People Tell Their Stupefying Revenge Stories
17. I Won Over $5000 After A Car Accident That I Caused
“I (22 M) work construction and run a few crews and I’m a foreman. I’ve been working in this field since I started working summers when I was 14 (that’s legal in my state). With this being said, I have a lot of experience and get paid really well.
For my job, I need a truck that can pull a lot of trailers and also get into a lot of sketchy job sites (especially in the winter) so I drive a new lifted pickup (f-350).
Anyways, let’s get into it. So about 4 months ago now I got off work one day and just really didn’t feel like making dinner, so I decided to go get myself the trusty Big Mac at McDonald’s.
Well after I got my order I was going to pull out into the parking lot to drive home and I was looking hard over to my left to see how busy the road was before I got over there. Well, I wasn’t paying great attention to what was happening in front of me and as I was creeping forward someone who was in front of me was stopped and not paying attention either.
I ended up barely hitting his mirror and scraping his door with my front end. I Immediately reversed and hopped out. I made sure the guy was okay and apologized, knowing it was my fault and I asked him if he wanted to call the cops.
Let’s call him Brent. Brent says, ‘Nah bro we are all good, if you just get me your insurance info I think we can get this taken care of.’ I was fine with that as there was no damage done to my truck and it’s not required to call the cops for an accident if it occurs in a private parking lot (this is relevant later).
We exchange info and he seems pretty cool so I tell him to go get the damage bid and I’ll just pay in cash so my insurance rates don’t go up as long as he’s okay with it. He says that’s fine and we both just leave and I feel like a moron, but all in all, Brent seems like a cool dude and I just hope we can get it sorted out smoothly.
About a month passes by and I haven’t heard anything from Brent or the shop I told him to go to. Honestly, I wasn’t too stressed about this because if he decided to not get it done that’s on him. Well, he calls me up one day at about noon saying he can’t remember my name and he wanted to tell the guys at the shop who sent him there cause it seemed like we knew each other.
I told him my name and the guys at the shop ‘gave him a deal’ (pretty sure they say this to everyone lol). He sends me the bid for damages and it comes out to $2,403! This was more than I imagined but I said to get it done and I’d take care of the bill afterward. That was that and he hung up, said it was cool and I went on with my day as usual.
ANOTHER month goes by and I don’t hear anything until Brent calls me up while I’m at work again and says, ‘hey brotha, I talked to the shop and they said they can’t get me in for another 2 weeks or so, and they may end up charging me more if they find more damage.’ I say, ‘okay sounds good just let me know man, I hope it goes smoothly for you and I’m sorry for the inconvenience.’ He seems to take it well and I’m really trying to just be a good person.
He responds with, ‘well after talking to my wife I’m okay if you just wanted to write a check for $2,500 and we can call it even.’ This seemed odd to me because why wouldn’t someone want their vehicle repairs all paid for? I say ‘okay man let’s set a time and place to meet and I’ll get you paid.’ He liked the idea and ended the call by telling me he would let me know.
Yet ANOTHER MONTH passes by and I hear nothing again, at this point I’m getting fed up and just want this situation to stop being over my head. He hits me up at 11 pm one night and asks if we can meet in town. I found this kind of disrespectful because I was nearly asleep and had to be at work at 5 am the next day, either way, I said that was fine and took my $2,500 and wrote up a quick contract saying this payment would be accepted as payment in full for the damages and by accepting it, it would release me from ANY AND ALL LIABILITY.
This was a pretty fair contract I believe as it was the deal we had already made over the phone, just in writing. I get to the place we suggested as a meet-up spot, I give him the cash and he signs the contract without hardly even reading it and he didn’t want the copy. This was a red flag to me but I just assumed he really didn’t care about it all that much, so I just send him the photo of the contract and go back home for some beauty sleep.
As you can guess by now, ANOTHER MONTH goes by with me just living life carefree and not a worry in the world about this stupid car accident. Well, I go to check my mail and I have a notice from this guy’s lawyer that he is suing me for not paying after wrecking his car! This annoyed me but I also knew I had plenty of text messages and a CONTRACT on my side.
I immediately call Brent and he blocks my number. Luckily enough my significant other works for a lawyer so I get him updated and he says he’d love to help. He lets me know I saved my butt by writing that contract as any contract worth over $500 is to be held up in any level court in my state.
I immediately get to work on my revenge.
I remember on the side of this guy’s car he had a business logo and I took pictures of the damage, so I hop online and get to the BBB to look up who owns this company, thinking that surely he couldn’t own the business because he is such an idiot. I was wrong. This guy owns the company and I can see that he has about 12 1 star reviews all in dispute because of his shady business practices telling people it will cost one thing and then charging them FOUR TIMES what he said it would.
Sound familiar? Remember when he said the shop may charge more than the original $2,403? That’s right he was suing me for $10,000. FOUR TIMES what the shop told him it would cost. Unbelievably, he was trying the same sneaky nonsense on me. My lawyer takes note of this and we show up to court ready for war.
This guy is sleazy. As we get there and all set up he says, ‘you ready to give me more of daddy’s money?’ with a smirk.
(I guess just cause I’m young and drive a nice truck and could afford $2,500 lol). His lawyer gets up and starts trying to say nonsense from me hitting and running and Brent barely got a picture of my license plate, I tried bullying him into taking a deal for only $2,500 when the damage was clearly more than that. There were obvious holes in his story and he really didn’t have much to say.
Just imagine the smile on my face as my lawyer lays out the printouts of our text messages and the PHYSICAL COPY OF THE CONTRACT which was signed by Brent. His lawyer was ghostly white and looked sick.
After laying out all of the evidence my lawyer pulled out a little hidden gem, the printouts of all the complaints we found on the BBB, and how he was doing the same thing to me.
That was the final nail in the coffin as the judge said he had seen enough. He asked Brent for any final statements and Brent said, ‘I don’t even have the $2,500 anymore, can I just get that then and we will be okay?’ Literally admitting to the judge that he had received my funds and his story was just a load of horse poop.
I thought his lawyer was gonna strangle him! It was beautiful. The judge ended up ruling in my favor and demanded him to pay my legal fees as well as damages and lost wages because I had to miss work to be in court. The absolute sweetest part was that this particular day my crew was on a VERY high-wage job and I was technically the one getting paid before I paid them out as subcontractors.
This means I was to be paid $475/hour and this whole ordeal took about 5 hours. He ended up having to pay ME almost $5,000. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy in my life.”
16. Kick Out My Sister-In-Law? I'll Make You Sell The House
“My sister-in-law came out as a trans woman when she was 18. My wonderful in-laws kicked her out of the house then and there. They told her to leave the house and threw her out at 8 PM with no money or even any documents and her father took the car keys from her too.
She had to walk 8 miles to get to our place. She was crying and we took her in.
This is horrible behavior but my husband and I would have just cut them off if it was all they did but they doubled down. They refused to hand over any of the documents and my Brother in Law had to go over and barge into their house to get them.
They also cleaned up all the funds in a joint account. She had saved up 8K working part-time all through high school. They took the funds and also sold her car which was in their name. They were trying to ruin her life as much as they could.
My father-in-law is a small-time businessman and his biggest account was supplying my employer. I had helped him get the contract and it was very lucrative for him.
My employer was a family business and they treated long-term employees more like family than as employees.
I was talking to my boss about what happened. He told me that if I could find someone within 5% range of the price my father-in-law offered, they would make the switch. My father-in-law offered us really great rates. He was very good at his job but he had messed up the contract because even though we always bought from him, we weren’t obligated to buy from him.
We could switch suppliers anytime but he got complacent and assumed we wouldn’t switch suppliers.
It took me six months of painful searching to find a supplier who could replace him and get us great rates. This was not a major part of my duties and I had to put in way more hours than normal to find the supplier but when I did find them, I waited for a month before informing my boss.
See, my in-laws had been planning to do major renovation for a long time and it involved tearing down a major portion of their house. I waited until the renovation work had truly started before informing my boss.
We started to get supplies from the new supplier the next month itself. It crushed his business. It messed up his unit economics and he had to scramble to find new customers.
They ended up having to sell their house to save the business and they didn’t get a good rate for it because the house was well half torn down when they sold it. My in-laws did try to get money from my brother in law but he told them to get lost.
My father-in-law is a decent businessman and he did crawl his way out of the hole they dug for themselves but even 8 years later they still haven’t bought a new house.
I have heard they are still sour about what happened. I mean, I was just doing my job and if they had just kicked her out, they would still have the house.”
15. I Fought My Roommate's Noise With My Own Noise
“For a time in the 1980s, I was forced to live in a roommate situation while the apartment I was waiting for was completed. I used a professional service and they set me up with a woman about my own age.
Naturally, there was the thought that there might be some extra-curricular activity and we were heading down that track with some degree of certainty. In the mornings while I was drinking my tea on the couch she would come in wearing a flannel nighty and the zipper would mysteriously drop inch by inch as she bent over in front of me to do something, but I was never sure what.
Her intent was clear.
But it turned out that she was something of a passive-aggressive woman. Although we paid the same amount of bills and rent she assumed she was the leader and made chore lists and had refrigerator authority, meaning she could eat whatever I put in there but I had to beg her for anything she put in there including common items like milk and butter.
This soured any possibility of any kind of hooking up. She was a martinet and no amount of cleaning or chores that I did measured up to her standards, not that she was a paragon.
But the killer was one night when she went out with her friends to go clubbing. I had told her that I needed to get up early because I was driving to Canada for a revolutionary war battle re-enactment and that I needed my sleep.
But she came in at 2 AM with her high heels and pounded back and forth on the floor for over an hour listening to dance music on the stereo, clearly very wasted. I couldn’t get any sleep. And she wouldn’t take off her high heels so it was clop clop clop all night. It was miserable.
Finally, around 3 AM she went to bed. I had to get up at six.
I had already packed all my gear, my musket, my canteen, and camping equipment but when I got up at six I made certain to unpack everything, dropping all the metal items noisily on the floor then repacking them. I knew she had a raging hangover — she always did. I made lots and lots of packing noise and anyone who knows anything about a marching army knows how much noise their equipment makes on the march.
I must have ‘accidentally’ dropped my clanking metal bayonet at least three times. As I walked out the door she yelled, ‘Jerk!’ from her bedroom to which I yelled back, ‘Witch!’ and went off to fight the British. God, that was a miserable apartment.”
14. Abusive Neighbor Got Busted
“We lived in a semi-detached house next to a neighbor from the underworld for many, many years. We couldn’t afford to move anywhere else.
We shared a wall with her, and she would pound on it day and night and scream the most foul-mouthed mistreatment at us for no reason. She did have mental health issues, but they didn’t stop her from doing things she enjoyed, including shopping and socializing. Other people in the neighborhood often called the police out to her because she was so abusive and threatening, but we never did for fear of making matters worse.
She had a violent adult son who lived with her, and neither of them was ever employed. They lived on benefits, and never bothered to look for work. The son eventually moved his partner in.
We found out (from the neighbor herself) that between the three of them they were claiming for all kinds of benefits they were not entitled to and were not declaring what they had stashed away.
They had both tried to get themselves declared unfit for work on medical grounds, but had never succeeded, despite repeated attempts. The son apparently claimed on his forms that he was confined to a wheelchair, even though he went to the gym and lifted weights every day.
In the end, I anonymously reported them to the Department of Work and Pensions.
About six weeks later, they were called into the local Job Centre to be interviewed. It took a while, but eventually, they all went to court and were all found guilty of benefit fraud.
If they ever suspected it was me who reported them, there was never any sign of it. Eventually, we inherited some funds from a deceased relative and moved house. Happiest day of my life.”
13. Target Me Because Of My Family Priorities? You'll Lose Your Job
“I have worked at a certain home improvement store for close to a decade now, about eight years roughly. The first seven were in NC before I moved up further north to be with my best friend and her husband, who I learned was pregnant with my first godchild.
As such, I transferred up to a store in the area, and put my nose to the grindstone. I worked Garden before and did that for some months before I started to be moved from department to department, as this store was low on staff. However, this was not full-time. My old HR had dropped the ball, and this store believed I wanted part-time. Having already moved, I grabbed a part-time overnight job at a gym to make ends meet and continued to work, all the while asking repeatedly for full time at the main job, and never getting a definitive word back or change.
Several months into this, my god-daughter was born. As I lived with my friends during this time, I spent quite a lot of time helping to raise her, and we became close. I would take time off (that I was allotted) to help look after her, and there was a little problem.
Half a year into this change, I had made a good name for myself.
I did not have a good deal of friends per se, but I was respected for my work ethic, and willingness to help out anyone, in any department, that asked me. Enter a new assistant manager. The ASM was abrasive to staff and used to getting her way. The first I heard of her was when she outright fired a girl working the front desk because of a Playboy tag on a jacket.
I and several other employees organized a walkout in protest of this and succeeded in getting the store manager to reverse the decision made by the ASM. This was not our first walkout, having done this in the past when another ASM (the current’s predecessor) made inappropriate comments about a cashier.
Soon after this, I was given full time by the Ops manager, working in Receiving for a… cantankerous supervisor.
We often did not get along, especially as my godchild got older, and I took on babysitting duties while her parents worked and slept. It was not something I minded, as I adored the child. I often talked about her with my coworkers and loved to show pictures and stories. However, this was not something shared by my higher-ups. My supervisor was upset that I could not work overtime to help him (as we were the only two in Receiving for the store) because of either my second job or babysitting.
And soon after the second walkout, I was made aware of a rumor circulating the store – that the child was in fact my own daughter, that I had fathered outside of my friend’s husband’s knowledge. The source of the rumor was unknown, but my ASM had made disparaging remarks to me in the past about men taking care of children, so I had my theories.
My holiday plans, asked off in advance as soon as our electronic system allowed, were canceled without explanation, both Thanksgiving and Christmas. I had never missed a major holiday since I moved north, and I had asked for the same days off the year prior and had gotten them off before the ASM arrived (Strike 1). And soon after this, my supervisor, whom I work closely with got ill, forcing me (per company rules) to self-isolate.
During this week, I was harassed repeatedly by text and phone calls by both management, and my supervisor to get back to work ASAP. All the while, I had to inform everyone I was in contact with, including my friends, family, and roommates, that I had been exposed, risking their own holiday trips and plans (Strike 2.)
A week after this, the northeast gets slammed by a snow and ice storm.
I drive a four-wheeled vehicle, and so made it in, but near the end of my shift, I was made aware that my friend’s husband had been injured and stranded in a car accident on the ice, and so left to get them home, and their car to a service station. To add to it all, they have lost power in their home, with an infant, leaving me as the only person they could turn to with a vehicle and power.
I will admit, I had a few sick hours left but informed work that I would be out on a family emergency. For that week, I called out each day with an ‘ongoing family emergency,’ with snow and ice still coating the streets, and power still down throughout our city. And every day, I was hounded by calls from management, demanding I return to work regardless.
This would have not only risked my own safety but would have stranded my family at my apartment, with no way to get supplies or get home once the power returned. (Strike 3.)
I was done. Early in the morning that following Sunday, I walked into work and placed my resignation letter on HR’s desk (That is important latter.) I had tendered it to be immediate, as I live in an at-will state.
Was it petty? Yes, I will freely admit that. I had given eight years of my life to this company and asked very little in return. As I was leaving, I crossed paths with my supervisor, who asked angrily if I was ‘finally’ coming back to work. I informed him of my decision to leave, ignoring his provocations, and left to go home and sleep.
Several hours later, I received the gift that would ignite my semi-accidental revenge. A single text from my ASM – ‘We will see how long you can take care of your lovechild without us.’
…well, well. Seems I found my probable source. My friends had been made aware of this rumor from the start; I did not hide anything from them and did not want any kind of rumor, however unlikely, to reach them from anyone but me.
They are my closest friends and compatriots and have given me the greatest gift in the form of my godchild, whom they insist I call my niece, as I am family. Lovechild feels like a slur against her, and I am not cool with that, and neither are they. However. They informed me of the monumental s******p my (now former) ASM had made. It was time for corporate HR to be made aware, and so I began to compile my evidence – the texts from my supervisor, the call records and messages left, and this holy grail of a text message.
If I was going to leave, I was at the very least going to give some blowback on the team that had been so willing to target me.
What happened after is second-hand from friends I had still at the store, and so I cannot entirely verify all of it, but the ASM? Played herself. The following day, a meeting of management and supervisors was convened, where the ASM made it known that I had been fired (not self-terminated) for ‘job abandonment and immorality.’ And unless I am grossly misinformed about the nature of American retail work, immorality is not a firable event.
To my supervisor’s credit, he defended me to the ASM – and was fired on the spot. The store’s HR rep, having earlier gotten my printed termination letter on his desk, made it known that I had indeed not been fired, but left on my own. And the ASM attempted to fire him as well, in front of the staff. And from there, it spiraled. According to my source, entire departments began to walk out or outright quit, having had their own problems with the ASM.
Appliances – quit to a man.
Garden – left with their manager to work at a competitor’s, as he had been working on this well before my saga began.
Front Desk – walked out in protest, as it came out that the ASM had threatened and blackmailed several Muslim part-timers to not wear their headscarves if they wanted hours.
Lumber, Receiving’s main partner – quit.
Pro Desk – joined the front desk protest, as one of their number, a Sikh man, had also been threatened.
Cashiers – both head cashiers quit, and the other trained cashiers walked out with the desks.
Ops manager – had informed the District Manager, and quit outright before he arrived, walking out with the HR rep and my old supervisor.
My source’s last report of the ASM was seeing her sprinting to her car, after having heard that the district staff was inbound, and the store manager was forced to shut the store down for the next two days, last I’ve heard.
I’ve been in contact with the other injured parties, and we’re compiling all the evidence we’ve collected, as several of the families are hiring lawyers. I suspect the company will attempt to keep this quiet; I just never suspected that anything like this would happen.
I have a full-time position at the gym upcoming, and I’ve been enjoying the extra sleep and time I get with my family.
I’m never working 56-64 hour weeks ever again. And I will never darken the doorstep of that store again- I hope my ASM enjoyed the temporary rush of power. I suspect she won’t get it ever again, at least not in manager positions.”
12. Vegan Roomie Can't Complain About My Cooking
“For almost a year I had to live with a vegan. Not just a regular vegan, but a born-again Vegan with a capital V who converted in her 30s, I’m sure as an attention-getting ploy.
She made sure everyone knew she was a vegan and had watched animal cruelty videos. Anyone who still consumed any kind of meat or dairy product was a lesser human being than her. She loved going to restaurants and berating the staff for the lack of vegan options and demanding they create dishes for her.
So… I would get up early at least once a week and make cinnamon buns, scones, buttermilk biscuits, French toast, bacon cheddar muffins, etc. I’d fill the kitchen and the whole house with the smell of delicious buttery goodness.
Then I’d clean up everything and take the baked goods with me to work or give them away to friends. The only thing lingering was the smell of fresh-baked goodness. You know when you go to a mall and can smell the cinnamon roll store? It was like that, and she couldn’t say anything because there was no trace of evil dairy around the kitchen, just the delicious after odor that lingered for hours.”
11. Mess With My Wife? I'll Take Your Rank
“Back in 2013, I was transferred from Sunny San Diego to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. I had been in the Marines for over 4 years and had been sent to a unit that would finally give me the chance to deploy to Afghanistan. In case you don’t know before your unit deploys overseas, you have a mountain of classes and training to get done which starts around 6 months or so prior to the date.
I had become close friends with Joe, who was my senior-most Corporal (I was the only Sergeant in my platoon), and we hung out all the time outside of work, we would BBQ, go to the gym, have parties with the families, etc. Well, that fateful time comes and we get sent to the land of never-ending sand.
About 4 months in, I start to get a funny feeling that something was not right due to the lack of being able to talk to my wife on the phone or on messenger.
I do have a special skill that I honed from sneaking past my Vietnam veteran father who was very set in that bedtime meant bedtime, and not raid the fridge for snacks time; I am very quiet and you won’t hear me coming unless I want you to.
One day, I came into our PEB (just a big container that housed around 8 people in it), and saw my wife’s face on the video chat of my best friend Joe, who didn’t hear me until I shut the door.
I played it off like nothing and the rest of the deployment had moments just like this, where I would see or hear them talking and just take notes for my revenge. Before things really got to me mentally, our time in the sandbox was coming to an end and we flew home. The homecoming was uneventful other than my 2-year-old not realizing who I was for a few minutes, then it was happiness all around.
Just like before deploying, we have a mountain of classes after we get back to scan for TBI (Traumatic Brain Injuries), mental health awareness, certifications, etc., and nobody was exempt from completing the various death by PowerPoint classes that were scheduled for that week.
Out of nowhere, Joe had random appointments almost every day, or something would come up where he would have to leave while everyone else was stuck all day long at a class or medical getting screened for everything under the sun.
Do you ever have the feeling that your gut is telling you, 100%, that something is going on, but your brain is like, no, stop being paranoid? Well, that’s what I was dealing with on a daily basis. I began to follow Joe a few days a week when he would leave work early or have to make a call, and sure enough, his car would be right outside my house every single time.
When I finally confronted Joe, he denied it up and down like I was going crazy, and genuinely made me feel like I was offending him by the accusations. I quietly compiled the evidence and brought it all to the Battalion Sergeant Major, who if you don’t know, is the top of the food chain under the Battalion Commander.
After a week or so I get called into the Battalion Commanders’ office to discuss his findings and to ask me what I want to happen; my answer is simple, I WANT HIS RANK!
Justice came swift and painful, Joe was awarded loss of rank, forfeiture of 1/2 months pay for two months, restriction, and extra duties. Shortly after we came back to the states, Joe was promoted to Sergeant, and in less than a month, his rank was gone. I heard from mutual friends that he left his wife to be with his new girl who is also pregnant with his third son.
Oh and in case you’re wondering, I was trying to stay with my wife for my son, but I found that that was a huge mistake.
A few months after the dust settled, I was transferred back to San Diego to go on a cruise, and my wife and I were giving this our last shot. I went underway for two weeks and guess where she flies to; his house, to have their last bit of time together!
After I found all of this out, I just lost any interest in being nice and making it work, I deployed on the ship and actually met my new wife there, we’ve been together ever since, and I have been much happier than when I was being mentally tortured by my ex. The moral of the story is, don’t screw your best friend’s wife!”
10. Neighbor's Bad Attitude Paid Off After 10 Years
“12 years ago new neighbors moved in. They were young and arrogant with an air of superiority. We were middle-aged, kind, helpful, respectful towards all people.
They started slowly but surely adopting this really bad attitude against us.
Unfortunately, we share a drive between our semi-detached houses. When they wanted something from us it was banging on the door to move the car, which as it happened was not even in their way. Fix the fence immediately when their grass was up to the knees and no one was even using the garden. They would knock and complain about our friends parking on the drive even though they could get a bus out of their side if they wanted to.
There were letters through our door, and threats of solicitors, etc. – all to no avail as we knew our rights and did nothing wrong.
When we wanted something from them. i.e. their drainpipe was leaking for a month on my side of the drive outside my kitchen. Drains blocked with dirty sewage running across the path for 2-3 weeks before they were deemed to get a plumber in.
Polite requests went unheeded. They just ignored us. You get the picture – one rule for them and another for us.
One day about 10 years ago, I was extremely angry at their attitude for no reason but to be awkward and I said to my husband I am going over. I was at the time in a temper but I did calm myself down because I knew in temper you get nowhere in life.
The husband came to the door, and I saw the wife on the hall stairway in the background – we do not even make eye contact now. And that does not happen to me because I have never had occasion for it to happen.
I said to him. ‘Look I am just going to say this once and once only. I do not know why you have come with such an attitude when we are really nice neighbors and cannot understand what you have against us.
But let me tell you something – one day in the future this will go against you big time. There will come a time when you want something from us. You will go on holiday and your house will be vulnerable to burglars and such. Neighbors should join together in their best interests. You will want a parcel taken in when you are out. You will want something to do with our joint ownership of the drive.
Mark my words, something will come up and you will be sorry.’
Fast forward a few months ago, the neighbor started saying good morning and being a bit civil. I said to my husband, I am suspicious – they want something from us. Two weeks later he came to my door – asked how my family was. Smiled. And here I stood waiting for the punch line.
It came.
Turned out they wanted to build an extension and swap the rights of the shared drive so we each owned our own half. This meant if either of us wanted to build a slightly larger extension taking in the half driveway we could. He tried to persuade us that it was beneficial to both properties, and he would be paying for all the legal fees, etc. My husband wanted to think about it but I immediately said no. I said:
‘You know it may as well be of benefit to us, and in different circumstances, we would consider it, but I do not know if you remember the conversation I had with you about 10 years ago when I said one day because of your obtuse attitude for absolutely no good reason on earth you will be sorry. And now I am pleased to inform you that day has come!’
With that, I closed the door. Turned about-face. Nodded slightly and thought – justice has at last been served.”
9. Block My Promotion? I'll Tell Big Boss Your Secrets
“I (OP, then 35M) was working in a major wholesale company in Belgium. I was second in command at a large branch of this company. The branch manager (then 40M) was a complete jerk, let’s call him STALIN from now on. He also responds well to ANTICHRIST or SATAN, but let’s keep it at STALIN.
Other characters in this story are my SIGNIFICANT OTHER (then 27F), STALIN’s wife CINDERELLA (then 30+F), the big boss of the entire company BIG BOSS (then 60+M), and one of the heads of a department at our branch (then 28F). Let’s call her NAIVE GIRL.
I was working for this company for quite a while at this point in time. I always got along with my direct superiors and was now second in command, well on my way to becoming branch manager myself one day.
But then – out of the blue – my old manager got promoted to headquarters and was replaced by a new manager: introducing… STALIN. The guy was a few years older than me and introduced himself to the team as someone who gets things done and that we would grow into the most successful branch of the company under his wings. He also didn’t like the word ‘Can’t.’ He was ‘a winner’ and ‘only surrounds himself with other winners’.
Roll eyes. Everyone immediately knew we had a character on our hands.
From week one it was clear to everyone that STALIN didn’t know the first thing about the company and what we were selling, and he did not know anything about leading a team and working with people. He always knew everything better than others and had the annoying tendency to let other people do most of HIS work.
So yeah… as second in command I suddenly had a lot on my plate. I’m not gonna bore you guys with the details but my full-time job just became two full-time jobs because I had to do most of STALIN’s work too. As in ‘here you go!’ and never expect a ‘thank you’ or ‘good job’.
So STALIN was a terrible boss. Surely things couldn’t get any worse than this?
Now, could they? Spoiler alert, but yes, yes they could. One day I was working and I got a telephone call. The person on the other side of the line introduced himself as ‘an important manager of our biggest competitor’. For such an important manager his French was really bad, so I already figured something was fishy. And why would a competitor call me and introduce himself as being ‘an important person’.
Turns out this ‘manager’ was offering me a job at their company if I was willing to share any company secrets of my current employer and maybe try and steal some customers away to the competitor’s company. I didn’t buy into this absurd conversation, but I remained friendly and respectfully declined his ‘offer’.
One hour later I get called into STALIN’s office. He then confronted me with the phone call and told me he was ‘testing’ me to see if I was loyal to the company and him.
He ended this baffling conversation with the words ‘and I will continue to test you from time to time in the future’. WHAT??? The guy ‘prank called’ me himself, to test my loyalty?? While I was drowning in work because I had to do most of his work as well. And jerk over here was spending his newly acquired free time by doing stuff like this?
Who does this? This is the stuff you see in bad comedies, not in real life.
Things got even worse in the weeks to come. STALIN began to do less and less of his work. There were times when I came into his office to ask for some help, only to find him reading the newspaper or even playing online poker. He didn’t even try to hide it.
After all, why should he? He was so superior, remember? When we didn’t hit our mark and the results were not as good as anticipated he would round everybody up and yell at us. He was ‘expecting results from now on’ and he wouldn’t hesitate to ‘fire people if they didn’t have what it took’, all the while without doing anything himself. To make things worse he fired some people who were easily fired (new workers without a long-term contract) to ‘set an example’ and he didn’t replace them to lower the costs.
So, now everybody was working 40+ hours on a 35-hour contract, just to keep the branch up and running. Well, almost everybody… NAIVEGIRL, the head of a small, yet important department, stopped working at noon every single Friday. And STALIN himself sure didn’t do 40+ hours. Nah-ah.
Every Tuesday he was gone by 2 pm (his weekly Thai massage and relaxing spa), every Thursday he’d come in later and later.
Turns out Wednesday evening was soccer training (he was the coach of a team in the lowest amateur division), so after training, he was busy drinking beer like there was no tomorrow! On top of this: every Friday afternoon he was gone as well. He told us that he always went to headquarters in Brussels then. Meetings with the board and the BIGBOSS. I recognize nonsense when I see it.
My former managers never had to do this. Also very mysterious, but he’s gone every Friday, just like NAIVE GIRL. You already know where I’m heading with this, but that’s for later. Some juicy stuff coming up.
STALIN also got a lot of pleasure from calling certain people into his office and yelling at them in person, threatening them with their job if they didn’t start working harder and more.
He especially seemed to target the youngest and newest employees and if possible the females. I don’t recall him ever treating more mature male coworkers like this. But we – as a team – made things work and we hit our target a few months in a row. It helped that a local competitor went out of business of course, but still: we did very well compared to the other branches in Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
So at the new year’s reception (a company tradition, all the major branch managers and second managers are there), STALIN got called on stage, where the BIG BOSS, the head of the entire company handed him over an award: manager of the year. Instead of thanking his employees, this sack of turds started thanking the BIG BOSS for the faith he had given him, thanked his pregnant wife, and then he started complimenting himself.
He was a good manager, with a nose for good business and he knows how to get the best out of people, blah blah blah. I nearly vomited. It was disgusting to watch. And then the applause he received… this was his moment and he wanted everybody to know. The next day the trophy he received (a cheap piece of metal) was on an especially designed piece of furniture in the middle of his office.
Honestly, STALIN reminded me a bit of Steve Carell of The Office at this point. But the evil version with an even bigger ego.
A few weeks later, I was working late (again) and by sheer luck, I glanced over at the security camera and I was in shock! I witnessed STALIN kissing one of our heads of a department (more or less a third person in command) on the parking lot.
NAIVE GIRL and STALIN?? She was a bit of an odd girl. A pretty girl, but I always had the feeling she didn’t really have all of her marbles in place. She actually went to the same high school and university as my SIGNIFICANT OTHER, so the two know each other without being friends. Small world (this will be important later). So NAIVE GIRL was going out with STALIN?
I thought she was smarter than this. And wait a minute?? Didn’t STALIN thank his wife during that terrible speech at new year?? His pregnant wife?! Oh what a jerk! He’s lying to his pregnant wife. Just when I thought this guy couldn’t get any worse?
Because I knew he was the worst of the worst. To show off his power to anyone (and especially me who he couldn’t control or threaten in a face-to-face conversation) he had this annoying habit of controlling everyone’s vacation days like a Roman emperor who’s controlling the faith of the fallen gladiators.
In his first year as a manager, I requested a vacation in October (somewhere in April) and he denied me that week, only to grant me the leave of absence two weeks before I was supposed to go on holiday. I was planning on going to Greece with my significant other and her family, but because I didn’t get my holiday approved in time my SIGNIFICANT OTHER’S family decided to postpone and go another time.
My SIGNIFICANT OTHER and her father didn’t apply for a vacation because of this. STALIN didn’t just screw me over, he screwed my in-laws and SIGNIFICANT OTHER over as well. He refused to give me that holiday, only to grant it to me afterward to show me he’s the boss. And it cost me my trip to Athens. He truly was a major jerk. The guy’s ego had gotten so large it deserved its own national flag by this point!
I swear to God if it got any bigger astronauts would easily spot it from space, just like the Chinese Wall. I… hated… that… jerk!
The next year came and because I witnessed him doing this to other employees (and myself) I figured I needed a plan. I proceeded in requesting to have my holiday approved and surprise surprise… STALIN denied me my vacation again.
He claimed he needed me at work that month because of an inventory (which is done by other people, not myself). But this time I had a plan. He needed me because I did my job and on top of that, I did most of HIS job as well. Everything he didn’t like about his job (basically everything with numbers, accountancy, paperwork, etc): I had to do it.
He couldn’t afford to lose me. So I decided to try one of his own tricks on him. I called in and pretended I was the manager of another company, I told STALIN that I had received the resume of OP and was informed to know what kind of employee he is. I can do different accents and voices, so this was a piece of cake for me.
The plan was for STALIN to know that I was looking for another job and that he could lose me, forcing him to do HIS job HIMSELF. Scary thing, so the plan was for him to give me my days off, just to please me.
STALIN believed I was another manager because he put on his ‘important person’ voice and started to trash talk me as an employee.
I was unreliable, always late for work, sloppy, forgot things that were important, etc. You get the picture. It wasn’t pretty. In order to prevent me from getting another job, captain jerk over here decided to talk bad about me to potential new employers. What a jerk! What a horrible waste of oxygen this guy was!
But at least it gave him a scare because the next day my request for a holiday got magically approved. He never confronted me with me applying for jobs elsewhere though.
Mission accomplished: I got to plan that trip to Greece with my significant other and her family (they are Greek Belgians). I was finally going!
Fun fact but no, I wasn’t going. After I booked and paid for everything he came back on his word. One month before I was supposed to go on holiday he called me into his office and told me he had to go to an important business meeting in Prague (Czech Republic) and because one of us two had to be at work he had no choice but to cancel my holiday.
I was speechless for a moment but started thinking really quickly, so I demanded that he put this on paper because ‘my SIGNIFICANT OTHER would not be amused’. He laughed, agreed, and sent me an email confirming my holiday got canceled because he had to go to Prague. Little did he know I was building a case against him and I needed this on paper.
The moron actually believed it was just to show my SIGNIFICANT OTHER I had no choice but to cancel our plans.
Now, if this were true, then yeah, I would understand. But I knew he was lying. I just knew it, but I couldn’t prove a thing. I had enough though. I really had enough. Working for this man was impossible and he was standing in my way.
I had heard through the g*******e that he had blocked my internal promotions. See, I know a lot of people at headquarters and someone had told me how he branded me as ‘incompetent’ for seeking a better paid, higher-up job within the company. He wanted me where I was at that moment: as a second in command who would do all of his work.
This meant he was blocking my promotions AND was preventing me from getting a nice job elsewhere. I heard firsthand how he down-talked my abilities. Sure, I have flaws like everybody else, but I’m not the s******p he painted me to be to potential employers.
I wanted, no, I NEEDED to find a new job, but mister STALIN over here was blocking every good opportunity.
As long as he was in charge of the branch I was basically his serf. Bound to the company and bound to him as my lord. I needed a way out but didn’t know how to do it…
But then Lady Luck walked into the room…
The week I was supposed to go to Greece, STALIN went on his business trip. Or so he told me.
My SIGNIFICANT OTHER went to Athens with her family and saw something on social media. She called me and told me to open my WhatsApp. SIGNIFICANT OTHER had sent me some screenshots from her social media. Turns out NAIVE GIRL was posting pictures of her with STALIN… in Switzerland. He went skiing with her!! There was no business trip!! That absolute disgrace of a human being had canceled my holiday for the second year in a row, so he could fool his wife with a younger woman.
Oh, how I hated this dude. He did not expect my SIGNIFICANT OTHER and me to see these pictures though. Little did he know that SIGNIFICANT OTHER and NAIVE GIRL knew each other and were ‘social media friends’. No contact in real life whatsoever, so STALIN really had no idea.
It gave me the fuel I needed. I had proof he was fooling his wife.
Not just that… you see… Now here’s where things got REALLY INTERESTING. Only two weeks before this I was networking at a company after drinks and I started talking to the manager of another branch (a direct equal to STALIN). I already had a few drinks, so I was a bit loose and therefore did little to hide the fact that I disliked STALIN and what do you know..
that other manager didn’t like STALIN either. Turned out STALIN only got his job because his wife is the daughter of the owner (BIG BOSS). This explained everything! The guy was so unqualified for the job. He only got the job because daddy-in-law threw him a bone. So not only was he fooling his wife. He.. was… lying… to the big boss’s pregnant daughter! Oh, snap!
Can I get a hallelujah?? The universe was smiling upon me at last!
And now I had proof! Pictures of him kissing another woman. Time to set things in motion…
So my significant other was in Athens without me and STALIN was in Switzerland getting it on. I was stuck at work and things were difficult because we were understaffed. I decided to send an email to all branch managers (plus the big boss who never responds) asking for extra help and that I couldn’t ask my manager because he is on a business trip and asked not to be disturbed.
I knew he told the big boss he was on a holiday because he had to hand in a request to get that holiday. So him being on a business trip made no sense and I knew that. I wanted BIGBOSS to know that STALIN told us a lie. I didn’t have a direct line to the BIG BOSS. Heck, I only talked to the guy 2-3 times during my time at the company.
So I needed to draw his attention in a sneaky way. This email caught his attention all right…
The big boss immediately replied to me, telling me STALIN is on a holiday and that he will inform him that the request for backup was granted. I made subtle contact with the BIG BOSS. Now I had an email conversation going.
me: no he told us he’s on a business trip, that’s why he canceled my holiday.
BIG BOSS: he’s visiting an old school friend in Switzerland. I will get you some extra workforce myself.
me: Here’s the email in which he canceled my holiday (I forward BIG BOSS the e-mail STALIN sent me at my request). He clearly wrote he had to go on a business trip.
BIG BOSS: I will talk to him about this. That’s odd. Maybe he wasn’t paying attention.
I will call him this afternoon and sort this out. Thank you and keep up the good work.
The day after STALIN calls me from Switzerland. BIG BOSS did call him and this took STALIN by surprise. And STALIN doesn’t like surprises. Little did he know this was just the beginning… I was prepared and decided to record the phone call.
He went berserk on the phone, a little paraphrasing: You are nothing.
I can squash you like a fly. If I decide to take your holiday, there’s nothing you can do about it. You gonna sit there like a little girl and take it all like the witch that you are (yes, he was very female-friendly). The BIG BOSS doesn’t need to know I told you I was on a business trip. I don’t owe anyone an explanation.
You leave that senile old fart out of this, you hear me?
At that moment a light shined down on me from the heavens. I got him! It was just one sentence but it was pure gold. Senile old fart… I bet rich daddy-in-law will have a field day with this one.
I wanted more proof. I was like Sherlock or Colombo at this point.
If he was having an affair, maybe those pictures wouldn’t do. He could claim those were old pictures or something. I dunno. Didn’t wanna take the chance he’d talk his way out of it. So I needed more proof. Where was he going every Friday afternoon? Surely he was meeting NAIVE GIRL somewhere. I needed to know where. Then a lightbulb started glowing above my head.
His emails! He once gave me his password to the company email address, so I could access his work emails. Because this way I could do more of his work, you know? His password was the name of his favorite Belgian soccer team (Anderlecht). It’s actually the biggest rival of my team!!! You can’t make this stuff up. The guy was my antagonist in everything he touched. Would this password work on his personal email address as well?
Surely he can’t be that big of an idiot?
But he was of course. Mister idiot had the exact same password for everything. I found out he was on a mingling site! I found out he was emailing with a chick from the Philippines (he must have met her there) and I found ALL the emails he sent with NAIVE GIRL. Apparently, it started way in the beginning, so they’d been seeing each other even before he got his CINDERELLA pregnant.
Gotcha!!!!
As the Mission Impossible tune started playing I began to unfold my plan.
STALIN was now back from his little trip and acted as nothing happened. I could still access his email, so I checked every few days or so. On Wednesday I struck gold again. He received an email confirmation of a visit to the spa wellness for two people at 3 pm and a confirmation of a visit to a certain restaurant at 6 pm, also for two people.
Both were for Friday. Hm. I wonder who he was going with? Checkmate, idiot! Gotcha again. The timing was right for the next and final phase of my execution plan.
I had printed out the pictures from NAIVE GIRL’s social media. STALIN kissing NAIVE GIRL, them skiing, them having drinks together, and STALIN in front of the Swiss Flag in front of a cabin. Classic stuff.
He was such a grateful model! I had put these pictures in an envelope and put a little note in it. It said something along the lines of:
‘Hey, we don’t know each other but I felt you needed to see this and know that your husband is having an affair. He did not go to Switzerland to visit some old school friends. No, he went there with this chick.
Her name is NAIVE GIRL. This is her address, this is her email and this is her social media and phone number. She isn’t a bad person. I don’t even know if she knows he is married and has a kid. He told his boss he was in Switzerland to visit an old friend and told his co-workers he was on a business trip in Prague.
Both are lies. He is having an affair with a girl from his work.
I have hacked your husband’s e-mail and found some interesting stuff. You can read it for yourself, his password is ‘Anderlecht’. Please, take your time in reading these emails and check the last mails he received. They’re meeting up at (name of the restaurant) at 6 pm today, before this they are going to the spa resort at 3 pm.
I am sorry to throw this in your face. I know it’s a lot, but you deserve better than this idiot. Signed, anonymous.’
I had some reservations as to including this poor girl (CINDERELLA) in my revenge. I was about to destroy her world too and she didn’t deserve this. But my SIGNIFICANT OTHER convinced me. She said: ‘If it were you and you were lying to my pregnant face, I’d wanna know sooner rather than later.
She needs to know OP!’
That particular Friday I called work to say I’d be a little late that day because I had car problems (the first time I was late in years). Instead, I drove to STALIN’s and CINDERELLA’s place, dropped the envelope in their front door mailbox, and rang the doorbell, after which I quickly went away. I knew CINDERELLA was home alone (her car was in the driveway and she was still home with a newborn).
STALIN was at work.
I then went to work where I sent an email to the BIG BOSS. I told the BIG BOSS that STALIN was skipping work a lot and that it was too much for my team and myself to keep dealing with this. I told the BIGBOSS that I was going to resign because of this. I ended the email with the following…
‘And I included a voice recording you’d find very interesting to hear for yourself. It’s STALIN calling me, right after you called him in Switzerland.’
It only took like 15 minutes and my phone rang. It was BIG BOSS himself. Call me on my company phone. Even better than I hoped for! BIG BOSS told me he was amazed by how STALIN talked to me and about him and thanked me for sending this to him.
He told me he would talk to STALIN about this and asked me to wait for my resignation for the time being. He would straighten things out.
Me: He’ll just deny everything and as soon as you end the phone conversation with him he’ll project his anger on me.
BIG BOSS: No no, I’m visiting my daughter and grandson this afternoon and I’ll swing by at work before that.
It’s not that far apart.
ding ding ding… did he just say he was visiting his daughter? The daughter I just nuked to smithereens with the news of her husband lying to her?? The same husband BIG BOSS wants to talk with before visiting his daughter?
Maybe I should play the national lottery this afternoon because everything felt like it was going my way! I decided to keep my mouth shut about the affair (well duh), but also about him being absent this afternoon.
I was originally planning on complaining to the BIG BOSS that STALIN was never in on a Friday afternoon, luring the BIG BOSS to that restaurant at 6 pm, but this was even better!!! No, let the BIG BOSS come in and see for himself that STALIN just wasn’t there!
12 pm: NAIVE GIRL said bye-bye to everyone and off she went.
12:15 pm: STALIN shut down his computer and left the office as well (without saying goodbye, of course, emperors don’t talk to the peasants and plebs)
4 pm: the BIG BOSS entered the building. It was showtime! BIG BOSS was clearly and visibly upset with something. Could it be his daughter showed him some naughty, naughty pictures already?? Did he visit her first?? He asked me where STALIN was and I swear to god… Leonardo Di Caprio should hand me over his oscar immediately… I acted all surprised and said: oh? You were coming here to talk to STALIN?
I must have misunderstood on the phone. Why didn’t you talk to him in Brussels? At headquarters? He’s there every Friday, no?
The BIG BOSS looked surprised (I deserve that Oscar, I really, really do) and went like: ‘What do you mean?’
me: He always leaves at noon, every Friday, because he’s meeting you every week in Brussels. Or at least, that’s what he told us.
I could see the dominoes inside BIG BOSS’s head start falling as BIG BOSS’s face went blank. He took his phone and called someone. He took a few steps back, but I overheard some parts of the conversation. I think he was calling his daughter because he said: ‘No, he’s not here. Apparently he went somewhere.’ I can only imagine his daughter telling him about the emails and the information I gave her about the restaurant and spa resort.
Looked like she hadn’t told him that part yet.
BIG BOSS: ‘Oh really? I know that place. ok. ok. I’ll come over.’
BIG BOSS then thanked me and said he’d take care of this and ended it with his classical ‘Keep up the good work’ as he left the room.
I was full of questions that entire weekend. What had happened?? All I know is that when I came in at work that Monday morning, STALIN was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, there was some guy from headquarters telling us STALIN won’t be in that week and that he’d be replacing him temporarily. STALIN never came back though, and after a month or so they appointed a new manager.
Years later, I was working in Brussels at headquarters (I got that promotion! Ha!) and I befriended a member of the board. During a business meal, we started talking, and when I mentioned I used to be second in command under STALIN, the guy started laughing.
‘That guy?’ he said ‘Man, let me tell you a story.’
The board member then filled in all the blanks I had for all of these years, not knowing I was the one who talked STALIN into the gallows of course. Apparently, STALIN really did get the manager job because of his relationship with the BIG BOSS (being son-in-law). He was the golden kid and BIG BOSS had big plans for STALIN.
He was supposed to take over the company when BIG BOSS retired. But it turned out he was two-timing BIG BOSS’s daughter with a few women and was also stealing time from the company by not being at work when he was supposed to be there. All stuff I already knew of course, but hey… I was still an A-list Hollywood actor so I acted all surprised and stuff.
Apparently, BIGBOSS and his daughter CINDERELLA walked in on him when he was in a restaurant with one of his mistresses. Oh, how I wanted to be a fly on the wall when that went down. I’d give anything to see this whole event unfold before my eyes.
He then told me CINDERELLA divorced him, threw him out of the house and BIGBOSS didn’t fire him (they were afraid of legal implications) but instead demoted him to a meaningless position in the southern part of Belgium where people speak french.
STALIN did not speak french. He only spoke West-Flemish which is like the hardest Dutch dialect known to man, so most native Dutch speakers (especially those from the Netherlands) didn’t understand him either. Seriously, love people from West-Flanders but they speak a different language than other mortals out there. Klingon is easier to understand. Needless to say.. STALIN was lost over there! He did not fit in, had no friends, no connections, no more power, and on top of it all: he did not understand the language!
He quit the company after a few months and was now working in a low-wage job.
As for NAIVE GIRL. She walked away unharmed. We never talked about it though. She met someone else and even married the dude a year later. SIGNIFICANT OTHER and I were invited to the wedding.
BIG BOSS retired a few years later and sold the company to a foreigner.
He didn’t have anyone to succeed him but the millions he received did miracles to soften that. His daughter apparently went back to the guy she was seeing before STALIN. They were still a couple the last time I heard.
I do not feel bad for STALIN. Not one bit! I’m not the kind of person who enjoys other people’s misery, nor am I a sociopath, but this guy… this guy really boiled my kidneys if you know what I mean.
I never met such a narcissist, self-centered jerk in my entire life and he wanted to destroy my life and the lives of many other people. As far as I’m concerned, I stopped him before he could do any more damage and saved my own career in the process. His wife is better off without him, the company is better off without him, my colleagues are better off without him and I am better off without him.”
8. Replace Me With A New Guy? I'll Move Out In A Creative Way
“I did this to an ex who asked me to move out while she was on a work trip and told me she was coming back with her new man. We were still together when she left.
I got these little noisemakers, battery-powered ones the size of a quarter that emit sounds at just the right volume that you aren’t sure if you really heard it, so quiet that two people could be sitting in an average-sized room, and while one can barely hear it, the other wouldn’t hear a thing. They last ages and fit perfectly in light fixtures and in wall outlets.
I got a box of 20 of them for like $100 on eBay and got so creative all over the house, her car, I even hid them in a boat her father got her (rich family and she grew up sailing).
Now, these little things make a noise at completely random intervals, could be minutes, could be hours, could take a whole day off. They cycle noises like children laughing, a ‘dying breath’ as they called it, a whistle, scratching noises, some other ones I can’t remember, but you get the idea.
It was so unpredictable; it was near impossible for someone to just figure it out.
Months go by, I get a new place, get my life back up. Now we had a few friends in common and one of them I kept up with. They were kinda sour about how she ended things, but they had grown up together and kept up the friendship, loosely talking and catching up on occasion.
I never really asked about her, but one day we get to talking and he’s wanting to prank some friends on a camping trip so I tell him about the noisemakers.
As I’m telling him about them he slowly starts making this face, like he’s gradually losing his mind. He’s got this huge grin on his face and asks me, ‘You put these in ex’s house didn’t you!?’ And when I admit it, he starts laughing hysterically.
Turns out, her new man had only lasted a few months and had left telling her that he couldn’t handle whatever was going on with them and their mental states. Turns out for a while, they had both heard things, and sometimes only one would hear them, which gave the illusion that something really screwed with them was going on in their heads at different times.
They couldn’t figure it out and eventually, he wanted out completely and having run down all the crazy list of people who are hearing voices would think ended it believing he had been infected with some brain worm the government was putting in injections or something like that.
It was amazing. I hadn’t expected to hear anything about it. I rode that train for weeks.
When it went away, I got another hit of that high. She moved out, told her parents she didn’t want the house, and to give it to her brother or sell it. Wouldn’t tell them why.
I always tell people who ask about her that I hold no grudge and don’t tell them the part where I totally screwed with her so bad I overshot the ‘got her back’ stage and hit the blissful state of satisfaction with my work.
My wife knows this story by heart because it’s her favorite one to tell.”
7. Neighbor's Dirty Water Flooded Our Beach Grass
“Once we went to a popular beach campground that was an open field without marked spaces. People would just move in and sprawl out with tents, RV trailers, etc. On busy three-day weekends, people would jam themselves into whatever they felt they could fit in. We had an RV trailer. On the second day, this family moves in between us and the already too close neighbor.
He’s got a huge RV trailer towed by a big pickup truck. Bunch’a noisy kids too. In the back of his pickup, he had this huge generator that he obviously used on construction sites. He ran this monster in the night, and early morning so his kids could watch TV. Gawd it was annoying.
The second morning he opens the valve on his holding tank and just lets it drain right into the area our picnic table was next to our front door.
We had to wade through soggy beach grass for the whole day that was polluted with his kitchen and shower water. When I confronted him, he just said it was only gray water, so not to worry.
That evening when they fired up their generator, and after they were all settled in watching TV, I crawled under his RV and took the cap open on the holding tank.
Coated the thing quite well with ABS solvent (I’m a sprinkler repairman, so it is something in my truck), and crammed that cap back on. Crawled back to our trailer and felt quite good about it actually. I didn’t get to see the result when they pulled out to go to the dump station, but it had to be quite the aggravation for him.
That solvent would have set up pretty hard by then, meaning it probably would have needed to be hacksawed off.”
6. No Worries, I Can Buy My Own Coffee Machine
“When I moved to Australia my first job was teaching for a term in a pretty rough and dysfunctional school.
(By dysfunctional I mean the principal was absolutely hopeless and some teachers had been there years, having formed tight little cliques. They were barely going through the motions of teaching, knowing they were too hopeless to get a job elsewhere but they had permanency there so the principal couldn’t get rid of them and no one would take their job even if he wanted to.)
On the 2nd day there I saw a coffee pod machine in the staffroom. Not a Nespresso machine, just one of the really cheap rip-offs. I mean really cheap: at the time they were $49.99 in the supermarket. By comparison, the cheapest Nespresso machine was $400.
I remarked about the machine to one of the other teachers, telling him how in my previous school we had them (Nespresso machines though) and I commented how easy & convenient these machines are.
He agreed and so I asked him about what pods are used. He told me the type of pods I needed to buy, which supermarket sold them, and which brand & strength he prefers and recommends.
That evening after work I go buy myself a stack of pods and over the following weeks, I treat myself to a daily coffee, courtesy of the marvelous $49.99 pod machine.
I would leave my boxes of coffee pods in a drawer under the machine and I noticed quite often someone had helped themselves to one. I don’t say anything: they only cost 40c or so. It’s not worth getting all uptight and upset over someone’s ‘stealing’ 40c worth of coffee from me.
6 weeks later, after having used the machine daily (usually twice daily) without anyone saying a word to me, I approach the machine for my daily caffeine fix and find a note stuck on it:
‘This machine is for the EXCLUSIVE use of FULLY paid up members of the Coffee Club ONLY’ (‘exclusive’, ‘fully’ and ‘only’ all uppercased, bolded, and underlined)
Not only am I confronted by this mystifying note but my pods are missing! (Umm… coffee pods that are, not my actual pods in case you’re wondering).
I head back to my office perplexed to find my pods sitting on my desk.
My head of department (HOD) comes in and gravely informs me that my constant use of the machine has really upset 3 of the other teachers. Apparently, the three had all chipped in to buy the machine for their own private use and had all been so very upset I had been using it without permission these past few weeks. But they hadn’t wanted to tell me because they didn’t want to make any sort of drama or fuss.
The poor dears.
Here’s the weird bit.
The three ‘members of the coffee club’:
#1 was the PE teacher and he was an ultra-aggressive jerk who swore like a wasted sailor at everyone, including the students. The idea that he felt too shy to tell me not to use the machine was bizarre, to say the least.
#2 was the bloke whose desk was right next to mine in the office and, I thought at least, that we got on very well.
Often, when I was getting myself a coffee, I would offer to make one for him (using my own pods – again I mean coffee pods. Get your minds out of the gutter) and more often than not he would happily agree and thank me. Again: it is bizarre that after 6 weeks of convivial work relationship and me often getting a coffee for him, he felt compelled to write a note to me to tell me to stop doing so.
#3 is even more bizarre: he was the teacher I first talked to about the machine and who told me where to buy the pods from! Don’t get me wrong: had #3 right at the start told me it was a private machine and they didn’t want anyone using it, I would’ve been fine with that. But he told me where to buy the pods from and which ones I should buy.
Surely that’s an invitation to use the machine?! Can anyone explain this?
It gets worse: my HOD tells me that the coffee club triumvirate has magnanimously decided to let me join their exclusive club for a very reasonable $30.
Two points to consider here: the machine, as I wrote above, retails brand new for $50 and I was only teaching there until the end of term, less than 2 weeks away.
I also wish to point out that each of those teachers was earning $100,000/year: together they were getting $300,000/year. Yet they forbade anyone from using their precious $50 machine and expected me to pay them $30 – almost the cost of a brand new machine – just for the privilege of using it for 8 more working days.
I apologized to HOD for my ignorance and rudeness, and respectfully declined their kind offer of joining their merry little club.
There I was, less than 2 weeks before the end of term, with a box of coffee pods I was now no longer able to use. I first thought of creating a scene by getting up to speak at the end of term meeting the following Thursday and profusely apologizing for my crass use of their beloved machine, going on at length about how I really did not realize how precious and important this machine was to them before offering them the unused pods, along with a few more boxes as a way of further apology and maybe a snide remark of knowing which ones they liked based on which ones had gone missing from the boxes I had bought.
Pretty passive-aggressive but I’m not outgoing or chutzpah enough to pull such a stunt off.
My next thought was to join their club, pay the fee, then mistreat the machine until it broke. But that seemed like too much hard work and I figured they might cotton on to what I was doing and hide the machine.
So I was stuck as to what to do.
Then I thought of the most marvelous passive-aggressive action!
On the last day of term, during the lunch break, I went to the supermarket and bought an identical coffee machine along with several boxes of coffee pods. I came back to school and in the class time after lunch (luckily I had a free lesson), installed it in the staffroom next to the triumvirate machine with the following message above it:
‘This machine is for the EXCLUSIVE use of anyone who is NOT A MEMBER of any existing Coffee Club.’ (relevant words bolded, capitalized, and underlined).
I put all the pods into a large bowl next to my machine and put a note above the bowl which read:
‘Free for anyone who is NOT A MEMBER of any existing Coffee Club.’
I then made myself a coffee and went back to the office.
The member of the triumvirate who sat next to me looked at me quizzically briefly but didn’t say a word. One of the best cups of coffee I’ve had.”
5. It Rained Pancakes And We Got Full
“Not the US Army, but the Hungarian army, and we were drafted. Conscription was abolished some 3-4 years later but we still got the opportunity to serve our nation, mostly with menial tasks like washing up and digging ditches. I served in a signals regiment that was already almost disbanded: it only had two battalions.
For some reason they were numbered 1 and 3, there was never a 2. Battalion 1 was a full one with three complete companies and a support squadron, but ours was only about 30-40 men, divided into two companies. This barely made them a squad, but they were called companies for some reason.
For some reason, Battalion 3 was always forgotten when it came to good things, including food. There was never enough for us.
Battalion 1 usually went to the mess first, devoured everything, and left us only the scrubs, maybe some canned fish. It was ridiculous but we had to buy our own food or starve.
One day I was on company duty. It means that for 24 hours I was in charge to keep the company’s everyday schedule running, from waking up the soldiers in the morning to taking them for meals, reporting whenever the officer on duty wanted a report, and call whoever had to be called in case of an emergency.
Also, I was to tell the guys if a war broke out that day. (It never did.) It was the weekend, and for some reason, most of the battalion was out. There were only 2-3 men left from each company, so there wasn’t really much to manage.
Since I was an old fox I took steps to prevent Battalion 1 from snatching our food again. First I called the kitchen and asked what is on the menu because if it’s something nasty we don’t have to worry.
Pancakes, they said. What, pancakes?? Are you kidding, mate?! No, he didn’t, it was pancakes, really. OMG, we got to get some! I told the guys that we’ll go to lunch a bit earlier today so we’ll arrive before Battalion 1. Of course, they agreed. We got into formation, 5-6 guys and me, the lance corporal, and marched off to the mess, in tight formation, as per the stupid regulations.
We looked silly in a battalion formation, but at least nobody saw it.
As it happened I was not the only old fox in the forest. As we approached the quarters of Battalion 1, which was halfway to the mess, they were also pouring outside and getting into formation. There were some 300 of them. They finished it exactly as we passed by them, and their corporal gave the order to march.
So we marched head to head for a while, the big battalion and the tiny one. But we both knew that whoever reaches the mess first will take all the pancakes. It’s on.
A formation can only march at a certain speed without falling apart. The larger the formation the more difficult it gets to keep it in line. Incredible it may sound for anyone who has never been a soldier, but goose-stepping has to be practiced and it takes some time.
Keeping the pace with a whole company needs concentration. Yes, it may sound odd that we had to march to eat as if we were on a parade, but that was the rule. And we had a good reason to keep it. A few hundred meters away, right before the mess, there was the room of the officer on duty. And the major who was on duty that day was a particularly strict guy who mistook our army for the Prussian Royal Guard sometime in the late 19th century.
And I already saw him standing outside.
I sped up, and so did my little battalion. We broke step. How come? It was because Battalion 1 was hiding us from the major’s sight. He couldn’t see us and we could pull up with Battalion 1.
Seeing this their corporal also sped up. Battalion 1 followed him, but their steps were not as nice as before. Still, they were in formation.
The other corporal looked at me smiling. ‘Forget the pancakes’ was the message in his eyes. I looked at him and we stared at each other as we marched. I had a good reason for this. If he stared at me he couldn’t see what was coming ahead.
‘Battalion 3, on the double,’ I said calmly into his face. My guys heard me and we switched to a faster pace.
Battalion 1 switched too. Their steps now sounded like rain. The major looked towards us already. The other corporal still stared at me. Tension grew. The soldiers stared at each other. Pancakes, man! It’s about the b****y pancakes!
I let Battalion 1 bypass us a bit, and then: ‘Battalion 3, run for it!’ I still needn’t say it loudly as I only had six men. We run!
Battalion 1 saw us running and immediately broke formation to race us. They lost all discipline and rushed towards the mess as an uncontrolled mob. Some even yelled ‘Hoorah!’ as if they were storming the enemy.
And suddenly I said: ‘Battalion 3, halt, and into formation!’ In a split second Battalion, 3 was a tight and neat little formation again. But Battalion 1 has already lost all control and poured down the road in a very, very unmilitary way…
… until they were stopped by the loudest and angriest yelling I’ve ever heard in the army, and I seriously don’t understand how the major did not explode shouting this badly. ‘Battalion 1 HAAALT! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING! WHO IS IN CHARGE?! YOU’LL ALL GO TO JAIL RIGHT AWAY! WHAT ARE YOU, THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION STORMING THE TZAR’S PALACE?!’
Battalion 1 got no pancakes, but the longest speech of discipline they’ve ever heard and a week of particularly menial jobs throughout the base, without their weekend, leave.
As we passed them, the major took time to point at us marching in a perfect formation with me stiffly saluting him, and lecture them about how we can keep a nice formation, as expected from soldiers, unlike the untrained, lowlife mob they are, the shame of our military, apes from the b****y jungle, etc.
Half an hour later we were marching back, our bellies full of pancakes, and a few trays in our hands as well.
We took all of them, even if we could never eat that many. They were still standing in attention in front of the major’s room. I think their stares towards us violated the Geneva Convention.”
4. Arrogant Passenger's Kid Cries Before Offboarding
“I once had a rude passenger traveling with her baby on board. As a matter of fact, this encounter was recent.
When one of the crew went to her to brief her (the airlines I work for make it mandatory for crews to brief parents traveling with an infant below 2 years old) on how to use an infant seatbelt and what to do in an emergency, with a flick of the wrist she dismissed her.
‘No need to brief me. I know the drill,’ without so much as looking at the stewardess.
When it was time to take off, she didn’t strap her son in using the infant seatbelt we provided. When we insisted, she dismissed us again saying her baby is allergic to metal (the only piece of metal on the seatbelt was the buckle and it would be right on her son’s belly covered with clothing).
All the while my brain keeps going ‘this woman is a piece of work.’
When we roll out our cart for meal service, she snapped her fingers at crewmembers demanding she be served first. Now, this is understandable since we always serve kids, elders, and mothers with infants first. But you don’t have to do it by snapping your fingers at us. You could have just stopped our cart and asked nicely.
When we roll out our food sales cart, she stopped us to buy some snacks but refused to take off her headphones while talking to us. Her sitting at the window seat means she’s farther away from me and her words were not as clear as the passenger sitting on the aisle seat talking to me. I look at her dumbfounded that after a few times of asking her what would she like to buy, she kept muttering under her breath all the while not really bothering to make eye contact with me or take off her headphones.
So I pass all kinds of snacks that we had, one by one until she gets frustrated. She keeps saying ‘no not this one! I want xyzcbhsjdkwhateveritis!’
I passed another packet of snacks knowing full well that wasn’t what she wants. ‘No I want xcbsggeyetheotherone!’
I took out a packet of peanuts that she most definitely didn’t want. ‘No! That one, I need xctshdchstheonenexttoit!’
This went on for a few minutes, while the passengers sitting nearby watched in amusement. Not even once do I mutter anything rude to her, just pretending I can’t fully comprehend whatever she’s saying.
If only she had taken off her headphones and talked to me like I’m a normal person instead of like her slave, I probably wouldn’t have played dumb. In the end, she got so frustrated she just said ‘yeah ok give me whatever you have then!’ handing me an rm100 note to pay for something that cost her only rm7.
I asked if she has smaller notes and again I was dismissed like my fellow crewmembers. So I went around the cabin asking everyone if they have smaller change for me to return her the balance. I went from row 5 to row 30. Everyone just keeps shaking their head saying nope sorry don’t have small change.
Again, she got frustrated waiting for her change, she pressed the call button and handed me the exact payment of rm7 in small notes and demanded to get her rm100 note back.
And oh, towards the end of the flight, during descent, her kid started acting up and cried really loud. She struggled to get him to calm down while the rest of the passengers looked at her in disgust.”
3. We Sent The Church Pew To The Wrong House
“My friend, Bob, lived in a neighborhood where my wife and I had made an offer on a house. We had a closing date and I talked with Bob about the negotiations and closing and he was pleased to have us as neighbors.
Unbeknownst to me, Bob (a licensed landscape architect) decided to decorate our new yard. So he dragged a church pew from where the previous owners had abandoned it in the backyard and brought it to the front and decorated it with bent-up plastic flowers from a dumpster and a bunch of beer cans. He also made a large poster with caricatures of my wife and me.
It was intended to be, and was, godawful. My wife and I were to find it after closing.
Closing was delayed almost a week in which it rained, making the welcoming display far worse.
A few weeks after we moved in Bob made me an offer for the church pew. I apologized and told him I gave it away. Later I called a different friend and asked her if she wanted to sell the church pew I had given her.
She said yes and I told her what Bob offered me and she could keep it all if she would help me out. When I told her the circumstances she eagerly agreed.
Then I called Bob and told him Rosalie was willing to sell it for what he had offered me. Bob was delighted! I gave him Rosalie’s phone number and he left for lunch and called her from his home.
Rosalie has a great female phone voice, a rich, expressive contralto, and a joyful laugh. Rosalie happily gave him the address of the local police station. Bob did not return to work.
The next day Bob comes in and is laughing, nearly hysterical. Said it took numerous calls to Rosalie in his search for the address to finally realize he was being played.
It was a small town in rural Mississippi.
Word got around. Bob would walk by people in the grocery store whom he didn’t know and would hear, ‘church pew’, followed by laughter.
Almost a year went by and a third friend of ours, who had ribbed Bob mercilessly, closed on a house in our neighborhood. One evening after a couple of beers we decided her new home would greatly benefit from a church pew.
So we went to Rosalie and asked her to sell it to us and told her why we wanted it. She agreed but made a profit off us. So we loaded into my pickup about midnight and sneaked it into our friend’s yard.
The next day, nothing. A week went by. Nothing. Bob and I couldn’t stand it so we went by her flower shop to get an explanation.
She listened to us and burst out laughing! Could not speak! Had to sit down!
Bob and I had delivered the church pew to the WRONG HOUSE!”
2. Brainstormed With The Kind Neighbor To Get Revenge On The Jerk Neighbor
“I moved into a huge estate that I shared with a bunch of twenty-somethings, who had fantastic parties almost every night. I rented a large storage building on the property for my stuff and I lived in my RV parked in the spacious backyard. I got to be friends with one of the neighbors across the fence, and he told me horror stories about the neighbor next to him who also was adjacent to my backyard space.
The guy would routinely throw his trimmed tree branches and other trash over the fence into other people’s yards. He would walk around without clothes in his backyard, and when another neighbor went over to his place to politely ask him to put some clothes on because his young kids could see him from their second-story windows, the jerk neighbor flew into a rage and screamed at him.
Apparently, he was quite emotionally excitable and he was very large too, so he must have been accustomed to bullying people to get his way, and he wouldn’t stop running around without clothes. He would cut peepholes through my friendly neighbor’s hedges so that he could look through them into the bathroom of my friendly neighbor’s sister-in-law (they had two houses on their property).
This was a quiet upscale neighborhood out West where even some very wealthy local celebrities lived, not some scruffy trailer park in Florida!
One day I found that the jerk neighbor had trimmed back the tree branches over the property line of our yard almost three feet, apparently to improve his view of the frequent parties we used to have, attended by many gorgeous young women.
By ‘trimmed back’ I mean that he had cut branches that were between two and three inches in diameter! I was preparing for an extended trip out of town and wanted to nip that behavior in the bud, so I cut about a 3.5 x 3-foot piece of plywood and spray-painted on it, ‘HEY JERK, don’t cut any more limbs and branches on this property!’ and I screwed it firmly, reinforced with fender washers, to the cut ends of the branches he had cut on our property.
Then I left on my trip.
Several months later when I returned, I found that the jerk had cut down the ‘HEY JERK’ sign and vandalized my RV and several cars parked in the backyard too, two of which were mine and one belonged to one of my estate/mates. He had apparently crossed the fence smashed a bunch of windows with a hammer and punctured the sidewalls of three of my RV’s tires!
He was a hothead, alright.
So I had a conversation with the friendly neighbor about the situation, and we brainstormed a bit about an appropriate response. The police wouldn’t do anything about it, calling it a ‘civil matter’ and telling me to take the creep to court, and besides, what evidence did I have? Not much actually, but I knew it was him. The brainstorming with the friendly neighbor didn’t go very far right away, so one night I took a walk around the block to check out the guy’s place.
He had a very large front yard that was immaculately landscaped, with what looked like a small orchard of very young fruit and nut trees, and across the front of his property stood thirteen quite majestic Italian cypresses in a line, at least 40 to 50 feet tall, making his property the most prominent and impressive on his street.
So I went back the next day to the friendly neighbor and asked him if the creep hired landscapers to do all that work, or did he do it himself?
‘Oh no, he spends hours every day working on his yard,’ he told me, and then I knew what to do, but I didn’t know how. I was going to do what I could to destroy the fruits of his labors, of course. Confronting him directly would be pointless and might get me killed, so that was out of the question. The friendly neighbor suggested RoundUp, that toxic chemical made by the corporate psychopaths at Monsanto.
Aha, I had a plan.
However, I bided my time. Repaired the damage to my RV glass and got new tires on it at no small expense, sold the damaged cars, and helped my estate-mate get rid of his too. About a year and a half passed until I was ready to move across the country, which had been long in the planning, from even before I moved to that place.
About four days before I was ready to leave, I had acquired everything I needed: a gallon of concentrated RoundUp, a battery-powered Super Soaker squirt gun with a backpack fluid reservoir, and an all-black Ninja-style stealth outfit. It was a cool moist night when I went over to his place after midnight and drenched everything in his front yard with full strength 41% RoundUp. He had really put a lot of work into that landscaping, with his young orchard trees surrounded by mulch that was held in and made to look pretty by that black plastic border barrier stuff and so forth.
A few days later I was ready to leave, but it takes some time for RoundUp to work so I didn’t even bother to check it before I left. I figured the jerk might just be beginning to notice the effects, at best. I spent several weeks crossing the country, and since then have used Google’s Street View to check on progress. Rather quickly all the smaller trees and shrubs, and one quite large deciduous tree, all lost their leaves and were removed, but a few of them were more resistant.
Those Italian cypresses were tough and survived the longest.
Now almost ten years later, over half of those huge majestic Italian cypresses are gone and the remainders look really ratty; they will eventually be gone too. I hadn’t planned it that way, thinking initially that they’d all be gone pretty promptly, but having it slowly drawn out over time for the jerk was even better.
What was once the most impressive property on that street is now the ugliest, and that hotheaded jerk has had almost ten years to see all his labor slowly slip through his fingers and be replaced with cleanup work. Sometimes Google has shown me his trash containers stuffed to overflowing with cut vegetable matter! I do regret killing so many trees and so much shrubbery, but as an instrument of Lady Karma, I know justice was served. Take that, jerk, and think first before you mess with any of your neighbors again.”
1. Neighbor Doesn't Speak Of The Rotten Tree
“I bought a house, got married, had a child… all should have been fine – except that my wife had stopped taking her mood stabilizer meds and was terribly postpartum.
We had a neighbor – the family was socially awkward but I liked them, I related to them in some of their ways.
The neighbor planted a spruce tree very close to the property line and my basement. My wife (concerned about eventual roots growing into the foundation) hit the roof and demanded that I see the tree moved. I suggested so to the neighbor who said: ‘he’d think about it.’
My wife’s situation continued to unravel. She took an extended vacation to our cabin 25 hours drive away.
While there my very evil mother-in-law convinced her to lawyer up and try to take the baby. Legal work was apparently ‘simpler’ while she breastfed and ‘their family could replace a Dad no problem’. Obviously, this became a summer from the underworld – that has become a dozen years of misery.
After fighting tooth and nail to see my son and staying at the cabin for weeks longer than my holidays to do so – I came home exhausted. Lo & behold that tree!
My anger crystallized. Also though my desire to have my family back and to please my wife. I almost immediately went to my garage – loaded a syringe I had for lab testing with glyphosate and injected the tree.
Now… I had ample experience with glyphosate and even with its application to coniferous trees. Applied in mixture sprinkled over at the same rate as deciduous grass – it really doesn’t do much.
I think I anticipated that my transgression against the tree/neighbor may be hollow… a means to burn my seething fury – but I was doubtful there would be much in way of the actual response.
Well… that proved wrong. The next day I sheepishly glanced at the tree sapling expecting to see nothing… It was obviously dying – but the second day the neighbor had dug it and tossed it on the compost where I could observe my destruction in unspoken penance.
We never discussed the tree but there wouldn’t have been much reason to wonder if there was any doubt that I was the cause of its destruction.”
