From Petty To Perfectly Savage: These Revenge Stories Deliver

“Last year I was ordering an upgrade for the server room at work; it was a large, expensive upgrade that cost over half a million dollars. If you have ever had to call a manufacturer to order equipment at this amount, you may know that once you get a good reputation with a manufacturer, they tend to cut red tape for you to maintain a good working relationship with your company. I have bought equipment for my personal use at home in the past, and it takes forever to get a rep on the phone, and they often screw you on the deal.

While I was making the order with the manufacturer, I inquired about getting personal equipment to see if it would be possible to make a separate order for myself with my own money. The rep had no issues with it and was happy to make the second order. He placed both orders and even gave me a company discount for my order. Now, I did make it perfectly clear that the second order was a personal order and not in any way connected to the corporate account or order. He confirmed this, and the order was locked. A few months went by, and the equipment showed up in the loading dock at work and everything was in order. However, my order never arrived at my house. I attempted to contact the manufacturer, but was put on hold for hours.

I gave up for now and figured I would try again in a few days. The next morning, the equipment showed up. It was an exact match for the equipment that was sent to my work. Now, keep in mind the order I placed for my house was a blade server that was just over $6K USD. This was not what I ordered. I went into panic mode as I can’t afford this equipment, and when they bill me, I will be screwed. I checked my bank account and found no charges yet… Now I’m really panicked as I think they billed it to my company, effectively double-charging them.

I expect I will get fired. When I returned to work after my weekend, I emailed billing and got a copy of the invoice. Well, they didn’t bill my company for the equipment sent to my house. Now I’m really confused. So, at this point, I drop it. It is a pain to get them on the phone, and I can’t call the corporate line when it’s a personal order. A month later, I got an invoice in the mail with a late charge for failure to pay.

Okay, now I can get this fixed. I see they want $6K + $250 for late charges.

That’s odd. I called the retention number and got a rep. I gave her the account number, and she told me she needed to transfer me to a manager due to the amount. Okay, cool. The manager picks up the phone and I try to explain the bill is wrong and the equipment they sent wasn’t what I ordered, and he immediately cut me off with “You need to pay the invoice, you’re in violation of the contract and we will sue you if you don’t pay it immediately!” I tried again to explain the equipment issue, but again he cut me off and demanded I pay. So, I told him I would take care of it then. I said sorry for being an inconvenience, and I would call my bank right away. I then confirmed the bill amount and the part order number from my equipment labels. He confirmed it and said, “See, there was NO mistake!” And as I was about to hang up, I heard him say in a smug tone to someone else, “That’s how you deal with poor jerk heads.” I called my bank and got them to unblock the transaction. It was stopped for a fraud alert. The amount was paid. I am now the owner of a half-million-dollar server room in my basement. A few months later, I had to order some more connectors for the fiber lines and spoke to their rep again. I inquired about rebuying personal devices, since the last time went so well. Apparently, they can’t do that anymore. Something about a manager’s fraud investigation. I can’t imagine what that’s about.”

“Years ago, I worked in the prep kitchen for a small chain of restaurants. For background, when you pick up a knife in a restaurant kitchen, you’re supposed to say “sharp” pretty loudly, so that other people rushing around know someone is walking around with a knife. Anyway, we had 2 kinds of knives: large chef’s knives and paring knives. There were only a few pairing knives—not enough for everyone to have one at their station. At some point, one of my coworkers started referring to the knives as “sharps,” and so I started calling the paring knives “baby sharps,” and it caught on.

This led to people asking across the room,” Who’s got a baby sharp?”

Now, my boss was a massive jerk. She, for some unknown reason, didn’t like us calling the paring knives “baby sharps” and said so on a few occasions, but nobody cared. To be clear, nobody ever said/sang “baby sharp do do do do do do” or anything like that. Well, one day, she was in a particularly bad mood and yelled at us, “Nobody is allowed to say ‘baby sharp’ anymore!”

Cue MC. That afternoon, I went home and photoshopped a little cartoon face, bonnet, pacifier, and diaper onto an image of a paring knife.

I took the image to a custom print shop and had them print it onto a baseball cap. We were required to wear hats at work to keep stray hairs from falling into the food. I only worked there a couple of months after this, because I found a better job, but you better believe I wore that “baby sharp” hat to work the next day, and then every day for the remainder of my time there. The boss never said anything to me about it, but I know it angered her.”

“Habitual lurker, first time poster, so apologies for anything I missed. No 3rd party may repost or use this in any format. A long time ago, in what seems like a different life, I was working in a burrito restaurant on the weekend late shift. Simpler times!

During a quiet period, we had a gay couple come in to order. They were very nice and respectful, with a good bit of banter thrown in. While we were serving them, another person entered, and I was immediately on high alert.

This guy looked like a classic ned (to those not from the West coast of Scotland, this stands for non-educated delinquent – think a Karen but more prone to violence than manager-asking).

Immediately, this guy started with the mistreatment toward the nice couple, who we were nearly finished serving, interspersed with some mild nonsense aimed at us. He was quickly told to knock it off and was clearly a little upset by this. The mistreatment dropped to a trickle, but it was still there, and he was still an unpleasant individual.

The nice couple left, and we were deciding whether to serve this clown or bounce him (context: I was a collision sport athlete in excellent shape, and he wanted absolutely no part of me).

But before we decided, he moved on to stage 2 of the ned playbook. Bragging.

“I don’t feel spicy”, “Nothing can hurt me”, “Give me the spiciest thing you have”, etc.

Well now! We used ghost chillies (Naga jolokia) for our extra hot salsa, so we loaded up a burrito with loads of the stuff. But of course, this was not enough for our dear ned friend. Because nothing can hurt him. We obviously did not understand this.

Little did he know, I had whipped up a special batch of staff-only extra hot salsa with about three times the amount of ghost chillies in it.

So we told him about this and, of course, it had to go in his burrito, despite our reservations. Have we not been listening? He doesn’t feel pain. So in went a generous portion of this nuclear salsa.

I know you’re thinking we’re done here, but no. Our dear friend really didn’t think we’d understood how little spice affected him. He needed more. “Chop a ghost chilli into it.”

We gave him every opportunity to walk back from this demand, but no, he needed pure ghost chilli. I brought one up from our store cupboard and chopped a little into his burrito.

But haven’t I been listening? He needed the whole thing!

I ended up chopping about three-quarters of it into the burrito. I looked at this insane burrito, worried I might burn a hole in his stomach, but also slightly excited to see this dose of instant karma, and still the bragging hadn’t stopped.

He took the first bite of his burrito and was happily chewing through it, clearly delighted that he was right about the spice level. He was just into his second mouthful when his face changed to concern, followed by surprise, and then utter panic. He had backed himself into a corner, and there was no way to win!

Tears streamed down his face at this point, and he very embarrassedly asked for a drink, but of course, Fanta only made the spice worse.

It was now that he fully realized the magnitude of the error he’d made. This fire would not go out; he was going to need our genuine help to get through this. He immediately apologized humbly and asked if there was something we could do to help. We brought him a large glass of milk, so he could at least survive and head off into the night with his tail between his legs.

In an unexpected turn, he continued eating the burrito from heck while sipping the milk and somehow managed to finish the whole thing. Still, with tears pouring down his face, he thanked us, apologized again, got a milk reload, and left for greener pastures.

Despite his unpleasantness, I have to give him props for finishing that burrito.

He was not in a good way the entire time, and it was as fitting a punishment as I could have hoped for.”

“I just read the story on the composite decking tie‐down fail that reminded me of this story from last year. I love boating and everything about it. I love spending money on it, I love being in the water, towing people on tubes, and just chilling. One day, I was coming into the dock to trailer my boat after a successful, fun‐filled day, and as I was on the trailer about to get out and pull away, I noticed the guy on the ramp also trying to trailer his boat.

Side Note: For those who don’t know, there is a winch with a line that you attach to an eyelet on the front of your boat to winch it up to your trailer to a rubber stopper to hold it down when you drive.

When you hit a bump, 5,000 lbs of boat does not go launching anywhere. Most eyelets are below the winch, so when you winch it up, it sits tight against the trailer.

So now you have that in mind: this guy kept backing his boat up and ramming the eyelet into the winch stopper over and over again. I yelled to the guy that his eyelet was hitting the winch, and that is why he couldn’t get his boat on the trailer. He told me to shut the heck up. “I got this,” he said. I tried again, and he told me to pound sand. After I started pulling away from the boat ramp, I heard him throttle up, then a loud bang.

I looked over; the eyelet on the boat was gone, and the boat now had a hole in the bow where the eyelet was, and he was screaming up a storm.

I just looked over, smiled, finished securing my boat, and left. Meanwhile, this guy was facing a huge bill and a premature end to his boating season. All he had to do was listen to some stranger…”

“I (24F) work in a high-end store, and we have a very specific dress code! No jeans unless they’re black; no leggings; no skirts above the knee; no spaghetti straps; no low-cut shirts, etc. I wore a black tank top with a brown knitted turtleneck, black jeans, black shoes, and black socks. My hair was in a nice bun as well. I had worn this many times before, and I had no issues with it until the other day.

I got pulled to the back by the ASM (assistant manager), and she told me that I needed to “dress better” and “look less homeless.” The manager, being right beside her, said nothing, and when I tried to ask what she meant, the manager told me to listen to her.

That night, I went online and found everything I needed.

The next day I went all around the local mall and shopped until I couldn’t shop anymore! I got a blue dress ($20), white gloves ($5), a fake pearl necklace and bracelet ($15), and I went to the pharmacy to get bobby pins.

I spent that night doing my hair until it was perfect; I ironed my dress; I cleaned and polished the pearls; and I practiced light makeup. Everything was perfect and ready!

I woke up at 5:30 AM to be at work by 9. I did my hair, my makeup, my nails, and I got dressed. I took one final look in the mirror, and I was smiling like there was no tomorrow!

I walked into work to see my manager and assistant manager angry at me while I was smiling!

I was instantly pulled to the back, and they yelled at me. All I had to say was, “I don’t look homeless now, do I?” I walked out, and customers only wanted to talk to me because I looked fancy! It was a good day!

I didn’t take any of myself because I forgot, lol. I was too excited, but for reference, look up “Beehive Hair” and “Audrey Hepburn: The Little Black Dress”

“This happened over 3 years ago, and while telling it to my friend, she laughingly said, ‘such a malicious compliance,’ so I decided to share it here. When I first started my very first corporate job, there was a kitchen full of utensils, a fridge, an oven, a stove… and a dishwasher. A full-fledged kitchen for employees to make tea, coffee, heat their meals, and even cook. They said I could bring my own glasses and put them there or use the company’s.

Also, there was a woman who was working in the kitchen. Let’s call her Nilly, since she puts rules willy-nilly like a bully.

On the second day of my job, dear Nilly told me, “Let me remind you that no one should leave their dirty dishes in the sink.” I was surprised by the claim. Since I am new and don’t know a single crap, I thought this might be her way of bullying or it might actually be true. So I smiled and asked if this means I have to wash my own glasses. She said, “Yes, don’t make me repeat it twice, honey.” Let me remind you, there’s a dishwasher.

If she isn’t cleaning the dishes, her only remaining job is to vacuum the office once a week and bring tea/coffee to the chiefs, to meetings, and to managers. So I decided to gather information and wait for it.

Apparently, Nilly has been working in the company for 20 years and knows the CEO. She knows how he drinks his tea, how he drinks his coffee, when he drinks them, what he eats with his coffee and tea… She knows all of them. If I know one thing, it is never to fight with the person who knows how your boss likes his coffee, especially if you’re replaceable.

So, fighting was not an option. Cool.

I also learned that once a week, the CEO brings a bag of fruit to the kitchen to share with the company. He has a fruit garden and goes there on weekends. And she would take fruits to her house at the end of the day. Old employees knew that. They would take one or two during the day; that’s how I learned this. She said to me that I can get one, but it is hers. So I refused the first offer, thinking she had bought it, then learned that it was brought by the CEO. (I think she implied that the CEO brought them to her and she was generous enough to share them with us peasants, but this is my interpretation of her statement.) One thing about me: I look young and naive.

I look dumb, as if there is some missing component in my brain.

Cue malicious compliance. From my desk, I could partially see the kitchen if I turned around. So, on the day of fruit delivery, I was constantly checking the kitchen. When the CEO came in, I counted to 30 and went in as well. To wash my glasses, of course. I went in and said hi to everyone. This was my first time seeing the CEO, so he said, “You must be new.” He kindly and respectfully informed me who he was. I said, “Sir, I checked the company before entering and knew him,” which he liked.

After I turned to wash my dishes, he asked me what I was doing, and I said, “Oh, I was informed that all the staff wash their own dishes.” At the same time, our Nilly said, “You must’ve mistaken that,” while laughing and taking the sponge and glasses out of my hand. I looked at her as if in shock, a sudden realization hitting me, and then I smiled as if she were my best friend.

Of course, I didn’t stop there. I looked at the fruits. The CEO told me to take some fruit, adding that he brought them to the company so that all the staff could enjoy them.

I hadn’t said anything, but from my expression, the CEO asked what was wrong. I said nothing and then said, “I always thought they were Nilly’s, since…” Then I just smiled and asked if I could take a plate of them. With a huge plate of fruit, accompanied by a huge smile, I went to my desk and shared it with my team. I don’t even like fruits.

A couple of hours later, I went to the kitchen and our dear Nilly told me that I had misunderstood things, and that washing dishes was her job, and I shouldn’t make the mistake again.

She added that the fruits were for everyone to share and that I should have taken more if I had wanted some. I stupidly said, “Oh, I didn’t know,” and expressed how sorry I was for causing her trouble, with a sorry smile.

Guess who never had to wash dishes and had fruits to eat every day? If your answer is Cleopatra, probably yes, but also me. Nilly would also bring tea and coffee to me from time to time if someone she served did not want to drink. I would thank her with a huge smile and accept it. Apparently, she does this for all the employees she likes.”

“So this happened about 7-8 years ago. I used to work on a help desk. We had recently switched a major software to a new one. They didn’t want to train us on that system, so they paid for a third-party desk to deal with those calls.

When you called, it was a phone tree that basically said to press 1 for the new software or press 2 for any other issues. If you pressed 2 and had an issue for line one, we HAD to transfer you. We had no training, no access, and the contract stipulated it as well.

So there was no way to help you. Things are different now, but that was the deal at that point.

So this user calls us. I get her information, and she proceeds to immediately tell me that she is having an issue with this system. I try to interrupt her politely, and she cuts me off and proceeds to yell into the phone, “HOW DARE YOU! YOU DO NOT INTERRUPT ME; THAT IS RUDE, AND YOU WILL LET ME FINISH!”

I said nothing and let her talk. She proceeded to talk for a full 5 minutes (I timed her), giving me the full rundown of her issues in excruciating detail.

She finally finished. I let there be a pause, where she says “hello?” Both to annoy her a bit and to make sure she is actually done.

I put on my AAA+++ customer service voice and asked if she was done, as I didn’t want to interrupt her again. I then explained sweetly and politely, “I’m sorry, I was trying not to waste your time earlier when I tried to interrupt. This is the wrong line for this system, and I was trying to get you to the correct line so they could help you. I need to transfer you.” Just oozing all the “I was just trying to help you” I could.

There was no sound coming from the phone, but I could feel the red-hot rage and embarrassment coming through the phone as I transferred her to the correct line.”

“I’m returning from time off due to surgery. A doctor’s note says I can sit, so my boss said to take one to the register and use it as needed. I’ve been going back and forth all day doing other light things with zero problems. A fellow manager came in (older, kinda has an attitude) and yelled at me in front of our team member on the floor because I was putting a couple skeins of yarn away. Yarn that weighs a total of one pound for the package. She doesn’t want to work more hours for me, which I get, but I’m not incapable. So for the rest of the day, I’ve been sitting in my chair at the register, standing only to help customers. She came up and got mad that I was sitting, so I just looked innocent and said, “You told me to sit, so I am. You can take it up with our boss then,” and she stormed off.”

“I (30F) was reminded of this little MC in another sub, and was so happy I finally had something to share here instead of just reading everyone else’s, but don’t come for me if this sub is the wrong place for this post.

About 10 years ago, in college, I met up with some friends toward the end of my night and was a bit inebriated. I had a reputation among my friends that no matter how intoxicated I was, I was always good at math—it was my minor after all.

We ended up hitting up a diner for some food, and when the time came, we got split checks.

Intoxicated, I grabbed my card from my wallet and waited for the wait staff to come collect payment, but someone I considered a friend at the time refused to let me pay my bill. She claimed I was too intoxicated and wouldn’t be able to do the math for the tip, so she would just pay it. After going back and forth with her for a few minutes and becoming increasingly offended and annoyed, she took my check and put my card down on the table in front of me.

When the waiter came, she told him that she was paying for the two checks in her hand.

Fast forward a couple of weeks later and she told me that I owed her $15. I asked, “For what?” and she said it was for my food at the diner, plus the tip and surcharge for having a party larger than eight. I let her know I had tried paying my bill that night a few times, and she wouldn’t let me, but more importantly, I never asked her to pay for me or said I would pay her back. She wasn’t happy she was out $15, but she said she was paying for it.”

“My partner works the front desk at an arcade where she has a fair amount of downtime, which she’ll often spend talking to me on the phone with her earbuds in. I generally go quiet when it’s obvious that she’s taking care of customers, but today she joked that it would be really funny if I “said inappropriate things in [her] ear” to playfully distract her while she was working. Obviously, she was suggesting that I say intimate things.

Instead, I whispered, “black people shouldn’t be allowed to vote.”

Hey, she asked for something inappropriate. We both got a pretty good laugh out of how wrong that was, though.”

“I used to work for a small company that was acquired by a group of investors who did not do a good job of hiding that they were planning to replace everyone with low-skill contractors and sell the company. For all of 2023, they’ve been pushing us non-stop to update our procedure documentation.

Our senior-senior manager announced in FY23 that there would be a monthly quota for procedure documentation. When there was pushback, he responded that it didn’t always have to be complicated procedures or a perfect procedure (he was always spouting something about not letting perfection get in the way of progress), etc.

I was already thinking about leaving to finish my degree, so I immediately began the application process.

But in the meantime, for most of 2023, I met my quota by documenting the most unnecessary procedures. But I gave them corporate descriptions so it’s not immediately obvious.

Some of my favorites:

How to turn on my computer (Accessing information technology resources)
How to log on to my computer (Utilizing security practices for informational technology resources)
How I delete and move files out of Google Drive (Allocating digital assets for collaborative processes)
How to block your Outlook calendar (Automating availability information across teams)
How to request new office supplies from Staples (Physical asset procurement)

Since our team would be let go early in any acquisition—pretty early in the process—most of the lower-level managers left or were checked out as they job searched.

My manager had been so distracted that they never reviewed any of my procedures; I asked for feedback on a few real procedures to make it seem like I was doing what they asked, and basically, they simply checked off that I had been meeting my quota.

I left the job in December and started school this Spring, but I just heard from an ex-colleague who is still with the company that they JUST discovered my procedures. He texted me and said that the senior-senior manager is furious because other people were basically doing the same thing, and now most of our team has left, and they barely have anything documented.”

“Several years ago, I coached a kids’ soccer team. It was a community recreation league with volunteer coaches focused on fun and equal playing time. There were two fields next to a school. The third field is a 2-minute walk away and hidden behind a thick stand of trees, invisible from the other two fields. One would never know it was there, but it did have a small parking lot next to it, accessible only by a rarely used, poorly maintained back lane. Most people would park in the school lot and walk the 2 minutes along the path through the trees.

The two fields next to the school were typical school fields: not particularly well-maintained, uneven, and definitely not regulation-sized – typical school fields.

The third field was regulation-sized, perfectly maintained, had new bleachers, and was cared for like a professional field with regular waterings, cutting, and seeding. It was the groundskeeper’s pride and joy.

It was the first day of a new season, and my team of 10-year-olds – the Brown Pandas (our T-shirts were brown with pandas on them) – showed up for our first practice. However, there was another team on our assigned field – a team of talented players with matching socks and shorts, all wearing cleats and in their late teens.

I approached the coach and explained that he was on our field and that his field was a 2-minute walk away down the path.

He politely told me to take a hike – he was there first, and that was that. Not looking for a confrontation, I took my team to the really nice field; the parents had bleachers to sit in, and we had a great time on the “big boy” field.

After practice, the groundskeeper/convenor asked me why we were practicing on this field. I told her what happened with the other coach. She told me that she had asked the other coach to switch fields as well; he told her to go away, and that was his field.

Two days later, at our second practice, his team was on our field again.

The convenor called me over to talk with her and the other coach. She stated, “Just to confirm for the rest of the season, you are switching fields with the Brown Pandas on the far field and your team on this field here?” “Yeah, this is our field, and the little kids will be on the far field,” he said, looking at us arrogantly.

“Fine by me,” I stated, grabbed my big net sack of balls, and trudged over to the professional field.

Two glorious weeks passed. During practice, the other coach came over with his team and saw our field. He approached me and told me that we needed to switch fields.

I laughed in his face, “Go get the convenor over so we can discuss.” I turned my back on him and probably did something like tie a kid’s shoe or dry some tears (remember, they were 10-year-olds). His team started trying to use our field. One of the Brown Pandas was scared of the bigger kids and started crying. A couple of parents stepped in and started shooing them away before one of the 10-year-olds got hurt.

He returned with his entire team and the convenor; she was beaming. She asked him if he remembered our conversation from two weeks ago; he started to argue. She told him that we were sticking to the terms of that agreement and to go back to his own field.

“Go on! Scoot!” I remember her saying.

We had our first game the next week. All the Brown Pandas’ parents were in attendance, watching their children play soccer on a beautiful field with semi-comfortable seating and a working scoreboard. As we left, we walked by the other team playing on a muddy, undersized field. They eventually changed their game dates and times so they could use the big field, but they had to practice on the old field. The Brown Pandas never had to set foot on the older field all season.”

“As a bit of background, when my wife and I had our first child, my wife’s Grandpa paid thousands to buy our son a lifetime membership in a political organization (we are in the USA) whose values do not match my wife’s and mine. We were frustrated but didn’t say anything because her Grandpa lived alone and was toward the end of his life.

When my son was a toddler, I lost my job. This was in the middle of the recession, and jobs were hard to come by, particularly for recent college grads with no experience.

The next 10 months were difficult. I often went to bed crying after rejection after rejection. It was at a particularly low point that my son received a letter in the mail from this political organization that he is a part of. It talked about how they needed “every penny (he) can spare” to help this group in their fight. They needed “(his) best.” My sadness turned to anger. And I wanted to call them up and lose my mind.

Instead, I decided to maliciously comply. My toddler son had no money, but he could scribble on a piece of paper! He scribbled in various colors on a piece of paper.

I wrote a note on the back saying that when you hit up a toddler for money, this is the best he could do, and I sarcastically told them I hoped it helped in their fight.

I put it in the envelope they had enclosed, attached that envelope to a rock so that they had to pay extra postage, and sent it back. It makes me happy to think they lost money on hitting him up.”

“Working at BigCo with lots of agents in the field. Agents had pretty decent 15” laptops to work with customers in the field. A new project comes up to give the field people some better tools. The project owner and the other stakeholders haven’t been pleased with the way the old apps work. “Looks like it was scraped from a 3270 terminal” (pretty close, but well before my time). They make sure I hire a “real graphics designer” to develop the GUI.

Fine, I can do that.

Interviews happen, offers are made, and the designer arrives. Suze is nice, the programming team is excited to start, and everything looks all good. As a gesture of “welcome to our IT group,” I get her the developer setup—a souped-up 15″ laptop, a docking station, and two big monitors. Developers like it; they get to put windows all over the place. Life is good. Suze seems to be happy. Pretty soon, she, the lead developer, and the business liaison go off to create a great GUI experience.

Time passes, and I check in with the PM. “Going okay, on schedule, and we have the GUI walk-through in the morning.” Super.

I ask about how that’s going to work. Built a mock-up as static web pages; they can just click through the pages. The dev team gave some fake data for the drop-downs.” It sounds like it’s under control, so I head off to see what fires may be starting elsewhere.

The next day, I came back from my last meeting of the afternoon. My email inbox is showing a full red alert (Lotus Notes unread emails) and my message light is on my desk phone.

Before I can mouse-click my way into the mess, my boss comes into my office. “Kilted, what exactly happened in the demo today?” “No, I had no idea; it was all set.

The business liaison was good; I had other priority ones, so I skipped it.” “Poor move—get on top of the disaster NOW.”

I find the PM, the business liaison, and Suze and start asking questions. The demo in the conference room went fine. They sent the link out to the field people to look at. The field people had some issues.

“Like what?”
“Well, a few said it was completely unusable,” said Suze. She turns and pulls up a browser window on one of her big monitors. “This is it—a very nice, clear GUI.”

It looked a little busy to me, with lots of boxes on one page.

“Hey, can you drag that down to your laptop screen?” Yep, it looks pretty crowded now that it’s one-third the size.

“Suze, it looks a little tight.”
“Yes, but it looks perfect on my monitor,” she replies as she slides it back to the big monitor. “People in the field have 15″ screens.”
“Well, we should get them bigger ones. It looks perfect here, and I’m the GUI expert.”

Sigh. Second sigh. I tell the PM to meet me in my office and instruct the others to go home.

There was a long, unhappy conversation with the PM, with lots of arm-waving, etc.

I may have used a strong expletive a few times—even several times in the same sentence. The bottom line was that it was going to be hard to move Suze from saying “works perfectly on my monitor.”

The next day, Suze storms into my office. “What the heck happened to my freaking monitors? Some jerk freaking stole them, that jerk.” She breathes, “And they left a freaking note. What the heck does “Eat the Dog Food” mean?”

Wow. She could be management material.

“Oh, that is a phrase we use: ‘Eat our own dog food.” Every time we build a new system that has a user impact, we are the first users.

So when it’s bad, we get to see it first.”

Suze yells, “What does that mean to me?!?!” No strong words. Maybe not management material.

It means that your users have 15″ screens; you had a giant screen and kept saying, “It looks perfect on your monitor.” Now you have 15″ screens to see what they see. You know, eat the dog food.

Suze sighed and walked away. Four days later, the revised GUI demo went very well, and she got her monitors back.”

“This is just a short one, but it makes me smile a lot. When I first started to travel to London for work around 2006, I would get a low-cost airline which I will call Sleazy Jet. Their London airports were, let’s say, euphemistically described as being in London; in fact, from there you could see London using a telescope on a clear day if you knew which way to look. This made travel a daunting prospect, as multiple trains and tubes were required. Anyway, on this occasion I was flying from London-Stansted!

I had just finished up an employment and was glad to be moving on. I had with me all my worldly (work-related) possessions in one massive bag from my 3-month stint.

Because it was everything, it was very heavy, and I knew it would attract an additional expense to go in the hold, but I was resigned to paying it. I got to the airport early, and since there was a slots arcade I went and played, starting with £100, and in two hours I ended with £800, mostly in £1 coins (this was before payout machines issued paper money). I was now even more weighed down. I then went to check my bag and got the good news that it was going to cost me an extra £330; you could see their satisfaction at catching another overweight hold bag.

They were shocked when I agreed to pay and gave them £330 in £1 coins. Everyone was compliant! To this day, the shock on their faces still gives me a warm glow!”

“My son was always big for his age. He weighed 10 pounds when he was born. He weighed 50 pounds when he was 2 years old and was the size of a normal 5-year-old, so when he was 6 years old, he was still really big. He was not fat at all, just big.

Anyway, we lived on the farm with my Dad. One spring day, I had to go somewhere and left my 6-year-old son with my Dad. They were going to do some yard work.

Instead, my Dad decided that it would be a better idea to have my son rake the front yard by himself so that he could take a nap in his chair.

My son didn’t argue; he just waited for my Dad to fall asleep.

So, my Dad was sleeping in his chair, and he heard the sound of a tractor; he didn’t really pay attention because we live on a farm out in the country. But the tractor was getting closer. Then he looked out the window, and there was my son on the tractor right next to the house. My son was waving at him and smiling ear to ear.

My Dad jumped out of his chair and went outside to see my son on the tractor with the hay rake, raking the front yard. My Dad just stood there, dumbfounded, watching.

Then my son drove back to the pole barn and put the tractor back.

He came up to my Dad and said, “I’m done raking now, Dadu.” My Dad picked up the hand rake and asked, “Why didn’t you use it?” My son replied, “You said rake the yard, I raked the yard; you didn’t say how.” My Dad couldn’t argue with that logic.

My son has been driving the tractor since he was 2 years old. It’s a small tractor that has been in my family since 1976.”

“For context, I used to work as an impound driver in my city. We were the “bad guys” and always got angry folks getting their vehicles back. But this one was personally my favorite release I did. One of my co-workers towed an old Ford minivan from the late ’90s that was parked in a strip mall’s parking lot for being a “noncustomer.”

So he brought it to our nearest impound lot. Around a week later, I was assigned to release the car back to the owner at a scheduled time.

We give people a grace period of 30 minutes after their appointment to compensate for traffic and arrange their transportation to the impound yards. That being said, he and his partner were late and missed their appointment well after the grace period. It turns out he was out of town for the week to visit friends. I decided to be nice and release the car to them since they had trouble getting here. Boy, we’re the couple not nice at all… Screaming at me and throwing g insults left and right.

Anyway… I asked for their information, but he refused to give it because he said that “I would steal his info and sell it.” I don’t know how he came up with that, but whatever.

I told him that we don’t do that and that it’s for the paperwork in order to release the car. He made threats to me and said that he would “ram my work truck out of the way with his van.” I drove a Ford F-450 with a wrecker on the back. There was no way he would be able to…

We went back and forth for a good 10 minutes, saying I couldn’t release his car without it and that I would have to leave and reschedule for a later time. He said, “Then I’ll just stay here until you give me my crap!” and proceeded to call the police.

They arrived after some time, and it was well past my shift, and I wanted to go home. The officer got both of our sides of the story and ended up saying, “Just release the car, dude.”

Tired and wanting to go home, I said, “Fine, but it goes against policy, and he will be charged for the time he wasted,” which was about an hour at this point. The officer was satisfied with that answer and told the angry owner. Still angry, he yelled out to me, “And I want the EXACT price of what I owe! Not a penny more!”

Now here’s the malicious compliance: I agreed to his terms and started doing the math for the bill.

Little did he know, we charge people 22 dollars every minute past the appointment if they have not paid. It’s predatory, but it was listed on our price list on the glass countertop. The tow was originally going to be around $440 (tow fee, appointment fee, and storage fee every day). It ended up being almost $2,300.

He was livid at the price; the officer’s eyebrows raised, and he was slack-jawed, and I was internally smug. I broke down the costs and charges bit by bit. He threw a tantrum as the officer told him, “You did say you wanted the exact price, sir.”

After he angrily paid for his bill, a late-night coworker showed up and filled me in on what had happened.

He told me to just head home, and he’d take care of the rest. I started to drive home and got a call from that coworker, and I could hear screaming in the background from the van owner. He told me what happened immediately after I left. It turns out the gentleman who left his van at that strip mall had his catalytic converter stolen and fuel siphoned, so he couldn’t drive it home and needed another tow to get it home! I burst out laughing as hard as I could. It was a very well-paid day.”

“I work for a freight delivery company, drive a semi truck, and usually go out with 10-15 deliveries a day. Our policy is that when you deliver to a residence, you have to take a picture with your work phone as additional proof of delivery. That has morphed into now if the delivery receipt (dr) says “residential,” you have to take a picture of it, regardless of whether it’s going to a business or a house. There are so many small details on a dr that can get missed, so this is an important detail.

One day last week, I had a delivery for “Laura Lopez” (Name changed).

It was being delivered to a construction company where Laura is an employee. The dr does not say it’s residential. I made the delivery and left without taking a picture.

The next morning, my jerk of a supervisor says, “I have a write-up for you.” Puzzled, I ask her why. “For the Laura Lopez delivery yesterday, it was residential,” I explained to her that it was at a business, and the driver did not say residential. She wasn’t having it; I should also mention that she and I butt heads often, and she’s been trying to get rid of me for some time.

I told her that we needed to go talk to my manager about it.

So we did, and he sided with me because she had no ground to stand on. This infuriated her. I told her that under no circumstances would this be an issue again.

That day is when I started my MC. I took pictures with the work phone at EVERY STOP. What happened was, when I hit depart on the work phone, it sent a pop-up to her computer with the picture, and she had to acknowledge it before she could do anything else on her computer. I crashed her computer three times that day. At one stop, I took 20 pictures.

I got a call from her, telling me that I had to stop taking pictures.

I politely told her that I was covering my ass and not going against policy. “I’m giving you an order!” I laughed and hung up.

Sure as crap, she wrote me up for it. I didn’t even argue; I said we needed to take it to my manager. I walked in and he said, “What now?” I told him the story, he looked at her, took the write-up, and ripped it up. “Are you seriously writing him up for overperforming?” She had no words, and I still took a picture at every stop because I was petty.”

“Back when I was working as a Classroom Technician for my local Community College, after I graduated, the College had a need for a technical scribe for a blind student. They needed someone who could not only provide direction regarding what the computer was showing on the screen (since the Dragon software—a program that audibly gave cues on what you were doing—was unable to) but also had the technical skills to operate the software being used. I fit in perfectly, so I was hired to do the technical interpreting for the student for the quarter.

The professor assigned the students to create a user interface that performed specific functions.

Well, the paper he gave out provided a general idea of what the students were to create. To help, but not overly assist, I designed the general GUI (Graphical User Interface) and then let the student do the bulk of the work for which Dragon was intended while I filled in the gaps by verbally cueing him on where he was and what to do next, because Dragon wasn’t providing any cues. The student then turned in the assignment.

The professor asked us to come to his office the next day and said that he knew I did the GUI part and that it was the student’s responsibility to do his own interpretation of what he had handed out.

I was about to explain, but the student grabbed my arm, politely apologized, and said he would do as asked. We left his office, and I asked, “What’s up?” He replied, “Can you edit the settings on those laser printers in the computer lab to print a page of nothing but black?” I said sure. So, we did, and after that black page was printed, we went back to the professor’s office. He said, “Well, that was quick.” The student handed over the paper, and the professor was very confused. The student then spoke up: You said for me to design a GUI based on what you printed. This is what I saw, so I am giving you my interpretation of the image that you printed for the class.

At that moment, the professor had a light bulb go off in his head, realizing that he had required a blind student to give their interpretation of an image he had printed for the class. He apologized, said that the previous work would be counted, and instructed that future assignments proceed as before. He then said to the student… well played.”

“My company gets a payoff request from a title company. One of our clients has a $1500 lien on a piece of property. The owner of the property (who also owes the $1500) is trying to sell. So the title company emails me asking for the payoff amount and other info. I respond to the email, answering all their questions. I get an email back saying they need that information “in letter form”. I ask if they are serious. They say yes.

They also say they need it immediately because closing is scheduled for Monday. This is a Friday.

So I print the email chain and write a letter that says, “Enclosed please find the email chain with the information requested.” I dutifully put it in a properly addressed envelope and tossed it in the outgoing mail. Sadly, that was after the mail cut-off, so it was not going out until Monday.

Monday, I get an email from the title company with their payoff information. I explain the above. They ask if I can email it to them. Nope, I did that already. Not my fault if that was not good enough for you.

Guess you won’t close for another 5 days or so.

Then a call from the guy’s attorney asking me where the payoff is. I explained the above to him and reminded him he was copied on the emails in question. He called the title company and blew them out of the water. We got our $1500 the same day by personal courier. It was a 2-hour one-way drive for the courier.”

“Ex (38f, who is my kids’ mom) really wanted the right of first refusal in the divorce agreement so she could get extra time with the kids if I (39m) couldn’t watch them. This is reasonable. But she also wanted it specified that only grandparents, aunts, and uncles could watch the kids if she passed on the right of first refusal. She wouldn’t admit it, but my lawyer suspected that the reason she wanted to allow only those specific people was to exclude any romantic partner of mine from babysitting ever.

The kids’ parents would always get first dibs, though, so there was no good reason for that bit of it. Honestly, a long-term partner is probably going to be better for the kids as a babysitter than my family, who are hours away and some of whom aren’t the most trustworthy. I agreed to it in the final agreement under the condition that I get a makeup date anytime she uses the right of first refusal (to avoid giving her the incentive to just say no to every date swap).

So, fast forward to this weekend, and I ask if she wants the kids under the right of first refusal, and she says yes, but that she won’t give me a makeup overnight.

Because the right of first refusal requires a makeup, I tell her that this counts as rejecting her right of first refusal. She gets mad and says I should give her the kids anyway. So I say I need to follow the exact wording of the divorce agreement, and it says only grandparents, aunts, and uncles can watch the kids (she didn’t include parents), so I’m not even legally allowed to let her watch the kids if she’s not going to follow the right of first refusal agreement. Oh, that felt sweet to use that silly rule she created against her attempt to break the agreement. She was mad, but she finally agreed to a makeup overnight in the end, which is the way it should have been in the first place.”

“I work at a “small town” post office with over 2000 residents, so we actually have a lot of customers and are extremely busy most of the time. Tbh, I have a ton of stories involving wacky customers, but I’ll save those for another time. This particular incident happened about a year ago. We have one customer (out of many) who is a complete shopaholic. We’ll call her Barb for this story. She buys and buys, getting at least 1 to 2 packages every day. Our carrier at the time would take the packages and deliver them to Barb either in her own mailbox or the parcel locker assigned to her.

Barb, however, was extremely lazy and would hardly ever check her box.

Fast forward a little bit, and suddenly Barb starts calling the office, saying that the carrier is misdelivering packages. Barb spoke to both me and the postmaster, and we both sent the carrier many times just to confirm that Barb was getting her packages. One day, she calls and chews out the postmaster. I don’t know exactly what was said, just that she yelled A LOT and eventually said “Stop misdelivering my packages”. So that day, my beloved postmaster said, “Understood, we’ll get that fixed right away”, and from that point on, Barb would now be receiving slips notifying her that she has packages to pick up at the post office.

And boy, was she not happy about this. It was also funny to see the few times the husband came in and facepalmed when I handed him almost 20 packages. I’ll still never forget the time Barb came in one day, got her packages, and said to me, “You know, just because I had a few words with the postmaster doesn’t mean you have to stop delivering”. And I just looked at her, smiled, and said Well, we wouldn’t want to be misdelivering anything.”

“I have been a chef for about 8 years. I have built up a good thick skin at this point. So I can deal with the different breeds of Karen you’d see in my work environment. (A tourist hotspot near the ocean) Learning to deal with the unicorn of Karens—the entitled vacationing Mega Karen. VMK for short. Some of my coworkers. Namely, the younger summer job waitstaff haven’t developed the methods of tolerance yet.

I was the sous chef of an outdoor terrace-style seafood restaurant by the sea that was also a seaside Inn.

On this day, a party of 5 came in. VMK with 4 others, I want to say, friends. The entire time, I could hear her complain. The Waitress was slow with slow. Everything was taking too long. We had a Full House at the time. Anyway, after Chowder Bread and a shared appetizer—all of which, according to VMK, took forever to get to the table—it was time to order salads. Now, it’s at this point that I can tell she has been there before. Because she ordered the Caesar salad. But made a point to say hold the anchovies, because she was allergic. No, at this point, I should say that we serve our Caesar salad with 2 anchovies in an X on top of our dish.

Now she had said this in such a harsh way that my little Waitress was about in tears.

And VMK seemed to be enjoying it. Her friends seemed to be used to the type of behavior. So it was here that I decided to step in. I walked over in my bright white chef coat with the tall paper chef’s hat and spoke to Karen, “I’m sorry I couldn’t help overhear. Please let me personally handle your order. We take allergies very seriously. I will be out with your order in a few minutes.”

So I then stepped inside (our salad station was indoors). I asked our salad chef to make a Caesar salad without dressing or garnish (the anchovies) while I stepped inside the storage room and took the label off the box our dressing came in.

Three minutes after I stepped inside, I came back out and placed a plate of Romaine lettuce with parmesan cheese and croutons.
At first, VMK had that smug, victorious look on her face.

That lasted about 30 seconds till she realized (loudly), “Where the heck is my dressing? I asked for a Caesar salad!!”

I replied as loudly but calmly (my voice carries like that), “But ma’am, you are allergic. I can’t feed you something you are allergic to.” She yelled, pointing her finger at me. I said, “I’m allergic to anchovies. I had your salad yesterday and you put anchovies on it. I just want my salad without anchovies. Now go make me one without it.”

I said, “But ma’am, it’s right there in front of you.

I have made you an anchovy-free salad. But from what you have just told me I have good news for you. But let me confirm that you had my salad yesterday.”

“YES, I just removed the portion that had the anchovies on it.” It’s at this point I realized I had the attention of the whole front end.

Jerk, I said, “Well, I have good news and bad news for you. The good is that you are not allergic to anchovies. And the bad is that I know this because you ate some yesterday and are still fine.” Putting my hand up to stop her protests, I said not as loudly but firmly, “Anchovies are one of the main ingredients in Caesar salad dressing.” Reaching inside my pocket and pulling out the label, I pointed to the second ingredient: “anchovy paste.”

To this day I can close my eyes and see her go from red to white and back again.

Her friends about fell out of their chairs laughing. Got a chuckle from a few other tables too. My little waitress got one heck of a tip from that table. Likely not from Karen, but her friends.”

“Back when I was a kid, we had family over for one of the holidays. I was pretty excited, and when my parents asked me to shower, I didn’t want to waste time, so I was super efficient and in and out in no time.

My parents didn’t believe I’d showered, though.

No problems – I went back in and showered until the water was cold.

That water heater used to take an age to heat up when empty, though. And with six people queued up to use the shower because I had taken so long, there were many complaints.

At least you know I showered, right?”

“So I work at a tattoo/piercing shop. I’m brand new to this shop, and the following happened between my two other coworkers: one who is an artist and the other is the piercer. On this particular day, it’s only the three of us at the shop. ... Click here to continue reading