People Reveal Their Vindictive Revenge Stories
28. My Racist Bully Of A Teacher Got Fired And I Don't Regret A Thing
“So, when I was sixteen (F) I had a chemistry teacher (28F at the time) who from the moment that I stepped into her classroom hated me. I never gave her any reason, but I would notice she played favorites with students, and I was not her favorite student. I decided to ignore her, but that did not work at all. She would make micro-aggressive comments about my hair and skin (proud Afro Boricua gal over here), would make fun of my intelligence, would fail me on purpose (I would go to another teacher to check my exams and it would be another grade), would call me out on the project I would turn in and if I keep going this post would be hours of all the horrific things she would do to me.
She made me hate myself and I was depressed because of what was happening, but the one incident that made my blood boil was that she made fun of me for the death of my maternal grandfather. I was done playing the victim and wanted her gone and not caring for what anyone had to say. I told my friends the plan and had videos of everything that she was doing to me.
So, I decided to skip her class and would walk by her classroom (open door classrooms since in Puerto Rico this is normal) and had the habit that if you skip her class, you get sent to the principal’s office. She took the bait and I smiled like the devil that she fell for it. So, when the principal asked me what was wrong, I played all the videos of everything she has done to me.
When I was done, I turned to look at the principal and he was livid while she was Casper the friendly ghost pale. What came next was the principal screaming at her that she was fired and that this would be on her record and would be in her recommendation letter. The principal changed me to another teacher that would help me. People in my school found out it was me and some called me their hero, but others hated me for what I did.
I do not regret it though and it turns out I was not the only one she was doing this to. It has been ten years and I found out from a friend since this is on her record she cannot teach and decided to become a private tutor. I saw her again and she recognized me and glared at me but I shrugged her off. She dug her own grave and she must lie on it.”
27. It's Against Policy To Carry A Bag? Okay, I'll Carry A Purse
“This is not my story but rather my best friend’s and I had the pleasure of witnessing this all play out. Call him Dave for this story (not his real name). He’s a friendly giant standing about 6′ 6” and isn’t slim either.
Back in 2018, I was in Job Corps. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, it’s a program for low-income young adults to stay on campus and learn a trade.
For this story, we were in Computer Tech. By this time we had both received our certifications and were waiting to ‘complete’, which they would often keep you there for several months while waiting for paperwork to be finished. In actuality, they had a monthly quota to reach and would spread people out so they had a steady stream of people finishing and wouldn’t have their numbers go down.
We had been there for approximately 9 months at this point, and during that time he had introduced me to MTG (Magic: The Gathering, card game). He would bring a large canvas shoulder bag to hold his various decks that we would play during class as we often had little else to do. It was a go at your own pace style class setting that we had finished relatively quick so we would help others when they had questions.
One day the trade manager (Karen for this story) decided to visit our class and found us playing our game in the side room. She was furious and asked us why we weren’t working and we explained that we had nothing else to do. She saw Dave’s large carrying bag and decided to take issue with it. She explained to us with a sarcastic ‘I’m sorry, that’s against policy…’ while putting on a sad pity face and yet still smiling.
After this, we decided to go through our policy book to find a loophole. Once he returned from weekend pass the plan was set. We would have a meeting every Monday in the auditorium where the campus headmaster would be present. It was to talk about ongoing problems and to set new rules. That day the Karen brought up the rule about large bags and how anyone who disobeyed would be written up.
3 write-ups get you terminated.
We had a reputation for being well-behaved students and as such had a great relationship with the headmaster. After the meeting as everyone was flocking out, Dave approached the lecture in the center of the auditorium. Karen was standing next to the headmaster and as he was about halfway over she noticed his large, Hot Pink purse that he had strung over his shoulder.
It stood out quite a bit in contrast to the black and blue uniform of Computer Tech.
She began storming towards him, screeching about the rule and how he was going to be written up. Calm and undeterred, he explained to her that purses were a special exception in the rule book and as such he was in compliance with the policy. He then pointed out several female CNA students that also carried purses and asked why there wasn’t an issue with theirs.
She was speechless, her mouth was left hanging open mid snarl for a solid 5 seconds. The headmaster finally made it over and politely asked what the issue was, as Dave was obviously in compliance with the dress code. She said something unintelligible in his direction before storming off. That was the last time she gave us any issue and honestly, she was more respectful in our interactions after that point.
I’m sure the headmaster had a word with her.
He continued to carry that purse for the remainder of our time there and it became a running joke. We soon completed and Dave went on to get a further Cisco certification at another Job corps. Last year Dave came out as trans and is now attending college. It’s a story that we often bring up and she has a good laugh over it. I won’t give her new name, but it starts with a V.”
26. Want An Accounting Of My Every Minute? That'll Take A While
“Mid 2020, I moved across the country and started a new job. Before I accepted I made it clear that I would need an adjusted schedule because of childcare issues. I am told this is totally fine. We are all adults and can manage our own time. As long as I’m working the right number of hours, within certain parameters, everything will be great.
It became obvious very quickly that my new boss and I were not getting along.
She was very proud of her computer science Ph.D. from the 90s and hadn’t learned a thing about computers since, while I was supposed to be tech support and she REALLY didn’t like being wrong. Also, I was morally opposed to holding an 80-person indoor event because again…it was 2020.
Anyway, about three months into my tenure, she tells me that she ‘forgot’ to tell me that she needs an accounting of my time each week, to make sure it all adds up to enough hours.
She says ‘everyone does them’ and she’d just ‘forgotten’ to have me start.
I ask around (very small team, about five people). Nobody has ever heard of anything like this. I ask her about what they said. She says she needs to make sure that I’m not getting away with working less because of my modified schedule and to just do it.
So I write down every single deviation from the standard schedule, every single time.
Arrived one minute early? It goes on the spreadsheet. Took a three-minute shorter lunch? On the spreadsheet. Left 7.5 minutes early to get my kids? Better believe that half-minute is going on the spreadsheet. Stayed 11 minutes late? Heck yeah. Did I make my schedule even weirder than usual? Maybe. I used Excel to make sure everything was totaled exactly perfectly. But she didn’t tell me to do the math for her so I deleted it before I printed the spreadsheet out to sign and turn in.
She spent almost an hour the first time doing math. I know this because she complained endlessly about it to my coworker.
It took all of two weeks (two spreadsheets) for her to tell me that I could start managing my own time again.
I quit a month later, but that’s a different tale of malicious compliance.”
25. Won't Approve My Purchases? No Problem, I Can Work With That
“I was a one-man IT shop at a small manufacturer. I had been there for years. I was actually the 3rd employee ever hired and now the company was like 120 people. I was very frugal but in smart ways. I got a lot done for little and always was looking out for the company. The owner recognized and respected this.
Anyhow, we had gotten big enough where I didn’t report to the owner anymore and I was assigned to report to an inexperienced accountant who got her degree from some sketchy online school.
She was going to change the world. I used to be able to just buy anything I wanted because the owner knew whenever I asked for a company credit card, that I had already done my homework and it would be good for the company.
Well now, if anything was over $500 I had to go through this process with her to justify it. It wouldn’t bug me except that she had no real business savvy or common sense.
It was just painful to me to try and explain the most obvious things to her and she would fight it just because of power-tripping or something, Example: I was trying to justify having at least one computer loaded up and ready to go as a hot spare for when someone’s broke. She balked at having $1500 sitting on a shelf unused. I tried to explain that about once a month someone’s computer would break.
All she could see was the $1500 sitting unused most of the time. She couldn’t understand the real cost of a broken computer. That the person could no longer do their job effectively. Parts not getting ordered. Jobs not getting expedited. Emails not getting returned. Me having to drop everything to react to this situation, overnighting in parts. The true impact cost to the company was several hundreds of dollars every month.
She couldn’t see that having a spare would pay for itself in half a year or so. After half an hour of fighting over this, I had an epiphany. I handed her requisition approval forms to her and told her she was right and left.
Any purchases under $500 didn’t need any approval at all. Now NOTHING I ever bought was over $500. I didn’t buy a spare computer. I bought 3. As parts. And assembled them into computers. Servers, network storage? Why justify to a bean counter who wouldn’t understand anyway? Just buy more parts and assemble them yourself. Dual monitors for everybody! (bought one at a time)
Bite me, Charmaine!”
24. Won't Honor The Contract? Hope You Like Hot Pink Duct Tape
“Many years ago I was an elected union president at a Fortune 500 company, but I was only in charge of one contracted group. As such the bargaining power of the main company was much higher than my own, but even they couldn’t intervene too much. My group’s contract switched from company A to company B in 2012, but the contract remained unchanged. Company B inherited all of the contract requirements of company A and agreed to meet them, but opted to fight me on several minor clauses when it came down to it.
Most were solved without much conflict, but the major sticking point was in regard to uniforms.
Our contract ensured that we were given an allowance to pay for new uniforms and vouchers for steel toe boots every year. When it came time for our new vouchers, they refused, citing that they’d given us a slight raise which should offset the cost of boots. I informed them that a cost of living raise didn’t void the portion of the contract requiring them to provide vouchers for shoes, to which they responded they just hadn’t figured out how to provide vouchers yet.
After assurances they would provide the vouchers as soon as they could work it out, I dropped the issue.
Unsurprisingly, months later they still hadn’t provided vouchers for replacement shoes. It should be noted that this was a very large campus and many of us walked several miles a day in these shoes, and the shoes were caked with chemicals and dirt and started to look pretty vile within a year.
We had to wear the same work shoes in office areas and we had started to get complaints. I decided to lean into this. This is where malicious compliance begins.
No new shoes? Fine. I’ll rig them up to last longer. I went out and bought several rolls of the flashiest and most obnoxious duct tape I could find. I began to ‘repair’ holes in my shoes with duct tape and extra fabric to the point that my hot pink shoes became easily recognizable.
The safety team for the main company was so amused they gifted me hot pink safety glasses and gloves to match. I also lent out my gaudy duct tape collection to any employee needing to ‘upgrade’ their shoes.
Suddenly the complaints about our dirty shoes were replaced by complaints about obviously duct-taped shoes. Whenever we were asked we’d tell both union and nonunion coworkers that it was a small protest against the refusal to honor the shoe vouchers in the contract.
The next year rolls around and still no shoe vouchers, but suddenly our uniform allowance was increased ~$150 to allow for new steel-toed shoes to be purchased. After speaking to the union members, I agreed to allow that in place of the vouchers.
I kept my duct tape collection permanently on display as a threat and would use it any time safety equipment wasn’t being replaced and required ‘repair.’”
23. Think You're Smarter Than Me? I Don't Agree But I'll Play Along If You Pay Me More
“I was working a job on campus that was a tech job so I was doing it ‘remotely’ (i.e. from my own dorm room). Why leave the room when I can get paid to sit in my bed and work?
So one day I needed to run a huge script that would take a lot of time. I didn’t want to block my own laptop for this job because it would prevent me from doing other work as the job was super heavy.
I emailed my supervisor asking to use a computer in her office since she had a few empty cubicles with computers. She wasn’t a fan so I decided I’d discuss it with her when I meet her next (the job wasn’t a priority). When I met her a month later she still didn’t understand why I needed a computer (she wasn’t a tech person. I was doing tech work for a single project and was the only person doing tech).
She just kept saying it wasn’t possible. So I decided to not try to explain why it would be better but act like it’s the only option. Given the fact that the script sort of touched student data (but not really), I said that FERPA regulations would force me to have to spend money if I had to do it on my laptop as I’d have to keep it extra secure, etc (not exactly true but whatever).
Forced her hand so she buckled in and said she’d get me access to the computer. She said it would be done in a week so about 10 days later I went to the office to try to use it but my login didn’t work. I spoke to the IT team and found out that she had never put in the request. So now for the real fun.
I emailed her saying it didn’t work (she wasn’t in the office) but that I’d try again the next day. Did this every day for about 3 weeks. Suddenly one day I get a call from her (never happened before so I was confused). She asked me what the 1 hour every morning was on my timesheet. I stated that it was the time I spent going to her office, trying to log in and then it failing so having to return and try again the next day.
She said nothing and just hung up (btw my hourly wage was about $20 so that’s $300 over 3 weeks).
The next morning I got a call from the IT team stating that the request to give me access to the computer had been received and that the request would be processed in 2 hours. Lo and behold that afternoon I had an email confirming I had access and the next morning when I went into the office I had access to the computer!”
22. I Annoyed My Annoying Neighbors With A Wind Chime
“Ever since I moved in a year ago, my neighbors have been nothing but annoying and rude to me.
Background: they used to live in my house and now live in the house directly next door. Our street is a row of semi-detached townhouses. We share a wall, the front yard, and a front porch with a small divider. They sit on their front porch the majority of the year.
From morning to night, they’re always out there.
They’ve done a bunch of really annoying stuff, some outright rude, some I should have called bylaw on, and I have had to install a camera because of theft which I can’t say is them or not, but I strongly suspect them because of the items taken. Other neighbors don’t like them either I’ve found out as I’ve started to meet people.
The icing on the cake, as it were, was about two weeks ago. I did some major spring cleaning on the weekend and it was now Monday. Garbage day is Tuesday at the crack of dawn. Except we’ve also had a skunk/coyote problem and all three bags don’t fit into my garbage canister. One has to stay out.
So I put the bags on my front porch late afternoon right by the steps so they are ready and I can bring them out the next morning at 6:45 am.
I leave to go grocery shopping. About 15 mins later at the store, I am getting texts from the other neighbors. She has taken a picture of my garbage on my porch and posted in the neighborhood social media group about how I am young (lol I am 38) and lazy (occasionally fair) and this garbage has been smelling up her porch for weeks (20 mins) and that it’s now attracting rats so be careful at the park across the street.
99% of the comments to her post are trashing her saying that she shouldn’t air dirty laundry online and if it was a problem that she should call bylaw. I reply nicely saying that I did spring cleaning, I didn’t want it ripped to shreds at the curb but also didn’t want to miss the garbage man. Everybody understands. I actually made additional friends out of it lol
However.
I am fed up. I hate leaving my house or coming back to it as they are always on the shared porch and have often harassed me before this public shaming already. My kids don’t like them either and my daughter asks me to check if she’s there before she leaves to see her friends. I am sick of this place.
I call my landlord and he says that as they are two separate properties that he just happens to manage, he can’t do anything.
The rental market is absolutely insane and I would never be able to find something for the price I pay here and I can’t afford more.
So what can I do?
This is going to sound super silly, but I am very happy with the results….
I bought a wind chime.
Not a twinkly one, but a real kicker of a wind chime. It’s windy all the time. I hung it as reasonably close to their side as possible without it ever crossing to their side. None of my other neighbors hang out on their front porches anyway so I am not bothering them.
It’s small. It’s petty. It makes me giggle every time I leave the house and hear it.”
21. You Want To Fire Me? Please, Go Ahead
“This happened about 30 years ago. I was unemployed when I heard that the local de-commissioned military base had been converted for commercial use and was looking to hire a large force of private security. Not much of a job, but something to keep the bills paid while I looked for something better I guess.
I was hired as a patrol officer and assigned to one of four-day shifts.
The base was large enough that they divided it up into four areas and thus we had four shifts at all times. There was the big boss (I’ll call him Jake), Shift bosses, and patrol officers. I was assigned to area 3, so I was a patrol officer in area 3, and my boss was shift manager for area 3. I’ll call him Jim. The shift manager for area 2 (I’ll call him Butt) and a patrol officer for area 2 (I’ll call him Hole) were really close friends, and both of them were jerks.
Everybody hated them. But luckily, I didn’t have much contact with them, as I was working for Jim, and in a different area of the base.
To patrol, we had patrol cars, patrol golf carts, or we could walk. The distances we had to cover were measured in miles. Walking was impractical, there was too much ground to cover in a limited time. I usually chose the golf cart.
I liked it as I could drive around buildings, even if there was no road.
Each day, we would come in to check the assignment board, grab a set of keys and a radio, and then head out on security patrols. I was always assigned to area 3, but I knew the other areas well as I had previously been stationed at the base while it was still an active military base.
On many of my patrols, I would find windows or doors open on buildings that I was sure hadn’t been used in years. It puzzled me until I caught the other supervisor (Butt) driving around area 3 one day. Curious about what he was up to, I followed him discreetly and noticed that he was opening random stuff in my area that should have been locked.
GAME ON.
For some odd reason, Butt really hated me. I still don’t know why. But that’s why he was roaming around in my area trying to leave stuff unsecure. He was deliberately trying to get me in trouble. But he was frustrated because I always found the stuff that was unlocked or open in my area.
One day, I come into work and noticed (oddly) that I was assigned to patrol area 2 and that (oddly) the guy usually assigned to area 2 (Hole) was assigned to patrol my area, area 3.
So I wasn’t covering for someone not on duty… the assignments had been switched. Whatever, change of scenery.
That day I did a thorough job of patrolling area 2 (Hole’s patrol area) and found lots of stuff to report. A leaking pipe flooding a building and several doors unlocked. The unlocked doors puzzled me as I was sure the buildings hadn’t been touched in years. So how did Hole miss the unlocked doors on dozens of patrols? Anyway, I took careful notes of everything I found and put it in my patrol report before my shift ended.
Next day, Butt (not my manager, remember) summons me into a meeting with the big manager (Jake), and my boss Jim was in there also. I looked at Jim with a questioning glance, but he just shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t know what was going on, either. Butt starts the meeting, stating that he had been doing ‘spot checks’ on area 3 yesterday, and found several problems.
That caught my attention. I mean, what did he find wrong in my usual patrol area? He goes on to rattle off a really long list of items he had ‘found’, mostly unlocked doors, open windows, stuff that was clearly NOT secure… in area 3. Jake and Butt are now giving me the stink-eye and I can see where this is headed.
Butt concludes his speech with…’It is clear that any patrol officer who is careless enough to miss all of these problems while on patrol should be terminated immediately.’
Then he turns to me and asks, ‘What are your thoughts on that situation?’
To his surprise, I answer… ‘I totally agree! If a patrol officer is that incompetent…
then that patrol officer should be FIRED IMMEDIATELY.’
And then Jake chimes in with, ‘Done!! You are fired.’ Then I looked at Jake like he had three heads and my boss Jim FINALLY jumps in.
Jim says, ‘Uhh… Jake, this patrol officer (pointing at me) was assigned to patrol area 2 yesterday, remember? You suggested the assignment change yourself…’
So Jake asks me if I was patrolling area 2 yesterday.
I told him YES… and then I pulled out my patrol report notes from the day before. I proceed to list all of the stuff I found unsecured in area 2 the previous day. As I’m doing this, I can see the color draining from Butt’s face. Hole had just been caught doing a very poor job of patrol in TWO areas. Butt got his friend fired by trying to get ME fired.”
20. The Neighbor's Kid Got A Rude Shock Thanks To My Mother's Wrath
“So this is a story my mother told me happened when I was between 3 to 5 years old, and one I treasure still today! Mind you, I am over 35, so this was a long time ago.
As a single mother, my mum got crap from people just as much as she got help and favors. She was a nurse always dressed in her pristine white and didn’t have a car.
So she rented a flat which was on the ground floor and there were about 4 other flats/rooms and one was occupied by a loud woman with like 3 or 4 rowdy kids that were like 1 year or less apart. She was trouble and let her kids roam freely. Her husband was hardly ever around either.
Mum told me one day that she kept the stew she had made in the freezer and knowing she had to cook when she got back from picking me up from my grandma’s place, she’d kept the pot in the sink to thaw.
On getting back, the tap was running into the pot and the stew was washed away. The pieces of meat were also all eaten up.
Other incidents had happened before this one and had happened more than once such as our mosquito nets getting cut several times and mum having to watch me cry from being bitten all night before she realized the damage done. Or when she would come back home to the same kitchen tap running and overflowing into the house because someone, through the window had clogged the drain.
She complained to other neighbors who, knowing it was the children, pleaded with the woman to rein in her kids. Every plea was ignored. My mama cried when she saw the pot and it was the last straw so she repeated this act but with a twist, and an empty pot this time.
She said she dressed up for work days later and got me ready for grandma’s.
Then plugged in a cable on the socket closest to the sink. On the other end, the cord was ripped bare and she connected this to the kitchen tap that was made of some metal. Then flipped the switch of the socket and went to work. She had repaired the mosquito nets and all looked good.
Some cables have two cords/wires inside. Mum got the idea to connect just one of the cords to the tap so the full current wouldn’t pass through (she has no idea where this thought came from but it worked).
She used an electrician’s tape (the black ones) to cover the other cord.
When she returned, she didn’t go get me. She expected drama and was ready cause she knew who the culprits were. True enough, once she got home, and after turning off the socket switch, the net was ripped again but the tap wasn’t running.
She said the police came in a few mins later with the woman in tow.
She had been crying. They narrated why they were there and then she showed them the kitchen. She said she had started explaining what happened when the policeman stopped her and the following, paraphrased, conversation ensued
Policeman: ‘Woman, you said your son was ‘shocked.”
Woman: ‘Yes. This wicked woman set it up to kill my son.’
Policeman (glances at the window and back): ‘From inside the house or outside?’
Woman (starts to fidget): ‘Outside sir.’
Policeman: ‘So your son stood outside, cut the net I see here, and put his hand inside the window’ (turns to mum) ‘or was your net already cut?’
My mum: ‘As you can see the net is new.
So no, it wasn’t cut.’
Policeman: ‘Woman so your son cut her net, put his hand inside the house to turn on the tap?’
The woman was quiet.
Policeman: ‘And you happily came to report this?’
They bundled themselves to the police station and mum gets to narrate her ordeal. The woman gets ‘put behind the counter’ (here that means getting detained) and the officers blast her. They turn to mum and warn her.
Saying as a nurse she should not be endangering lives like that. Mum, sweet and pleasant, explained that she knows but for the torture, she had to do something drastic. They ask if she wants to make it official and she writes a report. Yes, if it had gone further, mum would have borne some blame but since the boy in question just got a jolt and was fine, the officers chose to face the woman who apparently was already well known to them too, because of her children.
The woman spends a few nights there and her family members get sent to my mum by the police to beg. They just wanted to teach her a lesson and scare her a bit before she was released. Mum doesn’t know what happened to her cause she said we moved out soon after (the landlord became nasty to mum) but the woman and her children gave her the wide berth and hid from her till she left.
That’s my mum!”
19. I Got Demoted For Not Letting My Manager's Kids' Do What They Want, So I Got Them All Fired
“This happened almost 18 years ago. For a little backstory… I was pregnant and my husband had been locked up for a probation violation that had been a mistake on his PO’s part but caused him to serve a 3-month sentence 2 hours away. My pregnancy was high risk. I had a 6-year-old at home. And, I did not have a car. We (my son and I) were broke and on our own.
I had to find work quickly so that I would not lose our home while my husband was away. I walked around town with my son in tow filling out job applications. One day he was hungry, so we stopped at a place that is famous for its meats and curly fries. I used the last of my change to buy him some curly fries and got him a cup of water.
I asked for an application and to speak with a manager. It was their lunch rush, so I patiently waited. When the rush was over, I saw the General manager ask another employee what was up with me since I had been there so long. She walked over and brought my son a toy and took me to the side for an interview. She hired me on the spot and had even said my son could sit in a booth when I worked if child care was difficult.
I thought this was just great! I found a job with a caring General manager that was willing to help me out.
I worked through the rest of my pregnancy and up to the day before I gave birth to my daughter. My husband was home at this point and things were looking up. I only took off 4 weeks instead of 6 and returned to work to find out they were promoting me to shift manager almost as soon as I returned.
I was elated!
Everything sounds great so far, right? Well, not so much. You see 2 of the managers had their teen kids working there. The kids were pretty cool for the most part, but I found out quickly that was just a façade. You see, they basically let them do whatever they want. I also want to add that these kids worked a lot… I mean A LOT.
During spring break, they both worked well over 40 hours. This is illegal, in case you did not know. During school weeks, they would still get close to 40 hours.
One was 16 and the other 15. The managers allowed them to run rampant. But, one day I was the only manager there and was assigning duties. I assigned the 16-year-old to fries as that is the minimum age for running the fryer and the 15-year-old to drive through.
15-year-old pouted about wanting to do fries but didn’t push back too much. The 16-year-old had a whole fit. He wanted to work the slicer. You have to be 18 to do that. He ended up cursing me out and calling me everything but a child of God. I wrote him up and justifiably so.
The following day, the assistant manager pulled me into the office. She was the mother of one of the teens.
She asked me what happened and why I wrote the one teen up. I told her what happened and he had lied to her and said I was power tripping and cursed him out. When he was the one who cursed me out, my only response was that my decision was final and he was getting a write-up for insubordination. She decided that the write-up would not stand and that they promoted me too soon and they were going to demote me.
I handed over my keys, stripped off my shirt, and kindly told her that she could screw off. By the way, this particular manager was his mother.
I went home and called the labor board. I told them everything about the teens working in areas they were not old enough to work in and about the excessive amount of hours they worked. I also let them know upfront that I had quit because they demoted me for following the law.
Not too long after I filed my report, I got an assistant manager job down the street at a gas station, and a manager I was still friends with from that place came in. She told me that the labor board came in and did a full investigation and that the entire management team, General manager and all, got fired and the place was fined $50K for violating child labor laws. I felt bad she got caught in it because she was a good one, but screw the rest of them!”
18. Try To Trick Me Into Doing Your Work? Now It's Your Turn To Practice
“In my current role, I’m a product engineer in an engineering team. Since I have a background in industrial design, not engineering, I have a lot of skills not typically found with engineers (in my experience anyway), including photography, rendering, and graphic design. Speaking of rendering, this is something I particularly enjoyed and excelled at, having done it professionally for several years now.
I have been training someone to do 3D rendering, as I am about to leave my role at the end of the week.
3D rendering and product photography aren’t hard to learn, but it does take a lot of practice to be good at. On a rare occasion, someone may have a natural eye for photography, but I certainly didn’t. It took practice and time. Trying to explain this to a manager who doesn’t care for photography is certainly interesting.
For this project, I was assigned around 30 products to render, but since I’m leaving, the list is being transferred to him.
As these products are large(ish) machines, they do take a bit of time to get looking right. I can set up a file ready for render in under an hour. Usually about 30mins depending on the build. It takes the trainee close to a day, if not longer. Which is fair enough for someone without experience.
I’ve spent 3 weeks training him, he knows the software relatively well now.
It’s just practice to become efficient and proficient. He asked me today to do one last demo, from start to finish so he can watch me. I asked him to pick a product and I’ll go through it with him. He picked one from the list. These products often are completed assemblies, and usually need extra parts added. He made no effort to gather these parts.
I had to find them for him, which was my first red flag.
As I’m going through my setup, he was paying less and less attention to what I was doing. He wasn’t asking questions about my process and the majority of that time was looking at his phone. Towards the end, I ran over briefly my setup. I explained a few extra technical details about the lighting and material sample rates to improve lighting quality. I concluded by asking, ‘Does all of this make sense? Do you have any questions?’
He replied to these questions ‘yes’ and ‘no’ respectively.
‘Are you sure?’ He replied yes.
I closed the program and deleted the file in front of him (even from the recycle bin) and told him now it’s your turn to practice. ‘You’re never going to learn just by copying me.'”
17. If You Paid For Those Announcements, You Can Pay Me
“For background, I’ve been a community/dinner theater actor for 45 years. I have a distinctive speaking voice that has been compared to a ‘young James Earl Jones,’ even though I’m 20 years older than he was when he did Star Wars. A music critic once described my singing by saying I was ‘velvet voiced.’
I’ve worked at a Category X international Airport since 1986, and after 9/11, when new PA announcements were mandated, knowing that I have a distinctive voice, I was asked if I’d mind making them.
I said, ‘Sure! No problem.’
I made the three required announcements and they started playing in the terminal in January or February of 2002.
As the years passed, they wanted more announcements, some were required and some not, and I was happy to oblige. I even had a laugh at the ‘Pet relief station’ announcement after making so many security-related ones. I became known as ‘The Voice of the Airport.’ It was flattering and an ego boost.
There were people who worked with me for years who only figured out it was me years afterward.
‘Is that you?’
‘Haha, yeah, you didn’t know?’
I even got voice-over work from someone who heard my voice on the PA and reached out. Wow! A paycheck! As a result, I invested in some home studio equipment and started a voice-over business. I charge $250 per session.
Anyway, flash forward to July of 2021 and my boss comes to work one day and says, ‘Hey, you’re not doing the announcements anymore!?’ It was news to me.
They replaced me with a woman reading the same announcements, that they apparently bought. I’ve been told that they’re used at other airports. I was a little surprised, but no skin off my nose. It’s not like I was losing income. I even laughed when I realized that they were now paying for what I did for free (I assume it’s a subscription. I don’t know).
It’s not like they needed new announcements. They didn’t change a word, just changed from me to her. Weird, but okay. No biggie. Sounds cost-ineffective to me, but not to my department. (I work in Operations, not Finance).
Since July of 2021, people keep coming to me to complain about the woman’s voice. ‘She’s hard to listen to.’ ‘I miss your voice.’ ‘She’s terrible!’ and so on.
I just shrugged and said, ‘Hey, it’s their system. They can do what they want.’
Today, I got an email, ‘Are you available for recorded PA announcements?’
My response, ‘For a price.’
Them: ‘Ok. What’s the price, if I may ask?’
Me: ‘Using my studio, $100 (a 60% reduction from my usual fee); using your equipment, $50.’ (I’m giving it away!)
Them: ‘Got it. Thank you.’
I haven’t heard back and don’t expect to.
You can’t chuck my free announcements, pay for new ones, and still expect me to make more for free. If you paid for those! You can pay ME!”
16. You Don't Need My Help? We'll See About That
“To give some context I work as a cashier for a supermarket. I mainly operate the self-checkout stands, a gimmick of these, vital to the story is that when a customer scans an item that has a faulty bar code the machine will announce ‘Unknown item!’ This alerts me to go help the customer ring up the item properly and clear an error that prevents them from continuing to the payment screen.
Now to the story. Amidst the bustle of an unexpected 6:00 pm rush two women walk up to one of my self-checkout stands with a basket that would make Mount Everest look small. Halfway through their basket-zilla, Karen brings a deli item to the scanner. ‘Beep’, ‘Unknown Item!’ I quickly turn and start making my way over to them, just as I am about two steps from them Karen turns her head, looks at my name tag, and says, ‘We don’t need help from a man, OP.’ She read my name in a condescending tone.
Her comment made me stop mid-stride and stare puzzled. I watched her try to scan the item 3 more times and turned around to go back to my stand and wait. As soon as I turned to face them again Karen had swapped places with her partner and was pointing at her saying ‘she needs help with this item.’ I make my way back to their stand and rang up the item.
As I walked away with no thanks from either one of them, I heard Karen say in a hushed voice, ‘Yeah, we won’t need a man’s help again.’
My dear readers, do you remember how I said that when the machine says unknown item it needs me to clear an error before the customer can go on to pay. I forgot to add that this error stacks up every time the item is scanned.
Karen had scanned this item out of anger at least ten times. So when Karen pressed the pay button I was grinning ear to ear, as the machine said ‘please wait for cashier to help you continue with your transaction.’ Karen sheepishly turned her head to me and back at the locked screen, I made my way over to them making sure to check on every surrounding person checking out to see if they needed help before walking to Karen’s stand.
I apologized for the inconvenience and asked to see the item that hadn’t rung up to which they dug through their 50 bags to get it. I confirmed the item was rung up properly for each time she had scanned it. Karen’s uncomfortable groans and huffs as I scanned my badge to clear each error were music to my ears. After clearing every error I asked Karen if she would like a grocery bagger to help her take her basket out. She said yes and I grabbed a male bagger and sent them on their way after she paid.”
15. Want It Cheaper Or Not At All? Fine, Have It Your Way
“Two years ago, I took two extremely expensive (the examination fee is very high) internationally recognized exams. And also spent crap tons on buying preparation books for them. I tried to buy these books second-hand from a website but didn’t find any buyers who were selling them for a reasonable price. I might as well have bought new ones for the same price and so I did.
These books are priced insanely because of how important and expensive the exams are.
Now, I didn’t use these books much as they were very extensive and the exams were not really that difficult. After I cleared the exams, I wanted to sell my books as they were brand new and expensive, and I remembered how I was not able to procure these books second-hand for a reasonable price as a broke student earlier and wanted to help out someone else in the same position.
So I put them up for sale at 40% of their original price.
There were not many buyers as it was not the time of the year people take those exams. But I found one guy (let’s call him StingyBee) who kept haggling incessantly and wanted an even lower price for the books. I brought it down to 25-30% but he was still not satisfied. Kept telling me how it wasn’t the right price and I would find no buyers for such an exorbitant price.
I was not even worried about the price honestly, I just wanted the books to be used by someone else rather than be recycled or lie around my house for eternity, unread and unused. He told me to go find another buyer if I could for that price and I seriously began considering just giving it to him for whatever he wanted.
Luckily a few days later I found a buyer who agreed to buy the books for only 35% of the original price and I immediately sealed the deal.
There was minimal bargaining and the girl was really nice and thankful. StingyBee now texts me and asks if I came to my senses and would like to give him the books for almost free and I inform him that I found another buyer and have sealed the deal at 35%.
He then starts pleading with me and begging me to consider and how he really needs those and how they are soo expensive in the market (yeah obviously), says that he will pay 30% of the price.
I told him I’m already getting more than that for them and had given my word. He keeps begging me to reconsider and matches the price I was getting. StingyBee didn’t even try to beat the price or give me any incentive to go back on my word to the other girl. I simply told him I would let him know if anything changed and removed my sale ad on the website.”
14. Oh That Faulty Code? No Worries, I Fixed It
“I used to work for an IT services company working on a central government contract. We would develop the code, unit test it, and then hand it off to a dedicated test team who would test and sign off on the code before going to production. Once in production, the jobs would be monitored and responded to by a dedicated support team.
This support team was all ex-government employees transitioned to the services company as part of the contract.
They never developed any code themselves but were happy to point fingers at anyone else to make themselves feel superior.
The production system was massive and made up of many moving parts. Code releases were also based on dates pulled out of thin air rather than being based on requirements or development times. As such, defects were inevitable.
Defects were graded 1-5 with 1 being critical and 5 only being addressed if 1-4 were all gone.
Category 5 was things like ‘clicking this button takes 5 seconds instead of 3’. This meant that anything with a 5 was never looked at.
The support team monitored production jobs out of hours. If a job failed, the first responder would be called. This meant a $50 call-out fee for him. He would then call someone else on his team to address the issue. This meant a $50 call-out fee for him also.
A particular job had an issue where the underlying requirement was not clear and it would fail at 10 pm each day due to an unexpected value. The fix was to click restart and the job would recover itself and continue without any further failures. As this required no real intervention and didn’t impact users, it was labeled with a 5. The support team liked this as it meant an extra $350 a week for the lead and $350 a week for the support guy just for one of them to click a button at the same time each night.
This had been happening for the previous 2 years (government) and netted them about $35,000 each in support payments so far.
After a large release filled with incomplete requirements and unrealistic deadlines we were called to a multi-team meeting to discuss the number of defects and how to reduce them. The support team leader took this opportunity to brown-nose leadership and tell everyone how it was all the development team’s fault because ‘we wrote poor code and never fixed anything’ and how his team ‘was carrying us and having to respond to regular out of hours outages’.
We were blindsided by this and I was particularly annoyed because we were already under undue pressure and didn’t need this muppet making things worse.
I knew about the 10 pm job and knew they were milking it, so I raised a new fake defect and labeled it as a category 3 and linked it to roughly the same area as the category 5 10 pm failure.
I fixed the 10 pm failure code by basically editing an IF statement so it would continue instead of failing. It took no more than 10 keystrokes.
The new code was deployed, but I didn’t tell the support team. The next day I got a call from the team lead saying there was a problem with the 10 pm job as it didn’t fail the night before so must not have processed all of the data.
He continued with ‘we should test the code more thoroughly speech’ when I stopped him mid-sentence and said ‘oh that code! I noticed a problem when I was fixing something else so I made a change to stop it from failing. I didn’t want it to keep bothering you guys’. He didn’t know what to say, so I said goodbye and hung up.
If he hadn’t been a muppet, I would have let him keep his cash cow, but he chose poorly and the cash cow vanished.”
13. Want Me To Move Out Of Your Way? Why, Of Course, Sir
“This story takes place on a dark, cold, rainy winter morning. It was about 7:30 AM, the outside temperature was not above 5C°, and I was in my car like many others, patiently sitting in traffic. I was in a roundabout, at the exit of it, my car was still fully in the roundabout’s right lane and there was a lot of traffic before and after me.
Though I was taking a lot of space in the roundabout, I did my best to get as close as possible to the car in front of me so the cars who want to go around the roundabout could pass behind me. Granted they had to get their wheel on top of the (not high) concrete plate the middle of the roundabout was made of to be able to pass behind me, several cars made their way around the roundabout without me stopping them whatsoever.
Then comes this SUV. SUV, being higher and having bigger wheels than the previous Polo or Golf that already passed behind me without issues, I was very surprised when he stopped behind me and started honking. As I was, to my appreciation, already almost touching the car in front of me, of course, I didn’t push. The guy kept honking, then got out of his car, visibly aggravated.
But he also seemed taken aback when I lowered my windows with a friendly smile on my face, I guess he was expecting me to be hostile.
Man: ‘Can you move?! Don’t you see you’re blocking traffic?!
Me, friendly: Well I would if I could, I’m already almost touching the car in front of me.’
Man, after going in front of my car to check and coming back, realizing his stupidity but refusing to admit it: ‘W-well you could move it closer still!’
Me, still smiling and being friendly: ‘Oh sure, of course! I cannot see in front, you can just help me do so!’
Man: ‘W-What?’
Me: ‘Yeah, just guide me, tell me how close I can get!’
I then proceed to move forward as slowly as possible while that guy was trying to pretend I had more room to move forward but couldn’t commit to it because of how close I was already. While we were playing that little game, traffic began moving again and I just passed that guy without even looking at him.”
12. Want To Be An Annoying Driver? Let's Have A Traffic Light Showdown
“Six days a week I, a 32 M, work at a local outpatient rehabilitation clinic. I really lucked out since my job allows me to get homework done, listen to podcasts, read, etc. I also have a ten-minute commute to work.
I live downtown and the clinic is on the border of downtown, so the speed limit never goes above 35. Now, I am a very experienced driver, but no way am I risking a several hundred dollar ticket.
So I drive the speed limit through the two school zones on my way to the evening shift.
However, that’s not nearly fast enough for other commuters. For them, I have a vinyl on the back window of my Scion xB in three-inch type that reads, ‘The closer you get, the slower I drive.’ And I go by it. Usually, people see it, roll their eyes, and go around.
Our friend, Mr. Red Blooded, lifted truck driving man, however, did not.
Wednesday, I’m on my usual chill drive to work. 30 locked into my cruise control and my windows down, savoring the breeze before the next snowstorm comes in. In my rearview window a large, dark, lifted Ford F-250 rides my bumper like I owed them something.
‘Eh, they’ll see the decal and go around. NBD.’ Nope!
He pushed the lifted monstrosity closer, revving and threatening my boxy car unless I met with his clear and important demand for another 5MPH.
Okay, game on. I tap the cruise control once every 10 seconds or so until we’re down to a blazing 21MPH.
Finally, our antagonist miraculously discovers the next lane. Though not before speeding up and giving me the bird as he does so. Cutting me off and then brake checking me before speeding off. Lol okay then. I get to work early as usual and just fine.
Though laughing and smirking to myself over his red face and spittle-ridden invectives.
The next day I’ve got all windows down, singing along to my Spotify playlist and loving life. Who should come for a second ride against my rear but truck guy!
This time, however, he decides to cut from behind me way before the turn lane and block my way into that last left before my clinic.
Annoying, but, eh, go off then. Thankfully, the Subaru in front of me moved up so that I could sneak in.
That set truck guy OFF. He lent out of his window behind me, cursing and gesturing. I waved politely with the biggest grin. A moment later the traffic light changes, allowing the three cars in front of us to safely make the left through the busy intersection.
Now it’s just me, truck guy, and the green yield light waiting for us to make our left.
That’s when I figure, you know, he looks pretty red. He could probably use a rest. Plus, there’s some incoming traffic, and am I really sure I have enough time to turn safely?
So we sat through that yield light. Truck guy again loses his mind and LAYS down on the horn until the next green yield light comes on about two minutes later.
There was no one behind us waiting for a left turn, the oncoming traffic, however, is quite long. As they’re coming by I ask Google to play the ‘Forget You’ song by Cee Lo Green and crank up the volume to max. Can’t be distracted while driving after all.
Finally, the third chance to turn comes. A nice, solid green arrow. I; as a cautious and careful driver, decide to take the turn carefully, nice and slow.
Not hitting 5 MPH for those glorious six seconds.
Truck guy barreled past me, nearly hitting my car as he did. Shouting and giving me the business.
By the time I got to work, I was laughing so hard my face was as red as a firetruck and I was practically sobbing from laughter.
I had to go in early today, so I didn’t get the chance to see truck guy. Hopefully he’s not too lonely.”
11. In PTO Wars, It's First Come, First Served
“My neighbor’s husband (NH) works at some sort of global logistics company. Due to the nature of their work, only one person can be on vacation at a time, first come first serve. There are only about 20 people in his division so it’s usually not a problem. Only a small number of them have kids, so it’s a bit of an unwritten rule to give priority to those with kids.
Obviously, it’s not enforced, but as I said, most of them don’t have kids. Most of his coworkers don’t mind taking their vacation Jan-Feb, and Sept-Oct.
But of course, there is always that ‘one person’ that does not give two craps about anyone else. We’ll call her Shelly. NH said he swears she goes out of her way to schedule her vacations/days off when kids are out of school.
NH’s grandfather turns 93 this year, and like most people that age, his health is not the greatest. For spring break this year he wanted to go out of town and visit him for what could be the last time. At the beginning of the year, he put in the request for that week off but gets denied because Shelly had put in for that time off a few days prior.
NH knows he’s pretty much out of luck but he reaches out to HR and asks if he could offer to give Shelly some of HIS PTO in exchange for this week. Shelly responds back to HR nastily. ‘It is MY vacation time. First come first served. There is nothing on this earth that will stop me from using my PTO.’
Fine. Fair is fair. He then planned for his wife and kids to visit his grandfather without him.
But leading up to spring break, NH was getting more and more annoyed with Shelly. She was constantly bragging about the cruise she had planned. What she and her significant other planned to do. How expensive this cruise would be because of which cruise line they were taking and how they had a fancy room. She talked about it every single day whenever NH was within earshot just to rub salt in the wound.
Shelly gets sick and can’t go on the cruise anymore, so she asks HR if she could change her PTO to sick leave, but all HR did was throw her words back at her. ‘Sorry, you told us that there was nothing on earth that will stop you from using your PTO.’
The icing on the cake? Because she had talked so extensively about this cruise, NH knew pretty much everything about this trip.
A couple of weeks before Shelly was expected to leave, he looked up the dates this cruise line would be sailing out for the rest of the year, and scheduled a couple of days off in the middle of each cruise trip. When I asked him why, he laughed and said he hated feeling so helpless and was mad, and this was the only thing he could think of to do out of spite that wouldn’t get him in trouble.
So when Shelly came back from being sick she had tried to put in other PTO requests to make up the cruise, but of course, she was denied because NH had put in for the dates before her. She tried to approach him about it but all he said was ‘sorry, first come first served.’
I’d like to say she learned some sort of lesson from all this, but NH says she hasn’t.’
10. Everything's Top Priority? You Got It, Boss
“I’d been with my team for a number of years at this point so I knew how to manage my workflow and priorities to keep our customers happy. We had one Annoying Customer, though, who would constantly pressure us to give them top priority at all times, even though their orders rarely warranted it.
Enter our new manager, Portia. Portia had the bad habit of listening to everybody but my team.
If someone outside the team, like a customer, a different team, or manager of a different department asked Portia to change how our team worked Portia would immediately agree to it, without considering the impact it would have on our workflow. Naturally, when Annoying Customer asked Portia to make their orders a top priority Portia agreed. We protested, Portia ignored us, and Annoying Customer’s orders were made a top priority even when they didn’t need to be.
Portia spent a few weeks constantly reminding us that Annoying Customer had top priority now while we scrambled to adjust to our new workflow. Annoying Customer gave us a lot of grunt work to do and now that their grunt work was top priority all our other customers’ top priority work was being delayed. All this without a significant improvement on the Annoying Customer’s orders due to the volumes involved.
A few weeks more and our other customers are becoming upset over the delays and we can’t tell them why. Portia comes by my desk with an order from one of our unhappy customers and tells me, ‘This order is top priority!’ and I can’t help but snark, ‘I thought Annoying Customer’s orders were top priority.’ Totally missing my sarcasm, she pompous proclaims ‘All our orders are top priority!’, as if to encourage me to give my job 110%.
I smirk, ‘Everything’s top priority? You got it, Boss.’
Why a smirk? Because when everything has the same top priority then nothing has top priority and my team happily goes back to properly managing our workflow and priorities again. The other customers stop complaining about delays and Annoying Customer continues to insist they get top priority for all their orders, because of course they do. But we can go back to ignoring their unreasonable request.”
9. I'm Not Paying You For Your Injury, So Take It To Court!
“Back when I was twenty I worked at a motorhome manufacturer, it was pretty small with around 20 people in total. I had a go at all aspects of the job before settling on the joinery shop where all the wood was cut by CNC machine and either prepped for the main workshop or pre-assembled where possible.
Part of the prep work involved putting rubber edging onto exposed edges of wood and to do this you have to cut a groove into the edge for the edging to slot into.
To put this groove in we used a handheld router with a slotting bit, but the router was mounted under a workbench with the bit sticking out of a hole. As it was a handmade piece of equipment it didn’t have any safeguards on it, so you can probably see where this is going. I was slotting a large piece of ply when my hand slipped off the top and into the blade.
When I pulled away and looked I realized the tip of my middle finger was hanging off from about 3/4 the way down my nail, and my index and ring finger were badly cut too. I was alone in the joinery building so had to go get help and a lift to the hospital.
Went to the hospital where they managed to reattach my finger minus the bone and took 5 weeks off work while I recovered.
When I did return it was with a plastic guard while the healing finished.
About a week later when the owner and I were both in I went to his office to talk. I had initially intended to just ask for my lost wages which were about £1200 at the time but as soon as I entered and asked ‘Can we talk?’ I was immediately hit with ‘If you’re coming to ask for stuff, you can forget it, go see a solicitor.’
Not even a ‘How are you recovering, are you ok?’ or anything.
I tried to be rational but he wasn’t having any of it.
So I did just that. Went to a no-win-no-fee lawyer and after some back and forth was awarded £6k. Beyond that though, the HSE (Health & Safety Executive) paid a visit and found numerous risks and violations. Fire exits were blocked, first aid training was well out of date, wires were run across the floor to permeant work stations with no trip protection, etc.
The owner got a thorough telling off and ordered to bring the safety standards in line with recommendations.
This obviously led to a bad atmosphere at work so I started looking for another job which was for the best as the company went into administration after a mix of paying people to undertake the required changes and the motorhome market taking a wobble. I was made redundant but at least received redundancy pay from HMRC and walked into another job that following week.
The owner declared bankruptcy but reopened under a different company name and under someone else’s name (his wife I think). I’m kind of glad he kept going though as apparently safety standards did change and a lot of people kept their jobs, with some redundant people returning after he built himself back up.”
8. Want Me To Bring My Own Tools? Fine, That's What I'll Do
“Back around 15 years ago when I was an apprentice joiner/carpenter, I worked for 2 guys and we traveled around in a biggish van but nothing overly massive. By the time we got all our materials and tools in there was basically no room left for anything extra.
Me being an apprentice I didn’t bother bringing many tools as I was only learning and didn’t need the full range for all I was doing plus we had 2 of all the tools already so it wasn’t too hard to just share without causing too much hassle.
Regardless of this, one of the guys would always tell me to bring my own tools and have a go at me for borrowing, etc.
This went on and on for a while until eventually, it was getting to the point I couldn’t be bothered listening to him and the other guy (boss) just told me to bring them so it would prevent any arguments and I’d need them eventually.
Well, that’s no problem, I went home and I loaded up all my tools which I had at least one of everything I’d need for myself and put them into the car to meet them at the yard in the morning.
I had drills, circular saws (2 of them), electric planers, hand planers, squares, and bevels. You name it I probably had it, and the wall went into their boxes and hand tools went into an oversized Stanley toolbox that was more like a tool chest that I got for Christmas.
So I brought the whole lot in the next day and pulled it all round to the van while he was inside and in front of everyone he came out to me standing with the whole lot, and he literally just laughed and played it off but knew fine rightly there was no room.
He then had to remove all the materials in the van to load my tools and reload the van in a giant game of Tetris to get it all in.
Fair enough, he took it well and admitted that I probably didn’t need as much as I had brought and it was played off as a bit of fun and he knew he couldn’t say any more about it and was the target of the joke after.”
7. Want Me To Email You Everything? Sure, I'll Do Just That
“So this is from back when I was in college. I was working a job on campus and my manager moved on to a different organization and was replaced by someone else who we’ll call ‘Karen’. Now our team of 10 students worked super well, was very efficient, and got everything as expected.
Karen comes in and decides that the team needs to change the way we work.
So she makes massive changes and makes our lives harder, but it’s all part of the job and we deal with it.
Also, I was the unofficial leader of the team and constantly advocated for my team. We were close and we knew what worked for each of us. And the rest of the team looked to me as a leader. So obviously Karen hated me because I’d advocate against stupid policies that had no benefit but only made our life harder.
Each of us had a weekly 1-on-1 meeting with Karen to discuss the stuff we got done, needed to get done, etc. As always, I went in with an agenda, made sure she got all the updates I had, made sure she answered all my questions, made sure I answered all her questions, and then ensured I had a 5-minute space at the end for her to discuss anything she had to talk to me about.
2 weeks into the changes, she tells me that I have not been updating her properly. Surprised, I ask her what updates I didn’t give and as she lists it out I point to the agendas of our previous 2 meetings and show her that I did discuss it. She says that verbal updates aren’t acceptable and I need to email them to her. I am confused but I know how to pick my battles and agree to it.
In fact, she writes me up for not properly communicating with her, not giving her updates, and not keeping her in the loop about my work so I am ticked off.
After the meeting, I check with my team and this isn’t the setup for anyone. Everyone gives her verbal updates and sometimes emails them but there’s no real rule for it to be in an email every time.
So I decided to follow her policies as she stated.
That evening, I send her a long email with the details of everything I got done over the last 2 weeks. From the next day onwards, every day when I clock in, I send her an email with my tasks for the day. As I complete tasks, I update her via email, and if I’m stuck on something, update her on that too.
I cc her on all the emails I send and also send her an email at the end of the day with what I didn’t get done.
Now, this doesn’t take me long because I write most of these emails in my own tracker so it’s just a matter of copy-paste. However, when writing in my tracker I do it on my time, but since this is a work-related task I must do it on the clock.
So not only is she getting approximately 15 emails a day from me, but she also is paying me for about 1 extra hour each day (this matters later).
Given how new Karen is, she doesn’t realize that I have built a mini-network with some of her colleagues given my time in this job and I find out that Karen now has a habit of ignoring all emails from me (also matters later).
I don’t care about it because I’m now getting paid for stuff I was doing on my own time.
A couple of months or so later, our department has to host an event. The tasks are divided and all is good. The 2 tasks I have are to manage the food for all the guests and to provide parking tickets to the guests in advance (large university to parking office is a pain to work with).
I get the parking done and then I focus on the food the week before the event because we only got final confirmations then. I realize that there are several guests who have various dietary restrictions. I also am suddenly told that a few of the guests are in wheelchairs (they told me that because they needed specific parking spots) but our venue is not accessible.
Given the importance of this, I immediately email her. But knowing that she ignores my emails, I cc the parking team (to ensure they have a consolidated list because Karen obviously won’t send it), and the person managing guests during the event so they know to ask Karen about the special meals when the guests arrive. We don’t have any more 1-on-1s before the event so I try to figure out how to tell her to make sure the guests aren’t affected.
I try to schedule a meeting with her but given that she’s ignoring my emails, she is also ignoring all my meeting requests. So I give up and decide to enjoy the fireworks during the event. (The reason I need to talk to her is that I need the budget increased to accommodate these multiple dietary restrictions. Gluten-Free meals + Nut free meals all really add up and we were at the max of my permitted budget already.
Essentially we had a meal budget of say $20/person but these special meals cost $25/person).
One thing that makes doing this difficult for me is that as much as I hate Karen, I do not have the ability to let that hate for Karen affect other people. So I spoke to facilities to get a ramp kept in the backroom for the wheelchairs and found that about 5 of the people coming had not picked meals so we didn’t have to offer them meals.
Got the caterers to set it up so we could provide a reduced offering to those 5 while ensuring that the gluten and nut-free meals were available for those who had asked.
Day of the event, the guests in wheelchairs arrive and are stuck at the entry to the event that has 3 steps. Given that I am managing the food, no one thinks to blame me so Karen is frantically running around trying to find someone to throw under the bus because her boss is chewing her out.
Then I hear the words ‘gluten intolerant.’ 20 seconds later Karen and her boss are in my face ready to chew me out. I was fully prepared for this and the conversation went something like this:
Karen and Boss: ‘Didn’t you know we have people who cannot eat either of the standard meals?’
Me: ‘Yes I did. I emailed you about it because we needed to increase the meal budget to accommodate that.
Did you not speak to the caterers?’
K: ‘I didn’t get any such email.’ (While her boss gives her a look)
Me: ‘I sent it to you. See?’ (Shows the email on my phone)
Boss: ‘Karen?’
K (In literal tears because this event is her Boss’ baby and people have gotten in a lot of trouble over messing up this event): ‘But you didn’t send it to me. Did you?’
Boss (very mad): ‘What do we do now?’
Me: ‘Let me figure something out.
Also, I see people in wheelchairs, what’re we doing about them?’
Boss: ‘No clue, we’re trying to figure it out.’
Me: ‘I’ll take care of that too.’
10 minutes later…
Me to Boss: ‘I got facilities to give us a ramp that we’re putting by the stairs for the guests in a wheelchair. And I spoke to the caterers and we’ll have the gluten-free and nut-free meals ready.’
Boss (to me): ‘Thanks.’
2 days later I had my 1-on-1 with Karen. Surprisingly her boss was there. Lo and behold, Karen got written up, my write-up was removed, Karen stopped trying to mess with me and the entire team now has laughs every time we mention a gluten allergy.”
6. Our Assistant Manager Told Us To Unload All Trucks, So That's What We Did
“In the late 90s, I did a voluntary (and unpaid) internship in a sound and light rental company to increase my chances to get accepted for professional training in light and sound engineering. I was assigned to their main warehouse to get to know all the equipment. There were a couple of other interns and in fact the company heavily relied on them as cheap workforce and truck hands.
The head warehouse manager was surprisingly kind to us. First of all, he knew that his job would be much more tedious without us interns, and secondly, he was fully aware that we came there unpaid, and he gave us enough space to experiment and often enough taught us how to operate and maintain even the most expensive equipment like lighting consoles and moving lights.
However most of the time we were busy moving around massive speakers, lights, and rigging equipment which is all really heavy.
It was mostly loading and unloading trucks and cleaning stuff that came back from open-air shows and sorting it back to where it belonged. Cleaning a few kilometers of power cables or 500 shackles can be a very meditative and relaxing thing to do when the alternative is to push a few dozen 120kg flight cases and speaker stacks into a truck…
On the plus side, eight weeks of moving heavy things around is an excellent physical workout, and after a couple of weeks, we got really quick at doing the unpleasant part of the job, getting back to thoroughly testing sound effects, fog machines, and moving lights for things not specifically mentioned in the manual.
As the company grew rapidly, they hired an assistant warehouse manager who had spent the last eight years in the military, and the head warehouse manager was able to make himself scarce. It took only two weeks for the new assistant to start ordering us around, and he went to great lengths to minimize our ‘learning time.’ One of his first ‘orders’ was to stop whatever we were doing immediately when a truck arrived and unload it as quickly as possible while making sure to stay in the office container as long as possible to print ‘the papers’ and chat with customers.
One Friday afternoon, we interns were busy in an adjacent warehouse putting up a new heavy-duty high rack. It was located in a wing of the facility from which we could not see the loading dock, and it took at least four of us to move even one of those 20-foot-high uprights. The moment we had already aligned one 75 degrees, the assistant manager stormed in angrily and yelled at us that yet another customer truck needed to be unloaded, adding, ‘I told you to unload ALL trucks arriving at the loading dock as soon as they arrive!’
Dropping the nearly upright stand caused a satisfying clang, and all five of us reluctantly went to the loading dock only to open a 7.5-ton truck with a hydraulic ramp loaded with two flight cases on wheels that the assistant could have easily moved….
I will never forget the evil grin on the face of one of the other interns as we walked back into the high rack construction hall.
After two months working there, we already knew the regular customers, especially this one hectic customer who would show up almost every Friday around noon to pick up a truckload of equipment for privately organized parties. In most of his visits, he would forget something which was not on the list already and then return late in the afternoon to pick it up.
And this day it was none of us who had loaded his truck. So we went back to the high rack construction and let the high-school student intern watch the loading bay for a late Friday afternoon truck to arrive. Hectic customer returned at 17:50, 10 minutes before Feierabend.
Picking up stuff not ordered beforehand was not storage business but required the hectic customer to go upstairs to the rental processing floor where the ‘good’ coffee machine was.
Assistant manager unsuspectingly joined him. This would easily take 15 minutes. Good for us!
In a glorious act of teamwork, we managed to unload the almost fully loaded 7.5t truck in under 10 minutes and sorted mostly everything back to where it had to be. The remaining time was spent writing a note to put on the back of the truck saying ‘Assistant manager told us to unload all trucks.
You’re welcome. Have a good weekend!’
And then we ran.
The next Monday we were all prepared for trouble but instead, head storage manager greeted us with the biggest smile we had seen on him and presented us with the note from the truck. Assistant manager admitted his ‘order’ and had been there with the hectic customer until 21:00 to re-pack and load everything. After pretending to be angry at us for a while he turned out to be a really nice guy and told us that he would have done the same in his early military days. Hectic customer became a friend and mentor and soon took us to his productions. He had his revenge on some of us a few years later when he didn’t show up to unload a trailer after a 28h open-air production (Some of us were freelance light technicians and riggers by then).”
5. Call The Cops On My Dad? You'll Lose Your Parking Privileges
“We’ve lived in a really quiet neighborhood (a dead end), the road is not marked so we used to park on both sides with 1 lane for cars to pass (2 cars don’t pass at the same time).
Our relationship with our neighbor was good up until now, he used to come into our yard to ask my father to teach him how to garden, when he goes on vacation he tells us we can park on his land (which we never did because we have enough room for our cars but that was nice of him).
Until one day, he had a friend come over with a really large truck to help him work on his garden and my father’s car was parked in front of our house, the truck could pass because there was our neighbor’s car on the left and ours on the right.
The neighbor didn’t want to move his car saying it was on his property (in front of his house on the public paved driveway) and he called us home to move my father’s.
No one was home except my 13yo brother, he called my father to tell him about the situation and my father told the neighbor to take his car keys and move his car as he wasn’t home.
The neighbor refused and called the cops. They showed and he explained. The cops were quite annoyed that they had to show up for that and took my father’s keys to move his car out of the truck way.
My family was annoyed, but I was enraged because in my country it is quite a big deal to call the cops on someone.
So I took it upon myself to make it right.
I started parking on his side of the road, and he came to me many times to tell me it’s his property.
But as it was paved by the state, and had plots put there by the city officials, I didn’t believe him and told him to bring me proof this was his land.
He had a survey and went to me one day to show me that this was indeed his property. I said OK and didn’t park on his side anymore.
However, I called the mayor’s office to tell them that I would like the city to pay for plots in front of my house and pave the driveway too, as they did for my neighbor.
Turns out, my neighbor had a friend working at the mayor’s office and unofficially paved his driveway and put plots in front of his house (not his property) to stop people from parking on his side of the road.
It was deemed illegal and a few days later, the mayor’s office sent a guy to take off the plots and the neighborhood had 2 more public spots!
I was petty, but it was worth it.
If he had just moved my father’s car himself, none of it would have happened.
No need to say we no longer have a friendly relationship with him and he is not welcome anymore when he shows up unannounced to borrow gardening tools.”
4. I Ratted Out My Ex Friend To Her Ex Partner As Revenge
“Ann was a terrible friend and used me for rides, vacations, and as a personal therapist. When I became pregnant and spent most of my time in the hospital due to a condition that kept me sick, Ann didn’t care at ALL. She messaged me non-stop about her relationship issues, even after I asked her to stop because I wasn’t feeling well. She kept going and said I could read and advise her later.
It felt like she only talked to me when I could be of use to her.
Ken, her ex, is coworkers and friends with my husband and me.
Ann is a jealous type. I’m married/pregnant and yet she grills me whenever I hang out (husband present) with Ken, whom she still hooks up with.
On one occasion, I was feeling well enough to have dinner with my husband and Ken.
Afterward, Ann messaged me saying she knew I’d had dinner with Ken and that she’d heard gossip about me badmouthing her, regarding her steady stream of selfies to our group chat. I would never badmouth someone to a group of mutual friends. I even asked my husband (also in the group chat) if I’d said anything that could be misunderstood as judgmental or insulting. I hadn’t.
Ann screenshots the fights she has with other people (but after deleting her responses) and sends them to other people. She did this many times with Ken and sent me the shots even after I asked her not to because it made me uncomfortable.
After I denied the rumors about her selfies, she said Ken told her that I said her posts were annoying and arrogant. I immediately went to the source – I asked Ken directly what was going on and to talk it out with me if we had any issues (‘he said, she said’- conversations are not cool) – I also told him that I was caught in his relationship and I wanted out.
My shame is that in a fit of anger with Ann, I told Ken that she had been sending me their private conversations. I think I wanted to get back at Ann for accusing me of badmouthing her, just because she was upset that I had hung out with her ex.
Ann messaged me and said they were now fighting because I told him about the screenshots.
They eventually reconciled and Ken and I stayed friends.
Ann’s jealousy continued to cause issues. For Ken’s birthday, I planned a party with my husband for him – Ann took over the plans and took credit, saying she was planning the party, herself. A small thing – but it made me snap. I told Ken that Ann took over the plans for his birthday after my husband and I had already planned a party.
I ratted her out a second time. I’m being petty…I’m also really angry at her for dragging me into this drama and even going as far as to message my husband about ‘what’s best for me’ behind my back. I don’t want Ann as a friend and have made that clear to her – but she won’t leave me alone and keeps finding ways to invade my life. By telling Ken the things she’s said and done, I’m also creating drama. I could have kept my mouth shut.
I’m pregnant, tired, and fed up.”
3. You Want The TV? Sure, Have No Volume
“I will start this out by saying that I’m probably not in the right in this situation.
My (19f) brother (17m) and I have always had a rocky relationship, to put it mildly. We have our own issues that just don’t mix well together. I can be petty and stubborn at times but he can also be abrasive and argumentative. I don’t want to get too in-depth about our relationship because I don’t believe this is the place.
So I announced to the house I wanted to show my sister (14f) a 15-minute video and that I wanted the TV for that time. I needed to finish putting away some stuff first so while I was doing that my brother walked into the living room, grabbed the remote, and turned on one of his shows. I immediately noticed and told him that I had staked my claim but he proceeded to tell me that I hadn’t said anything and that ‘You might have said it in your head but forgot to say it out loud.’
I know I said it out loud but he kept trying to convince me that I was so stupid that I didn’t realize that I hadn’t actually announced my claim to the TV.
I’ve lived with him long enough to know that this was going nowhere and he would just escalate the situation so I left it alone for now. Then I had a really petty idea.
So my TV has a weird issue. If the Alexa is plugged in the audio will come out of the Alexa not the normal speakers. So I put the Alexa on its lowest sound, placed it under a cabinet, and plugged her in. It usually takes a few seconds for the glitch to occur so I left the room.
I left it alone for about 20 minutes and went to check only to find my brother had given up on trying to fix the TV volume and had retreated into his room.
Victory is mine.”
2. Demand To Be Copied Onto Every Email? Good Luck To Your Inbox
“Part of my job involves managing a ton of scholarships – this includes setting up applications, coordinating faculty committees to score/interview people, coordinating with administrators to make sure funds are distributed, setting up interview slots, resending requests for letters of recommendation, fixing mistakes on applications – there are a ton of steps and a ton of emails that fly back and forth.
Nobody trained me on how to do this; I was thrown into the role and told to figure it out based on any documentation I could find.
Pretty soon I start getting nastygrams from my colleague ‘Ann’ in another department (not accounting). ‘I didn’t know about this update,’ she would complain. ‘Why was this student’s scholarship changed?’ ‘Nobody told me about this,’ ‘Why didn’t you tell me that so-and-so left?’ ‘You didn’t copy me.’ It’s hard to describe, but there’s just a nasty, mean tone to everything she says. Ann had zero sympathy for the fact that I was new in this role and I received no training.
‘I shouldn’t have to explain to you how to do your job,’ she said. And it’s true – she wasn’t my boss. But apparently, she was affected by what I did, so I would think that she’d be motivated to, you know, be nice and explain what she wanted.
She was just so cranky and mean all the time, it got to the point where I didn’t ever want to talk to her because I knew I could do nothing right and every time I emailed her she would attack me.
Eventually, Ann lost her mind and demanded that I copy her on EVERY email related to the scholarships.
Cue malicious compliance.
- Email to student to schedule interview? Copy Ann.
- ‘Thanks for sending me that update, student’? Copy Ann.
- Question from student about eligibility? Copy Ann.
- Question from faculty about scoring? Copy Ann.
- Question from an administrator? Copy Ann.
- Email blast to students announcing a new scholarship? BCC students; CC Ann.
- Every mundane inquiry, every routine question, every error correction? Copy Ann.
- I made it my mission in life to overwhelm her inbox.
I wanted to fight her nastiness with spam. I couldn’t tell her to go screw off, but I could honor her request to be copied on everything.
After a few months, she called me. She started crying. ‘It feels like you’re being mean to me,’ she whined. ‘What? Did I misunderstand when you said you wanted to be copied on all emails related to scholarships?’ ‘You knew what I meant!’ she sobbed.
‘You deliberately misunderstood me!’ she cried.
‘How am I supposed to know when to copy you and when not to?’ I asked. ‘You said to copy you on everything.’ And now the truth comes out: it turns out that in addition to her regular duties in her own department, about 1% of Ann’s job is to check, on a monthly basis, that the amounts of the scholarships being given out match the amounts we’re expecting to see given out.
Which is a perfectly reasonable business practice. But here’s the rub: until she told me that that was part of her job, I had no idea it was her job. And because she’s such a jerk, it never occurred to her to let me know why she wanted to be in the loop. Further, it turned out that in our horrendously disorganized shared drive, one of the hundreds of random files was a file named ‘Scholarships,’ which was a spreadsheet she used on a monthly basis to track amounts allocated against amounts actually charged.
But did she think to mention that to me? No. Because it’s not her job to explain things to me.
So: now that I actually understand what she wants, I can provide it to her. Heck, I can even edit her moronically-named spreadsheet and keep it updated. I can actively make her job easier, now that I know what she does. Moral of the story: you can’t treat your colleagues like trash and expect them to read your mind. Moral II: Tell people what you want, and if you’re not getting it, consider explaining why you want it.”
1. Never Refuse A Client Who Wants To Use The Restroom? Enjoy Cleaning Up The Mess
“I’m a nurse. I had been told by my orienter when I was hired that the washrooms were just for staff as we didn’t have time to wash them in between each patient (for infection control purposes).
My team lead was NOT impressed and the hammer came down on me specifically. They didn’t care that it was THEIR orienter who made the decision and I had no way of knowing it wasn’t correct.
I only told one client that we didn’t have a public washroom but that was enough for me to get 2 emails and repeated comments from supervisors about how we have to let everyone use the washroom. So no issues since then.
Well, today it finally happened. A ‘patient’ came into the waiting room insisting they had an appointment and tried walking past to the back area.
This person wasn’t wearing a mask, social distancing, and appeared to perhaps be an addict. I advised them that the bathrooms are only for clients while the reception and I were frantically trying to determine if they really did have an appointment (it’s not unusual for late booking to come in without notification).
The ‘patient’ said they were a walk-up appointment, which we JUST started doing a few days ago.
So I go to bring them into a room, they charge past me to the bathrooms claiming they had a medical condition and we had to let them use it otherwise it was discrimination.
Management told me that everyone can use the bathroom so… alright. I let them in.
We can hear them opening the back of the toilet.
Now the water is running.
It’s been 7 minutes.
I go to the door and advise them they have to leave, it’s been long enough to pee.
They tell me they’re washing their hands.
I wait 45 seconds and advise them that even we nurses only wash our hands for 30 seconds.
‘Patient’ tells me they have to put on their pants.
I advise them I don’t think they should have taken their pants off to go pee.
Now they tell me that they have to get their boots on.
I advise them that usually, people leave their pants and boots on to use the bathroom in a public facility.
Security tells them to get out. They insist they’re just doing up their laces. Security says to exit the bathroom. Water splashes, more weird sounds… ‘patient’ gets mad about us wanting them to come out without their laces up. ‘Do you want a liability issue if I fall!?’
Security and I agree that we are willing to take that risk.
‘Patient’ comes out, pants-less, and proceeds to spend upwards of a full minute doing their laces in the hallway, all while ranting about liabilities and them tripping and how we don’t care about injuries.
‘Patient’ storms out, leaving their pants in the bathroom and an unholy mess behind. Breezes right past the patient rooms, completely uninterested in actually doing their walk-in appointment (which we knew).
The other nurses and I proceed to clean the crap out of the bathroom and waiting room.”
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