People Tell Their Most Grand Revenge Stories
12. Plan To Fire Me After All The Good I've Done? Watch Your Back
“I’ve worked in marketing for seven years since I graduated from college. That entire time, I’ve worked for one company. I haven’t been the best employee, but I’ve been nowhere near the worst, either. Middle of the pack, just where I like it. I don’t make waves or bring attention to myself. I just do my job and go home. I’m one of only three females in a male-dominated department of about fifteen.
My job basically entails courting big brands into choosing our agency to create their advertising campaigns. Lots of spreadsheet work, profit projections, boring stuff for people not in the industry. I WAS in the industry and I’m bored just typing a general description of it.
The entire time I was with the company, ‘Dan’ was my boss. Dan is a mid-level manager who reports to the vice president of the entire company.
There are five other Dans in the office, all of whom run their own departments, handling their own big clients. Dan is the typical former high school or college jock who never made it to the pros, so he takes out his aggression in the office. In some instances, aggression in the office can be a good thing, all that testosterone driving toward success. But in Dan’s case, it just made him a jerk.
As I said, I was middle of the pack my whole career. I never aspired to get promoted, but over the years I noticed Dan promote all sorts of people around me. For those who clearly did more and better work, it made perfect sense. There have been some total losers in my department over the years, though, and seeing them get promoted was kind of funny.
Like I said I wasn’t ambitious, just did my job, so I didn’t resent those employees who weren’t as good as me earning more.
What I did resent was getting blamed for their mistakes or being used as a scapegoat if our department didn’t secure as large a contract as we wanted. For example, our partnership with X brand might be for a whole year at a certain price, whereas our company wanted two years, at a higher price as some other departments got with their clients.
If I did something mostly on my own, Dan made sure credit was shared with the whole department. That’s cool. But if the entire team didn’t do so well, he’d single me out, or single out some other poor schmuck to take the rap for the whole thing. Dan would then write an after-action report where that person got the lion’s share of the blame and eventually got fired.
Whether our team exceeded its goal or not, Dan would make sure he and his favorites got fat bonuses.
One thing Dan believed in was going out on team building lunches. At these lunches, the team made sure to be on our guard. Only one drink apiece, watch your tongue, that sort of thing. But Dan would always get intoxicated and would say all kinds of non-PC stuff.
Dan’s favorite thing was guy jokes. I mean, guy humor. The other two girls in our department seemed to like that sort of thing and didn’t mind. I minded but kept my big mouth shut because I didn’t want to cause trouble.
Well, eventually a friend of mine from another department came to me and he told me that he overheard Dan and his (my friend’s) supervisor talking about who was on the chopping block next.
Evidently, my friend was about to get fired, and I was about to get fired, too. My friend tells me he heard Dan saying that he would fire me after I made sure to make him look good at the next presentation we were making for a prospective client: a huge brand from Asia. The presentation would be in a month. My firing would be a week after that, and then Dan would hire a friend of his, just out of college to take my place.
I trust this friend because he’s been with the company as long as I have, and we bonded early over our love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I geek out over that show, even though it’s slightly before my time. We’d talk all the time about how hot some of the guys on that show were. Well anyway, until my firing, I was to continue slaving away collating marketing reports, wining and dining the clients, being charming, and prepping Dan’s PowerPoint presentation to the clients.
I have a good friend in HR, and at a lunch a few days later she told me that it was true, I was one of the names submitted by Dan for the termination in the near future. She swore me to secrecy and I promised I wouldn’t say a word, but I also made her promise she wouldn’t say a word about what I was planning.
I remember how much of a jerk Dan was in that he wouldn’t even let me take my two weeks off to get married two years ago, even though I requested it several months in advance, without making me feel like a lazy jerk.
Meanwhile, he’d sign off on his buddies’ vacation requests without batting an eye, even if they’d come to him last minute. He’s always been a jerk to me, and part of me suspects it might be because I never took him up on his offer to take me out after work or chat me up on a personal level from years ago before I got married.
I had just realized I was pregnant with my first child and I dreaded eventually having to ask Dan for my maternity leave. This job really wasn’t making me a happy person anyway, and my husband makes a fine salary and has always told me it’s perfectly fine for me to take time off to be a stay-at-home mom for a few years, or even permanently if I want.
Well, I’ve always done my job effectively, done well on performance reviews. Never off the charts good, but always well above ‘effective’ rating, even when Dan was reviewing me (he had to play nice because an HR rep would be in the room).
Growing up with two jerk brothers who are now wonderful people (one teaches high school English, and the other is a chemist), I knew a lot about the classic mousetrap stinkbomb trick.
Where, you superglue a stink bomb ampule to the cheese area of a mousetrap, and set the mousetrap so that when the trap is triggered, it crushes the ampule and releases the fart and rotten egg smell.
You glue the mousetrap itself to the bottom of a small, oblong box, usually a shoebox. The trap is glued on one end of the box’s inside. on the other side, you put a tennis ball, then you seal the box.
You make sure that for storage, the ball stands in a tall way, with the ball on the bottom, and the trap on the top. When you’re ready to use the stink bomb, you lay the box gently the long way, so that the ball gently rolls along the bottom of the box, near the mousetrap. The idea is that if the box is jarred, the ball will move around, trigger the trap, and then you get the stink bomb smell.
My brother told me it’s usually for putting in people’s cars. That once the car started moving, the natural momentum would spring the trap. My plan didn’t involve cars, but the trap would still be fine.
I decided that I would ruin Dan’s presentation with a stink bomb. That would be annoying, but it wouldn’t really be revenge for seven years of him treating me like dirt and making me do all this work that ultimately he took credit for, and gave himself raises for.
So, for the next four weeks, three times a week Dan and our entire team would be that obnoxious group of office workers you see at Chili’s or Red Robin or whatever mid-price sit-down restaurant you have near you that’s a step up from Denny’s.
Per usual, Dan would talk about what losers people in other departments were, how the company was nothing without him, how the boss’s new wife was hotter than the previous wife, and how he slept with both.
We all knew he was just messing around and just bro-talking.
Whatever he was doing with all his intoxicated talk, I thought maybe upper management would be a better judge than me. I thought of just emailing the best audio files to them. I didn’t mention before, but I had gotten into a habit these last few weeks of quietly hitting ‘record audio’ whenever Dan decided to tell racist or dirty jokes.
My friend from another department who was also on the verge of getting fired helped me change a lot of the audio files on Dan’s upcoming video presentation to his most classic sounding sound bites of making fun of Asian people, Black people, telling dirty jokes. The visuals stayed the same, but the audio track was completely changed. Officially, Dan’s dull-witted friend was in charge of creating the presentation, and he and Dan would take credit for the whole thing.
The reality was that I was supposed to create the whole thing, make it a smash hit, and get fired without getting any credit for it.
Every day, I was supposed to submit my work to Dan and his friend, and they were supposed to give their okay on my work. But over time they realized I produced good work and they didn’t even bother checking what I was doing.
They did, however, send THEIR confirmation to their bosses that they were completing their presentation. Since they didn’t want to share credit with me, they excluded my name from their reports.
Our presentation room for the client is about the size of a classroom. It’s basically like a private theater in a mansion. Our clients were about a dozen Japanese men. There is a movie screen on one end, with a podium beside it.
Dan was supposed to make a speech at the podium, then show how approachable and cool he is by pacing up and down the stage in front of the screen to really sell our agency’s services, and then take a seat while the video climaxes the show. The video is projected from behind a glass room, like a movie theater in back, and a projector is connected to a laptop beside it.
The projector shows its image through a glass window. That projector room has one door accessible from inside the theater, and it has a deadbolt lock, though it’s never locked. Another door leads to the rest of the building. We are on the eighth floor. Only the custodian has the key.
Dan had a remote control where he would click a button and the presentation would start.
Without Dan knowing, I had had the projector changed to a different model that wouldn’t read his remote, but the remote I was holding. There were like five different projectors available in the projector room. The plan was supposed to be that Dan would press his button, the video would play its three-minute length, and that would end our pitch to the client. My plan was that I would press my own remote at the same time as Dan.
Well, Dan goes through his nauseating presentation, really kissing a lot of butts, and the clients are watching him speak. He finishes his pitch, and then, on cue, presses his button. As planned, I press MY button. Oh, I ought to have mentioned before, but I had gotten my hands on a copy of the custodian’s key without anyone’s knowledge, and I deadbolted the projection room door.
The first minute of the presentation goes as planned, the correct audio playing about how our company is so wonderful yadda yadda yadda. Dan is lulled into security and relaxes in his seat. Then the fun part of the audio starts where Dan tells a lot of racist jokes, makes fun of how Asians talk, how he screwed the boss’ wife, how the company was worthless and how he was the best employee.
Dan PANICKED. Practically screaming, he runs to the projection room only to find it… LOCKED! LOL. The whole team, especially Dan and the doofus who claimed credit for my presentation are wondering what to do. They are trying to usher our Asian guests out of the room, but oh, no no! They find it fascinating! LOL.
Just when things couldn’t seem to get any worse, I open my briefcase and take out my stink bomb that I’ve been carefully carrying like a Faberge egg.
I made sure not to actually set the mousetrap until I was in the room earlier during the meeting. While Dan was droning on, I opened the box in the darkened room, pulled back the mousetrap, closed the box, and waited.
Now was my chance. With Dan and his crash test dummy friend now screaming for something heavy to break the projection room window, I kick the box down the slanted theater floor.
Only seconds later, the entire room fills with a horrible stench of fart and eggs. The video’s over, anyway, and everyone rushes out of the room during the confusion. But not before Dan threw a chair through the window and broke a $4,000 company laptop. Understandably, everyone in the office was wondering what happened in the conference theater.
The Japanese businessmen were livid and complaining to the big boss about having their time wasted by a recording of Dan being racist toward them and bragging about how he slept with the boss’s wife.
They then left and took their business elsewhere. Dan was immediately called in, together with his underling.
In the presence of an HR rep, they of course instantly tried to blame me for the whole fiasco. The boss then asked them, according to my HR friend, why are you trying to pin this on OP? Every day for the last three weeks, you and (crash test dummy minion) have submitted reports saying only YOU two were working on the video presentation that was supposed to cap off the show.
Are you admitting to fraud? Needless to say, both of those losers were fired.
One by one, my whole department was called into the HR office with the main boss to be interviewed separately. Including me, of course. We all said we had no idea what all of that was about. Everyone admitted that the audio recordings (which survived the broken laptop screen) were genuine, but no one could place who recorded them.
All we knew was that one of us did it. The thirteen of us who remained (ten guys, three women) were in a group interview with the boss, and he thanked us for exposing Dan and his main underling. He told us that he wished we did it in a more constructive way, but that it was a positive thing that Dan was exposed for costing the company business.
We were all to be given raises.
In the general aftermath of everything, no one really asked about the stink bomb. The custodian simply cleaned up a discarded box later that day and no one mentioned it. Custodian’s cool and knows how to not be a narc. He took back his key no questions asked. I really think the stink bomb wasn’t necessary to get Dan fired.
I just thought it would make his destruction more LOL.
My new supervisor is a much nicer guy. He hired my friend from the other department to join his after I resigned. HR told me that if I let them lay me off, I could collect six months of unemployment. I took it because I don’t think I’ll work in that field again. But in case I do, I got letters of recommendation from the boss and new supervisor.
Dan, of course, knew it was me who sabotaged his career. He has seen me around town before and knows I go to this cafe not far from where I live.
One day, about three months after it happened, he saw me sitting at a table alone. He came up to me, looking like his failed jock self, and said, ‘You think you’re pretty smart don’t you, you jerk?’ Then he started to approach me like he was going to use his physicality to intimidate me.
There were lots of witnesses, mostly elderly. Lucky for me, my husband came out of the bathroom just in time to see another man looking like he was threatening me. Happy ending. Dan got punched in the nose.
No, I’m not going to press charges, officer. 200-foot restraining order? Yes. Seven senior citizens stayed behind to tell the police a husband (himself a former football jock, but now a quiet research scientist) was defending his wife.
Give it up, Dan. You lose!”
11. Tow My Mom's Car Away? I'll Have Your Business Shut Down
“This happened in 2013.
My mom and I decided to go out to lunch one day. We drove until we found a lot whose business did not appear to be open at the time. My mom pulls into the lot and parks in a spot. We both walk over and investigate the business’s window. (It was a pastry shop for purposes later in the story.) The lights are not on, the door is locked, and there is a sign that says closed right behind the door.
We conclude they are closed and went to eat our lunch. We finish eating about a little over an hour later and come back to find out our car was missing, but now the bakery was open.
My mom and I walk inside the bakery and ask if they had seen our car. The owner with a very stern tone and attitude said, “Yeah, I had it towed because it was taking up spots for potential customers.
You should have come inside to ask me first.” My mom responds that we did attempt to see if she was open and even buy something to see if we could park there for an hour or so. She calls us liars and said she had been open all day and we never attempted to ask. My mom just basically said we tried and that it was wrong for her to tow us with so many other spots still available.
The owner said something back to my mom that really upset her and made her cry.
All while this was going on, I was taking mental notes that this bakery/pastry shop was having ventilation/insulation work being done. The insulation worker who I can only assume was a random contractor and not a specialist was doing the work right over the prep table for the food, all while smoking.
As I go to console my mom, I turn around and tell the lady her sign still says closed like when we originally came to the door. She storms up to me, picks up the sign, and slams it around to open, “We ARE OPEN NOW.”
I calmed my mom down, and we eventually got the car back from the tow company and got home. Once we got home, I was angry that that lady made my mom cry, so I wanted revenge.
I called the health department for the city. I say exactly what I wrote above to the guy on the phone who puts me on hold and tells me to repeat everything I said word for word to his director.
I tell the director the story (nothing about the car being towed, obviously; I was a concerned citizen). She verifies the address/location with me 3 separate times.
“Yes, the name was “X,” and yes it was across the street from this restaurant on this street.” She then tells me that she shut down that business the week prior for plumbing issues (insulation) and multiple other infractions. She was told she could not be OPEN and operate a business until the plumbing issue was fixed and approved and told me she would handle it.
Later that night on the news, that business was being shut down for good for all the infractions, and I could see my mom look so confused and happy at the same time like karma worked for her that quickly.
Told my mom years later, and she loved it.”
10. Expect Us To Work Overtime For Free? Good Luck Opening The Store Without Employees
Yeah, buddy. That ain’t happenin’.
“I met Grumpy in a support group for addicts. He volunteered there after they helped him and he became my sponsor. Seeing that I was trying to get my life together, he offered me my first job out of high school. Grumpy was the manager of a store for a company that sold everything you needed to build a house from cement and bricks to custom-made cupboards.
I started as a “loader,” filling the trucks that were making deliveries.
A little background for the company (it plays an important for later): when they started back in the early 80s, they sold everything you needed to build a brick-and-mortar home wholesale to professionals.
During their first expansion, they got a really good reputation for their prices of power tools, custom cupboards, and landscaping (including custom-made garden furniture).
The stores were basically big warehouses. In the mid-’90s, they opened their doors to the general public accompanied by a rising tent of DIY, which skyrocketed their sales. That brought a second, smaller wave of expansion and the opening of the online store (first only with phone orders and later with a proper site). When I joined, they were doing a third shift on their business plan.
They had cut down on things that weren’t a big seller (like bricks and concrete) and were focusing more on the big sellers (custom-made furniture, landscaping, tools, and, for some weird reason, plumbing).
My first 8 months on the job were a dream. Grumpy was an excellent manager. Having started in the company roughly the same age I was and being promoted through the ranks, had developed a very distinct managerial style.
His concept was simple: “If my employees are happy, they work better and provide better services, which leads to better sales.” That meant that while Grumpy managed one of the inner city stores, meaning medium to small size compared to others, we were fourth in revenue nationwide and first in customer happiness.
And then the reason for his nickname; a stroke.
While everyone called him Grumpy (a nickname he was kind of proud of), he was far from it.
The reason was he had a medical condition that affected his nerves and had left him with a permanent frown on his face. He had declined promotion due to that condition (knowing the extra stress would make his condition flair up, meaning he wouldn’t be as effective as he would like). His medical condition flared up unexpectedly, and Grumpy had to be hospitalized and be on sick leave for a time.
HQ decided to not have one of Grumpy’s assistants be an Acting Manager for the duration but bring in a regional manager to take over the store for the duration. Let’s call him Wilhelm.
Wilhelm was the exact opposite of Grumpy. He was younger than Grumpy (he was in his late 20s; Grumpy was in his late 30s), had a business degree, and hadn’t worked the floor at all.
He was hired from the beginning as an office drone and climbed his way to regional manager.
The reason he was put in charge of our store had to do with the change of the business plan of the company.
You see, the change of focus had created a lot of empty space in the stores. A supermarket chain had approached the company with an offer to rent the empty space, especially for inner-city stores.
The company had accepted and placed regional managers in key stores to help with integration. The thing is, the supermarket chain had a reputation of being bad employers. That was reinforced by one of our tellers, who had worked for them for three years before quitting to join us.
Wilhelm didn’t help also. His managerial style was based on only one concept: make more in any way possible.
He started by changing our schedule from monthly to weekly, raising the sales targets to unrealistic heights, and always demanded more. In the first two weeks, six experienced people had left (four quit and two fired) and were replaced by young, inexperienced people that were easier to manipulate.
And then, the integration happened.
The floor was the first to feel the problem. The supermarket opened its doors and was understaffed.
Wilhelm started sending people over to “help” for four to six hours, while also demanding to work their regular shifts. If someone declined, he/she was written up. Two write-ups in six months, and you were fired.
Then Wilhelm came to “lay the law” in the loading bay. The loading bay was shared between the two stores. Wilhelm declared that we had to help the two guys of the supermarket unload their trucks first because their products were “perishable” and then start loading our own trucks.
That would throw our delivery schedule to the wind. The loading crew worked from 05:00 to 13:00. We loaded first the trucks that had longer to travel, so they will be ready to leave at 07:00 at the latest (the company had a next-day delivery policy for a 150 miles radius). What Wilhelm declared meant we couldn’t start loading our trucks before 07:30, and they couldn’t start their route before 09:30.
We said as much, but Wilhelm didn’t care. He said we had to do both jobs.
When someone inquired about overtime, Wilhelm said no. He said we already made too much with unsocial hours (05:00 to 08:00) and leaving “early,” so he wouldn’t approve overtime.
So, from a nice environment that you wanted to work for, we all started getting miserable. We lost ten people in the loading crew in a month because of the new rules.
The new hires didn’t last long. The floor was a mess also.
Anyone who is staying is either looking for another job, is afraid of unemployment, or is too young to know better. The sales had a very small decline, but customer happiness is plummeting fast.
After almost six months, all the “Old Guard” that was left was ready to quit. But our “savior” came back. Almost six months from the day he was hospitalized, Grumpy walks into the store to claim his rightful position.
He isn’t a knight in shining armor, riding a pure white horse, carrying a legendary sword. He is in normal attire, slightly limping, and holding a cane. We have a “welcome back” party and have a small glimmer of hope now he is back. We are informed that Grumpy will be on light duties for two weeks before he becomes the manager again. Despite Grumpy being back, Wilhelm still remains the regional manager, which means he outranks Grumpy and makes it very clear in private meetings with all of us.
If he caught us complaining to Grumpy, we were as good as gone.
Still, a few of us are planning to have a meeting with Grumpy after the weeks (letting him get his “sea legs” back). But another department had other ideas.
During his “Reign of Terror,” the only department that Wilhelm couldn’t control was the workshop. He knew that if he treated them as bad as he did to us, they would quit, and the sales would go from a small decline to the bottom of the barrel real quick (as I said, custom-made furniture was the number one seller).
So, the head carpenter has a meeting with Grumpy on his second day talking about “the future of the workshop.” In reality, the guy spilled the beans on Wilhelm.
With the pretext of “catching up” with the changes, Grumpy has meetings with everyone, learning what Wilhelm had done and why we had so many new staff. You could feel he was getting angrier with every meeting. He had also had an eye-opening meeting with the manager of the supermarket. Finally, the time had come that he is the manager again.
On his first day back as a manager, Grumpy notifies everyone of a mandatory meeting after the store is closed.
He has a solution.
So, gather in the store after closing hours. And Grumpy lays out the plan. For the next couple of days, nobody except him is coming to the store. If anyone calls us, we should direct them to him. Which we did, when we started getting calls about the store being closed.
Grumpy’s answer to the HQ was simple: the staff was working on a second job during their shifts, which is a breach of contract, so I had to fire them all and find new staff.
That caught HQ’s attention because nothing of the sort was reported in the past six months.
They asked Grumpy for evidence, which he happily provided with our written testimonies, which brought a storm on Wilhelm.
You see, Wilhelm had an “arrangement” with the supermarket manager. He got a kickback from our unpaid labor for the supermarket and the manager offered the same thing to Grumpy. He also included that Wilhelm regularly declined to sign over time, which meant that if any one of us went to the Labor Department, the company would get a really huge fine.
Wilhelm quickly got fired.
We all received calls to “interview” with the company for an open position.
We all received severance pay for our “firing” plus most of the unpaid overtime (about 80% of it). Almost all of us went back to work with a small pay raise based on experience. The company took a long, hard look at the supermarket chain and distanced themselves from them (they stayed until their lease was over but no shared employees anymore and a lot of theirs jumped ship to our side).
The next time Grumpy had to take time off, one of his assistants took over. Two did a stellar job, leading to being promoted to managers in other stores. Grumpy brought back his usual managerial style, leading again to a rise in sales and customer happiness.
I left the job three years later for a better paying position, but I still remember Grumpy as one of the best managers I ever had.”
9. Won't Pay Me? You'll Be Paying Thousands To Somebody
Whether it’s me or someone else.
“This story isn’t about me, but my dear old dad. Back in the day, he used to be a plumber. He then went on to join the military where he sustained various injuries/chemical exposure. Anyway, this happened during the time when he was fighting for his disability. On occasion, he would do side jobs just to get by. It was very painful/difficult work for him, but alas, the bills needed to be paid.
At the time, he had a neighbor up the road who needed some pretty serious work done in his home and offered to pay my dad a bit over $3,000 for the labor. To be frank, $3000 was a bit on the low end for the work, but my dad figured hey, help a neighbor out and he really needed to make a little something (the holidays were coming up, a little over two months before Christmas).
The guy buys the supplies, my dad does the labor, with promises that he’ll be paid when it is finished (you already know where this is going).
Surprise surprise, the work gets finished, the guy doesn’t pay up. Not only does this guy not pay my dad, but he has the gall to laugh at my dad and ask him what he’s going to do about it since the work was under the table.
Neighbor be damned, oh was he (my dad) ever mad! I remember when he flat out told me – ‘that jerk might not ever pay me, but he’s going to be paying SOMEONE that three thousand dollars, just you watch sweets!’ and he got to work. He couldn’t spend a lot of time on his feet but he had quite a few hours to kill, and he started planning this dude’s comeuppance.
He went to the store and bought a boatload of jacks (the kind that comes in the game of Jacks, with the rubber ball and whatnot). He then proceeded to spend the next couple of weeks sharpening them up and making the ends into little spikes. Every time he would drive by this guy’s house, he’d casually toss a handful out the window into this guy’s driveway.
You can imagine, this guy was constantly getting flat tires and had to continuously repair and replace them.
Fast forward to Christmas day, my dad calls me up cackling hysterically so I ask him what’s up.
This is actually one of my favorite memories of him, he tells me- ‘Remember that neighbor?! The one that screwed me over??! Well I just drove by his house and he, the wife, and the kids are all dressed up for church standing in the front yard by their car and it’s got a couple of flats!! You see, I think he wised up because he started parking in the grass, but jerk didn’t know I threw them in the yard too!!!!’ I love my dad.”
8. Be Rude To Me? I'll Watch This Company Lose Thousands
“I used to work at a gas station. This particular company was not like most gas stations though. They treat their employees well and train them extensively. For the most part, the atmosphere was great, and my coworkers and managers were great too.
Except there was one assistant manager who was extremely rude to me. It didn’t matter how polite I was or how hard I worked.
She constantly micromanaged and would be flat-out rude. She would also snap at me and be condescending to me in front of customers. At first, I thought it might be a case of proving myself as I had run into that kind of manager before, and they lightened up once they realized I was a solid employee. But that was not the case here, and what once was a fun place to work quickly became a nightmare.
To make matters worse, everyone that worked there knew this about her, but the manager always let it slide as the assistant’s relative manages another location.
One evening, she called to ask questions about which pump had broken down first as I had been there when it happened. As I began to explain, she didn’t let me get more than a few words out (basically just wanted to hear what she thought happened) before rudely cutting me off and hanging up on me.
At that moment, I decided I had enough (trust me, it took months upon months to get to that point) and didn’t bother calling back.
Little did she know, if she had let me finish my sentence, she would have known the issue technically started at a completely different pump the first time, but it was actually all of them at once. When I arrived at work the next day, they were still having the same issues and working on the wrong pump. This went on for several days before she and the other boss called me in the office and asked me again what exactly happened, to which I looked at her and said, “Are you going to let me finish my sentence this time, or are you going to cut me off again?” Cue the both of them staring at me like I had 6 heads.
I then went on again to explain what happened.
And made sure to point out the moment she had cut me off and hung up on me and said, “Now, if I had gotten to finish my sentence the other night, you would have known that the issue was not with the pump they’ve been working on for the past 4 days. And they all actually went down at once, but it only appeared they went one at a time because of the timing between customers which suggests an issue with the tank system, not the pumps.”
The assistant’s eyes got wide.
“You knew this whole time?! The company has spent thousands already on the wrong pump!”
To which I shrugged my shoulders and replied, “Again, maybe you shouldn’t have cut me off and hung up on me. That was the cherry on top of months of you being rude to me for no good reason. Why would I bother?”
The assistant looked at me and then to the big boss who also shrugged and said, “You know, Assistant, I don’t blame them one bit.” She then excused me.
The assistant ended up being written up for creating a hostile work environment after the big boss investigated and heard from other employees how she had treated me. She barely said two words to me for the remaining months I was there before I finally found a new job.
I did apologize to the big boss for not speaking up, and while she told me she wished I had spoken up, she did understand why I chose to not say anything and that there was a history of this assistant being this way towards employees that do well. She perceives them as a threat even though they are just doing their job.
Petty but worth it! Especially if this is what it took for her to learn a lesson in treating others with simple respect.”
7. Fire Me For Mentioning Work Safety Problems? Sure, But It Will Cost You
“I’ve worked in construction, paving, and mining for years. I was a fabricator, welder, mechanic, laborer, and equipment operator or a combination of all 5 at various times. If you’re familiar with MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration) then you know it’s like OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) on steroids. My dad has decades of experience in the coal, iron, copper, borax, and uranium mining industries and is an MSHA instructor (as well as a pilot).
My older brother worked in construction and mining as well and is now the safety compliance officer for a huuuuge construction company. My uncle was a journeyman for almost 40 years (that’s a lot of years to be a power line electrician and never suffer a serious injury). Needless to say, we have a rather large knowledge of what is safe and what is not safe.
Safety regulations aren’t nonsense. They are designed to keep your fingers attached and your heart beating. Literally, thousands upon thousands of people have been horribly maimed and killed in order to build these regulations into what they are. I detest employers skirting safety for a quick buck.
Story: I quit my last mining job because the employer was shady as heck (white-collar crime stuff. Yes, they went out of business) and I was tired of the 200+ mile commute each day on top of 12+ hours of work in 130+ degree heat.
I began looking for a new job and found a fabrication gig building/maintaining/repairing offroad vehicles. I rather enjoyed the work even though it paid half what the mining did. Fairly large facility with about 40 employees. I had decent coworkers and this was my first job with air conditioning (LOVE AC), however, I couldn’t really stand the shop manager (SM).
SM was a know it all who didn’t really know anything about welding or fabrication or safety.
I’d say something like, ‘I think we can do this work/repair/job twice as fast if we do this instead’ and his normal type of response would be, ‘Well, we pay you to work, not think/ask questions,’ etc.
The guy was (and to my knowledge still is) an idiot and I cannot figure out how he got his position. Literally, every time you’d step into his office, he was watching stuff on YouTube or reading a magazine.
He never lifted a finger in the shop in my 1.5 years around there, and I have no idea what he actually ‘managed.’
For about the first year there, each month I’d put in orders for stuff like welding gloves, respirator filters, welding hoods, welding wire, tools, raw materials, etc. You know, stuff they’re supposed to supply. In my last few months there, SM slacked even more which I didn’t think was possible, and started skimping on my orders.
I’d order 5 pairs of decent gloves, and he would get me 2 pairs of awful gloves. I’d order name-brand parts to repair machinery, he would get me cheap Chinese parts. Other requests were simply ignored and I did end up spending more purchasing PPE (personal protective equipment) which got old really quick. I’d tell him stuff along the lines of, ‘hey you can’t let people block fire extinguishers like that’ or ‘you can’t store those chemicals there” and he’d brush it off like I have no idea what I’m talking about.
This is where all the safety stuff I’d learned and been around for decades came in handy.
He really started getting under my skin badly, so I wrote up a loooong list of around 20 – 25 OSHA violations I found over the course of a Monday and took about 60 photos which I planned to turn in to him since IT’S HIS JOB TO FIX THIS STUFF.
That Friday I went looking for him around lunchtime but couldn’t find him so I went to HR and basically vented to them about SM and about how because of his ever increasingly low standards, they are begging for an accident to happen. The work environment had become unsafe and it needed SOMEONE to straighten stuff up. I leave HR and go back to work. Around 30 mins later SM walks up to me and is livid.
The convo went a little something like this:
SM: ‘HR tells me you don’t think this place is safe?’
Me: ‘Yeah man, something’s gotta be done bout some of this stuff. In fact, I got a list for ya right h-…’
SM takes the list from my hand and rips it in half.
SM: ‘Well, if it’s so unsafe, why are you here?!’
Me: ‘Because I-…’
SM: ‘YOU KNOW WHAT? YOU CAN TAKE THE REST OF THE DAY OFF.’
Me: ‘Alright…
SM: ‘IN FACT, DON’T BOTHER COMING BACK MONDAY OR TUESDAY OR WEDNESDAY-…’
Me: ‘Are you firing me for bringing up safety complaints to you?’
I start getting a fat grin
SM: ‘YES, IN FAC-…’
Me: ‘Say no more.
See ya.’
I gathered up my tools and toolbox and left. I get home and file for unemployment. My unemployment claim gets rejected (surprise, surprise) and I appeal the decision, so the matter gets sent to arbitration a few weeks later (roughly 6 weeks after I was let go). I’m in the waiting room and reviewing all the paperwork relating to my claim and the first page I see is the company response to my initial claim which said I was fired for, ‘freaking out, being belligerent, and wouldn’t say what the safety issues actually were.’ The next page is their response to my appeal which said I was fired for ‘being belligerent’ and despite my poor attitude they were ‘fixing the safety issues he brought up.’
I get called into the arbitration room and I’m actually shocked that no one from my former company showed up.
It was just me and the arbitrator (very Judge Judy-like lady), she asked me straight and direct questions, I answered truthfully and the whole thing was over in probably 6 minutes. She asked me if I had any questions and I had just one, ‘why did they say on page one of my paperwork that I wouldn’t tell them what the safety issues were but page two says they are working towards fixing the issues I told them?’ The arbitrator went silent for a minute while reading each page and just says ‘Huh… You’re right.’ I’m told it’ll be about 2 weeks before I have an answer.
The next morning, maybe 14~ hours after the arbitration I receive a letter saying my benefits are approved… Plus I get retroactive benefits from the date I was fired AND I’m receiving $100 more each week (net income) on unemployment than I was making full-time at the company lol.
Fast forward about a year, I saved some of the unemployment funds and used it to get my own little fabrication shop going.
My dad calls me up one day letting me know that one of his customers that day is an OSHA inspector and they got to talking about what had happened with my former company, and my dad and I even showed those pictures to the inspector guy (I didn’t have a PC or printer at home so I printed those 60 pics up at his work and left copies there the year before).
He said the inspector was appalled by the pictures and said he would check it out. Fast forward another year. My little fabrication company gets brought into the fold of the company my dad works at so they could stop outsourcing mechanics and fabricators and it’d be much cheaper to have a mechanic/welder in-house.
On one of my days off, that same OSHA inspector fella came by and got to talking with my dad again about my former company. Apparently, he did a surprise visit to them not long after he had seen my dad the previous year and handed out somewhere in the neighborhood $30,000 in fines for OSHA violations. Not fix-it tickets. Full-on ‘pay this or we shut you down’ fines.”
6. Threaten My Job? Let Me Reveal This Recording Of Your Unprofessionalism
Even the top dogs will get caught with due time.
“I’m a paramedic, and after many many years of working regular ground ambulance, I decided I had enough; my whole career I was either a glorified Uber driver, being spit on by intoxicated people, bit by junkies, or chauffeuring people between hospitals (though, once in a blue moon, I saved a life). There isn’t a lot of different jobs you can parlay an EMS career into, so I elected to move into the private sector and got a job doing basically the same thing at a mine in a remote environment, worked 2 weeks straight with 2 weeks off, less stress and an enviable salary.
On the surface, this was a sweet gig, almost heaven compared to the regular stretcher jockey job I come from, and it would have been such if not for the absolute psychopath who managed the EMS services out there.
I didn’t work directly from the mine’s operator. Instead, I was employed by a contractor. The coordinator (my local boss) as he was called was a golden boy as far as the Mine Co.
was concerned, there wasn’t a butt he didn’t kiss or big wig he wouldn’t suck up to, and I admit he could be charming, quite adept at impersonating a human being actually. It wasn’t long before I discovered he reserved decency for everyone but his subordinates.
His behavior started out as petty micromanaging, which was irritating but then progressed to insults, putdowns, name-calling (“hey dumbo” was his usual way to get my attention), and outright hostility.
The man clearly enjoyed being a small-time workplace despot and knew he could get away with it because of his reputation with our paymasters.
It was around the 2-month mark before I really warmed up to my coworkers, there were 8 of us including myself and the jerk in chief, and not a single one of them spoke a nice word about him. Most were resigned to him acting like a massive jerk because of the 2 week holiday every month along with the pay rate, they also told me every complaint was ignored, provoked retaliation, and again his relationship with the client made him untouchable.
This is when I started recording everything and did so with these two assumptions: 1. The company would only act with serious proof of malfeasance 2. His acts of jerkery would only escalate. Neither assumption proved false.
I had nearly 3 months of audiotapes of him being just his regular jerk self before he went too far. About a week into the shift I showed up at our station and was called into his office only to be informed I was being let go and my replacement would be there in a few hours.
I was to go back to our accommodations, pack my stuff up, and report back there. “Well heck,” I thought before doing as I was bidden. Upon arriving back to the office with my suitcases this sadist started laughing and said, “No one’s coming to replace you! You’re so freaking gullible!” It was a mock firing.
I was livid and let loose on him finally ending a tirade with a malicious hint “can you imagine what the office would do if they could have heard all this nonsense?” Unrepentant to the last he coldly stared at me before replying “can you imagine what they would do if a bunch of empty beer cans turned up and I told the office I saw you drinking?”
Having recorded all this and knowing my glorious victory was assured, I feigned capitulation to carry on with my day. My first day off I sent in a detailed letter to the company along with recordings and as expected they fired his butt. What came after was righteous cackling laughter…for hours.
I wonder is this how Napoleon felt after winning at Austerlitz?”
5. Act Entitled While Sitting In The Middle Seat? Get Arrested
“This happened in 2004 on a flight back after dropping my mother-in-law off at home. She was in her 80s and didn’t like flying alone, so whenever she visited with my wife and me, I ended up flying down to pick her up and flying back with her to take her home. I liked earning the miles; plus, I enjoyed it a lot because I genuinely adored my mother-in-law.
Anyway, I had the aisle seat (which I always book), and the guy in the middle seat, who was there before me, refused to move his leg and kept his arm on the armrest. I get in my seat, but he’s really pushing back hard. It feels like he’s basically trying to take over the entire row. I’m pushing back too but refused to continue this the entire flight even though it’s barely a 75-minute flight.
As the flight attendant walked by prior to lift off, I purposely commented loud enough for her to hear, “Dude, stop trying to play footsie with me; I’m not interested!” He got all flustered and moved a little bit, though not a lot.
Fast forward to just after takeoff, the seat belt sign is turned off, and they’re getting ready to serve drinks. Now he’s spreading out again but even more than before.
I unhooked my belt and jumped out of my seat and yelled at him to stop touching me. FA and the air marshal rush up to me as quickly as they could to see what was going on while he’s trying to form words. I tell them he keeps rubbing his leg against me and won’t stop even after I tell him to. Before this guy could respond, the passenger in the window seat says he’s rubbing up against him too.
He gets taken out of the middle seat, protesting the whole time. He’s sat down in a “jump seat” with the marshal next to him. The FA comes back to me and the guy by the window and offers us a free drink for our inconvenience. We both accept gladly! Free beer is always a good thing.
About 20 minutes before the flight is supposed to land, the marshal comes back to me and asks if I wanted to press charges.
I seriously thought about doing it but said no. I’m just glad he’s not next to me and pushing up against me. The guy in the window seat said the same. And figured that was that.
After the flight landed, and we had exited the plane, I see the middle seat guy in cuffs and a couple of cops talking to the FA. The air marshal saw me standing there and walked over to me.
I asked him what happened. He said the guy called the FA a jerk and a few other choice words, and she was pressing assault charges against him because he did make a threat of bodily harm. He asked me again if I wanted to press charges, and again, I told him no; the guy’s already in enough trouble.
As I walked away, I looked at the idiot and started laughing.
Maybe next time, he’ll just move. I didn’t want him arrested; I just wanted him to stop being a jerk. He’s the one who decided to make it worse for himself.”
Another User Comments:
“Lol. I wish I had done this instead…
I’m a male, and the dude in the middle seat was male. The airline couldn’t put me in the same seat row with my mom because some dude thought he can call “shotgun” and took the middle seat.
After he kept trying to hog both armrest and leg space, I told him that if he wants to join the Mile High Club, meet me in the bathroom. The dude just looked at me like, what the heck, and I told him the way he was acting and kept rubbing his arm on mine, it was giving me mixed signals.
This was an international flight; the movies selection sucked, and I forgot to bring a thick book. I spent the rest of the flight “flirting” with the dude, and he couldn’t switch to another seat due to a full flight. Made it fun. Thanks for reminding me about that.” ZenDendou
4. Betray Me? I'll Find The Perfect Time To Get Rid Of You
“This happened over a year ago. This is how I found out my partner was two-timing me.
I suppose, firstly, I should start by telling you how I met my girl and what she came to mean to me. I first met Sarah at a yoga class in the summer of 2016. Never in my life did I think I would see myself going to something like that… the silly spandex, the holier-than-thou attitude, the way everyone talked to each other like they were on cloud nine.
It’s not something I ever imagined myself doing but when I hurt my back after falling from a first-floor roof at work, I decided to give it a shot on the recommendation of my back masseuse and found a hall in my city doing beginner yoga classes.
When the day to go came and I walked through the door I instantly stuck out like a sore thumb.
Everyone was standing around talking dressed to the nines in their best yoga gear, while I sauntered in wearing bog-standard shorts and a t-shirt, looking like someone from a cowboy flick walking onto a sci-fi movie set.
I immediately wanted to about turn and leave of course, but the woman doing the class saw the look of pure terror in my eyes and came up to me and said hi.
I told her why I was there, and that I didn’t feel very comfortable but she insisted that I should give it a try, as she thought it would help my back problems, and if not, well no harm no foul.
I felt better at that point and thought screw it, might as well try and get my money’s worth, even if I do end up looking like a diseased pretzel.
It was then that I looked across the room and saw the same look of terror that I had no doubt been portraying… that was Sarah. She had not long found out she had scoliosis, after years of being misdiagnosed, and told that it was all in her head among other things. She was there with her mother, who was with her for emotional support and to see how she got on.
After seeing her I instinctively gravitated towards her in the same way that a drowning person gravitates towards a life ring thrown at them. After the yoga instructor had a chat with her, she shouted me over and said that it was Sarah’s first time too, so maybe we should sit next to one another and give each other a bit of support. I said that was cool with me and she also smiled and nodded so I walked over.
We hit it off right away, my emotions went from a bit of embarrassment to serious wonder as we both attempted to fit in with the rest of the class. After the class was over, we were still talking away and I felt a genuine connection and butterflies in my stomach, and as we said goodbye we caught each other’s gaze and she smiled at me with a purity that for the first time in my life made me feel weak at the knees.
I wouldn’t have gone back in a million years had I not met her, but I decided to go the next week and when I walked in the door, I got those butterflies in my stomach again and was hoping to see her face… but she wasn’t there. As I was sitting there I felt this feeling of pure dread and was sat thinking what am I even doing here? I felt this sadness that was hard to describe, it kinda reminded me of when I went to this holiday caravan park when I was about 12 with my gran and cousins and there was this big center with pool tables and recreational things and all that stuff.
I remember seeing this girl there every night for a week and I instantly fell in love with her, didn’t say a word to her right enough, but psyched myself up so that I was gonna try to speak to her on the last night at the disco, but when we went down she wasn’t there. I’ll never forget that feeling of sadness as we went home, that girl had walked out of my life, and she probably didn’t even know she walked into it.
I felt the same aching sadness when I didn’t see Sarah. I knew nothing about her, had no way of contacting her, and felt this surreal sadness that was hard to quantify.
About 4 months later I was working on a roof repairing a truss damaged in a storm when we decided to stop for a break, as we made our way back to the van the house owner came out and asked us if we wanted cups of coffee.
We accepted and she came out with coffee and biscuits. As soon as I had seen this woman, I just knew her face from somewhere, but couldn’t for the life of me place her. It wasn’t until that night after racking my brain that I realized it was at that yoga hall I had seen her before, and it was Sarah’s mother.
The next day I was back finishing the job and the same thing happened, we stopped for a break, went down towards the van and the woman came out asking if we wanted some coffee.
After we finished up I took the cups and biscuit wrappers back and as I was passing them over to her I asked how her daughter was and was she still having back problems? She looked surprised but smiled at me and said yes, then asked how I knew her? I replied that I’d spoken to her at a yoga class months back, she laughed and said she remembered me now.
I then gave her a card with my number written on it and asked if she could maybe get her daughter to text me as I wanted to get back in touch with her. Shoot my shot I thought, wish I hadn’t now.
I got a text message that night from Sarah asking how I was and that she had looked for me again at the yoga hall but I wasn’t there.
Turned out she had gone back the week after me as she thought it was bi-weekly. We met up soon after, really hit it off again and after 8 months she moved in with me. She was funny, smart, and sweet as well as being the most uniquely beautiful person I’d ever met. She had a whimsical beauty to her, pointed ears and defined features, she reminded me of she-elf or something, I truly thought I’d found my soul mate.
She had moved into my home and everything was going great guns. She was on disability and got personal independence payments, and was getting steroid injections for her scoliosis, which along with painkillers and exercises were keeping her pain at bay. We would alternate the cooking, while she has done the cleaning, and took care of our cat Mitzi. I was also making good money so we were in a comfortable position financially.
When I got back from work we’d always be doing things like going out for walks or the like, just always in each other’s company. It was at this point I was seriously contemplating proposing to her.
Things changed around Halloween 2019. Our intimate life was always very active, but there were times when she occasionally wasn’t up to it, and I was fine with that. We’d work around positions that were comfortable for her due to her back problems, but I’d say in general, she had a high drive.
Well around October she started complaining a lot about her back hurting more, especially just before the times we’d usually go to bed together. Anytime we did hook up after that, it wasn’t passionate or intense, it felt like we were going through the motions. She started complaining while we were in the middle of it, so at that point, I’d stop of course. I started feeling really frustrated, but I was positive that it was just a blip, and that we’d get through it together.
Thing is, she seemed fine in other aspects of her life, she seemed happy. The first real red flag for me came in December when she completely stopped showing me affection. She just became cold towards me, she seemed repulsed when I put my arms around her or tried to take her hand. She was the one who was so touchy-feely, hands in hair, constant reaffirming touches, kisses, and cuddles.
When we’d sit on the couch, she’d basically be on top of me. That all completely stopped… didn’t for Mitzi though, yes that’s right I ended up jealous of our cat.
At this point, we were in the new year and I suspected her of seeing another man. She had become downright hostile towards me, I started trying to up my workload around the house but nothing was good enough.
I ended up constantly being belittled and being super cautious, couldn’t do right for wrong, and was starting to become humorless protection of my witty former self. One night I got a hold of her phone and looked through it… nothing… was clean as a whistle. Wasn’t even any messages from her friends or her mother, which I found weird. Was then that my friend told me that if we were on the same plan then I could check on the website of the carrier and see all the activity from her phone.
We were on the same plan, and I paid for her phone. That night I logged into my BT account, navigated to mobile, then her number, started to sift through, and there it was, thousands of texts and calls to this one specific number. It had started six months previously, and it had dates, times, and how long the calls were. She’d be speaking to and texting this person for hours and hours while I was at work, deleting everything before I got home, then going cold turkey when I got back.
I googled the number and up came a local garage, one where she had got her car fixed previously. I remembered it taking a while for it to get fixed and her complaining about it a lot, the whole thing was a long-drawn-out affair, in more ways than one apparently. At this point I was ice cold, I already had got it into my head she was having an affair, so getting it confirmed was more of a relief than anything else.
I wanted to catch her in the act, rather than have her attempt to gaslight me and squirm out of the circumstantial, so I found out everything I could about this guy. I found out where he lived, that he had a young wife and child, found out what car he drove, even walked in asking about prices so I could look this guy in the eye and get a measure of him.
His name was Carl with a K.
I knew the affair was physical for lots of reasons, but the fact that their phone calls and texts stopped dead from 1 to 2 each day said to me that was the time they were meeting up. I came up with all sorts of silly plans, to loan my friend’s car and sit at the end of the street, then wait till she drove out, then follow her to the place she was meeting this guy and jump out of the car while they were in the act like ‘surprise!’ There were too many variables in that though, and I’m no private detective.
One day I decided to drive by his garage about half one and her car was just sitting there, and the place was locked up, so mystery solved.
I was at this point at the end of my tether, and ready to just tell her that I knew everything and get out of my house when she asked if it would be ok to go away to a spa place for the weekend… Alone.
She said she was depressed with everything with her back being so much worse, that this place would be great to help with that with all the things she could do. That she could come back refreshed and like a new person. She was right about that, cos I didn’t know who was standing in front of me anymore.
Obviously, she wasn’t going there alone, if she was even going there at all.
This would be a dirty weekend away with this guy. I said fine, now I had a new plan, and this would be the last thing I’d do for her. If you’re thinking this is all too much of a kerfuffle, then you’re right obviously, but my position is I wanted revenge, and I wanted to get her back with some style. I didn’t just want to have her cry at and gaslight me for days, then leave on her terms, with me the bad guy.
I would be the bad guy but it would be my terms she’d be leaving on alright.
The Friday came and the spa was a hundred or so miles down the road so she decided to get a train. I jokingly asked her if she couldn’t find something more local, umming and oohing followed till I told her I was only kidding. I got off work a couple of hours early and took her to the train station, despite her protests she would get a taxi, as I wanted to see her off.
We drive in and as I’m looking for a place to park wouldn’t you guess who’s car I spot? That’s right Carl with a K. I think screw it, I’m gonna have some fun and make her squirm so I park up directly next to him. They’re right next to each other door to door and she immediately becomes uneasy, not knowing where to look, I’m pretending to look for something trying to draw out the moment and the atmosphere is razor-sharp at that point.
What happened next genuinely caused me to do something out with my plan.
She started to silently giggle. You know when you go to church or someone dies or you go to church cos someone dies and something funny pops into your head? And it becomes mental torture desperately trying to think of something else and stop yourself from laughing maniacally? Well, she’s desperately trying not to laugh, I’m pretending not to notice, she’s tapping her hand on her trouser leg and from the corner of my eye, I can see him, with his head on the steering wheel.
She actually lets out a laugh then quickly disguises it as a cough and starts clearing her throat. I start doing the whole tapping of back thing and I’m just thinking to myself, I can’t wait to get you back. See we all go through life being the butt of the joke at least once, whether it be passive-aggressive work colleagues or when you get up and try and do a talk at school with a face redder than the devil himself.
But you never expect that nonsense from people who are supposed to have your back, even if you are conspiring against them at that point!
I helped her into the train station with her things, made sure she had her bearings, said goodbye and walked away. By the time I got out Carl with a K’s car was nowhere to be seen, so I went back home, composed myself, and carried out my plan.
My plan was simple but effective, I started by having a locksmith come out to change the locks. I then proceeded to pack all of her clothes and belongings into bin bags and put them around the side of the house. On Friday night, with the noise of her laughing at me ringing in my ears, I have done something I never imagined I could do.
I took Mitzi’s litter tray, walked around the side of the house with it, opened the bin bag with Sarah’s belongings in it and threw it in, gave the bag a good shake then tied it up again. The way I saw it at the time was that it’s cause and effect in action, she caused me to effectively put cat poop in with her things.
If you’re thinking I’m a jerk then you’re probably right, I’ll never win any awards for being the nicest neighbor on the block. If I don’t like you within 5 minutes of meeting you I probably never will, and the only time I’d ever take out your trash is if you are the trash. If you do break through those barriers though I think I am a loyal caring person, I didn’t do anything to deserve being lied to, except maybe putting cat litter in with her things but that was after the fact!
I spent the Saturday in a mire of depression, answering her texts with the only energy I could muster, which wasn’t a lot.
I complained of a severe headache from a hangover I never had and the texts dwindled. The reality of what was transpiring hit home and for the first time since before the new year, I took stock of my life, sitting in my swivel armchair with Mitzi in tow like a Bond villain.
Sunday came and I was ready to execute the final part of my plan.
Firstly I drove to Carl with a K’s house and put a letter through his door, It was addressed to his wife and basically said in block capitals IMPORTANT CARL WITH A K’S WIFE’S NAME OPEN IMMEDIATELY. Inside it was a letter outlining how her husband was having an affair with my significant other, copies of her phone calls and text log, as well as other information like that they were away together this weekend.
I put it through the door, rang the doorbell, and walked away. Got in my car and drove for a minute then parked up again, then I phoned Sarah. I genuinely can’t remember a lot of what I said to her but it was something along the lines of – me asking how everything was going, she started to gush about how much she enjoyed herself, that she feels like a new woman and that she could maybe see herself doing it 2 or 3 times a year, you know, to blow off the cobwebs… At this point I blurt out, ‘how’s Carl?’ her yapping stops dead, silence fills the air until she finally says ‘who’s Carl?’… ‘You know’ I reply, ‘Carl… with a K’.
I then proceeded to tell her that I knew everything, that I’d changed the locks and all her stuff was around the side of the house. Instead of being apologetic, she goes on a thunderous diatribe, blaming me for everything, basically stabbing me in the back while complaining that my backbone was blunting her blade. In the end, I told her how her stuff smelled of Mitzi’s poo and hung up.
I blocked her number and didn’t see her nor hear from her until the Wednesday when I came back from work she was sitting on the doorstep, all the bags had been moved. I ignored her, walked around the back, let myself in the back door, and locked it behind me. Haven’t spoken to her since, although she’s made her attempts, including a letter.
In regards to Karl, I don’t know what happened between him and his wife.
I do know that he said it wasn’t personal to a friend of mine. That made me angry like is that supposed to make it better? Someone saying something isn’t personal just means it isn’t personal to them, it was to me. If someone smashes through your front room in a 4 by 4 obliterating everyone you’ve ever loved is it easier to get over if they didn’t personally mean it? Is it easier to pick up the pieces and put them back together again? No.
I heard that the health crisis hasn’t been kind to his business though but you won’t catch me shedding no tears for that, unless it’s tears of laughter, that is.”
Karl sounds like a psychopath- he ruined everyone's lives including his own child's and says it "isn't personal."
3. Accuse Me Of Stealing, So I Get Fired? The Tables Will Turn
“So I worked for Company A for almost a decade that had a small team consisting of ten people, doing commissioned work for businesses in my city. The owner treated us like family, knowing that we worked long and hard days, sometimes up to 60 hours in a week. He paid us better than expected, bonuses and perks, he negotiated with businesses that commissioned our work, even gave the whole company a week off paid when his son was getting married so we could attend it.
We had our squabbles like any other family, and things weren’t always bright and perfect, but this is to show how nice the Owner treated his employees. And didn’t screw me over.
After working there for years, the manager position came open. By then I was one of the most senior workers with Company A, so I thought I would apply, which had a few others interested as well.
I didn’t get the position, mainly because, despite my experience at Company A, I didn’t have a Business Administration degree. Someone who worked for the Owner did, so he got it. Realizing the education I would have to get, and the demand of this job, I thought long and hard and concluded that, if I wanted to go anywhere in life, I would have to get that degree.
Coming right out of high school to work for Company A was great, but if I wanted to do something more I would have to go to university. I talked to the Owner and gave my two weeks notice. When I explained what I wanted to do and why he understood that I was trying to make something of myself. This all becomes relevant later.
Going to university, I found that I had tuition covered through government grants but not things like food, rent, etc.
So I looked around and eventually found work at Company B. Company B was a retail store, with a bigger staff than I had been used to, somewhere around 50 employees but had such a huge employee turnaround that it was scary at times.
They dealt with a wide arrangement of goods from groceries to very expensive items. They had a certain niche clientele that they could order items for and catered to.
I ended up working part-time in their warehouse and answered to the Warehouse Supervisor, who answered to the Manager. There were other supervisors for other parts of the store, but for this only the Sales Supervisor is relevant.
Skip forward seven years. In that time I got my BA degree and worked at Company B the whole time, going from part-time to full, and eventually applied for the Warehouse Supervisor position.
I was interviewed, got the job, been a supervisor for months when the Manager and I hired K as a warehouse clerk.
K isn’t the one to get the revenge, but she played a crucial part in the revenge.
Then B gets hired.
B started out as a cashier, working quickly up the chain and brown-nosing as many co-workers as possible, including the Manager. When a sales rep went on maternity leave, B quickly jumped at the chance to work in sales and ended up permanently being a part of that team then the Sales Supervisor soon after.
B and I got along like oil and water. We butted heads over things constantly; she would tell the Manager all the small things that I did, but called me a snitch when I reported the issues she was causing. She would badmouth me and my warehouse staff, talk over me at meetings and try to take credit for my ideas.
She openly told co-workers that I was the cause of many issues and couldn’t wait for me to leave.
Oh, and she was NEVER at fault. It would be the customer’s fault, my fault, the delivery driver’s fault, another co-workers fault, etc. There were times when we got together well, but far and few between.
So one day, a very, and I mean VERY, expensive ring set (over $5,000 I found out later), ordered by one of our customers, comes in. Years ago, I set up a procedure for any type of jewelry so that it will not get lost or stolen.
The last step is, once we have done everything with it in the warehouse, we take it to the office and have someone put it in the safe immediately.
This particular time, I was the one who received the rings so, once going through the procedure, I told K that I was taking them to the office. The only one available who had the combination to the safe was B.
I asked her if she could open the safe, she looked at me, looked at the jewelry box in my hand, then said, ‘put it down here on my desk, I’ll put it away once I’m done this email.’ Keep in mind that B and I had had a serious spat over something earlier that day, and I generally didn’t feel like being close to her if I could help it.
So I never saw her put it in the safe myself.
The next day, I get a call from the Manager to come to the office. I head there to find Manager, B, and the HR consultant. Manager tells me that said ring set has disappeared. I tell them the procedure I followed and the last I saw them was with B. Manager tells me that B checked the box and that said box was empty.
Manager then pulls the box out. Sure enough, the box the rings were in was indeed empty. I swear to Manager that the rings were inside when I checked them before being given to B. At this point, it’s my word against hers. By a stroke of bad luck, the in-store video recorder had broken down days before the incident so there was no way to verify what happened.
We all know someone has to take the blame for this, and that’s when B strikes, saying that it was my fault, since it was last seen in my hands. Manager asks if this is true, then I realize that, yes, I was indeed the last person to touch the thing, and I never actually saw B pick up the box. B gives me the look that screamed ‘Gotcha!’ Manager and the HR consultant ask us both to leave.
After what seemed like forever, I get called in. Manager tells me that, since I was responsible for the rings at the time and now are lost, they would be firing me. But, since they had no proof as to whether I stole the rings or not, they wouldn’t press charges (which scared the life out of me as this was the first time I heard of them thinking this).
I went back to the warehouse, told K and the other warehouse clerks just what happened, grabbed my personal belongings, and left that day.
After a couple of weeks of trying to get my head around what happened and weighing my options, I decide my first priority is to try to get some sort of job, and consider it lucky if I get a job flipping burgers with the bad rep I’ll get when they ask Company B about my previous work history.
I call the Owner of Company A to get a good reference from them and explain what happened and why I was calling, only to get the shock of a lifetime. The manager position was about to be open; the guy to who I lost the position was retiring soon, due to complicated health reasons.
Owner had kept tabs on me while at university and understood when I didn’t immediately come back to him, but with a golden opportunity like this, he wanted me back and I wasn’t going to say no.
I dive into the new job I originally wanted with an Owner I enjoyed working for. I thought, then and there, everything would be behind me, not knowing it would come back, not to bite me, but to pay dividends.
This I found out later. After I was fired, K knew she had to do something about B. K knew that I wouldn’t lose or steal something like the rings.
But also knew that, without proof, B would deny that she did it and have K in her cross-hairs to attack next.
So, after talking with her husband, she hatched a plan.
She started hanging out with B telling her things like ‘I’m SO glad he’s gone!’ or ‘Wish he had been fired MUCH earlier!’ B, feeling high from getting rid of one of her thorns in her side, soaked it all in, and after a couple of weeks, invited K and K’s Husband (from now on KH) for drinks at her place with her and B’s Husband (BH).
Months pass, K and KH do things regularly together with B and BH, including drinking on weekends and couple-related events. When together, K would occasionally bad-mouth me, and B would agree. Finally, after over a year of playing nice, when K and KH were over at B’s for one of their drinking parties, K randomly bad-mouthed me, mentioning the rings in passing.
Then B says something that K was waiting for: ‘I wanted those rings, so I stole them.’
K, upon hearing this, asks for more details.
KH looks at her, tries to wave her off with one hand, then gives up when B keeps talking. That day, B had stopped writing her email and was going to put the rings in the safe. The safe was open and she was about to put the rings away when B had an idea. See, as mentioned above, B wanted me gone from Company B.
She also wanted those rings. She also knew that the cameras weren’t working. She figured that she could pocket the rings, tell the Manager they were missing, and spin it so I would take the blame.
K then asks where are the rings now, and B being too wasted and not seeing a reason not to brag, not only tells her but shows her where they are in her room.
All while KH had been RECORDING THE WHOLE CONVERSATION on his phone (the hand waving was him saying he started recording).
K gives a copy of the recording to Manager the next workday. Police are called immediately, B is arrested and her house is raided. They find the rings. K and KH give the recording and testimonies to the police. B’s reckoning has begun.
I eventually get a call from the prosecutor’s office after B is arrested and charged with theft of over $5,000, among other things.
He wants me to testify about what she did to me.
I didn’t skip a beat in saying yes. Fast track to the trial, the prosecutor has me, K, and KH testify and plays the recording of B admitting that she stole them. Her attorney tries to throw out the case saying that K got B deliberately intoxicated, but the judge didn’t buy it since there was proof she drank all the time.
The judge was lenient and gave her five years in prison, which she yelled was unfair, but I personally thought she got off easy.
Meanwhile, as the trial was happening, I was talking with a lawyer to sue B for setting me up like she did. We were also going to sue Company B for wrongful termination, but they settled the day they got notice of the lawsuit and knew they would lose.
B wasn’t so lucky. They tried some trickery by having BH divorce her and he received everything in the divorce, but my lawyer added him into the lawsuit as well. My lawyer asked overall for $3,500 for emotional distress, back pay from when I was fired until I started up with Company A again, and legal fees.
And now, you are wondering where the metaphoric cherry is on this story? Well, years after all this, we had someone leave Company A, so we were hiring someone to replace them.
The owner was going over the resumes and set up interviews for the job this week. Lo and behold, B was one of the people to apply, but he didn’t know that. I looked at the resume, was about to trash it, but then smiled.
Owner set up the interview. She came in at her slotted time, looking to brown-nose her way through. Then she saw me. I smiled an evil smile, she went white. All I said was, ‘Ah, B how are you? Remember me?’ A deer in the headlight look from her. I look at her resume and say ‘I’m sorry, I do not think you will be a good fit for our company. Thank you for applying.’”
2. Have A Funny Way Of Enforcing The Rules? Time To Follow Them To The Letter
“I used to work for a manufacturing company who makes waste containers, dumpsters and such, and at first it was a good job with a good manager and no problems. I enjoyed the work, it was a dirty, physically demanding job but kept me in good shape, I could just put in my earbuds and cruise through the day without any issues. My initial job was to prep the units for painting by polishing imperfections with a sander and grinding down the areas that were too rough, as well as cleaning them up after the welders were done with them, but after a while, they kept laying off so many people and dumping their jobs on me that eventually towards the end of my time there, I was quality control, helped the painter, was a warehouseman, finisher, grinder and also janitor.
Oh and for no additional pay beyond the small cost of living raises we got once in a while. After about a year of working for this company (prior to having all these jobs dumped on me) without any issues, new management showed up, and as they like to do, they started making all kinds of changes just for the sake of making changes, things that made jobs harder with no benefit, cutting corners that should not be cut and generally hurting productivity and workplace safety.
The change in management was bad, but it was not the end of the world. It made things harder for no real reason but all in all, things were still manageable – until I ended up off work for about a month with a collapsed lung that I still, to this day, believe was caused by working conditions there and lack of ventilation and PPE.
When I came back to work, I was on light duty for quite some time since I had surgery to repair the lung and prevent it from collapsing again.
I went from the golden boy who they called on when stuff had to get done to the redheaded stepchild of the company, and management was doing everything they could to get me to quit. They would throw my tools away, hide my stools so I couldn’t use them while I was working, hassle me over things like my earbuds citing ‘safety’ as to why I couldn’t use them, even though OSHA themselves told me it was not an issue.
The production manager would lie about things and write me up for non-existent violations, refused to fix my bay doors that had been crashed into by forklifts numerous times that had to be closed and opened with a crowbar by 2 people since the track was mangled. Other things include the company giving everybody in the plant raises except for me, catching me 5 minutes before leaving work to go on my weekend and ‘informing me’ that we had to work the next day and selectively enforcing safety rules, and even making rules up on the fly.
After about 6 months, I had had enough and decided that if they want to constantly cite policy and safety rules to mess with me, then I could play that game too.
I would make this manufacturing plant the safest company on the planet and ensure the policy was followed to the exact letter. This was now my mission.
I began to slow my work WAY down and only do the jobs I was hired and paid to do.
Instead of doing the workload of 10 employees with nothing in return, they now got exactly 1 person’s worth of labor out of me. Customers’ orders began stacking up, deliveries were late, bad welds and welds that got missed during production were overlooked causing the units to have to be repainted when they had to go back to the welding lines to be fixed.
The warehouse became a wreck with containers backed up to the point that people did not even have room to work.
I went from completing a large unit in 30 minutes to it taking me 2 and a half hours on the same one, not to mention all the repairs that needed to be done that were missed during production, when before I would have caught them before the units even left the production line.
Other petty things I did included not showing on Saturday to work when the manager would catch me at the last second and tell me I had to.
I took to cutting out the text in the employee handbook citing that working unscheduled hours required management to notify you 3 days in advance and left a letter with that portion of the handbook on his desk the following Monday. There was nothing they could do since I was following the handbook to the letter. At this point, it was a game of who would blink first.
They could lay me off and I could draw unemployment on them, or I would quit.
Next on the list was safety. They liked to hassle me so much about trivial things that I figured they would appreciate me going through the plant and documenting every single last OSHA violation, safety violation, and anything else that was not right.
I had a notebook that was FILLED with violations from one end of the plant to another, things like crane lifts that were being used improperly with J hooks that OSHA previously warned the company about, the same J hooks they liked to hide every time OSHA came through the plant.
Welders that had frayed cords around puddles of water, tools being left on top of units that could fall off and hit someone, lack of ventilation, particle counts that were too high, forklifts that were not serviced enough, I tagged out equipment that technically shouldn’t be used in its current state, and locked out the forklifts that needed brakes or any sort of maintenance.
Eventually, the production manager took the bait and untagged one of the forklifts I had locked out due to having bad brakes.
Anybody who knows the lockout procedure can understand what a massive screwup that is.
Once I compiled my list of improvements, I went to the government official who was overseeing safety and procedure since we often worked on government orders. I gave him my notebook, informed him of my manager taking the lockout off a defective forklift, then went on break and waited. About 30 minutes later, I saw my manager walking back from the head office and looking mad beyond belief.
Later, I heard from someone who knows him that he got punished severely, especially for the forklift. From then on, he avoided me and wouldn’t even speak to me or look at me. After that, I continued to slow my work pace down and got a bit of satisfaction each day from the complete gong show the place had become and how backed up it was every single day.
After I left the company, I heard they hired 5 guys to do my job and that they still did a bad job at it. Had they treated me better instead of coming at me as they did, they would have been still getting the top quality of work from me that they got when I first joined them, and things would have gone along just fine.
I can’t even imagine how much I must have cost that company by sticking to the exact letter of the rules.”
Another User Comments:
“So, in the end, you left the company? I hope you’ve found a nicer job.” trollie74
Reply:
“I did. I work for myself now.” TheBadGuyBelow
1. Refuse To Take Care Of The Family? I'll Remember That
“This story is the story of the grandfather of my dear friend, and how he dealt with doling out the family’s inheritance in a very unique way.
The grandfather had two sons, and each of them also had two sons. In the last half-year of his life, my friend and I visited him every morning and every evening. You see he did not want to go into a retirement home, and apart from getting ready in the morning and in the evening, he did not really need help.
Now I need to explain something real quick. Back in the day we still had mandatory service in the army for 12 months, but there were several ways around it. I will only explain the most common way since it is connected to our story. You see instead of going to the army, you could say you refuse to go to the army for ethical reasons (which was really just a formality, you simply wrote a 1-page essay why you think you being in the army would violate your personal ethics, and they pretty much had to accept it).
BUT that meant you had to go into civil service. Civil service could be any kind of job that in a wider sense that is a service to society. So these jobs ranged from kindergarten to retirement homes and anything in between like hospitals, homes for the physically or mentally disabled, meals on wheels, pretty much anything you can imagine. You would be paid for that time the same amount you would get in the army, and had the right to certain perks like a free room, health insurance, work clothes, etc.
the same stuff any soldier gets. Plus since soldiers get free food, you either got free food or a food allowance. I did my time in a retirement home, and it was an awesome experience.
I think a job like that really broadens your horizon as a young arrogant brat, and really matures you and shows you what is actually important in life.
Back to the story. I was just done with my time in the retirement home, and for one year, simply wanted to job around and make some dollars.
Then one of my best friends comes to me and tells me he needs my help. His grandpa can no longer do everything by himself, but really only needs help in the morning to get ready and in the evening. Since I have learned how to do this from real professionals, he asks me to show him, so his grandpa does not yet have to go into a retirement home (he later admitted grandpa said he would rather kill himself than get into a nursing home, and he seemed really serious about it.
He did not tell me at the time since he did not want to pressure me in to help like that, which I really appreciated).
He was one of my best friends, and I really liked his grandpa (when I was younger, I did not have a grandpa, but we visited him all the time and I became his unofficial 5th grandson) so of course, I said yes.
The original plan was to show him for 2-3 weeks and then observe him for another 2-3 weeks, then he would do it on his own. But we ended up doing it together for over half a year, then grandpa had a stroke and died within 2 days in the hospital.
Only days later my friend asked me to come with him to the lawyer.
His grandfather had specifically asked that his will should be read the day before he gets buried, which is quite unusual, but not illegal.
I asked why he wanted me there, and he told me the lawyer had officially invited me since grandpa had left me something as a thank you for my service. I was a bit embarrassed, but also happy that grandpa had thought so highly of my service he even put me in his last will.
Now my friend’s dad is an entitled butthole and the same goes for his uncle.
We arrived there and went into the room.
Dad (to me): ‘Why the heck are you here? I know that dad called you his 5th grandkid, in jest, but this is for real family!’
Uncle: ‘I bet the little gold digger hoped he would get something in the will.’
Me: ‘I was asked to be here by the lawyer, take it up with him. I have no idea why I am here.’
Dad: ‘IF YOU PULLED SOMETHING TO GET AN INHERITANCE, I WILL SUE YOU SO HARD EVEN YOUR KIDS WILL STILL NEED LAWYERS.’
Friend: ‘Show some respect and stop shouting.
I know you 2 did not really care about your dad but show at least a minimum of respect.’
Uncle: ‘HOW DARE YOU TALK LIKE THAT TO YOUR ELDERS YOU LITTLE JERK.’
Friend: ‘You two get exactly as much respect from me as you showed your own father – NONE.’
He really shouted the last word, and it finally shut the two up.
We sat down and still had to wait for the other 2 grandkids to arrive.
They sat right behind us, and what they talked about really made my blood boil.
Apparently, they had both gotten new cars, new jewelry for the wife and had planned a huge holiday. All that was paid for by credit and they had planned to pay for it with the inheritance. None of them even said a word about missing him, being sad that he died, NOTHING.
ONLY me me me me. They seemed to be in competition over who could spend the inheritance faster.
Then finally, we were all there and the lawyer read out a short letter, what I tell you here is a much-shortened version, but the real thing was several pages, but it boils down to this:
In recent years I more and more realized that some people in my family cared a lot more about me than others.
I am especially disappointed in my two sons, but I wanted to be really fair and not biased, so I came up with a point system –
A letter/phonecall: 1 point + 1 extra if it is very long
A visit: 2 points per hour plus 1 point per hour of travel to me and back
Helping me out with something: 3 points per hour
This is the final result over the last 3 years of my life:
Dad: 8 pts.
Uncle: 10 pts.
Uncle’s Kid 1: 150 pts.
Uncle’s Kid 2: 133 pts.
Friend’s Brother: 288 pts.
Friend: 7,341 pts.
Me: 5,883 pts.
My lawyer has already liquidated most of my assets except the house. Once it is sold, the inheritance will be divided by the points, so we know what each point is worth, and then every person gets a share according to his points.
For about a minute you could hear a pin drop, then both Dad and Uncle started shouting at the same time that they knew we would have pulled something and this will would never stand.
Of course, they tried to sue (Uncle, his kids, and Dad together), but they lost, and there was a secret clause (not really secret, it was simply not read to us that day, so nobody realized it was in there since we all assumed everything was read to us on that day by the lawyer) in the will that if someone sues against the will, that person loses his share of the inheritance.
It took nearly 3 years until all the lawsuits were over. I was blown away when we finally got the amount, I am not naming a sum, but it was way more than I felt comfortable accepting, so I wanted to give at least some of it to the other three grandkids, but my friend finally convinced me to accept by saying to me: ‘You cared for him when he needed you, without expecting anything for it, which makes you 10 times more his family than any of those losers.
They got what they deserved.”
Another User Comments:
“Shame this sort of thing is disallowed in Australia… direct descendants must receive a ‘reasonable amount, determined in relation to the estate, not the actions of the people.’ So someone can be a complete jerk and still get a relatively equal share…” mydingointernet
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