People Talk About Their Ineffable Moments Of Revenge
42. Shouldn't We All Get To Use The Team Cellphone?
“Back when I started my second ever job, I was in a team of three plus a manager, and we had a cellphone for emergencies, which should rotate between team members. Instead, the manager kept it (it was fully paid for both calls and data) and she’d call us if anything happened that needed our attention.
That manager and I started on the wrong foot since I was interviewed by a different person for a different team and was moved the day before starting work.
It had been about four months and although she didn’t like me because I wasn’t all buddy-buddy with her like the rest of the team, I did my job well enough so that she couldn’t do anything. One day after lunch my roommate called panicking since he came home to a flooded kitchen and a dead fridge and my manager just coming from lunch caught part of the conversation, stood next to my cubicle until I was finished and proceeded to scold me loud enough for the whole floor to hear (which was us and four other teams of 5+ people each) for using my phone at work, saying how it was unprofessional to use my phone at work.
So I said I wouldn’t use it at or for work anymore. She was so smug she didn’t notice the second part until later that week when she started blasting my phone at 2 AM for a work emergency and I never picked up or answered her texts.
That was part one of my MC.
The next day she was livid and during the daily team meeting I reiterated that my phone was mine to use and pick up, and if she wanted me on call, she’d have to relinquish the team cellphone, for which she hated me even more.
She had canceled her line so the supposed team phone had all her contacts, personal email, social networks, even personal photos, and videos. When I noticed this, I brought the phone to IT for non-compliance and they wiped it for me and brought it back to the three work-related contacts on the contact list and two apps we used for checking those work emergencies. When I gave it back at the end of the week, she had about 50 missed calls from different numbers (no contacts anymore, so they showed up only as phone numbers), and over a hundred text messages in the same way.
I stayed in that job for almost a year after this, with my manager speaking maybe six sentences to me during that time. I loved the quiet!”
41. Can't Shovel Your Own Spot? Get Your Car Covered In Ice
“It was a cold winter day. 8 inches of snow had fallen the night before, and the windchill made it feel as if it were in the negatives (Fahrenheit). I drive an all-wheel-drive SUV so I have no issues getting out. My wife on the other hand drives a Prius, which slides with the smallest amount of moisture on the road.
My car was down at the time, so we had to take my wife’s car.
I spent 45 minutes in the freezing cold shoveling that car out so we could get to the store. We were gone for an hour, and when we came back, our neighbor had taken the spot I had shoveled.
Our apartment complex doesn’t have assigned parking, but in the winter, it’s understood that if you shovel a spot, it’s yours. So when I saw his car in the spot I had just shoveled, I was pretty angry.
I went inside and filled two-gallon jugs of water. Went back out and poured them on his windshield. Rinse and repeat. I must have poured about ten gallons of water on his car. Being how cold it was, it was already freezing by the time I poured the last gallon on. It sat like that overnight.
The next morning, I got to watch as he helplessly tried to scrape all of these layers of ice off his windshield. His wiper blades were frozen to the windshield, so they are probably ruined.
Don’t take my goddamn parking spot.”
40. I'll Make You Throw Away Your Clothes
“I was a dancer in Guam sharing an apartment (paid for by the club) with two other dancers. The two other dancers were old friends and did a lot of substances. They stole about $3,000 from me one night (I had planned to take it to the bank the next day to get traveler’s checks, as the bank I used did not offer traveler’s checks) and I was angry but there was not a lot I could do.
Called the cops, but it was a small city and the girls were friends with the cops… the club owners couldn’t do anything without proof. I then watched these two jerks blow my 3-month vacation on a weekend worth of substances.
So the next time one of the girl’s husbands called and asked where she was, I casually told him that she was on shift at the club.
She had told me the week she moved in that her husband thought she was just there visiting and asked if I could refrain from telling him that she was dancing again. I conveniently ‘forgot.’ It was satisfying to hear them fighting on the phone for the next few days until I was able to get a ticket back to the mainland.
Not so passively, on the day I left, I cut the spaghetti straps off of all their tank tops and cut halfway through all of their electronic chargers. They deserved it – and worse.”
39. Lose Your Shoes And Get Grilled At The Train Station
“A long time back my father was traveling from Delhi to Bangalore by train. He was in the sleeper class of the train with a reserved ticket. While the journey was going on peacefully, he was not ready for what was about to happen. These were old times and the trains were slow running taking almost 2 days for such a long haul journey. So, when the train left Nagpur, two guys came in the coach and start behaving rudely with the passengers.
After threatening some people they came to my dad’s seat. He was a boy at that time and looked like a soft target. So one of them asked if he could sit on the seat for a while. Now, he could not afford to say no, and also on a humanitarian ground, he allowed them to sit there. Then the nightmare started. His space was constantly invaded and gradually taken away from him.
These guys were all over the seat. As the night came and everyone had to sleep they occupied the whole seat of my dad and one old uncle who was sitting opposite to him.
Now both people with tickets were left with no seat and two people without tickets were sleeping in their seats without even realizing that they have done anything wrong. So they decided to lay their bedsheet on the floor and sleep.
As the night was moving on my dad picked up 1 shoe of the right leg of the person occupying his seat and 1 shoe of the left leg of the person occupying the seat next to him and threw them out of the window. He slept peacefully afterward. When the morning came, he woke up with the sound of 2 people shouting and fighting each other.
They were the ones who occupied the seats. They were fanatically searching for their shoes. The conversation followed
Person1:- yaar how come only 1 shoe is missing, even if the thief would have come he would have taken both shoes.
Person2:- Those were my new shoes and now what will I do with 1 shoe.
Both:- Yaarr we have only completed 1 leg of the journey and we cannot go back like this.
Our fathers will kill us for losing the expensive new shoes and he would not believe that my right and your left are missing.
They threw the remaining 2 shoes out of the window as the train reached the destination. They even asked dad ‘have you seen our shoes? If we find out some mischievous deed you have done you will pay for it.’ And he gave an innocent reply ‘I am already at your feet Sire, how could I even think of doing anything mischievous.’
As the train reached the destination and my dad got down he saw 2 ticket checkers standing at the exit and checking tickets. He went to them and showed his ticket and also signaled them about two people without shoes and a ticket. As he moved on towards the exit he saw the ticket checkers grilling both of them and they pleaded to be let go.
What happened to them he was not concerned so he moved on with a smile.”
38. The Guys Enjoyed The Ginger Ale
“When I was a good deal younger (30 yrs ago) I worked on a tuna boat as a poler. Our boat was always one of the top boats for tonnage poled on board, quite hard work, long hours and decks full of tuna, etc. We’d get worked to a frazzle poling them on board, they have to jump onto the deck full of tuna – while dodging the hooks and tuna from the auto poling machines – to clear the deck of tuna to make room for more.
It was nothing for some days to pole 30-40 tons of tuna and then clean the boat while traveling to catch bait for the following day, up all night baiting, then to fish all the following day. At sea for a month at a time, no daily showers, covered in tuna blood and slime, sunburnt. Rough and ready guys, no room for SNAGS.
So hopefully that puts some perspective on what it was like – I loved it!
The deckhands had a small shared fridge to put drinks in, and as I suffered from seasickness, I’d keep a liter of dry ginger ale in it to have a drink to ward off the effects of being sick.
Well, my drink constantly seemed to evaporate daily all by itself. So after some weeks of this I spoke to the other guys and told them that if they wanted a drink to simply ask, the answer would be yes – just ask. Well it continued, and I kept thinking, they’re all young and should but don’t know better. Until… while on watch one night I went below and peed into the dry ginger, about a cupful per liter of (my) drink.
In the morning I got up, went into the galley for breakfast, with the guys sitting around waiting for me to spit the dummy as usual – it was a little game for us. I sat down and pretended to crack up about the evaporation and we all laughed about it, and I continued to act up (and pee into each bottle of my ginger ale) for the following months until the end of the season.
When we finished our end-of-the-fishing-year maintenance of the boat, the skipper invited us all up to his cabin for farewell drinks and during our joking around he found out about the evaporating ginger ale. He asked me if I wanted to keep my drinks in his fridge the following year, I started giggling like a schoolgirl and couldn’t stop – tears, the works. The guys seriously thought I’d really lost it, they tried to calm me down, and eventually, I did and then told them that between them they’d drank a good couple of gallons of my pee.
The skipper nearly wet himself laughing, the other guys… not so much.”
37. Boss Got Played By My Mom
“I got my first job when I was 15. I was really scared and nervous, but most of all excited to be starting a job. My goal was to do my job really well; I’ve always liked helping people and this was no exception. Anyway, I soon found out my boss was not only a nightmare but a scary nightmare. She would yell at staff for minor mistakes and take credit for all of their contributions to the small supermarket chain for which we worked.
She was aggressive to staff and customers and knew she could get away with it being the only small supermarket in our suburb. One day she went as far as to snatch a phone out of my hand, scratching my entire arm in the process. She smirked and did not apologize.
Anyway, she came into work one day and declared to the staff below her that she would be looking for a new job.
She said she had interviewed for one company and bragged about how well she did. I knew she was very charming and great at making first impressions. I felt sorry for the company who had no idea what they were getting themselves into. As she delved more into her bragging, she told us about an upcoming interview that she had with a company that was in her words ‘So much better.’ She was speaking of how she’d be able to come in late and set her own rules as she had no direct supervisor.
So that’s where I come in. Little did she know my mom worked in HR in this company, and funnily enough, she was on the panel to interview her. I gave mom a little heads up, though she knew from the many times I’d come home crying and terrified, what she was dealing with. She proceeded to interview her. She said to her during the interview that she will be ‘In touch within a few weeks.’ She said there were some logistical reasons why she couldn’t be notified sooner.
So boss comes in again, bragging how well the interview went. She calls up the first company and says no to them, telling them of the better offer she (had not yet) received. My mom’s company dragged out the process for six weeks. After those six weeks, they apologized and said they found a better candidate. It was my other co-worker, one she had also abused many times.
My boss never knew my part in the process. I quit soon after and still smile to this day when I think of it.”
36. Hope You Enjoy The Glorious Sounds Of Bagpipes
“Student housing in college was basically shared 3-bed apartments. You had your room and a shared bathroom and kitchen. Our college was a hotel & restaurant school, so students were ranging from 16-year-olds upwards. I was in the tourism section where you’d need your matriculation, so the youngest were in their 20s. However we had quite a few mature students, I was 25 and one of my flatmates was in his 40s, he was the senior in our class so I didn’t feel that old, he was the ’Old Boy’…
As you can imagine the housing had parties, which were fine, except as most of the students left for ‘home to mom’ for the weekend the big parties were midweek. So we are having an exam week but the younger kids have finished and have a party playing techno music (this was in the ’90s) and are loud until 5 in the morning or something obscene.
I had a pretty impressive old stereo kit, so at 8 I carry my speakers to the foyer and open the door to the echoing staircase and put on some Motörhead, ‘mixer at 11’…. people start opening the doors and screaming, I cut the music and yell ‘PLAY MORE TECHNO YOU JERKS.’ Well, my flatmate Old Boy didn’t appreciate the wakeup but we made it to the exams.
Then our third flatmate who was 17 or so decided to have a party with a couple of his mates and they had gotten booze. Lightweights get silly and totally obnoxious. And play techno… I just hated 90’s music… and we have an accounting exam in the morning. Old Boy and I tell him to knock it off but they continue until they are paraplegic. In the morning Old Boy comes to wake me and says some random dude is snoring on the sofa in the kitchen and someone is under the coat rack.
The place stinks… I get a cassette tape my sister had brought from her honeymoon, ‘Pipes and Drums of the Black Watch’, turn my speakers towards the thin wall, press play, lock my door, and Old Boy and I rush to get to our exam.
We come home and our mate staggers from the bathroom… ooooh you jerk…
Nothing like a horrid hangover and listening half an hour to bagpipes…”
35. Her Man Says She Was A Mistake
“I had been with my partner for 6 years.
One night he didn’t come home.
The next morning I get 2 phone calls. One from him explaining he had fallen asleep drinking at a friend’s house. The next call was from the girl who worked at the plumbing merchants where he got his supplies. She proceeded to tell me in a very vicious way that my man had been with her all night and gave me explicit details of their acts.
I was 21. My first and only partner since I was 15. It destroyed me. To find out you have been lied to is hard enough but to have the other woman phone and taunt me was very damaging.
My man kept saying she was a mistake and begged me to take him back. I moved to Spain and ignored him but the emails and contact never stopped.
Fast forward 10 years. He has married her.
He emails me again telling me he felt pressured, wasn’t happy about it, that he has never stopped loving me, and getting with her was one of the biggest mistakes of his life.
I sent it on to her.
Not sure if it’s something I feel proud of or not but revenge felt sweet.
What happened next? He called me shocked and upset I had done it.
I’m not normally so vindictive. But when I explained to him how I still burned up inside thinking of her phone calls and with her, gloves are off, he understood. (Burnings stopped now – can think of it too with no pain now)
He is halfway through his divorce. He’s still in the UK and I’m still in Spain but strangely we are very good friends now and talk every week.
We get on too well. Know each other’s families. He has popped into my mum and sisters to fix things and for a cup of tea.
He was a young boy of 21 when he became unfaithful. I’m not saying it’s excusable but it’s understandable. Neither of us had been with anyone else etc. He has learned a lot and really matured. Still lets me know he would like us to be together but I have made it clear.
It won’t happen but I love him like a brother now.
She was so vicious and what she said was awful and even years on when I matured and thought about her and what she said it was still shocking.
So years on when I got the email I did have second thoughts as I didn’t want to hurt my ex but my finger would not stop twitching. I had to do it. I justify it by hoping she learns some class and morals and how to treat her fellow women.
She put a few things up on social media referring to me afterward but I didn’t respond as she only embarrassed herself.”
34. Good-For-Nothing Dad Expects Father's Day Greetings
“My ex was ‘a jackwagon’. A horrible, lying, abusive man. Years after our divorce, and years of my kids not hearing from him, he calls my daughter. All adults now, she spoke politely but matter-of-factly. I guess he thought she would be ecstatic to hear from him. Anyway, she was honest, polite, and brutal at the same time and she let him know she was doing fine.
I had remarried and so had he. And her wedding was coming up. So they continued to talk on occasion and my oldest son was in the Marine Corps. She was going to be married in our backyard under this beautiful redbud tree. She spoke with my hubby and me and asked if she could invite him. We said yes. But when she called to invite him, she said: ‘my step-dad is giving me away.
He has been the best father to me and if you have a problem with that, don’t come.’ But he did and was polite, bringing his ‘family’ with him. We were gracious of course, but my hubby could not have been prouder. He gave her away and the ex never said one wrong thing.
As Fathers’ Day neared, he called her and I guess wanted her to tell him Happy Fathers Day.
She said ‘for many years, my Mom got Father’s Day cards from us, and then she married my stepdad and he gets the Father’s Day card’. He told her she sure was to the point. She said ‘my Mom taught me to speak my mind and say what I feel, so if you don’t want the truth, don’t ask’… he has since quit contacting the kids. I never bashed him and knew that his fathering skills sucked when they were young, but what they saw in him as adults just solidified that they truly don’t have any use for him. I had to smile because they have an amazing step-dad… a true father and we all are very close.”
33. Think You Know Best? Get Awful-Looking Shirts
“I work for an embroidery company that embroiders logos onto uniform shirts. There is this one particular shirt we get all the time that has a diagonal closure, so the left side of the chest is essentially covered by a huge flap coming from the right side. There is such little room on the left side that any logo bigger than an inch looks like it’s going into the person’s armpit.
After a few complaints, we made it policy to only allow that shirt to put logos on the right.
A big company we work with likes to make massive orders with generalized embroidery placement (ex. 10 different types of garments, all embroidered with a logo on the left chest). Whenever I would see that this particular shirt was in the mix, I would reach out to them to let them know we needed to switch the logo to the right side.
One (difficult) manager from that company reached out to their client with my suggestion and got an earful because the client insisted that their logo could ONLY be placed on the left, due to company policy. Instead of smoothing it over with her client, this rep took it out on me. She sent me a very aggressive email stating that we were perfectly capable of embroidering this shirt on the left side because we had done it in the past, and to STOP blowing up her inbox with our ‘suggestions for a better embroidery location.’ From now on, whatever embroidery location the order requests is FINAL.
I saved the email and got my boss’s blessing to immediately stop all quality control emails for this company, ‘per manager.’
One day a HUGE order comes in, ALL diagonal-closure shirts, ALL left side embroidery. I maliciously complied and sent the order on its way, with no hassle to the manager.
A week later an executive from that company emails me, horrified. He forwarded photos of the client’s shirts, all with the logos in the armpits.
He said they were having to refund the client over 10k and that the client was in an uproar, never wanting to order shirts from them again! Why did we NOT tell them this was a bad location for the embroidery?!
I didn’t say a word, simply forwarded the email the manager sent me, telling me verbatim that I was to no longer waste the company’s time making useless suggestions for those shirts.
It was confirmed they had to do a big fat refund and I did not see a re-order, so I suspect the client dismissed them as a vendor (was a huge client, think a very swanky hotel brand, we don’t usually get emails from the executives so I think they were really hoping for big bucks with these guys, oh well). As far as the manager goes, I suspect she was demoted. They sent us a VERY polite, groveling email introducing a new manager, and requesting that we resume our quality control, emphasizing that we knew best!”
32. Won't Let Me Leave Early For One Day? I'll Only Work During Core Hours
“This was for a summer job in college. My roommate and I worked about a 15-minute drive from each other, in the same general direction from home, so we carpooled. One week I’d drive, drop him off at the front door at 8:30, go to my office, park at about 8:45 and it would be almost 9:00 by the time I got to my office (the parking lot wasn’t that close and the building was big).
I’d then leave at 5, and it was about 5:30 by the time I picked him up. The next week, he’d drive and drop me off at 8:30, pick me up at 5:30. We were being paid to work from 9-5. This was office work – in IT working on individual projects – so the exact times we were in the office didn’t really matter anyway.
So the result of our carpooling arrangement was that every other week one of us would end up working an extra hour every day.
I had no problem with that, because it saved gas, parking fees, and made the commute more pleasant.
One day my friend asked if I could leave work 15 minutes early the next day as he had an evening commitment and had already cleared it with his boss.
I said it should be no problem and asked my supervisor ‘Hey, do you mind if I leave at 4:45 instead of 5:00 tomorrow?’ Instead of agreeing he said no because we have set times and we have to start at 9 and finish at 5 and not one minute earlier or later.
So, I complied with that. The next day we both drove individually so that my friend could leave early, but the rest of the summer whenever I showed up at 8:30, I read a book until it was 9, and stopped working at 5:00 on the dot, and either read or just stared at the wall while waiting for my ride.
Not letting me leave 15 minutes early once cost him about 2 months of having free productivity for an hour from me every day.”
31. Prank Caller Gets Prank Called
“I used to get frequent missed calls and absurd SMSs from who I believed was some girl who was teasing me and knew few things about me. I just got married at that time and wasn’t sure how to explain this to my wife. I didn’t want her to take that seriously. For many days I got these calls and the girly voice would say ‘Darling…’ ‘Love…’, and would hang up before I could even make an attempt to recognize the voice.
The calls were very short. Sometimes I ignored it. The girl was having some fun and I couldn’t figure out the caller. I didn’t have a smartphone then otherwise I could’ve figured out the number through the TrueCaller app. So, I randomly typed the 10 digits unknown mobile number on google. The first page didn’t yield any result.
On the next page of Google, I found a name – Rajeev Borkotoki with the number.
Damn. This guy was my friend and flatmate during my college days about 6 years back then. We used to do a lot of pranks back in those days and then after college, we went in different directions in search of our careers. He stayed back in Assam and I came to Delhi. Now that the riddle is solved, it’s my turn to counter prank. So I went online, created a new email id in his name, and started posting ads on sites like eBay, Olx, Quikr, and a few other similar sites.
I provided Rajeev’s mobile number for buyers to contact. Now, I wanted many many buyers’ inquiries on this number with the intention that he would be frustrated by these calls, frustrated to the point of breaking his mobile phone. What I did was, I posted an ad for iPhone for immediate sale for Rs. 5000. I posted Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycle for Rs. 10,000, LED tv for Rs.
2000. A car for Rs. 20,000. There were miscellaneous such ads I posted for throw-away price. Who wouldn’t call to check this stuff when the prices were dirt cheap. So cheap that you’d buy it even if you didn’t need it.
Four days after that secret mission of mine, my mobile rang. It was Rajeev. Unlike previous calls, this time the phone kept ringing. It wasn’t a missed call.
Earlier he used to give a short buzz and when I tried to take the call, he’d disconnect. That gave him immense pleasure to make me sick. Now, he wanted me to take his call, but I didn’t. He rang again and I ignored him. This happened the entire day. I was assuming that he was fed up with incoming calls from buyers enquiring about the ‘For Sale’ items and figured out that I am the mastermind behind this. He tried to contact me consistently for two weeks (maybe he wanted me to remove his number from those sites), but I didn’t take the calls. The calls stopped. Maybe he threw away his mobile phone out of frustration. Maybe he’s fighting with the callers. Peace and pleasure is mine.”
30. I Shared A Secret To Her
“Moved to a small town in Washington state with a school that had only 200 students in a K-12 facility. Of course, in small towns, everyone makes your business their business.
Another newbie girl from the LA area had moved here with her family. The girl was ugly and plain, and apparently thought I was better on some level than her. Was always rude and started rumors about me.
I was a naive 13-year-old, and at the time, couldn’t figure out why she was causing me so much trouble. People would believe her unquestioningly, without checking with me to see what the real story was.
I had a reputation of being a real square, didn’t drink, smoke, hang out, or have a partner. Dressed pretty conservatively. So I guess I was a sort of terra incognita as I kept to myself a lot.
These small-town kids were pretty wild and were into substances and robbing stuff off trucks that were traveling on the local ferry. In addition, when they got bored, they’d vandalize people’s summer cabins, which were usually unoccupied during the off-season. Lots of drinking, wild parties, and darker things went on. I never joined them.
One day, after I’d gotten fed up with being this idiot’s victim, I told her (out of earshot of anyone else) that I was drinking a lot. This is something I KNEW that no one else would fall for.
And they didn’t. Boy did she lose face. She got confronted about this rumor by several of the kids in the school. She yelled something at me about me being sneaky (as in pot calls kettle black). I didn’t care, I was pretty happy.
She never said a word about me again.”
29. Annoying Junior Kissed My Wet Jacket
“It was a normal day in my average life. It was also raining just enough for the jacket I was carrying to get wet and not enough for me to bother getting out my umbrella. Of course, I regretted not getting out the umbrella once I discovered the jacket I was carrying was wet, which led to me standing a couple of meters away from my next class’ classroom door, in the commons area, and brushing off my jacket with a tissue to get rid of some of the water.
My previous class was quite close, which was why there was almost no one there when I arrived. So there I was, standing there, minding my own business and well and truly out of the way of where I knew people were to put their bags if they were in the labs that period when a bunch of juniors came in and put their bags down.
Two boys, however, didn’t seem to care that I was standing there or that there was plenty of space other than right at my feet to put their bags. They were laughing, goofing off, and one of them was trying and failing at beatboxing, so I just ignored them.
Then one of them walked off to join the rest of their science class but stopped halfway to exchange grins with their mate, and the remaining guy – the failer of a beatboxer – proceeded to stare straight at me, laughing and silently taunting all the while blowing out puffs of air pretty much about a hand or so away from my face.
I frowned at him, he didn’t stop, and the other guy watched on in amusement which only encouraged the beatboxing failure.
Now, at this point, I was pretty annoyed. Not only was he reminding me of some of the nastier times in my life where annoyances went out of their way to annoy me for nothing but the heck of it, (which resulted in the rather anxious me to become a popular target for other annoyances looking for entertainment), but it was Monday morning.
‘Nuff said.
So, I looked down at the still wet jacket bundle I was holding, lifted it to his face level, and sloooooowly pushed out and then some.
He let out ignorant spluttering noises and moved away from me, while his friend went ‘oooooooooooooohhhhhh’ in delight.
True, I could’ve been more mature about it all, but why forsake the satisfactory option for something as boring as ‘mature?’
Funnily enough, I don’t even remember his face anymore.”
28. They Thought I Was Not Hearing Them So They Stopped
“Well once these girls were bullying me at a day camp, and on the last day, we were taking the bus back to the base after an activity. You see, at that time, I spoke too much of myself and didn’t listen to others much. When they asked my name the first day, I answered and started babbling away, forgetting to return the question. They made me regret that little moment of forgetfulness and bullied me about the fact I talked about my life (they were jealous, I know because I lived in many countries and they’d only lived in France.)
So on the way back, they started telling everyone about this, and I’m the type that talks back.
But I knew they’d keep bullying me if I answered back, so to avoid being bullied and annoyed by joining bullies, I faked sleeping.
It was a rather strange experiment, listening to the bullies without seeing their faces. After 5 minutes, they stopped talking about me. I got to daydream in peace.
Sure, some little kids started throwing their coats at me to see if I’d wake up, but I ignored them.
At the end of the ride, I told them it wasn’t nice to throw things on sleeping people, especially when the person ISN’T sleeping.
But my sadness from this bullying (because I would have liked to be friends with those girls; there’s good in everyone!) was to be quickly erased and healed. When the camp ended that day, my brother and I were whining about how horrible the week had been for us.
My dad had come to get us in front of the camp base, and had opened the car trunk and was filming us. We took a while to see that. I continued towards him as he did this, asking why he was smiling and filming us (I thought he wanted to show us we looked stupid when we whined). As I finished my sentence, I looked into the trunk to put my bag in it.
I was utterly surprised at what I found.
My dad was filming our reaction; he’d bought a baby female dachshund. I was so happy! I guess that this is some sort of karma or recompense or just coincidence, but the fact that I’d been passive-aggressive in the bus had been somewhat (indirectly maybe) rewarded with my first pet dog!
As I’m writing this, I’m thinking about how I should really stop talking back to my brother and shut my mouth a bit. Maybe it’ll bring me more luck!”
27. Noisy Classmates Got Called Out
“When I was a tenth-grade student, nearly all students in my class and grade hated this one person. This person, unfortunately, was from my class, and it’s a he.
I swear he’s one of the most annoying kids I’ve ever known. He was smug, and he acted like he knows every single thing in the universe, where in fact, he did not. He was weird, and gosh, he’s just so…
unlikeable. I can’t list every single thing that he did that annoyed me and my classmates, but there’s a lot of them.
I tried not to hate him, really. I’ve tried being neutral, in fact, I was one of the students that treated him quite nicely. Meanwhile, my other classmates ignored him, isolated him, and when he started doing his annoying antics, my other classmates would look at him, and man, if looks could kill, he would be dead.
No one wanted to be in a group with him, because he would act like he’s the leader and start ordering his group-mate.
As I have mentioned before, I was not so bad to him, but that one time, he annoyed me so much that I was this close to punching his face.
Before we get to that, I’m going to explain that this guy, let’s call him X, has a significant other, and they’re like, super-duper close.
Students in my grade all said that they were going out, and honestly, I believed it because gosh, they went home together, ate lunch together, and wherever there’s X, there’s this girl. Let’s call her Y.
Now Y is similar to X, and Y is my friend’s classmate and nemesis. My friend hated her guts, because well, Y’s behavior was similar to X. Plus, Y acted like she’s the most important thing in this world.
Simply put, Y is annoying, just like X.
Now, my school is a Christian school with 900 or more students, and I moved from my previous school to this school with my friend when I started tenth grade. Every Wednesday, all the students in my school have to attend a Student Chapel. After the Student Chapel, the teachers would announce some announcements, and that day the announcement was very important.
Normally, we are not allowed to sit with students from other classes, but somehow that day it was allowed. So another friend of mine sat beside me, while my friend sat in front of me, but not directly in front of me.
Unfortunately, that day, I got the ‘jackpot’, which means that I have to sit with X. X sat beside me, and X was with Y.
In front of Y was my friend.
While the teacher was announcing that very important information, X decided that it was the perfect time to talk with Y.
‘Hey, how was class today?’
‘It was good, how was yours?’
‘It was amazing. We had Biology and we studied about ___, and ____,—’
‘What does ____ mean?’
‘Oh, that means…’
And so on, and so on.
I was irked and tried to tune them out, but they were right beside me and they were talking so loudly—I swear that the students that were sitting three rows in front of me could hear them too—that I couldn’t hear the teacher’s voice.
While I was silently fuming, my friend that was sitting directly in front of Y turned her head, and quietly called my name.
‘Nadine, be quiet.’
I raised my brow at her, and she smiled at me. I rolled my eyes, knowing that it was not directed at me.
X and Y did not realize this.
Their talking got louder, and louder, and louder and I had decided that I’d had enough.
I’m not going to lose some important information just because there’s this idiotic couple beside me talking and making lovey-dovey eyes at each other. I remembered that I was so angry that time, hence me being mean.
I snapped my head at X, and said, ‘X. Be. Quiet. Do you know how loud you were? Can’t you talk about how good today was later? Is it really that important that you need to discuss it with your girl now?’
His mouth hung open and Y’s eyes were trying to pop out of their sockets.
X grumbled and I continued, ‘Please. Just shut up, both of you. Other students beside you here actually want to listen to what the teacher is talking about and you two are talking so loudly that we can not hear anything.’
I huffed, and crossed my arms, and looked straight ahead.
Suddenly my friend called my name and I turned to look at her.
She had turned her head to look at Y, then X, then at me.
She smiled at me and she said loudly, ‘Thank you.’
Throughout the announcement, I didn’t even hear X and Y breathe.
I know it was really rude for me to do that, but it’s even ruder for them to talk loudly while everybody else is trying to pay attention to the teacher.
X is still in my class (right now I’m in eleventh grade), he’s still the most annoying kid in the class, but right now we all can tolerate him. A little bit. Y is also still in this school, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen her, and she’s not in my friend’s class too, much to my friend’s relief.”
26. I Dumped Him During Homecoming
“When I was in 10th grade, I was in what I thought was a serious relationship with a guy named… we’ll say, Brent. Brent and I had been going out for about 2 months, so you can say things were getting serious. We were going to be high school sweethearts, after all (haha).
So when Homecoming rolled around, I was expecting a huge proposal, right? Wrong. Sort of… After school one day, our group of friends approached me.
The girls were all giggly, the guys were all secretive, I KNEW what was happening! They took me by the hands to our school’s courtyard (which was really just a grass field) where Brent was standing at the ready. He held a bouquet of red roses with a golden ribbon that held TICKETS TO HAMILTON (Now would be a good time to mention that we were both theatre nerds) and a large black poster reading ‘I’ll be your Alexander if you’ll be my Elizabeth at HOCO, Stephanie…’ There was just one problem: My name is Alyssa.
At that moment, I remember watching whoever Stephanie (fake name) was squealing ‘yes!’ and jumping into his arms. I remember my best friend ‘Johnny’ (fake name) telling the others to stop filming. I remember my friends following me as I ran to the football field and hid under the bleachers. And I remember going to Homecoming… alone.
A few months later, Brent and I started going out again.
He’d told me that I was so much better than Stephanie, that he missed me, that he was sorry, all that generic nonsense. We had the same friends, and the same electives, and even lived a street away from each other. Basically, I saw him all the time. And I missed him too.
I should’ve known the same thing was going to happen. The last few months of Sophomore year, Brent had been caught by my friends several times ‘flirting with girls,’ and even with Stephanie after they played the lead roles in our school production of Grease.
I brushed it off, and he continued with the generic ‘I’ll never leave you!’s’
That summer, he broke up with me. Shocker! He claimed he couldn’t do ‘long-distance’ and that we’d hardly ever see each other. (Remember when I mentioned living a street away…) I had my fair share of cookie dough ice cream and Avril Lavigne music that night.
When school started up again, guess who else did? You got it: Brentlyssa! (That was the cringe ship name our friends assigned us, except his name wasn’t actually Brent, haha).
That’s right, we started going out again. By that time, I was annoyed. The only reason I went out with him was that I had an irrational fear of being single, for reasons you’ll later understand…
Deep down, though, I knew our relationship was built on lies. I came to resent him over time, as he used me for social media posts and attention, and to make girls he actually liked jealous.
I wanted to dump him. Before I did, though, I was going to get revenge.
With the help of my friends (our friends, but they didn’t like him as he was a jerk in many ways), we set up a very similar homecoming proposal to the last one, which was actually to Stephanie. I and my friends had something EPIC planned. I went out and bought red roses, and tickets to Love Never Dies as a local production was being shown at the time, and made a poster that read ‘I’ll be your Christine if you’ll be my Phantom.’ And we met up in the courtyard, but this time made sure a large(r) crowd was present. He looked so happy, I almost felt bad. ‘Jessica, will you go to prom with me?!’ I shouted at the top of my lungs.
That’s right. I came out as gay, dumped my trash significant other, and got the best revenge EVER all at the same time. And that year, Homecoming was a blast!”
25. Oftentimes, Fear And Respect Come Hand-In-Hand
“In elementary school, there were these four guys who composed the ‘bully squadron’ in school and on the playground. They were feared by the students and the teachers didn’t want to deal with their parents as the parents were worse than the kids.
I kept to myself most of the time and was left alone for the most part.
However, on this one day, as they took the basketball away from some smaller boys, I stepped up and took the ball back returning it to the smaller kids.
The four of them surrounded me and had their turn punching and/or kicking me. No teacher to be seen. I might have slipped in a punch or two but I wasn’t very big in comparison and was beaten down to submission.
I noticed, after that humiliating event, that none of the four of them alone or collectively would bother me. I guess they figured that I was not an easy target so what was in it for them?
That was about 5th grade.
Long story short, I finished the remainder of school becoming known as the martial arts guy, the weight-lifting guy, the guy to be left alone. I lifted weights at a minimum of four days per week and did a variety of martial arts daily.
Didn’t go to college right out of HS, but I worked in a tire shop located in the worst part of town. The owner rented me an upstairs apartment in the same building.
I still worked out and trained regularly. One could look at me and tell that I lifted regularly. I fought in several tournaments in the martial arts but won only as much as I didn’t. In tournaments, you fight on a point scale scoring for a well-placed punch or kick to certain pre-defined areas on the body. No one really ever got hurt except for the time I was on the receiving end of a ‘misplaced’ kick to the groin.
I digress.
One evening/night, as I walked up the street, I chanced to meet one of the four from the elementary school ‘bully squadron.’ As he turned around I was there. Right in his face. Mind you now, I had no intentions of revenge, but the look of fear in his eyes was all the revenge I could ever ask for. He looked as though he might have pooped himself.
Priceless.
After that unexpected encounter (where nothing really happened) I made it a point to look for and ‘happen upon’ each of the remaining three. And I did as I lived in the part of town where they frequented. Each time was as good as the first.
I never raised a finger but would just all of a sudden appear right there in front or beside them. I made it a point to startle each of them from time to time just to let them know I could. I even asked the ring leader on one occasion if he remembered me from school. He quickly nodded in affirmation and scurried to the other side of the street.
I left them alone after that. But I say to any bullies out there, be careful, because karma is real.”
24. Is It Garbage Collection Day Yet?
“I moved earlier last month. Our neighbors from the underworld kept parking on our drive amongst other annoyances. It was a rental, nice enough but too small with poor heating so we were looking to move anyway.
We had one car and they had three. The drive could fit two neatly parked cars. An alien concept to these people (when using other people’s spots) so it was a major annoyance if we needed to use our own drive or had a friend over.
On move day I placed our dustbins & recycle bins on the drive to save our space, I would have heard anyone moving them. I placed them in quite a weird arrangement and not very visible to the rest of the street just because of the angle of the house and the garden also as they were not placed close to the edge of the property.
This wasn’t deliberate just thinking about the placement in retrospect.
Rubbish/Trash is collected on a Monday, this was a Thursday.
Two of these neighbors and their kids arrive home, look over at our drive all confused. Next thing the mum is placing out their bins – but on the edge of the property as if it was collection day.
I didn’t bother to acknowledge them or let them know not to bother, or even that we were moving.
The van arrives, I bring in my bins. We head off to the new property. I don’t see any other neighbors have copied. We come back for our second trip. Neighbors bins are still there and two other neighbors (young families in this area) have copied them. This at first took the edge off my satisfaction but then I thought they will likely be cursing my neighbor from the underworld, not me.
I’m guessing they noticed the van but wanted to save face and then argued too long about who would go grab them.”
23. I Just Exercised My Free Will
“For eight long years, I had one of the world’s meanest and rudest supervisors who would regularly berate and ignore me and most of her other subordinates. It was no great surprise that she had been fired from several other jobs. I dreamed of the day when I dared to stand up to her, and it finally arrived.
Said supervisor was also the president of the employees’ union, a post she occupied with characteristic rancor.
Once she encouraged all of the employees to stage a sickout to force management’s hand over some minor issue that was one of her personal grails.
I was one of the few rank and file employees who quietly showed up to work that day. I will never forget the baffled look on her face over this modest exercise of free will. Look—you cannot lead those who won’t follow after you screwed them over again and again!”
22. Unfaithful Partner Had To Raise His Child Alone
“At the age of 24, I found out my partner of 7 years had been sleeping with a lot of other women. I caught him kissing a girl in our lounge and was told it was a mistake and a one-off. Never would it happen again. The next weekend, he confessed that actually, he had been sleeping with her for a while. I kicked him out of my house immediately.
He had to go and stay with her as he had nowhere else to stay.
About a week later, he was at my door. Before he had said anything, I knew what had happened. She was pregnant. He confessed he didn’t want to be with her but still loved me and didn’t want to be in this mess. I told him that he had brought all of this on by himself and so he had to deal with it all by himself and shut the door in his face.
I was sad but glad that this created an end to our time together. (Incidentally, he didn’t deal with it himself. He stole a total of £20,000 from me by emptying our bank account and running up my credit cards before I could split us apart financially).
They moved in together, got a flat in the ironically called ‘Friendship Way’ and I didn’t hear from them for a while.
After he left, several other women came forward to tell me that they had been sleeping with him for the past few years, which was gut-wrenching, but only served to make me stronger. I also moved jobs and through that, found out that he had been lying about going to work. He’d leave first thing in the morning and come back at night – however, his job was only from 11:30 am until 1:30 pm! I can only guess what he was up to the rest of the time.
So the baby was born and about a year after it arrived, I heard on the grapevine that she had left him. But she had left without taking the baby.
I’m not ashamed to say that I laughed. He screwed me over and now he had had his life changed forever too. I felt so sorry for the baby being abandoned by its mother like that, but he kept it and raised it as a single dad, which I am actually surprised about.
I didn’t think he would have the staying power.
It’s been 12 years since all that happened and I’m not angry about it anymore. He ruined my life financially but actually, saved me from a dead-end, abusive relationship that would never have ended peacefully. This is the first time I’ve ever written it down or really told anyone the almost full story and it’s been quite therapeutic!”
21. He Thought I Didn't Mean What I Said Before
“I was enjoying a drink in my new local when a young man approached me and asked me ‘Are you the jerk that’s just moved into the flat?’ I confirmed that I had moved into the seafront flat a few days previously. He told me to go to the car park so he can ‘see what I’m made of.’ I declined his offer stating that I know what I’m made of and have nothing to prove.
He prodded me in the chest saying that I was scared of getting my butt kicked. I said that it was quite probable that he could fight better than me but the point is I’m a sneaky dude. So what’s going to happen is he would hit me, I’d go down on my butt then he should always keep a watch over his shoulder because one day I’ll be behind him with a big stick.
He walked away and I thought that was the end of it. Unfortunately, he was not one to heed a warning and as I left later that evening he was in the car park with a few of his friends.
He walked up to me and punched me in the face. It was quite a reasonable punch but as I’m not a good fighter I rode the punch and went down to the ground, he stood over me shouting for me to stand up and fight him.
I refused and remained sitting on the ground. He pushed me over and called me names before walking away laughing with his friends. About 3 weeks later I had just walked my girl home and was walking back home when I saw him exit a gate a little way ahead of me and was walking in front of me. I passed a house that had a ‘for sale’ sign on a 2in x 2in post.
I pulled the post from the ground and snapped off the sign, running as quietly as possible I closed the distance between us. As I reached him I called his name, he turned to see who had called and I brought the post down on his collar bone. With a look of horror and surprise on his face, I said ‘I told you if you hit me you should always keep looking over your shoulder, you weren’t watching were you?’ he went to raise his fist but the pain was restricting his arm movement.
I walked away and even though he saw me in the pub numerous times he never bothered me. That isn’t the end of the story.
A few months after the incident I was riding my motorbike home from work and I could see a car ahead pulled to the side of the road with the bonnet raised, I recognized the young man as the person I had the altercation with.
I pulled in just in front of his car and asked if he needed a hand. He was a bit shocked to see it was me when I’d taken my helmet off. After calling me a few unprintable names he asked what it had to do with me. I said what had happened is behind us, having said I would deal out retribution at my convenience I had to carry it through or I’d end up being a punching bag for anyone wanting an easy fight.
Time to move on.
It was not a good area to leave a car unattended for anything over about 3 minutes in that stretch of road, seriously the people around there should work for the F1 pit crew, except they don’t put fresh wheels on after taking the existing ones off. I told him that my dad had been a sergeant in the Royal Corps of Transport and I’d been helping him service and repair cars (dad’s wages paid the bills, the car money paid for our summer holidays) since I was big enough to see over the slam panel when I stood on a milk crate.
5 minutes later his car was running and I was returning to my bike, he shouted to pop into the pub that night and he’d buy me a couple of drinks. The puzzled and shocked looks were absolutely priceless when I walked into the bar and he called me over, put his arm around my shoulder, and asked what I was drinking.
Most of the time I can avoid physical confrontation.
Where I grew up there were a lot of people that thought themselves tough. I was never coordinated enough to be a good fighter. My brother tried in vain to teach me how to defend myself. I had 3 chances, one was to run, which I was pretty good at, I represented the county for sea cadets at the national cross-country championships. Another option was to get in close and get them to the ground, my brother likened fighting me to wrestling with a spindly spider.
Even being over 3 years older than me because I was so wiry and supple he found it a real challenge to get me into a secure hold and with the strength I had in my legs if I managed to get a leg lock on him I could get him into submission. My final option which got me through most of my school years was to get a reputation as a person to leave alone or grow eyes in the back of your head.”
20. I Don't Go Out With Mean Men
“When I was in high school there was a young man I liked but he would say I was too skinny. I met him years later in college and he said, ‘Are you the girl who was so skinny and not attractive? Look at you now!!’ He asked me out and I said ‘No. If you did not like how I looked in high school and now you do why would I go out with someone so shallow who only cared about looks?’ It felt so good when he walked away and I said ‘No I won’t go out with you! You were mean then so what makes you think you are not mean now?!’ Ha ha ha I had the last laugh.”
19. I Know Who Caused The Spill
“In my work of cleaning up chemical and petroleum spills I regularly encounter people who try to exploit the legal system, so I wasn’t too surprised to be called out to help clean up a fuel spill that had ‘mysteriously’ flowed uphill next to the wall of a house. Naturally, I ended up testifying in court when the resident sued for damages. I described my investigation of the spill area and how I determined that the spot that we dug out by the house was uphill and not spatially connected to the main spill.
The trucking company’s defense attorney argued that the resident had dumped kerosene by his house to pump up his damage claim and I testified that the spot by his house smelled much fresher than the spot by the road. The passive-aggressive part was taking a picture of the cleanup that I could describe by identifying the plaintiff as the ‘guy wearing a neck brace’ which exactly fits the popular image of someone who would fabricate a personal injury claim.”
18. I Communicated With Him Through My WiFi Name And Password
“I once had this guy subletting a room at my place. I didn’t want him in my house, but my roommate assured me he was on the up and up after finding him on Craigslist and a 5-minute interview. This guy was a vagrant, a militant vegan, and had some of the poorest hygiene out of anyone I’ve ever met. Alas, he had cold hard cash in hand and we were in a tight spot regarding rent.
Initially, he seemed like a cool guy. He was a good conversationalist, had really incredible stories (although he embellished a lot), and seemed very friendly. About a week in, the problems started. My original roommate (B) was bipolar, I could calm him down in the event of a session of mania but all bets were off if he had some drink in him. The new guy (A) did something to set my roommate off.
B claimed to have found substances on the bathroom sink and immediately blamed A. The rule in the house was that any evidence of illegal stuff was cause for immediate eviction – something we should’ve gotten in writing in retrospect. So, the police showed up, to my disapproval, to sort this out. We had no grounds to kick A out based on the circumstantial evidence, we had to formally evict A through court.
B ended up leaving after a couple more arguments ensued and never came back.
So I was stuck with this strange guy in my house. He never showered, causing the whole house to reek of BO, he monopolized my TV and Netflix, and he made weird noises at night all the time. The next month, he was 2 weeks late with the rent, but according to AZ law, I still had to formally evict him which I had neither the time nor money to do.
Law be damned. One night I had enough and told him it wasn’t working out and it would be in the best interest of both of us for him to find a new place at the end of the month. He freaked out and said not only did I have to evict him, but he also wasn’t going to pay his share of bills either. At this point, the passive aggressiveness in me started to come out.
I started hiding my TV remotes because of said monopolization and he was watching some extremely nauseating YouTube shows for hours on end of things nobody but him would be interested in. So he started watching it on his phone, still soaking up my WiFi. I changed the name to ‘PAYYOURBILLSJERK’ and the password. He retaliated by punching holes in the wall and being more obnoxious with his weird noises.
He even went so far as to accuse me of stealing $400 he set aside to move out and catch a Greyhound home.
Then, one day I came home from work to find he was gone and his key on a sticky note on the kitchen counter. Unfortunately, my laptop, Wii, bass guitar, and Ruger .45 with ammo and cleaning kit which were locked away in my room, went with him.
Again I had to deal with the police to report my weapon, and big surprise, they never found my belongings or him. Eventually, I came to the justification that it was just stuff and I was happier with him gone. He didn’t take my PS3 right next to the Wii, I ended up getting an infinitely better bass guitar through an endorsement (Brandin guitars are the best ever BTW), bought a better laptop, and replaced the firearm. But I’ll never, ever have to put up that jerk ever again and have never had a roommate since.”
17. Karma Gave Her The Man She Deserves
“I was married back in the early ’90s. We had weekend parties. My partner smoked but I had stopped. So one weekend party this younger girl maybe 20, came to our house. She was all bouncy and dropped down on the floor in front of me asking ‘do you know anyone who wants to smoke?’ A huge red flag popped out of the top of her head, that screamed… ‘she’s gonna sleep with your husband.’
Not long after this party, several friends informed me that my husband was seeing this girl.
We can call her J. It wasn’t the first suspected, but it was the first confirmed. Anyway, he took off up North while I was sick in the hospital. This all happened in a couple of months.
A few years pass and I find myself in a Spanish class. I was struggling with putting my sentences in order. So I met up with a man from class and we started studying.
A few weeks past and he had really helped me at least pass the tests. We had been flirty and the semester was almost over. We talked about going out. That’s when he said, ‘I gotta tell you, I do have a partner her name is J and she lives in wolf creek.’ He went on talking about hooking up together. But my mind had put two and two together.
I got a full dose of revenge building in my head.
I wanted to bring her world down like she had mine. He had no clue, but I was in it for vengeance and more if needed. I was amazed at how the opportunity had presented itself. So we flirt a little more and head out to our cars. He is holding my hand and he turns to me and says, ‘well do you want to meet up.’ I look at him and say, ‘I really wish you had told me you had a partner from the beginning. Take care.’
I walked away grinning, the universe had given me a blessing. I got to see that she is getting what she gave and he will find another woman who will hook up with him. But not me. My satisfaction came from knowing there is Karma and sometimes my angels like to show me when it happens.”
16. Partygoer Had Four Counts Of Assault After 15 Years
“I was at a party when I was about 20. This one guy, let’s call him Pete (not his real name) gets wasted and for some reason sucker punches me and breaks my glasses. I fight back and since I’m not hammered, start getting the best of him. Two of his friends jump in and they beat me up pretty well. I get the other two back pretty quickly since I know where they live.
But Pete, he moves away. Fast forward about 15 years and Pete’s back in town. He’s always been a troublemaker since and gets arrested on his third or fourth aggravated assault charge. Bail is pretty high since he is a repeat offender. His wife/partner is trying to raise bail funds. I ended up buying most of his stuff for pennies on the dollar and reselling it for a handy profit.”
15. I Blasted Loud Music To Bug The Hungover Idiots
“In the mid-90s, I was working for a CPA firm on an out-of-town assignment in San Francisco. I was staying at the Hyatt Embarcadero Center (I presume it’s still called that). Nice hotel. Anyway, I’m working long hours, it’s Friday night, I have to work all day Saturday before flying home Saturday night. I’m asleep Friday night/early Saturday, suddenly I’m awake courtesy of the loud gang in the room next door.
My room was the very last room at the end of the hall, so no one except them shared a border with me. Anyway, the loud, boisterous jerks cost me what I wanted most, sleep. I eventually got back to sleep after an hour or two but I was still a groggy mess when I woke up early for work. Probably 6 AM or so.
Anyway, I was ready to go, packed my stuff, was about to walk out of the room then got a thought! Those wasted, hung-over idiots are all sleeping now.
There’s no one on one end of me to bother, just them. And as luck would have it the TV in my room borders the wall where their hungover heads are laying. So before I head out the door I turn on the TV, crank to max volume, then split. My black, dead heart hopes they suffered for a long time, maybe I ruined their whole day. Maybe they got on the phone right away to the staff and they were back to sleep in 15 minutes. Who knows, I got mine so to speak.”
14. Jerk Manager Lost The Election
“Back in 2006, I had a temporary admin job in the public sector, through an agency. As an older worker and following an illness, I was having difficulty finding any employment at all, in a jobs market saturated with young people.
Things went fine for probably a couple of months when a glamorous younger new manager arrived on the scene. She took an instant dislike to me and started to bully me.
I tried to ignore it because I was struggling financially and needed to earn a living, but she made my life miserable. Because she couldn’t criticize my work, she started to attack me personally. I don’t even want to repeat some of the things she said, but they were totally calculated and very personal. What she said behind my back I hate to imagine, but it got to the stage where nobody in the department of about a dozen people would even speak to me, for example when I tried to join in a conversation, one of the men said, ‘I was talking to (so and so) not to you.’
I should have complained to the agency but I didn’t, and eventually, she got me.
She accused me of saying something to her that I didn’t say, and I was forced to ‘consider my position.’ To their credit, the agency did find me something else, but my self-confidence and self-esteem were in shreds. I felt that I must be the most wretched creature on earth. Less than two months later I had a serious nervous breakdown that put me off work for at least 6 months.
In hindsight, I think it was age discrimination. Possibly she felt threatened by my competence and would rather have had a biddable 18-year-old working for her. As a middle-aged woman, I didn’t have the right image to feed her massive ego.
Imagine my horror then when a few years later she turns up as a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for a party who would claim to represent equality for all.
Some are more equal than others evidently. However, she came in for a lot of criticism in the local press for not pulling her weight in the campaign. I was only too delighted to see her fall flat on her botox face, and needless to say, she was not elected.
It doesn’t end there though. A couple of years ago through a social organization I was involved in, I got to talk to someone high up in her party (who although I got to know her reasonably well must remain anonymous) and told her the story.
She was sympathetic, said she could believe it of this person, and asked me, why didn’t I say anything at the time? Would I have been believed, would they have listened to me? I replied.
I’m very glad though that however belatedly I got to call out this monstrous bully and hypocrite. She may never know that this nobody, this person she tried to crush underfoot like an insect, came back to bite her. As a result, she can, I think, forget any prospect of a political career.”
13. Controlling Ex Wants Me Back
“A few years ago, I was in a relationship with my then significant other. He was a little dominant in our relationship and since I was in my late teens and this was my first relationship, I was more submissive to the decisions he made. First, it was very small things like, no you are not supposed to go out without me with your guy friends and then no to watching series he doesn’t like and to watch matches he likes and silly stuff like that.
I was not that close to my friends and I don’t watch many TV programs anyway, so I was kinda ok with it. Now next comes a series of other conditions. No, you should not work in private companies and no you should not organize that particular program because you can’t spend time with me. (The program we had to organize was in our college and he was a co-organizer and his then ex was also a co-organizer.) By now I was a little fed up with this charade but kept quiet.
The final blow comes when I get the opportunity to study in one of the premier institutes in India and he says that his parents don’t let girls in the family work. Why should I spend that much time in studies when I can’t work anyway. So I should rather start earning in some government office so that we can have some money once we marry and then I can drop my job and stay at home.
You have to understand that studying in the institute was a dream of not only mine but also my parents. I was in a dilemma when he threatened to break up with me if I go for postgraduate education. I have had enough and broke up with him.
It fueled my desire to work harder and achieve more and two years later I met this wonderful understanding person who totally got me.
He knew what happened in my previous relation, gave me the space to come out of that pain and fall in love all over again.
Coming to the passive-aggressive part. My ex, after three years, wanted me back and came asking for me to get back with him but I didn’t give a second glance and introduced my current partner to him.
He still wants me back to be in a submissive role but not let me live the way I want my life to be. He didn’t believe that I could ‘break his heart’ by falling in love with another guy.”
12. I Do Not Allow Line-Cutting
“In China, it is very common for people to cut in lines. I went from Shanghai to Yellow Mountain for the weekend and I had people try to cut in line at least five times including buying train tickets, the train bathroom, and buying tickets for the cable car on the mountain.
When I first moved to China I was very confused and bewildered by this extremely rude behavior.
Now I have learned the Chinese words ‘paidui’ which means to line up. I no longer let people cut in front of me. I tell them ‘paidui’ and mostly they will back down.
The passive-aggressive thing that I occasionally will do is what I call the ‘physical paidui’. It goes like this; if the person cuts the line then they must not be able to see me so I go along with it and pretend not to see them.
Last weekend coming back from Yellow Mountain I was lined up to board the subway in Shanghai. As the doors open some guy tries to cut the line from the outside. We both entered the subway car at the same time but I maintained my course as if he wasn’t there. As we both entered, this guy got jammed up between me and the subway door for a few seconds. He started hollering a bit then so I let off the pressure. After that, I wasn’t sure if he knew it was intentional or not but he glared at me for a while.”
11. Advised The Complaining Neighbor To Wear A Tinfoil Hat
“The man who lived in the apartment below mine had a lot of complaints about how he was sure he could not only hear music and laughter and voices from my apartment but that I deliberately made those noises only to annoy him. He also heard those sounds when I was not at home and the apartment was empty. He would even tell me if he was able to hear I was watching a movie in the early afternoon, despite it being acceptable for me to play even loud music or use power tools during the day! He tried to make the landlord remove me from my home because of the noises. Finally one day he was standing at my door and talking about how terrible a person I am. I told him to try to wear a tinfoil hat to get rid of the voices. After that, he never spoke to me and I was very happy when he finally moved out.”
10. Be A Messy Roommate? I'll Leave You A Messy Parting Gift
“In college, I had a really annoying slob of a roommate. He would never clean the place, would leave his pizza boxes everywhere. His room was a disaster. He was the creeper at school who you would spot staring at you.
We were roommates at an apartment building. He NEVER cleaned his room, he was the worst.
For example, I noticed one day that there was a cup of milk on the coffee table, by where he sits every day in front of the TV.
It had spoiled, after days of being there. Right in front of him!
I eventually decided to leave that school and move out. Before I moved out, I decided to leave a little something in his room. I left an old Chinese takeout rice container, I left it under his bed, by his pillow side. Knowing him, I KNOW it would be there for about a month at least before he’d notice it was there. Rice goes bad quickly. There would be endless fruit flies, and who knows what else hovering over him for weeks. I still laugh to myself about it to this day.”
9. He Gave Us Fruits As A Peace Offering
“This happened several months ago… I live in a very busy area in Jakarta, it is very hard to find a space for car parking unless it is our own private garage… I was about an hour away from home, so I called my housemaid to open the front gate to make sure I won’t be jamming the traffic. When I reached home, there was a luxury MPV in my garage, it was blocking my way into my own private garage…
hooters from everywhere were deafening my ears, people yelled at me. I didn’t want to make the situation worse, so I drove away and parked my car in the nearest gas station… I could not think, lots of things raged in my mind…
I hurried home to find out what was going on… my housemaid told me that she was already trying to forbid the driver not to park inside my garage, but there was nothing she could do since the driver had threatened her and told her that he was a police officer on duty and wouldn’t park there more than 10 minutes.
I thought it was too much. Trespassing and threatening… I could not wait any longer… it had been more than 2 hours, he didn’t show up… so I told my housemaid to pack some clothes for a night to spend at my brother’s house. I double-locked the front gate so the car was trapped inside, could not go anywhere. I went to my brother’s house and told him everything. We were laughing and agreed not to answer any call related to what would happen to the driver. The next day I asked my neighbor to deal with that man. The driver brought us tons of fancy fruits as a sign that he was terribly sorry… Gotcha!”
8. He Believed The Practice Is Held In The Science Lab
“Junior year high school end of the year I’m a teacher aid for Miss. Spencer. I hook up two of my boys and this kid we used to let hang out with us with the answers to a midterm. My two boys know how to get down as you can’t go from a low C at best to a perfect score on the midterm before the final.
Now the other dude James scores a 99%. Yes, he gets called into the office and it’s a wrap. My two boys and I get called in the office and we’re given the choice of summer school or an F. Now my boys wanna beat Jame’s butt and so do I, but after going what seemed like 12 rounds with Deacon Miller I thought twice about it.
Fast forward to Senior year. January the Dallas Cowboys (America’s Team) is playing the 49ers for the NFC Championship at the Stick (those of you not from Da Bay that’s Candlestick park). My high school band had the honor of helping with the U.S. flag doing the National Anthem. They needed more students than were in the band, so my two boys and I, and James add our names to the volunteer list.
Now Mr. Gomez the band director had one rule if you are 5 minutes early you are 10 minutes late. James doing school on the 1st day of practice asked me where the practice is being held and I tell him in the Science lab. Why he would think band practice would be held in the science lab and not the football field beats me but when he does make his way to the football field some 15 minutes late I just look at him and think revenge is a dish best served cold…. and yes I’m a Scorpio. I’m not evil just misunderstood…”
7. Dump Me In High School? I'll See You After Some Years
“In grade 7, my friend told me about this boy who had a crush on me since third grade. Apparently, I had been oblivious to him when everyone in school had already known. I didn’t do anything about it, but in grade 8, he asked me out. After a year of pure pressure, I ended up going out with him – sort of. My parents were strict and I was only 13 years old.
What in the world does a relationship mean anyway to a 13-year-old?
We didn’t go out anywhere or anything, but he walked me halfway home every day from school, and then we would talk on the phone after school for about half an hour before my parents came home. Cell phones weren’t a thing back then so we had to use old fashion landlines.
Fast forward a week or two in, he started asking me questions like, ‘why do you always dress like a boy? My brother told me he thought you were really ugly.’
Weeks went on and he would continue asking me questions like, ‘why are you so flat-chested?
Questions kept flowing and I was unable to answer them all.
At the time, I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t feel insulted he asked me those questions, just confused.
Six months later, he broke up with me saying he didn’t think I was a loyal girl. What does that mean? He told the school I was ugly… and that he made a mistake.
Fast forward halfway through high school, age 16? A bunch of guys asked me out and I became pretty popular.
Everything he had told me, other guys saw the opposite.
I was told he kept asking other girls out and getting rejected. Several years passed, I was in my early 20’s, he sent me a message saying how beautiful I had become and that he was wrong about me.
He was uneducated, didn’t do well in school. He was 5 foot at 13 and was still 5 foot at 20-something. I became apparently a swan that he didn’t wait for me to become… and he remained an unappealing person. I believe for my age, I’m pretty successful. There was growth in both my career and my image, and that is my best revenge to anyone that thought otherwise. Especially to a 13-year-old who called me ugly every day.”
6. Vain Guy's Embarrassing Photos Became Viral
“I was somewhat of a nerd in college. I was an early computer geek who started a small company in my dorm room during the mid to late 70s. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were unknown names at the time. Skip forward 10 years….
I’m the owner of a multimillion-dollar graphics-related company and I’ve easily made my first million dollars. My classmates from high school decide to hold a 10-year reunion.
I graduated from a school that only had about 200 graduating seniors.
As we walk into the initial gathering, the old high school football Captain is greeting everyone at the door. Now… keep in mind this is a guy I NEVER liked. He was good-looking, vain, considered himself to be God’s gift to women and he was the guy that every cute girl wanted to go out with.
As we walk through the doorway, Captain Bozo is insulting everyone… well the men, anyway. To me, he says, ‘Hey there… you’ve put on about 20 pounds (true) and that hair is getting kind of gray (also true).’
Captain Bozo married an incredibly attractive Mrs. Bozo. She stood by his side and squeezed his arm in cheerful glee as he held court for all those who entered.
As for the revenge portion of this story…
My business was loosely connected to the computer graphics field. At the time we were spending millions of dollars in print advertising in the various computer industry trade journals. As a result, we had our own in-house ad agency. We had an entire room full of high-resolution digital flatbed scanners, high-end color laser printers for comping work, etc. For 1985 it was state-of-the-art.
We had the ability to produce small-run, limited quantity publications. For this reason, prior to the reunion, I had volunteered to put together a class reunion booklet that would be distributed after the reunion to all members. I agreed to also pay for all shipping, handling, and production costs. I did so because I was the only person in the room who could; A. Do so and B.
Afford the cost!
At the time I and my staff were pioneering the use of digital photo manipulation using Photoshop. It was brand new to the world and we were one of the few organizations that knew how to use the product.
One of my classmates was a professional photographer. He took very nice photos of the reunion and turned them over to me for scanning and duplication into a booklet format.
As I was scanning the photos I came upon a closeup of Captain Bozo. It was only then that I realized HIS hairline was receding. Not bad… but definitely on the way to full male pattern baldness.
So… I scanned his photo, blew it up a bit, and Photoshopped about one inch of hair off his hairline. It was JUST enough to be noticeable to him (and probably everyone) but not enough to allow anyone to know what happened.
Keep in mind! Airbrushing things in and out of photos was NOT a concept that really existed in 1985. The ordinary public did NOT know this was possible!
And to top things off…
One of the high school cheerleaders was a real jerk in high school. She was too good for everyone. She would not give me, or most of the ‘normal’ guys, the time of day. She ended up marrying a Captain Bozo from our school who was several years older than us.
By the reunion in 1985, she had gained about 15–20 pounds and her stunning good looks were well on their way to becoming matronly plump!
So… Mrs. Witchy Cheerleader gets a couple of extra chins ala Photoshop. And what about Yours Truly’s photos? Thanks to Photoshop he looked great; no gray hair, no double chin, he lost about 10 digital pounds, etc. LOL
Approximately 200 photo booklets were printed and distributed to class members.
At least two of those members were not happy with their photos thanks to Photoshop.
So… where are they now?
Captain Bozo rose to the rank of General Sales Manager at a small car dealership. Today he has NO hair and he weighs about 300 pounds. That is a bit heavy for someone only about 5’11” tall! LOL. His wife is a rather big, matronly woman. It seems General Sales Managers at small car dealerships don’t make enough money to buy their wife Botox, filler, and facelifts.
As for Mrs. Witchy Cheerleader, she has not aged well. Those 15–20 pounds she gained in the 80s are now 100+ pounds. Her multiple chins nearly reach her saggy chest.
And me you ask? I went on to become a very successful businessman. I’ve lived a charmed life. Because of my success (and a little surgery), I am able to go out with anyone I like. My significant other is a former model who is also down-to-earth, kind, and smart.
The lesson here? ALWAYS treat others the way you would want to be treated! You never know when some little geek might make your life a little more difficult!”
5. I Pretended The Noisy Neighbor And I Were Close
“Years ago when my kids were young we lived next door to some people who really needed more space than what their house and yard afforded them. The father was a ham radio operator and his transmissions used to interrupt our phone conversations and our television reception. The noise even came out of our t.v. when it was turned off! The people’s kids were older than ours and used to beat up on them (just a little – oh it was an accident!) and take their things ‘as a joke.’ The worst thing was that they shot hard-tipped practice arrows into our yard and had Ninja throwing stars, not legal for children under 18 to have.
And they were unchaperoned. Complaints did no good and eventually, these people treated us as if we were the problem: if we’d just stop complaining, everything would be fine. They would never speak to us.
We moved, which saved our sanity but later when I saw the man at any social function I would say ‘Hi George! How’re ya doing?’ and act as if we were close friends. Then he had to be nice to me because everyone was looking. I knew it really bugged him.”
4. I Stood Up To The Jerks
“I vividly remember two bullies at my previous college, they were friends with each other (say ‘M’ and ‘N’) and always tried to bully the smaller size students by outnumbering them two to one.
One regular day, in my structural analysis class, ’N’ misbehaved with the lecturer and was immediately told to leave the class and so he did. Afterward, to mark him absent from the class, the lecturer asked us his roll no.
and here a significant moment happened. ‘M’ was sitting in front of me, and my friend ‘B’ was sitting behind me. And I don’t know for what reason, ‘B’ yelled N’s roll no. with extra enthusiasm. I was a bit surprised.
So, to check who ratted, N’s friend ‘M’ glanced back and looked at me and I looked at him as in ‘why are you staring?’ (Yup, you guessed it, he thought I was the one yelling N’s roll number).
And he kinda looked mad but then turned to the front without saying anything.
When I was having lunch with my friend ‘B’ and two other guys, they both (M and N) came towards us, red-eyed, yelling at me and accusing me of ratting. Now me not being very explanatory that they’ve got the wrong guy, just stood up to N, face to face, we almost merged within each other.
I don’t know what possessed me. I’d never felt so punchy hungry in my life. I was begging for a punch and would have gone all Van Damme on both of them. I would have given my everything then but realizing they are already in much trouble with the college authority, they backed off challenging me to see them off-campus and I replied, ‘Why? You’ve come to the campus wearing panties?’ (I don’t know how I came up with that line.)
They went away spitting some more threats and I came back to my friends who were in a mini shock and not saying anything. I raised my palm and saw I was shaking very very badly like I’d seen the scythe of death herself and was thinking to myself, what in the world was I thinking? It was an insane moment of mixed feelings of courage and fear.
But yeah, It was much satisfying standing up to those irritating jerks.”
3. Dog Gave Him Kisses
“I used to work in a coffee shop that had one of those water bowls for dogs and also a small jar of treats on the counter which we’d occasionally give to some of the dogs whose owners brought them in regularly while getting their morning cup of coffee. The dogs would sit there near the tables and their owners would chat for a while, etc.
We had one customer who was an older gentleman who tipped poorly and was often gruff and irritable when ordering his coffee. He hated dogs. He’d speak way too loudly to those of us behind the counter, and we’d always joke about the irony that this man who hated dogs so much had pretty strong dog breath.
One day it was raining out and he comes in and orders his coffee.
He’s impatiently drumming his fingers on the counter and harshing all of our moods. His impatient movements caught the attention of one of the dogs, which started sniffing around the man’s rear end like there’s no tomorrow. The man got miffed each time it happened, and my coworker intentionally slowed down the preparation of his coffee to prolong his agony. The man sternly said ‘down’ a few times but the dog’s attention had been piqued and his owner was in the restroom or something.
The dog was getting more amped up and wagging its tail big time. The man reached down to grab its collar to pull it away from his seat and next thing we all knew he’d slid onto the floor on his back, he must have slipped in a puddle from someone’s umbrella or something.
So this dog that was sniffing him comes up and starts licking up and down the man’s face like it’s made of tapioca.
We all start laughing and my coworker points out that the man seems unable to stand up. The dog’s leash, tied to a chair, had become tangled in the man’s legs and so when he tried to stand the dog would arch his back and keep licking away.
We noticed that the dog was licking around the man’s mouth, on his lips, etc., and the man was in a sort of rage.
We were a bit immature at the time and let this go on for about five minutes, during which time the dog got even more amped up and started barking loudly, making the four other dogs in the cafe start barking too.
Finally, one of the other customers, a nice older lady, helped him up. He looked so ashamed of what had happened. We got some great pics of the incident and put one of them on the register.
We did lose him as a customer after that but nobody really cared. We found out later that he was a decorated war hero and his walks to get coffee in our shop were the one thing he still enjoyed in his old age.”
2. I Bought Happy Meals To Pay For A Stolen Burger
“I was 16 years old when I had my first job in a fast-food chain. I was starting from scratch and supporting myself. I was very hungry and stole one hamburger during closing time. It was extra food in the inventory.
The next day, the store manager found out about the missing hamburger. He said I was the only staff who was capable of stealing. I looked very different then and I was skinny.
I confessed to him and he said he would just deduct the payment from my salary and not fire me.
He didn’t stop. He posted a photo of me on the bulletin board so every staff would see my stealing spree. He humiliated me and the next thing I knew, I got fired. When I received my salary one month later, the hamburger was deducted.
Thirteen years later, in 2016, a friend of mine miraculously bumped into our former manager in the same restaurant.
She told me Mr. Weber still works in the same place. I’m not a vengeful type of person, I find it a waste of time and energy. But Mr. Weber was an exception.
I walked inside the restaurant and ordered ten happy meals. I received the food and asked if the manager was around and I came up with an excuse that I would inquire about a kiddie party for my nephew.
Mr. Weber and I talked inside his office. He was older and going bald. We shook hands and smiled. He started writing on a piece of paper, ‘That’s a lot of happy meals you bought. Thank you,’ he said.
‘How many staff do you have today?’ I asked.
‘Thirteen, including me,’ he answered. The jerk included himself. I ordered three additional happy meals and he instructed a staff.
Mr. Weber was smiling a lot and continued explaining the kiddie party packages. I interrupted him and said, ‘I don’t need the happy meals. They’re for the crew and consider the thirteen happy meals as my payment for a piece of hamburger that I stole. You don’t remember me?’
He was baffled and said, ‘I do remember you now.’ His voice cracks and asks, ‘where are you now?’ I replied, ‘I work as a diplomatic service officer for FCO.'”
1. I Can't Rant In Class? I'll Just Have To Do It In The Essay
“So I had a history class last year where, for the midterm, my prof wanted us to write a mini-essay on a question she would give us. She said to make it at least 1000-1500 words. Now there was this guy in the class who thought he was already an expert on the subject (you know the type). He’s the guy that would ‘well actually’ the prof when she would start to explain something and went as far as to say she was wrong about a topic she had a Ph.D.
in (and had been teaching for 30+ years). Eventually, she stopped his rants and wouldn’t let him start debates and arguments in class cause they were taking up time. So when we got this midterm, someone asked if there was a maximum word limit and she said no.
You can see where this is going.
This guy decided, for his midterm, he’d just include every fragment of information he hadn’t gotten the chance to say in class, all for this one question.
When we got our midterms back, she made a joke that some of us gave really detailed answers. She even told us that someone wrote way more than expected.
The word count? 10,000 words.
I’m doing a master’s dissertation this year and my minimum is 12,000 words so this guy, for a midterm in an undergraduate lecture that was meant to be 1000 words, wrote an almost master’s thesis-length answer to ONE question because he was peeved the prof wouldn’t let him rant in lectures anymore.
Needless to say, our next project had a maximum word limit.”
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