People Mention How They Got "Top Of The Line" Revenge
13. Payback On My Terrible Mom Before Moving Out
“To start of with, my mother has several irrational fears we never could explain. She hates and actively avoids things like garden gnomes and clowns. But the gnomes especially for some reason.
If she were a vampire, they’d be a silver cross covered in garlic to her. And she’s also pretty superstitious. And at this time Dad was staying in a motel because he outed mom as a two-timer, and then he filed for divorce. And my mother was not taking it well because he was also blackmailing her with a few forms of fraud she’d committed in his name.
So her mental health at the time made her easily screwed with.
My first choice of weapon was to find some garden gnomes. I hit paydirt at a nearby garage sale a couple of streets over run by an elderly couple. They were retiring to Florida and selling just about everything. The lady liked gnomes. And she had a whole bunch from big to small.
And I bought all off them super cheap. Heck, they were nearly free when I explained what I was gonna do with them.
My first act was to put the bigger gnomes in the yards of neighbors on either side and in front of our house. And yes, I did get their permission to put them there. They did and still do hate my mother.
She’d threatened multiple neighbors with HOA violations even though there hasn’t been an HOA on the street since the early 90s. She even wanted to reestablish the HOA in 1999, but no one, not even my father signed her petitions. So needless to say I found it easy to find volunteers to my cause. She saw the gnomes in the morning when getting ready to leave for work.
I was watching from my bedroom window. And she looked noticeably uncomfortable as I’d aimed them to all stare right at her when standing by her car.
The next place I targeted was my mom’s work. I was acquainted with a coworker of hers who absolutely despised my mother. Let’s call this person Wendy. I talked to Wendy the previous day about my mom’s gnome paranoia.
Well suddenly Wendy’s desk and several others in the building were adorned with tiny gnomes that all were pointed to stare at my mom’s workstation. Wendy even got a little gnome puppet to make jokes with in the office.
Then over the next few days, I went outside in the middle of the night and moved the gnomes in the neighbor’s yards a bit closer each night.
And I had a few with angry faces painted on them that I mixed in. And they were holding pitchforks. Eventually I placed several of them to look like they were rallying toward my mom’s car. That made her start parking on the street to avoid looking at them. So I put one of the angry ones in the neighbor’s back yard in such a way that its head was poking over the fence in view of the window in the master bedroom.
I heard her freak out in the morning from seeing it. And then she knocked it down with a rake.
Then for a different prank I got two random guys from my high school to carry a large mirror outside of my mom’s work like they were moving it. I got the mirror at a garage sale too. And I paid the guy’s ten bucks each to intentionally bump into my mother in a way that broke the mirror and made her look like she was at fault the moment she exited the building.
And one of them said “Oh crap lady! That’s seven years bad luck!” I watched from around a corner and the color drained from her face. It was priceless. I knew when she was coming out because Wendy called me on my cell the moment she was leaving the office, and I gave the two guys the signal to start moving. My mother ended up screaming at them and cussing them out, so they just booked it and were gone in a flash.
And I hopped on my bike and beat her home by cutting through a back road. (Thank you bicycle engine!)
Next there was a little person in town who worked part time as part of a clown group for children’s parties. I called his number from an ad and asked if he would do something for me. Best $40 I’d spent in a long time. My mom just came home from work after the broken mirror incident, and as she was getting out of her car there was a little man in a gnome costume riding a child’s tricycle down the street and waving to her with a menacing grin.
(I tipped the guy an extra five bucks for that performance) My mother ran into the house in a complete panic and actually called the police that there were gnomes out to get her. The police ended up doing a wellness check on her.
Before long, my mother was complaining to the neighbors about the gnomes and threatening to call the HOA. But they all just reminded her there hadn’t been an HOA in years.
And there was no law against having the gnomes. Mom did not like that and went full Karen crazy. She took a claw hammer from Dad’s tools and started destroying one of the gnomes with it. But the neighbor’s stopped her by threatening to call the police. And someone mentioned aloud that she shouldn’t have hit the gnome, because now they were REALLY mad!
That night I took a whole bunch of the gnomes and set them up outside of the front door to look like an angry mob.
And in front of the pack, I placed the gnome she’d attacked. Half it’s face was gone, and I had to super glue part of it’s head back together. But it looked mean. And then for good measure, I added a few spiders that were some old Halloween decorations from a neighbor in with the gnomes. They looked realistic enough to be creepy at first glance.
I also added a plastic Smurf I found just to be funny. The resulting morning freakout was glorious. Mom refused to leave the house and wanted to call the cops again. I talked her down and said it was probably just a cruel prank by the neighbors. Then I moved all the gnomes and spiders out of the yard so she’d leave and go to work.
She’s a terrible driver when she’s in a bad mood. So she sped off the moment she left the driveway. And there was a cop just down at the end of the street that pulled her over and ticketed her for speeding in a residential area. Apparently he’d gotten an anonymous tip the previous day about a reckless driver from a payphone to wait down at the end of that particular street in the early morning.
Hmm I wonder who did that?
I stopped moving the big gnomes around and just left them poised in the neighbor’s yards until I moved out to live with my dad. And one of the neighbors I kept in contact with said the gnomes were all still there for years. In fact it became a running gag in the neighborhood that keeping gnomes in your yard would keep my mother away.
So a whole bunch of the neighbors got in on it and put them everywhere. Last I drove through the neighborhood over two months ago there was still a good few of them around. I even put a few gnomes in my front yard after my mother broke several of my windows throwing rocks at my house.
The pranks didn’t end here either. I had a few more in store.
Edit: For those of you that are new to reading my stuff. I ask that you reserve judgement on why I did all this till after you know the crap my mother put me through. She blatantly favored my sister to the point of letting her get away with anything she did to me unless my father got involved, spanked me as hard as she could to the point I couldn’t even sit down for no reason on several occasions, would snap her fingers and order me around like a dog, let my sister steal what I earned from doing chores and odd jobs around the area and took her on shopping sprees with said earnings, tried to send me to military school behind my father’s back when I refused to let her beat me anymore, and more recently tried to force me to give the house I inherited from my now deceased father to my pregnant sister.”
12. Getting A Woman Fired For Not Taking No For An Answer
“I’m an autistic person, mildly, I’d have to add, since I’ve always had a job and managed to keep them for as long as I enjoyed them, and never had a hard time finding a new job.
I can get along with most people, the only difficulty for me is judging other people’s emotions when they are subtle and not blatantly obvious.
I never got the hang of recognizing the body language associated with subtle emotions. I do however compensate for that by being calm, collected, and friendly. Which in most cases suffices.
Also, I’m a bit overweight, due to my meds (that I no longer need now, but still relevant for the story), not massively.
I have a bit of a “man bump,” but you only notice it when I sit down.
Due to my overall length (198cm / 6″4), it’s hardly noticeable especially if I have the shop overcoat on.
It was in the late ’90s and I had switched my Saturday job in the local supermarket into a full-time contract for the summer. And since I recently turned 18, I was offered a contract which I took.
The pay wasn’t that bad and the job wasn’t that exhausting.
The supermarket I worked for was a big one, not as big as some of those in the USA or France, but for my country, it was one of the largest.
My job was to stock and manage the separate liquor shop and ring up customers their booze as well as shifts stocking in the main store and the occasional shift at the registers.
I liked doing the liquor shop as it was small, I knew most of the regulars and felt respected since I knew a lot about the drinks we sold.
Even our regulars sought me out for advice on the occasional gift to someone else and came back to me telling I had “nailed it” with the gift suggestions.
Admittedly I didn’t get it 100% right all of the time, since I didn’t know the people they bought presents for, but by asking the right questions, you usually get a good idea about likes and dislikes.
I want to clarify that I’m not an avid drinker by any stretch of the imagination, far from it, I do like an occasional libation on the weekend and it’s rare that I consume more than one.
However, over the years that I had worked there (4 years) I did manage to taste most of the liquors and distilled goods if bottles got returned (either opened or unopened) for whatever reason or if a distiller or distributor did a demo in our department.
All in all, it was not a bad job for an 18-year-old.
In order to get from our department to the breakroom, there were 3 routes I could take, however, all routes passed by the meat department and they recently hired some new girl, let’s call her Lindsay.
In the beginning, Lindsay was nice to me, but my calm, collected and friendly demeanor apparently ticked her off to no end when that wasn’t the emotional response she’d expected to her stories.
Years later I heard she may have had a crush on me, but since I already had a partner, I wasn’t very receptive to her, well, her way of asking for my attention.
Back to the story.
One day I was on my break, unbuttoned my shop overcoat (a sign in my country someone is on their break/indisposed), and headed for the breakroom.
As usual, I stopped to chat with some colleagues on the way, said my “hello’s” as the store was so big you could easily not see each other all day.
It was a good 5 minutes walk to the breakroom, and since earbuds with music weren’t as common yet, greeting my colleagues along the way was a welcome distraction.
As I reached the meat department, Lindsay was already cleaning off the meat slicers and as soon as I rounded the corner, she started to chat.
When I said “hello,” as I usually did, she started to chat me up as she tried to grab my attention.
Mind you that as I’ve said before, I wasn’t open to her advances by any means. I barely even knew her.
As soon as I made myself clear in a calm and friendly tone that I was going on my break and that I was in serious need of some coffee, she started to insult me.
“Sure, go on your coffee, fatso.”
Again, I’m not fat by any means, but I’m not slender either.
I’m somewhere in between; 6″4 (198cm) tall and about 90Kg (~14 stone / ~180 pounds).
On the way back from my break I got similar insults from her, and ever since that day, she slowly ramped up the severity of the insults.
I have thick skin and I don’t really care what others think of me, only those opinions of people who matter to me. And needless to say, she didn’t fall into that category.
It went from “fat jokes,” which clearly didn’t have the desired effect, to jokes about my “manliness.”
Since I’m a man, I should love a small, blonde, blue-eyed girl, right? In her jokes, she was always the perfect little girl, and I was the big, brute.
It got to the point that she even started to call me “bundle of sticks” (a derogatory term for someone who likes the same gender) or “happy/jolly” (gay), since I didn’t adhere to the stereotypical man of drooling over her physique.
I admit, she wasn’t bad looking on the outside, some might even say pretty until she opened her mouth.
She cursed like a sailor and had the manners of a chimpanzee. Although I have seen chimpanzees eat with forks and knives, so I’m not sure if that would be a fair assessment regarding the chimpanzees.
I heard from colleagues she was a high-school dropout, lived with her parents in some dilapidated part of town.
Some said she lived in a trailer, others said she lived in a house. All these years later, I’m not sure anymore, but it doesn’t really matter for the story.
The part of town she lived in is what we call a “volksbuurt” over here, basically a subsidized low-income neighborhood with more prison years on record per square mile than days of honest labor.
Since her calling names obviously didn’t work and didn’t have the desired effect, she approached with a new tactic.
When I went on break, she went out of her way to synch her break with mine, even as far as to call my dept. head to find out at what time I would be on break.
Over several weeks, she managed to synch her break time with me several times and she would walk up to me, pinch me in the butt so that I would spill coffee or soda all over myself.
I tried as hard as I could to ignore her, but that only made it worse. But I knew that if I snapped and slapped her, my job would be on the line.
As in those days, it was her word against mine and who would, in their right mind, believe my word over hers? Me a big 6″4 bear of a guy, against a 5″4 tiny blond girl?
The odds were not stacked in my favor if I were to lash out.
So I needed a plan, as this had to stop. My girl at the time told me to report her. She was right, I figured as much, but the problem was proof.
Our breakroom had no cameras, nor had the hallway leading to the breakroom.
The warehouse DID have cameras, but who in their right mind would take their break there?
Well, that’s me… I knew if I took my coffee from the machine intended for the delivery drivers, and ate my sandwich there, sitting on the dock, I would be in full view of at least 2 cameras maybe 3.
She wouldn’t dare pull her stunts there, would she?
What can I say, I already said she was blond. I could now also add “not too bright” to the list of her character flaws.
My plan worked; Either I could eat my lunch in peace there, or I would have enough proof to get a formal complaint in to Management and HR.
By the end of the week, I had not one, not two, but three incidents caught on camera.
And since my department had the safe with the camera-recording equipment, I only needed the cooperation of my department head to exact my revenge.
Since my dept. head knew all about my “handicap” and we could get along very well on the job, it only took me 5 minutes to convince her to save the tapes from the days I had my “encounters.”
And it took us another 10 minutes to isolate, copy and store the incidents on a separate VHS tape (It was the 90s, don’t judge us).
She couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw the footage.
She admitted that she thought only men could do such things. She apologized profusely for not noticing anything when she was on camera duty.
I told her not to worry as it wasn’t her fault.
We also made some print-outs, just to be sure, of the incidents with “enhanced” images of her grabbing/groping me and me spilling coffee all over her since she physically never had gone “below the belt” so to speak.
Since I’m a nice guy when I want to be, part of my revenge plan was to get her to stop. I knew she wouldn’t or only say she would, but that was all I needed.
If she had done that, I would not report her to Management and/or HR, only if she ever did it again.
But would it have been r/ProRevenge if she accepted that?
Right…
We called her to the office of my dept. head and she asked her if it was true what I was saying.
Lindsay, of course, completely denied everything, and turned it around on me or at least, attempted to.
Well, would you look at that, a Karen in training? And she chose me as her “willing” victim.
After all, what “man” doesn’t like to get the attention of a sweet, small, blue-eyed, blond girl?
She said that I touched her chest several times, and that I always took my break when I knew she had a break and that I groped her all the time, etc. and that she merely reciprocating. My dept. head was not impressed, and grabbed the VHS and loaded it into the playback machine and showed her the compilation.
She went from white to red and back to white so fast, she looked like a cuttlefish.
She started looking skittishly around her to see where she could hide or run as we kind of put her on the spot there.
He asked her, kindly but stern, if she was sticking to her story or if she was willing to revise her story at that point.
I really had to keep from snickering while I was standing near the door to prevent her from fleeing.
A procedure we also do with shoplifters, but that’s for another story, someday.
She started to tear up and told my dept. head, that she was sorry and that these videos were out of context.
Even though it showed me arriving, then her, her leaving, and then me. So in no way could I have instigated these incidents whatsoever.
My department head turned to me, “[OP], what do you think we should do?”
My response was as calm and collected, “I’d like to send this tape with my complaint to the Manager, and have him judge this video, as it is obvious she isn’t going to admit.”
Lindsay immediately turned around and as if there were no tears present said something to the effect of, “They will never believe you, I’m a sweet girl, and I’ve never done anything wrong.
You’re a guy so you are to blame.”
My Dept. head looked at me and said, “You may go now, I’ll have a chat with this young lady here.”
I knew exactly what this meant and as soon as I closed the door, I heard my department head rip into her. I could not hear the exact conversations, but bits and snippets were clear to hear.
“What sick game are you playing?”, “What fool do you take me for?” and “What is your problem with [OP]?” were some of the sentences I heard together with some loud wails as Lindsay had finally broken down.
The next day at work I was called into the manager’s office for a statement.
Again I had to explain and relive the past 3 months she made my workplace a living heck for me, up to the point I couldn’t even take a break in the breakroom anymore.
I was ambushed, groped, harassed, verbally assaulted as well as harassed both verbally as physically.
The manager sat there stunned as I broke down, I told him I kept myself together as not to give her more fuel to feed the flames, but that it had come to the point where I would hand in my resignation if nothing was done.
He couldn’t believe what he saw on the video and called the regional manager and after a short phone call, I was told to wait outside in the breakroom.
When he saw the look on my face, he told me that I didn’t need to worry, as Lindsay was not there, he checked that himself.
He was right and for the first time in over a month, I could drink a coffee in reasonable comfort without having to sit on the bay of the cargo-dock.
I could hear the manager make an announcement over the PA system, and call for the dept.
head of Lindsay and my own Dept. Head to come to the office.
Until now, her Dept. head was blissfully unaware of Lindsay’s actions. As my dept. head didn’t want to play his hands and tip people off that things were going down.
Her dept. head was known to gossip, and that is something that could seriously damage our plan and case.
After I heard them all enter the Manager’s office, Lindsay was called into the office.
Again, I heard muffled screams, shouting, and wails of crying as she kept up the innocent “act.”
Not 10 minutes later, I heard a door slam so hard, the blinds between the breakroom and the manager’s office fell down.
I will never forget the view, I looked straight at 3 shocked managers sitting there with a stare of disbelief watching the door that barely hung in its doorway.
The force of it being slammed was great enough to shear one of the hinges completely off the top part of the door, leaving a sizeable gap at the top as it only hung by the bottom hinge.
The store manager came out and told me that she had just been fired for harassment and that they were also going to report her to the police and sue for the criminal damages she just did in the office.
Apparently, she broke the VCR and TV by throwing a chair at it before leaving the room with such violence the Venetian blinds fell down and the door sheared off one of the hinges.
The company was good to me and I remained there for another 3-4 years before I looked for a job in my own field. After all, it paid reasonably well and I could afford to live and study at the same time.
Since my town was not one of the biggest in our country, I did come across her once, and she still, to this day (20+ years later), blames ME for having her fired.
I have no regrets.”
11. Don't Throw Him Under The Bus Unless You Want The Same To Be Done To You
“Bob was a back-of-store Lead Hand for a retail store. Along with his colleague Larry, he made sure that shipments and deliveries were scheduled and handled correctly, that the crew out back were doing their jobs, and that the restocks for front-of-store were picked correctly.
His Assistant Manager (AM), Frank, had resigned, and Bob had applied for the job. Bob had been handling many of Frank’s duties, particularly those that involved computers, since Frank was older and not very adept with a keyboard and mouse.
Bob didn’t get the job. Instead, they brought in Richard, an AM from another store, and Bob had worked with him in the past. He was a jerk and had once thrown Bob under the bus for one of his own mistakes, causing Bob to get yelled at on the floor in front of his colleagues, then hauled into the Manager’s office to get written up.
Bob was thinking of quitting anyway, but getting turned down for the AM position, and then seeing Richard roll in, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
One thing that is pertinent is that Larry, his colleague, was a Harley-riding biker type. He wasn’t a member of a club, but enjoyed riding, and did charity rides and stuff like that. He also, every year for a decade, went to Sturgis, South Dakota, for the annual rally in August.
So Bob decided to submit his resignation…effective the day after Larry left for his trip. He did this by attaching a PDF of his resignation to a bunch of reports…and requested a “read receipt.” Bingo. Richard clicked “read” and Bob printed it out.
The schedule for the warehouse crew was posted online, on a web-based scheduling app, with the Admin account under “ assistantmanager(at)store.com “, this was store policy.
All emails were created as “ jobtitle(at) “, and when a person left the position, the password was changed. This way, nobody had to change their contact information, they were communicating with the job title, and not the individual. IT had a list of logins for every position, and changed passwords with every transition, so the outgoing person couldn’t sabotage things.
Bob had asked Richard repeatedly for his password to the scheduling site, and never got an answer.
So, Larry worked a Thursday and headed out. Bob worked Friday, his last day, and before he left, he told his crew to make certain they checked the scheduling app, and worked their scheduled hours.
Then he went home and shut off his work phone.
On the Monday, before opening, he showed up to turn in his phone and his keys, to be greeted by Richard losing his crap.
The Store Manager corralled both of them and took them to his office.
Richard went on a tear, describing the poop show that happened over the weekend, how Bob was incommunicado, Richard had to come in and pee on fires, and demanded that Bob be written up. Bob let him go on and on.
The Store Manager said, “Bob, what have you got to say about this?”
“Well, a writeup is a disciplinary action for an employee, right?”
“Yes.”
“It’s going to be hard to make that stick since I’m not an employee.”
Bob had a folder, and pulled out a printed copy of his resignation, showing that the previous Friday was his last day. The Store Manager read it, then handed it to Richard.
Richard said, “You never sent this to me!”
“Yes, I did, three weeks ago. Here’s a copy of the email, and here’s a copy of the read receipt.”
The Store Manager gave Richard a wilting stare. “So who have you got lined up to replace Bob? Have you been interviewing?”
“I didn’t get this email. This is fake. No, I haven’t been interviewing anyone. I guess Larry will have to cover until I can fill that position.”
Bob: “Yeah, good luck with that, Larry isn’t even in this time zone. He’s in Sturgis. And no, it’s not fake. If you want, IT can verify that by checking your email history.”
Richard turned white. He realized he had no supervisors for the dock….at all.
The Store Manager asked Bob, “Is there any way we can get you to stick around?”
“No, thanks. I’ve already lined up a new job, sorry. But you’ve got bigger problems than this.”
SM, “Like what?”
Bob pulled out more copies of emails and handed them over. “I asked Richard repeatedly for his password to the scheduling app. Several times. Can I jump on your computer for a second?” SM turned his laptop to face Bob, and Bob logged in to the scheduling app.
“Okay, so the Admin account is under Richard’s job title. This is where we post the schedule for the crew. I used to do it for Frank because he wasn’t a computer guy, but technically, this falls under the Assistant Manager role… the login is assistantmanager(at). I’m logged in under my own account, but I can still see who’s scheduled, across the board.
I just can’t edit it. I don’t have the permissions.”
“Here’s the schedule for the warehouse crew for the next two weeks.” He turned the laptop back around. “It’s blank. There isn’t anyone scheduled to work….at all.”
Bob turned to Richard. “Here’s my keys, and here’s my company phone. I’m done. By the way, in accordance with this email from IT, I’ve ‘factory reset’ the phone.
Good luck.”
Bob left the office and all the way out of the store he could hear the Manager yelling at Richard.
Apparently, Richard had to go into the personnel file and burn up the phone lines calling warehouse guys to come in at the last minute…and company policy was that if you were called in with less than 24 hours notice, it was time-and-a-half.
Many of the records were outdated, so if he reached a worker, he had to ask them if he had any of their co-worker’s numbers. Once he got things straightened out a bit he was shown the door, they brought a Lead Hand and an Assistant Manager in from another store. Richard was “fired for cause”, denying him Unemployment, and tagged with a “Do Not Rehire”.”
10. Supervisor Dug Him Own Grave
“This happened about 10 years ago.
The supervisor position for my department was known to have a lot of turnovers, so I had a lot of bosses. But the one I’m going to tell you about takes the prize as the biggest jerk, and I’ll tell you how I got revenge.
So, new boss starts working at my agency. We’re created by the State Legislature but funded by the users we regulate. As a “governmental” agency, it’s extremely difficult to fire someone. It has to be a blatant act, easily verifiable, and in violation of published policies. You get the idea.
Here’s my story. I’d been employed with the agency for 13 years, had a solid work ethic and provable productivity.
My position is a professional one, and I have two degrees in the field. I loved my job. About 8 months before bad boss, Terry was hired, a tech worker, Emily had been promoted. Emily was known to spend her workday texting her significant other or best friend, or on the phone making appointments or scheduling vacations, and brown-nosing whoever was her direct report (speaks to how she got the promotion.).
I TRIED to train her up, but she was always too busy or out sick.
Enter newly hired Terry. He was cognizant of my skills and work and was generally genial for the first couple of months. Suddenly, Emily was getting the choice assignments. When I asked Terry about it, he responded that she had experience. I countered that no, she didn’t because she didn’t have time to be trained in that area.
I warned him that her lack of experience was going to cause him heartburn.
Within a month it did. He had to fix her work and would spend hours in his office trying to train her up in the area. Now let me say that Emily was attractive. Tall, blonde, curves in the right proportions and in the right places. I’m short, redhead, tomboy with the curves corresponding with that description.
BUT I’d been the sole employee in the department for 11 years and had built a solid reputation in the field.
Terry begins to walk into my (shared) office when Emily was out to tell me the agency no longer needs my expertise and I should go find another job. He tells me this daily for weeks. I finally go to his boss (who had been my boss prior to Terry) and ask if the agency would like me to leave.
He vehemently tells me the agency needs my expertise and asks why I’ve asked that. I tell him what Terry has been telling me. A discussion happens between the two and I’m told that Terry denies telling me that. Now I see how it is. Terry nearly gets me written up twice, both times lying to HR. Emily gets a promotion to supervisor (for which she was wildly unqualified, and she crashed and burned within 9 months… another story), and I get the crappiest review I’d ever had.
I knew I had to bide my time, keep the cleanest nose ever but I knew how to take him down. March comes around and I’d put in for vacation for a week that month. I’d put in for the time off two months earlier. The Friday before my vacation begins I’m called into Terry’s office.
“You need to be reachable on your cell phone the entire week,” he says.
“Well, that’s going to be difficult. My parents live in another state in a rural area, and the cell service tower is for another provider. I only get service when I go into town,” I informed him.
“I want the phone number to your parents’ house. Give it to me.”
“No. That’s an intrusion into their privacy. There’s nothing I’m responsible for that can’t wait a week,” I told him.
“Give it to me or I’ll have you written up.”
Ok, I’ll give you the number. In the back of my mind, I’m thinking he’s written his own death warrant. You see, at our agency whenever you make a long-distance call, you have to enter a code that is unique to you for the call to go through.
On Wednesday of my vacation, my mom answers the phone and tells me it’s for me.
Terry’s on the phone DEMANDING the password for my computer. I decline to give it to him. He INSISTS I give it to him. While he’s on the line yelling at me I log into my personal email and start composing an email to the head of admin and HR director detailing this phone call. I eventually hang up on Terry and send my email.
Monday morning at 9 am I’m called into the HR office. What is this email you sent? What happened? I detailed the call and what Terry wanted (which is against agency policy) and how I handled it. Can you prove it? Well, he had the call on speaker and Emily was in his office to witness it. Oh, by the way, here’s my mom’s phone number.
I’m sure you can figure out if it’s been called, when, and by whom.
Terry is an absolute jerk to me all day. Whenever Emily left the office, so did I. I was DONE with the jerk. DONE! The next day Emily is called into HR. An hour later, Terry is called (Emily hadn’t returned.) Two hours later, they both return. Emily begins to ask me about certain areas she hasn’t gotten into yet and I kind of blow her off (she’s an accessory in my mind.).
Terry refuses to speak to me at all. I found out later that he was told to stop harassing me and the next time I complained, he’d be fired. Six months later Terry quits. Six months after that, they demote Emily back to a position equal to mine but out of my department.
I retire in 8 months with a sweet pension and retirement benefits.
Screw you both, Terry and Emily. No one screws with me and gets away with it.”
9. Racist Boss Chases Off All My Coworkers, So I Do Something About It
“I had just graduated from college, did not do an internship (shame on me), and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I was on indeed.com (job posting site), just throwing up my resume to see what stuck. I was not having much luck finding anything.
That was until I received a call from a security company. You know, the company that advertises itself as a largest security company in the world? Anyways, they brought me in for an interview, which was actually disguised as a job offer. Experience now would have seen that as a red flag, but I was green, and didn’t know any better.
For those that don’t know, security works like this.
Client: “I need security.” Security company: “We can provide guards to you at X + $25, and pay our guards x.” Client: “Great!” It’s a horrible business model, but again, I was young and ignorant. In order to protect my anonymity, the client will hereafter be referred to as “Center.” Who Center was is irrelevant to this story.
After several HR hiccups (more red flags), I finally made it to Center, to start guarding their facility.
I cannot emphasize how good of a job this could have been. I was paid well for the work I was providing (not like the security company, but still well), the job itself was cake, my coworkers were awesome (more on that in a bit), and there was such comradery among the other guards. Well, all except one person. The site supervisor. We’ll call her Ursula, because that’s what that witch looked like.
I worked with the greatest group of men and women I will probably ever work with. I worked with former marines, law enforcement, naval ship captains, high-ranking military, pretty much an elite group of boys and girls. I was clearly a boy in their world, but for some reason, they really liked me, motivated me to reach for more. The reality was, they had their careers in service, and just wanted something to get them out of the house.
Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t old and decrepit. Most of them were from the north, and had already retired out, and were receiving a good pension. They kept reiterating it to anyone who would talk to them.
The thing was, Ursula, was just like me in that she had a crap resume, had no experience, much less be qualified to supervise this elite group.
Once she realized that, that’s when the paranoia began to set in. She had a list. Everyone that was on it; their workplace became a living heck. Not only this frankenwitch chase you off, but if she caught wind of where you were going, she’d actively call your next employer, to drag your name through the mud. It was sick.
Not only was she toxic as a boss, but she was woefully incompetent.
Let me give you a summary of SOME of the things Ursula did. Ursula, constantly threatened termination, openly admitting to targeting employees and minority employees especially, continuously revised the schedule throughout the week (causing multiple guards to arrive, or sometimes posts uncovered), wielded the schedule as a weapon to punish guards she didn’t like, degraded our staff as well as Center’s staff on a routine basis, intimidated guards requesting leave, falsified time sheets, illegally initiated traffic stops on Center’s employees, illegally detaining Center’s employees, illegally searched Center’s employees possessions, disgusting amount of inappropriate harassment, warned us guards not to speak with Center’s employees, was lying more than congress, and went through several mood swings a shift. Yeah, she was a real piece of work.
Being located in a southern state, there was no union for us. The best we could do was keep firing emails up the chain of command. When I say we, I meant them. At the time, I didn’t have the confidence I do now, and I lurked in the shadows. My thought process was if these people, who are way smarter than me, aren’t able to affect change, what chance did I have?
Ursula’s actions I listed above were quite routine, and were displayed on a daily basis. Slowly but surely, the great men and women I came to know and love would come to my shack and say, “OP, I just can’t do it anymore!” It was so sad. I respected these people so much, but they were just cannon fodder in Ursula’s insane war. When the new employees showed up to replace the ones that left, they would all say “deuces” as soon as they arrived.
One night, I was talking with one of Center’s employees, because screw anything Ursula had to say, and they were laughing, because a report had just come out about how my company had a turnover rate of 97.5%. Even though, it could’ve been easy to figure out, I had never thought about it, and that left me shaken. By that point, all the original staff was gone, and I was now a supervisor.
That’s honestly how it felt like. I knew I was a passenger on the Titanic. How we didn’t lose that contract just blows my mind. Not only did my company hate her, but everyone in Center did as well because she made their lives a living heck by being Karen Blart – wannabe cop. I figured if we didn’t lose the contract, I would end up on the trash list eventually and get chased out.
However, for all the misery she caused people I respected (and Center), I wasn’t about to go into the night quietly. And that’s where the revenge begins.
Remember that college degree I mentioned earlier? Yeah, it’s in communications. It’s a stupid degree, that I don’t recommend anyone getting, unless you like barely above minimum wage. BUT, what that degree entailed was lots of research, papers, interviewing, etc. I really didn’t know how good I was at it, until after this plan concluded and used it several times later (different stories for a different day).
Now, I understand a lot of people might be judging the way write this post. There’s a huge difference, though. Right now, I’m chilling while I casually type this. The difference is I wrote a formal piece for a professional setting, not dissimilar to lawyer jargon.
I knew what would happen if I went up the chain of command. There’s no amount of technical allegations I could throw at the security company because they are siding with the very likely option that won’t go beyond HR.
I had already secured a new job, in a different field, notice already in, so I had nothing to lose at this point. I interviewed all current staff, the former staff I trusted, and gathered every single grievance they had against Ursula. I still have that list on my desktop, and you read some of the highlights above. They had no idea what I was doing, except “OP has an idea.”
I don’t recommend anyone doing what I did, but as I said, I was out the door and moving on to a different field, so I didn’t give a dang anymore. I’m honestly not entirely sure of the ranking structure that Center had. There were so many chiefs and different departments within. I had to trust somebody though. One boss, who I’ll refer to as Bossman from now on hated Ursula with a passion because her bs made his life miserable.
I had to test his loyalty though. One morning, while Bossman and I were alone, I began a little light interrogation, while feeding him intel about the guard’s situation being under Ursula’s thumb. He agreed that the turnover was unacceptable, but he wasn’t high enough up the chain to affect any change unless he had some sort of proof. I didn’t go into details, but I informed him I had a list, and I’d be happy to give it to him.
He said absolutely. The problem was that Ursula was super paranoid, would know if I showed up when I wasn’t scheduled, and rightfully suspect mutiny was afoot. I told him I’d meet him at 6 AM the next day. I went home that night and put the finishing touches on the list.
There was one final thing I had to do. This was a guarded facility, and I’d have to get past the guard without raising suspicion or alert Ursula I was there.
When I got to the gate, I don’t know what came over me, I lifted up the envelope my letter was in, and said, “Mark (obvious fake name), I was never here.” He just looked at me, nodded, and let me through. Why? I’ll never know. Didn’t ask. He had no idea about the list. He hated Ursula too, but he did a lot of talking, so I never shared it with him.
I met Bossman, handed him the envelope, we shook hands, and that was that. I was already on the schedule to start the next job that overnight, so I went home to sleep. I never expected anything to come of this, because nothing had happened after so many good-faith attempts with proof. I just did it, so I could walk away with a clean conscience.
I went to work that night, turned off my phone, and when I came back to the car to have a smoke, I turned on my phone. My phone began flooding with text messages.
I really don’t have the full story of what happened. This is what I collected from my ex-co-workers. Apparently, Bossman with several of the other chiefs had forced my security company to have an onsite meeting, told them what a piece of trash Ursula was, how much of a liability she was and to remove her from the site permanently.
I also heard she was wailing, while she was being escorted to her car. Ah, yes, salty tears. From what I heard, she wasn’t fired, but just rehomed in a site by herself, stripped of all of her “power.””
8. Don't Like That I Miss Work For Mental Health Reasons? Pay Up
“A few years ago, I quit my career in the tech industry.
This was after the company I was working for went public and everything went downhill. I was sick of making a salary for the rich and needed some time to really live life. I proceeded to spend a few months traveling, working on home projects, and really doing whatever the heck I wanted. One day, about 4 months into my freedom, I was having lunch with my best friend and she told me “You need to stop being lazy and get a job.” She had recently been hired at a company in the construction industry and mentioned there was an opening.
The opening was doing something I had zero experience in, but a change of career was appealing. I applied and promptly was given a phone interview. I spent a little time researching everything about this position and after many interviews managed to fake my way in. Turns out this position was wildy different from anything I had done before. It taxed me in ways I had never experienced. Not only was my job stressful, but my boss also turned into a nightmare.
He had worked there since the company was founded. He was a part of the “good ol boys club”. Now… For everyone that doesn’t know, the construction industry has zero HR. This was close to a billion-dollar company and was still the same way. My boss was a narcissist, liar, and downright jerk. Weirdly, most of that was directed towards others and not me. My best friend was one person that took the brunt of it.
It killed me to hear what he would say to her. All of this took its toll on me.
-New Years Day
About 3 months into my employment, January 1st hit. I wake up at 2 am in the morning with pain in my chest and my head racing a million miles an hour. Luckily, my roommate was a paramedic and happened to be home. I rush over to her room and yell that I think I’m having a heart attack.
She comes out, takes my vitals, asks some questions, and determines I am most likely having a panic attack. Sure enough, I calm down and manage to not die. I had never had a panic attack up until then. Throughout the following week, I continue to have flare-ups of chest pain and heart palpitations. I figure something could really be wrong so I go to my doctor.
He does a few tests and determines it’s most likely some acid reflux. He prescribes some meds and the following week is better. Then, one night when heading home from dinner with my Sister, BOOM, I get rear-ended at a stoplight by an intoxicated driver. No skid marks. Didn’t even attempt to stop. I felt a bit of tightness in my back so decide to go get checked out at the hospital to be safe.
I get there and they take my vitals. My b***d pressure was on the moon. Like 180/100. They take it about an hour later and it’s still high. They recommend I go see my doctor again. The next couple of weeks waiting for my doctor’s appointment is awful. I am having daily “panic” attacks, chest pain, trouble breathing, massive fatigue. The whole gambit. Finally, get to the day of my appointment, let my doctor know what’s going on, and he determines I should go see a few different specialists and get all kinds of tests done to be safe.
Throughout the next couple of months and have everything poked and prodded. Because of the number of tests that needed to be done, I missed a good bit of work. This turned my boss on me. He constantly complained about me being gone. All the while not an ounce of work was dropped. With my tech background, I also took it upon myself to start making reports and collecting data that I would present to him on ways of improving the department and company.
I later found out, he would take these reports, which at times could save the company hundreds of thousands to potentially millions of dollars, and present them as his own to the owner. This made me furious and didn’t help with my physical issues. However, slowly I made it through all of the prescribed tests and they couldn’t find anything physically wrong with me. Turns out, all of the issues were caused by stress and anxiety.
Something I had never had an issue with before. My doctor referred me to an amazing counselor that helped me learn how to manage the problems I was facing and get back to a reasonable state of mind. Although, this never got to an acceptable level because of my boss. I started to email HR with my issues with him and things I have witnessed with others.
Most of this was met with an unwillingness to help in any way.
-Queue The Turning Point
A dear coworker whom everyone loved and respected decided to quit out of nowhere. She too worked under my boss. In her exit interview, she gave the sole reason for quitting as my boss. She finally hit her breaking point and enough was enough. However, because she was so well liked, this prompted some questions from the owner and other senior management.
They wanted to know why my boss was the reason for her leaving. They had HR setup a meeting with us in the department and our boss to go over our issues with him. We all were excited to finally, hopefully, get the people that matter to listen. We have the meeting and we all lay out the issues with our boss and give a multitude of examples.
I went a bit overboard and had an entire presentation. Turns out this was all a charade to cover my boss’s butt. He was “prescribed” some management counseling which I’m pretty sure he never did and things continued on their merry way. However, now… With the knowledge my boss had of our issues with him, he turned the volume up to 11. The constant berating, yelling, write ups came flowing out.
It got bad enough that I started to secretly record every meeting with him. I saved every single email and documented every interaction with him. I continued to push for help from HR, but again, his status in the company kept him immune from any response. Thankfully, throughtout all of this, I managed to keep my mental health in check thanks to my counselor’s tools.
-I Once Again Get Sick
Yes… I get sick, but this time it’s with real cold and lasts a few days. All of which are covered by government-mandated sick time. I come back to work and not even a week goes by and I get called into my boss’s office with other senior management. I knew this wasn’t good. My boss let me know that they are firing me for attendance.
I am gobsmacked. I have never been fired in my life and I know I was an asset to the company’s success. I didn’t slack off, I didn’t miss deadlines, the attendance excuse appeared to just be what my boss thought would be easiest to get rid of me with. Now…. I live in an at-will state. You can be fired for basically any reason except for a bad one.
They presented me with a meager 2 week pay severance. I declined to sign it, packed my stuff up, and left. I knew the whole situation didn’t feel right, especially because I was familiar with the recent state laws that passed about sick time and an employer not being legally allowed to fire you for using it. Because of this, I went to my mom whose been in the law field her entire life, and got a referral for an employment law attorney.
-Things start to look up
The day of my appointment with the employment law attorney couldn’t come quick enough. I had gathered everything I had collected from my time at the company and presented it to him. The recordings on my phone, the emails, the documented interactions, everything. After showing the attorney, he pushes back from his desk and says “Holy crap. You have a heck of a case here.
They messed up bad.” A wave of relief flows over my entire body. Me thinking the only blatant violation was firing me for using sick time, I was taken aback when he proceeded to explain that the company made 4 huge violations. The sick time violation not even being anywhere near the top of the list. Some big things I learned from him:
–The meeting I had with my boss, HR, and the rest of the department where we went over all of our issues with him was a key piece of evidence for one of their biggest violations.
I learned this type of meeting is considered protected concerted activity and covered under the National Labor Relations Act. The act protects against retaliation for having this kind of meeting. According to my lawyer, all of my boss’s activities following that meeting can be considered retaliation.
— When it comes to health issues and how they affect you at your workplace, make sure you document every interaction with your employer.
It’s important to show that you made an effort to let them know of your complications and how they may affect you at your workplace. I sent countless emails to HR letting them know of my mental health issues and their failure to make accommodations was a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
— having recordings and documentation on how your employer interacts differently with females and males is important to prove a violation of the Civil Rights Act.
After all of this, the lawyer stated I had three options. Option one, I could retain him and we could file a lawsuit. He explained that would be expensive and take a lot of time. However, would most likely result in a good amount of earnings. Option two, I could file claims with all of the Departments that cover the violated Acts. He explained that some of these departments can take years to investigate and process the claims. However, for some of them, especially the violation of the National Labor and Relations Act, the investigation can be absolute heck on the employer.
This would probably be the biggest F you to the employer. Option three, I go back by myself and renegotiate the severance. This being the quickest and easiest option. This option sounded very appealing, I really didn’t want to drag this out for multiple years. I told the lawyer that option three is most likely my choice and he mentioned that I should probably start negotiations at 9 months of severance and full benefits.
After consulting with people close to me, I decided to go with option three. I met with HR and Senior Management, explained that I consulted with an employment law attorney, stated all of the acts that he feels they violated, and ask for 9 months of severance. After a couple of weeks of negotiating with their attorney, we settled on six months of severance with full benefits.
It’s been a few years since this has happened and it still makes me feel overwhelmingly happy thinking about it. In the end, I found an absolutely amazing job in the same industry. My ex-boss ended up being moved to a position that wasn’t in management. And hopefully… Nobody will ever have to go through what I and others went through at that company again.”
7. The Perfect Way To Get The Kids To Clean Up Their Messes
“Let’s take a look back, waaay back, to the time of the first stirrings of the y2k bug where people believed that the world was going to end in a nuclear war because the computers were going to hit 00 when the year 2000 came around.
It was almost the summer of 1999. I was just a twig of a child, mostly gangly limbs and big eyes, and all of eleven years old or so.
Our cast for this tale is A, my eldest step-sibling…N, the catalyst of this tale…M, me, the Bambi looking gullible and who should have known better…Lu, stepbrother, my age and he should have known better too…K, younger sister by 2 years and L, the youngest. The baby of the family.
Now my mother re-married a man (we shall call him RG) when I was about 8 years old.
Due to the whole ‘soap incident’, he delegated all forms of discipline to her when it came to punishing us all on a whole. So due to her working long 13-hour days to support us all and the lack of allowance for doing chores because let’s face it, 6 kids tend to run you dry if you try to keep up with it all, we, the children, started slacking off.
This did not sit well with my mother, who used her usual threat of, ‘I WILL go into your rooms and whatever is on the floor, goes in the garbage.’ This is something we had heard all our lives but us younger kids, as in me and all below me, totally believed she would do it…
…until THIS one faithful day.
It was gorgeous outside, the sun was shining, spring had brought new leaves to the trees and all the neighborhood kids could be heard screaming through the streets because the 90s were a time of uncontrolled childhood chaos where parents happily released their spores into the wild and drank wine while they didn’t have to think about their devil spawn until the street lights flicked on.
Unfortunately, for us, MY mother decided that this gorgeous weekend day was best used for picking up the slack that we let get away from us. She demanded we clean our rooms while repeating that well-known phrase we all knew and despised. We groaned, we whined…we relented and started to comply.
But then my sister N, the stonecold and wisest of the elder sisters, just shrugged and IGNORED THE ORDER!
She and A shared a room, practically having one side of the upper floor, which had a wall knocked down and renovated into almost like a mini apartment sans kitchen, all to themselves and at the all-knowing age of 13 (N) and 15 (A) they both decided they had better things to do that day than listen to our Mom.
‘A’ left to go on a date with her partner she made the year before and N sat in her room on her computer (a giant PC of a thing linked into a separate line so the dial-up wouldn’t fudge up our phone systems.)
When we, the younger kids, started bugging her, shocked at her audacity my sister N said these words.
‘It’s not like she’s actually going to throw all our stuff away. She paid for it all, she’s not just going to toss it all out because that’s a waste of salary. This is a home, it’s not a prison. She’s not the warden and we don’t HAVE to do what she says.’
Then, she left us standing there with our puny impressionable minds totally blown.
We DIDN’T have to do what mom said? Is that even possible?! My younger sister K and my brother Lu took this at face value and immediately took off. They were 11 (Lu) and 9 (K) and had friends waiting on them, they didn’t have TIME to waste cleaning their rooms on an empty threat.
L, only seven years old, was more hesitant but was as easily distracted as I was and we ended up playing Barbies for the rest of the day totally forgetting about our worries until dinner time.
Silence.
Dinner was quiet, awkward. Mom was angry the house did not get cleaned and RG was ready to lay his hammer down at my mother’s command. The interrogation went as expected and K, our more…erm..
expressive sister blew up (figuratively) at my mother.
‘This is a HOME, Mom! Not a PRISON! And it’s MY room!’ With this, dinner was concluded. K stormed off. Mom went quiet and with the most Stepford wife smile ever just asked us all if we felt this way. My elder sisters agreed immediately, not really caring because of teenage angst and we younger kids slowly nodded at their insistent stares.
‘I see.’
And that was that. No punishments, no scoldings or groundings and the rest of the weekend went off without a hiccup. We should have known something was up. Mom sent us all off to school Monday herself, which was unusual because she usually woke up before us and was gone by the time we finished brushing our teeth. We then wouldn’t see her until dinner later in the day but she made us a biiiig breakfast, hinted at a surprise for us when we get home from school, kissed us goodbye and sent us happily out the door.
Mom’s PRO revenge.
While we were at school Mom, RG and some of his friends came in and got rid of EVERYTHING that would be enjoyable to a child. The basement was emptied and cleaned, all computers, video games, Gameboys, CD players, rodeos and TVs were taken. Dressers and closets were emptied, toys upon toys were tossed, colorful blankets and sheets removed from beds, decorations, pencils and coloring tools, papers and scissors, glue…basically any and all craft supplies, GONE.
When we returned home, RG was in his military uniform and accosted us as we came in through the door, pinned us to the wall, and frisked each of us. Backpacks, candy, and everything we had on us were taken. My mother then handed us some grey pajamas and ordered us to march into the bathroom to change.
Terrified, we complied.
The living room seemed so bare.
The piano/recorder was gone, along with the tv…the puzzles and games usually kept in the room were gone from the shelves. The bathroom was no better. Bare except for a bottle of Head and Shoulders and a bar of soap on a string for some reason. It smelled strongly of bleach. We were then sat down on lawn chairs, the couch occupied by my stone-cold mother, as we waited for every child to arrive in silence.
Welcome to the month of nightmares.
We watched as my mother tossed all our clothes into a garbage bag. All toys and art supplies from our backpacks followed, and RG was in uniform and with his scariest expression as my mother went through our new itinerary for life from now on.
Wake up at dawn, physical training in the mornings through the town, led by RG.
Oatmeal with no sugar for breakfast then off to school. Drop off made to the classrooms by RG and pick up the moment the bell goes at the end of the day. Lunch is roast beef sandwiches, barely any mayo, and wilted lettuce. The school has been informed to not give us anything else and to take away anything not given to us by our parents.
Once home, we are each assigned a room to clean, our bags taken, and checked for contraband. Room clean? Physical training in the back yard, a deflated soccer ball as a toy, nothing else, leave the fenced-in area and you get extra punishment.
No friends, calls, or escape. Dinner was cold peas, corn, beans, and mystery meat. No butter, salt or ketchup allowed.
‘You don’t take care of your home, you don’t deserve your home.
Welcome to prison.’
Homework was done at the table, use of pencils and paper regulated and inventory counted. Bedtime was at 6. Lights out at 7 and the doors locked until morning. The bathroom must be used before bed or you have to go in the pot put in your room. It is up to you to keep it cleaned. We had two sets of pjs we went to school in, all grey, and a set for bed. It was up to us to keep them clean.
Uniform must be maintained, hair must be maintained, our grades must stay high.
No excuses, no exceptions.
By the time a week was up she had broken us. N and A had stayed stubborn but even they broke by the second week. Then the appeals. You want release? Write us an essay on why you think you’re ready to return to society. Then an interview to determine leniency.
My younger sister L and I managed to be allowed outside beyond the yard, it took several days for the others to follow. By the end of the month, we were ready to do anything my mother asked us to.
Then on the same day as last time she and RG came into our rooms and dumped garbage bags upon garbage bags, every book to every lego was in there, marked with our names.
All our stuff was brought back and my mother dumped them all out onto the floor and said ‘when I come back up here whatever is on the floor, goes in the garbage.’
We cleaned that STUFF UP FAST. We never ignored our chores again.”
6. Stop Doing Work During Training Hours? Got It!
“So about a year ago I started a new job in specialized technical support for electronic devices. For most of these products and issues, we have a very extensive list and database of information from which follow procedures.
One of these databases is specifically made for self-guided training and other informative things that we usually get assigned whenever needed. For these assigned training, you’d usually get a few more minutes than actually needed, but sometimes a lot more.
For the last few of these trainings, I have followed the schedule, finished my training, and gone back to work. Usually, this meant I had about half or more of the time assigned left over, meaning I could either knock some more work out or touch up some previous interactions.
This was, until a few weeks ago.
Manager; Hey PaperRadiator, I noticed you are skipping out of training times and using this time for other things.
Me; Usually I have time over, this allows me to do stuff regarding previous interactions and lets me work clean.
M; Nono, this is not what the time is assigned for. Fill in the time on those trainings and stay on that status! Whatever you do, I don’t want you to do different work on training hours.
Me; Alright, no work? Understood, loud and clear!
Queue MC.
The next two weeks we get assigned more and more training for new launches, arising issues, and more. Each day about 3-4 hours worth of training. Give or take.
These trainings are straightforward and if you use the right resources, can be finished within 45-60 minutes, if you read clearly and follow the right information. More time really is not needed, and if there’s nothing to do anymore… Well… I guess I won’t do work, as requested.
Needless to say, I have been enjoying about 15+ hours per week freely doing chores in the house and other useful stuff on training time. At least I’m no longer doing work outside of the assigned hours! Bad me!”
5. Won't Pay A Union Driver Extra Hours At UPS? I Have An Idea
“This happened years ago.
I worked at a UPS. It was run by a manager who was very quick to let you know he was a former commander in Vietnam and he ran this office just like he ran his troops in Vietnam.
I was brought up to respect the military and didn’t have any problem when I first heard this.
The more time that went on, however, I felt sorry for the troops if he truly commanded any in Vietnam.
There would be dead time in between when trucks needed to be unloaded and we would commonly just stand around and talk twiddling our thumbs when we were supposed to be cleaning.
He would hide behind closed doors sweating his butt off looking out small metal holes for hours at a time to try to “catch” us like this.
I couldn’t help but just see how pointless this had to be for a manager to be sitting around sweating for hours so he could catch employees taking a break in between unloading a truck after really busting their butts for hours.
The union covered all workers whether you joined the union or not.
I didn’t join but I still enjoyed the benefits of the union which included overtime if you worked more than 4 hours in the day if you are part-time.
There were also set rules such as… If there was an overnight package delivery that was missed and a driver had to drive it to the airport so the package would not be late, the manager had to pick one of the Union employees to get that route.
Due to the nature of them being part-time and normally just unloading boxes, it meant that they would be paid at a different overtime driver rate. Any driver could get a nice boost of pay from one trip to the airport.
This manager didn’t like that and would commonly take these trips himself when he was supposed to let another driver that was union take these trips.
Most of our overtime would come from the people who knew how to drive standard because at that point, you automatically volunteer to stay late after your shift to park these trucks for the next shift.
Cue malicious compliance.
Anytime the manager “stole” these driving routes, everyone parking the trucks would go turtle speed. A job that would normally take 10-20 minutes would suddenly take about an hour, so once he got back, everyone would be finishing up, since the trip to the airport and back took about an hour.
One time, he must have had a side errand or something come up… I never found out why but instead of one hour, the trip took about 3 hours.
I just remember five or six young guys and a couple of old guys walking around the lot pretending to look at our paper that showed where our trucks were and looking around dumbfounded as we turn a 10-minute job into a 3-hour one.
When he got back and saw us still in the lot, he just started screaming and everyone’s trucks were parked within 3 minutes. We got the heck out of there.
There wasn’t much he could do to punish us since he was breaking the rules and he already did everything he could to make our life there as tough as possible.
That was the easiest 3 hours of overtime pay of my life for sure and my biggest team effort of malicious compliance.”
4. Mad That We Use Our Paid Break To Eat? We'll Cost The Company More Dollars
“I work in a lab that employs a LOT of people nationwide. We get a lot of cases from doctors and hospitals all across the country every day to run tests they order. Because of the sheer amount of cases we get daily, we have a lot of QC (quality control) that needs to be done by the end of the week, and if it doesn’t get done by Saturday night, we have to do a rotation every week to finish it.
My actual supervisor said, “we have to stay 4-6 hours OR until everything is done.”
There’s this cynical, old woman who works in my department. She’s a massive pain in our butt and sends endless amounts of emails a day about fixing things that aren’t broken, doing something wrong even though we follow her directions, all while she’s doing none of her own work. She also happens to be the “lead” of our department even though she never sees any of us because she’s in the back office, not in the actual lab, she works the third shift.
Today is my rotation. It just so happens to be my birthday weekend (my birthday was Friday) and my coworker who I’m doing the rotation with brought breakfast burritos for the two of us. Thankfully there wasn’t a lot of work last week and there was minimal QC to do. After we stayed for an hour and were 80% done with our work, we took a paid 15-minute break.
16 minutes later, we come back into the lab and she starts yelling at us because we went over our time, and she leaves the lab and calls our manager who basically said it doesn’t matter since we’re still getting the work done. Old Woman comes back and says that we can’t leave until the work is done (even though she’ll be leaving in about an hour).
Okay then.
We finish all of our work about 10 minutes after we came back from break, but since we’re still on the clock, we’re deciding to stay for the entire 6 hours doing mindless work (cleaning already sanitized stations, deleting emails, dusting keyboards, changing pens, etc) which will cost the company about $300 more (because of overtime pay) on our paychecks. All because we were one minute over.
Like I said, this might not be as exciting as other posts on here, but this is the first time this overworked and underpaid oncology lab worker is doing something like this.”
Another User Comments:
“I feel you. I work in a lab, and I’m currently realizing just how manipulative my bosses are. They are the type to act nice, pretend like they care, but they also seem to enjoy manipulating me.
I feel like the scapegoat, and no one else sees it except my husband (he works there but in a different department).
I’m thinking perhaps labs aren’t great places to work.” TieDye_Raptor
3. Anonymously Internet Bully Me And My Mom? We'll Send The Screenshots To Your School
“One morning after a big party, I got on my phone to check if anyone has texted me overnight. To my surprise, I got a message from someone, who was not on my friend’s list. So I checked it out and there was just a single line of text. “Is (my mother’s name) your mother?” I was like huh? because this kid (let’s call him Silly Boy) was like 14 or something and he lived on the other side of the country.
I texted him back asking why he asks and he just went on a rampage. Silly Boy called my mother something like a fat big witch, stupid cow, ugly, you know the drill. Before doing anything else, I called her to check what this is all about. After saying his name, she immediately asked why I’m asking. I explained the situation.
She. Was. Mad.
She told me that Silly Boy replied to one of her comments on some post on social media, where she was giving her opinion (I know, a huge mistake) about something connected to the sun’s influence on health (she owns a couple of sunbathing studios/solariums, which is kinda relevant to the story), and he went ballistic on her.
Then he started DMing her, where she tried to argue as politely as she could, to no avail (what a shocker). After seeing the pointlessness of the conversation, she just stopped replying. But bringing it to her friends and relatives was the last straw and she said. Sshe will do something about it.
I decided to try to argue back with him for a couple of minutes.
Two idiots casually arguing on the internet ( I was like 17 at the time or something ). Eventually I just blocked him after laughing at his replies with some friends (at that moment I didn’t know, how useful this whole trash-talk will be in couple of hours).
After a couple of minutes, my mom called me asking to verify something for her. She told me to go to this kid’s social media account and check if I could find some information about this kid, anything that would lead her to his actual location etc. I personally couldn’t imagine my mother driving to his house and shouting at him, cause, first of all, that’s a total waste of time.
Second of all, a true Karen move. But I told her I’ll see what I can find.
Silly Boy had a PUBLIC PROFILE with all the cells filled up. I got his address and relatives (which was what I went there for), but what’s more, is that I found his SCHOOL NAME and address. With a smile, I picked up my phone and called my mother.
I told my mother that there is no point calling/contacting his parents, he will get away with it. Especially, since it’s 12 o’clock and he will be at school. I told her to call there and verify that Silly Boy was actually studying there. She did, and after that, she told the office lady what happened, and she transferred it to the principal. After listening to the whole story, the principal said that he was very sorry and that he will do something about it.
We thought nothing of it, maybe the kid will get a talk with his parents, and that’s it. Oh, were we wrong there!
I mentioned the usefulness of the trash talk, right? Well, I sent the screenshots of the conversation (my replies were mostly like “what’s wrong with you” and “are you ok?” cause I just wanted to taunt him) to my mother, and she emailed them to the school’s principal.
Now is a good time to say more about the insults he made. Well, I’m from Poland and we do not go easy on those. The casual “screw, witch, etc.” just isn’t enough for us. So when I say that there were some curses that a kid at his age shouldn’t have even heard about it, I mean it. But swear words are just words.
It’s what he actually said that got him.
Firstly, he said something terrible and explicit about my mom. But the best part, was when I tried to talk back, asking what his parents thought of his behavior. I don’t know what was in this kid’s head, but he said:
“My parents were killed in an accident half a year ago, and I made it my duty to stop people from telling lies and your stupid mother was saying “insert opinion” about sunbathing, which killed my aunt. She’s dead from cancer.”
Before you say that maybe it was trauma, during the conversation, he said multiple times that his parents are “skin doctors” and they say he is right and supports all the comments, so I know he was BSing me.
So now, imagine all this and screenshots from my mother on his principal’s desk. This was already satisfying.
AFTERMATH
After a couple of days, my mother called me again, telling me the following aftermath of our actions.
It. Was. Glorious.
The very same day he texted me, Silly Boy was taken out of his classroom mid-lesson and brought to the principal’s office without knowing what was about to happen. In the office, there were his parents, disgusted and angry, and also the SCHOOL PSYCHIATRIST, waiting to talk to him. He had to explain to her why he said that his parents and aunt were dead (he was pretty graphic with their death), then he had to listen to the principal talking about this unacceptable behavior and that he has embarrassed the school.
Then, he was taken home to have a “talk” with his parents. The cherry on top? His actions led to the school organizing a lecture for the whole school, about cyberbullying and cybersecurity, with an example of an “anonymous student’s” behavior (he was like a top-class student with no problems in the past, so they took it seriously). He also had to see a school psychiatrist weekly, until the end of the school year (it was November), due to his drastic comments.
Well, it’s been like 4 years already, but imagining his face when he realized that my message “you will regret saying all this” wasn’t a bluff and that his actions indeed have consequences, still puts a smile on my face. My mother got a bouquet with a formal apology (we agreed that it is ok for him to apologize by phone, with no need to make a public post on his social media and humiliate him online), and he got a valuable lesson.
Don’t mess with people online, cause you may get burnt!”
2. Set Me Up To Fail At Work? I'll Do The Same To You
“So, I’m a Software Engineer at a Medium Healthcare Company. Let’s call it Arcade Health. (AH). WELL, in the beginning of last year, I started there. The team I was joining had like 5-6 offshore people on it before. Now, they were dumping all of them for two onshore resources (to save monetary capital). As such, we had DingBat (my lead), myself, and an older guy named Tim.
Dingbat was my lead for the Content Management side. Though, I ended up having Angel also be another lead when Grim (My and dingbat’s functional manager) assigned me to another project.
After about 6 months, it was apparent I was excelling in my role, but to assert her dominance, Dingbat, called me on my personal number and yelled at me. So, I tell Grim and he assures me it would be handled. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t.
Now, Grim and Dingbat have worked together for almost half a decade and had a positive relationship.
Grim came back and said, it didn’t happen. Well. Fast forward a month, Dingbat has been laid off and instead taken to harassing Tim. Tim wasn’t a Software Engineer, but he was forced into being one. So, Tim had a steep learning curve. So, she questioned his intelligence multiple times.
Finally, he had enough, and we had a meeting with Dingbat and Grim to say this isn’t cool. So, Grim has to accept that Dingbat isn’t actually the person they portray.
Well, things simmer down and Dingabt actually gets to be moderately okay to work with. Meanwhile, my project with Angel ramps up, and I have less time to devote to dingbat’s project. Well, Dingbat forced me to do her project like I had nothing else going and assigned me an asinine amount of tickets.
Angel can’t actually devote much time to the one we have because she’s the lone engineer on another. In total, so, I have Dingbat’s project, and Angel’s project. So, I sit down with Grim and explain I have worked 80 hour weeks for a month.
Grim… Takes me off Dingbat’s project temporarily. He tells Dingbat she can only give me a handful of non-taxing tickets. Dingbat is mad but complies.
At the yearly end where our leads report to our managers, Angel basically gives me a glowing recommendation to get promoted.
I created a solution that would indicate the values are intact for all models. Basically, if these *******, the entire functionality is broken. So, the user wouldn’t be able to send data to the server as fields would need to be changed in the code.
In total, this was a 2-month effort taking about 80 hours a week on its own. Dingbat… Calls me incompetent and says I have demonstrated a bad attitude. Mostly, Dingbat always had negative comments, so after a while, yeah you get annoyed.
So, Dingbat’s heavy criticism blocked the promotion that I was promised would come by Grim. Angel lobbied hard every meeting she could to make it clear Grim that I worked hard, had a good attitude, and deserved an upgrade.
In the end though, Grim and Dingbat were closer friends or whatever.
Fast forward three months, I’m back on Dingbat’s project. While I was away, she harassed Tim multiple times every day. She has nitpicked and criticized me at least twice literally every day since the new year when I was put back on the project. So, I told Dingbat in a chat that how she acted was completely disrespectful to Tim and me.
She didn’t do something she was supposed to do, so I didn’t know I needed to do a few tickets. Well, she added Grim the next day to the chat. Grim sets up a meeting and I outline what Dingbat has been doing since starting.
Grim: I think you have been really disgruntled since being taken off Angel’s project, and you’re taking it out on Dingbat.
Me: NO. Dingbat is harassing me every day as a verbal punching bag, has called me twice and cursed at me, and creating an overall hostile work environment. None of this is new.
Grim: You need to really see how others perceive you. This attitude comes off as negative.
So, Grim gets his Boss ‘Cherry.’ Cherry and Grim put me on a performance plan.
In this plan, I have to create a survey targeting the issues outlined in this plan and I have to find a new area to work under within 6 months.
In that meeting, they say:
“You should really evaluate how you are seen by our team and decide if you wish to remain at this company, and follow this PIP to a T. ONE TOE OUT OF PLACE AND YOU’RE GONE.”
I said, “I didn’t even think that was really that inappropriate. She brought it to that point anyway. If you look, I gave pretty clear indications not to bring it to that level, but she pressed the issue.”
Them: ‘I guess this is an exercise in learning how to speak to others and watch our words.’
Strike 1: So, Grim REALLY harps on my forced survey.
They are targeting as guiding that response. So, I just let Grim write it for me. Basically, every survey comes back:
“OP has a really great attitude, is a pleasure to work with, and is never negative at all. They focus on the issue and find a resolution.”
Strike 2: Grim and Dingbat pretty much just assume I’m going to be there until the plan is up.
They don’t talk about my replacement. Meanwhile, I approach the Manager of another team we work closely with on Dingbat’s team, and he did not have something. Yet, another team did. Within 2 months, he set me up for an interview with this team. However, my POSITIVE reputation preceded me. So, I was given the job. I had to put in a notice on my old position with the same company (again weird corporate HR rules).
Up to this point, Grim just ignored my emails about a possible transition. Passes off that I would get another position. Basically, no planning on me leaving for a few months.
In my notice period, I had no new tickets. Though, I set up a system Dingbat claimed she wanted. Well, Dingbat gets all up in arms and I just use the Webex quote feature for her own words.
I said “I’m following the schematics you laid out. You said you wanted to press only a single button. You don’t even have to press it if you don’t want.”
Dingbat: I DON’T CARE. IT’S. NOT. USEFUL.
Grim: Dingbat, why are you fighting this? It’s helpful AF.
Dingbat: FINE. I’ll look at it. OP HAS JUST NEVER MADE ANYTHING USEFUL FOR US. They aren’t even technical.
My new job is actually way more technical than she has ever had to be.
Grim: Just try it. OP. Book the meeting.
Dingbat: IT HAS TO BE A WEDNESDAY BECAUSE IM SOOOO BUSY.
Me: Sends it out for Wednesday.
Later on:
Grim: Can you do it later or earlier? I have 3 hours of meetings already and this is my only slot of a break.
Me: Nope. Sorry, Dingbat insisted Wednesday and this is the only time I have until I leave.
Grim: Oh.. Okay..
Cherry hears about it and is LIVID. Though, she can’t touch me. I’m on my notice and I’ve only done what I was asked. And it went like that for the next two weeks.
On the way out, my incoming manager was like, “Why are you wearing so nice clothes into the office?”
Me: (Tells the truth) “I was told to by Grim whenever we came back. I was told slacks and a solid pilot with a tie.”
Grim: (A week ago) Why did I get asked by HR why I was forcing you to wear business casual?
Me: You said that to ANY OFFICE I wear that.
I know by their tone, he meant it as a guideline but I followed it to a T.
Grim: I GOT REPRIMANDED FOR IT.
Me: ‘I guess this is an exercise in learning how to speak to others and watch our words.’
Grim: No comment.
Strike 3: I told Tim on my way out that the way Dingbat is running the show is unsustainable. So, with my absence entirely, he’ll be expected to learn more. Keep in mind, Tim is a senior citizen.
So, none of this is ideal. I hear the anguish in his voice. I told him to see and apply around to another team at the company. Well, that weekend, Tim’s wife dies. May she rest in peace. Well, on his way out, Tim mentioned my comments and his wife passing as a reason that Tim has decided to retire.
Now, Dingbat has zero help, has a system that basically does Tim’s job and has to work on two other systems for her migration project alone while she waits 2-3 months for the whole corporate bureaucracy to replace us both.
Meanwhile, I have a front-row seat to see Dingbat’s incompetence come back to bite her in the ***.
MC revenge is sweet.”
1. Try To Get Me To Do Work For Free? I'll Sue You
“A couple of years ago when I was 18, I got my degree in game development. It’s a 4-year track with the last year being 4 months internship and 4 months to work on a ‘test of skill.’ This is a project that you can think up yourself to prove that you’re capable of game development.
I had my internship at a very small game studio run by two women, named B and C.
They both specialized in 3D model making and 2D art (textures, graphics, that sorta stuff). Neither of them was a programmer so they got interns to program stuff for them. I was disappointed as I had no experienced programmer to learn from or to guide me. But this was my only option since I started looking for an internship too late. B and C were abusive and condescending in their language use.
I didn’t stand up for myself much. I was always a fat nerd and had no self-confidence coming out of high school or college. What WAS cool is that they were located in an incubator, which is like a large office building that rents desks for $57 a month instead of floors.
Great for start-ups and single-person companies. As the cherry on top, it was also an incubator that specialized in game companies.
So lots of contacts and opportunities to meet people in the industry.
I had fun there, at first. They already started on a project and I asked them what system they wanted me to make (like inventory, menus or gameplay elements). They had an idea of what they wanted. It was a game for kids that used augmented reality (AR).
AR is quite difficult to make, AND they didn’t want to use APIs from companies that had already made the AR system because that would cost too much.
So for 3 out of the 4 months, I was there I build my own AR system.
It was really tough and I had no help (other than Stack Overflow <3), because the other developers there had their own stuff to work on. The best way to learn programming is to be good with Google and just jump in the deep end and figure it all out.
I finished the AR system that worked with 2D image recognition. Perfect for what they wanted. But it turned out they didn’t have a game design document, which is a plan of the sorts of the stuff you want in your game. They also didn’t have a ‘to do’ wall or anything. So I spend my last month making inventory systems and stuff that was always not the way they wanted after all.
They just said we need an inventory system but didn’t know what it all had to do. So basically my time was wasted there.
Skip forward 5 months. I got my degree and decided I wanted to check out the industry some more. I got all my savings out and decided I could spend a year making games and maybe it would lead to something.
So I rented a desk at the incubator and thought about what game I was gonna make.
B and C believed that if you are technical, you’re not creative. They saw programmers like tools used to achieve their vision. Two things annoying about that: 1) just cause I like programming doesn’t mean I’m incapable of imagining worlds and stories, and 2) game developers and game designers need each other.
Two disciplines of equal importance make a game work. So this is what happened when they approached me:
B: ‘Hey OP, are you busy?’
Me: ‘I’m just thinking what kinda game I wanna make.’
B: ‘C! Come over he’s not busy.’
C: ‘Hi OP, could you help us out with something?’
Me: ‘Uh ye sure what can I do for you?’
B: ‘We need you to make a menu for Unity (the engine I was working in) for the AR system you made.’
Now I’ll admit. The AR system was not the easiest to work with. It had a lot of settings and a series of steps needed to make it work with an image. And they wanted me to simplify it, even though I had made an extensive manual on how to make it work.
But I learned so much in those 8 months and was positive I could improve the system a lot, which was good cause the current code belonged to them.
But I could use the same architecture of code and rework it to make it mine.
Me: ‘Alright, I guess I can rework system and make it more user-friendly.’
C: ‘Nice let us know when you’re finished.’
I spend about a month making my AR system better and the finished system shared only ~10% code with the old system. I told them I was finished and showed it off.
Me: ‘This 2.0 version had better tracking in all light conditions, it can cover more angles, needs less detail, and now has a very user-friendly user interface along with tooltips.’
What I also did is change the standard script Unity gives you when you make a new script.
I put MY name and copyright in the code so I could prove it was mine.
B and C were very happy with it and even asked me to join their project as a partner.
Me: ‘Yeah I would love to join, I’ll even give you a discount on the AR system.’
C, with a kinda smug face: ‘Yea we won’t be paying you, the code was already ours and you just improved it. Besides we didn’t sign a contract or anything. Just be happy with the opportunity we just gave you. And if you didn’t intern with us, you wouldn’t be here to begin with.’
Me: ‘Are you serious? I spent a month working on this…’
B: ‘Yeah but you’ll make plenty with the project…’
There was nothing I could do about it so I just sucked it up and agreed to join the project.
Maybe I agreed more out of FOMO rather than excited to work with them. I did learn a lesson though: ALWAYS HAVE A CONTRACT.
And boy, did I draw something up. For the contract, I had a right to 25% of the finished product’s income, basic stuff. But because I didn’t trust B and C and was determined not to be burned again, I drew up a general conditions contract, which is basically the policy and restrictions of working with my one-man studio. It has all the basic rights and stuff, but it also had 2 clauses that make me laugh to this day;
Any and all code developed by me belongs to me in perpetuity, and may not be copied, modified or used in any way without my express permission.
And under no condition can I be forced to release the code files. Fine on breach is $1,140 per script file (the AR system had more than 20 scripts in it).
When I get fired for a shared project, I am entitled to $57 an hour I spend working on the project.
No exceptions.
They signed both contracts without even reading them. And didn’t have a contract for me in return. The first contract was what bound me to the project.
And here comes the good part.
I learned pretty early on that I was just there to listen and make whatever they wanted. They did not want my input on anything. Even if they had dumb, impractical or just impossible ideas about what the game should have, I could not protest or suggest something else.
Even though I tried.
Fast forward 6 months, it’s winter now and the project is just not going very well. I constantly have to revisit finished components because they wanted more functionality in them. I was not happy and went over to their desks to complain and demand a final document I could work off of.
B and C: ‘It’s called feature creep and a real game developer should know how to deal with that.’
Me: ‘It’s not alright, I am wasting my time because you two can’t make up your minds and get a final idea in your heads.’
B and C dismissed me and later send me an email: ‘Dearest OP, we regret to inform you that our partnership is not working out and we have decided to let you go from the project.
We hope there aren’t any hard feelings.’
I was quite angry, but I remembered the clauses so at least I would get paid a lot.
I went over to their desks with the meanest grin on my face: ‘Hey guys, I read your email. That sucks but I understand. We have different creative ideas and we’re just not on the same page.’
C: ‘We’re so happy you understand. Are you sure there are no hard feelings?’
Me: ‘No not at all, I learned a lot and had fun. I can recycle the components to make other games.’
B: ‘Just remember you can’t do anything similar to our game.’ (They referred to the competition clause in my internship contract which I apparently was still under because that project wasn’t finished).
Me: ‘OH, yeah no worries, I got something else in mind…’ After which I returned to my desk and sent them an invoice of 26 weeks 40 hours a week for $57 an hour on the project with my log to back it up.
Total cost? $57,300 (around $60,000 at the time).
They freaked out. They had nowhere near this kind of earnings as they were both working second jobs and were both saving up wanting to start a family with their respective partners.
C: ‘There is no way we’re paying this much. We understand some compensation is warranted but this is too much!’
Me: ‘I lost 6 months of income on this project and you signed these terms.’
I had a copy of the general conditions and pointed out the clauses.
Me: ‘But fine, I’ll take it to court and we’ll see what the judge has to say.’
The court proceedings took around 8 months. The judge had decided I was in the right (thanks to my logs and copyright lines in the code) but also asking for too much as it would utterly bankrupt B and C.
So I would get $22,900 and be reimbursed for legal costs, totaling about $40,100. For B and C, it was a massive blow. B had to sell her car to get bank and couldn’t get a mortgage for the house she wanted to buy.
They also had to use home offices as the others working at the incubator wouldn’t even talk with them anymore since I made sure everyone there knew what happened and how they tried to screw me over.
I also told the entire story to my old teachers and no interns will be coming to them from my old college.
The last time I heard from them was a year or so later, asking me for the code I made for the project. A drive crapped out and they didn’t have backups (this shows their level of professionalism). I laughed my butt off over the phone and pointed them to the 1) clause of the general conditions.
‘You can’t claim the code, it’s in the general conditions. You can’t even work with anything I made because you don’t have my permission to use my code. If you DID, you owe me another $22,900. Tell you what though, I’ll sell it to you.’
B & C: ‘Well how much do you want?’
Me: ‘$59,600’
Silence on the other side of the phone… click.
As of now, their studio is out of business and I am to graduate next year with no study debt at all. I lost weight and have a lot more self-confidence. This story makes me feel powerful and good about myself. I stood up, and it got rewarded. Don’t mess with the fat programming nerd.”
