People Spill The Time They Obeyed The Rules To Execute Revenge
23. Say I Can't Park Here Since I Don't Work Here? He'll Hire Me So I Can Get Out Of The Ticket
“So this was about five years ago. I worked as a chef at a bakery. It was my job to make everything but the baked goods. Every morning, the baker and I would walk in at about 4 am and knock out all the food needed for the day. This would leave me ready to go home around 10 AM or so. This put us at the perfect time to deliver online orders.
It was common for companies or other entities to place large catering orders with us. The baker and I would split them down the middle and deliver them on our way home.
The delivery in question was for Bob, James, and Harry, Attorneys at Law. I have never delivered to BJ&H before, but they were a regular of sorts. Every financial quarter, they would hold a huge meeting.
This meeting would require roughly $700 of bagels and bagel accessories. This spread included eight dozen bagels, all ten of our flavors of cream cheese, pastries, brownies, and enough coffee to power a college dorm through finals week.
My passenger seat, entire back seat, and entire trunk are filled with food. Now BJ&H is located on the ninth floor of a commercial skyscraper deep in an industrial complex downtown.
Parking was non-existent. There were meters outside the building, but I knew I would need close to ten trips to deliver all this food and didn’t have a lot of change on me. Company policy was to just pay whatever fines I needed to park and then turn in my receipts. The funds would end up on my next paycheck.
So the building has its own parking garage, so I pull on in.
The security guard, let’s call him Sam, stops me and says that the parking garage is for employees only. I happily show him my delivery invoice and offer him a bribery bagel (never leave the store without at least two).
Sam refuses the bagel and says I can park in one of the guest spots on the bottom floor. The fee is $5 for every 30 minutes, a minimum of $10.
I thank him and head to the bottom floor of the garage. So there are a total of six guest parking spaces. Just six. All of them are taken. I head back up to talk to Sam when I see an open parking spot reserved for Bob, James, and Harry, Attorneys at Law. There are cars in every spot, with many spots being reserved for employees by name.
The last spot is empty and is reserved for ‘Guest of BJ&H.’
Perfect. I pull on in. I grab the most important part of the delivery (the coffee) and head to the stairwell. I get into the elevator and hit the button for floor nine. The elevator asks for my employee ID card. Well… So, I try the lobby. That works. From there, it’s nine flights of stairs until I am outside the law firm of Bob, James, and Harry.
After introducing myself, I am shown to the room where the meeting will take place. A table is set aside for me. I set down the coffee and head for trip number two.
That is when I see Sam talking to the receptionist. He runs over and starts shouting at me. ‘I am putting a boot on your car. I told you to park in guest on the bottom floor!’ I don’t get a word in before he launches into a speech about security and how I could be hurting his building or people.
That is when a very well-dressed man walks over. It so happens to be Bob, the Bob of Bob, James, and Harry’s.
Bob asks what is the problem, and soon the two are arguing.
Bob: OP is delivering food for my meeting. He is allowed to use my parking spots.
Sam: Those parking spots belong to the building. You are leasing them like you lease this floor. I am the one who says who can park there.
He isn’t an employee so he isn’t parking!
Bob: Then I am making him an employee!
Sam: You can’t do that!
Bob: You know what. You are right. Harry! Harry! get over here.
Harry walks over with an amused look on his face.
Bob: Harry, here is the head of our HR department. Harry, hire this boy.
Harry pulls out a piece of paper and scribbles, ‘OP is now a member of Bob, James, and Harry’s’ and signs it, then asks me to sign as well.
I do so.
Bob reaches over to the receptionist, who is already grabbing some things.
Bob: Here is your employee badge, your -PARKING PERMIT- and your elevator key card. Now please, do the job I have -HIRED- you to do, and deliver my bagels.
Sam looks on in utter fury as I ride the elevator down to my car.
Seven sweet, sweet elevator rides later, all the food is delivered.
Bob and Harry meet me at the table.
Bob: OP, you have made great strides in this company and I am proud of your work, but I feel it is time for us to part ways. Here is your final check.
Bob then hands me a crisp $50 bill.
Harry: And your severance package. Now please be sure to return your badge and card on the way out.
Harry hands me a $20 and sends me on my way.
The receptionist is sure to validate the parking ticket that Sam gave me, and I head on out. On the way out, Sam grins at me and asks for my ticket. I place it in the machine in his station. It sees the validation I got and lets me out for free. Sam glares at me as I drive off into the… late morning sun.”
22. Try Hiding My Tampons In Another Box That Isn't "Offensive?" Oh, Of Course
“Background: I work in a fast-paced healthcare environment where every minute counts and I have both male and female co-workers on my shift.
We have lockers with opaque doors where we’re allowed to store our things. When I’m in the office area, I leave mine unlocked for easy access and I’ve started keeping a box of tampons in my locker. I’ve told my female co-workers if they’re in a hurry and need a tampon, they’re welcome to just open my locker (when it’s unlocked and I’m in the office) and take one, no problem.
I got called into my boss’s office the other day because a male coworker of mine complained that me keeping tampons in my locker was ‘disgusting’ and he hated that he could see the box whenever my locker was opened.
My boss (a male) told me that some men were really sensitive to ‘this type of thing’ and that I should try hiding them in a different type of box so I wouldn’t offend my coworkers. I asked what the point was because my coworkers would see someone reaching into a ‘crackers/pop tarts, etc.’ box and taking out a tampon instead of food anyway. My boss got all huffy and told me that it was for the best and I needed to do it.
Well, fine.
I made a cover for my tampon box that said ‘Mother Earth’s Bloody Nutrients Bars: with extra gooey, nutritious filling!’ with a photo of a bloody bathtub and placed it on the box.
That was two days ago, and I saw the male co-worker open my locker (trying to be sneaky), and he paled when he read the box, got all angry, and I received an email from my boss that my cover ‘wasn’t funny’ and that I need to take it down.
…
So I emailed our HR person a copy of the email as well as a summary of what happened and photos of the lockers, the box, and the cover. I also suggested that the male coworker sit somewhere where he didn’t have a direct line of sight to my locker if it really offended him so much. She thought it was freaking hilarious and said I followed my supervisor’s instructions and so I was fine.
Nothing else has been done yet, and I’m mostly angry that my time was spent on something as stupid as this and not on patient work.”
Another User Comments:
“You gave permission to women to help themselves to a tampon. Unless the dude needs a tampon, he has no business in your locker.” Thejmax
21. You Said You Were Okay With Paying The Extra Costs
Karen strikes again.
“I used to be a service manager at one of the biggest locations of a popular Mexican grill. I won’t say which, but guac was $1.95 extra and we were required to ask everyone if they were okay paying that price. One Sunday morning (our second busiest shift of the week), two of my line people called out, so we were struggling to get all of our prep done before opening at 11.
We are just wrapping up when in comes Karen 10 minutes before opening through the side door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY with 15 preteen girls in tow. My cook recognizes her as she regularly comes in during the dinner shift and is extremely cruel to all the Latino workers. Karen tells me they can order whatever they want, THROWS her credit card at me, and goes to sit down at a table and diddle on her phone.
Now I can’t ring up her order without her standing there because of the company rules and I am 30 weeks pregnant and just want to take my break. I prego waddled over to Karen’s table to try and inform her of that when she literally flicks her hand at me to dismiss me. Not only have I been at the store since 7 and done two different people’s jobs on top of my own, but I also have my son’s head grinding against my pelvic bones and kicking me.
I am in no mood.
When I try to tell her again, she looks at me with what I can only describe as seething contempt and says, “What part of ‘they can get whatever they want,’ did you not understand? I don’t care what you charge me as long as I get a receipt. Don’t interrupt me again or I’ll get your fat butt fired.” Now I never cry, but that almost got me.
Motherhood is awesome, but pregnancy suuucks. I finally manage to pick my jaw off the ground and stammer, “Alright, ma’am, I’ll ring up whatever they want and bring you a receipt.”
The girls were really nice and most of them ordered double meat and they all got bottled water and chips and guac. Every. Last. One. My cashier and I are just vibrating with glee as we ring them up and watch the bill climb to like $250.
I brought the bill to Karen and was pretty excited when she didn’t immediately check it. I made my own food and told the cook to come to get me when the show starts.
I’m halfway done eating when I see him waving to the camera, howling with laughter, so I head up. Karen is foaming at the mouth SCREAMING for the manager, and when she sees that that manager is me, she literally grinds her teeth and slaps her receipt on the table.
She manages to choke out the word “refund.” The girls have all pretty much finished their food, so I inform her that I won’t be doing that because I would lose my job for giving away that much critical inventory (meat, guac, cheese) for free. Then I gently remind her that she told me twice that they could get anything as long as she got a receipt.
She just keeps demanding a refund and calling me stupid and fat (again, pregnant). At this point, her screaming is holding up the very long line, and customers are shouting at her to just leave. That’s when she pushed me. Really hard.
My cashier caught me, so I didn’t fall down, but two of our regulars, who are police, see it and immediately cuff her. In this state, any use of physical force against a pregnant woman is classified as aggravated battery or something like that.
I felt bad for the kids and I was fine, so I kept telling them I didn’t want to press charges, but they said that at that point, it didn’t matter because the woman had done it in front of on-duty officers, so she got detained. They had to call the kids’ parents to come to get them because she was their CHURCH’S YOUTH LEADER and get statements.
My GM came in and let me go home with a full day’s pay. She tried to take the case to trial, but they had video and like twenty witness statements, so she ended up taking a couple of years probation or something. All because I did exactly what she told me to.”
20. Follow Strict Food Safety Instructions? Okay, But It'll Cost You Thousands
“Several years ago, I was working as the manager of the meat department in a large Australian supermarket chain.
I’d been pulled up for minor issues relating to food safety in the past (mainly relating to temperature checks and cabinet cleaning). During the discussions about these issues, I was told, as well as recorded in writing, that the “food safety guidelines are a legal document and are not up for negotiation or interpretation and must be adhered up to the letter” (remember that quote).
Fast forward to a few days before Christmas…
My store was one of the busiest in the region, so the meat case and cool rooms were packed to the absolute max with stock, hams, roasts, turkeys, the whole works. It was the same store-wide, absolutely maxed out.
Christmas in Australia is unlike most other places; it gets hot.. really hot… On this particular day, the temperature outside was pushing 45°c (approx 110°F). Aircon and fridges were all working hard to keep everything cool, when suddenly at about 3 pm, we have a store-wide blackout.
Usually, we have a backup generator that would kick in and keep the cool rooms running, so that worst case, the stock could be emptied out of the cabinets and into the rooms to keep it food safe.
Well, for some reason, the generator didn’t kick in, and the store was completely without power and running on emergency lighting only.
We evacuated the store and were contacting technicians, etc. to get things running again. I checked the food safety guidelines book and the policy in such a situation was to monitor the temperature of stock every 15 minutes, and if it reaches over 4°c and stays there for more than 2 hours, all affected stock must be discarded.
Being such a hot day, the temperature had already breached the 4° upper limit when I did the first check, meaning the countdown was on to get things running again.
I documented absolutely every step of the way, following the guidelines to the letter.
At 4:45 pm, with 15 minutes to go until the deadline, I went to the office and got a handheld scanner in preparation for what was to come, and was spotted by the store manager who asked what I was doing. I told him that I was getting it to begin dumping the stock.
We argued back and forth with him saying that the stock would be fine and that a refrigerated truck was on the way to move everything into. It ended in me saying, “The guidelines are a legal document, so by ordering me to go against what they say, you’re instructing me to break the law, which I am respectfully refusing.”
At 5 pm, I began scanning off and dumping stock from my case.
I’d already almost filled an entire dumpster with stock when the refrigerated truck turned up. The manager once again instructed me and the fellow department managers to take our now-unsafe stock and move it into the truck. Everyone hesitated, but I flat-out refused and continued dumping my stock.
He eventually revoked my access to the handheld scanner in order to stop me, so I called the area manager (his boss) and explained the situation and what he had instructed.
The area manager said although it was never public, there was actually some built-in wiggle room between the company policy and the legislated state code, and that although it breaches the company policy, the state food safety code hadn’t yet been breached but was furious that the store manager had instructed me to intentionally breach the company policy.
I told the area manager that I had been instructed and documented to “follow the food safety guidelines to the absolute letter” and that the policy was “non-negotiable and not up for interpretation.” He agreed that I had done the correct thing by dumping the stock and also agreed that I was within my rights to refuse the orders of the store manager thinking they were illegal.
All in all, I dumped about $25,000 of stock, and my team got a ton of overtime to bring the case and stock levels back up to presentable standard for Christmas.
The manager got a very severe reprimand and was fired for an unrelated issue not long after.”
Another User Comments:
“The amount lost to scrapped spoiled food is much less than would have been lost to the massive negative publicity, litigation, fines, and penalties which would have been incurred had the store management decided to stock the spoiled food at any rate and caused an outbreak of Salmonella or E. Coli poisoning… Good on ya for doing right.” paralyse78
19. If I Don't Like The Way You Teach, Complain To Someone About It? Oh, I Will
“So today at work we were talking about my rather bad handwriting, and it reminded me that perhaps the proudest moment of my life could be considered Malicious Compliance. If it is not, I apologize, but the reason why I am posting this is because I did what I did with the intention to get my teacher in trouble, which worked in the long term, but I did not expect the events to follow my compliance to occur.
This story is also quite long, which I also apologize for as well.
This took place roughly 19 years ago when I was in middle school. I had (and still have) a disability that prevents me from writing legibly; however, my parents quickly learned I had an insane typing speed. As a result, my ADHD psychologist and parents got me an Alphasmart Word Processor for my fifth grade Christmas present.
It would be an understatement to say this was a life-changer.
My assignments became so much easier (I knew the stuff, but couldn’t write it down), my attitude about school changed, and I became the hip popular kid at school for having this fancy new piece of cutting-edge technology. None of my teachers between the fifth and seventh grade had an issue with this and were quite impressed by the technology. Mind you, word processors weren’t exactly new, but seeing them in schools was unheard of at this point as they were quite expensive.
This changed in the eighth grade with Mrs.
Grump. Mrs. Grump was your traditional old woman who looked like my great, great grandmother, grey hair, wrinkles upon wrinkles, a bead necklace that reached past her breasts, flower print outfits, and clip-on earrings. Seriously, she was one bobbed hairdo away from being Karen’s grandmother. The first day I took my word processor out, she was on my back.
Anytime she saw me with it, she would threaten to take it from me and reduce my marks for the class.
I recall myself standing up for myself the first time, but I was never one to argue with my teachers. I never needed to because my teachers up until then were completely understanding. When she said no, I backed off.
At that point, school became miserable for me. When I typed up my assignments, Mrs. Grump lowered my marks for not being handwritten. Anytime I asked her if I could stay after class to finish my assignments or finish writing down my notes, she would lower my marks on the next assignment for “wasting her time.” Anytime I asked a friend for help while in class, you guessed it, she would lower my marks.
Luckily, as most of my fellow students understood my problems, a group of them approached me and offered to help me.
They started offering me their notes each evening, so I could bring them home and photocopy, so I could keep up with everything. We also hung out in the library at lunches and they actually helped me with my handwriting, so it could be at the very least legible, allowing me to write out my homework, despite it taking super long.
I genuinely don’t know what her problem was, but she began reducing my marks because of poor handwriting and inspecting my binders to make sure I wasn’t stealing other people’s work.
If she found a photocopied note, say it with me, she would lower my marks. This was absolutely ridiculous as none of my classmates were marked in such a way.
Now, as I explained, I am not one to question authority. Despite being miserable with Mrs. Grump’s attitude, I quietly accepted I would probably fail. Unfortunately, I don’t remember why my parents didn’t help, but I think it might have been due to my older brother being part of Mrs.
Grump’s in the past, and they thought I was being overdramatic (ADHD, remember).
With the background out of the way, on to the compliance.
I don’t know what happened this particular day, but I had a sudden surge of confidence. It was a particularly bad day, I remember we were doing an assignment involving microscopes in class. We needed to describe what we saw, and instinctively, I brought out my word processor.
I put it on the table and looked down into the microscope, but when I came back up, Mrs. Grump was standing at my desk with my word processor in her hand.
Mrs. Grump: I am confiscating this and throwing it away.
Me (Stuttering): But I need it, and it’s expensive.
Mrs. Grump: Too bad. I have warned you many times not to bring it out in my class.
You didn’t listen and so these are the consequences.
At this point, she put it in her cabinet unit and shut the door. Everyone in the class was silent, and Mrs. Grump sat back down. Some of my classmates tried to calm me down. I was crying, and Mrs. Grump didn’t care. In particular, I recall (of all people) one of the students who usually bullied me trying to cheer me up (we’ll call him Jim from now on, as Jim now works as a coach at a gym now).
I didn’t work on the assignment, and when Mrs.
Grump came to take my blank sheet, she scoffed.
“If you don’t like the way I teach, why don’t you complain to someone about it?”
I left the classroom, defeated, but to my surprise, during lunch, Jim came up to me with my word processor in hand. He stole it out of the teacher’s cabinet while she was returning the microscopes to the lab. He told me he was going to keep it in his locker til after school when he’ll return it.
That way I wouldn’t get in even more trouble when she finds it missing.
It was at that moment when I snapped. I don’t know what it was, maybe the fact that the person who had bullied me for so long was the one helping me, but I wanted Mrs. Grump gone. But what was I going to do? Well, complain to someone of course. She is the teacher, and it’s not like me to disobey the teacher.
Now, in any other situation, I honestly don’t think this would have worked, but I got extremely lucky in regards to the events that followed this decision.
So I and Jim went to the school principal during lunch. The Principal and I up until this point had never officially met as she had just started at the school this year after the previous principal retired. We are going to call the principal Mrs.
Awesome. Mrs. Awesome was eating at her desk and was surprised to be interrupted, though she did sigh when she saw Jim. I know for a fact those two were well acquainted.
I think she thought the two of us had got in a fight, so she asked me to sit down and for Jim to wait outside. I started explaining to her what happened in class, and after she realized Jim wasn’t to blame, she called him back in to support my story.
When I mentioned the word processor, however, her eyes lit up. Despite never formally talking before, it was clear she knew who I was.
The discussion shifted to the word processor itself, and she asked me to go over its functions and everything. I showed her how I could type on it, transfer the files to a computer to either print off or email, the typing tutorials loaded on it.
I explained why I needed it, showing her my handwriting, and how I had relied on it since the fifth grade. She (and Jim) seemed quite interested in it, taking notes and everything. At the end of the impromptu tutorial that lasted, Mrs. Awesome thanked me and had us step out for a moment.
After she brought me back in, she explained to me that there was nothing she could do at this point in time.
She gave me an out-of-school suspension for a week but explained I was not in trouble at all and it wasn’t being marked against me (the explanation I believe she gave was for stealing out of the teacher’s cabinet, though I wasn’t required to return the word processor. This also got Jim out of trouble as well, which he was thankful for). Mrs. Awesome said that everything will be taken care of next week when I return, and she’ll contact my parents to explain the situation.
The week I was off, Jim was coming by and dropping off his homework so I could photocopy it and not fall behind.
Quite frankly, at first, I thought he just wanted me to do his work for him as it was a complete 180 on how he used to treat me, but we became good friends after this happened. Even asking him today, Jim doesn’t recall why he started treating me better after Mrs. Grump took my word processor. During those days, my parents were on the phone constantly.
I wasn’t aware of what was going on, but they bought me a new game, bought take out a lot. Genuinely, I felt pampered.
My parents came in with me when I returned, but rather than to the classroom, I was brought to the school’s boardroom instead where a bunch of people in suits were. My family doctor and ADHD psychologist was also in attendance, which honestly shocked me.
Mrs. Awesome explained to me that these were representatives from the School Board and that they were extremely interested in my word processor.
In hindsight, it was a bit of a jerk move for no one to inform me that I was being brought in front of the school board to present my word processor, but I began explaining it like I did to Mrs. Awesome, showing the different functions and such.
After I finished, my family doctor and psychologist gave a better explanation than what I gave as to why I needed it and how it helped, and it ended with my parents explaining how it has changed my education and how I enjoyed school.
Honestly, I don’t recall the immediate response, but a day later, Mrs. Awesome did explain everything to me. Apparently, she was actually a sitting member of the school board who had been standing in as principal that year until they found a replacement.
When I showed her the word processor, she saw the potential they had to help students such as her own daughter who had similar circumstances as me. She contacted the school board about potentially investing in some word processors for each school in the district for the next year, but they wanted to see it first (again, this was a rather new concept all things considered).
That’s why she needed me that day, and why she allowed me to stay home for the week, as there was no rule in place to protect the word processor from being confiscated and possibly destroyed.
I still question why I was never informed until the actual meeting, but whatever.
Anyways, due to the presentation, I was given permission to continue working on my word processor, much to Mrs.
Grump’s dismay. She was also required to adjust all my previous marks to remove her deductions. Meanwhile, the school board decided on ordering 5-8 word processors for each school in the district for the next year, with this school getting 8 as it was a larger school. Students in what was called “Resource Class” (basically a class for students who needed extra attention) had the option to sign out the word processors for a day to help work on their in-school assignments.
There was an altogether increase of the resource students’ marks as a result of this change I’ve been told, and the school board began looking into other ways to help students.
But, what about Mrs. Grump? Other than having to readjust my marks and allowing me to use my word processor, she got off scot-free. It’s great and all that I made a huge difference in my school district, but how did Mrs.
Grump get her just deserts for making Eighth Grade a living nightmare for me?
Well, I don’t know if this was mere coincidence, outside interference, or a parting gift from Mrs. Awesome after she returned to her position in the school board, but all resource students coming into the eighth grade had been assigned to Mrs. Grump’s class the next year, and as a result, they were signing out the word processors constantly in her class.
I learned this because my 9th-grade class was right across the hall from her classroom, and windows in the classrooms allowed me to look across into her class to see 4-6 students typing up a storm on their word processors.
This came to a head however when Mrs. Grump took one of the word processors and threw it out the window. After that, Mrs. Grump was “asked” to retire halfway through the school year and replaced with the sweetest teacher that held ice cream parties for the students that completed all their homework assignments each month.
And that, everyone, is probably the proudest moment in my life.
Not only did my actions result in students with disabilities getting more resources to help them, but I also watched the worst teacher I ever had the pleasure of meeting get escorted out of the school by security.
Brief Update: I thought I would elaborate on a few things, specifically regarding why I didn’t get my parents involved. Asked my mother this and she recounted this story.
I was actually quite embarrassed by my parents at the time due to something that happened in the seventh grade.
We went to an overnight camp as a class trip, and my parents were supervisors… My father accidentally set fire to my tent, so I was forced to sleep in their tent instead.
Rumors started to go around the school (specifically from Jim I believe) that, while quickly quashed, left a rather sour impression. Needless to say, I tried my best not to get them involved, such as not showing them my assignments and stuff.
They were incredibly disappointed when they learned the truth but were equally proud I stood up for myself.
Also, this took place in Canada, Nova Scotia. I genuinely don’t believe I was the one who started the wide use of Alphasmart 3000 being used across the world in Schools, but I do like to think I was the one who started it in the Atlantic Provinces.”
18. Be Out Of The Store Within 15 Minutes Of Closing? Okay, But We Won't Have Everything Done
It takes time to get things done right.
“So I used to work as a manager for a very large pizza chain that is franchised, and the franchisee at my particular store happened to be a supreme penny pincher to the point where our broom broke a year ago and they’re still using it.
So generally after we close, it takes us anywhere from 10 minutes to 90 minutes to get the store cleaned up and all the next day’s prep done depending on how busy we’ve been that day (it’s always busy).
Now the franchisee who runs the store is not happy with how long it takes us to do all this (it costs him too much he says) and had been complaining to me incessantly about how we all need to be done with our work and clocked out within 15 minutes of closing, something that is completely impossible 99% of the time.
(My record is 10 minutes for the quickest time and 2.5 hours for the longest if anyone wanted to know.)
One day after hearing him complain for the umpteenth time about how we take too long and how he could easily get it all done alone far faster than my team, I decided, OK, we’ll be out within 15 minutes from closing.
This particular day, however, was Christmas Eve.
This is one of our most chaotic days of the year due to the combination of people who want pizza for the occasion, which is a ton, and lack of staff due to most of them saying they can’t work over Christmas (our managers usually have to double our hours over Christmas to keep the place running). So as expected, we have an absolutely chaotic day with everything running behind all while being understaffed and swamped in orders.
And then the closing time comes.
The franchisee has long gone home leaving me with my 2 co-workers to close up and the store is an utter mess. Usually, I get most stuff done before we even close but there hadn’t been a single opportunity that day. So the floor is littered with food and rubbish and the stack of dishes to do is 4 people high (literally 4 piles a person high each).
So I tell my co-workers to sweep and mop the floor while I blitz through all the cash counting and end-of-day paperwork, and we get all that done in about 10 minutes.
Now we’re standing there with the pile of dishes and all the next day prep to be done and I look at them and say, “Well, guys, the boss wants us out within fifteen minutes, so I guess we don’t have time to do all this,” and with that, we leave.
So the next day, which is, of course, Christmas, we are closed and can’t work, but the boss decided to go in that morning and check everything was done correctly.
I of course get a message from him wanting to know why nothing is done and I just give him my professional reply, “I made sure we were out of there within 15 minutes, just like you wanted.”
I found out a couple of days later from a co-worker that he had spent his entire Christmas Day there doing all the cleaning and prep work on his own to get the store ready for boxing day, something me and my team could have done in a couple of hours. All because he wanted us out of the store quickly at night to save a few bucks.
He never complained about how long we took again.”
17. Making Soup With Only Ingredients The Children Like
“Kids are awesome at malicious compliance – but it is a two-way street.
My kids can be picky eaters at times. My wife made some dang good chicken soup, but the kids were complaining that there were veggies in their chicken soup. They hate veggies, veggies make them sick, and they wanted my wife to pick them out of the soup. We tried to tell them that good chicken soup needs veggies to taste good, but they were being stubborn.
I’m sure other parents can understand.
I told the kids, ‘If you really hate the taste of veggies, I’ll make soup tomorrow, and you guys can make sure I only put stuff in you like.’ They liked that idea, at the time.
The next day, I get the pot filled with water, all the typical soup ingredients out, and gathered the kids. I asked for their approval on every item.
Chicken – yes, salt – yes, black pepper – no (gross, too spicy), celery – no (I can’t even stand the smell), onions – NO!!! It went on with that, with them rejecting parsley, bay leaves, and other veggies. The total contents of the pot ended up being:
— Chicken, water, salt, noodles
After the soup was done cooking, I served it up and they excitedly started to eat.
A few funny faces later, and one of them said ‘It tastes weird. This isn’t very good.’ I said, ‘But I only put in everything you guys approved. I think, from now on, I should make the soup, right?’
They looked at each other and said, ‘Can we have mom’s soup instead?’
Since that day, they haven’t complained about finding veggies mixed in the food. Sure, they almost always eat around a carrot or green pea, but they understand that it adds flavor.”
16. Refuse To Promote Me? Then I Won't Do The Job
“A few years ago, I worked for a furniture store in the back of the store. My job consisted of unloading and loading trucks, assembling furniture, and placing it on the main floor of the store. After around 6 months there, my supervisor announced he resigned meaning his post was up for grabs. I had all the technical requirements so I applied, but they gave the job to another one of my colleagues who had more experience, which was totally reasonable.
After maybe 1 year, my then supervisor just stopped coming into work for no reason. He just decided he had enough and he just left, no 2-week notice or anything. So while the director tried to get to him, I took over the role of supervisor. (I was the one with the most experience.) Which means that combined with my regular work, I was now the one telling people what to do, when, doing the schedule, and all the paperwork for the shipment.
3 weeks later, my colleague was officially “fired” by my director.
In those 3 weeks, I kept doing the job of supervisor and doing it pretty well, so I thought that the promotion would come to me, but my director did nothing. I went to see him, explained what I had been doing, and asked if I got the promotion to which he answered that I was not qualified nor smart enough to do this job.
After some thinking, I just decided that if I was not smart enough to do the job, then I shouldn’t do it, so I went back to doing my regular job and I also started looking for something else.
4-5 days after I stopped filling in, my director came to see me in the back store asking why the job isn’t being done.
After all, without me to organize it, nothing was getting out of the store to be delivered to the client. I just reminded him of our previous meeting and he told me, “Yeah, I remembered that, but what I meant is you’re not qualified to get the pay bonus for the job. You still have to do the job, you idiot.” I have to admit, I still wonder how he thought that would work…
Still, a bit dumbfounded, I just told him that if I wasn’t going to get paid for it, I certainly won’t do the job and that considering we were already short staff with my old supervisor gone, he should be a bit more polite. Apparently, this was an unreasonable request, a total lack of respect to him, and worthy of firing me… Yep, still don’t get how that would fix anything, but hey, he’s the boss.
I packed everything and left knowing that the back store which needed 5 people to operate was now down to 3 with the most experienced worker having a total of 4 months.
It only took my boss 1 day to call me back and telling me that maybe he went overboard and that perhaps we could arrange something for the promotion, to which I replied that I would not be coming back since I had a few interviews lined up. I hung up while he was still cussing at me.
After a few months at my new job, I heard some surprising news: the store had closed down after 2 other back store employees resigned. Gotta admit that it felt good to see my old boss finally get what he deserved.”
Another User Comments:
“This is such a common theme. “Do the extra duties, but don’t get paid for them.” No wonder these businesses fail.” Snugglor
15. This Student Really Was Following The Technology Rule
“This was a few years ago; I was a senior in high school. At the time, an 18-year-old male, I was smart and was very nihilistic due to my past. For a little context, I have an IEP at my school that allowed me to use my phone for music therapy since I was diagnosed with severe depression, anxiety, Asperger’s syndrome, and PTSD. By law, teachers have to follow without questions or overruling, and if anyone tried to stop me, they could get fined, fired, etc.
IEP’s are no joke for a reason.
In my senior year, the old principal resigned and we got Sargent Jerk in his place. Starting out, he changed absolutely everything and was very strict with it. I’m assuming to assert dominance to show he’s no pushover. One of the biggest changes was a zero-tolerance to digital devices in or out of the classroom. That included everything from phones, Bluetooth earbuds/headphones, smartwatches, etc.
Teachers loved it until they figured out that it also applied to them, so they said screw it and didn’t enforce it. Though, trying to listen to music in between classrooms was tricky.
I had a lot of the same teachers from the year before, so they knew my story and I was a good student but I had a sense of humor and was hard-headed and they knew I could find a loophole in anything to get my way or prove my point.
It all starts with a very bad Monday morning.
I was on edge as I always was at that school and decided to listen to some hard-hitting brutal death metal (it’s therapeutic). I got stopped by Sargent Jerk and this is what took place:
Principal: Are you new here?
Me: No? Why??
Principal: Ah, okay. Give me your phone now.
Me: I can’t. I have in my paper-
Principal: I don’t care. According to the handbook, no MP3 players, phones, any digital devices at all.
I’m a man of my word, so HAND. IT. OVER.
At this point, I can feel my anxiety rising, my hands were shaking, and my eyes were getting warm and watery, and I couldn’t breathe. I needed to get out of there quickly before I burst. The office was far from where my emergency anxiety meds and I knew I wasn’t going to make it, so I tried walking to the bathroom till the principal yelled, “Hey!” and forcefully grabbed my shoulder like a Karen.
So as an irrational reaction, I turned and right hooked him. He went down to the ground and everyone was laughing and going wild about it, so I just booked it and ran. Thankfully, my favorite teacher Mr. Place managed to catch me and embrace me to calm down.
After being sent to the nurse’s office, there were a few cops, Mr. Place, my mom, and the principal.
I was questioned on exactly what happened and after hearing my side, Mr. Place’s side, and the camera footage, everyone sided with me and my mom went ballistic because she busted her butt to get me comfortable in school and she had her a few altercations with teachers harassing me.
Unsurprisingly, I got a week-long suspension, but I wasn’t punished at home. I decided to follow his rules but with my own little twist.
I studied the student handbook front to cover and went for a quick gander in the basement of my house to find my dad’s things from the ’80s and ’90s. Dad and I share a lot of interests and he got me into all types of heavy metal and punk from a young age, so he passed this stuff down to me. After digging around, I was able to find his Walkman (cassette player) and a bunch of cassette tapes.
I took my favorites of all time: Kill ‘em All by Metallica, Vulgar Display of Power by Pantera, Korn’s first album, 40oz to Freedom, and Self Title album by Sublime, and lastly, Tomb of the Mutilated by Cannibal Corpse. It was a hard choice, but I didn’t want them to crack in my pocket.
The first day I was back in school. I was the talk of the school because I “laid out the principal.” I’m embarrassed and felt bad about it, but it was in the past.
I saw Sargent Jerk by my first class (Mr. Place’s class), so I stepped to the side and popped in a cassette tape. Walking back, Sargent Jerk smirked and told me to step over to have a talk.
Principal: Looks like a week didn’t give you enough time to think. Come with me.
Me: I’m sorry? I’m not breaking any rules.
Principal: Boy, don’t make me out to be stupid.
You obviously have your phone and listening to music. Last time I checked, my policy is still in effect.
Me: Right, so technically, I’m following your policy of no digital devices.
Principal: Fine then. You want to play smart? Prove it then.
I proceeded to pull out the Walkman and some of the cassettes. He looked very confused.
Me: See, sir, you said no DIGITAL devices. What I have right here is a Walkman with the original wired headphones.
Since cassettes are analog, and you never said anything about no analog devices, I’m within my full right to jam out on this in and out of the classroom.
Sargent Jerk gets red in his face and starts stumbling over his words to rebuttal.
Me: I mean, you say you’re a man of your word, so how cowardly would you look if you let a teenager get to you and update the handbook? I see no harm with this; it abides with your rules.
Sargent Jerk grunts then walked to the neighboring class as I exhale in relief and I start to feel my anxiety go down. I walk in and nod to Mr. Place. He closes the door and makes sure that Sargent Jerk isn’t nearby and just busts out laughing.
I’d say I stood my ground on that one.”
14. Have To Ask Reception To Connect Us To Long-Distance Calls? Sure
Talk about an inconvenience.
“Back in the 90s, I was a junior reporter on a northern UK provincial paper. Newspaper companies were (and still are) legendary cheapskates, and will find the most unbelievable ways to try to save even small amounts.
Bearing in mind this is long before the days of email, we relied on our phones to speak to anyone we needed to contact. These were mostly local calls, but there were quite a lot of agencies we might need to ask for responses to our stories that would be out of our area.
For reasons lost to the mists of time, I needed to ring a press office that was somewhere down south. Let’s say, Bristol, for argument’s sake. I tried to make the call, I got a dead tone. I tried again – the same. I borrowed a colleague’s phone, just in case mine wasn’t working – I still couldn’t get through.
So, I rang our receptionist – ‘Jane’ – a terribly refined Scot, but with the soul of a rebel (she loved the editorial department, and our news editor used to sneak her a glass of booze from whatever boozer he was in when she rang round trying to find him when the editor was on the rampage looking for him).
Me: “Jane, I’m trying to ring XX press office and I can’t get through.
Is there something up with the phones?”
Jane: “Where is that office?”
Me: “Bristol, why?”
Jane: “That explains it. You can’t ring long distance.”
Me: “Sorry, what? I can’t ring long distance? Why not?”
Jane: “Didn’t anyone tell your department? The MD decided it and the phones have been limited from today. You have to ring through to reception to ask for a long-distance number, and I have to dial it for you.”
Me: “Really? That sounds like a really stupid idea.”
Jane: “I know, but it’s out of my hands.”
I turned to our news editor and told him.
He laughed and then realized I wasn’t joking. There ensued a short period of the reporters ringing numbers for places at varying distances from our office, where we worked out there was about a 10-mile radius before we had to ask reception to be connected.
Our news editor wasn’t having this – cue the malicious compliance. He rang ‘Jane’ and profusely apologized for what we were about to do to her and then commanded us to ask to be put through to any number, anywhere in the country, for the rest of the morning.
We spent the next two hours completely swamping our poor, solo receptionist with requests to be put through to long-distance numbers.
I made the call to the press office that I needed to make in the first place, but I also had a lovely chat with my aunt in Manchester and my sister in Scotland. There were about 20 of us in total non-stop asking for long-distance calls to be put through, meaning Jane could barely answer another call, or deal with visitors until we broke for lunch.
Needless to say, we came in the next day to find our right to make long-distance calls was reinstated.”
13. Okay, I'll Shut Up And Let You Sell
“I work in a high-tech industry providing network security products to the Fortune 100. Think of Apple, Salesforce, etc. My job is as a Sales Engineer, which is to work with the direct sales rep and make sure that the solution presented is correct, solves the problem, and fits the customer’s business needs. The job of the sales rep is to manage the relationship and to guide the sale through the qualification to purchase process.
It’s not their job to be the engineer on the account, that’s my job. The two of us go into the account together and work face to face with the customer teams. Often this begins at the “C Level” (Like Chief Technology Officer) and then works its way down to the department teams – Security Team, Network Team, IT Team, Procurement, Legal, etc.
I have been doing this job for a long, long time and I’m good at it.
I get glowing reviews from my customers because I work really hard to make sure I understand their issue(s) and to make sure that the technology fits their needs.
At a prior company (who shall remain nameless), I worked with a handful of really recognizable accounts that I won’t name here. I had been at the company for over four years, and I was very successful at it.
A new sales rep was brought in with the expectation that he would begin with smaller accounts in order to learn the products and get his feet wet with relatively low-risk customers.
In a matter of a few months, he went through two of my peers who didn’t want to work with him anymore. He was making sales, but they weren’t happy with him and requested to be moved to a different rep.
Normally I would not work on smaller accounts since I was a senior person in my role, but my boss asked me to work with the guy and see if I couldn’t find the problem.
Normally the way a sales call worked is that the rep – We’ll call him Mr. Arrogant – would open the meeting, introduce people, propose an agenda for the meeting, provide marketing material if appropriate, and then introduce me so that I could ask the customer about their needs and goals, and then I’d begin to work with them through a technical presentation.
That was the way it was supposed to work for all the reps. The really experienced guys could do most of a technical presentation, but any time the client got down to the nitty-gritty details, they would always turn it over to the engineer. It’s the entire reason that we went on the sales calls, to keep the rep out of trouble.
It was never the job of the salesperson to do the technical portion of the sale.
Never.
So, Mr. Arrogant and I go off to our first sales call together. As we ride over in his car, we talk about the customer, the kind of business they’re in, and possibly what products they might need. This is all pure speculation, we don’t know the customer’s problem yet, let alone their network or environment. I volunteer that I’ve worked with this customer in the past, and I am comfortable with their environment, but it might have changed.
As we’re riding in the car, he says to me.
“Okay Dvemail, I know all I need now. When we go in, let me do all the talking.”
He’s been with the company for a month or two. I tell him gently that this is a bad idea, and he should do his job and I’ll do mine. He’s having absolutely NONE of that. Mr. Arrogant tells me in completely clear terms that this account is HIS account, not mine, and he will not let me in the room unless I let him sell.
He knows more than I do, and I should sit back and learn from him.
I try gently, several times, to get him to let me do my job. Absolutely not. So, I text my manager while we’re sitting in the customer lobby with the description of the situation. My manager texts back something to the effect of ‘Mr. Arrogant believes he can do your job. Let him try.’
So, cut to the meeting.
Mr. Customer has the head of security, the head of network, and the head of IT all in the conference room. Mr. Arrogant begins his marketing pitch. He doesn’t ask any questions. He pivots over into his product pitch, telling them that they need Really Expensive Product One and Really Expensive Product Two. Oh, and they need a three-year support plan and a bunch of custom coding to make it all work.
The room is completely silent when he finishes.
After a long moment, the Chief Technical Officer turns to me and says something like, “So, Dvemail… You agree with this?”
- Mr. Arrogant leaps in and says, “Of course he does.”
I stare at the CTO silently.
The CTO says, “I’d like to hear what Dvemail has to say. If you like, Mr. Arrogant, you can wait outside.”
Mr. Arrogant shuts up.
I say. “Actually, Mr. CTO… I have no idea if your environment has changed, what your technology looks like now, or anything.
But I guarantee you that you absolutely do not need product 1 and 2. You might need product 3 or 4, but I need to learn a lot more about your current situation.”
Mr. CTO turns to Mr. Arrogant. “Yeah… why don’t you wait in the lobby? I don’t think you’re the right person to handle our account. I’ll reach out to your management team this afternoon and see if someone else might be available. Mr. Arrogant sputters and then leaves in a huff.
Needless to say, I needed a Lyft back to the office when the meeting ended. But no one ever had to work with Mr. Arrogant ever again as far as I know. His desk was empty the very next week.”
12. Treat All Prank Calls Like They're Legit? Will Do
“I work in a major pizza delivery chain that has so far been unsuccessful in out-pizzaing the hut. Our store is in a college town, and everyone is super bored right now for obvious reasons. So we’ve gone from maybe one prank call a day to at least 3-5 which isn’t much but still really annoying with how much more business we’ve been getting, again, for obvious reasons.
The worst part is how uncreative and low effort most of them are. At least 80% of them are, ‘Can I get a boneless pizza?’ or ‘Is this the Krusty Krab?’ with the occasional insert GTA fast-food order copypasta here.
This had been going on way too long, so I took up the habit of just hanging up whenever someone starts saying some stupid nonsense. The boss wasn’t too happy about this but didn’t care enough to say anything until an incident where I hung up on someone who wanted that boneless pizza and he called back ticked off because he actually wanted to order.
So I get a stern talking-to from boss man and he sends a message to the company’s group chat app saying: ‘I know we’ve been getting more prank calls than usual, but please don’t follow in certain people’s footsteps and just hang up on them.
Take the calls as seriously as possible. If they order something we can’t make, calmly explain it to them and offer them something we do actually sell. We want to try to make something off of them even if they’re acting dumb.’
So the very next call is where the fun starts. ‘Thank you for calling, what can I get you?’
‘I’m soooooo hungry, can I get an extra-extra-extra-extra large pizza with triple every topping?’
‘I’m sorry ma’am, we can only go up to one extra and double each topping.’
‘Hmmmm, ok then.
Can I get twenty XLs of each meat y’all have? So like 20 pepperonis, 20 sausages, etc…’
These people are giggling in the background the whole time.
‘Sure, give me a sec to ring it all up… Ok, so that’s 180 pizzas, the total will be $1,000 (don’t remember the actual price, but close enough), and it’ll take about 3 hours.’
‘Awesome thanks! We’ll pay with a check when we get there!’
Dial tone.
So I place the order, and not 30 seconds later, I hear, ‘What the heck?’ from the boss and he runs to the computer.
‘How are they paying for this?’ He asks me.
‘They said with a check. We do still take checks for orders over $200, right?’ I say.
‘They can’t have been serious. Was this a prank call?’
‘Not sure boss, you said to take all calls seriously!’ I reply.
He just grumbles and picks up the phone and calls the customer, and all I hear is super loud laughter as he hangs up.
Meanwhile, other employees have started actually making the ridiculous order not noticing anything weird about it. So by the time the boss finishes the call and cancels the order on the computer, there are already five XL pepperoni pizzas in the oven. So we got free dinner for everyone working that night as well as another message in the group chat app simply saying, ‘In regards to my last message, please just use good judgment when taking orders.'”
11. Make Me Start As A New Employee At Our Parent Company? Time To Take Advantage Of The New Employee Notice Period
“Happened to me about 3 years ago now. I was working as a software developer for a small-ish company owned by venture capitalists. I’d been there for just over a year and a half, the work was difficult due to losing staff and generally sloppy codebase that was originally outsourced to a company on the other side of the world that we couldn’t contact or generally understand their logic.
My notice period was 3 months, pretty standard for a company this size for my role.
A rival decides we’re small enough to purchase our company just to get their hands on our bespoke software. They go ahead and after a few weeks have acquired our company and are formally introduced as the new owners. Everyone is a bit uneasy due to the change but is reassured that it will be at least 6 months before any changes are made.
Our department is pretty happy with that.
We’re 3 developers, 2 business intelligence analysts, one tester, and one systems architecture engineer, all reporting to the CTO. No one expects anything bad until one day we’re all called into a meeting together with the new owners announcing that they are looking to merge their IT department with ours and downsize them whilst they go. Here in the UK, there’s an official term called ‘being placed at risk of redundancy.’ Their IT department isn’t too dissimilar to ours: 3 developers, one tester.
We’re all told that there are three positions available to the developers, two developer positions, and one lead developer position.
We are allowed to apply for all of them, one of them or none of them. All of us brush up our CVs, go through the interviews, and have all been looking for jobs elsewhere. All of the developers at our company decide that we want either the lead role or none at all as unless we’re getting the promotion, none of us really want to work for the new owners anymore.
Overall, half the staff would be gone by the end of the month.
After a week goes by, we’re invited back to find out our fate. At this point, they decide that my two colleagues are being let go, paid their notice, and sent home on gardening leave. I’m offered the lead role with an unsatisfactory pay raise. I accept it and am given a document explaining the transition process.
The new role is with the other company and starts the following Monday. There’s a clause in the document saying I’ve got a four-week period where both parties can decide it isn’t working and leave on a week’s notice. All seems fine and I’m mostly relieved to have a job. It starts to sink in that I’m going to end up dealing with the brunt of the development whilst also trying to teach the two developers kept on from the other company what the codebase was like.
I decide that I’m going to look elsewhere and end up getting a better offer working closer to home.
I walk into the office the next Monday, ask to speak to my boss, the CTO. Hand him a letter informing him of my notice and that I’ll be gone by the end of the week. He turns white as a ghost. All of the other developers from our company have already been paid off and their end of contracts processed. There was nothing they could do; they were out of developers that understood our code.”
10. Need To Have A Friend To Buy A Wristband? I'll Find Someone, Anyone
“A few years ago, I was meeting two friends at the county fair. I was running late due to the traffic. The fair is a pretty big deal around here, so I told them to go ahead without me.
When I finally got there, I went to the ticket booth to buy a ride pass. For $10, you could get a wristband allowing you unlimited rides. This was a much better deal than getting single-ride tickets which cost $1 each.
Except this year, something was strange: usually, you could buy just one wristband no problem, but for some reason, the only way to buy them this year was to get two at once. Now obviously, my two friends had bought their wristbands together, so I didn’t have a second person to buy one with.
I went up to the ticket taker, who looked a lot like a stereotypical entitled person: the short blond bob, the oversized sunglasses on top of her forehead, the rolls of fat hanging out of her red vest that all of the fair workers were wearing.
She looked at me and said in the most annoyed voice, “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I wanted to buy a ride pass, but I don’t have a second person to buy it with. Could I just have one wristband?”
“What are you telling me you have no friends? Did you seriously come to the fair alone?”
“I didn’t come alone. It’s just my friends already bought wristbands.”
“That’s it? You don’t have a sibling, cousin, parent, anything? I find that hard to believe.”
“Yeah, of course.
I do they’re just not here.”
“And you only have two friends? Maybe if you had more, it wouldn’t be a problem. Now go off and make a friend then you can come back and get a pass.”
Her attitude really annoyed me, just about as much as this ridiculous new rule. Like if they could sell you two passes, then what was the problem with selling one? I get most people don’t go to the fair alone, but what if there was an odd amount of people? I really didn’t want this annoying ticket-taker to have her way, so I did just what she said and decided to make a friend.
Standing behind me in the ticket line was a pregnant mom and her daughter, about eight or nine.
I was assuming the mom wasn’t going to be riding any rides, and they seemed to be giving in and just getting single-ride tickets. That’s when I got an idea. I pulled the little girl aside and asked her if she would like to get a ride pass. She said yes and I got back in line with them.
“Did you make a friend yet?” asked the annoyed ticket taker.
“I did actually.
I and my new friend here would like to buy a ride pass,” I said smirking.
The ticket stuttered and tried talking back, but there was nothing she could do. The rules stated that the pass had to be bought by two people; it never said that they had to be together or even know each other. The mom and I each paid $10 and took our wristbands.
The daughter thanked me and we parted ways. I went to go catch up with my friends and we spent the rest of the day at the fair.
I went back to the fair the next day, but this time with my twin sisters where I discovered a new rule: the passes only lasted one day and new ones had to be purchased every day of the fair.
This was annoying, but there was nothing I could do. Of course, there was the same angry overweight ticket taker that was there yesterday. My sisters bought their passes together and I decided to do the same thing I did the previous day, just to spite her. I turned to the person behind me and offered to buy our passes together since he was in a group of three people.
He said yes and we went up to the ticket booth.
“I and my new friend here would like to buy a ride pass,” I said while looking at her with a big grin.
Even more annoyed than last time, she took each of our tens and gave us wristbands. Of course, she purposefully ripped mine while tearing apart the sheet of bracelets, but it was still so satisfying to beat her at her own game.
The next year, the single-person ride passes were back because of complaints from people including me.
Turns out, the fair was just trying to make more by forcing more people to buy the more expensive single-ride tickets. Their plan didn’t work because I had found a simple loophole that was used by other people as well.
They still had passes for two people at a discount, so for my benefit and theirs, I would always find a stranger and go to the booth where that annoying lady was.
She would always be absolutely angry as I said, “Look, here’s my new friend. We would like a ride pass!””
Another User Comments:
“I made a really nice friend for the day going into six flags. Was the last time we were going for the year and we had friends get in free passes loaded on our season pass.
So I found a couple of ladies who were headed in to buy tickets and asked if they just wanted to come in with us for free.
They just had to pay a child ticket for the youngest since they had four people, but they got two adults and the teen in free.
We ran into each other a few times that day and we chatted. It was so nice. They got to splurge and buy the kids some extra snacks and souvenirs with the money instead of paying admission.” Mama2lbg2
9. Won't Tell Me What Sandwich You Want? Hope You're Fine With This
“Growing up, schools never mandated hot lunches. (Honestly, I hate that some schools are doing that now.) Our family’s policy was we could each choose two days a week when the school was making something we really liked to order hot lunch. Other than that, we’d take a packed lunch. I made the packed lunches as I love working with food to this day, and it gave my parents one less thing to worry about in the evening.
(Lunches were made the night before and kept in the fridge.)
The one annoying thing about this was my sister (elementary school) was a picky eater and my brother (middle school) didn’t like deciding what he wanted almost every day. So when I asked my siblings what they wanted in their lunch, they’d say they didn’t know or give some vague response. Sometimes they’d then complain about what I did pack!
Then I was handed an opportunity to teach them both a lesson.
You see, my brother has a sarcastic sense of humor.
99% of the time, it’s all in good fun and either leads to a laugh or something more funny down the road. On this particular occasion, when I asked what he wanted for lunch he said, “Make me an air sandwich.”
So I took a sandwich bag and put in two slices of bread. Nothing but air between them. I then put a sticky note on the sandwich bag saying “Enjoy your air sandwich!”
Now to be fair, I wasn’t going to let him go hungry over this.
I put in a lot of fruit, a double helping of potato chips, and, if I remember right, a Little Debbie dessert of some sort. It wasn’t a hearty lunch, but he’d be fed. Plus, I later learned his friends pitched in with their own lunches when they saw what happened.
I also didn’t repeat this to my sister. I was tempted, but she had actually asked for chips and hummus that day.
No point in punishing her when she had actually made an effort that day.
Needless to say, when we got him, my brother went right up to me and shouted, “REALLY?!” I started laughing. He complained about how he hadn’t had much breakfast and was starving at lunchtime only to find two pieces of bread and the note. He went on to say that he needed meat! (Ironically, he’s now a vegetarian.) My mom was nearby and asked what happened.
When she found out and I explained I had made sure he wouldn’t starve, she sided with me. It was funny, overall harmless, and she had been trying to teach my siblings that lesson for ages.
My brother’s still slightly mad at me for that, but to be fair, from that day on, he always gave me a proper answer when I asked for lunch requests. He still has his sarcastic sense of humor too, and while I do sometimes use it to tease him, it’s never anything truly malicious. End of the day, I love my brother, sense of humor, and all.
Oh! Pro-tip for anyone else facing this. I’ve since learned you’ll often get a better answer if you ask, “What cuisine do you want?” Do they want Italian? Seafood? BBQ? From there, you can narrow down your options and figure out what to make.”
8. Don't Answer The Work Phone Anymore? Okay
“So at work, I’m seen as the task-doer in the office even though I keep applying for a higher post. I’ve seen staff come and go because they are bad in their job roles (paid 4x more than me), and yet I can do the job with my eyes closed. Got degrees for the main roles, yet I seem to fail at the interviews. They say that the person they have given the role to was better suited for the role.
Ended up being retrained 4 times the last one and kept making tons of mistakes. I deal with the admin side and flag up issues for the officers to deal with despite the fact I’m more qualified than they are! I was actually told they wouldn’t be able to cope if I left! Guess that’s why they won’t let me progress.
Anyhow, I’ve been in the office, officers working from home, only seniors come in once a week and the rest work from home.
I keep everything going. At first, they provided phones for the officers to do phone duties as I was doing some of it with another. No biggie.
One day I answered the phone as it wasn’t being picked up from whoever was on phone duty (most likely on a call), dealt with it, and emailed the officer ref the call. The next thing I know, the senior for the day came over and asked why did I answer the call? Said it rang for a while on call forwarding and it wasn’t being picked up and got diverted back to the office.
“From now on, you don’t answer the phones anymore, okay? We don’t need you to do it!”
Okay fine. I won’t answer it then.
Cue malicious compliance.
Almost an hour later, the phone is ringing in the office. It rang, rang, rang, rang, rang for ages it felt like. The senior wasn’t at her desk as she had gone to make herself a drink. She came running to her desk, and by then, the ringing stopped.
Our phones are monitored to ensure they get answered after so many rings.
She just looked at me as if a cat’s bum got in her face. I just smiled at her and carried on with dealing with the post.
A couple of hours later, she went to lunch and had 3 missed calls. Went somewhere (don’t know where or care) and the phone rang again. Came running back but missed it.
Gave me another look!
Told me not to answer the phone, so I definitely won’t answer the phone.
Yet when the overall manager is in on Fridays, he wants me to answer the phones!
Yes, I’m looking for another job, but it will be hard. I’m wasted in my job as I’m not allowed to do anything above my pay grade yet I’m to train new staff and after the last round of interviews for 2 new officers (again, for the 5th time, I didn’t get the job as I don’t have the experience!!), they want me to help train the new staff………. I guess my face doesn’t fit or they just want me to run the office and be their dog’s body.”
7. Sure, I Won't Move From The Cash Register
Your wish is my command.
“So a few years ago, I used to work in hospitality. I worked at a cafe as a casual. Now the owners (especially looking back) were all sorts of narcissistic. Sick and can’t come in? That’s ok, have the rest of the week off as punishment. Want a day off? Let me make your life awful for asking.
Anyways. I worked on the cash register.
I was the only one that rarely made mistakes and knew all the products by heart as well as a great memory for customers’ names. (This is important for later.)
As there were only three people that worked alongside me besides the 2 bosses each week, we three would rotate our cleaning: Week 1 dishes. Week 2 floors. Week 3 sandwich bar. We usually started pack-up around 2 pm and were to be out of there by 2:30 pm.
As the dishes had to be hand-washed, and when there were no customers, I would leave the till and do some dishes, continually checking if new customers came in, and if so, would stop what I was doing and greet them.
Considering the rush was normally only between 12-1, I could get ahead of the dishes for the other girls after around 1 pm.
Well, one day, the owner who really had no idea, decided he was going to work instead of sitting on the couch. So he comes in and stuffs up about three orders. Now, of course, being the type of person he is, it’s not his fault and I am blasted because I need to stay at the till! When I try to explain I am there most of the time and I only leave to clear tables, etc.
when I know everyone is seated and served, he goes on to say, “What part of stay at the till don’t you understand?”
Ok….. Not a problem. I’ll stay at the till ….for the next two weeks. I stay at the till. I don’t move… Tables need clearing. I stand there. Dishes piling up. I stand there. Some days, I have no customers for an hour. I stand there.
Well, as the dishes start piling up and no one can get there, we start getting out later and later, sometimes 3 pm. Sometimes later. Now remember we are all casual, so they have to pay us.
He sits on the couch and watches as the other girls run around needing my help, but I look straight back at him and stand there. After about 2 weeks they didn’t like the overtime and of course said, “Why are we not getting out on time?” We shouldn’t be this late.
This is where I chime in. “Well, If I was able to leave the till when we have no customers lined up, I could help them?” Cue boss realizing at this point it was either admit his fault or get out his wallet, he agrees and I go back to my usual role of helping the girls and getting out on time.”
6. I Have To Eat It? Fine, I Will, But I'm Definitely Going To Throw Up No Matter What
“So, I was always a super picky eater as a child. By picky eater, I mean, I literally wouldn’t eat. My parents would spend hours with me at the table just trying to get me to open my mouth, and I absolutely wouldn’t. By the time I was six/seven (by which I’d largely grown out of this particular extreme), there were still things I would absolutely refuse to eat.
My parents would try and pull the, “If you don’t finish your food, you can’t get up from the table” trick, but I’d say, “Fine” and sit at the table for hours until they gave in. No phone, no TV, no anything. Just me, some vegetables, and a set of exhausted parents. This isn’t the malicious compliance, but it’s important that you know I was apparently totally capable of just…
saying no and sticking to my guns.
Fast forward to a school trip. It’s lunchtime and on offer: sandwiches. A couple of kids have cheese and onion sandwiches, but the rest of us are being offered (insanely, pâté sandwiches). Now, I think this is a foolish thing to feed a group of 40 six-year-olds, but clearly, the school didn’t agree. Anyway, I ask if I can have a cheese and onion sandwich and I’m told that no, I can’t because I had to sign up for the vegetarian option in advance.
Now, at this age, I have no idea what pâté is, but I can see it and smell it, and I know it’s not happening.
I ask again for some cheese and onion sandwiches, and I’m told there’s none left and I’m going to have to eat the other kind.
I was an absolute model student up until the age of, like, sixteen, but there was this one teacher (screw you, Mrs. Harris) who absolutely hated me regardless (think: how dare you write in cursive when I haven’t taught you cursive yet!!).
She seized upon this opportunity, telling me not to be picky and saying I was holding everyone up and that I should just eat the sandwich.
I’m poking this thing and the texture was totally freaking me out (my biggest issue with most foods), so I ask if I can just skip lunch. She says no, absolutely not; I have to eat and I have to eat that sandwich.
I tell her that I’m not trying to be fussy, but that if I try and eat that sandwich, I am 100% going to throw up.
Mrs. Harris tells me to stop being dramatic. I’m not going to throw up; I’m just a picky eater and I need to get over it. At this point, I’m thinking, “You know what? Fine, this isn’t actually my problem. I’m the child here.” So, I bite into the sandwich, and not 15 seconds later, I’m throwing up everywhere (no kidding).
Clearly, Mrs. Harris was not expecting this and she has no idea how to react.
A bunch of the other teachers come over to check that everything is okay, and she tries to explain to them what happened. Anyway, they end up having to call my parents (as was the throwing up protocol) and they’re obviously like, “Why did you force-feed our child a lukewarm pâté sandwich??”
In the end, they broke out the crisps and an apple because, unsurprisingly, there were things to eat other than meat paste in bread, and Mrs. Harris gave me a wide berth for a good few weeks (until I put some dead worms in a girl’s drawer for making racist comments, but that’s another story).”
5. Don't Touch Your Merchandise? I Won't, Not Even If It Falls
“I worked in a comic book shop in the early 2000s, and the boss wanted to start selling online in addition to in-store. He was very rarely in the store himself, delegating to managers and only showing up in full for fun store events so he could interact with a lot of excited customers. Free Comic Day, etc.
He would throw big events and have bands perform under the guise of promoting the shop.
It was easily apparent he just wanted to be a big shot, though. He was constantly trying to get the shop on the local news with “foolish” publicity stunts, etc.
I was hired on with one other dude to essentially run the online sales. (I think the boss had an over-inflated idea of how much he would make on eBay.) The other employee and I had alternating shifts, so we were never on duty at the same time.
The boss would leave long boxes and stacks of comics, books, magazines, and toys for us to photograph or scan, then list for auction.
When I was done with mine, I was still on the clock (paid hourly minimum wage, not commission) so I would start photographing and scanning the other employee’s stuff.
I wouldn’t list it for sale, however, because that would be doing his entire job for him.
I come in one day and there’s a sticky note on the center of the computer monitor.
“Do NOT touch (other employee)’s comics” with a mad face drawn next to it to drive home the message.
Not only did the other dude get mad, and not only did he go to the boss instead of me, but the boss agreed with him to top it all off… AND the boss ALSO didn’t actually talk to me about it at all.
RIP.
A couple of days pass, and I forget about the whole thing. If he doesn’t want the help, that’s on him. I was basically giving him free time just so I looked busy.
Maybe he wanted to look busy, too. Whatever.
Then, one morning, I open the office door and the man’s stack of comics just completely spills off the back desk. Like a waterfall of paper, SHOOOOF. The plastic from a Killer Croc figure makes a hard cracking sound against the floor.
I could have caught it if I moved quickly. I could’ve at least stopped half of it if I moved normally.
But – you know.
“Do NOT touch.”
Additionally, picking them up off the floor would be touching them… so that’s a no-no.
The manager working that day was a chill guy. Half the time, he would sleep under a table of comic boxes if it was a slow day, and customers would have to kick him to buy anything. Since we were friends, he knew the deal and laughed his butt off when he saw me sitting at the PC amid a scattered crime scene of murdered collectibles.
I was fired almost immediately afterward, but within a year, the comic shop had to move from a spacious building with DVDs, clothes, etc. to a much smaller storefront in a strip mall. All due to the boss making extravagant and ill-informed decisions that never paid off.”
4. Don't Speak Unless Asked To? No Problemo
“This story starts a month or so before the March of this year. I had just joined a precision stampings company for an internship and what they basically manufactured was washers, shims, and spacers from cold-rolled steel. They used about 34, 60, to 150-ton mechanical presses and had specific dyes for each part. To make it simple, they had glorious punching machines with different sizes of holes to punch.
I had a manager above me whom I reported to and he was basically a work of art in his own way. Regularly ignored the chain of command, carried himself like the king of the castle, regularly demeaned the jobs of people below him, and had a blatant disregard for safety. He looked after the whole production and I guess it was normal for people in top positions to get their heads stuffed with the wrong stuffing.
I judged this pretty early on and never got in his way and did what I was told.
Now little intern me was learning the basics and little things about everything and spent most of my time on the shop floor watching operators do their job and study each process and the tools. The tools were unique punches for a specific part and couldn’t be replaced easily.
Now because it was normal for customers to give urgent orders with deliveries to the tune of 2-3 days as compared to the usual 2-3 months, this one customer let’s call them GG, a major automobile spare parts manufacturer, had the habit of doing just that and our company manufactured the part within a few hours and always delivered on time. Because of this, the customer always stuck to us.
During the first few days of my internship, the order dropped and I got to see the turmoil needed to reach the deadline in two days.
I watched every step of the process and saw it through the end till dispatch. Now it so happens that an experienced operator had just joined our company and didn’t have an idea of the little things of the workings here. He got to work on the part, and after he was done, he removed the tool and had no idea about the designated place for the tool to be kept.
I told him about the racks with numberings for each unique tool to be kept. Meanwhile, I get down to work and forget about it. He comes a few minutes later and tells me that he couldn’t find the exact place for the tool and hence kept the tool in a place, equivalent to keeping a book behind a shelf, for the time being until he tells someone puts it in the right place.
Fair enough. Then a few days later we stopped working.
The company has been closed for about two months and we were working on about 30% of the original workforce which was mostly machine operators. I had just graduated from my engineering and was looking for a job. They laid off some people in top positions, and as a result, I got promoted to the position of Production Supervisor.
Basically, they needed someone who knew everything about the processes and production timings of operators which we most definitely not me, but I came for a cheap price, and hence bippity boppity, a wild OP appeared.
I tried my best to live up to it and took me about a week to get used to the pace. The manager kept bypassing me to contact the operators and have them order without me knowing which caused a lot of confusion.
One day, that is the day before yesterday, he held a meeting to decide the production schedule that we were going to follow for the rest of the month. I don’t know why the meeting was held because the production planning department gives us the schedule every week. So I say just that in the meeting. I regret waking up that day. He felt undermined in front of the production staff I guess which caused him to just go off on me.
Scolded me for interrupting my senior and talking out of turn and not knowing enough about the company to even talk in a meeting. Also, to keep my gob shut and open it only when asked to. Fair enough. Guess I was just there to look after the small jobs.
The meeting finishes and I keep out of his way for the rest of the day. Just before my shift gets over GG company drops the purchase order for their part.
I saw it, read it, and as I wasn’t qualified enough, decided to send it to my manager. Now company policy dictates you to let me know about overtime at least an hour before my shift gets over. Me being “incompetent,” “forgot” to send the schedule to the manager until a few minutes before the overtime deadline just to be safe. I knew the delivery was for two days later, so they had to get going early.
The manager starts barking orders. Trek me to wait over time, I refuse, mention the company policy and get scarce from his usual working space. There was some commotion around there but my shift got over. I go home, sleep, come back to work the other day knowing that it was going to be a long day with a probable double shift for me. I came prepared with the provisions.
You people are smart enough, you know where this is going, so here’s wrapping it up fast.
Before I left, they couldn’t find the tool they needed for the job, hence the commotion. The operator who kept it there was fired and the company knowing that they did it in bad faith didn’t call him for the location. I come back the next day, they still haven’t found it. They have started developing the tool from scratch and had to call in the tool designers.
They obviously had no idea that I knew it, we wouldn’t be here if my manager had simply asked me. But I was to open my mouth only when asked to. So I didn’t tell them. I called the operator and told him to tell the company that he kept the tool in place just in case. The day gets by smoothly for me until lunch when the manager suddenly sees me.
He tells me I’m working a double shift and I say okay. He didn’t ask me about the tool. I said nothing. This was yesterday by the way. The tool they made breaks down within an hour. The hunt for the old tool begins.
Nobody asks me anything. Fair enough. I keep working on the rest of the production line. My first shift gets over. They have looked under every stone in the factory.
It’s almost midnight. Everybody is tired. My manager hadn’t slept since the order came in. Now it’s apparent the order wouldn’t be completed but they still keep on searching. Now to the point that I’m writing this in real-time. I slept in my office, a nice six hours. The manager was too busy to notice me. Woke up and got ready to leave. But decide against it.
The delivery was supposed to be at 9:30 am today. It’s 3:30 pm now. They have told the customer they won’t be able to deliver due to lack of raw material. Probably lost a customer.
The manager hasn’t slept in two days. I’ve completed almost three shifts and would be paid double for the overtime. I have just come from the manager’s cabin. This is how it went.
Not cis.
Me- May I come in sir?
Manager- What do you want?
Me- Did we complete the schedule, sir?
Manager- What does it look like? Me- I guess not, why though?
Manager- Were you under a rock? The tool was missing and we broke the new one.
Me- If you don’t mind me asking sir, which tool? I haven’t gotten used to the nomenclature yet.
Managers- TN5386GG, what even have you been doing all this time? All the production supervisors were on the floor looking for the tool.
I didn’t see you once.
Me- You asked me not to speak unless asked to, sir. And if I’m not wrong, is that the tool that’s on that place?
Manager- Umm, what even are you talking about? We don’t keep it there.
Me- Well, that’s obvious that we didn’t keep it in the usual place isn’t it, sir? Should’ve asked me.
Manager- I don’t think you even understand what’s going on here. That must be a different tool you misjudged. I’ll show you what tool that is.
We go over to the place, and sure enough, it’s the same tool. He immediately started yelling and calling for some people and I make myself scarce. Safe to say that I might get fired, but I lived this moment and I have a college admission in my hand.”
3. Teacher Gets Called Out For Their Wrongdoing
“This happened in my last year of middle school with my English teacher. He was the new teacher, and he was supposed to replace our old English teacher who quit during the first semester. For some reason, he HATED the girls in my classroom (classes were either exclusively girls, or exclusively boys. There were 4 classrooms per generation (two for boys, two for girls). He taught 2 boys’ classes and my class who was a girls’ class.
When this whole mess started, the girls in my class and I noticed he left us A LOT of homework. I mean an unreasonable amount, so much so that there were school rules that stated he couldn’t leave us that much homework. He left us homework even on days in which we didn’t have his class and he would also assign random work during random times during days that were supposed to be days off (like weekends and holidays).
At one point, we were fed up and we started questioning him about it.
Why was he leaving so much more homework for this class?
My English teacher kept claiming he left every single one of his classes an equal amount of homework. He was being a huge jerk about it. At one point, he got fed up with us pestering him about the assignments, and he threatened to take disciplinary action if we ever tried to confront him again. That is, if we did it without proof that he was being unfair.
The first thing I did once I was done with online school for the day was make a chart.
Since this teacher had all of his classes in the same Google classroom it didn’t take me long to figure out how much homework he left for each class. I counted one by one how many assignments he left for each class. Turns out that in a span of 2 months, he had left 11 assignments for one of the classes he taught. They were small assignments too.
I’m talking about simple worksheets and maybe a small paper on how they were doing now that school was online and they were locked up. He left MY class with like 30 assignments. I’m talking about making huge amounts of research and then making video reflections on that, reading entire books just to make small summaries, etc. You get the idea.
I made a chart and showed it to my classmates.
They were (unsurprisingly) just as angry as I was, and they decided that, yes, I should make a presentation during class.
The next day, we were on a Zoom call with my English teacher. When he finally finished his class, he said the words I was awaiting: “Any questions?”
Of course, I raised my hand and said: “Can I share my screen?”
My teacher was baffled, but I guess he was also curious about what was about to happen.
He was even more confused about what was happening, so he asked me: “Sofía, what in the world is this?”
I replied: “You said we couldn’t confront you about the homework if we didn’t have any proof we were being unfair, so I made a chart to prove that you were, in fact, leaving OUR class more homework than other classes.”
He was too baffled to speak, so I proceeded to explain how I determined that he was leaving a lot more homework for us.
I told him I counted the homework AND that I asked my classmates what he had assigned them was the only work they had. That had been confirmed by them. These other two girls tore through him for lying to us, for being unfair, and for everything else they could think of. In my opinion, that was a bit excessive, but I just presented the facts and did nothing else.
When they finished, I just said, “Thank you for your attention.
Just to be clear, I and the girls in the class only want to have less homework. I hope that doesn’t cause any inconveniences” (or something like that… I was feeling kinda lightheaded after what I did) and stopped sharing my screen.
My teacher just said something along the lines of, “Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I’ll see what I can do,” and he quickly ended the call.
The fallout was him leaving the other boys’ classes more homework instead of giving us less.
The girls in my class blamed me for that, and everyone hated me for a while.
I can’t really say it was worth it for the girls in my class, because we didn’t get less homework. At least I got to put that jerk in his place since he was the school English coordinator’s golden child who could do no wrong even when he blatantly broke school rules, and she really wouldn’t do anything about his unfair behavior.”
2. Run A Youth Program That I'm Not Suited For? You're Going To Hate The Outcome
He definitely put his own little twist on the program.
“For context, I still have a wonderful relationship with this supervisor though I haven’t worked there for years. Behind closed doors, this workplace operated on very direct communication and was truly the closest thing to operating like a “family” I’ve experienced positively in a workplace.
I was working for a youth-serving afterschool organization that is well-known in the US.
We were located in a rough community that had mostly POC. My job was primarily to facilitate teen programs (or delegate facilitation where appropriate), schedule teen room staff, provide homework help, and mediate conflicts. This organization was funded through hundreds of grants, many of which required us to have a certain number of youth attend a program a certain number of times. All about quantity, less focused on quality.
But it did keep the place running.
One day, Boss called me (Mike) into his office. He asked me to run a program called “Passport to Manhood,” today with at least 15 teen boys to secure funding. The second and final program would take place next week. I told him that a) I disagreed with the premise of the program and thought it should be called “Passport to Adulthood,” and b) I was definitely not the right staff member to demonstrate what “manhood” meant in this community.
I pointed out that we had plenty of adults available that would be appropriate, such as the basketball coach or a hardworking dad that volunteered the same day, but Boss said, “Do your Mike thing and make it work.” Apparently my “Mike thing” meant being creative, thinking outside of the box, and getting results.
Keep in mind, I’m a lanky, long-haired, glasses-wearing white guy with a degree in philosophy and the occasional nail polish on my fingers.
I was a good mentor for those teens in many ways, but I came nowhere near what their community considered “manly.” I already know that this mentality will be a point of contention in the comments, so please don’t fixate on this unless you’ve really lived/worked in one of these communities. It’s a complex issue with no simple solution.
Enter MC. I immediately took all of the little workbooks shaped like passports for the program and crossed out and replaced all of the gendered languages.
“Men should,” into “Adults should,” etc. The program required a talking piece to be passed around so only one person at a time could speak. I picked out my favorite stuffed animal – a unicorn – from the 5-8-year-old space. I also had to do it for 45 minutes, and the only time that could work that day was during teen open gym. I went and closed off the gym for all the boys and slotted that hour as a girls-only time.
Side note: the girls were stoked.
Now that all of the teenage boys were relegated to the teen room and had an hour of their basketball time canceled, I began the program. I followed the curriculum as best I could, and we all hashed out our stories about manhood, respect, and expectations. Half of the teens didn’t participate but at least sat quietly the whole time. I then offered a free item from the concession stand for the first two teens to submit an in-person review to my boss (that was permitted in the curriculum).
Two of them immediately took me up on it and informed Boss of how much it sucked.
About 10 minutes after finishing the program, Boss called me in. He was laughing his butt off. “Ok, Professor Mike, you win. The basketball coach will do it next week. Now get out of my office you jerk!” He laughed the whole time as I made my way out. Apparently, the teens let him have it.
Coach ran it the next week, and he did a great job. The teens said they looked forward to doing it again next semester, albeit with him in charge.”
1. Can't Bring Nutella On The Plane? Hold On While I Enjoy This Chocolatey Goodness
“This took place in 2016, I believe. I could be wrong. My mom got tickets for me and her to go to Super Bowl 50 in San Francisco, all the way from Ohio. I was 20, for reference.
So we get to California, my mom goes to the game (I didn’t because she sold my ticket on game day to get special merchandise with it being the 50th Super Bowl, but she shared what she bought with me, so I’m not terribly upset), and she decides to extend her vacation and stay a few days longer.
I wanted to get back home to my then-partner (that failed spectacularly; we were so toxic to each other), so I opted to fly alone on the way back. That’s all the backstory.
My first solo plane trip started out well. California to Minnesota layaway? No problem. Oh, now I have to go back through security? That won’t be an issue.
THAT WAS AN ISSUE.
You know those big Nutella jars, like the REALLY big ones for like $10? I had one of those in my carry-on.
Now, see, California customs were great. They classified Nutella as a solid. Like peanut butter. Awesome. Thank you. Minnesota?
Liquid. Nutella is a liquid.
I’m arguing with this employee and she’s just not having it. Nutella counts as a liquid and that’s it. Never mind the fact that I got it from California to Minnesota no problem. They must be foolish. She gives me two options. I can leave the big, expensive, chocolatey-hazelnut goodness…or I can eat it.
This lady is looking at me like she knows she’s won.
There’s no way this girl’s gonna eat a whole jar of Nutella. The people in line behind me are discussing whether or not Nutella should be classified as a liquid. I’m normally not a combative person. I stay out of the spotlight; I let people walk all over me to avoid drama and fighting. I have no idea why I chose that moment, that day, to rebel.
Maybe I was tired from flying all day, maybe I knew I would never see any of these people again. I don’t know.
I looked this lady dead in the eye, unscrewed the lid, grabbed my handy dandy spoon, and started shoveling. All of it. Into my mouth.
It took me a while (10-15 minutes) to eat the entire jar, but I did. 1/10 would not recommend. By the end, my mouth was so dry and tired.
Nutella is thick and I was scooping it out in huge spoonfuls. It took so much effort to swish it around and swallow it, I almost gave up. But something in me wouldn’t stop. I HAD to do this. I HAD to finish the jar. I stared at her the whole time. When I was done, Nutella all over my mouth, she checked me through and threw away the empty jar.
Man, I wasted so much time determined to get my money’s worth out of that Nutella, I almost missed my flight. I was running like an Olympian through the boarding area, carry-on banging around behind me as I dragged it. I have to thank all the sugar I basically inhaled for giving me that extra boost to my step and my lovely mom for calling the airport and making sure I got on my flight safe. They waited for me and everything.”
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