The Best Customer Service 'Gotchas'
"The pleasure of watching you get served today was all mine, thank you."
Everyone dreams of putting those pesky Kevins and Karens in their place, especially when they decide to wreak havoc on poor customer service employees. These satisfying “gotcha” moments prove that karma really does exist.
1. Just Being Neighborly
One of my favorite stories from my brief time in customer service was when a man who called up the night after a minor hurricane started screaming that his service didn’t work. He said that he had complained multiple times and this was the last straw. Clearly our service sucked, and it was our fault his cable was out. He kept cutting me off and calling me rude names. But I had the perfect response.
Finally, I just interjected: Sir, your cable isn’t out because of an issue with our service, your cable is out because a tree branch fell across the cable line. What’s that? How do I know? Because I saw the branch fall. I’m the one who went out in the rain last night to get the branch out of the street. In fact, I know you know it’s a branch, because I could see you looking out your window at me moving the branch that fell on your property.
Not only that, but when I was done, I went inside and called into work on my day off to arrange a bucket truck to come out and rerun the cable so you could beat the rush of calls that came in all across the island due to the storm. You didn’t even have to call. A truck is already on route. Well, that shut him up.
2.Nickel and Dime-ing
I used to work for a grocery store in high school as a cashier. One busy Saturday, an older lady came through my long line with about $150 worth of groceries. Among her items was a prepackaged piece of meat from our deli department that is normally priced by weight. Her meat did not have a printed sticker on the package and I would’ve needed to find a bag boy or manager to run to the deli to get it priced.
Because we were super busy, I decided to wing it, and set it on my scale. “Looks like it’s almost a pound, so…let’s say…$2.77? Does that sound fair?” I began to ring it as a miscellaneous item. Her answer sent a shiver through my spine. “No it does NOT sound fair!” she yelled in a screeching voice. “You need to get that priced!” Groans from the line began behind her, as I found a bag boy to run to get the price sticker.
A manager came by to see what the commotion was about and the lady explained the situation. I explained why I had made the decision I made. The manager of course stuck up for the lady (which we laughed about later) and she accepted the apology. We then waited for what seemed like an eternity of eye-contact avoidance and thumb twiddling.
The bag boy came back and handed me the pork. I smirked and showed her the price. “$2.78. Huh, I would’ve saved you a penny!” The man behind her chortled. Never saw her again.
3.What a Gas
I was working at a gas station in a very rich part of town. During a nice summer day, a prime example of the douchebag variety of the human species drove his super-expensive Lamborghini in and, in that haughty, I’m-rich-so-you-must-do-what-I-say voice, demanded that it be filled with premium. Which the attendant started to do, only the guy immediately snatched the nozzle from him and screamed that “you’re too stupid to do this on your own”.
We’re in Oregon, by the way, where you can’t pump your own gas because of state fire laws. Well, being that he’s a douchebag and an idiot, gas spills out from the nozzle all over his sparkly douche-mobile. At this point, he truly flips out. He storms into the store, where I’m working as the cashier and de facto manager. He immediately demands to speak to the owner, and that we are going to pay to have his car repainted AND he’s not going to be paying for his gas.
I try my best to calm the situation, but he’s got a good rage going and doesn’t want to be calmed down. While he’s spewing forth, I notice that an officer from the local department is about to come into the store to get snacks or a drink or some such. This gives me a nice idea. “Sir, I’m afraid that the gas is in your tank and you pumped it yourself, so you are going to have to pay”.
Cutscene of an explosion. Douchebag then asks, “So what, exactly, do you think you can do if I just go and get in my car and leave?” Thank you, good Lord, for timing. He says this, at full bellow, right as the officer walks through the door. My response? “Well, personally I can’t do much, but the nice officer standing behind you will probably be able to do something”.
Douchebag turns around to see the officer, with a very predatory smile on his face, nodding vigorously. Yeah, he shut up, paid, and we never saw him again.
4.Mind Your Manners
I used to do cellphone customer service for a call centre in Canada, though it was an American cellphone company. Got a call from a right-angry Texan who had been passed around from agent to agent with no one really listening to him, making him even more angry (and understandably so). So, he gets to me and he’s just a whirlwind of yelling and swearing.
I can barely make out what he’s saying. In my sternest Person-In-Charge voice I say, “Sir, that’s no way to talk to a lady!” Right away he calms down and goes: “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am”. And we resolved his issue within a couple of minutes. Oh, Texas. I love your old-school gentlemen when they’re not drowned out by your extreme fundamentalists.
5.Take a Picture, It'll Last Longer
I worked at a photo printing lab, and we got people in all the time who claimed we were stupid and had messed up their pictures. One woman had us print 800 vacation pictures. They were bad quality, dark, and out of focus. Basically a nightmare to work with. But that wasn’t all. When she came to pick them up, she insisted that we had ruined them, that they were perfect in her camera, and that she had a very expensive camera and so there was no way the pictures could be dark or out of focus.
We finally gave her her money back, even though we had done nothing wrong and were out a lot of time and paper. She called us 30 minutes later and told us she was at a store across town, and they had reprinted all of her pictures and they were beautiful, in focus, and nice and bright. I had to tell her that the same person who owned our store also owned the store across town, and that not only would it have taken that store several hours to reprint 800 pictures, but their printer was down that day, so they couldn’t have printed anything. She hung up on me.
6.Owning It
I used to work at a restaurant chain that started about 15 or 20 years back and has about 15 stores in total. People all the time would complain and release their vague threat “I know Tommy! (The owner, guy who started the chain) Do I have to call him to get some good service?” It came from so many people, but we had to put up with it because that’s what you do in the restaurant business.
But one time when this happened, Tommy was actually in the restaurant. He would come in once every couple months or so and just act like a regular customer, just to kinda evaluate how things were running from a non-owner perspective (of course everything magically went smoother for him than any other customer, imagine that). Anyway, this lady (that had been a total witch the entire night) starts complaining, talking about how her meal was cold or bad or whatever, even though she had powered through 4/5ths of it.
She wants her money back for this atrocity! And then she drops the bombshell. “I know Tommy! He wouldn’t stand for this!” The only thing was, Tommy was sitting almost directly behind her, and pretty obviously didn’t know her, and she didn’t recognize him. After getting a bit of the old discreet “Go ahead” nod from him, I just said, “Ma’am, Tommy is in the restaurant right now. If you could just point him out I’d be glad to let him know what you think of his restaurants”.
She stammered, gave the, “No he’s not, I would’ve seen him!” until the owner stood up and said hello. He put on the kind of sickly sweet personality, where you’re ever so polite but totally awful at the same time. She shut up and paid pretty quickly after that.
7.Milking It For All It's Worth
I worked at a concession stand for a children’s baseball park. It’s a large park (nine or so fields) and we get lots and lots of customers. Having lots of customers, we have to make things in large quantities and the quality isn’t especially swell. But hey, it’s a concession stand, not a restaurant. Anyhow, it’s about 20 degrees out and people are ordering hot chocolate by about five cups at a time.
Only two of us are working. The process for making hot chocolate is putting an extremely large container of water in our extremely large microwave, and then stirring in an extremely large amount of cocoa powder. It’s nothing fancy, but it tasted pretty good all things considered. Late in the day, I was working the register, and my co-worker is running around making everything.
A lady came up to the side window, screaming at my co-worker about how he’s ruining the hot chocolate. My co-worker can’t hear her, seeing as how she’s yelling through a window. At a guy working around a lot of refrigerator fans, among other things. She finally comes to the front counter and tells me he’s ruining it. “Why” I asked. Her: “He’s going to ruin the milk! He’s going to ruin it in the microwave!”
Me: “There is no…” Her: “HES GOING TO RUIN IT!” Me: “Peter!” Co-Worker: “Yeah?” Me (pretending to get super angry) “DON’T RUIN THAT MILK!” Her: *stares at me* Co-Worker: “What milk?” Me (still yelling): “THE HOT CHOCOLATE MILK!” Co-Worker (comes up to the front looking VERY confused): “There is no milk!” Me (to the lady): “Hmm. I suppose we don’t use any milk”. She left looking very scared to talk to us ever again.
8.This Comes Right From The Top
I used to work in an old family-owned gas station/garage in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Since it was family owned, about 90% of the business came from regulars who had either business accounts or got their families’ cars fixed at the shop (and had for generations on both sides). As such, the random passers-by getting gas on their way to and from cities on either side of the town made up a mostly negligible amount of business.
The gas station side of the business made up maybe 2% of the business, and of that maybe .5% was non-regulars. So my boss couldn’t care less about some of the annoying customers who came in. One day we got a particularly witchy soccer mom. This was during the summer a few years ago, so the gas was very high compared to the rest of the year.
She was convinced that our pumps were purposely calibrated incorrectly so that less gas was pumped. Her proof was that she always got $XX.XX in gas and it always went to XX% full. Well we had just had our equipment recalibrated for the year and knew it was all good. She kept complaining to me about it, and being a high schooler I didn’t care, either.
But I kept up appearances and was polite, kept telling her that we had just had our pumps calibrated. She didn’t care and kept complaining. Eventually she asked for the manager. But I knew something she didn’t. The office was right behind the counter, and my boss was in there listening the whole time. As soon as she asked for him, he simply yelled out “SCREW OFF!” And that was about it.
I just shrugged at her, and she left. My boss was awesome with jerk customers.
9.Stop, Drop and Roll
A customer was lighting up in a supermarket, and a staff member asked them to stop. They refuse to stop. Customer escalates to me, as customer service manager at the time. I grabbed a fire extinguisher (large, CO2), walked up to the customer, and said “If you don’t put that out now, I will be forced to assume you’re on fire and act accordingly”. Customer dropped the smoke, stamped it out with her foot, and left the store.
10. Sticky Fingers
Used to work in a pawnshop. We got lots of jewelry in and a lot of times the person bringing in the jewelry would have no idea that some of their stuff was fake. Nine times out of ten they would get angry and leave their stuff with us to be thrown out. My co-worker accidentally left a really gawdy but fake gold chain out on the desk one day. A customer came in, noticed the chain, and told us that we’d better put it away before someone took it.
I was about to. Then I realized I could have some fun. We ended up leaving the chain on the desk and would casually watch people as they came in to do business. Indeed, we caught a number of people trying to lift the chain. One guy in particular was talking us up and gradually pulling the chain off the counter. When he had successfully pocketed it and left the store, my co-worker and I began to crack up.
Sure enough, about a week later the guy came back in with the chain and tried to sell it to us. When I refused to buy it, he got angry. Then we showed him the security cam footage of him taking it. We weren’t even mad. Someone that dumb deserves to live his life that way until he walks out in front of a bus or into a wood chipper.
11. The Truth Hurts
A customer wanted to return a computer that was about a year old when I worked in retail. I asked him what was wrong. “It just don’t work”. I powered it on, it gets into Windows, connects to the wireless network, goes online. I open Office, everything seems to be working properly. I show it to him, ask him what’s wrong. “It just don’t work”. I asked him what was actually wrong with the machine (let alone why would you return a computer a year later).
“It just don’t work. Are you saying if a car don’t start, it works fine?” At this point I had enough of the guy: “No sir, I’m saying if there was a car and everyone could start it except one person, I wouldn’t blame the car”.
12. You Get What You Pay For
I was eating at a Taco Bell once, and I was waiting to ask for some sauce while another customer was yelling at a kitchen employee. She had pulled apart her burrito and was complaining that there wasn’t enough stuff in it. I shut her up with one sentence. I leaned over and said, “looks like 89 cents worth of food to me!” She stormed out.
13. Lady In Shining Armor
I worked at a Walgreen’s photo lab right after high school, and it was my first job. There was a really nice lady who used to come by every now and then to have her pictures developed, and whenever they came out we would chat about them because I thought they were great. One day while we were talking, another customer arrived. When I asked her how I could help her, she started yelling at me because she didn’t like the way her photos came out.
She threw them on the counter and was really angry with me and wanted to speak to my manager. I called for my manager and she came over and tried to calm the angry lady down. The angry lady started pointing at me and said that I messed up her photos, and blah, blah, blah, threats, better business bureau, yak, yak, yak. I don’t know what to tell her other than I’m sorry and that I didn’t know what was wrong.
I told her I processed them like I was supposed to and that most of the work was done by the machine, to which she immediately replied “then what good are you?” Suddenly, the nice lady with the cool pictures pipes up in this authoritative tone: “How dare you? How dare you say that to him and accuse him of ruining your pictures? He already said he was sorry. Do you realize that what you said is going to cost him his job? Shame on you”.
The angry lady just got quiet, realized how she was acting, and left. I thanked the nice lady, and it made me tear up a bit afterwards because having someone stand up for you feels good.
14. Get It To Go
My friend was in line at KFC when a woman began rattling off a long order. I’m talking two family buckets of extra crispy, sides of biscuits, bowls of gravy, you name it. At the end of the order the female cashier asks the large woman, “For here or to go?” The woman blows a gasket and screams, “GIRL, I CAN’T EAT THAT MUCH!” To which the cashier replies, without the slightest bit of hesitancy, “GIIIRRRRLLLL, I DON’T KNOW YOUR WORLD”. It was the most boss thing that has ever occurred in a KFC…to my knowledge.
15. Putting Him In His Place
Recently I put a customer in place in Best Buy. I went to do an exchange at Best Buy. Guy walks up behind me, starts complaining about the wait to pick up a .com order, and I tell him to get in the line with the giant hanging “BestBuy.com orders here” sign. He then complains to a manager about how lazy his staff is, and how he has been there for 30 minutes to pick up a Monster Cable…hilarious as that purchase is.
I called him out, and the guy turns red from embarrassment and anger, then storms off. Then I debriefed the manager on how he was there for less than five minutes before being helped and the staff was doing a great job. The manager gave me a $20 Gift Card for calling the guy a douche to his face. I just didn’t want the Customer Service guys to get in any trouble for this guy’s slander.
16. Speaking In Tongues
I worked at a drug store in high school. I had a German couple check out at my register, and they were incredibly rude. They were complaining in German about the customers behind them in line, using vulgar language and whatnot. Apparently, I wasn’t moving fast enough for their liking, and the woman called me a name in German. But she didn’t know one thing.
She was obviously not aware that that was the terribly impractical language that I took in high school. When I finished their order, I stared her in the eye and said thank you in her native tongue, and they both looked shocked and embarrassed. It felt good, man.
17. Do It Yourself
I work at Jimmy John’s. At JJ’s, if you’ve never been, it’s mostly self-service; you get your napkins, and if you need a bag, you get them yourself. Our sandwiches are wrapped in a way that you generally don’t need one, and everything is made “to go”. A lady came in one day and ordered like 4 or 5 sandwiches. As always, I redirect them to the end of the bar to pick up their sandwiches and grab whatever napkins and bags they want.
Now, if someone asks us to bag something FOR them, we will. People generally don’t (unless they’re really old in which case we’ll do it for them regardless) but nobody minds if they do. This lady never asked once for someone to bag her food. She stood at the bar, quiet, bagging all of her sandwiches up and then left. 15 or 20 minutes go by. Then the other shoe drops.
Her husband calls the store and asks to speak to a manager, AKA me. I pick up the phone and the conversation goes like this, mostly verbatim: ME: Hi, how can I help you? GUY: shouting Yeah, since when is it ya’lls policy for people to bag their own food? My wife just came from there and told me she had to bag everything herself! ME: I’m sorry sir, but it’s technically always been our policy. Everything is self-service here at Jimmy John’s. We certainly would have — cuts me off GUY: WELL I’M GOING TO BE SURE TO TELL EVERYONE I KNOW ABOUT THE KIND OF SERVICE YOU GUYS OFFER OVER THERE.
ME: Okay, well, thanks, I guess? I mean, it isn’t any sort of secret. hangs up
18. Up and Down
I stopped to get gas today, and while talking with the cashier I mentioned that she was probably tired of people yelling at her about the price of gas—but that since she is the one standing there she probably gets it a lot. She said that every day someone complains to her, like she can do something about it. A guy then came in and demanded, “Why the heck is gas $3.76 a gallon?’
Without missing a beat, she said, “Because it went down 10 cents this morning”. He just looked at her, paid and left.
19. Playing Games
I worked in electronics at Target. Over at Guest Service one day, I saw a woman with her teenage daughter heatedly speaking to the guy at the counter. After a few moments, he pointed over at me in electronics. The woman’s head whirled round, dragon like, toward me. The rest of her body realigned with her head and she stomped in my direction.
When she reached the counter I pleasantly asked, “How can I help you?” She slammed a receipt and PS3 controller on the counter, “I paid 55 dollars for this and I can only return it for 40!” I asked, “May I see your receipt?” She nodded and I picked it up, “See, 55 dollars!” “Yep, I see that,” I said, “You bought this last week when the store gave away a 15 dollar gift certificate with the controller”.
“So what!” “You would shop at Target again, right?” I asked. “Not if this isn’t resolved!” she spat. Her daughter next to her was embarrassed. “Hypothetically, if there wasn’t an issue, I’m guessing you would and you would use that 15 dollar gift card on your future purchase. If we let you return this controller for 55 dollars then you would have a free 15 dollars. That is why the return price is 15 dollars less…I can do the return for you over here if you don’t want to go back to Guest Service”.
“I didn’t want to return it, I just wanted to know why the return price was so much less,” she said. She picked up her controller and receipt and began to walk off. Her daughter, clearly ashamed of her mother, thanked me and followed her mother out.
20. Citizen's Shaming
My boss once had a customer snag her shirt on the register counter. She went ballistic in ten seconds flat. She began shrieking about us replacing her shirt, that our counters were unsafe, and that she wanted compensation for her shirt. My boss is a very, very calm man. He apologizes, says he’ll have someone from maintenance fix the counter, but the woman isn’t satisfied.
She’s holding up the entire line and refusing to complete her purchase, and the other customers seem pretty annoyed at her. The woman wouldn’t give up, and finally the guy behind her in line has had it. He gets his wallet out, hands her a $20 bill, asks her if this makes her happy, then tells her to please shut up and leave the nice man (my boss) alone.
The woman made some terrible noise, left her items on the counter, and stomped off. The line applauded the man with the $20 (who still had it, the woman didn’t take his money), and my boss gave him a hefty discount.
21.
All Hands On Deck
I used to work at Tesco, in England, as a team leader. Basically doing a manager’s job, on a bit more than checkout operator’s wage. I wonder why I gave that up to become a teacher…oh yeah. Anyway, at Christmastime, for some reason, we were quite busy. We had a good 35 checkouts in the store, and 35 of those 35 checkouts were open.
Yet there were still lines. Ultimately, if thousands of people decide to do their Christmas shopping terribly late, and you have every single till open, what can you do? Anyway, this woman comes over to complain that she had to wait. I explained that the checkouts were all in use, and we could do nothing. She asked why I wasn’t on a checkout.
This was something often asked, with the simple answer being that if I’m the one who has to sort out any problem in case any of the 35 checkouts break, or needs something, or a customer can’t walk the five paces to change their broken packet of biscuits—and I’m on a checkout—nothing would be done. Anyway, this woman demanded that everyone should be on the checkouts.
Which they were. “I want to see the store manager!” she demanded, “You need to have more people working on the checkouts. Where can I see the store manager?” “Well,” I replied, “He’s currently sat on that checkout there, because we are so busy”. She shut up. I really don’t know what she wanted us to do.
22. With All The Toppings
I used to work at an amusement park, and between department transfers, I started in food. My stand made funnel cakes and corndogs. The average wait time on a busy day could be upwards of 30 minutes in the sun, which I’ll admit sucks. It’s not any cooler in the stand standing over a 450 degree fryer. Anyhow…This guy comes up, orders four corndogs.
I ring him up and ask him if he wants any ketchup or mustard brushed on. He declines. I take his money and hand over four corndogs. His little girl bites into one and then tugs on daddy’s arm and says she wants mustard. I politely inform him that since she’s already bitten out of her food, we can’t brush it on; however if he’d head 50 steps to an adjacent building, he could skip the line and just grab some condiment packets.
Apparently this was unacceptable. Up until this point he was just a normal guy. Then suddenly he changed to a monster. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I WORK FOR?! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!?” I tell him no. He then half-chuckles to himself and points out his pregnant wife sitting at a nearby table and then begrudges the time he spent in line. I again reassure him they will give him some mustard packets if he walks next door.
He loses it.
“I’M THE GOSH-DARN REGIONAL REP FOR COKE IN THIS AREA, I WILL BUY AND SELL YOUR BUTT, KID”. This self-aggrandizing and demeaning talk towards me lasted a full 60 seconds or so. Then I told him “we only carry Pepsi products”. He was flush with embarrassment and rage, and anyone within earshot is laughing at him. To spite me (really his little girl) he didn’t go get mustard packets. He forever was known as MustardMan.
23. Good Parenting 101
I worked as a lifeguard for my first “real” job. One night, at the indoor water park, a child came up to me. He asked me very quickly where the bathroom was. I pointed him in the right direction and he quickly said, “No I need one closer!” I swore in my head as he pooped himself in front of me, poop running down his leg. I radioed him into first aid and we took him in and paged his parents.
Eventually his dad came in and we chit chatted about his son, no big deal (it happens more often than you think). His dad told us to change and clean him, though, and me and my manager refused. The dad was furious and yelled why not. We replied he’s not our son. That shut him up.
24. A Helping Hand
I used to work at a video store, and after a while I got pretty desensitized to people throwing little hissy fits about late fees. One day a gentleman tried to rent a movie and I had to let him know he had accumulated some late fees on his account. Cue standard rant about having returned them on time, blah blah blah, “…and I’m just going to cut up my membership card when I get home!!”
I reached under the counter and grabbed a pair of scissors, held them out to him and said, “Well, you can do that here if you like”. He gave me a venomous look and left the store in a huff. And it felt so good.
25. I've Got A Package For You
Working at a shipping store, a customer tried to drop off a package to be shipped back to Clearwire (an internet company). He had the box wrapped in shipping paper and twine. Instead of a prepaid shipping label, he had printed out the directions on how to obtain the shipping label. I tried to explain to him that he needed to go back to his email, click on the link, and print the shipping label.
He was adamant that he did everything correctly and kept saying he was going to leave the package there and that it was our problem. My boss, hearing this, comes from the back and explains that if the customer leaves the package, my boss will throw it out the door. The guy turns around, leaves the package, and says again, “Not my problem”. He got exactly what he asked for, and then some.
My boss, true to his word, follows him and throws the package towards the customer. The package bounces a few times on the sidewalk right past the customer and the guy keeps on walking. The package stayed outside for 15 minutes in heavy rain before my boss relents and took the package inside. The package was still under a counter four months later when I left the job.
26. Paying The Price
We had a building where I ran a family sewing factory with a small store attached, which my mom ran. One day a guy comes in to deliver some rolls of fabric and this woman decides to park in the middle of the lot. Not even in a parking spot…she just turned off her car wherever and got out. Then she went shopping elsewhere. The trucker had to leave, so I had the car towed so he could get out and back on the road.
The next day I hear a very loud voice demanding to see a manager. He shoves a ticket in my office manager’s face and says, “You’re paying for this”. I walk in and ask what the problem is (I’m 6’6″). He tries to get all up in my face and asks sarcastically, “Who’s paying this ticket?” I got loud and replied, “You mean where I had to tow a car because they were too cheap to put a quarter in a parking meter on the street and parked in the middle of my lot?”
I was a good 10” bigger than he was…he left. Then I called the authorities and made a complaint against him for threatening behavior to my employees, just in case he tried anything funny.
27. I Know You Are, But What Am I
My roommates and I decided to go grab some subway before we went out one Friday night. One of them is half-Ecuadorian, and the Subway employees were both Hispanic. While I was in the process of ordering my sandwich, the two workers were speaking to each other in Spanish. When it was my friend’s turn, he ordered in Spanish, which I thought was simply a gesture.
I couldn’t figure out why both employees looked like ghosts and stammered their way through the entire ordering process. When I got back in the car, my friend told me the real story. He said that the two workers said, “Look at this pretty boy, pretending to be cultured. What a loser, he doesn’t even know the language”. At which point my friend decided to place his entire order in Spanish, and thank them at the end of the transaction.
28. Checking It Twice
I was working in food service at a cash register. A customer came up and placed an order, I rang it up, and she wasn’t happy with how much it cost. She started whining and being a real witch. My co-worker came up and stood next to me, looked over what I did, and just kind of stood there polishing a counter. She squawked, “Get me your manager!” I say, “Ok sure, but ma’am this is the correct price”.
Co-worker standing next to me is actually the manager. He looks at the woman and goes, “Yup,” and continues polishing the counter. “Buh… wha… uh… ok fine!” shouts the woman and walks away. The two of us crack up laughing.
29. A Case Of Mistaken Identity
I used to work in the main office for a large chain of furniture stores in the UK. I worked in the evenings, phoning customers to let them know their furniture was in, and arranging a delivery date. One night I phoned and asked for Mr. or Mrs. Jones. The guy on the phone starts ranting to me about people phoning up his elderly parents trying to sell things.
He went on and on and on and wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise. I think he may have even used the toilet while he was ranting at me. When he finally wound down, I said, “Are you finished now sir? This is —- Furniture and I’m phoning to arrange a delivery date for your parents’ new three-piece suite”. Yup, that one shut him up completely.
30. The Best Man For The Job
I was working at CompUSA a few years before they closed. A well-to-do looking gentleman and his high school-age son approached the counter and ask to return a 2.5″ hard drive enclosure. I overhear him telling the girl that the enclosure was defective because his drive will not fit in it. She says that sounds unusual because we sell a lot of them and hadn’t seen any returned.
Upon hearing this, he tells her in a very condescending tone that he “is an engineer and his son attends (insert expensive private school) and they could not get it to work so it must be defective”. The customer service girl calls me over since she didn’t really know much about computers and would rather have an “expert” look at it.
When I come over he has the drive enclosure and his hard drive sitting on the counter. I immediately notice that he never removed the OEM bracket from the original drive and that was why it wouldn’t fit. I say, “I think I know what the problem is and just need to grab a screwdriver”. To which he responds, “If neither me or my son can figure it out, I doubt you’ll be able to”.
I proceed to take the bracket off and slide the drive into the enclosure in about 10 seconds all with a grin on my face. He picked it up and hurried out without saying anything or making eye contact.
31. Too Good To Be True
A well-dressed business passenger bought a plane ticket on Continental from Indianapolis to Manchester. There are no direct flights, so he would have to connect in Newark, New Jersey. After arriving, he strolls over to the Manchester gate and sees a small 50 pax regional jet parked outside. He thinks nothing of it and boards the airplane a while later.
After taking his seat, and just prior to the boarding door being closed, the flight attendant makes an announcement: “Welcome aboard flight #### service to Manchester, NEW HAMPSHIRE!” This guy goes completely wild. He starts scrambling to get his things and get off the plane, all the while yelling at the flight attendant, gate agent, pilots, and other passengers.
He was trying to go to Manchester in the UK (airport code of MAN) and he bought a ticket for MHT. The gate agent was getting completely verbally harassed by the guy at the podium as she tried to rebook him to the proper destination. She took it all in stride and was really trying to help the guy even though he was being a complete jerk and going on and on about how it was a mistake in the computer.
And then she saw how much he paid for the ticket. Her exact words were: “You only paid 300 dollars for your ticket and you really thought that was going to get you to England?” He was quiet after that.
32. Ironing Out The Details
I work at Ikea in Customer Service. On a daily basis, we have customers come in with items that have been used, broken, old, without their receipt, some even not Ikea products, and they are DEMANDING a refund. But the couple that really takes the cake tried to return to me a broken and rusty ironing board. It was obviously used and without a receipt I’m limited with my options.
We can only offer store credit if the item can be returned to stock in original packaging. Obviously, it wasn’t. With a receipt you have 90 days to return your item in any condition. After I refused the return, they asked for my manager. My manager offered to look up their receipt, couldn’t find it so we couldn’t take it back. They then asked for her manager.
Every time they got a “no” they asked for the manager above. Eventually it got to our store manager. They quickly found out they’d messed with the wrong guy. This manager is a BOSSS, 6’5″, hulk-like, and Swedish; he started as a cashier and made his way up literally from the bottom to owning the store. He came on down to the belligerent couple who were causing a scene because our customer service was apparently SOOOO poor.
After inspecting the item and removing their iron cover (which none of us did before, the item was that appalling we really didn’t want to touch it) he finds the date stamp. It was from 2002. The couple got real silent because the entire time they said they’ve had it for less than three months. Our store manager said in the calmest voice I have ever heard in my life, “I think it’s about time you leave my store”.
33. Too Big For His Britches
I worked at the local CVS for a summer back in college. I was at the register one night when a lanky teenager came up carrying four different boxes of rubbers. He put them on the counter, produced a receipt, and asked for a refund. I noticed that each of the boxes had been opened. I told him we couldn’t refund the items given that he had opened them.
He looked me straight in the eyes and said seriously that he had tried one from each of the boxes and that none of them fit because they were too big. I didn’t know what to say to that except that we definitely could not give him a refund. Without any embarrassment, he scooped up the boxes and left. They were all “XXL,” “magnum,” and “plus-size” brands.
34. That Took A Turn
I used to be a low level manager in a call centre, it paid the bills…anyway, a customer had called us and been perfectly pleasant, giving us his account details, and business got underway. At the end of the call, he asked for one more thing that we couldn’t have done, and was informed of this. He immediately got extremely aggressive with my member of staff.
At this point her hand shot up in the air (cue me) and she handed over the headset and chair so I could view the details. I was called a bunch of names, and then we got down to the grand finale. The threat. I’m paraphrasing but here’s how it went: Him: “Listen, I can see your company’s address on your website, I’m going to come down there and mess you up”.
Me: “Good, you gave my colleague your name and address details first then, I’ll make sure to hand them over to the authorities somewhere in the few hours it’s going to take you to drive down here. We’ll be waiting”. Dial tone
35. Getting To Know You
My folks used to own a Tastee Freez in South Carolina and I worked in it most summers as a teenager. Since it was a small town, everyone knew each other and most went to the same church. One Sunday night, one of the ladies from church called in at about five minutes after 10:00 and tried to order a 20 piece chicken nugget, and when I informed her that we closed at 10:00 and the grill and fryers were already cleaned and closed for the night, she got irate with me.
She started yelling in my ear about how she knew the owners of the place and she was going to get me fired and did she know who I was talking to. I calmly replied that yes, Mrs. Greene, I knew exactly who I was talking to, since my parents and I lived right across the street from her and she had asked us in church that morning what time we closed for the night.
We were never on speaking terms again.
36. The Honey Trap
I used to work in a Deli restaurant, and this lady comes in and rudely orders her food. I told her that everything should come out all right and that I will double check for her to make sure her order would be correct. She insisted on getting LOTS of honey mustard on her sandwich. I typed in extra honey mustard on the ticket. Sure enough her order comes out and there seemed to be plenty of honey mustard there.
But when I deliver it she yells at me for not having the extra honey mustard I promised her and told me to “get a ton more honey mustard” for her. I go to the back of the store, get an entire new gallon jug of honey mustard, and plop it on her table. Her friends were laughing and she was steaming mad. She complained to the manager, who thought it was hilarious and actually laughed in her face.
37. The Human Touch
I used to work as a croupier at clubs, and during a shift change my colleague accidentally made a wrong payment to a playing customer. Gamblers being what they are, the complaining that ensued was pretty awkward and no matter how much my colleague said he was sorry, the customer kept on wining. Finally, I just had to take over the situation with the perfect reply.
I said: “Sir, people make mistakes, we are not robots. If you want to play with machines, there are slot machines in the other bar”. He shut up and the other players seemed relieved.
38. They Grow Up So Fast
I worked in electronics at Target at the time, although it wasn’t the customer who suddenly shut up, it was me. This was around 2004, when GTA: San Andreas just came out. An older woman walks up to the electronics desk and addresses me. Customer: “I’d like to buy Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas”. Me: “Is this a gift for someone?” Customer: “Yes, this is for my 4-year-old grandson”.
Me: “Well, ma’am, just to let you know, this game has been rated ‘M’ for Mature, and has a lot of aggression, profanity, drug use, and other adult content”. Customer: “That’s okay, he’s already been exposed to all that…”
39. Out Of Pocket
I worked at a pharmacy as a technician. This patient brings in a prescription for a very expensive, name brand only drug, but has good insurance. I fill it and the patient causes a scene at the cash register because the copayment is 30 dollars instead of the usual 10 that the patient pays for generic drugs. The patient whines and moans about the “broken healthcare system” and “those insurance companies”.
I inform the patient that, without insurance, the drug would cost her thousands of dollars every year out of pocket. Patient then proceeds to shut up.
40. A Taste Of Their Own Medicine
Once upon a time, I worked at a Kinko’s, which is famous for having irate customers. But we had a secret weapon to deal with jerks. We had a guy on our shift with honest to goodness Tourette’s where he would tic and swear loudly, then continue the conversation. We found that if we told the irate customer that he’d have to “talk to the supervisor,” then send up Mr. Tourette, they’d be shut up by having someone swear in their face.
I think it just shocked them out of their panties-in-a-bunch state. Worked great.
41. Don't Keep Me Hanging
I worked at a hotel front desk in a ski resort in Lake Tahoe. People would call (with disturbing frequency) several MONTHS in advance of their reservation to ask: “Is it going to be SNOWING the day I drive up on April 5th?” The best solution was to say, “Hold on, let me check” and then the staff would take cockfight-style bets on how long the customer would sit on hold before they gave up. Sometimes it would be like 15 minutes.
42. Sticker Shock
I work at CVS. Items are usually marked up higher than places like Target or any supermarket. One customer comes in and buys some useless item. When she sees that it’s $10.99 or something similar, she goes off at me. “YOU CAN’T LIE TO ME ABOUT THAT PRICE. THAT IS $6.99 AT TARGET THERE’S NO WAY YOU CAN TELL ME THAT’S $10.99!” All I could say was, “Well if you really want to pay $6.99 for it, then go to Target”. She got the heck out of there.
43. Crossing A Line
I work at Best Buy in the warehouse, and we cover breaks for the guys working the cameras up front. A co-worker was covering a break when this guy came up to one of the front lane registers. There was a bit of a line and we only had two lanes open. One of the front lane guys is handicapped. It doesn’t affect his job, it just takes him longer to walk around.
The customer finally made his way to the front of the line and paid with a credit card. The front lane rep needed to see the last 4 digits of the credit card and asked to see his card “real quick”. The customer FLIPPED OUT. He said, “Oh NOW you want to do something real quick”. Then he muttered just loud enough for everyone to hear: “I should have known not to get in the short bus line”.
My co-worker who was observing the cameras saw everything and was not very happy. He walked up to the customer, grabbed all his merchandise, and said, “Nope, you’re not buying anything today. You can leave”. Never been so proud of him.
44. Square Peg In A Round Hole
I work at Toys R Us. That should be bad enough. But for a specific story, I worked the back of house. Those are the guys who bring down bicycles, power wheels, and other large items that are purchased from the back of the store up front to the customer. This one time, this man purchased a large power wheel (Barbie Jammin’ Jeep ’08 model I believe).
When I brought it out, I see the customer standing next to his car. A small, two-door Nissan. I immediately inform the man that the box will not fit in his car, and that we can hold it for him if he wished to come back later with a larger vehicle. He said that wouldn’t work; he had to get the jeep now because he’s been searching for weeks for it. I again tell him how the box is larger than his car and it will not fit.
He tells me that’s bull and has me attempt to load the car into the trunk, then the front seat. After 20 failed minutes, I tell the man I can no longer spend time on this. I tell him I can write down his information, put the jeep on hold, and wait for him to return with a different car. He says he’s going to continue to try and put it in his car. I leave him be and resume my work.
About a half hour later, I get a call from the customer service desk that I have to bring a returned jeep back to the storage area.
45. Hitting New Lowes
I used to work at Home Depot over the summer as a cashier. The very best was the woman who came up to my line with a cart that had only a single small box of nails. Odd, I thought, but maybe she just didn’t find what she needed the cart for. So I ring her up and she says, “Well what about the rest of my order? I need 800 lbs of Quickcrete, 50 10′ 2x4s, ten 8′ 4x4s…”
She starts reading off all of the ingredients she needs to make a massive deck, or a dock, or something. She then asks me sweetly if I’ll help her get them while she waits in line, holding up the 10 people behind her while I pull an entire back yard’s worth of lumber and concrete out for her. I told her we couldn’t do that, and gave her the number to call to have her order pulled.
She freaked out. Spent about 20 minutes screaming at me, even after I called the head cashier and had him handle her. See, she would run over to my lane while I was with other customers to tell me how “unprofessional” I was being, and that this is why everyone goes to Lowe’s nowadays, because there they care about the customer.
46. Just A Wee Bit Dedicated
I was working in an indie model/wargame/TCG shop. A group of kids around 13 years old turn up after school to play Yu-Gi-Oh inside. As their game drags on, one kid asks us where the toilets are. We direct him to the bus station, but he complains about the 30-second walk. He remains playing. Suddenly, we hear laughter from this kid and a pool of moisture forming down his trouser leg and onto our carpet.
My boss and I stare in utter disbelief as this kid shakes his leg, and remains playing his card game. Boss goes crazy and forces the kid to clean the carpet before banning him for a week. Kid returns next week to the nickname Wazzers.
47. Something Smells Like An Onion
During high school, I worked at a Burger King. There was this one woman who would always come into drive thru during the afternoon and ask for a Whopper Jr with extra onions. And I mean, a LOT of extra onions. And no matter how many we put in, she always came into the store and complained that there weren’t enough. Still, this was in the middle of the afternoon, so we didn’t care.
However, one day, we had four buses full of US Army enlistees at the store at the same time. Convoys of chartered buses would go by periodically, and they usually stopped at our store because the bus drivers knew my boss. Now, these people were always the nicest, most respectful people you can possibly imagine, which was a welcome change after dealing with jerks the whole day.
They also always ordered a ton of food—all king-size, tons of double and triple whoppers, the whole nine yards. My boss would always have me give them the “senior discount” (15% off), and they enjoyed that immensely, because it said that they were getting a senior discount on their receipts. Anyways, nice as they were, they strained our store to the limit because they ordered so much food.
So we were almost literally going hammer and tongs to keep up, and then the worst happens. Onion woman comes into drive thru. My boss told me to just grab two handfuls of onions and put them on the sandwich, because she didn’t need a scene when we were as far behind as we were. I could barely close the burger because of the onions, but I managed it and we gave it to her.
Now remember, the store is completely full of US Army enlistees. They probably have not had fast food for weeks (I think they were going from boot camp to get their first assignments). And the line was out the door. So onion woman pushes her way past all of these people, rudely shoving them out of her way, and comes up to the counter screaming that she didn’t have enough onions.
My boss is angry, so she takes the sandwich, hands it to me, and tells me to do whatever I want with it. I knew just what to do. I dumped the ENTIRE TUB of onions on this (probably about 1.5 LITERS of onions), and wrapped it up really, REALLY tight, and taped it shut (Note that the wrappers were somewhat elastic…). My boss hands it to the woman, and she opens it right on the counter to “make sure we have enough” even though it’s like six times bigger than normal.
The thing EXPLODED ALL OVER. SO freaking awesome. All the guys trying not to laugh. One of their officers (a quite young 1st Lt.) was waiting by the counter for his food, and finally he just gave up and started laughing his butt off. The men took this as a cue, and she had about 250 men dying laughing at her.
One of the best days of my high school life. She didn’t come back for a month, and she never, EVER complained about not having enough onions.
48. Wet And Wild
I used to work in Best Buy services. It was sort of like Geek Squad before Geek Squad and it dealt with everything like TVs and VCRs and junk. One day we had a guy come in and complain about his little video camera not working. I agree to take a look at it even though there’s not much I can do but send it back to the manufacturer for him.
It will take some time, but that was 90% of the problem people had with services. Naturally, this guy wants a new one on the spot and he starts getting REALLY loud about it. So I call the manager. While I’m waiting for them to come up, I’m still tinkering with the camera in the back. I get some tools out and, hey, look I got the thing open for the guy. When I saw what was on it, I knew we had him.
A minute or so later I come back out when the manager gets there. The manager is talking to the guy as I move a computer up to the counter. I jump in and say, “Hey, I don’t think we should give this guy a new unit”. The guy gives me dagger eyes and the manager is like, “Oh? why’s that?” Then I play the footage of what is unmistakably someone running around a pool, dropping the camera, which tumbles into the pool.
He had taken out the tape but it was recorded to the memory stick. Guy takes his camera and quietly leaves the store.
49. If The Shoe Doesn't Fit
I work in a shoe shop. One of the services we supply is to check how well school shoes fit on our younger customers. Once a staff member has signed to say they are a good fit, the customer is able to bring them back if there are any problems. This one time, a mother came back in with her son a week after being fitted with a pair, loudly mouthing off that the shoes were too tight and causing blisters.
Even though she was being a psycho about it, we offered to get her a new pair. Once back in the kids department, she spotted the girl who fitted the original shoes and went crazy at her, demanding that the girl should be there while a better pair was fitted so she wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Despite the mom saying some pretty degrading stuff about her, the girl agreed to sit in on the re-fit in an attempt to help out.
She remembered the customer, even to the point of remembering the child’s name, and was visibly upset about doing a bad job. Returning to the till, the fitter offered to put the exchange through as a final gesture of goodwill. She then froze, realization dawning on her. “These aren’t your sons shoes” she said to the customer. They have a name tag inside saying Tommy, and your son’s name is Billy.
Turns out the kid had swapped his shoes with another boy in his class. Laughed that witch out of the shop.
50. The Old Switcharoo
When I was a server, I was that server that everyone claims they would always be if they did one day become a server in a restaurant. I filled up glasses when they needed to be refilled without asking, I brought out a bowl of lemons if you asked for lemons; if you wanted extra ice, you got a whole extra glass full of ice. Heck, I was even careful enough to write down every order even though I could easily memorize it and get it right.
One particularly busy night, I’m working a party of about 20 people. It’s a Friday night and the kitchen is slammed. Everything was going smooth, I thought—until I bring out the drinks and salads. There is one idiot that starts off saying I didn’t bring her anything right (wrong dressing, drink had a lemon, too much ice, etc.). I play the gracious and apologetic server correcting the issue despite knowing she is wrong.
The meal comes out. It goes from bad to worse. She explodes about how I can’t seem to do anything right and what a screw up I am. I proceed to congratulate her on the fine example she is setting for the kids at the table on how to treat another human being, and what classy language she was using. I then proceeded to show her where I wrote down everything she asked for.
The type of salad, the dressing she wanted, how she wanted it on the side, pulled the straw I gave her from under her bread plate and told her that I did give her one. I also talked about how I heard when her sister had ordered another dish, that she told her sister that she wanted that dish instead, and advised that she maybe should have simply asked for me to change the order instead of trying to play it off as if I was truly a “screw up” as she claimed.
I said maybe next time she would do a better job of making sure the server was not in earshot when she says something like that. I then told her that I would go and have the kitchen fix the meal she really wanted, instead of the one she ordered, and that it would take about 10 minutes before it was ready. Needless to say, the whole table was quiet. Then came the most glorious moment.
Her father piped up and simply said, “Honey, It’s about time someone called you out on your antics”. The old man gave me a $100.00 tip when he paid for the meal, strong handshake, and a thanks.
51. On The Edge
When I was a kid, my family owned several pizza places. I didn’t hang around them much because I was fairly young, but my older sisters worked at the big one waitressing and cashiering.
She told me that one night, the well-dressed father of a large family that had ordered several large pizzas tried to get out of paying for them because the pizza didn’t have sauce/cheese/ingredients all the way to the “edge”.
The family had eaten the entire pies except for the crusts. My sister refused to refund his money, he threw a huge fit and reduced my sister to tears. He kept yelling and demanded to see the owner—my dad. Dad came out, saw my sister sobbing, and got the story from one of the cooks. He didn’t say a word.
He just slammed the guy’s head through the wall and well into the store next door. The guy had to be taken away on a stretcher. The staff and a couple of customers told the authorities that the customer had tried to hit my sister so my dad wouldn’t get taken into custody. Dad didn’t get physical often, but when he did, he played for keeps.
People Explain How The Popular Jerk From School Got A Taste Of Their Own Medicine
It's remarkable when Hollywood stereotypes and plot dynamics are replicated in real life. It's remarkable because it's rare, so we lose our cynical outlook of movies as far-fetched flights of fancy when it does happen.
And one of the classic archetypes is the treatment of popular kids.
We all had popular kids in our high school. Unfortunately, as the movies portray so willingly, that popularity often goes straight to their heads, leaving them rude and unkind, to put it lightly.
But sometimes, also just like the movie, karma finds a way. The real-life "popular jerks" encounter justice in the most satisfying way imaginable.
Redditors who've witnessed those real-life moments of karma recently weighed in on a thread.
flying_luckyfox asked,
"How did the popular a**hole of your school get the taste of their own medicine?"
In many cases, the justice comes in the form of physical punishment. Sometimes, a good old clobbering is the most satisfying response to the popular jerk in question.
No One to Help When it Happened
"Middle school when the bell rang to change classes the hallways were a horrific traffic jam. Everyone suffered through trying to get to their lockers and the next class on time."
"Enter the a**hole popular guy, who thought it was funny to sneak up behind some unsuspecting student who's at his locker and smack the back of the student's head, causing the student to bang his head into his locker."
"A**hole guy got several warnings to stop, but he didn't. He thought it was so funny."
"Then one day he picked on the wrong student. A**hole guy got punched square in the face, fell down and lost a tooth. Not a single person, from teacher to student, came to his defense."
"When A**hole's parents came to the school all upset, everyone told them their son got what he deserved."
-- maruffin
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
"He got kicked in the nuts five times in a row by the same kid" -- xXawsomeguyXx
"JOHNNY CAGE CRACKER" -- HeartAttackMemeGuy
"HE KEEPS KICKING ME IN THE D*CK! WHY? WHY DOES HE KEEP KICKING ME IN THE D*CK?!" -- Iceman6211
"I don't believe I've personally ever witnessed something as epic as that sounds , five times??" -- Quuaack
Zero Regrets
"She (white) called my friend the N word. My friend, this real skinny girl who was one of those kids who never ever ever had gotten in trouble, decked her square in the jaw and gladly took the out of school suspension."
"Same girl started feeling woozy during a blood drive I was volunteering at and I helped her over to one of those giant trash barrels to throw up in. She bent over and lost consciousness and fell into the trash. Literally."
When the Training Comes Out
"So in Junior High there was a kid we'll call him Mark and he would always pick on another kid Steve in gym.. Mark would do things like spray him with ax or slap the back of his head,"
"...one day Steve was carrying a book and Mark tried to take it but I guess Steve had been practicing Aikido or something cause one moment Mark's hand is on the book and by extension Steve's hand and the next Mark is laying on his back and Steve is calmly walking away"
"Boss move!"
-- brn0723
Big Bro
"Popular a** hole (for some reason picked on me a lot) hated me and he got 4 people beat the shit out of me."
"Next day my brother (3 years older than me) a 6"5 giant freak of nature in one punch knocked him out Best. day. of. my. life"
Down Goes Toby
"There was this guy in my high school named Toby who was a massive douche but also popular due to being on the basketball team, loved to pick fights and play rough."
"Toby bit off more then he could chew when he elbowed this one classmate named Andy during PE playing a friendly game."
"After taking the hit, Andy just straight up decked Toby in the face , knocking him out and making lose three of his front teeth and a swollen lip. Toby learned his lesson and stopped being an asshole after that."
Immediate Justice
"Star quaterback tried to assault his girlfriend..."
"She was a golden glove boxer."
"She put him in the hospital for a week."
Other times, the karma comes in a psychological form. These moments involve a person being handled exactly how they treated others.
It's a kind of poetic equalizing.
The Last Can He Ever Stole
"The teacher wouldn't let one guy in my classroom to go to the restroom to pee so he peed in an Arizona can."
"When the bell rang the guy started heading to the restroom to empty the can and the biggest bully of the school bumped into him, took the can and, of course, sipped it."
"He soon realized it didn't taste like tea... It was glorious."
One Step Above
"Band was pretty popular where I lived. I mean there were super popular kids in band. They had a lot of hazing. I don't know their pecking order, but if someone 'senior' to you told you to do something band-related, you had to do it."
"There was this one chick who was the second-senior person in the whole band. She was always shi**ing on everyone every single day."
"One day, that one girl who was senior to her called her out and made her march all over the school in front of everyone and made her sing a bunch of chants and more. I wasn't even in band and it still seemed harsh to me."
-- Azzizzi
The Teacher Jerk
"My teacher. She loved to use humiliation against me (I was severely depressed at the time and she thought I was a slacker). I'm a little person, and she would get me to turn off the lights for the projector, or to write on the whiteboard, only to feign ignorance and apologise when I struggled to reach."
"One day she crossed the line, and I went to the deputy head teacher. He decided to reprimand her, during a lesson, in front of her entire class, to give her a taste of humiliation, too."
-- Usidore_
Subtle Payback
"He copied my exams for English, Math, and Science in our junior year."
"Except he didn't know that I purposely put the wrong answers for 80% of the questions and then redid the exam after he turned his in."
"He failed all three classes miserably and when he confronted me to see if I failed too, I just shrugged and said we must have had different versions of the exam."
Watching Her Squirm
"A popular girl bullied me all through middle school, then in high school she sat next to me the day we were given one of those "read the directions" tests.
"She was not so wise as to read the directions.
"I got to sit there for ten sweet, sweet minutes watching her panic more and more over the ridiculous tasks the test asked of her."
Other dynamics of karma take a more subtle and longer-term trajectory.
In these cases, the difficulties of the long years of life that come after high school can be powerful reminders that high school is a small world, and the pecking order there doesn't necessarily mean much.
Flip Flop
"Star athlete picked on the fat kids in gym. Fast forward a couple decades. He's fat and bald. Saw him using a Wal-Mart scooter recently, buying crap food."
"One of the kids he picked on got in shape, stayed that way and became a top tier endurance athlete. So sweet."
The Other Side of the Peak
"Never bullied me but apparently was a giant a**hole to everybody. Star football running back, had multiple scholarships to Division I. Then he broke his leg and all the offers evaporated."
"Went to a DIII school. Had a couple kids, got divorced, then posted all of his old scholarships to Facebook at age 40. Really sad to see."
"Literally argued with every single person on the reunion Facebook group, everyone told him how much they always hated him."
"He's now literally insane, posts 30-40 times a day on Facebook of foreign Instagram models with long diatribes about love and life translated into 10 different languages. Posts nearly-nude shots of himself also, most hyping himself up."
"A dark spiral."
-- powabiatch
Nothing Lasts Forever
"He was the most attractive boy in the school. Girls would literally fight to be his girlfriend."
"Then like Prince William, his free trial of hair and premium face expired and he got downgraded. Basically went from a PS5 to Mr Game and Watch over the course of 5 years"
Day In, Day Out
"The popular kids all stayed hot and married each other, but I imagine that having the exact same relationship and social circle since the age of 14 probably has a certain Groundhog Day element to it." -- botulizard
"Apparently this happened to the popular kids from my school too, only one dude worked his way around his friends' wives and now they all hate each other." -- BringBackRobotWars
Ideally, the person met nonviolent ends that made them reform their ways of rudeness into kidness.
But let's face it, that doesn't always happen. Instead, sometimes a sudden scheme comes together just right to give a taste of their own medicine.
People Share Their Best 'I Ended Up Right Where I Needed To Be' Experiences
We spend so much of our lives wishing and praying to be anywhere else but where we are in the present. Now, granted, some people are in rough situations and they need to be anywhere else but, more often then not, we're just not appreciating the fact that we are standing on the spot that was meant for us. It's true we may not be where we wanted or have gotten what we thought we wanted but maybe we got exactly what we needed. That is an important distinction we tend to over look.
Redditor u/Jaxerfp wanted to discuss all the times people came to realize how life worked out exactly how it should've by asking everyone to share.... Douglas Adams once wrote, "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be," how might this quote describe an experience in your life?Knowledge by Chance
women chemistry GIF by Diversify Science GifsGiphyWhile getting my degree, I was just taking classes that interested me that also had to do a little with my major. Turns out I was getting my minor in chemistry without even realizing it.
Trashed
I got home once and absent-mindedly threw away my socks for no reason. I just took them off and put them in the trash. When I realized what I did, I dug through the trash only to find out that both socks had holes in them. Turns out they belonged in the trash anyway. I've never found a quote that described that situation more perfectly than this one.
When in Iraq
I was a certified Ford mechanic, 2008-2009 happened, and no work was coming in. Got a job offer to teach auto mechanics in Iraq to the new Iraqi army. As a result, I learned I have a passion for people trying to better their life. I ended up sponsoring my Iraqi interpreter to come to the US.
Since then I came back and finished my degree, and now am in learning design at an amazing company.
My Iraqi brother is now married here in the states to an amazing wife, and they have a kid. He has a great job and is finishing his degree as well.
Life can be an amazing journey.
Enjoy the ride.
School Ties
kristen wiig dancing GIFGiphyIn high school, I went to a college prep catholic school and hated it. All because my parents wanted me to go there. Junior year I decided to stop wrestling after doing it for 2 and a half years (summer and spring wrestling) at this high school.
Coach decided to accuse me and teammates of doing molly although I had never seen it and only ever smoked. The school decided I wasn't a great fit and kicked me out. Ended up at a local public high school where I reconnected with a few friends from middle school. Had extremely helpful teachers and graduated. I realized I should have been at that local public high school from the start but it instantly felt like home.
Springfield MO....
In the 90s I lived in Springfield MO and absolutely loved it there. Never wanted to be anywhere else. My wife finished college and got a job in another state not far away. I didn't want to move there but did reluctantly. Within a couple of years, I absolutely loved it there. Made a ton of friends, had a great job, and couldn't imagine being anywhere else. Lived there 20 years and thought it would be where I die.
Last year we moved to Connecticut, again for my wife's job, and I love it here too and can't really imagine moving back. It turns out, it's not the place I live, but who I live with that matters. My wife is my home, and where she is, is where I need to be.
Edit: Thanks for all the awards and comments. I now understand what people mean when they write "my inbox blew up". I hope you all have a great holiday season and stay safe and healthy.
Leaving Arizona.....
Never planned to divorce, never planned to leave Arizona, never planned to remarry, never planned to leave a career I loved, never planned to be hit by a car. I've done all of that in the last 2 years.
I completely rewrote my entire life and every plan I had in every way imaginable. Would not have it any other way.
My new husband and my new life are a level of happiness I've never known. Seriously even recovering from a serious injury and everything that has gone with that is better than my previous life because of who I have to love me now.
Where you are now....
People seem to think they'll only ever be happy when they reach a certain goal. "When X happens I'll be happy." I try to appreciate what I have right now and the journey I'm on. I may have an average car, rented house and little family but I LOVE all these things. Yes a ton of money would make it easier to buy things but I'm happy where I am right now & loving the journey.
I slept walked straight to the end of the hall where there were two doors: one to the bathroom and one to my older brother's room. Opened the door, lifted the lid, and peed.
Turns out I had opened the door, lifted my brothers blanket, and peed.
Not where I intended, but I finally got back at that jerk for farting on me for years.
When the time is right....
It took several years to conceive our son. By the time he was 3 year old, we had tried many times with medical assistance for a second. We have up and started an adoption.
Well, after we got all the paperwork together and sent off to China, we found out my wife was expecting. Ok, we can deal with that. As my wife put it, "What's the worst that could happen?"
But the ultrasound showed that it was twins.
So my kids are 18, 14, 14 and 14 now.
It's not what we would have ever planned, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Edit: Ascribing it all to "Stress" seems to be common. That comes across telling them "It's all in your head", and blaming them for the years of infertility and often multiple miscarriages they have suffered. Dealing with infertility itself causes stress far more than Stress causes Infertility.
I love you past me....
I suffered an extreme trauma that took my legs. I also went through a month trapped in my own nightmares while in an induced coma. Needless to say, it is an experience I would never put anyone else through.
I came out the other side of that far more empathetic, patient, and understanding as well. The personality change is so drastic, people that knew me before say I'm an entirely different person. I'm a loving father as this new me. I met the love of my life as this new me. Despite how hard living in this body is, I love life more that ever.
If I could see into the past and alter what happened, I wouldn't. The suffering was horrific, but transformative. To become who I am now, the accident must happen. I'm sorry past me, but if I'm honest, you aren't a good person. I don't miss being you.
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Hurt people hurt people. But because you're a hurt person doesn't mean you have to take it out on the rest of us. Sorry, but if you come for me, I'm coming for you. Most bullies will retreat once you let them know.... your wrath is to be feared.
Redditor u/VinceDeezer wanted to hear some stories about taking down the coward that is Goliath by asking.... People of reddit, what was your revenge on a bully?
Life is cyclical. Whatever you do unto others... it will come back to you. The boomerang should be the symbol for life. Karma is no joke. She is a sleek, observant ghost who is ready to pounce on those who are most deserving. Everybody may not believe in karma because sometimes she has a slow process but trust, she will always come for you, and in ways you least expect or in ways biblically poetic. So go forth in life and be your best self if no other reason than sparing your karmic scores.
Redditor u/ABD63 was dying to know what sort of karmic shenanigans we've seen publicly by asking... What is a case of Instant Karma you witnessed?
The Seagulls always win...
GiphyWas buying some drinks at a circle K one day while visiting someone in Florida and these old tourists cut us in line, all the while complaining and yelling loudly about everything, how expensive everything is, how crowded the beach is, it's too hot, etc. they are also really rude to the cashier and take forever arguing about the price of the hot dogs they were buying or something. They leave and as we walk out we witness a seagull come and snatch the guy's hot dog right out of his hand. His wife then shrieks and proceeds to drop hers out of surprise.
I know it isn't that big of a deal but it was so hilarious watching that happening that I still remember it 5 years later.
The Wallet
Happened while visiting NY. I watched someone bend down to pick up a wallet someone ahead of them had just dropped. All of this was going down in the crosswalk and I was in the passenger seat with my dad driving. Guy A who picked up the wallet began run it to Guy B who was already across the street and while doing so, his wallet fell out of his pocket and on the sidewalk/crosswalk area.
Some dude in the bike lane rode up a little ways ahead, bent down, and picked it up and just started heading off. Just grabbed it and began to ride away like a bunch of cars hadn't just watched him. My dad was about to say something when a cop car adjacent to us swerved in front of cycler and made him give it back. Cycler bumped into the cop car and was trying to go around when he was tackled. I think they might've arrested him but he light changed so we couldn't stick around.
Coolest instant karma I've ever seen.
Fast & Furious...
GiphyI was waiting at a red light to cross the main street of my town. My light goes green, so I start driving, at the same time a truck to my right starts going. I hit my brakes to avoid hitting him, and this kid is looking at me like I'm the jerk.
As soon as he's clear, I finish crossing, and I see lights starts flashing. He ran the red while being directly in front of a cop.
Slow Down
My wife was jogging, and a man starts driving slow and cat calling her. Doesn't realize it's a red light and rear-ends a truck, totally destroying his Prius. Cop was stopped at the same red light and saw the whole situation. Cop laughed and asked my wife to fill out a witness statement.
it was a busy street, so when I say "driving slow," I mean he slowed down while passing her, probably hit the lady in the truck doing about 35 in a 50.
Watch the speed...
We were driving home late from work one night, (both bartenders, maybe midnight). We live in a small community, and we were at the 1/4 mile section that goes from 55, to 45, to 35, to 25.
A giant lifted truck decided that he wanted to continue going 55, he was up our butt, brights on, so close you couldn't even see his bumper. It was like his lights were in our car.
Pretty much 2 seconds after one of us said, "Where's a cop when you need one?", a deputy passed us going the opposite direction and immediately flipped and pulled him over.
Still gives me the warm fuzzies.
Called me what?
GiphyDrunk guy at the bar started yelling at the bartender for cutting him off. Called her B and whore multiple times and then tried to scoot his bar stool back. Instead it caught on the carpet and he fell backwards like a tree falling. It made a very audible thud and of course, everyone stops what they're doing to look. He laid there for a minute, got up and stumbled to the door as everyone continued to stare at him. Definitely never saw him again.
I hope it hurt!
A guy kicked a dog and ran full speed into a brick wall as the dog chased him.
Maybe be nice to all creatures.
Except roaches.
And fleas.
And mosquitoes.
The Rage
Saw some lady road raging hard at slow traffic going over a dangerous mountain pass. She was trying to run people off the road trying to get around them. I've never seen anything like it, she could've killed someone. Saw her getting forcefully arrested by like 6 cops at the bottom of the mountain on the other side. Face-pinned to hood and screaming.
Bad Boys, Bad Boys whatcha goin' do...
GiphySaw a guy yelling at another guy in traffic, the guy that was yelling continued to speed off and got pulled over by a under cover cop car on the side of the road.
Traffic karma is the best.
The School Bus
I was riding the bus to school once. As it is picking up kids some guy passes the bus while the bus's red lights are flashing. A cop literally turns the corner the second after and pulls him over.
Check Pease...
Watched an entitled angry man abuse and belittle his server to the point of tears. Then he hitched up his belt and looked pleased with himself as he swaggered off the restaurant deck, tripped on the stairs, and face planted in the sand on the beach. (This was a vacation in Fla.) My wife looked mortified as I laughed right out loud at the guy. He got up, saw everyone staring and at least one person openly laughing, and quickstepped off down the beach.
Mall Cop A Plea
GiphyI work at a movie theater. One afternoon I was selling tickets at the box office when an older lady came up and asked me a question about our app (it's a Cinemark app).
I, however, wasn't sure about the answer and told her that. She proceeded to say, very rudely, "isn't is your job to know??? Are you stupid or something?"
Then, she turned around and noticed the mall cop was writing her a ticket for parking in a handicap spot when she did not have a handicap plate or placard. She took off running screaming "wait stop! That's my car!"
I couldn't keep the huge grin off my face for the rest of the day.
If only you could have yelled: "You parked illegally. What are you stupid or something?"
...I should take on a customer service job in my spare time just to get fired.
Supersize Karma
One day a few years ago I was grabbing McDonalds near work to eat something last second before my shift. It was one of those two lane microphone deals. I blatantly finish ordering before the other lane before he stomps on the gas to cut me off.
His car breaks down right there, and I get to take my rightful turn in line.
Seriously though so many people don't understand how those drive thrus work. There's almost nothing to gain by cutting in front of someone that finished before you because the staff will have to switch around orders which probably will take as long as you would've waited behind the car you cut anyways.
Tech-NO
See, I work for a staffing agency. I'm a recruiter. Pretty small team and this was actually another recruiter on my team that this happened to.
My co-worker was working with this guy who was pretty sharp. He was a programmer. His company was doing layoffs but he was told he wouldn't be affected. My co-worker contacted him, chatted about the situation and he said he would be interested in looking around. We just had a new client give us a position to help on that fit his background. We lined up an interview pretty quickly, he interviewed and got the position! Great. It was even a little salary bump. Straight direct hire, no contract stuff. He goes in, works his first week. All is great, all smiles.
Well, that next Monday shows up and he isn't there. The company calls us asking where he is, so my co-worker calls him. He answers the phone and my co-worker asks "hey, is everything okay? You no call no showed today over at XYZ company." And the guy proceeds to tell us "Yeah, I never actually quit my job. I just took vacation for the week to see if I liked the place. It was okay but I'll just stay here." My co-worker responds "Man, is there anything I can do? This puts us in a tight spot, this is a brand new customer of ours, can I do anything" and the guy tells us "Quite frankly I don't give a sh!t what kind of position it puts you in nor do I care if they are a new customer. I'm staying, don't call me again." And hangs up the phone.
He got laid off the next week.
Cheaters Never Prevail
GiphyThe washers and dryers in my apartment building are run through Bluetooth and an app you download on your phone. I figured out that if I put my phone on airplane mode while simultaneously pressing the start button on the machine, the washer would start but I wouldn't get charged. I was so proud, tried the same thing on the dryer and it worked. Went to get my clothes out of the dryer an hour later and everything was covered in melted Hershey kisses.
Transit Angels
I have a happier good karma story that happened to me a few months ago on vacation in San Francisco. Late at night after a potluck and drinks, my friend drove me to a BART metro station near her house and gave me directions to take the train back to my hotel.
I walked in, paid my fare, and went underground only to find out I'd just missed the last train. Fortunately my friend was awesome and gave me bus directions back, but there was another person who'd missed the same train, and he was in a far worse situation than mine. He was drunk, high, carrying massive bags of groceries and alcohol, and was trying to get back to Richmond, the way I came from and super far away. He also had no way to call an Uber.
Feeling bad, I offered to call him an Uber and he could pay me back what he could. He only had $3, but so be it, I wasn't going to turn him down. We chatted awhile until his ride came, he went off on his merry, inebriated way, and I went to catch my bus.
Except when I got on, I realized it was a MUNI bus, the other transit company, and so my BART fare wasn't transferable - I'd have to pay again. I realized I had no dollar bills left in my wallet. I spent it all on that useless fare. Panicking, I reached into my back pocket where I keep small change, well knowing I didn't have enough for the $2.50 fare. And that's when I felt the $3 that guy gave me. It was such a beautiful feeling. I think we were mutual guardian angels that night.
Karma's A Two Way Street
I liked going to the local fruit stand near my old job before work. It's a small family owned and run place. A little kid was working the register and accidently gave me back more than I gave them. I give back the money and correct the mistake, insisting it happens and to not worry about it, I'm not telling nobody.
The kid must have told her kin folk about two weeks later and I didn't pay for fruit for the next month until I got another job.
Karma works both ways!
You've been DCed!
GiphyIn DC:
Guy sped right past me in the K Street tunnel towards Georgetown, cut me off, and then got rung up by a speed camera just seconds later.
He then proceeded to floor it after the first camera caught him and promptly got caught by the trick speed camera not even a half block further just before the light.
I'm not generally a fan of DC's speed cameras, but seeing his brake lights blast red after getting lit up by not just two, but four successive flash bulbs was gratifying. eganist
The BK Queue.
I was waiting in queue at Burger King. While i was looking at the menu board, a bunch of high school kids of some team sport cut my queue, it was like 15 of them and like they grouped up in a round and slowly went in front of me when i wasn't looking. I gave an annoyed look but just waited in line. A cashier open his counter and called for me and i got right in front of all of them even before the lady in charge of that sports team who was waiting on the other counter.EmotionalElevator4
Ha Ha to you....
Worked after school care for school age kids. There was this one kid who was pretty obnoxious and got under everyone's skin. One day I see him walk into the room just needling another kid. He ends his provoking with a Nelson from the Simpsons "ha ha," spins around, and face plants on the ground. The kid he was provoking gave him a "ha ha!" back and walked off. Obnoxious kid gets up, dusts himself off, and humbly slinks away and is pretty quiet for the rest of the day. TheMadTherapist
You can't handle the snow!
GiphyWe were driving on a very icy 35mph-limit road, in a 4wd car, after one of the first big snowstorms of the winter. We're doing ~25mph, which is about as fast as we feel we can push it, given the ice sheet over everything since the snow melted to slush and re-froze overnight. We've been driving in snow/ice our whole lives, we know what'll work and what is risky, and conditions are BAD. All other traffic is basically moving at our speed or even slower.
A shiny new lifted red dodge pickup pulls up behind us, tailgating, revving his engine, etc. Basically everything is screaming "big man in his big truck doesn't need to be held up by some car that can't handle the snow!" We hit a straight section and give him an easy chance to pass us. He takes it, and quickly accelerates to~40 (which would be the typical speed for the road in the summer). About 400 feet beyond us, the road takes a moderate curve left. He tries to turn, but it's a solid sheet of ice - the truck just goes straight into a parked car and guardrail, right in-front of a dozen or so witnesses.
We coast past at ~25, making the turn without issue. His front end was pretty smashed up - maybe not totaled, but I'd be amazed if he could drive it to the shop. AngryT-Rex
Don't Fidget.
I hit my girlfriend in the forehead with a spinning fidget spinner. She chased me, I jumped on my bed, and my ceiling fan smacked the living hell out of me.
She was on the floor laughing for a solid 5 minutes. I am a firm believer in karma now... or maybe just idiocy on my part. insurance_novice
Speed Demon.
Was on a road trip last week. Guy in the left lane was slowly passing a truck so there were about 5 of us stacked up patiently waiting for the logjam to clear. Jerk in a Mercedes breaks ranks into the right lane, speeds ahead, and tries to cut in to save himself 3 car lengths of trouble. All cars band together to not let him in. He almost ran the car behind me off the road and nearly sideswiped him before taking his rightful place in the back.
Well he was pissed after that and was tailgating and in general driving like an JERK. He eventually sped off well over 100 mph. Saw him about 20 minutes later pulled over by a state trooper. Laughed my butt off as I passed Burke2010
Be Patient.
GiphyHelping my brother move out of his apt after grad school. In parking garage trying to reposition the car to load up the tv or something. Some girl wants to get past us so I start backing up, but she's crowding me, like inches from my bumper. Anyway, she gets past and we load up. As we leave the parking lot, she's in the middle of the street having T-boned someone. Felt bad for the poor person she hit. OneNineRed
Try Peace.
Stated dating a girl a few months back and her ex was being just a huge jerk to her, threatening to fight me if he saw me, trying to start rumors, etc...
Went out for drinks with the girlfriend and, of course, he shows up. Starts to get in my face at the bar and gets kicked out. Rushes the door guy to get back in and is carried out and banned from that bar for life.
Then I had another genius thought... What if I could do this at the bar next door? (It's a smallish town. There are really only two bars worth going to for night life, and they're right next door to each other.)
So, we go next door. He's waiting outside for me but there's the usual "don't do it bro!" Friends around him so I make it next door without having to fight. Of course he comes in, starts his act and actually tries to fight me this time. He gets pulled off by a few people and is also kicked out of that bar for at least a while.
Fight with your brain not your fists. emartinoo
Aim for the head!
A girl in school used to tease everyone and just be generally annoying. She was tossing this stress ball around and aimed it at this one kids head. Someone yelled "look out" at him and so he looked up, saw the ball coming at him, and put up his hands in self defense. It bounced off his arms and back at the girl and hit her right in the mouth. It was a soft squishy stress ball so it didn't hurt her, but we all openly laughed at her and her surprised expression so she sat down quietly from embarrassment. She still kept being annoying but she stopped throwing things at people's heads. breentee
The Rains will Come....
GiphyAt a big sports tournament after a game and it's raining a bit - an aggressive driver can't be bothered with people rushing to their cars and almost runs over a kid, yells at people in his way and decides to weave around traffic to get out of the place quicker. There is a saw horse blocking the exit he is not supposed to go out. The rain is getting heavier. Everyone is watching this impatient person as he gets out his car to move the saw horse and bypass the traffic line and pedestrian traffic due to self entitlement. When he gets out to move the saw horse/barrier he closes his car door and locks himself out of the car with the car running. Downpour ensues. Instant Karma. FenwayAnfield
Water Drama.
I was waiting to put in at a boat ramp in Florida one day. It was a single ramp, the guy trying to take his boat out out of the water was having a tough time time backing his trailer down. His wife (I assume) and two kids were waiting on the dock.
Some guy waiting to get out of the water starts screaming at him and heckling him. The first guy finally gets his trailer down the ramp, meanwhile, raging jerk had docked his boat and started up the dock towards the poor boating newbie family guy screaming and yelling. Raging jerk punches family guy and knocks him off the dock into the water.
Two burly dudes that nobody was really paying attention to to walk up, literally grab raging jerk as family guy was falling in the water, throw him on the dock and handcuff him, then flashed their FL DNR badges. They were undercover watching the boat ramp.
There was applause and cheering from the folks waiting to put in and take out.
Family guy just wants to get out there and go home, so he declines to press charges. The DNR guys apparently thought "aw hell's no," proceed to tear the guys boat and car apart and ended charging him with a BUI and ever single nitpicky thing they could find wrong his boat. It was a good day. Dr_StrangeloveGA
Let me Watch....
When I was a broke college student the high schoolers down the street sideswiped my car so bad my front door wouldn't open all the way and the mirror was gone. Confronted them but couldn't prove it. Couldn't afford to fix it.
The next week they come screeching out of the neighborhood while I'm studying next to the second floor window. They crash headlong into a tree and total their car. I has a comfortable view as all four of them got out and the driver was sobbing his sorry butt shirtless on the pavement till his mom came and cussed him out loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. Jamonica
No Pizza for You!
GiphyA chick at a pizza place took money out of the tip jar to pay for her extra toppings. She did this after screaming at the poor person working that she couldn't believe it was an extra 50 cents for more cheese. On my way home I saw her getting arrested, not sure for what, but I'm sure she had it coming. blooodghoul
Ew. Just Ewww!
Guy spewed vomit all over the floor in the bathroom at a bar. As I left the bathroom, a big muscly guy in overalls (no undershirt) was coming in. I tried to get his attention and stop him, but he just shouldered me out of the way.
He slipped on said vomit and yelled as he fell. As he put his hand down to lift himself up, he yelled a much louder he realized the vomitus was all over himself. jlamer
The Cycle Crash....
My cousin parked her car on the street near my house. My neighbor came out and yelled about how that was her spot. My cousin simply moved her car rather than argue. A few hours later one of the children who live on our street ran into my neighbors car in that exact spot.
Edit: kid was riding a bike. Should have mentioned that. Doug625
Cheers....
GiphyI ran my husband's drunk girlfriend out of my house. She goes to the nearest gas station where they call the cops and she gets her second DUI. Mason3637
Told you so....
Was a lifeguard and kid (9-10 years old) kept running around on the pool deck. He clearly heard me several times yelling at him to walk, and he ignored me. Next time he ran, he slipped and fell flat on his butt and started crying. The only thing I said was "thats why I told you to walk" and his mom definitely gave me the evil eye. I didn't give a crap though, that's what you get for not following the rules! bttrflyr
You Gass....
Spend my last few dollars on a donut instead of using it to tip the person who filled my gas. Dropped my donut as I pulled out the gas station. AggravatingDirt
I dare you to sue....
GiphyI worked in a cell phone store years ago, lines were long and some woman's kid was running blast through the store, knocking over things and just being a general hellion.
I asked her to control her child several times, as he could easily get hurt doing what he was doing.
After about the third time she yells "don't you tell me how to raise my chil..." She never finished her sentence because the child ran head-first into a very heavy hanging sign and knocked himself out cold. The kid fell like a bag of potatoes, I mean like a sniper shot to the head kind of thing.
(The kid was alright, the mom threatened to sue us, I reminded her we had video and audio of me asking her to control her child three separate times as well as well as her swearing at me, never heard from her again). Dr_StrangeloveGA
Put the Foot Down!
At a concert my mom accidentally stepped on a lady's foot, and she said sorry multiple times, but the lady very drunk wouldn't let it go and started a fight with my mom. Very bad idea, my moms ex MMA. Straight knockout. My mom met that lady again a year ago at a event for her work, and apparently the lady stopped drinking from what happened that night, being told by her friends she wouldn't leave my mom alone even after countless times of apologizing. Maybe it was good karma? Armageddon-King
The Good Ole Juju....
Instant Karma isn't always a bad thing...
About 16 years ago. In my tiny Dodge Neon. I was at a red light and I have no reason why but I gave a homeless person all of the change in my ashtray. The light turned green, and I made my left turn and a few seconds later I was hit head on by a full size truck.
When they were loading my car on the tow truck, the driver asked "How's the driver," and I simply said "I'm fine" he was shocked at 1st, and then once he realized I wasn't kidding. He said he'd been towing for 20 years and never seen anyone survive this extreme of an accident... let alone be standing there talking to him while loading up the car.
Pretty sure I lived due to the good juju. socalfear
Off to the prom....
GiphyMy boss gave me a six pack of beer for prom night and working extra hard for him. I didn't really drink and tried to refuse but he insisted. I put it in my car and figured I'd give it to a friend who drinks. Half way into my shift the owner of the restaurant comes in and fires me because he saw the beer, obviously stolen because I was underage, in my backseat. I look at the head chef and he just acts like he's mad too? The owner walks me out to my car and is asking why I would do that, I was a good worker for a year and a half or so.
So I just told him, yeah the head chef gave it to me I have no idea why he didn't just tell you. Owner walks back in and fired the head chef. This guy was a big douche so he went ballistic and the owners saw a side of him that the kitchen staff saw when it got really busy.
The owner's actions really affected me. I think that's the first time someone ever really took a stand for me. Especially over someone who was obviously making him more money. I will always remember that day. Then I went to prom and was just on high all night. StalkySpade
Karma Giveth!
I have a positive instant karma. Not sure that counts. But it's a good story
I took my three kids (5f, 5m, 7f) to a local carnival/feast. My wife had some girl brunch thing, didn't come. We parked kinda far so To get to the rides, we had to walk through the concert field where people were staking their spots for the show later. Tarps, etc.
A young mom and her young daughter walked past us quickly, the Mom holding chairs, tarps, etc and basically has her hands completely full. So, i catch up to her, ask her if she needs help and I take a couple of the bags from her.
We followed them to a spot they had, dropped their stuff, chatted for a minute, she thanked me and we walked off. Just as we left, my older daughter, 7, looks up at me and says "that was really nice dad." Very cute.
Right after she said that, a dad walking out of the feast handed/asked if I wanted some ride tickets they weren't going to use. So i took them and thanked him. Instantly, my daughter (same one) says to me "dad! That was karma! The tickets were karma for helping that lady" she was so right! Such a great dad moment. SuperDada
15 drinks in.....
Last week, my youngest daughter had her last day of preschool. Between my two girls, we've been associated with this school for almost 10 years. My wife and I wanted to do something nice for them so we offered to buy them Starbucks.
As I'm about to enter the Starbucks' parking lot, a guy runs a stop sign, narrowly missing me. He pulls in, I pull in next to him. I hurriedly scramble out of my car to beat him to the line.
It was fun listening to them call my name for all 15 drinks before that guy got his. BigRedRN
Keep Walking....
GiphyI remember once walking home from school, and this kid from my school rode up to me on his bike and started bullying me, trying to run me over and stuff like that.
Next thing, not looking where he was going the kid runs over a rock, falls off his bike and smashes himself on the concrete. He was laying there crying and asking for help and I just kept walking. I regret nothing. PMMEURINSIDES
Never Mock Me!
My boss got Instant Karma for mocking me!
I had a day off work and as I was making breakfast, I accidentally sliced my finger tip with a bread knife. I wrapped it up, and went to Urgent Care. It didn't need stitches but the doctor put a couple steri-strips on it and said not to use it for a day or two and stay off a keyboard.
I went into work the next morning, told my boss that I had to stay off a keyboard for a couple days so I had to do some other kind of customer service that didn't involve typing. She said no problem.
As I walked out of the room I remembered I had to tell her something else and as I was walking back in, I heard her mocking my injury. Just as she finished, she accidentally slammed the door of the one ton safe on her hand. I laughed and said Karma's a b. She said yeah, I kind of deserved that.
She didn't break it but she couldn't use it so she had to call another supervisor to come in for the day so she could get it checked out. When the gauze came off my finger a couple days later and saw the strips holding it together she admitted that it did look kinda bad and she shouldn't have made fun. I accepted and brushed the incident off. thompson1041
The Cart lady.
I work in the parking lot as a cart pusher. One lady pushed the cart to the side and got in her car to back up, but the cart (since not in a corral) rolled back behind her car and she backed into it pretty hard. Me and my coworkers laughed our butts off. 864367966422
I like your bus!
GiphyDude tearing up the street, ducking off the road onto the shoulder to pass whenever someone wasn't going fast enough for him (which was everyone.) Road was a generous 70km and he was pushing at least 120 at times. Residential area too.
Half a km up the road there was cloud of smoke. Get there and it's them, ute totaled with the engine pancake flat. A bus had been taking a wide turn using both lanes and he obviously was going too fast to register and tried to race up the side as it turned. It has been PUSHED onto the opposite side of the road. Not a small bus... a school bus. HelloFoxie
Leaving a Mark...
I was making fun of my sister in law for not being able to open the baby gate, I opened it still making fun of her, went to walk through it and my hip caught it, forcing it closed with me in it. I have a MASSIVE very painful bruise on my hip now. Morrdsith
Merry we roll along...
I live right between two cop jurisdictions. At the top of a hill is one and at the bottom is the other. I do NOT mess around on that hill as usually one is at the top and bottom. Headed to work one day and some little BMW starts flashing me and passes. Sure enough, he is pulled over down the road and i go on my merry way. Brailledit
We all have pain....
GiphyThat would be myself. My husband (then boyfriend) was carrying our dog's freshly filled water bowl from the kitchen sink to the feeding mat. The dog ran right into him and the water spilled all over the floor. I laughed my butt off. In the 2 minutes it took him to find the mop, I forgot the water was on the floor and slipped as I walked right through it to get to the dryer. I fell hard on to the granite tile. I had a broken arm, had a mild concussion, and received 8 stitches on the side of my head. Reddit
Kick Hard!
When I was a kid I went horse riding at a holiday centre.
These parents insisted their kid go on the biggest horse as apparently the family had "owned horses for years and their kid was the best rider."
Dad of the family walks right behind a horse with a brand new video camera in a camera bag.
Horse kicks the camera, breaking it beyond repair. Amyisnotinsane
What I had done!
GiphyI got called to help some civilians during an exercise we we're having at my base. I went out and they explained what they needed and asked me to help them. I was able to set them up with several pieces of equipment and taught them how to properly operate it all. After the exercise was over and everyone had gone home I get called by my flight chief saying that I need to show up at the commanders office the next day in my dress uniform. Usually if you have to show up in blues to the commander's office you are getting some high level punishment. So I show up the next day sweat dripping down my head as I try to ponder why I've been called in, as I'm sitting in the waiting area, my flight chief shows up and tells me to get ready to speak to the commander about "what I had done."
I am freaking out as I walk in to see the colonel. Out of the corner of my eye I see the civilian I had worked with earlier in the exercise sitting with a giant smile on his face as I entered the office. Turns out he was great friends with my commander and had greatly appreciated everything I had done to help them. He and the commander both presented me with a coin and when everything was said and done the civilian walked out of the office with me and gave me a $40 gift card to the BX. kirtok1337