People Speak Out About Their Low Key Revenge
35. Jerk Welder Got What He Deserved
“Once upon a time I ran a union demolition crew at a power plant in rural West Virginia. During a particularly difficult portion of the project, my crew was assigned to work inside of the burner room; removing the concrete casing. At the same time, welders were working nearby, in that same coal-dust encrusted cavern of metal.
Well, one day, I guess this welder got bored. So, while I had my crew working in one spot, he climbed the scaffold, working about 30 feet above us. This dropped sparks directly on us constantly.
So, being the diplomatic boss I am, I climbed up the scaffold, got the guy’s attention, and asked him how long he needed to be in that spot.
He acted oblivious to his fiery droppings and our existence in general. He told me he’d be done in 30 minutes or so.
Since it would take a while, and, since union crews don’t normally just sit idly by, I moved my crew to the other side of the structure and started working again.
It wasn’t 10 minutes before that same welder started shooting sparks on us again.
I got confrontational with him, moved my crew; wash, rinse and repeat for the remainder of the day.
I decided this was going to end one way or the other.
The Skid Loader (BobCat) operator had to leave every day at 3 pm.
Since I was certified, and he was a friend of mine, I grabbed the key from him that afternoon ‘just in case we need to clear a space with it’.
That particular welder was well known throughout the local unions as a guy who ditched the end of the day to avoid cleanup. And, like most slackers on the site; he ducked into a porta-john to wait out the last hour of each day.
Well, I watched closely as he went into the middle john of a row of 13 of them lined up neatly across the side of the building. After a couple of minutes, I took the skid loader and pressed that john (and one on each side of it) firmly against the building. I turned off the little BobCat, took the key, and went to my car to watch the show; all the while ignoring his screams for help.
It took a while, but people eventually came to his aid. Since no one else had a key to the Skid Loader, they used the boom truck (a small, portable crane) and tried to pull the BobCat backward. Since I had locked it down tight with the anchoring gear, they soon gave up.
Their only other alternative was to pull the johns out.
The first, just to the right of my victim’s, popped out quite easily. Then, they hooked to the top of his john, they pulled and pulled and the little BobCat held tight. Until suddenly, his john flew out from between the machine and building, landing hard on its side, covering him in blue liquid, urine, and turds.
Once he crawled out, I walked down the hill, looked at him and laughed, and said ‘dang, I didn’t know anybody was in there during cleanup. If you guys needed the key all you had to do was ask, you didn’t need to make a mess like this.’ I threw the key to a supervisor on the scene and laughed all the way back to my crew.
And he never showed up on a job site where I was stationed again.”
34. I Still Ended Up Walking Away With My Driver's License
“My wife and I were vacationing in Paris, France a few years ago. This was our penultimate day before we left for Rome and we decided to visit the Gardens of Versailles. We had a few issues getting there as you need to change metro lines to get there from where we were staying (we had rented an apartment close to the Louvre) and frankly, I made a mistake interpreting the instructions to get there.
Anyway, we arrived past noon. That bummed us out, but we decided to make the most of the day anyway. After visiting the palace, we decided to rent some bikes in order to cover more ground as the gardens are huge (at least they are to my Puerto Rican sensibilities). During the renting process, I was asked for an ID document for them to hold until I returned the bikes, so I gave them a copy of my driver’s license.
We were allowed to choose our bikes and both of them included locks. I’m not much of a bike rider, nor am I familiar with the locks they included so I didn’t pay attention to make sure that everything was fine. So anyway, we storm off and have a wonderful time visiting the Gardens, taking photos, and just taking in the beautiful sights.
We got to the entrance to a separate, smaller garden, and we needed to park the bikes to get in. That’s when I noticed that I didn’t have the key to the lock that I got on mine. No biggie, I thought to myself. I just waited outside since I couldn’t secure the bike as my wife went into the small section.
After we were done and went to return the bikes, the lady at the counter asked me about the key to the lock. I told her that I didn’t find a key to the lock; I think I may have been given a lock without a key. She didn’t like my saying that and immediately got on my case on how she personally makes sure that every lock has a key and that she never fails her job and asks a fellow employee to vouch for her thoroughness.
I apologized and asked her about the fee to replace the lock since there was no key to it. She got incensed and told me how there was no fee and that she would keep my documents (my driver’s license) for having lost the key. I politely asked her if there was a way I could pay a fee since I found it unreasonable for them to deny returning my license.
She started being rude again, yelling at me in French.
Ok, I thought to myself. The ID is a guarantee for me to return the bikes and it wasn’t being returned to me and she wouldn’t even negotiate a fee to get it back, so I was under no obligation to return the bikes.
I calmly walked away from the counter and into the lot with the bikes. The employee at the lot was confused but didn’t say anything and I looked for the bikes that we had returned and grabbed them, and started to leave with them. At this point, I heard a shout as I left the lot with the bikes and this older man asks me why I had returned to take the bikes that I had returned. I explained myself to him and how I felt no obligation to return the bikes as the lady wouldn’t return my driver’s license.
He promptly worked out a fee for me; it was about 5 Euros if memory serves me right. I paid the fee and walked away with my driver’s license. I wonder why the lady didn’t try to work out a fee with me, but I have to thank her for the fun of watching their faces as I walked out of the lot with the bikes in tow.”
33. I Found Out Where They Sell Chocolate-Covered Insects
“When I was in elementary school, we moved, and for a time I was struggling, had no friends, and was having trouble making friends. I thought I had made friends with a girl who moved in a couple of houses away. However, after a little while, she told me that while she was willing to be friends with me, she didn’t want to be seen with me or have anyone know we were friends.
I found this really hurtful.
About that time we were covering Australia in class and the teacher showed us a film about aboriginal people eating insects and brought some chocolate-covered insects to class. I thought this was very cool and tried one (not bad, like a crunchy raisin-ette). I had by this time made friends with another new girl who, like me, was ‘on the outs’.
We had to attend a birthday party for the 1st girl I mentioned. Together we found out where we could get chocolate-covered insects (a nice small assortment, in a small plastic box) and I gave these to her (unlabeled) and didn’t happen to mention what they were. I figured this was the perfect symbol really about what a great ‘friend’ she was.
Her reaction after she ate one and asked what they were was beyond priceless (I didn’t think this was all that bad, but DID she FREAK OUT, and in front of everyone).
Given that I knew by this time she was of course saying bad things about me with her ‘cool’ group of friends, it’s not like it hurt me anymore when she ranted and cried or even when her mother dressed me down calling me the worst things.
It was especially great for me because in her freaking out, she revealed just how mean and spiteful she really was. It was one of the very few times in my life this ever worked out. Mostly I have found this kind of thing is not worth it (better to just move on), but this is still a fond memory all these years later.”
32. She Thought I Didn't Get Into Anything Good Either
“There was this one girl in my high school class.
She was Miss Popular, but not someone friendly and nice, more like the mean kind of popular from the movies.
She was really nasty, downright cruel for fun, loved to brag about how great and pretty she was, and sucked up to every teacher like it was her life’s goal. She manipulated everyone she could for any little reason and bragged about how much fun it was to manipulate people and get others to do her bidding.
We’re from an Ontario high school, so there were very few of us actively trying to get into top US colleges. Both of us were among them. For several years, all she could talk about was Columbia University. How perfect of a fit she was for Columbia, how much she couldn’t wait to go, how sure she was she would be accepted. She was talking to all these admissions people to secure her acceptance.
She was in the ‘know.’ Columbia was her dream, but, ‘you never know,’ she claimed, ‘I’m going to have a hard time deciding between Columbia and Harvard.’
App season comes around. She’s decided she’s too good for Columbia ED and applies to Princeton SCEA. She wants to keep her options open.
She’s deferred, unsurprisingly.
I, too, was deferred from my EA school.
In the RD round, I was accepted to Columbia, two other Ivies, and a bunch of comparable universities, most on more than 50% ride (scholarships + aid). The only US college she was accepted to was NYU, with a $1K entrance scholarship.
The little brat was down for a while, but man.
She could not shut up about that $1K scholarship. She was totally smug about it, too, and would mention it every time we ran into each other. I assume she thought I didn’t get into anywhere good, either.
Decision day rolls around and I come into school wearing my Columbia tee shirt.
The look on her face was amazing.
I wore some sort of Columbia gear (whether that tee-shirt, my Columbia hat or my Columbia sweater) every single day the rest of the school year.”
31. I Guess I Really Am A Softie
“I was in class when this happened and we were talking with our teacher about our university plans and what we are planning to do in the future. She asked me what I am planning to do after high school.
‘Study political sciences.
I am really passionate about it and I can see myself in it.’
It was a rather weird answer given the fact that I am in med. school and for all I know, I was planning to continue medicine but my mind has changed. She smiled and said that they can’t wait to see me in politics when I heard someone laughing.
It was the girl I really don’t like – she is arrogant and her hobby is to make fun of people most of the time.
‘You in politics?! Hahaha! God forbid! You are a softie! That is a really funny scenario to imagine. Lara you are going to make a fool of yourself but then again, I live to see people making themselves look like fools so I won’t complain.
You are a really good person to make fun of.’
‘The last time I checked, I didn’t ask what you think about my goals and it surely isn’t yours to say what am I, putting your nose where it doesn’t belong.’
‘Oh shut up. You are nothing more than a softie and a person that is a complete fool.
Everyone will laugh at you and I just can’t wait for that moment. You are a complete loser, Lara, and you have always been. I feel sorry for you. Your life is very hard.’
The thing is that she said these things before, multiple times but I never did anything. I was silent and I thought that she would stop but she didn’t after all.
Enough is enough, after 3 years of listening to the same comments.
At this point, I decided to keep my mouth shut but I was literally boiling from the inside. I didn’t like her and I still don’t. If I can’t stand something, it is when someone makes fun of me. I was bullied for 6 years before that and I just couldn’t stand someone doing something like that to me again.
I was thinking about what to do after that and while I was alone in the classroom, I saw her Sprite and her makeup on the table. There was a bug near the window (she hates bugs) so I took it and put it in her makeup and opened the Sprite enough and just waited for her to come back.
The class started and miss ‘make fun of everyone’ did what she always does – put makeup on and drink in class. As soon as she opened her set, she screamed like someone is going to kill her, and while she was flailing with her arms, she knocked the Sprite right on her lap and made a mess.
The teacher was angry as a bull and as soon as she was close to her table, she took her cellphone, told her that she will call her parents, and sent her to the principal. While she was walking behind me to the door I just mumbled ‘oh I guess that I really am a softie.’”
30. Got My Bully Into Trouble With His Mom
“I was one of those kids who was bullied in high school — not so much actively humiliated but mostly ignored. With one exception, and that was a person I will call Jeff.
Jeff whispered nasty things to me under his breath in art class. We lived near each other and he said nasty things at the bus stop.
He sneered at me and called me nose picker and Lizzie Borden.
Finally, one day we were both walking to the bus stop and he threw a big tree branch at me, and I realized it was time to go to my parents, who were divorced.
First, you have to know something about my dad.
His fits of anger when he feels that he’s being lied to are legendary. When he’s mad, he’s MAD (but not at us). I’m not condoning his actions. I’m simply prepping you for the next part of the story.
He once got lost on the tollway and went back and forth paying toll after toll and getting more and more agitated as we all do when we’re lost. Finally, he got more directions and explained to the next toll taker he had already paid the toll many times, but the guy didn’t care.
Dad ended up screaming and throwing the change at the toll taker.
Another time, we went out on a rented boat that turned out not to work. Same thing. The guy who rented us the boat refused our payment and again my dad threw a bunch of change at him, most ending up on the ground.
Back to the present. I was ashamed of the bullying because I figured it was justified and there was something wrong with me. But one day my dad was visiting and I mumbled that this guy Jeff, who lived near us, was bullying me, and I described what he had done.
Up until then, my dad had been very preoccupied with the divorce and moving and his new life.
So I was unprepared for what happened.
When he heard what Jeff had done, he got livid. He wanted to call Jeff’s mother, but the number was unlisted. My dad said words that are forever etched in my memory ‘Well, he doesn’t have an unlisted house.’
He thunders in the direction of Jeff’s house and I meekly follow.
Then we were in the middle of Jeff’s living room with his mom, my dad in full red-faced mode brusquely telling her what her son had done.
She called, ‘JEFF COME INTO THE LIVING ROOM.’ Of course, he had heard the whole conversation. He meekly slithered his way in, knowing what he was in for.
‘Is this TRUE????’ his mom asks.
Big old bully Jeff, who was really a scrawny kid, meekly nodded his head up and down. He looked like he was about to burst into tears. He didn’t say a word the whole time.
The obvious double-teaming ensued, and I don’t remember what was said (I was 16), but believe me, I don’t think it’s something Jeff will ever forget.
As I stood there and watched the show, my feeling was not vengeful. Instead, I had this overwhelming feeling of love for my dad.
You see, he had not paid that much attention to me in a very long time. The divorce had taken him away and he was busy with his new life. I had no idea that he cared that much to do this.
It was, in his own way, a sign that he still loved and cared for me.
Jeff never even glanced my way again. Ever.
This was the day my dad stood up for me. And Jeff got what he deserved. It is one of the fondest memories that I have of my dad, nothing but unselfish love, and it has sustained me for a long time.”
29. He Ran Her Phone Bill Up
“My friend, Bob, lived in a shared house at university with some guys and he had insomnia (he actually didn’t, he just used to sleep from about 7 pm until 10 pm and then moan he could not sleep at night).
One of the guys lied to his significant other and there was a bad breakup. Then they started getting silent phone calls at about 2 am etc. Unfortunately, Bob was awake at that time and just watching tv so he answered the phone. When the line was silent he guessed it was a prank call from his housemate’s ex so rather than hang up he just chatted to the silent line.
He would tell it about the TV program he was watching, what he had done that day, any plans he had for the next day, etc., and just kept talking and running her phone bill up until they hung up. The entire conversation was one-sided, she never said a word.
This happened several times until he actually started to look forward to it.
Apparently watching The Incredible Hulk is more fun if you have someone to talk to even if they are not replying. Eventually, she stopped bothering because she was spending too much on her phone bill and wasting her time without bothering her ex. After all, Bob answered the phone so it did not wake anyone up.
Bob missed the calls so much he was going to phone her in the early morning instead and maintain the tradition.
Within a day he had a frantic phone call from her apologizing and begging him not to phone her and tell her about late-night TV and mathematics lectures!”
28. I Made The Phone Spammers Wait For Nothing Until They Stop Calling
“I keep getting calls from the computer repair dept of my computer to fix my problems. It’s pure spam to get me to turn over enough info for identity theft.
So I feel no sorrow for these people. I had originally simply asked to be taken off the call list and told them I was onto them.
Nothing doing, calls keep coming. I’ve tried direct aggression of screaming into the phone to hurt their eardrums. Nothing doing, calls keep coming. I tried saying forcefully that you are wasting my time. Nothing doing, the idiot told me I’m wasting his time.
Finally, a plan that worked! I got the call and said I have something on the stove, please wait a minute while I turn it off.
Then put down the phone and went back to my life. A while later I hear, ‘how long do you expect me to hold.’ I waited till he hung up. They called one more time, and again, this time I had an email to finish and would be right there, and put down the phone.
That was the last call so far from these geniuses. Who tries to scam someone after they tell you they are onto you and states what you plan to do?
It’s passive-aggressive because I’m acting as though I’m a polite, happy, nothing-is-wrong person, but purposely doing an activity that will make them mad, without knowing they’ve been ‘aggressed’.
At least not at first.”
27. Made The Guy Drink Special 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.”
26. Company Accused Me Of Being Unprofessional
“I worked with a very serious uptight guy who was also a profound screw-up. We were visiting an important client in Los Angeles to demonstrate our company’s software.
Winston was an engineer whose job was to show the client our software on an expensive UNIX laptop. The day before the sales call I checked in with Winston to make sure he had everything ready for the next day. He assured me he did.
So we’re meeting with the client and Winston can’t get the goddam laptop to boot.
The battery is dead and the AC adapter isn’t working. Winston gives up and starts showing the customer screenshots in a printed user manual. For a $500,000 opportunity!
I make a few jokes to ease the tension. Then I ask the client, ‘I’m sorry. Do you have a knife? I want to try something.’ I had noticed the AC adapter wasn’t plugging into the laptop properly, so I used the knife to trim back the plastic on it.
The adapter seated properly and a few moments later the laptop booted.
‘Just call me MacGyver,’ I said.
Apparently, Winston was pretty embarrassed that his engineering degree and fancy title at the company weren’t enough to enable him to start a $6000 laptop, but I could do it with a Swiss army knife.
The next day, a Friday, I got a call to come into the office early.
I was summoned into the director’s office and informed that Winston had sent a company-wide email complaining about my ‘unprofessional conduct’ with the client. (Apparently, it’s unprofessional to rescue a half-million-dollar account.) As a result, I got fired. So did my boss. Winston was a total jerk!
The next day, Saturday morning, I went back to the office with my son and my significant other, and as luck would have it, my keys and security code still worked. Winston’s coffee cup was in its usual place on his desk, about 1/3 full.
I unzipped and peed in it until it was about 3/4 full. (I knew he sometimes reheated old coffee in his mug, and I hoped and prayed he would do so Monday morning.) I also peed on his keyboard for good measure.
While I did that, my son and significant other rearranged the Christmas display in the lobby so the life-sized reindeer were in compromising positions.
Oh, and I also sued the company for wrongful discharge and won.”
25. I Know What An Insincere "Sorry" Sounds Like
“I travel by the commuter rail to work every day – I have the pass to prove it!
All that business about standing in a line and waiting for your turn to get on the train goes right out the window during rush hour.
People will slowly nudge you out of the way and make space for themselves. It’s almost funny. Losing your place means you will not get a place to sit.
Note this is the commuter rail and not the metro. People tend to be a lot nicer on the rail. I stay close to Boston so it’s called the ‘Purple Line’ if anyone can relate to me!
Here I am, 7:30 am all ready to go to work, patiently waiting, slowly making my way to the door to get on. Finally, it is my turn to get on, I grip the handle by the door as I need to climb a few steps to get in. My left hand held the handle, right leg just making its way in the air to be put on the step when suddenly I see another leg on the step.
It’s not mine. I turn to my right and look at this woman in RED lipstick start to climb. I’m looking at her wondering what is going on. She looks at me ever so sweetly, smiles her 32 teeth, and says ‘Sorry’. You know that ‘sorry’ really means ‘I truly don’t care about what I just did but here, take this sorry and be happy.’
All I am thinking is – NO! You are not sorry. You could have waited for 2 seconds for me to get on but you didn’t. You cut me off. Plain and simple. This is not the first time I have seen her push people around.
I didn’t say anything. That evening, I saw her again while heading home.
I made sure I got behind her while walking out of the train. I pretended to be on my phone and ‘accidentally’ kicked her. It wasn’t a hard kick mind you, it was a firm one – I didn’t want to hurt her. Like the kind where you run into someone walking in front of you.
She turned around and looked at me – I smiled, with my 32 teeth and said ‘Sorry!'”
24. Tactless Relative Gets What He Deserves
“In India, where I come from, every year there is a festival of ‘Ganesha’ celebrated by the Hindus (one of our many personifications of God). Many of us bring a clay idol of the Lord in our home for five days.
We visit families to see their idols/pay respects and give a food offering to the Lord. There’s also a lot of food offered to the guests. On one eventful day of the festival, a relative of mine came to our house to pay respects to the deity. Now before I divulge any further details of the story, let me just begin by stating this – this particular relative is a complete jerk in general – condescending towards everyone, has lied to his wife and has a separate family with another woman, doesn’t give his wife any money (she is a housewife) and manipulates her to the extreme and literally treats her like a servant (she’s an old lady.
Additionally she has many health issues).
We see very little of him, but when we do my family is cordial towards him because of certain reasons (that’s a whole other story). So on that particular day of the festival, he came to our house saying, ‘my wife wanted to come and pay respects to the Lord but she’s sick so I’m here on behalf of her.’ (WE ALL KNOW HE WAS THERE FOR THE FREE FOOD).
Anyway, my mom lets him in and the old relative does some small talk for 5 minutes, after which he is served some food. Following this, my mom gives him a cotton bedsheet (covering for our mattress) as a gift (it is normal to give simple gifts such as handkerchiefs, bedsheets, reusable grocery bags, etc). It wasn’t a very expensive bedsheet but it wasn’t cheap either.
In fact, it was really good for his financial standard. When he received it, he says to my mother, ‘Did you just wash your own bedsheet and give it to me as a gift? It seems so used.’
Understandably, my mother gets upset because of such a comment but remains cordial. I was watching this whole episode since I was sitting right in front of the relative the whole time and of course, I’m furious.
I have always been very protective of my family, and at the time I was 15 and feeling VERY BRAVE (And also had a huge temper). I was furious that he insulted my mother when she had gifted him a rather nice present, but I didn’t know how to make him feel bad about the situation.
I was almost ready to just curse him (even though I knew my mother would reprimand me later for cursing in general and being disrespectful towards an adult, but he had messed with my mom, so I wanted to really hurt him.)
I decided to yell a really bad Indian word at him right when he would leave, and even practiced it in my head a few times.
However, I didn’t have to resort to cursing. Since he had come to pay respects to the Lord, he had brought something as an offering. After his remarks about the bedsheet, he stated that he would pray to Ganesha and then leave. I was watching his every move, and just as he was about to place the apple he had brought as a food offering,
I said, ‘Stop grandfather!’
He looks at me, rather confused.
And then I say it.
‘Are you sure you didn’t pick the apple from the gutter (open sewage system in India)? It is not good to keep dirty fruit in front of the Lord.’
He’s furious. He tells my mom how big a menace I am and I have no respect towards elders.
My mom tells me to go inside.
Five minutes on, I am updated that he didn’t keep the apple in front of the Lord and left soon after (After asking for some more food to be packed).
He’s never stepped in my house ever since (it has been 7 years since the incident) AND my whole family thanks me for it, haha!”
23. He Lost $2k Worth Of Electronics Because Of His Attitude
“I was carrying extremely powerful rare earth magnets (165 lb pull force) for work in my backpack. They were wrapped in 8 inches of bubble wrap to prevent them from getting too close to anything.
As I was sitting down, a total jerk got on the train and pushed me out of the way, took the seat I was about to sit in, and gave me a nasty look.
I wound up standing next to him. Slowly, I undid the bubble wrap and put it next to the Macbook he was working on and the satchel with his wallet and phone. I kept moving it around subtly. After a few minutes, his screen went out with a very bright flash. I don’t know what happened to his credit cards or cell phone.
He kept trying to reboot it but it was not responding at all.
I didn’t know if it would actually do anything. I just really hate rude people on the subway. Luckily his computer didn’t fly up and stick to my backpack.
I really go out of my way to be a decent person but when people take advantage of me, I can’t let it go.
I have used annoy-a-trons several times on coworkers (Google it) and did MUCH worse as a teenager. The point is, I am fair and decent, however, I won’t suffer jerks taking advantage of me.
This guy pushed me out of the way hard as I was sitting down and then proceeded to give me an ugly look like ‘do you want to fight about it?’ My options were to fight him, start an argument that would not get my seat back unless I picked him up, or OTHER.
I wasn’t willing to start a fight on a full subway car or anywhere else. I just couldn’t let it go. Not with these awesome magnets in my backpack ready for a little experiment!
Now for the doubters… If you stack six of these magnets you have 3–4 times the force of a single magnet.
They have small Teflon spacers between them so you can separate them when you need them. These slightly reduce their combined force. At 8–10 inches with bubble wrap, there is very little magnetic force as their strength decreases exponentially with distance. However, I am still careful not to put my cell phone or wallet near them.
I opened the bubble wrap at the bottom of the stack and then closed my backpack with the end of the stack right against the inside canvas of my backpack. I was surprised it worked at a distance of about 6 inches. As I said, I was careful because I did not want it to ‘grab’ the computer.
Nothing happened for a while but it absolutely took the computer out as an EMP had gone off. Maybe it had to wait until the HDD was active. If it warped the platter and pulled it into the read/write arm it would scratch the thing out of the platter. I looked it up yesterday and the HDD on a Macbook Pro is on the side I was standing on.
I don’t know how it worked, but, to my pleasant surprise, IT DID. Try it out! I lost a bit of face and hopefully, he lost $2K of electronics and spent a day getting his credit and bank cards replaced.
Will it teach him a lesson? Probably not, but I don’t care; I made his life temporarily suck without causing bodily harm.”
22. I Put On My Suit And Tie To Pull Off The Revenge
“When my daughter was about 6 years old we were living in an apartment. It was a two-story unit sharing a wall with a neighbor, a grumpy old lady who stayed up late and slept during the day. We tried to respect her schedule and be as quiet as possible, but due to the building’s design, a simple act of walking up and down the stairs in our unit makes quite a lot of noise.
Needless to say, a 6 y.o kid spent quite a bit of time running up and down the stairs between her room and the living room.
The old lady was furious and regularly complained about the noise. She complained to the apartment management a few times and I was becoming worried that we could get expelled. One day, when she was particularly upset, she left a note at our door.
A very nasty note using a curse word and more. That was her mistake.
It must be said that the apartment was trying to attract young middle-class professionals and trying to present themselves as upscale housing compared to others in the neighborhood. The next day, I put on my business suit and a tie and strolled into the apartment management office.
I showed them the note and very politely expressed my surprise at the kind of people they were renting to. I said I was shocked by the language and glad my daughter had not found the note. I said I was considering moving out and basically made them feel like they were running a trailer park, not an expensive apartment complex.
They were apologetic and talked to the old hag who stopped complaining after this incident. I got a new job and had to move out a few months later anyway.”
21. Caused A Professor To Get Banned From Teaching
“I was in a college course with a particularly tough professor. She was the type who might be nice outside the campus but in the classroom, it was clear she’d get consumed by the power. HER opinion was always right and if anyone disagreed, they’d pay the price (a classmate’s beliefs were insulted and when she spoke up, my prof kicked her out for the day).
Also, she judged people and used her opinions of them for grading. Example? My friend, cousin, and I wrote a paper on the same topic and used the same quotes, only changing up the tone/style to match our own. I got a C+ with notes on how I need more examples, my cousin got a C- with a message on ‘consistency issues’ and my friend got an A- with a ‘good job’.
Of course, said prof had tenure so getting rid of her would be near impossible. With the class being required, I couldn’t leave and had a torture session 2 days a week.
Near the end of the year, there was a protest scheduled on campus and my prof decided to take us there to demonstrate how we should stand up against bad leaders.
Also, the end of each semester meant each class getting a form to critique the professor; with rules stating the professor could not even be on the same floor as the students answering the form.
Everyone was DONE. We decided there was to be no mercy on this woman and the university couldn’t ignore all of us if we said the same thing.
So we all marked down negative answers. Granted most were true (we did get unreasonable workloads, we did not have respect at times, grading was unclear & unfair) but some aspects that even she followed, we said she didn’t. Some classmates went above and beyond by attaching notes inside the form sheets with written examples of what happened throughout the semester.
I wrote my piece but it was pretty calm compared to the rage in the others.
We all knew that in between protest time and form filling, we’d get endless lectures on something she was super opinionated about. So everyone took their time SLOWLY filling out the form. The prof looked so mad every few minutes she came to check in on us.
The icing on the cake? My cousin ended up late for class (traffic) just as we stalled out as long as we could. She knew what we were up to and followed suit.
But that’s not the end of it.
The professor led the group outside the building. Only half of the class made it to the site.
My cousin took her own stand right after the class started to go. She and several others left last so they could sneak out. A few others slowly began to sneak away.
I witnessed the protest (cross off the ol’ bucket list) with my friend. Then the professor, almost oblivious to students missing, led us back to the class.
However, I overheard a tip from one of the protest leaders that there was an after-party close by. And they had triple fudge brownies.
I followed the professor for a minute. Then I grabbed my friend and dashed off to the party. We stuffed ourselves with free brownies, nachos, and fruit punch while we talked to other students.
Later, I heard only 5 of the 38 students made it back to the classroom and my professor ended up canceling the ‘after discussion’ (aka opinionated rant). We only had one more session with her and it was the final test. I had a C in that class; not what I feel I earned but I passed.
The next semester I overheard the prof’s name. Turns out, she was no longer allowed to teach that specific course. Also, the number of classes she usually taught was sliced in half while the board said they’re going to keep an eye on her from now on.
Prof wanted us to learn how to take a stand at that rally; to combat unfair behavior.
I say we learned fine on our own.”
20. Snitched On My Co-Worker To My Boss
“I just got my current job in November of last year, as an IT engineer. My department is a really small one, only two IT engineers, 2 technicians, and my boss.
Though my position is IT Engineer, I am more focused on Web Development, so by January my co-worker approaches me and says, ‘You know they are going easy on you?
The boss is not giving you the same amount of work they used to give to the guy who was here before you.’
Yep, that hurt, for many reasons—chiefly by being under-valued for the simple fact of being a woman, as well as for being new to the enterprise. I decided I wasn’t going to have any of that.
I was going to demonstrate to him and (mostly) to my boss that I didn’t need any special treatment, and that I could be as good as the guy who was before me. So I started a dynamic programming project, which consists basically of a platform that makes my life easier when it comes to developing demos, creating new apps, creating CRUDS, reports, etc… in summary, my program was like a small personalized WordPress, filling my needs and the needs of the requirements people would ask me.
People started noticing this project, since I was creating reports 3 times faster and prettier than the old guy, releasing brand new/renovated apps in less than 1 month, all because I had this ‘template of templates’ helping me. By June of this year, my co-worker approaches me again, telling me the same freaking thing: ‘You still don’t truly belong to the company, because they are still going easy on you.’
That was it. I had already released 3 FULL SYSTEMS implemented globally, migrated lots of trashy reports and applications that made me travel in time and feel in the ’90s, so I breathed slowly, calming myself down, and sent an email to my boss while also forwarding the message to him, which went something like this:
‘Hi Boss, this email is to let you know I’m tremendously alarmed by the feedback I got from my coworker this morning, he said to me in front of a provider that you were being acquiescent with me, and therefore I wasn’t performing all the tasks I should have been doing by this time.
I just want to know the reason for this, because if I applied for this job and if you hired me, I think it’s because I can do the tasks related to it, so I don’t see what would make you think I can’t bear the whole responsibility. For some background, this topic was already touched upon in January of this year with the same output, that you were going easy on me, and I used this feedback in my favor to get more focused and try to give more, but since I see that didn’t work, and my co-worker still tells me you are making this special treatment to me I decided to talk straight about it.
Regards!’
So obviously I knew this was all my co-worker’s jealousy or God knows what, but I played dumb, and it worked perfectly! My boss replied that he didn’t know the basis of my co-worker’s comments and that he was more than satisfied with my performance, and that in fact, I had done way more than the old guy in way less time…”
19. Guy Shamelessly Told Me To Move Up To The Window Seat
“I was once on a domestic flight in Italy, flying from Turin to Naples with Alitalia.
It was quite an empty flight, probably only about 70 passengers in total on a plane that had 250+ seats.
I was booked in a middle seat but seeing as the flight was only about an hour-long I was fine with that.
I had the whole row to myself until a man came and occupied the aisle seat on my left. The window seat on my right remained empty as did most of the rows around us.
So just as we’re about to leave the gate he looks at me and asks me if I could move up to the window seat. I would not have had any issue with this however the reason he gave me for wanting to move up was that I was ‘taking up too much room’.
Now, I perfectly accept that I’m not one of the thinnest people around and I could definitely do with losing some weight however I’m a long way off being such a size as to make somebody else’s journey uncomfortable because I’m ‘taking up too much room’. I found it extremely rude and actually quite offensive, especially as quite a few rows around us were completely empty and he could have moved to any one of them quite easily.
I moved without complaint even though I was quite angry.
So later on, we happened to be flying over some snowy mountains (could have been the Dolomites but I’m not sure) and I happened to glance over at the guy and saw him open the camera app on his phone, clearly about to take some pictures of the view from the window (as it was quite a spectacular view) and so just as he leans over to take pictures, I shut the window blind…
He grumbled something under his breath, got up, and moved somewhere else and I didn’t see him for the rest of the flight.
I was extremely pleased with myself and for me is a perfect example of a passive-aggressive action against a rude person.”
18. Hotel Manager Has Been Stealing Our Tips
“When I was 18, I was working at a 5-star hotel, cleaning rooms and changing sheets to make some extra income while studying. The job was very bad, paid 2 euro per hour, but sometimes guests would leave tips for us for the cleaning and usually one tip was half of our day salary.
We shared among the housekeeping girls and we were ok with it.
One day our manager came in and forbade us to enter the rooms after the guests checked out. He said he had to go in first to make sure that guests left nothing behind in the room.
It sounded reasonable as sometimes guests claimed they forgot some jewelry in the room, and when we did not find it we were accused of stealing it.
It was very uncomfortable for us, so we agreed that the manager checking the room first was a good idea.
But from that day on we were not finding the tips anymore. Well sometimes there was 1 euro left, but that was it. Of course, the first thing in my mind was that the manager was taking our tips.
I wanted to make sure so I entered one room before he got in and saw a nice tip and a box of chocolates on the table with the thank-you note for the cleaning girl. I left it the way it was. Then the manager got in and after checking it he confirmed the room was ok for us to clean.
When I came in again, of course, the tip was gone and so was the chocolate box! I found it in the trash with all the chocolates eaten. UNBELIEVABLE!! I understand that everyone is after riches, but this one was so shameless he even ate all the chocolates for the cleaning girl!
I got really angry, but he was my boss and I was 18yo.
I did not know how to confront him directly as it would mean accusing him of stealing which was serious AND difficult to prove.
So I wrote a note: ‘You sneaky little jerk, you go around bullying us for our work all the time, and then you have the nerve TO STEAL the tips meant for us?!
Shame on you!! V.’
I put the note in the envelope together with some coins, closed it, and wrote ‘thank you Veronika’ on it, so it looked like a note from the guest. (The guests knew our names as we left the notes with our names after the cleaning). I placed the envelope in one room just before the manager came in ‘to check it.’
I was thinking: if he won’t open the envelope, no harm was done as he’ll never find out what’s inside. But if he opens the envelope which is clearly not meant for him, he gets exactly what he deserves. But the most satisfying thing was that he couldn’t cover up once opening the envelope as MY handwriting was all over it.
I was waiting in front of the room when he got out. Well, you can guess what happened. He ran out totally furious, completely red, shaking and kicking the door. I was standing right in front of him, looking into his eyes, he was SO angry but didn’t say a word to me! I won.
Of course, he figured out there was nothing he could do as he was caught in the act, and doing anything about it would mean he had to admit he was stealing.
I found the envelope torn apart all over the room. The next day, he invited me into his office and offered me a drink (I did not realize it was ok to drink during a shift, but apparently most of the hotel managers did.) He was apologizing explaining how stressful his work is and that he needed the tips for this and that reason.
He pleaded not to tell on him with the promise that he will stop.
He seemed so scared and helpless I was almost sorry for him. I told him to be nicer to us, that everybody working here is under stress. I think he understood. He never escalated this issue anymore, neither did I.
Anyway, he was fired two months or so later, so I guess his habits got him somewhere else.”
17. I Felt Angry And Disgusted At The Same Time
“It was Christmas time and I had traveled to stay with my significant other/newly engaged fiancé for the holidays. The first day I was there it was total bliss. The next day he began to act a little weird and half-heartedly broke the news to me that I wouldn’t be able to join him and his family on Christmas day because of some family issues unrelated to me.
Hmmm…
So, I spent Christmas day, all alone, watching a marathon of the Duck Dynasty. He returns late in the evening and isn’t really talkative about his day. He proceeds to break into a bottle of tequila he had gotten as a gift. At that point, I was pretty much done… with everything. I went to bed while he stayed on the couch with his drink and phone.
What he didn’t realize, I guess, is that I could see him from where I lay. He fervently texted for literally hours, giggling and smiling. When he finally came to bed I pretended to be asleep. He actually thought he was going to get a little ‘play’. After a while, he was snoring away and it was eating at me just what he was doing on that phone.
SO I LOOKED. Yes, I did. Turns out he was texting an old friend from high school. It started innocently enough but didn’t take long to turn into inappropriate texting…. dirty pictures and all. They ended their conversation by making plans to meet up the next morning.
The alarm goes off at 7 am… I am groggy and ask what was going on.
We had plans to go on a day trip. He tells me that he got a call after I went to bed and he had to go into work that morning… R.I.G.H.T.
He gets ready. I pretend I am asleep. He leaves without as much as a goodbye, I guess because he is still expecting me to be there when he returns.
Once the car pulls away, I quickly get up and pack. I write a note on a napkin because he has no paper. Basically told him to go screw himself and to check the dictionary for the definition of commitment. Then… this is the bad part… I felt sick to my stomach from all the anxiety of what was happening.
I decided it would be best to visit the bathroom before I left on my long drive home. Diarrhea. Great.
As I am sitting there the weight of the last 24 hours just comes over me like a sea of red. I can feel my face get hot and tears welling up in my eyes. I was so angry, hurt, disgusted, the list goes on.
I look over at the sun coming through the window and casting a glow on the sink. Toothbrush. Really? Should I? I have never been a bad girl in my life. I follow all the rules. I am the poster child for ‘make everyone feel better’. Before I flushed, I decided I would do one last good deed for him.
So, I cleaned his toilet… with his toothbrush. Tapped it off, flushed the mode, but it neatly back in its spot, washed my hands, and got on with my life.
Am I sorry? No. Do I regret it? It wasn’t the most mature thing I have ever done, but I sure felt better driving home.”
16. We Received Lots Of Fruit In The End
“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!”
15. I Received A "Thank You" Card A Week Later
“I am a pediatrician and do come across very anxious and tense parents – with whom communication can completely go off rails with one single word uttered without giving a second thought. But one mother remains in my thoughts as a burning memory.
I was working under a neurologist Dr. F in a tertiary referral hospital as a senior registrar and was assigned to do Epilepsy clinics independently.
I was asked to see Miss P on my list. I went out of my clinic room to the waiting area and called out her name three times. No one turned up! I returned to my room disappointed when the nurse in charge rushed in and told me that ‘I had mispronounced the child’s name and that’s why mum wasn’t coming in.’ I asked her to point her out to me, went out, apologized for my error, and politely invited them in.
Mum Mrs. P strode in behind me looking visibly cross, sat down, and in a huff rather rudely point blank told me ‘we have come to see Dr. F and not a junior foreign doctor.’ Taken totally aback, yet keeping my cool, I asked her to provide me with history, so that I could relay the history to Dr. F and come back with any different advice other than what I had to offer.
She told me ‘it’s all there in the notes!!’ Normally we need to take details on seizure frequency, severity, and changes besides side effects of medications.
I asked ‘Anything new since the last time we reviewed Miss P?’
‘You should read the notes before you see a patient’ she said rather curtly. I conveyed to her that I knew that Miss P has epilepsy and has been put in my clinic in an urgent slot as she was complaining of intermittent severe tummy pain.
I also described to her how I and Dr. F held separate lists and empathized with her for her frustration.
I was relieved when some further history was given in bits and pieces, in a rather unsatisfactory manner, as mum clearly could not disguise her disappointment with me!
I apologized for mum’s disappointment and said that I shall go across and ask Dr. F if he could see Miss P if possible.
I went and conveyed the story to him.
He silently came back with me to my clinic, popped his head in through the door, and told me to a profusely gushing Mrs. P, ‘Dr. W here is a very senior clinician and I totally trust his judgment. If he cannot help you, neither can I,’ and turned around and unceremoniously walked away!
I was truly astonished by Dr. F’s response!
Mrs. P turned around and there on docilely conveyed the rest of the history. I examined Miss P – and discovered she had mild jaundice. Knowing that the medications she was on could produce gall stones, I organized an emergency ultrasound of her tummy using my personal connections in the radiology department.
I also called the pediatric surgeon on call and got Miss P to be reviewed the same day – all within the next 30 minutes. I must say for not one minute did I show my exasperation – knowing how much poor little Miss P must be suffering.
As they left, Miss P thanked me profusely followed by her mother.
I received a ‘Thank you’ card from mum a week later- for my diagnosis and prompt action. Miss P had been operated upon 4 days earlier.”
14. Guy Had No Match With My Polish Jam
“Back in the 1990s, I worked downtown and took a second job four nights a week at a psychology school. I sat by myself in a room for four hours and simply collected faxes and put them in the proper offices after making copies. There were other campuses and so I waited for the last faxes to come in from Hawaii.
5 PM there, 9 PM here. I had a little hand-held cassette recorder and always brought a few cassettes to play.
Afterward, I’d walk to the elevated train and head home. One night, a young guy was playing rap music on a big radio. People were seated close to him, most looked at him but ignored him.
I set my backpack down and looked for my Big Steve and his Polish Stevedores cassette and flipped it in the holder. Then I stood up and started playing polka music as loud as I could, standing as close to the kid as I could, otherwise I couldn’t drown out his music.
I’m half-Polish and Big Steve didn’t just play the standards like ‘Beer Barrel Polka’ and ‘Money Polka’, he was like the Bruce Springsteen of polka.
Do you know how Springsteen will go nuts with the guitar? Well, Big Steve would wail on his accordion for minutes at a time.
Everybody near us watched. The guy was the first to shut off his music. He got up, looking to walk through the door to the next car. People were already starting to clap.
I stayed behind him, the polka music low, and said to him ‘I’ll just follow you. Me and Big Steve. That’s him playing.’
The guy turned around and got off the train at the next stop. I was a minor hero on the Orange Line that winter night. Things like this never make the news.”
13. I Watched Them Count All Of The Coins
“I had a horrible experience trying to buy a new Honda at a local dealership. I told them what I wanted, but they kept trying to up-sell me on a different model. Then it was switching sales guys, to the hardcore close. etc. etc. I understand sales and all the things really don’t bother me since it’s part of the game.
However, after reaching a price and completing the paperwork, I drove out in the car.
I was happy until Jennifer from the office called me three days later at work. They made an error and didn’t collect funds on some specific fees listed in the contract. I was pretty sure I paid everything listed. I told Jennifer I needed a couple of days to review the contract and look at the check I wrote to determine if I owed anything.
She became a belligerent witch, yelling about how I needed to come down right now and pay. I told her I would review the contract and pay them if I owed them anything. She called at 9:00 am the next morning being annoying again demanding payment. Later that evening, I reviewed the contract and they didn’t total up the doc fee correctly and owed them $394.00.
I called Jennifer and told her that I did find the error, would pay the amount, and asked if she could please tell me when she left the office so I could pay her personally. I waited until 4:50 pm on Friday (Jennifer works an 8-5, M-F) and paid her $394 in nickels. I had broken the seals on the bags from the bank which meant they needed to hand count all the coins.
I had brought a book, took up residence in their customer lounge, and waited for them to complete their count. I enjoyed watching Jennifer and 4 salespersons make little rows of nickels. After over 90 minutes they brought me the $0.45 in additional funds I added to see if they would accurately count it. My backup plan was if they said it was all there, I would inform them that I actually included extra and couldn’t remember how much, so they would need to recount.”
12. All This Time His Car Was Just In Plain Sight
“My then-spouse decided to leave me, which I didn’t mind, but his family was visiting from overseas, having a great time, partying, going on road trips, and inviting him.
They were horrified by his stories of what an American, awful, disobedient wife I was.
He was going to casinos with them, losing all our funds.
I was pregnant (high risk, no less), on maternity leave from graduate school so no job, and had another infant at home.
One day he starts packing his stuff, tells me he can’t take it anymore, he’s leaving.
Fine, except I had no money, the rent was overdue, we had impending disconnect notices from the phone and electric companies (there were no cellphones or social media back then, so pregnant and with an infant, I needed that phone, and of course, the electricity), he had promised to make payments that payday but instead he was off to another casino, no groceries, food, diapers, etc. So as he’s stacking his things in a corner of the living room, I tell him I’m going to the lobby to get the mail.
Instead, I moved his car. I parked it a few blocks away, went upstairs with the mail, and waited for him to leave. He takes his suitcases, loads them all into the elevator, tells me I brought this on myself, and leaves in a huff.
A few minutes later the intercom rings: ‘Do you remember where I parked my car?’ No. He comes upstairs, all sweating and confused. Calls his brother.
‘Do you remember where I parked my car?’ No. And even if he did, he couldn’t read English, so wouldn’t have known the street name, anyway.
Calls the police. They arrive. He talks to them privately. Then they come in to talk to me.
‘We understand there are marital issues. Did you steal his car?’
I hated being dodgy with the police. I simply stated, No. (I didn’t steal it.) I told them my side of the story and they became more sympathetic to me. No food, no diapers, no money, pregnant, etc.
The police told me to apply for WIC assistance and lectured him. They take his report, warn him about his behavior, and leave.
Okay. So his was the car the visiting family was gonna use for their road trip.
So the road trip was canceled. All packed up with no place to go.
I decided to outsmart him. ‘Honey, since now there’s no chance of you winning anything at the casino, maybe we should make the payments you promised the utilities so they won’t cut us off.’
Since he has stuck there now himself, he gave me the funds.
Of course, he begged to use my car, but I had never given him a key, and I told him the brakes were shaky and it cost too much to repair them.
For two months this idiot had no car and had to take cabs and buses to work.
And the visiting family couldn’t rent a car so they went home early.
Meanwhile, I had applied for WIC, gotten a social worker, and spoke with the idiot’s ultra-religious boss who agreed it was best to give me the idiot’s salary (he was paid in cash).
He was furious but I was protected by the religious community, and the social worker’s home visits helped.
He realized he had to start acting like a human being, so he became much more agreeable to live with, but I wanted him out of my hair.
So one day I told him, ‘OMG, honey! I was driving around looking for parking, and I think I saw your car!’
We excitedly jumped into my car and I drive him there.
‘Is that it?’
He was thrilled. To this day he thinks he parked it there after partying and couldn’t remember.
We’re divorced now (can I get a Hallelujah?) and the kids are grown. They know the whole story. But he’s serving life now, so we’re all estranged from him.”
11. Guys In Concert Stood Up For Me
“I was at a concert with my wife, and this obnoxious guy starts to jump on us, his way of dancing I guess. I told him to back off and he just said he had the right to dance.
The concert with Depeche Mode was the best concert I have ever been to, and I did not really care for the band one way or another before the concert, sure they had their great songs.
But let me tell you this concert blew my mind. They were so awesome, and the singer Dave Gahan had everyone hypnotized, Martin Gore was awesome, jumping from guitars to keyboards. The huge video wall behind was spectacular. The sound well… you get my drift. It was fantastic.
So I tried to move away and this Italian guy next to me kept pushing me back.
I was about to block him, I did not want that. So I tried to push that big doofus away, not only was he bumping on me, but he hit my wife. So I got quite angry but did I want to get into a fight, well, no. Even though I could take down that guy, he might have friends.
I looked at the Italians that were there, they looked tough, so I did a switcharoo, I managed to get to the other side of the doofus, and kind of pushed him into the Italians, and he was taken care of.
They screamed at him, pushed him down, and made very threatening gestures, even though they spoke Italian, that moron understood fully and disappeared completely.
I so wanted to thank these guys but I did not want it to appear that I had sent that moron over to them, so I just looked puzzled at the racket that happened, and smiled at them, they laughed back. And we enjoyed the concert to the fullest. Oh man, I wish I had the Italian dude’s attitude, it was awesome, he was way shorter than me, but he had that thing about him that even much larger guys would never dare to touch him.
These guys turned out though to be very nice, they saw we liked the concert and we started talking a little. Very nice guys. Impressive guys.”
10. He Didn't Realize It Wasn't A Question
“I once had a geek for a roommate.
He spent countless hours hacking into anything he could over the Internet. He works in the IT field also. Sometimes he had the brilliant idea of using my computer while he was compiling or running a particularly resource-consuming program. At times, when I really needed to use my computer for some work, he would be using it and would refuse to yield.
He is a very good friend and I had to devise a plan to just make a statement, not to actually cut him off from my computer.
One day I was taking a short trip to another town and I saw the perfect opportunity. I set up a bios password for access to my machine.
When I was actually boarding the plane I was supposed to take, he called me on my cell phone. He was desperate and complained to me I have this bios password on. I told him he has his own computer, didn’t need mine. He said he had some work to deliver and it was all in my HD, so please, would I give him my password?
I said, ‘why do you want it?’ He explained it all to me again and I simply replied ‘why do you want it?’
The story repeats itself. Every time he explains I ask the same question and I only give in when the plane is about to close the doors.
Then I tell him: ‘The password is ‘ydouwannit’.
He got his work delivered on time and never used my computer again. But we are still good friends and he is the godfather of my first kid. We still have a good laugh about this story.”
9. Con Artist Neighbor Was Running Unnecessary Errands For Weeks
“Oh, I had a great time with my neighbor. She was in her 60s but this didn’t stop her from letting down the tires on my car (I caught her in the act), throwing stones through our greenhouse, shouting obscenities through the hedges, and other such things. She was almost arrested for harassment so she really was deserving of what follows.
There used to be a site called freecycle, on which you’d say that you had something and would someone else just take it from you, for free… You could also ask for stuff.
One day I spotted that she was asking for things and so I invented a whole series of personas and led her to all kinds of random houses, military bases, and hard to get to places in search of those items my personas claimed to possess.
These personas would invariably receive annoying emails to state that the person in the house didn’t know what she was talking about, the soldiers on the checkpoint had refused her entry, etc, etc. I’d then pretend to be the persona’s wife, in reply, apologizing for my husband’s dementia and confusion or I’d say that I’d found out who she was and that since she was so universally despised in the locality I’d not give her the item, etc etc. At other times I’d apologize for having made a typo and would correct the house number and have her return for a second wasted journey.
I kept this up for a few weeks and she must have made over a dozen fruitless journeys. She had real anger-management issues and so I’d have lots of pleasure from imagining her rages.
Very passive-aggressive but very, very, very satisfying.
The neighbor has since smoked herself to death. By that time I’d taught her the meaning of respecting one’s neighbors and we spent her last years in peace.”
8. Kicked The Judgmental Woman In The Rear
“When I was in my twenties I was rather socially awkward and unstylish and some people thought I was a lesbian.
I used to get a certain amount of hostile treatment from both strangers and acquaintances and it was not a lot of fun. Once I had the satisfaction of getting back at some folks who were being obnoxious. My mom and I were sitting in the audience at a small local theater production waiting for the show to begin.
There was a young couple, a man and a woman, sitting in front of us and during the wait I noticed them glancing back at us. They would smirk and giggle with each other and glance back at us again. I overheard some comments that let me know they thought my mom and I were a lesbian couple.
What crock! I was pretty annoyed.
I noticed that the young woman was rather chubby. Her backside was protruding out the side of her folding chair in my direction like an oversized, polyester-clad muskmelon. So I casually crossed my legs at the knee and started to wag my foot back and forth as if feeling nervous.
After the fourth or fifth kick, I managed to bonk her lightly in the rear with my toe. She jumped in her seat and looked around at me in indignation. Oh, I’m sorry! I said politely.
She looked back at her man and they just melted into giggles, all lovey-dovey and cuddly with each other.
So funny, the clumsy lesbian. They were really having a fantastic time. I waited. A minute later, I started up again. This time I really gave her a fanny a good whack with the point of my shoe. She glanced back at me with a shocked look. Oh, sorry, I said politely, again. She turned back to giggle with her partner, trying to recapture all that warm, fuzzy feeling.
As if I were soooo horrified and embarrassed by what I had done, I called out in a loud whisper: Mom! I just kicked that lady in the rear AGAIN!! The man gave me a worried glance then turned back and just sat there, stock-still in his seat, staring straight ahead of him no matter what she said.
He got it.”
7. Her Dark-Colored Trousers Didn't Help Her
“There was this one teacher who absolutely loathed me, for reasons I still don’t know. She lunged at every chance she got to chastise me. I’ll call her Mrs. P for ease of reference.
One afternoon, just before the end of school, we were waiting for the ‘packed lunch cart’ to arrive from the dining hall which would carry all our packed lunches. Only after we’d picked them up, would we be allowed to go home.
It was Mrs. P’s class’s turn to bring the lunch cart that day, and she’d forgotten to send them off.
After she did, 10 minutes had gone and they still weren’t back. Everyone else was in the corridor, complaining loudly.
A friend asked me (for the billionth time) to check if it had arrived yet since I sat closest to the door. I walked out of the classroom into the corridor to check, and it wasn’t there, so I called back, ‘No, it’s still not here.’
‘WHAT did you just say?’ Boomed a voice behind me. I turned around. It didn’t come from my friend, nor my teacher. It was Mrs. P.
The corridor was bustling with people. But now they all turned to stare at me. I froze. What had I done wrong?
She yelled at me for the next 5 minutes, telling me how ungrateful I was for ‘whining and complaining’, and disrespecting her class.
I burst into tears. This was all in the middle of a corridor, and she yelled at me like I’d committed some sort of serious crime. It was humiliating, to say the least. But it wasn’t enough for her.
She ordered me to apologize to her entire class, and when I was too terrified to move, she half-dragged, half-pushed me down the corridor, into her classroom, where she had gathered the entire class.
She shoved me to the front and told the class of the horrible things I had just done.
The rest was a blur. I was an absolute mess, crying so hard I could barely breathe. I remember her jabbing me in the back a few times because I couldn’t talk as I was practically choking.
My parents were horrified when I told them this, still terrified from the shock. They complained to the school, but no action was taken. Despite her false/exaggerated accusation, the massive humiliation, and not to mention her being very ‘hands-on’.
So I waited, very patiently for the next few weeks, for it to rain heavily enough so that we had playtime indoors.
I found the crafts drawer, and sure enough, there was the pack of playground chalk.
I sat in the corner of the classroom and began my work. Using scissors, I ground up a small portion of chalk into a fine powder. I used orange chalk, to be exact, as they weren’t actually orange, but more of a beige-y color – the same color as the teacher’s chairs.
And during the next (outdoor) playtime, I hid in the toilets until everyone had gone, and the teachers had gone to the staff room.
I scurried down the corridor and tiptoed into Mrs. P’s classroom. Thank goodness she wasn’t in there. I crept up to her chair and carefully scattered the chalk powder onto her chair, making sure there was enough to – ahem – leave its mark (all the teachers wore dark-colored trousers), but not too much so that it would puff up into a dust (or chalk) cloud when she sat down.
As soon as I was done, I practically tiptoe-sprinted out of there, with a huge feeling of satisfaction and relief.
Now, there is no wonderful ending to this. I never knew what happened next, as l didn’t see her for the next few days.
But I was satisfied. Even if it was an unusual way of revenge, and even if it didn’t work – it felt like payback.”
6. New Coding Guy Didn't Last
“Back in my early coder days, there came this New Guy.
And the New Guy was about average technically but thought he knew everything better than everyone. He would argue endlessly, right or wrong, and would visibly get upset – face red and breathing labored – if the argument didn’t go his way.
I didn’t like New Guy. Nobody did.
One day, I’m sitting to New Guy’s left. A friend of mine is on New Guy’s right.
Call him Right Guy. I have an idea.
I am going to ask a really, really stupid technical question – over New Guy’s head, directed at Right Guy. I don’t really know where this is going, but feel drawn to some higher purpose I cannot yet quite grasp:
‘Can you put a loop… inside another loop?’ (For you non-coders, this is a thing called a ‘nested loop’.
It’s one of the first things you learn. It’s roughly at the same level of learning about the comma in written English.)
I look at Right Guy. Right Guy looks back at me, a puzzled expression. I just look at him with a wide-eyed inquisitive smirk.
And by some miracle, some act of inspired genius – Right Guy instantly realizes what I’m doing and plays along.
‘No, that’s a syntax error.’
And I add, ‘Yea – because when the compiler is inside of both loops, it doesn’t know, like, which loop you’re inside of.’
New Guy starts objecting and turning red and we just sit calmly and say things like,
‘Yea, even if the compiler allowed it, the behavior is undefined.’ and ‘In any case, it’s really bad coding style.’
New Guy blew a fuse. We never yielded.
The next day it was a recursion.
New Guy didn’t last.”
5. Didn't Hear From The Manager For More Than A Year
“I responded to an ad on a job site for a differently-abled corporate manager, I’ll call him Mr. Manager, who was looking for assistance. I submitted my resume and did a phone interview. After talking briefly, he invited me to interview at his house.
The interview was all the way across town (though the company I’d report to was 10 minutes from where I lived). When I got to his home, I had to fill out a form that was at least 5 pages and then was interviewed by both him and his wife separately. I was there for a couple of hours.
The whole thing seemed a little unorthodox, but I was applying to be his personal assistant and nothing was too off-putting. After some discussion, I came to find out that this manager just so happened to work at the same company as my significant other. I mentioned this, and on both sides, it seemed like they had a friendly acquaintance with each other, though they both worked in separate buildings.
The manager said that they would get back to me either way in a week; after all, they had to submit the background check. I really liked both Mr. Manager and Mrs. Manager. I was cautiously optimistic.
I sent a thank you card. No response, but I didn’t expect one. One week later, I sent a follow-up e-mail.
No response. Two weeks later, no response. The least you can do is let someone know they didn’t get a position if they took the time to speak with you. I was a little disappointed, but I moved on and found another position (like you do).
About a year later, a higher-level management position opens up in my new husband’s company.
My husband was chosen to interview candidates for the position, and it just so happened that Mr. Manager was up for it. My husband had the resumes dropped on his desk at the last minute, so both men were surprised to see each other in this context. They exchanged pleasantries:
Mr. Manager: ‘So, um, how’s your partner doing?’
Husband: (flashes his ring finger) ‘My wife is doing very well. She’s been working with special needs high school students for the past year and has been pretty happy.’
Mr. Manager: ‘I was going to call her back…’ trails off…
My husband said he was cordial for the remainder of the interview, but his interviewee was not able to regain his composure.
The best part is that my husband’s boss decided to hire somebody within the team instead of anyone my husband interviewed, so my husband didn’t even deny Mr. Manager the job, but as far as he knows he completely bombed that interview and didn’t get the position.”
4. Gently Taught The Guests Some Manners
“At her dinner party, along with a delicious meal, my friend offered a variety of beverages, including a regular and light beer, a red and a bottle of white wine, a popular cola, iced tea, and water.
When she asked a male guest what he would like to drink, he asked for a beer. She asked if he would prefer brand X or brand Y light.
He asked, ‘don’t you have brand z?’ No. Sorry. So he asked for cola P. She had cola C. He settled for the Y light, then loudly complained to his wife that they should have brought their own, and maybe he would go home and get some.
Well, wifey cooed at him until he settled down and decided to join the other guests in conversation, punctuated with occasional mutterings about looking forward to a good beer.
Really, he did not even try to be discreet about it.
Dinner conversation went here and there, as it tends to do. Eventually, it rolled around to children and the unexpected things they say. The opportunity was perfect so I shared this story:
‘I’ll never forget a time when he (my son Jake) was about 6 years old and my in-laws were over for dinner.
We had been working on his table manners and he was doing pretty well. I held out a bowl of potatoes to my mother-in-law and asked if she would like some. She said she didn’t like them and only ate baked potatoes. It was the texture and blah blah… Jake stopped her and said, ‘Gramma, the correct answer is either no thank you or yes please.”
There was laughter followed by a moment of slightly uncomfortable silence, then a subject change.
Since then I have been at several parties that this couple also attended and have witnessed no repeat offense.”
3. Petty Co-Worker Makes Me Her Personal Driver
“I had a really rude co-worker, tried to boss me around, and treated me like her personal chauffeur.
When we had off-site meetings (I lived 5~10 minutes away (by car) from the office, so my co-worker(s) and I would usually get a cab to my place (since I usually walked to work), get in my car, then go to where ever, and then I’d drop them off at a subway station on the way back home.
One time she asked… practically demanded that I bring the car around to where ever it was convenient for her. (for instance, I told her I’d pick her up at exit 1 of station A, she frowned and said ‘No, that’s not convenient for me. Pick me up at station B. (xx distance from my place to station A and B is more or less the same, BUT in the opposite direction we needed to go towards, plus the road is always really congested, so making the round trip would mean an extra 20~30 mins stuck in traffic)
So, I said okay, and then the next morning, about 5 mins before the time I said I’d pick her up, I called her and said I was running late so catch a cab to XXX spot, and that I’d pick her up there in 10 mins. Also, more or less the same thing coming back.
She’d ask to be dropped off at a specific location – not that far in terms of distance but a really congested area – so I would say okay then just drive home and say OOPS~ forgot about you and told her to take a cab. (Later she complained to me that because I didn’t drive her to where she asked and because of the heavy traffic, she paid a huge amount of cab fare and was more than 30 mins late meeting up with her friends for dinner.
So I smiled and said something along the lines of ‘well then I’m glad I wasn’t stuck in traffic just because of you since I didn’t have any plans to meet anyone in that part of town.’
I ended up working with her for a little over 3 years and really & actually cheered when she finally resigned. (due to personal situation) I hosted a huge dinner party with drinks for all my friends who listened to me rant during the tough times I had working with her.
She was definitely one of the WORST human beings I ever met in my entire life.”
2. Being Mature Is Boring
“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.”
1. They're Finally Listening To Our Stories
“While visiting my friend once, she suggested an impromptu trip to the slums. She wanted to tell the kids there some stories with moral values. So we reached the venue, a section of space under a flyover, inhabited by a couple of dozen people.
We stood there for five minutes trying to grab the attention of anybody willing to pay heed. After having declared that we weren’t interested in purchasing the bird feathers they sold and since we had no goodies to offer, no soul would hover close to us.
One of those kids thought listening to stories was a joke and walked past us without even an answer.
After fifteen minutes of unsuccessful attempts, a soul took pity and pointed to one of their kins and said ‘he’s the leader, approach him.’ The leader figure understood and coaxed everyone. They spread the cleanest piece of the sheet they had for us to sit and everybody gathered around.
Adults included.
Our story session began. They had never listened to a story before! They were patiently listening to us blabber. A little while later a car stopped by. Two men got down with smiling faces and tiny cartons of fruit juices. Our audience turned towards them. My friend requested them to wait for five minutes since we were midway through a story.
They ignored her request and started distributing. We waited. The leader guy asked everyone to drink it once the story got over. The crowd complied.
We resumed. A few minutes later one of those men turned towards us smiling and asked,
‘Which institution are you from? Do you belong to the church nearby? What do you do?’
My friend turned to them and replied,
‘Sorry, we’re busy right now.’
Turned around and continued with her story.
That man left without another word.
After the session, they promised to tell others the stories they listened to. We parted with couple dozen smiles and a few pictures.
My friend told me after we left, ‘The audacity of that man to come asking after ignoring my request. Does he even have a clue of all the pain we took to get them to listen?
Which institution do you belong to, he asks.’ I just smiled.”
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