People Enumerate Their Snooty Revenge Stories
34. Fire Me? Have Fun Running The Place Without My Notes
“A while ago I worked at a baseball store called Bal-Mart (or a general goods store that sounded like that) not so long after the Great Recession of 2008, and management was trying to cut costs because of falling profit.
One of the first things management did was fire two of the three full-time maintenance and cleaning guys. The one guy they kept, I’ll call him MG for maintenance guy, was amazing at his job.
Everything in the store ran well because of him and his willingness to go beyond what was required to help people.
A genuinely nice guy. For six months, management tried to make having one-third of a maintenance staff work, and it failed miserably. MG could not do everything, and overtime management increasingly asked him to ‘coordinate’ some part-timers that were supposed to do the cleaning and carts.
He spent so much time ‘coordinating’ that he had no time for maintenance.
The night crew was also cut, so they couldn’t pick up the slack. Then two things happened within the space of a week. These events told management how important he was to the store running well.
First, some cleaning machines broke down. Turns out they have to be properly cleaned weekly, and if left alone they gum up real bad and parts wear out quickly. A several thousand dollar repair bill because he was told to prioritize coordinating part-timers over ‘tinkering’ with machines.
A few days later, the deli lady nearly quit after the blade on the deli slicer went flying off and could have cut her face badly. Turns out that the bolt that held it in place was loose, and MG had tightened it weekly for her.
When he didn’t have time to do that anymore he told management it had to be replaced for safety. Well, management didn’t do that because it costs money, but they told people it was fixed.
That could have been a lawsuit; they and the deli lady got lucky.
So management sat down with him and asked him why things were going wrong. MG told them point-blank he needed enough time for maintenance, and someone else had to coordinate the part-time cleaners and check up on them (they were rather lazy).
Management called him a liar; they said maintenance should be easy and done quickly.
MG got mad because that insulted his professionalism, and he pulled out his notebook from his back pocket. It turns out that over his 15 years, he had filled the book with charts, schedules, and diagrams of how to do his job and keep things running.
There were over one hundred things he checked weekly or monthly. There were a lot of machines he kept in running order, some had certain things that were half-broken and had to be wiggled in a certain way, etc.
To be honest, a lot of these things were minor or major safety hazards, but over the years management was fine with not replacing multi-thousand dollar machines if MG knew how to keep them working.
As well, he did things that he should not have done, like calibrating machines for departments that should have done it themselves or contracted it out, etc, but he was a nice guy and he liked helping people.
He told me that he spent about a half-hour telling management about what he did, and he suspected that until then nobody had ever known how much he did.
Well, he may have said a few swear words and derogatory things while telling management why he needed time to do stuff, it was not a good moment for him and he was angry. In the end, he put his notebook back in his pocket and offered to take a week to write up everything he knew so that management would have written proof of why his job mattered in case a higher-up asked why they increased maintenance costs when corporate was demanding they cut costs.
The multiple managers in the room looked at each other, and asked him to leave so they could talk in private. He told me (several years later, when I ran into him somewhere and had lunch with him) that he had a premonition as he walked out of the room.
So he went to the backroom and tossed his notebook in the garbage compactor. For good measure, he then went around the store and emptied all the garbage cans and tossed those bags in so his notebook was properly buried.
He was fine with it, all that information was in his head. After a few minutes, management called him back. They told him that they could not allow him to keep working there because of the level of insubordination he had shown.
They said as soon as he surrendered his badge, box cutter, and notebook he would be escorted out of the building by security. He handed over his badge and box cutter, and then they asked for the notebook.
He said he threw it in the compactor.
Their eyes went wide and they asked why he threw it out. He said he thought he was going to write everything up nicely on the computer from memory so he thought he was done with the notebook. At this point, management starts looking at each other, worried, because they had intended to take his book, fire him, and have a less subordinate part-timer (who doesn’t get expensive benefits like a full-timer) do his job.
Now they couldn’t. One of the managers suggested that he be allowed to write up the info before being escorted out, the others agreed. He was given the chance to be unfired just long enough to give them the info.
How kind. He laughed and walked out, head held high, and management followed him to his car to make sure he left. I don’t have exact numbers, but I guesstimate the store had to spend at least twenty or thirty thousand bucks to replace stuff that MG had kept working beyond the equipment’s lifespan, and the new guy they hired had a heck of a time figuring out how things worked.
To be honest, in a few cases MG had gone too far, like creating fire hazards by taping broken chargers together after rewiring them instead of tossing them, but management had never complained when he saved them money. There were also a lot of things that should have been done by the health and safety team or the departments, but they also never complained about having less work.
I asked him if throwing out that notebook was against the law but he said it was personal property to help him remember things; it was not a work-provided notebook. He was proud of what he did, and his pride clearly showed in how he told the story.
He said that nobody is allowed to question his professional judgment by implying he is lazy. I agree.”
33. Keep Your Cool When Driving On A Highway
“I was helping my friend move last weekend and we’re driving down a double lane highway, speed limit 50, at about 10 at night.
A jerk in a lifted truck and blue, blinding high beams and fog lamps comes speeding up behind. It’s fairly common for people to race down this stretch late at night with few others on the road.
I’m following my friend in the left lane coming up on another car to pass that is in the right lane.
At first, I’m like whatever, stupid, I’ll just merge back over to the right and let him pass. I’m too tired to deal with this and had been going back and forth all day. Well, even though I signal and I’m starting to merge over into the right lane, the truck decides to cut around and ride the other car in the right lane so I can’t complete my lane change.
Okay, idiot. So I decided to just keep going and pass the guy on the right. He swerves right back around and rides me again. My friend in front of me eventually sees what was going on and he moves over to the right lane and I pull up beside him.
We both smile at each other and decide to screw with the truck. We both talked before about how much we hate jerks in lifted trucks driving like idiots.
First, my friend speeds up a bit and the jerk cuts over like he’s going to weave through, then he slows down and I speed up and he cuts back over.
We do this for about two miles until the speed limit drops to 25 right before a center lane opens up. We both slow down to exactly 25 at the ‘reduced head’ sign well before the actual sign, which makes this guy even angrier.
He decides to floor it past us in the center lane, through the intersection RIGHT PAST A COP SUV. The officer does a quick U-Turn, flips his lights on, and nabs the truck going probably 70 in the 25. We finally get to my friend’s house and the whole time we’re unpacking we can’t stop laughing.
It provided us with the morale boost we needed to finish up that night.”
32. They Tried To Move The Car But Failed
“I live in an apartment building that has end-to-end parking for two spaces per apartment, and access to the parking levels (1-5) are done via a locked automatic roller door, which people can only get through if they have a remote for it (or sneak through behind someone else).
I only have a single car, and sometimes I let my friends park in the space in front of my car if they give me notice, so I generally park at the back of the double space.
Earlier this year, a random car began parking in front of mine on Friday afternoons, meaning I couldn’t go out with my car on Friday nights.
Annoying, but not the biggest issue when you live super close to the city. This continued nearly every week over about five weeks when I didn’t park my car at the front of the bay (which I began doing), but at times I planned to leave the space free for friends coming over or whatever, the car appeared again.
I made repeated attempts to stop this behavior by leaving notes, which escalated into leaving printouts of a photo of the car with the license plate clearly visible and an explanation that if it happened again I’d press charges and/or have the vehicle towed. Well, it happened again, and this time it was still there Saturday afternoon when I had been planning on going away with a group of my friends.
My guess is, someone went out on Friday and decided to pick up the car ‘later,’ not concerning themselves with the inconvenience it caused anyone else. It clearly hadn’t moved, as my aggressive note telling them to screw off was still there sitting limply under their wiper blades.
I figured enough was enough, it was time to have the vehicle towed.
I called building management and eventually called a towing company, who refused to help because the space was on the third floor, and they can’t get any trucks up to that level because of the height and space restrictions.
Ordinarily, most people would be pretty much screwed at this point, and I will admit I briefly considered sitting on the hood of the car until the jerk came to pick it up while sending my friends on their way without me, but they would have had to work out a new arrangement for transport as one car wouldn’t have cut it.
Fortunately for me, however, my parents only live 30 minutes away and have a garage where I work on one of my cars that’s getting at the tail end of the minor restoration. One of the things I use pretty often is a set of Vehicle Positioning Jacks, to jam my project car right up against the wall of the garage to minimize the space it takes up.
For anyone that doesn’t know, Vehicle Positioning Jacks are basically devices that slot under each wheel, then lift the car on hydraulics so you can freewheel it in any direction.
While I hadn’t originally gone to retrieve them, when I had to take my project car off them, a bright idea came to my head.
None of my friends minded spending an extra hour to screw someone over that had interfered with us, so we grabbed the jacks, went back, propped the car up, and wheeled it out. Six guys can easily move around a small hatchback, so we pushed across the level slowly and carefully, to an area where there isn’t parking, but is a load-supporting pillar with space enough for a car behind it, in a little section of the garage where it isn’t lit and is completely out of the way.
Typically there’s a guy on my level that parks a motorbike there, but he isn’t meant to, and I doubted he minded. We dumped it between the pillar and the wall, with the nose pointing towards the wall, I took back my angry note, the jacks, and we left to enjoy our weekend.
When we came back Monday afternoon after the long weekend, the car was still there, which was no real surprise considering there was only about a foot of space for movement between the pillar and car, and another foot or so between the car and the wall.
From the fact the front wheels had changed, we’re guessing they did try to get it out, unsuccessfully. It eventually went later in the week, though I’m not exactly sure how they managed it. I never saw that car again.”
31. Threaten To Quit Again? I'll Throw You A Retirement Party
“This happened years ago, but still makes me smile. I started working in a corporate office in a secretarial position for my first job after college.
Two older ladies were also secretaries working in the office. One of them was just fine, but I spent most of my time sitting beside and working with Agnes. Agnes was quickly approaching retirement age and wasn’t going anywhere without a big push.
This was in the days when we just started getting computers and she was absolutely hopeless. She’d pull stuff like ‘I can’t answer the phone—I’m on the computer.’ Multi-tasking was not in this woman’s repertoire.
She was also super fussy and annoying. If I ever came back from lunch five minutes late, she would exclaim loudly ‘Oh my god, there you are! I was wondering what had happened to you!’ making sure the whole office knew I was late.
Meanwhile, she was usually late coming in in the morning and often left early for various appointments. If I made a typo in a document, she would make sure the rest of the staff knew about it, loudly. She tended to pout when things didn’t go her way, and she would ‘quit’ her job when someone ticked her off, and then my boss’s boss would talk her into staying.
I’d heard about this tactic of hers and one day, our boss did something that annoyed her and she ‘quit’ again. My boss’s boss was away that day, so I took my chance. I quickly advertised and planned a big retirement party for her.
It was a done deal by the end of the day. People were dropping by and congratulating her, and everyone looked forward to the party.
At that point, I guess she figured it was too late to pull her usual shenanigans and she actually retired. I told my boss to not bother replacing her because it was darn easy to cover the little work she actually accomplished every day.
And guess what? It was.”
30. I Made A Phone Call That Made His Landlord Angry
“About 6 or 7 years ago, I was trying to enlist in the armed forces. I ended up not joining, but that’s a story for another time. At this point, I was led to believe I was about four months away from leaving for Boot Camp.
I was running out of savings and needed a part-time job while I waited around. So I did what any enterprising 20-something would do and searched Craigslist for jobs.
I normally hate sales jobs, especially those based on commissions, but figured it would be a great way to earn some extra funds short term.
Found a few job listings that looked promising, and put out some applications. A few days later I received a call from David. He was opening up a new store and needed associates. He liked my resume and asked if I’d be available for an interview on Friday morning.
I was very upfront with him, and let him know that the distance was a bit more than I’d normally drive for a retail job, and asked what he was offering for an hourly rate, to see if it was worth the drive.
He told me that they were planning on offering an hourly rate in the mid-teens, along with commission. Seemed like an ok deal, so I agreed to be there Friday at 8 am.
Friday arrives as a cold rainy day. I wear a nice shirt and tie and drive in heavy traffic to the address David provided. I knew the area from a previous job, and eventually found the strip mall I was looking for.
However, I’m not seeing any signage for the company name that was listed. There is, however, one empty space with no signage and two people inside.
Ok, maybe they haven’t gotten the store set up yet. No big deal. I had arrived early, knowing how bad traffic can be in that area.
While in my car, I witnessed a young lady in business casual dress remove a sign from the window stating ‘Retail Space for Rent! Call 1800-Blah-blah.’ Ok, a little weird but maybe it’s the first day in the space.
I walk in about five minutes early, and immediately my nonsense meter goes from Yellow to the highest level, ‘Black Watch Plaid.’
The tables are all simple plastic folding tables. The kind college kids would buy while on a shopping trip to target.
The walls are plastered with laminated charts featuring tons of dollar signs, smiling faces from stock photos, and an organizational chart showing an all too familiar shape: A Pyramid. Darn. Alright, might as well have fun for a while to wait out traffic going home.
The young lady in the dress approaches me, introducing herself as Cindy. She welcomed me to Company Name and asked me to have a seat. She sat at her ‘desk’ (another plastic table), and pretended to go through paperwork. However, she was really just shuffling papers around.
We get to chatting, and I ask her how long she’s worked for David. She says she’s been his secretary for about six months and that I’m going to love it here.
Eventually, a guy walks out of the back office.
Early 30s, clean-cut, wearing an ill-fitting suit from JCPenney. As he is walking over, all smiles, Cindy says, ‘Oh, Dennis! Our newest recruit is here!’ The guy stops in his tracks and gives her a cold stare. ‘It’s David, Cindy.
We’ve been over this.’ He turns back to me and gives me his brightest ‘Hard to find good help these days’ smile.
David sits me down and welcomes me, saying they are going to start with a group interview, and has me sit down in a circle of chairs.
Eventually, more people come in and sit down. David gets up and begins to thank us all for coming. He tells us about an exciting new opportunity from Cutco! He pulls out a set of knives and explains how with his company we can earn as much as we want, all while setting our own hours.
He even pulls out a textbook, saying how this company’s ‘revolutionary tactics’ have even been featured in college textbooks! He opened to a page, his hand covering parts of it, making sure we can all clearly see the words ‘CUTCO!’ in large letters on the page.
Sad to say, a lot of the other interviewees were very impressed by this. One pregnant girl seemed very excited that she could work around her pregnancy and upcoming birth.
David was going on and on about how much he’s made and how ‘hard workers will rise to the top quickly.’ At this point, David said he needed to take a quick phone call, and gave us five minutes to have some coffee, chit chat, whatever.
As he stepped away, he left his college textbook behind. Oops. So I pick it up, find the earmarked page, and read. What I found made me almost burst out laughing.
As I thought, it was all about pyramid schemes, and it had Cutco as one of the largest examples.
It goes on to talk about how these schemes are not economically viable, etc., etc. So I decided to share this all with the group. I explain how pyramid schemes work, and how he’s just scamming us. They seemed incredulous, so I said when David gets back, to ask them about what we need to pay to get started.
That finally got everyone to realize what was going on. David walks in a few minutes later, and one of the girls in the group asked David what we need to get started. ‘Well, all you need is your first set of knives to demonstrate!
You can sell that on directly or have them order one and keep that as your demo kit. Doesn’t matter. Just have to pay the start-up fees for it.’ And that’s when utter chaos broke loose.
One kid started to get up and tell him to go screw himself, saying he’s wasting our time and he’s a jerk for trying to pull this.
The pregnant girl is crying because she thought she found a place that would allow her to work despite being pregnant. David is clearly confused and flustered and asking who told them all this. When it becomes apparent I’m the wrench in the machine, David gets upset and starts telling me to leave.
People are yelling at David, David is yelling at me, Cindy is trying to tell everyone she never met David before today and didn’t know what this was. Eventually, we all walk out, leaving David behind. As I’m walking to the door, I see, leaning against the wall, the sign that was in the window before ‘Retail Space for Rent!
Call 1800-Blah-Blah.’ As I get into my car, I dial the number.
Eventually, I get through to a person and ask about the property for rent at the location of David’s company. The nice lady on the phone apologized, saying they had just leased that property out.
I asked if she knew how long the lease was for, as I was really interested in the property. She said she wasn’t sure, they hadn’t done the official paperwork yet. They were on their way to the space to sign everything with the leaseholder in a few hours.
I told her everything that had just happened to me, and about David using the space for a pyramid scheme. She got extremely upset, saying that this stuff happens all the time in the industry. They will go to sign and last minute the leaseholder will decide to opt-out, after using it for some fly-by-night operation.
She thanked me for the info, and I thought that was the end of that. Or so I thought.
A few weeks later, I received an email from David telling me how I ruined his life. About how the property management found out what was going on, and weren’t refunding his down payment on the space.
Saying he violated a clause in the paperwork he signed to hold the property. How he knew I was the one who called because I’m a terrible human being.
Now he was out thousands for the space and supplies, how he only wanted to give us jobs and help us.
It was a long, very angry email, with several things said about me and my mother. So I called 1800-blah-blah again, spoke with the same lady I did before, and she was VERY interested in an email from David where he essentially admitted to what he was trying to do.
Said it would help them all in the proceedings. And don’t you know, I was more than happy to send that email along to her.
Her lawyer said it should be an open and shut case at that point.
I like to think I’m a helper.”
29. We'll Give You What You Want...For A Price
“We bought a house a couple of months ago, and the sellers insisted that we pay several small fees that are customarily covered by the seller.
The total was $187 and in comparison to the house price, we weren’t going to walk away over something so small. We renovated the house and there was a table/credenza thing that had been built into the entryway.
After demolition, we were planning on throwing it out.
When one of the neighbors noticed we had put it outside to be thrown out, they texted the old owners to see if they wanted it, as it was something they said they had loved about the house. The old owners texted me since we were getting rid of it anyway, surely we wouldn’t mind if they came by and picked it up instead?
I told them interestingly we had recently gotten an offer from someone else to buy it… for $187. Since it was theirs originally, I told them we’d be happy to part with it… for $188. They dropped the check off and picked it up a week later.”
28. He Has To Keep His Cool If He Wants His House Built
“I was visiting my friend at his dad’s house in an area where the land is so steep that all the driveways have to switch back up from the main road to the houses. A straight driveway is not an option because it would be steeper than the building code allows.
A few doors down the road, there lived a nice old couple who until recently had had a vacant lot next door to them, but the lot had sold and the new owner had started construction on a new house.
Unfortunately, the lot was so steep that the new owner built his driveway partly on the old couple’s land (it was carved out of the hillside with an excavator). This probably wouldn’t have been a big deal if the new owner had approached the old couple first and asked nicely, but did he?
Would I be telling this story if he had? In fact, the old couple had no idea what was happening until they came home one day to see a huge scar in the hillside snaking up from the road in front of their house.
It went across the corner of their property, winding upwards to where an excavator was working to prepare the land for their new neighbor’s house. They were pretty upset, but being nice, reasonable people, they figured it was an honest mistake, so they went over to talk to the machine operator.
He didn’t know anything useful, but he was happy to give them the phone number of the new property owner.
The old guy gave him a call and politely explained the situation, but his new neighbor, whom he’d never even met, was having none of it.
He flat out denied that the driveway crossed the property line, and he was rude enough that the old guy was pretty upset. At this point, the old couple wasn’t sure what to do. They double-checked the property pins to make sure they were right, and of course, they were, but after further conversations with the new owner, it was clear he was an unreasonable guy who wasn’t going to come to the negotiating table willingly.
The old couple didn’t want to take court action because that would have been expensive and, frankly, the damage to their yard was already done. At the same time, they couldn’t just let someone walk all over them like that, especially if they were going to be living next door for the foreseeable future.
So the situation stewed for a while as construction continued on the new house, until one day when my friend’s dad saw the old couple in the neighborhood and they started chatting.
Of course, they told him the story about the jerk new neighbor.
Now, my friend’s dad really likes the old couple, who don’t have a mean bone in their bodies, so he was pretty angry about the situation, and when he went home he couldn’t get it out of his head.
That evening, after a few drinks, he had a brilliant idea. He called up the old couple, explained his plan, and asked for their permission to carry it out.
They chuckled and gave him the go-ahead, so he hopped into the rusty old full-size pickup he kept as a second vehicle and drove it over to the old couple’s place, where he parked it across the encroaching driveway, making sure it was entirely on their property.
The next morning, the work crew arrived bright and early to find that they couldn’t drive to the house they were building because some jerk had parked an old F-150 across the driveway.
They saw a note in the window with my friend’s dad’s phone number on it, so they called him to ask what the heck was going on.
He explained that he had permission from the owners to park there and that, no, he would not move his truck so they could get to work. Furthermore, if anyone attempted to tow the truck, they would be charged with trespassing and theft.
There was no way the construction guys were going to haul all their tools up the hill by hand, and they didn’t want to get in the middle of a court battle, so they just called the new owner to let him know they’d be taking the day off and that they’d continue to take days off until the property boundary dispute was resolved. The new owner called the old couple in a fury, but the old couple told them the same thing my friend’s dad told the construction workers.
Basically, the vehicle was parked on their own property, so if he had a problem with that he could go screw himself. To make an already long story shorter, the new neighbor ranted a while, but eventually, he wanted his house to be built, so the nice old couple ended up with a significant sum of funds in exchange for an easement allowing the driveway to pass across the corner of their property, and my friend’s dad got several thank-you cases of drinks and the satisfaction that comes from putting a jerk in his place.”
27. Exposing The Pen Thief
“One of my best friends, ‘Alex,’ was a staffer in a legislative office. His boss was head of a key Senate budget committee, so there were always people coming to solicit the senator’s support for a particular project or grant or whatever.
Someone representing an arts program that was looking for a $250K grant is waiting. I’ll call her ‘LobbyAnn.’
She comes up to the reception desk and asks for a pen. The Senator keeps giveaway pens with her name on them in stock—reasonably nice ones—so Alex reaches over to the can where the pens are.
LobbyAnn says something along the lines of ‘Well, then the Senator will know that I showed up without a pen.’ (So what?) She looks across the desk.
Alex has some work spread out with his own favorite pen, an expensive one with lapis inlay and engraved with his name and term of office of a campus organization.
LobbyAnn reaches over, snatches it up, and drops it in her purse. Alex, who is a very polite person, is completely gobsmacked and then tells LobbyAnn that’s his personal pen and it’s not up for grabs.
In a few minutes, the senator comes out to get LobbyAnn.
As they’re walking past Alex’s desk, he stands up and says in a very clear voice, ‘I’m going to need my pen back.’ LobbyAnn stops in her tracks, as does the senator, and Alex says, calmly, ‘That pen is precious to me, you took it right off this desk, and I want it back.’
The senator kind of gasps and says ‘She took your lapis pen?’ and then she turns to LobbyAnn, who is frantically fishing around in her purse and stammering something about just borrowing it, and says, ‘Give it back.’ Once the pen is back in Alex’s hands, the Senator says to Alex, ‘Come on back, I need you,’ and turns and walks back into her office, leaving LobbyAnn standing there as the Senator shuts the inner office door in her face.
Then the senator picks up her purse, smiles a big bright smile, and says, ‘Want Starbucks?’ So she and Alex go out the side door and across the street. They could see the front door of the office from the Starbucks.
It apparently took LobbyAnn about five minutes to realize how bad she’d messed up, and that she was not going to see the senator that day or any day.
Indeed, the project that she was going to ask for money toward was probably doomed as well.
She’d lined up strong support in the House, so it might have made it through, though it was not the kind of project the senator favored. When she came slinking out, she almost certainly saw Alex and the senator sitting there drinking their drinks.
Alex always ends this story with, ‘That was the best coffee I’ve ever had.'”
26. Awful English Teacher Learned Her Lesson
“In high school (10+ years ago), I was quiet and attentive in class. Teachers liked me. I wasn’t popular, but I had good friends.
I say all this to explain that high school was relatively calm for me. I played sports, was in the student newspaper, and got decent grades. However, that all changed my second semester of junior year.
I’ve always been a voracious reader.
My freshman English teacher recommended I move up to the honors English track, so I did for freshman, sophomore, and the first half of junior year. Then I was put into Classical Literature my second semester of junior year. I’ve always loved Greek and Roman stories and had already read your typical high school classical reading list on my own.
I didn’t mind reading them again… until I met Ms. Umbridge. She put on a sweet facade, but she was downright evil. She also decided she hated me. I still do not know why, or what transgression I committed, but she HATED me.
I assume it was my habit of sometimes nodding off in classes. At the time, I had undiagnosed thyroid issues, and was getting up at 5 am for swim practice.
I say sometimes because it happened maybe twice a month total between all eight classes.
I don’t remember nodding off in her class, but it could have happened. Anyways, her class was 50% essays/written reports. The rest was random quizzes and a couple of tests. I was in the student newspaper, and I was a decent writer.
I wasn’t worried about maintaining a B or up. We wrote our first paper, and I got a D. I was shocked. The only class I struggled in was Chemistry and still, my lowest assignment grade was a C.
After class, I asked Ms. Umbridge what I did wrong because her notes were minimal. She told me my assessment of the material was ‘uninspired.’
Okay… Can you direct me to an example of an inspired assessment? ‘Come back during study hall.’ Thinking she’d have some example materials for me to review, I got a pass to see her during study hall.
Nope. She spent the full hour basically telling me I was an idiot. I remember leaving and crying because she didn’t tell me anything constructive.
My friend (the eventual valedictorian) offered to help me with my next paper. My friend and I spent hours on this next paper.
She never got below an A- on anything… I got another D. My friend was furious. She took it to her AP English teacher and asked him to review it. She said she was entering a writing competition and wanted advice.
His response proved everything.
He said it was great. Her typical A+ work. My friend, quicker on the uptake, asked me for a copy of my original, first assignment. She asked her AP English teacher to look it over too… and he said she should enter the first one.
The second one was still good. He’d probably give it an A-, but the other paper was better. By this point, my friend was convinced Ms. Umbridge was treating me unfairly for some reason, and she must not like me.
My friend wanted me to tell my parents or my school counselor. A teacher didn’t like me? That had never happened. Sure they didn’t all love me, but none had actively disliked me. I decided I’d try one more time, but this time get Ms. Umbridge to help me.
Despite the previous horrors of spending study hall with Ms. Umbridge, I went to her office during study hall three times before the next paper was due.
She reviewed the paper and gave me tips on revising it each time.
She did this in a red pen. I took notes. By the time the next paper was due, I had three revised versions with her notes in red ink on each one. I got a D+. She smirked and congratulated me on my improvement.
Witch. I was done. My friend was right. This witch had it out for me and was giving me bad grades on purpose.
I’m a laid-back person, but I was so angry. Never before been this angry. So I started to get my revenge.
I took my paper to my newspaper teacher. Sure, he didn’t teach English, but our student paper constantly won awards because of his work. I told him I was having trouble in English, and could he please look over my paper and give me advice.
He was a little confused as to why I didn’t ask my English teacher, but he did it. He also told me it was great, but gave me a few minor changes to make. I asked him if he thought it was a B or better.
He said he’d give it an A, not 100%, but a solid A. I went to my friend, and we brainstormed. I couldn’t request a drop/add. This wasn’t college.
You just don’t switch classes at my high school, unless the teacher recommends an honor placement.
That’s not true, said, my friend. The football and basketball guys get moved to easier classes all the time to keep their grades up so they are eligible for games. The athletics director was a friend of my dad’s, so I requested a meeting with him and my swim coach after school one day.
I told them I was in danger of losing my eligibility to swim because I was pulling a D in a class. I wanted to move classes, but I knew I’d need approval from administration, which I wouldn’t get without a good reason.
They asked if I had requested help. I explained I had asked for help from multiple people, but my grade wasn’t improving.
I didn’t know what to do. They asked to see my papers. I sat while they read them.
They both looked at me confused. Neither of them could understand how those papers were worth only a D. The student Vice Principal was brought in. He asked who helped me. I explained my friend (he knew who she was, again future valedictorian), and she had even asked her AP English teacher to look it over for advice.
I had also asked my newspaper teacher to help me. Student VP asked if I had ever actually asked my teacher for help. I smiled and handed him the three revised versions of paper number three with Ms. Umbridge’s red ink all over them.
He frowned. AP English teacher and my newspaper teacher were pulled into the meeting. They were each asked to grade the papers.
All three papers got an A- or better. While this was going on, my dad was called in by the athletics director.
My dad was angry too. He demanded I be moved to another class, and that Ms. Umbridge be put under review. Clearly, she wasn’t grading students on their work but her own personal opinions. The school administration obviously bristled at the accusation that a teacher was treating students unfairly.
A lot of arguing that I wasn’t allowed to sit on occurred in the VP’s office. I could hear plenty of yelling as six adult men argued over the appropriate next steps. It was decided that my dad, VP, and athletics director would have a meeting with Ms. Umbridge.
The following morning before school we all met. This is where it ramped up.
Ms. Umbridge seemed to think she was going to get to tell everyone why I was so stupid. VP explained that if I maintained a D in her class, I would lose my extracurricular eligibility, and we were all meeting to discuss what to do.
She smirked and said I should be moved to the non-honors English track, and that I had no business being in honors English.
Apparently, I didn’t have the aptitude to understand the complex classical literature they were studying, and I probably would need a tutor to even get through basic English.
I’ve never seen my father so red, and I half expected to see steam come out of his ears. VP asked why she didn’t try to help me improve. She said it was up to students to put in the initiative to get better.
VP asked if that meant I had never asked her for help. She said I had not. Oh, but we got her good. VP then pulled out the three revised versions of paper number three and handed them to Ms. Umbridge.
Now it was her turn to be red. She called me a liar and said those notes weren’t hers. Things got heated, and I was asked to leave again.
I sat outside the office. This time the secretary was there, and we both heard the shouting.
School was set to start in 30 minutes, and they were all just shouting. Then AP English teacher and newspaper teacher were called in again. More shouting. About 5 minutes to the start of classes, the teachers left and I was called back in.
Ms. Umbridge then walked out of VP’s office, shooting daggers at me. I was being moved to basic English effective immediately. My current grade would not carry over. I would not need to make up any past assignments, and the new teacher would be instructed to grade me only on the assignments going forward.
My new English teacher, Ms. Honey, ended up being the English department head.
She was at least 65 and had been doing this for decades. After 2.5 years of honors English, this class was easier than PE. I barely had to try to get an A, but I refused to let Ms. Honey think Ms. Umbridge had been right.
I tried harder in that class than in any other class that semester. I finished projects so quickly that I was asked to tutor a girl struggling in the class.
I spent half the class period just helping this girl understand the material. I helped her go from a C- to a B+.
I got something like 104% in the class. At the end of the semester, Ms. Honey called me into her office during study hall. Then she told me something that shocked me—and terrified me. She was recommending I return to honors English for senior year.
I must have looked panicked because she immediately assured me that Ms. Umbridge would not be my teacher. In fact, she would not be anyone’s teacher. She was leaving at the end of the school year. Ms. Umbridge was only in her late 20s and unmarried. Too early to retire.
And my high school was in one of the best paying school districts in the state.
I knew what leaving meant, and then Ms. Honey explained that I was put in her class on purpose. The school administration trusted Ms. Honey to determine the truth of Ms. Umbridge’s claim that I was basically a lying idiot.
Ms. Honey stated I very clearly belonged in honors English. She apologized if her class had not been challenging enough for me.
I cried. I mean full-on ugly, snot cried. I didn’t realize it, but part of me had actually believed Ms. Umbridge up until that moment.
Ms. Honey hugged me and consoled me. I spent senior year in honors English and spent my study hall tutoring Ms. Honey’s struggling students. To this day, I think about that awful woman fairly regularly.
My career is strongly writing-based, and I still worry obsessively over my writing.
I hope she never taught again because she wreaked havoc on my self-confidence. I’m sorry to anyone who has ever had their own Ms. Umbridge story. It’s sad so many exist out there wreaking havoc on self-conscious teens.
Don’t let your Umbridge keep you down! You are better than Umbridge. Go out and do exactly what your Umbridge said you shouldn’t do.”
25. Mean Teacher Didn't Know I Brought A Recorder
“I was a senior in high school at the time and I had never been the brightest student.
Still, I was a solid C student and I had never received a detention or had any kind of bad student record.
This is important because to this day, I still have no idea why the teacher treated me this way.
The teacher, who we will name Mrs. Frank, had been a teacher there for more than a decade and was widely known for being a petty heartless witch who the administrators saw as the golden child. Mrs. Frank taught algebra, which is my worst subject, so naturally, I had issues understanding the lessons and would ask questions frequently.
To some, these questions are easily answered but to me, it was rocket science. Usually, when someone asks a dumb question, no one should address it. However, in Mrs. Frank’s case, she would belittle me in front of everyone by saying things such as, ‘And here comes the slow boy again,’ ‘Wow, surprise, surprise you don’t understand it again.’ ‘Really?
We have to go extra slow for you today don’t we?’ etc.
I tried going to the administration about it, but again she was considered the golden child. They would send someone in to examine her during class, she would act respectful and normal for one day, and go back to being a witch the next.
This goes on for about half the year until I had enough. I went to the local Radio Shack, bought a recorder, and secretly recorded every insult she would throw at me.
I would sometimes instigate to make up for the lost time.
Go ahead, feed the fire. Fast forward to the end of the year, and I’m sitting in Mrs. Frank’s class when I ask a question. Her response is burned into my brain. ‘I’ve been teaching here for over 10 years, and that was the single dumbest question I’ve ever heard come from anyone’s mouth.’
She continued the lesson without answering me. I calmly stood up, packed up my stuff, and headed to the nurse’s office to dismiss myself from school. I went home, compiled all of the brutal tapes into one glorious masterpiece, and headed back the next day to show the administrators.
I sat down with the principal and we listened to a couple of the insults before he stopped me.
He wanted more witnesses present as well as Mrs. Frank. He told me we would meet the next day where I could show him and the rest of the administrators the full tape.
I walk into school the next morning being the most nervous I’ve ever been for anything. I was called down to the office where I met with some board directors, the local school officer, the principal, the vice-principal, and Mrs. Frank.
What follows was some of the greatest minutes of my life.
I watched as the administrators went from fed up with being in another useless meeting, to furious and speechless, with some of them keeping their mouths open for the duration of the tape.
I also watched Mrs. Frank go from confident and stuck up, to her realizing that she had screwed up beyond repair. She was publicly roasting herself in front of the most important people from the district.
The tape ended, and without hesitation, the administrators looked around in astonishment and the principal turns to me and says, ‘I think we have heard everything we need to, thank you.’ And I was quietly dismissed from the room.
The final time I saw Mrs. Frank was leaving that room. I looked back and we made eye contact through her tear-filled eyes as I gave the biggest, most evil smile.
I returned to class the next week and Mrs. Frank was nowhere to be found.
The story spread quickly throughout the school and I was seen as a saint. I had successfully gotten her fired and made it almost impossible for Mrs. Frank to return to her teaching career, as well as cut off most of the connections she had with other teachers in the school.
I had ruined her financially because no school district in the area would hire this walking piece of garbage. If you’re reading this Mrs. Frank, I’d like to take this moment to tell you to go screw yourself.”
24. I'm Sorry, Do I Know You?
“I’m a 20-year-old girl, and I’ve been teased all my life and have been in recovery for a multitude of things for the past year or so. I go to university in the same city I grew up in, so there’s a high chance of me coming across people who I went to previous schools with who hurt or tormented me.
I was well known for being bad-tempered and easy to wind up when I was younger.
What happened: I was in the pharmacy waiting to pick up my prescription when someone shouted something at me. I pretended to not hear them and they shouted again.
They ended up getting frustrated and tugging on my arm. I twisted around and immediately recognized who it was—a guy around my age who had teased me for over 10 years.
So rather than get angry, I thought I would mess with him and see what happens.
Him: Hi, heard you were in around here.
Me: I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you are, do I know you from somewhere?
Immediately he deflated. It was glorious to see, and I had to stop myself from smiling.
Him: It’s me, (his name), from school. Come on, you know me.
Me, with a confused face, acting 100: I’m really sorry, but I don’t know you. Did we go swimming together perhaps?
Him: … no, I don’t think so.
Me: I’m really sorry but I just don’t know who you are. I think you should go to the back of the line, sir. I then went on my phone and just blocked him out of everything we could possibly be connected to.
He looked lost and eventually went to the back of the line. I got my prescription, ignored him, went to my car, and drove off. I literally screamed for joy and also because I was about to break down. It was a wonderful feeling, to see him like that and to feel like he had nothing against me.
To make him feel like he hadn’t had a large effect on my life, even if he had.”
23. Neighbor Didn't Know I Can Match His Noise
“Flashback to 2014… or so. I moved out on my own in 2013 and moved into an old house converted into a two-floor apartment, directly across from my future in-laws.
The downstairs neighbors were loud. BLARING music at all hours (yes, all hours), wouldn’t cut the grass or take out the trash on our shared schedule. Crappy neighbors, but never bothered me directly.
The guy was pretty chill when sober and would turn the music down a little when I texted him.
He was okay until his partner moved in. Now add shouting matches to the mix, and all of the sudden my requests to turn down the music makes him turn it up. I can barely walk on my super-thin floor without her banging on the ceiling with a broom.
I was okay since I am a heavy sleeper and could sleep through anything.
My wife moved in, and I quickly found out that she is quite the opposite. Fan on turned at a certain angle in the doorway of the bathroom, door closed halfway, blackout curtains with them taped to the wall so zero light comes through, zero sounds other than the fan, you get the idea.
I told her that we can’t expect them to remain silent when she’s ready for bed, we need to be reasonable, but the wall rattling music needs to stop during the night.
She hated it during the day, but I told her there was nothing we can do then, so she would go to her parent’s house a lot during the day.
I talked to neighbor-guy, and he said ‘yeah man that’s cool,’ but it turns out the girl wasn’t having it and his attitude then changed to, ‘Yeah well it’s our house so you can go screw yourself if you think you can tell us what to do and you can move out if you don’t like it.’
Something definitely had to change at some point. So I did the only thing I could do. I fought fire with fire and maliciously complied with the law to the T. I could only report them for noise after 11:00 PM.
I now forget the morning hour when the noise could start, but I believe it was 9:00 AM. My dad has these huge old concert speakers in his garage.
Professional grade, black leather-bound, 5 feet tall and 3 feet wide, and a pretty nice, vintage stereo/amp.
He has two, but my apartment was so small I sadly only had room for one. We replaced our coffee table with this thing, laid face down onto our thin, office carpet. Tired of his tunes, I tested this Geneva Convention-breaking device when they weren’t home.
Holy cow.
I had to take everything down from tables, counters, and shelves because they would shake off. I prepared audio files to feed the stereo. I was giddy like a kid with a new Christmas toy. I turned it on when I left for work and got my wife up to send her to her parents.
I came home from work and hung out with her parents until it was close to bedtime.
They resisted for three days. On day two, I found a pile of manure on my doorstep, but it didn’t faze me.
I cycled between sine/saw/square waves in clashing chords, marching music (Washington Post March on loop), preaching clips (they weren’t just atheist, but outspoken anti-Christian, so it was a must), the most stupid songs you could think of (Captain Planet theme song, Chicken dance, etc).
This poor old house rattled in ways I didn’t think possible. The vibrations from the sine wave would make your vision blur. I eventually got a text from him that read, ‘sorry man you can stop now.’ I did not.
He needed a few more days to let it sink in. Plus I had so much fun putting it together. They complained to the authorities and the landlord.
There was nothing they could do since I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
I didn’t even hear music during the time of peace to follow. It was so quiet. They would build up their courage and try again every few weeks when I wasn’t home, but my wife was. I then showed her how to tame the beast so she could let it loose while I was away.
I had to give them a spanking every now and then, but they learned. They were so happy when we moved out.”
22. Neighbor Wants Me To Pay For Her Fence
“It’s been about four years since this happened. I was about 18 at the time, working for a security company.
There were constant call-offs and no-shows, have no idea why. But being so young and naive, I was constantly working 16-hour shifts and not coming home until 8 am. Also, I lived with my father at the time. The time frame of this was around the 4th of July.
I finally had a day off and my best friend was back in town for vacation. We decided to get together and chip in on some good ol’ American fireworks. To be fair, I have had nothing but bad experiences with fireworks so I had no idea how I thought this would be any different.
We got home with the fireworks and we laid them all out on the floor.
There were Sparklers, Bottle Rockets, Cakes, and Roman Candles. I say, ‘Why don’t we mess around with some sparklers since it’s still not dark yet?’ Great idea!
We go into my backyard, where it hasn’t rained in well over two months and it is extremely dry. Do you see the problem here? One of the little sparkies from mine and my friend’s sparkler made contact with the ground and made two small fires that quickly spread to a large area.
I ran as fast as I could to grab the garden hose and quickly started spraying down the fire. It was no use, it was spreading faster than I could spray it. I handed my friend the hose and called 9-1-1.
What felt like hours was only four minutes and the fire was spreading to the neighbor’s fence. The neighbor came outside to grab their hose and spray down the fence, along with the burning grass in her yard.
The fire department shows up finally and I tell my friend ‘Only one of us needs to get in trouble, you should leave.’ He was reluctant to leave because he felt equally responsible, but I convinced him.
I didn’t want him to get in trouble. My neighbor was super chill about the entire situation at first. I told her that we could talk about replacing the fence and get some quotes to repair it.
She was just super grateful that everyone was okay.
About two hours after the fire, the fire investigator came to question me about the fire. I told him the ‘truth.’ I said I was in the backyard by myself playing with fireworks and accidentally lit the ground on fire.
I had gotten off that day without being hit by any charges and was commended for being honest. Here is where it goes downhill very fast.
About a week later, I get a knock on the door from the neighbor.
I opened the door and she handed me two pieces of paper for me to look at. There was a quote for the fence valued at around $4,000 and an estimate for lawn care valued at around $6,000. These were really shady and just typed out on a Microsoft word document with no logo or company name.
She then adds, ‘I will also be having you pay my water bill for three months because the new yard will need lots of water.’ Now, the fence this woman had before was raggedy and falling apart. Her yard?
Grass everywhere, and she never mowed it. Now looking at this paper, she wants a mahogany fence and a brand new back yard with flowers and trimmed hedges?
I said, ‘I need to get an estimate myself, this doesn’t feel right.’ She says ‘Remember, you agreed to replace my fence, and a real man keeps promises.’ I shut the door and called my dad to tell him about what just happened. He flipped out and told me ‘Son, don’t you give that woman a single dime.’ He gives me the number to his handyman and tells me to take care of it.
The next day, I had the guy come out for an estimate and the neighbor ran outside flailing her arms. ‘I did not give you permission to get an estimate on my fence.’ Technically, it separates the property line, so it’s both of our fences.
She calls the authorities on me for having a contractor, and they ultimately can’t do a single thing because I’m on my property.
He quickly finishes the estimate off at $1,200. I also knew a guy who did lawn care from my time working at the grocery store.
He estimated the lawn re-seeding while she was away from the house to be about $800. After I get these estimates, I give copies to the woman and she is having none of it. ‘I don’t know these people. I don’t want them near my house, they’re probably really bad contractors.’
I said, ‘No, I know them personally. They are really nice people and do great work.’ She shut the door in my face and I went on my way. I ended up working a 16-hour shift that night and got home at 8 am, and this woman comes knocking on my door at 9 am and demanded I speak to her.
I explained, ‘I would really love to do this, but I just got home and I have to be back at work in less than 5 hours. I need to sleep.’
She goes, ‘What kind of lazy idiot sleeps in until 2 pm?’ At this point, I had about lost it, and told her, ‘You can either accept my $2,000 for my quotes or kiss my butt and get nothing.’ She stood there for a while with her mouth gaped open, but she accepted my offer and planned to meet down at the notary the next morning.
I spent that night after I got off work writing a contract and gathering the $2,000 in cash.
The next morning I wake up and grab this contract to meet down at the notary. I was thrilled to finally be done with this broad and never speak to her again.
But it wasn’t over yet. I waited for her for over three hours and she didn’t show up. I get a call from her saying ‘I’m sorry the 2,000 isn’t enough, I’m having my guys start work on this project, and you will be paying me full price.’
Oh really? After that, I did not say a single word to her, and I watched for a few months as these guys turned her backyard into an oasis, complete with a small pond, brand new sod, and flowers, the whole nine yards.
Come to find out she had plans to remodel these things for a long time and was just waiting for the opportunity to go through with it.
Also this time, she used her remodel funds to go on a trip to Hawaii.
Do you know how I found out about this? She was bragging about it on the neighborhood social media group and didn’t know I was in it. I have a different account name than my real name. Are you ready for the revenge?
Now four months after the fire and all the remodels, I get served papers to go to court for $10,300.
At 18 years old, I’m having to hire a lawyer to work my case. When we finally do get into court, I lay everything out.
The quotes, being harassed multiple times, not showing up after agreeing to a deal, not wanting me to get my own quotes (required by law by the way), and her bragging about screwing me out of funds—and I have proof of all of this.
The judge looked at her and said, ‘Ma’am with all due respect, you’re out of your mind. Not only did this young man tell the truth of what happened, but he also offered to pay you more than he was supposed to.
Your lawn was already gone before the fire occurred, therefore he is only responsible for the fence of $1,200. I will also deduct from this his lawyer fees.’ So I burned this woman’s fence down and all I’m having to give her is $400?
Cool.
She took a huge financial loss from this. I’m not sure how much the Hawaii trip cost her, but she was in serious debt. She ended up having to sell the house because of it and moved into a smaller house.
Haven’t heard anything from her since. Now, I am not saying that I do not feel bad for burning down my neighbor’s fence. I felt really bad about it and wish we could’ve handled it more civilly.
I would’ve been happy to meet in the middle or get multiple quotes. To this day, I still do not use fireworks, because we could’ve really hurt someone.”
21. Sister Blamed The "Rat" Under Her Bed
“When I was a kid I got the Sabrina the Teenage Witch ‘Handbook’ – it was full of kiddie experiments and stuff and was pretty fun. My older sister had upset or annoyed me about something, so I tried out one of the ‘tricks’ from the book, you fill a cup with water and some corn kernels, put some tinfoil on top of the cup, the kernels eventually pop and it makes noise against the tinfoil.
I put it under her bed, it takes a few days to ‘work’, so I completely forgot about it, until one night I woke up to my two sisters whispering – it had popped in the middle of the night and she thought there was a rat under her bed.”
20. Facts Supported My Partner's Argument
“This happened to my SO when he was at university. His class was doing presentations in pairs, and he got paired with some girls who didn’t bother to bring notes or research information for their presentations. She instead let him do all the work, and any slides she did were made from his notes and research.
He complained to his tutor and she told him ‘Don’t worry, leave it to me.’ And then the day of the presentation comes.
They present, and then at the end, the tutor asks the girl a question. If I remember correctly the question was something like, ‘Is there any evidence to suggest that some cultures are more prone to mental health problems?’ And the girl answered no. The tutor then asked my SO the exact same question, and because he’d actually read the research on the topic, he was able to list several studies that showed that some cultures are in fact more prone to mental health issues.”
19. Sour Couple Slept On A Bed Of Sugar
“I lived in a flat when I was 19. I was stupid, the people I moved in with were my very good friend and a guy I was head-over-heels for.
Two months after we moved in, they got together. I found this out by him saying ‘Oh btw, we’re together now. That’s fine, right?’
It was not fine.
Stupidly, I stayed living there for another 6 months. It was a horribly abusive time – he was a master manipulator and basically made me feel like it was my fault that everything bad was happening to him when it was his own laziness and nonsense.
So just before I moved out, I put sugar in their bed. They were gross and slept between two faux-mink blankets with that really fine, soft fur. It was also really fine sugar and apparently after they got into bed and realized there was something in there, they tried to shake it out.
This didn’t work very well and after sleeping in it for a night, because of the heat and sweat, the sugar had melted all through the blanket and totally screwed it up.
No regrets at all.”
18. Rude Audience Member Got Shamed During Improv
“I was seeing a semi-popular improv show that has a couple of my friends as cast members.
The people I was with and I sat in the very back row. I quickly noticed that the girl in front of me was really, really stupid. She talked in a valley girl voice and would often squeal ‘OMIGAWD’. When asked for suggestions, she was the person who screamed such original inappropriate words.
She talked loudly during skits to her just as annoying friend, making stupid observations, saying that she didn’t get it, or complaining how long it was taking.
Clearly, a huge jerk that needed to be stopped. My friend at one point leaned over and asked them, politely enough, to please stop talking.
They responded by loudly talking about how much of a witch my friend was and randomly looking back at us.
At that point, it was on. I’m not a confrontational person, but I can’t take people like this. Every time she said anything that was obnoxiously loud and stupid, I would loudly squeal ‘OMGIGAWD’.
When she rolled her head around, saying loudly ‘When is this going to be over?! Gawd’. I said, ‘Wow, you’re a stupid jerk’. And yes, she definitely heard me.
They eventually shut up when the entire back row took a cue from me and started squealing ‘OMGIGAWD’ whenever she spoke.
It was the most beautiful instance of group mentality I have ever seen. When the show ended they instantly got out of there.”
17. And He Wonders Why The Sales Dropped
“This is about a job where I and about 200 other guys were promised, and earned, bonuses. The company was a financial services firm known for paying well, but one year they decided they’d withhold bonuses.
This is how I handled it. So I was working for a financial firm: 1,800 employees, with a sales force of 200. I was one of the salesmen.
We had our annual meeting in April. It was a big affair. Most of the employees attended, and the CEO gave a big speech about how the previous year was the best in the company’s history, blah blah blah.
The next month, May, we each submitted memos basically justifying why we qualified for—or should qualify for—bonuses at the end of June. I wrote mine out and explained the sales growth in my territory over the course of the previous 12 months, and what percentage of my sales were out of last year’s total sales.
Coming off the company’s best year ever, it should have been a slam dunk, right? All of us were excited about how much we’d have coming in June. June rolls around and my bonus is zero. ZERO. But it’s not just me.
It’s all over the sales floor. Less than 20% of the sales force got bonuses, and everyone was ANGRY. All the supervisors were dealing with angry subordinates, the sales manager was too, and even the VP and director above him.
Everyone was furious and insubordinate, angry accusatory emails were flying, and the company was facing a mutiny. It got worse when it came out that the supervisors were offered bonuses that they could determine for themselves. Most of them took them, but a couple—knowing their subordinates wouldn’t be getting anything—refused. My supervisor took his.
When it came out, he tried to explain to his sales team how he felt it was justified and how hard he worked. He ended up with people screaming at him about how they felt the same but they didn’t get jack.
So for a week or so, things on the floor came to a stop. A lot of people just didn’t show up and the ones that did were angry.
I came in and started reading Monster.com ads at my desk.
I also stopped selling anything or answering my phone. When confronted by my boss, I told him that as soon as I got the bonus my sales justified, I’d start working again. Until then I’d be coming in late, reading and responding to want ads, and leaving early.
He could expect me to keep that up until I found another job or was fired.
The following day, I was sent to the regional sales manager’s office. She said she’d heard about my work stoppage and asked me to explain myself.
I told her that if she heard about it from my supervisor then she already knew why I wasn’t working and I didn’t need to explain it again. She tried buddying up to me, being friendly, then being stern, then being angry.
I kept my composure and told her that the longer the company held out on my bonus, the longer it was going to miss out on sales from my territory. I then gave her my average daily amount of sales from the previous year, quantified what the total loss would be for a week of me not selling, and how much cheaper it would be just to pay me what I was owed and get me back to selling.
Then I thanked her for her time and told her I’d be leaving work as soon as I left her office. And I did. The following day I came in, checked my emails—some of which were farewell emails from co-workers who quit over their bonuses—and sat on Monster.com until I was told to go to the office of the national sales manager.
He’s the gatekeeper; he’s in charge of all 200 of us.
He told me he understood that I was upset, and could see why. I asked him if withholding the bonuses from 80% of his sales force was his idea or someone else’s.
He didn’t answer. He did tell me that I would be getting a check on Monday, and could I please go back to work now? I told him I’d be going back to my desk, but work wouldn’t start until the check was in my hand.
When I went back and checked my emails—yup, more defections. The next day, an email went out to the entire sales force: Management had taken a look at the numbers, re-evaluated the financials, and determined that June bonuses would be issued shortly.
The email also apologized for the delay and reminded us that as salesmen, we were the core of the company and our hard work was appreciated.
I also received another email, this time from the national sales manager, who told me while bonuses were scheduled for Monday, he’d be walking my check to my desk the following day.
The following day I showed up, sat down, and shortly afterward the national sales manager walked on up and handed me my bonus check. That’s when I completed my revenge.
I thanked him and handed him my resignation effective immediately.
In my resignation letter, I requested that a check for my unused vacation time please be cut and given to me before I left the building. When he finished reading it, I told him I’d clean out my desk while I waited for the vacation check.
While I was doing that, one of my co-workers also resigned effective immediately.
We were walked out at the same time and ended up drinking at the bar across the street. I learned later from co-workers that remained that even though the company issued the bonuses, they lost about 20% of the sales force in the following two months.
Gotta love corporate greed. The company had been around over 30 years by then and was known for generous compensation and had never before played games with bonuses or payments.”
16. Mess With My Lunch? I'll Mess With Yours
“Someone in my office would always crush lunches with his gigantic lunch box. Either he ate bricks or lead, I don’t know, but I always came to the office fridge and found that my lunch was in pieces.
So, after three bouts of this, and numerous notes from myself and other colleagues, I carefully removed his lunch box, emptied the contents (a gigantic sandwich, a Twinkie, chips, some vegetable pieces, and a few other bits), and ran over them with my car.
I carefully packed it back in, and put it back.”
15. Bluetooth Technology Comes In Handy
“I once had a colleague I hated (he was very condescending and really arrogant), so I put an extra Bluetooth receiver on his computer for a computer mouse and kept the mouse in my drawer.
I would just open my drawer and it would mess his work right up. Kept it going for like 2 months. He was about to murder the world when I thought I better stop.”
14. Lazy Classmate Copied Wrong Notes
“I had a guy in school who would always skip class and then ask for my notes.
We had a group project worth almost 40% of our grade and he did zero work, and the prof told me tough luck. Instead of just saying no the next time he asked for notes, I took the low road and began giving him edited versions.
I would leave items out of lists, incorrectly define things or just straight up write stuff that makes no sense.
An example of the crap I would put in: To calculate return on investment, subtract your yearly earnings from your current bank balance, then multiply by Escher’s factorial (4.22).
If he had even once bothered to crack the text he would have figured it out, but that apparently would have been too much effort for him.”
13. Lie About Having The TV? I Won't Buy You A New One
“My husband’s sister is a witch. No one likes her, not even their mother could stand her actions.
We had bought a really nice tv for his mother, this was before hi-def, but it was one of the 35-inch pip deals (well over a grand)… actually managed to get Sears out there to deliver and set it up Christmas eve morning.
His mother developed cancer, and we went up to see her. While we were there, she asked us to take the tv back to Tx with us, but we already had a full load so we left it at his Aunt Jane’s house.
As soon as his mother died, his sister was up at Janes house, screaming that she had better give it to her, that it was her mothers and now it was hers… Jane and her husband were in their 80s, and a little scared of the witch… they let her take it.
Of course, no one told us about this until a few months later.
My husband was furious, I told him that the whole reason we even bought the tv was for his mother, not so we could have it… and that his sister could never take the original intent of the tv away, nor the enjoyment his mother got out of it.
He quieted down about it. (Their mother died in August, and it was in August that she took the tv from Jane’s house.) His other sister (Margaret) is who called him and told him about it… apparently, she didn’t tell the witch sister that she had told him about it.
The following new years day, the witch’s house burned to the ground. Oh, they managed to get in and save the husband’s guns, but they left the dogs. I hated her for that. Anyhow, as soon as we heard it had happened, I called his sister and told her that we would replace all of the gifts that they had given their kids… and we did, with substantially higher quality stuff than was originally given.
I waited until after the kids had gotten their new gifts, and then I called the witch, and told her ‘I want you to go over to Aunt Jane’s house and get that TV that we gave mom.’ She gasped. She choked, and then she was nearly in tears, as she coughed up a nonsense lie about how Jane said they needed it out of their house (and Jane had already called and told us how she was kicking the door of their house and cursing them from the front lawn when she came to get it), and that she was only ‘holding it for us’ when it got burned too.
I just told her what I had spent on the tv, that I wasn’t about to go out and spend another grand on one… and what a shame it was.
I don’t think anyone had the guts to tell her that they had already told us about the TV…
and the icing on the cake, she is just another welfare pillhead now… eeking out an existence.”
12. Try To Scam Me? I Don't Think So
“I work from home. I receive a notification on my phone that my Amazon package has been delivered. It’s a couple of hundred-dollar items, so I immediately go outside—but no package anywhere.
I was outside as the delivery van was driving away, so there was literally no way someone snatched it in 20 seconds. The Amazon driver is two houses down.
‘Excuse me. I received notification that my package was just delivered, but it’s not there.’
Driver looking shocked, stammering over words. ‘Oh, uh, what’s the address?’
I give him my address.
‘Yeah, I just delivered it to you.’
‘No, you didn’t. I’m calling Amazon and y’all can sort this out.’ I start walking away.
Driver calls out, ‘Oh I found your package. But it says there’s an issue and I can’t deliver it. It’s likely a duplicate and another driver will be by later to deliver the correct one.’
‘Then why did you mark it as delivered?’
‘Oh, because I didn’t see there was an error. The other driver will be by later.’
‘No, I’m calling Amazon now.’ I walk away and called Amazon to report the incident. They say nothing is wrong with my package and it’s marked as delivered. I tell them about the interaction and they say the driver should’ve given me the package.
Even if it’s a duplicate, the driver is not supposed to withhold a package. They’ll investigate and get back to me in 24 hours. Two minutes after getting off the phone with Amazon, my doorbell rings. I happened to be next to the door, so I open it within five seconds to see the same delivery driver hauling his butt down my driveway.
He jumps in his delivery van and speeds off through the neighborhood. I look down and my package is there. I call Amazon again to let them know that I just got the package and it was the same driver who hauled tail.
They said they would be opening an investigation into the driver. I also told them about how fast he was driving through the neighborhood.
I felt like a Karen calling to complain, but I truly believe this driver was running a package scam.
He marks a package as delivered, the customer says they never received it, the driver says ‘Well, someone probably took it before you looked for it.'”
11. I Forced Him To Live With A Dirty Butt
“We had a guy in our office take a dump in the bathroom every day after lunch and it would stink up the whole office. The manager asked everyone who needed to vacate their bowels to please use the lobby bathroom since our office was small and we only had one bathroom.
He didn’t listen. Fortunately, he was like clockwork so 5 minutes before he went in I took all the toilet paper… that’s right. I forced the man to live with a dirty butt.”
10. Spoiled Kid's Dog Likes Me More Than Her
“My significant other’s uncle and 7-year old cousin live upstairs from us.
His cousin has a tendency to be a spoiled kid. I was holding her Yorkie when she came over and yanked her from my arms. No more than 20 minutes later I went out and bought some dog treats. Every day when I come home I give the dog a treat.
Now the dog waits by our door instead of hers.”
9. Be A Jerk To Your Interns? I'll Make Your Plans Fail
“I had a 6-month school internship at a mobile phone store. The boss was a total jerk that treated his school interns like full-paid workers (even gave me some concerning money responsibilities).
A while after the internship he called to tell me I would have to give a statement at court.
He had a problem with some customers and a shipment and he planned to tell the court that he explained to me everything concerning shipping precisely. Of course, he didn’t. And of course, I didn’t lie in front of the judge.
My boss’ attorney gave me a look I will never forget when he realized his stupid plans didn’t work out. A few weeks later my now ex-boss tried to call me again. I didn’t pick up.”
8. I Crashed The Company's Email Server
“Once there was huge snowfall (~24” in 24 hours) and the property management company hadn’t touched the snow in our parking lot for days.
After day 3 I called to mention we were sort of trapped and they needed to send trucks/snow blowers/etc to take care of things. The response I got was basically ‘Sorry, we’ll get to it sooner or later.’ Side note — years ago if you opened a yahoo email, you could add a second email for recovery without confirming it.
I created a new yahoo email address and used their general Xpropertymanagement as the alternate email. I had it copy every email to both. I then signed up for alerts for every time there was an eBay listing for ‘snow plow’ ‘snow blower’ ‘snow shovel’ or there was a ‘sale on X snow removal’ gear.
It took a matter of hours before thousands of emails were sent. Ended up crashing their email server.
They responded to all residents with a very nice email explaining they get the frustration, and they’re working on it, so I paused the alerts.
24 hours later, still, nothing, alerts back on. Eventually, we got the driveway plowed and life was good.”
7. Hack Into My Account? I'll Give You A Reputation
“So one day I log in on social media and apparently I have 80 mutual friends with an account someone had created that was my last name but had turned my first name into a mean, inappropriate reference. It was obviously meant to make fun of me.
After going through all the friends that this person had friended, I noticed 2 that I didn’t know at all. I clicked on their names and looked at the mutual friends that we had, and I had 1 with both of them.
Let’s call him Joe. He went to my school, but we kinda didn’t get along. So now it was pretty obvious that Joe had made this fake account of me. I went to his profile and looked up his email.
I then went to yahoo, clicked forgot password, and entered his email. It then asked me for his birthday and address. I found these on his profile as well. Then it asked me his security question which was ‘what is my father’s middle name?’ I kid you not, I googled popular American middle names, and I went down the list. Number 3 was right.
It now allowed me to set a new password.
I now logged onto his email and saw he had emails from game sites. I clicked one of them, and it said ‘Congratulations on making an account! Your username is joerocks and your password is joerocks (I made up the username and password).
I then went back to social media, looked up the email under which my fake account was created under, and logged into it using the same password from the email. I then deactivated the account. I now took it a step further and logged onto Joe’s social media account.
I totally messed it up. I started talking to all the hot chicks at our school and flirted with them all, with no shame. I changed all his info, his profile pictures, and his status. Everything. I made him sound like a really messed up, desperate kid.
I also changed the password to his account so he couldn’t get back on. I then went back into his email, where he had emails from his teachers. I sent them all extremely snarky e-mails. Content, I logged off and went on with my life.
I tried going back on them 3 days later, but his account was deactivated, and he had recovered his email. I think he learned his lesson. He didn’t bother me anymore after that. We never talked about it.
In retrospect, it was a very immature way to handle the situation.
Oh well.”
Another User Comments:
“Yeah, I did this same exact thing to a mean popular girl at my school when I was in 7th grade. (Her email password was the name of my hometown. Seriously, how easy could it get?) My friends and I thought it was hilarious, kind of revenge of the nerd type thing.
After the fact, I really thought nothing of it. I mean, come on, we screwed with a few of her friends, but it was just social media, big deal, right?
Anywho, fast forward a year, when I get a knock on the door from the police.
I kid you not, the girl’s parents called the police, and I had to sit through five months of probation with a social worker. Remember, I was twelve at the time when I hacked her account, and they treated me like a criminal.
I mean, it probably had something to do with her parents being paranoid, ultra-conservative, Christian hicks, but that’s not really the point. Apparently, since I was the one who typed in her password, I had committed a crime. It was the worst thing I ever had to go through, and now (I’m currently in High School) my peers think I’m a stalker, creep, etc. Screw our justice system.” User
6. Housemate Got Surprised By A Print-Out In The Bathroom
“I used to share a house with a guy who liked to scare me (I’m very easily startled, so the payback for even a minimum effort is huge).
He got me really well one day, and I was forced to retaliate.
So I’m flipping through a magazine and happen upon an enormous 2-page ad – I think it was for a printer – five or six Maori guys, complete with wickedly awesome tats, screaming blue murder at the camera.
Snuck into his bathroom while he was asleep, taped it to the mirror in the spot that most people first look at when they turn on the lights first thing in the morning.
Was rewarded several hours later with a horrific yowl of shock, and with the remainder of our multi-year cohabitation turning into an ever-escalating war of practical jokes.
Totally worth it.”
Another User Comments:
“When I was living with my cousin during University, I gave her a scare.
It’s Sunday night and I’ve had dinner. She had gone home for the weekend if memory serves, so she’s not supposed to be back until late.
I was up in the kitchen doing stuff, incidentally with most of the lights already turned out, when I notice she was pulling back in. So I kill every light still on (it’s fall going on winter, so nice and dark outside too) and literally just stand at the top of the stairs.
It’s an ambient dark, not sheer pitch but spooky enough.
She comes in the door with her bags and doesn’t flip the switch right inside the door. She probably figures I’m in my room in the basement considering the time.
She makes it about three steps up the stairs before she sees me, just looming there, and yelps. Luckily she did not fall backward. She just kind of does the ‘hand on the chest’ and laughs it off and ‘christ, you scared the heck out of me’ response.
I’ve done this to other people too. Sometimes not moving makes it extra-creepy. This wasn’t any kind of revenge either, I’m just naturally gifted at scaring people. The trick is to be very quiet.” Cephyran
5. Shame Me For Wetting The Bed? Let's See About That
“When I was a kid I had a bedwetting problem. I am not ashamed of this now, as thousands of other kids have had the same problems… at the time, however, this was humiliating.
My younger brother started telling other kids around school how extensive the issue was. I was mortified.
Even after our mother told him to knock it off, he continued. So I decided to level the playing field. The whole ‘hand in a cup of warm water’ deal didn’t work.
I stood over him as he slept one night and peed on him. The next morning, my mom was horrified and wound up taking a call from my grandmother. ‘I don’t know what to do, now BOTH of them are peeing the bed,’ she explained, clearly frustrated.”
4. Give Me A Nickname? I'll Bombard You With Junk Mail
“In college (early 1990s), I lived with several guys in a suite. One liked to call me ‘chunky A’, yes, I was chubby (I still am, but I have lost a lot of weight and I continue to lose more).
I asked him politely but firmly to not call me that. He laughed and did it more. I proceeded to call up every infomercial I saw on TV to send him baldness cures (he was losing his hair), tourist information from places like Iowa and Nebraska, had information sent to him about adult bed wetting, etc.
He accused me of it, and I told him, why would I do such a thing to him? I kept it up for 2 years while he lived in the dorms. In his junior year, he moved out to an off-campus place.
I found out where he lived and I waited a couple of months and started it all over again. Yeah, I bombarded him with junk mail.”
3. Rip Me Off? I'll Come Back After 4 Years
“A friend of my brother ripped me off in a business transaction. Being the ‘big tough man’ he was confident I wouldn’t get violent in response.
I didn’t. We had been approaching friends before this and there was something about him that made me feel there was a kindred spirit in there, but after stealing from me there was nothing to say. I ignored him, meanwhile, my brother stayed mates with him as I traveled.
Fast forward 4 years and I returned to the UK. I ended up at his house with my brother for some reason and was fairly cold. Ironically he was as nice as pie and after a few weeks of being polite to each other he blurted out one day he’d had an epiphany and had seen his previous life for what it was… basically he was a jerk to everyone around him – the problem was he was/is as hard as nails so he got away with it.
That day he actually had the guts to apologize to my face for ripping me off from the years before. Since then (nearly 15 years), he’s been one of my closest friends.
A few months after he apologized, we were out in the hills on a shroom hunt and he turned to me out of the blue and said my actions had been the worst form of revenge he’d ever experienced. It was an important lesson for both of us…
which is nice.”
2. He Didn't Know He's Not Connected To The Internet Anymore
“My co-worker was always complaining and always lazy with his work, yet he got recognition for the simplest thing he would actually do.
He also took credit for a full day’s work that was pretty much all me. I always got ignored. So one day, I came in early and I unplugged his Ethernet jack just barely to the point it looked like it was still plugged into his computer.
For 4 hours he couldn’t do any work. Meanwhile, I got my work done, and he couldn’t take any credit for it since everyone knew he didn’t have Internet access. Halfway through the day, he left on break, I plugged it back in, and bam, just like that it was working.
By then, he couldn’t claim my work, and I began to get noticed more.”
1. Talk Trash Behind My Back? I'll Get You Banned
“Dealing with one spammer who was talking behind my back/spreading false rumors of me and breaking a limit on a number of accounts to get out of bans. He said I was being unfair in targeting him since a bunch of his friends was doing it.
He was part of a group of 4chan-Esque trolls mind you, whose leader I was friends with. So I took his advice and started researching all of his buddies’ activities.
In the end, I leveled about ~50 accounts and told them that they were off the site for two weeks (we had no way to keep them out permanently), and spent said weeks fighting a war where I deleted all of their many attempts to register new accounts within about 5 minutes – this took a lot of intelligence gathering and research.
Safe to say; They were angry. And they believed that they were being ratted out, and they were looking for b***d. Enter in my revenge: I casually dropped a strong hint (as if accidentally) that the original guy had been the one dropping the info.
They took the bait and destroyed his only link to the world – his online social life. He basically lost all of his friends and became an outcast. I watched them eat their own with a little bit of satisfaction.
All in all, I had brought to heel a very bad group of trolls and struck the fear of the Gods in them; but there was a price to pay. After learning of my actions against her friends, their ‘leader’ broke our friendship.
I miss her. Soon after I laid down my ban hammer and left the site. I was afraid that I was becoming Nietzsche’s monster. I had been a really good mod up to that point; objective and pretty fair. But this casual cruelty scared me.
Did the dude deserve it? No question. The guy was a jerk on a hundred levels. Was it my place? No. It was a mistreatment of my power I couldn’t tolerate.
