn.
Not sure if he had ever told anyone about his plans, but right after he got the property he dumped A TON OF MONEY into tools and equipment and converted his barn into a mechanics dream.
Some things I remember having:
- He had a professional lift, capable of lifting full-size trucks.
- He had those professional oil catchers you see at quick lubes
- He had a dedicated air compressor system that was designed to power all his power tools
- He had a tire machine, to mount new tires
- He had so much equipment
- His tool corner was a massive corner of this massive barn.
His plan? To fix cars, especially for people in need. He lived in a rural community, if you didn’t have a car that was a big problem. So he let everyone know at his local church that he was willing to work on their cars if they provided the parts.
He only took a few jobs a week, he was doing this to enjoy himself and help those that needed it. He’d of course change oil, change the transmission fluid, and all kinds of various repairs. My grandpa was a talented mechanic. However, he kept the amount of work limited. He was also selective, if you were in need he’d want to fix your cars.
If you had the means to pay, he’d decline and ask you to go elsewhere.
One day the owner of the local car dealership came by and told my Grandpa he needed to stop fixing other people’s cars cause he wasn’t properly licensed, didn’t have the proper insurance, and was hurting his business.
My Grandpa explained this is just his hobby, he only does a few cars a week. The owner told him he needs to cut it out, or he’s going sue my Grandpa out of business. My Grandpa said he laughed over this, what business was this guy going to sue him out of?
The owner walked out, a little while later my Grandpa got served, he was being sued by the owner of the car dealership. My grandfather thought he’d take a trip down to the dealership and try and reason with the man. My Grandpa hoped he could come to an understanding.
My Grandpa spoke to the owner and basically explained:
- He only works on people’s cars who are down on their luck, the fact is the people’s cars he fixes probably couldn’t afford to pay a professional dealership to fix their vehicle
- He only does a few cars a week
- He’s not all that interested in getting into a fight over his hobby, but he ain’t going to back down
Well, they ended up in court. By this point, my Grandpa had hired a lawyer, who was able to get the city to approve a commercial garage on his property.
It helped that he lived on the outskirts of town, and had 6 acres of property.
The court told my Grandpa his auto repair shop is operating illegally, if my Grandpa wants to continue he’s going to need to get a business license, get the proper insurance, and if he does that he will be good to go.
Now, what do you think a man who has nothing but time and money in this situation is going to do? He’s going to get his business license and insurance of course. Which he did, and that surprised no one… but he went further.
- Got a dedicated phone line ran into his shop
- Hired a full-time mechanic
- Put up a professional sign
- Set up a little waiting area with a water cooler
What shocked everyone even more:
- He ran a local TV ad, saying he was a pay what you can mechanic shop, reservations only
- Put ads in the local paper, saying the same thing
Yes, folks, that’s right my Grandpa is not only a licensed, legal auto repair business… he has a certified mechanic on his payroll… and he’s running ads. As for his prices? They were quite simple you either:
- Bring the parts yourself, and pay the mechanic whatever you wanted (mechanic got a separate wage from my Grandpa, so if you couldn’t pay anything that was fine)
- Have my Grandpa source the parts, he’d charge at your parts and you’d pay the mechanic whatever you want
My Grandpa started taking jobs, and boy did that shop get busy. It was impossible to beat Grandpas’ price. Grandpa was essentially PAYING to fix YOUR CAR for YOU.
My Grandpa would spend his days with the mechanic that he had hired working on cars. He loved it.
The owner of the local car dealership was FURIOUS, he sued my Grandpa again. They went to court and the judge basically said my Grandpa owned a licensed, insured, auto repair business, what he charges his customers for his services, is completely up to him.
Even if that means doing the work for free.
About a year or so later, my Grandpa gets a call from a lawyer who says he’s representing a potential buyer of the local car dealership however the buyer wants to speak to my Grandpa. My Grandpa agreed, he sat down with the new potential buyer who expressed his concerns about buying the dealership.
Service is a major profit center for a dealership, and he’s considering buying the local dealership. However, he doesn’t want to buy the dealership if my Grandpa is going to keep operating the way he is, cause a for-profit business can’t compete against someone selling their services for free.
My Grandpa agrees, that there’s no way someone looking to make a profitable business could ever compete against him. So they came to an agreement. The owner buys the dealership and my Grandpa would:
- Only work on a few cars a week, maybe 5-6.
- Only work on people’s cars who are down on their luck and probably too poor to be able to pay a professional dealership to fix their car.
- Any parts he needs he will buy from the dealership.
- Any work he declined, he’d refer to the dealership.
The new owner of the dealership agreed to:
- The dealership must agree to let my Grandpa be, stay out of his way.
- The dealership must hire his mechanic.
They shook hands, the local dealership was bought out and for the next 9 years, my Grandpa would fix people’s cars who were down on their luck. If he had to buy parts he’d buy from the dealership, and as for that mechanic, my Grandpa hired?
He ended up becoming the service manager and did quite well for himself.
As for my Grandpa when he was 80 he had a heart attack in his shop. Luckily one of his grandkids was there and they got him to the hospital and he made a full recovery.
But the doctor told him his body couldn’t handle working in that garage anymore. He ended up shutting down after that, for the next 3 years he looked out his kitchen window staring at his shop remembering all the fun he had in his garage. He passed away at 83 surrounded by friends and family.”
18. I Sent A Message To Sergeant Jerkhead's Wife On Social Media
“This was back in 2013 when I was based in Holland (British Marine for context.)
I had been married to my wife for a little over 18 months when I deployed to Afghanistan. My wife had a job in the British delegation on base and got to know pretty much every Brit and their husband/wife.
One day we were directly targeted by a vehicle-borne IED. Now, whilst it wasn’t uncommon for there to be a threat to coalition forces in general, being directly targeted felt more personal for obvious reasons.
That was also the day I found out about an RAF guy back in Holland who had tried it on with my wife. I found him on social media and, still feeling rather raw about Terry trying to******* up, messaged him words to the effect of, ‘If you go near Mrs. OP again I will put glass in your throat the next time l see you!’
The next day one of my bosses, who was also RAF, messaged me on social media to say that this guy has been over to his office and basically tattled on me. He gave me a friendly warning/heads up that this guy could’ve gone to the MPs and reported me.
I have no idea what would’ve happened but l acknowledged the warning and said it won’t happen again. My boss had my back and actually told him to wind his neck.
Fast forward to when l got back from Afghan. A few days had passed and l was starting to settle into ‘normal’ life again.
My wife brought it up, after explaining she didn’t mention it at the time due to my reaction the first time, that an army sergeant major had tried to message her via social media. He told her she was beautiful and wanted her number. She promptly blocked him.
I was annoyed, to say the least, but I understand why she kept it until l was back on ‘home’ soil.
The next day l went into our department and spoke to my other boss (an army captain). I told him what had happened and he said, ‘Leave it with me.’ He basically had a ‘chat’ with him and nothing came of it.
I felt deflated and even angrier.
That was until our senior military officer came into our department. He welcomed me back and asked how my tour was. Still angry, l said, ‘It was good, sir! With the exception of sergeant major jerk trying to get round my wife…’ He was, understandably, a little taken aback.
About an hour or so later he emailed me saying that he feels the need to do something official about this. Something I had forgotten was that the Colonel and sergeant major belong to the same regiment so having one of his own behave as this had clearly gripped him.
I told him the full story and provided screenshots of what sergeant major Jerkhead had said to Mrs. OP.
For this to go official my wife had to provide a statement. Unfortunately, Mrs. OP is very non-confrontational and said she didn’t want this to continue.
I respected her wishes (of not wanting to provide a statement) but hatched a plan that would be 3 years in the making. The timing is important.
I emailed the Colonel and said that Mrs. OP has declined. However, I felt the need for some formal recognition so l asked that sergeant major jerk write a letter of apology, addressed to both my wife and me, which is to be signed and dated.
This was granted and I received said letter 2 days later.
It said:
‘Lance Corporal and Mrs. OP
I am writing this letter to you both to apologize for the torment and anxiety that you both must have felt from the messages that you received from my social media account.
To Mrs. OP
Nobody should ever be in a situation where they worry about going to work because of who may come through the door, especially so, when they have the added stress of a partner being operationally deployed at the time. The anguish that you must have felt at this time is immeasurable and for this, I apologize.
To Lance Corporal OP
Being operationally deployed is stressful enough without the added stress and worry about family back home. Support from home and loved ones is what carries many people through tough times whilst on tour, for any undue angst caused, I apologize.
I regret any hurt and anguish caused by this issue and apologize, wholeheartedly and unreservedly to you both.
(Signed)
Sgt Maj Jerkhead (Position held)’
I now waited.
I saw out the rest of my time in Holland, moved back to the UK to my new base, and waited some more.
Almost 3 years after I received the apology letter I looked up sergeant major Jerkhead’s wife on social media.
I had known the whole time we were out there that he was married (his wife lived back in the UK) and he has routinely tried to sneak behind her back.
I sent her the same screenshot which I had sent to the Colonel. I also, before leaving Holland, printed off the emails between the Colonel and myself where I requested the apology letter (I blanked out the Colonel’s details) and sent the pictures of that.
And then, lastly, I sent a picture of the apology letter, signed and dated by her husband admitting what he had done.
Once l saw she had read it l blocked her, blocked sergeant major Jerkhead and all his friends who had also been out in Holland at the same time.
Why 3 years? I remember him saying before he turned into a jerk and tried it on with my wife, that he only had 3 years left to serve. If my timing was correct, he was months away from completing his 22 years and receiving a very nice pension.
If his wife decided to go ahead with the divorce she would take half of said pension which would essentially screw him over for the rest of his life.”
17. Left My Angry Landlord A Bag Of Nails And Screws
“I am a dry liner, which means I do a lot of moving around for my trade as most of the work I do is towards the end of most projects. This means that I spend a lot of my time renting flats and houses for only short periods, usually about 6 months at a time.
This has meant that I have had to deal with a lot of landlords over the years both good and bad.
When it comes to the bad landlords I will normally just walk away and get on with moving to the next job and take the loss of my deposit and never use them again if I am working in that area in the future, but this particular landlord got my back up so badly I was not just going to just walk away.
I had managed to get myself onto a big job in London working on the new Wembley stadium so decided I would look for a house to rent rather than a flat as I knew I was going to be working on it for a while and found a reasonably priced (for London) house to rent from a private landlord in a local newspaper.
I gave him a call and met with him later that day, (he seemed ok) went to view the house, paid him the deposit (cash), and moved in that weekend.
I ended up staying in the house for nearly a year with no problems, always had the rent paid into his bank account on time, and fixed any small problems myself that might crop with the house without bothering him.
Up to the time when it came to moving out, I only ever spoke to him twice on the phone after there was an issue with the heating that I was unable to fix myself and he sent an engineer round the next day to fix the boiler.
Come the time that the job was finishing I went round to the pawnshop that he owned to give him notice that I would be moving out the following month and to let him know that I was happy for him to come round to inspect the house before I moved out so that I could get my deposit back from him when I returned the keys.
He never came round while I was in to inspect the house and so I assumed that he had come round and let himself in while I was at work as I had told him that I had no issue with him doing that if need be.
So on the day I moved out, I went around the shop and handed him his keys back and asked for my deposit. His response was ‘what deposit?’ ‘The month’s rent that I gave you in advance of moving in as a security deposit,’ I replied. He then told me he was keeping that to cover the cost of repairing damages caused while I was living on the property.
I responded, ‘what damages?’ With the bits of work and decorating I had done on the house it was in a better state now than when I had moved into it.
His response was to step forward and get right up into my face and say, ‘you’re not getting it back so screw off,’ and he then gave me a shove which needed me to take 3 steps back to avoid falling on my butt.
Now I am what you would class as the average size and build and this landlord had a good 4 inches on me height-wise and obviously spent some time down at the gym. The wise move would be to back away and cut my losses.
Now before I was a builder I was a member of the British army in a regiment called The Royal Green Jackets and they had trained us that the best way to proceed when confronted with aggression is to meet it swiftly and with much more violent aggression.
So without even thinking about it I started to move forward with the full intention of dropping this idiot quickly and painfully.
After the first step through a thought popped into my head like a bolt from the blue, so I stopped and took a moment to examine the idea from a few different angles.
I said, ‘Ok bye’ to my now ex-landlord, and walked out of his shop.
What the landlord did not know was that I had had a spare back door key cut when I had lived in the house which I had stashed in my van in case I ever lost the keys so I could still get back in.
So later that evening I let myself back in and decided to stop for one last night before leaving in the morning for my next job which was in Scotland.
I spent the last night in the house carefully removing every bit of wood in there.
I took down doors, removed skirting boards, banisters, architrave, and floorboards being extremely careful not to damage anything. I also completely dismantled all the kitchen units, took up the wood flooring and carpets. I then left everything in nice neat piles in each room.
I got in my van the next morning and was preparing to start my drive when I decided I wanted to rub a little more salt into my ex-landlord’s wounds.
So I stopped at his shop on the way out of London, got a spare hammer, screwdriver, bag of nails, and box of wood screws out of the back of my van, and went into the shop.
My ex-landlord was not there (probably for the best) so I left the tools with his confused-looking assistant and told her to tell her boss ‘you will be needing these’ and left for my drive north.
I had my phone switched off while driving and a few hours later while I was having a bite to eat in a service station up by Nottingham I decided to switch it back on and was greeted by a string of text messages and some very colorful voice messages which left me chuckling to my self.
I did reply to one of the texts he sent me. The text was ‘Do you think you’re funny leaving me nails and screws?’ I responded ‘yes.'”
16. I Paid Them With A Bunch Of Coins
“I had a horrible experience trying to buy a new Honda at a local dealership. I told them what I wanted, but they kept trying to up-sell me on a different model.
Then it was switching sales guys, to the hardcore close. etc. etc. I understand sales and all the nonsense really doesn’t bother me since it’s part of the game. However, after reaching a price and completing the paperwork, I drove out with the car.
I was happy until Jennifer from the office called me three days later at work. They made an error and didn’t collect funds on some specific fees listed in the contract. I was pretty sure I paid everything listed. I told Jennifer I needed a couple of days to review the contract and look at the check I wrote to determine if I owed anything.
She became a belligerent witch, yelling about how I have their stuff and need to come down right now and pay. I told her I would review the contract and pay them if I owed them anything. She called at 9:00 the next morning being a jerk again demanding what I owed. Later that evening, I reviewed the contract and they didn’t total up the doc fee correctly and I owed them $394.00.
I called Jennifer and told her that I did find the error, would pay the amount, and asked if she could please tell me when she left the office so I could pay her personally. I waited until 4:50 pm on Friday night (Jennifer works an 8-5, M-F) and paid her $394 in nickels.
I had broken the seals on the bags from the bank which meant they needed to hand count all the coins.
I had brought a book, took up residence in their customer lounge, and waited for them to complete their count. I enjoyed watching Jennifer and 4 salespersons make little rows of nickels.
After over 90 minutes they brought me the $0.45 in additional funds I added to see if they would accurately count it. My backup plan was if they said it was all there, I would inform them that I actually included extra and couldn’t remember how much, so they would need to recount.”
15. It Doesn't Pay To Be Rude
“I live in an area of Scotland where the roads are single track. That means only one lane is shared by traffic going in both directions with passing places every thirty to forty yards.
Now the usual practice is to pull into a passing place or stop opposite one to let other traffic pass.
It’s debatable about who should pull in for who, but whichever driver is nearest to one going forward is expected to pull in so as not to force another driver to have to reverse. If you are on a hill, then you are expected to give way to traffic who are driving uphill (so as not to force them into doing a hill start).
Now that’s pretty easy to judge when visibility is good and you can see oncoming traffic – but what if you come around a corner and there’s a car coming towards you? Well, in that case, the person with the shortest distance to reverse must reverse.
So with all that in mind, I was driving uphill along a very steep and twisty single-track road. I had passed a passing place and knew that there wasn’t another one for around 80m – the road was so steep there wasn’t room for one for this distance.
I also knew that just around the corner ahead was the next passing place so if I met anyone they’d have an easy time backing up.
Well as I came to the corner I met another car coming towards me and politely came to a stop so that he had time to slow down and prepare to reverse, he had passed the passing place literally 10 feet behind him.
It was a red Jaguar saloon and driving it was a rather overweight and florid-faced gentleman of around seventy accompanied by his similarly aged wife/companion in twinset and pearls.
I fully expected him to reverse the ten feet into the passing place to allow me to pass, (remember the last passing place behind me was around 80m away) but instead, he drove forward to be nose to nose with me.
He started shouting and gesticulating that I should reverse and started getting redder and redder in the face.
There was no way I was going to reverse that distance (80m) when he had a passing place just behind him, so I put on the handbrake and waited. Please note – I’m not generally rude, if he had politely asked me to reverse because he couldn’t, then I would have.
But I don’t react well to being shouted and gesticulated at. Especially when I’m in the right.
Anyway, Mr. florid faced Jaguar jerk was getting angrier and angrier and jumped out of his car and came over to mine. I locked the doors, wound down the window, and said ‘good afternoon’.
I was met with a tirade of swearwords. Now I didn’t really mind being sworn at but I really didn’t like being called an ‘ignorant scotch idiot’ It’s Scottish or Scots, not Scotch.
So I wound up the window, took my keys out of the ignition and waved them at him, took out a newspaper that was on the passenger seat, and ignored him.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him continue to splutter and swear, getting almost purple by now. So I looked at him, put my finger up to my lips, and said ‘Shhhh’, then reached over to the radio and turned it up.
I heard his car door slam and the engine start-up and then with much over-revving and squealing of tires he started to reverse.
Well, I had kind of guessed right. He didn’t know how to reverse properly, probably just bullied other people out of the way so he never had to.
He reversed straight through the passing place and into a ditch on the other side.
I started the car, put it into gear, and drove up to where he was.
I wound down the window and politely asked him if he wanted to be towed out.
From his reaction I fully expected his head to explode.
So I said ‘cool, have a nice day,’ and drove on.
Shame really that there was no mobile phone signal for a few miles there and the nearest recovery garage was about an hour away.
I could have had him out of that ditch and on his way in around five minutes!”
14. Company Can't Find A Way To Fire Me
“I worked in maintenance for a religious organization that owned a large number of aged care facilities. Even though they were supposedly not for profit they went all out to scam the government for as many funds as they could – for example, I once saw a claim for ‘wandering behavior’ in a bedridden resident so they could claim he had dementia, put him in a locked ward and get extra funds.
I became aware that they were paying less than the minimum wage for many of the non-nursing staff – a high percentage of housekeeping were from overseas and god told them they could get away with it. In my country you can claim back wages for six years and it so happened I was just about to reach that mark and I was thoroughly sick of their hypocrisy.
I scheduled a meeting with the care manager and human resources, in the meeting I requested to be paid the correct wage. After they realized I was not going to back down they agreed to pay me correctly and would back pay me but only if I didn’t tell the other employees.
I declined and it ended up costing them over $700,000 to back pay everyone – I was recording the conversation and took them to Fairwork (an independent workplace ombudsman).
They made everyone with the same job description as mine redundant because they couldn’t think of a way to legally fire me and then outsourced maintenance which ended up costing them much more.
I took a nice holiday with the redundancy pay and informed on them (with documented proof) to the government aged care regulator of the fraud. They were inspected with a fine-tooth comb and two of their flagship homes were put under six months of constant government supervision.
Always remember that wage theft is the largest crime wave in history, it is ongoing, and no one ever goes to jail for it.”
13. My Powerful Magnets Come In Handy
“I was carrying extremely powerful rare earth magnets (165 lb pull force) for work in my backpack. They were wrapped in 8 inches of bubble wrap to prevent them from getting too close to anything.
As I was sitting down, a total a****e got on the train and pushed me out of the way, took the seat I was about to sit in, and gave me a nasty look.
I wound up standing next to him. Slowly, I undid the bubble wrap and put it next to the Macbook he was working on and the satchel with his wallet and phone. I kept moving it around subtly. After a few minutes, his screen went out with a very bright flash.
I don’t know what happened to his credit cards or cell phone. He kept trying to reboot it but it was not responding at all.
I didn’t know if it would actually do anything. I just really hate rude people on the subway. Luckily his computer didn’t fly up and stick to my backpack.
I really go out of my way to be a decent person but when people take advantage of me, I can’t let it go. I have used annoy-a-trans several times on coworkers (Google it) and did MUCH worse as a teenager. The point is, I am fair and decent, however, I won’t suffer jerks taking advantage of me or screwing me over.
This guy pushed me out of the way hard as I was sitting down and then proceeded to give me a nasty look like ‘do you want to fight about it?’ My options were to fight him, start an argument that would not get my seat back unless I picked him up, or OTHER.
I wasn’t willing to start a fight on a full subway car or anywhere else. I just couldn’t let it go. Not with these awesome magnets in my backpack ready for a little experiment!
Now for the doubters… If you stack six of these magnets, you have 3-4 times the force of a single magnet.
They have small Teflon spacers between them so you can separate them when you need them. These slightly reduce their combined force. At 8-10 inches with bubble wrap, there is very little magnetic force as their strength decreases exponentially with distance. However, I am still careful not to put my cell phone or wallet near them.
I opened the bubble wrap at the bottom of the stack and then closed my backpack with the end of the stack right against the inside canvas of my backpack. I was surprised it worked at a distance of about 6 inches. As I said, I was careful because I did not want it to ‘grab’ the computer.
Nothing happened for a while but it absolutely took the computer out as an EMP had gone off. Maybe it had to wait until the HDD was active. If it warped the platter and pulled it into the read/write arm it would scratch the out of the platter.
I looked it up yesterday and the HDD on a Macbook Pro is on the side I was standing on.
I don’t know how it worked, but, to my pleasant surprise, IT DID. Try it out! I lost a bit of face and hopefully, he lost $2K of electronics and spent a day getting his credit and bank cards replaced.
Will it teach him a lesson? Probably not, but I don’t care; I made his life temporarily suck without causing bodily harm.”
12. Screw Me On My Bonus And Make Me Work Two Jobs? Enjoy Your Backwater
“So back in the 90s I was working for a European-based financial firm.
U.S. offices were managed by Europeans with a regional head office in New York. Younger employees were generally underpaid/overworked as in your first few years out of college the promised reward was being promoted to a Director position where the salary, perks, and bonus structure would really kick in (kind of like how law firms promote their younger lawyers to partners after a long wait).
As junior associates, the only good news was that we received the same five weeks of vacation per year (plus a few weeks of sick leave) as our European counterparts, which for me meant a lot of camping and stay-cations during the summer since I didn’t really make enough to travel to exotic/expensive locations.
The offices were set up in a way where the business development (‘BD’) Directors each had a junior associate. The BD guys would generally network, schmooze and travel around their territories to meet clients and new prospects. Once back in the office, the BD guys would dump their meeting notes on the desks of their junior associates to follow up and land the business, aka a ‘hunter/skinner’ model.
As a junior associate, I was pretty busy assisting a BD so I routinely rolled over at least two weeks of vacation every year. I had worked at the firm for three years and was starting to get antsy for a promotion. Right after Thanksgiving, my boss in the West Coast office told me that I was being transferred and promoted to the Southeast office come the new year.
I really had no interest in working in/living in the Southeast, but I wanted to advance my career. I rolled over my usual two weeks of vacation into the next year, so I was eligible for seven weeks of vacation that next year. After celebrating New Year’s with my family in CA, I packed up my car and drove across the country.
Once in the new office, I settled in and met my new boss, who promptly informed me that he wasn’t actually promoting me to Director though I was being given the responsibilities of the role as he judged me to be ‘too young’ but was also told that if I demonstrated that I could do the job, I would be promoted next year.
I was angry but didn’t have a choice other than moving back home and starting from scratch so I agreed to it. I disliked my new boss instantly as co-workers told me he was flaunting his management perks, which consisted of large allowances for housing and automobiles which were paid for by sales production from employees like myself.
Turned out he was related to a serving member of the Board of Directors back in Europe, which is how he got the job as a regional manager. Everyone knew he didn’t have the skills to do our job, so he just collected fat checks, went to expensive restaurants with friends, and billed it to the company as client development, all the while leasing a new Mercedes every two years on the company’s dime while generally being a jerk to everyone who worked for him.
During the first week, I also met my junior associate, Jeremy. We sat down and discussed some accounts that I’d inherited that were in backwater locations none of the other Directors wanted to visit. Jeremy was professional, but I got the distinct impression Jeremy hated me though I didn’t know why.
I started traveling around to meet my clients and prospects over the next few weeks, usually spending at least 3 or 4 days on the road, back in the office on Fridays to go over follow-ups on business leads with Jeremy, and execute whatever paperwork needed to be taken care of.
About a month later I returned from one of my trips and learned that Jeremy had quit. It turned out that he was mad that he’d been passed over for the position that I’d been given. I couldn’t fault him as I probably would have done the same thing.
I asked my manager to hire someone else to back me up but he was hesitant to do so, reasoning that my client portfolio was just starting out so I could do both roles until it made sense to staff up. I pointed out that it would be hard to be an effective business development officer if I had no support system to help grow my client portfolio, but he chose not to listen, knowing that I had little recourse but to shut up.
I spent the rest of the year working my butt off. This was right before email and internet were common so executing business on the road was hard (fax machines were the bane of my existence). Even though laptops were reserved for Directors, my boss was kind enough (heavy sarcasm) to let me use a company laptop on which I would handle all of the paperwork to process client business from hotel business centers late at night or early in the morning, so I learned to live on 5 hours of sleep or to sleep on planes whenever I could.
After dealing with problems from some irate clients, I eventually paid for my own personal cell phone (not everyone had them in the mid-’90s and our Directors had just started getting company-paid phones that year) as I had to handle customers from the road.
I just gave my personal cell number for clients to call so I could handle problems from the road.
I landed a few big clients by a combination of luck and hard work and got some solid referrals, which led to more referrals, so within a few months I was gaining some serious momentum.
Since I didn’t have an associate to help me, that meant I spent the weekends and late nights back at the office handling paperwork then back on the road during the week. I was so busy working both sides of the job that by December of that year, I hadn’t taken my mandatory two weeks of vacation.
I had some new clients that needed to be handled by year-end so I was granted a vacation waiver, meaning that my seven weeks of vacation would roll over into the next year (adding up to twelve weeks of vacation plus sick time for the coming year).
It was a big hassle for HR to process the waiver but since I had produced a lot of new business, my manager was all too happy to order it done.
I wasn’t upset about working through year-end, though I flew back and forth to CA for Christmas on a 24-hour turnaround.
I rationalized it, hoping that I would get paid the first big bonus of my career in a few months. At that time, European firms paid their bonuses in mid-April while employees of U.S.-based firms got their bonuses by end of January. If you were planning on switching jobs early in the new year, working at a European firm meant that sometimes you left funds on the table aka ‘golden handcuffs’, so the timing of switching firms was important.
I continued to work at my frenetic pace through April, taking no vacation as I was bringing in more and more clients and digging myself out of paperwork when I wasn’t on the road. In the new year, we had some meetings about scorecards and sales goals and I led my office in some of the categories and was number one for overall production.
Finally, in mid-April, my boss called me in and announced it was time to discuss my bonus/annual review. I eagerly sat down, licking my chops because I was assuming my bonus would be equal to my base salary at least, if not double. He handed me a piece of paper and it showed a number that was almost 90% less than I was expecting for my bonus.
I literally laughed out loud and told him it was a little late for an April Fool’s Joke but he wasn’t smiling. He proceeded to tell me how proud he was of me but that since I wasn’t a Director, the bonus that I received was the maximum amount he would give me as ‘there wasn’t any more money in the budget.’ I sat there in shock for a while, then kept asking the same question in different ways, basically why did he screw me on my bonus?
It was like talking to a brick wall. Despite pointing to the scorecard that showed me as the best producer in the office, all the while having no junior associate. He wasn’t having it. I was crushed but then asked him if he was promoting me to Director since I had demonstrated that I could produce, hoping that title would be a gateway into the big payday the following year.
He shook his head and replied, ‘maybe next year if you prove this year wasn’t a fluke.’ It was a gut punch.
He also rationalized that while my review was positive, I had some flaws that I needed to work on; mainly that I didn’t work very well in a team atmosphere.
I reminded him that I was a team of one so there wasn’t anybody on my team to complain about me. A switch finally flipped in my brain as I realized I’d just gotten majorly screwed and there was no changing the outcome.
I told him that I was feeling ill and would be taking some sick days, so I got up and left his office. Co-workers said I looked as white as a ghost as I walked out of his office so they knew something was wrong.
I forwarded my incoming calls to his extension, packed up my important papers in case I decided to never come back, then headed to my apartment in a complete rage.
I called my family and told them that I needed to come home for some much-deserved vacation so after drinking myself senseless for 48 hours and forwarding all my calls to voicemail, I called into work the following Monday and told my boss I would be taking a vacation week.
He was pretty angry about the short notice as he’d been dealing with my irate clients contacting him about their problems since I couldn’t be reached, and he didn’t have much of a clue as to how to handle the paperwork necessary to do the work, so other associates were now being called in to help handle my workload.
I flew home and made a few calls to people I’d worked with, hoping for some job leads. I managed to grab lunch with an old associate who had left the firm and he gave me some ideas and contacts so I spent the rest of my vacation looking for a new job.
I knew the timing sucked so out of options, I went back to my job the following week. The first day back I looked at my HR data and realized that I still had 11 weeks of vacation to use that year, plus a few more weeks of sick leave.
Around that time there was a company-wide conference call to celebrate a big company milestone (I think the firm was 125 years old but didn’t care anymore). To celebrate the big anniversary, we were told we would be getting an extra week of vacation that year, meaning once again I had 3 months of vacation in my account.
As a high performer, I was also selected to spend a few weeks in New York during the summer and fall for some management training, so that meant additional time out of the office.
The next month was a blur of looking at different vacations options for me to take that year.
I had accrued a lot of hotel/rental car points and frequent flier miles during the past year of traveling around so I spent my days in the office doing as little client work as I could get away with while spending the rest of my time on the phone with the frequent flier/hotel points customer service reps trying to squeeze as much vacation out of my miles and points as I could.
By the end of May, I submitted my vacation requests, which detailed how I was going to take three months of vacation in the seven remaining months of the year.
I submitted the forms to HR and within a day my boss called me in to discuss my schedule as he realized I was basically going to be gone for almost two weeks out of every month for the rest of the year (I was wrapping my vacations around federal and bank holidays whenever I could manage it).
He told me that he was rejecting my vacation schedule since there wasn’t anybody to cover my clients in my absence. I asked him to call the HR rep into his office to have his stance officially on record. He objected, but I said I wouldn’t discuss such matters without an HR rep present.
HR was called in and my boss told HR he was rejecting my vacation schedule but HR responded that I was legally entitled to take the vacation days so he couldn’t reject the request. I also told him that, henceforth, I wouldn’t be handling any of my customers from my personal cell phone if I was out of the office so I would be forwarding my work phone to him when I was on vacation or doing business development trips.
Also told him I was going to Europe on two different trips and would be unable to be contacted since I didn’t have a company-issued cell phone. He was angry but knew that unless he promoted me to Director and issued me a cell phone, he couldn’t do anything about my new stance.
After that, I only did business development in areas where I liked to travel and more importantly, vacation. Until that point, I had always said yes to any meetings in backwater locations if it represented a chance to land a new client. Having learned my lesson the hard way, I didn’t want any new clients to begin with, and certainly, none living in areas I didn’t like to visit.
Trips to Florida became common.
If I was traveling, I would typically spend Monday to Wednesday making very infrequent sales calls (most of my schedule was falsified with fake prospects so I could spend afternoons playing golf or hanging out at hotel pools trolling for women my age) then would take off Thursday and Friday with vacation/sick days so I could hang out and have fun, using hotel points to extend my stays for free.
Since I was still underpaid, I ate cheaply and learned to squeeze as much out of my trips for the least amount I could manage while still having fun.
My boss was now irate with all of the customer calls coming to him but he refused to hire an assistant for me so I kept forwarding my line to his when I was out of the office.
Whenever I was back in the office (pretty infrequent at this point) he would routinely lambast me with verbal warnings about poor performance reviews but I would just shrug my shoulders and tell him that maybe he was right not to promote me to Director since I was such a disappointment.
He was also angry because he’d been commended for having such a high producing office the year before (mostly courtesy of my efforts) and now he was getting a lot of heat from New York that his new client numbers were down.
Since I had frequent flier miles and hotel points, but not a lot of money, I backpacked through Europe on two different two-week trips that summer and also took a number of vacations back home, diligently following up on job leads on the West Coast that I had cultivated whenever I was in the office.
By October, I started to firm up some conversations with a prospective employer back in California and finally received a concrete job offer in mid-November.
I waited until December 15th to inform my boss that I was quitting the firm and told him I would be using my two remaining weeks of vacation/sick leave so that my resignation was effective immediately.
He was surprised that I didn’t wait until April to leave but I laughed, telling him I knew he was going to screw me on my bonus anyway so the money wasn’t worth waiting around for. He then asked me to stay through the end of January in order to give him enough time to hire and train an assistant or a replacement to handle my clients.
I refused, noting that Jeremy had quit 20 months before so he had plenty of time to prepare for this eventuality.
As I was packing up my office and informing co-workers about my departure, I got a knock on my office door from the HR rep as he wanted to conduct an exit interview.
He closed the door and I aired out all of my dirty laundry. I told HR the firm had lost me when my boss had screwed me on my bonus, repeating the story that ‘there wasn’t any money in the budget.’ The HR counterpart shook his head and laughed at my boss’s stupidity, noting that since Jeremy had been an employee at the beginning of the year I’d arrived, his salary and bonus were actually in the budget for the whole year.
As such, my boss could have allocated the amount that he would have paid Jeremy to my bonus, which probably would have kept me reasonably happy. Instead, he decided to screw me over.
I moved back to California that week and started the new job the first week of January.
Three months into my new job, I got a call from a co-worker at my previous firm. He called to tell me that after I left, HR from the head office in New York came down early in the new year to interview my former co-workers.
Apparently, my sudden departure had raised some eyebrows in New York as they viewed me as a ‘rising star’, and questions were asked why I left so abruptly. Apparently, other employees in my office had also gotten screwed in various ways (lots of client development meal expenses were rejected for being too expensive by the guy who was routinely billing his meals with friends to the firm) so after listening to all of the complaints, New York management decided to make a change years before he was due to be rotated back to Europe.
Since he was related to a guy on the Board, they couldn’t fire him, so they reassigned my old boss to some backwater farm town. I couldn’t pronounce the town but was told it was the kind of place that doesn’t provide perks like allowances for housing, accounts for expensive steak restaurants, or a new Mercedes.
I started my own company five years back and it’s worked out pretty well. Even though I got screwed 25 years ago, I always think about that experience fondly as I probably would have worked for a company like that for my entire life had I not been shown how companies and bosses will generally screw you over if given half a chance.
It was eye-opening and put me on a path to eventually start my own firm so for that I’m forever grateful. I always think about that situation around New Years to remind myself of how far I’ve come and for how not to treat my employees.”
11. Principal Tried To Get Me Fired So I Got Her Fired From The District
“I was in my mid-20s, fresh out of grad school, and ready to start my teaching career. I got a job at a title one elementary school near my home teaching art.
And I was super excited that I could walk to work!
However, I was so far into la-la land that I didn’t notice any of the warning signs…
Warning sign number 1: It was a week before school started, and I had called and emailed the school office staff and my principal to ask about getting my keys and badge, so I can start seeing what I needed to do to get ready for the school year.
No response and no answer from either. So I call the district office and asked when and where I could pick up my keys and badge. Two days before school started, I get an email from my admin that I should have been more patient and not have contacted the main office about my keys and badge.
I finally got everything and was able to get into my room and was horrified with how much I had to get done. (Apparently, they had used my room as storage, so it was loaded with tables and desks stacked on top of each other, 8 filing cabinets, and well over 100 chairs stacked all around the room.
I managed to clean out the space with help from my awesome custodian (shout out to all custodians who are the secret backbones in helping teachers get ready for the school year). Hurdle number one finished!
Warning sign number 2: It’s now the day of classes starting.
And I haven’t been informed of what the schedules are. As in, which days I see certain classes and when. So I email my principal, again, asking what the schedule looks like and if there is a digital document that I can print out.
I get an email back a few minutes later telling me to ‘stop pressuring and bullying her.’ (?!)
I replied, sorry if I was making her feel that way, but it would be nice to know what classes I had and when.
This leads to warning sign number 3: It’s 8:10 am, not 10 minutes after school started, and I finally get my schedule… only to find out that I have two classes, AT THE SAME TIME!
Note my school isn’t huge, but we still had 14 classes serving kinder-6th grades, so I was having at least 46 kids in one classroom by myself! Moreover, I had seven 45-minute periods a day and saw every class every day of the week, with only a ’30-minute lunch’ (my lunch was when I was on lunch duty).
I asked my principal if there was any way we could adjust the schedule, so I had time to plan and get the classroom ready for the next class and wouldn’t lose instruction time getting things ready as the new class was coming in.
I got yelled at by her with a class waiting outside saying that ‘it was my first year teaching, and I didn’t know what I needed and needed to just deal with it.’
Well, I decided not to ‘just deal with it,’ and I read the teacher’s contract for the district.
Come to find out, we had a section about classroom size. It stipulated that if you had a class of over 30 students, you get to have an educational assistant help you with the class. I brought this up with my principal after a month and a half of struggling and was… you guessed it, denied and told there were no funds in the budget, and I would have to make do without it or quit.
Mind you, I am stubborn and determined to make things work with what little I have. But things were rough. In order to prep and plan everything for the next day, make meaningful grades, keep up with referrals, and keep in contact with families, I was having to be at the school from 6 am (when the morning custodian arrived) until 9 pm (when the night janitor was leaving) on weekdays and then also use my weekend time to continue to plan and grade.
When it came time for my first teacher evaluation, I was dreading it. However, I got all satisfactory marks from my principal. I was shocked; little did I know this was a plan she had all along.
A few more weeks pass, and I’ve had it.
I talk with our union about the double classes and say it’s not sustainable, and a classroom my size can’t safely fit more than 30 students, let alone 46 students. And they said they would handle it… and another few weeks go by and nothing.
It’s now the week of Thanksgiving, and conferences are over, and I get to not worry about anything for two days. So I decided to go to a potluck dinner with some old friends of mine. So here is the best part and maybe the part that saved my career and even maybe my sanity: I was talking with an old acquaintance and his new husband about what teaching job I landed and how the school year was going.
I let it slip that even though my students were amazing and had such creative minds, it’s frustrating to me that I don’t have the time to give to them, that they deserve, and with two classes at once, it’s hard to get around to everyone in the class in just 45 minutes.
I noticed the husband raise his eyebrow and ask me what school I worked at. So I told him. What harm could it do?
Ladies and gentlemen, and everyone in between, little did I know I was talking with my principal’s supervisor. I found out the next Monday when my admin stormed into my room at 8:05 am to scream and yell at me, threatening to fire me, and make sure I never work in education again!
I was shocked and confused at the time.
However, later that week at our staff meeting, we talk about a change in the schedule and how only one class would be in my class at a time for an hour now, and I would only see them twice a week instead of all 5 days!
It was magical. The kids were happier, I was calm, was able to help each individual student if they needed it, and was able to plan enough throughout the day so I could leave at 4 pm!
Sad to say, my happiness didn’t last forever.
I noticed my principal stalking my room and coming in non-stop to observe me. It was awkward. I also had a few of my very extroverted students come in quiet and unable to focus on work, but when I asked them if everything was okay, they would burst into tears and say, ‘I don’t want you to go!’
Being confused, my response was always, ‘Oh student name, I have absolutely no intentions of going anywhere. You are all the best students a teacher could ever ask for!’ Which would cheer them up for a while, but then they would come in next week upset again.
It all clicked the day before we left for Christmas break. My principal came into my room with one of her minions (who was our building union representative) to tell me I was being put on a Teacher Support Plan. This plan was to evaluate whether or not my contact, with the district, would be up for renewal at the end of the school year.
I was shocked, and my union rep just snickered and walked away giggling with our admin. I felt sick and abused, unable to feel any emotion. It wasn’t until I got home and read what this plan detailed that I was seeing red. I had hit my breaking point.
This is when I started to formulate a plan of revenge.
Some things to note: our principal liked to come into school whenever they felt like it. She would be there anywhere from 7:45 am (our actual contract hours) to as late as 9:30 am (she once showed up at noon without telling anyone).
I also knew that she had kept renewing a certain after-school care contractor that wasn’t free to families, but they got funds from the district to offer it for free. I also knew that this person running after-school care was romantically involved with and living with our principal!
So during winter break, my acquaintance and his husband called and asked if they were free to get drinks over the holidays. I love a good cocktail, and I needed some hard drinks. When we met up, I wanted to talk about anything other than school stuff; I just wanted to keep my mind off of school drama.
But the new husband brought up if things were better after he had talked about the double classes. That was when I found out that he was her boss.
I asked: ‘What do you mean you talked to my principal? How do you know her?’
New Husband, ‘Oh, you didn’t know? I’m the supervising administrator for that cohort of schools.’
My jaw dropped, and I started to hyperventilate.
The husband was startled and asked what was wrong. So I told him, I told him everything. How she yelled and threatened to get me fired, how she put me on this support plan, and how she just kept observing my class without notifying me.
His face went from a concerned look to a surprised Pikachu face to red with anger.
He told me, ‘I really always had a bad vibe from her and always wondered why there were always so many new teachers at that school every year. What else can you tell me about what’s going on?’
I hesitated to tell him everything, but my acquaintance told me not to worry; he has seen this look before, and that we were on my side. So I told him everything I knew. They both just sat there awestruck, unable to speak about what they were hearing.
Anyway, after break is over, I am dreading coming back into my class, but I don’t want to miss seeing my students. So I push on. I am walking in the hall to my mailbox, and I see a few of my students that had cried and told me they didn’t want me to leave.
They ran up and gave me the biggest longest hug ever, saying, ‘You’re here! You’re here!’
Me: ‘Of course I’m here. I wouldn’t leave the best students ever! Now would I?’
Students: ‘But principal said you were going to leave us because you didn’t want to be here, and we should give you trouble before you left.’
Me (trying to hold my rage): ‘Oh, maybe she was talking about how I was leaving to visit family over the break? No need to worry; I’m still here.’
Yes, y’all, this wretched woman tried to purposely make kids misbehave in my class to write me up for not having a good rapport with my students!
I was beyond livid!
So next time I have class with that student, I ask them if they could make a comic book of the conversation they had with my principal when she told them I was leaving. And make an ending he wanted. Phase 1 started.
Phase 2, I contacted my boss’s boss and told him per my contract, I wanted another admin to accompany my principal’s Teacher Support Observations. And I wanted it to be him. He said absolutely! But not to tell my principal just yet.
The first day of my observation comes, and she walks in without a notebook or anything to take any sort of notes.
Looking proud of herself like she is about to get away with firing me. She is shocked and confused when her boss walks in with a laptop and sits next to her and starts typing notes about how I’m doing. She stumbles around and comes to ask me for a notepad to take notes, and I tell her, ‘I don’t have an extra notepad, but I do have some poster paper (we were making a movie poster of a movie we would star in to go with our comic books).
And that I hope you can be better prepared next observation as to not disrupt my class and take time away from their institutional time.’ Her boss just smirked.
Phase 3, I was now calling my new best friend (my boss’s boss) whenever she was late getting to school, and he would do a random stop by if he was close.
So he was able to document that she was not showing up to work on time and had not submitted the paperwork to have it be taken out of her leave minutes. Overall, we get her at least 2 times a week for a solid month, I think he even asked someone from HR to come to our school to see for herself at 9 am and she still wasn’t even there!
Now time for Phase 4, which was my favorite one. Getting the parents on board. I first started talking to parents that seemed to always be late picking up their students, I would chat about it, and they said it was hard to get there on time, and they often had to leave early.
And when I told them about our aftercare, they would tell me that it cost too much for them. However, I would inform them that since we are a Title 1 school, that after-school care was free and paid for by the district and gave her a nifty flyer I made up with the website to fill out the forms and which ones to fill out.
This made word spread around to parents paying the contractors directly that it was supposed to be free. And boy was that a fun PTA meeting to go to. I also made sure the principal knew it was me that informed the parents about that free after-school care program.
After this, there were countless investigations at our school. With head administration from the central office stopping by our school, auditors, and our union finally got involved and tried to play the heroes/victims of this incident.
The outcome: The second half of the year was very chill.
My new best friend made sure that my Teacher Support Plan was taken off my teaching record, and my principal was not allowed to do my second term evaluations, nor was she allowed to do any informal observations. The after-school care contractor was fired and taken over by one recommended by the district, and my students were making amazing strides in their posters and comics.
At the end of the year when we were getting our assignments (jobs) for next year, my principal made one last attempt to get me to leave and told me that ‘our budget doesn’t have the funds for an art teacher next year and that I might want to see employment elsewhere.’ I laughed in her face and said, ‘Nice try, my position is paid for by a state bond and isn’t affected by your budget from the district.
If there isn’t anything else, I’ll be leaving now,’ and when I walked out, I could hear her slam her desk and swear up a storm as I closed the door.
At the end of the year, I had my one student share his comic book about how the principal told him to ‘give me trouble in class’ at our school’s talent show, leaving the already angry parents angrier that an adult would tell a child to act in such a way.
I even think she had a shoe thrown at her when she ran on stage to stop him from finishing his comic.
To the surprise of no one, on the last day of school, she announced on the intercoms after students had left that she would be resigning from our school to move to a different position where she was ‘needed’ and that she would miss ‘almost all of us.’
I came to find out after stalking her on LinkedIn two years later that she had to get a job out of the district an hour drive away to get another admin job, but only stayed for a year, and then had to step down to teaching English at a different school in another district the next year!
And for those of you wondering how my student’s comic book ended, well. ‘The art hero rallied the students against the angry principal to make her see the errors of her ways, but the angry principal could not become happy, so she left, and the power of happiness filled the school once again.’”
10. Selfish Roommate Got His Phone Signal Hacked
“Back when I was in college there wasn’t really any broadband. We used 56.6k dial-up connections to access the internet. Now, my roommate, Cruchkov would monopolize that darned connection for hours on end. We only had one phone for four of us and we would pick it up any time of the day or night and hear bleep blop beeboo beeboo.
All the time. It got to the point where we couldn’t even order a pizza. ‘Hey, Dave you want pepperoni?’ ‘Sure Corey.’ ‘Okay I’ll ca… bleep blop beeboo beeboo.’ ‘DARNIT CHRUCHKOV’. We would hit on his door but he would either not hear us or pretend not to hear us.
So I hatched a plan.
I waited until he left for work one day. Then, armed with some stuff I bought at Radio Shack back when they sold stuff that wasn’t cell phones, I walked into his room. I unscrewed his phone jack and connected a 5v relay to the line.
COM/NO went to the phone, the coil went to the other two (unused) wires. Then I buried the whole thing back in the wall and made it look good as new. I hid a 9v battery inside the kitchen phone and connected it to the ringer switch and my secret wires.
Chruchkov comes home that evening, slams the door. Thirty seconds later it’s bleep blop beeboo beeboo. ‘Hey Dave, you want pizza?’ ‘But Chruchkov is on the…’ ‘I got this, man.’ I flip my switch, his phone turns off. But only his phone.
The sound of him kicking and cursing at his computer remains one of the most passive-aggressively satisfying moments of my life.”
9. Yard Cleaners Are Not Doing Their Work
“I live in a consolidated county. That means that the city and county governments merged some years back, ostensibly to reduce administrative and infrastructure costs. This is important, because services like fire, police, utilities, and trash pickup are now managed by former county officials and not the city officials.
Many of these services are also much more inefficient, and some services have been ‘outsourced’ to private companies.
My ‘municipality’ outsourced trash and yard waste pick-up a few years ago, and the two companies who now do those collections are woefully inadequate, and their services cost more than when the city or county did it.
They both have similar sets of rules: what can be put out for collection, take fewer types of waste away, and no longer come two days a week as the city once did, but now only come one day a week. We’re all paying more for less service.
Now that the background is done, here’s the story:
I did some yard work over the course of a couple of weekends last summer, cutting some limbs, trimming some shrubbery, and cutting down a dead tree in my backyard. Knowing what the rules are for how much yard waste, limbs, leaves, and such can be put out, I bagged everything that was supposed to be bagged, filling up three of them.
Things like leaves and small clippings, weeds, and such. The paper bags for yard waste from the big‒box home improvement stores are what they require, so I use those. I just fill them halfway up so as to not make them too heavy for the waste collectors, even though there are no written weight restrictions.
However, if a bag is ‘too full,’ they will knock it over to spill out the contents, so they then don’t have to pick it up.
I cut the larger limbs down to under four feet in length, or they wouldn’t be picked up.
Anything at all, they can do to get out of picking something up, they will do. And they almost always leave a horrendous mess behind when they do pick things up.
The pile put out for collection is not allowed to be any wider than ten feet, nor any deeper or higher than five feet, nor may it contain any piece longer than four feet.
All bags must be placed in a row, no more than three feet away from the limb pile. My pile was maybe four inches longer than the ten feet and only because of the tiny ends of the limbs (smaller than a toothpick) hanging out of the pile.
The pile was no higher than three feet and no deeper than four feet. In other words, it fell within the size limits, except for a few twigs with leaves. I also had the three bags, each about half full of clippings and leaves, all lined up exactly as required, and about two feet away from the main pile.
They were scheduled to come on a Tuesday, but when I got home from work that afternoon, it was all still there. There was a pre-printed notice on my door that my pickup exceeded the proscribed size limits, and the note said that I would be required to either pay a $250 oversize load fee or ‘reduce the size of the pile by half’ to make it fit into the limit.
This is where the revenge comes in.
I had the next two days off, so the next morning, bright and early, I got out the hedge trimmers. I trimmed the ends of the pile back to exactly nine feet in length. After carefully laying those trimmed bits on top of the pile.
I went to the backyard, where the limbs I had not trimmed up the week before were stacked for the following week’s pile, and found four long, fairly straight limbs.
I removed all the smaller limbs and leaves from these limbs, ending up with four moderately straight poles, each about seven feet long.
I marked one-foot intervals on each pole in fluorescent orange paint, and stuck them in the ground, (out at the curb in the front yard) at the corners of a rectangle exactly five feet wide and ten feet long. Got out the surveyor’s tape (bright pink plastic tape used to mark property corners) and tied it onto and around the stakes at the height of five feet.
This established a visual outline of the volume I was required to stay within.
I made absolutely sure that everything in the pile was completely inside the poles and below five feet in height. This required adding almost two‒thirds of the remaining pile in the back yard to the stack out front, to bring it up to four feet six inches in width, four feet six inches in depth, and nine feet six inches in length.
And no pieces longer than 46 inches. The pile was almost twice as much material as before. This included some small logs, up to 4” in diameter, also each 46” long. (The limit is 5” diameter) All within the limits of 5’ x 5’ x 10’ the waste company mandates.
I carried each of the three bags of clippings to the back yard, and filled each of them up as much as possible, while still being able to fold over the tops and staple shut each bag.
I also included small, 8” to 10” sections of the ends of larger limbs, for added weight. The bags were now completely filled and weighed more than twice what they had before. I had to use the hand truck to get them out to the curb, they were so heavy.
Oh, and all the extra clippings I had generated, filled up two more bags, so the total was now five bags. The company limit.
I then went inside, called the company, and very nicely asked that they come to pick up my yard waste since they had not done so on Tuesday.
They agreed to send out a truck and crew and told me I would have to pay the fee. ‘Come on then,’ I told them. They soon arrived and happened to be the same crew that normally comes to my neighborhood.
I pulled a 25‒foot Stanley tape measure from my pocket and asked them to measure the poles to confirm that the space was within the required limits.
They did so and agreed the pile was not oversized and proceeded to spend the next two hours manually loading it all onto their truck. Oh, and it took both of them to manhandle each of those bags into the back of the truck too.
I told them, very nicely and with a smile, that I knew what ten feet was, pointed to the fence where it was marked with orange electrical tape, and thanked them for coming to pick up my yard waste. The two tired, sweaty waste disposal guys just groaned, got in their truck, and drove off.
There was no extra fee added to my bill for that month. Never has been since.
Now, I know they got paid for their time, and I know that I had to do a lot of extra work on my day off, but since last July, I have not once ever had them leave so much as a single leaf on the ground in front of my house.
They had to actually do some hard work, with me standing there in shorts, smiling, and drinking cold Gatorade while they were sweating.”
8. Throwing Up Wasn't That Awful When Getting Revenge
“The people living underneath me are the rudest, most horrible people ever. Never smile or say hi. They had been living there for about a week when my ex-husband came over to collect our kids.
He made yet another attempt to convince me to get back together with him (it’s never happening) and when I told him no he screamed abuse at me and put his fist through our security door. Yea, he’s good like that. So anyway, instead of asking if I was ok or doing anything a normal pleasant person might do, they gave me less than 24 hours before they started leaving nasty notes about the need to get it fixed and clean up the b***d.
Yeah good on you guys, bullying a domestic violence victim. Classy.
So anyway, just the other morning I was sitting on my balcony when I realized I was going to be sick. I jumped up and leaned over the balcony, and not until I was done did I notice a load of clean washing on their line, directly under me.
Oops. Lol I can’t say I felt that bad, it actually made throwing up not so awful cause the whole thing was just so funny.”
7. Racist Client Chooses Doctors
“I was a receptionist in a doctor’s office (OBGYN) in California in 2002, less than 1 year after 9/11.
A woman calls in to make an appointment for her yearly physical exam, and she wants the soonest available appointment.
Me: (Searches schedule for a bit to find a slot) Well, the first availability I have is with Dr. Tukenmez this Thursday, actually, so we could get you in this week!
Patient: Oh, um, Tukenmez? Do you have any appointments with any other doctors?
Me: Well, the only appointments this week are with Dr. Tukenmez, the other MDs are booked out for about a month. (Dr. Tukenmez was new to the practice so she didn’t have a lot of established patients yet, thus her earlier availability)
Patient: Well… I just… I would rather have another doctor. Because, you know, I’m from NYC (code for ‘I don’t want a doctor with a middle eastern sounding name because I’m afraid and I get a special privilege to be racist because I’m from NYC, even though I was living in CA when 9/11 happened’).
Me: What a coincidence! Dr. Tukenmez is from NYC too, she was born and raised there. And actually, she’s an American citizen, and her family is Turkish-American; she’s not Iraqi or Afghani or Saudi…
Patient: Well… that doesn’t really matter… so I guess… when is your soonest appointment with another doctor?
Because like I said, I’m from NYC.
Me: (at this point super triggered by her racism) Well, we have an opening in 4 weeks with Dr. Goldman. He’s Jewish though. Do you have a problem with Jews, too?
Woman: (pause)… um, no, that will be fine.
Me: Ok, he has an appointment on X day at 2 pm.
Woman: (sounding chastened) Ok. I’ll take that one. Thank you.
It felt incredibly satisfying to say that. I know it was unprofessional. But I hope she felt ashamed.”
6. Significant Other Got Payback On My Neighbors For Me
“My significant other at the time reported two of my neighbor’s cars untaxed, so eventually someone came and towed them away.
The whole thing was his idea, and he was the one who reported it, not me. And when he reported it, I didn’t know he was doing it.
He had made the call in my kitchen while I was in the lounge watching the telly. And he had only joked about doing it at that point, we hadn’t agreed yet that he would actually do anything.
So he comes out of the kitchen and into the lounge and he has this naughty little grin on his face, and I’m like ‘what,’ and he told me he had reported them.
And I laughed, but then I was also slightly worried. And I was a bit annoyed that he hadn’t actually told me he was gonna make the call.
But quite frankly, they deserved it. That family took up so much space. Rotting caravan outside, a complete eyesore, loads of cars parked around their house, often making noise, the idiot grown son loitering outside all the time.
He thought he was a real bad boy but he was just a fat inbred loser.
And my significant other did it because those neighbors were complete chavvy jerks who had not been friendly at all towards me from the moment I moved into the road.
After all, I’m an ‘outsider’ eg not British born and didn’t grow up in their precious little area. And their grown son had been doing some stupid things that constituted anti-social behavior against me, and it had been going on for a long time, and I was beyond fed up with it all.
So my significant other had wanted to get them back.
But guess who got the blame. Me.
So no, I didn’t get ‘caught’, because I didn’t do it. but I got blamed for it.
So next time one of your friends, or your significant other, wants to do you a ‘favor’ and get back at your neighbors, consider that you are the one who has to live there, not them and that you are gonna have to deal with the consequences, not them.
And maybe my ex should have thought of that before he made the call. Because he left me with a mess. Hopefully, that wasn’t his intent.”
5. Various Bugs Visited The Grumpy Neighbor's House
“There was this old super grumpy neighbor. My friends and I built a treehouse at the edge of my parent’s farm. He kept complaining about it, but he couldn’t do anything because we were out in the countryside and it was okay to build a treehouse.
Every time he saw us, he’d yell at us to go away and my friends would yell back to mind his own business. One time he called the Sheriff and told him we were making too much noise.
After that, we decided to get back at him.
We went around the farm collecting snakes. We’d wait until there’s nobody at his house and open a window. Then we’d toss the snakes in his house. We found a beehive and thought about tossing that in his house, but it was up too high on a pine tree branch, and we couldn’t reach it.
When he started locking all of his windows, we collected all kinds of bugs and tossed them in the crawl space under his house. All we did is take the cover off one of the crawl space vents and put them in. We did crickets, fire ants, spiders, and anything else we can find.
We never got caught and nobody knew we were doing it.”
4. Heavy-Drinking Neighbor Has A Pretty Girl He Doesn't Deserve
“When I was about 4 or 5, we had a neighbor in an apartment complex who was always wasted. One night, I was standing outside when he & his girl walked by me.
He stomped his foot and roared really loud, attempting to scare me, but I just stood there staring at him. He asked me what I was looking at, and his girl told him to leave me alone. When they came back, he walked by and said he was gonna get his pliers and take my nose off.
As soon as they went inside, I went to his front door and peed on it. Every time they went somewhere after that, I would pee on his door. I have no clue why. But it made him, and the manager really angry. We ended up moving to a much better place a few months later.
For some reason, I can remember him clearly. He was a total jerk. His girl on the other hand was really nice, sweet… and pretty.
They had no idea that it was me at first. He actually thought it was someone with a dog, up until the manager caught me red-handed (or yellow-handed) lol.
But I was just a kid, so as to why I chose to do that, it’s a mystery. But I’ve never liked bullies, so maybe that has something to do with it.”
3. Business Partner Thought He Could Frighten Me
“A few years ago, I was a minority partner in a small business. My other two partners were the majority shareholders. Every few weeks the three of us would hold closed-door executive meetings to discuss financial results, customer & employee issues, etc. The meetings were typically very pleasant and encouraging for many years – lots of ‘how do we address this issue?’ ‘where do we see ourselves in 5 years?’, ‘what’s our next step?’ Not coincidentally, the economy was humming along during that same period of time.
There wasn’t a lot to complain about because things were going pretty well.
By 2008, the economy was tanking. Residential construction had slowed to a whimper and our customer base followed suit. The tone of our executive meetings started to turn increasingly hostile. Pats on the back and encouragement were replaced with finger-pointing, accusations, and blame.
Many of the meetings devolved into a game where one partner would try to pit the other against the third. Being the minority and least senior partner, I felt the cannons were often pointed my way.
After months of consistently depressing financials, we headed into another dreaded executive meeting.
I knew that one partner was upset that one of my new sales programs hadn’t delivered results. He called the meeting and took center stage to voice his displeasure in a particularly condescending way. As the other partner and I sat around the conference table, he greeted us in silence with a forced semi-smile while writing notes on his legal pad.
His face was red and you could feel the tension in the room immediately. This was going to be a lecture, not a meeting.
Without saying a word, he stands and writes a few figures on the whiteboard. Now he’s slowly walked back and forth around the table scratching his chin and looking toward the ceiling as if his prepared monologue is actually being delivered impromptu.
I’m thinking to myself, get ready for the show. Every 30 seconds or so, he’d pause and without making eye contact say something like ‘So… we’ve spent three months working on this and this is what we have to show for it (points at a figure on the whiteboard).’ Then he’d pace a little more while nodding to himself.
Picture the calm-before-the-storm when Alec Baldwin leads into his scathing sale rep beatdown in Glengarry Glen Ross.
This routine continues for 5 minutes (seemed like an hour). The other partner and I are making eye contact but don’t say anything as the crescendo builds. His voice gets louder and his face gets redder each time he stops to pose another insulting rhetorical question.
‘So this is the great new idea you guys came up with?’ more pacing, ‘You think these numbers are impressive, do you?’
Everything was carefully choreographed to maximize our discomfort and let us know he’s about to drop the boom on us.
Then I start getting angry. A few years ago, we all sat in this room and worked on problems collaboratively. When we had problems, we could talk to each other directly and sincerely. There was always mutual respect even when we disagreed. Now I’m being forced to sit through this condescending monologue.
Screw this, I decide that I’m not going to give him the satisfaction. After he said his last ‘This is the best you can do, I guess???’ he takes another dramatic pause. I can tell he’s ready to take center stage at the table and rip us a new one.
At that moment I make eye contact with him. While pressing my palms together with anticipation and smiling like a goofy doe-eyed moron, I open my mouth for the first time and say ‘Don’t keep us in suspense any longer, what do you think of the program?’
The tension was broken as both partners laughed out loud. I think the meeting continued in a much more civil tone after that.”
2. Irritable Neighbor Was A Pain In The Butt
“When I was about 10 I had a neighbor that was a real old jerk that gave all the kids in the neighborhood a hard time for little stupid stuff.
Call our parents and tell them all kinds of nonsense that got us in trouble and sometimes big trouble but we were just being kids. Never doing any real harm just having fun.
One day he was raking leaves and putting them in bags. I got an awesome idea, I thought it was at the time anyway.
I went into my house and snuck in my dad’s closet, got my BB gun, and slipped back outside and a couple of girls from across the street from me came over when they saw me with the gun. I told them to be quiet and I went to the corner of the house after pumping my gun up 10x I stuck it around the corner, took aim, and when he bent over I pulled the trigger and got him in the butt cheek.
He jumped 3ft high, grabbed his butt, and yelled oh God darn as loud as I ever heard anyone yell before.
The 2 girls started laughing and he wheeled around and saw us and that made me run inside. I left the gun in the bushes so my parents wouldn’t know but it was only a few minutes and the doorbell rang.
I was in my room and couldn’t hear what was said but it didn’t sound good. The door slammed shut and I heard mom talking with Dad for a few minutes then the dreaded sound of my name in a loud voice came. I pretended I didn’t hear it but he knew I did and then I heard the door to my bedroom open and I knew I was in deep trouble.”
1. I Got Rid Of The Neighbor's Noisy Bullfrogs
“When I was 10, we lived in a house with a backyard that was separated from the neighbor’s yard by a four-foot-high wire mesh fence.
All our bedroom windows faced the backyard.
Our neighbor (I’ll call him Jerk because that’s what he was) had a large circular stone pond in his yard, built above ground with a diameter of about 10 feet and about four feet high or so.
It was filled with aquatic plants and bullfrogs.
Oh, Jerk loved his bullfrogs. ‘They make such sweet music,’ he said. No one else agreed – our bedroom windows all faced the backyard and there was no way any of us could sleep at night.
People that lived beside our house had the same complaints – these things were obscenely loud. They were particularly active in the summer and the temperatures where we lived were hot. Hardly anyone had A/C back then, so we had to keep our windows open.
I hated the frogs, I hated Jerk, I was so miserable. We all were.
But ol’ Jerk wasn’t going to do anything about it. ‘My yard, my frogs, my rules,’ he said.
One night, I was in bed and I heard my dad yell from his bedroom – he had had enough.
Put on his clothes, went into the garage, and grabbed a can of pesticide/herbicide (can’t recall) – you know, the old-timey ones that used the metal box-shaped containers, before they started using plastic. Mom, my sister, and I all crowded the window in my room to watch what was going to happen.
It was very dark but we could see his shape moving across the lawn to the fence. As he climbed over, the can hit the post and made a loud sound. Jerk’s sheepdog was tied up on the veranda and started going ballistic. After about 30 seconds the outdoor light came on and Jerk came storming out in his tighty whiteys, cursing at the dog for barking so much.
He had a look around the yard, saw nothing, and went back inside with the dog. Then the light turned off.
Go time. Dad ran across the yard to the pond and hid on the far side of it facing away from Jerk’s house. Off came the cap and he reached up over his head with his back to the wall of the pond and emptied the entire can into the water.
I can vividly remember the ‘ba-dunk ba-dunk ba-dunk’ sound of the sides of that can as the liquid came out.
When it was empty he ran across the yard again, climbed over the fence, and came into the house through our back door.
A few minutes later after washing his hands, he joined us at the window.
The frogs had started up again now that no one was around, but over the next 30 minutes (felt like DAYS) the frogs grew quieter and quieter until there was nothing but silence.
The next day, dad was in the backyard doing some chores. Jerk called over to him saying ‘Hey Frank, get over here.’ Oh God, the jig is up.
But Jerk simply started ranting that all his precious frogs were dead! He was so upset but had no idea what could have caused it. They were all floating on the surface of the water. ‘Jeez, it stinks in there too!’ Idiot.
‘Gee Jerk, that’s a shame.
Strange, eh? Wonder what could have happened.’
Nothing ever survived in that pond again and it was torn out the next summer.”
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