People Share How They Stood Their Ground Against A Rude Person
39. I Finally Snapped At My Man-Stealing, Selfish Cousin
“I grew up with a really mean, dominating extended family. My aunts and uncles and cousins from my dad’s side of the family were all incredibly lofty and thought themselves very wonderful. My dad was the black sheep of the family who chose not to participate in most of those family vacations and get-togethers. My parents did their best to shield us from that negative atmosphere (without causing any tension or animosity) and taught us to treat everyone with decency and respect.
Unfortunately, as I entered my teens, there was one female cousin who was incredibly competitive and would get increasingly rude and mean to me as the years went on. Her parents were split up due to infidelity on her dad’s part, she’d had a rough time with it, to begin with, but my sympathy soon disappeared as I saw how she would manipulate both parents to get exactly what she wanted.
As we both approached our twenties, I struggled with her on a weekly basis. She would make snide remarks about my younger siblings, remarks on my thighs and calves as I wasn’t a double 0 like she was, make fun of my parents and belittle any form of success I had. Anything I had, she had to have too. Whether it was a new pair of shoes or a job offer or a new friend.
While I talked about her to my parents and tried to understand her negative feelings toward me, I never said a bad word about her to anyone else and always tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. It was exhausting and depressing. It felt like I could never be happy or have any decent friends without her ruining it.
When I was 19 I got my first serious significant other.
Once we split up she beelined for him. Since the relationship was over, I didn’t allow it to bother me too much, but it seemed like a jerky move for her to make. She strung him along for a year before breaking his heart. Two years later I met a guy who I thought was the love of my life. I dated him for a year before his behavior started to get weird and distant.
I soon found out that he was cheating on me with her and that she had approached him 6 months into our relationship and told him I had an STD. They were talking and meeting up in secret for months and I had no clue.
I split up with him and was heartbroken. I attempted to confront her about it. Most people feel shame when confronted with things like this, but not her.
She couldn’t have been more proud of herself. She said I was too uptight, that it wasn’t her fault he was attracted to her more than me.
As the months wore on, I struggled to recover. I lost loads of weight, felt very alone, and struggled to trust the people around me.
One evening, 3 months after everything came to light, we went over to my grandparents for a family get-together.
She smugly spoke to my other cousins about how happy she was with my ex and I had to leave the room twice in order to collect myself and avoid bursting into tears.
At the dinner table, I was asked by my grandpa if I was seeing anyone new. Before I could answer my cousin spoke up;
‘Oh, she’s probably going to have a hard time finding a guy better than her last one.
Thanks for the hand-me-down btw…’ and she winked at me across the table. It got awkwardly quiet.
Something inside me snapped, and it just came out without me even thinking.
‘You know Eleanor, you are a lot more like your father than I first thought.’
The table went dead quiet. Her faced flushed red with shock, she was mortified.
It was a low move for me to compare her to her cheating father.
It’s a moment I look back on and struggle with at times because I knew I was better than that. That comment was beneath me, and as I felt the pleasant rush of revenge, it sickened me to know I was capable of such hurtful words. But as I saw my words sink in, I knew they would change her forever, in both good and bad ways.
I feel sorry for her, in a genuine, gut-wrenching kind of way. I have mixed feelings about what I said to her that day and often I wonder if I could have done more without stooping to such a level.
But something I learned through that experience is that turning the other cheek sometimes doesn’t get you anywhere, sometimes letting things slide time and time again doesn’t inspire others to treat you with the same kindness and patience.
Sometimes you do need to hit back, and sometimes it needs to be a hard smack to the face.
She never talked to me again after that. I don’t think she hates me, but rather, she can’t speak to me out of shame. After years of thinking she was God’s gift to men, she was pulled off her pedestal and made to see just how selfish she had been and how lonely she was in life.
To add insult to injury, my ex ended up cheating on her with someone else… and I fell in love with a man who would never look at another woman but me. I moved on with my life, and it took her years to finally find herself.
These days she is much better, and happier. I hold no resentment towards her, but I don’t miss her presence in my life.”
38. Steal Our Tips? I'll Catch You In The Act
“When I was 18, I was working at a 5-star hotel, cleaning rooms and changing sheets to make some extra money while studying. The job was very bad, paid 2 dollars per hour, but sometimes guests would leave tips for us for the cleaning and usually one tip was half of our day salary. We shared among the housekeeping girls and we were ok with it.
One day our manager came in and forbade us to enter the rooms after the guests checked out. He said he had to go in first to make sure that guests left nothing behind in the room.
It sounded reasonable as sometimes guests claimed they forgot some jewelry in the room, and when we did not find it we were accused of stealing it. It was very uncomfortable for us, so we agreed that the manager checking the room first was a good idea.
But from that day on we were not finding the tips anymore. Well sometimes there was 1 dollar left, but that was it. Of course, the first thing in my mind was that the manager was taking our tips. I wanted to make sure so I entered one room before he got in and saw a nice tip and a box of chocolates on the table with the thank-you note for the cleaning girl.
I left it the way it was. Then the manager got in and after checking it he confirmed the room was ok for us to clean.
When I came in again, of course, the tip was gone and so was the chocolate box! I found it in the trash with all the chocolates eaten. UNBELIEVABLE!! I understand that everyone is after money, but this one was so shameless he even ate all the chocolates for the cleaning girl!
I got really angry, but he was my boss and I was 18yo.
I did not know how to confront him directly as it would mean accusing him of stealing which was serious AND difficult to prove.
So I wrote a note: ‘You sneaky little jerk, you go around bullying us for our work all the time, and then you have balls TO STEAL the money meant for us?! Shame on you!! V.’
I put the note in the envelope together with some coins, closed it, and wrote ‘thank you Veronika’ on it, so it looked like a note from the guest.
(The guests knew our names as we left the notes with our names after the cleaning). I placed the envelope in one room just before the manager came in ‘to check it.’
I was thinking: if he won’t open the envelope, no harm was done as he’ll never find out what’s inside. But if he opens the envelope which is clearly not meant for him, he gets exactly what he deserves.
But the most satisfying thing was that he couldn’t cover up once opening the envelope as MY handwriting was all over it.
I was waiting in front of the room when he got out. Well, you can guess what happened. He ran out totally furious, completely red, shaking and kicking the door. I was standing right in front of him, looking into his eyes, he was SO angry but didn’t say a word to me! I won.
Of course, he figured out there was nothing he could do as he was caught in the act, and doing anything about it would mean he had to admit he was stealing.
I found the envelope torn apart all over the room. The next day, he invited me into his office and offered me a drink (I did not realize it was ok to drink during a shift, but apparently most of the hotel managers did.) He was apologizing explaining how stressful his work is and that he needed money for this and that reason.
He pleaded not to tell on him with the promise that he will stop.
He seemed so scared and helpless I was almost sorry for him. I told him to be nicer to us, that everybody working here is under stress. I think he understood. He never escalated this issue anymore, neither did I.
Anyway, he was fired two months or so later, so I guess his habits got him somewhere else.”
37. I Ruined The Perfect Photo Op For The Rude Passenger
“I was once on a domestic flight in Italy, flying from Turin to Naples with Alitalia.
It was quite an empty flight, probably only about 70 passengers in total on a plane that had 250+ seats.
I was booked in a middle seat but seeing as the flight was only about an hour-long I was fine with that.
I had the whole row to myself until a man came and occupied the aisle seat on my left.
The window seat on my right remained empty as did most of the rows around us.
So just as we’re about to leave the gate he looks at me and asks me if I could move up to the window seat. I would not have had any issue with this; however, the reason he gave me for wanting to move up was that I was ‘taking up too much room.’
Now, I perfectly accept that I’m not one of the thinnest people around and I could definitely do with losing some weight, however, I’m a long way off being such a size as to make somebody else’s journey uncomfortable because I’m ‘taking up too much room.’ I found it extremely rude and actually quite offensive, especially as quite a few rows around us were completely empty and he could have moved to any one of them quite easily.
I moved without complaint even though I was quite angry.
So later on, we happened to be flying over some snowy mountains (could have been the Dolomites but I’m not sure) and I happened to glance over at the guy and saw him open the camera app on his phone, clearly about to take some pictures of the view from the window (as it was quite a spectacular view). And so just as he leans over to take pictures, I shut the window blind…
He grumbled something under his breath, got up, and moved somewhere else and I didn’t see him for the rest of the flight.
I was extremely pleased with myself.”
36. Eat All My Hot Wings? I'll Cook You Up Something Special
“Please be advised, I have the unique ability to make people want to vomit and laugh at the same time. I think it is a life skill….
I went back home for a funeral back in 2004. While I was home I met up with a friend of mine from my late adolescent years. I always had high hopes for her. She was smart and very beautiful.
Growing up she was like my kid sister. Nothing more. Nothing less. Unfortunately, she started running with the wrong crowd after I left. And she got involved with drugs. She said how she wanted to get straight, but couldn’t because she couldn’t get away from the area.
I made her an offer. She could come and make a new start where I lived. I offered her a brand new turn-key life, where no one would know anything about her unless she told them.
I did put a stipulation on things. The stipulation was if she came down and didn’t fly right, I would mess her little world up. Wash my hands of her. And would cease to exist in my life.
She moved down. Things started off fair. I was skeptical.
Two weeks later her convicted significant other moved down. I was livid. But I just waited to see in which direction things were going to go bad.
This was turning into a Jerry Springer Episode quick.
Of course, there was theft. Lying. Breaking and entering throughout the neighborhood. The straw that broke the camel’s back was my hot wings….
I ordered some hot wings to take with me to work. The jerk and her partner ate them. Not a problem. Here is where it gets AWESOME!
I ordered more hot wings the next day. I left them in my jeep during a hot Georgia day.
Then I put them in my fridge at work. That night I ordered some Habanero powder. And got some diet capsules.
While I’m waiting for the powder to come in, the wings are sitting there in my fridge at work. Getting ripe! The powder comes in and I proceed to take the capsules apart. Dump the good stuff out. Replace with habanero powder. Put pills back together.
If you have never done that before, it’s a VERY tedious task. It took me about a week to do the capsules.
Wings were not ready at the two-week mark. Let’s give them another week….
About three weeks into it I took everything home. And came up with another random passive-aggressive idea as the icing on the cake. After all, I was mad!
I put the wings in the fridge.
And the pills in my bedroom. I then went into their bathroom and urinated in their mouthwash. NOT a lot mind you! I was amazed at the bubbles and foam I created in that little bit of urine I added.
The next day I saw one wing had one bite out of it. I’m not sure if they swallowed that one bite. I don’t doubt she has any problems swallowing other substances.
Pills were missing but I never heard of any repercussions. What I DID hear every morning and night was them gargling with that mouth wash. And I just laid in bed and laughed until I cried myself to sleep.
Moral of the story? I guess it is don’t pass me off…”
35. Unfaithful To Me? Try Out My Homemade Wax Strips
“I knew my partner wasn’t being faithful. It was pretty obvious. Not only had his habits changed, but he was going to the gym and looking into hair removal for the first time, but I didn’t say anything about it. He was a furry burger and I knew that bothered him. So, I decided to help him look more attractive, but I wasn’t sure exactly how until my son started learning how to make Home Made Sugar Wax.
So I put 2 + 2 together and decided I could help both my partner look and feel better, well, lol, maybe not feel better but to look better, and also give my son an avenue to test his sugar wax on someone.
You see recipes are testy when you live at high altitudes. It’s so easy to overcook. So, I really didn’t want my son testing his new Home Made Sugar Wax on his own delicate skin when I had a willing lab rat conveniently right there at home.
We followed instructions exactly with much care. My son cooked it, and then I lovingly coated my partner’s lower legs up to his knees in the wax and we covered them with the strips we made. While those were setting, we did a couple of spots on his chest and a smiling line just right below.
After we finished the coating process on the top, enough time had passed that the legs should have been perfect for stripping the hair right off them.
But it seems when you live at 10,000 feet, sometimes over-cooking really isn’t that obvious as we learned in this case, lol. So, when I tried to pull the strips off they just would not move. They were stuck. My partner tried to pull them off, but it was too painful and he couldn’t do it on his own.
I suggested he soak the strips off in the tub, but he was afraid the approximate 2 Cups of wax I had applied to him would get stuck around his junk and possibly glue it to his trunk, which was actually a very real possibility.
So it really seemed there were only 2 choices, they either be left on until they fell off in a few weeks, or be pulled off.
Since leaving them on was not an option for him, he begged and pleaded with my son to pull the strips off as he was the only one strong enough to do it.
How gross is that? Excuse me? Your mom’s partner wanting you to pull the wax strips off your body.
It just was not a possibility. After some negotiation, he decided to pay my son $50 to pull them off so that it was more of a professional endeavor rather than a personal favor.
By the time the process of removal actually started more than an hour had passed. Maybe 2? So they were really attached.
With my big strong son sitting on my partner’s stomach while I attempted to hold his feet down, one by one, my son ripped away as my partner screamed in agony as the strips came off, LMAO.
Once removed he had a big Smiley Face fashioned out of bald spots across his chest and upper torso while having perfectly smooth legs up to his knees which left him looking like he was some sort of creep wearing fur shorts.
Yeah, after that I really looked forward to him going on his next date. I seriously could not get him out of the house fast enough as I sincerely felt this was going to be better than the E-lax cookies he had eaten for his last date.
To this day, I’m not sure what possessed me to do such a thing, as that’s not commonly the way I handle things, but I have to say it made the break up so much more enjoyable when I finally did have that chat with him.
So, I don’t regret it as it was too much fun!”
34. He Kept Using The Inventory Boxes As Punching Bags So I Put A Wooden Shelf In One
“This would be back in the mid-nineties. I was a student at the time and had a part-time job at a men’s clothing store in a mall. The store I worked in shared basement storage with another shop. The other shop was also a clothing store but targeted more at teens and young adults. The people working in this shop were for the most part pretty teens and younger guys, all of which were good-looking and cool like you’d expect from a shop that sold Levi’s and Diesel jeans.
Now, every time my shop needed stocking up, we had to go through this next-door shop, and down a set of stairs to our shared basement to get stuff. Most of the time this was okay, but there was this one guy working in the trendy shop. He had an entourage of mates and pretty girls, never fewer than 4–5 people, always the same ones and EVERY time I had to carry a cardboard box full of socks or underwear to stock up, he’d use the box as a punching bag.
Hard as he could, he’d punch big holes in the box, with socks, t-shirts, or underwear flying everywhere, to the delight of his court.
I have to clarify one thing here, this wasn’t bullying, we were actually good mates, it just got bloody annoying over time since he didn’t stop no matter how many times I asked. Also, he was much bigger than me so I couldn’t really make good on any promise to kick his arse.
Well, one day I’d had enough and thought I’d teach him a lesson, so I put a sturdy piece of wooden shelf inside a big box of socks and carried it happily up the stairs.
And sure enough, he just couldn’t resist the juicy target and landed an all-mighty punch that almost crushed his knuckles.
Loud thud immediately followed by a very painful howl as he went down on the floor in front of his admirers, clutching his hand in agony. I continued next door, high-fived my colleague, and laughed my arse off. It was perfect. He stopped after that. Jerk hahaha…”
33. I Had The Best Comeback For The Mean Girl
“I was taking an English class. It consisted of about sixteen people, which was remarkable. Now, some of these people were struggling with English. I was really quite good at English, and I often helped these people who struggled. I just wanted everyone to do well. Now, there was a girl in my class. Her name was Harper. Harper thought that she was the most wonderful thing since peanut butter.
I wish she had been. In truth, she was quite possibly one of the meanest girls I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. She was also shallow in her thoughts and held the idea that the young men in our class would think she was more attractive if she acted like a ditz. She often ridiculed other girls who weren’t as athletic, pretty, or ‘demure’ as she.
She took pleasure in making fun of the Chinese Exchange student’s English. That was the kind of girl she was. We had clashed over social issues before, and it had apparently left her with a bitter taste in her mouth, whereas I had thought nothing of it.
Some of the other students requested that we make a group message in case we needed to recover files, communicate, and whatnot.
Our professor consented, so we did. None of us put our names, for some odd reason. Only our numbers showed up on the screen, and for the life of me, I’d never memorized them. Either way, I never looked at the chat. I had never needed to. One day, we were all doing some studying. Our professor had given us the rest of the day free- there was an impending exam that we needed to study for, and we were her smallest class.
Now, I happened to make the mistake of looking at the chat during this time. Here’s what I was greeted with:
‘Someone check the server.’
‘Hey, is the server down for our website?’
‘I don’t know. Ask Maria. She’s smart.’
‘She’s also a massive jerk.’
I felt sick. It was a small jab. It was an insult that should’ve met nothing. I could’ve laughed it off. However… it stung. For some reason, it really hurt.
I supposed it was because I always valued being nice to people. As far as I knew, I hadn’t done anything to deserve being called names. As I stared at it, I tried to think of anyone who could possibly want to call me a jerk. Was I? Well, I was outspoken. I disagreed with things I thought were morally wrong and was vocal about it.
I didn’t let people say nasty things about other people. I don’t know why it angered me. Then, it hit me. Harper. I don’t know how I jumped to this conclusion, but it seemed to be the most logical.
I turned around in my seat, facing her. I plastered a smile on my face, laughed, and said…
‘Oh, Harper. I’m not a jerk. I am THE jerk.’
I turned around and didn’t look back. I wish I could say that I was doing it to be cool, but in truth, I was kinda terrified with myself. I could hear her sputtering to answer, but there was nothing. According to my class, her face had gone bright red and then had gone pale. She apologized later. Man, I’m so glad I was right.”
32. Move Too Close To Me? I'll Step On Your Toes
“One day, I was on the metro and it was quite busy, although not completely crowded. This random guy kept moving as close to me as he could, his crotch against me, even though there was ample room to avoid doing so, and he took advantage of the accelerations and turns to touch me. I tried to move away but he kept coming back.
Then I just stepped on his toes as hard as I could (and I can!) and said aloud ‘I’m sorry’ in the most insincere tone.
He immediately stopped bothering me and didn’t try again. And boy how good that felt!”
31. Petty Supervisor Gets Passed Over For VP Position
“Many, many years ago I worked in special projects for the executive office of the company that employed me. This was a real privilege, and I was often involved with or exposed to a range of highly confidential initiatives, from strategic partnerships to internal restructuring plans.
One project I worked on required the help of someone in another department. She was excited to be involved, and top management had sanctioned some of her time for it.
She worked hard and was a great asset, but throughout her time, her immediate supervisor was constantly giving her grief. He would sabotage her availability, pile on work outside her normal job so that she was overworked and exhausted, and denigrate her participation in the project we were working on together.
The project completed successfully, and a couple of weeks later I was standing outside of the building as her supervisor was coming in to work for the day.
He headed through the door, and a few steps behind, I headed in too. He headed up the stairs, and a few steps behind, I headed up too. He headed down the hall, and a few steps behind, I did too. He walked into his office, and a few steps behind…I did too.
I closed the door behind me, and said, ‘Hey — got a minute?’ He said he supposed he had a minute, but only that.
I said ‘Thanks! You know, you did a real favor to me when you let her work on that project, and so to thank you, I thought I would do a favor for you in return.’
‘Oh really?” He says, ‘What’s that?’
‘Well, I thought you’d like to know that you’ve been under consideration for a new VP position…’ His eyes lit up. I went on: ‘and each time your name has come up for it, it’s been discarded, and I thought you’d like to know why.’
Startled and then looking a little sick, he sinks into his chair. ‘Err…yes. I’d like to know.’
So I proceeded to tell him: ‘You’re apparently perceived as petty, passive-aggressive, controlling, and conceited. You’re clearly talented, but for these reasons, you’ve been passed over…good luck!’
Every word of it was true, from start to finish, and he thanked me profusely for it. One of the most satisfying moments of my career (and there have been a lot!).”
30. Be Rude To My Sister? I'll Stain Your Expensive Blouse
“I was once at a party in another person’s house. This particular party was arranged by a neighbor and I was simply standing by the drinks (voluntarily, cause I hate interacting with people at parties.)
While the adults would enjoy themselves at the dining area, the younger ones would just loaf around in the smaller eating area.
Now one of the guests had a very beautiful daughter, a bit exposing, but still quite the looker.
She was a bit flirty and liked to just flaunt her looks everywhere. The older boys certainly didn’t mind her around, the younger ones just played together. Like I said before, I was just camping by the drinks station, daydreaming and not really minding that girl’s presence.
That was when it took a different turn.
Strangely enough, the previously mentioned girl was very passive-aggressive to any girl close to her age at the party.
She would steal their spots, gently push them away. She was even a bit rude to some of them.
Then my sister was simply enjoying a conversation with one of my friends. My sister dropped her phone, the passing girl did a visible bump that caused my sister to fall over. That little ‘accident’ caused my sister’s phone to break, and some of my sister’s drink to spill on her.
I don’t know why she did it, that was especially mean of her, to MY sister. I could clearly see a smirk of satisfaction on that shameless girl’s face. I was angry, especially when someone does that to my sister. Like I’m going to let that slide.
‘This girl has crossed the goddamned line.’
And that was when I concocted my plan for revenge.
Knowing my sister’s kindness, she won’t even mention it to our parents.
I had to take matters into my own hands, so I listened in on anything I could use against her. I heard her boast about her imported blouse from some famous brand in Europe and how she never stained it once. And I had thought of a way to get back at her.
I prepared a soda, carefully opened it, and placed a little Mentos inside. I popped on my hoodie and I just waited by for a perfect opportunity.
That opportunity arose when she herself went to the drinks. She smiled her cutest smile while making cute gestures, I could tell that she was trying to charm me, she asked.
‘Can you please give me a bottle of soda?’ she said in her sweetest voice.
I played along with it and gave her the special bottle I prepared. I made sure that I kept my face hidden via my handkerchief.
I walked out of the room since the exit was conveniently nearby the drinks station and walked home (since it was rather near).
What my sister told me next was pure gold.
She said that the bottle burst onto the girl’s expensive blouse, causing her to scream and cause a fit, demanding to know who gave her that drink. Since there were no witnesses, she couldn’t pin it on me, but she had this nagging feeling it was me. She relentlessly asked everyone if I was at the party, but since I rarely interact at parties, it was like I was never there.
Up to this day, I’m still very private about it, lest I pay thousands of pesos for that blouse I ruined. It was worth it, every action.”
29. Leave Spoiled Milk On The Table? I'll Leave Takeout Under Your Bed
“In college, I had really annoying slob of a roommate. He would never clean the place, would leave his pizza boxes everywhere. His room was a disaster. He was the creeper at school who you would spot staring at you.
We were roommates at an apartment building. He NEVER cleaned his room, he was the worst.
For example, I noticed one day that there was a cup of milk on the coffee table, where he sits every day in front of the TV.
It had spoiled, after days of being there. Right in front of him!
I eventually decided to leave that school and move out. Before I moved out, I decided to leave a little something in his room. I left an old Chinese takeout rice container, I left it under his bed, by his pillow side. Knowing him, I KNOW it would be there for about a month at least before he’d notice it was there. Rice goes bad quick. There would be endless fruit flies, and who knows what else hovering over him for weeks. I still laugh to myself about it to this day.”
28. Won't Give Up Your Seat For A Pregnant Woman? I'll Give You A Piece Of My Mind
“Sometime during the winter of 2010 I was at the New Delhi railway station. It was too cold out on the platform so I decided to spend a couple of hours in the general waiting area.
I was supposed to be waiting for around 4 hours and I was just sitting there watching something on my cellphone while also observing other people who were waiting there. The crowd consisted of people of every age, income, and religious group.
There were people traveling with families and friends. There was some kid who was selling tea, students walking by, business travelers like me, and a cop almost sleeping in a corner, etc.
I noticed a middle-aged male behaving really meanly with everyone around. He was some shopkeeper who used to run some stall at railway and was behaving as if he owned the area.
Within a span of one hour, I had noticed him occupying an entire bench by himself when few people were standing or even lying on the floor.
He never paid for a cup of tea to the kid who was selling tea, he hurled bad words to a group of students who were perhaps too loud and threatened a few others who asked him to sit instead of lying on a 4 people bench by himself.
I kept ignoring him like many others even though I was not at peace from inside. I was probably a little worried to get in any kind of trouble as you never know what kind of ‘connections’ that guy had.
Even cops couldn’t help in some cases.
Anyways, there is a limit to everything. I lost it when I saw him denying a seat to a pregnant lady. Her husband was probably too nice for him and might not have wanted to get in trouble either. He just requested him to get up and that goon simply told him to get lost.
I noticed that no one else said a word.
I decided at that moment that I couldn’t take it anymore.
I got up and gave him a piece of my mind: ‘Jerk!! I’ve been watching you for long enough. What is your problem?’
He really got mad but I probably came off gutsier than I really was. He started arguing and threatening me, telling me that I should mind my own business and that I am messing with the wrong guy.
One elderly guy, who was sleeping till that time got up and started warning me and also preaching that I should not misbehave with elders. I told him that he should go back to sleep and the guy whom I abused is not behaving like an elder that I should pay any respect to.
Meanwhile, I got some support from few people who shut both of them down.
Lady got the seat to sit and everyone got back to whatever they were doing.
This guy kept staring at me and threatened that he will teach me a lesson once the shops open. I had already shown more guts than I ever had. Seriously speaking, I took a big risk and could have been in a lot of trouble just for being a good samaritan.
Anyways, I was not stupid to hang out there for long. After a few minutes, I gathered my luggage and got out of there, and spent the rest of the time on the platform where my train was supposed to come.
I still think I took a big risk that day but it was worth it to step up and raise my voice for someone else.”
27. You Want Me To Work Overtime? Too Bad That Doesn't Benefit The Company
“My ex-boss thought that the people she employed she also owned. So she’d get angry and scream or whatever because she’s got other problems, but no one wants to listen to her. (I’ll sound misogynistic here).
She’s a 40-year-old woman who is single and is rumored to be the mistress to the head of the company who is married and has a wife in another country. The rumor might not be true (even though I’m inclined to think it is) but stop at the 40 and single in a country like Indonesia, and one can conclude that she is a very insecure woman and that indeed she was.
For some reason, she likes to talk to guys and expect them to humor her but when something is different, slightly wrong, she will direct her anger on the male population of the office, and being the only male in her room, I was often subjected to her mood.
One time I was at the warehouse on a Saturday and we were waiting for more detailed information as to where to send, who to address, and how many do they need to be sent.
I was the warehouse admin at the company. It was almost 12 o’clock and the delivery truck comes at 1 or 2 so we have to prepare the packages before that. Since we don’t have the full info yet, she decided to talk to me about how I rarely work overtime on a Saturday when she almost always does.
I told her, I don’t think it’s necessary because I always finish my report and never need to finish it on a Saturday unless the company needs me for a delivery on a Saturday, in which I’ll come.
But I’d preferably not work on a Saturday for a measly Rp. 60.000,- when most people are paid a minimum of 100k–150k rupiahs on other companies in Jakarta for a day of working overtime. And that 60k is only paid in full if I work from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm. I think it bothered her because once I knew that they only paid 60k for overtime, and I did say I’d prefer not to work overtime unless it’s really urgent.
(60k is really not much in Jakarta. you eat for like 15k once, so 3 times a day is 45k rupiahs. And my transport costs me 6k. and the 9K is what’s left.)
She told me, ‘If you work overtime, the company loses money. Do you understand that, Hakmer? So when the company asks you to come on a Saturday, you should come because the company pays.’
She went on lecturing me for half an hour about how the company loses money and how my life is supposed to be dedicated to the company and how the most important thing in the world is this company.
When she’s done she asks me,
‘Do you understand, now, Hakmer?’
‘Yes, I do, Ci,’ I say. I always say yes because I don’t like arguments with people who don’t listen. I’d rather just get it over with. She should’ve stopped at that but then she asked me:
‘What do you understand?’
‘If I work overtime to help the company, the company loses money. And that’s why I don’t work overtime.
I don’t want the company to lose money.’
I think her jaw dropped, I don’t know. All I know is she wasn’t making any sound through the phone for a few seconds. And then she said, okay continue with what you’re doing, and didn’t talk to me for the rest of the day. She sent us the details of the delivery via the OB and didn’t use the phone.”
26. I Built My Snowman Around A Fire Hydrant To Teach Him A Lesson
“In the third grade, it had snowed significantly but at recess (or maybe lunchtime) all the kids were out playing in the snow, making snow forts and snowmen.
I noticed that one of the ‘big kids’ in Grade 6 was having a great time running and kicking down the little kids’ snowmen.
So……I built a nice snowman. I guess the big kid did not see my work in progress…..I built it around and over a fire hydrant. Did he ever get a surprise when he took a big run and a big leap to kick my snowman.
No permanent injury, but as I recall, I did not observe him out on the playground anymore that day.”
25. I Found The Arrogant Guy's Achilles Heel
“There was this guy I went to college with ‘A’. He had a clean-shaven bald head, looked like Mr. Clean, and was maybe 6 foot 4 and jacked. ‘A’ was a bit of an Alpha male to the point of being a bit of a bully to people to establish his dominance. He was in my friend group and whenever we went out in a group he would always answer questions on our behalf and generally seemed confident.
‘A’ got on my nerves a few times but I am generally non-confrontational so I would never say anything. One night a group of us went out to a bar and had a pretty good time. About halfway through, this gorgeous shy looking redhead walked in and walked straight up to the bar. On her way ‘A’ waved at her and said, ‘hey B!’ but she averted her eyes and kept walking straight up to the bar as if she didn’t see him.
I was pretty sure no one else noticed this and looked at his face. ‘A’ looked straight down at the table looking pretty sheepish for a few seconds before regaining his composure and getting up to dance.
I kept this in the back of my mind for a while but I started thinking he might have some low confidence. I watched him for a bit and noticed whenever we were talking about anything science or math-related he would never join in the conversation and would try to change the topic.
I love talking about science and I admit I might be annoying sometimes when I am excited about something. After a couple of weeks he started being rude to me just in small enough ways that I could laugh it off but after a while would start getting to me. I am not witty at all so I could never defend myself very well or say anything back.
Fast forward to a party in the common room and he starts making fun of the beer I’m drinking or something else as trivial. I ignore it for a while and we move on to playing a board game. Of course, he starts making fun of the game we are playing and I am pretty mad. Now I can’t remember what exactly it was but I start asking some questions about science and start a discussion about chemistry, then we move on to physics, and then we start talking about Astronomy.
It was all going great and I could see A’s face. He looked like hell and I was reveling in it. I watched him the entire time and waited for him to say anything, and anytime he did I would interrupt him and change the topic. I did this a couple of times and made eye contact with him the last time I did it. I saw him completely deflate and we went to sit down.
I can still visualize his face when he realized what I was doing and feel bad about it because I think he was self-conscious about his intelligence.”
24. Don't Judge Me For Slowing Down If You're Going To Do The Same
“So here I was running my first half marathon, and somewhere around the 19k (~11mi) mark. I was insanely tired and had to walk for a minute to take a breather. Just then, someone slightly nudged me from behind and rudely said, ‘A marathon is for runners only,’ and overtook me.
After a minute or so, I resumed running, only to encounter this very same person shuffling awkwardly a kilometer or so before the finish line.
I gave it everything I had! I caught up with him and said the exact same thing to him as I ran by. This person must have helped me shave off a good 2 minutes from my time. Perhaps I should thank him?”
23. You Don't Like People With Beards? Well Then I Don't Like You
“Story 1:
When my stepdad was a young-ish professional, he had gone to do some contract work at a new company. He was managing a project and needed to get on board with the team. When he met one of them and introduced himself, his new colleague totally blanked him. When my stepdad inquired as to why this was, the man responded with the following gem:
‘I’m sorry, I don’t associate with people with beards.’
To which my stepdad replied:
‘That’s quite alright because I don’t associate with bigots.’
Later on, my stepdad organized a meeting for the whole team as a way of introducing himself and finding out more about them.
He discovered that the beard-hater’s surname was Smythe, which in the UK can sometimes be pronounced in two ways. During the meeting, he went through the list of people in attendance. When he got to Mr. Smythe, he lingered over the name for a moment and asked:
‘So, Smythe… Is that pronounced ‘Smith’ as in ‘shi-t’ or ‘Smythe’ as in ‘shy-t’?’
Apparently, that raised quite a few laughs!
Story 2:
If you’ve ever worked in retail, you’ll know that customers can sometimes be unbelievably rude and treat staff like they’re sub-human.
Well, this person was no exception.
A customer who was stood on the other side of the store whistled at my colleague to get his attention. He then proceeded to snap his fingers repeatedly and shout ‘Uh, hello?!’ derisively while he continued to whistle at him.
It’s also worth mentioning that my colleague was working for a ‘store within a store’ and had absolutely no way of being able to sell or really assist with the product that the customer was standing next to.
Without missing a beat, my co-worker got down on all fours (he’s over six feet tall & heavily tattooed) and proceeded to crawl all the way across the store on his hands and knees until he got to the customer. When the customer asked what on earth he was doing, he simply said:
‘Well, if you’re going to treat me like a dog then I might as well act like one.’
Point well made, the customer was quite embarrassed.”
22. Disrupt My Sleep? I'll Kick Your Seat For The Remainder Of This Flight
“I had been in Italy for a work conference. I’d had a great time (I was in Italy! Paid for by work!), both at the conference and in Bologna itself, and it was time for my flight back. I’d changed planes in Munich and got on a larger plane for the flight across the Atlantic. When I got on, I had an aisle seat with reasonable legroom.
All good. I was one of the first people on, and everyone was loading slowly, so I sat down, crossed my legs (this was 1999, so airlines still had legroom for regular passengers), and fell asleep.
And woke up when the seat in front of me was jammed back into my legs. The guy had sat down and pushed his seat back all the way back, slamming into my knee and pushing my leg back.
It really hurt. Plus, it would have been obvious to him that I was there, asleep, in that position, so he would have known what he was doing. I was outraged. But. I was an American woman on a German plane, and everyone around me was a German man. I had no idea what would happen if I yelled at him, but I suspected it wouldn’t end well for me.
I thought and then realized that I was sitting behind this man, and would be for the next ten hours. Ten hours in which I could kick the back of his seat. Keep in mind that even though his seat was all the way back, I still had about the same amount of legroom as we regularly do today. Also, the seat next to me was open.
I could have moved to that one and had no one in front of me, but the principle of the thing mattered to me. I had an aisle seat, I got there first, and I’d been injured.
So I kicked the back of his seat about every five minutes for the next ten hours. Any time I needed to get up, I leaned heavily on the back of his seat to ‘help myself up.’ After about eight hours of this, when I was coming back to my seat, he finally asked me to stop kicking him.
I apologized but explained that his seat was so far back that my normal movement meant that I inadvertently bumped his seat. He suggested I move over one seat. I suggested that he might. He sat back down but didn’t move his seat forward, so I kept kicking him. After about twenty more minutes, he moved his seat forward almost all the way. Hooray! And I stopped kicking his seat.
I doubt he learned a lesson, and I realize I was being petty, but it was satisfying in the way that these things are.”
21. I Don't Think They Were Ready For This Jelly
“When I was growing up, there was one of ‘those’ neighbours who called in noise complaints if you sneezed or farted too loudly, wore the wrong shade of blue… You get the picture… The whole neighbourhood hated this galactic jerk bag.
One wintery eve, when it was only 5 degrees Celcius out, I bought a 65 pack of Timbits, powdered and jelly-filled.
I took said ‘ammo’ and a slingshot and plastered their garage door… That night the temp went down to about -20 and we had a week and a half cold spell.
Seeing frozen jelly and dough on their garage for about ten days made the cold spell bearable.”
20. Disturb My Sleep? I Won't Warn You When You Miss Your Stop
“I was traveling from York to Cardiff, a journey of just over four hours. It was late. It had been a long day and I just wanted to relax, so I sat in the quiet zone of the train. The conductor came down and I heard him say to someone, ‘Change at Bristol Parkway. This train goes on to Bristol Temple Meads but there won’t be any trains to Cardiff there tonight, so make sure you change at Bristol Parkway.’ He then said the same to me after checking my ticket.
The person who he said it to first, after the conductor left the carriage, put on some headphones and turned them up all the way. It was so loud I could hear it from half a carriage away. Another guy asked him to turn them down, which he did, but he turned them up again a few minutes later. I couldn’t get to sleep, and this was the quiet zone, so I asked him to turn them down (they were so loud he must have caused damage to his hearing: I could hear every goddamn lyric of his crappy taste in music).
This pattern continued every fifteen minutes or so for about an hour, by which time I gave up. I just grumbled to myself and waited for Bristol Parkway, which took about another two hours.
When we got there, the conductor announced on the tannoy something like ‘Change at Bristol Parkway for services to Wales and the Westcountry’ (it was pretty late – approaching midnight). I got off the train and stood on the platform, only to see the idiot with the headphones fast asleep through the window.
He was meant to change at Bristol Parkway also. I could have easily gone back on the train and woken him up – it waited on the platform for several minutes – but instead, I watched him sleeping until the train departed for its next stop, Bristol Temple Meads, where the service terminated. There were no more trains to Cardiff that night, apart from the one which I was about to get on at Parkway, and a taxi would have cost him about £100, which is what you get for disturbing me in the quiet zone.”
19. A Dog Got Revenge On A Dog-Hating Customer
“I used to work in a coffee shop that had one of those water bowls for dogs and also a small jar of treats on the counter which we’d occasionally give to some of the dogs whose owners brought them in regularly while getting their morning cup of coffee. The dogs would sit there near the tables and their owners would chat for a while, etc.
We had one customer who was an older gentleman who tipped poorly and was often gruff and irritable when ordering his coffee. He hated dogs. He’d speak way too loudly and we’d always joke about the irony that this man who hated dogs so much had pretty strong dog breath.
One day it was raining out and he comes in and orders his coffee. He’s impatiently drumming his fingers on the counter and harshing all of our moods.
His impatient movements caught the attention of one of the dogs, which started sniffing around the man’s rear end like there’s no tomorrow. The man got miffed each time it happened, and my coworker intentionally slowed down the preparation of his coffee to prolong his agony. The man sternly said ‘down’ a few times but the dog’s attention had been piqued and his owner was in the restroom or something.
The dog was getting more amped up and wagging its tail big time. The man reached down to grab its collar to pull it away from his seat and the next thing we all knew he’d slid onto the floor on his back, he must have slipped in a puddle from someone’s umbrella or something.
So this dog that was sniffing him comes up and starts licking up and down the man’s face like it’s made of tapioca.
We all start laughing and my coworker points out that the man seems unable to stand up. The dog’s leash, tied to a chair, had become tangled in the man’s legs and so when he tried to stand the dog would arch his back and keep licking away.
We noticed that the dog was licking around the man’s mouth, on his lips, etc., and the man was in sort of a rage.
We were a bit immature at the time and let this go on for about five minutes, during which time the dog got even more amped up and started barking loudly, making the four other dogs in the cafe start barking too.
Finally, one of the other customers, a nice older lady, helped him up. He looked so ashamed of what had happened. We got some great pics of the incident and put one of them on the register.
We did lose him as a customer after that but nobody really cared. We found out later that he was a decorated war hero and his walks to get coffee in our shop were the one thing he still enjoyed in his old age.”
18. Insult Me? I'll Toss An Insult Right Back
“This is something that happened with my father when he was young. After finishing class 12 my father appeared for the engineering entrance examinations but could not clear them on the first attempt. He started preparing for a second attempt but during one of the family functions, he was confronted by one of his uncles, who was infamous particularly for being rude and impolite. He called him aside and asked in a condescending tone:
‘You failed all your exams right? Wasted a whole year. What will you do now?’
To which my father replied:
‘I’ve heard all the good for nothing fellows end up becoming a lawyer?? I’ll also follow suit.’
Needless to say, his uncle was a lawyer.
A year later though my father gave the engineering entrance exams again and got selected into the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University of Roorkee(UOR) currently more famous as IIT Roorkee.”
17. Keep Being A Fake Friend And I'll Make You Eat Insects
“When I was in elementary school, we moved, and for a time I was struggling, had no friends, and was having trouble making friends. I thought I had made friends with a girl who moved in a couple of houses away. However, after a little while, she told me that while she was willing to be friends with me, she didn’t want to be seen with me or have anyone know we were friends.
I found this really hurtful.
About that time we were covering Australia in class and the teacher showed us a film about Indigenous peoples eating insects, and she brought some chocolate-covered insects to class. I thought this was very cool and tried one (not bad, like a crunchy Raisinet).
I had by this time made friends with another new girl who, like me, was ‘on the outs.’ We had to attend a birthday party for the 1st girl I mentioned.
Together we found out where we could get chocolate-covered insects (a nice small assortment, in a small plastic box) and I gave these to her (unlabeled) and didn’t happen to mention what they were. I figured this was the perfect symbol of what a great ‘friend’ she was. Her reaction after she ate one and asked what they were was beyond priceless (I didn’t think this was all that bad, but DID she FREAK OUT, and in front of everyone).
Given that I knew by this time she was of course saying bad things about me with her ‘cool’ group of friends, it’s not like it hurt me anymore when she ranted and cried or even when her mother dressed me down calling me the worst things. It was especially great for me because in her freaking out, she revealed just how mean and spiteful she really was. It was one of the very few times in my life this ever worked out. Mostly I have found this kind of thing is not worth it (better to just move on), but this is still a fond memory all these years later.”
16. Keep Yelling On Your Phone And I'll Toss It Out The Window
“I was on a bus to Bangalore from Chennai, when a guy in the same bus started yelling at someone on his cell phone. He was using all types of cuss words in his conversation, half of which I didn’t even know existed. Every one of us started feeling very uncomfortable, trying as much as possible not to listen. But he was so loud, it was impossible not to overhear his profanity.
The conductor confronted the guy and asked him politely to lower his voice as there were kids on the bus, but he refused to oblige.
Just then, another guy went up to the driver and told him to stop the bus. He then went back to this yelling guy, snatched his cell phone, and threw it right out the window. Just when he was about to start yelling at this person, the driver started moving the bus. He calmly responded ‘You can shout at me all you want until I get down at the next stop. But if you want your cell phone back, go get it now!’
The puzzled look on that guy’s face was priceless. Without another word, he jumped out of the bus. The Driver picked up speed, and we all were clapping.
Heroes are everywhere!”
15. I Embarrassed Him For His Continuous Farting
“I was on a flight with my wife. We were on the last seat. There was another family of 3 sitting diagonally across from us.
The aisle seat in our row was empty. This has happened very few times for us and I was excited about traveling comfortably for the 6-hour flight! But the father of this other family notices the empty seat and even before the flight takes off, comes to sit right next to us in that empty aisle seat.
(As soon as the door lock announcement was made).
I was understandably upset. Maybe his wife told him to park his butt next to us so she and the kid could be more comfortable.
Just so that you know I am not being an butthole to a family with a kid, it was a kid and not a Baby… 10 – 12 years old at the minimum.
Anyways I am upset and mad…
But I decide to forget about it and move on…
Then a minute later… I smell something nasty… It was a goddamn fart! In an airplane on the last middle seat with the fans not working… We were suffering …
It was the longest-lasting fart smell of my life… After about 10 minutes after the dust (smell) from the first fart settled… There was another strong whiff of the same smell…
This time I freaking heard the fart too… This happened a few more times and I lost it…
When it happened next, I picked up the safety card from the front pocket and started waving it like a fan around my face… It gave intermittent relief from the strongest fart smell of my life.
People around me were also pretty fed up and followed my lead of using the safety card as a face fan…
I looked at him while doing that… Oh yes, I did… After the 100th fart…
At this point, he was pretty embarrassed … Finally !!
He gets up… Gets his lazy butt to the restroom… Comes back and sits next to his wife and the farting is further and less… And the remaining 5 hours of our flight were heaven compared to the first one!!”
14. Angry Driver Drives Straight Into The Curb
“A few years ago, my buddy took me out for a spin in his Lotus Elise. We are both in our early thirties.
We’re driving along a coastal road, going through the gears but not gunning it, when we become aware of a big new model Mercedes E class aggressively up close behind flashing its lights.
We can’t think of anything we may have done wrong and wonder if perhaps the vehicle behind contains a bored executive who fancies a race in the company car.
We indicate for the aggressive Mercedes to pass before it ends up grazing us. As it roars to overtake we get a glimpse of a couple – perhaps in their late fifties or early sixties – inside, a red-faced angry man behind the wheel.
The logical conclusion is he has an issue with two younger males in a Lotus sports car. A clear case of Wee Man Syndrome.
The Mercedes, with Mr. Not-To-Be-Outdone, overtakes and cuts in close to the front of the Lotus, before roaring away up the road.
As he gets away, he slightly misjudges a bend and whacks the curb with a force that most likely resulted in minor wheel damage and/or a slow puncture. We watch his car bounce back to the road and his furious braking as he corrects himself, before roaring off again at double the pace.
To our delight, we catch up with the Mercedes a mile further down the road, stopped at a red traffic light at a junction before where the road forks in two.
My pal thinks exactly what I’m thinking, and we pull up beside the Merc, just a couple of inches in front, just enough to be noticed.
And we both make the beautiful decision deliberately to ignore Mr. Angry in his newly scuffed Mercedes, to look busy in a conversation between ourselves about something else entirely.
We chuckle as we feel Mr. Angry’s rage reach boiling point.
And when the lights change, we drive off slowly and calmly, as the Wee Man and his apparently unfortunate docile wife roar off in the other direction, back home to Angry Land.”
13. I Took His Sarcasm Literally And Opened All The Windows
“When I was about 13 I had a mean teacher who seemed to enjoy humiliating people. One Winters day he got angry at seeing an open window and asked
‘Why don’t you open all the windows?’
So I did. I could sense that he was seething and I knew that I would only be able to get away with it if I pretended to be a total idiot. A couple of boys who were scared that the teacher would get mad tried to stop me, so I pretended that I could not understand them.
The payoff was wonderful: He was never sarcastic to me again.”
12. Broom Jams Straight Into Bully's Stomach
“The class bully was terrorizing a group of us middle schoolers by pushing a wide push-broom down the hallway, causing everyone to run away tripping and screaming. As I ran, I had a moment of clarity and I turned and planted my rubber-soled tennis shoe on the floor as he zoomed towards me. The shoe stuck, stopping the broom cold and causing the broomstick to jam into his stomach, knocking his air out. He fell to the floor writhing to get a breath.
Life’s been downhill ever since.”
11. I Put A Clever Password On My Computer To Teach Him A Lesson
“I once had a geek for a roommate. He spent countless hours hacking into anything he could over the Internet. He works in the IT field also.
Sometimes he had the brilliant idea of using my computer while his was compiling or running a particularly resource-consuming program.
At times, when I really needed to use my computer for some work, he would be using it and would refuse to yield.
He is a very good friend and I had to devise a plan to just make a statement, not to actually cut him off from my computer.
One day I was taking a short trip to another town and I saw the perfect opportunity. I set up a bios password for access to my machine.
When I was actually boarding the plane I was supposed to take, he called me on my cell phone.
He was desperate and complained to me I have this bios password on.
I told him he has his own computer, didn’t need mine.
He said he had some work to deliver and it was all in my HD, so please, would I give him my password?
I said, ‘why do you want it?’
He explained it all to me again and I simply replied, ‘why do you want it?’
The story repeats itself. Every time he explains I ask the same question and I only give in when the plane is about to close the doors.
Then I tell him: ‘The password is ‘ydouwannit.’
He got his work delivered on time and never used my computer again.
But we are still good friends and he is the godfather of my first kid.
We still have a good laugh about this story.”
10. Call Me Ugly? Well I'm The Successful Model, Who Are You?
“Well, I was in my final year of uni. My focus was on my dissertation and things after that. And I was talking to a first-year student. She was doing the same course as my friend Sasha. (They do Media and Journalism). And this girl Jasmine was asking Sasha for help (as Sasha was two years above, she had a little more knowledge).
In uni, we have these little areas that you study in as groups with a huge whiteboard, computer, all that stuff.
And Sasha asked me to set up her camera. So I did. And I asked Jasmine to just stand in a spot so I can get the lighting right. Tried it a few times, but I couldn’t quite get it.
Jasmine was getting annoyed, as you would, and asked to see the pictures. She saw them and was like ‘they are fine,’ – Sasha is a perfectionist.
Sasha ONLY allows me to set up her cam due to her perfection-needing-….self.
Jasmine then goes ‘what do you know about cameras anyway. You do psychology…’
Me: Oh, my part-time job helps me with this.
Sasha (over the computer screen): oh yeah Jasmine, she gets paid to take pictures.
Jasmine: you’re a photographer?
Me: * realizing how she came to that* oh! No! I wish! *laughs* I’m a model.
Jasmine looks at me with confusion.
Mind you, I don’t dress like or act like I would be a model. Because I feel I only need to be perfect on my wedding day and at my photoshoots. All other days it’s all over the place. So I can understand why she would look at me like that. I reckon I have quite an average face.
Jasmine: Are you being serious?
Sasha and I: Yeah
Jasmine: But how can you be one? You’re ugly… it must be easy money.
Me: I applied to an agency. Secondly, the money isn’t THAT easy.
Jasmine: How can you be getting paid? I try and I never get paid and you’re ugly and you’re getting paid.
Me:… Well, I’m getting paid for being ugly, then.
What might have rubbed salt in the wound is that later that day a well-known model came to visit me to talk about a fashion show and Jasmine absolutely GUSHED over her.
Follows her on social media. All that jazz. And the well-known Model then turned to Jasmine and calmly said ‘thanks for the attention but the real model is here,’ *points at me* ‘she’s the only model, out of the 12, that is getting paid.’ *Jasmine’s face drops*
Don’t judge a book by its cover. Sometimes it looks beat up purely because it’s well-loved and well-read “
9. His Tough Act Landed Him In An Accident
“Quite a few years ago (early 1980’s) I lived in Vancouver, Canada. As a bike shop employee and starving athlete/bike racer, I got around by bike. While Vancouver now is a great place to ride a bike, at the time it had its fair share of morons, and getting honked at was just part of your world. I was riding to work late one morning (I think I was on a 12–9 shift), and as I left a 4 way stop sign at W.
12th, the jerk behind me laid on the horn. My usual response (and I’m a bit better now, but it’s still hard not to) was a middle finger. As I stopped at the next stop sign, at West 10th Ave. (for those unfamiliar with it, this is a 4 lane road up to the University of BC and a fairly major thoroughfare – keep this in mind, it will be important very soon!) The jerk pulls up beside me.
I look back once and realize it’s some 19-year-old in his muscle car with some poor young thing in the passenger seat, and it’s his effort to prove his manhood to her. Now as a guy who raced bikes on the track, you knew how to do a track stand, so I was doing one waiting for traffic to clear. Testosterone boy snarls something at me about getting off the road, and I suggested creatively that he get out of his little girl’s car and say it to me again.
As I did this, I lost my balance slightly and had to put my right foot down to keep from falling.
Now you should remember that he was clearly trying to impress the girl in his car. But some part of him didn’t react to that. It reacted to my putting a foot down by thinking, ‘Oh crap, he’s getting off the bike and coming after me.’ That part of him took over, he absolutely MASHED the gas pedal, laid a 10-foot strip of rubber…….and after 11 feet……drove his lovely little muscle car straight into the side of the rather large city bus that was proceeding down W. 10th Ave. Given his low speed, no serious damage was done to the bus, but I just about peed my pants laughing. As did all of my racing friends when I mentioned the description of the car – apparently he’d been harassing cyclists around that part of Vancouver for a while.”
8. I Sent My Angry Neighbor On A Wasteful Journey
“Oh, I had a great time with my neighbour. She was in her 60s but this didn’t stop her from letting down the tires on my car (I caught her in the act), throwing stones through our greenhouse, shouting obscenities through the hedges and other such things. She was almost arrested for harassment so she really was deserving of what follows.
There used to be a site called freecycle, on which you’d say that you had something and would someone else just take it from you, for free… You could also ask for stuff.
One day I spotted that she was asking for things and so I invented a whole series of personas and led her to all kinds of random houses, military bases and hard to get to places in search of those items my personas claimed to possess.
These personas would invariably receive annoyed emails to state that the person in the house didn’t know what she was talking about, the soldiers on the checkpoint had refused her entry etc.
I’d then pretend to be the persona’s wife, in reply, apologising for my husband’s dementia and confusion or I’d say that I’d found out who she was and that since she was so universally despised in the locality I’d not give her the item etc. At other times I’d apologise for having made a typo and so would correct the house number and so have her return for a second wasted journey.
I kept this up for a few weeks and she must have made over a dozen fruitless journeys. She had real anger-management issues and so I’d have lots of pleasure from imagining her rages.
Very passive-aggressive but very, very, very satisfying.
The neighbour has since smoked herself to death. By that time I’d taught her the meaning of respecting one’s neighbours and we spent her last years in peace.”
7. Won't Return My License? Okay, Then I'll Keep Your Bike
“My wife and I were vacationing in Paris, France a few years ago. This was our penultimate day before we left for Rome and we decided to visit the Gardens of Versailles. We had a few issues getting there as you need to change metro lines to get there from where we were staying (we had rented an apartment close to the Louvre) and frankly, I made a mistake interpreting the instructions to get there.
Anyway, we arrived past noon. That bummed us out, but we decided to make the most of the day anyway. After visiting the palace, we decided to rent some bikes in order to cover more ground as the gardens are huge (at least they are to my Puerto Rican sensibilities). During the renting process, I was asked for an ID document for them to hold until I returned the bikes, so I gave them a copy of my driver’s license.
We were allowed to choose our bikes and both of them included locks. I’m not much of a bike rider, nor am I familiar with the locks they included so I didn’t pay attention to make sure that everything was fine. So anyway, we storm off and have a wonderful time visiting the Gardens, taking photos, and just taking in the beautiful sights. We got to the entrance to a separate, smaller garden, and we needed to park the bikes to get in.
That’s when I noticed that I didn’t have the key to the lock that I got on mine. No biggie, I thought to myself. I just waited outside since I couldn’t secure the bike as my wife went into the small section.
After we were done and went to return the bikes, the lady at the counter asked me about the key to the lock. I told her that I didn’t find a key to the lock; I think I may have been given a lock without a key.
She didn’t like my saying that and immediately got on my case on how she personally makes sure that every lock has a key and that she never fails her job and then asked a fellow employee to vouch for her thoroughness. I apologized and asked her about the fee to replace the lock since there was no key to it. She got incensed and told me how there was no fee and that she would keep my documents (my driver’s license) for having lost the key.
I politely asked her if there was a way I could pay a fee since I found it unreasonable for them to deny returning my license. She started being rude again, yelling at me in French.
Ok, I thought to myself. The ID is a guarantee for me to return the bikes and it wasn’t being returned to me and she wouldn’t even negotiate a fee to get it back, so I was under no obligation to return the bikes.
I calmly walked away from the counter and into the lot with the bikes. The employee at the lot was confused but didn’t say anything and I looked for the bikes that we had returned and grabbed them and started to leave with them. At this point, I heard a shout as I left the lot with the bikes and this older man asked me why I had returned to take the bikes that I had returned.
I explained to him the reason and how I felt no obligation to return the bikes as the lady wouldn’t return my driver’s license. He promptly worked out a fee for me; it was about 5 Euros if memory serves me right. I paid the fee and walked away with my driver’s license. I wonder why the lady didn’t try to work out a fee with me, but I have to thank her for the fun of watching their faces as I walked out of the lot with the bikes in tow.”
6. Want To Avoid Me? I'll Find Every Opportunity To Bump Into You
“After I had worked for the bank for about five years, I made the decision to transfer to our affiliated investment firm which had offices in the same building. The senior broker’s reputation with her past assistants was poor at best, but I stupidly thought it would be different with me. The first 18 months were great. I earned my Series 7 license and became the broker’s right hand.
One day I discovered that in my role in scheduling her appointments, which required that I have access to her Outlook calendar, I somehow also had access to her email. I had never asked for access and didn’t need or want it. I reported the issue to her and to technology. When it was addressed, technology found that an entire group of assistants who had been hired within a specific time frame all had been mistakenly granted access to their brokers’ email, so reporting my issue allowed them to correct it for everyone.
Somehow, though, in her mind, I had purposely snooped through her emails and she firmly believed that I routinely read them even after the issue was corrected. I think she had her email set up so that she had a reading pane in her inbox, and had set it so that every time a preview was visible, it marked the email as having been read. Tech-savvy she was not, so she concluded that I was the one reading them.
Of course, I had no reason to do that, and every reason not to.
Things deteriorated rapidly after that. When she told me that I was being investigated for reading her emails, I simply told her that I didn’t care because there was nothing to find. I immediately applied for a transfer back to the bank. She tried to block my transfer by claiming that I had a disciplinary action in my personnel file which would have made me ineligible.
The bank’s HR manager made short work of that by talking to the HR manager of the investment affiliate and confirming that there was no record of disciplinary action at all. I got my transfer.
This broker never spoke to me again unless I called her on the phone to refer a customer, even though we ended up being officed directly across from each other. I, on the other hand, made every effort to speak to her just to watch her squirm.
If we found ourselves in the same hallway, I made a conscious effort to make small talk. She would say nothing.
We met at an exit door one day when I was entering and she was leaving, so I pulled the door wide and gestured for her to go first while asking cheerfully, ‘How are you today? It’s a hot one out there!’ She said nothing. We met one day as we both rounded the same interior corner from opposite directions.
‘Oh my gosh!’ I exclaimed. ‘Excuse me! That was close!’ She said nothing.
My all-time favorite encounter happened one morning as we both entered the building from opposite sides. She practically ran to the elevator and reached it before I did. These elevators were old and the doors began to close the second you pressed a floor button. She entered the car, whirled around, and began repeatedly jabbing the floor button with her keys, trying to get the door to close before I got there.
I had a great angle and a clear view of all of this and was working hard not to laugh at her desperate attempt to avoid me. Unfortunately for her, I was too close and managed to stick my hand between the doors with just inches to spare, and succeeded in forcing them to open. I stepped on the elevator and said, ‘Whew! I barely made it in time!’ and looked at her with a satisfied smile on my face. She said – you guessed it – nothing.
She eventually moved to another location and my fun ended. I never felt guilty about any of this after the way she treated me. I still don’t. In fact, I’m quite sure that I’ll never regret any of it.”
5. Keep Me Awake With Your Party? I'll Blast The TV In The Morning
“I live in an apartment complex in which people can lease a room in a four-room apartment and share the kitchen and living room with the other tenants whom they may or may not have met previously. I moved in with two friends but for a long time, there was an empty room in our apartment. Until out of the blue someone opens our front door.
There was our new roommate, an Australian international student who was going to attend our university for a semester. Although surprised, we decided to be nice. After all, we are international students as well and we knew it can be difficult the first days.
It turns out that for him it was not difficult at all, since the first night he asked if he could have ‘some friends over.’ We complied because we were trying to be nice and because when we have some friends over we usually just chat for a while and do not bother anyone.
However, this was not the case, he and his ‘friends,’ which he had only met that day, got wasted and were loud. At some point, my roommate went out to retrieve the tv from the living room since we feared they would break it in their drunkenness (the tv belonged to my friends and me.) The next day everything was a mess. He tried to ‘clean’ it, but you do not clean spilled beer with only towel paper unless you like the smell of a cheap bar.
My roommate and I had to clean everything because he was too busy in the pool area. Anyhow, this must give an idea of how living with him felt like.
One day he had one of his usual ‘surprise’ parties, in which he just invited people over to trash the apartment without asking for permission or anything. I was in my room, mad as usual, and decided I would take revenge.
I could not sleep that day because of the noise.
The next day I woke up earlier than usual and connected my pc to the tv in the living room, which was conveniently just in front of his room. I searched for one of my favorite animes, ‘fairy tail.’ If you know the original Japanese voices, you may know where this is going. I began making breakfast with my friends, who unlike me, are early birds.
While making breakfast, I turned the volume of the tv all the way up and listened to the sweet voice of ‘Happy,’ the high-pitched talking cat from fairy tail.
Imagine waking up hung-over, after having slept probably two hours to the sounds of an annoying cartoon.
Oh God, he was mad. He woke up and came out telling me to turn the volume down. I said: ‘why?’ but my pronunciation must have sounded like ‘what?’ for him.
He said: ‘Why is this so loud? You cannot even hear me! Turn it down!
I answered: ‘why?’ again smiling a little bit.
He screamed the same thing and I turned the volume down a little bit to hear better what he was saying, to which he turned away and proceeded walking to his room probably believing it was over. I turned the volume even louder as soon as he did this.
He came back and said: ‘didn’t you hear what I said? I cannot sleep with that noise!’
I laughed and said: ‘well, I did not sleep yesterday either.’
He looked at me with a frown: ‘So because I did not let you sleep yesterday, you are not going to let ME sleep today?’
I smiled once more: ‘Oh, I did not say that. I just want to hear my tv show.’ He went back to his room frustrated.
Why he did not do anything? My two roommates, one of which is my partner were standing there without saying a word. They both are quiet and really passive people who have probably stood up for themselves a handful of times in their lives. However, they both work out… a lot. I am, on the other hand, a little 1.50 m girl who is very less passive and much more aggressive. I could say this is the most ‘passive’ thing I have done when someone was actively messing with me. However, I only said something because my roommates were there, and since that guy looked like the only thing that prevented him from smashing my face on the countertop was their presence. He was frustrated, but I was utterly satisfied.”
4. I Made A Count Of How Many Times He Said "Right" In His Speech
“I was working on a construction project in the Middle East for one of the major contractors to the project a few years back (was a national infrastructure build, and was not in Qatar). The client had hired a world-renowned consulting group to oversee all of the project’s major pieces. One of the consultants was a self-professed schedule optimization guru who decided to work his magic on the established build program (2 years in) to allow the client earlier access to the works than had originally been planned.
There were several reasons this was a bad idea, but they could all be summed up by saying that accelerating a program that includes close to 100 buildings and related infrastructure across 100+ square kilometers of project space, across multiple major international contractors from several different countries, raises the risk of failure to what most would consider an unacceptable level. A quick note on the project management side, he was trying to compress the schedule without realistic compensation by forcing more levels of coordination between the various companies working on the site, all the while removing his consulting organization from responsibility for this new unrealistic level of coordination.
This consultant would get representatives of all of the contractors (and somehow I got added to the list of representatives) in a room, and start haranguing us on how this was supposed to work, all the while failing to notice that everybody in the room thought he was insane. Unfortunately, no one really wanted to come out and say that the emperor in this case really had no clothes, and should probably nip back into his closet.
The consultant had one incredibly annoying habit. He would make a statement, and end it with ‘right?’ as if seeking affirmation from the group, and then answer his own question by declaring ‘Right.’ This was done in a rapid fire sequence such that his monologues often went along the lines of: ‘So the sky is green, right? Right. That means that we need to issue boots to all the workers today, right? Right.
The client sells boots, so you will all be purchasing boots from the client today, right? Right.’ This was not an actual argument made by him, but several discussions went along those lines. This rapid-fire pattern was so ingrained in him, that he would often inject these self-affirmations into his sentences, using them as some sort of oratorical comma.
After attending several meetings on this schedule optimization, I started making a tick in my notes every time he said ‘Right.’ Didn’t make any comment, no change in expression, just made a little hash in the margin.
I was doing those groups of five hashes where you do 4 lines then slash across them to indicate a group of five. About 5 minutes into the monologue, the representative from the European contingent across the table from me got what I was doing; the count was over 100 at this point. Shortly thereafter, the whole table (about 20 people) had some idea of what I was doing.
‘Right, right’ finally caught on about 10 minutes later for no other reason than half the table was red-faced trying to hold in the laughter. After glaring at the table, and then at me for all of 10 seconds, and my puzzling question of ‘You were saying?’ he stormed out of the room.
The door closes, European representative leans across the table and politely asks me what the count was – room dies in laughter.
There were no more meetings on the subject from that day forward. The consultant was posted to a different project on another continent shortly thereafter.”
3. Complain About Our Noise? I'll Complain About Your Foul Language
“When my daughter was about 6 years old we were living in an apartment. It was a two-story unit sharing a wall with a neighbor, a grumpy old lady who stayed up late and slept during the day. We tried to respect her schedule and be as quiet as possible, but due to the building’s design, the simple act of walking up and down the stairs in our unit makes quite a lot of noise.
Needless to say, a 6 y.o kid spent quite a bit of time running up and down the stairs between her room and the living room.
The old lady was furious and regularly complained about the noise. She complained to the apartment management a few times and I was becoming worried that we could get expelled. One day, when she was particularly upset, she left a note at our door.
A very nasty note using the F-word and more. That was her mistake.
It must be said that the apartment was trying to attract young middle-class professionals and trying to present themselves as upscale housing compared to others in the neighborhood. The next day, I put on my business suit and a tie and strolled into the apartment management office. I showed them the note and very politely expressed my surprise at the kind of people they were renting to.
I said I was shocked by the language and glad my daughter had not found the note. I said I was considering moving out and basically made them feel like they were running a trailer park, not an expensive apartment complex. They were apologetic and talked to the old hag who stopped complaining after this incident. I got a new job and had to move out a few months later anyway.”
2. Cost Me My Job? I'll Expose Your Tax Fraud
“In 2005 I was working as in-house counsel for a company who was setting up business in Brazil. I had a lot of experience in Brazil and spoke Portuguese and was thus involved in the project. The company also had an employee in Brazil. We’ll call him Fulano.
So, during a trip to Brazil, I met with him over lunch and we had a long discussion about the company’s plans in Brazil, the potential for growth, and the like.
It was a very pleasant lunch at one of Rio’s best churrascarias. However, during the course of the lunch, he told me that he had never declared any income that the company had paid to him in his tax returns.
A week later I was back in Johannesburg and called in by the company’s president and VP. I was quite keen to discuss the plans I had for them for Brazil.
After a rundown of the meeting I had with Fulano, the president turned to the VP and said:
‘Show him the email.’
She then showed me an email in which Fulano told them that it is obvious I wanted his job, that I had told him to ignore his boss’s (the VP’s) instructions and several other lies. It was however clear that I would not get a very fair chance to explain that this was just blatant lies on the part of a very insecure person.
In one of the replies that the VP had sent to Fulano she wrote to him:
‘Emile is the legal advisor, not the marketing manager, WHAT PART OF THAT DOES HE NOT GET?’
And that was before they had even asked to hear my side, making it obvious that they were believing Fulano.
I confronted Fulano but he slammed the phone down in my ear.
It was unfortunately clear that my days at the company were over.
After some tense negotiations, I left with three months’ salary and returned to private legal practice.
However, I still had to deal with Fulano. So, armed with his Brazilian tax number and bank account details (I drafted his contract with the company so I had this information), I traveled to Brazil and promptly passed all the information to the Brazilian tax authorities.
The Brazilian tax authorities don’t give feedback on tip-offs they receive, however, a few weeks later I saw a message posted by his partner on a social media page (precursor of Facebook) in which she wrote to him:
‘My darling, just when we think things cannot get any worse, this happens.
Just know, I stand by you always.’
And then I knew, the tax authorities had gone to claim their dues.
Why on earth he would choose to make an enemy of someone to whom he had confessed that he was tax fraud, I don’t know, except maybe as a testament to his own stupidity.
And a few weeks later still, he was sacked by the very VP he claimed to be very close to.
It still feels good thinking about it more than a decade later.”
1. Think You Can Outsmart Me? I'll Play Dumb To Get My Way
“I just got my current job in November of last year, as an IT engineer. My department is a really small one, only two IT engineers, 2 technicians, and my boss.
Though my position is IT Engineer, I am more focused on Web Development, so by January my co-worker approaches me and says, ‘You know they are going easy on you? The boss is not giving you the same amount of work they used to give to the guy who was here before you.’
Yep, that hurt, for many reasons—chiefly by being under-valued for the simple fact of being a woman, as well as for being new to the enterprise.
I decided I wasn’t going to have any of that. I was going to demonstrate to him and (mostly) to my boss that I didn’t need any special treatment, and that I could be as good as the guy who was before me. So I started a dynamic programming project, which consists basically of a platform that makes my life easier when it comes to developing demos, creating new apps, creating CRUDS, reports, etc… in summary, my program was like a small personalized WordPress, filling my needs and the needs of the requirements people would ask me.
People started noticing this project, since I was creating reports 3 times faster and prettier than the old guy, releasing brand new/renovated apps in less than 1 month, all because I had this ‘template of templates’ helping me. By June of this year, my co-worker approaches me again, telling me the same freaking thing: ‘You still don’t truly belong to the company, because they are still going easy on you.’
That was it.
I had already released 3 FULL SYSTEMS implemented globally, migrated lots of crappy reports and applications that made me travel in time and feel in the ’90s, so I breathed slowly, calming myself down, and sent an email to my boss while also forwarding the message to him, which went something like this:
‘Hi Boss, this email is to let you know I’m tremendously alarmed by the feedback I got from my coworker this morning.
He said to me in front of a provider that you were being acquiescent with me, and therefore I wasn’t performing all the tasks I should have been doing by this time. I just want to know the reason for this, because if I applied to this job and if you hired me, I think it’s because I can do the tasks related to it, so I don’t see what would make you think I can’t bear the whole responsibility.
For some background, this topic was already touched upon in January of this year with the same output, that you were going easy on me, and I used this feedback in my favor to get more focused and try to give more. Since I see that didn’t work, and my co-worker still tells me you are making this special treatment to me I decided to talk straight about it.
Regards!
So obviously I knew this was all my co-worker’s jealousy or God knows what, but I played dumb, and it worked perfectly! My boss replied that he didn’t know the basis of my co-worker’s comments and that he was more than satisfied with my performance, and that in fact, I had done way more than the old guy in way less time…
I guess you don’t need to yell at somebody to give them a slap in the face!”
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