People Stand Their Ground In These Malicious Compliance Revenge Stories
22. Refuse To Use The Trash Can? Enjoy Your Messy Office
“This happened before I graduated college. I was working a part-time housekeeping job for a doctor’s office after closing. The most annoying thing was the blatant disregard from the people who worked there.
In particular, the women at the front portions of the office would throw trash everywhere and not put it in the can. Under their desk, the floor would be covered in trash (right around the trash can!) and most of the time I wouldn’t even have to change the garbage bag, just dump the very few pieces that managed to get in the can and then literally crawl around under the desk on my hands and knees, picking up all their stuff.
I’m talking paper thrown everywhere, old folders they’d clean out from closets, candy wrappers, tuna cans (you’re eating tuna in an office?) and thousands of peanut shells. To name a few. They just didn’t care. The amount of lazy you have to be to throw garbage right beside the can and not in it astounds me.
I never complained to anyone about it because even though it annoyed me, I figured it was less effort to just pick it up.
That is, until I got a note. A very passive-aggressive note from a particular messy woman, letting me know I threw her calendar away and why would I ever do such a thing?
1: the calendar was propped up against her garbage can. That’s usually the universal sign of “hey, this needs to be thrown away” and they threw stuff like that away all the time, why put it there if it isn’t trash?
2: there’s so much garbage all under your desk every single night, how am I supposed to know when something isn’t trash?
3: it isn’t my job to determine what is and what isn’t to be thrown away.
It was my bad that I threw the calendar away because I didn’t pay attention to the dates or anything on it (like I said, there’s always stuff everywhere) but when I got this note, I was mad.
The nerve, after I spend so much unnecessary time cleaning up garbage that you can’t be bothered to actually put in your trash cans because you’re too lazy? Fine. “If it’s not in my can, don’t touch it!!” You got it! I won’t touch anything that isn’t in your garbage can.
I left everything that was on the floor exactly where it was and just changed the bags.
Needless to say, she didn’t like that, and complained to my supervisor. My response was, “but I was just doing exactly what she told me to do.” shrug
My petty self was pleased
Edited to say: My supervisor told the office manager that if they wanted their trash taken out, then they were to put it in the trash can. Otherwise, nothing would be thrown away, with the exception of boxes labeled “trash” that were too big for cans.”
21. Pay Only 33% For A Website? Enjoy Your 33% Completed Site!
““Here’s 33% of your website. You’re welcome.”
I had a trophy wife client who had a frozen yogurt business paid for by her husband. They contacted me and asked me to design and build a new website for her business. I gave them a quote and they asked if they could pay in three installments.
After we all agreed to the terms, I had written approval and I received my 33% deposit, I got cracking.
We had regular check-ins and they were happy with the progress until one day they just went quiet. They were already behind on the second payment and I was growing impatient.
I was done with the site and just needed final approval and payment before launching it but I couldn’t get hold of either of them. I eventually got hold of the lady at her day job after weeks of being ghosted. She calmly told me that they found someone cheaper and that they won’t be paying the remaining 66% even though the project was complete and all their feedback was addressed. She told me that I could just give her 33% of the files and move on with my life.
I made it clear that websites don’t really work if you only upload 33% of the files, sarcastically, at which point she hung up the phone.
I still had their FTP (File Transfer Protocol) details for their brand domain that housed their current (old) website, so I decided to take revenge.
I created a page with an animated, fake loading bar that was stuck at 33%. Underneath the loading bar was the message: “This company does not pay their suppliers. They decided to pay only a third of the price so now they have only a third of a website.”
I went as far as to download the website files, split it up into roughly three portions (file size), and upload a zip folder containing a third of the files to the FTP folder. This way I actually gave them the 33% they paid for and I could show the file size to prove it.
I also permanently deleted the old site’s files from the folder so they couldn’t be restored from a backup. Not that they’d have a clue how to do that. They threatened to sue me, I’m still waiting.”
20. Bully Bartender Boss Demands Lost Cash, Gets Filthy Coins Instead
“A bit of context. About 20 years ago, after finishing university, I moved back home with my parents while figuring out what I wanted to do next.
My home town is a tourist seaside town in the UK which (especially back then) was soul destroying in the Winter but quite a fun place to be in Summer – lots of pubs and clubs and very busy at weekends with stag dos, hen dos, etc.
Although I was living rent-free at the time, I still needed income whilst I looked for a “career” so I got a job as a bartender at the biggest pub/nightclub in town. It was quite a cheesy venue but it was right in the centre of town so always busy back then, especially on a Saturday night.
Although I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, it was a fun job that wasn’t too challenging and a great place to work as a 21-year-old enjoying my first Summer with zero responsibilities.
The work was quite seasonal so generally staff would only stay for a few months until the end of the Summer and then move on, but there were 2-3 supervisors and assistant managers who had worked there longer – they were usually in their late 20s.
One was a girl we’ll call Susie (mainly because I can’t actually remember her real name now).
Susie was generally OK to work with but, if she was having a bad day, could be a bully and a total witch. I got the impression she had a bit of a chip on her shoulder because she was still working there in her late 20s, watching those younger than her move on to other things.
She would often talk about going on courses to become a qualified cocktail bartender or something, but it never seemed to happen and she appeared to spend a lot of time partying – she would often turn up to work with a stinking hangover and then take it out on the rest of the workers – but she was desperate to try to impress management.
Anyway, one Saturday night in the middle of Summer and the place is rammed. This was before the age of smartphones, Netflix, etc so in a town like that, there is nothing else to do but go out and get wasted.
There were three big bars across three floors of this place and every bar was at least 4 deep when we were busy, which was usually between about 10.30 pm and 1.30 am.
Suzie was the on-duty assistant manager so responsible for the whole place and crucially cashing up at the end of the night. This was the early 00s so although we did accept cards, 95% of people paid by cash as there was no contactless payment yet.
It was noisy and dark with incredibly intoxicated people everywhere, and you had to work at a frantic pace to keep up. Hundreds of £££ in cash would go through the tills every night, and you barely had time to think about what you were doing.
Finally the end of the night and we get the last intoxicated patrons out and tidy the bars. Once done, all the bar and security staff then congregate in the lower bar for a quick drink to relax before heading home whilst Susie is busy “cashing up” – counting the cash from the tills and making sure it tallied with the electronic till records.
I think this was the first time she had been trusted with this job on a busy Friday or Saturday night.
Suddenly she came storming out of the manager’s office and screamed:
“Right, the tills are £20 (about $30) down. I’m going out for a break and when I come back, I expect that missing money to be on the desk.
I don’t care where it comes from, just do it!”
(I can’t remember the exact amount but it was around that).
Basically, in all the commotion of the evening, one or more of the bar staff had forgotten to take cash for an order, or taken the wrong amount, or given too much change back.
I’d worked several weekends before this incident and the managers had never worried about missing money – it was probably just a mistake and it was a small amount considering how much we take through the night – it happens. However, I think because Susie wanted to make a good impression with management she didn’t want to report that there was money missing, even though it was a small amount.
We all look at each other, trying not to laugh. I think we all kinda knew that she couldn’t do this – at least in the UK an employer can’t just force an employee to pay for a genuine mistake out of their own pocket – but at the same time we all knew Susie could make our next shifts VERY uncomfortable if we didn’t play ball (cleaning the toilets etc), so we decided to make up the difference ourselves between the dozen or so bar staff.
Well, sort of. Cue malicious compliance.
Over the next ten minutes, all the staff spread out throughout the bars and collected as many random coins as we could find. Coins on the floor dropped by intoxicated people and now swimming in pools of beer, diluted sweat and God knows what else, coins found down the backs of the bar seats covered in hair and other fluff which had probably been there several years.
One of my friends stopped short of fishing a 10p out of the urinal, but anything else was fair game. Some of the staff raided their lockers and pockets for small, random coins but mostly it was cash we found in the aftermath of a sticky, sweaty Saturday night club.
Suffice it to say, the large mound of coins we found was pretty disgusting, but it was there. Every. Last. Penny. The pile, which was mostly 1Ps, 2Ps, and 5Ps, was unceremoniously dumped on the manager’s desk, just as Susie had instructed, and we all went back to finishing our drinks.
I was a little disappointed when Susie returned and didn’t explode with rage but, to her credit, she just thanked us and added the filthy mound to the other cash, knowing she couldn’t complain. I stayed on a few more weeks after that until after Christmas when I got a normal 9-5 office job, but Susie never bothered us about missing cash again.”
19. Won't Pay Me For The Renovations? I'll Remove Everything
“This happened in former Yugoslavia in the 80s. It was still a communist country but by then they started allowing for some privately owned companies limited in size. My brother was working for one such company which made high-end custom AC systems and that’s how I know about this story.
As this was a novel concept at the time, office space was almost non-existent. You had these huge state-owned companies who had their own buildings with everything they needed including office space and outside of that there was never need and nothing was built with that in mind so you really needed to think outside the box for this one.
And that brings us neatly to the second peculiarity of life in former Yugoslavia, apartment buildings. To keep this short at some point before, a whole bunch of them were made, basically a whole new part of the city, and all of them had this huge space on the ground floor/first floor that was planned to be a boiler room which was later abandoned in favor of one big heating plant to which all the buildings in that area were connected to.
As you can see where this is going, the owner of the fledgling company approached apartment building representatives and asked them to rent the space intended for the non-existing heating system. Now these guys in this particular building were retired military officers so a little bit arrogant and not big on asking questions.
They had no idea what was going on other than some guy was willing to give them money to rent part of the building that was never used. Not much money, but basically free funds for them. So they signed a “standard renting contract” which is very important for later.
The owner converted the boiler room to a two-floor office with all facilities and that was that for a while.
One point about this guy, he didn’t like to rent so after a while when business started to pick up he started building a new factory that included much-needed office space.
When this was finished and he was ready to move, he again approached apartment building representatives with a proposal to pay him some of the costs of remodeling. They could now rent for way higher price as office space was by then in high demand and for what he was asking they would be in the clear in less than a year and after that profit.
But as I said former military officers, a bit arrogant, used to get their way, they thought about it and said No. You are moving out and we are gonna get that anyway and for free.
The owner said OK, no problem.
He gathered around all of his employees and said anything you need from the former office feel free to take.
Electric plugs, toilet bowls, doors, anything that could be dismantled could be taken. After that he brought a small excavator, drove it in, and started tearing the place clean.
By then building representatives are running and screaming b****y murder, threatening to call the police (militia then), legal actions, everything and anything
The owner calmly takes out the “standard renting contract” with highlighted “premises to be returned to original state after renting period.”
Now there is something poetic about a bunch of entitled, arrogant jerks being screwed and knowing they can’t do anything about it. My brother says it was glorious!
I wish I was there to see it.
Also, I’m happy to say that the company managed to survive the Balkan wars of the 90s and is still going strong to this day.”
18. City Refuses To Pay For Repairs, Loses In Court
“My mum rents out 2 houses. One is the house she bought when she married her first husband. One is the house her first husband lived in after they divorced, when he died my brother inherited it (I’m from the second marriage) and he asked my mum to manage it.
Both houses are rented out to the city they’re located in and they use it as social housing for refugees. Because of this, they pay less rent than is usual for the area. But to make up for that, they have pretty unique clauses in their contract, e.g. that they are responsible for fixing anything that wasn’t caused by weather.
That’s not legal to do in a contract with private persons, but since the renter is the city, it’s legal.
Recently, the city approached my mum and told her that some appliances broke and since the people living there didn’t notify the city immediately, water seeped into the walls and caused mold to form within the walls.
They assumed that the same rules as for private renters would apply to them and demanded that my mum should renovate.
My mum told them that they should have a look into their contract, Point 4, Sentence 2 (yes, she even gave them the exact sentence they should look at).
They insisted and also told her that she needed to hire companies that work with the city to do the renovation because they would only trust those companies. My mum then asked if that means they are delegating the organization to her and are unwilling to work with any other companies.
As they said yes, she acted.
She organized everything and let the bills be sent to the city. The city returned the bills stating that mum has to pay them. My mum sent them a copy of the contract with the applying sentences highlighted and told them if they refused to pay she’d have to go to a lawyer and those costs would add to that.
The city denied any responsibility for paying.
They took it to court where, because our courts are notoriously overwhelmed with cases, an out-of-court settlement was advised. When presented with everything, the person from the court told the city they were definitely in the wrong. But then the city said that my mum deliberately chose the most expensive companies and they would only pay for a part of the bill because of that.
Well, my mum had it in writing that they ordered her which companies to hire, so that was quickly resolved.
Had they told my mum ‘listen, could you organize it and have the bills sent to us?’ she’d have picked companies with about half the cost. But well, that’s life.”
17. How I Kept My College Room Despite Pressure To Move
“This happened when I (M) was a freshman at a small college towards the beginning of my first semester.
I had a rather uncomfortable incident with my (former) roommate (M) (nothing inappropriate or violent, but the story itself isn’t really relevant). I was the initiator and “at-fault” party in the incident, although it was unintentional. My roommate was extremely mad at me. I apologized profusely as I felt bad and didn’t mean to cause an issue.
After our classes, we talked it out and he said that he believed that it was unintentional and that he forgave me. What I didn’t realize at the time is that he had already reported me to the college before we fully made up, which he told me after he forgave me.
Things were pretty awkward between us over the weekend, I stayed with a friend to give my roommate some space. I wasn’t contacted by the college so I assumed he had reached out and told them that we settled the issue.
Everything changed that Monday.
I received a call while in class from Student Life directing me to call back immediately and set a meeting for discussion and review. I met with them multiple times over the following days, but at the end of it I went basically unpunished due to a lack of evidence for any consequences from the college.
My roommate and I were on fine terms, and I had the college off my back so I thought I was basically done with the issue. However, I was then called into a meeting with my roommate and a student life employee where I was told that my roommate was no longer comfortable living with me.
This caught me off guard because things seemed okay between us, but I suspected that he told his parents what had happened and that they were encouraging or forcing him to stop rooming with me. By this point I had spent hours trying to rectify the issue with the college and my roommate, so I was pretty mad that the meetings were continuing and no one was moving on.
In the meeting, my roommate asked me to move out of the room since I had caused the issue, BUT the college employee told me that they have a policy that they cannot force anyone to move out of a room. Like I mentioned, I caused the issue, but I was pretty mad at this point, so as kindly as I could, I refused to move out of the room.
Both my roommate and the employee aggressively urged me to move, but I cited their own policy (that they had just stated) that I could not be forced. If my roommate no longer wants to live together, he can solve that by being the one to move.
So the next day, he was gone. I then had a room to myself for the foreseeable future, although the college told me that someone else could be moved in at any time.
At the start of the second semester, the same student life employee whom I had met with emailed me and a handful of other students (an even number) in my building without roommates informing us that we had to consolidate.
We were given a deadline if we wanted to be proactive and make arrangements to move in with a specific person. I didn’t know anyone on the list, so I waited to be randomly assigned, hoping that the new roommate would be willing to move into my existing room.
The deadline came and I was assigned to live with someone new.
I met with the guy for lunch, he was sitting when I walked in but he quickly revealed to me that he was partially paralyzed and therefore had to live on the first floor (I lived on the fourth).
So obviously if I lived with him I would have to move out of my room. Of course, I immediately remembered the college policy that they could not force anyone to move out of their room. So, cue the malicious compliance. I told the guy that he seems like a great roommate and that it was nothing personal, but that due to this policy, I simply would not be moving to his room, which would benefit us both.
The deadline to move came, and all other students needing to move had already done so, so this was the only option for me to get a roommate at this time. I didn’t notify the college that I wouldn’t be moving, I just didn’t move.
I started getting emails from the employee almost daily demanding that I move, to which I replied citing the conflicting policy that they cannot force me to do so. The college threatened to charge me double for occupying a double as a single, but I repeated their own policy back to them again and again and told them that I would be happy to consolidate by having someone move in with me, but that it was not my fault that the guy that paired me with was not able to move to a higher floor.
Eventually, they gave up and I ended up keeping my own room for the rest of the year.”
16. How I Saved My Three-Day Weekends
“This happened 20+ years ago. I worked for the family business repiping mobile homes. Because I wasn’t married and didn’t have kids, my buddy and I were the out-of-town crew. We traveled all over the state. A typical week would consist of 10 houses over 5 days. 2 a day, Monday – Friday.
That was the requirement: 10 houses MUST be plumbed a week! No exceptions. We had a backlog of work.
After my buddy got good, we could easily plumb 2 houses in 6-7 hours. The other crews typically took 10 hours for 2 houses. Since we were paid by the house, it didn’t matter how fast or slow you were.
So long as you did 10 houses a week.
I’ve ALWAYS hated working 5 days a week. So we decided each Monday morning to look at our work orders and rearrange the schedule so we did 2 houses Monday (travel time getting to the first job), 3 on Tuesday & Wednesday, then 2 on Thursday.
Leaving us all day Friday to sleep in, explore whatever town we were in, and enjoy a 3 day weekend.
This went on for some time, until my partner wanted to go out of town for a 3-day weekend. So, we finished Thursday, drove to the shop, dropped off my van, and left for the weekend.
Friday afternoon I get a call. It’s The Boss!
Boss: Where are you?
Me: New York.
Boss: (obviously confused) New York? What do you mean?
Me: I mean I’m currently in New York City. What’s up?
(Lots of confused questions and snarky answers back and forth…)
Boss: why did you cancel your Friday jobs? Is something wrong with your van? It’s at the shop.
Me: I didn’t cancel any jobs
Boss: (now more confused by how I did 10 jobs in 4 days than how I was in NY without their knowledge) HOW DID YOU DO 10 JOBS IN 4 DAYS?!
I decided it would be easiest to tell them I’ve been doing this for a while. LIVID! Absolute fury that I’d been claiming my per-diem & hotel while not working Fridays!
Sunday night turns into a lecture on how I should be doing more for the business.
I remind them we’re the only crew that goes out of town. I’m told from here on out, I’m doing 13 jobs a week. I ask if the other crews will be expected to do the same considering they all work locally. Nope, just me! So I plan the compliance.
I tell my cousin to schedule our next week in the city furthest away. About a 5-hour drive. We were normally only scheduled 9 jobs for that city as the 1st day drive took up so much time. No need to remind anyone of that, THE NUMBER IS 13 THIS WEEK.
So we head out Monday. No changes. No tweaks. Just do what’s scheduled. Obviously we can’t do 2 on Monday, half our day was spent driving. It didn’t help that we weren’t exactly rushing. So around 4 we call the office and tell them to call the customer, we won’t be able to get to them.
The customer is furious, and asks when they’ll get rescheduled. No idea.
Fast forward to Thursday. While finishing job 10, we call the office and inform them we’re out of material. No pipe, no fittings, no wholesale house to go to… NOTHING. Please tell the boss to bring us more.
I get a call from the Boss.
Boss: What happened?
Me: The van can only hold 10 jobs worth of material. That’s the way you set it up.
Boss: Can’t you go to X and get more pipe?
Me: That’s 2 hours away each way. We’ll have to cancel another job.
Plus they charge double what we pay in town…
Boss: Why didn’t you say you couldn’t do 13 jobs?
Me: I did. You said I was being lazy.
Boss: I thought you meant you didn’t WANT to do 13 jobs. Not that the truck couldn’t hold enough material!
Me: I DIDN’T want to do 13. And you set the trucks up. It’s your truck!
Boss: (unhappily) I’ll meet you at your first job at 7 am.
Me: (with a smile you can hear over the phone) see you in the morning BOSS!
An exhausted Boss drops off pipe and fittings at 7.
Me: Hey, do you want to help knock out the Monday job we canceled, or do you want us to stay another night? (Hotel, per diem…)
We went back to 10 jobs a week after that.”
15. Manager's Demand For Quantity Over Quality Almost Costs Me My Job
“About 5 years ago I was working as a production supervisor for a metal forging company. We had recently acquired a transmission part for a well-known American motorcycle brand.
This part was being made on a hydraulic press and we had trouble with the part melting our dies due to the unique shape of the part and the fact that this part should have been made on a forging hammer press, not a hydraulic one.
We were getting very behind on the customer orders due to the fact we typically had to either repair or replace dies approximately every 1,500 pieces. This is in contrast to other parts that had die lives exceeding 6,000 pieces.
My manager who had only been on the job for about 6 months pulls me into the office and tells me on the next run do not shut down for any reason unless the forge press breaks down.
I tried to clarify that the dies would not last and I would have to stop the process occasionally to replace the dies. He was emphatic that under no circumstances was I to shut down the process. He even went so far as to email me a reminder of this.
Hopefully you can see where this is going. Over the next run we do not stop even though my QC guy is losing his mind over how bad the parts are. I tell him don’t worry it’s all on me and my head, as he doesn’t know about my manager’s demand.
We set a production record even though maybe 1,000 out of the 4,000 pieces we produced are good.
Next day plant manager and quality director pull me into the office. It’s explained to me that I’m probably gonna lose my job due to the fact I blatantly allowed nonconforming parts to be produced. I asked if I could print an email for my defense.
I get quizzical looks but plant manager okays it. I print off the email from my manager stating not to shut down for any reason and hand it over. My manager gets his rear reamed, I get a firm reminder that regardless of demand we must assure quality over quantity and that the only reason I was not terminated was the fact I was acting under explicit direction from a manager.”
14. From Grass Wars To Sidewalk Victory
“This one goes back to the previous neighborhood our family lived in. It was a really nice quiet horseshoe-shaped street but it had no sidewalks.
When my wife and I would walk the dogs and our kids, we would have to walk in the street. This was not a problem unless a car came and we would have the kids step aside into the grass to stay out of the street while the car passed. The neighborhood was built in the 80s and many residents are original owners.
Mostly nice but of course we have some nasty humanoids among them. One neighbor in particular seems to always have to say something mean when we go by. (She is a deacon at the church my family goes to and is the type to be religious for face value only).
One day in particular she yelled at us for allowing our kids to step in her grass (while avoiding a car in the road) and I told her that they were just stepping aside until the car passed. She got overly angry and started spraying a hose at us and screaming like a banshee.
We hurried the kids away and told them that they did nothing wrong and that from now on we will walk on the other side of the street.
About 2 weeks later, she and her husband got a new shed installed at their house and had to have the property surveyed for it.
As I drove by I noticed something… The front property boundary was about 10′ back from the road. The houses on their side of the street all were a little farther back. I had a friend who does surveying come out and do our property and sure enough our boundary was about 3′ from the road.
We did some digging through the archives at city hall and found that the neighborhood was permitted and designed to have a sidewalk that ran the length of the horseshoe on her side of the street. The 10′ right of way was designed to have curbing, grass, and then a sidewalk.
So I did what any sane person would do in this situation and I contacted the township to have a sidewalk put in. The township notified all residents of the request and held an open hearing for it during a township meeting. Most of the neighbors showed up in support of it, most didn’t care, but that nasty woman showed up to protest it and raise all kinds of commotion.
A month later they began excavating for the sidewalk and when they got to her house, she had planted a big landscape piece with flowers and shrubs and a tree right in the way. The township told her to remove it, she didn’t, they fined her and removed it themselves.
The best part of the story is that 2 weeks after the sidewalk was finished and in, we listed our house and moved to another neighborhood. She still makes nasty remarks to my mother at church and we drive by her house while visiting our old neighbors every now and then.”
Another User Comments:
“Wow. I’m a bit of a “get off my lawn” old lady myself (our neighbor loves to let their dog run around and crap everywhere), but kids walking on my grass to be safe from cars??? That’s an automatic yes, no thought required. Love what happened to your Karen, well done!” NewlyNerfed
13. Teaching My Boss A Lesson About Gluten Neuropathy
“So, a little bit of back story.
A while back, I was in a wheelchair. My legs were so painful, that I wasn’t able to stand on them, and I had pain attacks at night which would last for hours on end. Doctors couldn’t figure out what the heck was wrong with me until I got even sicker.
I started not being able to hold in food, only liquids. When I went to a specialist and did a b***d test, it turned out I had a gluten intolerance (Celiac disease). When I stopped eating gluten, I was able to walk within a few months.
Turned out I have another disease affiliated with Celiac disease, called Gluten Neuropathy. It means that when I ingest gluten, my nerves are affected. To this day, when I eat gluten, the pain returns, and I have a really hard time walking.
Now, I work at a company as a helpdesk employee.
I help people having technical issues with their internet, so to speak. Due to ongoing health concerns, we work at home every other week. Last week was the week I was supposed to work at the office.
So, I have told everyone who needed to know about my affliction.
I also told them about my trouble walking when I ingested something I shouldn’t have.
So last week, I ate something containing gluten. I cannot for the life of me figure out what it was, but it was clear as day. The night before I had to go to work, I went to bed with a lot of pain, and I knew it would get worse the following day.
I told my partner I would ask to stay at home if I had a lot of trouble walking.
The next day came around, and it happened like I thought it would: I was in so much pain, I needed my walking stick to get around.
So around 8 am, I called my floor manager and told him, and asked if I could work at home. He told me a lot of people wanted to work at home for the most stupid reasons, and told me I should come to the office.
So I did. Instead of calling in sick, I mustered up all my strength, took some heavy pain meds with me, and started my journey to the office. Now, normally it takes me about half an hour, but because I had a harder time walking than my gran gran, it took me more than an hour.
I arrived at the office 15 minutes late, and ran into the floor manager when I was taking my things out of my locker.
At this point, I should tell you how I looked at that time: white as a sheet, hair in a messy bun, shaking from pain, and leaning heavily on my walking stick.
The pain was so bad, I was wincing and almost couldn’t stand.
My floor manager was floored. (Lol) He took one look at me, and his mouth fell open wide. He muttered something about not knowing it would be this bad, and talking about my other colleagues and how they asked to work at home for small things, how he had to treat everyone equally, etc.
I worked a full day, colleagues watching over me, getting me everything I needed and taking awesome care of me. I heard one of them say how ashamed my floor manager was about making me come to work, and how his response was everything I hoped for.
Needless to say, he told me whenever this would happen again, I would have no trouble calling in to work at home.
I could have called in sick, but my belief is that they had to learn the hard way, or this would have happened again in the future.
I know it’s probably not as epic as some stories on here, but I just wanted to share, make you enjoy the same (pain-filled) joy I had when I saw his face when he looked at me. It was the best thing ever.”
12. Accused Of Stealing At Work, Cleared By Security Clearance Interview Years Later
“I used to work in a Grocery store back in 2016, I was 16-17 at the time, (I don’t work retail anymore) but I wanted to share this story I still remember to this day.
It was a pretty normal night right before the end of my shift (I was one of the few closers at my store) so it was just me, my supervisor, and a cashier (I worked the self-checkout/customer service desk). My supervisor had just collected the tills and was in the back counting, and I was starting my rounds to take back the non-perishables that were left at the registers.
(I also might add that our store had terrible camera placement, basically, it showed all the registers, and the supervisor’s office door which is where the safe was, this is important later).
After putting up all the items that were left at the registers, I did my final checks of the store to make sure there were no misplaced/damaged items on the floor, I find a case of beer that was leaking in our beer/wine section and since I wasn’t sure how damaged the bottom of the cardboard case was I had to drag it to the front so I could inform my supervisor about the damaged item before taking it to the back (we kept a cart(s) full of damaged items to be taken out by the morning crew).
Since the supervisor’s office is locked while they are counting the tills I call over to her and let her know that there was a damaged case of beer and I was taking it to the back. She responds with an absent “Ok, sounds good.”
So I take it to the back, place it with the rest of the damaged items, and go back to the front to see if there is anything else my supervisor needs me to do before I clock out, there isn’t.
Next couple of days are fine as I finish up the week and wait for the next week’s schedule to be posted, and I find out that I’m not scheduled for the next week, I figure there must have been a mistake as there was someone working at the same Grocery store who shared my first name.
I go upstairs to my manager’s office and ask him about the schedule and why I wasn’t scheduled.
He responds with “Oh, My bad I forgot to tell you that you are suspended until the investigation is over, by the way can you train “your replacement” today on the self-checkout/customer service desk?”
I, confused and annoyed at the moment, don’t really pay attention to the second part of his comment and ask him what he was talking about.
My Manager: “We caught you STEALING that case of beer that you took to the back, and until the police investigation is complete you won’t be working here anymore.
Please turn in your uniform, name tag, and badge.”
I AM FURIOUS, but I decide that I would just go with a bit of MC in this situation. “Well “bossman” I took the DAMAGED case of beer to the back to be thrown out in the morning as per procedure, but since I won’t be working here anymore I guess you will just have to find someone else to train “my replacement” since I clearly CANT be trusted.” (I was the only person who could train someone for the Customer service desk other than him)
His. Jaw. Dropped.
The look on his face was priceless as I took off my uniform and handed him my name tag, and override card. I then proceeded to walk out get in my car and drive home.
About 2 years later I join the army, and I’m going for a job that required a Security Clearance, guess what shows up?
That suspension with an unfinished police report and the tapes from the security camera. I sit there with my interviewer as we watch the tape together clearly showing that I did not steal ANYTHING (needless to say I was approved for my clearance). I ask if I can get a copy of the tape, and my interviewer agrees, it took 2 years but I finally had the evidence I needed to sue for wrongful termination, but as the time is well over the statute of limitation, I am unable to actually do anything about it.
Either way I decide to go pay my old workplace a visit over my Christmas block leave and a couple of people recognize me (including my old boss). He tells me that thieves like me aren’t welcome in HIS store, and that I need to leave or he would be calling the police, I told him to call them, and that his claim would surely hold up when I showed them the copy of the video footage of me “stealing”.
(the store had one of my favorite muffins and honestly, I really wanted one since they are only made there)
The police got called and did nothing and I got 3 muffins free of charge thanks to my favorite supervisor! WORTH IT!”
11. Try To Commit Insurance Fraud? You Won't Get Your Way
“This happened nearly 20 years ago. I had sold my car and a mate had a van sitting on his lawn, he owed me $50, so said I could have it. I headed over there with my significant other in a taxi, picked up the beast, and started heading home.
On the way home it started pouring down with rain so we did a detour to the supermarket instead of walking later on. While driving down the narrow street a car door opened and I plowed into it, I didn’t have the chance to react, it was opened at the perfect time that it wasn’t possible.
Freaking out that I just hit someone I pulled over as quickly as possible and ran back to the car. There was a girl in the car and she was not injured but crying, freaking out that her partner was going to be mad because she’d come down to the shops to get him some stuff.
I told her I wasn’t worried about my car because the bull bar took the hit and if she wanted me to hang around until he got there I could stay.
Around 5 minutes later he arrived and instantly started abusing me, accusing me of hitting his car, etc. I politely told him that his partner opened the door while I was driving past, she was parked outside the parking bay lines, and technically it was her fault.
After several minutes of mistreatment, I agreed that we should exchange details as I was going to get his insurance to pay for the damage to my $50 car. He laughed and started to put out his wallet. I don’t think so buddy, it’s your car but she was driving, I want her details.
We exchanged details, I jumped in my car and headed home.
Several weeks went by and I received a letter in the mail demanding I pay for the damage I did to his car. Quite annoyed by the insurance company I called the local police station and explained what had happened. The officer said that normally if I were to hit a car like I did I would be at fault, but because he knew the particular street and how narrow it was (only room for cars to drive one direction at a time despite being a two-way street, yeah stupid I know) it was actually the other person’s fault.
Quote rule blah blah, alighting from a vehicle causing damage to another vehicle. Fine and demerit points (I can’t remember exact $ or how many points you lose).
I created my letter declining payment, why and inserted copies of the three quotes I obtained from local panel beaters. I posted that letter with great enjoyment.
Several weeks later I received another letter from the insurance company stating that their client had agreed that both parties should bear their own cost and pay for their own damage.
Thinking back to how much of a jerk the partner had been, I called the insurance company. I eventually got onto a supervisor and explained the situation, if the police had attended she would’ve received a fine etc. The supervisor went silent for a few seconds and said “she”?
Yeah she the driver, not the owner, the person who was driving, the person whose license details I have. It turned out he had made the claim and said he was driving, not her. The conversation didn’t go for much longer but the supervisor did say that they would be passing the case to their fraud department.
Several weeks later I received a cheque for the damage to my $50 car. I can’t remember the exact amount but it was around $1500-1600.”
Another User Comments:
“You got lucky mate. Always, ALWAYS, get a police report at the scene, even if the other person agrees it was their fault.
I had an evil old witch admit fault after merging into my quarter panel, and then try to change the story once the insurance companies got involved – saying I swerved into her lane. All I had to do was stroll down to the police station, pick up a copy of the report, exchange a few incredulous chuckles with the cop, and submit the proof to my insurance companies.
She paid, but would have been my word against hers otherwise.” yellowjacket81
10. New Submarine Officer Learns Lesson About Ignoring Toilet Warnings
“Obligated to inform all concerned that this is not my story, it’s secondhand from my dad, a 20-year retiree of the US Navy.
For those who aren’t aware, when you flush the toilet in submarines, it’s flushed into waste storage tanks. When the tanks got full enough standard procedure when he was an active submariner, was to pressurize the tanks and open them to the ocean, shooting the tank contents out into the ocean.
During this process, you could use the toilets, but it was discouraged and you were definitely not supposed to flush them, as submarine toilets are flushed via rotation of an oversized ball valve that opens into the waste storage tank system. When the tanks were pressurized it was like firing a potato cannon at whatever or whomever was standing in front of it, according to my dad.
During one of his last tours aboard the sub, they got a new officer, both to the boat and relatively new to the service, who was in his first post aboard any ship or boat prior to this. My dad said New Guy was decent most of the time, but had his moments.
The first time they had to pressurize and vent the waste tanks, dad was one of the engineering crew aboard ship, making sure all the toilet, and other related, valves, were in the correct position, putting up chains across the toilet doorways, generally prepping for cleaning, he’s put up the toilet chains and they’re just about up to pressure on the tanks, and will then start to vent, and up comes New guy to use the toilet.
Dad says he started to warn new guy about the waste tank cleaning, but new guy was having none of it. He told dad to shut his mouth and clear out of the way (emergency, apparently?). In true Malicious Compliance style, my dad stepped aside, said nothing, and allowed new guy to use the toilet.
My dad says that a couple minutes later, he and other nearby crew hear the thumping loud discharge of what sounds like a cannon, everyone charged into the toilet, and find new guy, mud mask style plastered with his own waste. It’s all over his face, visible up in his nostrils, unconscious on the floor.
The corpsman onboard later reported, at the bar after they got back, that he had to clean pretty intently… Under the guy’s eyelids, in his mouth and up into his gum lines a little bit, etc. New guy earned a nickname, behind his back, and paid a bit more attention to what people had to say to him after that.”
9. Disrespectful Children Get Taste Of Karma After Father's Death
“My partner (Carl) and I were friends at first, and when he lost his house due to bankruptcy, he came to live with me. He had no job, lived in poverty, on a disability pension (of which he gave his ex half), for 14 years since his wife left. In contrast, I owned my own house, had a successful business, and was pretty independent.
He was very handy around the house and loved puttering, talking with the neighbors, and had a great sense of humor. He was clean and very easy to live with. We were together for 10 years. We treated each other well, but he had no rights to anything I owned and vice versa.
I stayed away from his family drama as best I could.
Carl had 2 adult kids (Margo, 28) and (Todd, 35). The kids never visited their father, ever, and when he called them, they rarely picked up, or returned his calls. If they did pick up, they brushed him off or dismissed him entirely.
I felt bad for him, but what could I do? They were like that for years before I met him. They were rude and nasty people. But he loved them and couldn’t understand why they didn’t have time to talk to him.
Carl died suddenly one evening at 58.
He had been in poor health, and finally his heart just gave out. Not 12 hours after he died, Margo called to ask if he had any life insurance. For a nanosecond, I thought that she was concerned about my finances handling the burial, etc., but no. She told me that according to their mother’s separation agreement, he was supposed to keep life insurance on himself and she and Todd were to be the beneficiaries.
I guess he never told her that once she turned 18, he had canceled his life insurance because he was on disability and could not afford it. He may have tried to tell her during one of those phone calls, who knows?
Later the same day, Margo called and asked if he had a will.
She told me that she had already been to a lawyer (this was the day after he died) and that because she suspected Carl didn’t have a will, she would be his next of kin. She would be taking over the burial arrangements etc, and she was the beneficiary of all of his stuff in my house, including his car, which was a used car but still newer than hers.
I was pretty upset by the timing of all of this, and couldn’t believe they could be this mean and cruel, so soon after he died. He was their dad and he loved them. She then told me she would be doing a “walk-through” of my house to be sure I didn’t miss anything of his.
That was where I said, NO, you won’t.
Margo was really annoyed about my refusal to let her into the house and to take the car that same day, and conveniently “forgot” to tell me where they were having the funeral. She didn’t put it in the paper and she only told “special people” where it was.
(I found out later it was 3 towns away) But she did let me know repeatedly that they wanted the car and all of his stuff out of my house. I knew that once she came to take the car, she would not be back to get the rest of his stuff, which she knew was nothing, of any value.
I would be left to get rid of a monumental amount of stuff at my expense.
Cue malicious compliance.
Now, dear Carl was a hoarder, and I mean that in the true sense of the word. Even if something was broken, useless, outdated, or worn out, he kept it.
So he had 4 old style TVs, 6 giant toolboxes, 8 computers, 2 dead BBQs, a floor-model drill press that he was going to fix, a band saw he found in the dump, 6 stereo components (none of this stuff ever worked, he was saving them all for “parts”) plus 198 boxes of metal parts from odd machines, trucks, cars, bulldozers and buses that he salvaged and collected over the years.
It was all in the garage, which he thought of as his “man cave”. 198 very heavy boxes…guess they were packed quite full. Plus the pride of his collection, a 60-year-old 5-ton metal lathe that Noah used to construct the ark.
So…..I parked his car at the very back of my 2 car garage, then shoved all of the boxes of stuff in front of it, so that it was impossible to remove the car without taking everything out in front of it, including the metal lathe.
It took two weeks and a lot of effort, but the garage was packed to the roof. I took a picture of the garage with the doors open.
Margo and Todd soon started screaming to their lawyer that I was not cooperating in regard to the car.
I responded, that I needed to see a legal document that the car was in fact legally theirs, registered in their name, and properly insured, in case they drove it away, I didn’t want to be held liable. I also needed to have the rest of the stuff taken away.
Plus, I had just had my driveway paved, so they had to have proper movers come to get his stuff, not just a couple of yahoos in a pickup that would damage the new driveway.
They said they would, after they got the car. Their lawyer screamed that I was stalling and refusing to give up the car.
He even went so far as to accuse me of selling the car. I sent the picture I had taken of the garage to my lawyer, proving that I still had the car. My lawyer said…where is it? I said, you can just barely see the roof, but it is there behind the boxes.
He got a good laugh out of that.
So Margo and Todd had to hire a moving and storage company to come and collect Carl’s precious stuff, the metal lathe took 4 men and a special small tow-motor machine thing to take it away. It took all day for them to empty that garage.
I asked where were they taking it, and they said to a storage unit. The head mover said something to the effect that there was no way, this was going to fit in the one storage unit they had rented. Oh well.
So, in the end, the cost of the movers was $14,000 (I heard this from his best friend) and who knows what the storage units cost and for how long they rented them.
Perhaps they recouped some of the money they spent, from selling scrap metal.
Oh right, I almost forgot. They also had to pay for his funeral. Turns out, I did have an insurance policy on him that I paid for and had planned to use for his burial, but since I wasn’t told where the funeral was, I used the money to pay off my mortgage.
It would have cost them nothing to be nice to the woman that looked after their dad for 10 years.”
8. Denied Promotion For Overachieving, My New Mantra Is 'Not My Job'
“So I got turned down for a promotion recently.
I was told that I get distracted too easily and don’t focus on my job. I got told that I need to stop trying to run in to be a hero if I ever want to be considered for a promotion. I was told that I need to work as directed. So for context, I have been doing my boss’s work for him.
When things at work get backed up, I will jump in to get things back in order quickly. My job has fairly specific jobs where we aren’t supposed to change positions and we are to work as directed. I have gone to help out those outside of my job repeatedly since being hired. My direct supervisor and manager love it when I go to help out.
Well that all stopped now. I even had the big boss try to tell me to help out in a section that was outside my job description. My new catchphrase is “Not my Job”. I had the bosses tell me that I was to do as instructed. I instead go to the union and get paid extra to work in a different section.
This has been the new trend for the past couple of months.
And today it all hit a head. They have only 1 person in receiving for a 4 man crew. I work outbound. They cannot force me to work receiving based on the contract. Now the bosses are working in there and a grievance is being filed. The bosses have stopped working and receiving is completely backed up.
I just had my manager come and beg me to help. I told him “not my job. I need to remain focused on my job and not try to be a hero”. Work has ground to a halt and the steward is demanding triple rate for anyone moved to receiving since management decided to work.
Let’s see how this goes.”
7. Vice Principal's Rage Backfires After Students Criticize Relative's Hotel On School Trip
“This happened years and years ago when my school had taken us on a 2-day field trip to a hill station close to the city. All of us on the trip were kids who were in the 6th-8th grade. The trip was a blast, and everyone had fun.
The event happened just before we were supposed to leave.
So, our school had a weird policy where after every field trip, they would gather all the students in one room, and pick out a random group of students, and ask them to say a couple of sentences about the venue and experience, whatever.
Five of us were chosen for it this time and were asked to wait in an adjacent room and come out one by one. It was all cool till the first girl went up to the mic and said “The experience was nice, but I felt that the food that was served was stale.
I think a few people got sick”. As soon as she finished speaking, the Vice Principal flew into a rage as she descended on this poor girl and started screaming. “Who do you think you are? These guys have been working super hard for us all weekend!!
If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all!”
Now her reaction might not make sense, but the hotel where we were staying at belonged to some relative of hers, which is probably why we were there in the first place, and she felt some type of way about it.
That girl almost started crying as she came back to us. I was next up so I was standing and waiting, but the VP went on a long rant about “being well-behaved” and “setting a good example”.
I think at this point it’s worth talking about one of the other kids chosen to do this pointless exercise.
He was an older kid in the 8th grade, and he had an accident on the trip, so his arm was slinged up. The accident was (I think) caused partly by negligence from the hotel staff (I’m blanking on the details right now) and he was fully prepared to talk about it.
So this tantrum made him especially upset, especially because the same VP had refused to send him home early from the trip because it would ‘cost too much’ (he told us this later). This guy holds my arm and tells me “Hey, she said don’t say anything if it’s not good, so don’t say anything!”
… so I went out, stood there for a few seconds, said “I don’t have anything to say” and came back. The kids who went after me did the same. This guy went last.
He goes up to the mic, and at this point the VP is shouting again “Did you do this?
Don’t you dare say nothing” or something of this sort. He says “I loved being here, glad that I was able to be here even after I hurt my arm, I will be really sad now that I have to go back to my parents and an actual doctor.”
The vice principal lost her temper at that. Most of the kids were too young to understand sarcasm, but they definitely did start laughing at her. She threatened to suspend/fine everyone there, and she delayed the buses back to our town by 2 hours as “punishment”.
A few days later, they called my parents in for a disciplinary hearing, and the VP started narrating the story to them. When she got to the point about the complaint from that first girl, my dad said “wait, so the hotel was serving stale food?” I think the VP kinda got shook by that a bit because I was asked to go back to class shortly after, and nothing else came of it.
Edit: “how can she do this with no repercussions?” So I’m from India, and schooling culture in the country is very disciplinarian in nature. Most teachers and parents would agree that kids need to be put in their place and all that good stuff.
As I’m remembering some more details slowly, I’m not sure if that older kid for sure had a broken arm, but I just remember it being in a weird sling and he was wearing some sort of a wrist brace.
There were smaller clinics in the area, so he may not have been completely neglected in terms of immediate medical attention.”
6. Unreasonable Bathroom Break Rule Backfires On Preschool Boss
“So several years ago I worked for the worst boss ever!
I was working as a teacher at a preschool. I had 28 students in my class, ages 4 – 5. I had no assistant, at any time of the day. So this meant I had to do quite a lot of tasks all at once, by myself. One of these things was bathroom breaks.
The bathroom had a half wall, boys on one side and girls on the other. This way the teacher can supervise all learners at once.
I had a very well-oiled routine with my class at bathroom breaks. I’ll explain in detail here, if you don’t want to read skip to the next paragraph.
So I had 2 lines – boys and girls. They lined up at opposite sides so that they could not see into the other toilet. Kids go in 4 at a time. Once you’re done you sit on the floor in the doorway until everyone is done.
This way I could keep my eyes on almost every child at all times. The doors were always open so I could run out if needed. I jumped over the half wall if needed. And basically, I had everyone within a few meters of myself.
This entire routine took about 10 minutes.
I did my routine once every hour. Kids could go to the bathroom by themselves in between bathroom breaks. There were no issues. My boss comes shouting into my class one day, a girl in my class has had an accident.
She wet herself while on her way to the bathroom.
My boss shouted about this girl wetting her pants in front of all my students, who were having free play. The kids were all silent. She screamed at me and I just tried to explain that she was on her way, she just didn’t make it and our next bathroom break was in 10 minutes.
She continued shouting at me. I waited for her to finish screaming and asked if the child who wet herself had been helped to change. She says no, I have to go do it. I cannot leave my learners unsupervised so I ask if she could please keep an eye on my class while I change the student into dry clothes.
She looks me in the eye and says ‘NO. YOUR WHOLE CLASS IS HAVING A BATHROOM BREAK NOW. AND FROM NOW ON YOU GO EVERY 20 MINUTES. BATHROOM BREAK, THE WHOLE CLASS, EVERY 20 MINUTES.’
I just nodded my head and told my learners pack up time.
She said to leave the class as is and go to the bathroom. The kids line up at the class door. Then we walk outside a few meters to the lockers. We line up again, while I collect new clothes. Then we walk to the bathroom and do the routine as above, plus I need to change my student into dry clothes.
It was a nightmare.
I checked the clock when we left and made a mental note to come back in 20 minutes. And I did. Every 20 minutes. The problem is, the bathrooms get cleaned every 30 minutes so often times we would have to wait outside because the bathroom was wet.
Other classes needed to use the toilet, but we were constantly in there. We walked to the toilet and just walked back if no one said they needed the bathroom. By the end of the day, they were so sick of going to the toilet (1 pm/ish).
The next morning we continued the routine. That meant that sometimes parents came to drop off and there was no one to welcome them or watch their child. Or that parents were still trying to do a hand over and then it’s been 20 minutes so it’s time for bathroom break.
We started our morning circle ring and went to the bathroom. We read a story and went to the bathroom. We had free play and bathroom. Every 20 minutes. Everyone in that school was SO ANNOYED with me. Everyone knew it was ridiculous. But I told them, that’s what boss lady said.
That afternoon a schedule was sent out as to when every class may use the bathroom, scheduling the bathroom breaks and cleaning breaks for all the classes.
And wouldn’t you know it, my class was scheduled for once every 60 minutes! Ha.”
5. Complying With Boss's Orders Leads To Cafe's Downfall
“While I was in college, I worked as a janitor for a pretty busy cafe.
It wasn’t very fun (not that being a janitor would be anyway), and the boss was pretty bad at his job, but it made the money I needed. This cafe was in a pretty rural area, and we had the only public restrooms for about 3 miles.
Everyone in the community knew where the other restrooms were, but it would still be an inconvenience to drive to them, even if it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes. To use these restrooms you needed to buy something, but almost everyone who entered bought something, so it wasn’t a huge deal.
Now, since I was in college, my work hours had to fit around my college classes. For how my boss was with everything else, he was quite understanding when it came to this, mostly because he could only find other college students to hire. With the way my schedule worked, I always had to leave at closing to get to my classes on time, so I did my cleaning during operational hours.
Most of this was in the bathrooms, and I would leave it open while cleaning each stall and occasionally the floor – why close the only bathroom for miles? Nobody complained. Nobody saw it as an issue.
That is, until a cold Wednesday in January.
I was about four months into the job, and was into the routine by now. Boss calls me into his office before I left for the day. He tells me:
“Mr. OP, I received a complaint about your bathroom cleaning procedures. One of our customers slipped on a puddle in the bathroom yesterday.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s okay, she braced herself against the sink.”
“That’s good. It must have been an unfortunate accident, I always put a warning sign in front of any puddles in the bathroom while I’m cleaning them.”
“Well clearly it’s not enough. If you’re cleaning the bathrooms, keep them closed.”
“Close them completely?”
“And don’t reopen them until you’re completely done cleaning.”
This customer was known for being a prolific spender, and Boss only saw a big pile of money going into flames if he didn’t listen to her. So he did. And I complied.
Close the bathrooms completely? Okay then!
The next day, I enter the cafe, a few hours after opening due to classes, and start with the bathrooms. They weren’t too dirty, but I thought they … well … needed a very deep clean. So deep of a clean that it would take me the rest of the day to clean it up, as opposed to about an hour or two.
After all, Boss never said how fast I should clean them. Whenever a customer wanted to use the restroom, I would just say that I was ordered by Boss to keep it closed so I can clean. And after an hour, I made a “CLOSED” sign for both bathrooms with some small text on the bottom saying “On orders of the Boss.”
Needless to say, things went south.
Over the day, numerous people complained to Boss about the closed bathrooms. Boss said he had no choice, it was for safety. Those people, knowing full well I gave adequate signage to any slippery areas, were, understandably, very confused and very angry.
Luckily, the other public bathrooms were only a short drive away, but it was still a decent inconvenience for some. A few people decided that this was the last straw in Boss’s incompetent management (the old owners who recently sold the place were amazing from what I heard) and were never coming back to the cafe ever again.
By the end of the day, Boss called me into his office.
“Mr. OP, you can reopen the bathrooms tomorrow.”
While the business didn’t completely crumble, Boss lost some very loyal customers that day and his reputation took a tumble. I’ve heard a bit from the past few years and his further incompetence meant that the cafe was closed down.”
Another User Comments:
“It’s malicious, but crappy behavior on your part. A liability suit can be more expensive than a couple of lost customers. I’ve done cleaning jobs years ago you don’t deep clean during business hours. You close the restrooms for 5 minutes, do the cleaning quickly, put on signs, and open it again.
If you can’t do it you are the incompetent one, not the boss. He is saving your butt from a liability suit too. They accommodate your hours and you repay by opening them to a lawsuit and tanking the business.” SLPERAS
4. Pushy Customer Tries To Bluff, Ends Up Stranding His Family
“A little background info; I live in a popular tropical tourist destination & one of my jobs is as crew on a snorkel boat. I set up the boat before the trip, lifeguard, give history about the area, etc. My captain is also the owner of the business so what he says goes & knows the local waters like the back of his hand.
Our company consists of him, me, & his partner who manages bookings, phones, emails.
We aren’t low quality but we don’t offer full meals or entertainment on board & focus solely on the snorkel experience; because of that compared to the larger boats our private charters are lower cost than most competition.
In turn, we often get penny-pincher people.
Onward to the main story. A family of 22 had been hounding our office before they even arrived at our location (our office’s words). They were pushy and trying to get discounts and free upgrades so I was already dreading this charter.
Generally, we take a card number and charge it before the charter but this group was adamant about paying cash, office and captain said fine but told me to get payment before getting them on the boat.
Our boat is 50ft long & stays moored offshore a few hundred yards so we use a water taxi to ferry from the shore to boat.
I got dropped off to get payment, check the group in, and give them pre-boarding info. I walked up to the main guy paying for everything to start the process and that’s when things went downhill.
Guy: hello, which boat are we going on?
Me: (points to our boat) that pretty one right there!
Guy: that’s not the boat we are going on.
Me: yes it is, there isn’t any other boat sir.
Guy: no the boat looks like this. (shows me photo of boat from our website)
Me: yes sir, that is the same boat. We just had the bottom and paint replaced a month ago. I guess our office hasn’t updated our website, sorry about the confusion but I assure you it is the exact same boat.
Guy: well I don’t think you’re trying to deceive me but then why would they send me that photo?
Me: I’m sorry I’m not sure what to tell you it is the same boat.
Guy: well I think we need to go out and inspect it and look at it before we decide to go and pay for it.
Me: I’m sorry sir that’s not how this works.
We have already set up the boat for the charter and blocked any other bookings to accommodate your private charter. You can pay and we can take your family out for their excursion or you can decide not to go. We haven’t received payment from you so we have no obligation to you and no money to return.
What would you like to do?
Guy: then we don’t want to go on the boat.
Me: ok sir sorry it didn’t work out, you and your family have a good day.
I picked up my stuff, turned around, got in the water taxi, and left them on the shore.
As we rode away I could see the guy already on the phone trying to call the office. I called his bluff & he was panicking because his whole family just heard him say they didn’t want to go; even though a lot did.
Got back to the boat and explained to cap what happened, he said it sounds like he doesn’t want them on his boat anyway and their loss.
We had planned to refuel after their trip but decided to do it now since we now had the morning open.
They were still on the shore when we left but were gone when we got back. Once back on shore, the other guys who run activities in the same area told us the group had hung around for about an hour. I guess the guy was very convinced we would come crawling back but when we didn’t the family started fighting since many still wanted to go.
Now they have to try to find another boat that has 22 spaces open and will most likely cost 2-3x more than us. It was totally worth waking up early without pay!”
3. Uncovering Embezzlement In A Rural NGO
“Many years ago I was tasked with making a business plan for a women-owned and operated business in a rural low-income area where English is not spoken. There was a big grant from outside the country that made this project happen and a country-based NGO (nongovernmental organization) managed the grant.
The business had been dependent on the grant for years. The idea was to use the business plan to make the business independent and self-sufficient so the grant could then go to a new rural area and begin again with a new business employing new women.
I worked for the NGO administering the grant.
I explained that I was not the best person to do a business plan because…
1. I don’t speak the language.
2. I never owned a business.
3. I don’t have a business degree, nor have I ever taken a business course.
4. I don’t have any experience or knowledge of what a business plan is.
They insisted that none of the above disqualify me from making a business plan for this project.
I should also say that I didn’t have the internet to help me. The internet was 3 long bus rides away and would require a stay overnight at a hotel where I would use an expensive internet cafe that had bugs and keystroke loggers and charged by the minute.
The ’90s. This would all be on my dollar, so I didn’t do it. I didn’t have a car. The town had one phone line with no outlet. It was just a piece of copper wired to an old phone guarded by the guy who also reads all your mail.
Phone calls were expensive.
I imagined that a business plan assessed the efficiency of use of assets and also tracked and categorized all income and expenses. This was the basis for my plan.
I started asking questions and I was asked for the finished plan.
I explained that it was taking a bit longer than expected because of language barriers, but a description of the grant would help. I got a pile of unorganized papers. Some of the papers were in English.
I found out that the grant purchased a truck to collect and deliver raw materials and finished products.
There were no vehicles in the village. A bus came through, but no one owned a vehicle. No one had ever seen a truck.
Also, it said that the grant purchased the building of the business. However, in talking with the locals many times using redundant terms and phrases to ensure understanding, I learned that the building was rented. I met the owner who had no affiliation with the business.
They just sat collecting rent money each month. This was surprising because I had been told by the NGO that the building was owned by the business.
I imagined that somewhere there was someone in the capital city sitting on a fat stash of cash (enough to buy a house) and driving a free truck to their summer house with a pool.
It occurred to me that they picked me to make the business plan because I wouldn’t do a thorough job and find these discrepancies. They also would not expect me to report their embezzlement to the organization doing the embezzlement. However, that is what I did.
I told the NGO that self-sufficiency would always be a long way off if the business was hampered by rent that was more than collective monthly wages. I mentioned that selling the truck might help as it appeared to not be used for the purposes listed in the grant.
I sent my business plan in.
The country that provided the grant visited. The missing truck mysteriously showed up. The ambassador person was surprised to see me in this rural village (I looked like I was not from there) and they spoke some English. They asked if I lived there.
I said, “yes.” They asked if I knew what was going on. I said, “yes.” The NGO person from the capital was there and overheard. They knew what I knew and also knew that the ambassador would not love to hear about embezzlement even though it is common in low-income areas with NGOs.
That is when I lost my job. I never told the ambassador that funds were misappropriated. I believed that to do so would result in some consequences (trumped-up charges for embarrassing country officials) where I would be at a tremendous disadvantage in country that the ambassador would not be able to help me with.
Also, the fact that the conversation ended there tells me that the ambassador was not at their first rodeo and knew that it was 90% performance. I think he genuinely wanted to see some good come to the village even if it didn’t meet the level specified in the grant.
I think the question about ‘do you know what is going on?’ was merely to see if I saw what he was seeing.
I feel proud of what I did because I probably could have turned in a crap business plan and they would have praised me for it, but I did exactly what I was told even though it was difficult and challenging, and for that, “my services were no longer needed.” I guess I’m missing the part where they face consequences of my compliance, but it felt good to let them know they were not so sly as they thought and I got out of a situation where I could have been partly blamed for corruption had I stayed.”
2. Threaten With Nonexistent Authority? Prepare For A Professional Reality Check
“I work as 3rd level support for a company that develops and provides software for a business area, that’s quite heavily regulated, a lot of our development efforts go to just keeping up with new and changing laws. Also the software, while being mainly used for one purpose, usually in one way or the other gets used throughout the whole company using it, so with bigger companies, they sometimes have multiple departments, each only supporting parts of the software in-house, basically each department of the company having their own in-house tech-support for our software.
So with this one customer. They have one main support team (containing, but not led by the CTO of the company) for our software and each department has its own sub-team that answers to the head of the main-team. As always, New Year’s had brought new laws and regulations.
Especially in one department, an up-to-now optional feature became mandatory by law starting 01.01.23. Mind you, the information about the new law was public in February 22 and our software has supported this feature since the middle of 21. So enough time to configure, test and move to production with it, right?
Unfortunately, as it’s an extremely technical topic, I’m currently the only person in our company’s support team with in-depth knowledge. We’re working on changing that, but not everyone who works in support has a background deeply rooted in software development, so it takes time.
Well, starting in January this one sub-department, basically a one-man show, as it’s a rather small department at the customer started sending support tickets “this isn’t working with the new feature”, “that isn’t working with the new feature” and so on, 7 Tickets total, all highest priority, because “it’s an error message and we’re legally required to use it”.
Each and every one of the tickets I answered the exact passage of the manual where they could read up that exact error message, explaining how it’s a missing configuration on their end and exactly (with screenshots!) what to configure. These configurations are not part of any kind of support plan we offer, so work on these tickets is a “pay by hour” thing for the company.
Never got any reply to them so considered them done with that.
Well, I guessed wrong. I got another highest-priority support ticket today stating it’s not working. Obviously I asked, if the configurations I sent over in the other tickets have been done, to which I get the reply, how should they know, they’re just back from a multi-week vacation.
I politely replied, that he should check those configurations and to not cost them unnecessary money, I would hold off working on that ticket until he checked them.
The reply I received to that basically stated, that he found it very audacious that there are now 8 open highest priority requests about that topic and the company I worked at hasn’t moved a finger in the month since they were submitted and that he demands I hand over those tickets to someone else in our support team, who actually wants to do our job or he will escalate the issue to the main team.
Now, you should know that this customer is one of our biggest clients, so their requests inherently get slightly higher priority on our side and also we know that they generally (with a few black sheep obviously) have a very good in-house team, so the team is pretty liberal at routing their technical requests through to me.
Because of that I get to work a lot with their main team who handles those technical issues and the bigger the installation, the more troublesome. They enjoy working with me so much, that for the past half year or so we’ve been on a first-name basis when communicating (including the CTO).
An information, that obviously hadn’t reached this poor soul yet.
So, to spare him the work of escalating the issue, according to process I wrote a formal escalation mail (using first names, petty, I know) to the lead of their main team, as well as my team lead cc-ing the guy from the sub-team, informing them about all the highest priority tickets, including detailed information since when the feature is available, when the information about it becoming mandatory by law was publicized and when it became mandatory, compiling the answers from all the tickets into one and also sending an official, detailed by ticket, offer with which they could purchase service from us to do those configurations for them.
I also included a letter from our legal team that every customer had received about half a year ago, that we are not liable for any damages they incur by not testing the feature before the legal date.
About an hour later I got a formal answer from one of their main team that the configurations I sent have been implemented and every issue has been resolved, the feature works as intended, thanking me for bringing to their attention that they were behind on that topic, followed half a minute later by an informal mail informing me that I don’t need to worry, the next person to submit tickets on behalf of that one-person department should be much more professional.
And the moral of the story: Don’t try to threaten with authority you don’t have.”
1. Bully Boss Forces Deaf Employee To Answer Phones, Gets A Lesson In Compassion
“This happened 12-15 years ago, my ex-boss was a bully (I took the official route and he lost his job in the end for breaking pregnancy laws).
Around this time I kept getting really bad ear infections in my ears. I was told I can still work, important to note that I’m Deaf and wear 2 hearing aids, without them I hear nothing.
So he had me on a freezing snowy day stand outside running a stand about the environmental work that was due to be carried out, I had a bad ear and a cold already.
By the end of the day I couldn’t feel my feet (steel toe cap boots work made us wear) boss told me it was my fault for not drinking hot drinks (I only like cold drinks).
The next day was Saturday, and I spent the day in the warmth of my flat trying to get better, but my ear was killing me.
So I called our out-of-hours NHS and told me to go to the treatment Centre. Was seen and was told that I had a very nasty ear infection and gave me antibiotics. Woke up Sunday to my ear twice its normal side, burning, and half my face numb, I knew I was in a bad way.
Drove myself to A&E at 1 am, all they could do at the time was give me pain meds and make me comfortable until the ear specialist came in on Monday morning. Several hours go by and by then I can’t move my jaw, my ear is swollen shut.
My ear was so badly infected that I was admitted to the ward with a drip of antibiotics, a wick in my closed ear (I passed out when they did this) to put antibiotics in the ear, and a morphine pump.
Anyhow after 2 weeks I was back at work in front of my Boss and the HR lady as I had gone over my 10 sick days allowance.
Um I was in hospital for over a week, doesn’t matter and you should still come into work if you have a bad ear.
I said I do, but if both flare up I can’t come in. (I work outside with the public).
HR lady said that would be fine, we’ll give you office work, phone duties.
I said you want me to come in when I can’t wear my hearing aids and do phone duties.
Both she and the boss said yes.
Okay fine then. Signed the paperwork to say that we had this chat etc.
I was angry as I felt he had caused me to be in hospital and they don’t just keep you in for the sake of it.
Sure enough, the following month both ears flared up and I couldn’t wear both hearing aids, it was scary for me to leave my home not being able to hear but I had to follow their rules.
Got into the office, told boss my ears’ had gone bad again but I’m here.
(I was told later I had shouted) Boss said something (I decided not to lip-read, I wasn’t making it easy for him). I kept shouting “what you say?” A few times and then he wrote go to the desk over there and deal with any phone queries.
“Okay!”
So I sat there, staring at the phone waiting for it to ring. After a couple of hours, the phone hasn’t rung, Boss came over and started talking to me, red in the face.
I looked at him puzzled and said “what did you say?”
He looked so angry and wrote down ‘why aren’t you answering the phone?’
I looked back at him and said “well, I haven’t heard it rung yet!”
Swear he had steam coming out of his ears, I got sent back home as I was a ‘health and safety risk!’ Apparently, the phone had been ringing off the hook the whole time but of course I couldn’t hear it ringing.
Seriously asking a deaf person who can’t wear their hearing aids to do phone duties!!!
Thankfully only had one more hospital-induced ear infection since and strangely after having my tonsils removed after way too many tonsillitis, I haven’t had one ear infection.”
Another User Comments:
“Had a friend who was red-green colorblind. When interviewing at a grocery store, she was told she’d be in charge of stocking the bananas. It was important to put only the older, yellow bananas out for sale, but she couldn’t tell the difference between those and the bananas that were still green.
She explained that to the manager interviewing her and was told she’d have to do it anyway. So my friend gets hired, put in charge of stocking bananas, and inevitably brings out green bananas as much as yellow ones. Manager tells her she’s doing it wrong, and my friend again explains that she’s color blind and can’t tell the difference.
Apparently, they had that conversation about once a week the whole time she worked there. Never got switched off banana duty.” wanderthe5th
