People Who Made A Lot Of Money From Something Totally Random Share Their Story
We all hope for it, yet deep down know never to expect it: the sudden lucky break that leaves us flush with cash.
We conjure images of a tech startup explosion without any grueling all-nighters. Or maybe the dream is a random viral Youtube video that rakes in cash off the ad money.
Others fantasize about more traditional methods of sudden wealth. They hope for a huge legal settlement, a long-lost relative's will, or a sleeping giant of an art piece.
But we don't really expect it to happen. The astronomical odds just aren't enough to orient your life around.
That said, it happens. Some Redditors were a few of the lucky ones. They told their stories in a recent thread.
Sebulista asked, "Redditors who made a lot of money by sheer randomness, what's your story?"
Before the Fall
"I briefly worked with a guy who was in his late 20s, ex military. When he got out, a friend of his he served with told him to buy Bitcoin. He bought several thousand worth when it was nothing and forgot about it."
"When it first started spiking and getting attention on the news, he started looking for the drive because he thought he had some. He did and he had a lot of it. Sold well before the peak."
"Dude made millions. He had an $800,000 house, multiple high end cars and came to work a manual labor job 'because he was bored.' Needless to say, he didn't stay long and all he did was show off his money and clock hours not actually working."
-- uoYredruM
Sudden Bequeathing
"My wife's aunt died. She had been institutionalized her whole life and neither of us had ever even met her. We kind of forgot about it for a few months until my wife's uncle emailed her and said she was going to be getting some money."
"We were like oh, OK, that's kinda weird, but not complaining."
"Then my wife got a phone call from the uncle one evening. I heard a lot of 'ums,' 'OKs,' and 'geeze, wows.' Turned out we were getting over $300,000."
"We were both grinding away making $15 an hour and barely making rent every month, and then boom. Outta nowhere."
"That ended up being the difference between having a house and not having a house, being able to start a family and not being able to start a family, and having a retirement fund vs just hoping not to get evicted every month."
-- RougeCannon
One and Done
"I won $5,000 playing bingo on a cruise. I have only been on one cruise, and it was the only time I have played bingo in my life. I have retired from both.." -- frivus
"Going out on top" -- xkygerx
"First time I went to Vegas after turning 21 I played a slot machine, won $3,000 on my first try. Haven't gambled since" -- phoebe-buffey
A Particular Clientele
"I was a male escort for about 7ish years. Not a sex worker, specifically an escort. I would go with people(Usually women, but sometimes men.) And would pretend to be their perfect boyfriend/partner in front of friends and family/co-workers."
"It started out very much as an accident but ended up making me a ton of money. I recently 'retired' and started focusing on going to school cause I can't do escorting my whole life, and nor did I want because I really dislike people and it was honestly a chore."
"Most of my clients were '1 percenters' which is the reason I made so much money. I did pay taxes on it before anyone asks."
Accidental Art Collectors
"My friend's father was gifted an oil pencil drawing in the late 70s. His family always assumed it was pretty much worthless and I always joked that it looked like my friend had drawn it as a child. This silly angry stick figure drawing ended up being an unsigned piece of art by Jean-Michel Basquiat."
"His family did some digging and eventually had it authenticated by the JMB estate before selling it at Christie's auction house for an amazing sum of money."
"I was absolutely blown away when I learned this. My friend and his family were far from wealthy so to realize they had this unknown treasure just sitting out in the living room for so many years was mind blowing."
-- Zuliman
Dead Drop
"I found 3600 dollars in a food takeout box in the middle of a giant field, I live in a rich area and lot of drug deals happen so it's possible I stole multiple thousands of dollars from a drug dealer on accident" -- Hingadowshow
"someone probably died or lost a limb because of that :X not your fault, just saying" -- OdinWolfe
"I feel like this is the plot to a semi-shitty action film." -- Dudelyllama
A Flash of Excitement
"I started an Amazon private label business on a whim in 2015. I made about 25% of the sale in profit after product, shipping, and advertising costs."
"Sales doubled every month for six months June $4k, July $8k August $18k, September $40k, October $84k November $175k, December $362k."
"I didn't know what to do. I quit my job in January to focus on growing the business, but my time was spent mostly trying to fend off competition copying my listing and posting fraudulent reviews and then lowering my price in the race to the bottom."
"It went well for a few years, but I never made as much as I made that first December."
"Lesson learned: arbitrage isn't a long term business"
Moral: Don't Be a Jerk
"The summer after my freshmen year in college I was walking my little 20lb dog on a street near my house. A neighbor lady was walking her two dogs who were a husky and some other similar sized dog."
"The husky attacked my dog and in the process I got some teeth marks on my wrist. Since the neighbors dog started it and the owner obviously couldn't control it I wanted them to pay the vet fees for my dog which was under 500."
"The guy ended up being a di** about it and my roommates dad was a lawyer so about a year and half later I ended up with about 20k."
-- Br1nkley
One of the Lucky Ones
"I quit a job at a startup that was a mess, and I just wanted to do something relaxing so I took some time of cleaning up an old algorithm I wrote 10 years ago. I told a friend of mine, who told some industry people about it. They contacted me and I got invited to talk about it at a conference and then large companies started getting in touch."
"So far I have signed one 7 figure deal to license it. Its not random but it feels very random. I'm making more in interest now then i ever have earned holding down a job."
"The world is not fair."
-- quelsolaar
Location, Location, Location
"Normal reddit reply of 'not me but' my friend's dad's friend. He decided to open an ice business. Hey, everyone need ice. He bought an old warehouse because it was cheap."
"Government decided to redo the on ramps to the bridge and needed to buy like 1/3rd of his parking lot, maybe say 20 parking spots worth. He didn't care, he had a staff of like 4, never used more than that."
"I never heard exact numbers but I did hear he got more for those spots, than he paid for the property."
-- somedude456
"I bought a waterproof camera..."
I bought a waterproof camera back in 2010 and thought it would be cool to try it out at the new water park that just opened. 1 years later the video blew up making me tons of money monthly. I still make some during the summer months but not much. Now I'm sitting at just over 100,000,000 views.
"I originally secured..."
In the 90s I fostered a dog for some friends who were leaving town and left the dog with me. This dog immediately made an impression upon me, and even though I really didn't want a pet at the time, he was such an amazing dog, he convinced me otherwise. He was super smart, half black lab, half pit bull. I called him "wisdom" because he was so smart.
Fast forward a few years I used him as a mascot for a recording studio I set up. I registered the domain name wisdom.com. My dog passed away several years later and I was heartbroken and depressed for many years. I maintained the domain name even though I didn't really have any projects associated with it. Over the years people made offers on the domain name but I always passed. The domain was a homage to my long lost best friend.
Then in 2000 with the dot-com boom, there was renewed interest in domains and IPOs. I had a few groups bugging me for the domain name and kept increasing their offers. Eventually the numbers got into the "life changing" areas of money, and I couldn't ignore them.
I originally secured the wisdom.com domain name for nothing. In the early days of the Internet, it didn't cost any money to register a domain name. You just had to fill out the right forms. I actually would never have to pay any domain renewal fees if it wasn't for a sysadmin that made changes to the domain and accepted new terms of service that forced me to have to pay renewal fees. Otherwise, the $475,000 I was ultimately offered in cash would have been pure profit. But instead my cost was a few hundred dollars over the year. Still a significant windfall that gave me the opportunity to take that money and create another cool community of wonderful people.
I continue to be in awe that my little dog, Wisdom, had the ability to bestow such an amazing gift upon me so many years later, and I'm determined to use that gift to help others. I took the money to create a special space that is a makerspace and club to help others.
"My neighbor..."
My neighbor died with no friends or family and left everything in her will to us. Everyone always asks if we were great neighbors to her? I'd say no, we were just neighbors and treated her as we would want to be treated and did neighborly duties for her. If it snowed we cleared her driveway without her asking, took care of her cats if she went to the beach, say Hello if we saw her.
She was a tough cookie and an alpha female, would be the best way to put it. She hated if I played basketball in the driveway and when we were cleaning out her garage after she died we found 3 of my old basketballs. But she was also the type of person if she wanted an apple pie she would bake an apple pie and take a slice and bring the rest over to us.
"When they got too old..."
My dad and uncle had distant cousins that lived in town. Retired teachers. We all thought they were poor as church mice. My mom had them for Easter--they didn't want to come to the other celebrations as they hated my grandmother.
When they got too old to live on their own, my mother got their house sold and had them set up in a retirement/convalescent home. We did all the moving ourselves. They loved us kids, so we were brought over to sit and chat with them every few months. My father and uncle never did a thing.
When they died, it turned out they'd invested well and were sitting on a bunch of valuable stocks. They left 25% to my uncle (who called to ask who they were), 25% to my father, and 50% to my mother! It was a great lesson in kindness. My mother was nice because they were "poor" family and ended up getting a huge chunk of cash for her efforts!
"Turned 18..."
Turned 18 and bought 2 $5 lottery tickets as a goof, won $10 and said f**k it let it ride and bought 2 more. Won $1000 and have stayed away from gambling since.
"My dad really loved the idea of it..."
It wasn't so much randomness, and my family isn't filthy rich, but we seriously just threw s*** at a wall to see what would stick.
My family was immensely poor for a while. Credit card debt, bankruptcy when I was born, etc... Well, YouTube came around in 2005. My dad really loved the idea of it and saw potential in the platform. He watched it for years, seeing what people liked. In 2009, my dad decided to do YouTube in his free time, as he likes to be busy and it gave some bonding time with myself. One video after another. One subscriber after another. One viewer after another. Somehow, he ended up getting monetized fairly quickly with YouTube. It was a pretty good amount at the time (a few grand monthly) that it gave my family the stepping stone to get out of poverty level.
We continued the channel for fun even after we got better financially. Even enough to get a slightly bigger house. The channel ended up being put down in 2016 due to unrelated things that caused long hiatuses. I kind of miss it to be honest.
"At first..."
At first I figured I had nothing to contribute to this thread. But when I started reading about people getting severance packages and winning $500 at the casino. Hell, I got a $55k severance package from my last job and won $18k in the lottery.
"I was able to salvage..."
I was in an apartment fire. My apartment wasn't damaged by fire but by thousands of gallons of water from the fire department and a little bit of smoke. My renters insurance payed out the max $30k. I got to salvage BLM it's if my stuff minus all the furniture.
I had to come up with a list over the weekend of all my processions and their value. I think I was at like maybe $10k on my list. My apartment manager and the insurance adjuster just said to make sh*t up basically. So in about a 10 minute time frame I edited my list and BSed it from $10k close to $25k. The adjuster gave very little push back during the inspection and maxed it out cause I would need a hotel temporary.
I was able to salvage most of most processions but it was a lot of trips to the laundromat, and spending the next few months just washing all my stuff. It really sucked as I was living in Airbnb's during the weekdays and staying with my parents 2 hours away on the weekends. And I had to find a new apartment while being effectively homeless. I'd say the hassle was worth at least $10k.
"While waiting for them..."
I went to the Netherlands (you know the country not the....ok I'll stop) for vacation when I was about 11 (?) and went on a biking trip with my uncle. When we finished the tour we were quite far away from where we stayed so my uncles dad came to pick us up by car and drove us back.
Along the road we obviously made some pitstops and there it was in all its glory: a gas station gamble machine.
While waiting for them to finish their duties I went ahead and pressed random buttons and out of nowhere €1 and €2 coins start falling out of it. It continued for about a minute before it stopped. I was perplexed cause I actually hadn't put anything inside so I didn't expect anything.
How much did I get you ask? €43 straight cash...which isn't a lot to be fair but as a 11 year old foreigner randomly receiving foreign money out of a gambling machine it made me feel like I was at the top of the world.
Had a bad@ss time at the fair when we got back.
"I used that..."
My father died when I was 17. Social security gave me a check for $10,000
I used that and my life savings to put a 20% down payment on a house in Central Valley of California in 2013.
My house has doubled in price and I pay 1/3 what renting would be.
"We were approached..."
Sold a company in 2008. I got out of the military and had some friends that were starting a small veteran owned defense contracting company. I owned about 18 or so percent of the company when sold.
We were approached by a very large company in 2007 about buying and by early 2008 I had enough money where I didnt have to work probably ever again. I got into real estate investing working for myself with some close friends shortly after that and have owned my own business ever since.
People say "Well I worked incredibly hard to get my business to where it is" and that was true but the other half was just pure luck that I managed to partner with some tremendously smart people. Who I knew has taken me MUCH farther than what i know. Now I work maybe 16 hours a week from my phone or laptop.
"When I was little..."
When I was little, my Dad worked for a national pest control company. They were making people work 70-80 work weeks at minimum wage without paying them overtime. He didn't work there too long as he got sick of being treated like trash. He quit and called the labor board or whoever it would have been. Apparently an investigation was started and about a year or so later, every single person who'd ever worked for them received a check for all of their unpaid overtime! Hearing the story as an adult, I was so damn proud of my Dad.
"Upon research..."
Bought a street sign from a local thrift store for $20 because I thought it looked cool. Upon research I discovered it was a prop from a popular tv show. Think it appeared in the opening credits. Sold it for $700.
"First one..."
I made about $7k on a car I paid $80 for.
This isn't a lot of money, but I was essentially given an older car when I was in college by my parents, all I did was pay a transfer fee. It was an early 90s vehicle in the 2010s so the vehicle had already seen better days.
On two separate occasions the car was parked and hit by someone. First guy left a note and the second I knew the person. We got estimates on the damage to send to the insurance companies.
First one was a broken tail light. Due to some paint damage, a barely noticeable dent, and the color of the vehicle being uncommon the estimate was $1k. We had the insurance company cut us a check for the money and fixed it ourselves. I just fixed the tail light with a junkyard one.
The second incident was someone hitting black ice and sliding in my car. The driver side doors were messed up. Same situation, estimate was around $6700. Insurer cut us a check and we fixed it with junkyard doors that were very close in color. Total cost was maybe $600 to us.
That money helped pay for some tuition/rent while in school.
"I still collect..."
I was 19 at the time and a few years after my grandfather died I got a massive envelope in the mail stuffed with about 50 pages of contracts and forms. Apparently my deadbeat dad forgot to disclose to me and my brother that we owned fractional ownership to mineral rights on some land in Tyler, TX. Apparently quite a few companies were prospecting the land for oil and were driving up the prices of the land leases. Well, one company finally leased the land from all the owners, and I received around 15,000 for my stake in the land contracts.
Being 19, in college, and living a bit of a party lifestyle, I blew most of it, which I still regret to this day, but I did end up buying a t ton of music equipment that helped me to where I am today as a musician. So that was cool.
Looking back now I wish I would have saved or invested it, but at least there is a silver lining in that story.
I still collect monthly royalties on the oil that is being harvested from that land, but it's maybe $100 a month, which is nice.
"I like to think..."
A dude sat next to me on a bench and we had small talk for like 15 minutes, then he got up to leave, shook my hand and walked off.
He'd planted $900 right in my hand. Was so random and smooth.
I like to think I was the chosen one because I have a dazzling personality. But my friend thinks its just because I look homeless and the dude took pity on me.
Either way, it was awesome.
"I only discovered..."
Made a couple of thousand dollars profit off of the random popularity of a lip balm on the internet. You may be familiar with the lip balm eos? The little egg-shape thing? Well, after they became so popular, a rival brand called revo came out. But revo stepped it up a notch and offered a much wider array of different flavors/scents (like lip smackers), released seasonally as limited editions. They were only sold at a few places like Walgreens.
I only discovered that they were selling for greater than purchase price by accident, when i was looking on ebay for a scent i had missed out on. At the time i was doing a good deal of traveling for work, so in my long drives i would hit up the Walgreens i ran across on my way. I was able to locate in more rural locations a good amount of older releases that had sold out in larger cities. My biggest sale was about $200 for $30 in lip balm. The majority were smaller sales for a lot less.
Overall I don't think it was a great exercise in making lots of money. After you factor in the time i spent in labor, the packaging & postage, the fees that went to ebay, etc, it was not much. But It was a very good return on something that was kind of a hobby.
"Plus..."
Started a new job a few years ago with a very nice base salary plus commission incentives if I met my goals. My boss, being the gangster that she is, rushed my hiring so I could start before the end of the fiscal year. The reason for this is because they were doing away with a pension plan at the end of the year but anyone hired prior to the end got grandfathered in. Very thoughtful of her!
My new boss knew something else though that I didn't. The previous rep screwed the company over pretty good going to a direct competitor with no notice, and if the position wasn't filled prior to the end of the fiscal year, they'd still have to pay out the Q4 commission even though he left in Q3.
My "official" start date was 13 days before the end of the fiscal year, but they couldn't get my computer/phone/company car etc so my boss told me to hang tight. So I spent a month fishing, hiking, enjoying time off while still being paid a salary for a job I hadn't even started. When my first paycheck came, my jaw hit the floor. Not only did they pay me my very generous base salary, which was much higher than any job I'd had prior, but they also gave me the Q4 commission check, plus the 10% from Q1-3 that they hold in case you don't make it to quota, plus all the additional comp for being over quota.
After tax, my first paycheck for doing exactly zero work was almost $25k, which is more in a single paycheck than I made in an entire year for the first 3 years of my first job out of college. I called my boss to ask if there had been some kind of mistake, and she said, "Nope. Welcome to [company name]. If you work hard and do well, we take care of our people."
Needless to say, the strategy worked. I'm still with the company and plan to retire from here. I happily work my ass off and am proud of the work I do and the service my company provides. Plus they do stuff like this all the time (usually on a much smaller scale) to make sure their employees are well taken care of.
"Not nearly as much..."
I had a side gig as a karaoke host at a bar shortly after graduating college and one Sunday evening a very drunk patron came in holding a LOT of hundred-dollar bills. He had bet on a bunch of football games, slapped down three bills on the table, and said they were mine as long as I just played music and there wasn't karaoke. Luckily for me, the machine was broken and the owner couldn't come to fix it until a few hours later. The drunk fella was already long gone by then.
Not nearly as much money as most of the stories on here, but I thought it was a nice random bonus.
"I was randomly born into..."
Inheritance. I was randomly born into the "right" family. Yay me. Now I'm supposed to carry myself like I earned it and complain about anyone who wants "government handouts." I'm supposed to be grateful that I've been spared from a cruel society that lets the poor die of causes that I am now safe from. Not even grateful, but entitled.
"I cried."
I didn't receive so much as money but a whole house.
Over the last five years I've helped out a really, really awesome friend of mine. Guy helped me to get a better job, a car recently, and balance my finances. I'm also close with his roommate who has slight autism I've started to help out the last year because he's been getting worse. Roommate is in his mid-fifties and we've been I serious talks about his retirement and care as he gets older. Otherwise sweet guy, helped me to learn how to drive and always thinks of others first.
Well, good friend mentioned he was buying a house and bringing his roommate with him to continue to care for him. Mentioned the place has four rooms and made an offer for me to move in. I gladly accepted and he helped me move out of the small bedroom I was renting at the time.
And I've helped these two through thick and thin, and they've done the same for me. A month after we move in to the new house my friend hits me with the news that it's mine. If something happens to him or his roommate I'm setup to the inherit the house. I asked him if he was sure and he adamant about it. Pointed out no one in his family or roommates had ever bothered to offer any help or assistance.
I cried. As someone whose been forced to move due to bad circumstances multiple times it was a big shock to me to be given a home like that. I always help these two because I care about them and they do the same in return without ever asking for me to pay them back.
"About a decade ago..."
About a decade ago, our local newspaper had an online contest for a minivan. All you had to do was answer one question correctly. But, they didn't set a limit on the number of entries, so I (and, apparently, this other person; you could see the votes for each answer), stuffed the box. Although I didn't win the minivan, I did win second prize, a $2,000 BestBuy gift card.
Last year, a charity that I'm a part of had a fundraiser outing at our local ballpark. They picked my ticket from the 50/50 raffle. I also remembered that if you were still there at the stadium when they drew it, they'd add some extra cash, so I received over $1,300.
"While there..."
Far from a rags to riches story, more of a life goes on story.
A few years ago between 2 credit cards I was 14k in debt, I was living on my own for the first time, kept buying sh!t I didn't really need, only paying minimums on my cards, and my salary was steadily decreasing at my bs call center job.
I started looking for another place to work since my pay was on par with just about anywhere else I had the skills to apply to, and suddenly my dad dies. We didn't really get along, he lived back East, divorced, broke, and I flew back to put him to rest with my sister.
While there we found a few bank statements she would handle, and my mom, maybe because he was her only husband, insisted on a casket and the army took care of his burial. In the months to come I received a 10k from one insurance company, and 5 from another, suddenly I had money, and I wisely cleared my debt. I found another mediocre job, and a few years later my sister finally sent me my part of his estate, maybe 14k. I used that money, along with my 401k to live off of while I went back to school, and got a job in tech. I started out pretty low since I'm in support, but since then I now make a respectable amount of money, and I'm proud of myself after 8 years I pay off my credit card every month and reap the rewards instead of getting sucked dry for interest.
To put out some numbers I made $10-12/hr at the call center, piece rate pay, at my current job I'm making 70k. If you want to know why the pay was decreasing it's because every 3-6 months the manager would change the pay scale, making it "better" for everyone, I was making $15-17/hr when I started.
Things That Scream 'A Single Male Lives Here'
Reddit user hamsterdumbster asked: 'What screams "single male lives here"?'
Whether we realize it or not, we have certain "tells" that will signal to other people what life is like at home, whether we're hard workers or parents or travelers.
Even single men, despite their age, have certain characteristics that can be spotted from a mile away.
Curious, Redditor hamsterdumpster asked:
"What screams 'single male lives here'?"
Questionable Decor
"Anything but a curtain acting as a curtain."
- Some-Nice-Basil
Minimalist By Nature
"When I first heard the description of a minimalist I was confused because as a single male, I had been living like that for years..."
- jnd_photography
A Glimpse into the Bathroom
"Three empty bottles of head and shoulders still in the shower, prob another bottle half full with tons of excess shampoo dried all around the outside."
"A small pile of leftover Irish spring soap bars maybe we can smash 'em together and make a full bar one day."
- Omnivore_Omri_23
Very Elaborate
"There's just a mattress on the floor in the bedroom."
- gambito705
Bottle Collections
"Empty liquor bottles lined up as decor."
- miranda_alexis
No Place for the Garbage
"There's no trash can in the bathroom."
- Iilsmokey
Key Characteristics
"Empty fridge except for a random beer and leftovers. White plastic chair. Everything black...black couch, black picture frames, black desk. Etc."
- elvishranger
Central TV
"A really big single-seat recliner in front of a massive TV with game consoles under it. Not that there's anything wrong with gaming, but there's a certain level of being committed to staying single when you have just one chair in your loungeroom, lol (laughing out loud)."
- Totallycasual
Shaving Day
"Stubble in the sink."
- Ok_Wave_7358
"And behind the sink faucets."
- Urrrsagrrl
National Pride
"A random flag hanging on the living room wall."
- bucktop
New Standard in Bedding Sets
"Using tee shirts as pillowcases. Lol (laughing out loud)."
- Ok-Mood9454
"Can confirm, have done this. They're about the same size and sometimes I can't (be bothered to) find a pillowcase."
- whyamionfireagain
Stereotypical Decor
"According to 90’s romcom/sitcoms: Lava lamp and a beanbag chair."
- sorentomaxx
"Can confirm: I love lava lamps."
- ithinkoutloudtoo
External Closet
"Speaking from experience. I got tired of having a floordrobe so I got an absolutely giant clothes drying rack where all of my clean clothes go."
- Bribase
"'This pile is clean, that pile is dirty.'"
- GSturges
"'...That pile is dirty but wearable.'"
- wageslave645
The Single Man Starter Pack
"Bare white walls or a s**tty poster on them... A large TV with no furniture other than a futon serving double duty as a bed... Beer everywhere, even on the ceiling."
- Barmacist
Enough Said
"All of the pizza boxes."
- somedream
"I called it the leaning tower of pizza."
- TheMohawkMan
While there's nothing wrong with being single, a guy should be mindful of what he keeps in his home, how he behaves, and even how his clothes appear, if he for some reason doesn't want to disclose to others that he's single or living alone.
Drag icon RuPaul endorses love but insists on loving yourself first.
Otherwise, "how the hell you gonna love somebody else?"
It's true. It's an age-old adage suggesting that you have to genuinely love yourself first in order to have healthy relationships with others and have a much happier life in general.
But sometimes, it's not about you.
Unfortunately, some people take the concept too far and are convinced the world revolves around them and that they are the key player in the drama of life.
Curious to explore this psychological perspective, one Redditor asked:
"What is the worst case of 'main character syndrome' you've ever encountered?"
Some people just get past themselves. Observe, exhibit A, B & C.
Odd Punishment
"An acquaintance of the family. She had a birth defect in her legs that made walking somewhat difficult. Not impossible at all. Just not something she could do a lot of."
"She had the ability to walk and climb stairs. I've seen her do both. She was awkward at it, but she could do it."
"I mention this because, apparently, at a niece's graduation she decided that her niece needed to help her to her seat. As in the niece was supposed to leave the ceremony part way through, come down off the stage in her robes, and escort this woman to her seat before going back."
"Well, as you might imagine, the school didn't seem willing to accommodate this. So other family members offered to help her. But, as it wasn't the attention grabbing stunt she wanted, she decided that the best way to punish her family was to seat herself. By flopping down in the floor and moaning and groaning as she crawled on all fours. As I understand it, her family was running along beside her and trying to help her up but she ignored them. Just did a belly crawl up the stairs and made a big show of it."
– semiloki
Neglectful Dad
"The husband of a friend of my told her he didn't really care for interacting with their two twin boys, and would just wait for them to grow older and would be able to talk about his pretty specific interests."
"They're no longer together."
– Smellmyupperlip
Playing The Victim
"I was briefly friends with a woman who could do no wrong. She was the victim 24/7 and everyone was out to get her. She saw other people as means to an end and would say whatever she wanted about them, accuse them of horrible sh*t, 'repeat' things they supposedly said about you to your face (she made it up or heavily exaggerated every time), and just in general use people."
"She told me within the first two weeks of us knowing each other that she was telling everyone we were best friends. When she moved away, she forgot I existed."
– an_ineffable_plan
Some people like to piggy back off of high-profile family members.
Famous By Association
"Local celebrities are pretty bad. Their spouses and families are even worse. The only time I’ve heard 'Do you know who I am?' in the wild was when the wife of the local weatherman was arguing with a clerk at the grocery store."
– Old_Army90
Papa Mayor
"When I was in high school (20+ years ago), I was on my school's speech and debate team. I frequently had to compete against the daughter of our city's mayor. We went to different schools but competed in the same event, so I frequently had rounds with her."
"I swear, every conversation with her was 'My daddy, the mayor, said that...', 'My daddy, the mayor, is going to...', 'My daddy, the mayor, believes...'"
"She could not mention her father without mentioning that he was the mayor."
"One day, I was tired of her bullsh*t. While we waited for the judge to arrive and our round to start, she started in with 'My daddy, the mayor,...' again."
"'Who is your dad?,' I asked."
"'Ummm...he's the mayor,' she said."
"What's his name?"
"[NAME]. You know, the MAYOR!"
"Huh...never heard of him. He must not be that famous."
"I'd thought her head was going to explode. Good times."
– Faustus_Fan
Scandalous
"Went to high school with the mayor’s daughter too. She acted similarly. My dad this and my dad that. Our senior year it came out that both of her parents abused public office and committed fraud. Last I remember her mom had to serve her sentence out in weekends and her dad went to jail for a bit too. She was pretty quiet after that."
– mascarrowette
No Match For The Waiter
"I heard a 'Do you know who I am?' from a middling local DJ a while back. Without missing a beat, the tired af waiter responded something like 'You're an NPC in my story.' While Mr. High Horse blue-screened hard at that response, the waiter simply turned away and walked over to take a different table's order."
– TravisVZ
Some people are just so desperate for validation.
An Ex-Wife's List Of Claims
"My ex-wife. I could write a damn novel about her. Some highlights:"
"Dropping out of college repeatedly. Then claiming to be educated in psychology because she watches YouTube. Her major was geology."
"Thinking businesses should be proud to serve her."
"Claiming to be a filmmaker. She made a costume for 1 very bad horror movie. But she was an industry insider because she once dated a director."
"Claims she 'saved' Ryan Seacrest's career because she once insulted him in a bar."
"Throwing a tantrum at any wedding/graduation/ birthday. Including her own. Side note. Our birthdays were days apart. I didn't get to celebrate mine until I divorced her."
"This is getting long but one more. Her favorite saying. 'Put me in charge of the world, I'll fix some sh*t.' Don't you dare ask her to elaborate."
"ETA: it's been 13 hours since I posted this and I'm blown away by the support and validation. Thank you, kind reddit strangers. Y'all are awesome."
"So, the story of Ryan Seacrest. This supposedly happened before I met her. So this is a retelling of a retelling. It was decades ago when he was hosting American Idol. She ran into him in a bar in Hollywood and proceeded to tear him apart for his style (her words). Saying he needs to grow up and act his age. Evidently, he got pissed and avoided her. Then, 6-12 months later, he's hosting E entertainment wearing a 'respectable' suit. She takes credit for shaming him into 'growing up' and dressing appropriately for his age. Never mind that he landed a new gig that required a different image. In her mind, she influenced his image that landed him his contract. So she saved his career because a moderately attractive blond shamed him into changing. I wish I was making this up."
– AgingLeatherneck
Upstaging The Bride And Groom
"My MIL and SIL who cried and HOWLED during our wedding ceremony acting like it was a funeral."
– Angry_Custurd
Exploiting A Photo Opp Moment
"About a year ago. Trying to board a flight and a couple held us up so that Main Character could get a series of photos in a series of poses standing at the top of the boarding stairs like some 1960s JetSet starlet in St Tropez."
"This was not First Class transcontinental glamour flight, this was a 4 hour Budget Ryanair flight from the Canaries to the UK."
"After being forced into the plane by the cabin staff who kept standing in the shot trying to get the plane boarded (Ryanair do not mess around with their fast turnaround) and also by angry people trying to squeeze past boyfriend/cameraman and getting in the shot. She then proceeded to stand in the aisle during taxi for take off just after the safety brief to get more photos. After threats of returning to the terminal and being put off the flight she sat down."
"Nothing says a classy instagram model like the Ryanair colour scheme."
– Magnus_40
Look, we all have our insecurities.
It's one thing to behave in a way that will disguise our vulnerabilities to make us appear confident.
But it's another thing to act out in spite of them and make ourselves look like self-serving misanthropes.
When horrible bosses cross the line, they leave their employees no other choice but to get even.
These Redditors tell their stories of times when work became so frustrating, they couldn’t help but enact vengeance on the other people in the company. In some cases, the revenge was tame; in others, things got messy.
1. It’s Just Not Working Out
man wearing suit jacket and crossing armsPhoto by Aslan Kumarov on UnsplashI had a boss from the underworld back when I worked for a logistics company (we will call him ”David”). This particular company did not hire directly for dock workers—you had to go through a temp-to-hire service—and it had a 90-day window in which the dock super (who in this case was David) could call your temp agency and tell them your stint at the company was over. The temp would be called into the office where David would look at him or her and say with a large, smug grin: “IT’S JUST NOT WORKING OUT”.
This prick would ridicule new temps about the way they dressed, the way they talked, and their mannerisms in front of everyone at shift meetings. When a new batch of temps would start, he would pick an unlucky one out and ride him or her until they quit or made some minor mistake. Then, he would tell the temp agency that person was just not working out for the company.
David was married to some big shot at a hospital in town. She was the breadwinner, so he had no problems with keeping some low-level super job. To top it all off, David was also the only minority with a supervisory position, so the Logistics Company didn’t want to fire him. David was simply a shift super for the dock and he had no desire to be promoted because he had absolutely no responsibilities except to post an end-of-shift report, which he had one of the receivers do for him (that was my job). For two years, I typed this jerk’s nightly reports, knowing full well he never witnessed any of it going on—he just sat in his office eating or riding the dock on a golf cart looking for reasons to fire new people. I knew something had to change.
Anyway, I was hired in as a temp, kept my head down through David’s nonsense, and eventually, I got promoted to head of a different department away from him. Three years later, the company decided that receiving (David’s department) was lacking direction, and decided to hire a department head for them. I got the job. I was now David’s boss.
He turned pale when it was announced the next day at work. I thought he was going to expire on the spot. He knew that for years I witnessed every bit of the terrible things he had said and done to the temps. I showed up nightly for three months on his shifts to “monitor” how David ran his shifts, watching him make stupid mistakes one after another; any one of these things I could have easily terminated him, but I held out and documented everything.
When it finally came time, I called him into my office, armed with months (years, really) of reasons to fire him, but I simply looked at him and told him, “David, it’s just not working out”.
2. Overseas Exit Plan
smiling woman standing while holding orange folderPhoto by Icons8 Team on UnsplashI had a bunch of jerk-face bosses who were looking all school year for reasons to fire me. It got to the point where I was turning in three times the number of lesson plans despite already having less freedom to do my job than any other teacher at that school. It was all personal too. Very unprofessional stuff like “my son is in this guy’s class and he does it this way, so you should do it that way also”. Meanwhile, I'd walk by that same teacher’s class and he'd be showing the Peanuts Christmas Special.
They said my lesson plans weren’t detailed enough, so I asked for their best lesson plan from any other teacher to compare, and mine were clearly more detailed, a fact that shocked even me. They spent so much time telling me I was a bad teacher that I actually began to believe it. Now, this school had a free year’s license to Rosetta Stone, so I switched my language to Korean and learned Hangul. Almost weekly, there would be someone who would say, “Korean!? Who the hell knows Korean!? What would you ever do with that”?
At the end of the year, they told me not to come back, but all I could do was smile. I said, “Thank you, but I just got a job in Korea”. They had the dean in there to make sure I didn’t make a scene, and I think even he was surprised that I was almost laughing as I walked out of the office and shook hands with everyone with a big sly grin on my face. Right now, I am sitting here at my desk in Korea, the only native English teacher at my school, and they love me. To tell you the truth, I might have stayed at that job another five or 10 years. Getting asked to not come back was the best thing that ever happened to me.
3. An Eye For An Eye
couple dining outPhoto by Wiktor Karkocha on UnsplashI had a picture of my mom and me on my desktop (I know, corny). This guy, Pat, kept commenting on how attractive my mom was (he was about the same age). After about a month of this, I asked my mom to jokingly call him and tell him he was sexist and a bad influence and whatnot. She did this, but they ended up talking for 30 minutes, and after that, Pat told everyone at the office that my mom was trying to pick him up. For the next year, every time he saw me he asked how my mom was. At my five-year pinning ceremony, he told the story to a bunch of strangers and my bosses.
Fast forward a year later—I had just gone through a bad breakup with my long-time girlfriend and this Pat guy kept coming into my office and telling me that I need to get out and start playing the field. He did this for about a month, so then I asked a guy at work what his daughter’s name was (she was around the same age as me). I found her on Facebook and asked her if she would help play a prank on her dad. When she agreed, I set my devious plan into motion.
I went out on a “date” with his daughter and took a picture of the two of us drinking out of the same drink with two straws then proceeded to put it in a heart-shaped frame on my desk. Then I got another manager to tell Pat that I got a new girl and that I was head over heels for her. He came straight to my office and I didn’t say a word—all I heard from behind me was, “What are you doing with my daughter”? To this day, he hasn’t asked when my mom is calling next!
4. Who Called The Fire Brigade?
red firetruck on garagePhoto by Timothy Eberly on UnsplashI used to work as a developer for a company that makes EDI software. My boss was a paranoid, penny-pinching, micromanaging knob. For example, he'd say things like: “I know your contract says you can take an hour for lunch, but most people take just 15 minutes and I think you should too”, or “I don’t see any reason why you should not make a habit of coming in 30 minutes early and leaving 30 minutes later”.
My main beef with him was that he refused to give me time off to be with my wife when her mother had only a few days left to live. Our office was in a converted factory that was split into several units. My boss’s brother owned the building. Within that building, there was our company, a karate studio, and a creche. I noticed that the fire alarm panel at the main door to the building never had any lights lit on it. It looked like there was no power going into it.
So I called the fire brigade. The surprise inspection came 30 minutes later due to the fact that there was a creche in the building. The building owner got himself a conviction and a $10K fine (I had hoped it would be bigger). He had to pay a load to get a new fire alarm system installed. A few months later, when I was made redundant under questionable circumstances, I told my boss who called the fire brigade. The color drained from his face. I then launched a legal claim against him for unfair dismissal and my case. I have enjoyed punishing him for the unfair way he treated me.
I should point out just how beautiful it was to watch the inspection. The fire brigade sent around two young ladies, who looked more like salespeople and nothing like fire safety inspectors. They came into our office and asked to speak to the building manager. My boss came out of his room with a big Terry-Thomas grin on his face to greet them. “Hi, I manage the building for my brother”. “Great, we’re from the fire brigade and we are here to have a look at your fire safety systems”. His jaw dropped.
5. NYC Comes First
woman sings while playing guitarPhoto by Blake Guidry on UnsplashI used to work at a sandwich shop and bakery in Nashville, and my shift started at 6 am. The horrible, uptight manager would call at 6:01 if I wasn't there and he'd flip out. I had taken a weekend off to travel to New York to play a show, and when she realized she forgot to take me off the schedule, she tried to get me to cancel my trip. When I said we had already booked a show, she told me my music sucked and that the girl singer of our band was “too ugly for country”. Firstly, she’s hot and secondly, we didn't even play country music. Inside I raged, but I kept cool on the outside. I eventually decided that enough was enough.
I told her I would cancel my plans so I could work that Saturday for her. Little did she know that while I sent her that message, I was already on my way to New York, and I put my phone on silent mode when I went to bed. The next morning, I had six new messages. The first three were her freaking out, the fourth was just silent, the fifth was my shift leader saying, “I think he's trying to tell you to take a hint”, and the sixth was my boss telling me I was fired. I just shrugged and carried on with my life.
6. Failed Sabotage
red and black flash drive on white printer paperPhoto by Arun Prakash on UnsplashI had a jerk-wad boss who was out to get me. Within his first week at the company, he decided he wanted to fire me even though he had no idea what I did. I was actually the only IT person and I was probably one of the more productive people in the entire building. He told me I had a week to “turn things around” or I was gone. There was no explanation as to what needed to be “turned around” or what in particular was wrong.
My assumption is that he had his own guy who he wanted to bring in. I basically told him to shove it up his rear and if he didn’t like it, I’d walk right there. He was a bit taken aback by that and after another nine months of being there, he continued being a jerk toward me. Fast forward another three months, and the tables had turned—the company had decided it was going to fire him. The decision was based on information I had provided to them in regard to his lack of performance and waste of company resources. The irony, right? The owners (against my recommendation) gave him advanced notice of their decision and let him stay for an entire day in his office without any supervision.
As I didn’t trust him, I started monitoring his activity very closely. That's when I discovered his secret operation—he was copying a large amount of data from our servers and deleting it. Additionally, he was cleaning out his contacts and other client-related information. He was copying all of this to a USB drive. On the final day, the owners took him to lunch right before he was going to leave. I took the opportunity to “return” all of the data he took. I had backups, which I was going to restore; however, I didn’t want him to walk away with stuff that didn’t belong to him.
Finally, a couple of very incriminating emails "accidentally" got forwarded to his wife. Turns out, he was cheating on her for months—he had been talking to this other woman about ditching her and screwing her out of the house, then leaving her with the kids...I'm not sure how that worked out, but I hope the wife got him good.
7. Lazy Boss At The Bookstore
library photographPhoto by Norbert Tóth on UnsplashThe best way I’ve gotten back at a boss? Brutal honesty. I worked at a bookstore. I used to be on the overnight shift, shelving books, but they did away with that to try and save some money and brought us all into the daytime shift. When they enforced that change, I was doomed to eight-hour shifts—usually by myself—at the registers.
Now, our store manager at the time was totally useless. He’d lock himself in his office filled with pictures of his ballerina boyfriend and do absolutely nothing during his shifts. One morning, in particular, I was at the register, and I had a line. I tried paging for backup, and no one came. I assumed everyone was busy, so I just did my best to bust out the line.
Meanwhile, our phone started ringing. No one went to get it because everyone was busy helping customers...or so I thought. After three rings, our intercom system beeped and the manager started saying: “Backup to phones...back up to the phones”. The brilliant part was that you had to pick up the phone to even use the paging system.
Meanwhile, I was nearly through my line, and a sweet old lady tottered up and told me she ordered a book and got a phone call about it being in. I got her details and went hunting through our order shelves. I couldn’t find it. I verified that I had all the info right and tried again. The order just wasn’t up there. So I paged for a supervisor or manager, and then the store manager paged for me to call him at his office extension.
So I called the manager’s office and explained the situation to him. He told me to look at the hold shelves again. I tried to tell him I’d already done that, but he just hung up on me. The lady was looking unhappier by the second, and I was worried I was going to get yelled at. So I paged the manager again, asking him to come to the front register.
He paged me back, telling me to call him at his office extension. I do. He asked me what I wanted from him. I told him I still couldn’t find the lady's order and that I could really use some help—but he cut me off mid-sentence and told me he’d check in the office to see if there were any additional orders back there. Meanwhile, I kept telling the woman how sorry I was, and I asked her if she can move aside while we kept looking and I continued ringing up other people.
I was nearly done, there were maybe two people left in line. I’d handled three more pages from the incompetent manager—all of which were to tell me he couldn’t find this book—and I was forced to tell the lady we can’t find it. She still looks annoyed, but she patted my hand and told me she knew I did all I could. She called the manager a useless piece of trash for not getting off his behind and coming out to help like a good manager should do, and then she breezed out of the store.
Two minutes after that happened, the line was gone, and I was alone. Three people come up to the registers, claiming that the manager sent them up there to “help me out” and he told one of them to have me go into the back “to talk” when I had a free moment. When I got back there, he was all buddy-buddy. “Hey what’s wrong, you sounded stressed...everything okay”?
And I remembered that old lady. And I told him that no, it wasn’t okay. So he asked me what was going on—and I told him exactly what frustrated me. I told him it was the first time ever that I felt a manager didn’t have my back. I said he was unprofessional and complete nonsense. I also told him—word for word—what the old woman said. He just stood there and stared at me. I asked him if I could go back out there and do my job since it was awfully busy out there (I sort of expected him to fire me)…He didn’t speak, just nodded. So I flounced back out.
Apparently, he locked himself in his office and cried for the rest of the day.
8. Lecturing About Light Switches
man in black and white polo shirt playing guitarPhoto by Bhuwan Bansal on UnsplashI worked at an independently-owned coffee shop and wine bar. Most of the people working there were young women because my boss was a class-A pig who liked to yell at them and periodically make them cry. Every few weeks, he would find some minor little detail that someone did or didn’t do (grinding flavored beans in the non-flavored grinder, for example) and literally yell at that employee, sometimes in front of customers, calling her stupid, empty-headed, etc. I witnessed these little tantrums on my shifts and I’d always try to help console the poor girl.
One night, I was working with a girl who had just gotten torn apart by him the day prior and she was trying her absolute hardest not to mess anything up to the point where I was actually doing most of the work. It was an evening shift and we “turn into” a wine bar in the evenings, so there were certain things we had to do to prepare for that. Heidi, my coworker, had turned the lights down and we were busy doing other prep work when the phone rang. I answered and the boss said he was watching us over the cameras. He sternly told us to turn the lights down.
I informed him that we’d already done that, but that I’d turn them down even more. I did so and then went on with my work. An hour went by and he suddenly walked through the back door. My stomach sank–he never showed up to the shop later than 2 pm unless something was wrong. He said, “Who turned these lights down”? I told him that I did. He started lecturing me on how to turn the lights down, what the place needed to look like, etc. I just stood there and let him finish his rant. When he was done I said, “I’m sorry that I didn’t turn them down enough. Could we maybe put a line on the light switch, so we know where they should be every night”?
Well, that started another rant! This went on for a good 20 minutes. Customers started watching, and Heidi did her best to stay behind him so as not to somehow evoke his wrath upon her. I, on the other hand, just stood there, letting him yell at me. Each time he would finish one rant, I’d just say something like, “Well, if I’m not doing it right, then there should probably be some regulation”. And it would start him up again, yelling about how there shouldn’t be any regulation because we should be smart enough to figure it out ourselves.
Finally, I just walked away from him. This caused him to blow up: "What do you think you're doing?!" he yelled at me. Very calmly, I said, “You’ve repeated yourself plenty of times. I know what I did wrong and I know how to fix it. I think you just want to yell at me in hopes that I’ll cry so you can feel good about yourself. That’s not going to happen, so there’s no point in me standing here taking this abuse when I could be getting work done”. Surprisingly enough, he actually left the store and never bothered me about stupid stuff again.
9. Heart-Shaped Box Of Chocolates
red heart shaped and yellow and red heart shaped candies in boxPhoto by Amy Shamblen on UnsplashI had a manager at a clothing store who just went on a power trip anytime the boss was around. On Valentine’s Day came, I bought one of those huge boxes of chocolate shaped like a heart and put it in the backroom with a note from the boss (who was married), telling her how much he cared for her and how he wished they could spend more time together. I ended the note with his number, and a prompt to call him if she felt the same.
And you know what happened? She did call him. Turns out they had an affair, and the wife found out and left the boss, who in turn fired the manager. I don't know what happened after that since I quit shortly after Valentine's Day, but it still made my day.
10. Oh Snap
I started work in a new IT role on the same team as another guy who instantly decided he wanted to make me out to be a pathetic, worthless excuse for a man. This was despite the fact that, while we were both in our mid-20s, I had outranked him in the profession and was happily married while he was single and living with his parents.
He used to try to bait me into arguments, so he could rattle off his well-rehearsed right-wing cliches and boast about how I wasn’t a “real man” because I didn’t drink $80 scotch or have a knife collection or whatever. I just ignored it since I already figured I was winning the game of life. One day, he sent me one of his emails to the whole team saying, “If you don’t drink this, you can kiss your manhood goodbye” with a picture of some expensive scotch or something. At that point, I knew exactly how to make him eat his words.
So I replied to all, saying: “You know what else kisses my manhood goodbye? Your mom”. “Oh snap” replies all around. Six months later, I was promoted to head of the team and he was fired.
11. You’re Not The Boss Of Me Anymore
woman in black crew neck shirtPhoto by OSPAN ALI on UnsplashI was hired on contract by a small three-man start-up to do a particular job. By a year later, after they’d hired a few extras—including a product manager who was technically my boss. I was scratching around for things to do and thinking about moving on. One day, my “boss” (I didn’t like him at all) sat me down and proceeded to explain my next task.
Now I had absolutely no interest at all in this new work—it was mundane, boring work and not at all related to what I was originally hired to do (and since completed). When I tactfully explained that it really wasn’t my area of expertise and I didn’t really have any interest in that type of work, I was taken aback by his response. He told me that I “simply have no choice but to do what I’m told”.
Now, to be clear, it was more of a “How dare you defy me? You’re my property!!!” type of attitude, rather than an “If you want to continue working here, then you will have to work on this” situation, which, by the way, I would not have had any problem with at all. Well, I all but laughed in his face and told him I had no interest in doing it. I could tell he was pissed, and no doubt he was deciding how to get back at me.
But before he had time to engineer his revenge, I had cheerfully informed the CEO that, given I wasn’t actually working on anything, it was my last day. And he was good about it. It felt so good to then inform my “boss” that I was finishing up that day. The look on his face was priceless! I somehow refrained from remarking that I “actually didn’t have to do what he told me after all”...
12. No Drama, No Fuss
a man sitting at a table in front of a laptopPhoto by Microsoft 365 on UnsplashI quit. No drama, no fuss. The first time was at my first job out of college where I got some experience. It was a great place to work until a new owner came in and basically gutted all fringe benefits and insisted everyone start working 60+ hours a week. I stayed for around nine weeks while I found a job and then bailed, leaving all my projects for the next guy to pick up.
The next time was at my next job. I had been there several years and a new CEO came in, informing us that he was moving the company to where his family lived. As a result, we were all fired, but he expected us to stay on to close his company. With that one, I just got up and walked out immediately. Some workers criticized me and said I was being irresponsible and “not a team player” by walking out, so I just looked at them and gave them the biggest reality check ever: “You’re continuing to work for a man who just fired you, is expecting you to basically dig your own grave, and who will then throw you to the wolves looking for work when he’s done”.
13. Boss Caught In A Lie
woman and man sitting in front of monitorPhoto by Desola Lanre-Ologun on UnsplashI worked in the IT department of a rather large firm. A guy I was sort of friends with who worked a couple of desks down from me had kind of a bad attitude and he ended up getting into a long feud with the tech support manager. In his defense, the tech support manager was, admittedly, a stupid cow. He ended up getting fired over the feud. He called to tell me about it the night it happened (I was working on a project after hours, so I wasn’t there when it happened). The next day, my boss called the department into a meeting to tell us that my pseudo-friend had quit, but because he was in IT and had access to all the passwords, they were not allowed to give him two weeks’ notice.
This was, of course, complete bollocks. Everyone knew that he got fired and that our boss was lying through his teeth. So, fast forward about six months later—I had just come through being scapegoated big time for some stuff I wasn’t even remotely responsible for, and I could see the writing on the wall that they were working on building a case to get me canned. Little did they know that I was prepared to deal with their nonsense. It just so happened that I got a job offer through a referral from a friend that worked at another company. So, when the offer came through for about $6K more, I did a little dance, and then I shut the heck up.
My girlfriend was a flight attendant at the time, so we planned a little last-minute getaway between jobs. The day before we were scheduled to leave for EUROPE, I came into work, did my best to close out all my issues, put out any fires I could (for the sake of my coworkers), and then marched in and handed my boss my letter of resignation, effective immediately. He read the letter and there was a long pause—then he asked me when I wanted my last day to be. I looked at him for a minute, savoring the trap, and reminded him that “because I had access to all the sensitive system passwords, I wasn’t allowed to give or take two weeks’ notice”.
His jaw hit the ground. He muttered some sentence fragments, and it was pretty clear I caught him in a lie. The best part was, while we were living it up in Italy a few weeks later, I checked in on my bank account at a cyber cafe and saw that my direct deposit had cleared a check for the pay period for two weeks after I left. So, even though I didn’t work it, I was given my two weeks’ notice in salary. That extra paycheck essentially paid for an extra week in Europe. And that extra week was by far the best part of the trip.
14. I’ll Do More Than You Asked
woman in white dress shirt and black bowtiePhoto by Mohamed Nohassi on UnsplashA million years ago, I was waiting tables at my first job. Enter ye old standard awful boss—I could easily talk about what a dumb prick he was, but I’ll skip to the straw that broke the camel’s back. We were short-handed one day, and I was pulling double closing work for my shift (remember, as a waiter, you make $2.63 hourly plus tips, so anything that doesn’t involve tips is essentially just free labor that they can get away with).
After I finished up my work, I ordered and paid for lunch (something I would often do, since half-off is a decent deal). My horrible boss came charging into the side room that employees would use to eat and relax in before and after work and he just effing exploded on me with an off-duty cook watching. I was shocked when he pointed a finger at me—apparently, another employee had simply bailed on their work, and he was blaming me for not having done TRIPLE duty before punching out. Essentially, he told me that if I didn’t do the cleanup and restock before I went home, I would be fired.
I wanted to keep my job, so I did the task, but when it was done, I felt that it could be better. I opened up the ice bin and got another bucket of ice. Then another. And another. I filled the ice bin up to the ceiling, then I went home. I had a message from him waiting for me when I got home, but laughed and went about my day. When I went in to work the next day, I had been fired, then an investigation had taken place and I was rehired. That horrible boss’s hiring and firing privileges were revoked, and he subsequently gave his two weeks’ notice.
15. Follow The Clues
background patternPhoto by Taylor Rooney on UnsplashBack in 2005, I was leaving my job as the night auditor of a hotel to go to school in Arizona. The whole staff, with the exception of the manager and assistant manager, were pretty bummed out because I’d made it my mission in the year and a half that I was there to treat them all like people and not like paid slaves as a lot of the guests and management did.
The day before my flight, I went to Walmart and bought a big bag of Tootsie Pops. I went to the hotel at about 6 o’clock that night and got the set of master keys from my friend working the front desk. Starting with the comments section of a guest reservation for the following day, I left a trail of little riddles all over the grounds of the hotel. The back office, several guest rooms, a closet by the pool, in a bush, you name it. It would require pretty much everyone working to get the game finished before most of the staff went home at 5 pm.
The very last clue led to the maintenance tunnel that bisected nearly the entire building. And at the very end of the tunnel was my piece de resistance—taped to the wall, was a heartfelt goodbye letter and a bag of Tootsie Pops. The letter specifically ended with, “In this bag, I’ve put one Tootsie Pop for every single person that works at this hotel...except for the manager and the assistant manager, because screw them”.
A week later, I called up the hotel when I knew my friend who’d given me the keys that allowed me to set up the game would be working again. She told me that the game was a huge hit. Thanks to the walkie-talkies that we used every day to communicate back and forth, the entire staff (front desk, maintenance, housekeeping, and even the breakfast hostess) had gotten in on it and were following my clues to the prize.
I also called my mom, who worked at the hotel next door (which, funnily enough, was where Assistant Manager had started as a desk clerk). I told her about what I’d done and, after she stopped laughing, she revealed to me that Assistant Manager had been trying for a week to get my new number because “they wanted to talk to me about something”.
16. Small Changes Lead To Big Problems
person in black suit jacket holding white tablet computerPhoto by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashMy father is a project manager working on financial programs for banks and financial companies. A lot of the stuff he does is projects for programs that basically do the accounting and back-end management of money for large companies. We're talking about programs that manage and account for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Basically, as is standard in the financial industry, his bosses were complete idiots with no understanding of coding and the amount of effort it takes. My dad found out his job was getting outsourced as he was finishing up a huge project; from what he told me, it was something like $100K+ lines of code. He saw the perfect opportunity to exact his revenge—he went in and added three lines of code that messed up the whole program, and told them that they could figure out what was wrong with it themselves. I hope to one day live up to such awesomeness.
17. I Don’t Know
laptop computers on top of tablePhoto by Jason Leung on UnsplashI had worked for a family-owned computer reseller for five years when greener corporate pastures called. I gave the required two weeks’ notice and the owner of the reseller called the CEO of the company for which I was going to work and got my departure delayed by two weeks. They got everyone in the company to take me aside and tell me how big of a mistake I was making, blah blah blah, generally making my life miserable for those two weeks. When I left, I got even with them, making sure they got a taste of their own medicine. changed the entire internal networks’ passwords to “I don't know”. When they called to ask me what the passwords were, I told them the truth.
18. Nothing Fancy
orange and white medication pillPhoto by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashI worked with a supreme jerk for a few months in my early 20s. He's one of those guys that tells stories to try and impress other people, but really he just ends up making himself look like a villain (cheating on his girlfriend, beating people up for fun, selling substances). It was a boring, mindless job, so I took it all in stride; in one ear, out the other...until the night I discovered his secret side hustle.
He was selling pills right in the middle of the store, amongst the eight to 12 security cameras. I didn’t pull any superhero moves to get him busted, just reported to the owner (whose son is a sheriff), who watched the tapes. The jerk was gone within hours. Felt okay.
19. No Key
three person holding beverage cupsPhoto by Nathan Dumlao on UnsplashBefore you ask, I was dealing with a crippling inferiority complex and some pretty bad depression, which is why I didn’t do anything sooner. I used to work for this local coffee and sandwich place down in Florida. There were multiple locations and the one I worked at was in a library. We would regularly be short on supplies or change or something, but it was the only job I had been able to find and it could have been worse, so I dealt with it.
Then they moved all of my hours to a different location, half an hour away from my home, in a hospital. It was the only source of food for hospital employees (they only had kitchens for the patients). I thought it would be fine, but it turned out to be an even bigger nightmare. I routinely had to go to the grocery store to make sure we had something to feed the people in the hospital. I’d be reimbursed for the cost of the groceries, but never gas, and usually I would be yelled at for getting “the wrong thing” no matter how often I tried to compare it to what we had on hand.
They had always ignored lots of labor laws, but it got way out of hand here. I would be literally the only person on shift for eight or more hours, so no breaks. Ever. Bathroom breaks had to be fast and I had to run because the cash register was stuck open and the owner refused to give me a key to lock up or to fix it. He would even have me open and would scream at me for being “late” even though he knew I had no key. For a while, he made me have security let me in until security put their foot down and pointed out that it wasn’t their job. He had to come himself, and he didn’t like that, so eventually, he give me a key.
I worked way more than 40 hours a week and never saw a dime of overtime, but I couldn’t find any other jobs, so I toughed it out. Then, suddenly, out of the blue, he cut my hours. At first, I was glad to only work 20ish hours for a little while, but then it kept on going. Eventually, he had me working about 5 hours every other week. So I told a coworker who worked before me that I wasn’t showing up on a certain day and then I didn’t. I found out much later that he does this regularly to people to drive them to quit, so he doesn’t have to fire them and pay unemployment.
Disgusting.
20. Centralized IT Department
grayscale photo of person using laptop computerPhoto by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on UnsplashI used to do IT work for a large university. A few years back, they decided that having specific IT people assigned to specific departments, and being paid by those departments, was a bad idea. Everything would be better if IT were centralized, then parsed back out to the departments (I argued that it was better to be paid and accountable to the people you were supposed to be helping, but that wasn’t really the goal in hindsight). In many places, that might work. At this place, it was going to be a disaster for reasons that aren’t relevant to the story.
I knew it was going to be a mess and didn’t want to work someplace where a user was required to fill out a ticket before I could even look at their problem, so I decided to leave. I found another job and gave my two weeks’ notice. As I was cleaning out my office on my last day, a professor came running down the hallway in a panic. I could feel my heartbeat getting faster.
This guy had been a huge pain in my behind for years. He was a jerk, he was condescending, he thought he knew anything that mattered about computers, etc. The standard blow-hard. I also knew he had been one of the biggest proponents of switching up how IT worked, and that on at least two occasions, he’d suggested that the best way to save money for the department would be to cut my position.
He always claimed that a central system would lead to faster response times, etc., so while I had always been professional with him, there really was no love lost (although I don’t think he knew I was aware of all the stuff he’d said in faculty meetings). Anyway, back to the story. He was huffing and puffing down the hallway, and when he got to me he said, “Oh, Derp, I’m so glad I caught you before you left. I’m giving a big presentation in 30 minutes to the administration! My computer won’t turn on, and my only copy of my presentation is on there!” I told him, “I’m sure if you fill out a ticket with the central IT desk, someone will be with you shortly”.
He just stopped in his tracks, and I think he suddenly pieced together that I knew exactly what things he’d been saying when I wasn’t around. He turned beet red and walked down the hall back to his lab and slammed the door shut. His computer wasn’t fixed in time.
21. Firing The Hardest Worker
person in red and white long sleeve shirt slicing meatPhoto by Gabriella Clare Marino on UnsplashI was a right-hand girl at a small local grocery store. He fired me for a lot of poor reasons, none being the one that was offered to me (“not living up to expectations”, expectations which he never bothered to share with me—it had more to do with the up-and-coming required pay raise). So I let myself get fired and left him to deal with the fact that the other employee did nothing but talk with customers all day. But that's not all—I was the only one who could deal with the many substance users, not to mention the fridge and freezer cleaning, and his wife—a skinny woman who worked with her mouth rather than her body—was to take over where I left off. Good luck, and good riddance!
22. Taxes Not Reported
woman sits on the barPhoto by Alex Voulgaris on UnsplashI was the manager of a nightclub. One morning, I got a phone call from the assistant manager saying my services were no longer required and that he was taking over my position at the request of the owner. So, I rang repeatedly to ask why I’d lost my job and I couldn’t get through. The owner was always unavailable. I rang every hour for 2 days. In the end, after coming to the realization that I’d been screwed over, I rang the inland revenue and asked if I was due a rebate.
They had no knowledge of me working in the place despite the owners telling me I was paying tax and national insurance that was taken from my wages each week. I was also issued a wage slip each week. So I reported him—and he got exactly what he deserved. I told the inland revenue his name, how many bars he owned including the names, what car he drove, how many staff he had working for him, and a description. Two months later, he had to sell up and move on. A few of his other bars closed down not long after that.
23. A Series Of Small Pranks
woman holding clear drinking glassPhoto by Brooke Cagle on UnsplashI worked in a coffee shop and my manager was a scumbag. He had two open cases against him for harassing my coworkers, constantly making people work 10- to 12-hour shifts, making me close at 11 pm and open the next day at 3:30 am, giving us no breaks, serving spoiled food to customers, changing our temperature logs so we wouldn’t get in trouble with corporate, serving burnt hours-old coffee, and so on.
I started doing all sorts of pranks to feel like a little bit of vengeance was taken. They were little victories, but they were oh-so-good. When he would go into the office, I would put salt in his coffee, smear jelly, and sometimes put jelly donuts under his car door handles. I asked friends who stopped in to park extremely close to his driver-side door if I knew he was leaving soon so he’d have to crawl in the back, I changed the password on the office computer so he couldn’t play solitaire when he was supposed to be helping us during rushes.
We were forced to fill out receipt surveys pretending we were customers, so I would put really negative ones about him specifically. In my last month, I stopped caring and I would yell at him to stop screwing around. He was from India and wasn’t used to women, especially a 19-year-old girl, being so aggressive and not taking his nonsense.
24. Pizza Delivery Boy
sliced pizza on white ceramic platePhoto by The Nix Company on UnsplashNot too long ago, I was a delivery boy for an Italian restaurant. My boss paid us under the table with table scraps; $6 an hour to be exact. We had to use our own cars, we weren’t given mileage, and he decided when he wanted to pay us. The people who worked there were all jerks and insulted me on a regular basis, yet they demanded I do favors for them while on deliveries. The boss had some of the most broken English ever and he got frustrated when you didn’t understand him. He would flip out when little things went wrong. He “bag-tagged” the staff on random occasions and spoke to us like children. He was a loose cannon with no remorse.
Finally, one day after taking up an offer on a new job where I currently work as a Tech Support Analyst, I was threatened because I wasn’t focusing on my work (I busted my rear for them, constantly, this being the one exception). That's when I put my foot down. I looked at the cook and asked him if he knew how much I cared about this job.
I told him I was doing them a favor by staying there because I didn’t need the job, the harassment, or to put up with being berated by a bunch of ignorant losers who think they’re hot stuff even though they’ve worked in a pizza shop for the last 20 years of their lives. I’ve never seen anyone’s jaw drop so low. Oh, and the boss? He was in Italy on vacation, so he got to find out about losing his fastest/best driver when he got back.
25. A Grand Exit Speech
File:Walmart-supercentre-canada 129858013133613481.JPG - Wikimedia ...commons.wikimedia.orgI worked at Walmart as a cart pusher. You know how in Office Space, the guy has eight bosses who all curse him out for one mistake? Well, I was scapegoated for mistakes done by others, which I would have to then solve. They were primarily maintenance issues. Surprisingly, I loved the customers. Being a cart pusher, I mostly dealt with old people asking for electric carts. I’ve always been polite and I always smile when dealing with customers. We had a few regulars who took the time to learn my name, and I had a fun time working there for them. Sadly, my boss would put an end to all that happiness.
Fast forward a month, and my bosses were all awful to me. I was only going to be there for the summer due to leaving for college. I think a few of the people immediately above me resented me because they had wasted their lives away, and now worked full-time at Walmart. Suddenly, after being treated like just an instrument rather than a person, they cut my hours severely. I decided enough was enough. My pride was worth more than the minimum wage they were giving me. I quit when I was the only person working on the 1st of the month, just before a holiday. My exit speech was a little bit plagiarized from The Cask of Amontillado. It felt great.
26. The Worst Option
grey flat screen computer monitorPhoto by Eftakher Alam on UnsplashFor a while, I worked as a web designer in a small ad agency serving a very niche industry. Previously, the design team had no creative lead and were all sort of operating independently across varying clients. We decided to hire a creative director to fill that gap, and I was given the task of sorting through and giving first-round interviews to find the person who would later become my supervisor.
Two candidates in particular stood out from the rest for very different reasons. One was exceptionally talented, an all-around nice guy, and somebody who generally would have been great for the role. The other (let’s call him John) had mediocre talent and came across as an insufferable and arrogant prick, but he had previous experience working within the niche industry that we serviced. He also had contacts within that industry that could lead to new business. Despite my strong recommendation to not hire John, his relationships in the industry were too compelling for our agency’s leadership to pass up, so they hired him.
It didn’t take long before the company realized he was a nightmare. He had virtually zero experience in anything related to digital design. Design for apps, websites, mobile, etc. was all completely and utterly beyond his grasp, but he used his position of relative power to make decisions on those projects that the entire design team refused to support, most of which came back to bite the company in the rear end later.
The design team hated him because fixing and working around his screw-ups became part of our daily routine. The sales team hated him because he’d claim it took him unbelievably exaggerated amounts of time to complete even the most trivial of tasks (for example, four days to design a business card template), so they wouldn’t even assign him projects anymore.
Work that was clearly his responsibility started to rapidly trickle down to the rest of the design team. We’d be working late nights four out of five days a week because all of his projects that were in danger of missing deadlines would be reassigned to us. Meanwhile, he’d be the first to walk out the door every day, right at 5 pm, without fail. On top of all that, the guy was, without a doubt, the biggest tool I’ve ever met. Always right about everything, completely unbending on his idiotic opinions, and completely clueless that literally, every person in the building wished he would get hit by a truck.
I genuinely tried to work with him for about a year, until I decided that the job had become intolerable because of him and it wasn’t going to change any time soon, so I turned in my two weeks’ notice. About a month after I left, I was informed of a shocking new development—he had been let go from the job. Shortly after that, I noticed that he had changed his LinkedIn status to show that he was working for a new agency I had never heard of, also servicing that same niche industry.
I looked them up, and quickly figured out that he had started his own agency... a primarily digital agency... when he had NO experience in digital or interactive design and had literally messed up every digital/interactive project he’d ever been on (I know because most of them were reassigned to me when he proved incapable of doing them himself). I looked at the portfolio on his website and found literally project after project of my work. He was using my work from the ad agency as an example of the work his agency could produce.
I briefly considered contacting him and requesting he remove my work from his portfolio for ethical reasons. But I could already hear his reply in my head: “As creative lead, all work done by my team is an extension of my creative direction”. He’d used similar lines in the past to insert himself into receiving credit on successful projects he’d had zero involvement on.
So instead I sent an email to one of the partners of the agency we both had worked for, saying something along the lines of, “Hey, not sure if you’ve noticed this, but it looks like John is using your company’s intellectual property to directly compete against you... If I had to guess, I’d assume his next step would be to make a move at your client list”.
The reply was short and sweet: “Thanks for bringing this to my attention. He’ll be hearing from our attorney in the morning”. John’s website was brought down less than 24 hours later.
27. Not Lying In Court
man in black shirt sitting beside woman in white shirtPhoto by Saúl Bucio on UnsplashI had a six-month school internship at a mobile phone store. The boss was a total jerk that treated his school interns like full-paid workers (even gave me some concerning money responsibilities). A while after the internship, he called to tell me I would have to give a statement in court. He had a problem with some customer and a shipment and he planned to tell the court that he explained everything to me concerning shipping precisely.
Of course, he didn’t. And of course, I didn’t lie in front of the judge. My boss’s attorney gave me a look I will never forget when he realized his stupid plans didn’t work out. A few weeks later, my now ex-boss tried to call me again. I didn’t pick up. Screw this guy.
28. Crushed Lunches
fruit saladsPhoto by Ella Olsson on UnsplashSomeone in my office would always crush lunches with his gigantic lunch box. Either he ate bricks or lead, I don’t know, but I always came to the office fridge and found that my lunch was in pieces. So, after three bouts of this, and numerous notes from myself and other colleagues, I decided to teach him a lesson—I carefully removed his lunch box, emptied the contents (a gigantic sandwich, a Twinkie, chips, some vegetable pieces, and a few other bits), and ran over them with my car. I carefully packed it back in and put it back.
He kept his lunch in a cooler by his cube from then on.
29. Can’t Take Credit For That Work
black corded electronic devicePhoto by Stephen Phillips - Hostreviews.co.uk on UnsplashMy coworker was always complaining and always lazy with his work, yet he got recognition for the simplest things he would actually do. He also took credit for a full day’s work that was pretty much all me. I always got ignored. So one day, I came in early and exacted my revenge—I unplugged his ethernet jack just barely to the point it looked like it was still plugged into his computer.
For four hours, he couldn’t do any work. Meanwhile, I got my work done, and he couldn’t take any credit for it since everyone knew he didn’t have internet access. Halfway through the day, he left on the break. I plugged his internet back in and bam, just like that, it was working. By then, he couldn’t claim my work, and I began to get noticed more.
30. Rigging The Toilet
white toilet bowl with cisternPhoto by Jan Antonin Kolar on UnsplashI worked as a mechanic at Pep Boys several years ago. The service manager was a complete menace that regularly cost me money because he would give all of the good jobs to mechanics that he liked better. While I worked there, some of us discovered that if the drainage pipes in the shop were pressurized, the toilet would shoot water out of the bowl. That's when I had my eureka moment.
The day that I quit, I waited until he went into the bathroom to take a dump. I filled up a Cheetah (a device used to seat a tire onto a wheel) and released about 200psi all at once into the drainage pipe. The toilet spewed water and poop everywhere, the manager screamed and then comes storming out of the bathroom COVERED in excrement.
31. The One-Upper
2 women sitting at tablePhoto by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on UnsplashA woman I work with literally copied this great story that I tell about me being in the same hospital at the same time that my niece was born. She tells it as if it was her husband and she was in the hospital giving birth. She’s a known one-upper; everything you do she did it better, faster, it was worse for her, etc.—so it didn’t surprise me when a coworker told me she regularly tells clients that story. She likes to play games—but I do too.
Every single day as I get in, I pour a tiny bit of my water bottle out on her desk, chair, or on the carpet somewhere in her office. In my mind, mold is slowly growing in her office, her skirt gets wet when she sits down, and any fresh documents she sits on her desk get sat right in a small puddle of water.
32. Truth Prevails
File:Chipotle Brandon.jpeg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.orgLast year when I was working at Chipotle, one of the assistant managers got on my last nerve. He would just sit in the office on his phone gossiping or screaming in Spanish all day, and if something needed to be done, he’d always make one of us do it, no matter how long the line was. He’d take breaks for over an hour when we were allowed 30 minutes, and he would blame other people for things that went wrong.
One night AFTER I left for work, disaster apparently struck and we got lots of bad reviews. I came back to work the next day and my manager sat me down to discuss all of the things I did wrong. The assistant manager told me, “I don’t want you to lose your job, but you need to do better” and that was a wrap.
I find out he somehow blamed me for everything HE did wrong. At that point, I was done taking his nonsense. So instead of making a scene, since I’m the quiet one who just listens instead of causing drama, I took my assistant manager aside and told her how it really happened, getting other coworkers that hated him to back me up. They reviewed the security cameras and he got fired the next day. I saw him about a week later at the neighborhood grocery store and it was mad awkward because I don’t think he realized quiet little me was the one that got him fired.
33. The Power Of Caterers
dumplings platterPhoto by Saile Ilyas on UnsplashOne time, I was working a small event at the convention center as a banquet server. After we had loaded in and set up, I was one of three servers working the event of about 100 people. There was a buffet. The local weatherman was there, but he demanded I bring him a plate. Pretty rude, but I went and got one for him anyway. Then he demanded that I fill his coffee. There was one on the table—it was a self-serve event—but I poured his coffee anyway. He was still being very rude.
Then this weirdo demanded that I cut his chicken for him. That was the final straw. So I asked how old he was, exactly who he thought he was, and who he thought I must be to take his mistreatment. I then took his plate and announced to the entire room that if I see this man-child eating or drinking ANYTHING, I would take all the coffee, and all the food back, and end the event. He left hungry. Don’t mess with catering.
34. Stacy, not STACEY
woman in black long sleeve shirt covering her face with her handsPhoto by Elisa Ventur on UnsplashMy first name is Stacy with no E. One of my biggest pet peeves is having people spell it wrong. I worked with a woman named Lesa. Not the normal Lisa, but Lesa. We worked on a project together and she had to email me several times a day. Each time she spelled my name STACEY.
It didn’t seem to matter that my signature was spelled without an E or that Outlook had it spelled without an E. She ALWAYS put the E in it and it drove me nuts. I finally admitted to her that it bothered me. She apologized. I figured with an oddly spelled name, she’d be extra sensitive to it. Nope. The very next email she sent, less than an hour later, she spelled it wrong again. So, I gave her the exact same courtesy—from that moment on, any time I wrote her an email or referred to her in a group email, I typed Lisa. It still gives me great satisfaction that I did that.
35. Mysterious Moving Filing Cabinet
a library with a circular seating area and lots of booksPhoto by Harry Cunningham on UnsplashI was a work-study student in my college’s IT department for four years, including summers. I did just about everything in the department, and I had a great relationship with my coworkers. But in my last year, they hired a full-time basic support guy, who immediately started acting like he knew everything. He also acted like was in charge of me, when I spent literally all of my time training him and doing damage control on his attempts to help.
We shared a desk, which infuriated me because even outside of work, I would not have liked this guy. He was a Grade-A misogynist, a complete loser...basically, every bad IT stereotype rolled into one annoying package. I wanted him to feel pain, and pain he felt indeed. Under our desk, we shared a filing cabinet. Every time he did something to bother me, which was pretty much every day, I’d inch the filing cabinet over so when he’d sit down and roll his chair forward, he’d bang his left knee off the sharp corner. He never figured it out. He’d just swear and slide it over a little. Dumb as a post, that one.
36. He Needed His Caffeine
clear glass cup on saucerPhoto by Adi Goldstein on UnsplashWhen I was working as a barista, we had a regular who would come in a couple of times a week and act like an entitled jerk to all the employees. His sense of entitlement was really something else—would always order a double espresso with his meal, claiming he was “very busy and needed his caffeine” and insist we serve it to him after his meal. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but he would never tell us when he was finished eating; he would expect us to keep an eye on him and bring it as soon as he was finished (this was not a café with table service, by the way).
He would obnoxiously clear his throat and make snide comments at us until we noticed and brought it to him, where he would complain about the terrible service and not tip.
I always gave him decaf.
37. The Deli Worker’s Trick
man in black t-shirt standing in front of counterPhoto by Ceyda Çiftci on UnsplashI work in the deli and when we weigh food on the scale, it usually takes a bit off because of cup weight (usually .04lbs). Anyway, if you put the lid on, it won’t take the weight of it off, so it adds .01lbs to it. If people are being rude to me, I use this to my advantage—I just put the lid on and then print the price tag out so they have to pay a slightly extra amount of money. A very small screw you.
38. Accidental Victory
person holding baby's index fingerPhoto by Aditya Romansa on UnsplashI quit a job in a place I liked because of disgust for the new management (they were dishonest, judged people by brown-nosing instead of competence, etc.). I resigned seven days after my first child was born—that should show you how desperate I was. By total coincidence, my new employer was in the same building, one floor above. Within four years, a total of eight people have moved from the old to the new company—basically bleeding them dry of talent.
The dumb boss of the old place gets very nervous when he sees us talking to any of his remaining employees in the elevator. But the best part of it all, karma-wise: I didn’t do this on purpose/out of spite—it just happened.
39. A Different Kind Of Windows Start-Up Noise
File:Windows logo - 2012 derivative.svg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.orgI once channeled my inner 12-year-old and set a coworker’s (good friend) Windows start-up sound to a sound file of the juiciest flatulence I could find then cranked his speaker up before he got to work. The results were oh-so-satisfying. Once he got in, the dead silence in the office was abruptly broken with a giant PFFFFFFFTTTT, which was quickly followed by fellow officemates yelling at him for being nasty. I was crying from laughing so hard.
40. Mr. Sci-Fi
grayscale photo of books on shelvesPhoto by Sean Benesh on UnsplashI used to work at a video store in the '80s, and there was a guy who worked with us who was the biggest leech. He was so lazy—he couldn’t do anything, he ignored the customers, etc. He was into sci-fi, so he’d show up for his shift, pop in Star Trek or Star Wars, and then literally just lean against the counter and watch TV the whole time and not do one bit of work.
Finally, the assistant manager and I devised an ingenious scheme. When we saw that he was scheduled with one (or both) of us, we’d grab either The Sound of Music (running time: 2 hours, 54 minutes) or Gone With The Wind (running time: 3 hours, 58 minutes), depending on how long his shift was. Five minutes before he’d arrive and clock in, we’d pop in one of those movies, and boom—three to four hours of uninterrupted work from Mr. Sci-Fi. He’d finally pull his weight out of sheer boredom.
41. Restricted Cheez-Its
File:Cheez-It-Crackers.jpg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.orgI was the coworker who had his revenge upon me. I had played a few pranks on a couple of friendly coworkers over the past month or so. They really got me good—I came to work one day to find they had convinced the vending machine guy to put my favorite coffee cup on top of my favorite snack in the machine. Thus, I couldn’t have my favorite snack (Cheez-Its) for two weeks and had to keep an eye on the machine constantly to make sure no one else got them, for fear of breaking my favorite mug.
It was well played.
42. Computer Crashing
man using IP phone inside roomPhoto by Berkeley Communications on UnsplashI worked at a company that did phone surveys. Probably 250 employees worked there at any given time. During one shift, my prick boss pushed and then tripped me—a practical joke gone awry. I was frustrated, but I collected myself and came up with the sweetest revenge. I had worked there for many years and ran system backups on the weekend. Nothing fancy, just babysit the computers after typing in a few lines of Unix commands. Thanks in part to this, I had just enough access to the system to crash the entire dialing floor for three hours. 250 employees just sitting, doing nothing, being paid on crunch day.
I didn’t get in trouble. Felt good, man.
43. Using Their Words Against Them
people sitting on chairPhoto by Redd F on UnsplashOur company was giving us employees an appreciation lunch and had requested a small group of employees to plan and execute the event. On the day of the event, upper management got a stick up their behinds and decided that the planning committee was using up too much company time. They told us that any of us who worked during the luncheon (serving and cleaning up) would have to do it on our lunch breaks or stay late to make up the time. We, of course, found this unacceptable.
Prior to the luncheon, we had a huge meeting where all the managers and bigwigs praised all the workers for a job well done, etc.—and at the end, asked if anyone had any questions or comments. That's when I took my shot. I stood up and in a very friendly manner said that we needed managers to volunteer to serve the luncheon. All you heard were crickets for about ten seconds and then a lot of whispering and scrambling as upper management made lowermanagement raise their hands. It was so awesome to see them all using their lunch hour to serve us!
44. Only A Small Adjustment
graphs of performance analytics on a laptop screenPhoto by Luke Chesser on UnsplashI used to have to report website usage, ROI, and all sorts of statistics for a bunch of different sites. I built an elaborate beast of a spreadsheet in which you only put a few numbers and it would calculate just about everything the company would need. It was a bit too complicated for my idiot boss to understand, yet he would take it to clients and brag he made it, which infuriated me.
Then, after a while, he realized that the spreadsheet was all he needed and that could use my paycheck to buy a new house. So he laid me off. I told him he might need help with the spreadsheet, but he said he was smart enough. Before I took off, I made sure his life without me would be a nightmare...by changing a single formula in the spreadsheet and had a good laugh about the reports it spat out, which made no sense at all anymore.
45. 60 Days
three women sitting beside tablePhoto by Tim Gouw on UnsplashThe company I worked at for many years fired me without warning. My boss was a strange guy, and I had seen him fire other people without warning as well. He always offered to let people stay on for 60 days until they could find new work. But they would have to sign a document stating that they were “voluntarily” walking off the job and waiving all rights to unemployment.
When he fired me, he also gave me the option. I did not accept, as it seemed a lot better of a deal to have unemployment in case I could not find work within the 60 days. The company tried to appeal my unemployment, but my case was foolproof—after several years of loyal service, the only black marks on my record were being less than 15 minutes late to work three times. I let the judge in the unemployment hearing know that they offered to keep me on if I had signed away my right to unemployment. She let me know that it was against the law to do so, and ruled in my favor.
Every weekly unemployment deposit was like a tiny victory until I found a new job.
46. Computer Company In The '60s
black and white ip desk phone on brown wooden deskPhoto by Ugi K. on UnsplashThis is not my story, but my father’s. He was working hard in an early IT company (back in the late-'60s). This was back when IBM was still known as International Business Machines. He was the only one who knew how to support and manage some of the large microcomputers that some of the customers had. His boss was giving him grief over him wanting personal leave; but my mother was just about to give birth to her first child, my eldest brother.
He didn’t even want to allow my father to leave when my mother went into labor. So naturally, my father lost his temper. He told him how incompetent he was, how he was riding on other people’s talent, and then he quit right there and then and left for the hospital. I still remember my mother telling me that my father came in, congratulated her on the birth, and told her he had just quit his job. She laughs about it now, but you can imagine how she felt!
A day later, the owner of the company called my father and offered him his old boss’s job. The kicker? The old boss now had to report to my dad. That’s got to hurt.
47. A Sandwich You’ll Regret Eating
blue and white plastic bottlePhoto by 莎莉 彭 on UnsplashSomeone kept taking my lunch at work, and me being the pacifist that I am, I decided to just mention it casually to my wife. I didn’t think it was a big deal, but these were the sandwiches that SHE made for me every day. So, she decided to make a very special sandwich for me...which consisted of bread and toothpaste. I put it in the fridge and after lunch, it was gone. I don’t know if the sandwich was actually consumed, but I told HR about it and they thought it was so awesome, they gave me a $20 gift card to Outback Steakhouse.
48. You Were Warned
silver and blue click penPhoto by Liviu C. on UnsplashA coworker chewed on everything from pens and pencils to safety goggles. I warned him to stop, but he just made a joke out of it by chewing even more. Little did he know that I'd soon have the last laugh. Everyone except him watched as I rubbed the pen all over a particular area of my rear end and then handed it to him and said “DO NOT CHEW ON THIS PEN”. Straight into his mouth, it went. The whole shop erupted in laughter and he began spitting like crazy. Notice was served and the chewing immediately stopped. If you mess with the bull, you may get the horns...
49. Getting Off The Roof
a man standing on the roof of a housePhoto by Zohair Mirza on UnsplashI was about 18 and working doing residential roofing for a summer job. I had never installed clay or tile shingles before, so my boss told me to watch one of the other guys for a few minutes to get the hang of it. No less than two minutes later, he started screaming (literally screaming; the guy had anger issues) asking why I was standing around and not working. So I grabbed some tiles and started shooting them down.
Since I still had really no idea of what I was doing, I, of course, shattered the first two tiles I tried to shoot down. My boss came over and started screaming at me again for breaking tiles. But that's not even the worst thing he did—he then proceeded to PUSH ME OFF THE ROOF! Granted the fall was only about 10 feet, but it still could’ve finished me. At that point, I was fuming mad and decided I was done with that jerk. As I was packing up my gear, I could hear him cursing me at the other guys on the roof.
As I was walking off of the job, I noticed this moron standing on one of the air hoses running from his nail gun to the air compressor on the ground. In one swift movement, I grabbed the air hose and yanked it hard toward the ground. He came tumbling down off of the roof and landed in a pile.
As I was getting into my Jeep, I heard him threatening to call the cops on me. The foreman came up to him and pointed out how foolish he would look when all of the guys on the crew clearly saw him stumble and fall off on his own. It was glorious to hear that freak ranting and screaming at all of us as I rode off. I realize that I probably committed assault, but turnabout is fair play as far as I am concerned.
50. Desktop Shortcut For Solitaire
white and blue floral framePhoto by micheile henderson on UnsplashA lady on our team never did any work. Instead, she would whine her way out of stuff or go on endless lunch breaks where she just played solitaire. Eventually, it got to the point where we were uninstalling the games from her computer accounts via the local admin accounts. One day, I noticed she STILL had one game on her PC, even after we removed the default ones.
That same day, she left the office and left her PC logged in—a rookie mistake that I planned on exploiting. I got on her PC and found the game linked on the desktop. I went to the shortcut properties and changed everything so that when she clicked on the game, it would open the Wikipedia page on work ethic instead of the game. She doesn’t play games in the office anymore.
We've all lied, or been lied to at least once in our lives.
Some lies are easy to spot, right from the get-go, while others might have you fooled for years, if not your entire life.
Then there are the lies that made international headlines, and had the world fooled for years.
From Anna Anderson fooling the world that she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanoff, to Mill Vanilli (need I say more?), some people were so convincing with their deception, that we are still kicking ourselves for being fooled.
Indeed, there are some who may have died peacefully knowing they had everyone fooled till the end of their life.
"What is the most successful lie in the history?"
"Honesty Is The Best Policy"... Or Is It?
"If you tell the truth you won't be in trouble'."
"Yeah mom, I fell for that a few times and learned that lesson quickly."- glucoseintolerant
Always One Step Ahead...
"During WW2 the British put faked documents on a corpse and dropped the body in the waters to be found by the Axis."
"It detailed an attack that never happened."
"Here’s the best part."
"The plans for D-Day were found in a similar manner."
"The actual plans."
"But they were ignored cause the nazi leaders thought it was just another ruse."- Happy-Personality-23
We Can All See More Clearly Now...
"One of the most impressive ones was when Great Britain convinced everyone during WWII that carrots were the reason why their vision was great when it was really the recently discovered airborne interception radar technologies."
"I still know people that are convinced eating carrots as kids will ensure 20/20 vision for life."- KickArseDuke·
hamster GIFGiphyThe King Of All Lies
"The lie that made a man the ruler of a third or quarter of humankind."
"Darius the Great (r. 522–486 BC) governed the Achaemenid Empire at its peak."
"His rule extended from the Indus valley to mainland Greece and from the Scythian steppes to Egypt."
"A remarkably high and possibly unparalleled percentage of the world population were his subjects."
"Darius reorganized the satrapies, which made the administrative system of his empire more efficient, and introduced major financial reforms as well."
"It was never a secret that Darius became the King of Kings after a successful coup."
"He and a small group of other aristocrats (primary sources refer to seven men in total) infiltrated the residence of the previous ruler and killed him after a brief clash with his guards."
"Shortly afterwards, Darius, who was also a member of the royal house, emerged as the leader of the conspirators and assumed full power."
"So far so good."
"Things become strange when it comes to the identity of Darius’ predecessor."
"As far as the primary sources are concerned, Cyrus the Great (r. 559–530 BC) had two sons: Cambyses (r. 530–522 BC) and Bardiya."
"The former succeeded him as King of Kings, while the latter was given governorship over the eastern provinces."
"Fearful of opposition, Cambyses had his brother assassinated, but kept it a secret."
"Then he undertook the campaign that ended up bringing Egypt into the Persian fold."
"While Cambyses was in Egypt, he started acting cruelly and erratically: suspected everyone, disrespected the local traditions and the sort."
"Then a rebellion broke out back in Persia led by a magus (Zoroastrian priest) named Gaumata."
"The man claimed to be Bardiya, and the people, ignorant of the latter’s death, flocked to his banner."
"It also helped that he took short-term populist measures such as tax cuts."
"Cambyses rushed home to quell the revolt, but died on the journey."
"His death was listed as an accident or even a suicide out of desperation for the usurpation."
"Gaumata got to rule as Bardiya and even took over the latter’s harem."
"Almost nobody suspected he was an impostor, because on top of everything else he also bore an uncanny physical resemblance to the dead prince."
"The first man to suspect something was off was a nobleman named Otanes, who would later become one of Darius’ six companions."
"Otanes knew about Gaumata’s existence and was also aware that at some point his ears had been cut off as a punishment."
"So he asked his daughter, who was Bardiya’s (and now Gaumata’s) wife, to check his ears while he slept."
"The truth was brought to the light."
"Needless to say, the story was very convenient for Darius."
"By killing Gaumata, he saved the empire from a fraudulent, cunning and ruthless liar who had gone as far as to assume a dead man’s identity and risk civil war in order to take the throne for himself."
"Darius simply punished him for his crimes and reinstated the royal office to the house it belonged to: the Achaemenid dynasty."
"But what if the whole story was a lie?"
"What if there was no Gaumata, and the man Darius killed was the real Bardiya?"
"Indeed, scholars have noticed a lot of problems with the traditional narrative, apart from its convenience."
"How could the real Bardiya’s death be kept secret for so long from everyone except a simple magus — and what for?"
"How likely is it that Bardiya had a doppelganger who had also the knowledge, courage and brains necessary to take his place at the right moment?"
"And how is it possible that not even Bardiya’s wives and inner circle were able to see through Gaumata’s lies?"
'Some scholars go as far as to suspect that Cambyses’ madness might have been the product of Darius’ propaganda."
"Herodotus, for example, narrates that the King looted Egyptian temples, insulted the local gods and even killed the sacred bull Apis."
"The problem is, none of that appears in any contemporary Egyptian source — in fact, there are inscriptions showing that Cambyses honored the bull that died in 524 BC with a rich sarcophagus."
"If things were so, it cannot be excluded that Cambyses was also assassinated by Darius, who we know served as his spear-bearer."
"His death might have prompted his brother Bardiya to take power, since Cambyses was childless."
"Darius proceeded to eliminate him too and then created the lie about Gaumata."
"Of course, it cannot be excluded that Bardiya did indeed rebel against Cambyses — that doesn’t change the crux of the matter, which is the story about Gaumata."
"So there you have it."
"One of the most powerful monarchs of antiquity and a possible lie that went unquestioned for millennia by almost everyone."- bradlux01
Gold Crown King GIF by SureYeahGiphyOr The Fact That Wrestling Is Scripted Entertainment...
"Maybe in the old days, but there was a time I used to believe without a doubt, that Undertaker and Kane were brothers, and Kane wore a mask because Undertaker threw acid on his face out of animosity."- ufc_007
Added To Prolong Your Agony...
“'Please listen carefully as our menu items have recently changed'.”- Raspberries-Are-Evil
All In Moderation
"'Fat will make you fat'."
'Eating that full of sugar premade meal won't'."- Rhaenelys
No Doubt Some Actually Do
"'I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the above Terms and Conditions'."- K333N4N
It's An Ongoing Search
"We don't know the most successful lie because it's a lie we don't know of yet."- lolhappypoo
Strange How This Was Also The Case Yesterday...
“'We are experiencing higher than normal call volume'."
"'Your call is very important to us'.”
"Every. single. customer service line."- depikT
Name Brand Isn't Everything...
"Just get good marks in high school."
"Once you go to a top tier college, your life is practically set and sorted."- from_my_future
Beauty Does, Indeed, Come From Within...
"'You are not beautiful'."
"'But you could be with this product'." Reddit
Skin Care Pink GIF by Mary Kay, Inc.GiphyIt's highly debatable whether or not there is, in fact, such a thing as a "good lie".
Even so, a lie that has the whole world fooled for any stretch of time deserves a commendation of some sort or another.