Losing your job is embarrassing. Being fired is extremely so. Some people make mistakes, but some people face consequences completely disproportionate to whatever it was they did. These are their stories.
u/imnutothis asked Reddit:
People who have been straight up fired on the spot. What happened?
Here were some of those answers.
Dodged A Ribeye
Chef here. Got fired because I sent a steak out that "had char on it".
The only "char" on it was grill marks.
Ok lady, you probably just saved me a huge mess.
Played Yourself
I handed my boss my two week notice and she ripped it in half and said "Don't bother, you're done today."
HQ wasn't too thrilled with her decision as they had to pay me a severance because of her hatred towards me.
Haha, I once had the exact opposite happen - I submitted my resignation and my boss refused it. The next day, I received a meeting invite from my VP on my client site - very rare for him to come to me - and when I walked in, the VP, HR, Senior Manager, and Manager were on one side of a long table and there was one chair on the other side for me. They insisted that, despite my moving two states away, we would make it work. It was awkward, as I didn't particularly like working from home (I'm a social creature and if left at home alone, I will play video games all day), but we made it work for another year before we amicably ended my employment.
Revenge!! REEEEVEEEEENGEEEEEE!!!
I came back to my summer job at an amusement park from missing 3 days with strep throat, handed in my doctors excuse, and was fired for missing work. Apparently to call off you couldn't just talk to a manager, you had to talk to the department head, a person I had never met with a phone number that had never been made available to me. Because I missed more than 2 days, it didn't matter that I had a note because I was considered a no call/no show. The assistant manager I gave my excuse to handed me a letter back that said I had 10 minutes to clean out my locker and vacate the premises or they'd call the cops for trespassing.
I was 16, in a state with very liberal employment laws, and my mom retained a lawyer. I didn't win any money but they ended up having to list me as rehire-able in their system and they paid a huge fine for essentially making it impossible for employees to call in sick.
Happy...Holidays?
I was told Friday out of nowhere "we won't be needing your services anymore" after being told in November I would have a position into next year at the minimum. So that's a fun holiday gift.
Same. Let go day before Thanksgiving after 5 years at a company and negotiated my new raise with substantial documentation of my worth to the company.
I was replaced almost immediately and suspect my raise was given to that individual....
Nah, It Was Real
Me and my friend were two young Irish lads working on rebuilding the Canary Wharf tower in London (which had been blown up by some other Irish lads a year earlier, but that's another story.) It was like the Nakatomi Plaza. There were so many floors, if you didn't feel like working, you could just go to some random floor and hide out for a while.
So me and my friend, both 18 years old, were hungover one morning. We went to the 23rd floor where there was a comfortable couch and we lay there smoking weed. Suddenly the English foreman appears and fires us on the spot. As he was walking away, he says "That was taking the piss, lads."
Unfortunately, there was somewhat of a misunderstanding here. What he meant was that our behavior was so bad we had crossed a line. However, in Ireland at that time, "that was taking the piss" meant I'm only joking. So we continued working for another three or four hours before he came back and said "I fired you this morning, what the hell are you still doing here?"
Too Much Of A Threat
I was working for a small family owned restaurant. All the wait staff, and most of the kitchen staff was family or friends with the owner. I was hired as a waitress, and I did okay, not great, not terrible, it was my first time being a waitress.
One day, one of their regular customers came in, who is a bit of a local celebrity. He apparently came in once or twice a week, and tipped very well. Normally the owners daughter would take the taAble, but she was out sick so I took them. I got an amazing tip from him, and he told the owner that he would like me to wait on them if I am available in the future. The second he left I was fired.
I'm Quaking In My Hairnet
I told my manager at a fast food place that I was going to be looking for a new job, and to not schedule me after this pay period. The next week, I see my name on the schedule and ask her what the deal is.
"I told you I was going to get a new job and not to schedule me"
"Well, did you get a new job yet?"
"No. But I'm still not sticking around this one."
"Well you know what, you can just not come back here now with that attitude."
She sure showed me.
Jerk Bosses Who Played Themselves
I was fresh out of College at an IT contract-to-hire job. I came in on a Tuesday, sat down at my desk, the boss/owner came up behind me and told me I was fired. I sat there, mouth open, and then asked, "Why?" He said that I was not a good fit for the company and that I had to leave. So I gathered my things and he stood there watching me (probably making sure I did not steal anything) and escorted me out of the office. I found out later that because of the size of the company, at the time, they were looking for a tier III worker, but I was a tier I; I told them this in the interview, but apparently they did not have the resources to train me. Well jokes on them, I went through a month of unemployment and I found an even better IT job where I make a lot of money and work only half as hard as that job.
Blessings In Disguise
My first job out of college was for a very small dental insurance claims clearing house. The company had recently split from another company, whose name was on the software that all the Dentist offices used, so that was the name they recognized. The two companies were basically fighting over their client base. So, my job was to call up all of their clients to remove the old software from the former partner and install the new janky-*ss sh*t they'd cobbled together since the split.
My job alternated between:
- Calling up customers to install the new software and train them on it
- Troubleshoot the problems with the software and come up with work-arounds, typically during training calls.
Clients typically were finding out from me that the software was changing and I was supposed to insist that it was the same company, just different software.
After almost a year of this, I was getting to a point where it just felt so awful to trudge my way into work because I knew I'd spend the day getting yelled at by clients who were upset that their routines were changing. I spent a lot of my downtime complaining to my friends over my personal email about how awful it was. Probably not the best thing to do, but I was young.
Well, one day I come back from lunch and find the door to my office closed and my boss standing there waiting for me. He showed me the emails he'd printed out from my personal email account with portions of conversations highlighted that he didn't like. I never used any names or revealed company information - just my emotions while working there. He shoved the papers in my hands and said "Explain this to me." I basically said I was just having trouble with the day to day grind, but he just responded with, "I think it's time for you to find something else. Get out of here."
Fine by me. I probably should have left before it got to that point, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that.
What Did You Expect To Happen?
I was 15 I think. I was a lifeguard at a subdivision pool. Being the "new guy" and the "young kid" I worked every weekend. Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday day. I had already missed going to my grandparents a couple of times, and my parents were taking a vacation. I asked off and was told that I couldn't go. My dad basically said, "you are going, I don't care." I told the boss this and she said, you still have to work. I left with my parents, and when I got back there were a dozen messages on my parents answering machine saying that they couldn't open the pool because I wasn't there. She fired me 3 or 4 times that weekend.
She was a bored housewife hired by the HOA to schedule the lifeguards who were mostly high school kids. She fired another for wearing a bikini. They didn't use her the next year, but by that point in time I was 16 and had a better job.
No Dime For A Jerk
Mom, brother and I were at Olive Garden about 20 years ago. We had the worst waiter in the history of the world. He was outrageously rude to the point of being abusive to us. At the end of the dinner my mom left him a dime for a tip and as we were leaving the waiter threw the dime at my mom (I was a little kid otherwise I would have probably at least attempted to defend her). Waiter's boss saw the dime throw and fired the waiter on the spot. Everyone has a bad day, but that guy was just a prick.
Not Doing Your Work For Ya, Bucko
A colleague (from another department, always borderline hostile) had emailed my boss that I no-showed a call while on the job. Terminated immediately.
This wasn't possible though, as I had documentation that I showed to the call. And it's also not possible to no-show a call. Like, people literally die. If one can't go, you call your partner to go for you. But in my case I had gone there. All my documentation proved I had been there.
Theirs on the other hand, did not. But my manager skipped the investigation on this. No checking call logs, no checking notes (legally binding documents), no even hearing my side. Came in in the morning, asked me if I had gone to a call 5 days ago, I asked what the documentation said and he said we're ending your employment. Good manager!
Don't Ride An Engineer
I was an engineer at a company. Glorified term for the guy who designs construction projects and orders the material on smaller scale telecom projects. The owner of the company would take a big group of installers to install the projects. He was always riding us engineers to use up smaller pieces of inventory from the warehouse instead of ordering brand new stuff (for example do not order the 10' piece of steel if you can have the warehouse pull a 4' from our stock).
Well I would design the projects and only order the longer pieces if it was part of my design requiring and I would bid the project based on that design. Never failed the owner would go to site with his rag tag group, tear apart my design, build it completely different than my design, and then bitch at me for ordering too much material (he would send me nasty emails copying everyone). Keep in mind that he would install the job with a much different design than we bid for which means our quotes should have been reduced per our contract with our client.
I finally had enough of him berating me and sent a nasty email response to one of his belittling emails he sent and copied the entire world like he always does. I show up to work and my direct line supervisor laid me off. I knew very well that my email would probably get me fired and that I was burning a bridge but I already had another job lined up and it felt so good to tell that guy to f*ck off. My manager was laughing about the email as he was telling me that he had to lay me off.
3 months after all of this the owners wife was calling me and asking if there was anyway in would return. I declined for obvious reasons.
All That For Nothing
It was my first job, I think I was 16 or 17 at the time. I worked at a local grocery store a couple days a week as a cashier.
One morning my dad had just dropped me off at work and it was a slow Sunday morning. A couple hours into my shift a girl comes in and buys a pack of cigarettes. I forgot to ID her and turns out she was underage and it was one of those sting things. (which when I worked there I did not know that was even a thing that happened.) Well a guy comes in with the same girl and talks to the manager. Tells him what happened. After the two leave he pulls me to the side and tells me that I am fired. I was devastated because I was a really good kid and followed by the rules and hated getting in trouble.
I then go outside call my dad and the minute he answered I burst into tears. I tell him that I need him to pick me up because I was fired. He comes picks me up I tell him what happened and he calms me down. Then my mom comes home from church and tell her what happened. She was fuming. My mom was saying that I should not have been selling cigarettes or alcohol in the first place because it is illegal for a minor to do so. Then my mom and I go back to the store and my mom is talking to the manager how it is wrong. That I was not supposed to be selling them in the first place and etc. After all that the manager says that I can have my job back I just cannot be a cashier anymore, but my mom refused to let me work there anymore.
Do I Need A Hall Pass?
I was 3 months in my job and I was getting harassed by my manager constantly for several weeks. Every day they'd follow me to the bathroom and make comments the whole time I needed to be in there.
I felt uncomfortable with this and reported it to HR, the next day the president of the company came to the office, and summoned me and the HR rep.
He brought up my concerns, and asked me what I wanted. I said I just wanted him to be professional and not follow me to the bathroom every time I have to go.
After I finished, he said, "Okay... well. Here's the thing. I've read the reports, and it just doesn't look like you're a good fit here. It's within 90 days, so we're just going to terminate your employment immediately. You'll be escorted out."
And that was it. I hated myself for opening that can of worms, but at the same time f*ck that guy.
Sayonara, Bye-bye
Sears used to pay their electronics folks commission on top of base pay for big items. It was a pretty nice rate for commission. Anyways, we would "price match" compared to Frys or Best Buy (this was '05). Sometimes we made up Best Buy prices and would just say it was a promo weekend there.
I wasn't a great salesman and would incentivize customers to buy out of desperation. I'd take off like $400 sometimes.
One time a customer and I really hit it off. Super nice folks, came in around the holidays. I got on first name basis with em by the end. Anyways, lost prevention called me in and showed me on camera making the sale, I slipped up and said oh that's "Ed and his family." They thought I knew them on a real friend or family basis and gave them a $2900 tv for $2400. Fired on the spot.
Pay your workers more than $7/hour base and you won't see shit like that. People will sort out a way to cheat the system on you if you pay pennies. I got away with price matching probably 20 times before I got called on it.
That Sears is dead and gone now, I say good riddance.
CW: Suicide
There is so much to learn in life.
And once you acquire certain things mentally, you regret it.
How much 411 have you come across over time that made you think... "How can I unlearn that?"
Yeah, not possible.
Knowledge is power and sometimes it's a nightmare.
Don't we have enough to keep us up at night?
Damn curiosity.
Well let's do some learning.
Redditor RedBoyFromNewy wanted to shed some light on creepy issues we need to be discussing. They asked:
"What’s a disturbing fact that not a lot of people know of?"
So who is ready to spill, and where do you find the info?
From the Guts
"Without mucus your stomach would digest itself."
Ddubsquizzee
"The reason you body produces more saliva before vomiting is your bodies way if protecting your mouth from the acidity of the vomit before you actually throw up."
-AntiVegan-
Death
"There are more suicides than homicides in the US every year."
tmsanch
"60% of all gun deaths in fact are suicides. It is estimated that someone offs themselves with a firearm every 20 minutes in the US. And 80% of them are males."
hymnsees
"And what's worse (knowing, as my family just went through this.)... 70% of suicides have no note. It's a common misconception that most people leave a note and it just isn't true. Mainly because a lot of people who write notes realize they don't want to go through with it. Those who are 'successful' just do it."
jdward01
After...
"You can give still 'birth' if you die while pregnant. The decomp process will force the baby out. It’s rare but it does happen."
MelissaAthalie
"This is usually what ends up happening when a pregnant woman gets murdered. They usually find the fetus either completely separate (like in the Lacy and Connor Peterson case) or in the same location as the mother, but clearly birthed (like with the case with Shanann Watts). It's something I never knew happened until very recently and I think it's one of the most horrifying aspects of death."
rivlet
Disaster
"The deadliest ship disaster was the MV Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship built during the Nazi Regime. In January 1945, she was evacuating 10,000 German citizens ahead of the soviet Invasion when (albeit ironically) a Soviet Submarine spotted them, and fired three torpedoes. The ship was on the freezing cold Baltic Sea, and the davits (ropes) for the lifeboats had frozen over."
"Not only that, but the ship was only meant to carry 2,000 people normally. These two factors, coupled with the harsh angle the ship was sinking at, meant only half of the lifeboats could be deployed. 9,400 people drowned to death that night, and nobody knows about it."
TheNonbinaryWren
I See You
"Your eyes have a separate immune system than the rest of your body, and if your normal immune system ever learns about your eyes, it will target them and you'll go blind."
hiruko_uchiha
Oh my eye. How do we protect them? As if I don't have enough stress.
Launched
"Penguins can launch their poop out of their butts like 5-6m far."
Bela_hrn
Despair
"Cotard's delusion, also known as walking corpse syndrome, is a neuropsychiatric disorder in which the person is in eternal damnation. They literally believe they are dead or dying [or don't have organs], the amount of despair is unimaginable and simply can't be grasped by people not suffering from it."
SweetTimpaniofLogic
'hard problem'
"It may seem like we know a lot about the human brain, but our standard way of studying brain activity is an fMRI, where a single pixel contains over 3 million neurons. That is more than many vertebrate animals' entire brains. The truth is, we really have no idea how the brain gives rise to consciousness."
"Edit: Even if we somehow perfectly worked out all the neural correlates of consciousness so we could say a mental state happens if and only if some exact pattern of brain activity happens, we would still have the 'hard problem' of consciousness: Why do these physical processes give rise to raw subjective experience, rather than just happening 'in the dark?'"
zeugenie
2 Minutes...
"If your esophagus closes and you cannot swallow, you have about 2 minutes before saliva starts reaching your windpipe. It is not a long time, but it is long enough to panic..."
grat_is_not_nice
"I have Eosiniphillic Oesophagitis and have had food stuck in the oesophagus for up to 24 hours before. And it’s horrible. You don’t realise how much saliva you swallow, to be constantly choking and vomiting that back up isn’t the best experience!"
AwayFollowing554
Get Lucky
"You’ve probably been closer to dying multiple times in your life then you even know. Just got lucky, or unlucky depending on who you are."
GingeBeardManBro
Well that's enough to disrupt sleep for life. Thanks y'all.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
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The best stories are ones with exciting plot twists.
But the next best type of stories are the ones that continue spiraling out of control.
Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor _Mitnix_ asked:
"What's your best 'oh you thought this was bad, it gets worse' story?"
It's story time. You may want to buckle up.
It All Started With A Cat
"This is a long one, but I promise it's worth it:"
"A buddy of mine was cat-sitting for a friend of his while the guy was out of town on a vacation. My buddy didn't have a car, so the dude told him that if he needed to go out and pick up more cat food or anything, he could borrow the car."
"At the time, my buddy was living right down the street from this guy, staying at his parents' house. So my buddy was just going over for a few hours each day to feed the cat and keep it company, then going back home."
"Meanwhile, he's also been flirting with this woman online. She lives several states away, but he feels like they seem to be getting pretty serious. So he decides to take some liberties, really push the envelope on where he'll pick up cat food from, and he takes his friend's car on a little multi-state road trip."
"This is insane, right? Just atrociously bad judgement, especially since someone does need to feed the cat. To solve this, he left his parents a note. It read, 'I am camping in the woods behind our house. Please go over to ____'s and feed his cat. I'll let you know when I'm home.'"
"Boom. Problem solved, right?"
"Except that the 'woods behind our house' are about 20 yards deep. It takes less than five minutes to walk through them and come out into the neighboring housing development. So his parents went looking for him, calling out for him, and couldn't find him. They got worried and contacted a family friend, a local police officer. He subsequently got a hold of the fire department. There was a full-on search party combing through about 1/50th of an acre of woods. Unsurprisingly, they were coming up with nothing."
"This was before cell phones were common, so my buddy was completely unaware that his plan had fallen apart. He was cruising along on his 12-hour drive, expecting to get to this girl's house just in time for dinner. Except he didn't have a GPS. So he got lost. Very lost. Like, by the time he turned up at this woman's house, it was almost midnight."
"When he got there, she was crying her eyes out. He assured her that it was okay, he was fine, wasn't hurt or in a wreck or anything, he'd just gotten lost. And she said, 'No, no, I wasn't worried about you. My dad just died in a motorcycle accident.'"
"So he bailed on his cat-sitting duties, stole a car, and inspired his parents to file a missing-persons just so he could awkwardly watch a woman cry for a few hours and then drive back home."
– GavinBelsonsAlexa
The Beekeeper's Nightmare
"I will try to keep it short. I am a beekeeper. My 3rd year of beekeeping, I suddenly developed a severe allergy to bee stings. It was spring and I was installing bees for the beginning of the season. I was up to the last hive, went to install that package of bees and one stung me right in the top of my head."
"I finished up a few minutes after and went up toward the house to do some other things. I started feeling flush and I could feel my heart racing. After I few minutes I realized I was having an anaphylactic reaction."
"If you’ve never had one, aside from the physical symptoms, they also say you will get a feeling of impending doom. That was spot on. I absolutely felt I was going to die and people do die from these reactions."
"So I am now in the house and desperately searching for Benadryl of which I have none. I am also having trouble breathing, my body is going haywire and I feel like I’m going to black out shortly."
"I call my mom, who lives an hour away, to call 911 because I feel like I will be unconscious soon. She says okay, phone rings 30 seconds later. It’s my mom, she goes 'I called 911 but they said you have to call'. This was my first wtf."
"So I call and it’s a very typical 911 call she is trying to keep me talking and I essentially started vomiting and she is still on the line and I am waiting and waiting for this alleged ambulance."
"A full half hour goes by. At this point I am actually coming out of the reaction. So I go to sit at my kitchen counter. I’m still on the line with the 911 dispatcher. I see the ambulance pull up and I say, oh they’re here. She’s like great, are you okay? I’m like yes and then she says goodbye and hangs up."
"I see the EMTs outside but my driveway has a gate so they are just standing there and they ring the bell on my gate and I am just looking at them, dumbfounded. Like I called for an emergency over a half hour ago, and they’re gonna roll up here and ring my bell and wait for me to come out when I more than likely could be unconscious or dead on the floor."
"I literally had to go out and let them in. Then they basically talked me in to going to the hospital to get checked out. Another huge mistake because this took place in the 2 months in my entire life when I didn’t have health insurance. So I ended up paying $4000 for a late ambulance and some IV Benadryl and epinephrine."
"Oh which also reminds me, a paramedic also showed, put the IV in when I agreed to go to the hospital. Then I felt something dripping and turns out he put it in my artery rather than a vein and it was just pushing the fluid out of the IV."
"0/10 would not go through any of that again…but I did 10 years later when I had another anaphylactic reaction due to a bee sting. However this went a lot smoother and I had epi-pens and a responsive ambulance."
– soline
Oil Everywhere
"Arrive home from work, my house reeks of oil."
"Go in the basement, and there's a pool of oil, with my stuff floating in it. The oil filter on my burner rotted out (it was defective and recalled, but the tech never bothered to notify me or replace it). Call up the tech, he throws a new one, charges me the emergency call fee, and advises I call HO insurance before running away (it was his fault, I didn't know it yet)."
"This was February in NY, about 13F out, and obviously the burner wasn't on while sitting in a pool of oil. But, they get there pretty quickly soak it up, and get things running so my pipes don't freeze."
"Only way to get the smell out is to dry clean everything I own, then shampoo all the carpets, run deodorizers, etc. Takes weeks. Had a headache the whole time."
"Turns out, my basement has cracks, most of it leaked through. They had to cut out my foundation and dig out the contaminated soil."
"Oil in soil means DEC gets involved. Whole new can of worms as they now had to monitor the process, test at every step. Big enough deal I have a spill number in their database."
"A 20 yard dumpster, with 20 yards of oil soaked sand, is so heavy that it broke through my driveway, destroying it. They did that twice, took out my entire driveway."
"Remember how I said this was in February? March brought the COVID shutdown."
"I spent over a year with my basement in shambles, holes in my driveway, plastic sheets taped up, no washer/dryer, and all sorts of equipment kicking around."
"The next spring, they're back and working, and screwed everything up. Not going to get into every detail, but after a big fight, I managed to get rid of them and bring in a new company to fix their screwups and finish the job. Old crew got very difficult when the new crew requested permits and reports. Turns out, they never bothered. Had to do all that before they could start working again."
"New company dropped a storage crate on my yard to store my stuff while working, destroyed my grass, took out a sprinkler, took out my neighbor's driveway curb, got concrete all over my brickwork, but at least the nightmare was finally over."
– MyNameIsRay
These Redditors have been dealt with some major blows.
People who say that things will always get better, are partially right. Things do come around, eventually.
But you never know how many curve balls life has to throw at you until there's a resolution.
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Life is full of disappointments. We lose out on a job opportunity or the one designer article of clothing we really wanted is not available in our size.
But we go on.
But the biggest letdowns are the ones we never see coming but must contend with.
Redditor Frequent-Pilot5243 asked:
"What is a depressing truth you have made peace with?"

No matter how much you prize a friendship, not all of them are for forever.
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
"A friendship you thought would last forever can end in an instant."
– Febreze4200
The Best Mate Who Quit
"My best mate of 20 years, said that he didn’t want to be my best man and just said he didn’t want to be my friend any more. Hurt like hell."
– Gavindasing
It's Okay To Let Go
"Sometimes people you care deeply about will choose to drop out of your life and all you can really do is have the grace to let them."
"edit. to everyone struggling with being left behind, and to everyone struggling with having to be the one to leave- I hope the pain eases for you soon."
– girlloss
Restarting The Process
"I have a really hard time with this one. Every friendship I've had in my adult life has only lasted a couple years tops. Rarely a falling out or anything, but just drifting apart or sh*t happens type deal. It's hard for me to make friends in the first place because I'm pretty shy, so having to regularly restart that process is really discouraging. Right now I don't really have any friends because I've just kinda given up trying."
– plebeian1523
The harsh reality of losing the people we love hits home for these Redditors.
Grandpa Time
"My grandpa just wanted to get to know me and the man I was becoming during his last year of life. Which I was too young and too selfish to realize."
– MrMunky24
Lost Opportunity
"Yeah, this hits home. I spent 90% of my childhood with my grandparents. I was at their house almost everyday. When I got into my teens and obviously found friends, discovered women, all that stuff and then I just stopped seeing them. They’re both gone now and they died with the memories of me as a child. Although they seen me sometimes while I was older, they didn’t know me because I didn’t give them the chance."
– Loud-Distance-1456
In Grief
"My dad passed away 6 weeks ago and I will NEVER see, hear, chat or get to hug him ever again & that forever is a long time."
– somethinggood19
These sobering facts were huge disappointments.
Truth About CPR
"This is coming from a firefighter:"
"If you have to perform CPR on them, it's most likely over for the patient."
"I'm not sure if I've made peace with it completely, but I've accepted it at least."
– Rukhnul
The After Effects
"I've taken CPR training twice in the past 10 years. The instructors were so completely different... The second one flat out told us 'you're giving them about a 15% chance of living, and even if they live, they will probably have some kind of severe trauma that will dramatically decrease their quality of life.' Wow..."
– DavidAg02
Despite Having Good Intentions...
"No one is coming to help."
– _meddlin_
That Train Has Left The Station
"I'm aging nonstop."
– insaight
Innocence Is Gone
"My childhood is gone, and I have no good memory from that phase of my life."
– anonymoose_mrx
No matter what, life goes on with or without us.
The best that any of us can do while we're passengers on this giant spaceship is to take life as it comes and pick up the pieces the best we can when things don't pan out as we'd hoped.
Sometimes, it's about celebrating the small victories–like finally finding a store that has your shoe size.
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People Describe The Times Someone Mocked Them For Being Wrong But They Were Actually Right
The truth matters.
Something one would think was a given in modern society.
Yet all over the world, there are people so unbelievably stubborn, that they simply refuse to believe the facts.
Sometimes even when presented with evidence.
This could be for something menial, such as refusing to believe that a cotton candy was actually invented by a dentist.
But sometimes, refusing to believe the truth could have serious consequences, up to and including climate change, the effectiveness of masks, and the disproportionate amount of gun violence in the US.
Redditor Lady_Of_The_Water was curious about the many things, both frivolous and serious, people refused to believe were true, leading them to ask:
"Whats something someone thought you were wrong about and ridiculed you for it, but it turns out you were right?"
What's that smell?
"That there really was a gas leak in the apartment building."
"Thankfully, the fire didn't cause much damage."- yamsnavas2.
There's a reason the bill is so high.
"Our water usage at work went up a lot."
"They checked all the toilets, sinks for leaks, couldn't find anything."
"I mentioned that it seemed to coincide with the new water cooler system installation, maybe that should be checked."
"They basically laughed at me."
"That stupid water system never worked good and the guy came in 3 different times and said it was just the filter."
"Every month it needs changed???"
"Didn't seem right."
"Finally a different technician came in and result was it was never installed correctly."
"I asked, 'could that have anything to do with the increased water usage that started when this got installed?'"
" He smiled 'I wondered if anyone caught that, yes the valve was not correct and water has been running'."
"For 5 months!!"
"If only they had listened."
"Total redemption!"- McTee967.
Have you ever looked at a map?
"I had a coworker doubling down repeatedly, claiming that new Zealand is north of Australia."
"I even told her about how I had lived there and she just assumed I was such a huge idiot that I didn't know where on the globe I was living."
"Brought the smartphone out and put an end to that."
"Let me just say, it's ok to not know where all the countries are."
"The problem is if you heavily assert you are right and others are stupid."- PlopPlopPlopsy.
Is it supposed to hurt this much?
"My husband told me that I was a 'baby' about my IUD insertion and insisted that it wasn't painful."
"That my concerns about entrusting a stranger to shove a foreign object into my body were paranoid."
"I listened to him because really, the info you'd find online is overwhelmingly positive."
"Long story short: the provider placed it wrong, didn't check/fix it when I asked her to."
"I spent 4 years in pain that I eventually 'got used to."
"It expelled half way out my cervix, had to get it yanked out at the ER."
"That's when I was told that copper IUDs are notorious for breaking inside the uterus."
"Because it broke inside me."
"The cherry on top?"
"The female gyno with three kids I saw to get the broken piece removed told me that 'cervixes don't really feel pain' and that I didn't really need to remove it."
"Goes without saying, I was in severe pain for 2 weeks straight before this appointment."
"Tons of women came out with their stories about lawsuits over IUDs, how they got pregnant with an IUD."
" Stories similar to mine."
"And how women should really be offered anesthesia or pain pills for this procedure."
"And when my husband was surprised to learn about the pain I endured I reminded him 'You called me a baby and everyone else told me it was all in my head'."
"Which is why I didn't talk about it."- PopK0rnAndMMs.
Seems like you could learn something from me.
"In sixth grade chemistry a teacher asked us what element was a gas that was lighter than air, and extremely flammable/explosive."
"I grew up on science because of what my dad does for a living and Bill Nye."
"I knew about the Hindenburg, and so I was really proud of myself when I raised my hand and said 'Hydrogen'."
"The teacher laughed at me and said that no, it was Helium, and the entire rest of the class proceeded to laugh too."
"Almost three decades later I work in a lab now, and f*ck that teacher I was right."- vanyel_ashke.
The dictionary is your friend.
"I have worked as a translator and a proofreader."
"For one of my translations, it went something like 'and he piqued her interest'."
"My proofreader docked me for an inaccuracy and switched it to 'and he peaked her interest'.”
"I’m still salty."
"I tried to get the agency I was working for to remove this person as a proofreader since I question his/her command of the English language."
"Had a similar problem with the phrase “lynch pin” used metaphorically."
"I stopped working with that agency because it pissed me off so much being 'corrected' incorrectly."- spot_o_tea.
No, that's just an illusion.
"When I told my mom that the clouds were moving and she laughed like I was crazy."-
Did you even read the menu?
"I was in the passenger's seat at a Carl's Jr Drive Thru with a friend."
"He asked what I wanted and I requested the Fried Zucchini."
"He puts half his body through the window to the voice box and goes on this 'My friend here thinks you have some kind of food I know you don't have so I am just going to say it for laughs because you will get a kick out of this'."
"She wants FRIED ZUCCHINI' and starts laughing."
" Well guess who ends up eating fried zucchini."- User Deleted.
And how do you spell that?
"Believe it or not, the pronunciation of my own middle name."- ThePlantie.
We have standards in this community...
"Not me but my Mom tells a story about how she wrote a paper for school about how tough her small town makes it for any new people moving in."
"Basically if you didn't grow up there you were a social outcast for decades and were excluded from a lot of things."
"The teacher didn't agree so she got a bad grade and scoffed at."
"A few years later a news paper reporter essentially wrote the same thing and won a local award for calling out the same small town BS that was going on."- Jberg18.
It's pretty amazing that anyone in this day and age would jump to tell someone they're wrong without having any authority.
Particularly when someone can quickly look up the truth on their phone in less than a minute.
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