People Shake Us Up With The Most Vengeful Thing They've Ever Done
15. Make Us Come To School When It's Snowing? We'll End Your Career
“Both my children attended elementary school in the northern midwest. As you can imagine, it snowed. A lot. Even with all the snow removal infrastructure, when a particularly heavy storm came along, the town just couldn’t keep up with it, and the buses couldn’t run.
For decades, the school district dealt with this by having five snow days built into the calendar.
If they had more than five snow days, the kids would go an extra day(s) at the end of the year. For years, this system worked, and no one ever complained, except the occasional child that had to attend a couple of extra days in June.
Well, all good things must eventually come to an end.
The old, mild-mannered super retired. A new super took his place. She was young, aggressive, and almost immediately reviled by everyone in the district.
Let’s call her Sue because that’s what we ultimately did to her.
Sue came right out of corporate America. I don’t know how she got it in her head that she wanted to run a school district, but she did.
She was so inexperienced that the school board had to give her a waiver to work in our district before she could even show up for work. When the year started, Sue went on a power trip that made everyone’s heads spin.
She slashed hours for support staff. Barred children from repeating a grade without her personal approval (wat). “Cracked down” on teachers taking sick time, until the union pointed out that she was violating the CBA by doing that.
Backed off a little but vowed to “go after” any staff taking sick time. Stopped the weekly trip to the fitness center by the special needs class.
She was like a cartoon villain.
But what’s important to this story– she ended the decades-old snow day system.
I took the days right out of the calendar and said we wouldn’t be needing them, as she was “cracking down” on snow days.
Here’s how snow days work: the transportation department keeps an eye on the roads. If they are unsafe, or even if they are safe but the forecast is looking crazy for later, they tell the super they can’t safely run the buses. The super then cancels school. It’s really supposed to be the transportation department’s call.
Well, Sue decided that she is the sole arbiter of deciding cancellations, so even if transportation says it’s not safe to run the buses, she can say “tough crap.” Which she did.
Often.
As you can imagine, this led to a lot of awkward and even dangerous situations. Buses not being able to access rural roads. Buses running an hour late. Buses running their entire route completely empty because no sane parent would send their kids to school in a whiteout blizzard.
For two years we parents tolerated this dumb crap, but needless to say, we were frustrated. We tried going through the proper channels.
Contacting the transportation department, writing to the school board. We even wrote a collective letter to Sue personally. Who, if the rumor is true, spit on our letter and tossed it in the bin. Though we did get a nice message on the school department website about how they are always thinking about the safety of the students, so that’s nice I guess.
Things finally boiled over the winter of that second year.
A bus went off the road. Though my kids were not on it, it shook me up. There were numerous complaints on the school’s Book of Faces from scared and disgruntled parents. Two years of being the only district open in the county during storms were getting on everyone’s nerves.
My sister in law is a criminal defense attorney. I am a disability advocate with a state agency, so while I’m not an expert on the law like my SIL, I tend to know my way around.
We met for dinner and decided that, if and when the inevitable tragedy happened, we would sue. We met a couple more times to work on our game plan. You can’t sue a school district for making dumb snow day decisions, but if a kid gets hurt…
The day finally came in the late autumn of the third year of Sue. We had a big storm roll through in the early morning hours.
Not cold enough to snow or freeze, thankfully, but extremely windy.
Most of the county lost power, including the schools. Thousands of outages. Power lines down, trees down, roads closed… It was a mess. All the districts in the county closed.
All of course, except ours. Sue was never one to turn down a chance at a power trip. She ordered the schools to stay open.
It was a disaster. Buses couldn’t access every road to pick up students. Buses were late. Individual schools were putting out bulletins that attendance was the parents’ choice, students unable to make it to school would receive a Principal’s Excused Absence, stay home if it’s the safer choice.
Bear in mind that all the schools were running on generators. So the high schoolers (who start an hour earlier) were sitting in the gymnasium bored. There was literally no point in having school this day.
Then, the inevitable happened– a tree fell and hit a bus. And this time, my daughter was on it. Thankfully, the driver did a good job of evacuating the children and there were only minor injuries. But injuries nonetheless– all because of Sue’s absurd no cancellation policy.
Some ambulances showed up. Four kids went to the hospital as a precaution. It made the news.
It was time.
The district sent forms to all of the parents of injured children: they would cover all medical costs and provide counseling for the kids in the guidance office, AND a small cash settlement, in exchange for the parents signing a release of liability (“you can’t sue us”).
But my SIL and I had gotten to the parents first and advised them not to sign ANYTHING, as we were taking the district to big boy court.
Some of the parents did take the settlement offered, which is understandable since not everyone likes drama. But some didn’t. Some told the district right where to shove that settlement. I was one of them.
SIL and I got together with a couple of the injured parents who were sick of the district’s nonsense. We got our paperwork in a row and filed a suit.
We filed the suit so fast that our hands burst into flames.
(The essence of the suit was that the district had failed their duty of in loco parentis by making unsafe transportation decisions, directly causing the crash and injuries.)
My SIL also pulled some strings at the local newspaper and got our lawsuit a small spot on the front page. Parents came out of the woodwork to express their support.
They were frustrated after years of Sue’s authoritarianism. It turned into a small media circus, and I’m sure some Redditor will Google this and find something.
Well, the district’s lawyers got to work and quickly really that this was going to be a mess. A discovery process pulling up dirt, the parents of the injured children testifying, the general hatred of the district… Not to mention it appeared that they would, indeed, lose.
They moved to quickly and quietly settle this case. They basically sat down with us and said: “name your price.”
And while I cannot discuss the details of the settlement, let’s just say that all injured parties were made whole.
Also, the district changed their cancellation policy immediately. Now, if there was even a hint of snow or icy weather, they canceled. A welcome change of pace.
As for Sue, she became very quiet. She used to spend all day sending aggressive emails about her “policies.” Now, hardly a peep. All she did the rest of the year was fill the seat. As summer approached at the end of the year, Sue announced her resignation. She was leaving to “pursue other interests.” We think she was asked to resign.
She was replaced by a superintendent who was much nicer.
He rolled back all of Sue’s power trippy policies.”
14. Won't Let The Company Out Of A 5 Year Lease? Get Your Building Condemned
“To start: This is about the company I work for and a trip I took because I had to wire a building for a computer network because the building owner wouldn’t.
Our company was moving a remote site to a new building. As the IT guy for the company, I was asked to look at the new building and get network ports marked out. The landlord refused to put in any low voltage lines, and we got quotes, but they were thousands of dollars.
Enter me, my car, and 4 boxes of cat 6 plenum. It’s about an 8-hour drive, and I was doing about 30 drops. Not a ton, but still, a few days work in someplace that’s already built up, and it’s drop ceiling with insulation on top. Messy, itchy work.
Day 1. We get there Monday morning at the start of the month. It’s actually a cool summer morning, and we’re from further south, so no one notices the AC not working for about an hour.
Slowly, the building begins heating up. It gets to 80 by noon, 85 at 3 PM. The rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows are greenhouses. It’s absolutely miserable. We’ve been told by the workers still on site that the leasing company was told there was no AC in our building 3 weeks ago. The other thing is there are STILL WORKERS ON SITE. The building isn’t completed. So much for being ready for a handover day 1.
Day 2. We’re getting agitated. It’s 80 degrees in the AM when we first walk in. It’s sweltering. The other guy that came up with me is the facilities manager. He’s screaming at people over the phone to fix the freaking AC. We’re all exhausted from the heat by 3 PM. I found a 4-foot hole in the ducting when I opened the ceiling tile. The AC was blowing, but there was no cold air.
We are told the compressor is broken.
Day 3. More of the same. Miserable in the morning, I’m finally getting the last lines punched in on the patch panel. The AC guys arrive about 10 AM. They finally fix the unit at 2 PM. We ask them what they did. They said, “A lot of things.” We again said, “What did you do?” The reply was, “We can’t tell the tenants.” RED FLAG ALERT!
We contacted our realtor. She said she would look into what was done. She sends an email later that night that says, “They changed the refrigerant from r22 to r401a.” I tell the facilities guy, “No way, dude. That’s like putting gas in a diesel motor. They’d have to change out the entire system. They didn’t do that in 4 hours.” They basically duct-taped and wd-40’d that thing back together, and it will run poorly for a month or so, then give out, and we’d be stuck with a replacement.
Day 4. Still no running water to some areas, still workers on site, the AC can’t keep up with the noonday sun, and it still hits around 80 by the end of the day. AC runs continuously. We’re packing up all the stuff we moved in and moving out. I notice all the fire sprinklers look like they have moved, and the metal protection around the drop tile has fallen to the floor.
The sprinklers are no longer protruding from the tiles in places, and in others, they are quite a bit lower than they were. Yep, the AC fools STOOD ON THE FIRE SPRINKLERS to fix their lousy ductwork. We are looking for a friendly way out.
We contact the landlord and say, “You haven’t delivered a finished building. We’re moving out; the lease is broken.” The landlord has a 36-page lease.
The landlord won’t let us out of the lease. It’s 5 years. This is NOT starting off well. We get in contact with the corporate lawyer and the realtor, and they both agree we’re kind of screwed. We are desperate for any way out. I start looking at the fire system (I used to run all kinds of low voltage lines, fire, security, etc.). There is no fire panel in our portion of the building.
No smoke detectors are hooked up to anything. More red flags. One of our employees who was moving the heavy gear says, “Oh yeah, I meant to mention, I never saw any building permits anywhere.” DING DING DING. They did this buildout, including demolition, running new plumbing and power lines, and destroying the fire system— WITHOUT A CITY PERMIT. Queue the call to city inspector’s office.
Day 5. I wasn’t here for this part, but the facilities manager told me this: “The city inspector pulled the permits for the building. There weren’t any. He finds multiple violations of city code. Red tagged our area, removed the certificate of occupancy. When I told him to check the fire system like you said, he just goes, ‘Oh, no, no, no, I have to make a call.’ He calls the fire marshal.”
Day 8. Fire marshals arrive on scene. Find no active alarm system in our portion of the building. Red tag. Find the sprinkler riser for the ENTIRE building in our area. No water pressure. Condemned the entire building.
Basically, they wouldn’t let us out of the building because we signed a lease, even though they never delivered a building in any semblance of working order. Called the building inspector, got them smoked, who then called the fire marshal, who condemned the entire building.
They are still trying to fight us over it, but we’re pushing for them not only to refund our deposit and the rent, which they have already done but for all the time spent moving gear in and out and all the wiring. Our lawyer says they don’t have a leg to stand on, and he’s happy for them to pay his fees as well.”
13. Demand An Engineer To Fix Your Internet? Fine, Pay The High Price
“So I work for a company the provides Voip/Networking solutions and IT support, so I get this call from a well known angry customer who also happens to be friends with the boss, and to top it off, we usually only support businesses and not residential customers, but we sold him some internet on the cheap for his mother’s house.
Me: Good aftern-
Bob: YOU SOLD US DODGY INTERNET, BEEN TRYING TO CALL ALL WEEKEND!
Me: Sorry sir, our offices are only open 9-5 Monday – Friday, but let me take some details for you and I’ll run some tests on our side and get back to you.
Bob: MY MOTHER IS 86 YEARS OLD AND IS A VULNERABLE PERSON AND HASN’T BEEN ABLE TO WATCH TV!
Me: I understand that sir, but if you give me some details I can investigate for you and get this resolved ASAP.
Bob: NO JUST SEND AN ENGINEER OUT TONIGHT (currently 4:30 on a Monday)
Bob: Ends Call
(At this point, I go away speak to my manager and BB, get some background, find the details I need to investigate, and the lines are fine. AB calls again.)
Bob: Are you sending an engineer?!
Me: I have run some tests on the circuit, and it is absolutely fine, so a BT engineer wouldn’t be able to do anything.
If you tell me what the problem is, I can help you to try and resolve it over the phone.
Bob: No, just send the BT engineer!
Me: Ok, but you will have to accept potential charges if the fault is not with the line and is with the local equipment. I really think we should try some first-line resolutions first.
Bob: No, send the engineer.
(24 hours and a $370~ call out charge later)
Bob: The engineer didn’t fix the internet. Why am I being charged?!
Me: As I previously stated, the line checks were fine, and the BT engineer is only responsible for line maintenance. It sounded like it was a local issue.
Bob: Fine, you get down here and sort out the router. It has to be that router you sold us!
Me: I will have to clear this with BB. Should we go over first-line resolutions first or at least give me a description of the problem?
Bob: NO, I’LL SPEAK TO BOSS MYSELF.
(Hangs up)
Boss: Dan, just to shut him up. Would you fancy going to take a look? Usual charges would apply if it’s not a fault with our equipment?
Me: No problem.
So I go to visit the house, luckily AB isn’t there but his sister is who is polite enough. It turns out there was an issue with their android streaming box used to stream international channels, and since they were nice enough, I reconfigured that for them. They also had no other devices actually connected to the WiFi, so I connected the house up (including their security system, etc.).
The best part of this is that I could have talked him through all of this as it was very simple stuff (even though they aren’t covered) and would have taken about 10-15 minutes, but he ended up paying over $680 in call out charges.”
12. Lose Your Entire Business Since You Refuse To Give Me My $300 Deposit Back
“I rented a little house from a man who owned a painting business.
The power was off when we came to see the property but he assured us everything worked, even put it in the contract. The place was dirty and poorly maintained so we negotiated the security deposit down to $300.
Turned out the heat/air didn’t work, along with the refrigerator and dishwasher.
I asked him to have someone look at them. He cursed me up and down. He called and left threatening voicemails.
He would show up unannounced and let himself in. On one of the visits, I showed him that the crawlspace was flooded and was a breeding ground for thousands if not millions of cockroaches and mosquitos that would come up through the floor vents.
There was absolutely no ductwork even though he claimed the heat/air worked fine. He accused me of causing the flood myself even though I showed him the source was a pipe that had rusted through.
He refused to address any problems and said, “If you don’t like it then you can move. You can’t pay for a bargain and expect to live in the Ritz.” This man was a terrible man in general. Once he hired someone off Craigslist to cut down a tree in the rental property’s yard.
The man worked literally all day for the agreed $150, cut up and hauled off the tree.
He came back that evening, just standing in the yard. I asked if I could help him. He said he was waiting for the owner to get paid. The owner kept replying saying he was on the way but never showed up. Our neighbor told us he had punched the previous renter in the face and refused to pay him for a day’s work for his company.
He had bragged about renting to illegal immigrants and not having to do anything because they wouldn’t sue.
We had a newborn baby so we called his bluff and agreed to find a new place to live. We left the home in much better shape than we found it. He said he would mail us the security deposit but never did. He dodged my phone calls until one day he called to say, “You aren’t getting it back.
You broke the contract when you left early, so go fudge yourself.” I was really upset because we were new parents and had very little money. That $300 was a big deal to us and a drop in the bucket for this man. He owned an upscale painting business and had 15 rental properties.
The next week, I was online leaving negative reviews for his business when I clicked a link and noticed his website’s domain had just lapsed.
I knew what I had to do. I immediately bought it, then created a homepage with contact info for his biggest competitor. I emailed him from his old domain, asking him if he wanted to buy the website for $320 (the cost of the security deposit plus the price I paid for the domain).
He was irate! He started calling my work, threatening to sue my employer.
He even contacted my parents and threatened to sue them. He left a bunch of threatening voicemails for me, saying he was going to beat me up and he knows where I live and he has my social security number.
I received emails from several review sites asking if I was trying to update the contact info for the business. He must have used his old domain’s email as his contact email.
I didn’t want to get in trouble for impersonating his business so I did not respond. The contact info was never changed.
I received a few emails from potential clients. I called him and told him about the painting job requests. I gave him the contact info for one of the clients to prove I wasn’t just making it up. I told him it was the last time I was going to do that for him, and suggested he buy the website back in order to not miss out on any other jobs.
He told me he was taking me to court. I told him I had recorded his threatening phone calls and saved all his texts and voicemails. He said he was going to sue me for illegally recording him (not illegal in my state). I said, “I look forward to seeing you in court where I countersue and press charges for harassing me,” and I hung up.
He called back and cussed me out for hanging up on him. I said, “Call me back when you can speak respectfully to me,” and hung up again. We repeated this about 5 times, each time he was angrier until the last time. He spoke respectfully and explained he hadn’t got a single job in months. I suggested he focus more on creating a website to find business.
He lost it and cussed me out again.
6 months passed and he still hadn’t bought the website from me. I get a call from him, begging me to “do the right thing” and give him the website back. I told him the current price was $350. 6 months later, I get another phone call. I told him the current price is $380.
Eventually, he texted me to say, “I went out of business.
I hope you’re happy.” I responded, “I hear having a website really helps your business. $380 and it’s yours.” He told me what a terrible person I am and said, “Karma’s a witch.” I responded, “Maybe if you stop trying to rip people off, your karma wouldn’t be so bad.” That was the last time I ever heard from him. The major business listing sites confirmed his business did indeed close.
I renewed the domain for another two years just in case he was bluffing.
A few months later, I drove by his office to see if it was still there. It was empty with a “for rent” signposted. I never got that $300 back but it was totally worth it.”
11. Bad Bosses Like You Deserve A Million Dollar Fine
“I was working for a local computer build company back in the 90s. The owner (let’s call him George) was a bit of a jerk who liked to party.
He struggled to get his business off the ground and took the lion’s share of the profits made once it did. All that is to be expected. You take the risk you take the rewards.
I came on and ended up the best tech he ever had in the shop. He paid me fairly well but not enough for what I was doing. I finally started doing on-site work for a substantial amount more and we were both happy.
I got 30% of the on-site fee per hour and he got 70%.
Now, during this time the computer industry was tightening up and profit margins had shrunk.
The owner decided to do some shady things. One time George replaced name-brand motherboards in the computers I sold to a customer for a network with generic crap. Half of them failed during install. Since I had listed a name-brand motherboard on the invoice I took them all back and forced him to replace them! Otherwise, it would have been a fraud.
All he had to say was, “But I make another $40 per workstation if I use the cheaper part.”
The next thing that happened was I made a ten computer plus server sale for a new network. I hadn’t worked in the build shop for a few months and noticed that they were cloning drives to speed up the build process. Not a big deal normally but I lost a client due to the owner’s shady practices.
He cloned the drives then failed to put the certificate in the customer package for the OS and Office!
He couldn’t get around the server license so at least the client had that. Every time the client called about the key codes he’d tell them they were on backorder. He was cloning pre-loaded and pre-ACTIVATED drives with Windows and Office!
I finally got tired of it and walked over to where the software was kept and took the licenses to the client.
I had noticed the cabinet was unlocked so took matters into my own hand. The client was still so angry that he refused to do business with me while I still worked for that company. George saw me and accused me of stealing. I looked at him and said, “I’m getting what the CLIENT paid for and taking it to them. I’ll make sure I have them sign a receipt for the software you seem to have forgotten to include in their purchase.” After that, I started to pay attention to what was going on in the shop.
I insisted on software before I even left the building with a client’s systems. Piracy got worse and worse.
Now during this time, I was making about $50K a year from that 30% so George was clearing at least that much off his 70% even after taxes, etc. One day he comes to me and says, “I think I have to start charging you for your cell phone.” This was back in the day when if you really needed a cell phone most companies paid for it.
I said, “That’s fine George but I’ll want 35% of the on-site fees.” To which he replied, “I was going to lower it to 25% and make you an independent contractor.”
I was honestly left speechless! I just walked over to the bar in the shopping center and sat down and drank for the better part of two hours. It was the end of the day and I didn’t have a late client so no worries there.
I sat for another two hours after that just drinking water and thinking. I made the decision to go my own way. If I was going to have to pay both sides of my social security, then screw George! I’d do it ALL myself.
The next day I drove around to several of my clients. I didn’t want to call them on my soon-to-be-former company phone.
I secured a dozen that said they would stay with me. After all, as one of my clients told me, George wasn’t the one who showed up at 5 AM before the restaurant opened when their point of sale system crashed, I was.
When George’s shop opened I walked in with my phone, charger, etc. found George, placed it all in his hands, said, “I quit,” and walked out.
I went and got a phone and called the clients I had spoken with and gave them my new number.
Payday came around the next day and I was expecting a bit over $2K in the check. George had called payroll in several days earlier as always. Well, low and behold, no check. When I confronted him he cussed me out and told me he owed me nothing.
I used the same type of line that I used with the guy at the ski manufacturer. I calmly told him, “Are you sure? I’ll cost you a heck of a lot more than $2K if you refuse to pay me what I earned.” He just told me to get out and I did.
Well, I knew I had just cost him at least $5K a month because nobody in the shop had a clue what to do with networks.
I started my own company and grew my client base. Even after having to pay all my taxes, self-employment tax, and expenses I was clearing about $45K a year! I was going to leave George alone until I got word he was badmouthing me around the city. He was saying I used pirated software and cheap parts. Things I knew he had done and was still doing.
I would have let it all go. When he badmouthed me I went scorched earth on his butt!
Revenge.
I contacted BSA: The Software Alliance. I gave names, dates, processes, practices, and more. Everything I could remember about clients that had cloned drives and withheld software. About a year later I was reading my local news when George’s company was in an article. It seems secret shoppers went in from Microsoft and bought some of his computers.
In the end, they hit him with charges that he made hundreds of illegal copies of Office by cloning hard drives. This was back when once activated Office stayed activated and didn’t check again.
The end result was he had three stores and ended up with only one store along with having to pay a $1,000,000 fine.”
10. Think You Can Assault Me? Say Bye To Your Company
“I spent two years working for a particular boss, who I’ll call Dan.
Dan was (and almost certainly still is) the most unacceptable human being I have ever had the displeasure of encountering. He was a compulsive liar, a narcissist, short-tempered, unethical, unreasonable, unintelligent, and abusive.
I once witnessed him spend half an hour shouting at a salesman for wearing shoes that Dan didn’t approve of.
Not inappropriate shoes, mind you, but just ones that Dan didn’t like. The salesman in question could have gone home and changed his shoes in the time that Dan spent cursing him out and belittling him.
He also sold a client secondhand computers, claiming they were new and priced as new ones.
This man verbally and emotionally abused me for the better part of two years and did everything in his power to keep me under his thumb.
He constantly micromanaged me, to the point of just dictating to me what I should write in an email to a client.
If it wasn’t done exactly his way, it wasn’t correct. I had to argue with him just to get a gosh darn sick day, even though I’m legally entitled to it. I was woefully underpaid and on-call 24/7. This made it difficult for me to find other employment and is one of the reasons I stayed as long as I did.
He made my life absolutely miserable, and I developed a bit of a drinking problem as a result.
I recently watched a presentation on domestic violence, and his behavior is a textbook case of what domestic violence abusers do.
I could go on and on about the things that this man did to be the biggest jerk he could be, but this is pro revenge, not bad bosses, so I’ll get to the story.
One day, Dan and I had a disagreement regarding something I was right about.
I had the emails to prove it, and I was frankly fed up with his bullcrap. I told him I wouldn’t be going to work because I was taking a sick day.
He proceeded to shove me down to the ground (he’s a big guy, probably one of the reasons he’s gotten away with being the human garbage he is for so long) and starts trying to strangle me.
I was able to fend him off and escape, and after I did, I filed a police report. (There were no witnesses, so that was going to go nowhere. He actually had one of his other subordinates make a claim that the alleged assault didn’t happen. Said subordinate wasn’t there at the time, so false report.)
I naturally told everyone I knew and all his clients that contacted me afterward (I was their primary IT support, so quite a few of them had my personal number) that I had filed a police report against him for physical harm.
I specifically said it that way because, unlike simply claiming that he physically harmed me, telling people I filed a report was unarguably true and not slanderous.
A lot of his clients were already not happy with the services he provided (internet and PBX), so that certainly turned a lot of them off of renewing their contracts.
A very close family friend of mine, Carol, was naturally one of the first to hear about the harm.
I left the country about a month later in search of better opportunities, but my friend remained and became the chairman of the board of trustees for the body corporate of the neighborhood where Dan lived. (A body corporate is basically like a Home Owner’s Association but with different laws governing them.)
She set her sights on making his life a nightmare. Dan had a broken down car (that had been broken down for over a year at that point; he never had the income to fix it because he’s a crappy businessman who never seemed to realize that his business model had really tiny profit margins), and the rules of the neighborhood were changed to force broken down cars to be towed away.
If the owner didn’t tow it, the body corporate would and charge the owner. And fine them.
So, Dan was fined a few times (not small amounts either), and when he was fined, he did what he always does when things don’t go his way: throw a freaking tantrum while having no leg to stand on. The tantrum, in this case, was several expletive-filled emails to the body corporate (which is just such a great way to endear yourself to someone who already hates you), which got him fined again for breaking the conduct code.
This, combined with the loss of revenue for his business, has led to him not having any substantial income for over half a year now. He has no car, nor the coin to buy one, and several of his big clients are definitely not going to renew contracts with him, and he appears to no longer have any staff in his employ.
Nobody’s seen anyone coming to his house in months now, and the body corporate is pressuring his landlord to evict him.
He’s well and truly screwed.
I’m living happily in another country now and got an awesome job that pays 20 times what working for him did. (Yes, really. 20 times more moola. That’s how little I made under him).”
Another User Comments:
“Wow, this guy is a living PTSD. I bet you received a lot of therapy from the crap that he has put you through.
No one should ever treat anyone that badly, I don’t care what country they live in. I don’t even care if that kind of behavior is considered acceptable in their country. This is all around atrocious, and that guy is clearly an atrocious human being, or an atrocious excuse for one, anyway.” RR-the-US-writer
9. Can't Pay For My Coffee? Pay 10 Times That Amount
“I used to work for a company in the UK, based in London but with regular travel all around the country.
We had very long hours, and we’re required to be on-site when work began at 7:30 am, but you could be hundreds of miles away. You were allowed to stay away, but you had to get approval from a senior manager, usually only agreed through gritted teeth because of the difficult expenses policy and the wrath of the senior manager who approved the expenses (more on this guy soon).
I used to get up early, commute all around the country, often doing 2-3 hours in the car at a time. Most often stopping to fuel the car or just have a break, usually grabbing some breakfast and a coffee, because I was often leaving the house before it was palatable to eat breakfast. I was young and conscientious, so would buy my own breakfast but buy a coffee separately and keep the receipt for expenses.
Usually a $7 breakfast and a $4 coffee. Our expenses policy allowed me to put the whole lot on expenses, but I was conscientious…
Anyway, after months of this, I submit my expense claim. My immediate manager approves it without batting an eyelid as he can see the addresses on the receipts and the timestamps. So once a manager has approved it, the expenses would go to one senior manager to approve, for maybe 2-300 claims a week — major trust issues and seriously backward.
One morning, early at head office, the senior manager comes into my office and tells me to follow him. I follow him to his office where he explains to me that the company isn’t here “to buy me freaking coffees!” Long story short, I’m told to stop playing fast and loose with the expense policy (I wasn’t) and follow the rules.
Here is the malicious compliance.
Speaking to HR, they had a policy about work-related driving and EU working time directive which meant that all the early starts and late finishes had to stop immediately because it was breaching policy and the law. So the next time I had to be on-site for 7:30 and was 2-3 hours away, I stayed in a hotel the night before — a three-course meal and breakfast all in line with the expense policy and working time policies.
This continued for about a month because you can only submit expenses for payment in the last week before payday. My expenses went from $140 a month to $1,400 a month.
Expenses submitted manager approved, sent to senior manager. I get a phone call to come to HQ the next day for a talk with the senior manager and HR. The following day I attend, I get an absolute roasting, “What the heck did I say?
Who do you think you are?!” When I could get a word in, I explained how I was traveling in line with company policy, health, and safety legislation whilst also complying with the expense policy, to the letter. HR confirmed. Nothing he could do. Needless to say, the policy was changed some months later.
I felt much better because I was well-rested, fed, and working the hours I was being paid for.”
Another User Comments:
“Where I used to work, one of my coworkers traveled to another city and parked his car at the airport in the parking lot closest to the terminal – $4 more a day than in longer-term parking. He also had a $70 a day meal allowance. But to save coin, he ate the hotel’s free continental breakfast each day and fast food for lunch and dinner – so maybe $20-25 instead of $70.
When he submitted his expenses, the manager chewed him out for the extra $4 per day of parking and never mentioned the $45-50 per day he saved them in meals. So we learned when we traveled, park in long-term parking to save the $4 per day, but head for the steakhouse for dinner.” TexasYankee212
8. We Don't Want You As Our Principal
And we’re going to do everything we can to get rid of you.
“First, some background.
The principal of my school (we’ll call him Matt) had been with the school since it started up in the early 2000s. He worked his way up from a regular teacher to the principal, and then assistant superintendent, although he spent most of his time at the high school. His immediate superior, who we’ll call Katie, was pretty much a figurehead while he did all the administrative stuff for not just the high school but the rest of the district.
The thing was that Matt was a narcissist. He constantly belittled and berated students. He once publicly told an entire graduating class that he would make sure that none of them graduated and they were all the worst the school had ever had. There were also numerous other instances of him doing this stuff to students in private, especially with the kids who did the school announcements which he also ran.
I had two friends on there. One was dismissed (student volunteer) out of nowhere for literally no reason. The other was fired (she chose to work for the school after graduating) after calling him out for saying she was worthless.
Despite this, all of our teachers assured us that Matt wasn’t as bad as we thought he was. We never believed them because we thought they were just covering for him.
After we graduated, we discovered that he was indeed not as bad as we thought.
He was worse.
Matt frequently told the teachers that they were worthless, dumb, that he could fire them, and that anyone could do their jobs. From what we saw over the years, it didn’t take a lot for him to fire anyone.
Now, at this point, you may wonder why Katie didn’t step in and at least try and tell him to knock his crap off.
Well, again, he did all the admin stuff. They also were friends from back in the day. So while she heard numerous complaints about him, she never acted on them.
Now onto the revenge:
Like everywhere else, the state mandates that we take their standardized test. The state was always VERY clear about when the deadlines for the tests were, what portions were to be taken by each grade, and what the penalties were for not making the deadlines.
A few weeks prior to the deadline, the school gets issued all parts of the test except for the science portion. Matt says he’ll talk to the Department of Education and get it squared away. After a couple of weeks, they still don’t have the portion they need, and Katie asks where it is. Matt informs everyone that the State said they didn’t have to take it.
Some of you might be wondering why the State would say they didn’t need to take it after making a big deal about it. The answer is simple: they didn’t.
Matt, in his infinite narcissistic wisdom, decided not to get them. Because of this, the State opened an investigation and held meetings about revoking the charter for the entire district, essentially shutting them down. But Matt didn’t get in trouble.
Since Katie was superintendent, it was her job to make sure those tests were ordered. The story ended up going public and Katie took full responsibility for the *******. Matt also berated her in private as he did with everyone else. She later steps down from her position as superintendent but maintained her positions on the school board and the corporate board (remember this for later).
Matt takes over as superintendent of the entire district.
Matt could have stopped there, but, being a narcissist and a dictator, he doesn’t. He publishes a scathing open letter on the school’s website blaming her for the whole ordeal and the fallout. He then has the principals of the other schools do the same. As far as the media, the public, and the Department of Education are concerned, the whole affair was due entirely to Katie’s utter incompetence.
Matt also continues berating her in private.
After two months, the State decides that they aren’t going to shut down the district, much to everyone’s relief. Some months later, they go back to not giving two craps what a small charter district does. Now that there are no eyes on them, Katie starts making moves. She wanted to get control of the district back from Matt now that she knew that all the claims that students, parents, and employees made over the years were true.
As I mentioned earlier, she did maintain her position on the school board and they could theoretically remove him. The problem was that the other two people on there were put on there by Matt, so she’d always be on the minority on any vote. But also as I mentioned earlier, she had a position on the corporate board; a body whose decisions and authority superseded that of the school board.
She goes about gradually restaffing the corporate board. When Matt asks her why she says it’s to make sure that a similar mistake would never occur again. Matt believes her and thinks nothing of it. After about a month, she added seven people, including her partner, onto the corporate board. They hold their first meeting and then call in Matt to inform him of their first order of business:
He was being given the option to resign. And if he didn’t resign, he’d be fired.
Matt, not really having a choice, resigns. The next day, the high school’s principal, a friend of his, also resigned. The day after that, the athletics director for the high school, Matt’s son, followed suit. Katie then takes over in the interim and begins looking around for people to fill all the positions that Matt had consolidated (I think that there was seven or eight total).
The teachers and faculty all breathed a sigh of relief knowing that they didn’t need to be afraid of being fired at the drop of a hat anymore. As for the students, they hardly noticed. My old English teacher put it as “not even a ripple.” Outside of those differences, the only thing anyone noticed after Matt and his cronies left was that a lot of really nice furniture went missing.”
7. Years Of Harassment Is Only Going To Make You Lose Your Job And Kids
Payback’s a witch.
“Several years ago my mom was seeing this nice man with two kids.
My younger brother and I liked the dude himself, but his kids were another story. His kids were entitled jerks that always got what they wanted, constantly stole our toys, and were generally a nuisance to be around.
I always tried to be a better person, but my brother and I were constantly getting into arguments with them due to their pettiness.
They weren’t even the worst part of the relationship, the dude’s ex was.
From my perspective, I felt that she was the type of person that if “she couldn’t have him, nobody could.” She made my mother’s and our lives a nightmare, constantly filing false complaints about our side of the family generally pointed at my brother and I.
From harassment to claiming I had stolen the son’s toys, (which was the other way around) and going after the dude claiming he was an unfit parent.
Several times she’d try and ruin any plans we had come up with. For example, after spending months planning a trip to New York, last-minute she blew a fuse and demanded we cancel the trip so that she could take her own trip with them. (We had already gotten a written agreement from her).
One time she even demanded the older son and I visit a family therapist, after pointing all the blame on me I told my side of the story.
It resulted (without the therapist fully implying) that they agreed I was in the right and them storming out of the room.
Among many other reasons, even after my mom and her man had gotten engaged, the ex-lady was one of the biggest reasons why Mom had decided to call off the engagement.
Harassment and drama were just too much for us. It broke her heart to do so, but she made us the priority and got us out of that situation.
A few years after the breakup, my small family and I were living happily. I never saw the kids or the dude again. My mom had still kept in touch with the former partner, but after some time apart she’d seen the faults in him too. I was in the 8th grade and living life happily.
That was until the ex-woman stepped into gym class one day.
Apparently, since the breakup, she had gotten her teaching degree and became a substitute teacher. She was now replacing our normal gym teacher who was on maternity leave as well as acting as the assistant teacher for our Health class. Basically, I now had to see her pretty much every other day for the rest of the school year.
At first, she didn’t recognize me.
Puberty had hit me hard, changing my appearance drastically especially for someone who hadn’t seen me in like five years. Eventually, she recognized my name and that’s when the harassment began anew. All of it was snide remarks about my appearance. Constantly pointing me out as an example as to what puberty can negatively do to you (pimples, f****l hair, voice cracking that sort of stuff) to the class as if I was the only one dealing with it.
The main health teacher didn’t know about it either. Basically everyone in the 8th grade was taking Health at the same time. It was technically one extremely large class but split up into male and female groups, and wasn’t I lucky that the ex-lady got the male half (mine)
I told my mom about it immediately and she was livid. She sent multiple emails to the school requesting that they switch teachers or at least let me take the class online.
It all fell on deaf ears until with the help of the ex, we showed them dozens of emails, phone calls, and messages all spouting harassment at me and my family.
This resulted in her being fired from the school and basically being blacklisted from our school district and the surrounding area. If she wanted another teaching job she would have to find it elsewhere.
This resulted in a major legal battle between her and the ex because she had tried to move out of state with the kids without his nor the court’s permission.
Apparently, she lost custody of the kids and had to go back to her old job (Don’t know what it was).
All in all, it was an interesting experience. We cut all ties with that entire family after the whole ordeal and went on with our lives.
I’m now a sophomore in college waiting out the shutdown in my state. While my mom still hasn’t had a long term relationship since then but she’s happier than she’s been in a long time.”
6. Scam Me Because Of My Skin Color? I'll Call You Out
It’s not going to be good for your jetski business.
“Back story: I’m 34, and both my parents are college professors.
In 1998, my dad was offered tenure if he went to teach overseas. He agreed, and we had a family meeting.
The family meeting went as follows.
“Hey kids, guess what? What? We are going to Malaysia.”
“Cool, what’s that?”
Before we knew it, our midwest American family was crammed onto a Malaysian airlines plane.
We landed and got settled in, homeschooling for us. My mom didn’t have to work, and my dad was getting paid in American currency, so, for the first time ever, we were considered wealthy.
We took lots of vacations, and I got my own allowance, which I mostly spent on food and cool electronics. One of these vacations was to the island of Langkawi. While there, we did the usual tourist things.
On the very last day, my brothers and I wanted to rent a jet ski as we had seen the renter next to the hotel every day and just didn’t have time.
Our boat was leaving far later in the day, so we knew we had time.
We walked to the renter and started to talk to him. While he was talking to us, he was also talking to his counterpart in Malay, a language I had picked up because I was the only one of my family to make friends with the people in my town and went exploring on my own.
He told his counterpart to cover the price sign, and he did so with a towel. We knew the price was 25 Ringgit per half hour, but the guy was saying, no, it was 50.
We haggled back and forth, and he said that 25 was the local price only. Both my older brothers looked at me like I could change his mind. So, in Malay, I told him that we weren’t tourists and that we lived on the mainland for quite some time and that we couldn’t afford an hour and a half at 50.
He said, “You’re white; you can pay.” I said, “What does the double price gain us?” He said insurance. The insurance covers any damage no matter what and includes free gas refills.
We damage jet ski, no problem.
That wasn’t fair at all, but we had, in fact, lived there for a while and knew there was nothing we could do about it.
I called him “bodoh seperti babi,” which directly means “stupid like a pig,” but depending on the religion and class of the person, it’s actually a grave insult.
However, I called him that as we offered him moolah, giving him to chance to take the insult and the coin or send us away. He took the moolah.
My oldest brother went first. He went out and played in the waves jumping and diving, just having fun in general. Then my middle brother did much the same.
When he came back, he said he thought it was running low on gas because the engine would die sometimes.
Now it was my turn. I told the renter he should put gas in, and he said, “No, you be fine, boy. You be fine.” I took his word for it because I had never ridden a jetski and knew my parents wouldn’t let me do it alone if they were there.
I headed out and felt like a God. It was awesome, and I got the idea to see if I could reach the neighboring island, which didn’t seem too far off.
I got about halfway there, and the engine started to die. As I hit waves at different angles, it would sputter back up and die, then back up as the next wave hit.
The water is clear, and you can see everything. By everything, I mean all the fish, jellyfish, and everything else that wants to eat you or just ruin your day.
To add to that, I had no sunscreen, and though, I’m a very good swimmer, at age 12, I still had a phobia of swimming in ponds, lakes, and the sea. Kind of the creepy, omg, something touched me, type of phobia.
Anyway, as I was forced to take note of the beauty and quiet of the sea due to not having gas, I noticed I had drifted south around the island and could no longer see the hotel.
Over an hour goes by and nothing. I’m past tears and start to notice how thirsty I am.
I start rocking forward and backward to get some sort of motion.
Eventually, I spot a boat, and it’s getting late in the day hours have passed. I start screaming and yelling to get the attention of the boat. It sees me and comes to check on me.
I tell them I’m out of gas and need help.
They ask if I’m American. Automatically, I remember my parents teaching me to say I’m Canadian because Americans and the British are not well-liked. They toss me a rope and pull me in.
I’m hysterical and going between English, French, and Malay on a rant about how I was going to die. Note, I didn’t do well in French class, but it sure came back quickly and was no help but to confuse my new friends.
The captain of the boat went inside and brought out food and water as well as his son who spoke English and Malay.
Time goes by, and I watch the guys on the boat jump off. Others toss them wood cages, and they swim to set them up. The kid’s father comes out with a jar and a gas can. He says he has the wrong fuel for my jet ski but knows a trick.
He pours the clear liquid into the jetski followed by green fuel.
He offers me the jar and does the drinking motion. I took a swig. It was fire; it was the strongest rice liquor I had ever seen and even now at 34 have never consumed anything that harsh or strong.
He tried starting the jetski, and nothing happens.
We do this a few more times, and then he takes a spray can and tries again while spraying the can into the engine.
His son says to get on and go fast because it won’t last long. I take off and can feel the jetski protesting and lagging. But I come into the site of the hotel and see my family, police, and the renter on the beach. I gun the thing and crash it on rocks on the beach sending me flying into the sand and ripping the jet ski apart.
I run to my mom as the renter runs to his wreckage. I tell them everything that happened, and the medical team from the hotel looks over me.
I had been stung on the foot by a jellyfish, had second-degree burns all over my body, except where my life vest covered and had soiled myself. We had already missed the boat to go home, so the hotel let us stay another night.
As we were wrapping up on the beach, the renter comes back in perfect English saying that we must pay repairs. That was his only jet ski, and he would now starve. My brother said that we paid for the insurance. The renter said no insurance for this, and I said you charged us 50 instead of 25 and said damage was covered no matter what.
The hotel staff heard this and asked what he charged. Apparently, he had been warned not to gouge guests in the past, and they told the police to remove him and ban him from their beach.
We went back to the room, and my mom gave me the most painful shower I ever had.
The next morning, we had a quick visit with the medical team and left.
The jet ski rental was crossed off the board of activities, and his whole set up was gone from the beach.
I have never ridden a jet ski since.”
5. Landlord Refuses To Resolve A Rat Problem, So I Stop Him From Getting Another Tenant
“When I was in university, I’d heard stories about horrible landlords of student housing but hadn’t experienced it myself… until the third year when it felt like we got 3 years worth of crappy landlords all in one go.
It began when I heard noises in the wall behind my bed at night. I brushed it off for a while until I realized that it was an animal in the wall.
I told the landlords the next day, and they immediately played dumb, acting as if I was stupid in front of my housemates for suggesting that something could fit inside of a wall.
That was the first alarm bell.
Why immediately try to embarrass me into dropping it? After explaining that I know what a cavity wall is, she asked if we’d seen anything in the kitchen (oddly specific… We didn’t think about it until later).
From then on, her partner dealt with us. We weren’t aware that he was our landlord too.
A little time passes, still nothing done about the noise in my wall, not that it was a surprise.
I’d worked out by then that it was probably something like a mouse and that it could run through the terrace of houses. As long as it didn’t chew its way through my wall or die in there, I put the whole thing on the backburner.
…until we were all sat in the sitting room and heard a thud in the kitchen.
Then I heard squeaking.
There was a giant rat in our kitchen.
The rat disappeared into a hole in the (completely crumbling) kitchen wall, and the landlord claimed that we made it up and that they’d never had a rodent problem.
(I contacted the previous tenants through the Book of Faces, and I found letters for them that had been posted to us by mistake; the property had had a rat problem for the last 3 years before we moved in at least.) I set a rat trap and caught one, took photos, and sent them to the landlord to tell him to sort the problem out.
He told us that because there was a line in our contract about the landlord not paying for pest control (the contract specified wasps nests, etc. We didn’t even think about rats when we signed it) that we’d have to pay hundreds of dollars to fix it. He’d knowingly written that into our contract, so he wouldn’t have to pay out instead of fixing the kitchen wall and the exterior wall where the rats were getting in.
To cut the rest of the setting the scene part of the story short, we called the council, who sent a pest control team. While on their visit, one of the men took my housemate to one side and told her that our landlord is evil and that he is known for getting nasty. They told him that it wasn’t our fault that there were rats; it was his, and he screamed in my face until he was bright red about how I was a terrible person and was trying to take him down for no reason (one of my housemates had to leave because she was scared. I wasn’t; we were in a room full of men – who were backing us up – making himself look worse for screaming in my face like that.
And I’m a female and was 22 at the time, about half his size). He tried to sue us for slander. (It isn’t slander if it’s true so swing and a miss.)
Now, for the revenge:
It was written in our contract that we had to be notified 24 hours in advance if anyone needed access to the house, which included house viewings.
I began my mission: stop any other students from getting stuck in this pithole.
The house was being shown by agents, so it made it fairly easy. I left the rat traps in prominent places, casually explaining why we needed them if asked, and if I felt I was being too subtle, making a fake show of, “Oh gosh, please ignore the rat traps! The landlord said he’d fix the kitchen wall where they get in but hasn’t gotten around to it, so we have to catch them.” I was honest about the mold problem in the bathroom.
When I found out they were planning on increasing the rent by $125 a month(!), I made a point of saying something like, “Well, it’s just about worth the [rent I was paying].” I made sure to say his name, so they wouldn’t get away with using his woman’s name as a front while his reputation for aggression stayed hidden.
The agents never said anything to me directly, and because we had to be notified, I could always make sure I was home when there was a viewing.
(My housemates fully supported my revenge, but I was the woman of action in the house. When I’m sure I’m in the right, I will do what’s necessary to make things right.)
That was until they tried to turn up unannounced one day, not even knocking, just unlocked our front door and walked in.
Luckily, I was in the house and kicked them out for not informing us and told them that they were in breach of our contract.
(If the crappy landlord could use it to beat us with, two can play at that game.)
No new tenants had signed for the house by the time we were free of that hole. It’s been two years now, though, so I have no idea what happened to the rat house.”
4. Have The Nerve To Throw Food At My Co-Worker? Let Me Talk To YOUR Boss
“So, I was a low-level manager at a restaurant. I was friends with all the servers. I worked my way up, and the rest of the managers were mostly brought in. I would work my butt off to help them. I’d clean tables, comp tickets even when it’s my lunch, refill drinks if they were in the weeds, etc. We’re in this together; these are my people.
I was getting married, and a majority of my guests and bridesmaids were my co-workers. I got my dress at David’s Bridal. My mom wasn’t there for the dress shopping; she lived 5 states away.
That weekend, we were going back for the fitting, and I was super excited to show my mom my wedding dress and veil.
Back to work: A lady comes in to pick up her to-go order of chicken fingers and fries.
They had just been made piping hot, no problems or exceptions to the order. She’s wearing a branded David’s Bridal polo.
She comes back two minutes later, claims the order is cold and that we used old fries, etc. I watched them make the order. She must have opened the box in the car, so there’s no way it’s cold. But okay, we’ll make you another.
I get the kitchen to drop the new tenders and fries. The general manager goes to comp the meal.
We always go over the top for customer service.
The lady then claims the to-go girl was rude to her. I was there. She didn’t do anything out of turn. She doesn’t care too much about fighting over chicken fingers. She said, “Okay, let me get a manager.
We’re so sorry.”
Somehow in the 8 minutes to turn the order around, the lady is even more upset. The manager tries to give her a card for another free chicken finger meal next time she comes in. The order comes up. We give the new hot order to the now yelling lady. She’s mad because the to-go girl wasn’t punished enough in front of her.
I guess the GM was supposed to humiliate my friend in front of everyone?
He said he’ll take care of the discipline problem.
He won’t, but he apologizes again. She opens her bag of food, opens the box, and hurls it. The sauce spills all over my friend’s shirt, and she has hot fries and chicken fingers thrown in her face. The lady stomps out.
I ask my boss to make a call after we all share the “Holy crap, she’s crazy.” He’s confused. I’ve never asked to use my cell on the floor, but he goes along with it.
I call David’s Bridal and tell them I was a guest at a restaurant, and their employee just dumped food and yelled obscenities while in uniform representing their company.
Furthermore, I was a bride coming in for a fitting this weekend. I describe the lady and say I don’t want her anywhere near my appointment.
On top of being crazy unprofessional, I have people coming in from out of town. It’s a special time for me; I don’t want her vibe to ruin it. The manager there promises she won’t be and is appalled.
I’ve never called anyone else out for bad behavior while in uniform, but my GM thought this was awesome. And I was totally rocking petty revenge.”
Another User Comments:
“I’d like to think she got fired for almost costing them a sale, fake as it was since bridal stores make serious bank from even small sales.”
3. Relentless Bullies Don't Deserve A Happy Life
“So to understand all of what I’m going to write, it’s important to understand that I was bullied heavily in school.
I have talked now and again about it here in the past and understanding this is important to understand why this person affected me so much.
After leaving school, things started to get better, it took me a while to recover with the help of some great friends.
At one point, I needed to start looking for work. It was 2005 – 06. Things weren’t going so well in the job market around my area and being broke I couldn’t just leave for better pastures so I ended up joining the army instead.
It didn’t last (that’s another story), what’s important happened after.
While I was away my friend’s group picked up a couple more nerds for the crew. Among these was a useless bully (or Bully for short). Thing is, is that this guy was a gamer like everyone else for the exception of one large quirk. He was very egotistical and really liked talking crap.
It didn’t take long for him to single me out, it really does seem like bullies can sniff out what they call a good target.
He really likes to talk crap, often crossing the line between common bull crappery and real insults.
It was obvious he didn’t seem to like me but for some reason liked having me around. Some of my other friends even noticed and tried getting him to stop but he took it like a badge of honor, even told me so himself once.
I’m not going to get any deeper about what he did as its not the point of this story.
So now you ask why did I stick around and why did my friends put up with such a jerk? Well, for one thing, I knew my friends far longer than he was around and they were fine. They themselves weren’t good at conflict and Bully was very smart.
He knew exactly what to say to skirt around things if needed. So, part of the time they would enable him and the rest he knew how to manipulate them so they would give a pass.
It was an abuse cycle, he would act like a jerk one moment and the next to be all nice. In the end, they got too used to this and became a little blind to what he was doing.
But let’s continue. I’ll start with one particular event that started it all. As anyone who knows me knows, I’m a computer geek. I like to work on them, build them and so on, and it’s important to know that so does Bully.
Like a typical bully, he labeled me as incompetent in all things and treated me accordingly. So to him, I am not even a novice, even though by the time I met him I already started building.
Enter that key moment.
One night after a night of LOL (League of Legends) I decided to ask the guys something. I asked him and the rest what the L cache was for a CPU. Something I didn’t know yet at the time.
He, of course, blew me off. Later that night I googled it and while doing so I had an epiphany. Just because Bully refused to be helpful shouldn’t mean I can’t be.
So I started offering help at work, beginning with word of mouth then over time I went freelance and time marched on. I eventually moved away met my now lady and broke ties with Bully. I kept up with some of my friends though, if they wanted to be friends with him I didn’t care as long as they respected the fact that we won’t be going near each other.
Time still passed, I got better as a freelancer and eventually earned my way into a legit IT job in my home town. Things are great, one of my dream jobs. Eventually, the crap hit the fan when not long ago my co-worker got fired for doing something he shouldn’t have done. This of course left a spot open. In the search for a replacement, I offered the spot to one of my friends who declined, but through him, as I found later, Bully found out.
Low and behold a couple of applicants later he showed up for an interview. My boss sets these up and would take my exco-worker to the interviews, but now I fill that role. So when Bully showed up I was surprised, I kept my cool though and so did he. It was obvious he recognized me but shown no fear. Remember this guy is really egotistical and probably thinks things are in the bag already.
The interview was normal, I’ll skip to the nitty-gritty here so I’ll skip to the later part of the interview.
Please note that any extra info trickled to me over the years was from the friends that still hang out with him.
B =Boss, Bully= Useless bully
B: Do you have any experience in an independent team environment?
Bully: I’m a manager at Wall-Mart and I know the ins and outs of teamwork.
I can handle myself. (Note he managed the electronics and wasn’t very respected)
Me: Do you have any experience with a ticket system or ordering system.
Bully: No, but I think I can handle it.
Boss: On your resume, you turned in says you went to college for a degree in computer repair but you forgot to put in when. When did you get your degree?
Bully: I forgot to finish that I actually finished a year ago.
I knew this was bs, he actually graduated a year before I met him so it’s been over a decade by this point. At this point, I started to lay down some pressure and sow the roots of this man’s demise.
Me: In your resume, it only shows you working at two different places and there is a time gap in between both of several years, can you explain that?
Bully: Oh that was a typo I worked at xx place for a while, I ended up quitting, and a month later I started as a manager at Wall-Mart.
Note that made that whole thing suspicious because I knew for a long time he job hopped a lot, even while we hung out he lost three jobs.
He did actually get hired straight into his role at Wall-Mart but he didn’t mention the job where he earned his way up to that position and got fired for being a jerk to his co-workers.
Me: If a computer went down on the shop floor, how would you handle the situation?
Bully: I would go down and fix it duh.
Me: What if it was completely unserviceable.
Bully: No, there is nothing I can’t fix.
His ego was showing through, just as I wanted.
Time to start cutting this interview down to size.
Me: So if the memory were to say go bad, your telling me you could fix that?
Bully: Well I’m sure I could handle it.
My boss looked at me a bit wondering why I kept going with it but he let me continue.
Bully: Don’t you have replacements for memory and things?
Me: Sometimes.
Bully: Well that’s bull.
I was surprised he said that but I knew he was starting to slip.
He gets mouthy when he feels his ego is being stroked even if it’s just him doing the stroking.
Me: So out of your experience, would you say you are a hardware specialist or a program specialist?
Bully: I can do both but I can lean towards hardware. I can fix anything you toss my way.
Me: So lets test that a bit. Boss do you have any hardware questions you want answering?
Boss: Sure, how long does a coax cable have to be before any signal degradation starts?
Bully: uhhu.
He struggled, I could tell he slipped, that question is my bosses go to question because most people don’t know it and he really just wants to see how they respond.
Bully: I don’t remember at the moment, I did some work hooking up cable for people in the past when the cable company needed some help so I’ll remember it sooner or later.
MORE BS.
My boss was seeing through it to, he knows this business like the back of his hand so he knows what’s up.
Boss: “Me” do you have any questions?
The sign my boss was done with the interview. Me: Sure just one last question.
I turn to Bully and I grin. I look him in the eye and ask.
Me: So what’s the purpose of the L cache of a standard CPU?
He went white, he knew the jig was up. I don’t think he fully knew what I meant but he knew enough to know when to give up.
Bully: I don’t know that one, it was never brought up in class.
I accepted his last statement, and we ended the interview. My boss told him he would be contacted within 24 to 48 hours with any results.
He left and my boss looked at me a little annoyed. He asked me what was going on and I explained it all. That I knew Bully, what kind of person he was, and about the lies on his resume and in the interview. I told him I just wanted to give him a chance to either mess it up or prove he could handle it.
My boss is pretty understanding so he let it go. Needless to say, Bully was not chosen to fill the vacant spot.
Two days later Bully showed up at my door unexpectedly. It was Saturday and I figured he found my place through one of the others. My partner answered the door not knowing who he was. Dude freaking walked in like he owned the place.
I stopped him at the front mudroom, there was no way I was going to let him in any further.
Note that there was more yelling than this but I cut it down for simplification.
Bully: So what happened?
Me: What not even a hello how are you?
Bully: I never got a callback so I called to ask and they said I didn’t get the job.
Dude had a bad tone in his voice, I knew he was here just to rage. A person that egocentric always blames others and I was target numero uno.
Me: What are you here for!?
Bully: What did you tell him about me?
Me: Nothing that wasn’t true, now get the heck out!
Bully: Bullcrap, I know you can’t really handle that kind of work!You just didn’t want around because you know I would upstage you!
Me: What the heck would you know, you wouldn’t even let me talk about computers when we hung out, you just labeled me and treated me like crap.
Dude, I told my boss exactly what happened, how it happened, I didn’t have to lie or exaggerate. You choose to act terribly, you choose to bully someone, you choose to create a bad representation of yourself, as far I see it, it’s just karma.
If you really cared instead of barging into my house you would be trying to fix where you screwed up.
Bully: I don’t need to do anything, go back and fix it!
Me: Screw you, get out before I call the cops.
Bully: I’m not afraid of them.
Me: Fine!
I yelled to my woman to call the cops, after this Bully new I wasn’t screwing around and left in a huff.
The aftermath so far from this is him calling everyone he could to tell them how bad of a person I am like some 14-year-old kid talking crap to his classmates at school. Figures because of how immature he really is, or at least, in my opinion anyway. So far no one has taken him seriously enough and some of my friends said he is still fuming but pretty demoralized.
As for the position, it has yet to be filled.”
Another User Comments:
“If you find yourself in that situation again, I’d suggest declaring you know the applicant early. I think your bully could make a case that you treated him perhaps unfairly but likely inconsistently with how you treated other applicants.
In practice, your boss would likely ask your opinion post-interview, and you’d simply say, ‘I felt he overestimated his abitities, had some areas of his resume that would need confirmation, and given my personal interactions, I’d have some reservations about his cultural fit for our company.
Next.’
Also, that question about coax degradation takes me back to when we used coax for computer networks with 10baseT. Is your boss’s go-to question a relic or is this actually relevant to your work?
The guy coming to your house is pretty out of line but shows that he feels you sank him in the interview. Which you did, but I’m suggesting next time do it in a way he’ll never know.” verdigris2014
2. Wrongfully Accuse Me Of Stealing? Lose All The Important Things In Your Life
You can’t accuse someone when you’re the guilty party.
“About a year ago, I was working part-time as a server and needed to look for some extra work as the busy season had slowed down, and I needed to make more consistent moola.
I wasn’t looking incredibly seriously, my girl and I lived in a condo owned by her parents, and I had almost no bills.
One night, my girl and I go to get dinner from a relatively well-known pizza chain near us. Inside, they had “help wanted” flyers practically spilling onto the floor. As I had multiple years of food service under my belt, I figured I wouldn’t be an awful choice for some extra part-time hours.
I mentioned to the manager that I was interested and would drop off an application the next day as I was dressed to go pick up a pizza, which means a dirty t-shirt with my dog’s hair on it, sweatpants, and flip flops, obviously not interview attire.
We take our pizza and leave, and the manager actually follows me into the parking lot practically begging for me to just do the interview with him then.
I thought it was weird but didn’t think anything else of it and ended up getting hired.
Now to give some backstory, when I say I have food service experience, I mean I have years of management experience all the way up to Assistant Store Manager for multiple fast-food restaurants.
The reason I didn’t apply for a higher-level job was because, as I said, cashflow wasn’t really a huge issue for me, and at the time, I was just coasting and saving moola to move out of state.
After starting, it became very clear that my boss, who we will call Howard, had absolutely zero idea what he was doing. It started off with the restaurant having zero daily, weekly, or monthly cleaning duties, which if you worked fast food, you know is an absolute necessity.
He would consistently not have the answers to questions I had and direct me to other employees — simple questions, like which side of the oven a specific pizza goes in.
And he would smoke every 20 minutes.
The fact that the store had been open less than a year and was already in disarray speaks to how things were being run.
I would come to find out he was a janitor (or custodial engineer as he liked to say) previously and had ZERO foodservice experience and somehow got hired to be the General Manager.
I saw this as an opportunity for me to get paid a little bit more for doing the same work I would inevitably end up doing.
I offered to be his assistant manager as he had no one in his store who wanted to do it, and he had already asked me previously, on the condition that it stay part-time because I really liked my serving job and didn’t want to give it up.
I told him that I would spend the time teaching him the behind the scenes stuff that fast food training doesn’t put in manuals or online tests such as how to effectively make schedules, how to make weekly cleaning charts, weekly build to orders for shipments, things like that.
Then when the busy season at the other job started, he could hire a full-time assistant. He delightfully agreed.
Me and Howard were the only two managers at that store with 2 drivers and 5 employees other than that. He would schedule me two open to close shifts in a row on his two days off, so he could keep them every week and would justify it by saying he worked open to closes on the days I wasn’t there since a manager has to be there to handle any of the cash from the safe.
He never worked a single double shift. I worked this for a couple of weeks, and within that time, literally EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE except for me, Howard and a driver who we will call Jeff had quit, and we had hired new people.
Me and Jeff got along swimmingly as we both were stoners into the same music and fairly laid back. We also loved to talk crap about Howard.
He was also Howard’s next-door neighbor and sold him some “stuff” on occasion. So, he had all the dirt all the time.
It became clear to me that there was some financial issue going on somewhere as we were getting way more tips at the front counter from credit cards on reports than cash going into the tip bag for employees.
This wasn’t the easiest catch since he would save the tips up for two weeks to distribute them to employees on the weeks opposite of payday.
However, with the store being an unorganized mess, it was hard to know if it was cash being stolen or just simply numbers being put into the system incorrectly.
One particular night, I was closing the store and was having some issues balancing the drawers, and the numbers weren’t adding up. I called Howard, who picked up with a hiccup and a slew of slurred words.
I explained to him the problem I was having, and he tried to walk me through it but was either too inebriated or more likely just didn’t know the answer to my question.
I told him I would call his boss who I had met a couple of times and had mentioned if I ever had questions to call him.
Howard immediately freaked out and said, “Don’t do that; they don’t want anyone to know how to work the numbers on the POS (point of sale, not a piece of crap).
Otherwise, they will try and steal.” Knowing that was an asinine response, I said that makes zero sense and how am I supposed to fix the problem if I don’t know how it works?
Then he said the words that started the snowball that would come crashing down on his whole life. He told me, “Listen, you are asking too many questions about the cash.
It makes you look really suspicious like you’re the one stealing.” I told him, “Whatever, I would leave everything the way it was, and he could fix it the next morning. Or try, at least.”
I had to be careful because in food service if stealing even comes into question, most places will just fire you since they can hire any zit-covered kid to replace you.
Because of this and just my morals really being called a thief is the one thing I do not stand for.
So, I hatched a plan with Jeff who sided completely with me and had his suspicions for a while about Howard. Jeff knew that he was a boozer who could never turn down a night at the karaoke bar.
Now, Howard was interesting because with how incompetent he was, he still tried to be the biggest people pleaser I’ve ever met.
But in like a lonely and desperate way. He had practically begged me multiple times for us to go drinking together or to come smoke with me at my house. Keep in mind, I am 24, and he was 32 with a woman and two kids at home.
We decided to both invite him out to a night of karaoke the night before he had a big meeting with his boss and the VP of training for the whole company.
Of course, since Jeff and I both invited him, he couldn’t say no. I actually ended up having a good time that night, not because Howard was good company but because my plan involved me buying Howard at least 7 jäger bombs, a double shot of patron, and a lot of hops and I had to drink a fair share to not look suspicious.
What a burden, I know.
My girl, who was DDing for us, dropped him off at home around 5:30 in the morning after a rather long smoke session at my house, suggested by me, of course.
Needless to say, he did not show up to work the next day. He called and told his boss who was already at the store that his kid needed to go to the hospital the night before and that he was still in the ER.
They called me around 11 am to come in and cover his shift. When I got there, I asked Howard’s boss why he called out, and when he told me the reason, I said, “Really? Well, I stopped by that karaoke bar last night for a few hours, and he was there.
I wonder why he took him in and not his woman?” And showed him a picture of an obviously screwed up Howard and myself.
They ended up firing Howard within 30 minutes and had offered me his position as I had more experience than him anyway, and was already practically running the store and had completely taken over training new employees. I would have been perfectly content with him getting fired, but I never imagined having been offered his job; I was blown away; however, I still didn’t accept the job as I didn’t want the stress level the job came with.
They say the best gifts keep giving. Well, so do the best revenge plots. Howard had his partner kick him out, ask for a divorce, and get full custody of his kids.
He went over to Jeff’s house and sobbed and cried cursing me for ruining his life just so I could take his job from him. I would have given anything to have been a fly on the wall to see the look on his face when Jeff told him that I didn’t take it and quit the job shortly after.”
1. Can't Ruin My Reputation If I Ruin Yours First
“Back in high school, I had a very small group of friends.
My then best friend, who we’ll call Jenna, was one of the only people who knew a lot about me. Not that I wouldn’t tell people about myself, I just never bothered to unless asked. But Jenna and I would talk about everything and anything we could, as best friends do. We had our ups and downs for sure, but in the end we were inseparable.
That is, until “the incident” happened.
To make a long and frankly complicated story short, what happened is that one of my other friends and I wanted to celebrate our birthdays together since we’re a couple days apart.
My friend was best pals with Jenna’s ex, so I asked Jenna if she would be okay to party with her ex there. I said it was fine if she wasn’t, and that we could go out to lunch or do something else.
Jenna said it was okay and we had a fun day at the amusement park. Up until about the last hour, where I was in line with Jenna’s ex and a few of our friends while she went to get a locker.
I guess I said something that her ex took as flirting and they kissed me. Literally out of the blue. I wasn’t expecting it, no one else was expecting it- least of all Jenna, who had turned around and was walking back to us at that exact moment.
I was absolutely mortified.
I profusely apologized to Jenna, even though everyone in my friend group agreed that I didn’t initiate anything and that I was caught off guard and wasn’t a consenting member.
But Jenna was absolutely livid. At every opportunity she could, she’d bring it up- to invalidate anything I disagreed with her on. It didn’t matter what I said, how often I apologized, how genuine I was, or how crappy I felt about it, she kept bringing it up to hang over me.
It was a gotcha card in any argument we had, and I eventually got sick of it and told her that, look, I have apologized so many times for an event that wasn’t my fault.
I wanted no part of it, and everyone in our group agreed that it was out of nowhere.
After a while, we drifted apart because she was emotionally abusive towards me, and I finally put my foot down and ended our friendship.
Come to find out later though, she was spreading lies and rumors about me to anyone who would listen- that I was an attention lover, that I loved drama, that I was a terrible human being who feels nothing, basically she was telling people I was a sociopath with no empathy and an inability to care about other people.
She used a lot of the deep, personal things I had told her against me.
She turned people against me before they had even met me. I told them that I was witchy and callous and that I was looking for a reason to start drama- which cannot be further from the truth. I actively avoid drama at all costs because I do not have the time or energy to deal with the emotional toll it costs- my parents gave me enough emotional trauma to deal with.
This is when I finally snapped. Because it takes a lot to really get me riled up to a point where I’m gonna do something about it. But I had dealt with her emotional abuse for years, and I finally got sick of it and ended crap between us. But when she made a point to try to ruin my reputation, I finally snapped and had had enough.
So I made it a point to do the same crap she was doing to me, but worse and make it seem like I wasn’t doing anything to her at all.
In fact, I played it off like nothing was wrong at all.
She had found another best friend after me, who we’ll call Martha. Martha had just moved from Florida and had no previous knowledge of Jenna or me, but Jenna had turned her against me based solely on her undying thirst to get people to hate me.
So I turned my kindness up to an eleven. Martha and I had the same lunch, but Jenna didn’t.
I’d sit and talk to Martha, and lowkey put in little digs about Jenna that I knew Martha had a hard time dealing with. It didn’t take long before Martha and I were best friends and Jenna had to find someone new to associate with.
She moved on to another girl who we’ll call Katherine. The same thing that I did to Martha, I did to Katherine. I found a little bit of irritation and made it grow into full-blown annoyance, nearing hatred.
For some reason, Jenna could not keep a best friend for more than a few weeks before they’d blow up at her and stop talking to her.
This would happen to every single person who would be her “best friend.” She’d befriend them, and I would swoop in and slowly turn them against her by using nothing but truths about her. Unraveling her friendships before they could really take hold with only the issues she would cause herself.
Sometimes these problems would take a little longer to manifest themselves, but I’m a patient person when it comes to these kinds of things.
The moment I saw a weakness, I would talk them away from it simply being a minor issue to part of a full-blown problem that they personally had with her. I suppose I’d talk them up, in a way. Rile them up so they’d be the ones to get mad at her without them ever connecting the pieces that it was me who got them there in the first place.
When we eventually graduated, Jenna had no friends and was nearly universally hated. Not that I made up lies about her, everything I did or said was true and based on actual things she said or did that already annoyed person. I just got good at pointing that stuff out and forcing people to re-examine their relationships with her. She could never figure out why no one wanted to be friends with her, or why the people she was briefly friends with would leave her in the dust after a very short period of time.
She had to move out of state for college because she had no friends from high school at home that she could associate with. No one wanted to be around Jenna.
But in truth, all I had to do was point out how poorly she was treating people for them to realize how she was using them. She did most of the work herself. I just shortened the lifespan of her friendships and made it so she got a taste of her own medicine.
Minus the bullcrap and lies.
This may initially seem a little petty and childish, but I assure you. I cannot express how much her social life was secretly ruined without her even realizing it. She never suspected me because I made sure to never say what annoyed me about her, I’d simply listen for a small bit of information then take it and run with it.
People never said it was me who was talking smack because, in their minds, it was their own personal issue.
In reality, I was the one who sent them over the edge.
She believes people just hate her for no reason. Not because she took her anger a step too far and pushed me over my limit.”
