People Break Down How An Act Of Kindness Totally Backfired And Blew Up In Their Face
It's always wonderful to see people who do random acts of kindness for others, without expecting anything in return, and generally making the world a little bit better place.
But sometimes misunderstandings happen, especially among strangers or acquaintances, and sometimes our actions backfire, even if they came from the kindest of places.
Already cringing, Redditor UnorthadoxGenealogy asked:
"What's something you did out of the kindness of your heart only for it to backfire and blowup in your face?"
Past Job in IT
"I work IT. Naturally, people call you when their computer breaks."
"Of course, once you fix an issue, everything else that happens to that computer is somehow your fault."
"Replaced a laptop battery? Well, that must be why their hard drive failed six months down the line. Screw that. I don't work on other people's stuff anymore."
- EyeOfTheRedKing
A Close Call
"I was driving into a petrol station and saw a cyclist lying unconscious on the side of the road, obviously having been side-swiped by a car. I parked, ran in, and told the operator about it, asked them to call an ambulance and police, etc."
"By this time a bunch of people had gathered around the cyclist, and while we were waiting, this woman started accusing me of being the one who hit him. Because, 'Why would you care so much about helping him unless you were the guilty one?!'"
"The police and ambulance came, and I saw this woman immediately run over to them and start gesticulating in my direction. The police came over and asked me some questions 'as a witness,' but I began to get a bit worried."
"Fortunately, by this time, the cyclist had recovered consciousness and was able to describe a vehicle that was obviously not mine as being the one that hit him. The police apologized for bothering me and said they had no further questions."
"The woman looked visibly annoyed and frustrated that she hadn't been able to get me in trouble..."
- MisterMarcus
Lending Money
"I absolutely hate it when you lend people money and then they act annoyed and twist in a way that makes you feel bad."
"Doesn't really matter whether it is a big or small amount. If I realize someone isn't paying back small sums on his own and act annoyed or pissed, when you remind them (or when they even forget), then I usually do not lend them any money anymore."
"It shouldn't be my job to remind people of that. The thing is also that you can't win with those people. If you don't ask they will probably never give it back or at least drag it out for ages. If you persistently ask, more often than not, you get some undeserved snarky remark about how stingy you are or that you shouldn't take it so seriously, etc."
"Stuff like that ticks me off, but if you get agitated then you are the crazy one because you get worked up over 'a few bucks.'"
- Invictu520
Grocery Haul
"A guy that used to work for us had no car. His wife needed to go pick up groceries. I had the flu and wanted to just sleep in my bed, but she gave me a sob story about not having any food at all (this was before grocery delivery was really a thing), so I told her I could take her for a few things."
"She knew how sick I was and promised she would just get a few essentials while I slept in the car. TWO HOURS LATER, she walked out with two carts of groceries and loaded them up. I groggily took her home and drive home and crawled into bed."
"That evening, her husband came to my house and confronted me about being 'really grumpy' about taking his wife to the store and being mean to her."
"I straight up told him I had the flu, I wasn't grumpy, I was half-awake, but don't worry because I would never run either of them anywhere ever again. Ungrateful a**holes."
- GreenOnionCrusader
Boundaries Crossed
"I had an old, lonely lady who used to come to see me at work. She was sweet and we would talk quite a bit, and she told me I was the only person who 'understood her' or 'took the time' with her."
"I don’t remember how this happened but I gave her my personal phone number for her to give me a call whenever she felt depressed or lonely."
"I ended up getting phone calls every hour throughout the night and day, which I couldn’t always answer because I had a job? A kid? I was sleeping?"
"Anyway, she then began leaving me very nasty voicemails that I had 'abandoned' her and 'was just like everyone else.'"
"It was wild."
- Starlight_City45
New Level of Friendship: Unlocked
"I used to pop into a bar by my apartment after work and met a guy named Tom. At first, it was just small talk but eventually, we started having more serious conversations, and I thought, 'Cool, a new friend.' I gave him my number and suddenly my phone was blowing up every day."
"I was working full-time and had my own life; I couldn't drop everything at a moment's notice every time he called or texted and it was all the fucking time."
"The breaking point was him calling me on a Tuesday around midnight asking why I wasn't at the bar hanging out. Uh, because I have to work tomorrow?"
"Suddenly he was saying things like, 'I knew you were just like everyone else,' and 'nobody wants to be friend.' I just couldn't do it anymore. Like, I'm sorry you have trouble making friends but being hyper-clingy and texting me 50 times a day demanding we hang out isn't the answer."
- apocalypticradish
Tough Luck Stories
"I used to be a sucker for a hard luck story."
"Oh, you need $1000 to buy a car so you can go see your kid? Sure, I got you, just pay me back."
"You need help buying Christmas presents for your kids? Sure, I'll help!"
"You want me to let you crash at my place for a couple of days while you figure some s**t out? I got you!"
"Every single one left me with no money, fewer friends, and a growing distrust of people."
- bstyledevi
Let It Snow
"Not my story, my dad's..."
"A woman went off the road & into a snow bank right out front of my Dad's auto shop, and he happened to be in a tow truck (he'd just serviced) with a customer. They went up to the lady to see if they could help, and she was on the phone with the police (laughing out loud) for a tow."
"The police came, and asked if they could pull her out as they were already there and another truck could be hours. They agreed, but they made it clear to the woman and the cop they would not be liable for anything. Just get the car outta the ditch and back on the road."
"Sure enough, after almost an hour of shoveling and laying in snow/slush to get this thing out, the first thing she says is, 'Oh, you caused damage, look, that's bent, etc., etc.' The cop told them to get the h**l outta there and he'd sort the lady out."
"Save someone a penny, and it'll cost you a dollar..."
- kittenxx96
That Mean Girl Energy
"I sat down with a girl who liked me in a private setting and explained that I was already in a relationship but would like to remain friends. She used that opportunity to tell my girlfriend (now wife) that I was cheating on her."
"This, of course, wasn’t true but she proceeded to make up a lot of s**t to start fights between my girlfriend and me. It almost ended our relationship until we had a long conversation and realized that everything we had been told by her was a lie."
"You’re probably wondering why I didn’t figure she was lying to my girlfriend sooner. That’s because she pretended to be my friend through the whole thing and would seemingly take my side. My girlfriend and I talked for hours, and when we did, we realized who was lying to us."
- SwerveTheNerve
What a Catch
"I had an ex that lost her job and apartment. I told her (she was my girlfriend at the time) to come live with me if she wanted, so she’d have a roof over her head and access to necessities. I paid for everything under the premise that she would try and find other employment opportunities."
"I even bought her a car and paid for the insurance so she wouldn’t have to rely on public transportation, considering it’s not always easy to find a job in your immediate area."
"She was banging some dude in my own bed while I was working night shifts. Kicked her to the curb, sold the car, and used part of the money to buy a new bed."
- irnbrd00
Gotta Get That Insurance Info
"I saw an accident while driving through my neighborhood. Stopped to help the lady because her car was stopped in the middle of the road. The car that hit her drove off."
"When the cops arrive, the lady told the cop that I hit her. I figured she just made a mistake but then she told the cop some made-up story."
"The cops asked for my license/registration, and it took a while to convince them that it wasn't me because I had no damage whatsoever and the amount of damage meant that the other car was also badly damaged."
- frank-sarno
That High School Audacity
"Very simple but I had a friend in high school that was very upset that she had done poorly on an exam. Like full-on crying that she might not get an A (like she did well, but not up to her standards)."
"I got her her favorite candy bar from a vending machine and hugged her and told her that it would be alright, that she was smart, and that no matter what, she did her best."
"She, very coldly, told me to f**k off and that she didn't want a f**king candy bar. So I f**ked off and had a candy bar."
- cherrybomb_777
Le Sigh.
"When I was in high school, I offered to help a classmate who was struggling with French homework. I took time every week to help her with it."
"On the one occasion when I couldn't, she told other people that I couldn't be trusted."
- StuffEmersonSays
Literally Backfired
"I have the perfect response for this post. While trying to break people up from fighting, I got my head smashed in myself. One of the two went full rampage on me, and I remember receiving three hits."
"The next thing I remember is me feeling blood drip down my face to see my eyebrow fully split open, the side of my face swollen, my jaw hurting, and my tooth broken off."
"I did not even know any of the two fighting people. Just wanted to help and have an evening full of fun instead of this s**t."
- TheEpiczzz
Paid in Good Ravioli
"An elderly woman in my exercise class (I am no spring chicken myself) who was always grumbly and stiff was complaining about her shoulder. She also mentioned wanting to get her kitchen repainted but couldn't afford it and certainly couldn’t do it herself."
"I love to paint and am not afraid of a ladder so I volunteered, thinking this was a good deed I was doing for an old widow in a small house."
"Well, when I went to her 'small house' to discuss the job, it turns out it was at least 3000 square feet with a gigantic kitchen. She also wanted the ceiling done. I had to demur, it was overwhelming. She asked if I could paint her powder room. I said yes to that."
"When taking a break from painting, she and I sat at her kitchen table and she talked about going on vacation to Ireland with her family. Wow. So she certainly could have afforded to pay someone to paint or have one of her 40-year-old kids do it."
"But no. This perfect stranger volunteered out of the goodness of her heart and got paid in ravioli. At least the tomato sauce was incredible."
- SukiSouthfield
Doing good deeds generally feels wonderful, unless something about that good deed goes horribly wrong.
And if any of these Redditors second-guessed doing a good deed in the future, we couldn't exactly blame them.
Nurse Mortified After Unintentionally Coming On To Male Patient While Inserting Urinary Catheter
Working in medicine has to be one of those professions which requires humor.
Without a little bit of humor—or at least the ability to look at the brighter side of things—surely the work would become too much for anyone.
Fortunately for this nurse, she has a funny story to carry with her, and her fellow staff, for a long time.
Reddit user "nettii24" explained, as a nurse, it's important to have a set of phrases to fall back on. When the hours are long and the patients are coming and going, it's best to go into the patient's room with a little conversational backup.
However, as the nurse points out, sometimes you find yourself tongue-tied anyway. When you're exhausted, or the patient throws off your usual routine, it's easy to get something mixed up.
As this nurse also discovered, these instances of being tongue-tied tend to be the most hilarious.
You can read her story here:
TIFU by accidentally coming on to a male patient while placing a urinary catheter [NSFW] : tifu from tifu
Many fellow Redditors chimed in, some nurses, ready to share in the humor, and some even to share their own horrifyingly funny stories.
"We're not allowed to say little prick. We have to say something like 'sharp scratch', over they years I've had it pointed out that I 'always say sharp scratch', to which I reply 'well, we're not allowed to say little prick anymore'. I've had patients crying with laughter at my response. Sometimes people feel so low in hospital that it doesn't take much to make someone's day." - compoface
"Had a nurse grab my penis as she was about to insert the catheter say, 'oh, it's just a little one.' She assured me she was talking about catheter. Uh hum." - DystopianB*tch
"Former ED RN here. When listening to a patient's lungs I used to place my stethoscope on their chest and instruct them by saying, 'big breath' each time I needed them to breathe deeply. That was, until I saw a shocked look on a family member's face seeing my (male) hand apparently on the patient's chest and commenting about her 'big breasts.' I immediately changed to saying, 'deep breath.'" - Gonzo_B
"To be honest, you were about to do something that could have been incredibly unpleasant. You made his day better. Good on you." - drkirienko
Like anything else in life, it can typically be made better with a little humor.
Though this nurse currently feels like she'll never live this down, she'll surely reach a point where she can look back on this and laugh.
Guy's Decision To Try To Stifle A Sneeze At Work Backfires Spectacularly
Remember when you were a kid and everyone would tell you not to plug your nose when you sneeze because it was dangerous?
Pretty sure there's still no one who knows if that's actually true.
But if ever there was a story that gave credence to the idea that you should never suppress a sneeze, it is this one.
The latest story to take the subReddit TIFU (Today I F'd Up) by storm, titled "TIFU by holding in my sneeze," is a doozy. A messy, even gory doozy.
It comes to us via LivinCrazy, who was having a bit of a challenging day at work. While eating their lunch, Living Crazy did that thing where you somehow, accidentally, basically punch yourself in the face?
Or as they eloquently put it:
"...I went like brain dead for half a second and I lifted my hand up too fast and hit my nose with an uppercut Mortal Kombat style."
Yep. Been there. Not cute, not fun.
The situation was further complicated by the fact that LivinCrazy was also under the weather, which obscured the severity of the beating they dealt themself.
"I felt like my nose was bleeding but I dismissed it as my nose running since I have a cold."
You see where this is going, right?...
Brace yourself.
So LivinCrazy goes on about their day.
Their boss asks them to pick him up lunch, so they go grab him a hamburger.
And as they're on their way into the boss's office...
"I felt a little sneeze sensation up in my nose but I try to hold it in because my boss is waiting for me."
And then, it happens—the sneeze.
But not just any sneeze...
I walk into his office, give him his hamburger and this point my body can't hold it. Cue three very bloody and harsh sneezes all over my bosses white shirt, paperwork, and hamburger.
The biggest "yikes" to end all yikeses—all the grossness of a regular sneeze PLUS you've made the entire place look like a murder scene. The mind—and the stomach—truly reels.
Thankfully, LivinCrazy's boss—after sending LivinCrazy home, thank God—took it all in stride.
"...he seems to have found it a little funny so I don't really feels as bad."
Which is pretty much the best-case scenario when you sneeze blood all over your boss and his stuff.
Three times.
Of course, LivinCrazy's fellow Redditors had plenty to say about this nasal massacre.
"This is how a pandemic starts in the movies." --u/elcondormagnificente
I'm laughing so hard right now at the image of blood spraying out of your nose 3 times like a shotgun blast --u/Finnish-Karelian
"Never hold in a sneeze, always let them out! Sneezing is such a freeing sensation!" --u/Lima1998
"That tingly air is gonna find its way out, some way or another." --u/DK_Son
"You got off light. You could have shi* your pants." --u/sbeesp
"I figured you were going to say you did what I've done in the past. I've completely throws out my back/shoulder a few times from holding in a sneeze." --u/joleme
"I think the one living crazy is your boss, if someome [sic] sneezes blood all over me I'd be freaking out running to the next clinic/hospital or whatever to check for any deseases [sic] and not wait for another clean shirt lol" --u/Iago4400
"Your boss totally thinks you did a lot of cocaine." --u/johnnyutah0305
"I would be mortified but the outcome seems to have been alright." --u/expiredgatorade
So the moral here is listen to your body and let those sneezes fly.
But as more than one fellow Redditor pointed out...
"...It doesn't matter if you are at a rave or at home all alone like you will be for the rest of your life: COVER YOUR UGLY-AS* FACE WHEN YOU SNEEZE!" --u/itsthreeamyo
God gave you elbows for a reason.
Pizza Delivery Guy Keeps Delivering To The Same Address, And Things Get Awkwardly Worse Every Time He Goes Back
Every job has its foibles, but customer service work has arguably the most pitfalls of them all.
Dealing directly with other human beings—all their emotions and hang-ups and expectations and entitlements—is pretty much a one-way ticket to misunderstandings.
But when you add in the fact that the customer service employee is also human and also full of all the extremely dumb stuff humans are full of? Well that lethal combination is a recipe for disaster.
This is one of those stories.
The TIFU (Today I Fu**ed Up) subReddit recently lit up with a pizza delivery guy's harrowing story, titled "TIFU by continuously making a customer angry when delivering them pizza." On its face, it seems like just another tale of a customer being that wonderful combo of unlikable and weird.
We've all encountered that guy. But the story quickly takes a hard left into "Oh...no..."
Redditor Kyle__'s story starts off pretty standard. He shows up with some pizzas, knocks on the door of a very loud party and gets a less than enthusiastic greeting when the door opens:
"This massive dude with hair down to his a** answers and yells at me for knocking too loud. I apologized, and went on my way."
Fairly typical "oh I'm SO sorry for DOING MY JOB" customer service stuff, right?
Sure, until the following weekend, when he delivers pizzas to another unit in the same building.
"This tall bald dude answers. I ask him if he knows the guy upstairs, and told him the a**hole upstairs yelled at me for knocking too loud. He looks at me puzzled, and says 'I know, that was me, I bought this 4 plex'. The dude shaved his head. From hair to his a**, to bald."
Yikes.
Our Pizza Dude, after he "instantly died inside" apologized and went on his way, no harm no foul.
Until the next weekend, when he really upped the ante by, well, destroying the dude's property.
"...the loop on my pizza bag got hooked on his mail box that was hung on the fence. It ripped the mail box clear off the fence, and flung it down the stairs."
Can't get worse than this, though, right?
Don't worry, it does.
"It actually bounced off his door when it landed. He opened the door to see me looking like a deer in headlights, frantically pointing at his mailbox (which was bent and twisted now) and trying to explain that I really didn't mean to do it."
And if you can believe it, this guy ended up delivering to this customer again—though thankfully this time there was a happy ending.
"After he paid I nervously said 'Hey, I didn't even insult you or wreck your property this time'. He laughed, said 'good job' and handed me a $5 tip."
Aww!
And now they're best friends.
Just kidding, they actually never crossed paths again, which is probably for the best.
Naturally, Kyle__'s fellow Redditors had plenty to say about this weird tale.
"'I know, that was me' LOL, dying" --u/GrauGeist8888
"Finally a good Tifu, I thought for sure you were gonna end up having sex somehow." --u/Hasnath_249
"Reminds me of the Pizza Delivery Guy from Home Alone who kept running over their damn statue." --u/ChefChopNSlice
And several gave him props for making the best of a sticky situation.
"You didn't FU imo. The man even laughed at your joke and tipped you.I see it as a win considering you destroyed his mailbox and called him an a**hole." --u/Fuhgly
"I dunno, sounds like you handled it well." --u/LostestGoat
Though not exactly everyone was on the pizza guy's side.
"...Don't call customers a**holes to their neighbors (or to anyone really). They might be friends (or the same person in this insane story)." --u/phunkydroid
"Like massive respect to this dude for not punching you" --u/RetardedGaming
And several folks had some wild pizza-related stories of their own to share.
"Oh man, delivering pizzas was generally fun! I was offered a St. Bernard puppy, bags of marijuana, and coke as tips (which I did not take). Only sad I couldn't take the puppy...." --u/Elle3786
"I delivered pizzas in college and I guess I knocked too loud over their music. The guy swung the door opened and yelled at me for 'knocking on the door like I was the cops'"--u/SatireDiva74
"Late to the party here but I was once a pizza driver too. One time I unknowingly delivered a pizza with a slice missing. Turns out one of the guys in back had made a pizza for himself and someone else mistakenly put the ticket on that box."
"The look on the woman's face when I had to re-deliver her pizza was one of pure disgust. She probably really thought I had eaten a slice of their pizza, and likely wasn't sure I didn't tamper with this new one. That was almost 15 years ago and I still think about it sometimes at night and get uncomfortable." --u/RickGrimesLol
Anyway, if there's a moral here, it's this: If you put your foot in your mouth, at least don't up the ante by damaging someone's property.
Customer Service 101, folks.
Guy Gives His Old Phone To His 10-Year-Old Sister, Not Realizing His 'Homework' Folder Was Still On It
Okay, everyone, today we're going to learn a vitally important life lesson, one that could make or break your reputation and be the deciding moment between a life of normalcy or a life of soul-shattering humiliation.
Please take out your paper and pen and write this down:
ALWAYS DESTROY YOUR *ahem* PRIVATE FILES BEFORE SURRENDERING YOUR DEVICES
This cannot be stressed enough.
It's not sufficient to just delete the files—you gotta catapult all that ish directly into the sun.
Which is a lesson a gent on Reddit recently learned the hard—and profoundly soul-destroying—way.
Redditor JustaYeetingMat posted the harrowing tale to the r/tifu subReddit. "TIFU" is Redditspeak for "Today I F*ed Up" which, as you'll soon see, is the understatement of... maybe all of human existence in this case?
"Homework folder" is a Reddit by-word for a folder on your phone or computer in which you hide all your, um... adult? content? Be it the, shall we say, "professional" or "homemade" varieties.
So, you know, basically the dead last thing you ever want anyone to see.
JustaYeetingMat recently got a new phone, and in his family it's customary to give your old phone to a younger sibling, so he passed his on to his sister. Conscientious lad that he is, he moved his "homework" folder to his new phone before passing the old one on.
Done and done! Right?
Well, we'll just go ahead and let the title of his Reddit post speak for itself, because there's simply no better way to put it.
TIFU by giving younger sister a phone with the "homework" folder in it and now i am probably going to get disowned
Are you secondhand dying inside? Cuz JustaYeetingMat certainly is, firsthand.
As JustaYeetingMat explains, it turns out that you have to completely destroy all the data on the phone to truly get rid of the "homework" folder. So when his sister went traipsing thru the phone to clear some more storage space, she found the "homework" folder and did what, quite frankly, most of us would do:
instantly she ran around the house showing everyone in my family about what atrocities i keep in that document
And, of course, his family had pretty much exactly the response you'd expect.
now nearly all of my family either hates me or is disgusted by me
Fair enough.
So what has JustaYeetingMat done in the wake of this?
The only sensible thing really.
i have locked myself in my bedroom with 3 days worth of food and a good supply of water from my filtered tap
Don't worry, though: he hasn't ostracized himself entirely.
I go out through my window and go to kfc (only at night) for some good non frozen food
At least he's not totally isolated.
As you might expect, JustaYeetingMat's fellow Redditors had plenty of fun at their expense.
The best part is that you'll be reliving this story for the entirety of your adult life at family get-togethers. -- u/handlessuck
Don't forget about the shame that will come on at random times when he remembers the story. -- u/averagethrowaway21
If OP ever gets married, you can guarantee that his family is going to have fun pulling this out at the wedding. -- u/AreThereWaffles
Though there were a few words of comfort.
Well there's always the chance of being disowned, don't want to rule out all these options just yet -- u/Keaton525
I got caught cross dressing and so forth when I was 14. 31 and still alive -- u/ZeroSymbolic7188
Your best bet youngster is to just suck it up and own it. Seriously! Don't let your family make you feel insecure about this stuff. -- u/MadEzra64
There are two kinds of people in this world. People who enjoy a bit of porn now and again, and liars. Just own it, imo. Be like, "oh you think thats whats up? You should see the stuff I have on my new phone" -- u/Madaghmire
And, for those of you who also have "secrets" to keep, there was plenty of advice.
Always, always, always do a factory reset on electronics you sell or give away. Protects your information and saves you from embarrassing situations. --u/tony7914
If you want to be thorough, do a factory reset, put dummy data and do a factory reset again. This is because there are data recovery programs that can pull previously wiped data from a device. So, if you put some dummy data, nobody can access it later --u/AdityaRav
So the message here is clear—DESTROY YOUR FILES.
Your dignity will thank you.