People Tell Their Gripping Revenge Stories

Unsplash
One of the greatest feelings in the world is listening to a story that keeps you gripping the edge of your seat the entire time. Your heart beats faster, your eyes go wide, and the hairs on your neck stand up. Those are the stories that have a magnetic pull on you, that lure you in with promises of heat-filled drama, scattering downfalls, and heartwarming resolutions. It's like hearing a story about revenge—there's the pitfall, the drama, and the magnificent ending of the bad guy getting what they deserve. These stories about cold, bitter revenge will have you doing all of that and more.

14. Take My Rightful Business? If You Treated Me Better, I Might Have Let You Keep It

Unsplash

“As an aimless teenager, I started working for a small business owned by Steve. It turns out I really enjoyed what I did so slowly over time my life plans shifted to make sure I could continue to work for Steve for the long term. This included transferring to a local college, and because the business was predominantly run on ‘part-time’ hours making sure that any other jobs I had never conflicted with the hours I was expected to work for Steve.

Steve was flawed, but overall a good boss who mostly looked out for me. I certainly think over the years he had taken advantage of me in small ways, but looking back I really have no complaints.

The thing is, that while when I started working for Steve the business ‘name recognition’ was always directed towards Steve, over the years it eventually became, ‘Go to OP, he’s the best!’

This got to the point where I do indeed truly believe that if I did not end up working for Steve it’s very likely his business would have been nowhere near as successful as it eventually became.

As years when on it was heavily implied that when Steve retired the business would go to me. It was never specifically stated, but Steve did have a way of skirting around those types of issues and giving me hope.

About 3 years before 2020, Steve decided to retire and sell his business. He did indeed ‘fulfill his promise’ by making a half attempt to sell it to me at an unreasonable price, but it was very clear he already had another buyer in mind, Kyle.

Kyle owned another local business just outside of our market area in the same industry; because of the way the industry worked there really wasn’t much, if any, overlap in potential customers, but Kyle had a very large amount of money and was willing to buy. What is important to note here is that, again, I do truly believe that if I didn’t play ball and agree to work for Kyle, my role was so integral to the operation of our business, that there was no possible way a sale could go through.

Over the course of negotiations, Kyle ended up buying the business and putting me in charge of running the day-to-day. Something I was mostly already doing, but with a few more administrative tasks tacked onto it. The thing is, my name was still ‘the name’ in town, and Kyle made zero effort to ever be on location, so nobody that did business with us ever really knew who Kyle was.

All was well for a while. Kyle would openly talk about me being the head honcho at my location and mostly left me alone to deal with my clients in the professional and personable nature that I had learned from Steve.

Things first came to a head a year before 2020 when Kyle sent me to an industry conference for 4 days. I would need to take off time from my other job, which I was fine with.

At the conclusion of the conference I put in an hours request for the hours I spent at the conference (And I was super nice about it, actually I should have clocked all hours at the convention each day, but instead did not account for hours for seminars that would help my boss but were ones I had wanted to attend). The request was denied and I was told, ‘Industry Conferences are enriching activities, we pay for your admission but they’re on your own time.’

This took 2 weeks to resolve but ended with me essentially saying, ‘Look I’ll still work for you because I love what I do, however, if I don’t get paid I will never go to another one of these conferences again to get new ideas for you.’ I was immediately paid.

I will spare similar smaller stories of that nature, but that slowly started to become the relationship between Kyle and me.

When 2020 hit, our locations were shut down, and for 3 weeks we weren’t able to do anything, meanwhile, our clients were still paying for services, and because Kyle had recently moved to a new client payment portal that I hadn’t been trained on yet, I wasn’t able to help any clients get their funds back.

At one point I messaged Kyle about going remote and being able to still assist clients and got a very angry text back, full of curses, that essentially said, ‘Look, you’re not the boss, go screw yourself, you had your chance to be the owner and turned it down. I’m in charge.’ (We did eventually go remote about a week later).

The big problem of course was that I would receive daily texts/emails/calls from clients about their memberships/bills, and there was nothing I could do to help them.

It was at this point that I knew stuff was hitting the fan and I needed to start doing something.

So over the course of the next 2 months, I did a couple of things:

  • Spent an inordinate amount of time studying the best business structures
  • Communicated with all of the other staff at my location about my intentions
  • Continued to give 110% to my clients in a remote capacity
  • Built a website and social media presence from the ground up

I don’t think Kyle was expecting any of this, and he probably didn’t also realize that because I often had to do backend stuff from home, I also had what was ‘essentially,’ a little black book of every client, their e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

When everything was ready I waited very patiently only until the end of a service month, as I mentioned, all of our clients had monthly costs, and I didn’t want to put anyone out of any part of their costs. On the last weekday of the month, I instructed the staff who would be helping clients that day to tell them to check their e-mails at the end of the day.

At the end of the day, I sent out an e-mail to all active (and some non-active) clients, as well as a texting service to text everybody. I launched our social media accounts and our website; and had even enlisted a very small amount of trusted clients to spread the word via social media once I gave them the signal.

Within 15 minutes of everything my phone was ringing off the hook, I had 50-plus e-mails in my inbox from different people, and my social media accounts were completely blowing up with local chatter.

I also heard from many of these people that they were calling Kyle to cancel their service. We hosted a Zoom meeting for all concerned parties and essentially decided to take the weekend to clear up any confusion with the systems and start fresh and open our doors on Monday.

Within an hour of everything, Kyle sent out a text blast to every client that they would be shutting their doors effective immediately.

At the start of 2020, we had roughly 50 active ‘clients’ at the business. On my first day of business, I had signed up 75 active ‘clients,’ many inactive ones telling me, ‘Yeah we stopped doing business with you guys because Kyle was kind of a jerk.’

What is really important to keep in mind here is that I never wanted to, nor cared to be, a business owner.

I was very happy working for somebody else as long as I wasn’t treated like crap. Had Kyle treated me even remotely better the location would have continued to thrive and be a staple in our local community. Kyle chose to be a jerk to try and get a quick buck and fraud people out, and Kyle lost out.

We’ve been in business now almost 2 years, have nearly tripled Kyle’s ‘active numbers,’ and continue to be a staple in our community.”

5 points - Liked by jeba1, rbleah, laya and 4 more
Post

User Image
Thejud 1 year ago
Meh confusing on what you do.... Also as a business person not cool poaching clients from your former boss that kind of karma doesn't wash away
-1 Reply

13. Trying To Get Me Fired? I Have A Reverse Card

Unsplash

“At the time, I was working as a manager in a mid-sized business. While I was there, I was assigned a new member to my team. I’ll call her Evil. Evil was in her mid-twenties and was pretty fresh out of college. She was the kind of person who could talk your ear off about all of her ideas and plans and what she was working on, but never really seemed to have anything to show for it.

When I talked to her about clients complaining that she wasn’t getting back to them, she would always have an excuse about how difficult they were, how snowed under she was, and how she had written an email but it must’ve gotten lost in spam…. so on and so forth. Basically never her fault.

It got to the point where after one of our monthly meetings I called her in and explained that if she couldn’t get her tasks done she needed to let us know so we could help delegate resources to make sure things weren’t slipping through the cracks.

I’ll admit, I was pretty direct. Her performance was impacting the whole team, and my job was literally to keep the team on track. I get that people can be under pressure, that there can be stuff going on at home which impacts work, and that sometimes people need a bit of help – but if every time I ask about a project you say ‘Yep, yep, everything’s good.

I’ve got it under control,’ and then it all falls apart and your only response is to blame the client—we have a problem.

I explained that I wasn’t going to start formal performance management or anything like that, but from now on I’d like her to check in with me on Monday mornings for 10 minutes to go over objectives for the week and to check if she needed support with any of her clients.

I know it isn’t fun to be micromanaged, so I tried to keep these check-ins short and mostly just offer assistance on stuff. She clearly hated my guts though, and apparently was hatching her own revenge.

Now part of my role included the use of a purchasing card, which wasn’t in my name but I had access to. I was given the card to basically make small purchases for the office or spend up to $500.00 on clients.

The card was kept in an office I shared with another team manager, where we both could access it when we needed it.

One day I get a call from accounts asking about a few abnormal purchases on the card. A photoshop subscription, a couple of Uber Eats orders, an HBO subscription, etc. I say I don’t know anything about them and they should check with the other team manager.

Apparently, the other team manager didn’t know anything about them either, because after the weekend I get called into the big boss’s office. After my colleague and I had denied involvement, accounts had started calling adobe and Uber and stuff to find out where the transactions were coming from. They said that not only were the accounts in my name, they were registered to an email address with my name in it too.

I can’t describe what it felt like to be in that meeting. I felt physically sick. I couldn’t work out what was happening. I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say. I felt like I was about to get fired and I couldn’t understand how that was even possible. The director was going on about how access to the card was a privilege and that I had signed an agreement about appropriate use and so on and so forth.

I denied that I had been using it inappropriately, and the boss listened but I could tell he wasn’t that convinced. To be honest, in my head I was gaslighting myself and worrying that I had somehow saved the card in google and maybe my wife had been accidentally using it or something. It was terrible, and I found myself apologizing and saying ‘I don’t know how this happened, I assure you that I know that none of those expenses are appropriate uses of company funds – there must have been some kind of mistake, can I please have the details and look into it,’ etc., etc.

When I finally got out of that office, my job still intact (barely), Evil was waiting for me at my office door. She was grinning from ear to ear and sweetly explained she had been waiting for our morning meeting. I told her something had come up and we’d do the meeting tomorrow, and she said: ‘Oh will you be in tomorrow?’

Confused, I just replied, ‘Yes, why would I not be in tomorrow?’ and she just sipped her tea and said ‘Oh, no reason,’ turned around and went back to her desk.

Something felt off, but I was still worrying about what had happened with the boss so I spent the next couple of hours calling my wife, calling adobe, and doing the same leg work that accounts had done. It became very obvious that someone had been using my name and the company card to spend a bunch online. Had I been hacked or something? Personal info on the dark web and these hackers just really wanted photoshop and Wendy’s delivered?

It was the Uber eats that was her undoing.

After getting on the phone and talking through what had gone on, and obviously giving my name for the account and everything, the fellow on the phone told me where the food had been delivered. It was in our city, which made me rule out straightaway any notion of my data being sold online or something. Now I was suspicious and annoyed.

I don’t like to think the worst of people, but now I was.

Listening to my gut, I pulled up Evil’s employee information and checked her address. I pulled it up on google maps, dropped a pin on her place, and then looked for the address Uber Eats had given me. It was the corner of her block.

I was furious. When she left work for the day I got IT to give me access to her laptop. Sure enough, when I opened up her ‘domain’.com account under her listed accounts was the email with my name in it.

There were some things she had been smart about. The IP address she had been using was the office, which would have tied back to me. She had even had the food delivered to a different address. She had even made a fake email address. But saving her passwords on a work computer was a mistake.

I called the boss that night and explained what I had found, and kept the IT guy with me to support the fact that I hadn’t just logged into her computer and made it all up.

The next day the boss called her into the office and fired her so bad there were red trucks lining up outside the building. When she teary-eyed left his office I made sure I was standing in the hall sipping a cup of tea. It had gotten cold while I waited for her but still tasted sweet.

I hope she went home that night because if she did she would have received some nice ‘goodbye’ Wendy’s delivered by Uber Eats.

Paid for on my personal card of course.

Revenge and justice can be the same thing, right?

In the end, she was fired. The boss apologized and we were on good terms when I left in October for a new gig. She never apologized and I haven’t seen her since. The boss decided not to get the police involved and neither did I, just didn’t want the hassle.”

4 points - Liked by laya, rbleah, LilacDark and 1 more
Post

User Image
lasm1 1 year ago
So awesome. She deserved it.
0 Reply

12. Stealing From People's Lockers? Have Fun In Jail

Unsplash

“This was back in the early 2000s, probably 2003-2004 school year.

Throughout the entire year, there was a ‘crimewave’ of people having things stolen out of their locked lockers. Not everyone but enough that everyone KNEW someone it happened to. The school’s only defense about this was that it was our fault for sharing locker combos with our friends.

They also charged US every time we had to get the combination changed on a locker (like after theft for instance) because it was assumed to be our fault.

Well, I had my graphing calculator taken out of my locker. I also never gave out my combination to anyone. Mostly because my friends were clowns and we pulled stuff on each other all the time.

So I was out $150 for the calculator and another $150 to change the combination (getting a locksmith to change out the lock). This is 2003 money so it’s a bit more than now.

To anyone who has ever had to buy a TI-86 in 2003 or 2004 you’ll know how much these things cost.

Well, my dad was drinking buddies with one of the county detectives. I’ll call him Detective Buddy and or Uncle Buddy. He went in to talk to the school about this string of thefts going on so he could get the security camera for the day my calculator went missing and got completely brushed off as it was a ‘nonexistent problem’ and ‘he must have given out his locker combination’.

The principal told him he would need a warrant to get the camera footage, then when he got the warrant the school fought the warrant in court citing student privacy.

Cue the revenge, Detective Buddy shows up at our house with a laptop in a laptop bag. He’s like ‘Throw this in your locker and tell everyone you know about your brand new laptop.’

‘OK… sure Uncle Buddy.’

3 days later I show up at my locker between classes and the laptop is gone, the bag too, nowhere to be seen, as is a 24-ounce bottle of coca-cola, and possibly some pens.

I take my phone out and text him that the laptop got taken.

‘Stand by for the crap show, oh and you reported the theft to the police FYI,’ he replies back.

‘OK,’ I reply, confused. I got about the rest of my day and I don’t hear anything back. The following morning Detective Buddy comes to the school with 3 uniformed officers and pulls a student (Dave) out of class as well as his mom who works in the front office.

The principal is angry, I don’t actually hear the cops but the principal is mad to no end that he had the audacity to accuse them of theft and he couldn’t just take them out of his school, etc.

Well turns out there was a tracker in the laptop bag and Uncle Buddy got a warrant to search a particular house, the laptop had a value of over $1,000 making it a felony.

The next afternoon he set up a tent with a table just outside of school grounds. He also had a banner across the top, ‘if you have had something stolen from your locker see me’.

By the next morning, Dave and his mom made the paper, apparently, Dave allegedly used his mom’s login information to get onto the school network and get the locker combinations for basically everyone, then he just opened random lockers looking for valuables to steal, if he didn’t get info of a specific locker to steal from.

When he set up the stand to get more people reporting thefts he racked up an astounding number of charges. Each locker counted as a separate misdemeanor unless the stolen object was worth more than $1,000 in which case it was a felony.

In less than a week Uncle Buddy opened and broke an investigation and they charged Dave and his mom with 9 felonies and 35 misdemeanor charges.

When I finally got the story from Buddy he explained what the situation was.

He had me stash a brand new laptop that had a GPS tracking unit stuck in it in my locker then get it stolen deliberately and then he got a warrant to search the property it had been taken to. Now the fun thing to stress is that the laptop was over $1,000 in value..

pushing the theft from a misdemeanor to a felony level. There were also another 8 felony charges, stuff like jewelry that was stolen from other people’s locker and recovered. So any of the locker break-ins that amounted to over $1,000 stolen was a felony charge and less than $1,000 was a misdemeanor charge.

Cool thing was that because the calculator and the laptop were separate days (and the combination changed between the days) he caught a felony and a misdemeanor charge off me alone.

The 9 felony thefts ended up in the $12,000 range total, and the 35 misdemeanor charges were somewhere in the range of $3,000 total in value.

Now that’s an awful lot of stuff stolen, but I need to stress that this is only what was PROVEN stolen. Like this is what they caught him with in his possession that they could trace back to someone.

They also didn’t let them plead to anything, it was Podunkville’s highest-profile crime in years and without a doubt one of the worst crime sprees the county had seen in decades.

Next up on the revenge… Everyone who had been charged $150 to get their locker combinations changed sued the school district in a class-action lawsuit. The justification was that the school did nothing to investigate the 44 (proven) and more than likely 200+ cases of locker theft and then charged funds to get the locker combinations changed.

There were 218 people in the ‘class’ and in total everyone got $85 after attorney’s fees.

The principal also lost his job for being a bonehead and not bothering to attempt to deal with the massive problem that was reported to him going on at the school.

The fun thing I need to point out is that the school brought in a locksmith to change out the locks, that’s why they justified charging $150. Well, the school already paid the $150 a locker, but they also had to return $100 per locker…

meaning that they were out $21,800 plus their legal fees for that class action suit.

Next comes the criminal trial and the fallout. The prosecutor’s ‘Deal’ was 10 years in prison (5 in juvie and 5 in adult prison) for Dave and 15 for Dave’s mom.

Well, they refused that deal and it went to trial. Dave got 1-year in prison for each felony (the state minimum) and 1-month probation for each misdemeanor.

So 9 years plus 35 months of probation. His mom received 18 years of jail and 6 years probation.

Having attended much of the best parts of the trial I will say this.

They had Dave on camera entering 20+ lockers and they had them in possession of stolen goods for every single charge they made against them. The judge was also not amused that there were likely other reported crimes that they ‘got away with’ because they couldn’t prove it or they weren’t reported.

Dave’s mom got it worse… that was a fun sentencing to show up for.

But the most important thing is that I got my graphing calculator back. It had my name engraved inside the battery compartment. I still have it as well as a cool story to tell.”

4 points - Liked by laya, rbleah, LilacDark and 1 more
Post


11. Cut My Flowers? Enjoy Some Mint

Unsplash

“I used to rent a house with roommates in college. My landlords were an older couple who were greedy and extremely rude for no reason. When we first moved in it was included in our lease that our lawn would be mowed by our landlord.

Second month of living at the house, they covered the entire front lawn with wood chips and it looked hideous! Of course, they did this to avoid mowing the front lawn and it is their property after all.

Okay whatever but cue to several months later including shady situations with our slumlords like them coming inside the house unannounced, refusing to acknowledge serious issues in the house like black mold, wobbly stair rail, air vent leaking, etc. Oh, honey, I could go on. They even tried to scam us out of a couple of hundred bucks. I guess you get it, they suck.

Anyway that spring semester I got a part-time job working as a plant merchandiser.

I got to keep some bulbs and decided to grow some tulips! I decided to grow them close to the sidewalk since it was the only place that wasn’t covered in wood chips. April comes strolling and to my surprise, they grew! I was so happy and so were my roommates since they were nice to look at.

Well, it was until my mean slumlord CUT them all to give to his wife.

How do I know this? Because I saw him do it through our giant window in our living room AND when I went to go pay my rent at their house, I saw my tulips in a vase on their dining room table. I knew when my lease was up I wanted to go out with a bang. Harmless one of course, so I could get my deposit back.

I learned at my new job that mint is super invasive and hard to get rid of so I brought back some mint seeds and a bag of grass seeds from my job and spread them all over the weathered wood chips that were disappearing from the seasons changing.

The next time I went to pay rent at their house I also sneakily sprinkled it into their yard.

I knew this would bother them since they kept their own yard pristine and would constantly come to ours to check on it. They told us one time we couldn’t have our carved pumpkins out on the porch (this was October) because it will attract the squirrels and ‘promote them to leave their acorns on the front lawn.’

Like, okay lady, it’s the outdoors, but have fun with mint though!”

4 points - Liked by Zoie, laya, LilacDark and 1 more
Post


10. My Manager Was Awful, So I Stopped Being Mrs. Reliable

Unsplash

“I’ve been working in the retail business for over 20 years and let me tell you, some of the managers they hire, I can do a better job! But I’m getting ahead of myself here! Over the years of doing retail, I have established a reputation for myself. I’m ‘Mrs. Reliable.’ Need someone to come in? They call me. Need someone to stay late? They call me.

Need to switch with someone because management said no for your day off? They call me. Need to switch with someone because of a last-minute plan? They call me. You can probably see where this story might be going right?

This story takes place a couple of years ago when I worked at a major grocery store in my town/city as a cashier.

This has taken place a couple of years ago back in 2020.

I’m on my two years at this store and we went through so many people and managers it wasn’t funny! Literally, it felt like we had a revolving door with how much turnover in employment we had. Getting back to the story, I was a cashier and the thing about me doing this job is that I have a tendency to be ‘too good’ at my job.

I was just hired to be a cashier, I was not a manager, nor a monitor (someone that is a step down from management, but doesn’t have all the responsibilities of management), nor was in customer service. However, I was trained for nearly all the duties of someone who is. Need change? I went to the cashier, got the money out of the drawer, and went to grab the change that they needed.

Need an override? I came over to see what the problem is and did the override. Need something from behind the counter? I just need to know what it is that you need and I went and grabbed it. I did all this on top of my cashier duties and self-checkout duties.

Then Jerk came along! My manager at the time, let’s call her Ashley. Ashley is the Front End Manager, meaning she’s in charge of everything that goes on at the Registers, Cash Office (where all the money is), Customer Service, and the Self Checkouts.

Now, I liked Ashley! She was a really good boss and I liked working with her. Ashley had gotten pregnant and was expecting her second child, I was excited for her! Unfortunately, when Ashley came back though she was no longer going to be a manager nor was she going to full time. She decided to come back part-time. I can’t really blame her though. You’re working 40 hours a week and are not allowed any overtime whatsoever.

Plus, you can be working as early as 5 AM to working as late as whenever the last customer decides to leave (last time that happened we didn’t get out until 11:15 PM).

Enter Jerk. Ever wonder what happened to that spoiled brat in school whose mommy never said no and always got what they always wanted? That’s Jerk all grown up in a manager’s position! Jerk was the type of manager that if he told you to do something, he expected you to do it without any questions.

Have plans after work? Jerk expected you to whip out your phone right there and then, cancel your plans and come into work. Have a doctor’s appointment? Jerk expected you to cancel that appointment and then come to work. If you told him no, he would say in the most condescending tone, ‘Well I need you to anyway!’ And then just standing there scowling at you the whole time! Basically trying to intimidate you by making you feel so uncomfortable by staring until you cave.

Now, I had my fair share of awful managers to the point where if I didn’t need the funds I would’ve walked right out right then and there and never returned. And I had my fair share of good managers. Jerk was somewhere in the middle leaning more towards the ‘walking out.’ Now, with me, I’ll admit. Over the years I developed a Sassy Sarcastic Personality.

I’m blunt, have no filter, say what’s on my mind, and I don’t put up with people’s bull crap! Apparently, Jerk never got the memo of my not taking people’s bull crap.

Around this time, summer was ending meaning we were in the ‘Now Hiring’ stage and many positions were starting to open up in the store. Keep this in mind.

I had out-of-patient vein surgery done on one of my legs and needed to take a few days off.

Since I had some vacation time saved up, I used my hours for those few days so that I didn’t have to worry so much about not getting paid. Jerk called me a day before I was supposed to come in asking if I can do a 9-1. I asked him three times over the phone, ‘Who’s closing?’ because originally I was supposed to close that day until I got my approval for my days off.

Jerk never answered me so I just figured they had it covered. I came in and of course, halfway through my shift Jerk calls me over and says that they don’t have a closer. Keep in mind that I asked him three times over the phone who was closing. Jerk wanted me to clock out, go home for a few hours, and then come to work and close.

I said no and then he tried the whole guilt-tripping about ‘not having anyone’ and that ‘we really need you to do this.’

I said no because 1) I’m really tired and just came off surgery like three days ago! 2) I already made plans with my husband for the evening. Of course, Jerk didn’t like this because the next time I came to work, he was just being petty and passive-aggressive with me.

Basically, he either pretended I wasn’t there, ignored me, or the transaction that he was doing was taking longer than it should and then chastised me in front of the customers for taking too long to get to him.

When I had my follow-up appointment with the vein doctor, Jerk asked me if I can come earlier. I told him no, I can’t because I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning that day.

Then he did his usual, ‘Well need you to do it anyway!’ And started to stare at me. Unfortunately for him, I’m used to this when it came to Karens and Kevins trying to intimidate me because something didn’t come right. I quickly shut that down by getting the other cashier’s attention when they need help with something or quickly grabbing a customer’s attention.

When I came in after my appointment, Jerk with a smug grin very loudly in earshot of the Big Wigs from Corporate visiting that day said, ‘Well OP, looks like you noticed that I didn’t call you in because we didn’t need you.’

I replied, ‘Good because I wasn’t able to come in early anyway.’

Remember how I said that the store had openings? Well turns out Customer Service needed some help and the only way to get there was to ask your manager.

So, I went to Jerk and asked about being at the Customer Service Desk. With everything that I’ve already been doing, I was basically the ‘Front End Assistant Manager’ without the pay and title!

Jerk said that he would get back to me, especially since I’ve been doing a great job. Two to three weeks later, I’m seeing people that I trained or have started months after I did get promoted to Customer Service Desk while I stayed as a cashier with all the other responsibilities piled on top.

The Customer Service Desk position would’ve easily been a .50 cent raise. The monitor position would’ve been a .75 cent raise. And of course, Jerk didn’t want to pay more for doing the exact same thing that I was already doing. I was starting to get the message of ‘Why pay for the cow when the milk is free?’

I was starting to look for another job at this point because I was getting sick and tired of how I was being treated but I wanted to try and give this guy one last chance.

So, I found out that the Seafood Department in my store had an opening and I even talked to the Seafood Department Manager Debbie about me possibly being in her department. She was ecstatic to have me and was willing to work around my college schedule. I had to talk to my manager Jerk in order to get the transfer going.

I talked to Jerk and he started to come up with any and all kinds of excuses to not have me transfer! I quickly shot that down and even the one where he tried to say that I can’t because another co-worker was transferring (First time I’ve heard of this) but the co-worker said they had no problem with me going.

So, I thought that was that, right? Wrong!

Three to four weeks have passed and I’ve been getting nowhere with the whole transfer to the other department. Even Debbie was wondering why it was taking so long for me to get to the Seafood Department and why management was dragging their feet with this. Turns out, Jerk blocked my transfer and they wound up hiring a new employee to the Seafood Department.

Jerk thought that if there were no positions available and he can just ‘Deny’ my transfer I have no choice but to stay.

After an argument between the two of us about this, because I was calling him out on his bull crap, Jerk said the magic words: ‘Just do your job!’

Just do my job? Okay! I was so glad that wearing a mask was required. Otherwise, Jerk might have seen my ‘Evil Smile’ when I agreed to just ‘Do my job.’

Need an override? Sorry, but I’m not management nor am I a monitor so I can’t do that.

Let me go grab someone who can. Need change? Sorry, but I’m not management nor am I a monitor so I can’t do that. Let me go grab someone who can. Need something behind the Customer Service Desk? Sorry, but I’m not trained nor am I Customer Service. Let me grab someone who can get that for you.

Jerk was at his wit’s end and even tried to write me up for something.

I quickly shut that down when I started to recite what being a cashier entails and what my actual job of being a cashier is. And I told him that if he wants me to continue with all those responsibilities he needs to promote me so I can do all those responsibilities. He quickly stepped back into his passive-aggressive behavior which I quickly shut down.

I eventually found another job with better pay and better benefits and handed in my resignation of me leaving in ten days.

That Jerk tried to deny it and say, ‘No you have to give us two weeks’ notice!’ I quickly shut that down with a response, ‘You wouldn’t be giving us a two-week notice if you’re going to fire us! Or lay us off or let us go! Just a two-minute warning!’

Now, you’re probably wondering what could I have possibly done for more revenge, right? Well, there was an old saying, ‘Never kill the Golden Goose.’ Well, readers what do you think happens to a department that is solely dependable on one person whose reputation is, ‘Mrs.

Reliable?’

Need me to come in on my day off? Sorry I can’t. I have plans. Need me to stay late? Sorry, I can’t I already made plans. Someone called out? Sorry, I can’t make it.

I did this throughout the entire rest of my stay at that place. Jerk couldn’t do anything about it either and it was starting to get to him on what happens when you rely heavily on someone else but treat them so badly that they actually decide to leave.

Jerk’s performance because I wasn’t there to cover his butt was starting to take a toll. He had to do so much now of his own responsibilities and there wasn’t a thing he could do to me. He kept trying to be extra passive-aggressive with me to which I just smiled and waved and said goodbye to everyone but him!

After talking to a friend of mine about what happened when I worked there, he told me to report this to the district manager because that kind of behavior isn’t good for the workplace.

I got the e-mail address of the district manager from my friend and then I went back to the store as a customer. I kept in touch with a couple of my old co-workers and kept asking them how they were doing and how’s work going. None of them had a problem venting to me about how bad things were getting with Jerk. I asked if they didn’t mind if I put their name in the complaint or if they just wanted to be anonymous.

A lot of them chose the latter. I whipped out my phone, used the quick memo app that I had, and quickly wrote the notes on my phone. The date, and the register that the cashier was on at the time. I sent that e-mail with the attached notes and with the entire account on my part as well to the district manager.

Now, this wouldn’t be a revenge story if it just stopped there.

I took a step further. You see, with the receipts that we get, there is a survey on the bottom of every receipt and management kept trying to boost us to get customers to take the survey because it helped with the storefront and all the points that the store gets. Well, here’s the thing about that survey, when you fill out the survey including the comments, everyone gets to see it.

And I mean everyone.

Jerk, the assistant store manager, the store manager, the regional manager, the district manager, and the representative of corporate get to see it all.

So, you can imagine what I did. Needed a snack for school? Filled out the survey. Needed groceries? Filled out the survey. Needed a drink? Filled out the survey. I went to that store multiple times and got so many different surveys because there wasn’t a limit for how many you can fill out.

And I made sure to put everything that Jerk was doing on all those surveys. Including how he treated his employees.

Three months after I left, the person they hired back in Seafood to make sure I couldn’t go back there quit.

Six months after I left, Jerk was nowhere to be found. A new manager took over for him and no one seems to know what happened to Jerk.”

3 points - Liked by laya, FatMama, LilacDark and 2 more
Post

User Image
Thejud 1 year ago
Well first off if you're a cashier you shouldn't be doing any type of managerial work. That's you being exploited and not being paid for it so regardless of you being Mrs reliable or whatever you shouldn't be doing work you don't get paid for
0 Reply

9. Infringe My Art? I'll Shut Down Your Print Shop

Unsplash

“A little backstory, I’m an online artist and this took place when I was in my early 20s. There was a popular artist who calls himself a professional and works in the industries. I used to look up to him. Let’s call him ‘Zack.’

Lately, I noticed how Zack’s art looked eerily too familiar to a piece of media I’ve seen before. So I looked up the images and found it too matched up to his art.

He was directly referencing official art and profiting off of it by selling it on his print shops online. He didn’t make any effort to make the reference detaches from the original piece.

I confronted him about it sending a detailed message not to do that and the possible consequences. I have seen artists in real life who are sued for over $100,000 and to the extent in jail for doing what they did.

Instead of being professional and mature about it, he lashed out at me and took it to social media telling me how wrong I was to falsely accuse him since artists use references and how I could get sued for libel. I was dumbfounded at how clueless he was not comprehending what I was talking about.

He included my username which my blog had links to my contacts.

My emails, social media page, art accounts, and more.

His fans including his group of friends joined in sending me downright horrific messages to me. I had panic attacks resulting from the pure backlash of his enormous fan base. I constantly received hate mail, telling me how horrible I am as a person, how crappy my art was, and to the extent of death threats for almost an entire month.

The last straw that broke the camel’s back was when he directly referenced my art and made money off of it. I didn’t know how to find a lawyer and I feel hopeless and angry that I couldn’t do anything about it. Later it hit me that if I can’t do it, then maybe another artist can or anyone who holds the copyright. The last time I remember, Zack never credited any of these artists for his references.

I looked into the art he referenced and examined each official company matching Zack’s art. I used google search to find anyone working for said company and voilà! I found a staff member for a branch in a different continent. Let’s call him ‘Cody.’

I contacted Cody’s social media and tipped him about Zack’s activity through messenger. I uploaded and sent a copy of their art and Zack’s art for comparison.

Cody just simply replied, ‘Will contact our legal team, thanks for the notice.’

Another week passes by and during that time he constantly posts to every darn thing I post about in my art blog. And then silence. I checked his print shop was removed. His response to my message was taken down from his social media. He stops talking to his ‘friends’ publicly. Days later a fan was asking about him and he responded that he is no longer friends with them cause they are very toxic hypocrites.

One of his former friends contacted my friend and cried about how awful a bully he was. Of course, my friend didn’t care.

It was the most glorifying feeling I have ever rejoiced. This would’ve been avoided if he at least heeded my warnings. How he handled the situation was not professional AT ALL.

About 5 years later I had been informed that apparently, he has a tough time getting back into the industry after there were allegations of his past copyright infringement. The biggest one was having a lawsuit with the big company Cody worked for.”

3 points - Liked by Zoie, laya, LilacDark and 1 more
Post


8. Poaching Endangered Species? Not On My Pops' Watch

Unsplash

“This goes way back back to the 90s to be exact 1998 and I was 10 years old. My farm back then was Pops’ family farm, it’s way up north in Ontario. My farm is not a small farm in the area, it’s the biggest plot of land, and not only that it has the most workable farmland. There are about 80 acres of good workable farmland that’s including pastures and another 120 acres of dense forest and marshland.

Back in the 90s, northern Ontario had a breakout of this type of moth they would spin silk high in the trees, really they caused no harm other than a nuisance but the government had the great idea to crop dust the forests on Ontario causing an ecological disaster. With the loss of the moths and the chemicals in the water, a type of frog was nearly wiped out.

We called them leopard frogs. They are green with these big black spots on them. After that, they were put on the endangered species list.

The back end of my property runs off into a small marshland and into the lake. Back in the 90s, Pops was having a problem with poachers. They were camping in the back area hunting out of season, killing and eating turtles out of the marsh, and just messing up the property.

Back in the day, that forest was my playground, I know that area like the back of my hand, but unfortunately, I had a run-in with the poachers. Of course, I went out there with Pops and our local lawman but they had packed up and were gone before we got there. Unfortunately, they returned the week after and we could hear the rifle shots. Pops tried to find them with the lawman several times but with no luck.

Now here’s where all the information from the start comes into play. Pops, as hard as he tried, wanted them gone but it wasn’t working. Pops was also a fisherman and his favorite bait was none other than the leopard frog. But because they made it on the endangered species list the use was outright banned. Pops being the responsible fisherman and generally caring about the land figured oh heck, now’s the time to kill two birds with one stone.

He approached the Canadian fishery and game wardens and through a lot of work got in touch with an ecological survey team who decided that our little marsh was the perfect place for a spawning pool to raise little leopard frogs. And that’s what happened in the back area where our Marsh was fenced in and they started breeding tadpoles in our Marsh. Not only that, the poachers hunting ground happens to fall in the protected zone.

Once the work happened it took a full year for the poachers to return.

But Pops had a weapon now… His phone.

Once he could hear that familiar sound of rifles going off where no rifle fire should be he made a single phone call to the game warden. They had over a dozen wardens up there in less than an hour and the poachers were caught.

Not only were they caught with the carcass of a bear and other animals they were found with buckets and buckets of our little leopard frogs.

They were caught but not only did they hunt without a license they also poached an endangered species to be used as illegal bait. From what I learned through the locals… They did 2 years in big-time prison.

All because Pops cared about the little froggies.

Oh yeah, over 5 million of the frogs were raised on that marsh over 10 years being released through marshes and forests in Ontario.

You would have a hard time finding a leopard frog across Ontario that was not somehow related to a frog that came out of my little marsh.”

3 points - Liked by Zoie, laya, LilacDark and 1 more
Post


7. Be Rude To My Coworker? Rude People Don't Get Sandwiches

Unsplash

“When I was in college I took a part-time job working in the dining commons to help pay for tuition. We had several kinds of food ‘stations’ that offered different kinds of food, one was a sandwich bar which had a subway-style set up where kids could choose their bread and toppings and a worker would make it for them. Near the end of the day about 5 minutes to closing, we start picking up and getting ready to close down so I had gone to the back to start the closing process while my coworker waited up front in case anyone else came in.

We usually offered sandwiches until about 10 minutes after closing to be nice.

A group of college guys walks up a few minutes to close, the first guy asking for a sandwich on white bread. She starts to make his sandwich but about halfway through after she puts on the mustard, he says, ‘Oh wait, I don’t want mustard. Throw it away and start over, this time with whole wheat.’

My blood started to boil, they started laughing at her, making demands and asking her to throw the next one away too.

This is when I had enough, I grabbed the nearest cart, walked up to the bar and grabbed all the bread, threw it on, and said. ‘Sorry, we are closing.’

They began to get upset so I pointed to the clock showing them that it now said the closing time. I put my best smile on and suggested they try the pizza station, knowing it was the worst food there and had super greasy awful pizza. They ended up walking away without their sandwiches.”

3 points - Liked by rbleah, laya, LilacDark and 1 more
Post


6. Someone Kept Stealing My Brother's Lunch, So I Cooked Him Up The Perfect Revenge

Unsplash

“First, some context: There’s this product called ‘Pure Cap’ which is basically 100% capsaicin oil, the stuff that makes hot peppers hot; it has a Scoville rating of 500,000 units per drop but no flavor, making it ideal for ‘spicing up’ food without affecting the way it tastes. Putting enough of it, usually only a few drops, on ANY food can make it almost completely inedible to anyone who is not a total fire mouth (or pepper head).

It’s available on Amazon for about $30 USD per two ounces, but a little goes a VERY long way. That’s why it’s sold in an eyedropper bottle.

Now here’s the good part. In the early 2000s, my brother (‘Rick’) was working in a call center that had a break room with a fridge/freezer, a microwave, and a small sink. He didn’t take his own lunch often (usually leftovers from the previous night’s dinner), maybe three or four times a month, but every time he did it would get stolen.

The first couple of times he didn’t mention it, you know, just in case it was a simple mistake and the person was too embarrassed to own up. However, the third time he remembered the military axiom ‘Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but thrice is enemy action’ and reported the thefts to his supervisor (‘Don’) and the head of Human Resources (‘Dolly’) every time after.

However, they said that without proof there was nothing they could do. No cameras in the break room. And so this is where my plan hatched.

One night I made a roast beef dinner with potatoes and carrots, cooked all day in a crockpot with onion soup mix on top. Believe me, it was fork-tender and delicious! I also made a nice salad to go with it and put away a complete dinner serving for him to have for lunch on his next shift.

The next night he came home and said his lunch had been stolen AGAIN, so the next morning I made a really deluxe roast beef sandwich, thickly sliced with lettuce, pickles, cheddar, and mayonnaise on an eight-inch hoagie roll so whoever was stealing would think they’d hit the jackpot two days in a row. I also LOADED the roast with Pure Cap, like four droppers worth, about thirty to forty drops on the meat alone, and made sure it was all completely absorbed before closing the sandwich so the roast looked really juicy.

I even mixed some into the mayo and put some more on the bread, because bread tends to downplay the fire a bit. Rick came in about halfway through the Pure Cap application and asked what the heck I was doing.

I looked back with an evil grin and said, ‘Oh, just making a little ‘present’ (wink) for the lunch thief!’

My grin was instantly copied on his face because he was the one who had originally told me about the stuff after he’d used it to prank a former roommate so he knew what was going to happen.

Then he went to finish getting ready for work. I could hear him chuckling the whole time! I even gave him $5 on his way out because that one sandwich shop with the green and yellow logo was only a couple blocks from his job and still had their five-dollar footlong promotion going.

When Rick got home that night, his grin was even bigger as he related the events.

He was between calls only a couple of hours into his shift when suddenly there’s this god-awful howling from the break room. Everyone who wasn’t on a call right then including Dolly rushed in there to see the sandwich on the table with one bite taken out of it, the half-chewed bite laying right next to it, and Don at the sink desperately trying to wash the capsaicin inferno out of his mouth not knowing that water only makes it worse.

Don was ostensibly friendly and reasonable so he was well-liked by his people. I guess he thought that would make some sort of difference because he pointed directly at Rick and yelled, ‘HE TRIED TO KILL ME!!!’ then went back to trying to put out his mouth fire. With WATER.

Dolly picked up the bag the sandwich had been in, which clearly had Rick’s name in big red letters in his handwriting.

She looked at Rick. Rick looked back with a completely straight face and shrugged. So Dolly grabbed the guy by the arm and dragged him to her office with him streaming tears and snot the whole way. By this time the water had sent the Pure Cap into real overdrive, and Don had to just stand there and burn while Dolly and the call center’s Manager (‘Bill’) dressed him down for about fifteen minutes, finally ending it with his termination for theft.

The guy could hardly even speak from the burning, tears, and runny nose that sandwich caused, and besides that, he had no defense anyway because he’d just outed himself for stealing an employee’s lunch. The company had a zero-tolerance policy about that kind of thing, especially when higher-ups steal from the people they manage.

Rick was back at his station and on a call when Bill personally came over smiling and said that Dolly wanted to see him when he was free.

Rick gave a thumbs-up knowing fully well why she wants to see him, took the call to its conclusion, and went to Human Resources. Here’s how he described the encounter….

Rick: ‘You wanted to see me, Ma-am?’

Dolly: ‘Yes, I do. First, being the aggrieved party, you’re not in trouble. Second, what the HECK did you put in that sandwich?’

Rick: ‘Actually, my brother made it.’ (He pulls the bottle of Pure Cap out of his pocket and sets it on Dolly’s desk with a smile).

Dolly: (picks up the bottle and reads the ingredients list, which literally just says ‘Capsaicin Oil, 500,000 Scoville Units Per Drop’, bursts out laughing, and hands it back.)

Rick: ‘There was kind of really a lot of that in the meat. And the mayo. And the bread.’

Dolly: (still giggling) ‘You know what? Go ahead and take your lunch break now, and when you get back we’ll talk about making you that section’s supervisor!’

So he did.

Rick still says that was the most emotionally satisfying sub sandwich he’s ever had. He declined the superposition, though, so they promoted a different person from that section, a really nice lady (‘Kerrie’) who had also witnessed the sandwich debacle. The whole office laughed about it for weeks afterward, and every new hire for at least a year got to hear the story, as both entertainment and warning.

I smiled about it for a month, and both Rick and I rarely miss a chance to tell people about Pure Cap and its potential applications regarding lunch thievery. I never did hear anything else about Don, but I imagine getting hired anywhere else, not to mention being promoted to a managerial position, was fairly difficult with that huge red flag for theft on his record.”

2 points - Liked by laya, LilacDark and Gmom4597
Post


5. Make A Woman Cry Live On Air? I'll Make You Cry, Too

Unsplash

“This story takes place in the distant past, before cellphones were common, and before universal caller ID was the norm, in a time dinosaurs most likely roamed the Earth. Well… the 80s, at least. These things are very important to this story.

Our tale takes place in a large west coast city known for a big orange bridge and delicious sourdough bread. I was living in the city for several months working temporary duty for my company and was preparing for work on the day in question.

As was my custom I was getting dressed listening to the morning radio show on a local station. This station’s jocks had started doing something called ‘the Monday Morning Wake Up Call’, where, on the first day of the week, they would make a prank call on the air to a victim chosen from write-in suggestions from the listening audience.

Doing this was actually very controversial in radio circles at the time: I had been a radio DJ in my hometown for a few years, and there are rules you must follow.

One of the biggest rules is that you can’t make a false or deceptive radio transmission, like announcing an emergency, sending an SOS, crying for help, or other such deceptions. Doing so is a federal offense: you can lose your license and be fined, or even do jail time. It’s a big no-no. The debate has long since been decided, but at the time doing prank calls on the air was a gray area; there were people who were sure it constituted a false transmission, and some stations refused to do it.

The argument was still alive at the time this happened.

This day happened to be Monday, and the intended victim had been nominated by her husband: they had experienced a power failure at home earlier in the week and the husband’s suggestion was that the station calls his wife, claiming to be from the utility, and tell her that the power outage was somehow their fault and they would have to pay for it.

The station staff loved the idea, and they proceeded to call the wife at her place of employment, a local bank. The victim answered and the prank began. ‘Hello, is this Mrs. Victim? I’m John Doe from Area Power Company. Do you remember having a power failure earlier this week? Well, it was due to a blown transformer on your block and we’ve determined that the cause is a wiring fault in your house.

We may have to cut off your power until you get it fixed. Also, you will be charged for the transformer. The total cost is X thousand dollars. Would you prefer we put that on your utility bill, or do you want to make other arrangements to pay?’

As you might imagine, the woman was shocked, then scared. As she asked for more information, having trouble believing that they were going to have to pay thousands of dollars, she got increasingly more upset.

This egged the radio staff on and the guy making the call kept increasing the pressure on her more and more, eventually telling her that her power would likely be cut off until payment was made and that there might be a lawsuit. After several minutes she suddenly hung up in tears. He called her back, and when she heard his voice she hung up again, crying even harder.

This time the guy waited a minute – and then called back again. Another lady answered the phone, a coworker, and he asked to speak to Mrs. Victim. When the coworker asked his name he replied ‘This is her husband, (distinctive first name).’ The coworker cursed at him, called him a liar, and hung up.

The radio studio was filled with laughter: the jocks thought it was hilarious.

They took calls from listeners who were all laughing and talking about what a great prank it was. They finally got the husband on the phone and he was also laughing and joking that he’d surely be sleeping on the sofa tonight. He was congratulating the radio staff on the fine job they had done terrorizing his wife. The radio hosts promised the listening audience that, because the prank was so funny, they would certainly be playing the whole recorded prank again at noon, so ‘Be sure to be listening, and call your friends!’

I, in my efficiency apartment listening to this, was getting mad.

I was still pretty newly married, and couldn’t imagine doing something like that to my wife. All I could think of while the staff and listeners on the radio were laughing was that, a few miles away, a young woman was in the ladies’ room crying, probably with coworkers trying to calm her down. What made it worse to my mind was that the guy who set her up for this was the one guy in the world who should have her back: her husband.

Anger turned to resolve, resolve formed a plan. I grabbed the city phone book (remember – it’s the 80s!) and looked up two phone numbers. I called the first one.

You may remember that I said I had been a radio disk jockey myself. It was a tiny, dawn-to-dusk station, but I knew how stations worked: I knew what they liked, and more to the point, I knew what they did NOT like.

I also had done a lot of voiceover work and could sound professional as heck. The phone rang and was answered. ‘You’ve reached K, Radio Jerk!’ I launched my attack.

Me – (Professional voice) ‘Yes, this is George Smith (I picked a more believable name) from the (City) Office of the Federal Communications Commission. I’ve been getting some disturbing calls about your morning radio show, and I need to speak to your Program Director to discuss it.’

Radio Guy 1 – (Stammering) ‘Uhhhh… he’s not, um… here right now… letmegetyousomeoneelse!’

I was put on hold.

After a few moments…

Radio Guy 2 – (Also stammering) ‘Hi… um, hello… uhhhh this is Radio Guy 2. Um… you’re from the FCC…?’

Me – Yes, this is George Smith from the (City) Office of the Federal Communications Commission. As I told your coworker, I’ve been getting some disturbing calls about your morning radio show, and I need to speak to your Program Director to discuss it.

Radio Guy 2 – (short silence) ‘Uhhh… he’s not in yet… he’ll be here at, um, nine o’clock…’

Me – ‘Ok, well I can start with your station manager since he will need to be in the conversation as well.’

Radio Guy 2 – (breathing fast, starting to lose all his composure) ‘Oh, wow, um… he gets in at nine too… I, um, I… I can, um, can I have him call you?’ He half-asked and half-pleaded.

Me (letting out what I hoped was a bureaucratic-sounding sigh). ‘Very well. I will expect to hear from him at nine. I will need to speak to your Station Manager, your Programming Director, and very likely your on-air personnel from this morning. I’ll also need your station logs.’

Radio Guy 2 – ‘Oh, yes sir! I’ll make sure he calls you right away!’

Me – ‘All right, I’ll be expecting his call.

Here’s my number.’

At this point, I gave Radio Guy 2 the second number I had looked up in the phone book: the main number for the (City) Office of the Federal Communications Commission. Radio Guy 2 stammered his thanks and promises of phone calls and we hung up. I went back to the radio.

Jerk Disk Jockey – ‘UHHHH OOOHHHH!!! The FCC is calling! Well, They can’t do anything to me… I’ve got a year of pre-law in college and blah blah blah…’ he continued his defiance for a few minutes and then went to commercial.

I kept listening.

They stopped talking about the prank call.

They stopped taking phone calls from listeners.

They stopped talking to the husband.

They started playing music. A LOT of music.

I listened for the rest of the day. They didn’t talk about it the rest of that day and they didn’t replay it at noon. In fact, for the rest of the week, I listened and heard nothing about it.

I was a bit surprised: I figured that they might stop talking about it for a little while, but not altogether. It wasn’t until later that I realized why they went so silent.

I had scared them.

In my quest to get a little vengeance for that crying woman I’d never met, I scared them, but more to the point – I’d embarrassed them, and Jerk Disk Jockey had helped.

Once he went live with his bravado against the call from the Feds their listeners knew they’d been called and heard the silence afterward too. They were embarrassed because I had just done to them what they had done to her, and they didn’t want to have to admit it.

I’ve kept the rather distinctive name of the husband a secret because I have always wished that I could meet that poor woman and that name would be how I would know it was really her. I doubt she is still married to the guy, but I’d like to let her know that in that place, on that day, someone had her back.”

1 points - Liked by LilacDark and Gmom4597
Post

User Image
LilacDark 1 year ago
Since I live in the area known for its big, orange bridge and sourdough bread, I have a pretty good idea who the DJ was and which station. He knew better than to pull this stunt on the air
2 Reply

4. You Think I'm Replaceable? I'll Create A Competing Business

Unsplash

“I worked for a company for just under 5 years. The company I worked for existed for an additional 10 years prior to me. While I worked at this company, it ballooned to be the number one provider in the region for its unique service with about 75% of the market. It was a small business with about 15 employees.

I loved my job and the skills I learned while working there were quite valuable.

I loved my team, and the clients we provided services for. My twice-yearly reviews with the owner were always 10/10 with no recommendations for improvement. I was exceptional at my job in every way. I handled company operations, HR/payroll, customer service, marketing, employee management, schedules, employee and client training, and many other things at this company. I was also able to step in and do any of my teammates’ jobs if they were out sick or on vacation.

The owner of the company was giving out a bonus late summer last year and mine, while being more than previous years, was notably less than my teammates. I asked the owner, ‘Are the bonuses related to performance, and if so, what could I have done to earn more?’

The owner replied, ‘The bonuses are not performance-related, you are just more replaceable than the others.’

‘Oh, okay,’ I replied and I proceeded to process each of the bonuses then went to lunch.

I called my spouse to gain wisdom and advice. I was pretty annoyed but didn’t want to make a rash decision.

My spouse is very intelligent and, while they are not a fortuneteller, they have an ability to foresee various responses and all the potential outcomes. They are business-wise and have been on the executive team of a large company for the past 21 years while also serving on several community boards and business advisory boards.

We decided together to continue forward with our scheduled vacation and use the time away to calm our minds, relax, have fun, and also determine the best course of action for me. We were leaving after working one more day, so I worked like all was normal the rest of the day and the following day, then left on vacation.

While away we discussed several scenarios, the potential outcomes, consulted with a business advisor and a business attorney.

With all the advice I received I determined that upon my return from vacation, I would resign from my role with a two-week notice. However, in a fit of rage, I was immediately terminated by the owner. This was one of the scenarios we thought would happen, so I was prepared for the owner’s poor reaction.

During the next couple of weeks, I created and opened a competing business offering similar services.

However; I offered more customizable options with higher quality service and results. I knew our clients wanted these options and had proposed said options several times at my old workplace but was never green-lighted to implement the changes for no reason other than the owner didn’t come up with the idea so it was a stupid idea.

I also maintained communications with a few people from my old team.

My old team did not relay the day-to-day happenings at my previous workplace and I never asked about the company; however, they would vent to me on occasion. I would listen without comment. I knew service, quality, and the work environment, in general, suffered since my departure. Morale went down and clients were less satisfied. I also read the Google and social media reviews for the old company.

Yikes!

Additionally, two full-time and one part-time people were hired to fill my role and a portion of my responsibilities, like HR and payroll, were filled by outside companies.

I quickly built up my business and within 3 months was able to hire several of my old teammates. They were able to jump in on day one with minimal training as they were the best employees at my old workplace.

The quality of the previous workplace’s offerings continued to fall which sent additional business my way and quickly caused incoming work to be nonexistent at the old workplace.

My old workplace went from being the number one provider of unique service in the region to nothing in a matter of months.

My previous employer is now searching for gainful employment. I know this because over the weekend the owner applied for a position at my spouse’s company.

Side note: I think my spouse’s company should bring my previous employer in for an interview but when they arrive, surprise! I’m the interviewer and all I say is, ‘How replaceable am I now?’ My spouse, rightfully so, has said, ‘No.’

The moral of the story is don’t tell your employees they are replaceable because they might create a competing business that is better than yours while taking your best employees and your clients which will leave you with no business to sell (owner’s whole retirement plan was to sell the business) and starting all over by searching for employment under someone else.

Looks like your company was replaceable, not me.”

1 points - Liked by laya and LilacDark
Post


3. Try To Throw Me Under The Bus? You'll Run Yourself Over

Unsplash

“I was building an online training module at work that is intended to teach existing users how to work a new process. It has interactive elements, quizzes, segments to work through a few sample scenarios, etc. Now we’d recently got a new Associate Director who from what I can tell advanced through the company by throwing other people under the bus. She gets promoted not for her own merits, but because at the end of the day she has less mud sticking to her than other applicants.

It’s uncanny to the point that there simply had to be more to it than stupid office politics. I’ll get to that in a bit.

So after I have the first draft of the module done, it gets sent out for the usual round of testing, and there are of course a couple of things that need to be corrected. (I build the module of the notes the subject matter experts leave me, and a few things inevitably get lost in translation).

But this new Associate Director just rips it to shreds, complaining that it’s completely incomprehensible, needs to go into much greater detail, asking questions about nearly every individual mouse click in the sample scenarios, and overall stating that it’s impossible to follow. The thing is, this module is intended for our finance department, for people who have a background in finance, and have already been trained on how to use our internal software.

She is a training service Associate Director, with a teaching background. The module isn’t supposed to make sense to a former middle school social studies teacher, it’s supposed to make sense to people with finance degrees.

I push back and try explaining this to her in a million different ways, but she’s having none of it. So I have to go back to the Subject Matter Experts with her ~20 pages worth of criticism.

And at first, they think I’m joking. I had to forward her email before they finally believed me. So for the next two weeks, we’re going over every nuance, including re-addressing everything that was covered during their three-week classroom training. How to set up their network drives, how to set up Outlook, including things as nuanced as ‘If you don’t know how to set up your email signature, click here…’ I mean really basic, BASIC stuff that has nothing to do with what the module was originally supposed to teach.

But I now had to include it all because our new Associate Director couldn’t find the on-switch if you stapled her finger to it. This wastes my time, the Subject Matter Expert’s time, and time spent re-recording all the voice work. (If you’ve done voice work in the past, you know you NEVER get it in one take.) After it’s all done, I send it back out for review and approval, and the Associate Director simply doesn’t respond.

A week passes.

The finance director takes an interest in why this module is almost a month overdue. I go to forward the Associate Director’s email again… except now I can’t find it. Odd, seeing as how I have a hoarding problem when it comes to email. I check with one of the Subject Matter Experts I was working with, he can’t find it either. Turns out, none of us can find it.

It’s gone… So I check with a friend of mine in IT who – after a little detective work – discovers that a week ago someone did a compliance delete on the exchange server. This basically is a seek and destroy for messages meeting certain criteria. In this case, a specific phrase she used in her email. I start digging through Outlook trying to find particular emails related to this that might be used to defend my actions…and they’re all gone.

Inbox, Sent Items, Deleted Items. Every last one of them. Any email containing that particular phrase anywhere in it. This kind of thing is normally used by admins to mass-delete spam or phishing emails from all users at once. Except, in this case, someone apparently deleted emails that showed evidence of her awful decisions.

My friend in IT can smell a juicy story a mile away and was VERY interested in seeing where this went.

She recovered the deleted emails and I promptly saved them to a flash drive. For the next few days, every time I had any email with this Associate Director’s name on it (even unrelated stuff, you never know how something might fit together), I saved a copy to the flash drive. I informed the Subject Matter Experts to do the same, and we started building our offline evidence locker.

I didn’t want to blow the lid on it just yet, I wanted to see if my suspicions were correct. Maybe a lifetime of watching spy movies and cop dramas corrupted my thinking. Maybe there was another explanation. Who knows, it could happen, I’m not God, I don’t know everything. I’ll play defense.

So after several weeks in total trying to appease this Associate Director’s unquenchable thirst for irrelevant details, and then getting ignored for a week she finally publishes it and sends it to the finance director to approve so it can go live.

Woo! Except for the module, which was supposed to be a 30-minute online course, now contained THREE HOURS of content, and went down several irrelevant rabbit holes that had been deemed ‘critical supporting information’. As an analogy, imagine designing a training module to teach a nurse how to enter some new CPT codes and being told you have to teach him how to read too because he might not know what words are.

That’s how much nonsense was rammed into this thing.

And the finance director of course hated it and was surprised that such a rambling mess of a module would come from me of all people. So he calls a meeting with me and the Associate Director on Tuesday to get some answers, and sure enough, she immediately tried to distance herself from it. Tried to paint it as she made a couple of suggestions and I clearly went way overboard.

How I must have sent her a different version that she approved and switched them afterward (that’s not even possible, it would get thrown back into a draft status). She kept trying to talk over me as I voiced my defense, and to his credit, the finance director finally just muted her so I could speak. And boy did I. I explained EVERYTHING. I shared my screen, popped in my flash drive, and opened my copies of the emails that had supposedly been deleted.

Every email exchange where she complained about the material, I pushed back, and she flat-out ordered me to build the module in the way I did.

She abruptly left the meeting and went offline. The finance director asked if I could send him a copy of all relevant files, and as I did so I told him they might not be there later. And then explained what I had learned about someone in IT using the compliance delete.

He assures me he’ll look into it, and things immediately went down. The Associate Director never logged back on. There was a massive internal audit where people from her previous departments were asked to provide statements. The leadership tried to keep it hush but you just can’t keep something that big under wraps. I don’t know the specific whats and hows, but the Associate Director and one of the IT managers had both ‘left the company to pursue the next stage of their careers, and we sincerely wish them the best.’ I don’t really do the social media thing, but over the next few days as the rumor mill did what rumor mills do I heard their stuff absolutely blew up, and it came out that the Associate Director and that IT manager were having an affair.

Now, this all went down about a month ago but as I wrote this post I thought to check online court records. Both are now facing divorces, filed by their respective spouses.

So yeah, there’s a void in my direct leadership, in IT’s leadership, and the entire IT department is getting a shakedown by information security to determine if there were any other leaks. I spent some time reflecting on why this whole series of events happened, and my best guess is she wanted to make a grand entrance by spearheading this masterwork training module that covered every possible scenario and contained any and all information anyone could possibly want.

Then as she started to realize how wasteful, rambling, and unnecessary it was, she realized that her grand entrance would be a grand faceplant. So she tried to erase the evidence and pin all the nonsense on me to save face, but inadvertently set in motion the events that would expose her little ‘arrangement’ with the IT manager. Taking it up the butt in order to cover her butt I guess.”

1 points - Liked by jeba1 and LilacDark
Post


2. Think I'll Let That Go Unchallenged? That's Your Problem

Unsplash

“This is a tale of the one time in high school I was tossed out of a class. I cannot claim that one for myself. One of the instigators was tossed along with me. And considering the fact that the rest of the class was, at that particular moment, making the same level of decibels as we are, I tend to think I was not on the teacher’s pet list.

Suffice it to say, it was the German class and I think it was my third year of it. Every once in a while we got a simple German magazine, very small and only a few pages long called ‘Das Rad’ which means the wheel. For this project, she divvied the class into groups of 4 or 5 each. No one wanted me around so I was stuck with 2 other boys.

Typical manipulative lazy slobs. We had a total of 6 paragraphs to translate into English so we each should have gotten 2 paragraphs each. Instead, they took one apiece and dumped the other 4 on me. I told them they had better take their fair share.

‘Oh no, you know it better than we do.’

So, home I went.

The Lord of the Rings had been out for a while, I had read it a few times and I had also taught myself how to write in the Angerthas, the rune language that Gandalf and many others in Middle Earth used.

So, I translated the German into English and the English into the Angerthas. I had copies of it all. Next day I was back to school with my stack of papers.

Of course, in order to grab most of the credit, Mr. Smarty Pants had elected himself to present the translations. I handed him the copy of the Angerthas translation and I timed him. I swear it took him over 20 seconds to realize he could not read the Angerthas.

He turned to me and said, ‘Hey, I can’t read this.’

Again, I remind everyone the noise level in the class was about the same as he spoke to me. But for whatever reason, the teacher looked at both of us and said, ‘Shut up, not another word.’

However, I could not let that one go unchallenged, either of them. I looked Mr. Smarty Pants in the eye and said, ‘That’s your problem.’

Teacher had the last word. She threw us both out.”

1 points - Liked by LilacDark
Post


1. Call Me An Ungrateful Brat? I'll Act Just Like One

Unsplash

“Growing up, my sister and I had no love toward our father whatsoever. I’m not gonna bore you with details but he was horrible.

When my sister got accepted into a much better but also further high school than our local, she moved immediately and rarely visited. We were 10 years apart so I was 4 at that time. I grew up resenting her for leaving me to deal with his crap all by myself, but now I understand better and we’re on good terms.

My local factory was so big that it supported my whole town. Almost everyone worked there, so everyone knew each other. My parents too, but then it was purchased by the defense ministry and they decided to cut off anyone without at least a high school degree. My mother was let go, and this was after she’d had me 4 months. My father, however, made it until retirement and was granted military status.

Basically, they gave him an honorable rank so his pension would almost double, but also you’d have to act accordingly because, in terms of speaking, you’re military personnel now.

My childhood was an absolute nightmare, so needless to say I turned out to be an absolute mess. Anger management and mental instability are notably the worst and I’m still working on them.

When I turned 18, I enlisted.

Two major benefits: it didn’t cost anything and I could never come home if I didn’t want to. For me, it was literally a highway out of a nightmare.

Fast forward 3 years later, I got an honorable discharge (turned out I had actual mental problems, who would have known?) I got a bulk load of funds and even more in the following months when they were able to process my military insurance.

I came home to find my town incredibly underwhelming and my father hadn’t changed a bit. Not wanting to spend the rest of my life in this trash hole, I took what I could and moved to the city where my sister was living. The last words dear old dad said to me was ‘You’d never make it’ because apparently, being discharged for a mental illness showed that I was a coward.

Also, I think he didn’t like that I was tougher than the boy who used to obey his every word that I once was and that I’d stood up for myself more in the few weeks I’ve stayed with him than the entire 18 first years of my life.

I moved to a new environment, took up a blue-collar job (I was pretty beefy thanks to the military), and decided to pursue a career in IT, all the while taking care of my mental health.

Sometime during this time, he got diagnosed with cancer. I was told it was not dangerous, but operations were required. My sister had actually reconciled with him, partly because of my mother, a few years prior and would occasionally bring my niece home to visit them. She was quite successful, so she decided to pay for the whole thing. Operations, treatment, hospitals, recoveries, it was all hers.

She paid for this while moving into a new house and buying her first car (those things are pretty expensive in my country). My father had a huge bank account because of his pension, but he didn’t have to pay a single penny. After a year or so he’s on recovery, and all in all, things were good.

During this time I was struggling with working and studying, living paycheck to paycheck, and had to rely on a social program to get treatment for my illness.

I visited him after every operation, though it wasn’t anything tearful. If he didn’t poke me, I was fine.

After nearly a year of staying at my sister’s house, he and my mother headed home after his doctor gave him a go. At that time I was looking for a new job because my current job was horrible and it made my mental health actually worse, and I was lucky to find one where most of my skills were transferred and I had enough time to finish my studying.

One day my mother called in tears and asked me to come home that weekend. She told me that my father had been seeing someone else. Now I must admit I’d not put anything behind this man, but then I thought she was paranoid (she still is, up to this day, about everything) and I resented the thought of going home on a 4 hours trip both just for something that’s utterly unimportant.

So I calmed her and swept it under the rug.

Fast forward a few months, I got another call, this time from my sister. She came to visit that week with my niece to inform them that she was 3 months pregnant. What was supposed to be a happy union turned into an absolute crap show. Apparently, when my father left his phone unattended for a few minutes, his mistress sent him a very inappropriate picture and my mom saw it pop up.

Needless to say, all heck broke loose. My sister said that was the first in many years that she saw my mother scream bloody murder at my father, and when he tried to hit her, my sister threw herself in between, which prompted her husband to throw himself in between (because, you know, she’s 3 months pregnant). It all ended in a very teary trip back to our city after hours of hurling insults at each other.

The only good thing that came out of it was my mother somehow was able to bring his phone with her.

We convinced my mother to get a divorce, but she’s the submissive housewife who thought divorces were worse than boiling live puppies, and I think back then she’s still somewhat hoping that he’d turn around. They’ve been together for almost 35 years at that point so I figured something must have been there.

She didn’t want it, so we dropped it and decided to cut him out for good.

Lo and behold, half a year after the incident, my father’s side of the family started to contact me. I have a strict no-call policy where the only people allowed to call me outside of work hours are my mother, my sister, her husband, 3 of my best friends, and only recently, my significant other.

So to my bamboozlement, my father, his sister (my aunt), and his mother all called within a day. They suddenly acted so nice and convinced me to come to visit them. Obviously, that was all a ruse. After the incident, my father’s side all blamed my mother and said she should have kept it a secret and not made a mess ‘for the family’s sake’. They also disavowed me and my sister because we were ‘ungrateful brats’ after we did not accept their ultimate argument ‘He’s your father after all’.

Out of morbid curiosity, I ventured back alone to see what it was about. Turned out, they wanted to sell his house. It was on my grandmother’s land. Back when he was about to undergo his first operation, we didn’t know how it’d turn out so he transferred the house to my name because apparently, inheriting a dead person’s estate in my country is a living nightmare.

Out of convenience, we convinced my grandmother to give me the land as well since she was very old (80) at the time. This was back when we were on good terms, I knew for sure they would rather gouge their eyes out than follow up with any of that if it had happened a year later.

I smelt something in the air, I couldn’t place it but I knew it was there.

So I told them (nicely) that I would think of it and immediately went back, faking an emergency. A plan formed when I was driving back, and that’s the first time I’d been so pleased about anything I actually cracked a smile.

I went to my sister’s immediately (my mom had been staying with her) and laid out a plan. After a year of living in the city, my mom was much more open-minded and it only took a few convincing for her to agree with the plan.

My sister contacted a lawyer and asked what our options were. Because both the house and the land were in my name, they had no claim to them, and any paper that didn’t have my signature on it would be considered useless under the law. They could try and claim it was rented out, but then they’d have to move far away in hope that I’d never be able to locate them, and I knew it’d be too much trouble for a couple of old folks.

They could claim it’s his life achievement, but because he and my mother never divorced, it’s technically half hers as well. This is when I came up with an idea. I asked the lawyer what if my mother filed for a divorce, he said it’s highly unlikely the court would reward my mother’s full claim unless we could prove that he was unfaithful before the separation.

To his surprise, I could.

Remember the phone that my mother brought back from that day? It was smashed during the fighting but generally, still in one piece. She asked me to throw it away a few days after but my lazy self just brought it back to my place and threw it in the loft. Sufficient to say it provided us with more than enough proof of his indecency.

After weighing our options, I called to inform my father that I would come home the next month to make ‘an announcement.’ He was eager to hear it. Upon my arrival, they were so nice and sweet and whatnot, but after I introduced my lawyer it’s like they flipped a switch and suddenly became vile and violent. I presented him with 2 options: relinquish any claim to the house, or be served with a lawsuit.

In my country, marital violations are 6 months probation minimum, up to 2 years in prison. After a lot of screaming and name callings and feet stomping tantrums he kicked us out, so naturally, I assumed he chose the latter.

At the first hearing my mom, my lawyer, and I were present. It turned out to be another screaming contest in which he made up all kinds of lies about my mother.

At some point, my lawyer leaned in to tell me that if the officer didn’t stop his rantings, it’s likely that they were buddies and asked me to let him handle things. The officer told us this case wasn’t a priority, it would take months to process, we wouldn’t like the paperwork, and it’s best to settle this out of court. My lawyer politely declined and told my father to expect another hearing soon, under much less friendly circumstances.

He tried one more tactic in between, which was calling all the relatives and telling them how my mother was a witch and I was an ungrateful brat in hope of creating some kind of pressure on us. Very few of them took his side and even if all of them did, I would have never let him go that easy. In the second hearing, he finally cracked and agreed to my terms, which were relinquishing any claim he might have with the house and divorcing my mom.

Basically, the only person who has any claim to the house now is my mother. I agreed to let him keep living in it for the rest of his life though, but not anyone else, otherwise known as his mistress whom he was basically living with.

This was where my work started. First, my sister gathered all the receipts from all the medical billings she has paid for his treatment.

A few of them were missing, but we were able to put up a huge folder. I also crapped my pants learning how expensive cancer treatment could be. Not a fan.

When we had a general sum of the funds we billed him for it. This is very unethical in my country since children are expected to take care of their parents, but we threw that out the window long ago.

We also knew it was not a criminal case so we just went to small court claims and then sent in bailiffs to collect, which was just this lady. She went on with an ‘I don’t give a crap’ attitude and when he failed to comply, she sent in the police to start seizing assets. So say goodbye to wooden furniture, a 27-inch smart TV, a fridge, and a reclining massage chair, all were bought by my sister as well.

He had to pay out of his pocket because that lady insisted they continue seizing whatever he bought until she saw the funds. Although the final amount was halved (my mother, under the eyes of the law, shared half of that for some reason), it still cost him 70% of his saving. Of course, this wasn’t about the money, we were just petty. We told the moving company they could do whatever they wanted with the furniture.

Looking back I should have taken the recliner because my back hurts even though I’m only in my late 20s.

After that was done, I contacted my local factory to file a report. Remember the sweet pension he got with the condition that he behaved accordingly? Clearly, someone had been a bad boy. They let him go with it even though it was a small town and everyone knew everything because nobody ever filed a report, but that’s not the case anymore.

I gave them a very detailed folder with pictures from his phone. To say they were inappropriate was an understatement. They immediately set up a hearing and he was stripped of his rank, making his pension down to just over half of the original amount. I know this because old folks gossip like their lives depends on it, and my mother is not excluded. She was very happy hearing about that, it’s all she talked about in a month.

I was about to be done here but a week later, my sister called to tell me that my aunt came to her door to berate her and her children. My sister was working from home, my mom also lived there but had gone out for some reason. My sister just called security to kick her out and warn me she could go for me next.

I was seeing blood, not because of some lame Karen that could cause me inconveniences at most, but because she was screaming at my niece and nephew. As a gay man, I know full well the bloodline ends with me so I put all of my love into those little guys, to the point that if I had been there, I would have bitten her head off.

So I dug a little and found out my aunt was knees deep in debt. She was hoping she could leech some funds off my father, if not from what he made selling the house then from his big bank account. Since neither of those was available anymore she was very angry and thought she could lay it on my sister.

You wanna know what a man could do with determination and raging hatred?

I never set up an online social presence, mainly because up to my 18th birthday I was too poor to have a phone, and then the military taught me it wasn’t needed.

But, for this special occasion, I made an exception. I created a social media account and befriended her. I didn’t even have to pretend to be anyone since old people apparently accept friend requests from anyone. She had this vibe where she’d show off her money and her vacations and her items, like a wealthy person. From my mother and her trusty gossip circle, I knew that she always told whoever she owed funds that she was struggling.

So I figured she must be blocking them.

The next part was easy. I just had to send all of her selfies to everyone she’s owing to. I didn’t have to declare myself since I was literally on a throwaway account, so it’s just this really long line of messages that showed my aunt spending her money lavishly. For the next following month, she was threatened, not with legal actions like I did, but with much more sinister actions.

She would have people throw ‘gifts’ at her door, like paint, fish sauce, and sometimes, literal crap. My mother also told me this of course. She finally figured out what I was gonna do when I told her to find me a list of all the people she owes.

As much as I want to take credit for this, the idea wasn’t mine. Forgive me for I once again had to lay out a bit of background.

My father’s side of the family is this very traditional family where you would have a person acting as the head of the family deciding things that matter. This was way before the war so obviously they don’t do such things anymore. But the head of the family still has a certain voice, and there’s this once-in-a-year ceremony where we gather together to pay tribute to our ancestors.

During the ceremony, the head of the family will give a speech, and then some announcements like who died, who got married, who gave birth, etc. Then there will be a celebratory party where we basically get crap-faced intoxicated. My great grandfather was the head, he had three sons and 2 of them died during the war, so my grandfather took the mantle, then my father, and eventually, me.

This whole side of the family is in another town that’s like 3 hours away from our town, mainly because my grandfather didn’t expect to be the head, so he moved out seeking opportunities. I found these gatherings redundant and unnecessary, but that year I was actually looking forward to them. My father tried to keep the actual date hidden (it wasn’t fixed but generally, somewhen between June), but he seriously underestimated my mother.

She doesn’t have a gossip circle, she has an infinite number of them. So my mother, my sister’s family, and I all head back for it. The trip was 14 hours in total, but the result was worth it.

We timed it so we would come 2 days earlier than my father (again thanks to her gossip circle). This side of the family had never heard the full story before, only the version my father gave them, which was that he and my mother left in good faith.

I actually gave my father some credit for not badmouthing my mom. After weighing all the pros and cons, we decided to let my mother loose, and she’s exceptional when it came to relaying details about her personal tragedies. I kid you not if I had posted her story, word for word, by this time next week there would be a global Justice-For-OP’s-Mother movement. It took just one day for everyone to know what a jerk my father had been.

The look on his face when he arrived, with my aunt and my grandmother, and saw my family already there was priceless. He got the stink eye from everyone for the rest of the day, nobody would initiate conversations with him so he’s just sitting there like a sad dog.

Now I know what they said about dead horses but this idea was brilliant not to follow through.

My uncle, let’s call him Oliver, came up with this. In the hierarchy, he’s equal to my father, and in the event that my branch doesn’t have a male successor (100% what’s going to happen), his branch will be the head of the family. He told me I should take up the mantle of the head. It was very sudden, I didn’t have a speech ready, my father was supposed to do that, but Oliver told me I could just tell whatever I want because nobody really paid attention to that thing anyway.

All the other elders were okay with it.

The speech wasn’t even the best thing. At the celebratory party, people will be assigned tables based on the family tree. Heads of each branch will sit together, their children sit together, the elders sit together, and so on and so forth. Because I was elevated to the head of my branch, I would be sitting at the big boy table.

My father didn’t even get to sit at my supposed table because miraculously, it was full, even though I could have sworn there weren’t 20 of us and each table can sit up to 10. He had to sit at the regular table, with my aunt, and a bunch of nasty widows who didn’t hold back on their snarky comments (so I was told).

I don’t think he’ll ever come back to one of those any time soon.

My father is now just a miserable old man. His mistress left him because surprisingly, she was after his money. He’s living in our old house with next to nothing. His retirement money, though halved, was good enough for him to live by. Last I heard, his cancer has come back, and obviously this time my sister won’t be paying for it anymore. He had tried to initiate contact with my mother, trying to make amends.

We had to block his number and his profile on my mother’s account because she actually considered it. She has her soft sides.

My aunt has to sell her house to pay for all the debt, or else they’d just continue harassing her. She now lives in a small house she bought with the rest of her money. I felt bad for her husband because he’s actually chill and quite nice, but he’s not the most decisive and therefore doesn’t really confront her.

I hope he’s doing better. I have no empathy for her only son though. Let’s just say the apple doesn’t even fall from the tree.

How do I know all of this? My mother’s gossip circle.

I left my grandmother out of this because she’s very old. She’s not demented in any way, she’s perfectly sane, but she loved her son too much to admit he’s in the wrong.

Also, she was very nice and sweet to me growing up, a lot of my good memories are with her. I’m sad because she doesn’t see my mother the same. I also stopped talking to her, and would only visit once during Lunar New Year. She’s lived in the small house she and my grandfather built, on the land that’s now in my name. When she and my father are dead I will carry out her wish, to build an altar for her and my grandfather. Whether or not my father will be included is still up to debate.”

0 points - Liked by LilacDark
Post


Did these revenge stories have you gripping the edge of your seat? Upvote, downvote, and comment on your favorite stories by signing up for a Metaspoon account. Click Log In at the top right corner of this page to get started. (Note: Some stories have been shortened and modified for our audiences)