People Openly Discuss Their Tales Of Uber Revenge
14. Think You Can Cut 200 People In Line? Back Of The Line, It Is
Maybe you’ll think about what you’ve done in the time you spend in the long line.
“I was at an amusement park earlier this year. A brand new ride had just opened so of course there was a huge line for it.
I had taken my girl that day and bought us Fast Passes to skip the lines.
Fast passes cost nearly three times as much as a regular pass there.
It was around noon, on a hot day, and my gf and I head over to the new ride. We circled it and weren’t able to see any fast pass lines. But we both wanted to go on the new attraction so we just got into the regular line, the signs said we were about 45 mins from the front.
Immediately behind us was a large lady (EM), with her son (EK) who was about ten.
My girl then spots some people entering a different cue wearing purple wristbands (fast passes).
So we go past the boy and his mom, exit the line and enter the new line. Since it had just opened I guess they hadn’t made an official sign for it yet, but there was a little gate with a paper taped on to it that read FAST PASS & Wheelchairs.
We go through, and there are about 20 people in front of us now.
After about a minute, we see the EM and EK behind us again. I didn’t make much of it, they probably hadn’t seen the entrance just as we had. But my girl whispers in my ear they don’t have fast passes.
I look at their wrists, and she’s right. Their wristbands are green, the regular ones.
She asks me if maybe we should say something so they don’t waste their time. Poor kid, I think to myself, he probably wants to get on the ride as quickly as possible, they’re just gonna send them back when they reach the front.
So I tap on EM’s shoulder, and say, ‘Excuse me, this line is for purple wristbands only. They won’t let you go through here.
You can go back -‘
‘They’ll let me through, they always do!’ She exclaims.
My partner and I look at each other like w*f.
‘Okay, sorry!’ I reply.
About three mins go by, and I guess we had been distracted for a little bit, cuz I see there’s about a 5-foot gap in the line in front of us. So we turn to move forward.
And EM shoves passed us, her son right behind her.
I open my mouth to say something but decide against it. They’re not gonna get on the ride anyway, so there’s really no point. Staff is really strict about the wristbands.
We finally reach the front of the line, and the ride operator asks to see EK and EM’s wristbands. They were clearly trying to hide them by keeping their hands behind their back.
EM quickly shows her wristband, runs past the attendant and immediately starts getting on the ride. Her son does the exact same. The ride operator tells her that this is the Fast Pass Line and that she has to go back to the end of the regular line.
‘Okay, next time I will. I didn’t know,’ EM responds.
‘No, you’re gonna go, exit the ride and go to the back of the line.’
She lowers her son’s harness, and then hers.
‘I already lowered the harness, I’ll use the normal line next time. Promise!’
The ride operator turns around and lets me and my gf through.
There weren’t any seats available on the ride anymore so I knew they were gonna get kicked off.
The ride operator walks to her station on the other side of the platform, presses a button on the console, and all the harness go up.
She walks towards us again and gives EM a dirty look. EM looks livid, like a demon from a horror movie angry. She violently gets up and out of the platform cursing the operator with her son right behind her.
Once off the ride, the EK looks back and spits on the seat.
The ride operator goes to get some Lysol wipes and cleans off the seat.
My gf and I sit on the ride and lower the harnesses, the ride operator leans in to make sure they’re tight.
‘They’re really angry,’ I jokingly tell the ride operator.
‘They will be when they find out he isn’t tall enough.’ She replies.”
13. The Elevator Is Broken, But Since You Don't Want To Believe Us...
“So I’m an elevator technician.
When they break, I’m the one who fixes them. When parts wear out, I replace them. You get it. The other day I was on a job replacing a worn-out emergency light. Back in the day, it was a habit to use the battery of the emergency light to power the elevator’s siren system.
Modern emergency lights have different voltages being LED, so I can’t use the old way of connecting everything. So, I have to wire everything up from scratch, including a new battery and siren. No big deal, but it takes a little longer to complete the task. Note that this is a 3 stop elevator.
(Ground floor, 1st, and 2nd). I start by hanging up all my ‘out of order’ signs and start working on the ground floor.
5 minutes in, just disassembled the old piece, the story begins. In comes the Entitled Woman (mid-40s, can walk perfectly fine) carrying 1 barely filled grocery bag.
Entitled Woman: ‘Excuse me, is the elevator broken again?’
Me: ‘Not exactly ma’am, I’m changing this (showing her the new emergency light) because the old one wasn’t working anymore. This will probably take about an hour to complete.’
(At this point her daughter walks in)
EW: ‘How am I supposed to get my groceries upstairs?’
Me: Getting annoyed, I look at her bag, and give her the ‘Are you freaking kidding me?’ look
Daughter: ‘Mom, seriously, take the stairs, it’s 2 floors.’ (Clearly annoyed)
EW: ‘NO! I pay for this elevator, and I need it now!’
D: (sigh) ‘I’m going up.’ (And takes the stairs)
EW: ‘How long is this going to take?’
Me: ‘Like I said, ma’am, about an hour.’
The woman then sits her butt down on a bench in the hallway waiting for me to finish.
Really? Oh well, I do my thing in the cabin, not hurrying at all, mount the new E-light to the ceiling, and pack my things to go 1 floor up, to start the wiring on the top of the cabin.
EW: ‘You done yet?’
Me: ‘No, ma’am, I still have to wire things up on top of the elevator.’
EW: ‘No, I can see you’re done, you’re packing your things!’
Me: ‘Yes, I have to take my bag 1 floor up so I can start on the wiring.’
EW: ‘Can’t I use it now?’
Me: ‘No ma’am, you can’t, there’s exposed wiring up there, if you use it now you can cause a short and you will get stuck.
It’s really not safe.’
EW: ‘FINE!’
And she sits back down on the bench, seriously angry. I take my bag and make my way upstairs. As soon as I stand in front of the 1st-floor door, I hear the door on the ground floor close, and sure enough, EW went into the elevator and tried to take it upstairs. Heck no, I wasn’t having that.
I take my emergency key and as soon as the elevator started moving, I open the lock, cutting the safety chain, and the elevator comes to a sudden stop. This scared the crap out of her and she screams! I open the door and in my most fake surprised voice, I yell ‘OH NO, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!’ while calmly pressing the emergency stop on top of the elevator.
Yep, this thing isn’t going anywhere soon.
Me: ‘This is exactly why I said the elevator is unsafe to use now. I’ll do my best to get it working again asap, but you made a mess up here so I don’t know how long it’s going to take.’ (There was no mess, but I couldn’t resist teaching her a little lesson)
EW: (swears, yells and makes a scene)
Me: ‘I’ll be right back, I have to go to the engine room to see if I can get it working again.’
I close the door and make my way up. On the second floor, the daughter came out of the apartment because of the yelling of her mother.
I quickly explained what happened.
D: (raising her voice) ‘Oh no!
Please get her out of there!’
But then she comes closer and whispers to me: ‘Don’t hurry, make her suffer.’ That’s my kind of girl!
Music to my ears! I smile, give her a thumbs up, and make my way up to the engine room. I call my supervisor to explain the situation, in case she files a complaint.
In the engine room I start playing around with the fuses, putting her in the dark, because yea, I haven’t connected the e-light yet.
I play with her for about half an hour before I turn off the emergency stop I activated, the elevator synchronizes to the lowest floor, and I wait for the doors to open.
Me: ‘PLEASE, don’t EVER do that again!’
EW (white as a sheet, shaking) ‘N-no, I won’t.’ And she takes the stairs and goes inside.
I never heard from her again.
I calmly finish my job, and leave the building with a smile on my face. Mission accomplished.
FYI – I made sure there never was any risk. It was intentional that the elevator was able to move because I needed it to. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to access the car top because of the distance between the floors. I tested all safeties I was going to need before I started the work.
I disconnected the old light, which was convenient with a plug when I tested said car top safeties, so there never were exposed live wires.
When I blocked the door with my bag, I never left the site. On every floor, the ‘out of order’ tag was placed over the floor call buttons, and the reason why I initially started working on the ground floor is so people who enter the building can clearly see me working when the elevator was still ‘active.’
The moment when I started working on the car top, and people couldn’t see me when entering the building, I did make use of the stop button, that I already tested, to prevent the elevator from reacting to calls. Every action I took was well thought out, potential risks were considered, and actions were taken to eliminate them.
If I really needed that elevator to stay where it was, I would make sure it would.”
12. Drive Like A Total Jerk? You'll Be Buying More Than Just A New Car
“First, a little backstory.
I’m a college student and cycle to campus every day. It’s not a long ride at all, but I have to go through a zone where it’s illegal to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk.
Therefore, I’m forced to ride on the road. Most drivers don’t care and just go around me since I stay to the edge and don’t make myself a nuisance. Also, I have a crappy ebike that I commute on. This will be important later.
A few weeks ago, a guy in a Ford SUV (I don’t know exactly which kind) started yelling at me as he drove by while I was in the road-only zone.
All the usual ‘get off the road, roads are for cars, you’re too slow’ kinda stuff. I get that from drivers on a weekly basis, I just ignore and keep going. This man was special though since he cut right in front of me and slammed on his brakes after yelling. I was able to stop before I hit him, and he floored it out of there, yelling ‘better be careful next time, bike!’
I was pretty mad, but I hadn’t got his license plate or anything and I doubt anything could be done about it anyway, there was no real proof.
Over lunch, I told one of my friends who works as an EMT the story, and he got seriously mad. Apparently, he has seen the results of a car successfully brake-checking on a cyclist, and they aren’t pretty.
Two days later, the same Ford SUV/jerk tried to brake-check me again. I was expecting it as soon as I heard him yelling, ‘get on the sidewalk, bike!’ from behind, so I avoided a crash again. I told my EMT friend over lunch again, and he was even angrier than before. I wanted to let it go since I can’t really do anything about him, and my bicycle isn’t going to win in a crash.
This guy keeps trying to brake check me every few days during my morning commute, whenever we’re on the same patch of road at the same time. About a week ago, my EMT friend told me that he told my story to one of his friends in the campus police, who was equally angry. The two of them wanted to catch this jerk driver.
The plan was to have the policeman parked on the side of the road in hopes of catching and pulling over the jerk. I heartily agreed, and the officer pulled some strings and had himself posted on speeder-catching duty for that stretch of road.
A few days passed uneventfully with no sign of the road-rager. I saw the cop parked in the same spot on the side of the road every day, a spot where the road has a left-turn lane and a straight lane.
Finally, I’m pedaling along and I hear the familiar voice scream, ‘get the off the freaking road, jerk!’ I yelled back ‘catch me then!’ and took off. I was spinning my scrawny little chicken legs as hard as they would go, and pegged the throttle. I guess this made the driver even angrier because I heard his engine roar as he pursued me.
He shifted into the left lane as I stayed in the right.
I looked to the side and saw a nasty old man in the driver’s seat with the passenger window open. His mouth was going like he was yelling, but I couldn’t hear him over the wind noise. I saw the police car’s spot approaching and started to slow down. Taking the opportunity, the driver swung right in front of me. I don’t know if it was the speed or his anger that made him swing wide, but he cut across my lane and crashed STRAIGHT INTO THE BACK OF THE POLICE CAR.
I barely applied my brakes (slowed down to about 15 mph) and crashed into the side of his car. The officer got out (spitting mad would be an understatement) and called an ambulance and another police car. Everyone was unhurt since the jerk was going only like 25 mph, but there was enough of an impact to trigger the SUV’s airbags. The jerk ended up getting arrested for driving intoxicated (seriously, who drinks before 9 AM?), for an illegal lane change, and probably other stuff too.
I don’t know all the details. I imagine that causing a crash like that would entail some additional charges.
The guy ended up having to pay for extensive repairs on the police cruiser and for a new ebike to replace the one he destroyed by cutting in front of me (the frame snapped.) On top of that, I hear that his car was defined as totaled by his insurance company since the airbags went off, so he also has to pay for a new car.
With any luck, he’ll lose his license from the intoxicated driving charges and won’t be able to menace cyclists again.”
11. Remove My Friend From Critical Medical Care? Watch Your Lives Fall Apart
“This story is about two people I’m friends with.
We’ll call one Rae and one Justin.
Some background: Rae and Justin grew up in an extremely restrictive, insular religious community that borders on being a cult. They both read a lot from a young age, even though reading outside of the religion’s material was discouraged, and so both of them grew increasingly skeptical and dissatisfied with their environment due to having this peek into the outside world.
In high school, this shared mindset brought them together, and they started secretly seeing each other. For context, making love was absolutely strictly verboten in this religious community. You went straight from single to married with zero in-between.
So when Justin and Rae’s parents caught them seeing each other, they forced them to get married. To be clear, it wasn’t like they were even doing the dirty; they basically were driving around together and holding hands in the downtown square where all the kids hung out.
Very tame, sheltered-kid stuff. Rae and Justin started living together as husband and wife, but unfortunately for their families, putting those two together doubled their resiliency, and together they cooked up a plan to get out. They set up a secret bank account at a bank outside the religious community’s influence since their families had access to their accounts, and everyone who worked at the main bank was also in the same community and gossiped about everyone’s financial transactions.
They started squirreling away cash in small amounts so the families wouldn’t question being missing from their paychecks. When they were 20, they finally had enough coin to start over, and they got out. They basically left their house in the dead of night with nothing but what could fit in their car and uprooted to live across the country.
Pretty quickly after they moved, they decided to get amicably divorced, since they never wanted to be married anyway.
They still lived together for a while, and basically became something between platonic roommates and each other’s only family. Over time, they started seeing other people.
Some partners were scared off by the weird relationship between them, but most got it and understood that Justin and Rae had basically bonded through mutual trauma. I also met both of them during this time, and we became close friends.
This whole time, both their families and other members of their community were relentlessly harassing them. People were showing up at their house at all hours, and they had reason to believe people were trying to steal their identities over the years, though they’d, fortunately, both put a freeze on their credit, so nothing ever came of it.
Then Justin had a bad accident.
A really bad accident.
He was on his bike and a car blew through a stop sign without slowing down and plowed right into him. He had to be rushed to the hospital and landed in the ICU. Rae was his emergency contact, and I was with her and some other friends when she got the call. I immediately drove her to the hospital with a couple of other people, and she was melting down (understandably).
The hospital staff wouldn’t let us all in when we got there, but they let Rae in. She came out periodically to let us know what was going on.
Justin wasn’t unconscious, but he was totally out of it and didn’t seem to know she was there, probably from the painkillers, but she was convinced he had permanent debilitating brain damage. The group of us were just soothing her and reassuring her it would be fine.
A friend of ours who worked at the hospital as an MRI tech was also stopping by when she could on her breaks and calming down Rae. We’d been there all night and part of the day at this point, and the medical staff was giving us reason to be hopeful.
But things got worse.
To this day, no one knows how they found out, but 14 hours after Justin’s accident, his parents, uncles, and grandfather showed up.
They immediately had all of us removed from the ICU, Rae included. Unfortunately, as his ex-wife, she was no longer his legal next-of-kin and had no rights against his b***d family.
At this point, she was absolutely hysterical and inconsolable. She was convinced Justin’s family would hurt him. I’m ashamed to say all three of us that were there with her thought she was overreacting.
We all knew Rae and Justin had left a screwed-up situation, but it wasn’t like his own family would do anything to impede his recovery.
She was getting angry with us for trying to calm her down and tried to explain that according to their religion, she and Justin deserved punishment from God, and only the greatest suffering could prompt repenting and redemption. She said their families embraced this thinking and wanted them to suffer because it would prove that they did the wrong thing by leaving, and suffering would drive them back to the fold.
She said as long as Justin was with his family, he wouldn’t be safe.
Our friend who worked for the hospital came and found Rae at that point. She made Rae swear up and down she wouldn’t tell anyone she told her this, because she could get in deep trouble for releasing privileged information to someone unauthorized, but she’d caught wind that Justin’s parents were aggressively demanding the hospital release him into their care, and they were involving lawyers.
The hospital was currently refusing because Justin wasn’t stable enough to leave, but our friend warned Rae that as soon as Justin got to be stable, or the lawyers scared the hospital enough, it’s possible the parents would be able to take Justin.
This shocked the rest of us. Realizing his parents were not only willing to remove Justin from the hospital that had saved his life in the condition he was still in but was actively trying to do it made us really ‘get’ for the first time why Rae was going out of her head with fear.
At this point, Rae snapped into do-or-die mode.
Convinced that Justin was about to literally die if she didn’t act, she decided she would do everything in her power to start a fire at home so that Justin’s family would want to run back to put it out. And this wasn’t too hard, because she had a lot of dirt on the whole community she came from.
Like a madwoman, she started blowing the whistle all over Justin’s family. She called the IRS’s fraud hotline and detailed all the ways that the family business was committing tax fraud. She submitted an ATF tip about how that same family business was illegally selling firearms without a license and without following any of the proper protocols and was knowingly selling them to convicted felons.
She reported one of Justin’s uncles for owning several firearms as a convicted felon. She also reported Justin’s mom’s unlicensed day care ‘business,’ which was apparently extremely shady, including having over 30 children packed into one house, with Justin’s mom as the only adult and many of the childcare duties being farmed out to Justin’s 12- and 14-year-old sisters. She called CPS on Justin’s uncles and his parents for keeping their children out of school, and for mistreatment in one uncle’s case.
In all of these reports, she provided extensive details.
She finished her calls and emails, and then she waited.
We all waited for several hours, and nothing happened. Then, miraculously, Justin became lucid enough to understand what was going on and make his own decisions, and he kicked his family out again. From there began a slow but steady path to recovery.
In all the relief and excitement to see Justin on the mend, we’d almost forgotten about Rae’s campaign of desperation, until a couple of weeks later, when the screaming voicemails started pouring in to both of them.
First, the business was being investigated by the IRS, then it was being investigated for illegal firearms dealing. Then the daycare was getting investigated.
At first, Rae felt a little guilty, but then she was like, ‘You know what? No regrets. They would have killed Justin.’
From what they’ve been able to piece together in the year and a half since this happened, the business has gone under, and the daycare is shuttered. The uncle is six months into a new five-year prison sentence for firearm possession.
CPS investigated, which scared the crap out of the family, but nothing really came of it, which is especially sad in the case of the cousins being physically mistreated. That said, the parents are now too scared to keep the kids home from school, and with the unlicensed daycare shut down, the mom’s not exploiting her daughters’ labor anyway, so she has no incentive to keep them home.
So Justin’s little siblings are at least getting their education.
Justin and Rae are both happy and thriving. Justin, unfortunately, will never fully recover from the accident. He has some permanent neurological damage that results in tremors. But he’s pumped to be alive, he can work a full-time job, he can still be pretty physically active, and as far as I’m concerned, he wins.”
Another Users Comment:
“As somebody that comes from an insular cult family, that is amazing. I’ve noticed that often bad people tend to do a lot of bad things and get arrogant with what they feel they can get away with. They are setting themselves up in a way that can really hurt. Kudos to Rae and Justin for escaping from a fellow escapee.” TheAgeofKite
10. Harass Me For Going To Your Man's House? I'll Get Your Scholarship Revoked
“I was good friends with this girl before in college. We were in the same circle of friends. I was her shoulder to cry on to and we were in the student council for our department.
I started seeing someone whom she introduced me to, let’s call him Dre. Dre had a cousin named Mike who actually liked this same girl. So when Dre and I actually broke up, the girl was mad and was backstabbing me.
She was saying that I hurt Dre and I was the one who left him, although the truth was Dre left me because he had commitment issues and he was really scared of being in a relationship. The girl twisted the story, making me look like the bad guy. As a result, Dre’s relatives bullied and harassed me online, which made me depressed and take a very long hiatus from social media.
After a few months, Dre and I started to talk again and became good friends. My mistake was I asked Mike’s help to get my stuff from Dre’s house (which he did). So I went there to Mike’s house and then heck broke because the girl was so mad that I was there. She went on Twitter and had a tweeting spree about how she was gonna kill me and make my life miserable.
She thought that I was ruining their relationship, lol (no offense but Mike was ugly and wasn’t my type). I got my stuff and visited Dre too, me and Dre were laughing and catching up which was good.
So I came home and got tons of messages from people. I was removed from the group chat for my school-related stuff (even including those that had teachers in the group).
I was also removed from the council group chat without my knowledge and she somehow convinced the teachers that I was inactive and was doing nothing, she used my hiatus on social media as proof for this. She called me names and kept on harassing me. She kept on twisting the story and said that I was playing victim. The teachers also were on her side too, to be honest.
So I went silent and kept on taking screenshots of everything that she said. She was defaming me and there were death threats that were good proof to send her to jail. I didn’t go to court but I emailed a forty-page document about what she did (including the screenshots) and the company who was sponsoring her education and giving her stipend actually emailed me back and said that they will cut off her stipend.
Currently, the girl is now the one silent on social media since her friends’ group turned their backs on her. She actually manipulated the teachers, and she isn’t allowed to run for any higher position in the council. The teachers also don’t believe her anymore since their names got released in the document.”
9. Tear My Ankle Ligaments? Your Nose Will Be Pointing In The Wrong Direction Soon
“I am a big guy (6ft, 275lbs) and I am not all muscle.
I used to play soccer as a kid until I was 17 years old when I took a nasty knee injury that ended my hopes to play pro. I started to gain weight over the years, partly due to bad habits and lack of exercise. I reached 325lbs at one point and it felt like I was about to die.
That’s when I decided enough was enough and it was time to turn my life around.
Started eating healthy, and slowly picked up the exercise bug again. I also joined a 6v6 soccer league in my city where my friends had a team and invited me to play. I’d play soccer once a week, go the gym thrice a week, then rest and chill. It was great.
On a soccer pitch, you don’t expect 300lbs+ guys to be running around or even be skilled enough to dribble through defenders.
Most teams wouldn’t even mark me (I played as a striker) until I scored a goal or dribbled through two of their players.
That earned me some respect on the pitch, I had competitor players come to compliment my performance after the games. I even made friends with league coordinators who at times cheered me after a nice pass or goal. It was just great… I felt I was alive again.
The Wrong-doing
At the time of this story, I had lost about 30lbs (I was 295ish). We were playing a long Winter League which is basically 14 games (14 weeks) and we knew almost every team in the league… except for one team. It was the 4th game of the season and we were scheduled to play the new team.
A bunch of big guys that looked like they were straight out of an MMA competition.
The game starts, as usual, I am not marked… I literally had enough space to park a truck with no defender giving me a thought. I received the ball, ran for the goal, then buried it in the bottom corner. Easiest goal ever. Five minutes later, I did it again. Now I had their attention, and I was being marked by a guy who from now on we will call Jack.
Jack tried every trick to take the ball from me and failed. The more he tried the more frustrated he became.
Then at one point, I had the ball, dribbled and did a body feint and he dropped on his butt trying to correct his direction. I crossed the ball and we scored the third. It was humiliating but I didn’t mean it like that.
He stood up and walked right next to me and said:
Jack: ‘You think you’re having fun, fatty?’
Me: ‘You’re not really going to talk crap on a recreational soccer game, are you?’
Jack: ‘I am not talking crap. I am just asking if you’re having fun.’
Me: ‘Yeah, I am. And you?’
Jack: ‘I will have my fun in a bit.’
I didn’t really know what he meant but I didn’t give it a thought.
A few minutes later, I receive the ball again, Jack is like a step or two behind me. The next thing I know is my left foot (the one planted in the ground as I received the ball with my right foot) is twisted, I hear a loud popping sound from my ankle and I am on the ground.
A moment later, a jolt of excruciating pain in my ankle made me groan like an elephant stomped on my foot. Jack has taken an illegal sliding tackle on my left foot and it tore my ankle under my body weight. Then, he literally stood up and leaned down on me and said: ‘Now I’ve had my fun.’ I was out of the game.
Fast Forward 24 hours, my ankle has swollen to the size of a large grapefruit. I see a doctor who diagnoses that my Anterior Talofibular Ligament has a 2nd-degree tear… This is the strongest ligament in your ankle btw. I can’t play any sport and only use my foot lightly for 8 weeks minimum. I made sure I submitted an incident report to the league after the game, then kept all the receipts for medical treatment as a result of the injury.
It took a toll on me emotionally as it reminded me of my old knee injury that ended my soccer dreams.
I was determined not to slip into depression again though.
Even though I could no longer go to the gym or the pitch, I was still eating healthy and spend the next 8 weeks planning my revenge.
It took me 9 weeks to recover, which was better than the Sports Specialist predicted. I was back in the last game of the season before the two playoff games.
We were playing Jack and his team again. I had spent my whole recovery time doing my very best to get ready to make that game. Took physio’s advice and applied them to the letter, did anything and everything to make sure that I am good to play.
I made it. Now it was time to exact revenge.
The Revenge
I concocted a plan with my friend Dave to exact revenge on Jack, one that would leave him with a permanent memento from Yours Truly.
Jack likes to stay behind then make a vicious tackle, push or shove when the player he is marking is about to receive the ball. I was going to use that against him the worst way.
In the game, I made sure Jack felt like I was scared of him. When I received the ball, I got rid of it too quickly, and if I was dribbling, I either passed it or let it go as if I was avoiding contact.
This encouraged him to stay with me and to scare me even more. He literally played the first 15 mins of the game with a smug look all over his ugly face.
That was about to change.
About 20 mins into the game, we get a corner kick. Dave goes to play the kick and I stand in the box, Jack is two steps behind. Dave was about to take the kick then he stopped and nodded ‘No.’ This meant Jack was no longer in position and we couldn’t do what we planned to do.
This happened a couple more times. Then it is the fourth corner kick towards the end of the first half.
Dave is taking the kick. He looks at me and he nods ‘Yes.’ Jack is two steps behind me and is now marking me again. I put my hand up and shout, ‘HERE, DAVE’… Jack now commits to me. Dave then goes on to play this sweet perfect cross right above my head level.
Jack goes on to do his standard come-from-behind-and-do-something-nasty routine.
At that very moment, I plant both feet in the ground, expecting the shove from behind, lean backward and launch my body towards Jack. He is going for the ball with his head, and I am going with my head for his face.
He perfectly planted his face in the back of my head (his head going forward, and my head going backward).
I swear I could hear his nose break on the back of my head. We both fall to the ground and I drop my 290lbs fat butt on top of him, catching him with my elbow, straight into the eyebrow. As I turn around on the ground, he has a cut on his eyebrow, his nose is broken and is literally pointing to the left, and he is bleeding.
I shout, ‘FIRST AID KIT HERE PLEASE’ then tell everyone I was First Aid certified and start sitting him up and leaning his head backward to stop the bleeding.
In the process, I pinch his nose to check if it’s alright and he screams like a little girl. Then I say, ‘Oh, it seems your nose is broken.’ League Coordinators cart him out, and an ambulance picks him up a few minutes later.
After the game, he sent a message saying he is suing me for intentionally breaking his nose and cutting his eyebrow. The League Coordinators did not support his incident report and said that it was he who went for me from behind and that I couldn’t have anticipated that, let alone injure him so badly if it weren’t for his own force.
They also indicated that I was the first person to provide first aid to him after the fall.
He had no leg to stand on, and his claim was dismissed.
Then I sent him a letter from my lawyer letting him know I was suing him for my injuries 9 weeks prior, supporting that with doctor’s reports, physio reports, and the league’s incident report where the League Coordinators concluded that his tackle was both illegal and deliberate. He had received a warning from the league that he would be permanently banned for such behavior.
The league then went on to ban him from participating in the games.
He reimbursed me $2,300 in medical costs.
I scored 3 goals that game. We won and made it to the playoffs, then we beat them again in the playoffs and won the league. I am still on track with my weight-loss.”
8. Break Several Labor Laws? I'll Tattle On You
What you going to do now?!
“So, I was working at a 7-Eleven for just shy of a year.
The store was a franchise, which means it was independently owned by a Lebanese guy whose IQ was probably somewhere in the 80s. He treated us all like crap, and the only person who made more than minimum wage was the useless clerk he was having an affair with (who, for some reason, made $15 an hour).
This guy never did anything by the book. If he thought it would make him more coin, then the law didn’t apply to him.
Nobody at the store ever got a lunch. We were barely afforded breaks, and we weren’t allowed to eat while on the clock. In California, when you work more than 5 hours without lunch, you’re supposed to get paid an extra hour’s wages, which counts toward overtime. We didn’t get that, either. On top of that, when he did payroll, he wouldn’t actually go by when you clocked in and out, he went by the schedule he wrote.
So if you stayed an extra hour or two to help out when it got busy, you’d be working for free, because the hours wouldn’t show up. Also, your schedule was subject to change whenever he felt like it. There were several times he wrote me up for showing up late because he would change my shift without telling me.
So, here’s where the trouble starts.
Whenever we would take expired food off the shelves, we’d come in the next day, and he had printed new expiration dates, pasted them on top of the old ones, and put the food back on the shelves. This happened consistently, the entire time I worked there. Well, one day, I’d had enough of his crap. I called up the health department and reported him, then emailed corporate and filled them in on what was going on.
Well, word got back to him, and when I went in the next day, I’d received a “complaint” and was promptly fired. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never worked anywhere with a one-strike policy.
Here’s the thing, though. Since the day I started there, I’d been keeping records. I had copies of every schedule posted, and every pay stub I’d ever received. I went to the labor board that day and picked up the paperwork I needed. See, when you don’t get lunches, and you don’t get paid the extra hour you’re supposed to, the labor board can force the employer to pay you what he owes you in one lump sum.
So I filled out the paperwork and turned it in. My old boss wasn’t so smug when he had to make a check to me for $2,600. Right after receiving a hefty fine from the health department.
Now, I’m working to get the labor board to force him to hire me back under the whistleblower clause. If he has to re-hire me, he also has to pay me back lost wages for the past few months.
Also, my old co-workers get lunches now.
Was the revenge sweet? It felt freakin’ awesome! But that’s not why I did it. I did it because that sack of crap was going to keep on exploiting his employees and customers to make a buck and keep being a worthless human being, and I felt like unless I did something, he was going to get away with it.
I simply could not abide by the idea of him suffering no consequences for his actions.”
7. I Faked A Flat Tire To Make My Lazy Group Members Fail
“I’m in a class where a group research project/presentation is a huge chunk of overall points. Everyone knows in group projects you always have that one slacker who doesn’t do anything that you have to compensate for. However, I got stuck with possibly the worst 3 people to be in a project within the class.
I did the entire research, presentation, poster boards, etc among many other annoying things myself.
I tried talking to them and telling them they needed to put in their share of effort. Ignored. I’d send them tasks to do, ignored. I’d try to schedule meetings, they’d say they were coming and then leave me alone at the library. This happened from the get-go.
It was abundantly clear that they expected everyone else to do the work, but “everyone else” turned out to be just me.
Rule: We couldn’t have things 100% memorized word for word, and we couldn’t read off of anything. We had to actually know the subject. I was fully prepared to do most of the talking and even wrote down a small script for them and told them to know what to say during their part, at the very least. The night before I told them we had to meet to at least go over the whole thing one time.
Once again, none of them showed.
At this point, I’m livid and decide they can just do it themselves, which means they’d get up there, not know a thing to say other than the small info I gave them, and couldn’t even bullcrap anything because they did no research. Thing is, if we miss without an excuse, we fail the project. If you have an excuse, you have to have documentation.
I commute and live an hour away, so I decide that I’ll conveniently have a flat tire right before class. Went out and actually bought a tire so I could have the receipt to prove it. Emailed the professor, who said I can present by myself during his office hours.
Turns out, they completely bombed, and not only probably failing the project, but since they’re bad students, might even fail the class.”
6. Leave Me On The Side Of The Road? I'll Get You Kicked Out Of Law School
And he thought he got away with it.
“I have had migraines since I was 3 or 4. Sometimes they start slow and sometimes they hit like a hammer. I can be instantly unable to function if they hit quickly.
In college, this could be a huge problem. The only available medications just knocked you out so you didn’t care that you hurt and wanted to vomit. My freshman year (1987), I was at a party for my roommate’s man’s birthday. I had never had champagne and didn’t know it was a migraine trigger. I took a sip or two and instantly got a migraine.
We were at someone’s house about 20 minutes away from the dorm. My roommate didn’t want to leave the party so she arranged for a guy she knew to drive me home. She had no idea what he was really like.
She just knew him from a few parties.
On the drive that I thought was to my dorm, this guy pulls over on the side of the road in an undeveloped area.
No one was around. He harassed me and left me on the side of the road. I didn’t even know where I was, much less how to get back to the dorm or to a hospital. After a while, some lady found me curled up on the side of the road. She thought I was dead. Cell phones were not a thing, so she half lifted me into her car, wrote down where she found me and drove me to the nearest hospital.
I could barely speak enough to tell the hospital people my name. I was in very rough shape. The hospital knocked me out for about 8 hours with pain meds and muscle relaxers, once they were sure I didn’t have a head injury.
My roommate didn’t get home until about a day after I did. She was staying at her man’s dorm room.
She probably wouldn’t have come home as early as she did but her parents called at the same time every weekend and she HAD to be home for that.
She was shocked when she saw how awful I looked. I asked her how she knew that guy and learned she didn’t really, he was just at a party now and then. I wasn’t happy with the situation, or that she let some creep she barely knew to drive me somewhere.
She felt really guilty, but guys don’t advertise that they like to take advantage of girls. She did have some information on the guy. He didn’t live in our city but instead went to a really Christian school with a great law school. He was in law school and was visiting for the party.
His dad was a really well-known lawyer for a televangelist’s church.
That was the beginning of what I learned about him. Remember, the Internet was in its’ infancy and social media did not exist.
I called some other people who knew him from the party and got some information from them. I got his girl’s name. Then I went to the library and learned about this girl, the church, the law school, the college he was at, etc….
I had photos from the hospital. I had declined to press charges because even then I knew that it would be hard to prove. Even with all the bruises. It would be my word against his. He was from ‘a good family’ and went to a Christian college and law school. My family was not prominent, and I was wearing a miniskirt that night. At the time, it was normal for lawyers to smear victims based on what they wore, if they had a drink (especially if they were under 21), etc… I didn’t want to have to deal with all of that.
I just wanted to ruin his life without having it ruin mine.
I got phone numbers for the Dean of his Law school, the head of the college overall, for his father, for his girl, and for the person who owned his apartment complex.
He lived in some fancy apartment owned by a guy who was a big donor to the college. It was for people getting Master’s or law degrees or medical degrees after they already had bachelor degrees.
The apartments were given out as a type of scholarship to the school, and they were supposed to be really nice (I never went there, so I don’t know firsthand what they are like, but I heard about them from this guy’s friends). I wrote some letters, including tear stains that made some of the writing blur a bit. I included copies of the photos of me from that night.
I said that I didn’t want to press charges because I knew it would be an embarrassment to the college/law school/televangelist/his parents (whichever one fit the person I was writing to). I just thought they ought to know because he could harm a member of their family/congregation/school. He could also be a HUGE publicity nightmare if he did this to someone else and I didn’t want that because I believed in their message (sent to the church and the school).
I called the girl (her number was in the phone book) and told her what her man did to me.
She cried, and said he had hurt her too, but she thought it was her fault. I told her the violation was not my fault, I was trying not to puke when he came onto me. I told her to stop seeing him and have nothing to do with him if he treated her that way.
She said that her family would be upset as he was from such a good family and he was so well thought of at the law school. I didn’t tell her that I was working on ruining that for him.
I sat back and waited for things to happen after I mailed the letters.
His family was shocked but not surprised. They wrote me an apology, saying he had been in trouble before but they thought he had gotten better after the church intervened in his life.
Apparently, he hadn’t and they were cutting ties to him. The man who owned the apartments actually called me. He wanted to hear what happened from me so he could figure out if I was telling the truth. So I told him what happened and why I didn’t press charges. He believed me and started eviction proceedings. A representative from the church called me to ask me to stop telling lies about the guy.
I told them that they shouldn’t protect someone like him and to ask girls he dated how he behaved because his girl told me that he hurt her when he got angry. They were shocked. I never heard from the college, but the Dean of the law school called me. He asked if I told the truth and assured him that I had. DNA wasn’t commonly used (it was 1st used in a criminal case that year), so it was my word vs.
his word. Just the accusation was enough to have the guy kicked out of law school, especially with the photos of my bruises and the tear stains on my letters (which was the reason I wrote them out by hand and let myself cry while I wrote them).
Apparently, those accepted to that law school should be above reproach. I don’t know if they would have handled it the same way if I tried to prosecute the guy, but since I ‘was trying to keep it quiet so I didn’t harm the school’s reputation,’ it meant I was a good Christian girl who could be believed. I was actually surprised that the letters had so much success.
I expected his father to send a letter telling me to stop slandering/libeling his son. The letter saying they were cutting all ties to him was a surprise, but a good one. Sadly, it indicated that I was probably not the 1st to accuse him.
About a year later I found out he was working for a company installing carpets in homes. I called that company and told them that they were sending a bad person into people’s homes.
I even offered to send photos of the bruises if they wanted them. The woman that I spoke to was horrified. Just the idea that he had been accused, and that I cared enough to call when I learned he was going into people’s homes was enough for her. I learned that not only did the company fire him, but they also called other companies and told them what a liability he would be if they hired him.
He had started to drink heavily by that point, at least according to the friends who knew him at my school.
I went on with my life, got therapy to help me cope, eventually got married, and have had almost 30 years with an amazing husband. I don’t know what happened to this guy, but I know he never became a lawyer (his dream). I know that I made his life a LOT harder.
I did Google him a few years ago. He has had many arrests and has spent quite a few years behind bars. I like to think that by getting him kicked out of law school and getting his family to understand that he was very much un-reformed, I helped speed him into the defendant’s chair in a courtroom.”
5. Make It Look Like I'm Stealing? Cross Your Fingers That I Won't Be Interviewing You In The Future
“So I worked for Company A for almost a decade that had a small team consisting of ten people, doing commissioned work for businesses in my city.
The owner treated us like family, knowing that we worked long and hard days, sometimes up to 60 hours in a week. He paid us better than expected, bonuses and perks, he negotiated with businesses that commissioned our work, even gave the whole company a week off paid when his son was getting married so we could attend it.
We had our squabbles like any other family, and things weren’t always bright and perfect, but this is to show how nice the Owner treated his employees.
And didn’t screw me over.
After working there for years, the manager position came open. By then I was one of the most senior workers with Company A, so I thought I would apply, which had a few others interested as well. I didn’t get the position, mainly because, despite my experience at Company A, I didn’t have a Business Administration degree.
Someone who worked for the Owner did, so he got it. Realizing the education I would have to get, and the demand of this job, I thought long and hard and concluded that, if I wanted to go anywhere in life, I would have to get that degree.
Coming right of high school to work for Company A was great, but if I wanted to do something more I would have to go to university.
I talked to the Owner and gave my two weeks notice. When I explained what I wanted to do and why, he understood that I was trying to make something of myself. This all becomes relevant later.
Going to university, I found that I had tuition covered through government grants but not things like food, rent, etc. So I looked around and eventually found work at Company B.
Company B was a retail store, with a bigger staff than I had been used to, somewhere around 50 employees but had such a huge employee turnaround that it was scary at times.
They dealt with a wide arrangement of goods from groceries to very expensive items. They had a certain niche clientele that they could order items for and catered to. I ended up working part-time in their warehouse and answered to the Warehouse Supervisor, who answered to the Manager.
There were other supervisors for other parts of the store, but for this only the Sales Supervisor is relevant.
Skip forward seven years. In that time I got my BA degree and worked at Company B the whole time, going from part-time to full and eventually applied for the Warehouse Supervisor position. I was interviewed, got the job, been a supervisor for months when the Manager and I hired K as a warehouse clerk.
K isn’t the one to get the revenge, but she played a crucial part in the revenge.
Then Bimbo (B) gets hired.
B started out as a cashier, working quickly up the chain and brown-nosing as many co-workers as possible, including the Manager. When a sales rep went on maternity leave, B quickly jumped at the chance to work in sales and ended up permanently being a part of that team then the Sales Supervisor soon after.
B and I got along like oil and water. We butted heads over things constantly; she would tell the Manager all the small things that I did, but called me a snitch when I reported the issues she was causing. She would badmouth me and my warehouse staff, talk over me at meetings and try to take credit for my ideas.
She openly told co-workers that I was the cause of many issues and couldn’t wait for me to leave.
Oh, and she was NEVER at fault. It would be the customer’s fault, my fault, the delivery driver’s fault, another co-workers fault, etc. There were times when we got together well, but far and few between.
So one day, a very, and I mean VERY, expensive ring set (over $5,000 I found out later), ordered by one of our customers, comes in. Years ago, I set up a procedure for any type of jewelry so that it will not get lost or stolen.
The last step is, once we have done everything with it in the warehouse, we take it to the office and have someone put it in the safe immediately.
This particular time, I was the one who received the rings so, once going through the procedure, I told K that I was taking it to the office. The only one available who had the combination to the safe was B.
I asked her if she could open the safe, she looked at me, looked at the jewelry box in my had, then said, ‘put it down here on my desk, I’ll put it away once I’m done this email.’ Keep in mind that B and I had had a serious spat over something earlier that day, and I generally didn’t feel like being close to her if I could help it.
So I never saw her put it in the safe myself.
The next day, I get a call from the Manager to come to the office. I head there to find Manager, B, and the HR consultant they pull in when some real crap hits the fan. Manager tells me that said ring set has disappeared. I tell them the procedure I followed and last I saw them was with B.
Manager tells me that B checked the box and that said box was empty. Manager then pulls the box out. Sure enough, the box the rings were in was indeed empty. I swear to Manager that the rings were inside when I checked them before given to B. At this point, it’s my word against hers. By a stroke of bad luck, the in-store video recorder had broken down days before the incident so there was no way to verify what happened.
We all know someone has to take the blame for this, and that’s when B strikes, saying that it was my fault, since it was last seen in my hands. Manager asks if this is true, then I realize that, yes, I was indeed the last person to touch the thing, and I never actually saw B pick up the box. B gives me the look that screamed ‘Gotcha!’ Manager and the HR consultant ask us both to leave.
After what seemed like forever, I get called in. Manager tells me that, since I was responsible for the rings at the time and now are lost, they would be firing me. But, since they had no proof as to whether I stole the rings or not, they wouldn’t press charges (which scared the crap out of me as this was the first time I heard of them thinking this).
I go back to the warehouse, tell K and the other warehouse clerks just what happened grabbed my personal belongings and left that day.
After a couple weeks of trying to get my head around what happened and weighing my options, I decide my first priority is to try to get some sort of job, and consider it lucky if I get a job flipping burgers with the bad rep I’ll get when they ask Company B about my previous work history.
I call the Owner of Company A to get a good reference from them and explain what happened and why I was calling, only to get the shock of a lifetime. The manager position was about to be open; the guy who I lost the position to was retiring soon, due to complicated health reasons.
Owner had kept tabs on me while at university and understood when I didn’t immediately come back to him, but with a golden opportunity like this, he wanted me back and I wasn’t going to say no.
I dive into the new job I originally wanted with an Owner I enjoyed working for. I thought, then and there, everything would be behind me, not knowing it would come back, not to bite me, but to pay dividends.
This I found out later. After I was fired, K knew she had to do something about B. K knew that I wouldn’t lose or steal something like the rings.
But also knew that, without proof, B would deny that she did it and have K in her cross-hairs to attack next.
So, after talking with her husband, she hatched a plan.
She started hanging out with B telling her things like ‘I’m SO glad he’s gone!’ or ‘Wish he had been fired MUCH earlier!’ B, feeling high from getting rid of one of her thorns in her side, soaked it all in, and after a couple of weeks, invited K and K’s Husband (from now on KH) for drinks at her place with her and B’s Husband (BH).
Months pass, K and KH do things regularly together with B and BH, including drinking on weekends and couple-related events. When together, K would occasionally bad-mouth me, and B would agree. Finally, after over a year of playing nice, when K and KH were over at B’s for one of their drinking parties, K randomly bad-mouthed me, mentioning the rings in passing.
Then B says something that K was waiting for:
‘I wanted those rings, so I stole them.’
K, upon hearing this, asks for more details. KH looks at her tries to wave her off with one hand, then gives up when B keeps talking. That day, B had stopped writing her email and was going to put the rings in the safe. The safe was open and she was about to put the rings away when B had an idea.
See, as mentioned above, B wanted me gone from Company B. She also wanted those rings. She also knew that the cameras weren’t working. She figured that she could pocket the rings, tell the Manager they were missing, and spin it so I would take the blame.
K then asks where are the rings now, and B being too wasted and not seeing a reason not to brag, not only tells her but shows her where they are in her room.
All while KH had been RECORDING THE WHOLE CONVERSATION on his phone (the hand waving was him saying he started recording).
K gives a copy of the recording to Manager the next workday. Police are called immediately, B is arrested and her house is raided. They find the rings. K and KH give the recording and testimonies to the police. B’s reckoning has begun.
I eventually get a call from the prosecutor’s office after B is arrested and charged with theft over $5,000, among other things. He wants me to testify about what she did to me.
I didn’t skip a beat in saying yes. Fast track to the trial, the prosecutor has me, K, and KH testify and plays the recording of B admitting that she stole them.
Her attorney tries to throw out the case saying that K got B deliberately wasted, but the judge didn’t buy it since there was proof she drank all the time. The judge was lenient and gave her five years in prison, which she yelled was unfair, but I personally thought she got off easy.
Meanwhile, as the trial was happening, I was talking with a lawyer to sue B for setting me up like she did.
We were also going to sue Company B for wrongful termination, but they settled the day they got notice of the lawsuit and knew they would lose.
B wasn’t so lucky. They tried some trickery by having BH divorce her and he received everything in the divorce, but my lawyer added him into the lawsuit as well. My lawyer asked overall for $3,500 for emotional distress, back pay from when I was fired until I started up with Company A again and legal fees.
And now, you are wondering where the metaphoric cherry is on this story? Well, years after all this, we had someone leave Company A, so we were hiring someone to replace them. The owner was going over the resumes and set up interviews for the job this week. Lo and behold, B was one of the people to apply, but he didn’t know that.
I looked at the resume, was about to trash it, but then smiled.
Owner set up the interview. She came in at her slotted time, looking to brown-nose her way through. Then she saw me. I smiled an evil smile, she went white. All I said was, ‘Ah, B how are you? Remember me?’ A deer in the headlight look from her. I look at her resume and say ‘I’m sorry, I do not think you will be a good fit for our company.
Thank you for applying.”
4. Wanna Play That Game By Ghosting? We're Tech Nerds And Know How To Get You Back
“Back in the early ’90s, my friend Lou was selling his RX-7 via an ad in the old print Auto Trader.
It came out every Thursday, so that first weekend was critical for sales. The very first guy that came to see it on Saturday said he wanted to buy it after driving it. Of course, he had to finance, so they couldn’t finish the sale during the weekend.
Lou was worried about losing all the bites from the new ad, so he asked for a deposit of $500.
The guy wrote a check. Lou told the rest of the callers that weekend that it was sold and, unfortunately, didn’t ask for their numbers in case it fell through; this story predates Caller ID availability in my area by a couple of years, so those leads were gone. As you surely expect by now, the guy flakes on Monday and Lou deposits the check.
Payment stopped. Big surprise.
Sitting around my apartment, we schemed revenge, but all we had to go on was the check. Lucky for karma, there was a phone number printed on it. Our first idea was to write a little program to dial his number repeatedly from my modem, but that would be easily stopped and probably get us in direct trouble. Then Lou got a page from his work: this was back in the one-way pager days.
You call the pager’s dedicated phone number, it sounds a tone, then you punch digits for the number you want to be sent to the pager. The person with pager receives the number you entered and, presumably, calls it. Everyone with a pager made sure that people who needed to get a hold of them had the number for their pager. You’d see pager numbers in print and TV ads all the time for various services.
Boom: angelic choir sings, heavenly light goes off. Lou’s pager number and my pager number had the same prefix (middle 3 digits). What if we randomly dial numbers with that prefix and page them all to this guy’s number? So we order a pizza, open some drinks and start looking through the yellow pages at locksmiths and tow truck services to find more pager prefixes.
We wind up with a dozen or so.
After that, it’s half an hour of coding in Ye Olde Borland C++. I put together a program that would cycle through our list of known prefixes and add a random final four digits to get a random pager. It calls the pager’s number, pauses, then dials this jerk’s number and throws a 911 suffix on there for good measure, which is something people with pagers understood to indicate an emergency of some kind.
The whole thing was just generating a string like “ATDT602XXXYYYY, 911#”, where XXX is the pager prefix and YYYY is random. Commas make pauses since you need to connect to the paging service before you can enter the message. Make string, send to modem, wait for “NO CARRIER,” hang up, repeat.
We start eating the pizza and let it fly. I was very picky about my devices, so my modem was a USRobotics Courier.
You could set an S register to control how long it would sound each tone when dialing. Uber-nerds like myself would keep tinkering with that to get it as fast as possible while still being recognized by the phone service. It was very fast. I swag it could run through 4 pages per minute, so this guy would get 240 calls/hour. We just watched it run and laughed our butts off.
We realized pretty early on that we didn’t really know if it was working, so we wandered down to the 7-11 and called him from a payphone, just in case he could somehow trace it or the po-po were on the case and watching. A man answered and I said, “hello, I got a page at this number.” I heard an audible sigh and then he just hung up.
Gold!
We ended up running it for a few hours, then let it go quiet for a few days. Then we scheduled it to start dialing in the middle of the night every few days, plus we’d fire it up by hand randomly whenever we had a party. We checked again from the 7-11 after a week and it went to an answering machine, which did the rapid-tone at the end of the greeting to indicate the tape was full.
We reasoned that the line was still ringing, anyway, so we kept at it for another month or so. Eventually, we got the disconnected warning when we made one of our regular checkups. I’m sure he just changed the number.
I like to think about that guy answering the phone after a few days of silence when we started it up. I can vividly imagine his response at the “did someone page me to this number?” as he slams the phone down and then it rings again a few seconds later.
Or, of course, coming home from work and having an answering machine full of random people asking about being paged.
And, yeah, we annoyed several thousand people into calling this guy by the end. But each of those people was only put out for a single call. A cost, yes, but a necessary one for justice.”
3. Accuse Me Of Stealing Your Products? No, But I'll Steal Your Business
“My nephew, Bob, had a job selling cell phones at a store in a mall. The store was owned by a licensed distributor of one of the big-name brands. He was very good at convincing customers to buy calling plans, extended warranties, and accessories that were obscenely profitable. Pretty soon he was the #1 salesman in the store.
The owners asked him to transfer to their other store in a different mall, replacing the assistant manager who they had just fired.
In addition to an increase in his base pay, he’d get a cut of every sale made while he was in charge.
It took him about 2 days to figure out why sales were down. Clueless sales reps and lousy management. The manager would disappear for hours at a time leaving the sales reps to sit around ignoring customers. Most of them would show up late, leave early or not bother coming in at all.
And when they did speak to a customer, they had no idea how to make a sale. On his first day, he outsold them all. After making sure the guys on his shift were actually doing their jobs, especially when it came to selling the high-profit add-ons, the store’s sales improved.
The store manager saw what was happening and wasn’t too happy. He knew it was a matter of time before he was kicked out and Bob took his job.
One day they received a shipment of new phones. As usual, Bob signed for them and locked them in a storage closet. The next day was his day off. The manager called and insisted he come in immediately because there was a problem. Overnight, someone had broken into the store and stolen about a hundred of these brand new phones. The mall security camera showed two people driving up to the back door, opening it with a key, shutting off the alarm and walking out with the phones.
The police were called.
Bob was grilled by the police for a couple of hours but they had no evidence against him and he had an alibi. But the manager convinced the owners that Bob was probably involved since he had signed for the phones, had keys to the door and storage closet and knew the alarm code. Bob argued that they hadn’t changed the locks or code after they fired the previous assistant manager and anyone could know about the shipment.
But he was fired – actually they allowed him to resign. And they stiffed him on his last commission check.
At the other end of the mall was a store that sold phones for one of the competing cell companies. They knew that since Bob had joined that other store this store’s sales were suffering. They hired him on the spot.
Sales improved overnight. One of his favorite tricks was to stand in front of the store and wait for a customer to walk by carrying a shopping bag from his first store.
He’d chat them up about their brand new phone, calling plan, warranty, etc. (It’s amazing how much the average mall shopper is willing to share with a stranger).
Then he’d tell them that they probably didn’t need the extended warranty and those accessories could be purchased at Walmart for about half the price.
And he could sell them the exact phone with a better plan.
If they agreed he would walk them back to that other store and tell the clueless sales rep how to void that sale he just made, then bring the customer back to his new store to pick up their new phone. It took about 3 months before that other store closed its doors.”
Another User Comments:
“I sold magazine subscriptions door to door one summer. I got paid $15 for every sale.
I would offer a $10 bill if they signed up for a subscription that if they wanted they could cancel after one month. I was the number one salesman that summer.” ImAlwaysRightHanded
2. Project Partners Think They Can Mess With Me? I'll Make It Rain Y'all
“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 €50 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 that 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 €1000 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 €50 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 of off.
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 €50 an hour on the project with my log to back it up.
Total cost? €50,000 (around $60,000 at the time).
They freaked out. They had nowhere near this kind of cash 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 €20,000 and be reimbursed for legal costs, totaling about €35,000. For B and C, it was a massive blow. B had to sell her car to make ends meet 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 €20,000. Tell you what though, I’ll sell it to you.’
B & C: ‘Well how much do you want?’
Me: ‘€52,000’
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.”
1. Owning My Bully Boss
“This one took place back in 2002.
I had been an Over The Road truck driver and engaged for a year. I thought I would try to get a local job so I could be home every night with my soon-to-be wife. The wedding was only a few months away. She lived in a pretty small town. There wasn’t much in the way of local truck driving jobs except for oil field or hauling dirt.
I did find a dirt hauling company that was hiring.
The supervisor was a jerk from the very beginning of the interview. He informed me that payment was $9/hr, and that’s it. No raises, no benefits, even if you work there for over 20 yrs.
Well, I decided to just go on and accept it as I knew that after we got married, my wife would be moving back to her hometown to accept a job, and there was plenty of driving jobs there.
My first day of work, the super-jerk has me fill out the paperwork, and tries to force me to sign a waiver to decline Worker’s Compensation should I get injured. He ‘promised’ their insurance was far better, but I had already learned about many of those scams and refused to sign it. This utterly angered him (a telltale sign that they are trying to screw you).
So, I have to train with another driver for a week before getting assigned to my own truck, which is good so I can learn the routes and roads. I hear him tell the trainer to nit-pick everything as he doesn’t want me on the crew. Unfortunately for him, everything I do is to perfection. The only complaint the trainer had was I tended to ride the clutch a little hard when taking off on the first day (was trying to get used to the extra heavy loads and very sensitive clutch), otherwise, I floated gears like a 50 yr pro vet.
So, I finish the week and get assigned my own truck. I do my pre-trip safety inspection as required by DOT regulations, and I noticed one of the steer tires is almost to legal wear.
Me: ‘Hey boss, Unit 12 Left steer is almost to regs. It’s at 5/16.”‘
Bossman: ‘Sounds to me like you just don’t want to work.’
Me: ‘No, it’s legal for now; just informing you that it’s going to need to be replaced real soon.’
Bossman: ‘Are you stupid? I just replaced both of those steers 2 months ago. Now get in the truck, or clock out and go home.’
Me: ‘I will drive it until it is illegal or unsafe to do so.
But if I get fined, I have enough witnesses here, right now, to put right it back on you.’ I got in the truck and went to work.
Bossman was peeved. But, two days later, I noticed a new set of steer tires during my daily inspection.
The next week, Bossman informs me that we are on nights for the next few days:
Bossman: ‘When on the ranch land, watch your speed. If you hit and kill one of the landowner’s $45.000 prize-winning steers that he makes $20,000 when breeding, I’ll run your butt off and you lose your pay.’
I bust out laughing – HARD.
This angers him.
Bossman: ‘What the heck you laughing at? You don’t think I’m serious? Get your crap and get out.’
Me: ‘Is that what the landowner told you? Does he breed his prize-winning steer for $20k a pop? And you believe him?’
Bossman: ‘Yeah.’
I was nearly on the ground laughing so hard.
Bossman: ‘What is your problem?
Fine – go home.’
Me: ‘Sorry, I meant no disrespect. It’s just that, I imagine that you’re from up north, right? From the city?’ I could tell from day one from his fake southern accent, but I kept quiet about it.
Bossman: ‘Yeah, what of it?’
Me: ‘Well, I’m a city boy as well, but even I know that a steer is a castrated bull.
While it’s true that a prize-winning steer can be worth tens of thousands of dollars, they can not be bred. Ask anyone here, they’ll confirm it.’
Trainer: ‘Yes sir, it’s true. A steer is a bull with no balls.’ My trainer just happened to walk by when he heard me laughing so hard.
Boss turned white. ‘Don’t matter. Watch your speed or you’re down the road.’
The second weekends and the third begins. About the 3rd day, another truck breaks down, so the Bossman decides to have me give my truck to the other driver and ride with my trainer again. For some reason, Bossman decides he wants this to be my last day, but he can’t due to no reason.
So, he makes something up, only to have it backfire on him.
At the end of the day, he’s waiting for us at the yard when we pull in and get parked. I head to the office to get my check for the first two weeks, and he’s waiting for me outside.
Bossman: ‘You done messed up today, boy. You almost got someone killed.’
Me: ‘Really. Please, do tell.’
Bossman: ‘I received a call from a man who said that you cut him off and ran him off the road.
He gave your truck and trailer numbers and identified you as the driver by the cap that you wear.’
Me: I smiled.
‘Really. About what time did this incident happen?’
Bossman: ‘Why’re you smiling. You nearly killed a man. I’m letting you go right now. You’re an unsafe driver.’
Me: ‘No, first you need to answer my question.’
Bossman: ‘What does it matter?
I don’t have to answer you. You’re fired.’
Me: ‘No, you do need to answer. Remember, there were two drivers in that truck today.’ Just then Trainer walked up. ‘And FYI, I know that I didn’t cut off anyone one today, as I did not drive at all. I can also vouch that Trainer did not cut anyone one-off, nor ran anyone off of the road.
So, either: 1, the guy misread the numbers of the truck and trailer and identity of the driver; 2, is lying, or 3, you’re the one lying because you have been trying to find fault in everything I do and run me off since day one when I refused to sign the waiver for Workman’s Comp.’
Bossman: ‘Forget you, you little…”
Trainer: ‘He’s right. I drove all day, and don’t recall any incidents or near misses.
You know I’d have called as per policy.’
Bossman: ‘Well, alright. I guess you still have your job. But know, I’m keeping a real close eye on you.’
Me: ‘Thank you, and I don’t doubt it. My b******e has already been feeling your nose hairs tickling it since day one.’
I opened my check and looked at it as Bossman began to walk away fuming.
Me: ‘Wait a minute. There’s a $59 deduction on here for insurance. We don’t have benefits, remember?’
Bossman: ‘That’s for the insurance against injury, remember?’
Me: ‘You mean the one I declined and refused to waive the Worker’s Comp for.’
Bossman: ‘Yeah. It’s mandatory.’
Me: ‘I see. So it’s deducted whether I sign up for it or not.’
Bossman: ‘Yep. Don’t like it?
Don’t let the door hit your a*s on the way out.’
Me: ‘That’s illegal.’
Bossman: ‘No it ain’t. Now get the heck off my property.’
I decided to end it right there, as there is no point in arguing with a spoiled child. It’s best to be the better man and walk-off… Yeah, right!
Now for the ProRevenge:
It turns out that the Captain for the TX Dept.
of Public Safety (Department of Transportation for you truck drivers, or state trooper for everyone else) of the precinct just happened to live about 4 houses down from the apartments that my fiancee lived. He just so happened to find an anonymous note on his windshield the next morning. The very next morning, there were 5 state troopers with all 15 of the company’s trucks pulled over on the side of the highway right in front of the company, being thoroughly inspected (I was parked on the shoulder in my car across the highway watching it all unfold while sipping my coffee).
Of the 15 trucks, 11 of them were shut down for safety violations. Thousands of dollars in fines were written and the Boss plus two other drivers were taken to jail for warrants. Boss also had an expired Commercial Driver’s License (He was forced to drive since I didn’t show up for work that morning).
As you can imagine, Bossman lost his job. I had moved to my fiancee’s hometown and got a job in the oilfield driving tanker trucks.
I heard that Trainer got the Bossman’s job. And everyone lived happily ever after. Well, maybe not Bossman, as he also popped positive on a substance test… As to why I was a jack-hole to Bossman, I just needed to let Bossman know that I wasn’t a pushover and that I wouldn’t drink his Kool-Aid.
I’m normally a nice guy, even to those who are jack-holes to me.
I was nice at first until he pushed me too hard.
I did tell my trainer that I was behind the State Trooper attack, and he thanked me. He told me that most of the other drivers wanted to thank me as well. Some were worried about the safety of the equipment as they had been told off for reporting things as well. Many were brand new to truck driving and got their license through the company.
They said that through me, they learned that they did have rights and that it was okay to stand up for them.
They had been suspicious of the waiver but feared to decline it. All but 2 immediately had pulled their worker’s comp waivers and due to that, one driver was saved. She was involved in a bad accident about a month later and wound up on permanent disability.
Had she stayed with the company’s insurance, she would have been screwed, as they did not offer long term, let alone, lifetime disability benefits, and she had learned that most of her medical claims would have been denied.”
Another User Comments:
“This story has got me thinking about my own pro revenge when I find a new job. There are a few illegal things I suspect my boss of doing which I could report him for.
He’s an equally despicable piece of trash like the boss in your story. He really needs a good dose of karma. Pure evil.” urbana1
