While many people bite their tongues and keep their heads down at their place of work, some folks are lucky enough to find a way to get some payback on their tormenters. If you’ve ever wanted to stick it to a petty boss or troublesome co-worker, you’ll love these stories of workplace revenge!
1. Special Delivery
person holding pizza in boxPhoto by Arantxa Aniorte on UnsplashBack in my early 20s, I worked as a delivery driver at a pizza joint close to the main college. After about four months of working there, the owner hired a friend of his to manage the joint since our current manager had just left. We’ll call the new guy “Donnie”. Donnie was the epitome of the "power trip for no reason" boss.
He would call you out for little mistakes, make you stay late to help do his job, throw you under the bus when talking to the owner, and always bail early. To top it all off, he was convinced everybody liked him. We even caught him taking from our tip jars a couple of times, but the owner never did anything about it.
Anyway, I had planned to go out one night with a girl I had just met and wanted to get off work a bit early so I could go home and wash the pizza smell off me. I asked Donnie if that was possible—and he absolutely lost it. You would have thought I’d asked for a raise, bonus, and a six-month vacation. Despite the fact that three drivers from the next shift had shown up already, he started shouting, "What, are you stupid?? We have three deliveries up!! You can stay until your shift is over”.
"That's cool", I thought. He was a jerk, but he was well within his right to make me stay until my shift was over. I sucked it up and started getting the last deliveries together. However, when he saw where I was taking one of the pizzas, he ordered—not asked—me to pick him up a chocolate shake from a drive-through joint close by.
I flat out told him, "No freakin’ way. You expect me to do you a favor when you won’t do me one? Suck it". I grabbed the pizzas and stormed out. Donnie started yelling from the kitchen, something like, "Haha, look at him getting all political. Awww, I think he's mad". Granted his past behavior had factored into how angry I was over something pretty minor, but I was furious.
The universe had reached its jerk quota and beckoned to me to teach this moron a lesson. As I was driving away from the last delivery, I called the store and got Donnie on the phone. I apologized and said I would get him his milkshake, and even pay for it. I went by the drive-through of the fast-food place to get a 32oz chocolate milkshake.
Then, I made a beeline to the grocery store right down the street to pick up a family-size bottle of chocolate-flavored Ex-Lax. I poured half of the shake out—for me to enjoy later, of course—and mixed in about 15oz of Ex-Lax. Keep in mind: it only takes like two tablespoons of this stuff to give you a healthy case of the runs. It was on now.
After giving it to him, he said something about it tasting funny but still managed to inhale that sucker like a true fat boy. He didn't even say “thanks”. Fast forward three hours or so, my date and I were cruising the bars and we headed into the pizza joint I worked at. Instantly, the cook made eye contact with me and came rushing over, practically falling over patrons.
Barely able to contain himself, he told me, "Donnie is having uncontrollable, violent diarrhea. He's been in the bathroom since you left, has messed his pants already, and is making this place smell like an open sewer". I went back to the kitchen and Donnie was nowhere in sight. But right as I started to talk to a fellow pizza slave, he came rushing from the bathroom.
His pants were half on-half off, one hand was out in front, and the other hand was holding his balloon knot shut. He had exhausted the entire restaurant's toilet paper supply and was heading to the bar next door. The best part? He lived about 65 km (40 miles) away and continued pooping himself periodically throughout the trip home.
Despite everybody knowing the true story, though, he never figured it out and blamed the fast-food joint for his wild ride on the Hershey Highway. I think the whole ordeal humbled him a bit because he ended up turning into a decent guy.
2. Hide And Seek
woman in black long sleeve shirt covering her face with her handsPhoto by Elisa Ventur on UnsplashI won’t go into the details of my boss but, suffice it to say, she was a total nightmare—an incompetent micromanager with an additional side-order of petty evil. So, I got myself a PCB prank device. If you’ve not seen it before, it makes a random “BLEEP!” at odd intervals, between a minute and ten minutes. It sounds like the “battery is almost out” bleep.
I hid it where I knew she wouldn’t find it and watched, over the course of a few weeks, as her sanity and temper both got frayed beyond belief. She replaced her phone twice and her computer once, and never at any point did she stand a chance of finding the thing. My secret? I’d hidden it inside her monitor.
3. Overtime Pay
man wearing headphones while sitting on chair in front of MacBookPhoto by Wes Hicks on UnsplashI worked as an installer in a remote office. I traveled a lot for work, often spending weekends on site. This was fine under my old boss, who gave me a lot of leeway by letting me work from home, giving me comp time, etc. After four years, I got a new boss. At the same time, the company laid off everyone in my office, which was about 100 people.
The new boss insisted I come in anyway to sit in an empty office. It was a 45-minute drive, but I still had to travel Sunday through Friday with no overtime and no comp time. When I complained to HR, the HR manager told me that since I was salaried, if they wanted me to work 80 hours a week, I would work 80 hours and I shouldn't expect any compensation.
Everyone I talked to seemed to think it was true, and that being salaried meant one didn’t get overtime. That didn't make sense to me. I called the local state Department of Labor office and told them what I did, and what I'd been told by HR. Their response made my blood boil—they told me to get a lawyer and said that if my work didn't rectify this by giving me every dollar they owed me, the company would have to pay the state 50 cents in penalties.
So, I got a lawyer. In a matter of four months, I settled out of court, got a new job, and got a severance. I also made my boss do an exit interview where I told her that if she'd been halfway considerate, she wouldn't have to scramble to cover for the next eight scheduled installs by flying people out from the East Coast and paying them overtime.
4. Know Your Worth
brown and black concrete buildingPhoto by 4motions Werbeagentur on UnsplashI was a typesetter when it was still done on dedicated typesetting machines, not desktops. This was specialized work and demanded pretty good pay. I agreed to take one job at less than my usual hourly pay for six weeks while I learned their system, which was one I hadn't used before. Well, six weeks came and went...and I didn't see my promised raise. But it gets worse.
In the meantime, the horrible shrew of a paste-up "artist" went out sick and I was left doing both type and layout. A very important project came up, and there was only me to do it. Without me, they'd be totally and royally screwed. Even if they could find a typesetter who could do paste-up, there was just no time to run the ad, hire, and train one.
I reminded the owner and manager of the raise I'd been promised when I was hired, and how long ago that was. Then I put all my personal desk trinkets in a box and told them they had until the end of the business day to make a decision. I got my raise—retroactive to my hire date—by 5 pm.
5. Short-Staffed
man standing in front of people sitting beside table with laptop computersPhoto by Campaign Creators on UnsplashI had an abusive boss who would make physically impossible demands. She thought she was the queen of the workplace because her supervisors let her do whatever she wanted, but I would soon put her in her place. So, during one of her tantrums in which about 12 hours of work was being laid on me at 4 pm but was due the next morning, I told her, “Fine, I quit”.
She screamed, “YOU CAN'T QUIT! YOU HAVE TO GIVE TWO WEEKS' NOTICE”. I said, “What? No, I don't. Goodbye, and good luck with all that work that needs to be done before tomorrow”. It was very satisfying.
6. Throwing Wrenches
white corner deskPhoto by Adolfo Félix on UnsplashI had a female co-worker who falsely accused me and two other guys of plotting to take from our job. Despite the combined seven years on the job between the three of us—compared to her two months—our man-hating boss believed our co-worker. She gave us this ridiculous, patronizing speech about "security concerns" and made us all turn in our keys.
She didn't fire us though, because our seven years of experience made us absolutely indispensable. The place would have ground to a halt without us, and everyone knew it. We were, naturally, incensed at this series of events. Our direct supervisor was pretty cool, so we warned him that we weren't coming in the next day.
Then, the hot mess began. In one of the biggest "Are you kidding?" moments of my life, at 9 am, the co-worker who accused us called our direct supervisor and demanded to know why we weren't at work yet. Needless to say, everything shut down for a while. Clients were upset about a complete lack of services, troubleshooting was out the window, and the three of us laughed like Nero fiddling while Rome burned.
It took a few days for any semblance of order to come back. Even then, the place limped along, hamstrung because nobody else knew how to do our jobs, much less how to do them as smoothly and efficiently as we did. We never received an apology from anyone in the company, and when we went in to confront our accuser, she ducked us for a day and a half before we could get a meeting with her and the bosses.
The bosses took a "we can't really know what happened, but if she accused you, you must have done something" attitude, and our man-hating boss spent a good hour trying to get us to confess to something we never did. We proceeded to spill all the dirty laundry we held on our co-worker, including some examples of outright theft, and walked out of the meeting.
As we left the office, we apologized to the co-workers who got extra work because of our departure. Their reactions caught us totally off-guard—not a single one held it against us. As our direct supervisor later said, "I don't blame you. I wouldn't have been able to work there after that. Heck, you guys have been working here longer than me, I'm more likely to have stolen something".
A year later, the company's clients had dropped by about 50% and, right now, I think they're about to go out of business. The company had barely scraped by with people who knew how to put out every fire, and nobody else had been there more than a few months. So, when they drove out all their experienced employees, everything fell apart.
7. Call The Caterer
people sitting on chairPhoto by Redd F on UnsplashOur company was giving us employees an appreciation lunch and had requested a small group of employees to plan and execute the event. On the day of the event, upper management got a stick up their butts and decided that the planning committee was using up too much company time. They told us that any of us who worked the luncheon would have to do it on our lunch breaks or stay late to make up the time.
We, of course, found that unacceptable. Prior to the luncheon, we had a huge meeting where all the managers and bigwigs praised all the workers for a job well done, etc. In the end, they asked if anyone had any questions or comments. That's when I took my chance to get even. I stood up and in a very friendly manner said that we needed managers to volunteer to serve the luncheon.
All you heard were crickets for about ten seconds and then a lot of whispering and scrambling as upper management made lower management raise their hands. It was so awesome to see them all using their lunch hour to serve us!
8. Temp Trouble
man holding telephone screamingPhoto by Icons8 Team on UnsplashI had the worst boss back when I worked for a logistics company. Let’s call him "David". This particular company did not hire directly for dock workers, so you had to go through a temp-to-hire service. Logistics Company then had a 90-day window in which the dock supervisor, in this case, David, could call your temp agency and tell them your stint at Logistics Company is over.
The temp would be called into the office where he would look at them and say with a large, smug grin: “IT'S JUST NOT WORKING OUT”. This prick would ridicule new temps about the way they dressed, talked, their mannerisms, you name it, in front of everyone at shift meetings. When a new batch of temps would start, he would pick an unlucky one out.
He’d ride the person until they quit or made some minor mistake that he would chalk up to the temp agency as the reason that person wasn’t working out. David was married to some bigshot at a hospital in town. She was the breadwinner, so he had no problem with keeping some low-level supervisor job. To top it all off, David was also the only visible minority with a supervisory position, so the Logistics Company didn't want to fire him.
David had no desire to be promoted because he had absolutely no responsibilities except to post an end-of-shift report, which he had one of the receivers do for him. For two years, I typed this jerk’s nightly reports, knowing full well he never witnessed any of it going on. He just sat in his office eating or riding the dock on a golf cart looking for reasons to fire new people.
Anyway, I hired in as a temp, kept my head down through David’s nonsense, and eventually got promoted to head of a different department away from him. Three years later, the Logistics Company decided that the receiving department was lacking direction and hired a department head for them. Then came the game changer: I got the job. I was now David’s boss.
He turned pale when it was announced the next day at work. I thought he was gonna die on the spot. He knew that for years I witnessed every bit of the terrible things he had said and done to the temps. I showed up on his shifts nightly for three months to "monitor" how David ran things. I watched him make stupid mistakes, one after another.
I could have easily terminated him right then but held out and documented everything. When it finally came time, I called him into my office. I was armed with months of stuff to fire him for, but I simply looked at him and told him, "David, it's just not working out".
9. It’s All Elementary
smiling woman standing while holding orange folderPhoto by Icons8 Team on UnsplashI had a bunch of jerkface bosses who were looking all year for reasons to fire me. It got to the point where I was turning in three times the number of lesson plans and had less freedom to do my job than any other teacher at that school. They said my lesson plans weren't detailed enough, so I asked for their best lesson plan from any other teacher.
Mine were more detailed, a fact which shocked even me. They spent so much time telling me I was a bad teacher that I’d begun to believe it. Well, enough was enough, and I knew just how to shake things up. See, this school had a free year’s license to Rosetta Stone, so I switched my language to Korean and learned Hangul. Almost weekly, there would be someone who would say, "Korean! Who the heck knows Korean? What will you ever do with that?"
At the end of the year, they told me not to come back, and I said, "Thank you, but I just got a job in Korea". They had brought the dean in there to make sure I didn't make a scene, and I think even he was surprised that I was almost laughing as I walked out of the office and shook hands with everyone with a big grin on my face.
Right, now I am sitting here at my desk in Korea, the only native English teacher at my school, and they all love me. To tell you the truth, I might have stayed at that other job another five or ten years. Getting asked to not come back was the best thing that ever happened to me.
10. The Secret Ingredient
food container on tablePhoto by charlesdeluvio on UnsplashSomeone kept taking my lunch at work and I, being the pacifist that I am, decided to just mention it casually to my wife. I didn’t think it was a big deal, but these were the sandwiches that SHE made for me every day. She decided to make a special sandwich for me which consisted of bread and a secret ingredient: toothpaste. I put it in the fridge and after lunch, it was gone.
I don’t know if the sandwich was actually consumed, but I told HR about it. They thought it was so awesome, they gave me a $20 gift card to Outback Steakhouse.
11. Deal Or No Deal?
man in black shirt sitting beside woman in white shirtPhoto by Saúl Bucio on UnsplashThe company I worked at for many years fired me without warning. My boss was a strange guy, and I had seen him fire other people without warning. He always offered to let people stay on for 60 days so they could find new work. But they would have to sign a document stating that they were "voluntarily" walking off the job and waiving all rights to unemployment.
When he fired me, he also gave me the option. I did not accept, as it seemed like a better deal to have unemployment in case I could not find work within 60 days. That turned out to be the best decision I'd ever made. The company tried to appeal my unemployment, but after several years of loyal service, the only black marks on my record were being less than 15 minutes late to work three times.
I let the judge in the unemployment hearing know that they offered to keep me on if I had signed away my right to unemployment. She let me know that it was against the law to do so and ruled in my favor. Every weekly unemployment deposit was like a tiny victory until I found a new job.
12. Safety First
man in gray dress shirt sitting on chair in front of computer monitorPhoto by Luke Peters on UnsplashI used to work as a developer for a company that makes EDI software. My boss was a paranoid, penny-pinching, micromanaging wanker. He’d say things like, "I know your contract says you can take an hour for lunch, but most people take just 15 minutes and I think you should too". Or, "I don't see any reason why you shouldn’t make a habit of coming in 30 minutes early and leaving 30 minutes late".
My main beef with him was that he refused to give me time off to be with my wife when my mother-in-law had only a few days left to live...but I would indeed get my revenge. Our office was in a converted factory that was split into several units and my boss' brother owned the building. Within that building, there was our company, a karate studio, and a creche.
I noticed that the fire alarm panel at the main door to the building never had any lights lit. It looked like there was no power going into it. So, I called the fire brigade. The surprise inspection came 30 minutes later because there was a creche in the building. The building owner got himself a conviction and a €10k fine.
He also had to spend a fortune to get a new fire alarm system installed. A few months later, when I was made redundant in questionable circumstances, I told my boss who called the fire brigade. It was a lovely feeling watching the color drain from his face. I then launched a claim against him for unfair dismissal.
My case will be heard by the employment appeals tribunal in a few weeks. I have enjoyed punishing him for the horrible way he treated me.
13. Proud Poppa
brown wooden display cabinet with assorted itemsPhoto by Diane Picchiottino on UnsplashThis is not my story, but my father's. He was working hard in an early computer company. This is back in the late '60s. He was the only one who knew how to support and manage the large microcomputers that some of the customers had. His boss was berating my father for wanting personal leave—my mother was about to give birth to her first child, my eldest brother.
The boss didn't even want to allow my father to leave when my mother went into labor. My father lost his temper and told him to get screwed. He blew up about how incompetent he was, and how he was riding on other people's talent. He quit right there and then left for the hospital. I still remember my mother telling me that my father came in, congratulated her on the birth, and told her he had just quit his job.
She laughs about it now, but you can imagine how she felt! A day later, the owner of the company called my father and offered him his old boss's job. The kicker? The old boss now had to report to my dad. That's gotta hurt.
14. Hacked
men's blue collared top near silver MacBookPhoto by Austin Distel on UnsplashI worked at a company that did phone surveys. There were probably 250 people working there at any given time. In a practical joke gone awry, my prick boss pushed and then tripped me. I had worked there for many years and ran system backups on the weekend. Nothing fancy, just babysat the computers after typing in a few lines of Unix commands.
Thanks in part to this, I had just enough access to the system to crash the entire dialing floor for three hours. 250 people sitting there, doing nothing, and being paid on crunch day. And I didn't get caught. It felt good, man.
15. Data Overload
man sitting on chair wearing gray crew-neck long-sleeved shirt using Apple Magic KeyboardPhoto by Tim van der Kuip on UnsplashI had a jerkwad that started at a failing website with me. Within the first week, he decided he wanted to fire me even though he had no idea what I did. I was the only IT person at this point and was probably one of the more productive people in the entire building. He told me I had a week to “turn things around” or I was gone.
First of all, there was no explanation as to what needed to be “turned around” or what in particular was wrong. My assumption is that he had his own IT guy that he wanted to bring in. I basically told him to shove it up and if he didn't like it, I'd walk right there. He was a bit taken aback by that and after another nine months of being there, he was a bit less of a jerk.
Fast forward another three months, and we decided we were going to fire him. The decision was based on information I had provided to them regarding his lack of performance and waste of company resources. The irony, right? Against my recommendation, the owners gave him advanced notice of their decision and let him stay for an entire day in his office without any supervision.
As I didn't trust him, I was monitoring his activity very closely. What I discovered was shocking—he was copying a large amount of data from our servers and deleting it. Additionally, he was copying all his contacts and other client-related information to a USB drive. On his final day, the owners took him to lunch right before he was going to leave.
Since I had backups, I took the opportunity to “return" all of the data he took. Finally, a couple of very incriminating emails accidentally got forwarded to his wife. Before you jump to conclusions, I was not snooping through his private stuff. The emails were in his work account and discovered them when I was removing the items that he took.
He’d been cheating for months and was talking to this other chick about ditching his wife and screwing her out of the house and leaving her with the kids. I’m not sure how that worked out, but hopefully for the better. That guy was a bit of a jerk.
16. Screwy Louie
close-up photo of man in front of person sitting on chairPhoto by Sarah Cervantes on UnsplashOur boss was some random guy who had a problem with making unwanted advances. He even asked me if I knew where he could find a "good woman" who would do whatever he was into. One evening, he made the mistake of leaving his email open after he'd thrown me and my supervisor under the bus over something we had nothing to do with. I had a chance to get back at him big time—and I took it.
Turns out, this guy was cheating on his wife. We found the emails, forwarded them to the wife, and he went nuts trying to fix it all. Screw that guy. He got fired a few weeks later.
17. Super Sale
man holding telephone screamingPhoto by Icons8 Team on UnsplashI posted an ad on Craigslist for an insanely good deal for a 42" Plasma. I left my co-worker's office number, cell number, and email as ways to get in touch. Lather, rinse, repeat.
18. Balancing The Scales
man standing near the kitchen counterPhoto by Sincerely Media on UnsplashWhen I was 15, I worked at a cafe in Sydney. The place had poor business practices and was generally very dirty and poorly managed. I was being paid below minimum wage, but I only realized this after I quit. I sent an email to my boss specifying a dollar amount that he owed me, to which he responded by saying that he paid me correctly.
Long story short, I got the workplace ombudsman involved. Not only did my boss have to pay me the money he owed me, but he also had to give the other employees what they were owed. But that's not even the best part—shortly after that, he had to sell the business because while the ombudsman was there, he noticed the uncleanliness and sent in a health inspector.
19. The Critter Cam
man in white and blue crew neck t-shirtPhoto by Ryan Snaadt on UnsplashI had been working for about six months as a second-tier support technician for a fairly large corporation, supporting both Mac and PC users. The support team I was on consisted of a hillbilly imbecile—we’ll call him Keith—and a bitter, middle-aged grumpy jerk—we’ll call him Bill. I sat in a cube and Bill’s cube was opposite the wall I faced.
Across the aisle was Keith, who always spoke as if he was at a rock concert. In other words, I could hear him through concrete walls. Bill hated me with a passion because I took half of his responsibilities as well as the role of "Mac Technician" to help the creative team stay productive. He had argued that we didn't need the creative team in the first place.
Keith hated me because he spouted socio-political hate speech all the time and I called him out on it every...single...time. The guy could not STAND to be wrong, even when presented with mountains of evidence proving it. This is where it gets good. For about three weeks, someone had been moving stuff around on my desk.
At first, I thought it was one of the interns playing a prank. But I figured out it couldn't have been them because we would go to lunch together and my stuff would be moved. So, that means it was either Keith, Bill, or a ghost. One day, I went to lunch and came up with a brilliant idea: I could turn on the photo booth on my MacBook!
I stuffed my laptop in the corner facing the doorway of my cube and off I went. It took a couple of days, but I finally caught BOTH Keith and Bill rifling through my stuff, moving stuff around on my desk. AND I caught them talking about me behind my back to each other while they did it.
Now, I'm not a violent person, nor am I someone that would react irresponsibly toward this event—but this made me FURIOUS! I compiled the data into a single movie on my MacBook, slapped it on a DVD, and then walked on over to HR. The human resources guy was taken aback by the footage I was able to get. He had never seen someone come in with actual video evidence of their complaint regarding another co-worker.
Fast forward a few months: Keith left the company because he got denied a managerial position and Bill was still working the same cruddy position he had before, except now he had a strike on his record for harassing a fellow employee. I left the company shortly after Keith to finish my bachelor's. Now, I have a cushy engineer position with a small, yet awesome software company.
20. Don’t Overstay Your Welcome
shallow focus photo of washing machinesPhoto by Jeremy Sallee on UnsplashI was working as one of two laundry people in a hotel. The other laundry person had just quit, and I was training a new guy who was not capable of working the job, let alone holding an intelligent conversation. I had just received another job offer and asked for the hotel to match the salary of the new job to keep me on.
The manager not only refused my raise but then asked me to work on my only day off so she wouldn't have to come in and train. I put in my two weeks' notice and grudgingly told her I would work the extra shift. Worst decision ever. At this particular hotel, there was a guest who stayed there each month, and we called him “the food man" because he refused to use anything but the sheets and towels in the room to wipe the mess off his butt.
So, every night he stayed there, he covered two sheets, four towels, and two to four hand towels and washcloths in his mess. I have no idea why the hotel management let him stay there but they were always the worst days of work. The day before the shift I had covered, the manager came and told me, “Prepare yourself for tomorrow, the food man is staying here tonight”.
That was pretty much the last straw. I finished the day, and then just didn't set my alarm. The manager got called in and ended up working a nearly 11-hour shift with the most annoying trainee ever. I feel a bit bad for sticking it to the trainee, but there is always collateral damage.
21. Sharing Is Caring
white and yellow plastic bottle on brown wooden shelfPhoto by david Griffiths on UnsplashIn my freshman year of college, I had the biggest jerk roommate ever. He was a whiny, lazy jerk who wore my clothes and stretched them out, scratched all my CDs, lounged on my bed, used my computer, ate my food, etc. He decided that he was dropping out after about a month, so he didn't care about anything or anyone.
We had a suite with no other suitemates, so we had a bathroom and shower to ourselves. I knew my supplies of everything were dwindling faster than I could use them. Deodorant, printer ink, shampoo, etc. I knew he was using my stuff instead of buying his own. So, I decided to teach him a lesson. I discretely purchased and hid a new supply of said toiletries.
Then, I went to work on my old toiletries. I peed in his bottle of shampoo, and mine because I knew he was using it. I popped the top off my cologne and peed in it. He used Old Spice, so I peed in that too. I wiped my butt with my deodorant, and his, then put the caps back on. Basically, if I could pee in it or on it, I did.
All the while, I had my own supply of everything hidden in my room or I'd shower at my girlfriend's place. I hated that guy so bad but by the end of it all, I took some solace in knowing that he'd been washing his hair with my pee for about the last three weeks of his time there.
22. A Taste Of Your Own Medicine
black armless chair outside blue concrete housePhoto by Pedro Gonzalez on UnsplashI worked at a cruddy hostel for an abusive boss in a place infested with bed bugs. He asked me to do an overnight shift on Christmas eve the day before. So, I agreed and never showed up to work again. His reaction was epic—he left me like 50 angry voicemails telling me how badly I’d screwed him over and that he had to do it himself and missed Christmas. It was funny.
23. Will You Be My Valentine?
chocolates with box on white surfacePhoto by Food Photographer | Jennifer Pallian on UnsplashI had a manager at a clothing store who just went on a power trip anytime the boss was around. She’d tell them how much she was selling and that the store basically ran only because of her, and she would use her ID card to ring up our sales. Valentine’s Day came around and I bought one of those huge boxes of chocolates shaped like a heart.
I put it in the backroom with a note from our married boss, telling her how much he cared for her, that he wished they could spend more time together, and to call him if she felt the same. Then came the biggest plot twist—she did call him. Turns out they had an affair, and the wife found out and left the boss, who in turn fired the manager. I only heard of the turn-about later because I quit shortly after V-Day. It still made my day.
24. Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner
person holding white and red boxPhoto by Brad on UnsplashI worked at Chick-fil-A in Georgia from the time I was 15 until I was 17. I got a better job at 17 and turned in my two-week notice. However, with one week left to go, the AC went out in the kitchen. I don't know if you've worked in a kitchen in Georgia in August, but it's ridiculously hot. I asked the owner when he would get it fixed.
He told me that he wouldn't get it fixed for another month. So, I quit. When I got my paycheck, I found that my pay rate had suddenly gone down to minimum wage for quitting before the two weeks were up. So, I decided to get petty—I went down to a butcher and bought a cow head. It was skinned but still had its eyeballs. It was really, really gross.
Since my parents were out of town, I left it on my back porch for a couple of days to get a good coat of maggots and insects. Then, one Saturday, I snuck into the restaurant and put it on a toilet in the men's room. The toilet's pipes looked something like a cross, so I lit a couple of candles around the toilet and put up a sign that said "EAT MORE CHICKEN".
25. Game On!
woman in brown blazer sitting on chair holding smartphonePhoto by Daria Pimkina on UnsplashA lady on our team never did any work. Instead, she would whine her way out of stuff or go on endless lunch breaks where she just played solitaire. Eventually, it got to the point where we were uninstalling the games from her computer accounts via the local admin accounts.
One day, I noticed she STILL had a game on her PC, even after we removed the default ones. That's when I put my foot down.
That same day, she left the office and left her PC logged in, which was a big no-no. I got on her PC and found the game linked on the desktop. I went to the shortcut properties and changed everything so that when she clicked on the game it would open the Wikipedia page on work ethic instead of the game. She doesn't play games in the office anymore.
26. Expensive Taste
clear shot glass on white and blue table clothPhoto by YesMore Content on UnsplashI started work in a new IT role on the same team as another guy who instantly decided he wanted to make me out to be a pathetic, worthless excuse for a man. This was despite the fact that were both in our mid-20s and I had outranked him in the profession and was happily married while he was living with his parents, weirded out every girl he talked to, and was in a low-ranking job.
He used to try to bait me into arguments so he could rattle off his well-rehearsed right-wing cliches and boast about how I wasn't a “real man” because I didn't drink $80 scotch or have a weapon collection or whatever. I just ignored it since I already figured I was winning the game of life. One day, he sent one of his emails to the whole team—and something in me just snapped.
It said, "If you don't drink this, you can kiss your manhood goodbye", with a picture of some expensive scotch or something. I hit “reply all” and said, “You know what else kisses my manhood goodbye? Your mom”. There were “Oh, snap!” replies all around. Six months later, I was promoted to head of the team, and he was fired.
27. Motorsport
white bmw car on road during daytimePhoto by Andre Tan on UnsplashI had a warehouse manager who was a dirtbag. My plan to teach him a lesson was simple—I took out ads in the local papers putting his car up for sale at half price and had people calling his house at all hours of the night.
28. Spill The Beans
man in white dress shirt sitting beside woman in black long sleeve shirtPhoto by krakenimages on UnsplashI got a new job at one of my old employer's bigger customers and convinced my new employer to quit buying from my old employer. All I did was tell my new boss about their shady business practices.
29. Touchy Subject
man in yellow and black stripe polo shirt and white cap sitting on brown wooden benchPhoto by Kevin Grieve on UnsplashI was working as a laborer on a building site when I was 17. My job was pretty much just sweeping the floors and keeping the site clean while the carpenters and builders did their business. There was this one prick working there named Tony. Tony was a fat, old Croatian guy who, despite living in Australia for the last few decades, never managed to learn Australian etiquette.
He was a carpenter, but he'd march around like he was the king, blasting orders to everyone including the foremen, builders, and people who didn't even share his trade. Not only that, but he'd always be walking around with a cubeb out of his mouth. Now I'm an ENT myself, so the fact that he smoked didn't bother me.
However, doing it at work and no one had enough balls to tell him not to did. When I first met Tony, I could tell he was a prick, so I basically avoided him as much as I could. But every time I walked past him, he would grab me on my shoulders from behind with enough force that I was unable to move, and yell in my ear, "YOU WANT SOME?"
He'd do this every day or two. At first, I would just politely decline, wriggle free, and attempt to avoid him. But he kept at it. After about a month or so, I began telling him to screw off and stop touching me, but it continued. Instead of offering me some, he started yelling, "DON'T TOUCH ME, DON'T TOUCH ME", in a mocking tone. He found it so funny, but I'd have the last laugh.
Things had gone too far, and the foreman wasn't doing anything about it, so I had to take things into my own hands. One of the other workers had mentioned to me that Tony told him how worried he was that his wife might find out he was having an affair. So, I grabbed his phone from his workbench, selected a few choice messages, and forwarded them to her.
He also had a few strips of timber that had measurements written on them, sort of like a template, I guess. He had written "DON'T TOUCH" on them. I grabbed about five of these timber strips, added the word "ME" to the end, and super-glued the suckers to his car. While I was there, I also let his tires down and super-glued the caps back on.
“That'll do”, I thought. I managed to leave that day before he'd had a chance to discover my shenanigans, so I didn't get to see his reaction. Not surprisingly, I was called by the foreman that afternoon, telling me to look for somewhere else to work. I may have lost my cruddy job, but it was worth it just to take that jerk down a few pegs.
30. Stalling For Time
man sits on roadPhoto by Tiago Felipe Ferreira on UnsplashI had worked for a family-owned computer reseller for five years when greener corporate pastures called. I gave the required two weeks' notice, and the owner of the reseller business called the CEO of the company for which I was going to work. They got my departure delayed by two weeks. Then, they got everyone in the company to take me aside and tell me how big of a mistake I was making. Little did they know they were the ones making the mistake—the mistake of crossing me.
They all made my life miserable for those two weeks. When I left, I changed the entire internal network’s passwords to "I don't know". When they called to ask me what the passwords were, I told them the truth.
31. The Gardener
silhouette of man and woman standing on roof buildingPhoto by photo nic on UnsplashWhen I was younger, I worked in loss prevention for a supermarket company. There were a few guys there that everyone called "The Blue Ribbons" because they were in tight with the manager. They had a habit of acting like your friend and then bashing you to the boss behind your back. And not just bashing your personality.
They’d say that you were lazy, never did any work or anything that made you look bad, and kept them looking good. I was really good friends with my partner, Rick, who worked in the store with me. We both completely loathed this group but that's the way things fall sometimes, so it was no big deal. They were just a few guys we knew not to trust and didn't particularly care for.
Then we found out that one of the guys, Sean, was up to no good. He was telling our boss an outrageous lie—he said we were both taking time by saying we were working a certain number of hours, and then not showing or taking insanely long breaks. It was a pretty interesting accusation considering we were catching more than our fair share of thieves and associates.
Rick and I actually worked in the same store that Sean's girlfriend worked in. She was a customer service rep, and she and I took breaks together and got along quite well. She was a nice person but was definitely a bit on the trashy side and flaunted her looks. Sean was a really jealous boyfriend and they fought constantly.
They broke up and got back together about once every two weeks. I'm not a bad-looking guy, but Rick was quite the dashing fellow. I also knew, through some of the girls he'd been with, that although Rick wasn't a big guy, he was very large where it counts. I accidentally on purpose mentioned this to Erin during a smoke break.
I was kind of complaining that I was twice Rick's size, but I guess he was just huge, and it didn't seem fair, and blah, blah blah. The seed had been planted. Rick worked in the store quite often, so things were brought up, flirting ensued, and to make an already very long story short, Rick ended up getting some action from Sean's girlfriend right in our office.
I don't think Sean ever found out, but every single time we saw him we just smiled at each other. We knew that he thought he did a good job hassling us and being a pain in the butt. But it was worth it knowing that I planted the seed, and Rick got down with his girlfriend.
32. Riding Switch
selective focus photography of man wearing black topPhoto by Rayner Simpson on UnsplashStarting in the fourth grade, I was bullied. Not sweet and sensitive little name-calling, it was the full-on “beat the snot out of me” kind of torment. I had soccer balls thrown at my face and beehives stuffed in my backpack. I was tripped and then beaten up and humiliated in front of my friends and teachers. I put up with his stuff for years—until I couldn't bear it anymore.
Until I became a freshman in high school. He was a year older than me, so he already had his own stupid little posse, while I was a rookie in the school’s marching band. I played clarinet. So, yeah, from the outside, I pretty much seemed like a Grade-A weenie. It was summer, before band camp, and I was practicing my parts all by myself over by the lunch area.
The bully, who we’ll call Joey, showed up. He started calling me names and stuff, laughing with his jerk posse, and making fun of me for playing the clarinet. He finally left with his posse to go do something somewhere else, but he left his skateboard on the table. Now, I might have been a weenie, but I wasn’t an idiot.
In band, we were required to have tools on us for repairing our instruments, one of the tools being a wrench. Also, I used to skateboard, so I knew my way around a skateboard. I loosened up his trucks so that they were nearly falling off and put his skateboard back perfectly the way it was before. It had been about five minutes when Joey came back to get his skateboard, and to make another remark.
I said something like, "Go screw yourself," and then I just started sprinting as fast as I could. As planned, Joey hopped on his skateboard trying to chase after me, completely unaware of what I did to his board. He got off on a fast start but then quickly lost his balance, hit a crack in the cement which caused his front wheels to come off, and faceplanted into the ground.
He was completely knocked out. I ran back to him, spat on him, and then ran to a security guard. Knowing that Joey was a smoker, I lied and told the security guard that I saw Joey with a rolled-up substance. Luckily for me, the jerk really did have that, as well as another shocking object—a concealed pistol in his pocket. And it was LOADED. He got expelled from school and sent to juvie.
Currently, I am still a weenie. I’m going to college with a 4.2 GPA and a nearly full-ride scholarship to a great college. I anticipate the day when that jerk tries to get his revenge. I anticipate it very much.
33. Fair Wages
man in suit jacket sitting downPhoto by Hannah Nicollet on UnsplashAnother boss was hired and the whole story was fired, except my old co-worker buddy from the story above and me. We basically ran the place and trained everyone that started to work there. One day, I found out that one of the people that I trained and had been hired after me was making more than me. After hearing that, I walked into my boss’s office and asked if I could get a raise.
I had been working there for over a year and many more responsibilities had been added to my job. He flat out told me, “No”, and basically said that I was replaceable. "OK", I said, "have fun replacing me". I walked out in the middle of my shift and called it a day. He called me a bunch of times telling me I had to finish my shift. That's when my petty side came out.
I asked him if I’d gotten my raise yet and he said, “No”, so I hung up on him. The next day, he called again, telling me I needed to come in for my shift. I asked again if I got my raise. “NO”. “OK, I'm not going in”. Less than a month later, he got fired and the owner of the store called and asked if I wanted his job.
34. Drinking Buddies
clear glass bowl with orange liquidPhoto by Matheus Frade on UnsplashI had a dirtbag boss that would demand we hang out and get plastered with him during and after work. He didn't like his family and would sometimes keep us at work three or four hours late while he swilled cheap booze and we pretended to. Then, of course, he'd drive home. This was all on top of the kind of general rudeness that's already been described.
One day, I decided I was sick of it. So, I decided to get petty—I called in an anonymous tip that resulted in him getting a DUI. Fired. Done. The new boss is cooler.
35. Slow Roast
chocolate cookie frappePhoto by Victor Rutka on UnsplashMy old boss was a super mean, super-sheltered Mormon girl. Mormons don't drink coffee. One day, she asked me to go get the lawyers in the office coffee. I went, being the office's whipping boy—and I decided to take advantage of the opportunity. I brought her a frap back, telling her it was like a smoothie. She got addicted. Literally. Before I left, she tearfully told the story on the phone about how she was now addicted to coffee.
36. A Lovely Eau De Parfum
woman in black crew neck shirtPhoto by OSPAN ALI on UnsplashTwo guys at work used to pick on me relentlessly. So, I used to go in early and spray raccoon urine on the chairs in their shared office. After two weeks, they were mostly immune to the horrible smell but everyone around them was not. To this day, they have a reputation for the worst body odor in our Fortune 500 company.
37. Read The Fine Print
man in black crew neck shirt smilingPhoto by Abdrahim Oulfakir on UnsplashI once worked at a sign company and my supervisor had a nervous breakdown. She would sleep at the office, not shower, not change her clothes, wouldn't work, wouldn't do anything. Even though I was a temp, I took over like a boss. I went to meetings in her place and did everything in the whole department myself. When the time came for my contract to end, the manager of the whole operation had to decide whether to hire me or not.
She called me into her office and offered me LESS than I was making through the temp agency. I reminded her that I was a good worker and that I had increased output by over 200%, as well as basically doing the supervisor's job all at the same time. She held her ground, so I said, “No, thank you”, and I decided to just leave at the end of my contract. But before I left, I made sure to leave them a little parting gift.
In the meantime, every sign you see anywhere has braille on it as well as letters. It was part of my job to engrave the braille text into each sign. So, whenever I did a sign that wasn't a number, I would make it say, "I hate this job and my cheapskate manager". No one but me could visually read braille, so no one ever knew.
And before anyone calls me out: No, I didn't do that to the fire and emergency-related signs.
38. Reference Check
man in black long sleeve shirt sitting by the tablePhoto by René Ranisch on UnsplashTo get revenge, I just tell the truth when people in our small industry call me to ask about what it was like working for him. He hasn't ever been hired for any of the jobs where I've been consulted on his work and demeanor. The best one was when I was called by a friend of mine about the guy applying for a job at the company I was contracting at the time.
I said, "If you hire him, I'll quit". I still work for them, on and off for the last three years.
39. An Acquired Taste
woman sits on the barPhoto by Alex Voulgaris on UnsplashI worked at a large nightclub. We got a new general manager that turned into a complete jerk. He would make comments about employees and constantly make fun of them. He would also tell the same stories over and over again. One day, when my buddy and I were closing the place down, I saw a jar of jellybeans on the general manager’s desk—and a lightbulb went off in my head.
I proceeded to rub my hands all over my sweaty balls and run them through his jellybeans. Then, I just dipped my nuts ever so gently into the jellybean jar. My buddy walked in while I was doing this. I told him to be quiet and not to say anything. The next morning my buddy gets called into the general manager's office for a meeting.
The general manager offers him some jellybeans which he politely declined. The general manager proceeded to finish the rest of the jellybeans. At one point a jellybean stuck to his mouth. My buddy had to leave before he laughed and ruined everything. I still do not really feel bad about doing that. That manager was a jerk.
40. Let The Dough Rise
four bagels with sesame seeds on a cooling rackPhoto by Robert Gareth on UnsplashI used to have a baking job in a local bagel shop, and I also did some prep work. I was an "unofficial" manager since I had worked at the shop for years and made more money than most employees. Because my shift started early, I got to leave early. Some of the other employees didn't like this, particularly a new girl and her boyfriend.
They always had attitude problems toward me. I never knew why, they just didn't like me, I guess. Which is totally fine! One day, it was 11 am and the boyfriend started his closing duty. I told him, "Sorry, Boyfriend, you can do all of your closing duties if you want, but you still have to stay until close". He ran and told his girlfriend.
She started yelling at me from the front while I was in the back, calling me all sorts of rude names in front of customers. I asked her to come to the back if she wanted to talk to me and she came to the back, shaking. I was absolutely terrified—I seriously thought she was going to punch me in the face. I was all done for the day, so I went home to cry about it.
She ended up quitting and leaving a note to my boss about what a horrible person I was. My boss crumpled up the note, threw it away, and told me what a great person I was. Fast forward to recently, my boss ran into her stocking groceries in another town where she has moved back in with her parents and her boyfriend.
In the end, I didn't really have to do anything but turn to friends like my boss who helped me believe that I am a good person and that others are just rotten. I'm happy in a relationship, going to school and I have my life together, for the most part. I’ve often found that in the end, karma is the best way to get back at someone.
41. Technical Difficulties
man writing on white paperPhoto by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on UnsplashI used to do IT work for a large university. A few years back, they decided that everything would be better if IT were centralized, then parsed back out to the departments. In many places, that might work. At this place, it was going to be a disaster for reasons that aren't relevant to the story. I knew it was going to be a mess.
And I didn't want to work someplace where a user is required to fill out a ticket before I could even look at their problem, so I decided to leave. As I was cleaning out my office on my last day, a professor came running down the hallway in a panic. This guy had been a huge pain in my butt for years. He was a jerk, he was condescending, he thought he knew anything that mattered about computers, etc.
He was your standard jerk. I also knew that he had been one of the biggest proponents of switching up how IT worked and that on at least two occasions he suggested that the best way to save money for the department would be to cut my position. So, while I had always been professional with him, there really was no love lost.
He was huffing and puffing down the hallway, and said, "I'm so glad I caught you before you left. I'm giving a big presentation in 30 minutes to the administration! My computer won't turn on, and my only copy of my presentation is on there!" My response was killer. I just told him, "I'm sure if you fill out a ticket with the central IT desk, someone will be with you shortly".
He just stopped straight still, and I think he suddenly pieced together that I knew exactly what he'd been saying when I wasn't around. He turned beet red and walked down the hall back to his lab, and slammed the door shut. His stuff wasn't fixed in time.
42. Heavy Lifting
woman in white shirt wearing white helmetPhoto by Thayran Melo on UnsplashI worked in construction right after high school and was harassed daily for the first two weeks by this older guy. He carried an old metal lunch box daily to work and would leave it on the cement in a corner of the building till lunchtime. After having had enough, I used the nailer to nail the darn thing to the cement floor.
I put his food back in afterward, of course. At lunchtime, he bent over to pick up the box and injured his back. Weeks went by and he finally came back one day. He could no longer work and ended up retiring early. I would have felt bad, but the guy was a major jerk, and not just to me.
43. Ten Out Of Ten Would Recommend
man in red shirt holding black video cameraPhoto by Samantha Borges on UnsplashI worked for a photography company that contracted with the Army. My hours were being cut because work was really slack. It was down to like four hours a week. So, I found a side gig videotaping jury research and making a sweet $20 per hour. I told my boss at the photography company, and he was livid. He said I couldn't work anywhere else.
He said if I didn't show up to a crummy Saturday meeting because I was working at my other job, he would consider that as me quitting. So, I “quit”. Then, I started rating my old company through the Army's vendor rating portal. I gave solid, horrible reviews about all the real stuff they did. My old boss was soon replaced.
44. Hotkeys
MacBook Pro turned onPhoto by Andras Vas on UnsplashI left my boss a laptop sandwich. How do you make a laptop sandwich? Take a #2 on the keyboard. Close the lid.
45. A Sticky Situation
red staplerPhoto by Mike Meyers on UnsplashMy revenge was simple yet effective: I put his stapler in Jell-O.
46. Credit Where Credit’s Due
man wearing suit jacket and crossing armsPhoto by Aslan Kumarov on UnsplashI had a co-worker who kept taking my work, taking credit for things he didn't do, and was a general jerk towards me. I knew he was going to take something I was working on, so I made sure he got his karma by purposely messing up...hard. I mean very, very hard. As in, I indirectly bad-mouthed the CEO and higher-ups in a report going to a customer and sat back and waited.
He got fired without severance pay, he lost his house, and his wife left him. He lived on the street for three months before he was given a tiny government home. I send him a Christmas card every year.
47. The Magic Formula
black and silver laptop computerPhoto by path digital on UnsplashI used to have to report website usage, ROI, and all sort of statistics for a bunch of different sites. I built a cool mother of a spreadsheet in which you only input a few numbers and it would calculate just about everything the company would need. It was a bit too complicated for my boss to understand, yet he would take it to clients and brag that he made it.
That ticked me off. Then, after a while, he realized that the spreadsheet was all he needed, and he could use my paycheck to buy a new house. He laid me off. I told him he might need help with the spreadsheet, but he said he was smart enough. So before I left, I made sure to make him eat his words—I changed a single formula in the spreadsheet and had a good laugh about the reports it spat out. They made no sense at all anymore.
48. It’s Company Policy
person holding pencil near laptop computerPhoto by Scott Graham on UnsplashI worked in the IT department of a rather large law firm. A guy I was sort of friends with worked a couple of desks down from me, and he had a bad attitude. He ended up getting into a long feud with the tech support manager, who was, admittedly, a stupid cow. He ended up getting fired over the feud, and I think just his general attitude.
He called to tell me about it the night it happened since I was working on a project after hours and wasn't there at the time. The next day, my boss calls the department into a meeting to tell us that my pseudo-friend had quit, but that because he was in IT and had access to all the passwords, they were not allowed to give him two weeks' notice.
This was, of course, complete nonsense. Everyone knew that he got fired, and everyone knew our boss was lying through his teeth. So, fast forward about six months later, and I had just survived being scapegoated big time for some stuff I wasn't even remotely responsible for. I could see the writing on the wall that they were working on building a case to get me canned. But they had no idea who they were messing with.
It just so happened that I got a job offer through a referral from a friend that worked at another company. So, when the offer came through and was way more than I’d expected, I did a little dance and then I shut up about it. My girlfriend was a flight attendant at the time, so we planned a little last-minute getaway between jobs.
The day before we were scheduled to leave for EUROPE, I went to work, did my best to close out all my issues, and, for the sake of my coworkers, put out any fires I could. Then, I marched in and handed my boss my letter of resignation, effective immediately. He read the letter. There was a long pause, and then he asked me when I wanted my last day to be.
I looked at him for a minute, savoring the trap. Then, I reminded him that "because I had access to all the sensitive system passwords, I wasn't allowed to give or take two weeks' notice". His jaw hit the ground, he muttered some sentence fragments, and it was pretty clear that I’d caught him in a lie. And the best part?
While we were living it up in Italy a few weeks later, I checked in on my bank account at a cyber cafe and saw that my direct deposit had cleared a check. It was for the pay period of the two weeks after I left. So, even though I didn't work it, I was given my two weeks' notice in salary. That extra paycheck essentially paid for an extra week in Europe. And that extra week was by far the best part of the trip.
49. Third Time’s The Charm
men's blue polo shirtPhoto by Nielson Caetano-Salmeron on UnsplashI worked in a place where the management structure in each store was a manager and three assistant managers. I was one of the assistants. One of the others was a guy and the third assistant was a thin, blonde girl. All of us, including the manager, were in our early 20s. The manager had his little "boy’s club" going on with the guy—and they were up to some fishy stuff.
The girl was pretty and flirty and was treated very differently from me. The two guys were definitely out to get me fired. I was constantly getting written up by both of them without being told anything. Then, my manager scheduled a surprise meeting with the area manager to confront me and let me know that if I was written up just once more, I would be fired.
I am positive that my job performance was better than most people there and in no way did I deserve the treatment I was receiving. We were not unionized. So, at this point, there was no recourse for me but to quit, which I couldn't do because I was finishing college and had living expenses to pay. Soon after the ultimatum, I applied for a position in corporate and ended up getting the job.
I let my boss know that I would be out of there in two weeks and told him about the new position I had gotten. Come to find out, this was the third time the position had been available. The best part? My boss had applied for it twice and failed to get it both times. The company had called him to let him know it was being posted for the third time.
They had even asked him if he wanted to interview again. He didn't because he was ticked off that he kept getting passed over. It was totally awesome to find out that I got the job on my first interview, and he couldn't get it at all. He left the company shortly after I left. The other two assistants are still assistants.
50. Chef’s Surprise
stainless steel spoon on white ceramic bowlPhoto by Victoria Shes on UnsplashA new guy was working with me in catering. A vegetarian customer gave him an undeserved earful. So, I gave the customer a free bowl of "vegetable soup". He had no idea what he was actually eating. It was actually beef barley. He had the runs for a week.
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