People Slip Out Their Wicked Revenge Stories
24. If We Have To Throw Food Away, I'll Just Take The Trash
“In high school, I worked at a fast-food restaurant, not saying which one or where. Sadly, like many fast food places, we had a lot of waste. However, we had one employee (who we’ll call Phil, not his real name) that would take as much waste food as he could carry at the end of the day and ride his bike to a place where a lot of homeless people would hang out, and give it to them.
Other employees with cars would often take more if he couldn’t carry all of it. There was nothing wrong with the food, it was just called waste because it was cooked and not sold.
At one point, someone high up in the corporate part of the restaurant decided to try and cut costs by minimizing waste.
Their strategy was to require us to throw away all unsold food at the end of the day, with the idea being that employees wouldn’t cook extra food to take home, so we would waste less.
Now the general manager at this restaurant was very by-the-book, and never deviated from any official rule.
The new food waste rules were no exception. She would stand there at the end of the day and watch as the employees put all of the extra food into the trash can. Phil, determined to continue his nightly food donations, found a loophole. Every night, right before we closed and threw away food, Phil would take the trash out, then put a clean trash bag in the can.
We had warming trays, but toward the end of the day, we replaced them with to-go boxes so we could clean the trays, so the result was a trash bag of sorted and boxed food, which was even easier for Phil to transport and allowed him to carry more, and the people he took the food to were more than happy with the change.
To get it out of the restaurant, Phil would volunteer to take out the trash every night, then just take the bag with him when he left rather than put it in the dumpster. This worked pretty well for a while.
One night, the general manager saw Phil leaving with the bag on the security cameras.
Like I said, she was a stickler for the rules, so she didn’t approve of it. The next day, she called a staff meeting and told all of us (though we all knew it was directed mostly at Phil) that the waste food trash had to go in the dumpster and that nobody was allowed to take it, that kind of thing.
Phil did not care. He continued his routine, albeit with a little more sneaking, until the manager saw him doing it again.
The fallout: Phil was fired for ‘stealing company property’ or something like that, I don’t remember exactly how the general manager phrased it.
Several other employees, myself included, quit shortly after and found other places to go, leaving the restaurant struggling with fewer employees than it needed, and no one experienced enough to train new employees, since the general manager didn’t do much as far as food, and the employees that quit were mostly the experienced ones.
The restaurant recovered and is doing well enough, and I don’t think the waste food policies were changed.
I don’t know where/how Phil is today, but I hope he’s doing well. Phil, if you read this and recognize yourself in this story, love you brother, keep being a good person.”
23. Gave Me Two Weeks Off With No Intent To Pay? Let's Take A Look At The Contract
“In 2018 big changes happened for me. I got my AA (associate of arts degree) and was accepted into a new college to get my BA (bachelor of arts degree).
Spoiler alert, I got my BA. This school change meant I had to leave my current job and get a new one. It’s a commuter school, and I live near it, but keeping the job didn’t make sense.
I also had a 5-week trip abroad planned over the summer, to celebrate getting my AA (first in the family).
Prior to this trip I interviewed for jobs and was very direct as to what I was looking for.
None of my interviewers got back to me before my trip. That sucked, but whatever – I had a fallback plan. Toward the end of my trip, a few got back to me.
I started email negotiations with them and eventually made my choice.
My first red flag could have been avoided by sending over a digital contract to be signed. We agreed that I’d start the job 2 weeks before school started (after school nanny). They changed their mind last minute and said I’d start the day school starts.
I, at the time, had 11 years of experience in this field— time with the kids before school started was important (build a relationship before being a homework drill sergeant).
The job goes, the mom boss (MB) is not warm, And I’m not bonding with the kids— as she comes home early every day, especially when I planned a fun trip or project.
No big deal, I have guaranteed hours, so I’m still getting paid. Well, the semester for me is almost over and I have to sign up for next semester’s classes… problem!
There isn’t a single class schedule I could make that would have me available all 5 days a week after school.
I inform MB, and she says they could figure out the other days. I ask her if she could keep her ears open for the other two days, and she agrees. Finding a two day a week morning nanny job is like finding a needle in a haystack.
My contract states I have to give 6 weeks’ notice to quit and vice versa (important detail for later).
I let MB know my hunt isn’t going smoothly. She suggests I do gig work or work customer service. I kindly reply that gig work is an unpredictable income and I cannot afford to live off the part-time wage of customer service (my parents do not support me, I do not live at home, and am an older college student).
Eventually, I have to give my 6 weeks’ notice, as while looking to make her job work I found another job: works with my new schedule, more pay, and better location. After I gave notice a holiday break came… I was given time off as grandparents came to town.
No big deal, remember my contract has guaranteed hours.
I then go back to work and ask for my pay.
MB: ‘No you didn’t work.’
Me: ‘It’s in the contract, I have guaranteed hours.’
MB: ‘No, you broke the contract by quitting.’
Me: ‘I am working within the contract. I gave 6 weeks as you wanted and not the standard 4 weeks. Breaking the contract would be me giving you less than 6 weeks.’
MB: ‘You didn’t work. I’m not paying you.’
Me: ‘That would be you breaking the contract.’ Pull the contract out, point out guaranteed hours, the schedule, and where it says we continue to work through the notice period.
MB says some choice words and sticks to them.
Me: ‘It sounds like you knowingly gave me 2 weeks off with no intent to pay— that is breaking the contract.’
MB argues about that.
Me: ‘It appears the contract is void. It also says if a breach in contract happens on your behalf I am to be paid my full salary for 6 weeks and not return to work.
I’m going to be nice and give you one last chance to think about your choices: pay me for the 2 weeks and I finish out the remainder of the 6 weeks OR you magically don’t have a nanny show up because you voided the contract and I flex my legal rights to force you to pay up.’
MB’s jaw drops. She chooses to pay me but as she does so calls me a heartless witch and some other names.
Me: ‘Really? Name-calling? It says here under cause that is a hostile work environment and I can just leave and get the full 6 weeks’ pay.’
MB starts stuttering.
I was then paid for the 2 weeks in question. Paid 1 week’s bonus to not leave her in a jam. Worked 1 week after that conversation before she found my replacement and let me go with the remainder of my notice period paid in full.
Contracts are the best.”
22. Don't Want To Heed My Warning? That'll Hurt You In The Long Run
“I work for a company that does commissions for clients. I am the manager of my department. This comes with a number of responsibilities, one of them being bidding on work.
Last fall I evaluated the current global situation and how it would be affecting the costs of our supplies and possible shortages as well as inflation. As a result, I priced a few of our pieces of work to help prepare us for the price increases I had predicted, giving us an 8-10% profit upon completion.
A well-known client came in and contracted us to do a rather large and time-intensive project. This individual is very well off and is in no way in any danger to be going broke any time soon. However, this client complained about the new prices.
He had contracted us in the past on certain items and wanted the same work done again, but seeing the new price, he complained to the boss and threatened to go elsewhere.
The owner, my boss, decided I had priced the work too high based on the complaints of this one customer.
(Previous customers had not batted an eye.) Boss asks me to adjust the price down to be the same as the ‘competition.’
Just so you know, the competition does not carry the same quality standards and often has a 2-3 year turnaround.
I explained to the boss that my numbers were based on the increases from suppliers and subcontractors, with who I speak regularly.
These companies we work with warned me beforehand about what was coming, and I took it all to heart. I had passed the warning on to the boss at the time but it appeared he blew it off or forgot about it and at the time of making the new price list, he didn’t complain.
It wasn’t until this one, somewhat well-known local client rose a stink that he decided to bring the issue up with me.
So Boss insisted that we should be pricing lower to keep up with the competition or we would lose this customer. Of course, I argued that it would hurt us in the long run and all we would be doing is attracting tire-kickers.
He stood his ground though, and I didn’t have the energy to fight him on it, so in the end, he’s the boss and got what he wanted.
So the time came to order the supplies and pay the subcontractors. The costs of these materials as well as the work done on them were 90% of the price Boss had agreed to the customer.
This is before my own labor costs were factored in. Boss sees the bill and gets really upset and asks me what the customer was paying to have the work done. I gently reminded him this was for Rich Tire Kicker Customer, and I had warned him well beforehand, but because he wanted to retain Rich Tire-Kicker Customer, he got what he wanted, but the company did the work at cost, and perhaps more with my labor factored in.
Boss later came to me and asked me to make up a new price list. I told him I didn’t need to, I did that last fall and as long as no one gives deep discounts, we will be in the green.
He’s listening to me now.”
Another User Comments:
“I’m the Chief Inspector of a helicopter maintenance facility.
We have a few high net worth individuals (billionaires. Not multi-millionaires, multi-billionaires) whose helicopters we perform annual inspections on. One of them has over-the-top documentation requirements (well above and beyond the FAA minimum requirements, which already aren’t anything to scoff at) due to their management company’s policies.
For the last two years, I’ve been telling our sales & contracts folks to bid higher on that particular customer, to help recover the cost of the man-hours associated with all their additional documentation.
Sales & contracts: ‘Oh no, we can’t do that.
We could lose the customer that way!’
(facepalm)
For the last two annual inspections, our profit margin on this customer was negative once, and almost made 1% once, because we refuse to charge the billionaire’s flight department a little extra over an irrational fear of losing them as a customer.” ThatHellacopterGuy
21. I Leveraged My Job Description To Put An End User In His Place
“I used to manage a Cadillac dealership’s network a couple of years ago.
There was a car salesman who also liked to study computers in his spare time. Unfortunately, that also meant that he knew way too much to be absolutely dangerous. I would constantly get complaints about him bunking down on a specific floating desk on the floor and locking it out from anyone to use it but him.
I reached out to management about it, but they didn’t want to do anything about it. Even though he was bypassing many security features like local admin (used a boot env to give himself local admin), web filtering, unapproved apps, remoting, etc. (all via a USB with a bunch of portable apps).
Management:
‘Why are you coming to us about an IT problem?’
‘This isn’t a management problem when it involves computers.’
‘Isn’t that your job? I’m pretty sure that’s in your job description.’
You get the idea.
But I was sick and tired of getting calls and messages daily about this one guy.
So I decided that if management wasn’t going to have my back on this issue, then I guess I have free reign to handle it how I please, right?
Since I was dealing with an above-average user, I decided to go to the furthest extreme.
I took a machine, imaged it to the same image as the floating desk machines, and went to town planning all the restrictions needed.
BIOS locked with password. Boot to USB disabled. Chassis locked and closed (no CMOS reset). Auto-Login to a generic ‘sales’ account.
USB disabled in windows. Desktop redirected to a folder on the file server with locked permissions (no delete. specific icons only). Chrome browser only no IE or anything else. Chrome bookmarks set to only what is needed. Log off removed; only restart or shutdown (Even if he did manage to somehow log-off, it would just log back in to ‘sales’).
And a litany of other basic windows restrictions that essentially silos the machine to either chrome or their Car sales software.
I brought all my changes and my purchase requisition for the locks over to management and was approved with no questions. I sold it as a necessary security measure and threw my weight around about how ‘This is in my job description to address it and implement it.’
Spent an early Monday morning rolling out all the changes before he came in. Late afternoon rolls around and he finally shows up. I’m off the clock but decided to stay to see the fallout. He walks in, makes a beeline to his ‘desk’, and watched as he sat confused at everything.
‘I can’t log out. I can’t boot my USB? Windows can’t see my USB either. I can’t do anything at all!’
I watched in pure satisfaction as he just got up from the chair and walked around the sales floor aimlessly with nothing to do.
The bonus part is after all the changes, whenever a different sales person complained about the changes, all I needed to say was ‘Sorry for the inconvenience! The changes were necessary due to a salesperson messing with the computers. I’m not allowed to say who it was though.
So unfortunately the changes will need to stay.’
They all knew who it was though.”
20. Don't Touch The Food? Well, If You Insist
“Twenty years ago I worked in the mailroom for a big company in Boston. It was our policy that when people ordered food for meetings it was the job of whoever was running mail on the floor that the meeting was being held on to meet the caterer in the lobby, take the food to the meeting room, set it out, then clean up the room after the meeting was over.
Normally you would clean up during your hourly mail run and take the leftover food to the lunchroom. If you were not already on the lunchroom floor, you would take the food back to the mailroom and give it to the person that was running that floor.
Now at this point, it was normal for the mail staff to get first dibs on the leftovers. Some people didn’t like that. This is the main conflict.
So one day my boss comes up to me and tells me that I am going to have to come in Friday morning at 5:00 am to set up the boardroom for an important partner meeting.
I’m fine with that, extra pay and all. So I show up, set up a massive spread of food, and head down to the mailroom to waste some time on the computer.
15 minutes later I get a call from Cool Secretary (the one that was in charge of the meeting): ‘Hey OP the meeting was canceled. Can you get the food and bring it to the lunchroom?
Keep it in the mailroom first so the guys can get a free breakfast if you want. Sorry about wasting your time.’
So I trot to the board room with a growling belly thinking of how great it’s gonna be to get first dibs for a change!
There is no food.
None.
Gone.
I go check the lunchroom… Nothing.
Puzzled and hungry I tell my boss and start my mail run. About halfway through the run, I come across the desk of Awful Secretary, and lo and behold ALL OF THE FOOD IS BEHIND HER DESK stacked on cabinets and desks.
Me: ‘Is that the food from the big meeting?’
Awful Secretary: ‘Yes it is and you’re not touching it!’
Me: ‘Cool Secretary asked me to bring that to the lunchroom.’
Awful Secretary: ‘I don’t care, you guys will just keep it all for yourselves.
I sent a message out to everyone telling them that I have the food and if they want some they can come ask me for it. But YOU ARE NOT TO TOUCH IT.’
Me: ‘Um, OK. You don’t have to get mad, I’m just doing my job.’
Awful Secretary: ‘No you’re not, you’re trying to steal food that you didn’t order.’
At this point I’m thinking to myself that she didn’t order it either, Cool Secretary did. But it’s not my place to fight so I just go back to the mailroom and tell my boss that I found the food and that she was ADAMANT that we not touch it.
He’s like ‘whatever, we’ll talk to Cool Secretary Monday when she gets back to the office with her partner.’
So now it’s 5:00 pm and I’m doing my last run of the night and as I pass by Awful Secretary’s desk, I see that she has already gone home… and left all of the food stacked around her desk.
Following her orders, I touch NOTHING.
Monday morning comes and my boss has an evil grin on his face ‘OP, can you deliver these cleaning supplies to Awful Secretary’s desk?’
I show up to a GLORIOUS MESS! The gallon jugs of orange juice that Awful Secretary had left on her desks had fermented and burst open spraying clods of rotten orange juice all over the place!
It looked like they had rolled onto their sides as they swelled and shot across the room like water rockets when the pressure got too much to contain. It was AWESOME.
Awful Secretary: ‘WHY DIDN’T YOU CLEAN THIS UP FRIDAY NIGHT?’
Me: ‘Because you told me not to touch it.’
A memo went out that morning reminding people of the meeting food policy.”
19. Want To Use The Shoulder Lane To Escape Traffic? I Dare You
“I was driving a semi on a highway when the traffic suddenly became bumper to bumper on a 2 lane due to an accident a couple of miles ahead. Everybody was creeping and I was in the right lane.
Suddenly, I saw a regular vehicle, not even an emergency vehicle, on my right side (shoulder lane) passing me. There’s not even an exit nearby. I was like ‘heck to the no’ and as soon as I saw a couple of vehicles behind me trying to do the same thing, I immediately block them by going slightly to the shoulder, so I’m occupying 2 lanes.
I got a few honks but I couldn’t care less. If I’m suffering in a traffic jam, everyone should too. The shoulder isn’t for passing. As long as I didn’t see any flashing lights behind me, I’m not opening that shoulder. We’re crawling anyway. After a few hundred feet ahead, I saw an idle police cruiser on the shoulder up ahead.
Figuring that nobody would dare use the shoulder anymore, I merged back to my lane. Turns out I was right, the shoulder became empty all of a sudden, but that’s not the end.
While I was chilling, still creeping, I heard very annoying & repetitive honks on my left side.
I looked and I saw this lady with huge sunglasses and a ponytail, bending down on her seat, looking at me, yelling something, looking outraged. I rolled down and this is the following conversation:
Karen: ‘You know you’re blocking 2 lanes right?’
Me, confused: ‘Huh?’
Karen: ‘I was behind you on the right lane and you wouldn’t move. I honked and you didn’t care!’
Me: ‘That’s a shoulder. You’re not supposed to drive on the shoulder.’
Karen: ‘That’s a lane! You are allowed to drive there!’
While she’s still yelling incoherently, we are still slowly moving, then I remembered, there’s an idle police cruiser on the shoulder that I saw a while back that we didn’t pass yet.
I’m sure everyone knows by now. Malicious compliance, initiated!
I reduced my speed even more so Karen is faster than me by a little bit on the left lane, then I dare her by giving her the signal that she can pass me to use the shoulder.
She aggressively took it, cut in front of me, and immediately went to the shoulder. However, what Karen didn’t know was that the cruiser is already around the corner. I was driving a semi, so my field of vision is much higher and wider than everyone else.
Karen was driving a sedan, her field of vision is much lower and limited.
What I didn’t take into account was how aggressive Karen was driving. She cut the corner so quickly without looking and ended up hitting the cruiser (sorry). It was so abrupt that I can hear the crash pretty loudly.
I can also tell that the driver in front of me was gasping in shock as well.
I have never seen an officer get out of the cruiser so fast before. This dude practically jumped out of the cruiser in less than 1 second. Then this is what I witnessed & heard when I’m creeping slowly with the traffic.
Not wanting to miss anything, I rolled down my passenger window:
Officer: ‘GET OUT OF THE VEHICLE!’
Karen, still inside the car, in full fluster mode.
Officer: ‘GET OUT NOW!’
Karen finally gets out, and literally word per word: ‘But I wasn’t at fault!
You were stopping on a lane!’
Officer: ‘THIS IS A SHOULDER FOR EMERGENCY, NOT FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE TO ESCAPE A TRAFFIC JAM!’
Karen: ‘But… (incoherent sob story as I drove away from the scene).’
I couldn’t hear what was going on anymore, but I kept watching my front as well as the side mirror.
Judging from her body movement, she was indeed panicking while pointing at my truck, don’t know why. Then, before the scene disappeared from my mirror, the last thing I saw was the officer pulling out his handcuffs and cuffing Karen. Surprisingly, she complied without causing any more scenes.
Then I continued to drive into the sunset.”
18. I Wouldn't Let Her Leave With The Radio, So She Got Revenge
“I used to work as a security guard in a large warehouse. Basically, my job was to stand at the exit and make sure employees weren’t walking out with merchandise. In order to leave the building, you had to go through security. Basically, you had to have your bag checked and go through a metal detector.
Also, employees were not allowed to take equipment home with them. Scanning guns, radios, etc., all had to stay in the warehouse. There was a notable exception. Certain managers were allowed to take home their radios/laptops if (and only if) they had a special badge which they had to show us every time they took equipment out.
This was pounded into my head in training. No special badge meant they had to take the device back into the building. It wasn’t our job to care where in the building they left it, just as long as it didn’t leave. If it was lost in the building, that was their fault.
We had a couple of cases every week of some worker forgetting they needed the badge to take their equipment when going out for a smoke break and having to do the walk of shame back in to put it back.
Anyway. One day I’m standing at my post and a manager starts coming through toward the exit.
She has a radio on her belt, but she isn’t showing me a badge. I called out, asking her to show me her badge. I always gave them the benefit of the doubt that they had permission to be taking tech out because sometimes someone who didn’t used to have permission suddenly got it.
Well, she glares at me but keeps walking.
‘Ma’am! I’m going to need to see your badge before you take the radio out of the building, please.’
She keeps walking.
‘Ma’am, if you attempt to leave with the radio, I’m going to have to report it to HR and Loss Prevention.’
That stopped her. She called out ‘Well. What am I supposed to do with it? My station’s all the way at the other end of the building, and I am NOT going back!’
‘It’s just policy that you can’t leave with it, ma’am. We sometimes have people leave their radios just inside if they’re coming back quickly.’
Manager: ‘Well, I’ll leave it with you then.’
Me: ‘Unfortunately, ma’am, I’m not allowed to watch your equipment for you. If there’s an emergency I need to be able to focus on that. You’ll need to take the radio back inside, but what you do with it then is your business.’
Manager: ‘So… you don’t care what I do with the radio, as long as it’s inside?’
Me: ‘That’s correct, ma’am. The rest is up to you, your supervisor, and maybe IT.’
Manager: ‘Ok then.’ She snapped the radio off her belt, wound her arm back like a bowler, got into a stance like she was preparing to bowl a ball in an alley at pins, and threw it into the building.
It came to a landing and slid an additional ten feet. Somehow, it didn’t shatter on the concrete floor.
Manager: ‘Have a good day.’ She then left, leaving me gobsmacked.
Results: I had to write a report on the incident. One of the things we had to include was footage of incidents from the cameras if there was any available.
What was so funny was you could see the ‘What the heck?’ look on my face even though I was wearing a mask. My managers would sometimes take screen clips of camera footage to save to show the rest of the team ‘for training purposes’ (these were passed around to other guards for some giggles).
That video of her attempting to bowl her radio and then walking out followed by my very clear ‘What the heck’ was the top video shared among the guards for the next week. As for the manager: she wasn’t fired but I heard she got suspended for that stunt.
I saw her going through a week later. With a badge.”
17. If You Say I'm Fit For My Job, Then I Guess I'll Do It
“This happened to my mom about 10 years ago.
My mother was a legal secretary and worked for one of the biggest law firms in my country for over 15 years. At the point of this story, she was about 2 years from retirement.
She had noticed a deterioration in her eyesight and was struggling to work on the computer, read or do most of her day-to-day work.
The firm sent her to an affiliated doctor who said she was absolutely fine and can continue working. But as she was struggling she decided to pay privately for a specialist, who immediately told her that she was no longer fit to drive safely, let alone accurately read or use a computer, as she had multiple degenerative eye conditions.
The specialist told her to minimize time on a computer to an absolute minimum, as it was triggering migraines and other problems.
She brought this report to the firm and requested either a change in her job requirements or to go on leave until she was again fit to work.
But of course, the firm had their own report, they said she was exaggerating and could absolutely keep working. But they very kindly told her that she only had to work on the computer 4 days/week from now on, one day a week she could just do filing.
How generous.
So she kept doing her job. But wouldn’t you know it, when she was binding files for court, they were just a mess. Filing? Wow, can’t find anything! I know that she disliked several of the lawyers (my mother grew up poor and had to leave school young to work, so being ‘uneducated’, she wasn’t always treated with much respect), so she was happy enough to deal with their anger.
But she was very friendly with most, including one particular lawyer who may or may not have mentioned some tips to my mother on how to deal with the problem, and what she was entitled to after working there for so many years. So when the higher-ups inevitably called my mother in about the terrible work, she presented quite a compelling case on her rights, safety in the workplace, disability leave, etc.
Long story short, she got fully paid medical leave until she retired, back paid for any time she took off for doctor/hospital visits.”
16. Family Keeps Complaining About Medical Care, So The Nurses Got Family Involved
“Patient came in and develops difficulty swallowing, so the poor patient can’t eat or swallow without choking and possibly acquiring an infection. Doctors put a tube in PT’s stomach to feed them with liquid food and bypass the esophagus.
At first, PT was being fed through a slow drip controlled by a machine.
Then family complained that patient wasn’t tolerating the continuous feed so the doctor took the machine away and now I and the other nurses would have to go into the room three times a day to feed PT manually.
Family complained the next day that the patient’s stomach was bloated so the doctor changed the order to four times a day a nurse would have to go in to feed the patient.
The next day family complained PT wasn’t pooping (after not eating for several days and undergoing surgery so that’s to be expected). But the MD caved to the family’s complaining and changed the order to every four hours.
Then family freaked about the patient being short of breath and blamed the liquid tube feed even though the patient has a history of respiratory disorders and is on chronic oxygen.
Still, MD changed the order to every three hours a nurse has to go in and manually feed the patient through the tube in her stomach.
I know I was fed up with the family complaining about every tiny little thing and more so at the doctors for caving in without explaining the reality of the patient’s condition (the patient is old and probably won’t get better).
Family complained AGAIN the next day, claiming the patient was having chest pain (red flag for heart attack) but the family blamed the liquid tube feed (just why??). MD caved again and changed the order to every TWO hours. Every two hours I or whoever was taking care of the patient would have to go in there and spend twenty minutes in the room dealing with the patient and her family.
As many people now know nurses do NOT have time to mess around, we barely have time to pee.
So: Malicious compliance. This patient is not going to get better so the family NEEDS to know how to feed her through the tube. I educate the family and show them how to do it at 6 pm, I make sure to turn on all the lights, turn the tv off and get the family REALLY involved, they wash their hands, put on gloves, and handle the PEG tube, etc. Then at 8 pm, I make the PT’s son do the tube feed, it takes half an hour and I can tell the son is freaked out.
Then I go back in at 10 pm. Midnight. 2 AM.
By 4 AM the son was complaining that I should be the one doing the tube feedings because it’s so often; he looks exhausted and terrible. I tell him flatly that it’s not rocket science and that he’s going to be doing the tube feedings himself at home, by himself with no backup nurse.
He takes forever to do the 4 AM tube feed because he is so tired. Afterward, while he’s watching me clean up the patient he comments that the patient seems to be tolerating the tube feeds better and maybe we can go back to doing it every 3 or 4 hours instead of every 2 hours.
I look him dead in his bloodshot eyes and say that when the doctor orders something then there’s no wiggle room, it’s literally the law. Because of the family’s multiple concerns, it’s every 2 hours until the doctor signs a new order and that I’m going to be coming in, flipping all the lights on every two hours until I go home.
The look of defeat on the son’s face was so so sweet and almost made the every two-hour nonsense worth it.”
15. Insist On Ordering Food Despite Having The Wrong Number? That's Fine By Me
“This happened when I still lived with my parents over 20 years ago, in a small town just outside a small city.
As a teenager with a bit of social anxiety, I would spend most Friday and Saturday nights at home watching movies and playing lego or computer games. Often my parents would go out into the city as there was nothing to do in the town, so I would be home alone until late at night.
Our landline phone number was very similar to that of the local Chinese takeaway and taxi company. I won’t give the exact numbers but to give an idea our house was 122222, the Chinese takeaway was 122221 and the taxi firm was 122122. So in a Friday/Saturday night intoxicated state, it was very easy to misdial.
99% of callers would apologize once advised they had the wrong number and I would even be able to tell them the correct number to dial.
The 1%, however…
The instance that I recall goes as follows;
Me: ‘Hello?’
Caller: ‘Hi, I’d like to order one sweet and sour, one chow mein…’
Me, interrupting: ‘I’m sorry this is the wrong number.’
Caller: ‘No.’
Me: ‘I’m sorry it really isn’t, you need to call 12…’
Caller, interrupting: ‘Yes it is, so take my order now!’ (Quite rude and forceful)
Me: ‘Fine, what do you want?’
Caller: (gives order).
Me: ‘OK, are you collecting or want this delivered?’
Caller: ‘Delivered, and quickly.’
Me: ‘OK, it’ll be about 30 minutes.’ I hang up.
45 minutes later the phone rings, I answer and there is one hangry ‘customer’ on the phone.
Me: ‘I’m sorry, you didn’t leave your address for the delivery, and 1471 didn’t work (UK readers will know this, but it’s basically a service to call back your last received caller) so we waited for you to call back.
Food will be another 30 minutes.’ I ask for the address and hang up.
45 minutes later, another hangry call was received, only this time they were a little more intoxicated and ruder. I fess up that I’ve been stringing them along, but they insisted that I was a Chinese takeaway and ordered me to take their order again.
Unfortunately at this point, the ‘restaurant’ was now closed, so I guess they went to bed without their food. They never called back, so hopefully, they learned a lesson too.”
She stopped calling after that lol
14. You Think I'm Wrong? Okay, You're The Boss
“I got a job working as a mechanic out west. I lived in NY at the time and moved 2,000 miles to work for this farm. It was family-run, just the dad and his kid, who was in the process of taking over the farm from his dad.
His brother helped out when school let out, but most of the time it was just the three of us. I flew out for an interview, and they explicitly said they didn’t like doing mechanical work, so they needed someone to handle all anything that came up in that respect.
I have 15 years of experience working on farm equipment, so it was a great fit. Everything seemed great in the interview so I accepted the job and moved 3 weeks later.
I say everything seemed great, because I quickly found out the kid was very insecure and quickly made it clear that I couldn’t do anything without his approval, and even a simple oil change he was there watching my every move.
Then the day came when he wanted me to change the airbags on a trailer suspension. He had changed one a year before when it blew and wanted to change the other three before there was another problem. Preventative maintenance is bread and butter, and I started pulling off the old bags.
He got down under the trailer with me and told me that I was in fact removing the bag he had replaced last year. I respectfully told him it was an old bag, he must be mistaken, as it was dry rotted. A closer inspection also showed three bags (this one included) were the same brand, and the 4th was a different brand.
The 4th was also the same brand as the three replacement bags he had just bought, and more importantly, wasn’t dry rotted.
He told me I was wrong, not to argue, and to leave the old bag and start removing the others, including the good one.
Okay. You’re the boss. So I started the job of removing the two bad bags and one good one. 45 mins later, he shows up and sees the good bag I removed, compared it to the new bag that was still on the floor, and decides it is in fact a good bag, and I should remove the one I initially found to be bad.
Doesn’t matter to me. You can pay me twice to do the job.
There were other times this happened, so I wasn’t really upset when I got laid off. They blamed it on the drought, but I don’t think that was the only reason.”
13. Don't Wanna Give Me A Raise? Here's My Two Weeks' Notice
“So, about a dozen years ago, I was in a great paying job, but the work environment was absolutely atrocious. I spent the entire year I was there looking for another job.
Finally got an offer elsewhere, at a hefty pay cut, but leaped at it.
Now, this place, a very small company, said they were looking for a mid-level software developer. They realized I was a senior developer, but the manager said ‘I’m not really sure what to offer, as we’ve never hired a senior developer before.’
That explanation sounds a little funny, but, ultimately, it turned out as such: They’d start me out at $X/year, a mid-level developer’s salary, and at my 1-year review, they’d give me a raise of somewhere between $Y and $Z, depending on how things went, where Z = 2 x Y, and it would’ve amounted to somewhere between a 6-12% raise.
It’s just a salary with benefits. No bonuses. But, I was fine with that. A little weird that they try to start new employees with only one week of vacation time instead of two, the way EVERY other place I’d worked does, but they offered me the two upfront.
So, I did some work on a legacy product, but they mostly had me working on some completely new features that integrated with the existing product.
A year goes by, and I like the place. It’s small, but the team is good, and they had me move them to use Eclipse (they were using a text editor, albeit a text editor that had a VERY convenient ‘compile this source file now’ feature).
Most of the team loved it, and the assistant manager was so delighted with the IDE that she stated ‘I’ll give it up when they pry it from my cold, dead, fingers!’
So, I do a little work on the legacy project, I do a lot of work on the new project, and I work on some customer conversions (converting their data to work with our software when they were on different software before).
I also did refactoring – trying to, you know, actually make use of parent and child classes properly, rather than relying on the massive amount of copy/paste and code duplication that existed there.
One of the other guys, call him Z, who was my mentor to the company, but I was his mentor in furthering his programming style, and I tried to convince the manager to let us set up a source-control system.
The current system was that everyone worked off of a single copy of the source code on a shared network drive, which was backed up to tape every night.
The manager resisted. We even suggested he let us take one of the old junk PCs from the storage room, and set up a very small repository, just to experiment with, and make sure it worked as we planned (i.e.: Hello World and programs/files of that small scale, before trying to move their stuff to it).
The manager wouldn’t budge.
My review is late. Several months late. But, we were busy, and the manager said it was the busiest year he recalls them having. Also, I’d scheduled my two weeks of vacation so that I could fly out to visit my parents.
During this time, I’d gotten calls about other jobs, but I mostly blew them off. I ‘knew’ for a fact where my salary would be when I got my review, and I was happy with that.
Still, the calls came here and there.
My review finally comes and is almost glowing.
One or two minor hiccups, but overall they were VERY pleased with me.
My raise: $0.00.
‘Well, you know, I can’t really present a raise to the owner, since you haven’t mastered any pieces of the legacy software. I mean, I had you working on the new stuff, but there was always time for learning on the legacy system.’
There was ‘always time.’ During their busiest year ever. So busy that my review was 5 months late.
I grumbled. The two guys I worked with the most were jaw-dropping shocked when I told them, although one of the older guys there did sort of say words to the effect of ‘I can’t say that’s the first time that’s happened here.’
I dug up the old email from before I was hired and forwarded it to him. He took several days to respond. He NEVER takes that long to respond. He came up with some weird word games about how ‘things didn’t go that well’ this year, trying to play the ‘oh, I meant going well overall, not going well with your performance.’
So, I kept working anyway, but, I followed up on the most recent call about a potential job. It was the same pay I was making at this place, but with bonuses, and better benefits. And half the distance/time to drive, NONE of the tolls.
I snuck out to interview at the new place. Seemed to go well, and we struck a deal. I gave them a start date for after my vacation.
Went back to my current job, and played along for a little bit. They also went to job fairs, looking to hire someone straight out of college.
Also, now the manager was interested in source control. One of the other developers said ‘well, last year it was YOUR idea, but this year it’s HIS idea…’
Interestingly, I briefly met the one graduating student that they eventually hired.
So, it comes up to the point where my vacation is about to start.
I go down to the CTO’s office and give my two weeks notice the day before my leave.
He seemed a little thrown by that and commented something about how they usually expect to have the two weeks to transition.
I said I agreed with him.
But, I pointed out that my manager made certain promises, my review was glowing, and my raise somehow was zero. He didn’t quite address that, but made a cryptic sort of comment: ‘X doesn’t really share very well.’
I never knew if that meant my manager doesn’t let the rest of them know what he did or meant that he somehow benefits from keeping the costs down.
I later was given to understand that the CTO and the owner might well have known or been in on the plan to stiff me on the raise.
I did have to talk with my manager, of course, and he did say ‘well, I guess I’m the bad guy on this’ though he didn’t seem particularly remorseful.
There was a shocking moment of candor ‘but we did get what we needed from you.’
I suspect that the manager’s raise was based on how well he did cost-control though. I mean, I was driving an older vehicle, and the manager was driving a new(ish?) Acura SUV.
But, giving my two weeks’ notice on the day before my vacation was my Malicious Compliance, which I took with great relish.
Years later, I’m working at another company about 2 miles from that place. A colleague of mine actually told me he was going to interview at the place with the jerkish manager.
He also told me who was interviewing him: Z. Z was a good guy and one of the two that was shocked at my lack of raise. I told my buddy ‘Yeah, Z is a good guy, but ask him if X is going to be your manager, because if so, you’re not interested.’
Z actually told my colleague ‘Yeah, OP was great, and, while I was his mentor at the company here, I felt more like he was a mentor to me. X did screw him, but don’t worry, X isn’t part of the picture for this job.
Also, that new person we hired, she says she can always tell when she runs into OP’s code… the code style is so much better.’
My colleague, ultimately, didn’t take the job with them, though.”
12. Want To Be A Rude Doctor? I Won't Pay My Medical Bills
“This was told to me by a colleague I respect, admire, and regret that this is one of our last lunches together.
Her stories, her life, are more entertaining than any show on any streaming device…totally binge-worthy. Here’s her story:
I had a shooting headache, the worst I ever had. I didn’t want to go to the ER, but I had to. This was the worst feeling of my life.
My b***d pressure was 260 over something, I don’t know.
I get into the room and the nurse was pretty good, but it took a while to get the doctor in. Jerk Doc finally shows up and I am trying to describe my feeling, my headache, the feeling of a weight on my chest…super heavy.
He thought I was faking it. I wasn’t. He tried to give me morphine and I told him I’m allergic (I am). He thought, even more so, that I was faking it to get pills. I don’t even know how rejecting morphine gets me pain pills but okay.
He was a total jerk every step of the way. He didn’t listen to me when I talked, and every time he came into the room my numbers kept spiking again. The people there said to my husband ‘you’ve got to calm your wife down,’ like that’s his job or something.
Every time the doctor came in my EKG went up. We wound up barring him from the room. Seriously I’d rather have had a chimpanzee, anybody in here instead of that guy. Anyway, they finally get the guy out of there and a new doc in, which took a while but I’m glad they did.
When this doctor mentioned the other doctor my numbers spiked again, my b***d pressure up. I found out I was having a panic attack and just didn’t know it.
So anyway, I get treated, head home, and about a month later I get the bills from the ER, and of course Jerk Doc.
I pay all of the other bills I receive, but I’m thinking of not paying this one, because he didn’t treat me, just tried. My husband and I discussed it back and forth for a couple of weeks, and in the meantime, I keep getting calls from his doctor’s office.
‘Ma’am, I understand that you saw a different doctor there, but he did treat you, he consulted with you, he attempted to diagnose but you refused…’ and more garbage that rang true but still tasted, well, like garbage. I didn’t tell her I wasn’t intending to pay, I just told the truth that I didn’t have the money right now.
She keeps calling. Every. Single. Day. Each time I pretend I’m not frustrated by the calls and repeat the same spiel about not having the money.
She got frustrated by my repetition, probably, and said, ‘Ma’am, you can’t just not pay your medical bills. You need to pay!’
Oh yeah?
Enter Malicious Compliance.
I decided this was going to be a whole thing. I decided I was going to take a nice picture of me and my whole family, flipping off the camera, and order those as my actual checks from my second bank account.
This took longer than I expected to get, but when I finally got them I decided it was time to pay…. right before collections.
I wrote them a check for $1 and sent it in.
They call one day soon thereafter and ask if there’s any way I can pay more than $1.
I tell them that, yet again, I don’t have the money to pay more than that. They just hung up.
The next month, and the following 13 months I wrote a check to that Jerk Doc for $1. They took payment, but it never went to collections, and I’m currently considering whether to increase the pay to $10 monthly until the bill is paid or even pay it off.
I don’t think I want this guy’s name in my mailbox anymore. But then again, I want to make good use of the 12 dollars I spent getting these checks made. Paying $1 monthly would take up all the checks I ordered. I mean who else could I write these checks to?”
11. You Want To Approve Every Supply Purchase? Let's Talk About Pens
“I’m a retired former investigator and can now share some insane stories. In my personal experience, 60% of the people were outstanding, 20% were pretty good, 15% were mediocre and 5% were downright awful.
Unfortunately, many of the awful ones got promoted. I’ve seen my share of fist pounders, chest thumpers, and screamers.
You can’t reasonably confront or stand toe to toe with them or you will lose and there will be consequences…for you, so many of us learned the skill of malicious compliance. We learned that if someone was going to pound their fist, make sure there is a thumbtack on the desk.
If they’re going to thump their chest, put a pen in their hand.
Years ago, I was in charge of a program which meant that I had the mind-numbing administrative task of handling the budget and purchasing supplies in addition to all of the other duties.
My then supervisor, Control Freak (CF) was a fist pounder, chest thumper, and screamer. CF was known for working his people to death, demanding 14+ hour days and often seven day work weeks.
CF was just assigned to oversee my program and he summoned me into his office.
CF pounded his fist and demanded that I go through him and have him approve every supply purchase I made. So, the next day I emailed him, asking for an hour of his time to talk about pens.
On the day of the meeting, I began with, ‘CF, I need to buy pens for the program.
How many pens should I buy?’
CF: ‘I dunno…50?’
Me: ‘Ok, 50, but what about the 0.5 or 0.75 point? How many of those? And what brands?’
CF: Impatient shrug. ‘How about half and half?’
Me: ‘But we don’t use much of the 0.75. It would be a waste.’
CF: ‘Ok, how about 70/30?’
Me: ‘Sounds good.’
CF: Sigh. ‘Fine, go do it.’
Me: ‘We’re not done. We still need to talk about brands and red pens. What about markers?’
I chewed up an hour of his time talking about pens…red pens, blue pens, multi-color pens, ballpoint or gel, sharpies, etc. When done, I said I needed an hour of his time tomorrow to talk about paper.
He broke in three days and angrily told me to get what I needed and just send him the receipts.”
10. All The Software? Enjoy A 15 Minute Start-Up Time
“I work for a large multimillion company, in which software installation and removal demand admin rights. This is due to a large-scale hacker attack, which occurred before my time at the company.
As one of the few IT admins it’s within my responsibility to install and remove software for all computers. One coworker of mine’s laptop had seen its final days and needed to be retired to its final resting place of Valhalla like all good warriors do.
I got a message from him, that he needed his pc swapped and I said fine and asked him what kind of software he needed. He responded that he used everything, so I should install all we could. Keep in mind that we have software specified for roles within the company and our company is freaking huge.
I send him the whitelisted software list and again ask him ‘what software do you need buddy?’ He answered that he couldn’t be bothered to look through it and that I should simply install it all. Okay my guy.
I popped the back of the poor new Lenovo machine and changed the hard disk.
The original one would not be able to contain the amount of crap, which was about to flood the gates. For an entire week, I would work on this soon-to-be cursed machine, which was receiving software installations like orcs coming in at Helms deep. I swear I could hear it cry for me to stop, but like a foie gras farmer, I just kept feeding it software.
Here is the kicker: every time I installed anything, if it had the option I would ask it to run at launch. I probably poured 8 additional hours into this fresh machine, which very quickly worked slower than a Windows vista machine hooked up to a hamster on a wheel as its power supply.
The 1TB SSD I installed took 15 minutes to boot up every single program, which would open at launch.
The greatest thing was, that he couldn’t undo the start-up at launch, because that required admin rights. To his credit, he lasted two weeks before he came back, apologized, and asked for me to redo his machine.
We are friends now, but he learned not to mess with the IT guys.”
9. Want Me To Finish Off The Week? It Isn't My Store Anymore
“I moved back to my hometown several years ago and was looking for a new job. My previous job included managing two computer/phone repair shops in a very high-volume environment.
I applied for a similar job in my hometown, with a newish company (they had two shops and were about to expand to a total of eight in one big push).
I interviewed well and they wanted me to run one of their six new stores.
The pay was better than I had at my previous job in the larger city, so it seemed great!
During my interview and before signing on, I covered my behind and made sure that I would not be in charge of marketing (I had some web development and sysadmin experience from my prior job, as well as marketing).
They guaranteed that I would be simply managing employees’ schedules, running the store, and working as a break/fix tech. This is exactly what I wanted.
One note is that this company focuses mainly on the more expensive computers and cell phones. The ones with the fancy aluminum construction.
I attempted to get them to branch out, even before my store opened when I was working at the flagship shop. It went well, as they had too many employees, so a lot of them had plenty of time for my training on all of the correct tools and processes to work on ‘general’ laptops/phones/tablets.
I even got them into soldering, which they had not done before (they had been focused mainly on OEM parts, screen replacements, etc. Nobody even knew how to repair liquid damage, and we had no soldering irons, hot-plates, reflow stations, or sonic cleaners).
Once all the six new stores were ready, the ‘store’ they ended up giving to me was in the lowest income area of my hometown, in one of the ‘stalls’ in a large department superstore.
I was disappointed, to say the least.
So I got my store set up with everything I needed, except all the previously mentioned tools, which they wanted to keep at the flagship store. The logic was that my store was small and I would not need them, we had little liquid money after opening all these stores at once, and if I needed to use the tools, I could bring the customer equipment to that location to do the work.
After about a week at that location, my only employee was pulled to another location that was short-staffed. It was just me there for a full 8-hour shift. I was told that due to the nature of the ‘stall’ type store, I could not lock up for a lunch break.
They literally told me that I could not use the restroom without calling another store and having another employee cover me. I ended up convincing them that I needed lunch and bathroom breaks, and they told me to ask the security of the department store to watch our storefront while I was doing these things.
It worked, luckily. The security department was very friendly and accepting of the situation.
After about two months at that location, I was asked to go out on foot after my shift (still the only regular employee there) to distribute flyers and business cards. I would need to do this after clocking out, however.
The logic? Because I was the manager and it was my duty to keep our sales up.
I did this for about a week before I had given out flyers and info to all the surrounding businesses. I wanted my store to succeed.
After that, our numbers were still far down.
We only had one other store with lower numbers, but it was managed by one of the three founders of the business, so I was the low-hanging fruit.
The two other owners pulled me into a meeting, stating how my numbers were the lowest (forgetting I had access to all the stores’ numbers) and that I would need to get my numbers up by 50% in the next two months, or I’d need to find a new job.
Keep in mind: This store was very much marketed as an ‘expensive brand computer/phone repair store’ and 90% of the customers that came in wanted me to fix their $80 plastic phone, or their $200 plastic laptop. Most times, repairs on these are more than just replacing the device.
Very few people in this area could afford those metal-clad devices back in these times (about a decade ago).
So, the directive was for me to spam a popular text-based website for selling items and services. They refused to pay this website’s fees for commercial entities, so I was forced to create account after account (they kept getting banned), using more and more email accounts.
The other strategy was to log into all these accounts every hour and spam reports on the competitors’ posts, so they’d be taken down. Every store manager was now doing this.
I knew my numbers would not be getting up, but I kept at it, as management had full remote access to my work computer and monitored everything I was doing, even to the point of micromanaging my parts ordering (I’d get a message, for instance, when I was on a vendor website getting a correct part number, that I should just go to ‘big online auction site’ so I could get it cheaper, albeit used).
In the meantime, I am actively putting in applications all over the place. It was not that easy to find employment during this time.
So this is going on and on, and finally, I have a great interview for a system administrator/web developer for a small local company.
They have been trying to find someone for months, and need me asap. I tell him that I can start in three days.
Three days may sound arbitrary, but the timing makes sense. Three days after my interview was the two-month anniversary of the meeting where the owners told me that I ‘need to get my numbers up by 50% in the next two months, or I’d need to find a new job.’
I could already tell that my numbers had risen only about 10% since that meeting.
In the few days prior to this interview, one of the other store managers quit, and we were very short-staffed. I had zero help at my store, and the owners were covering shifts.
The day before I was supposed to start my new job, I was managing my store. I called the flagship store, where one of the owners was currently working, and told him I had an appointment that could not be rescheduled, and that I needed cover for the remainder of my shift (I had three hours left).
He was definitely upset but managed to find a cover for me from one of the busier stores.
My replacement shows up and I leave for my appointment. My destination was the flagship store. I showed up to see a very confused owner sitting at the front desk, then handed him my store keys and uniform and informed him that it was a pleasure working with him, and I have found a new employment opportunity, and then I started to leave.
He yells out to me in confusion as I am almost to the door, and I turn to explain to him that he personally gave me two months’ notice exactly two months ago and that I had been asked to do a job that I never agreed to (marketing and whatnot).
He asks desperately, ‘Can’t you at least finish off this week? We have nobody to cover your store.’
I say, ‘It isn’t my store anymore. Good luck, I hope the next person can get those numbers up.’
That was the last I ever talked to him, but that store closed down a month later.
These days, they are only running three stores. I guess their shady business practices didn’t work out as well as they had hoped.”
8. I'm Not Allowed To Work From Home? I'll Take A Vacation Day
“This was 2018ish. I was working at a nuclear power plant in the mid-Atlantic. Once or twice a year we would get a heavy snowstorm, but we were far enough south that the local government wouldn’t plow or salt anything other than the main roads.
The power plant has a ‘policy’ during inclement weather that no matter how long it takes you to get to work if you make it in you get paid for the day, otherwise, you have to take vacation. Note: I, like a majority of my coworkers, live in the closest large city which is an hour away.
The drive to the power plant is 1/2 interstate, 1/2 hilly, curvy country road.
I wake up and see we have about 10” of snow overnight and text my supervisor to ask if I can work from home; I have my laptop with me, don’t have any work going on that I would need to be inside the power plant, and I’d mostly be reviewing paperwork anyway.
The supervisor tells me the ‘policy’ for inclement weather and that he was at work already and the roads ‘weren’t that bad’. I reiterate that I would just be sitting at my desk doing paperwork when I eventually get in. He is hearing none of this and tells me I am not allowed to work from home.
I need to drive the 50+ miles to work or take vacation. I didn’t even bother to respond and decided to take the vacation day. I head to a local store about a half-mile (0.8 km) away and pick up some snow sleds. I’d like to note that the roads were bad, I was driving a 4×4 and had some trouble getting to/from the store.
The wife and I do some sledding in the neighborhood, have some hot chocolate, and do other classic ‘snow day’ activities.
Around 11:00 I get a text from my supervisor, ‘OP, are you able to come into work, hardly anyone showed up because of the snow.
There is some document we need reviewed. And we really need you here in case we need someone to do something in the power plant’. I tell him, sorry, but I’m taking vacation today, per the ‘policy’. He tells me he’s emailing me the document to review and he can sign it for me if I approve.
I replied, ‘I’d take a look at it if I could, by my supervisor told me I wasn’t allowed to work from home.’
He never responded to that and I never heard anything else about it, but I didn’t have to work that day, which was nice.”
Another User Comments:
“‘I got into work, why can’t you?’ Sometimes that backfires big time. The county that I live in is much longer north-to-south than it is wide. One time the school superintendent (who lived in south county) looked out their window and saw only rain, ignoring the weather forecast calling for snow & freezing rain in north county.
School was not cancelled nor was it dismissed early. Several schools that were hit the worst had teachers and students stranded overnight in the classrooms.
Now school is cancelled at the first sign of a snowflake.” TheFilthyDIL
7. Don't Want Me To Make Anything? Alrighty Then
“I used to work for a certain aerospace manufacturer. The plant I was in made wire bundles.
They were basically how the computer in the plane communicated with the rest of the plane. Our site had been experiencing slow output for a long time. On the books, we were a year behind schedule. Everyone could go from working 40 hours to 80 shifts for 12 months and we would maybe catch up.
Management was constantly getting chewed out by customers. We were constantly getting chewed out by management. It was a pretty awful place to work.
Because we were so far behind, management’s bright idea was to hire a whole bunch of new guys. Just throw more people at the problem.
Great, only one problem. At our site, we quality-checked our output ourselves. There were a few steps where Quality Assurance was called in just to double-check. For the most part, though, we had to make and check our bundles ourselves. However, you had to be working a pretty long time to earn this right, we’re talking six months at the fastest. Until then, you were assigned a ‘mentor’ to check your work and maybe even teach you.
This worked fine when the mentor-mentee ratio was 1-to-1.
Thanks to the hiring spree, however, mentors were absolutely flooded. I had 5 people assigned to me at one point. This meant that the people who could make wire bundles the fastest, couldn’t. They spent all of their time checking other people’s work instead.
It gets worse though. New guys were of course slow and made mistakes. If a mentor doesn’t catch it, the mentor’s quality gets dinged, not the new guy. Once mentors started getting flooded, a lot more mistakes were let through. This meant that basically, the entire line was in danger of losing their own quality checking status.
We were absolutely ticked off.
My manager was pretty green as this was his first time in such a position. He was one of those guys who thought now that he wasn’t on the bottom rung he was superior. He called a meeting about how our quality was down.
His new idea was to give mentors more time to check bundles and just waive them actually making harnesses. I pointed out that most of the actual production on the floor came from us, the experienced techs. If we didn’t work on the actual harnesses, there’s no way we would gain on our schedule.
My manager looked straight at me ‘I pay you, I decide what you do with your time.’ That was that, if he wanted me to spend all my time checking, I would spend all my time checking. Cue malicious compliance.
Where I used to spend about 50% of the day checking, I now spent 90%.
I would ding my mentees for the smallest of mistakes. Connector has a tiny scratch? Scrap the harness. Wire is bent a little funny? Scrap the harness. Label has a small smudge on it? Scrap the harness. Each time that probably costs over 20$ in materials and a couple of labor hours.
Multiple times a day. I became the pettiest, most micromanaging inspector imaginable. All technically against spec and thus correct choices to make. After a week, other mentors caught on too. We kept it up for a month straight. Our production was HALF of what it used to be.
Sometimes I could see the manager in the office crying after a customer call.
The manager called a meeting after that in a big huff. After talking it over with Quality Assurance, they had reached a decision where MOST mistakes would land on the mentee, not the mentor.
He looked absolutely crushed. Things went back to how they were before, with us now a year and 2 weeks behind schedule basically. I stopped working there a while after, from what I hear it’s still an absolute nightmare though.”
6. This Needs To Be Addressed Immediately? Time To Invoke The Restaurateur's Dummy Clause
“Every drive-thru operator has had to deal with the occasional rando walking directly up to our window as if they’re exempt from the laws of physics, impervious to the blunt force trauma they may incur by standing where people drive.
These people are usually down-on-their-luck, wanting food, truck, RC, or bus drivers (all people I try to help when I can) or even more rarely, customers who wish to complain to us about their order (and the lobby has closed already). No matter who or what, it always scares the living crap out of us, mainly due to the fact that everyone who DOES do this seems to think it’s a good idea to pop in from the side like a dopey-faced Jack in the box.
This excerpt is about the latter type of patron, with said behavior.
Jerk-in-the-Box pops in the very second we finish a big rush. I would have been happy that he didn’t break up a line of cars if he wasn’t such a jerk.
He has his receipt, waving it with his bug-eyed expression; one that indicated he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. Looks like I’m engaging.
I start off with my necessary spiel of ‘Sir, for your safety, you can’t stand in the drive-thru.’
He completely ignores this statement as he points out, quite agitatedly, that he could have died, gone into anaphylactic shock because he’s allergic to Bacon. We looked at the half-mangled burger he brought to us, and looked at the receipt. It said exactly what he ordered, and exactly what I typed in ‘junior cheeseburger’.
The burger had bacon. Okay, we messed up, we admitted to messing up, and management was planning on refunding PLUS making a new burger. Enough said, right? Wrong.
He got a super Karen. He whipped out his cell phone to record my face from inches away (I did NOT handle this part well), and demanded that we do something additionally, saying ‘this needs to be addressed immediately!’ Weird.
We were already ‘addressing’ it, right?
So I guess this is Jerk-in-the-Box’s catchphrase, because he kept yelling it, louder and more repeatedly, ‘This needs to be addressed! This needs to be addressed!’
Time to address ‘this.’
My awesome shift supervisor quotes like he’s been waiting to say this for years, what he refers to as The Arizona Dummy Clause.
I’m pretty sure it’s real, just like the stupid motorist rule. And it goes a little something like this:
‘Look, the law says that if you, YOU, the patron, YOU, (he was pointing in the most rhythmically satisfying way) make a purchase at any restaurant, and YOU have a life-threatening dietary issue, then YOU are responsible for inspecting your food prior to consumption.
YOU! WE were trying to be nice. And OP told you the names of everybody involved are on your receipt, thus making your yelling and ranting pointless. Consider your needs ADDRESSED. Here’s your burger. Check it just in case!’
Then the drive-thru doors closed just as quickly as they opened. No refund.
‘Malachi’ is the best shift manager ever.”
5. Want Me To Talk To Your Other Customers? Will Do
“A tiny bit of background: My family recently moved into a new neighborhood that we chose because we loved the neighbors. When we were touring the house, C came over and told us he’d mow our lawn for us, J told us all about the kids who our kid would make friends with, and X invited us over for a cookout.
We try to be good neighbors too. Our front yard is where the neighbor kids know they can come to play in the shade with our dog and our kid. We installed a small but growing garden as an excuse to be outside and chat with our neighbors.
I’m about halfway through baking brownies for everyone on our little cul-de-sac as a thank you for the warm welcome we’ve received. This neighborhood is a place where folks look out for each other, in part because most of us know we are the people who keep us safe.
The other day I was sitting outside watching my kid play with his best friend on our block and his friend’s older brother. Older brother was asking me about our garden as an excuse to tell me all about what he was learning about pollinators.
My kid makes a break for the street, so I run after him and pick him up. (No cars ever go by, but we’re trying to teach him road safety early.) As I’m carrying him back into the house, older brother is still talking to me when he’s interrupted by someone with a branded shirt and a clipboard.
I immediately tell the shirt that I’m not interested in buying anything, to which he replies that he’s not trying to sell me anything. He launches into his apparently non-sales pitch for the home security system he sells and tells me all the details for the video doorbell that several of my neighbors have been installing.
Now, in case you didn’t know, big security systems like Amazon Ring and ADT regularly hand over all the video footage to the police without requiring any sort of warrant from them. That’s not to mention that several groups have been discovered listening in to your conversations in the name of ‘transcribing’ them.
I ask him how his company avoids compromising my data, a question he dodges by scrunching up his face and moving on with his pitch. When I press him on it, he lies to me based on what I already know about his company that uses orange signs.
He then tells me that C, J, and X sent him over here because they said I was nice, implying that because I won’t accept his lie, somehow I’m the jerk here.
After interrupting my conversation with the neighbor kid as I’m holding a baby I’m obviously trying to take inside, lying to me, and now trying to guilt me into a system I don’t want and believe is bad for my community, we reach an impasse.
He falls back to say, ‘Well, C, J, and X have had it installed! Talk to them.’
Cue malicious compliance.
I proceed to go over to C, J, X, and one other neighbor. The other neighbor, he sells the product to by the end of the day and has a normal friendly chat with them.
I slide into the conversation that I don’t care for that company because of the way that they hand over data to the cops and can listen in at any time.
Fast forward to today, when every neighbor has taken down their orange sign and had the system uninstalled. I think other neighbor never had it installed but is keeping the sign up just as a potential deterrent.
So if you’re reading, shirt, if you had just been honest with me, I wouldn’t have felt the need to quite so aggressively share my concerns. You would have just lost out on one sale rather than the whole neighborhood.”
4. Solicitor Embarrassed Me And Made Me Cry, So I Became Super Good At My Job
“When I was around 19 I was working as a receptionist, front of house at a Solicitors office. It was quite small but very successful – 4 partners (the main one was the lady it was named after who was kind of fierce in a Judge Judy kind of way so I’ll call her Judy).
A new Solicitor we will call Anna joined the team. We had a Conveyancing, a Personal Injury, Financial and Criminal department Solicitor and she would be working Family Law and her specialty and main focus would be helping domestic violence victims. At this time, all of the clients were women.
She was awesome at her job, I saw so many victims while they waited in reception, and because they were so stressed and worried they would sometimes just tell me their life stories while they waited. I did my best to comfort them, sometimes they’d have to wait an hour or longer if something else was happening.
Anna advocated hard for these women. Restraining orders, emergency hearings, police interviews, protection, arranging safe houses, custody of children. I really admired her, and still do now. Those women needed her.
The thing about Anna was she was extremely posh and well educated. She spoke better than the characters on Downton Abbey or even the Queen, but she was also very opinionated and she swore a lot.
Hearing her talk about one of the husbands of a battered woman ‘what an absolute little weasel’ in a voice that sounds similar to the Queen made us giggle, but she reined it in and was mostly professional in front of clients.
Most of my job was filing, typing voice dictation statements, and logging calls from the women with restraining orders who had been contacted by their ex-partner/harasser.
So I’d get a lot of calls ‘Hi Sabrina, he called me at 8.15 am and 10 am today also an email at 9 pm through his mother’s account’, things like that. It all had to be logged and reported for the court files. I got so many of these calls I’d recognize each by voice (this is important later).
After she’d been there for maybe a month, she was featured in an article that put the office in a very good light, the article highlighted her important work in keeping these people safe, and we celebrated with her. But it went to her head and she became arrogant and snappy, with little put-downs here to the secretaries and other workers.
She became pretty full of herself, getting snarky and barking out ‘coffee!’ to me as soon as she walked inside. I let it go, she was stressed and doing something important.
As it was so long ago, most documents had to be faxed. Her office was two doors away from Reception.
She would let me know if she was expecting something important and I would drop everything to rush the documents to her, waiting for legal stuff, police reports, or restraining orders could quite literally be a life and death situation for the clients. Sure enough, a restraining order document came through for a female client who was sitting with Anna in her office.
She was crying, looked like she had no sleep, her story was horrendous (I had to type up some statements of hers), and I felt desperately sorry for her. The rule was if something important came through, I had to rush and interrupt any client meeting.
The papers came through, I rushed to the office and handed them to Anna, and left.
Moments later Anna was in Reception screeching at me because the timestamp said it was delivered a whole hour earlier. I was confused I’d given it to her the moment it came through.
She would not stop yelling that I had put this woman’s life in jeopardy over my laziness and stupidity and I should be fired. She made so much noise that Judy came out of her office to listen (the founder of the company). Her face gave absolutely nothing away and afterward she quietly just said, ‘please make sure to give the documents quickly in future to avoid any more problems.’
It happened again. An 8 (or so) page document came through for that same client who was in there with her, I rushed to her office handed them to her, and went to leave. Before I could, Anna started yelling at me again, ‘THIS WAS AN HOUR AGO!
WHAT THE HECK SABRINA! WHAT THE HECK DID I TELL YOU?’
This time she started swearing and I couldn’t get a word in and all of this was in front of the poor client who looked wildly uncomfortable. Judy came to the door again and again, her face gave nothing away, and just asked me to come with her.
She asked if there was a problem, I explained and she thanked me. Anna then followed us out and started yelling at me that I had no respect or kindness in my heart for these women and I was lazy, utterly incompetent, and ridiculously not right in the head.
I cried in the toilets.
Over the next few days, the same client came in. Things had escalated further and had hit the newspapers (it was an awful case) so the 4 partners along with Anna were meeting with her in the same office. I went back in to give a file to one of the other partners there and Anna piped up ‘was this from an hour ago too?
There seems to be a pattern here.’ Again, in front of the client and her 4 bosses. It didn’t bother me this time though. I’d had one of those moments in bed the night before, the moment when your eyes snap open while you’re trying to sleep and you have that BINGO!
realization moment.
So I calmly just said ‘the reason why the documents appeared to be an hour late was because the clocks have changed for daylight savings time, I should have realized that when the ink was still not dry as I handed them to you.’ Sure enough, the document on her desk yesterday was a little smudged. The fax machine was old and didn’t update the time.
My little victory moment was spoiled because as I was leaving the office I tripped over my own foot and knocked my head on the doorframe giving Anna a good laugh.
The next day a staff meeting was called about professionalism in the office, the client who witnessed Anna’s meltdown had approached Judy – she was really upset to see Anna treat the staff that way and her swearing had frightened her.
Judy was very clear that this was not acceptable, the woman had heard enough yelling and swearing for a lifetime. Anna begrudgingly apologized to me and I shrugged it off. Judy also apologized privately for not stepping in when she should have. No problem.
My malicious compliance was next, every single call I had to log (instead of the main list I used on the computer) from the women I wrote on an individual *******o I’d be in and out of her office sometimes 10 times an hour.
Her desk was flooded with ******* that just said ’10 am call from husband to client X’. She was annoyed but this was what she asked for. I wasted a lot of *******.
The next bit got a little strange. A lady who was in a shelter/safe house with her daughter called and said she was reconciling with her husband and she wants to drop the case completely and did not want to be contacted again.
This happens, sometimes victims go back when it gets too much. This was a particularly brutal case. I told Anna straightaway who said she would call her in a few days (calling right then might jeopardize her safety if he was there) and I said no – call the Police.
She asked why, and I said it wasn’t her on the phone, I recognize her voice every time she calls, it wasn’t her. We called for a Welfare check and sure enough, her husband had taken her forcefully back home and had his older daughter call the office pretending to be her.
He was arrested.
When it all worked out well and the lady was again in a much better safe house, Anna gifted me a bottle of wine and a thank you card, and then asked me to stop with the ******* and that the message was received. She also apologized again properly.
Moral of the story is don’t treat people like crap even if your intentions are pure, and trying to help someone. We can all be kind.”
3. You Want To Pass? That's Fine By Me
“This occurred several years ago when I was working away from home for a week at a time. My gig was at a resort right on the beach (yea, tough, I know). The drive from the resort into town was about a mile long, all uphill.
The first half of the drive was not too steep, but the second half was a steep climb, with one lane in each direction.
When returning to the resort and going down the steep stretch, it was impossible to stay under the 25mph speed limit.
It was much easier to coast down the hill, but you would be way over the speed limit when you got to the bottom. At the bottom of the steep part was a four-way stop.
One evening, I was driving into town and noticed a police car parked on the other side of the street, near the four-way stop, with his radar gun pointed backward to catch the speed of the cars coming down the hill.
So, I made a mental note to be extra careful and stay under 25 on the way back.
A few minutes later, on the return trip, just as I start down the steep decline, a motorcycle with two guys aboard pulled in behind me. They really didn’t like me continuously tapping my brakes and staying under 25.
They weaved back and forth, honked, and flipped me off for going so slow.
You want to pass? Fine.
I pulled to the right as far as I could and kept slowing down until they lost patience. They BLASTED past me, going through the gears in rapid succession, both flipping me the bird as they passed. They must have been going at least 60 mph by the time they reached the stop sign.
By the time I reached them, they were pulled over to the side, off the bike, standing in the glow of the cops flashing lights. I gave them a friendly wave as I passed.”
2. Wanna Be A Snobby Instructor? Too Bad I'm A Poor Student
“About a dozen years ago I was on an outdoor safety training course (canoeing or kayaking or something related).
The instructor was being a bit of a tool and going on about buying the best equipment possible and that money should not be an excuse. Later he took out his fancy knife and told us about its cost, its features, and his favorite parts.
(He spent ages talking about the way it was forged, the type of metal and how it was honed, blah blah blah). Then he asked everyone to do the same. Awkwardly everyone compiled and talk through their knife. He would then provide feedback to them and told them what was wrong with their knife.
Finally, my turn rolled around. I was a broke student, and my knife was from the bargain bin but was carefully chosen for its task (an emergency). I pulled it out and then proceeded to provide great detail about the knife. First explaining that the front half had a sharp blade that was great for cutting cheese, spreading mayonnaise or butter, or sharpening a stick.
The back half was serrated, this was great for cutting overripe tomatoes or rope. The (strange) hook on the front was great for opening plastic packaging. The blade length was great for cutting open the bread roll in one cut. The toggle was useful for holding sunglasses and providing access in an emergency.
The hard plastic handle was heat resistant when I needed to quickly rescue a fallen sausage from the raging fire. Finally stating that the price was great because if it was ever lost/damaged I could easily replace it.
Everyone laughed, except the instructor. He was enraged, first picking on that I used it day to day.
I simply told him I could re-sharpen it. Then picking on that it may be damaged when I need it for a real emergency, (what is the point of equipment you don’t use?) This went on for a while, finally, we arrived at quickly sticking it in the fire to save the fallen sausage, he was worried that I could change the temper and it would break.
Finally, this interaction drew to a close.
After about 15 years, I still have this knife, the blade is sharp and the handle undamaged. It goes on every one of my adventures.”
1. Your Shake Isn't Milky Enough? I'll Just Give You Milk
“Years ago I used to work at a popular ice cream joint. The job was pretty chill, coworkers were fun to be around, and the pay was alright for a teenager. But, as with every other food service job, the customers made the experience a whole lot worse.
Always had the regular annoyances, people yelling at you for long wait times, orders being wrong, etc. Even had a guy get up on the counter and berate me because we were out of bananas for banana splits. But, one experience really stood out from the others.
We had a regular customer who would come in literally every day to get a strawberry shake. He was fine with long waits, or if our card machines were down. But, this dude would summon the might of Satan if his milkshake wasn’t made with enough milk in it.
Worse, he would sit there and wait until you remade it to his liking. (Stupid store policy made us remake any order for free if the customer wasn’t happy with it). One day this dude comes in, and orders guess what, a strawberry milkshake. I was working the ice cream bar, so filled with defeat I started making his order.
The company recipe was 3 scoops of ice cream for a regular smoothie, since I knew this guy liked his milky, I only put 2. I handed it to him and went about the next orders until 5 minutes later he comes back and screams at me that the milkshake wasn’t milky enough.
Now, every time in the past, I always made his this way, two scoops to give it that milky consistency. This time I guess he wanted to just mess with me. At this point I had had enough, the day had been rough as it is, so I really didn’t want to handle this, especially since I could tell with the crap-eating grin he had plastered on his jerk of a son face, that he was trying to make my day worse.
This is where the malicious compliance comes in. I decided to make the milkiest milkshake possible, but while still being a milkshake by technicality. I went back to my station and started the concoction. I didn’t put 2 scoops, I didn’t put 1 scoop. I put one TABLESPOON of strawberry ice cream and filled it up to the brim with milk.
After the pointless blending, I handed him the milkshake he didn’t want, but the one he deserved. I watched him with my own crap-eating grin beaming back at him, while he tried his milkshake. He took a sip and immediately started berating me that it was just milk.
I told him, ‘No sir, I put strawberry ice cream in there, just as you asked.’
I could see the rage in his eyes as he demanded his order be remade. I then politely informed him, that our store policy only lets you have your order remade once for free.
His face burned bright red as he muttered something under his breath, then stormed out the door, slamming it behind him. Every time after that, he never asked me to remake his order.
A few months later, I got a better job where I didn’t have to deal with angry customers.”
