Revenge is something that interests all of us to some degree or another. For some people, it’s a matter of trying to get even when somebody does them wrong. For others, it’s just a way to pass the time.

You don’t have to be someone who is passionate about getting your own revenge in order to enjoy some good revenge stories. That is what we are providing for you here.

These stories of revenge will engage your thoughts and make you understand that getting even is an art form. These are not heard often, but they sure are fun to read.

12. TRY TO FAIL HALF THE CLASS OVER YOUR MISTAKE? BE FORCED INTO EARLY RETIREMENT

“So this happened during senior year in high school 4 years ago.

I had an English teacher named Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith, or how she liked to refer to herself, Dr. Smith (she didn’t have a doctorate), was a mean old bat that hated anything and everything.

She was ugly inside and out.

To give a mental image of what she looks like, her face sagged so much that it looked like she had a perpetual stroke.

She had about 2 feet in between her eyebrows and her eyes. Imagine Ursula and Cruella de Vil had a child and then that child had a baby with the Devil.

You get Mrs. Smith.

None of the other English teachers liked her. There was nothing that they nor the administration could do due to her tenure. That is until I became her student.

Her teaching style included but was not limited to, yelling at students, putting them down with petty insults, having us read to ourselves in the middle of class, kicking out students that were dozing off but then later falling asleep at her desk, not letting female students go to the restroom for very obvious reasons, and the occasional losing students’ work then accusing the students of not turning their work in.

This last part is what crossed the line for me.

You see, I wasn’t a grade A student, and I sucked at English, so I always played my cards right and made friends with everyone.

Students and teachers included. So when I struggled and couldn’t do something on my own, I let my charm save me and cash out on my months of beings nice to everyone.

However, no one could be friends with Mrs. Smith. I tried being polite. I was met with rudeness. I tried asking her how her morning was. I was met with silence and dead stares.

I tried asking how I could improve my writing skills, but she told me that she wasn’t willing to help. Within the first week of class, I knew I had met my match.

So halfway through the semester, we’re working on a big research paper. However, the day after the due date, Mrs. Smith had to go up to Illinois for some family issues for 2 weeks.

Mind you, we turned in our papers both in hand and on turnitin.com for plagiarism checking. No biggie. We won’t get our grades back for a while, but at least we won’t have to deal with her bullcrap.

Or so we thought.

A few days after she gets back, only about half of the students got their papers back. The other half (including myself) were sitting there staring and waiting, thinking that she was going to go back to her desk and pull out the remaining papers to return to her students.

But nope, she told us to take out our textbooks and start reading Beowulf. Some students, including myself, that didn’t receive their papers tried to interject and inquire about our papers, and she snapped back with, “You should have turned them in when they were due.” In unison, we respond with, “We did.” Of course, she denies it, and within a few days, our grades drop immensely.

At the end of the grading period (2nd six weeks), our report cards show a big fat F for English. Everyone is livid. And the worst part is, if you get anything below a C, you were to be moved to lower level English at the end of the semester.

Between the 0 from the paper that carried almost half of our grade and only a few weeks remaining in the semester, almost half of the class was doomed to fail.

Now, most of the students were happy with having to leave her class. There was not much they could do. But I was careful. Remember the teaching methods I mentioned above?

Well, Mrs. Smith thought that because we were in a classroom that had no cameras, her behavior wasn’t being recorded. She was dead wrong.

From the second week on, I started recording audio on my phone every day from the moment I walked into the class to the moment I left. Every.

Day. I caught every single one of her personal attacks on students on tape. When she fell asleep, I pulled out my phone and recorded her. My pleas for help to improve and her refusal to help weren’t left out either.

Every day, I would go home and cut the audio to keep the good parts. And every day, my collection of dirt on her grew. And remember how I said we used turnitin.com as well as paper?

I had coordinated with all of the other students who were going to fail to screenshot all of their Turnitin receipts and send them to me as proof that they turned in their work.

When she decided to fail me for her mistake, she unleashed a nightmare on herself. I went straight to the administration and scheduled a parent-teacher-admin conference. A week later, my parents, the principal, the school counselor, the head of the English department, and Mrs. Smith were all present.

I started with how she had lost half of the class’s work and most of us failed because of it. She denied it and again accused us of turning our work in late as well as plagiarizing and a bunch of other bullcrap and lies.

I remained calm and just pulled out a folder that contained all of the screenshots from my backpack and handed it to the principal who then passed it to the head of the English department who then asked Mrs. Smith to explain it.

She instantly turned red in the face and started stuttering. Before she could get any words out, I say, “That’s not all. Listen to this.”

I pull out my phone and start playing back the highlights from the semester.

All the while, I’m staring dead into Mrs. Smith’s eyes while trying to hold back a crap-eating grin. The suspense in the room would’ve killed Jason Statham. After the audio finished, the principal looked at me and said, “I think we’ve seen enough” and asked me to leave.

I sat outside of the conference room savoring the muffled yelling through the walls. I’m pretty sure I heard my dad utter the words “filthy woman,” but I don’t want to point fingers.

The parent-teacher conference was on a Friday. I walked into class the following Monday to see an empty desk and a substitute teacher we all recognized and loved.

10/10, would document everything again.”

11. ATTEMPT TO GET ME TERMINATED? NOT A CHANCE, BUT YOU WILL BE

“I work in security, and it’s an easy job, real easy. However, sometimes things come along, and you have to deal with them.

Like a naval personal banging on the door thinking it’s his ship (real intoxicated).

Most of it is homeless and addicts. Easy stuff, usually no problems. The real issues are when people I’m working with, find it important to push their weight around.

Cue Mr. BD (Big Dumbie). Now BD and I don’t have a lot of interactions. We don’t really talk to one another. Considering the building I’m in charge of is away from the rest of the company security.

Since that’s the case, I have my own rules and guidelines. They were approved by my superiors for this specific building and for its environment.

The building I work in has a lot of artistic types.

The place does commercials, ads, and product placements. You get the idea.

The head of marketing, we will call him HM. He is in charge of everyone in that building.

He talks to me on a very, very regular basis. He comes to my office more than a few times a day to chat, spend his breaks, and all that.

It’s very friendly, very simple. Everyone knows the rules. I talk to them all like I have been around for years. It’s a very wholesome place.

It’s a normal day things are running fine.

Half the workers in the building are gone doing an off-site shoot. I get a phone call telling me that the custodial staff found lost banknotes. I thought it was weird since no one stated they were missing any.

No problem; I’ll deal with it personally.

Now when someone says they found lost banknotes, I think they found them in a common area. You know in the bathroom, lounge, or cafeteria.

Some place like that. I get the custodial staff member to take me to where they located the missing banknotes. He takes me to the highest floor and leads me to the office of… You guessed it, HM.

He points to the desk, and all I can say is, “Ok, umm how is it lost?” The banknotes he was talking about are a nice stack of 100s on HM’s desk.

Now the stack of 100s is clearly fake. Not by how they look but by the fact that they have pink Chinese writing on them. It clearly states in Chinese that the bills are used for training.

It’s usually used to teach Chinese bank tellers to count American banknotes. HM uses the fake bills to reward everyone. Once every 6 months, they get rid of all the stuff they can’t use for further sets.

They have a HUGE auction. The only thing you can use is the fake notes. HM loves to say, “Make it Rain” while he does the money shuffle. It’s his favorite quote.

He passes it out like candy.

I thanked the custodial staff for showing me, but it wasn’t a problem. I fill out the paperwork indicating the banknotes weren’t real, and no actual bills were missing.

I submit the paperwork.

A few hours later, I get a call from BD.

OP. “Hello, This is OP, how can I help you?”

BD “OP your paper worked is messed up.

I’m looking at your report, about the missing bills. How do I know what you said is true? How do I know you didn’t just take it and claim it’s fake?”

OP “I clearly state what happened in the report and what the mistake was.”

BD “Not good enough. I have a report of stolen banknotes, and I can’t let this be tossed to the side because you said so.

You will get pictures and submit them as well.”

It’s kind of a hassle for me to do this, but it’s not a big deal. I can also see where he is coming from.

OP “Ok, I just want to make it clear no one reported anything being stolen. Nor were any banknotes actually missing. However, no problem; I’ll take photos, but I promise you will laugh when you see the pictures of the notes and how they’re clearly fake.” I chuckle.

BD “OP, who is in charge here? You or me?”

OP “I’m the supervisor of this building if that’s what you mean.”

BD “NO OP, who is in charge of you?

It’s me, so do what I tell you. I don’t want to hear you back talk me.”

OP. “Listen, BD, I meant no disrespect. I already told you I was going to take care of it.

Thank you for your call.” I hang up after.

As I walk back to HM’s desk, it’s eating away at me how he talked to me. We are a team and should respect one another.

He first called me a liar, accused me of stealing, then claimed I was disrespecting him.

Ok, perhaps he is having a bad day. I haven’t really talked to him much.

I let it go and proceed to take photos.

To be sure it’s clear where it’s located, I take photos of the bills, desk, office, surrounding area, and direct hallway location just so the report showed everything.

I resubmit the paperwork with about 20 photos attached There should be no question as to what the banknotes were or what it was used for. I clearly state why HM has it to begin with.

An hour later, I get another call; it’s BD again.

BD “This report is still bad, but it’s better. I don’t believe those are fake, and I want you to confiscate them.

Turn it in for review.”

OP “We don’t do that here. This building has clear guidelines stating we don’t confiscate, and we don’t look in people’s bags when they come in.

This building has different rules. Approved by CEO, HM, and Head of security. I can’t do what you are asking me to do.”

BD “First of all OP. I’m not asking you; I’m telling you.

Confiscate the bills, and if anyone else is seen with banknotes, confiscate those as well. I don’t believe the heads would agree to such an unsafe protocol.”

Now at this point, I would make it clear that phone calls are recorded for “better customer service.” Everything he is saying is being recorded on his end and mine.

It’s silent on the phone for a few seconds. While I think about this. I come up with an idea.

BD “HELLO?!!!!”

OP “To confirm what you are saying, you want me to go around and literally look into people’s bags against Policy 50 and then confiscate any fake banknotes they have, against Policy 51?

BD “Stop trying to trip me up with your nonsense. Do your dang job, or I will fire you!! Is that clear?!!!”

OP “You got it, BD.”

BD hangs up.

It’s very clear to me that this will go south real fast. I know I have to handle this perfectly, or I could be fired.

I write up an email explaining everything even connected to the report.

I also clearly make statements about the conversation I had with BD. Making it very visible the order he demanded I carry out and copy past of the policies it violates.

I cc the Head of Security and HM.

This guy either has it out for me or doesn’t understand the building and its rules. I’m not going to have him hang over my head like this.

Threatening my job because he doesn’t want to understand. I know all I have to do is catch the right person, and BD is screwed. I know the staff should be coming back soon from their shoot.

I go down to the front of the building. I wait till I see the group coming back. I stop them at the front door, stating, “Excuse me, who is the lead of this group?” “I am.” HM steps past some people.

He looks at me with a confused look.

HM “OP, is something wrong??”

I pull him aside and tell him the situation. All the while he is waving people past him into the building.

HM “What?? Are you serious? This is unacceptable. I have known you for 2 years. I’m not going to let this stand. Let me make some calls. Can you shoot me an email of that report please?”

OP “Already done.” I smile at him.

HM “Did you know I would react this way?”

OP “I had a feeling you would in some way. After all, you like to make it rain!!”

His face grows wide with a smile. “MAKE IT RAIN!!” He does the bill shuffle and starts walking away.

HM “Don’t worry, OP. I like you too much to see you leave; I got this.”

About an hour or so goes by, and I get a call from HM.

Apparently, BD claimed I never said the bills were on HM’s desk or that it was fake.

He also said that I acted alone and with no orders from him. BD completely denies threatening to fire me.

OP “I see… Well, it’s a good thing I recorded my conversations with him.”

HM “Wait, you record all your phone calls?”

OP “If it’s on one of the security phones, like the one I’m on, yes.”

HM “I see… MAKE IT RAIN!!!” He then hangs up.

He calls back a few seconds later and tells me to send him a file of the recording. He is going to have a conference call with the Head of Security.

They have known each other since they were teens.

The next day, I come into a surprisingly large amount of emails. All about event requests the normal stuff.

The very last email I got was an email from the Head of Security cc’d with HM.

He apologized for having to deal with that situation. Thanked me for compiling with BD until I was able to get things straightened out.

BD had been terminated the day prior after the voice recording was listened to.

I was also given the full ability to run the building. The only person I answer to is the Head of Security. Kinda a small promotion.”

Another User Comments:

“The only thing that would make this better would be if OP would send BD a Christmas card stuffed with fake bills.” LilRedheadStepSheep

10. REFUSE TO RETURN MY CAR WITHOUT A HEFTY PAYMENT? LET’S CALL THE COPS

“So yes, as you all see, I’m a chick nursing student. I’m also 30, a military vet (Army), and have always, ALWAYS, done ~90% of the work on my vehicles.

The only things I can’t do are balance tires (I don’t have the tools) and some of the large work that requires things like cherry pickers and whatnot.

(Again, I don’t have the tools.)

So, like any good vehicle owner whose vehicle has sat for a long period of time without being driven: after getting back from a 6-month mobilization that left my little Toyota SR5 truck sitting in dry storage, I went through and did maintenance.

Checked and replaced my fan belts, air filters, spark plugs, oil and fuel filters, did an oil change and radiator flush, checked the battery and connections, checked my brake pads and alignment, swapped out my winter tires for summer tires, cleaned out my truck and replaced my winter survival gear with summer survival gear (because yes, that is a priority where I lived), etc.

Last but not least, I added injector treatment to my fuel tank, filled my tank, and took my truck to have the tires balanced by a Les Schwab tire place.

Now, because of other errands I had and because I had just spent 6 months in unpleasant sandy areas in uniform, I dressed up. Heels, dress slacks, silk blouse, well-tailored jacket, hair up in a bun.

Dressed like that, I dropped my truck off, agreed that I needed the tires balanced, and that was it and was told that it would be about an hour.

Awesome.

I was about to walk off to go to my other errands down the block when I noticed through that big glass window the Les Schwab places have that they were already pulling my truck into the bay, so I decided to wait.

And being the interested person that I am, I watched as two guys started to pull my tires off my truck, and a third, the man who had taken my keys and agreed that I was only asking for my tires to be balanced, sat in the driver’s seat jotting down notes on a little notepad.

After about ten minutes, the third guy with the notepad came back inside and walked over to me and explained that, during his free assessment of my vehicle, he found a lot of safety issues that needed to be corrected.

“Like what?” I asked him.

“Well, it’s like this,” he responded. And then proceeded to rattle off a list of ten or twelve items from his notepad that he had noticed in his “free assessment.” Fan belt needs replaced, overdue for oil change and radiator flush, fuel and oil filters are shot and have to be replaced, brake pads are shot and have to be replaced, alignment is totally out of whack and ruined my tires, which now have to be replaced instead of just balanced… Everything on his list was things I had just checked and/or replaced. He ended with this:

“I’m really sorry miss, but your vehicle is one big safety problem. I can’t release it to you to drive in the condition it’s currently in.”

Keep in mind, not only had I just done all this work, most of it on his list, but he had never once opened the hood of my truck.

You can’t look at the majority of what I have listed here, or that he had on his list, without opening the hood of the vehicle.

After a moment of consideration, I asked him how much he thought it would be to make it “road worthy…” He screwed up his face and did some “math” in his little notebook.

“A rough estimate? $3,700. But it could cost more because your vehicle is technically an import, and the parts can be hard to find.”

I asked to speak with the manager, and was told that the manager was “out for the day.”

I then responded with: “So you’re telling me that, unless I get $3,700 worth of work done on my vehicle, you can’t release my vehicle to me, the rightful owner, because it isn’t safe or road worthy.”

“Yes.” He continued on with this babble of apologies and explanations in a sly, fakely apologetic condescending tone, and asked if there was anyone I could consult with about a repair this large, or if there was anyone who could give me a ride home.

I asked him to give me a couple of minutes, and walked out into the parking lot and got on my phone out of earshot from him or his mechanics, who were still balancing my tires.

And promptly got on the phone with the sheriff’s department.

When I explained everything to the officer, he promised to be out in fifteen minutes to help me “clear the matter up.”

I walked back inside and told that mechanic, with the sweetest smile I could conjure, that I would have someone here presently to help me with the matter. I also asked him for the list of repairs needed along with his quote, so I could discuss it with my “friend” who would be arriving shortly.

He happily handed me the evidence of his arrest and even signed his name on it for me, so that I could “get in contact with him if I needed more than today to consider the repairs and costs.”

The cherry on top of the whole thing was, the absent manager walked in just in time to see the employee get handcuffed, and I got a free tire balance service because of what the now former employee tried to pull.”

9. UP-SELL AND SCAM ME OUT OF NEW RIMS? NOT TODAY, BUDDY

“Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I had a minor accident driving to visit family in Podunk Town, TX. Not Small Town, TX but big enough to have most large chains but not much else.

Anyway, I hit a pothole about 5 miles from my destination and noticed a significant wobble in the car. It was nighttime, so I just parked at my grandma’s place and decided to inspect the damage the next day.

The next day, I get out and look under the car and see the rim is bent. I drive a less common Japanese make and one of their less common models.

For this particular model, there is a lot of value attached to the wheels. The car is the last of its model type, and the wheels are particularly valuable/expensive, so I’m pretty frustrated. New OEM wheels will be $400 from the dealer, used rims will be $300 and questionable, and I’m unsure about the repairability of a bent rim at this point in the story.

If I don’t have a matching set of original rims, the car’s value is significantly diminished. However, even if I wanted to, there was no way I could find a dealer for my make within 100 miles.

I’d either have to get it repaired or get a temporary replacement. Usually, in situations like this, I’d call my mechanic buddy and get his opinion. However, he works a 10-day on, 4 days off schedule and worked his butt off to get the shift with holiday weekend off since he never sees his kids.

I didn’t want to interrupt his family time, so I figured I’d call on the last day of his break, as he was heading back to work.

So, I leave the car in the driveway for Thanksgiving and spend time with family.

First thing in the morning on Friday, I wake up and go to Chain Tire Store. I’ve had good luck with Chain Tire Store in the past, so I figure they will be honest with me and give me a fair diagnosis.

I roll into the shop first thing, and the manager immediately comes to greet me, saying he really likes my car and wishes there was a dealer nearby, so he could have one of his own.

Classic salesman tactic, but whatever. I show him what’s wrong, and he pulls the car into the shop, and a mechanic pulls the wheel off.

After looking at the wheel, the manager comes out and tells me he’s sorry, but the wheel is not safe to repair.

He shows me the bend, which to my eye is very slight, but he assures me they put the wheel underwater, and bubbles came out from under the tire, indicating the tire wouldn’t hold air pressure.

I thought this was weird, because my tire pressure gauge didn’t come on, and the tire had held up fine after hitting the pothole. Still, I trusted Chain Tire Store, so whatever; I’d just need to buy a new rim.

The manager asks if I’d like to get a replacement, and I say I’m not sure; I’ll need to think about it. He offers to ring me up for an estimate while I wait.

So, I go outside and consider my options: buy one mismatched wheel and replace it immediately when I get home or buy a matching set and replace the damaged wheel when I eventually sell the car.

The store manager comes out and tells me the cheapest estimate he has to get me out of the shop safely is $550. This is insane, and I’m taken aback. I ask for the write-up of the estimate, and he complies.

4 x $100 wheels and $150 in labor. I told him the cheapest option was just one wheel and labor (~$140), and his response was that clearly I drove a nice car and I’d want a full set of matching rims. He said, look I know it looks a little expensive, but I’m a nice guy, and I’ll personally buy your old wheels from you for $50 a piece, bringing the net price down to $350 for a whole set of matching rims. This set off warning bells, so I told him I’d need to think it over some more.

After a few minutes of thinking, I realized this guy is trying to scam me out of my rims and get a sales commission on a huge sale. Truly in the spirit of Thanksgiving.

He also shows me that for Black Friday, they are having a special 20% mail-in rebate if I go with 6-month financing. Considering that the price of one new wheel for my car is $400, and I could get a full new set of matching wheels for $440 after the rebate, I figured I’d get the matching set and figure out how to get back on the original rims later.

I didn’t really care at this point; I just wanted to be done with the scummy store manager. So I told him I’d take the full set, and I’d be doing the financing for the 20% rebate.

He offered to write me a check for $200 on the wheels, but I told him I’d prefer to keep the old ones. He was visibly disappointed, but he still made a big sale and would make a lot on commission.

So I drive many hours home, fill out the form for the rebate, and enjoy my weekend off. I send a pic of the bent wheel to my mechanic buddy and say I’m upset that I’m not driving on the original rims. He immediately responds with why not?

I tell him what happened at Chain Tire Store, and he calls me immediately. He says based on the pictures I sent, the wheel was fully repairable, and it should only cost $100-$150 to do.

The store manager didn’t just try a sales tactic to get me to make a big purchase, he lied to me.

So I go online to find a customer service number for the company.

Immediately, on the front of their web page is their guarantee:

“30 DAY 100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEE. IF FOR ANY REASON YOU ARE NOT SATISFIED WITH YOUR PURCHASE, YOU ARE ENTITLED TO A REFUND AT ANY OF OUR NATIONWIDE LOCATIONS.”

I’m not one to take advantage of a company’s guarantee, but this is a special circumstance, so I decided it would be worth it to get refunded. I go and take my bent rim to a wheel repair specialty shop, and get it back later that day.

Meanwhile, I call up the Chain Tire Store and speak with the manager who sold me the wheels.

I say I’m unhappy with my wheels and would like to work out a return.

I tell him I got a second opinion on the wheel, and it turns out it was repairable. I would like to use their guarantee and receive my money back because of his negligence or dishonesty, whichever he decided to pick.

He picked negligence, and then told me since I was doing financing, a large rebate, and a non-local return he would only refund me $250 of the $550 purchase price (supposedly to cover shipping and re-install of old wheels), and that the initial labor on installation was non-refundable.

My options were either to accept the offer he made or hope corporate would understand and help me iron out the details. I told him to begin the process of getting the $250 while I found a local location to have the work done.

I didn’t tell him I’d be sending that estimate up to corporate.

I call up corporate Chain Tire Store the next day, after receiving an email saying I’d be receiving a check for $250, assuming I could bring the wheels to a local location.

I explained the situation to the person on the phone, forwarded them the email from the manager for the $250 offer, and sent them photos of the bent and subsequently repaired wheel, along with the receipt for the repair and safety tests done by the repair shop.

They immediately apologized for what had happened and said the manager did not have the authority to issue a check for the partial value of a refund. They read me a policy that stated that “all refunds must be for the full purchase value,” meaning the manager was not allowed to make a partial refund at all.

He either had to completely deny the refund or refund the full $550. Agreeing to a partial refund had violated company policy. He was also required to issue the refund through the same means of payment, instead of writing a check, meaning I was completely off the hook for the whole $550 purchase.

So on the phone, they set me up with a complimentary appointment to swap out the wheels, refunded the $550 in full, and confirmed that the manager who sold me the wheels would be reprimanded.

And for the cherry on top, I received confirmation that I will still be getting the 20% rebate in the mail later next week. It just about covers the cost of repair to my wheel.”

8. CAN’T HANDLE AN ALARM CLOCK GOING OFF IN THE MORNING? LOSE YOUR CAREER WHEN I SEND YOU TO JAIL

“So, just before my senior year in high school, I turned 18 and bought a car with my savings from years of babysitting. I’d have liked one sooner, but my mother absolutely refused. At 18 in my big act of teenage rebellion, I went out and bought one.

A couple of months later, Auntie suddenly left her job from several states away and moved in with us. Without her car. It cost less if she waited six months until spring to get it shipped. Something about snowbird travel patterns.

She was cheap and a user as well as a total jerk.

As a result, I was expected to share my recently acquired car with Auntie until hers arrived. This seemed deeply unfair, but nonetheless, it was agreed upon that she could use it for appointments and job interviews since I could take the school bus.

I needed to be warned in advance because my bus stop was the second one on the route. It left a lot earlier than I needed to if driving direct, and I liked to sleep.

You may be wondering now what this has to do with an alarm clock. Auntie is one of those people who likes to rile people up, then mock them for getting angry.

She’s always got a complaint, harsh words, and is feuding with somebody over something. Once she moved in with us, her complaint was my alarm clock. My room shared a wall with hers.

The alarm was waking her mooching, unemployed, broke butt up every morning, and that made her mad. Couldn’t I just go to bed earlier, so I didn’t need an alarm clock?

The morning schedule at our house went something in the ballpark of this:

5:30 AM my workaholic mother leaves for the office.
5:45 AM my alarm goes off when taking the bus to school.
6:15 AM my alarm goes off when driving to school.
6:15 I leave if taking the bus to school.
6:45 I leave if driving to school.
Half past never: Auntie’s unemployed tushie needs to be anywhere.
Auntie approached my workaholic mother about the horrific inconvenience of my using an alarm clock. Her solution was that my mother should wake me up every day at 5:30 before leaving.

My mother told her to try earplugs or work it out between us. Workaholic Mother was massively non-confrontational and wanted no part of an Auntie dispute.

Auntie started sneaking into my room to unplug the clock after I fell asleep.

I’m a hard sleeper, so she pulled this off a few times. I had a good number of tardies before I figured out it wasn’t the new cat who initially got blamed. Woke up to see her standing over my bed one night.

CREEPY! I screamed like a banshee waking the whole house. She claimed sleepwalking, and my mother let her get away with that lame excuse.

I endeavored to solve the problem myself with some super glue.

Not the brightest move I made. That house got sold with a bonus electric blue alarm clock, and Auntie started turning the alarm off instead of unplugging it. So I started sleeping with my alarm clock tucked behind my pillow.

No way Auntie could do anything to it without waking me now.

She was LIVID at having not gotten her way and never let anything go ever. Auntie’s next move was to get up when the alarm went off and race into the only bathroom with a shower.

It was closer to her room than mine, so she always beat me there. She’d stash magazines in there to sit on the commode reading until right around 6:20. This is after the school bus has left but still before I need to leave driving direct.

Once I was taking a very rushed shower, she’d steal my keys and take my car… wherever the heck the unemployed go to drive around all day.

She claimed that I just wasn’t paying attention when she said she needed the car.

She wasn’t telling me. When my mother wasn’t around, she made snide remarks that if she was woken up she had just as much right to the bathroom as I did.

I could solve this problem by not waking her up. In addition to this, she would take my car evenings and weekends always right before I had babysitting gigs. It never returned with more than fumes in the gas tank.

She had to call roadside assistance twice for running out of gas because she’d guessed wrong on how far she could get on fumes.

Needless to say, I was livid.

Also massively inconvenienced and a lot poorer. I had to beg friends for last-minute rides or take a cab. She continued to blame me, and my mother stayed out of it.

We got into a cat and mouse game with my keys to where I eventually kept them on me at all times – even in the shower (this was an old car some years back; no electronic keys were harmed).

The keys came in the shower with me because the counter wasn’t enough to stop her from pulling the bathroom lock (pocket door; trivial) and coming in while I was showering to take them.

Again, CREEPY! This eventually resulted in her asking in advance to borrow my car for a “job interview” that probably wasn’t. She went to the key shop and got my car keys copied.

The next day, my keys safely back in my possession, she pulls the shower stunt again. She did it a lot even when she wouldn’t take my car. Auntie was a jerk.

I head out to the driveway keys in hand, and my car’s not there. Legit thought she’d hot-wired it until I got home, and it showed no signs of tampering.

I’m not much for poking the bear, but it was time to have this out. Auntie quite smugly admitted to copying the key, called me a selfish witch who didn’t know how to share, and many other unfortunate things I don’t remember exactly.

She wasn’t giving it back. What was I going to do?

I warned her that car was mine and she did not have permission to use it ever again. This was a bridge too far for me.

There would be consequences. She laughed in my face.

The next morning, my car was not in the driveway. I’d expected this. My best friend’s dad was a cop. I was practically a fixture in his house for a decade, and he was the closest thing I had to a father figure due to my own deadbeat dad.

So I gave him a call utterly distraught that the car I’d worked so hard to get had been stolen from my driveway. He’s very sympathetic. Did I mention my car had LoJack?

It was actually a very nice car… back when it was new anyway. We do all the reporting and whatever it takes for the cops to find it with LoJack.

By mid-afternoon, they’d found it in the parking lot of an outlet mall. I don’t know what the full details of the encounter were as I’ve heard multiple versions of this part of the story over the years.

She had some kind of tizzy on them upon being accused of theft including a tussle with an officer. It ended in charges of grand theft auto, resisting arrest, assaulting an officer, and some kind of license-related thing because she’d never switched it to her new state of residence.

Don’t throw a tizzy at a cop. They don’t like it much.

As this all took some time, she didn’t get arraigned that day. As her unemployed broke butt had horrid credit and little savings, she couldn’t make bail.

As I deleted her answering machine message begging my mother to come to bail her out, my workaholic mother didn’t even notice she was gone for almost a week. Once workaholic mommy did notice, I explained that my car had been stolen and I called the cops.

I was handling the situation myself like she suggested. The look of dawning horror was amazing, then she shrugged and went back to avoiding all confrontation. Auntie Jerk served two weeks in county lockup until she took a plea deal. I suspect they slow-walked her paperwork a bit.

What happened after was glorious revenge. Auntie Jerk’s remaining savings were used up on all the fines and court fees, so she finally got around to shipping her car and engaging in a job hunt.

One problem, she was previously a teacher. She’d yet to get her certification in her new state. Now she had a rap sheet and was unable to pass the background check.

Whoops! Time for a new career as a telemarketer.

Auntie didn’t bother me much after that. I learned years later she only went after kids hard, and I had proved enough of an adult she realized there were consequences for her actions.

We spent the next few months ignoring each other before I headed to college.

And that’s how a dispute over an alarm clock ended Auntie’s teaching career.”

7. HARASS YOUR FORMER CO-WORKER? GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR CAREER

“I served in the US Coast Guard for a while. About ten years ago, I transferred to a unit that had a large number of IT techs. Out of a four-year tour, I spent most of the first one getting qualified as was the norm.

We had a large area of responsibility and many different systems we were responsible for. Overall it was a fun tour. However, at about year 2.5 a new batch of techs arrived to replace the ones who had transferred out.

Most were good, eager to learn and advance their careers. Names have been changed and the locality should be obscure enough unless you work(ed) there and just know.

Two stood out for opposite reasons.

Nate was a decent tech, 1st rate brown noser, favored child and it went straight to his head. Carl was a transfer from another service. Carl had been an IT, fired from IT, and became a cook to avoid discharge.

Spent at least 6 years as said cook before joining the CG as an IT lateral. Socially awkward and kind of a jerk. A nice one though. Nate took on the role of office know-it-all with a mean streak, a bully if you can imagine one in a professional military setting.

Carl made an easy target. I did too, as I was a good tech but bad at politics and brown-nosing. I got many hard jobs that others like Carl had botched. I also had the knack for smoothing over customers’ ruffled feathers as I got the jobs done.

One of the things Nate would do was draw caricatures of various people in the office, and he was a good artist. He drew things you could take offense to, but we were military guys with thick skins and found it funny for the most part.

One of the worst (in my eyes) things Nate did however was during his extended training (break-in) period got me in trouble and forever earned my cold shoulder. I was the qualified tech for the week and he was my break-in.

Shop policy was that the break-in could take the duty phone for the weekend and call the qualified tech if a problem couldn’t be solved or when the problem was done.

He got tired of answering calls, so he shut the phone off. Refused to answer any phone, be it his personal cell or house phone. I ended up getting called by my command out of the blue in the middle of a Saturday night.

Chief (of the shop) – Why aren’t you responding to the duty call?

Me – Well Chief, Nate had the duty phone and hadn’t let me know anything was wrong.

What’s going on?

Chief – Get your butt on this, our response time is 30 minutes for a call and three hours on-site, it’s been two and a half hours, and this site hasn’t had a callback.

Get out there and fix the transmitter!

I get out to the site within the time allowed and fix the broken gear, making sure to let the command center know to call my personal cell directly as I don’t have contact with the guy who has the duty cell.

Monday rolls around (Tuesday is duty swap) and I get hauled into Chief’s office to explain myself. Yes, it’s ultimately my responsibility for answering the duty calls. However, it was shop policy to let the duty tech get the first round of calls and then notify the qualified tech.

I got a verbal warning as I couldn’t really control the situation, but someone qualified had to get a scorching. Nate? He got pulled into the office and a slap on the wrist. If it had been me or anyone else it would have been a dereliction of duty charge as these radio circuits and equipment are used for locating and relaying maritime distress calls – people’s lives were literally on the line here.

From then on Nate had it out for me as I had his integrity called into question.

Nothing much happened until after I transferred to my next unit. Carl calls me directly rather than e-mailing, which was usual if an old coworker wanted to reach out.

Turns out Nate had stepped up his game. He let his term of service expire and joined a different federal service. He used crappy MS Paint skills to attach a photo of Carl to a rather unbecoming news article and mailed it to all his friends still in the service.

Carl got a copy too but trashed it. Everyone else also deleted it permanently because they didn’t want Nate to get in trouble. Turns out he also did one for me – attached a photo of me at my last reenlistment three years prior to a news article from yay-hoo about someone doing something illegal. He mailed it around with the title, “Uh oh, what did OP do now?” to all the same buddies.

Carl got a copy and felt it was bad enough to warrant letting me know. So he sent me a copy. This kind of thing could absolutely kill a career if it got into the wrong hands and blown out of proportion.

I copied the URL from the doctored photo long hand into my browser and verified that it wasn’t real. I then went to my command to let them know that this prankster was trying to pull this.

The revenge comes now: my boss’s (Chief) boss’s (W3 Warrant) boss (LCDR) takes my story, evidence, and research to legal, HR, and the HR of the new agency Nate works for.

Fortunately, there’s a local HR rep for them in the same building I was working in, although for a different area. I’m told that it’s being handled and it’s out of my hands, don’t worry about it.

Three weeks later, I get an urgently worded email from Nate apologizing for what he did, it was “a joke,” he hopes that no one actually took his joke seriously.

No apology to me for potentially offending me, just sorry for others taking it too seriously.

A few days later, I get no less than three phone calls from the former coworkers he had mailed it to ask me to withdraw my complaint.

As it turns out, he did the photo up on his new work computer. Misuse of government equipment? Check. Attempted slander of a federal employee? Check. A few others were tossed in there too and he was up for personnel review.

Within his three-month probationary period. At the end of October, right before the holidays. With a new child. And he was let go.

All I could say to these guys was that it was out of my hands, and I actually hadn’t filed any complaint myself.

Harsh justice? Maybe, but nothing he hadn’t earned by being a malicious jerk.”

6. MAKE ME FEEL BAD FOR BEING A GOOD STUDENT? GET THE GRADE YOU DESERVE

“This was way back in high school, and that was yeaaars ago.

I still remember the story because of the emotional scar that came with it.

I was a nerd, but I went to a high school that was made up of 100% nerds too.

We all cared about grades. We weren’t into arts, but we did have an English drama class that we took with no exceptions. It wasn’t an elective; it was a requirement for some reason.

For our finals, the teacher separated us into 2 groups to present the same play. We didn’t have assignments or anything for the whole year, so she wants us to do a big play.

Her words were “impress me!” So our final grade will rely on this presentation plus the attendance for the whole year.

The teacher assigned a leader and director for both teams. We were going to be in charge of the whole team.

My friend and I were assigned as the leader and director of our respective teams. A note that our class had friend groups too. All my friends were on the other team, and I just had acquaintances in this group.

All was fine and dandy until we cast the leads for our play. We didn’t have a lot of males in the class, and we had a lot of male parts in the play.

Our group unanimously voted for Sub-par Lead Actor (SLA) to be the lead actor. He accepted it. Now onto rehearsals.

We scheduled rehearsals after school at one of our classmates’ houses.

She lives near the school, so we set a time. If class lets out at 4:00 pm, the rehearsal will start at 6:00 pm. They are expected to get food or go home for a change of clothes during that 2-hour time slot.

As a group of 15 members, 6:00 pm doesn’t always mean the start of rehearsals. Most people get there on or before 7:00 pm. That was fine; I understand time is tight and all.

But one person got on my nerves so badly. Yes, it was SLA. He was never a few minutes late or an hour late; he was just always LATE. He never came in before 8:00 pm.

NEVER. Not once.

Now the problem is that he is a lead actor. So he was ALWAYS in the scene. It was super hard to rehearse a scene when he was not there.

So what happened is that the first 2 hours were set for just preparing props and my actors memorizing with me. We start actual rehearsal when SLA comes in at about 8:00 pm.

He hasn’t even memorized his lines, so we spend another hour memorizing lines and practicing blocking. It was super hard to finish everything within the time allowed because we all need to leave at 10:00 pm to go home.

As you can imagine, I was tired and stressed with him. He was just so hard to deal with. I tried talking to him, pleading and even seriously favors if he just took his role properly.

He never budged. I had all but cried to him.

SLA is pretty much the “popular guy” in a school full of nerds so almost everyone on my team is friends with him.

He started spreading rumors about me and talking behind my back. He said I was authoritarian, that I had a crush on him (gross), and that they should not come in time for the rehearsals because I was just a waste of time.

I was devastated when I found out.

The best part was that SLA embarrassed me in class when we had this activity in religion class. The teacher had us write things about our other classmates anonymously and put them in a bowl of either “Good” or “Bad.” I only had “Bad” written about me all pertaining to my being the leader and director of the play.

The theme of the complaint is that I had a problem with SLA being late to rehearsals. Just imagine HS students writing horrible stuff about their classmates, that was it.

They wrote that knowing fully well our teacher was going to read it out loud in front of everyone.

I cried in the bathroom with my friends. It was when I formulated the plan to get back at SLA (and a little to everyone else).

Everyone saw how mad I was. What they had forgotten was that as a leader, I was in charge of grading them.

Now onto a little petty revenge!

That day I scheduled a practice for 5:00 pm instead of 6:00 pm.

None of them complained.

After class let out, I came to the other group’s rehearsals instead. As they were all my friends, they let me hang out there for the duration of the time I was hiding out from my group mates.

At about 6:00 pm, my teammates were texting me about where I was. I didn’t answer them.

At about 7:00 pm, they were calling me; I didn’t answer.

At 8:00 pm, I arrive at the rehearsals.

Everyone was present and working on the props. I assumed they would actually go home, but they didn’t ditch that day. A surprise.

Most of them apologized for getting out of hand.

I said ok, but I didn’t tell them I forgave them. SLA never apologized, of freaking course.

Because I was obviously mad, SLA wasn’t acting up during rehearsals.

I have no idea if he knew he pushed too hard or if he was just bidding his time. The rehearsals went well, and that was all I cared about.

We had so much done with the 2 hours that night than all the other nights combined.

After what happened, I was not friendly with my group mates anymore. I was cordial but cold, they never said anything about what happened again after some of them apologized.

SLA started to arrive on time for rehearsals, had his lines memorized, and never said anything in front of me again. If he said anything behind my back, I have no freaking idea.

So the day of the play came, and we finished. My teacher was happy blah blah blah. This didn’t really mean anything to me besides good grades. Our teacher loved me; she would honestly believe anything I said.

She gave us a very high grade.

I feel like my group mates forgot what the finals entail because when my teacher announced the next day that although there was a group grade, their leaders would grade them individually.

The group grade would amount to 50% and the solo grade amounts to the other 50%. The look of shock and fear on my group mates’ faces was worth all the harsh words they threw at me.

Most of all, SLA.

So I raised my hand and asked our teacher, “Is there a guideline for grading, or is it all up to the leader?”

My teacher went all, “All up to you!” to me.

I graded them mostly fairly, I took points for being a jerk but I wasn’t going to take a hit on all of them. I was reserving that for someone.

The props were amazing so they all got high 80s, the lighting and sound were decent, so they all got low 80s, and the actors… The female lead had a flat 90.

She never stood up for me, but she never said anything bad either. She was so-so so; her grade was just what she deserved for her acting.

SLA got a whopping 40% on my grading.

He never helped on the props, and he never arrived in time besides those last few rehearsals and in my view, his acting was sub-par. I computed the highest I can give him while making sure his final grade for this class never reached the passing grade of 75%.

SLA’s grades didn’t even reach 70% even with the high grade we got as a team. He tried complaining to me about the grade but I didn’t entertain him.

He tried going to the teacher, but our teacher likes me AND heard about what happened in religion class. We had a small school, and news traveled fast. The teacher told SLA she was only changing the grade if I agreed. I didn’t agree.

It was for finals so SLA failed that class spectacularly. A blemish into an otherwise clean record. He moved on from it for the next few years of HS.

I just smiled and bid my time.

The pro revenge didn’t come until senior year.

During senior year we all applied to this prestigious university for an entrance exam. It was a super important school so all of us nerds built our high school career in hopes of getting into this school.

SLA didn’t get to take the exam with us because of his English Drama class grade. The University doesn’t take anyone with a grade below 80% and I guess he forgot about that when he got that grade from English Drama class years ago?

SLA had to write an essay explaining why he deserves a chance to take the exam even though he had one failing grade. He had to pay an extra fee for the processing.

SLA took the next batch of exams. He did pass the exams though. He just had to start University a semester later than everyone else in our batch.

Do I regret ruining his life plans by a few months?

Sometimes but then I remember the words said about me in class just because I don’t like someone being late and slacking off. I then forget regret.”

Another User Comments:

“Why did your teacher have high school students anonymously write what they think of each other? And then designate it as good or bad? That’s just asking for something like what happened to OP.

I’m sorry you had to go through that, but you got such sweet, sweet revenge!” BlanketBurrito4236

5. MOVE INTO MY ROOM WITHOUT PERMISSION? NO MORE JOB FOR YOU

“I moved into a 3×3 student housing apartment with Ethan and John in August 2018. It was really nice and cost a pretty penny, but I was making a nice salary at the time.

They were fantastic roommates. Clean, considerate, open communication, and my best friends.

Important to note: Ethan and John are a gay couple and John is a leasing agent at our apartment complex.

Things were going fine, and the job I worked when I signed was medical debt collection. After 3 months of living there (6 months at the job), I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I felt like a terrible person harassing people to pay for emergency room visits. So eventually I quit and went back to being a substitute teacher. My soul felt better, but my savings would only last me so long.

I began looking for a subleaser a little under 2 months prior to my planned move-out date. It was impossibly hard to find someone willing to move in with a gay couple.

I really wanted to find someone who would be a good fit so they could avoid living with a bad roommate.

Eventually, I meet Kody. Kody was a cute little twink boy and shared similar interests.

He was perfect! Kody asked me to help him move some nonessential stuff in about 3-4 days prior to the 1st of December because breaking his existing lease would give him only 24-48 hours to vacate and not enough time to move.

I agreed because I needed a body to sign my lease, and he already took a tour and spoke to the leasing office.

I get off work and go straight to the apartment to hang out for an hour or so before helping out.

(I moved to the opposite side of town, and it was not worth driving home in rush hour.) I noticed Ethan and John moved their bedroom items into my room.

I thought highly of them and assumed they reached some sort of agreement to trade rooms as I gave everyone each other’s contact info. I go to Kody’s place to grab some stuff and head back.

By then, my partner Rachel and John got there.

Kody is visibly confused as I had promised him my room, the largest and most private room. John told us that there was a mistake in the leasing software (electronic leases) and that our room assignments were mixed up.

Therefore, the big bedroom belonged to him. I’m not that stupid. Kody went to make a phone call while Rachel asked me to step outside for a smoke. Rachel then explains how John told her the truth.

The truth being he told her the lie he had prepared about the room assignments. We go back inside, and John tells me not to worry because he can find someone to move in the next day since Kody backed out.

I can’t blame him.

The next day, John tells me he found someone to move in but wants me to pay half the rent. I was not going to have to pay that if my deal went successfully.

I was feeling pretty defeated and ready to pay it and cut Ethan and John out of my life quietly. I told my mom what happened, and she said heck no and to write an email to the manager.

So I did and, the next day, I got a nasty phone call and texts from Ethan because John was getting questioned by his superiors. I didn’t receive any correspondence, so I called the leasing office.

The leasing manager told me it was simply “he said, she said” and they cannot do anything without a witness statement. So I called up Kody. Kody told me he would call that instant for me.

The day after that, I went to the property with all my keys and informed them I had vacated. They asked for my name and, what do you know, I was speaking to the property manager.

John’s boss’s boss. She pulled me into her office and informed me that I was off the hook because there was no problem with the leasing software (John was caught lying).

She then said John would receive consequences, Kody was given a different apartment to live in, and Ethan and John would have to move everything back into their previous rooms immediately.

It was instant relief.

However, 2 weeks later, a close friend of mine spent Christmas at my family’s house instead of their apartment like intended. John sent said friend some nasty texts and, as it turns out, John was fired. I would have loved to see his smug little face.

He lost his $200 rent discount, lost his job, and now has 3 bad references on his work history since things ended poorly at his last 2 jobs before that. I just wanted out of my lease.

He could have asked me for the room instead of lying.”

4. CAN’T BE A NICE OR COMPETENT TEACHER? LOSE YOUR JOB

“I went to a high school in a poor community, but my parents raised me to work my butt off, so I could get out of there.

My parents never went to college, but because of this, myself and my siblings have all gone to good schools out of state. I maintained a 4.0 until the year in question in high school, taking 5 advanced courses a year (out of 6 total, with the last 6th not offering an honors alternative).

I learned to get very little sleep because of the amount of work these courses required and because my school didn’t have tutoring aides or anything of the like. Didn’t understand something?

Tough crap; get to googling.

So in one of my upperclassmen years, I signed up for an advanced chemistry course. I knew it would be hard but assumed like the rest of my courses that if the class was minimally structured and that Google would come through per usual; I would be fine.

Other students warned me not to take the course, but since I wanted to go to college for chemistry, I knew I had to go through with it.

The teacher was horrible.

He was old (which is fine) and didn’t offer after-class support (which was normal)… but also didn’t even offer in-class support. His answer to even basic questions was a “you should understand that; talk to me about it later,” but later never came.

He didn’t offer lunch hours, didn’t offer after-school hours, and in class would just put up the answers (which were already available online and in the back of the book).

My family didn’t have the funds for a fancy tutor, and none were readily available in my community anyways. I studied my butt off, but when the first test came back, I had a D-, with no notes to even understand what I had done wrong.

When I went to speak with him about it right after class ended (missing part of my next course in the process), he simply told me to look more closely at the textbook for help and that he didn’t have time for me.

He was 2 weeks behind the explanations that he did give because he was constantly distracted.

All of this is bad but didn’t deserve him being fired yet. What did was when he got dangerous.

In an experiment working with hydrochloric acid, a plug held the concentrated stuff in a tube with some magnesium and reacted to form hydrogen bubbles. Well, one of the other students in my group didn’t plug the thing properly, and the plug fell out (with the Mg being stuck in the tube, now without the HCl).

So I asked him how to get the tube back, expecting him to tell us to discard the HCl solution, rinse with water, and start over. I’d read the safety section in my textbook, which had this approach to working with acids.

His response? He insisted that I stick my un-gloved hand in the solution and just grab the plug, and then still in the solution, plug it back in. He wouldn’t even put his own hand in to do it, so my high-school self thought this was an inherently bad idea.

I took some more Mg from the workbench and kept adding it to the solution until it stopped reacting, eating up all the HCl to just leave water.

And it kept getting worse.

One day, he brought what he claimed were illegal fireworks into the classroom and started setting them off. He thought it was funny to point them at us, wearing no safety equipment or goggles, and hoodies that could’ve easily caught the firey things.

He frequently would leave the room while a group of high school kids was playing with bunsen burners and caustic chemicals. So in combination with the total lack of education I was getting, I didn’t feel safe.

Did I mention he was sexist too? I’m a girl, by the way. All of the boys got A’s on tests, with no explanations. He even lost one of the other boy’s tests and straight up said in front of me and the rest of the class that we would just give him an A-, assuming that he had done well.

Later on, I asked the other student for help understanding something, and even he didn’t know what was going on in the course, so I knew it was just bullcrap.

Every other girl I asked was getting the same inexplicable grades as I was. This wasn’t unusual on its own either, as I lived in a very conservative area and had several sexist teachers… just usually, they’d at least still grade fairly.

Last contextual thing: my high school teacher’s union had negotiated for tenure. After coming to college, I’ve learned that this is a very unusual thing, and in retrospect, it’s an idiotic thing.

This chemistry teacher was tenured, which meant that there was basically no way to fire him. Honestly, I felt bad for the bitter old man, because after a botched surgery, he was constantly in pain.

He was still teaching because he refused to retire, and he had a son going through college that he needed to pay for.

But at a certain point, this was affecting my chances of getting into college.

I wasn’t about to let one man’s issues affect my prospects for the rest of my life. So I looked up recording laws for my state and found that it was a one-party consent state–meaning that I could legally record my teacher audio-ally as long as the campus didn’t say anything against it (they had no policies), and I was one of the parties consenting.

So for a month, with my grade tanking despite hours of studying and three study books on the course, I recorded him. I recorded his fireworks, his lambasting female students, his crying in the back chemical storage room leaving us unsupervised. I recorded the three times he had left campus inexplicably, leaving the front office to send a last-minute substitute to open the door and let us in.

Ya know the “15 minutes and I’m legally allowed to leave” meme? That was a constant joke for my class.

And then, I made a throwaway e-mail to make a throwaway Dropbox account (big at the time).

I uploaded everything and e-mailed it to my superintendent with the ultimatum that if something wasn’t done, I would email the recordings to the local news and that I really didn’t want to do that.

Within a day, I heard back, with her assuring me that I wouldn’t be punished for ratting him out. My parents, she, and I met. We went over my grades, my unmarked tests and homework, and the videos.

They asked me first to talk over my concerns with the teacher, and I said I was uncomfortable with that given his treatment of female students. The superintendent said she wouldn’t tell the teacher who had submitted the evidence but that they needed to speak with him about the concerns to hear his side of the story.

My parents and I said that was completely reasonable, as long as my name was never mentioned.

The next day, the teacher said he needed to speak with me after class alone.

I told him I couldn’t as I had another course after that, and he said that it was important. I turned on my phone’s recorder again right before the class ended, and as I was packing up, he approached me.

Due to the shape of the classroom, I was literally backed into a corner and would have had to push this man to the side to get out. He then started saying that one of the students in the course had brought “unfounded concerns” and “lies” to the administration about what was going on in the course and that he “knew we hadn’t always gotten along well” but that he “hoped I wouldn’t have done that to him.” I lied through my teeth and said that I didn’t know what he was talking about, that he was making me uncomfortable by blocking my access to the door, and that I was late for my next class.

He didn’t even deny what I was saying, just said that since I clearly had a problem with him, he’d be willing to stay after class to help me specifically, since it seemed like I was struggling so much.

After that, I told him I really needed to get to my next course, and he finally moved. I emailed the superintendent that recording during my next course and cc’d my parents.

My parents were furious; the superintendent was mad too because while my parents were poor, they dressed up nicely. My mom was an expert in bluffing about getting a lawyer (that we totally couldn’t afford), so a liability lawsuit was probably ringing through the lady’s mind.

Since the district couldn’t fire him, he was put on immediate “permanent medical leave.” While the district was still paying his full pay, they gave us one unqualified substitute after another.

Two months before the national exam for the course, they gave us a female teacher that they had pulled out of retirement but that had actually taught the advanced chemistry course for years.

She was a godsend and even held 8-hour Saturday classes so that we could catch up with the curriculum at least enough to pass the class. In those two months, we covered just enough of the test’s material that our class had a 50% pass rate (according to my upperclassmen friends, this was a lot higher than it had been for their years, with less than 10% of the class passing).

The superintendent also wrote me a thank-you college recommendation letter, partially to keep me quiet and partially because they had been trying to get rid of this guy for years.

My little sister took this course a couple of years after me and said that the new teacher was competent, and they were still at that 50% pass rate.”

3. MAKE US SEEM LIKE HORRIBLE TENANTS FOR ASKING YOU TO MAKE REPAIRS? ENJOY THE NEW TENANTS

“Set the scene for you guys: The place we were renting is a duplex that is split down the middle here in Upstate NY.

My little 2 bedroom side of the house was next to the garages and driveway. It had a small side of the yard which was 15 ft x 5 ft. We have a Chocolate Lab named Benny that uses that backyard for his bathroom, etc.

The crappy neighbor in my duplex who I’ll call Rick had the bigger side of the yard and a staircase that led up to the backfield where there was a nice walking path and horse farm.

The back of our duplex was kind of built right into the side of the hill leading up to the horse farm/corn farm. Rick was subletting one of his rooms to a Russian chain smoker that we’ll call Olga, and she was the same age as him (60ish).

Rick is rude 90% of the time and demands we never use his staircase to go up to the walking trail. His Russian friend and he also smoke in front of our living room window making our house smell like an 80’s era bowling alley.

Over the course of our renting this place, we got in numerous fights with these jerks over where they could smoke so that our side of the house didn’t stink.

The landlord lives in FL and uses the property as his retirement salary. The landlord we’ll call Dwayne, and he’s about 70 years old. The house itself was built in 1940 or earlier, and we lived on an old farm road with a pumpkin farm across the street.

Just want you to have an image of the location because it’ll come into play.

The first week, we were in the house unpacking, and my wife asked me to plug in the vacuum and run it around downstairs to pick up the Styrofoam from the packing materials.

I notice that the plug sparks when you plug it in or unplug anything. I call Dwayne and tell him and he says, “Ok… Call around and get a price from an electrician, and let me know what it’ll cost.” This was a red flag for me.

I’m paying $1,300 a month for this duplex, and now this guy wants me to do all his leg work since he is out of state. I figure whatever and find an electrician that’ll charge $200 for the house call plus the outlets he’ll end up replacing.

I call Dwayne and he says, “No, that’s too much; I’ll send one of my guys over to do it.” This angered me to the core because I just spent 20 minutes calling around getting ballpark quotes, but I figure, fine, as long as the work gets done.

Fast forward 1 month, and his electrician finally shows up one day to do the work. He replaces 12 of the 14 outlets because he didn’t think he’d find so many bad ones.

I figure that’s fine since the ones he didn’t replace are up in the room we never use.

2 months go by and it’s early spring and raining a ton.

One night, we get a HUGE downpour that lasts for about 35 minutes. My wife says she hears water in the basement. I run down to the basement, and we have 2 waterfalls coming through the windows that look into the backyard and 4 inches of water on the floor and rising.

I call Dwayne the next morning and tell him about the windows in the basement and the flooding, and he says I need to find a cleaning service to clean up the mess.

I tell him I can’t because I’m going to work. He says, “Ok, do it after work then.” I say “Listen, I don’t own this house, you do, so find someone today that can clean this up and repair the windows, or I’m going to do it myself and take it out of the rent (which is NY state law).” He gets angry and hangs up.

Later in the evening, he calls and says a cleaning service will be there in two days to clean the basement from all the mud and water. I tell him that’s fine, but he might want to repair the windows since it’s still raining pretty regularly.

He says no, that won’t be necessary since he’s still getting quotes about a French drain for the back of the house. The cleaning crew shows up, and they clean the whole basement out.

It takes them 6 hours with power washers and scrubbing machines, etc. They leave at 5 pm that day, and we’re thinking ok, great, now we have the basement cleaned up, but the windows aren’t holding anything out since they are so old and have no sealant around the outside edges.

2 days go by, and it downpours again and fills the basement back up with water and mud. I call Dwayne, and he sounds defeated. He tells me that he’ll send the cleaning crew back out the same day the contractors are going to show up with the backhoe for digging the French drain around the backside of the house.

Fast forward 2 weeks, and everybody shows up. The work is completed, and we’re happy to have a normal basement again, even though I’m angry that we have had a swamp down there for so long.

2 more months go by, and my wife one night screams while in the kitchen. She swears she saw a mouse in the kitchen run from under the sink to under the oven.

I ask her what it looked like, and she says big, grey, and had pink ears. I know right away this isn’t a field mouse but a full-grown rat.

I open the drawer below the oven, and all our cupcake pans are full of little rat turds, and it’s freaking nasty. Thankfully, we never bake, so they weren’t a big loss.

I call Dwayne, and he says he has an exterminator friend that lives nearby, and he’ll call him and get back to me.

Dwayne calls back the next morning and says, “I spoke to my friend, and he claims that your dog going to the bathroom in the backyard is probably attracting the rats.” I tell him that “rats don’t eat poop, so that makes no sense.

We’ll need to have an exterminator sent out to deal with this.” Dwayne goes on a tirade about how we’re the worst renters and that we constantly complain about little things.

I tell him that “for $1,300 a month, I expect a rat-free, spark-free, living space that doesn’t flood or smell like a bowling alley.” At this point, Dwayne says he’ll look into it and hangs up.

I’m super angry at this point. We’ve had nothing but problems with this place from the first week, and now we’ve got rats in our kitchen. I do a little digging online and find out that you can have the health department investigate rat infestations and if they see that the landlord isn’t doing anything about it; they’ll put a lien on the house until the work is complete.

So obviously, I decided to go that route. I call the health inspector, and he tells me that he’ll come out in a few days and do an inspection and get back to me.

Dwayne calls me back and says the rat problem is my fault because I have a dog and that I need to deal with the problem myself. I told him no problem I just set up an appointment with the health inspector.

Dwayne gets really upset and cusses me out. I call my lawyer and tell him to call Dwayne and arrange for us to break the lease since I don’t want to deal with him anymore.

Fast forward two months. The health inspector had found a bunch of rats and holes in the foundation and evidence that the colony had been living in the house for “years and years from the looks of it.” He contacts Dwayne and tells him about the lien if he doesn’t address it.

Dwayne calls me and says he’s sending an exterminator. Now at this point, I had put the place up on Craigslist to find new renters since Dwayne had decided to sublet our lease instead of letting us out of it.

I found some college kids that were desperate for a place and they seemed like typical, rich college kids. I tell them that the place doesn’t have A/C and they’ll need window units etc. But I also tell them that the next-door neighbor loves smoking.

I tell them that he is super chill and that they can totally use the staircase in the backyard to use the hiking trails. One of the kids brought his mom that showed up in a new Jag and so I knew that Dwayne wasn’t going to be able to crap all over these people since I knew they’d lawyer up.

I never mentioned the rat infestation or that this place was a nightmare because I knew that these kids’ rich parents would go nuclear with a lawyer if they had to deal with this stuff.

Dwayne accepted the new tenants and let us out of the lease. All it took was a few threats from my lawyer before I got my security deposit back.

Fast forward 3 months.

I drive by the old place to see what’s happening. It looks like the college kids and Rick are off to a rough start. There is a plastic divider down the driveway to separate who gets what.

There are beer cans all over the front yard and Rick’s truck is parked on the side lawn. He never did that when we lived there, so I’m sure these kids were driving him crazy with parking.

Olga is nowhere to be seen since she probably jumped ship when the parties started. I don’t know what became of the rats, but 2 months later, I did another drive-by, and there was no furniture on our side of the house which tells me everybody had left and Dwayne wasn’t making any money….

which made me happy since he was a freaking jerk.”

2. WON’T LET ME HAVE MY BONUS? HOPE YOU LIKE BEING SHORT STAFFED

“This story starts over five years ago, with me struggling in a position that I was not qualified for. I am an Electrical Engineer, but my degree is in Computer Engineering.

The difference is subtle, but enough that most recruiters for major companies see “Computer” in my name and assume the next word is “Science.” Seeing as some of my schooling did include programming, well, to escape a significant pay cut, I accepted a position as a Software Engineer.

That did not go well, but it was a great company, and when I handed in my notice, my old manager said, “If you ever need a job, let us know.”

The company I was moving to was a giant in their field, with divisions all around the country in every conceivable aspect of that particular genre of engineering, but the main reason for my accepting the position was I was offered a job as an EE.

Finally, I’d be working in “my field.”

For the most part, things started out pretty well. My first performance review was “Stellar” as I was put in charge of a small team of hardware engineers to finish a product.

Really, I was a go-between for the engineers and program office, since the PMO guys never really liked dealing with the “boots on the ground”, so to speak. One particular engineer was the subject matter expert (SME), and was very smart, but clashed with management.

Since I was able to adequately quell his frustrations while keeping the program running, I got a nice pat on the back, a small bonus, and a decent raise that first year.

The only problem? My manager seemed surprised about it. “Huh, someone must have really liked the work you did.” Well, no duh, but okay.

As the months dragged on, I was put on program after program, usually because something went wrong and they needed it fixed. Not a problem, it’s what I was good at.

This batch of widgets wasn’t tested correctly? Alright, let me find the site process and re-run the week-long test and get that report out to you. The test fixture for another widget is having problems?

Let me take a look at it; there’s your problem, and here’s how to fix it.

What I didn’t know, going into this job, was that my manager was “one of the boys” that our division director promoted. The director was the old manager, and once he ascended to his throne, he brought up my manager to his position.

My manager and director were in sync, to the point that when an employee went to the director to complain about the manager, Mr. Director invited the manager to the meeting and told the employee, “If you have a problem with him, you need to talk to him about it.” That employee went 8 years before his next promotion.

Not only that, but he had a Master’s degree, but was working as a “new college hire”. For 8 years.

Other employees left after promises of promotions went unfulfilled. Yet others left because it was “All work and no play.” The environment there was really toxic, at least in my group.

I’m put on another program and actually given an impossible task. No, it was actually impossible. When you’re told to do the impossible, though, they don’t want to hear “It literally cannot be done.” They wanted to hear “Yessir!” Unfortunately, even with doing research on my own, it took me all of 1 day to come to the conclusion that, yes, one cannot fit a 12” peg into a 2” hole.

“You can’t make the hole bigger or the peg smaller!” was essentially the response I got. “You can’t alter the peg, at all! That’s what the chief engineer wants, it’s what he gets.” After two months of screwing around trying to stretch the hole without stretching it, or squish the peg without squishing it, the project was taken away from me and given to someone who “knows what they’re doing.” (Fun fact: the engineer they gave it to needed two months and ended up doing it the way I had originally suggested. Go me.

God forbid I get any recognition for that, though.)

I forget about all of that and am given a new assignment that’s pretty much just cleaning up after another engineer, and making sure a bunch of test equipment is pushed through and sent to our manufacturing plant.

This, too, was not as easy as described, and yet my manager was hounding me. Documents were rejected for reasons beyond my control; parts weren’t available from the manufacturer, causing delays; the software team was behind on getting me updates to firmware.

All the while, my boss continues to say “Just finish this and then the fun jobs start!” The issues piled up, and I started looking for the door. I actually had a few interviews with companies in the area, but I’d either never get a callback, or I’d hear that the “requirements for the position have changed.”

At my midyear review, my manager actually plays it off pretty cool. “Oh, these delays aren’t your fault, you can’t get software to go any faster, and we’ve always known this particular manufacturer has issues keeping stock”, etc, etc. Great.

Maybe someone from on high got on my manager about his awful attitude toward his employees? It turns out, no, that didn’t happen at all. I’m just going to skip to the chase, here: My manager shafted my entire group from bonuses and recognition for a major product launch.

We sat there as both software and Marketing/sales teams were recognized, while my manager said “Yeah, they deserve the recognition. They were here on nights and weekends fixing all of the issues.” When I told my manager that we knew since we were also at work those same nights and weekends, the response I got was mindboggling: “Well, they didn’t cause those problems you were fixing.” He was, of course, implying we caused our own problems.

So, at this point, I was done, but thankfully had an interview lined up in the following weeks, and I ended up getting an offer shortly afterward. Knowing we’re coming up on the end of the fiscal year, and our yearly performance bonus has a “Full-commitment” requirement, I called corporate HR to ask when the last day I would be eligible for would be: two weeks after my scheduled start date.

I call my new employer and ask to push the date back. No problem.

I then gleefully type up and print out my resignation letter, sign it, and then hand it to my manager.

I should also note that when I started, we had 10 engineers in my group. At this point, we now only had 6 and were struggling to find replacements for everyone who had left. When my coworkers mentioned that I could just email him, I shrugged and said I wanted to see what his reaction would be, face to face.

Again, I would be disappointed, and yet somewhat amused. His response was nodding a bit and smiling, “Got it. So what will you be doing?” I believe I hid my shock well, considering he’s now down 5 engineers in a single year, but I told him where I’m going and what I’ll be working on and he just says, “Cool.” Now, I mention that I gave a full four weeks’ notice.

During those weeks, I spent a lot of time wrapping up projects and writing detailed reports on what I had done and how I went about doing it. My last day comes and goes without much ado.

Fast forward to September of that year. I have been keeping in touch with my old coworkers, and it comes to mind that I never got my bonus. While after taxes, it wasn’t much, but it’s still money and I made sure I would qualify for it.

I called Corporate HR and was told, unfortunately, I needed to stay through until the end of the fiscal year, two weeks AFTER I had left. I could, however, reach out to my old manager and he could potentially get me a pro-rated bonus since I was given incorrect information.

So, I email my old manager with that information and the response I get is a little unexpected (though I probably should have seen it coming): “Yeah, I knew you wouldn’t be eligible for the bonus if you left before the end of the fiscal year, which is why I was confused that you were leaving then.

I can’t help you.”

Screw. You.

He admitted to knowing I wouldn’t get my bonus and also that he never discussed it with me. Whelp, it was at this point that I knew I had to get revenge, but in order to do that, I needed to bide my time.

My new company had lots of openings all around the country, but most require at least 3 years of experience. In my old group, two guys were thoroughly entrenched with my manager, so I didn’t care about them, but the three others knew I had to get out of there.

One of them was someone I considered a “mentee” since that was his first job out of college. He was only a year and a half into his career, so I knew I had to wait for his time on to catch up.

The other two were at 10+ and 15+ years in, so I started looking for them. I’d check in every few months to see how everyone was doing: the young guy was miserable; the older guys were, too.

No one could get anything done, and my old manager started yelling at employees in their cubicles or blaming them for issues during a meeting where the employee wasn’t present.

Finally, the young guy hits that 3-year milestone, but he knows he doesn’t have the skills to really go anywhere. I don’t care, I get him in our system and start spamming him with job listings in the city he was already looking to move to.

Three interviews later, he’s happily working for my company, and has a new significant other, to boot.

Every now and then, I’d reach out to the other two guys to see if they were interested in changing jobs.

The answer is usually “Yes… but…” After about a year of hearing that, I kind of give up, but keep them in the back of my mind. About six months later, I get a text from Guy#1 saying “That’s it, I’m done.

Can you get me out of here? Oh, and (Guy#2) wants out, too. Here’s his number.”

Jackpot.

Unfortunately, Guy#2 didn’t meet some very strict requirements for positions at my company, but I start getting him in contact with other people I know in the industry.

I meet up with Guy#1, go over his resume, look through my company’s listings and get him into our HR system, which should flag any positions where he may be a good fit.

While he does get some callbacks, and while my company is aggressively hiring, he actually lands an interview at one of our competitors, and eventually gets a job offer. Awesome.

Thankfully, Guy#2 is also able to escape, finding himself in a great position that’s closer to his family. Both jobs also came with significant pay bumps, because God forbid my old manager actually fight to pay his employees what they’re worth, too.

My old manager is still there (somehow), but Guy#1 told me that when he turned in his two weeks, the manager really started panicking and tried his best to keep Guy#1 on board, even though he had been yelled at for things the week prior… and the week prior to that, and the week prior to that.”

1. ATTEMPT TO SCAM PEOPLE ONLINE? GET PUT BEHIND BARS

“This was in Christmas 2001, back when we still trusted the internet and eBay was a sure bet for getting a deal. We were looking for a nice gift for our 6-year-old and having limited funds thought that maybe a slightly used PS2 console would be awesome.

We found a seller with a long history and a good rating that had a console and a dozen games with it for ~$300. Especially considering the games this was a fantastic deal, maybe half off of retail.

The seller was mostly into selling sports cards but he had a variety of other auctions including lots of video games. It would be our whole Christmas budget for him but was too good to pass up.

So we won the auction and sent payment. The seller replied with a variety of emails saying congrats and he’ll send it at the end of the week as he was out of town.

A week goes by, and we hear nothing. We emailed and he gave some excuse and asked for another day. We emailed again and he said he mailed it but didn’t have the tracking number, yadda yadda yadda.

As it became clear that we had been scammed; we were pretty distraught as that was our Christmas savings for our boy.

My wife wouldn’t let it go and has always been quite good at internet sleuthing, so she started looking through his eBay history and noted that while he had been a solid A++++++ seller for years, many poor reviews started flooding in.

Many people eventually got the product or a refund, but it was taking longer and longer to resolve. She also looked through yahoo auctions (that was a thing then!) and found a seller with a different name with the same items up for sale.

Using that username, she was able to find an online profile that used the exact same username that had his picture, email address, and actual address.

This had gone on for a few weeks and the emails continued back and forth with promises of eventual refunds and lies about lost shipments and all, so she looked up the local police department in the city, and they actually had an online fraud department.

She told him the story, and he said that they had received numerous complaints about a scammer that others had tracked items to the city, but we were the first with an address.

He drove to his house and he was there with a garage full of sports cards and crap. He basically got behind and started kind of an eBay Ponzi scheme where he would get payment from new auctions to pay back old auctions while taking the earnings out and getting further and further behind.

It was crazy stupid. I think he owed about $10K to dozens of people.

He ended up getting arrested and was forced to have wages garnished to pay back people and got community service.

We got our payment back too, but it took a few months.”