People Depict Their Sour Revenge Stories
23. You Think I'm Not Doing My Job? I'll Make Sure You Never Rent Another Movie
“Here’s some background! I’m going to date myself here, so painful laughs.
When I was about two and a half months away from hitting 17 I got a job working at a certain video and game rental store with a ticket for its logo.
For those not familiar with this store, it was a video (yes. I mean VHS) rental store.
This was right around the time DVDs were beginning to break into the market. We also rented out PS1 and N64 games. Had a kid try to rent Conker’s Bad Fur Day once because he thought his mother was too stupid to understand what it was.
He wasn’t happy. Nerd Princess (the one and only OP of this fine tale) was well versed in it and educated the mother in question. I live to crush the dreams of children. That’s a story for another day. I had a friend whose mother was a manager there and fudged the issue of me not quite being 17.
For those of you not familiar with the American rating system for the cinema, a rating of R means the film is restricted viewing to anyone under the age of 17 without an adult with them. The store rented out those movies once they moved to VHS/DVD and required its employees to be 17 for that reason.
Now, it’s no secret that people are jerks. This wasn’t my first job and I’d had people try to hang me out to dry over being ‘young’ and ‘inexperienced’ before. What I learned at this rental store, however, was just how crappy people can be.
People used being young and inexperienced against me but that didn’t make it untrue. There was also a certain degree of naiveté because it’s not like I really had many real interactions with the outside world as a fully functional individual at that point.
It was my second job.
I learned very quickly about the subspecies of human we later classified as a ‘Karen.’ It was still a largely unidentified species at that point. Now, the feral cry of the wild Karen had some very distinct triggers.
The one relevant to this story is the ‘late fee.’
I don’t know if this works differently for people in other countries, but in the U.S., rental stores, ours included, charged a set price for a movie to be rented for a certain number of days.
Days beyond that carried a late fee charged for another cycle if the movie was not returned by 10 pm. Almost like you rented it again. The store closed at midnight. Anything returned past that was essentially not available to be rented by anyone else that day.
This policy was printed on the door, the boxes of the movies, taped to the counter in front of the two registers for rental purchases, on the printed receipts, and on the doors as you exit the building. Email notifications, apps, and text reminders weren’t a thing yet.
Cell phones weren’t really a thing yet.
All that said, it was in no way uncommon for the wild Karens to wander into our store in search of entertainment. The wild Karens tended to have horrible manners, narcissistic personalities, entitled attitudes, a lack of patience, and complete disregard for any rules described. Your typical Karen, right?
So when they returned movies late and their accounts were flagged with late fees the responses were generally painfully predictable.
‘I didn’t know it would charge like that.’
‘But I did bring it back on time.’
‘I put it in your drop slot (a slot on the wall of the building for people to drop movies into leading to a bin and accessible without entering the building)’ or ‘I dropped it off in the dropbox (a box much like a U.S.
Post Office Box but designed for people to pull up in a car/walk up to and drop off their movies).’
This last one is important and the reason I have a story to tell.
Now I worked with some awesome guys.
Never made me feel stupid for being younger, laughed with me, and since I was so green, they started introducing me to more adult humor. I was a sheltered child. When I got the job a perk was the ability to check out 7 movies a week for free, with access to new releases three days before the public.
They came in on Friday mornings but didn’t hit the floor for customers until Tuesday morning. Same thing with movies for purchase. Each person made me a list of movies I was told I had to see before any of them would let me rent anything else.
Some people might have found that irritating, but I didn’t because it left me feeling like I was legitimately part of the group. It also exposed me to so many movies, many classics by today’s standards. One of the managers made me watch The Godfather because he loved it and would quote it literally every day.
Now the manager I loved the most was the type of guy that had a professional filter in the sense that he wouldn’t swear or raise his voice to people in any sort of confrontation while on the clock and representing the store, but he would start dialing up the mock ‘customer service’ face and voice while ladling in heaps of fresh, piping hot sarcasm.
We’ll call him Tony. Super friendly to everyone and loved to screw with us all, but always in good fun.
Now, remember that box I mentioned? I was pretty small. I was (and still am) 5’2″ (around 157.5 cm). At the time I weighed maybe 110lbs (around 50 kg).
The dropbox stood up to my chin. To open it and retrieve whatever had been dumped inside of it required a key to take off a padlock almost bigger than my hand. The top of the door was up to my chest. The end result of all of this was that I could not only fit my entire body inside that thing, but I could also almost stand up in it.
For context, the closest person in size was easily a head and a half taller and almost twice my weight.
Two things happened because of this. First, Tony was so amused by this he took pictures of me inside the box.
One almost standing up, and one crouching in it with clearly visible room to spare around me. He framed them and stuck them on the wall of the booth the registers were in for a laugh. He’d come by all the time and just stand there looking at them before looking at me and just saying, ‘You know you’re short?’
I’d glare up (he was significantly taller), he’d chuckle, I’d lose it and giggle, we’d all have a good time, and life moved on. Because I was so much smaller and could fit in the box so easily, however, I was tasked with clearing it out whenever I was working.
Quick side note: I was young and driven, so I was extremely well-liked and worked my butt off because I was trying to impress people and felt insecure being so young. So basically any time anyone said anything, I was on it.
So rain or shine, blisteringly hot or slightly less hot (it was Florida. Florida doesn’t do ‘cold’ unless it’s trying to prove it knows what cold is and just won’t do it so you suffer), I was the one going out there.
The biggest reason was not just because it was amusing that I could fit inside the whole box. Remember when I mentioned DVDs were still sort of new at the time? The box was built pre-DVD and had a slight raise on the slot movies slid down once deposited in the box.
It was just high enough that it could catch DVDs if they weren’t pushed in all the way. You couldn’t see, or reach, anything caught there from the part you dropped things in on. You had to get in the box and reach up and over the little rise.
This was legit difficult for all of them. Sometimes they tried to use this reaching tool. One guy would walk around the front and kick it really hard several times. Since I could fit inside the whole thing, it was easier for me to just walk into it and literally reach up and take anything there.
The box was checked once an hour on top of the hour. Once checked, the employee that checked it signed a log kept specifically for tracking who’s been checking the box. It’s signed off by the manager on duty after witnessing the employee signing it.
All that beautiful corporate covering. And so our story begins!
The rare male Karen entered the store in the afternoon, moving into evening. It tended to pick up around this time and it was on a Friday. People were stopping by to pick up movies or games for the weekend.
Now we didn’t know the Karen had wandered into our territory. He blended in with the other customers. He ultimately ended up in a line leading to me as I was ringing people up. The interaction started pleasantly enough. It’s been so long I don’t remember any specific details about our Karen, but I do remember he was dressed like he had a decent office job.
He was middle-aged and fairly large. Granted everything is large to me, but this guy probably had a foot or more on me and looked like he wasn’t a stranger at the gym. He seemed nice enough. I take his card and we start some small talk about the week being long and how ready we were for the weekend.
As I pull up his wife’s account (he was an authorized user) it’s instantly flagged. Again, I don’t remember specifics, but Karen had somewhere around $20 in late fees (around $30 today). A late rental is simply charged as if it was rented again for another 5 days.
He’d apparently kept 2 movies for something like 3 weeks. Anyway, policy was to begin with something neutral like, ‘I’m sorry,’ or ‘Unfortunately it looks like.’ You know by the nature of there being fees going beyond the rentals it’s going to be an unpleasant conversation.
I relay the information and the Karen revealed itself!
He puffed up and straightened his spine a bit. I’ve noticed this a lot with larger men (yes, women too, it just seems far less often with them) when they aren’t happy with what I’m telling them.
The tactic of intimidating me through superior size isn’t new. Now I’m going to paraphrase here because I don’t remember what he said verbatim. He gets a little red-faced and starts complaining that nobody mentioned this to him before today (why would we?
It was his wife’s account, he had not dropped the movies in question off yet anyway, and we don’t make calls to tell you something is late until it’s over a month past due and we are about to slap the full cost of replacing the movie on the account), and he dropped them off in ‘that darned box,’ and we weren’t doing our job because he doesn’t return his movies late, and he’s not going to pay any late fees because if we weren’t lazy then we were scamming him.
I apologize for his frustration and I tell him I’m unfortunately unable to rent to him until his late fees are paid.
So cries the cry of his people! ‘GET ME YOUR MANAGER!’
I’m not really stressed about this.
I’m irritated because unfortunately, these Karens get away with this more often than not. Corporate dictates the whole ‘the customer is always right’ philosophy. They figure it’s cheaper to waive $100 in late fees and keep the customer coming back for more movies.
Fortunately, the stars had aligned and Tony was working that evening. So he comes over and puts himself between Karen and me, having already picked up on the body language without hearing everything in its entirety. Tony is just as big as this guy.
And I know Tony is a former Marine. I step back a bit and let him do his thing. He engages Karen with his customer service attitude and goes back over the problem. I highly suspect Karen would have gotten away with everything had he not made one simple misstep.
He tells Tony ‘this witch,’ referring to me, won’t let him rent because of bogus late fees and accuses us of being lazy and not checking the box outside. He was getting loud and rude enough at this point to make other customers uncomfortable.
And it’s Friday night. There were parents with younger children there. Remember Tony’s lack of care given about people like this?
Cue petty revenge.
For those not familiar with Tony, the signs would be easy to miss. But we saw him shift immediately into what amounted to ‘battle mode’ in my mind.
So he gets super polite. ‘I’m so sorry there’s been some confusion or dereliction of duty on behalf of our staff. One moment please sir.’
Tony turns around and grabs the log for checking the box. Karen claims he dropped them off four days ago, which would have been the exact day they were due on this cycle of being recharged. He was already like one or two weeks late at that point.
I was trying not to laugh because that was his first mistake. Even if Tony bought his bovine refuse and did void anything, the guy literally just admitted charges prior to that day would have been valid because he still had the movies.
But Tony humored him. He flipped to that day and wouldn’t you know it… I was closing.
He said he dropped them off after work. My shift started at 4 pm and ran till midnight. It was my signature on every hour of the log from 4 to 12.
When a movie is checked in, it tells you if it’s late and we write the title and member ID on a separate log with the date and time it was retrieved from the box or wall slot. Tony brings out that book.
He looks at the computer screen and notes that the system shows those two titles are still checked out under his name and my signature is on every hour I went in and checked on the day in question. He would actually have received a call in the next week per the policy of replacing a kept movie.
So he points to me and accuses me of basically not doing my job and young people have no work ethic and blah, blah, blah. Tony brings out the other logbook and doesn’t see either title written down. This is important because remember, they would still have been late and thus logged. He held on to that tidbit though.
Tony shows the customer my signature on the check-in log and, before he can start again, looks him straight in the eye and asks him flatly, ‘Sir, please stop threatening my associate. Are you accusing her of failing to do her job and lying to me and another manager by signing these logs and specifically falsifying your return information?’
Of course, he says this is the case. Tony steps aside so it’s easier to see me. ‘So you’re saying this girl didn’t do her job?’
He’s getting angrier. ‘YES!’
Tony looks out at the box. ‘Do you see that box, sir?’ He looks out and confirms. ‘Do you see this associate?’ He looks at me and confirms with exasperation.
‘Sir, she can fit in that entire box.’
He is all, ‘No she can’t!’ So he steps further aside and shows this Karen the very pictures he likes to laugh about.
‘Yes sir. She can.’ Then he goes in for the kill.
He starts laying out the logical fallacies. He states that the movies were already late by the time he was claiming to have returned them so he’d have wound up paying late fees anyway. He then points out that those movies are nowhere in the log for what was found and scanned in as late.
He then points out my signature on the day in question regarding the return of said movies. The ‘Fatality’ here was a single statement of pure logic.
‘So you are saying you returned this movie?’ He is getting less certain, but he’s still on defense and won’t admit he screwed up.
‘And this associate didn’t check the box well enough, nor any other employee in all the days since you dropped it off?’ He again confirms, growing more uncertain by the moment. ‘Then logically the titles in question have simply been sitting in the box and are still out there right this moment.’
Now had this Karen actually thought this through and dropped off the movies in the box before coming in to rent, that might have still won him the battle here. But nope. He dumb. So Tony turns to me and asks me to please go out with him and the customer.
Other customers are getting annoyed with this guy now because not only has he held up the line for this long, but now he’s pulling me away from the register and we’re like 6 people deep on both sides. But I go out with Tony and Karen.
Tony unlocks the box and I just climb in in front of Karen and start emptying everything in there. I show him I can almost stand up and made loud pounds from inside to shake it all. I climb out and we look at all the movies returned. Surprise surprise, his movies aren’t there.
Karen goes into ‘Oh shoot!’ mode and starts stammering some nonsense about it must have been stolen. Tony shows him there’s no way to get something out once it’s been dropped in and his face was so saying, ‘Try again.’
Karen eventually tells us this is a ‘racket’ and we’re frauds and we can ‘screw off.’ I think he lobbed another ‘witch’ at me at some point, but I don’t really remember. The important part is, he basically gave up and just went to his car and left.
How is this revenge you ask? Well, the jerk left the account card with his name on it in the store with his wife’s account still on my computer. After attending to other customers, Tony and I sat down to do some digging.
Turns out the reason this Karen was an authorized user on his wife’s account was because a brief little search showed he had his own account once upon a time. To have an account, or be an authorized user of someone else’s account, you have to provide a driver’s license or state-issued ID.
That number is tied to you. Using that, and his name, we found his account. It was closed. It had amassed some ridiculously high late fees and carried multiple notes about not-so-good behavior and claims of having returned titles that either never materialized or showed up days after he was told about the fees, always followed by comments about how he was claiming that meant he was right about people not doing their job.
So Tony flagged him again, barring him from renting on his wife’s account. They also had a 19-year-old son on her account. We flagged him so if he made an account of his own, he couldn’t add his father to it.
Then Tony contacted all the other stores in our area to make sure it was updated with them. Then he called the corporate office and explained the situation, forwarded the camera footage of the encounter, and the accounts of other employees that had been there while it all went on.
Tony got the corporate office to extend the ban to the entire corporation, not just our region.
But we’re not done.
Tony then called one of the stores of a competing video and game rental establishment, a real gallery for movies.
We’re rental stores, it’s not like we don’t talk. We sent people to each other more than people realized. Tony then passes Karen’s information on and relates the entire ordeal. Turns out Karen also had a terminated account with them and his wife’s account had some nominal late fees that were several weeks old.
They didn’t have the evidence or cause to ban him nationally, but their regional manager was friends with ours and did at least take the same steps we did to get him regionally banned. So over $20 Karen lost the ability to rent from our chain anywhere in the country in a time when Netflix didn’t exist yet, digital movies weren’t a thing, smartphones didn’t exist, and RedBox hadn’t been invented. There were maybe 2 little hole in the wall rental stores in our area.
With the ban from the other chain, those were his only options.
We looked up his wife’s account from time to time. He eventually was removed from it and the account was closed for late fees unpaid. We suspect he was getting his wife to rent things.
I think that’s the only reason she even had an account. But that’s all purely personal speculation. Score one for the good guys!”
22. Going To Bug Me For Buying Healthier Food Choices? Enjoy Your Extremely Healthy Dinner
“I’m in my mid-40s and I’ve been feeling it lately.
I’ve been trying to do some research on healthier food choices, to bring my energy levels up, and bring my sugar intake down. Also, I find that digesting red meat is getting harder. Since I do the grocery shopping and cook most of the meals, I have control of my own diet.
So I’ve started to buy healthier alternative foods for myself. Whole grain loaf, some kale, chicken breast, etc.
Now, it’s important to note that I have not changed my regular shopping list either. I still bring home the same foods and snacks for the household as I’ve always done.
In fact, I’d say that there are more snacks for my husband and son now that they don’t have to share with me.
Two nights ago I came home from grocery shopping. My husband was putting the groceries away and asked about these new items I brought home.
I told him that I wanted to try eating healthier by incorporating the alternatives for myself. But don’t worry, I’m not going to push this on you guys.
Now we are a household of smarty pants and crap disturbers, I’ll be the first to admit it.
Hubs calls out to my 13-year-old son and asks him if he knew that mom was buying all this food for herself and didn’t plan on sharing? So now I have both chuckleheads razing me on this. It was funny at first but got REALLY annoying as the night went on.
So… the next night (yesterday) was my petty revenge. Dinner consisted of a small baked chicken breast (no sauce), quinoa, spinach, and green beans. Both boys sat down at the table with confused looks on their faces. Husband looks at me, gesturing to the plate.
I told him I felt bad for not ‘sharing’ so he can eat what I’m eating. You know… since it was SO important to him. And if it wasn’t enough food for him, he could have a handful of raw almonds with me later as a snack.
My kid just started laughing and asked if there was any dessert. Told him to have an apple.
My husband grumbled for most of the night. To my amusement, he went to grill himself a burger at 9 pm.
Suck it… mom wins!”
21. You Think You Could Beat Her Up? Try Again—She's A Black Belt
“Back in college I had a roommate I’ll call A. She’s still one of my favorite people.
She was studying geology, so she had to go on a lot of field trips. They sounded like they were a lot of fun—camping, exploring by day, parties by night. The only downside was that between that and her other very serious extracurricular (more on this later) she was really busy.
One of her classmates was a guy from my friend circle, I’ll call him B. B was kind of weird and socially awkward, but I’d always dismissed him as harmless. I met with a big group of friends on weekdays to get breakfast before class, B was usually there.
One day, A came home from a field trip, and said, ‘You would not believe what happened with B last night.’
A group had been talking around the fire, and B was drinking a lot. Two of A’s guy friends had started joking about who of them would win in a fight.
B gets involved and asks who he can fight. They both joke they would beat B, but I guess it hit a nerve.
B then declares confidently ‘Well, A’s here and I could DEFINITELY beat up A!’
A had not been part of this, and her friends were pretty alarmed… I mean really, what man brags about being able to beat up a woman?
Her friends tried to get him to stop but no, B wouldn’t shut up about how he could totally beat up A. Eventually, A had to leave.
When A tells me about this, I’m pretty mad, but I’m also amused because of A’s other extracurricular.
A was weirded out but she’s ready to drop the whole thing, I’m… not, so I decided to mess with B the next opportunity I had.
At the next breakfast B was at, I ask if anyone has any weekend plans coming up.
Then when I’m sure B is engaged in the conversation I say, ‘Well maybe I’ll have a movie night this week since A is going to be away at her martial arts tournament.’
I see B blanch and go ‘What?’ To which I continue, ‘Oh!
You didn’t know? A’s a black belt! She’s good too, she placed really high in her last tournament! And she’s getting really good with her knives!’
Yep, that’s right, A was basically a real-life character in street fighter.
She even had a weapons permit for the knives she kept stored in our dorm room (I felt very safe living with her). A was very modest about it, so B had zero knowledge of her abilities before bragging about being able to take her.
Watching the blood drain from his face as he sputtered in horror as I innocently asked, ‘Are you ok?’ is a memory I will cherish until I die. According to A, B kept to himself in the field after that.
I hope he learned his lesson, that jerk.”
20. This Customer Was Ridiculous, So We Billed Him For Every Request
“This happened four to five years ago. I was working as a Technical Consultant at a small software company with ‘startup spirit’ (my job encompassed anything they could feasibly fit into my day) and among other things also handled product support together with one other colleague.
For further context, our sales model was pitch, PoC, training to enable the customer to handle things themselves (thus saving us work). This was in our interest as many customers outsourced the work done with our product to India or eastern Europe anyways.
One safety measure we had was making callers aware that anything exceeding a certain level of complexity would be considered a consulting service instead of support.
Now four to five years ago, in came R. R was from India and led a customer’s project team.
His support requests started out innocent enough, the only thing that was immediately annoying was his insistence that his problems were top of our list for the day since his ‘very important to us’ customer required urgent assistance. Those of you who also do or did support work might know the drill.
But over time it became clear that R had never received formal training in using the software (nor was he interested in learning it) and was also trying to hide this fact by utilizing our support.
Tickets became more frequent and about more and more mundane problems to the point where my colleague was this close to asking him if he was kidding us, as we’d told him a certain solution at least 10 times at this point.
So we started writing down his requests as consulting hours—we were doing his job for him after all. After a month or two, we handed the list to our manager and the key account manager for that customer and explained why we considered this consulting.
They agreed and billed the customer. And a mere week later R had been replaced by the far more competent S and the requests stopped immediately.
We later learned that both R and S had been flown in for training as well.
As far as I heard, she was very adamant about learning and participated, while he sat there, arms crossed, and refused to do anything at all. I doubt he still works for that customer.”
19. You Think I Can't Write Stories? I'll Show You How Wrong You Are
“This happened to me in my 11th grade. First of all, a little background. I live in Sri Lanka and we have a different school system. When this happened I was getting ready for O/L (ordinary level) examination. I had 9 subjects, 3 of which I choose while the other 6 are mandatory for all students.
My native language, Sinhala, is one of these mandatory subjects and my class teacher is the one to teach it. To be honest I was not good at studying. I only got As for English and media studies. I always scored less for Sinhala and my teacher always had an idea that I will never be able to get an A for Sinhala in O/L examination.
I know this because she told this to my parents at every parent meeting.
So in the middle of grade 11, our school organized an exhibition on student talents. It was open to anyone and they expected dramas, songs, poems, inventions, arts, and stories.
A few years ago, I wrote a Sinhala short story which was highly praised by relatives and even by a few famous authors of my country who came from my mother’s side of the family. So my parents suggested I submit that story.
The procedure to submit something to this competition is via the teacher in charge of the class. That means I have to go through my Sinhala teacher to submit this story. My father typed my story into a word document and printed a few copies for me to submit the story and I handed it over to my teacher one school day with a few other students who submitted arts.
A few weeks later she called me to her desk and handed over my submission telling me she is not accepting my submission. I was quite shocked by this. So I asked her why she’s not accepting it since it is one of the acceptable criteria for this competition.
She told me that she believes this story is not written by me. What? I told her that I can assure her that this was indeed written by me and I have the original handwritten story at home that I can show her.
She said to bring that and she will decide on it. I went home, told my parents about what she said and they were shocked by her response too. Nevertheless, I took the original manuscript the next day and she took it.
Next day again she called me to her desk and told me she is not accepting my story again. Now I was angry. I asked her to explain. She said that since I am not good at her subject she believes I am not capable of writing good stories like this.
She said I never wrote good literature reviews for term tests and I don’t have skills in this. I tried to argue but she didn’t back down. So I went home, told my parents and they decided to come to the school the next day to confront her.
Next day again even when my parents confronted her she did not change her mind. My parents even tried to talk with my section head about this matter but even the section head said it is out of her hands as the teacher in charge of class is responsible for accepting it according to school administration policy for the exhibition.
My parents are quite horrified by this as this never happened to anybody else before. They asked me whether I am okay and I said yes. They said they worried whether this killed my liking to write stuff but in truth, I was not put down by this.
I wanted to show my teacher she is wrong. And she created the opportunity for me to do that.
On our term tests, we usually get to write a literature review as the final question. But on the test we had after this confrontation, the same teacher added two options to the final question.
One is to write a literature review while another one is to complete a story in which the beginning was given. The teacher also informed us that if we select the second option she will read the best story at the parents’ meeting and it will be marked by a panel of Sinhala teachers instead of her.
I think she tried to mock me or let me realize I am not that good. As I remember that story starts as a kid seeing her mom struggling in the kitchen and them deciding to create an invention. What we had to do is complete this story.
When I read that I had a really good idea. So I began to write the rest of the story.
As I remember a lot of other kids who decided to select this option wrote about a kid creating a particular invention and getting praised by the country for it.
But me, I decided to be petty and wrote about my experience. So it went like this: the kid creates this invention and it was actually helpful but when he showed it to her teacher she laughed at him. Then she told him that she believes he was not capable of creating that kind of invention.
But the kid decided to share it on social media and his invention got famous worldwide. Then he became famous and he sent one of his products to the teacher that let him down as a gift. (I just summarized the whole story here but it was pettier in the paper).
Weeks later at the parents meeting my teacher had to read my story because other teachers rated mine as the best. My parents were there laughing their butts off while my teacher had a defeated face.
Jokes on her again as I got an A for Sinhala in O/Ls too.
She never talked to me again after this.”
18. You Blocked My Internet? Don't Worry, I've Got Time
“So I (33, female) had to spend 3 months with Chad (36, male, but not his real name).
I just stopped living with him so I feel a bit more comfortable telling this.
He runs this personal media streaming server for a few dozen people. He doesn’t get paid for it, and dubs it ‘Chadflix’. He’s proud of it and got mad if I would use a legitimate streaming service, but he never offered the content I wanted.
A few weeks ago, it was a 4 day weekend for him, and he leaves Thursday night for his partner’s place. Friday morning the power went out super early which shuts his machines off. He has them on a backup power supply that makes this loud noise, but it can’t handle more than 10 minutes running before shutting off.
I let him know and he came back in the morning before noon to turn it on.
Later that night about 10 pm I was watching a movie in my room on my laptop, in the dark, headphones up full. I guess the power went out long enough to shut his set-up off, but not interrupt my video buffer.
I didn’t notice anything and I didn’t hear the noise. I had my phone at the other end of the room on silent.
My movie freezes and I went to refresh the browser, but it reloads telling me that I’m denied access.
Okay, I’ll just watch it in the living room. No connection. Try my laptop ethernet. Denied. I look at my cell, no Wi-Fi and there’s a dozen texts and two calls from Chad starting 45 minutes prior, demanding I look at his machines.
I checked his machines and they were not on. I realized my internet wasn’t blocked Friday morning when the power went out the first time. He is in IT and I knew he had remote abilities to access Chadflix and his modem network settings.
Meaning he blocked my internet to get my attention and/or retaliate for not responding when he wanted.
I text him apologizing for having my phone on silent while I watched a movie and answered his questions. I ask if he just blocked me from the internet because I didn’t respond or answer his questions promptly.
He immediately replied, completely ignoring my responses demanding that I check his machine.
I called him out and asked him to apologize and turn my internet back on or sit without his precious Chadflix the rest of the night. He said people were complaining and waiting, and demanded I follow instructions as this was ruining his weekend.
He said that he has set the network to lock out ‘suspicious activity’.
I tell him he’s being rude, I’m not a servant, and blocking my internet was a jerk move. No apology? Goodnight Chad. I went to bed and woke up around 9 am Saturday and my internet is back on.
He came back around 11 am without saying hi, turned Chadflix back on, and left.
I decided that was bull and I went and grabbed an outlet timer. I set the 15-minute interval pins to randomly shut on and off all day, for random durations, and plugged the modem’s power supply into that.
I have other things to keep me occupied as my life doesn’t revolve around my technology. I never use my cellular data anyway, so I could just hotspot if needed. I texted him saying the internet kept cutting in and out, he was silent the rest of his time away.
He came back Monday night. Chad said it ruined his weekend. It ruined a few people’s weekends and he was dealing with their angry texts all weekend. Chad ranted about how ungrateful people were about the things he did for them.
He said it was a thankless job and that they should apologize for their ungrateful attitudes.
He spent the next week calling the internet company to send service technicians for the modem, lines, and box. He called them out 3 separate times, and each time they were condescending and treated him like a child whose toys were unimportant and unimpressive.
I suggested he try obtaining a personality for the next time it happens.”
17. My Manager Turned My Two Week Notice Into One Week But It Backfired On Her
“I hated my new manager, Karen. She had shown how much she hated my rapport with my team (we’re all equals on this team.
No official leader. I was unofficially the team lead and Karen was our manager).
I was working this job, not for the money but to keep me busy. I was on a full ride so the income sort of was just extra spending which I didn’t really need and was certainly not worth holding only a job I hated. Plus I was graduating soon and had an offer from a top company in my field.
So I decided I was going to quit but I obviously wasn’t going to do it in a normal way. My contract didn’t require a 2-week notice but it was expected. So I decided not to tell Karen until the next Monday because that was midterm week.
I knew Karen would be way too happy to get rid of me and wouldn’t want to wait 2 weeks. And that worked great for my plan.
Monday of midterm week I tell Karen that I will, unfortunately, need to step off my position on the team.
I was happy to give her the 2 week notice period but was flexible. She was naturally delighted and said not to wait 2 weeks but rather just this week so that she had the time to do the paperwork and because she wanted me to tell the team at our weekly meeting (I had already told everyone on the team who understood 100%).
Now what she had planned was to have me do a ton of work that week. Plus given that she was new to the job and I was the unofficial lead, there was a lot of information I had in my head or on my laptop or had access to that she didn’t.
In her excitement, she forgot that. She also didn’t realize it was midterm week (everyone’s midterm week was different so her not realizing was more of me not telling her).
I, being the kind-hearted soul (cough cough), emailed her after the meeting confirming what was discussed in writing.
When she replied in the affirmative, I replied asking her for a list of what all she needed from me. I also mentioned that because it was my midterm week, she’d need to prioritize the tasks so I know what she needs.
Now the reason for this is that as a college campus job, the contract ensured that nothing was more important than my education. In fact, I had worked with my previous manager to explicitly add a clause to my contract that I would work no more than 7 hours a week during weeks I had midterms but would make up for those hours in the weeks before and/or after.
Karen hadn’t seen these contracts so she assumed she could get the full 15 hours (our average working week) worth of work out of me. So she sent me a list of approximately 90 items that she needed. Some were simple documents and some were tasks.
Altogether they would take about 15 hours. So I replied reminding her that because it was midterm week I was working only half the hours so she needed to let me know the priorities or cut the list down.
That naturally led to an angry email that I should be giving 2 weeks’ notice, etc. And that’s when I pointed her to my original email where I had offered 2 weeks’ notice but she had said we’d only use this week and since she had said it, she was stuck to her word.
She was so mad she never replied to that email.
The next week stuff went crazy. Documents that were needed couldn’t be found, people weren’t able to connect to the printer (my laptop had been connected to the printer and everyone else was networked into my laptop.
Once I quit I naturally disconnected the printer and everyone’s laptops), and a lot more.
By the end of the week, Karen had sent me 3 emails asking for help with this. But naturally, I wasn’t going to do it for free.
I got paid by the hour (and a higher hourly wage) to fix all these issues and Karen got told off by the entire team and her boss.
(Not verified but a rumor that Karen was threatened to be fired if she didn’t get me to fix all this given that it was all because she chose to turn my 2-week notice into a 1-week notice which was against policy).
P.S.: My team knew about this and was prepared. They all knew exactly what would happen and we had made sure in advance that nothing would prevent them from being able to complete their tasks. For example, printer not working, the stuff had already been printed but it was an issue only to mess with Karen.
Documents missing, not an issue they all had the document in their email but Karen didn’t. And so on.”
16. Talk To My Partner Like I'm Not There? Have Fun Apartment Hunting
“So, I (24F) can’t even believe that I was being so petty.
I was hunting for an apartment and looking for roommates to stay with for next year and meeting people to see if we get along. This particular girl that I thought would be okay as a roommate was talking to me for a week and wouldn’t really agree to be my roommate (as I was searching for an apartment still and hadn’t really got any place for next year).
We agreed to meet and I found her to be kind of sad and very whiny which I thought I should ignore and then she proceeded to tell me that she got rejected by two other girls she wanted to stay with.
That was kind of a red flag but I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
We were sitting in the living room while my significant other was playing video games. She got super excited to hear him through the game knowing he was my partner and even said that she shouldn’t get so excited about my partner.
She said she plays games but couldn’t find people (we have multiple servers of our university so that was kind of suspicious) and wanted to talk to him.
He finished his game and came out to see who was there.
(He’s kind of like a ‘gym bro’ but is very smart and he’s really nice).
She suddenly started talking to him as if I wasn’t there. She told him many things she had not told me and kept whining more and playing a victim to make him feel sorry for her.
Her tone changed really fast.
I got super mad about this (I’m not jealous usually, he has female friends and I don’t mind that because they don’t behave like this at all). At that moment it was clear that I could not be staying with her but I decided to wait.
Since I had inquired long ago, I got the apartment I wanted and paid the application fee and other charges where she kind of sat back and didn’t even ask to be a co-applicant with me.
Now that they have closed the deadline and have a long waitlist for people to get on (most of them might get rejected) I told her a while ago that I’m not comfortable living with her and would want to live with someone else.
That kind of sucks cause there are no apartments left. (And it’s not my problem.)
She was even planning to get her lying friends on board. (Who have lied to me and other people in past about this kind of crap).
Don’t hit on anybody’s man and expect that it won’t have any repercussions. (He has no clue by the way).
It’s petty and I don’t care. She got the least of what she deserves.”
15. Try To Do Illegal House Flipping? I'll Make Sure To Hold You Accountable
“I am a real estate agent in the pacific northwest. Inventory of homes for sale throughout the region is historically low, and demand is especially high creating a perfect storm for buyers—forcing them to compete for every sale.
It is extremely difficult emotionally for buyers and creates a lot more work for us as agents for several reasons.
The first is that the home values are so high people from all walks of life decide to become licensed agents, and currently we have more agents in our market than homes sold.
That means we have a lot of inexperienced agents listing homes at prices that don’t make sense, so we have to do a ton of work for each offer written to ensure our clients don’t overpay for a property (also knowing that the likelihood for that offer to be accepted is super low when there will be 5,10, sometimes as many as 20 offers on any one home).
Also, with having to compete against a ton of other buyers, buyers are offering to purchase homes with little to no negotiations for inspections, let alone repairs. This puts an even higher burden on us agents to try to look at homes as critically as possible to try to catch costly repairs before our clients commit to purchasing.
I woke up one morning with a text from a buyer expressing interest in a home that just popped up for sale. After looking at the details I realized the home was perfect for the two of them… the listing pictures were of a home that was nicely remodeled in the area of town they wanted to live in and at a price that was right in line with their budget.
The private notes from the seller’s agent to the buyer’s agents on the listing said the seller would review offers 4 days in the future and to ‘submit your highest and best offer by 5 pm’ on the deadline date. I reached out to the listing agent to chat about the home and to schedule a showing.
The agent was new (this was their first listing), and they also worked mainly in a city 40 miles away. The listing advertised a full remodel and incredibly low property taxes.
Those are red flags 1 and 2 for non-permitted work.
After scheduling the showing for the following day (when my clients were off work) I set to work determining a fair price per square foot and to verify the permit status of the recently finished remodel.
First, I determined the home was underpriced by about $100k. Any offer we would be making would have to be at a minimum of $100k above what they were listing at (there are no deals in our market, an underpriced home will just get a ton more offers; no one is paying list price for an underpriced home).
Second, I compared the home to the tax records and the listing pictures from the last time it was sold (the seller was an investor that owned the home for less than a year). Well, wouldn’t you know it, the home went from 1300SF 2 bedroom 1 bathroom, to 1800sf 3 bedroom 2 bathroom home, with no permits on file from the city.
This was an illegal flip, no permits pulled, no guarantees the work was done by professionals, no inspections to ensure the wiring was safe or the plumbing wasn’t leaking. And no records with the taxing authority. This means that once the home is sold to the new owners, the city could fine them every day for non-permitted work until the work was inspected, retroactively permitted (if even possible) AND the county could sue the new owners for up to 6 years back taxes for ‘omitted property’.
This means that the buyer wouldn’t have a state-mandated warranty from a licensed contractor. There was no bonding or insurance to collect if the work wasn’t done in a professional manner. This could ruin a buyer if they weren’t sufficiently capitalized. The flipper would profit, and profit mightily, by taking advantage of a seller’s market and unsuspecting buyers.
While I was doing my due diligence I was shocked to see the home went Sale Pending less than 2 hours after I first spoke to the listing agent. They didn’t tell me an offer was received when I asked, and they ignored the offer deadline (that they themselves set), the agent said the sellers received an offer they couldn’t refuse.
I then had to tell my rightfully frustrated clients that we missed the boat, and they didn’t even get a chance to see it in person.
Here’s the petty revenge. I collected all the information the listing agent provided, including the photos of the home, saved them as a PDF, and submitted them to our city’s code enforcement department.
Then I set the home on a watchlist and waited to see what would happen. And waited. Knowing full well I pulled the pin on a grenade and hoping it was thrown in time to blow up before ownership was transferred. 10 days, 20 days go by and I hear nothing.
By the 25th day, I am starting to worry. A sale contract typically only takes 30 days to finish. Then, literally on the 30th day, I see the city has officially launched an investigation and a certified letter went out to the owners.
AND the sale hadn’t finished yet. Just in time. Then the sale doesn’t close. 35 days, 40 days, and nothing.
On the 50th day, the deed is recorded and the sale finishes. The deed contained all the usual language, except that the previous owner was made responsible to pay for all fees, penalties, and fines issued by the city and the county for ongoing issues relating to the nonpermitted work and the subsequent tax increases they would have had to pay had they gotten permits in the first place.
The buyer received the home with assurances that they wouldn’t be on the hook for the previous owner’s negligence.
For me, it was sweet revenge knowing that the seller was held accountable to ensure they sold a home that was safe to live in.”
14. My Neighbor Constantly Called The City, So The City Got Their Revenge
“This story was told to me by my father. I learned of this only after the new street sign appeared, though had been going on for weeks/months.
For a visual, as it’s important: my father lives in the very back of a wealthy neighborhood, within a secondary subdivision.
Being on the last street in the back, there are only about 12 other homes on his street. When you first approach, woods are on either side of the street. It then opens to the first plot on the left: a large home with a significantly sized fenced-in yard, that is set back from the street.
This is where our anti-hero lives, we will call him ‘RANDY’ (Family Guy reference).
In reaching the stop sign (to turn onto my father’s street, going right), RANDY’s house is to your left, with minimal brush in front of you.
He has no one living on either side of him. His being the only house to the left, the road almost immediately feeds into his driveway, creating a shallow cul-de-sac.
Being only about 12 homes on the street, in a very quiet neighborhood with little traffic—even now I don’t think I’ve ever passed someone as I was coming in—rarely did people stop at the stop sign beside RANDY’s house.
The residents aren’t speeding, just not coming to a full stop. This was unacceptable for RANDY. His complaints began on a neighborhood forum, calling out people, their cars, and more for not stopping. Weeks of complaints would continue, including concern over his daughters being hit if they were playing in the street.
Fortunately, the neighbors were getting tired of him and countered by questioning why his daughters would be playing in the street (cue large, fenced-in yard).
Being unsuccessful, RANDY went to the next level: complain to the city/police department. He would call daily, multiple times, to report a driver, their license plate, etc. He would demand a police officer come at ‘x’ time because this was a daily occurrence, everyone running the stop sign.
The city never did anything about it.
Until they did. Someone who used to live in the neighborhood, and had grown quite tired of RANDY’s antics, had a police officer friend. RANDY’s ongoing complaints finally got a change—the stop sign was updated to a yield sign, and a new stop sign was installed, facing only RANDY’s house.
Remember, no one else lives to the left of the (new) yield sign. I can just imagine the satisfaction of presenting this solution, and the Cheshire Cat-like grin that came over them/their boss in approving.
The only thing I want to know: Does RANDY fully stop literally EVERY time he reaches the end of his driveway—or does he run the stop sign, becoming that which he most despised?”
Another User Comments:
“I was a police officer in a small city for a while and citizens filed complaints at the Council meetings about all the teenage drivers driving past their homes as they exited the City Park. Council decided to make the street one way towards the park instead of a two-way street.
The complaining citizens were happy with the decision.
So we parked on the street with full intentions of cited drivers going the wrong way. Lo and behold, the first person cited was a Council member who lived on the street.
He said the law didn’t apply to homeowners. I showed him the wording of the law and there were no exceptions.
Needless to say, the street is a two-way street again.” blackhart452
13. My Grandfather Made A Deal, And My Family Intended To Keep It
“My grandfather bought a cottage on a lake many years before I was a twinkle in my father’s eye. The family spent many summers out there.
One year the township decided to widen the dirt roads to give the cottages north of us land access.
The properties close to the new road access were paid a fair price by the township for the land they lost. In the process, the family camp lost road access to the property when the amended property lines were done.
There was always a parking spot on our property BUT we had to drive ‘through’ the southern neighbor’s property. Grandpa was good friends with that neighbor and knew the family would not care but he also worked in property management and saw that in the future there could be issues.
When they were redoing the property lines and deeds for both of the properties, Grandpa and the neighbor got written in both of the deeds that the southern property had to provide land access to the northern property.
If there was ever a dispute between the owners of the properties regarding land access, the small triangle of land (12′ x 8′ x 14.4′) that was needed to provide our property road access was to be sold for $1.
All this was also recorded in the records of the township.
Fast forward 20 years, Grandpa is long gone. The southern property has been through a few hands. The latest owner has torn down the old cottage and made a pretty posh cottage that can be used 12 months of the year.
The old dirt road is now paved and plowed past our property.
I head out to the family camp for a long weekend and to do a yearly clean-up with some friends. I get ready to pull into the parking spot and find my neighbors made an impromptu fence with rebar and flagging across our parking spot.
Park in front of the parking spot, open up the camp, get my friends set up for the cleanup and head next door to ask what is going on. Talk to my neighbors and they said that they were taking away our road access because we have to cross their property.
I pull the rebar out of the ground and park in such a way that they cannot place the rebar back where it was.
After the long weekend, I talk with my dad and uncle about what happened with the neighbors.
They head over to the township office and get the deed to get this straightened out. The township schedules a meeting with both parties and my uncle asks them to read the deed for their property and provides a copy of ours and a copy of the records regarding two properties from the township.
My uncle also pulls out a dollar and goes ‘So who do I give this dollar to?’ with a big smile on his face.
The owner sputters and my uncle asks if he knew about the clause in both the properties that takes effect if there is a dispute regarding road access.
He swears that he didn’t know anything about it.
Turns out his realtor informed him that our property was allowed land access and it was not good to press the issue.
We got our road access back and when we sold the cottage off, we showed the new owner the clause just in case.
He went over to the neighbor and asked what it would take to buy the small triangle as he wanted to pave that area and could not with the current plot. He gave the guy fair market value for the small plot of land and paid the fees to get the property lines redone with the township.”
12. You Want To Suspend Everyone? Enjoy Getting Roasted At The Ceremony
“This one goes back to the halcyon days of 1980. I was in high school, and looking for a club to get involved in, decided to try the lighting crew. This was the student club that looked after lighting the school plays and other events.
There must have been a faculty sponsor, but I have no idea who it was and I never saw them exercising any oversight. In hindsight, this was odd, because at times activities included patching into live electrical panels, and this seems a dangerous thing for high school students to do unsupervised. However, the lead member of the group was pretty responsible, so maybe a decision had been made that he could handle it.
That year was the 25th anniversary of the school, and a Big Deal was being made over the fact. It was commencement weekend, and a whole slate of activities was planned. Friday was a dance for the current students, Saturday was a reunion dance for the kinds of sad losers for whom high school was the Best Days of Their Lives, and Sunday afternoon/evening was the actual Commencement ceremony, a ritual of surpassing dullness in which the graduating classes (at the time in Ontario you could do either a 4 or a 5-year diploma, the latter being for those heading to university) would solemnly cross the stage and be handed their diplomas, in front of the entire faculty seated on risers and dressed in academic robes.
On the Friday night dance, the crew enlisted a senior member (the guy with the most convincing mustache) to do a beer run for the benefit of all. At the appointed hour, I made my way to the back parking lot to rendezvous with the returning beer.
I’d only just got there and was talking to some of the other members of the crew, who were seated in Jim’s car. Drinking beer.
Then a cop appears. He wants to know what everybody’s doing. He detects drinking and sniffs everybody’s breath.
I was clean because I’d only just got there, though there was beer earmarked for me in the car. The others get tickets for underage drinking, and the cop makes them pour out all the beer. Including mine.
At this point, next on the scene is Mr. Dugleby, one of the drafting teachers.
He gets the names of everyone ticketed from the cop, and so sets in motion school discipline for the lot of them.
Enter the revenge. Suspensions will be forthcoming, but in the meantime, the stage for the commencement ceremony has to get lit, and we have a seating plan.
Which indicates clearly where Dugleby will be sitting, dressed in a 3 piece suit, a black robe and collar, and a mortarboard.
We ensure that this part of the stage is very well lit. About 7 Fresnel spotlights are focused on his chair, although the rest of the stage just gets one per half dozen teachers.
It’s not super obvious from the audience because all the dark clothing is sucking up that light. And turning it into heat.
Did I mention that the ceremony was 3 hours long? Dugleby and his immediate neighbors roasted. Afterward, he was overheard complaining about the heat on stage.
‘I could have sold cold beer up there for ten dollars a bottle.’
He never learned that the heat was a special privilege he’d earned for himself.”
11. Don't Want Me To Eat Anything? Okay Then, I Won't
“This is part of the longest-running revenge I was ever a part of!
This is really my friend’s little revenge, and it went on gloriously for years.
It got all of our group of friends involved in the joke!
Scene: junior high cafeteria. My friend ‘Kate’ sits down but doesn’t have lunch on the last day or two of the month. I asked if she wasn’t hungry, hated the food, etc.
It wasn’t that. Despite being able to afford it, her mom only put in exactly enough money for lunch each month. One day, we were served tomato soup. Which Kate hates to this day. She instead bought a bagel and string cheese from the a la carte menu.
Which was more expensive than the school lunch, since the ‘extra’ items weren’t subsidized by the government. Which meant no lunch money now.
My friend asked for the funds that morning. The response: ‘No! I gave you enough for lunches, and anyway, you could stand to miss a few meals.
You’re getting fat.’
We were all 13-14. Awkward stage where one is developing as a woman, this can mean weight gain. To a sinewy, endurance-athlete mom, this was not acceptable. I don’t even think Kate was overweight to begin with, just the upper end of normal. And anyway, you don’t say that stuff to a young teenager.
This happened every so often. Our friend wouldn’t get a cent for snacks, or let us know about disparaging comments and small or no meals at home. We slowly got angrier and angrier. But we were all kids, what can you do?
Enter our other friend, Sara, and the two-way radio system. I got Kate and me walkie-talkies since we lived a few blocks from each other. We liked to talk, and both often got Internet or phone bans as punishment. No adult ever found out how we were communicating!
And our friend Sara learned to cook, early and well, a cultural cuisine completely different from standard American food, and had busy parents who didn’t keep track of who was eating what. Other people we knew would also give Kate any extra food they had.
This led to a really stupid cycle: she wasn’t losing weight because of the secret food, mom would crack down harder with less food, ad infinitum, throughout high school. Meanwhile, Kate has constant Harry-Potter-level food caches (How many of you remember the time when Dudley had to go on a diet, so Petunia made the whole family follow it?
But then Harry wrote to his friends and was sent a whole bunch of food, which he hid? That.) By the time we were seniors, she was barely allowed to eat anything at home. Except, that is, on holidays with extended family, because everyone wants to act nice.
I like to think giving the food was also petty revenge, but after being accepted early to a college, my friend Kate got her real petty revenge, as she slowly realized something whenever she got the chance to eat her crazy mom’s cooking.
She was so used to, by now, the immigrant cuisine Sara would sneak her or give her after school at Sara’s, or just plain snacks, that she didn’t like what was served at home.
With a future set for herself around Christmas of senior year, Kate invited the group of friends over to play games on Christmas Eve Day.
Mom offers cookies and a nice lunch, got to look normal, after all, and be nice. Kate politely but firmly refuses all of it and appears not to be eating at all. We leave after a few hours, and the next day, the real revenge happens.
Big Christmas dinner with about 20 extended family members. Kate’s mom is hosting, and quietly going frantic because her kid won’t eat in front of the relatives. Keeps offering food, keeps getting politely rebuffed. Finally, it’s time to eat the big, fancy meal. Kate said nothing to us beforehand about what she planned, just asked me to keep my phone and walkie-talkie on and double-checked that Sara, who didn’t celebrate Christmas, was free and that her essential-worker mom would be working for the holiday.
The following is what she told us:
All the fancy food is out, everyone is seated. Start passing dishes around. Kate drinks the small amount of wine given to teenagers but refuses to take a single bite. People start to notice she isn’t eating, just pushing the food around with silverware.
The very same mom who wanted so much for her not to eat is now practically begging her to.
But she’s done with the nonsense. Sets her fork down, gulps the rest of her wine, and says loudly, ‘But Mom, you don’t want me to eat!
You only let me when other people are around, you think I’m too fat! This is the first time since Thanksgiving that I’ve been offered something you made! But that’s okay. I don’t like your cooking by now, anyway.’
No mic drop, just a fork, here. But then, dead silence followed by intense intra-family arguing. Kate sneaks out under cover of the chaos and asks Sara to pick her up.
Ruining the holiday and her mom’s reputation was worth having to eat naan and samosas for Christmas dinner instead.”
10. Force Me To Stay Longer At Work? I'll Ruin Your Business For A Day
“About a year ago, I was a waitress at a family-owned diner. It was Mother’s Day and a SUNDAY so you can imagine how busy the diner was. The diner had 12 tables and I was the only actual waitress.
Normally, my boss, the owner would be helping me with tables on busy days.
I show up to work and already people are in the diner, waiting to be served. My boss is nowhere to be seen. I was stressed out because it was just me and the cook.
No dishwasher or busser. Within an hour, the restaurant was packed. I was responsible for serving everyone, taking pick-up orders on the phone, managing online orders, cleaning the dishes, and bussing the tables. 12 tables. All by myself. I called my boss asking her where she was.
Didn’t pick up the phone.
After five hours, my shift was about to end. The restaurant was still packed. I called my boss and she FINALLY picked up. I ask her when she is coming as my shift is almost over, the restaurant is packed.
This woman has the nerve to ask me, ‘Can you stay for two more hours? I had a doctor’s appointment that I forgot about, sorry.’
I calmly tell her, my shift ends at 1. So I’m letting you know that someone needs to be here to take orders.
She begged me to stay, that she has no one to be at the diner. I almost felt bad but this woman has made me stay for fifteen to twenty minutes after my shift ends and not paid me for those minutes.
So I hung up and walked out.
The next day, my boss was furious with me, and asked me why on earth I thought my behavior was ‘professional.’ I then reminded her that I had obligations outside of work and that I could not stay longer because she had forgotten to manage her time right.
I was tempted to tell her ‘I had a doctor’s appointment too!’ But alas I did not.
Surprisingly I wasn’t fired. There were angry customers, lots of meals comped, the cook closed the diner temporarily. But I was the only worker who kept that diner running so she had no choice but to keep me.
A few months ago, I put in my two weeks notice. My boss begged me to at least stay on the weekends. Told me, ‘No you HAVE to work weekends. I need you here.’
I told her, ‘Unfortunately I will be working at my new job during that time so I won’t be available on weekends.’
Even though I put my notice in for two weeks, I ditched after a week and blocked her on everything. I now make twice as much at an easier job.”
9. My Workplace Was Horrible, So I Did Everything To Get Under Their Skin
“So I work at a retailer that is well known in this Region (upper-Midwest) and was hired on as a manager (low level/entry-level management) and am working there in this position through the fun (sarcasm) that is the Holiday season.
A few months into the new year, my boss at the time was known for having a bad temper and you never wanted to be near him when he was having a mood. He clearly had favorites as well. One day I get pulled into the office and told I was being moved to a different department, not even as a manager either, but as a normal employee based on a bull crap concern for ‘stress’ (I listen to melodic music after work and let any work-related stuff wash off after I’m done and don’t let it bother me).
I worked in this position for around 8-9 months. During that time my first boss was moved into a position that put him over my manager and thus put him over me, and it didn’t take long (about 2 months) before I once again was pulled into the office and told I was being moved to a different department this time.
Then came the revenge, as I had it with this company and the leadership of my store. I did something that me from a few years ago would have never believed I’d do.
I found some like-minded co-workers and began a Union Organizing Committee.
After 2 months we began to make ourselves known and while a lot of the others were subtle I was open to my co-workers about what I was doing. This is where Federal Violation 1 happens. As management called my flyers in the break room a ‘solicitation’ and was removing them, I went to the NLRB and filed a charge against my employer.
After a while, the charges were found to have merit and the store had to settle with the NLRB.
After a while I started subtly recording conversations with managers, eventually getting to the point that it was well known that I record (this is legal under the law as my state is 1 Party consent), and to this date, I have around 120-ish recordings of things that possibly show violations of the law by the store.
One other thing I noticed was that one of the fire exits would be frequently blocked by stuff and I began making a habit of calling the local fire marshal as a ‘concerned citizen’ about the blocked fire exit.
The 2nd violation came when we were in the department and the topic of wages came up.
I freely and openly stated my wage only to be stopped and scorned by a supervisor (Note: in the US you are legally ALLOWED to discuss wages). Once again this was brought to the NLRB and found to have merit.
One way I’ve made myself (or tried) to be a headache has been when any corporate folks come I introduce myself as ‘the Union Organizer’ to make sure they know there is an active Union effort here.
If the store’s big boss and my first boss didn’t screw me over twice I wouldn’t have gone to do all this.
Moral of the Story: Don’t tick off an employee to the point they go and start a Union and become a pain in your butt.”
8. My Supervisor Refused To Take Me To The Hospital, So I Dirtied Up Her Car's Interior
“So, I was working a super dirty factory job back in the day.
I wore full Tyveks, gloves, respirator, and safety glasses for many of the tasks I had to complete during the day.
On this occasion, I’d received a special work order to clean up around a leaking oil tank. This was an extremely thick and caustic oil, so it wasn’t a job I was thrilled about.
I was far less thrilled when I got to the location and saw that someone had tried to ‘clean it up’ by throwing a bunch of random chemical powders on it to ‘soak it up’. Among these powders was crushed fiberglass.
They’d successfully turned the oil into a type of cement-like substance. Not the first time they’d done this, so procedure was to get a tile scraper (picture a big, heavy spatula-looking thing) and absolutely wail on the stuff to break it up before shoveling it into a barrel for disposal.
During this task, my supervision team and their boss poked around the corner to watch. I stopped to explain what I was doing and that it didn’t happen frequently, but it also wasn’t uncommon. At the time they saw me they commented that I was in full PPE and agreed it was appropriate for the task (important later).
They left, and I went back to full-on wailing on this solidified compound.
I was close to finished when, by absolute chance, a tiny little piece came dislodged and flew up perfectly into the TINY crevice between my respirator and goggles, straight into my eye.
At first, it didn’t hurt, but it surprised me so I backed up. Then the burning began and I realized I had a piece of crushed fiberglass and caustic oil in my eye. I threw down my Equipment and I can only imagine Sparta kicked the men’s locker room door open.
I screamed at the guy reading his newspaper to get the heck out and he was smart enough to get out of dodge.
There were no eyewash stations on this floor, so I was rinsing out my eye with the sink when the guys realized what had happened and got help.
I was helped downstairs to an eyewash station and I was absolutely in tears and shaking from the pain.
Procedure required that a supervisor from my department be present or authorize an ambulance to be called (this was a liability issue), but, in true managerial form… No one was answering their phones.
The plant manager called all 4 supervisors repeatedly and no one answered their call. They had gone into a meeting and opted to ignore all incoming calls until after.
I was still in pain, but the eyewash had dulled it. I went to the med station and was being watched as we had to wait for around 30 minutes for an irritated supervisor to answer the phone.
We’ll call her Brenda for this story.
Brenda answered finally and asked the plant manager what was so urgent, he informed her that I had been injured. Brenda said something along the lines of ‘Ok, call me if it gets worse’ and then hung up.
After several angry calls from multiple people, Brenda showed up. She took me down to her car… but she didn’t take me to the hospital, no. She took me to her OFFICE.
They then proceeded to make me sit there ‘filling out incident reports’ (I couldn’t do any of that because I could barely see, not to mention the huge amount of pain).
I was hurting, but I overheard a conversation that beyond infuriated me.
Apparently, they didn’t have a plan in place for if an employee was injured. They didn’t want to take me to the hospital as it was expensive and they were concerned about workers comp.
So instead they decided to take me, with an injured eye to urgent care. Even better? I, while injured, had to navigate to get to urgent care. In-between sniffles and waves of nausea I had to navigate to urgent care for Brenda.
Now, at this point, I haven’t accurately conveyed the scene. I was in a factory full of carbon black dust, I had been standing in oil, carbon, and crushed fiberglass. Every inch of my body was covered in fine carbon dust, and my shoes were caked with oil and carbon.
Brenda drove a beige interior car.
The entire time I’m crying and navigating to urgent care, I made a point to dramatically flail and rub my dirty clothes on her car seats, her car door, and rub my oily, carbon-caked shoes on her car carpets.
Brenda no longer drove that car to work or had employees anywhere near it.
We arrived and Brenda got her butt lit up for not taking me to emergency, but thankfully they had a small eye clinic area in the back and were able to confirm I’d managed to wash the fiberglass out of my eye, though I had quite a bit of scratching and visible irritation from the oil.
I wound up being out of work for a few weeks and returning with an eyepatch… but I also achieved a whole new level of pettiness for my supervision team. That debacle inspired me to run for union office, and I won.”
7. Throw Eggs At Our Cheerleaders? You Are Going To Be Really Sorry About That
“This happened in the early 80s. We were playing a rival team in football and they egged one of our cheerleaders (who was in a cast). Cheerleader Betty did not like that and yelled a few choice words at them.
The ref (who was the brother-in-law (we heard) of the opposing team’s coach, gave our team a technical foul and we lost the game. Cue some very petty and very, very, very stinky revenge.
A few months later we are going to play the team again and talks of egging the team were going all through the school.
My friend Mark and I decided we could do one better.
You see, I grew up on a bird farm and we had four commercial egg incubators. My dad raised pheasants, emus, turkeys, chickens, ducks, geese, and a whole bunch of birds you have never heard of.
Quite often the eggs would gestate halfway but not hatch.
You never, ever, ever wanted to drop and break one of those partially developed eggs. They were filled with gunk and smelled like death, rotten eggs, and were so awful they would make you gag if one broke.
So… a plot for revenge was hatched.
On game night we left early and drove up the road a bit where we knew the team bus would pass us on their way home and waited. With headlights off, we got behind the team bus and zoomed up alongside.
We pitched eggs into the open windows. Several black gooey splats covered the bus where we missed. The screams started immediately. The windows started going up but it was too late. We had got at least a dozen eggs (several turkey eggs) into the windows before they closed off the bus windows.
We floored it and zipped ahead towards the Spirit Bus. We repeated our egg-celent marksmanship and got a good dozen eggs into the windows again. This bus was full of cheerleaders and fans and they too began screaming as we zipped off ahead.
We were dying laughing, pulled over, hiding in some trees when the busses passed us. All the windows were down and every window had someone’s head hanging out of it. Many of them were throwing up.
We still had dozens of eggs and a couple of emu eggs.
Google an emu egg and you’ll see why we were disappointed we hadn’t gotten to them. So… we chased the buses down for round two.
And that is the day we defended the honor of our egged cheerleader and got some petty revenge.”
6. Didn't Go Above And Beyond? I'll Just Delete Everything
“The original owner of the business I worked for was amazing. I’ll call him Larry. He cared about every employee and realized how much we helped the company with our respective positions.
He had even let me go negative on my sick time once when I was hospitalized for a week following a double pulmonary embolism with the agreement that I would work the time back (and I did). Just painting a picture of how wonderful Larry was as our boss.
Larry finally retired after 45 years of running the business and sold it to his son, who I’ll call Eric. Most people know how bad an idea that is, but Larry thought his son could handle it. He couldn’t at first, but that’s another story.
Eric thought I wasn’t doing enough during working hours (office job, dealing with inventory coming into a retail store), but what he failed to realize was that, since I worked up there for 6 years and got familiar with the work, I was really efficient at the job.
So much so that I had collected more responsibilities each year. Larry was one of the main people pushing for me to take on more each year, with immediate raises every time something was added. Eric didn’t have the same mentality.
Eric fired me for ‘being inactive for too long during the day’ and another reason which isn’t important here (also another story for another time). So I was REALLY active for my last 3 days with deleting EVERYTHING I had created for the company (it was all ‘above and beyond’ work, so since I didn’t ever go ‘above and beyond’, they didn’t deserve to keep it).
It was signs for products, pictures gathered for advertising, vendor contact information, a program I designed to keep organized and on time for invoices, and a manual I had typed up on how to do my job. They had an old version of my job instructions but by that time they were practically obsolete, especially with all my extra duties collected over the years.
In the 2 years I’ve been gone, they’ve had at least 8 people hired for my position who quit within a couple of months. I keep getting updates every few months from one of my friends in that office.”
5. Steal Our Food? We'll Put Locks On The Fridge
“When I was at university back in the late 1980s I was the old residential accommodation built back in the 1900s. It was basic, took a single bed, wardrobe and a desk. Nothing else.
My room was above the common room which was supposed to be used for meetings only before 10 pm.
After which, the halls were supposed to be quiet time.
There were a group of girls (all girls hall) who acquired a second-hand tv between themselves but couldn’t fit it into any of their bedrooms so they got the keys to the common room and put it in there.
Naturally, as you can guess, they decided to watch the TV late at night, after the quiet time and consuming wine and beer became very loud. Now, I and the three other girls directly above the common room couldn’t get any sleep.
Now, having been raised by a narcissistic father, I am extremely petty when it comes to revenge and this group of girls had been annoying us because they kept stealing our food from the kitchen and their attitude was of entitled jerks and ‘What are you going to do about it?’
So, I came back early one afternoon and no one was around. I went down to the common room armed with my screwdriver and basic home repair skills. I simply undid the plug and removed the fuse.
I put the plug back together and retreated to the student bar.
That night, the bar closed, the jerks returned and my three corridor mates and I were squeezed into one of the rooms waiting to see what would happen. We heard the usual shouting then they seemed to settle down to watch the tv and… nothing.
There was some muttering below us followed by quiet then the slamming of the common room door.
This happened the same, each of the next two nights.
Then at the weekend, the TV disappeared.
I later found out that the TV had been disposed of by the parents of one of the girls… because it didn’t work… and the parents wouldn’t replace it because the jerks had ‘broken it’.
I am still amazed that none of them had checked the fuse. First thing I always checked.
We had complained to the college about the TV issue and they were in the process of replacing the locks on the common room door which were done a week or so later and keys were not given out to students after that.
As for the food-stealing… the university put in fridges with locks in the shared kitchens and keys were given by corridor so my three corridor mates and I shared a fridge.
The jerks? They complained in front of us that they had to buy their own food because of it.
We were like, ‘And?!'”
4. My Partner's Family Isn't Great, So He Put Them In A Car With Screaming Turkeys
“My partner’s mom and sister are… not great. Entitled narcissists if I am being honest. They only keep my partner around because out of the two siblings, he’s the only one who was able to have kids AND had the first male (AMAB, or assigned male at birth) child in several generations.
(Partner is non-binary, uses all pronouns, and is AFAB, or assigned female at birth. His family holds no value for female children—one daughter is okay, any others are not. And if you have a son, any daughters are seen as just being there to stop the coveted son from getting the attention he deserves.
But that’s not the point).
The mom and sister dragged my partner and his kids several miles away to a market knowing my partner has almost no money (divorced, single parent who is disabled and a cancer patient living check to check and making it work) so my partner and the kids can carry whatever they buy (also to buy the son whatever he wants and, of course, ignore the daughter).
However, they fail to realize my partner has the ability to haggle like a champion and since he runs a mini-farm (ducks, geese, chickens, and rabbits plus crops year-round for food and to sell for small income between checks), he can find a deal on animals like no other.
He decided that his farm FOR SURE needs turkeys! So he bought a couple of baby gobblers (male and female) and loaded them into the van. (They’re in an animal crate of course).
I’ve no idea if you’ve been around turkeys but they are LOUD.
The mom and sister aren’t impressed but they cannot say anything because they’re in public and ‘have an image to uphold.’
BUT IT GOT BETTER! The kids LOVE music and when they saw a stall selling cheap but durable wooden flutes?
Well, my partner being parent of the century decided to get them each one! The kids responded by immediately playing the flutes as loud and off-key as possible.
So, the lot of them (Partner, 2 kids, mom, and sister) are in a small van with 2 screaming turkeys and probably the worst flute concert known to man.
For several hours. No breaks. However, my partner and his kids have headphones. The mom and sister do not.
No idea about turkeys but my partner looks like a proud peacock right about now and I couldn’t be happier for him!”
3. You Think I'll Let You Come Near Me With A Needle? I'll Call Your Supervisor
“I get blood work done pretty consistently. I know my local clinic’s workers as well as one politely can and have never had a bad visit to get drained.
I am actually nervous about this blood test and put it off. Finally, I chose the next available test and it wasn’t at my bloodletting home base but a nearby one. Both of these are built into a large consumer Mega Mart.
I log into the machine and confirm my 12 pm appointment and confirm my number, after assisting a sweet, shaky old lady so I’m a few minutes late. It says a 35 minute wait time. I shop for 30 minutes. And go back in awaiting the ‘You’re Next!’ text.
A young woman (YA) enters and logs in, sits. The worker busts out of the door and points at me. They say, ‘Who are you?! Are you (my name)?!’
‘Yes, I am next?’
The screen showed my weight time as 2 minutes.
‘We stop taking walk-ins at 12, as per my supervisor!’ Then interrogates YA. I tell her she is being unnecessarily abrasive and that not only do I have an appointment but YA was told to come back at this time.
I ask her name and I kid you not, she cheers it. Think ‘Gerald, G-E-R-A-L-D! Anything else?’ Shuts the door before I could say anything. Now I’m here for about 45 minutes.
I turn to YA and apologize if I was at all in the wrong and she says, ‘No, this lady is being incredibly rude!’
She comes out and I ask for her supervisor’s name and she says, ‘You can call her!’ Then cheers her name. Shuts the door. Comes back out with speakerphone on and says, ‘This is my supervisor!’ while rolling her eyes.
Shuts door. Comes back out and with a look of pure hatred says, ‘Supervisor says I have to see you two now. So YOU (pointing at YA) are going to wait for my coworker to drive back, but YOU, come with me.’
‘Me? You really think I’m going to let you come anywhere near me with a needle after the complete lack of professionalism and abrasive behavior? Heck no, I’m scheduling another appointment and speaking to your supervisor.’ One hour past my appointment.
Call CS, tell them what happened. Schedule apt at my regular clinic. Get my usual (T) and she shouts my name. Let’s me know she got the email because it was said to be at her establishment and not the other (same Mega Mart).
T looked into it and the other lady canceled my appointment and made it a walk-in. T was MAD. I’m an overly friendly, nonargumentative soul with genuine kindness. T puts a finger to her mouth and calls the supervisor on speakerphone.
Tells them I’m always kind and there’s never an issue. Talked to me and was genuinely concerned that someone like me would have to elevate the situation. My account of the situation did not change, there was no attempt to text or call me to cancel in the system.
T is already a branch manager and was genuinely angry.
I got a call from Supervisor and asked that the rude witch would not be fired but talked to.”
2. Oh, Did You Want That Seat? I'll Just Let It Collect Dust
“I was in line at a clinic around noon. The lineup in the hall outside the clinic was for walk-in appointments.
There was about a half-hour wait to register. When a seat in the waiting room was available, you went in, registered, then seated to be called in to see a nurse.
This guy behind me was waiting in line with his elderly mother.
The security guard walks by and asks the guy to put his mask over his nose (you know the type). He complies. The security guard tells him his mother can sit in the seats at the back of the hall and he can hold her spot.
Security Guard takes the mother to the back of the hall, the guy takes off his mask.
Me: ‘Could you put your mask back on please?’
Him: ‘Why?’
Me: ‘It’s the rules.’
Him: ‘Rules. You’re stupid.’
Me: ‘Then please keep your distance.’
Him: ‘You’re just stupid!’
Me: ‘I am. Thank you.’
Him: ‘Good for you. So am I. Stupid.’
Half hour passes. Security Guard comes out, he puts his mask back on quickly.
Security Guard: ‘I’m going to take a quick lunch break. If someone leaves, you can go in and see if there is a spot available.’
Him: ‘I think we deserve a break more than she does.’
Me: ‘Well, she has been here since 8 AM.’
I’m now at the front, someone leaves. He tells me to check for a seat. I go in, and no seats yet (the people leaving are coming out of the nurses’ cubicles, not the waiting room). I wait another minute or two then pop in.
I see a seat. Well, I see TWO seats.
I register myself and take a seat.
I do not tell him there is another seat. It’s hidden behind a stack of chairs. He pops his head in and doesn’t see the seat.
He waits another 15 min before someone else leaves and he comes back in to check for a spot.
Mildly petty, barely even worth writing. But it was satisfying watching that empty seat collect dust.
Oh. When he finally does notice it, he takes the seat… and leaves his mother in the hallway.
The seats are in cubicles. He could have brought his mother in and stood with her. It was the security guard who brought the mother back in.”
1. Make It Clear You Don't Like My Project? I Won't Need Your Brochure
“When I was a sophomore in high school, there was this Republican boy named Elliot in one of my classes. I’m pretty sure he worships the ground Ben Shapiro walks on and believes all women are inferior. Wouldn’t be surprised if he was wildly racist to boot.
Anyway, Elliot was a super annoying classmate. He ALWAYS had to disagree with you. It didn’t matter what you were talking about in class, he’d have to sigh heavily while rolling his eyes (like he couldn’t believe he was surrounded by idiots), raising his hand so he could go on a tangent about why he disagrees.
He was generally very rude and had zero tact, and this was especially to the women in the class.
If there’s one thing I thought he needed, it was to be knocked down a peg.
Our teacher assigned us a project where we had to basically create our own utopia after reading about dystopian societies.
We had to make these brochures about our societies and hand them out to our fellow classmates. Then, at the end, we would vote on the one we liked the most. Our teacher encouraged us to hang onto our brochures so we could remember who to vote for and why.
After my partner and I presented our utopia, we were feeling pretty good as we got a lot of positive feedback. But because Elliot is unfortunately himself, he interrupted the class to personally hand us back our brochure and to let us know that he will NOT be voting for us.
So, while he presented his Republican Conservative wonderland of bull crap he called a utopia, I turned his brochure into a beautiful origami box. Then, as soon as he was done, I hand-delivered my box to him.
He wouldn’t take it and started to say, ‘But won’t you need that to—’
I cut him off, roughly sliding the box across his desk to him, and said, ‘I’m not voting for you! I won’t need it!’
As if I thought it was so ridiculous that he would even ask.
His mouth hung slightly open, and since class was ending, I left him with his brochure to go to my next class.
I believe this is the first and last time he ever talked to me and I was not at all mad about it.”
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