People From Around The World Share Stories of Karma and Revenge


People From Around The World Share Stories of Karma and Revenge


Is there anything better than when bad people get their just desserts? We don't think so, so we're back with another round of sweet, sweet, karma stories. There's nothing more thrilling than when someone does something bad to you, and winds up paying dearly. The people in these stories of karma being the best revenge didn't even have to try that hard to get satisfaction, thanks to fate. Turns out sometimes, justice isn't blind after all.

woman holding sword statue during daytime Tingey Injury Law Firm


1. Canine karma

The other day I was taking my dog for a walk around the neighborhood. She squatted down to poop and I reached for my doggie bags only to realize I was fresh out. So I peeked around making sure nobody was looking, and I just left it.

10 minutes later I'm walking across the road and I cut through a thin grass median in the center and what do you know-- I step in dog poop.

I wasn't even mad, I knew I deserved it.

brown and white long coated small dog lying on green grass Ralu Gal

2. Bulls-eye

I was at a party one time, and this one girl couldn't stop talking crap about this other girl that was coming to the party. The other girl shows up and this dude picked her up and hugged her and spun her around in a way where her foot kicked the girl that was talking crap right in the head/face while she was sitting on the couch. Her beer spilled all over her and she caught a black eye.

woman crying Thought Catalog

3. Don't do this

Sitting on a highway late at night because of a bad car accident. The highway was packed and barely moving.

One guy thinks he's smarter than everyone else and tries to drive on the shoulder. He makes it a good little ways before running into an on ramp, also packed with cars. He had no where to go, and no one let him in. He was stuck between cars in the right most lane and cars from the on ramp. Everyone stuck bumper to bumper and flowed around him.

I went from watching him pass me and almost getting out of my view to passing him and losing sight of him in my rear view.

cars on road Nabeel Syed

4. No texting her way out of that

I got rear-ended in a turn lane by a girl texting. She was doing 45mph and I was stopped. No major injuries. I went to her court date hoping she got a big fine or something. She got a $50 ticket. I was a little bit upset.

As I was sitting at the stop light to pull out of the court I watched her run a red light and t-bone a cop. I don't normally laugh at other people's misfortune, however, I certainly laughed at that one.

smiling woman in white shirt inside car Collins Lesulie

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5. Mother Nature has her say

I'm from San Diego and during the summer, you have to a claim bonfire pits on the beach really early in the morning if you want it for that night. So my friends and I got to the beach at 8 am and stayed there so we can get a bonfire going into the night. Just before sundown, this one couple asked if they could share the bonfire with us and since our group wasn't too big, we decided to share it with them. However that couple proceeded to bring a group of like 15 others and they literally surrounded the pit and pushed us out. We were ticked but we were so tired from being at the beach all day so we decided to head out. Little did we know what that night had an extreme high tide warning and when we moved all of our stuff over the wall that divided the beachwalk with the beach, a huge wave came in and washed out that whole group surrounded by our bonfire. The wave flipped over their table of food, took a handful of sandals back into the ocean, and destroyed all their stuff. The best part was this one girl was trying to jump the wall to save herself but she didn't jump high enough and ended up falling right back into the waters.

tilt-shift lens photography of fire ember Almos Bechtold

6. Pucker up

When I was a kid, we visited Montreal. I had gotten a hockey puck as a souvenir. While we were in our hotel, my sister decided to mess with me by hiding it. I got mad and yelled in my high pitched voice "GIVE ME BACK MY HOCKEY PUCK!" before smacking her in the head with a pillow. Guess where she had hidden it.

white bed pillow on brown wooden bed frame Deconovo

7. A smashing outcome

This happened to me in London with a sudden snow flurry, I was driving down a hill and my car was sliding towards parked cars so I was taking it slow. The guy behind was driving a Landrover and tooting at me to hurry up, ending up overtaking me at speed. Get home a few minutes later and the guy is sitting on my garden wall with a gash on his head. His car had crashed into the central bollards. I asked him if he wanted to come in to wait for the emergency services but he was too embarrassed. Couldn't help myself and told him he was driving too fast, he said he thought Landrovers where made to drive in those conditions.

cars on road during night time Clay LeConey

8. Pick on someone your own size

I was working in a pub in Liverpool and had just arrived at about 10 am to start my shift. I knocked on the door and waited for someone to let me in. I became aware of some voices shouting and turned around to see two guys, shirts off, swaggering towards me talking in a language I didn't understand. They came right up to me and what little English they did speak came out. They called me names and nasty stuff and I was really quite scared. I was knocking on the door really hard at this point but after insulting me and laughing they walked off towards a busy road.

I watched them as they walked out into the traffic waving their arms at the cars to stop for them then giving the drivers the finger. Suddenly one of the cars stopped and four big guys got out. One of the nasty dudes ran off but the "big man" got caught and shoved, hard, against the car a couple of times clearly hurting his head and elbow. Then one of the car guys made out that he was going to punch him, big time, drawing his fist far back. The little guy just covered his face and screamed. They didn't get hit but the car guys and a lot of passers by burst out laughing. They let him go and he ran away.

That felt good.

silhouette of man sitting on bench beside train rail Vignesh Moorthy

9. Catching a ride to Karmaville

Last spring I didn't get a date to the junior prom. I wasn't thrilled but I figured I'd go stag. I found the perfect dress and was actually really excited. Then my group of friends said I couldn't come with them. Why?

I didn't have a date and it would 'ruin the pictures' if I stood by myself. And since I wasn't going to be in the pictures, they said, wouldn't it just be so awkward for me to get ready with them and be at Claudia's (the ringleader) house before hand? And of course, wouldn't I just be so uncomfortable being the only one in the limo with no boyfriend? And what would I do afterwards anyways? I mean everyone knows what happens at the parties after prom. So I didn't go at all.

Guess whose limo never showed up?

woman in black dress standing in front of woman in white dress Marcel Strauß

10. Don't get caught

I work for a contracted unloading service in a warehouse. One of the guys on my crew is an absolute little whiner sometimes. Complains about his work, tries to leave early every day, bums cigarettes off everyone without ever bringing his own pack, etc. He even owes some of my other coworkers money, I believe. But I digress.

On Thursday, he lost it over a produce load and threw a temper tantrum: kicking boxes, tearing down tall pallets of product, and causing a lot of damage... right as the site manager walked by his trailer door. Got suspended without pay and was told he is on his last chance with the company. Now it's only a matter of time before he gets fired. Sweet, sweet, karma.

man in white and blue crew neck t-shirt Ryan Snaadt

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11. Let sparks fly

This is from my younger years. A friend of mine had a cousin visiting around Victoria day in Canada (aka firecracker day). When I went to visit him, I was told he was in the backyard. I go back there and he and his cousin are setting off firecrackers. They have a big bowl of loose firecrackers. I ask if I can set a couple off as well and both my friend and his cousin start tossing lit firecrackers at me while laughing.

I figure that they are both acting like morons so I decided to leave. Just as I'm about to leave a spark gets into the bowl. The entire bowl of firecrackers ignite leaving only a few unexploded. This lasted about 10 or 15 seconds.

The stunned look on my friend and cousin's face was pure heaven. I'm laughing at them. I'm sure they planned a whole afternoon of setting them off.

lighted fireworks Skyler Gerald

12. No woman no cry

When my mom was a young lass, there was a girl at school who was always a major witch to her. Hated my mom for whatever reason and always made fun of her. Fast forward to my mom as a college-aged woman now dating a guitarist from Bob Marley's band, out at a bar with him getting a drink. Dude goes to the bathroom and said witch from back in the day comes up to my mom and says, "OMG, did you see who is here?!" At that moment, dude comes and puts his arm around my mom and says "hey babe, what's happening?" She said the look on that girl's face was priceless.

Bob Marley standing beside woman during daytime Bill Fairs

13. Petty thievery goes rotten

On a trip backpacking around Greece once I had a bad experience in a hotel and decided to take one of their beautifully painted stone eggs from the bowl in the reception as compensation. When we were on the ferry to the next island I started noticing a horrible smell coming from my bag. It turns out that it was not a stone egg at all, but a painted boiled egg that had broken in my bag, the whole thing had become so rotten it had turned a nice shade of green and the smell was almost intolerable. I had to borrow a lot of my friends clothes for the rest of the trip but at least it taught me a good lesson.

2 brown eggs on pink textile Maria Ionova

14. When the punishment fits the crime

I work in an ER add once a girl got brought in by ambulance after being assaulted. She was walking down the street when some guy tackled her to the ground and tried to drag her down an alley. A Good Samaritan managed to chase him off and call the cops.

Like 20 minutes later they brought in a guy in full cardiac arrest. Turns out the police found the attacker and chased him several blocks when he collapsed and his heart gave out. He was dead on arrival and the victim IDed him right in the ER.

man in white suit jacket Austin Distel

15. He was all wet

Had a moron driver in a Porsche convertible tailgating me on a 6 lane highway. I wasn't in the far right lane, but I was in the middle so he still could have passed if he wanted to. He finally passes me and blows his horn at me as he blows past. We get on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and it immediately starts torrentially pouring. There was nowhere for him to stop so he had to drive a several mile long bridge with his top down the whole way.

man driving car during rainy daytime Thái An

16. Un-bee-lievable

With glee, I ran over a bee on my tricycle once. Aimed for it on purpose and then SPLAT. Minutes later I got called into the house and I stepped on that same bee, stuck with stinger up, in my bare feet. It hurt so badly. I told my mom everything and she told me I got exactly what I deserved. I agreed.

several bees Boba Jaglicic

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17. Watch them go down in flames

I tried to explain to my company how they were breaking the law with one of their procedures. They didn't listen, said somebody up the line would have caught it. Later, they illegally fired me whilst I was on FMLA leave. I was, statistically at least, their best employee at my position out of 500 people. They got fined 250K for the violation I brought up several times. I'm still unemployed but I go hiking all day and love my life. Have enough saved up to last me until I do find work.

men sitting in front of their laptop computer Annie Spratt

18. Don't pull that pony

I was in daycare as a child. I had very long hair that my dad always put into a ponytail. There was a girl that would pull my ponytail all the time.

We were doing a musical chairs thing at the end of the day while parents were picking us up. The girl was behind me and kept yanking my ponytail, I kept telling her to stop. The teacher "didn't see anything so I can't do anything about it."

There were a bunch of parents waiting for us to finish our game, my mom included and she kept doing it and the teacher "didn't see it" so I turned around and punched her as hard as I could, she stumbled into the "cubbies" where we kept our coats. The teacher tried to chastise me and my mom was like "nope. I didn't see anything"

Didn't even get in trouble.

toddler girl walking on gray concrete road at daytime Caroline Hernandez

19. Best served cold

When I was younger (high school) my city had automatic sprinklers in most of the parks and areas with grass - they would turn on automatically at like 3 or 4 am. So being a young dumb kid me and my friends figured out if you kicked them hard enough the top would break off and the sprinkler would full force shoot a huge stream into the air from then on. We thought it was hilarious and were never caught. We kept on with this until one day they started replacing them with new super strong steel ones. I kicked one and broke my big toe and while in agony rolled my ankle so bad it was bruised up for a week and has never been the same.

person wearing white and yellow sneakers Malik Skydsgaard

20. Hot, burning, revenge

A cyclist flew through a red light at an intersection and I almost clobbered him. I'm used to these guys so I just harumphed and slowed down. This guy cuts me off AGAIN and flicks me off in the same motion. I used to be a smoker and a litterer back then so in in my frustration I flicked my butt out my window and put both hands on the wheel. The butt caught the wind and flicked back into the cyclists face causing him to crash into the median. I'm happy about how satisfying it is still thinking about it.

person riding nbicycle Max Bender

21. Pumpkin Spice Naughty

At this café I go to, some little toddler punk grabbed at the just poured hot coffee meant for me. The barrista tried to stop the kid but this kid was not having it. He took a huge sip, I think mistaking it for the pumpkin spice latte his momma ordered for him while in line before me, and promptly made a face, spit it out, and dropped the hot coffee all over himself. Cries ensue. Mom berates the employee for letting this happen. Waving her own large frapp wildly in the air. Little hellion is still throwing full tantrum on the floor, pulls at his mom's pants and then the frapp falls on him too. I giggled.

white ceramic mug filled with coffee Nathan Dumlao

22. Bully gets a beating

A shy, meek, new kid on the block I used to pick on beat up on me. I was 10 and he was 12. We lived on same street and he would walk past my house on the way home from school. After several days of teasing him, he paused and stared into my eyes. I walked up towards the driveway and got in his face...at which point he unleased the craziest barrage of punches and kickboxing combinations that I simply did not expect. I took a few to my eye, and bloodied my face. Needless to say, he made me cry and run away like a baby.

...This was one of the most transformational experiences of my life. It taught me self-control, humility, and absolute respect for the hidden strengths of people around me.

2 boys lying on the ground yang miao

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23. You're supposed to dodge

I was working at a summer camp this past summer, and all the male campers and staff were playing dodgeball while the girls cabins did their own 'girl night' kinda thing. It was Campers (and Jr. Staff) vs. Staff, and it was kinda nearing the end of the night, so the rules for the Staff were that if you got hit, you were done with no way of revival.

I looked a cross the gym and saw that one of my fellow Staff was hit and laying on the ground with his hands behind his head. So naturally I grab a dodgeball, sneak around behind him keeping myself out of his field of view, and throw the ball at his junk.

As I was laughing and running away, It bounced off his groin and, without hesitation, he brought his leg up and kicked the ball as hard as he could, and it hit me straight in the face with enough force to knock me off my feet.

people playing soccer on field Wan San Yip

24. Give me an "N," give me an "O"

I had a "friend" in high school who would constantly tell me to kill myself, spread horrible rumors about me, and was just insanely mean to me. This girl was the typical beautiful cheerleader type girl who got everything she wanted.

Fast-forward a few years and I graduated college and moved out to LA for an awesome job. She contacted me asking if I would talk to my boss to see if I could get her a job, since my job was also her dream job.

It may sound petty, but it was so nice that for once she wasn't going to get everything she wanted. She had treated me like garbage and then years later she thought she could just make amends and I would help her out.

women in white and red uniform dancing on stage during daytime Rojan Maharjan

25. It's not a contact sport

Used to play frisbee in a parking lot on Saturday nights, people would drive their cars through to mess with us on a regular basis. One night a guy drives his car up to the edge of the area we are playing in and starts revving his engine really aggressively, we get the point and clear the area. Dude drops the clutch and speeds through the parking lot but failed to notice the raised median in his path. Hits it going pretty fast, wrecks the underside of his car getting a little bit of air. The car comes to a stop, it is clearly leaking a lot of fluid, seemingly unable to drive anymore when the cherry tops of this sundae; a police officer who was just hanging out in a different part of the shopping area saw the whole thing go down and cruises up on the dude with lights flashing. We go back to playing.

man wearing police uniform selective focus photo Fred Moon

26. She never saw it coming

I work at a residential facility for individuals with developmental disabilities. The other day I was punching out after working an overnight shift and I hear the nurse who administers medication screaming at staff over something relatively minor in front of the residents while they were eating breakfast. I leave and go across the street to another house because I had to hand in paperwork there (also I was so mad about her being inappropriate that I felt like I was about to say some things to her that would not be good for my job security). The same nurse comes into the house I am now in to begin administering meds in that house. The second she steps in the house a resident runs up to her, punches her in the face, and runs away. So satisfying.

person wearing blue knit cap and white face mask Bermix Studio

27. Minor league

I worked at a Kmart in high school. It was a small store, so I worked everything, electronics, stocking, cashier. You name it, I did it. I asked a woman and her son, about 12 or 13, if they needed help finding anything as I was out on the floor, and the kid immediately swears me out for annoying him. I ignore it, and go about my business.

Right after that I get called to checkouts. As I'm working there, here comes the pair. The kid has gone all out back in the electronics area, with some EA sports titles and a GTA game. I'm checking them out when the age prompt comes up for the M rated game. I decide to take a chance. I flip the game over, and inform the mother that "This game has been rated M for the following reasons" and read the list off the back of the case. There is an awkward silence, then she angrily informs me that the son said it was only a little violent. Kid wasn't able to get anything that day.

black xbox one game controller Branden Skeli

28. Saving up that karma

As the low man on the totem pole, I got to do all of the grunt labor and random tasks that required working on weekends and such... as a master engineer working in a 9-5 job... being paid less than a pizza delivery driver. Then my boss decided that I no longer got to comp time (leave early or whatever to get back some of the time spent working on weekends), because I was salaried and "it was part of the job."

So, when I quit to go get my PhD, they realized that I hadn't used any vacation time. The ultra penny pincher had to write me a check for two extra months worth of pay as I walked out the door.

smiling woman wearing academic dress and black academic hat Felipe Gregate

29. Take your friends with you

I was targeted for firing. It had nothing to do with my performance, everything to do with my manager's manager that took a disliking to me. I walked the line of perfection for about a month until I found another job. I handed in my 2 weeks' notice. That was victory number one. I stole about a half-dozen of their employees and got them hired into my new company, that was victory number 2. I'd like to think that victory number 3 was the 30 or 40 employees they lost in the following year, but I can't claim direct responsibility for that. Thing is, when you have employees with high-demand skills like software engineering, you best treat them right.

man in black and white checkered dress shirt sitting on black office rolling chair ThisisEngineering RAEng

30. Justice is good

Worked for a small lottery parlor chain for the better part of a year back around 2008. It was a single employee operation, so I worked a 10 hour shift with no breaks or a lunch. All in all, it wasn't a bad job and had good tips.

One day, out of the blue, the region manager calls me into the store and tells me that I'm suspended. No warning whatsoever. I asked her why, and she flat out tells me that I'm frightening away the patrons because of my sexuality (gay). The next day, she calls me to say that I'm no longer needed. I tried for a lawsuit, but it was a he said she said kinda thing.

Flash forward to last month. I get a call from a lawyer asking me if I want to take part in a class action lawsuit against this company for discrimination and unfair wage compensation practices. I told them my story and now I'm a class representative for the case. I'm so ready for this court case.

man in black shirt sitting beside woman in white shirt Saúl Bucio

31. Bike tyke gets it

When I was a kid, I was the youngest of all the kids on my block. The other kids (including my sister) would have fun tormenting me. They would try and exclude me from things on the basis of "you have to be X years old to do it."

The worst of them was Marcus, who would always be a complete terror. One day Marcus and I, along with some of the other kids, went to a nearby school to ride around on our scooters (oh yeah). Marcus convinced me that to be "cool" I had to jump down a flight of 5 stairs. I succeeded, but broke my scooter in the process.

As the kids rode off, laughing at me for not being able to join them, Marcus' front wheel caught in a crack in the concrete. He FLEW over the handlebars straight into a flagpole. I nearly died laughing. I broke my scooter; he broke his face.

boy covering his face while standing Annie Spratt

32. Now it's a staycation

I've worked at the same company for over 6 years. I was a loyal, good employee with a perfect track-record. Over the 6 years I've only called in sick twice. I had the best results, the least amount of errors on paperwork in the whole region and quite possibly the whole country. My new boss decided that that wasn't enough. He minimized my hours (they get a bonus to keep labor low), expanded my workload and never had anything nice to say. He seemed to think ruling with an iron fist is the way to go about this. Even after all this, I'm the one who kept his head above water, fixing his errors along the way.

So today I resign my position with immediate effect, which in terms cancelled his vacation plans for next week. On top of that, there is no one to fill my position. As soon as I mouthed the words "I quit" you could see the terror in his eyes. He realized how screwed he was without me and tried to do whatever he could to keep me for at least another week. I've never felt such a sense of instant karma as today. I never meant to cancel his vacation, but I wasn't going to put his needs before mine. I have bills to pay. I'd feel bad about it if he wasn't such a jerk. But he's a jerk.

man in bluee ssweater ahmad gunnaivi

33. Karma is a slap in the face

I was working with this complete nightmare at the sandwich shop where I work. She was 17, I was 18. I was telling a coworker about how my boyfriend had proposed to me, and she comes up behind me and says "I bet he only proposed because the condom broke." It caused me to burst into tears, because I'd also just recently found out that there was only a 2% chance that I could have kids, and I was still very sensitive about it.

After coming out of the supply room (I went in there to cry), I asked her to come out the back door with me, so I could have a word with her. I didn't want customers to hear us, because we likely would have ended up yelling. Anyway, I told her to keep her nose in her own business and blah blah blah. She decided to slap me, pretty hard, too. I didn't hit her back, because we were directly in front of a camera. So, I went inside and called my boss. He had seen it on the live feed at home and had recorded it. He was already on his way. He came in and dragged her out the back and fired her. Last I heard, she was unemployed, pregnant, and stuck with some deadbeat.

img_615b6b82e3d05.jpg Andrew Le

34. Road rage revenge

I had to use a four lane road to commute to and from work (two lanes each way). There was an intersection where I would always get the red light. During rush hour, I might have to wait through a few cycles before I could get through the intersection, mainly because the left lane didn't get a green arrow to turn and it would cause a backup.

One day I was waiting my turn to get through this intersection. It was a nice day so I had the window open. Two guys pulled up in the next lane. There was a lot of traffic that day, so for three light cycles, these guys starting talking major dice to me. Calling me names, taunting me, etc. I ignored them.

Finally, it was my turn to go through the intersection. Traffic unwinds, I start to take off. The guys in the next lane also take off so they can stay even with me and scream more crazy stuff at me. Problem was, the car in front of their lane was taking a left. Their lane was not moving. I take off right as they rear end the brand new Jag in line in front of them. Still makes me laugh everytime I think about it.

silver and black car engine Clark Van Der Beken

35. Track rats get turfed

Catching the train home late one night I was awoken by a group of loud-mouthed guys shouting racist slurs to anyone that looked even a little bit non-white. Another passenger starts telling them to shut up or get off the train when these guys flip out and start screaming at him.

At this point another guy (who happens to be black) tells them to calm down and they start screaming at him that they are going to kick the crap out of him. At this point a few other guys on the train are starting to get up and move towards these idiots.

Then the black dude gets up, and he's huge. At this point he puts his hat back on, which has TRANSPORT SECURITY written on it in large letters. He hits the intercom button to signal the train guard and tells them to arrange police at the next station then just walks up and grabs one of the guys and tells him ever so calmly he just wanted to get home after a long shift so they all better behave really well because he is losing his patience fast.

Everyone starts cheering the security guy and yelling at the idiots who are then escorted from the train at the next stop. it was beautiful.

people at the train looking at their phones Liam Burnett-Blue

36. Baby driver grows up

My stepdad is a driving instructor. I went to get my license pretty late (22), and one day he was giving me a lesson and we were going over one of the possible courses that the test takes.

While we're driving down a street in the suburbs a guy is tailgating me... really gangster-looking guy, sideways hat and all. Every time I come to a stop sign I do a full stop, obviously, and he throws his hands in the air and yells. It's starting to stress me out, but my stepdad says "don't worry about it, watch this."

As we're going down the street he says "OK, now in about 50 feet I want you to start slowing down a little bit and right when you are in front of that school zone, pull over to the right". So I do it, right after I pull over, the guy who is right ticked at me now, takes off like a bullet. And about 5 seconds later a cop steps out from behind a tree and waves him over for going probably double the speed limit in a school zone.

We laughed. Hard.

police car at street Matt Popovich

37. The data is in the details

I worked as a database administrator for a community center for one summer in university. Basically, I created a database for them to track who was donating to them and how much they were donating, and who was volunteering at the centre and for how many hours. Very simple work and despite being the youngest person on staff by about 25-30 years, I got along well with all of my co-workers except for my immediate boss who was a total piece of work.

The next spring, I was applying for jobs and e-mailed my old boss to ask for a letter of recommendation. Much to my surprise, she told me that she didn't write recommendation letters "out of principle". I was pretty upset about it because I was finding it very difficult to find a position and not being able to count on my most recent employer for a reference was a definite blemish on my resume.

However, in spite of this, I managed to land a decent job. Lo and behold, my old boss e-mails me on day 1 of my new job, begging me to come in because she had somehow ignored all the warnings in the user documentation I wrote and moved some files around rendering it impossible for her to access the database. She asked if I would come in and I e-mailed her back and told her I already had a job and couldn't do it "out of principle", effectively rendering my entire summer at the centre a waste of time from their perspective.

woman with black hair smiling engin akyurt

38. The karma continues

When I was a teenager, I was in a van with a bunch of my friends, all stoned out of our gourds. We stopped for gas at a place on a busy intersection. One of my friends points out some action happening in a car parked next to the street and says, "He's beating the crap out of her!"

Sure enough, some macho moron is bouncing his girlfriend's head off the dashboard. Now we were no innocent teenagers, and this van was our mailbox-baseball-mobile. We grabbed our bats and prepared to intervene. But just as we were getting out, the girl grabs the keys out of the guy's ignition and throws them into the street.

I can see the rest in slow motion, clear as day, even though it happened more than 20 years ago. The guy races out of the car in a huff, runs into the street, bends to pick up his keys. He gets back up, points at the car, and starts to yell something, his face red with rage. Just then a little sports sedan turns the corner at speed, and hits him straight on in the legs. He does a flip over the car and falls into a limp pile. Girlfriend runs to him, crying in remorse...

As I said, we were stoned. Carrying drugs and bats, a bunch of punk rock kids. We were in no way prepared to stick around and talk to the cops, so this was the last I knew of things until a few years later.

One night, back from college on winter break, I was telling this story at a party. A girl looks at me funny, starts asking me date and location questions. She was really freaking out. Turns out she was the driver that hit the guy, only she didn't know what kind of a guy he was. No one at the scene, including the girlfriend, said anything about the abuse. The driver had felt guilty for years about running down some innocent guy that just happened to be standing in the road, crippling him for life. My chance retelling of the story took a huge burden off her.

silhouette of man and woman under yellow sky Eric Ward

39. Tourists get what's coming to them

I have a farm in Africa. It's a small farm, family land for several generations. My cousins who live there are pretty much subsistence farmers; they eat what they grow, mostly corn (Maize). And there is a pond we fill to fish farm when it is not too dry. (But it had been very wet and it has silted up) Anyway, I am visiting them, helping fertilize the field before planting. Now by "fertilize" I mean the good stuff, nothing from Monsanto, but three months of dung accumulated over Winter.

All of sudden a big Land Rover pulls up. Full of tourists (I think they were English by their accents). They are lost, trying to get to a resort far away. We give directions. They don't like that we have told them a long route -- it really was the correct route. They tell us that the Land Rover can "go through anything" and want to cut through the field. They offer to pay us. Well, would any farmer allow such a thing? We say no.

At some point they just take off...and drive right into the muddy pond that is hard to see because its overgrown this time of year. Land Rovers are wonderful for off road. But several feet of mud and vines and weeds? They swirl, and turn, and back up, just getting more stuck. Finally they emerge on foot...through the mud.

We are so shocked we can't even laugh...until later. They walk up to us and sheepishly ask to hire a car. We charged them well. Also charged the towing company that came to get their car. My cousins made a tidy sum. It is now the family joke that we should be growing tourist cars instead of Maize and fish....

grayscale photo of car on grass field Jorge César

40. Not so fast

I had a summer job in a very famous amusement park (mice and ducks everywhere). My job was to sell ice creams, cokes and pop corn in carts scattered around the park. We had several managers, and every morning one of them had the duty of assigning all the employees around the carts.

I am quite tall (6'6"/198cm) and some of the carts had very low roofs, which meant I could not stand up in them. These also happened to be the busiest and most hated carts by employees. Most managers would put me in roofless carts after I asked nicely. However this one manager thought I was trying to dodge the bad carts, and would always put my name on the list next to one of them. Every time I would have to ask to be moved, call another manager, it was a pain, and she hated me for this.

Then came my last day. The hated manager was on duty, and assigned me to a location that looked more like a small fast-food place, with a small house were several cashiers would sell food, and guests could sit down to eat their food. And because they had paid an ungodly amount of money to enter and for their food, guests never cleaned up their trays and left everything on the table, which meant that someone was there to help with sales, but mostly to clean up tables all the time. Of course, on that day, that was me.

The park closed at 11pm, the location closed at 11pm too, so usually cashiers would end their shift at 11pm, and the "helper" at midnight to have one hour to clean the place and leave. My shift ended at 11pm too. I asked the manager if she wanted me to close at 10, and she started yelling saying that the place closes at 11pm and there are no exceptions for me!

You can guess it, at 10:50 my colleague closed the place, counted his money and I left. I of course went with him, and left a disaster scene of full trashes and dirty tables behind me. We both went back to our HQ. She sees me and explodes, asking why I left an hour early and that I need to return and clean the place. She says that I could have big problems and get fired on the spot for this. I had been waiting for that moment all day long! I proceeded to show her the employees' timetable, where next to my name you could read "3-11pm - last day". I clocked out while she was calling me all kinds of names. I heard from some colleagues that she had to ask some of them for help. Nobody wanted to do extra time late at night, so she had to do it herself at almost 1 in the morning.

red and yellow crane near building during sunset Thomas Stadler

41. They fired the wrong accountant

A couple years ago I had a job for a company where I worked in the estimating department and would occasionally do some accounting work and anything else they needed me to all for minimum wage. I always did my work quickly and efficiently, knew more about my department than anyone else there and even taught the guy they hired to run the estimating department after the previous manager left how to do his job.

One day a couple days after I had totaled my car I got done with my work and was waiting on a ride home. Normally I would have just gone outside and smoked a cigarette until my ride got there, but this was a couple days after I had decided to quit smoking so I decided just to wait in my cubicle instead. Another employee there who was above me in the company who didn't like me at all walked by and started berating me for sitting in my desk and not doing anything. I went on to explain to her that I had done all the work available for me for the day, wasn't on the clock, and was just waiting on my ride. She starts yelling at me about how there was trash in the break room to take out (which was never one of my responsibilities at my job because we had a cleaning company to do that), I told her I didn't think to do that because it wasn't part of my job, but I complied anyway.

Well apparently that was enough to get me fired, however instead of doing it themselves they decided to make my dad who also worked at the company fire me. They didn't say they were firing me, just that they "didn't need me anymore".

A couple months later the other guy in estimating who I trained how to do his job quit without notice. That's when they realized no one there knew how to do his or my old jobs. So they called me up begging me to come teach them how to do everything he and I did there, I just replied by saying, "Oh no, you don't need me." and hung up.

person holding white Android smartphone in white shirt NordWood Themes

42. Bowled her over

I worked as a bartender at a bowling alley. For some reason one of the other bartenders hated me. She was constantly poaching people on my side (horseshoe-shaped bar, so we each got a side), we split tips and whenever it was her turn to count them down I know she wasn't splitting them properly, tried to get the scheduling manager to put her on my days, etc. One of my regulars even said she caught her pocketing tips and not putting them in our communal bucket while I was working with her.

Well, tournament season started, which everyone dreaded/looked forward to. Dreaded because the shifts were twice or three times as long as normal and there was a constant rush of people at the bar. Looked forward to because shifts were two or three times as long as normal and there was a constant rush of people at the bar, so we'd make as much in a day as we did in a week.

Well, the first tournament was teams that she considered 'hers,' they bowled on her side on days she worked, so she knew them well and was looking forward to their tournament tips. She came in, saw that I was scheduled to bar tend that day, and flipped out. She started ranting to the manager (who happened to be the scheduling manager) and the owner of the place happened to be standing there. The owner pretty much said I was one of the better bartenders so I was getting put on the tournaments, and if she didn't like it she could just leave.

My coworker left. And then I got to work her normal shifts as well.

clear drinking glass with beer Meritt Thomas

43. That escalated quickly

I'm an IT consultant, and have a rep of being really competent with Microsoft Exchange Server. A couple of years ago I bid on but did not get a project to upgrade an Exchange 2003 environment to Exchange 2010. Multiple servers, multiple sites and right up my alley. The firm that won the bid did so by pricing it extremely low, about 40% below my price which was on the low end to begin with. Totally unrealistic pricing but they thought they could pull it off with their people. Their people were good generalists but did not have a handle on Exchange 2010.

I told the customer - who I'd done work for before and who I'd had a good relationship with - that it was not going to end well for them. They took it as sour grapes on my part. Fair enough. I had plenty of other things to do anyway so I just moved on.

Two weeks after they started the implementation phase of the job the other consulting firm augured in. The entire email system stopped working. No mail coming in or out, no mail flowing between any of the Exchange servers, everything just dead in the water. I find this out when I get a call late one evening at my home from the other consulting company begging me to pull them out of the fire. I told them no thanks. An hour later the owner of the other firm is at my front door trying to convince me to help them "for the sake of the customer". This is well after dark and the conversation does not go well. He ends up screaming at me and I slam the door then call the cops because I'm tired and afraid that I'll do something stupid if I continue to interact with the guy.

Cops come, he loses it, they arrest him for disorderly conduct and I have his damn car blocking mine in my driveway. I have it towed off (I had to pay for the privilege too). He spends the next 24 hours in jail, about average for getting through the Dallas County jail I'm told.

The customer called me the following day and I again declined to fix the mess. By this time I'd decided I didn't want any of that responsibility on me, period.

The customer ends up getting Microsoft Services in to fix everything (cost them about 5 times what I was going to charge by the way). The customer sues the other consulting firm, which promptly files for bankruptcy / closes its doors rather than deal with the lawsuit. Now I get all the work they would have gotten had they continued to be in business.

man in gray long sleeve shirt using Windows 11 computer Windows

44. A busload of karma

I used to live a street or two behind a central suburban bus stop ontop of a big hill and I would take the bus every day to University about an hour's bus ride away.

One morning I get on the bus and the bus pulls up to the intersection waiting for the intersection lights to turn red so it gets the green and pulls out. We get the green and start pulling out.

All of a sudden this primped up snooty middle aged woman in a red suit (I still remember the details because it made me so mad) FLEW through the red light in her huge silver Cadillac going the same way that the bus was turning.

The bus driver had to slam on the brakes quite suddenly and then honked at the woman. The woman, who clearly intentionally ran the red because her head was never down FLIPS THE BUS DRIVER OFF and keeps speeding. The bus driver, this really jovial large black lady, cursed and carried on.

From the bus terminal to the city you drive down a really big hill before it flattens out in the valley. In the mornings/evenings cops like to patrol the intersection right at the bottom of the hill especially because they can radar gun cars coming down the hill as the bus was because there is a curve in the road and if you're going too fast the cops can catch you before you have a chance to see them and slow down.

Well guess what happened?

We get to the bottom of the hill and see that the cops had pulled over a silver cadillac into the cross street and were issuing her a ticket.

The bus driver saw it and said, "Oh yeah baby!" and pulled the bus over to the sidewalk near to where the intersection was and flagged down one of the cops.

He came on and asked what was up and the bus driver asked if she had been caught speeding. The cop said she had and the bus driver said, "oh yeah? Is it still illegal to run a red light?" The cop laughed and said that it was, then asked her if the lady in the caddy had done that and the bus driver said yes.

The cop asks, "Well we will add that to her ticket--would you be willing to come in as a witness in court for that?"

Then the bus driver said, "HONEY, I GET PAID TO GO TO COURT FOR STUFF LIKE THIS. IT'D BE MY PLEASURE."

And the whole bus started clapping. It was such a good day.

woman wearing white blouse Monika Izdebska

45. Revenge sounds sweet

My first job out of high school was working for a rather famous and nation-wide guitar store chain. At first I thought it would fun, getting to be around guitars all day, and talk music with fellow musicians. Turns out I was wrong, that 10-hour shifts 5-6 days a week while listening to slighty-too-loud overhead music and 14-year-olds play the first 5 bars of "Crazy Train" over and over and over again wasn't actually all that great. But I stuck it out, I needed money and I have one of those "don't quit ever" attitudes.

When I got hired, the store was in serious trouble. They had recently fired a huge chunk of the staff for skimming profits and selling pot out of the warehouse. Their numbers were really low, and corporate was breathing down their necks. But, as it turns out, I have a penchant or selling stuff that I know about. I was the accessories guy, and got really, really good at it. I was routinely rolling $30k or better a month out the door, and the most expensive thing I had in my department was only $500. I also had one of the lowest return rates on the west coast, and a file with several letters from happy customers saying how much help I had been. Eventually, the store's numbers improved, especially my department. Eventually, we were #1 for our district, and #3 on the west coast, behind Hollywood and San Francisco.

However, NONE of that mattered to the GM or anyone from corporate. All they wanted was more from me. My numbers had to be better every month, or I'd get yelled at. I was written up for having a low sales month one January because I went on vacation. I would get daily emails and phone calls from the district and regional managers, demaning to know why I hadn't hit $xxxx in sales yet. My hours got bumped up to the point where my days consisted of sleeping, showering, eating, and working. I had zero social life. My girl at the time would go weeks without seeing me. Eventually, because of the stress, I developed a ulcer. So I decided to quit.

I threw myself into my last month, which just happened to be December, the month all retail workers hate. I worked extra hours, sold as much as I could, contacted old customers, you name it. Blew everyone out of the water, rolling just shy of $80,000 in gear. My boss called me in to his office, and said I was doing a good (not great, good) job, and to keep it up. I pointed to the sales numbers screen, pointed out how well I had been doing and how well liked I was by the customers, and asked for a raise. He laughed and said no. So I handed him my resignation letter. 2 weeks later I was done and starting classes in college, something I'd had to put off since work wouldn't allow me to cut hours for school.

I came back to the store a couple months later, as someone who had worked with me called and said they'd found a jacket of mine in the warehouse. When I showed up, the GM wasn't there. I asked, and what I was told was that apparently, corporate HAD noticed me, and when my GM had failed to retain me, they'd fired him. Also, that department went from #1 to #9 in the district, out of 11 stores. The district managers were scrambling to recover, a few got demoted because of how things panned out, and the extreme higher-ups were not happy that the district was in such a state. I laughed the laugh of the vindicated.

assorted-color jazz guitar lot Susan Mohr

46. You're out!

I went to a small school, of about 80 students. In my class there was 12. Although our numbers were small, we still had the classic bully archetype. Let's call him Christopher. Christopher was one of those kids who felt like he could do whatever he wanted to anyone else, and he would be absolved of all blame if he finished his routine with "It's just a joke". Basically, he was a grade-A jerk.

Enter the second major character. There was also a mentally challenged kid in our class. Let's call him Todd. Now, Todd was fond of asking questions. It was just his own way of obtaining information. I know this might sound bad, but we got annoyed with him pretty soon. Hey, we were just kids. Now although Todd annoyed us, we still all looked after him, and made sure nobody gave him crap. He was one of us, sometimes that was a good thing, sometimes a bad thing.

The Karmic incident in place took place once when we were the oldest year in the school. We basically ruled the school, and naturally this power would go to our heads. And it corrupted nobody quite as much as Christopher. We were playing rounders, (kind of a UK baseball) practicing for an upcoming competition. Split up into two teams, and made play each other. I was kinda mad because Todd was on my team, and as you can imagine, he wasn't the most athletically gifted. Picture Kermit The Frog trying to Run the 110m hurdles. THAT unathletic.

We were losing, due in no small part to the other teams superior members. I had lost interest, and only gave lackluster hits when it was my turn. Then it was Todd's turn. I watched, just to see how it would go. And I looked at the other team. Christopher was pitching the ball.

He wasn't even giving Todd a chance. He'd throw the ball at his feet, and burst out laughing with his team. Babe Ruth couldn't have done a thing with those kind of throws. It went on for 3 minutes. Eventually his own team got sick of him, and told him to give a decent throw so Todd could strike out and the game could progress.

He throws it, and Todd braces himself. We're all watching by now. Todd has tears in his eyes, the kind of thing humiliation does to someone like that. And as the ball draws closer, the world moved in slow motion for me.

WHACK. Todd didn't just hit the ball with the bat, he annihilated it. The Bang was heard all over the school. It sounded like a bomb had gone off, localised entirely around the side of the bat.

So what does a ball do when it's met with a force like that? I don't know for sure, but in this case it went back towards Christopher at Mach Speed. I didn't even see the ball on it's way back. It was like a bullet from a pistol. When it got to Christopher, it hit him squarely in the eye. He fell down, out cold. One of his friends helped him inside, while the rest of us, both teams, cheered and laughed. We lifted Todd on our shoulders, and gave him a heroes support.

He was no longer just Todd. He was Todd, the destroyer of Bullies.

selective focus photography of person holding baseball bat Eduardo Balderas

47. Want to limit my expenses? I'll make sure I spend the max

So I am a business consultant, and usually during the week we are at client site and get paid for travel, meals etc. The meal reimbursement policy is quite flexible, and doesn't limit what we can claim, like some of the other consulting companies. So we can claim lunch, drinks, whatever.

The policy, however, does lay down a GUIDANCE for a daily limit for food expenses, based on the country where you're travelling. I capitalized the word GUIDANCE, since that is exactly how it is written in the policy - it is a guidance, not a hard limit. For the UK, where my current project is, the limit is £40 per day, which is mostly ok, but can be a bit low if you're in the centre of London for example.

Now I do Intermittent Fasting, so most of the days I don't have breakfast and lunch, and just have one big meal a day, and have no problems keeping to the £40 (usually around £20). On some days, I might go to a fancy restaurant, have a couple of scotches with a steak, and run up a $60 bill. But during the course of a 5 day week, my average meals would run about £30 a day, if not less.

I've never had a problem claiming these expenses in my 9 years with the firm, but recently a new project manager came on board, and he sent back a couple of my expense reports for having meal expenses in excess of the £40 for a couple of days, even though the average meal expense over the week was much less.

I tried to reason with him, told him that it was a guidance and not a hard limit, and I was keeping the costs down on other days, he refused to budge and said I could only claim £40 a day for food.

So guess what, I started doing exactly that. Every day, I made sure I was claiming £40 or thereabouts for food. I started buying meals for the homeless people around the train station to make sure I could make up the £40.

So now, where I was claiming less than £150 a week for meals, I now claim £200 and get some good karma for it.

10 and one 10 us dollar bill Jason Leung

48. You want your food raw? Go crazy

I work at a french fry stand during my free time to earn some extra money. Last week, we had this customer that was REALLY impatient. There was an old lady who had paid before her. She wanted her fries to be first. I said, "Sorry can't do that." She said she's going to be late for something.

As I cook her fries, she asks me how much time does she have to wait to cook. I said 6 minutes. Only two minutes in, she asked me again! And at 3 minutes she wanted the fries. I told her that they're not yet cooked and are still cold inside. She said she didn't care. I told her to give me the money first. She gave the money, I gave the fries, still cold inside.

She took a couple of fries and ate them at the same time. She spat the fries into the little paper bag they come with. She wanted a refund. I just said, "Sorry can't do that."

French fries Louis Hansel

49. I can't pee without permission? I'll e-mail everyone!

Last week I was working from home one day, and got up to use the bathroom and make a cup of coffee. Took 10 minutes, tops. I get back to my computer to a bunch messages from my boss, getting increasingly nasty about something and why I wasn't answering quick enough for her. I send a message back with whatever it was she needed to know, and "apologizing" for not getting back to her soon enough.

When she finally answered me (about half an hour later) she said if I'm not going to be at my computer for any amount of time, I need to send an email to everyone in my office (including high level executives) that I'll be unavailable for X amount of time and why.

So that's what I've been doing. My normal phrasing for the message is: "Hi! I'll be unavailable from this time to this time as I'm going to use the bathroom/make some coffee/etc." Every single person in my office has told me it's fine and I don't need to tell them when I'm going to be gone for a few minutes, where I then forward them the original exchange between me and my boss and apologize but say this is what my direct report has told me to do, and this is the result if I don't.

They all hate her as much as I do now.

black laptop computer Stephen Phillips - Hostreviews.co.uk

50. You nearly killed me and you want a Yelp! review? You got it

Early August 2018, I tried to break up a late night fight between my cat and my parents' dog, and I lost. Didn't realize at the time just how bad cat bites are, so the next morning when my hand swelled up I went to the emergency room, where they gave me antibiotics. I'd been on antibiotics twice already that year, for pneumonia and a UTI, so despite knowing my allergies to both penicillin and sulfa were on my chart, I made sure to request ones I wasn't allergic to, you know, because duh.

They gave me sulfa antibiotics and I almost died. Two days later I'm back in the ER and get different antibiotics. I have good credit and would like to keep it that way, so paid off all my bills as soon as I received them. There was drama with getting additional bills later to the point where I called and asked the registrant to go through my account to make sure I had paid everything, and if I hadn't, I would like to pay it over the phone.

Cut to months later, when I get some very angry calls from a collections agency trying to collect on the bills I had already paid. It took a three-way phone call between the ER, the collections agency and me to figure it out, but we figured it out.

Cut to the past two weeks, where I have gotten 10 different emails asking me to review the ER. One email, every business day: "How Did We Do?", "Reminder: Give us Your feedback!", "Don't Forget to Review!"

So I did, on Yelp, Facebook, and Google, just like they asked.

"This place almost killed me with antibiotics that my medical history clearly states I am allergic to. Then they had the nerve to send my already-paid bill from their attempted manslaughter to a collections agency - I'm likely not the only person they've tried to bully into double paying a bill. Now it's a year later and they've suddenly decided to hound me for a review."

Go ahead, call me again.

person lying on bed and another person standing Olga Kononenko

51. You reimburse me to take the bus? I'll take a cab then

I used to travel for work fairly often, and the company I worked for had very strict reimbursement policies. You had to have a receipt for EVERYTHING or you wouldn't get refunded for it.

On one trip I was staying in the center of a mid-sized city, but the training I was attending was in the suburbs. There was a bus route I could take, and while it took a great deal more of my time it was WAY cheaper to take the bus than a taxi. $1.50 bus fare vs. approximately $40 for a cab. Problem is, there's no way to get a receipt for riding the bus.

So, I email my company's business manager and explain the situation. Ask if I can please get reimbursed for the bus fare without receipts. The response comes -- no, any reimbursement requests without receipts will be denied, and I will have to cover the expense out-of-pocket.

Fine. Cab rides, twice a day, for a week. Totally allowable within company policy. Fares plus tips, the total taxi expenses come to almost $500. My boss questions the request, I show her the email from the business manager and explain that I tried to take the bus (which would have totaled $15 for the week) but was told it wasn't reimbursable.

Over the following weeks, heated discussion ensues between the business office and senior management. Two months later, there's a new policy -- reimbursement requests for anything over $10 must have a receipt. Under $10? No receipt required.

selective focus photo of yellow taxi LED signage Marc Kleen

52. You try to rip us off? You can pay double

I work nights at a hotel. Back then, the manager would place ads with coupons advertising rooms at a discount. In general, these coupons were a real pain in the butt. They clearly said not valid on weekends or holidays and had expiration dates. I would regularly have to argue with guests because they were trying to use them in violation of the terms.

Anyway, one day this guy comes in and slaps a magazine with one of our coupons down on the desk and stares me down. I sigh internally and look at the coupon. It’s a couple of months out of date.Me: Our rate for the night is...

Him: I know the rate. It says it right here.

He jabs his finger into the magazine just about punching a hole in our marble counter.

Him: Now you’re going to honor this coupon or I’m going to call my friend who owns the company.

I really want to tell him to go ahead because if he really knew the owner, he’d know that the company is a franchise and each hotel is privately owned. Instead, what I say is...

Me: Absolutely, sir.

You see, what I was going to tell him before he cut me off was that his coupon was out of date and from the height of tourist season. Since the season was over and we’d already gotten snow, our regular nightly rate was almost half of what his coupon said. Since he was insistent that I honor it, I saw no reason not to charge him almost double what everyone else was paying.

white bed comforter near table lamp Markus Spiske

53. Insist I check IDs? Now you don't get a drink

I work in a casual fine dining restaurant in a downtown area. Prices aren't crazy but high enough that we dont get a super young crowd... I would say average age of our dinner crowd is 30 to 60 although it varies more on the weekend. I only include this information so you understand why I didn't initially ask for identification (even though you should always check)

Thursday night a table of 4 comes in for early dinner. Two middle-aged Karens and their daughters. Excellent. I'm ready for them to split entrees and tip me 15%. Not the WORST type of table if we're being honest, but nonetheless.

They order a pitcher of sangria and I tell them I'll be right back with that for them to which Momma Karen says to me, "You really aren't going to check these girls' IDs? Her birthday was just last month. Aren't you supposed to check anyone who looks under 40?"

She is correct, of course that I should have asked for identification even though they girls were with their mothers and I was being lazy by assuming they were of age since their moms did not stop them from ordering drinks. I agree with her and tell her that I actually am supposed to check ALL IDs regardless of age, and proceed to look at all 4 of the ladies' IDs.

Unfortunately for Momma Karen, her birthday was a few days previously and her ID had expired. In the state of Michigan it is illegal to serve alcohol to anyone with an expired ID regardless of age so I had to deny her a glass for the sangria, while her daughter and friend shared a pitcher.

She informed me that she, a business owner, is more aware of the law than I, a mere server, could ever be. Why couldn't I "just do my job" and bring her a glass? My generation doesn't respect elders and blah blah blah.

You asked for it, lady.

clear wine glass with red liquid inside kofookoo.de

54. Don't want to help me do my work? Guess you can stay late

When I was in high school I had a part time job working at a local restaurant. One day I came in and was scheduled to wash dishes, no big deal. I walked into the back and came to find out that the morning shift did not have a dish washer therefore there was a mountain of dishes. No bueno. On top of all of that, we got slammed that night.

As a minor, I was required to take a 30 minute break in order to work my full shift (4-10pm I believe). As I clocked out for my break I asked my manager if she could have someone cover my position while I was on break to prevent an even worse situation than was already at hand. She responded, ‘Won’t be able to. You’ll just have to stay late and finish it.’

An important thing to keep in mind is that this manager was notoriously lazy and unhelpful. She never lended a helping had to get things done faster. She would rather stay 3 hours past close sitting in the office waiting for us to finish our closing duties instead of coming out and helping and getting everything done in a timely manner. She also was not very familiar with child labor laws in Ohio.

Since I was a minor, not only did I have to take a 30 minute break, I also could not work past 11pm on school nights. So after clocking back in from my break, I resumed washing the mountain of dishes that had accumulated. I took my time and didn’t rush to get everything cleaned, but also wasn’t going extremely slow on purpose.

10:59 rolls around and I walk into the office to tell her that I am leaving. She asked ‘got everything done?’ ‘Nope!’ I said. ‘It’s a Wednesday night. Can’t work past 11pm. Labor laws. I left the water turned on for you. There’s still a lot left!’

The look on her face was priceless. I clocked out with the biggest smile on my face knowing that she was going to have to leave the office and do something for once. Asked another manager the next day to see what time she clocked out. 1:15am!

white ceramic plate on black dishwasher Nathan Dumlao

55. Want me to get a doctor's note? Now I'll be sicker longer

I am a grown man, and I can tell when I am sick. I know my body a little better than a doctor does in terms of recovery and if it is something I'm not sure of I will see a doctor. But my place of work has this silly rule that if you are going to be out 3 days you have to have a doctor's note.

Anyway, I got food poisoning the other day. It was the middle of the night right before I was going to go in before it started to hit and I knew what was coming. It was going to be 36 hours of running to the bathroom followed by 24 hours of being super tired from not having eaten for the last 2 days and not having had any sleep for the last 48 hours. It's a full 3 day recovery for me. The first 36 really are the worst though.

So I called in sick on Tuesday, and Wednesday and was going to call in sick on Thursday too to get my much needed rest and be 100% for work on Friday. But when I called in this morning I was told I have to get a doctor's note to miss this day. It's stupid because what is a doctor going to tell me that I don't already know. But my doctor also hates these types of rules so she had my back.

I went to her this morning and told her what my work said. She asked if maybe I might have had chills during my time being sick. So I said yes. She said she doesn't feel comfortable saying it was just food poisoning and is going to say it could have been a stomach flu. She's writing me a note to be out until Monday now.

So now I have 2 days of just rest and relaxation followed by the weekend. Thanks for forcing me to go into the doctor!

man writing on paper Scott Graham

56. Want to be racist? I'll mess up your tea

I am mixed race (white and Middle Eastern) and I have a Middle Eastern name. Some people can't see past the name and treat me differently, so I've developed a thick skin.

I was in a multiple-day board meeting and volunteered to make the mid-morning coffee run for everyone. One of the senior board members requested chai (tea with milk), and when I asked how she wanted it, said, "You're brown, you know how to do it."

Hmmmm.

I let the comment slide, and headed down to the coffee shop. Problem was, I legitimately did not know what "you're brown, you know how to do it" meant. My dad always liked his mint tea with a bit of honey in it rather than sugar, so I had an idea.

I ordered the board member a large chai and then proceeded to pour out about 1/3 of it. I then took the squeeze bottle of honey at the end of the coffee bar and filled up the 1/3rd of the cup that I had poured out. It was less a drink and more of a slurry when I tried to stir in the honey, and it goes without saying it was sweet to the point of being inedible.

I brought everyone their drinks and handed the chai slurry to the board member. The weight of the cup threw her off, and she hesitantly took a sip before recoiling in revulsion.

She looked at me with a mix of anger/disgust/confusion on her face, and said, "What the [bleep] is this? How much honey is in here?!"

With barely concealed glee, I looked her dead in the eye and said, "Oh, that's how brown people like it."

She said nothing. I was not asked to make a coffee run again.

shallow focus photography of coffee late in mug on table Nathan Dumlao

57. Don't want to talk to me in private? I'll air your dirty laundry in public

So I have worked in IT most of my life. One day it was slow so the manager asked me to check the firewall logs for anything suspicious. Pretty soon I find indications of a female staff member accessing some racy content of an adult nature.

This staff member had a reputation for blaming her slow productivity on her computer/network/mouse etc. so she was given no quarter.

I go up to the large office where she was, surrounded by many other staff members but her monitors are facing a wall and only she can see them. I politely as to speak to her in private for a moment in a meeting room.

Her response: "No, I don't have time, I'm too busy."

Again I quietly said it would be in her best interest to have this conversation discreetly.

Her: " Look! Stop wasting my time and say what you need to say."

I pause, clear my throat, and say loud and clear, "OK the IT manager has asked that you stop watching adult content on your work computer."

There's a moment of stunned silence where the staff member turns beet red and everyone stares at her including her manager.

Me, "Okay, see you later."

And I turned and left the office.

woman in black tank top covering her face with her hands J Taubitz

58. Oh, I've been 'randomly selected'?

This happened about 3 years ago while going through an airport in the U.S.

I walked through the metal detector, something must have beeped and they needed to pat me down. After a thorough pat down, I put my shoes on and started to walk over to grab my bag. A TSA agent stops me and says "you've been randomly selected please step into the body scanner."

I was polite, but said that I really didn't want to get into the body scanner, and asked if there was another way. The agent said that I could get a pat down. I said well I just got a pat down so... They angrily told me to pick an option!

So, I took two steps backwards, to the woman who had patted me down 30 seconds ago and spread 'em... again. While she was patting me down I asked her if she found anything new. She stared daggers at me but let me go.

people sitting on chair inside building Phil Mosley

59. Want my test answers? I'll erase all yours first

This just happened today at school, so it’s still fresh in my mind.

We were in algebra and we were taking a test. The teacher was out of the classroom for a bit, and someone asked me for the answers. Now I had secretly hated this kid for almost a year because he had destroyed my $210 phone and only payed me back $20 and said “hopefully this will be enough for a screen protector.”

So anyways it turned out he had skipped a question, so he accidentally had about 75% of the questions answered in the wrong box, making them all wrong. He asked me to erase them for him so he could copy my answers because his arm hurt. I was just about done with mine, so I finished it and erased his, but instead of giving him my answers, I turned my paper in. He now had 5-10 minutes to answer about 30 questions.

The teacher then walked back in while he was pleading with me and asked what was going on. I told him that David was trying to copy my answers. No regrets.

person writing on white paper Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu

60. Just want me to do my job? I'll do exactly that

I was an employee who always turned up to work early as I hate being late and just got on with work as soon as I arrived which was usually 30 minutes before my shift, never took a lunch break, instead just eating at my desk and working as I was busy all the time. I would often stay late to get the days work done otherwise it snowballs into the following day and I can never catch up. I also did a lot of things for people that wasn't technically my job but I often knew more about the query than the department that was supposed to deal with it.

One day, I was stuck in traffic due to an accident and called ahead to let them know I was going to be 5-10 minutes late. I got there about 5 minutes late and promptly got on with the already surmountable amount of work. Later that morning I was called into the managers office and dressed down as I didn't come and apologize personally for being late. I explained that I called ahead and I'm always in early unless it's out of my control and never take a lunch break. This didn't matter as that was my choice and I'm expected to be there on time and just do my job.

So that's exactly what I did. Anything that wasn't my job I asked them to contact the relevant department as I couldn't help, I sat at my desk and didn't log on until my start time, took my lunch and left on time. This caused a lot of issues as everyone knew to call me any time during working hours for urgent things. Within a week managers were having a go at me as they were having to take calls during their lunch and I had made this issue as I was 'too helpful' and now I'm being petty because I got told off.

I was looking for another job anyway but this made me realize I was just a number to the company.

Within a month I had another job. Last I heard there were 5 of them doing my old job plus a supervisor. From a company where you were expected to be grateful for a $500 pay raise every other year this must have put a huge dent in their budget.

analog wall clock on wall Steve Johnson

61. Want a full accounting of my time? Let's see how much of it you waste

My boss is a lunatic who will often, without prompting, flip out and accuse me of wasting time.

(I literally do the work of five people -- I run the office and the other employees, do invoicing, accounting, tech support, admin stuff, etc. but also graphic design, photography, website design, videography, content creation, and social media among others. I am dead by the end of every day, which is usually 12 hours long.)

This flip-out happens meanwhile he's constantly interrupting me for stupid stuff instead of letting me work. He has no self awareness of this no matter how many times I try to point it out to him, and if something doesn't get done, he again loses it and accuses me of wasting time.

A few months ago, he demanded a full accounting of my time. This was after he interrupted me repeatedly for discussions about frivolous topics, and I was at the end of my freaking rope.

So: here is an excerpt of the 'Full Accounting Of My Time', as he requested.

11:45 - 12:20

  • Editing and working on hype video, including organizing, trimming, melding clips.

12:20 - 12:55

  • You stopped me for religious discussion, reading several Biblical parables aloud and explaining them.

1:00 - 1:22

  • Video editing, arranging clips in preparation for music and special effects.

1:22 - 1:54

  • You stopped me to show several lengthy Grant Cardone videos because "they annoyed you".

1:54 - 2:29

  • Video editing, transferring files to HD for compilation.

2:29 - 2:40

  • You stopped me to have me watch a YouTube video of a duck.

In total, he took up 3 hours and 28 minutes of my day.

He's mostly shut up about my "time-wasting".

img_615cbad466937.jpg Anthony A

62. Want make a big deal over 9 cents? Game on

This happened in 1999, which is important because consumer cell phone use was pretty new at the time.

I was a college student and had just gotten my first cell phone, and as a result, didn't need a phone in my dorm room. The school had a small department that managed in-dorm phone service and you were automatically given an account, but if you cancelled during the first few weeks of school, you weren't billed for those weeks (or for future weeks, obviously). Okay, great: I didn't need a landline, so, on my first or second day on campus, I canceled the service. I expected no bill.

But there was a wrinkle. I had an on-campus job and arrived at school a few weeks before classes started. The billing software saw that I had a day of phone service and should have erased it, but it wasn't designed properly -- it only erased service from the first few weeks of school, not the weeks before classes began. I was billed about $3 for a day or two of phone service I never signed up for.

When I got the bill, I went to the phone department office to explain, and they said no problem, they'd look into it. And surprise, surprise, they were able to remove the $3 charge. A month later, I get a new bill in the mail, showing a balance of $3 and a credit of $3 -- and a late fee of $0.09 for failing to pay the $3 on time.

I went back to the phone department and they basically told me that they don't know how to fix it and that I should just pay the nine-cent fine, and that if I didn't, it would automatically get kicked over to a collections agency and screw up my credit rating. I said that's ridiculous and they agreed but couldn't fix it. And then someone there, jokingly, said something about a payment plan.

The phone department, being part of the university, wanted to keep students out of hock, so they allowed you to pay your unpaid phone bills over time. This was intended for the stupid freshman who made hours-long long distance calls to his high school girlfriend, not realizing it was like $4/minute, but in theory, it applied to my situation, too. You could agree to pay any outstanding debt over the remaining months of the school year, which in my case meant $0.01 per month for nine months. I asked them to sign me up.

For the next nine months, they sent me a one-cent bill, which, by rule, I had to go to the phone office to pay within 10 days. I did, and they'd give me a receipt, which I asked them to mail. In total, they sent me 20 letters -- nine bills, nine receipts, plus the original bill and the one with the late free in it. At the $0.30 or so in postage that they had to pick up, it cost them at least $6 to get my nine cents.

closeup photo of silver iMac Alesia Kazantceva

63. Coffee isn't part of my free breakfast? In that case...

The company I work for is going on a bit of a hiring spree, and that means lots of interviews. Because many of those applying still have jobs, we sometimes do interviews very early or very late in the day. This was one of these days.

When this happens, the company will provide breakfast from the local coffee shop for those coming in early to interview. This is a nice little perk, and today is the first opportunity I've had to take advantage of it. Being the sort of person I am, I made a fairly minimal order of a cheese pastry and a latte. I wasn't particularly interested in wasting the company's money on a nice breakfast.

Shortly after I emailed my order, I was returned an email that said they were only providing food, not drinks, for breakfast, citing price savings and the fact that the office has a coffee machine. This was a bit irritating as I had made an order that was below the average cost of a breakfast item at the shop.

So I replied, asking in that case to change my order.

I found by far the most expensive item on their breakfast menu, but I did absolutely make sure there was no doubt this item was in the breakfast section. It is, after all, a bagel. With cream cheese. And a scrambled egg. And a fried egg. And four different types of cheese. And ham, sausage, steak and bacon. And avocado, spinach and tomato. But a bagel nonetheless.

My order was accepted.

It was inedible. Well, inedible as a bagel. I poured it all out onto a plate and ate it with a knife and fork. Half for breakfast and half for lunch.

Oh, and it cost 4 times what my original order cost, which was rejected because I wanted a cup of coffee.

person holding white ceramic cup with hot coffee Clay Banks

64. Won't deposit my check? Let's do it the hard way

So this was a few years ago. My crappy bank at the time had a policy about check deposits; over a certain amount (maybe $500) they held them for "24 hours."

Well, I got paid on Friday by check. It was a small employer that didn't offer direct deposit. So every two weeks I went to the bank after work. The tellers were still working but apparently the processing day was over. So my "24 hours" didn't start until Monday and my money would finally be available Tuesday sometime.

This was super frustrating. Especially when rent was due Saturday or Sunday.

But the bank's policy allowed them to cash any check for customers as long as they had at least as much in their total accounts, which I did in savings.

So this became my routine. Get paid. Go to the back. Have them cash out my check down to the penny and then immediately deposit the cash except for maybe 40 bucks.

As you can imagine, this took the teller noticeably longer than simply depositing my check, but hey, policy is policy, right?

img_615cbae477703.jpg Kostiantyn Li

65. You want to pay more? Go riiiiiight ahead

I used to work retail a few years back and there were always customers putting tickets where they didn't belong or putting reduced stickers on other items that they weren't for. We were trained to identify when something was wrong and educate the customer on correctly reading tickets to prevent loss.

I was serving a very thin, rude woman buying a lot of fruit and vegetables, when I see her opening her pre packaged mushrooms and putting them into a paper bag that are used for the loose ones. This was certainly not allowed by policy.

Me: Excuse me, I'm still going to have to scan that barcode, I can't put those in by weight, because they're supposed to be prepackaged.

Her: I see other people do this all the time! Just put it in. Isn't the customer always right?

Me: But ma'am, that's unfair to every person doing the right thing. I can't put it in by weight.

Her: Do it, or I'll call your manager and we'll see what they say.

Knowing the manager would just side with her anyway, I relented and put the mushrooms through the scales. $4.28. That was a little high, I thought. While she was packing, I scanned the mushroom barcode and took it back off to see what the actual price was. $2.99. Okay. Lady paid extra because she wanted me to bend the rules for her. I did. I didn't tell her about it. She paid and left all smug. Good for her.

red and green chilis Danica Tanjutco

66. You want me to call you? Give me one second

A few years ago, I went to the doctor's to make an appointment (I had to go to the pharmacy next to it so thought I'd pop in instead of calling).

Receptionist tells me they cant take walk ins (I didn't want an appointment then anyway), and can only take bookings over the phone.

So I stood at reception, got my phone out and called the number for the phone right next to her. I made eye contact with her, the whole time, as she answered the phone, and booked me in.

person holding white smartphone sitting on stair Chad Madden

67. You want to meet my dad? You got it

So my friend Talon's dad died about 5 years ago. They got him cremated, so Talon has an urn with his dad's ashes in it.

One of our teachers was mad at Talon about something (I'm not sure what) but the teacher demanded to meet Talon's father. He tried multiple times to tell our teacher that his dad, was in fact dead. But Mr. McStupid wouldn't listen to him. He didn't give the kid an opportunity to explain. He just kept interrupting and sent him out.

So the next day, Talon shows up to school with his dads urn and plops it on the teachers desk and says, "You wanted to meet my dad, so here."

I have never seen a teacher so mortified in my life.

pink and white flowers Mayron Oliveira

68. I can edit your photos however I want? Enjoy this

I’m not a professional photographer, but I do have decent equipment and portfolio so a lot of friends will hit me up for discounted photo shoots. Most of them pay or at least buy me dinner, but others expect me to do it for free...

I’m close with my ex-boyfriend’s family so I was thrilled when his younger sister asked me to come to her prom pictures earlier this month, until she told me to bring the camera. I did mention to her that I’m doing online school and I have an exam due that week so the pictures might not be ready for another week. She was fine with that.

Within two hours of taking pictures of half a dozen high-school students, I ended up with 300+ shots because everyone wanted the perfect Instagram shot. Whatever, I can go home, study, and slowly work on sorting through the pictures later. They’re not paying me so I wasn’t exactly motivated either.

I get a text from her and her mom that night at around 11pm, they want the pictures edited AND uploaded by the next morning so they could be shown off on social media. I tried to explain that I’m studying but they weren’t having it. They said, “We don’t care how you edit it, just make it look nice.”

Fine.

I spent the next 3+ hours working on the pictures and editing them really nicely that even I was proud of....then I hid Shrek into the background of every single picture. Shrek with his head poking out between the kids, Shrek posing happily, Shrek had a very nice time at prom evidently. I uploaded the pics and sent them off, no one noticed the extra guest for weeks and I got my ear chewed out because my ex’s sister didn’t appreciate her 900 followers on Instagram seeing Shrek grinning between her and her boyfriend.

They asked me to edit however I wanted, so I delivered. Shrek was one of my best clients I’ve ever had.

green and brown plush toy Ashkan Forouzani

69. You want me to speak in public? I'm bringing my dog

I train search and rescue/human remains detection dogs, which basically means we wander around disaster sites, crime scenes, and wilderness area searches looking for bodies or other remains, to put it very simply.

This story is a couple of years back. When I was in college, I was required to take a public speaking course. I have stage fright and social anxiety, so this was basically torture. My instructor was pretty jaded, and didn't much care that I was having a panic attack on stage. She suggested I talk about something I'm more comfortable with, and to toughen up.

The final was supposed to be a demonstrative and informative presentation, and 30 minutes long.

Fine.

My dogs have clearance by campus police to train on the university grounds, and I have clearance from city and county police to bring bio waste materials with me throughout the county. I prepare a fancy Powerpoint presentation, and bring in my big, crazy cadaver dog and scent samples, including a human toe, blood, and bones. I spend half an hour showing how to train a dog to detect human corpses, along with a few vivid anecdotes about some of my past searches. We even let some members of the audience come handle my dog and give clicker training a try (audience involvement in the demonstration was required).

I got an A, but the mildly horrified look on my professor's face was far more rewarding.

closeup photography of woman holding adult golden retriever Adam Griffith

70. Won't let us pee? We'll be returning our purchases

Virtually all restrooms in downtown Denver require a purchase to use the bathroom. Not a big deal to me, and I have no problem abiding by that rule.

Yesterday I took the wife and kids downtown to shop around and eat dinner. We stopped in a little store where my wife bought a purse for just under $200. We left and about 30 minutes later my daughter needed to use the restroom. We happened to be close to the same store, so we went into there to the same employee who rang us up to ask to use the restroom.

She said we'd have to make a purchase. I had my receipt and showed I did make a purchase, she was the one who rang us up. She argued that we'd have to make a purchase again now to be considered customers to use the restroom.

My daughter was struggling, so I grabbed a chapstick off the counter and bought that, while the employee gave me attitude like she just pulled one over on me. She gave me the pass code, and my wife handed me her new purse and went to the restroom with our daughter.

The moment she closed the door I turned back to the cashier and demanded a refund on both the chapstick and the purse. She argued that I couldn't do that, but I pointed to her sign saying there is a seven day return policy, no questions asked. Took a picture of it with my phone and asked if she wanted to process the refund, or I'll just have Visa do a charge back and get my money that way.

She silently processed the returns just as my girls returned. She tried to say something to my wife about me returning the purse, and my wife replied after her attitude, she didn't want it anymore anyways.

clothes store interior Clark Street Mercantile

71. Don't want me to take my insulin? Here you go

I'm a Type 1 diabetic, and I have an insulin pump. When I was in 6th grade my pump was wired, ie it had a tube that went from the pump, which looked a bit like a cell phone, to me. So, I have to take insulin after I eat and I had pretty explicitly told all of my teachers that I was diabetic, but this teacher was a bit thick and a stickler for the rules.

My class had just gotten back to class after lunch and we were reading a book out loud. My pump beeped to remind me to take insulin after lunch, and I noticed Teacher give me a bit of a dirty look, but I ignored it and whipped out my pump to deliver insulin.

Teacher: Stop texting in class! You know the rules. Please bring your "phone" to the front and report to detention.

I was about to protest, but realized this would be an excellent opportunity for some MC.

So, with a smug grin on my face, I walk up to the teacher with my pump in my hand, and it still LITERALLY attached to me, I hand her my pump.

Teacher: What's this cord? Why do you have a chain for your cell phone.

Me (deadpan stare): I'm a diabetic, and this is my insulin pump.

At this point, her face goes sheet white, and I unclip my pump from my body (a bit of a maneuver because it was on my arm and slightly difficult to reach) and walk out of the class before she can say anything and go directly to detention. When I arrive I tell the detention officer I was sent for using electronics in class. Before I even finish, a student from my class walks in and says I can come back to class, and the teacher apologies profusely and never messes with me for beeping or using any device.

person using disposable syringe put specimen on blue and white glucose meter Matt Chesin

72. You don't want me to save you $300? Okay then...

So I work as a long-term care (LTC) biller. I do pharmacy billing for nursing homes and assisted living facilities. So any meds they get, I bill. My company is contracted with LTC facilities, we provide medications to people in LTC.

I’ve been working in LTC for 16 years. The company I work for does something that is absolutely unheard of in pharmacy billing... they care about their patients. So, if your insurance drops a copay of $20, but the “at cost” price is only $5, we charge you the $5. We give you the lower price. This is really rare in my field. Most pharmacies are out to screw everyone. My company actually gives you the better deal.

This caller (Karen) didn’t get that.

Karen: Hi, I’d like to talk about my mom’s bill. You didn’t run this through my mom’s insurance!

Me: Let me check this out. Yes, we saw that your copay was actually higher than the “at cost” rate, so we dropped the charge down, so it’s cheaper for you.

Karen: I pay for insurance and I expect insurance prices!

Me: Of course, but when we can charge you the lesser price, we do that, we try to—

Karen: IDGAF about YOUR prices. I want it ran through the insurance! For tax purposes!

Me: Regardless of that, we can send you an itemized tax paper, to show what you paid. We just are trying to give you the lower--

Karen: I WANT THIS RAN THROUGH THE INSURANCE! THIS IS RIDICULOUS YOU AREN’T BILLING MY INSURANCE!

Me: We did, but our “at cost” gives you a lower price, so we charged you the lower price.

Karen: I AM DONE WITH THIS. BILL THE INSURANCE!

Me: Your bill is $75. If I bill your insurance, they will raise your bill.

Karen: IT WILL NOT AND I EXPECT YOU TO REBILL MY ACCOUNT TO THE INSURANCE AND MAIL ME A NEW STATEMENT!

Me: Yes, ma’am.

I rebill the account. Her bill goes from $75 to $396.

She gets her new bill a week later. Calls back. Loses her mind, of course. My boss backed me and told her that since it’s been over 30 days since the meds were dispensed, we can’t reverse the claims. She’s stuck with the bill. Bottom line: if someone tells you they are giving you the best deal, take it.

white and blue medication pill blister pack Christine Sandu

73. Want to punish me for me hair? I'll make you dye yours

A couple years ago, I worked retail in a store geared towards children. A very.... magical store. Lots of princesses, superheroes....rodents. You get the picture. Our store had about 25 female employees (including all of management) and 3 male employees.

The dress code was incredibly strict. We had a uniform that had to be ironed all the time, no visible tattoos, only natural hair colors, women were encouraged to wear make up and style their hair, men were either to be clean shaven or have fully grown in facial hair.

For some reason, one particular manager was intent on nitpicking me regarding the dresscode, even when I was in complete compliance of it. I was constantly told that I needed to iron it better, so I started getting it dry cleaned and somehow that still wasn't enough.

I wore very minimal makeup and she constantly told me I should wear more (though she couldn't make me). Hair bows were a big thing at the store and people made and gave as presents custom ones highlighting characters. They weren't exactly against dress code, but they did push the limits. Regardless, this particular manager seemingly only had an issue with them when I wore them. Once, she got down on her hands and knees with a ruler to prove my pant hem was too long only to be proven wrong. There were also some conversations about my appearance that looking back were definitely body shaming.

As a side note, this particular manager was a natural brunette but she dyed her hair black and bleached a portion of the hair underneath so that it would show. 

I got the itch to dye my hair. However, with the dress code, only natural hair colors were allowed, so I came up with a compromise: silver. I went and had my hair professionally lightened and dyed silver.

The next day I worked, the district and regional managers were visiting the store. I was always picked to work those days because I had the best "stage presence" and knowledge of the company and those two were always impressed by me.

When I showed up to work that day with my new shiny silver hair, my store managers were appalled. They wanted to send me home immediately, and for whatever reason they decided to talk to me in front of the higher ups. This is a paraphrasing of the convo:

"You're in major violation of the dress code."

"How so?"

"Your hair isn't a natural color."

"Yes it is, grey is a natural color."

"But you aren't grey yet."

"So?"

"So it looks unnatural to be all grey."

"Are you saying that we can't dye our hair at all if its not a color that would grow out of our heads naturally at this moment?"

"No, you can dye your hair, it just cant be obviously fake. It needs to look real."

I pointed at the manager who was constantly on me. " Your hair is half black and half bleach blonde. I feel like that looks more unnatural than my grey hair"

I turned two the higher ups and asked if I was in violation. They agreed with me that I was not.

In the end, I got to keep my silver hair and my manager was told that HER hair actually was a dress code violation and she had to dye it before coming in the next day.

woman in black shirt lying on white textile Maksim Chernishev

74. Force a kid with cancer to take the exam? Okay, this is the exam

So this happened years ago when I was in high school, but I smile every time I think of it.

My high school had a policy that anyone who has missed less than a certain number of school days could pick one class they had an 'A' in to skip the final exam. You could get a couple extra days for college visits, but otherwise it was very straightforward. Awesome policy, and we all loved it.

One year, we had this kid who had been diagnosed with cancer. He spent a lot of his year sick, getting treatment, going to the hospital, running to the bathroom to throw up, etc. Despite all this he finished the year with an 'A' in his Spanish class. It was the only final he would have been able to skip, which he wanted to do because he was very ill. But administration was not going to let him skip the final because he had missed too much school.

He and his parents asked them to make an exception, given the situation, but administration wouldn't budge. His teacher stood up for him, but was told this kid had to take the final exam no matter what. He had missed too many days and there would be no exception.

The teacher said okay, but told her class not to study for or worry about her exam. Then, when all her students showed up for the final, she told them to take out a piece of paper and number it 1-3 leaving one line in between each number. She then asked three questions along the lines of, "What is your name?" "How do you say yes in Spanish?" and "How do you say hello in Spanish?" Then she collected the final.

Everyone got an 100 that year, and she became a legend. The kid has been cancer free for over five years now.

dextrose hanging on stainless steel IV stand Marcelo Leal

75. Beware the men in white

I was working at a mental health facility for the elderly as a nurse, worked there for over a year with a perfect work record. I worked for the same company at another elderly facility also for the same amount of time with a perfect work record. Then, my coworker found out I have PTSD and decided to tell my boss at the psych facility that I have ptsd and the two together plotted to have me committed.

One day in Oct 2012 they launched their attack. I was working a 7am-3pm shift and doing very well for 2 hours when my boss called me into her office to congratulate me on one year service. When we were in her office alone she started grilling me about my mental health and how it plays out at home. Next thing I know she's forcing me to call my coworker who is off duty and making me go with her to the psych emergency because I have ptsd.

The entire meeting was designed to stress me out and cause me to be triggered enough to behave poorly or crazy somehow to rationalize the next step which was cart me off to emergency and when they see me they will instantly know I belong locked away in a padded room.

The hospital didn't agree. They said I was fine just stressed out about being forced to go to the hospital like a crazy person for no reason other than admitting I had ptsd. After the hospital let me go my boss put me on extended medical leave without telling me and ignored all my calls for two weeks. Wrote letters lying about me to her bosses and the HR dept.

I filed a union grievance, and a complaint with a third party whistleblower company for my company's head office to hear about. My boss lied about me to everyone, making me sound borderline psychotic. They believed her so they shut down my complaints.

I took it to the human rights tribunal, self represented against the largest long term care provider in North America and I WON. Took three long years from incidents to end of court. It was the hardest thing I have ever done.

My employer's health declined considerably by the time trial happened. She lost her job, she had to move to the mainland, and there is a forever public record about what she did. The coworker who helped my boss is in the perminant record and the employees of the job site were ordered to learn of what she and our boss had done to me and the outcome.

She will never be comfortable at that job site again and who/what she is is known to all. I got the highest amount awarded for damages to dignity and self. I created a precedent for other ptsd persons with clean work history who do a good job on the clock but have very real struggles with ptsd symptoms at home.

No karma could possibly taste better than 40k and a clear reputation.

woman in blue scrub suit wearing white mask Kristine Wook

76. Say hello to your new boss

Two regions of my company merged into one. The manager of the other region was a complete jerk. He was about 5'2 and walked around like he had something to prove. He treated all my employees like garbage and made them feel as though the reason they were choosing the other site over ours was because of the quality of work, when in reality they got tax breaks in the other state. Our numbers were far better in every category. But... their labor was cheaper and that is what mattered to the company. They gave my employees 4 months notice. At first they they all thought it was a good thing so they could get paid while looking for another job. Nope. He made their lives absolutely miserable. He doubled their quota much higher than his own region, cut commissions down by 40%, and made weekly visits chewing me and the other sales manager out for not hitting the new goals and that there was absolutely no excuse. One month... the second to last month, we hit the new goal (not for him, to get our employees paid finally) and he then reamed us out because of the amount of vacation time used. Even after explaining employees needed days off because they were interviewing other places... since we're laying them off and that I would not deny anyone time if they have it available. He tried getting me fired for this but I had too many friends.

I had worked closely with some corporate folks over the 2 years I was there. They found out my region was being shut down and thought I would make a GREAT fit in their corporate office to be in charge of operations. Operations over the midwest region. Specifically, that jerk manager's region.

I kept it quiet. I didn't make any mention of it until I showed up at his office with a clipboard and a laptop. You should have seen the confusion in his eyes.

Him: "Are you visiting or something?"

Me: "You could say that."

Him: "Well I need to make sure security knows you're here."

Me: "Oh, they know, I just had to show them my badge."

I whip out my badge and show him. My picture... in front of the red white and blue flag. Only people that have a photo in front of a red white and blue flag are corporate employees. He was mine, and his face showed sheer terror behind his twitching lips.

I was fair to his employees, but boy did I report every bad incident that went down there. His lack of cooperation, his condescending demeanor towards his own employees, it only took a few weeks for him to pack up boxes. Apparently employees had been complaining for a long time and it only took a little corporate push to get him out.

Most. Satisfying moment in my working career... ever.

men's black and white suit Gift Habeshaw

77. You want me to follow my contract? I'll follow it to the letter

This happened some years ago when I had just gotten hired for a part time position in a retail store.

All was good until the summer got close and he offered me full time for the summer ended which I gladly took. Less than two weeks in to the summer he changed my hours back to part time. I hadn't thought about getting the temporary full time thing in writing as he seemed like a trustworthy guy.

It made no sense as I did a good job and helped out with things my contract didn't mention when I had the time as I get bored quickly. I found out that even though he have years of experience in the field he had massively over spent on the wage bill and had to cut down to avoid getting fired by the head office.

When I voiced my concern over this his only response "I'm only obliged to give you 20 hour a week, as the contract state".

I wanted to chew him out verbally but I kept my cool and decided that if he wanted to play that game I would too. When I got home that night I read my entire contract and noted the clauses that I could use.

One clause stated that my responsibilities was unloading the trucks, take care of the stock room and keep the shelfs stocked.

Another mentioned that I shouldn't do other tasks as their insurance only covered me for the specific areas I was meant to work .

Next day he told me to help out the cashiers as the lines were long.

"Sorry, can't do. As the contract states that isn't part of my job here and I should refrain from doing that. You can find it in my contract as clause 9a and 9b"

He was fuming, face totally red and he just walked away without saying shit.

Another thing I had noticed in my contract is that besides my 30 min lunch break I had a 10 minute break I could take when I wanted so I gave him 5 minutes, walked into his office and told him I was taking my 10 minute break.

"What are you talking about? You only have one break and that's for lunch".

"My contract says otherwise. It's in clause 10."

When I got back from the break he asked me to clean something up out in the store. I couldn't believe that he couldn't take a hint.

"Sorry, can't do. Clause 9a & 9b prevents me from doing it".

Next day a costumer asked for help with something. "Sorry, can't do. It's not my job. Find someone else". My boss heard about this and yelled at me but I managed to stay calm and answered with the clauses that prevented me from helping the costumer. Legally I was in the right and he couldn't do shit but I could see the hatred in his eyes.

I was still on a trial period which meant he could fire me with only 24 hours notice but I could also resign with only 24 hours notice.

I knew that once the summer ended and everyone were back from from their vacations he would fire me right away. I had started looking for other jobs and it was going all right so I decided to quit at the worst time possible when it showed itself.

At the last week of summer he had to fire one with suspend another for stealing from the store. It was the perfect time to quit and leave him badly undermanned for the week.

24 hours and 1 minutes before my next shift I sent him my resignation before I sent a message to my coworkers about how they should remember to take all their breaks and not violate their contract by doing stuff they aren't allowed to do.

I heard it gave him a little chaos when people followed my advice.

person writing bucket list on book Glenn Carstens-Peters

78. You want to have a meeting? You're not gonna like it

For the past few years our business has been receiving telemarketing calls from an offshore call center trying to make appointments for "Optus Business Centre". Every time they call, we'd politely tell them we were not interested and ask them to remove us from their list and they'd promise not to call again.

You can probably tell by my use of the words "every time" that having ourselves removed from the list didn't work. It didn't work the first time, and it didn't work the 50th time. Offshores are cheap, and get paid per appointment. So they would get quite aggressive. It was clear that a new strategy needed to be found as it was taking too long to get them to bugger off.

So began my campaign of malicious compliance/petty revenge...

"Hi we're calling from Optus business centre and we can save you 40% on your mobile phone bill! Can we come and see you tomorrow at 11am?"

You can save me 40% of my mobile bill? That's like sixty grand a month!

"What? How many phones do you have?"

150 or so that I'm responsible for directly, plus a few others..

The appointment is quickly confirmed. The next day a salesman calls me up he's running early - can we meet earlier. I refused. Our appointment is for 11am after all.

11am rolls around and in he walks - we sit down in reception and go through the greetings. I then ask him if it's possible to make the telemarketing calls stop now. He assures me that it is, and so I stand up, shake his hand and thank him for coming in.

What? That's it? You could have said that over the phone!

I point out that we did. Many times, and it didn't work - and I hoped that this waste of his time would perhaps teach him to mend his ways.

Over the past 2 years they have sent out 5 different reps to see us. They call for meetings - we accept them, shine them on about the value of the account and they roll in to be greeted by me dressed in a chicken suit; made to wait in our meeting room for 20 minutes before being asked to be removed from the list; being turned away at the door (they sent two reps that time).

I'm posting this today because it was visit number 6 and it was the best yet. We got a repeat customer! I sat him down in the meeting room and played the video recording of our last meeting.

Is that you ?

Yes! It's me! Didn't I follow up? Did we have a good meeting?

I point out that I certainly enjoyed our last meeting, and zoomed forward in the video to the part where I explained that we didn't have 500 mobile accounts - and he needed to please remove us from their list and you could see his heart break. Which it did again, once he realized that whatever account he thought was being discussed today was not going to be discussed. Which we also have on video, so we can go all Inception if/when he shows his face again.

man using smartphone on chair bruce mars