There are three types of managers. Awesome ones who inspire you to be the best you can be. Incompetent ones who make you wonder how they got promoted in the first place. And ones that are so astonishingly awful that you can’t help but daydream about putting them in their place. Though many power fantasies will remain just that—fantasies—some superiors do get a taste of karma. At the hands of their own employees, no less!
We've collected some of the most impressive tales of revenge from r/pettyrevenge and r/MaliciousCompliance about workers who made sure that their bosses received their just desserts. News flash—being a bad boss is so not worth it! Scroll down for the best stories. But be careful because revenge is a dish best served cold, and these dishes are chilled to absolute zero.
Bored Panda got in touch with Sam Dogen, the founder of Financial Samurai and the author of the bestseller Buy This, Not That: How to Spend Your Way to Wealth and Freedom, with some questions about the mature way to deal with bad managers. He shared his thoughts on letting go of anger and also revealed a powerful way to get back at your boss if they've really wronged you. Read on for the full interview.
This post may include affiliate links.
To my boss - I can see this eating you alive
My boss (we'll call him Steve) is one of those guys who's always attached to his email. Whether he's at his desk or answering them from his phone, he will stop the conversation immediately and read the email. No warning. The sound will go off, he'll stop mid-sentence, read and reply to every email. This annoys me. A lot. While going over a very important project (well into the $40-$50 million dollar range and long-term), I'm briefing him on talking points and covering the power point on the projector. A few slides in, he gets an email. Immediately Steve pulls out his phone and begins reading and replying. I've dealt with this for years, and this is where the revenge begins. I'm on slide 6, and while he's buried in his phone, I progress the slide to 13 and patiently wait for him to end. He looks up, oblivious to my trickery. Mind you, he has to present this within a few hours to top-tier business management, and this a project that we've been working on for months. I finish briefing him on the rest of the slides, we take lunch, and eventually the guests arrive for their briefing. Steve's taking charge of the meeting, and I retreat to my office, where I can still clearly watch the presentation but don't have to participate.
Steve's hob-knobbing, talking our guests up, laughing and joking. As he's talking to one particular VP, he gets an email, and in normal s**t-lord fashion, he stops mid conversation and reads it. The VP did not like this, not one bit. He interrupts Steve's email reply with a hand wave and a, "let's continue." This is where I get my second idea for revenge.
Eventually Steve gets to the power point presentation, yammering on like he's the one who spent all the time on the fancy fly-in's, formatting, research, etc... Until he gets to slide 7. I can see him pause, break his jovial manner, and begins reading word for word what's on the slide. He's no longer chipper and poised, he's floundering. Little does Steve know that I'm about to launch an email war on his psyche that he is ill prepared for. See, since I've been in my office, I've been collecting all the emails that came in that needed replies, drafted the replies, and have them sitting on my desktop. I've CC'd Steve to every one of them, because I'm just that good of an employee. As he skips to the next slide, I send the first email. I hear his phone jingle. He pauses and instinctively reaches for his phone, throwing him off his presentation. He looks around, and then continues. A minute later, I send the next email, then after a short pause, the next... And the next... I can see him sweating bullets, his brain imagining some catastrophic failure somewhere in our building, in shipping, in product sourcing, etc... But he can't check his emails without breaking from the presentation and pissing off the executives.
It's still going on. I have about 8 more emails to send, and he has about a hour until he'll be able to slink away and cower over his phone like Gollum holding the one ring.
I'm glad I went to work today.
as I start to work in a general manager position in my actual company, my boss gave me a company smartphone. I was carrying two phones with me all the time. as soon he noticed this he called me and said no personal phones were allowed during work time "because personal life stays outside of the job and not to mix things" and I was there for "work and not to call to my girlfriends or logging into Facebook" and "personal phones are a distraction". I agreed and complied the next day. the very next day after I started to keep my personal phone in the locker room, he was waiting for me in the lobby in a very bad mood because he called multiple times after work time and I didn't answer and asked why I ignored him. I said I was at home and my company phone was in the locker room so it was useless to call me after work time because the job should stay outside of personal life and I didn't want to mix things.
I was an intern at a local wedding magazine during college. Small office of three interns who put the mag together, with an editor who will always be the most incompetent person I’ve ever worked with. And I’ve worked in food service!
Anyway, after months of petty bulls**t, my car broke down over Thanksgiving. I called the editor, letting her know just in case I was ever late showing up, as I planned to take the bus/bum rides. Her response? “Oh, your car broke down? You are no longer needed as an intern.” Click.
B**ch, you did not just hang up on me! I was mad, but I took that call as a blessing in disguise and decided to forget about it. We weren’t getting paid as interns, so who cares?
Two months later, a Saturday, I’m relaxing at home when I get a call. Guess who?
“Hey OP! Listen, I’m sorry about that call during Thanksgiving break, my phone dropped it. We’re trying to get this month’s edition printed, and I can’t keep up with all the mail, the ads and the phone calls. It’s crazy here, and the other girls quit, can you believe that?? When will you be back in the office??”
Readers, it’s been four years since that Saturday, but even now I can still feel that incredible sense of petty joy.
“You said I was no longer needed as an intern two months ago. I have already accepted a position elsewhere. My new boss doesn’t call me on weekends and actually pays me. Lose my number.” Click.
We were interested in getting financial expert Sam's thoughts on the healthy and mature way to respond to a bad manager's negative attitude in the workplace. He suggested going for the direct approach—open and honest communication.
"The best way to deal with a bad manager is to sit down with them in a one-on-one setting and share with them how their actions make you feel. Be calm and point out examples of where their actions made you feel uncomfortable," the founder of Financial Samurai explained to Bored Panda, stressing the importance of staying in control of one's emotions in these situations.
"The manager may simply not be aware of how their actions are causing distress to you and other employees. In a private one-on-one setting, it's a safe place where the manager should feel less threatened," Sam said.
"Once you make a person see the other side, most reasonable people should be able to make adjustments to improve the work environment."
So I had worked really hard to get a job I loved and I was great at and paid decent. My team loved me and everything was going great.
I made the stupid decision to change departments. It was the same job but this department paid 5% more. I went to my first meeting in the new job and knew I had made a mistake. The operations manager made Somone cry, there were only 5 of us in the meeting and he was picking on a junior manager who has made a small mistake on the wording in a presentation he was doing. The rest of the team were great. While I was their I was the lead for a big project that lasted for 2 years. I managed everything and was the go to person. On the final meeting with the director my boss took over and took credit for all my hard work.
So I left the department and started to work somewhere else in the same company. About 6 months later Boss rings me in a Panic and explains he has a big interview but can't find the project pack. I say I'll send it across.
I dig out the pack but put in a roles and responsibilities page before I send it across. I had my name as lead on pretty much everything. I get a call later on from a old Coworker who said Boss had gone to his interview explained he ran this project did XY and Z and then went to go through the pack which had the responsibilities and he looked like an Idiot. Which rattled him and impacted the rest of his I interview. Boss was fuming but my Co-worker had backed me up.
Boss didn't end up getting the promotion and I like to think I played a small part of that.
Boss said I wasn’t using enough Wet Floor signs while mopping
I am a custodian, a coworker put a wet floor sign up in a hallway, someone slipped and fell. They person who fell sued the company and the custodian. They won. In spite of due diligence you can still get screwed. I put them up every six feet.
I recently resigned from my job. I was just tired and burnt out and my CEO kept pushing me hard, telling me to drive further and that's just how it was. I was also moving house, and commuting to work would be another 30 minutes on top of 1.5 hours I'm already doing, so enough was enough, I got so tired that I resigned. I hadn't got another job lined up, that's fine, I was ok financially
As soon as I resigned, my CEO called me into the office 20 minutes later, and asked me to leave straight away, escorted me off site like a criminal and wouldn't even let me say bye to people, touch my laptop, clear my desk - it was like I was being fired. It was so embarrassing. No one from work got in touch to see if I was ok as he went round telling everyone he fired me and saying "it went pear shaped with her at the end so I had to let her go"
Fast forward a few weeks......
Well I did find another job, with one of my ex employers clients that use their services to do their emergency training for them (first aid and fire training) And now I'm in charge of who we use as our contractors. My new boss said "well we normally use your old company at a cost of $37,000 a year, but if you know another company that is better then switch, I have no loyalty to them"
Well switch I have done. Muhahahaha
If my old boss hadn't treated me so badly I definitely would have used their services, but treat me like that and say goodbye to a client.
Most of us know that living in constant anger is awful for us. So we wanted to figure out the best way to let go of these feelings and the idea of getting actual revenge against your superiors. The author of Buy This, Not That advised employees to put themselves in their boss' shoes.
"Understand that bosses also have tremendous stress placed on them by their bosses. The higher you go up the corporate ladder, the more pressure there usually is. The key is to understand all the reasons why the boss is acting the way they are," Sam told Bored Panda.
"Sometimes, the boss may not be pleasant due to personal issues at home that are carrying over to the workplace. Other times, bosses just need to be heard," he said.
However, Sam added that if your boss has really wronged you, "then the best way to get revenge is to go to a competitor, and plant a virus in the organization that destroys it from within!" Though that's reserved for those rare cases where things get incredibly bad!
When I was an apprentice, mid 1980's, the drunken owner
wanted the thermostats in the shop set to 62F (16.6 C) in the dead of winter.
Long narrow industrial building, heater and thermostat at each end.
I worked in the middle, near a door. Which really sucked.
Doesn't sound cold, but when your job requires you to
stand still all day, yes, it sucks.
(I'm sure it was colder in other work places, doesn't matter.)
Mysteriously, the office was always 72-75F. Strange.
So one day, I took the covers off both the thermostats in the shop,
figured out how they worked, and "recalibrated" them.
After I was done, they ran about 10 degrees F warmer than indicated.
62F (16.6 C) became 72F (22.2C). Big improvement.
More than once I saw him check the thermostat, because it wasn't cold AF.
Then he wandered off with a puzzled look on his face.
He NEVER figured it out.
So I worked at a gas station. I was hired as a regular employee and given the manager position after he found out my mom used to be a few years prior to my working there and I knew the ins and outs of the store. I was the manager for 2 years and my boss hired a guy 2x my age who did not like having a young female boss. He was trying to tell people he was the manager, that he was gonna take my job and hire whomever he pleased. I reported it to the owner. Owner didn't do much.
Well a few months in we got into a fight (employee and I) and he threatened me with violence and My boss took the guy's side! The employee threatened to beat my a*s...And I told my boss, I wanted to fire him and hire someone else. He spoke with the employee and I got "bro coded". Basically, he took the employee's side of it all because of bro-code and dismissed the fact that he had threatened me and let me go. Needless to say, I was FURIOUS. 2 years id worked my a*s off for this man from 4:30 am til 10 pm or later, most days alone, mostly 6 days a week. I'd been sexually harassed, assaulted, and robbed and I STILL STAYED. But this dude comes along and you take his word over mine? Nah, homie. I got you.
My boss forgot all of his utilities, deliveries and basically, EVERYTHING was in my name because he barely spoke English and the companies always dealt with me anyway. He had so much trouble communicating in English it was just easier to have me do it and I knew all of the vendors anyway cuz of my mom's job there years prior, nothing had changed except we added a few new things to bring in business (That I advertised and did all the work for mind you.)
I canceled EVERYTHING. I called every single vendor, All his utilities and deliveries were stopped in their tracks. The "Employee" He so loved and respected and such, Yeah that idiot got arrested a month after I was fired. For what? Assaulting his girlfriend. Soooo... He lost everything and had to sell the business within 2 months. I feel absolutely ZERO remorse for it because he put a grown-a*s man's hurt feelings over my physical safety and I was not having that s**t. If I had to go back, would I do things differently? Maybe. But Do I feel remorse? Nope. I built that company for him the best I could as a 20-something-year-old girl. I took all of my loyal customers with me and about 75% of them still over 10 years later still won't go there because of what happened. They still come to wherever I'm working at.
This was years ago but it still makes me giggle. When I was 19, I got my first real office job. We weren’t customer facing so everyone dressed really casually. Jeans, tennis shoes, t-shirts. One day my boss called me in to talk to me about dress code. He said that he’d like his assistant to wear business attire like they do at the corporate office. I ask what that is and he said like little dresses with jackets. I felt icky but I didn’t fully understand why for years. That night my boyfriend (now my husband), took me to the store and I bought 5 outfits that exactly matched my bosses’ attire. Old man jeans, cotton button up shirts and loafers. That’s what I wore until I left the company. He couldn’t say a damn thing and he never talked to me about dress code again. I now realize that it ruined his little fantasy and it makes me proud of my young self.
Revenge is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, justice and fairness are very important parts of excelling in any field. When we’re at work, we want equal pay, good work conditions, a clear career path, and to feel as though our jobs have a greater purpose than just helping us pay our rent. In short, we need constant motivation to try harder and be better.
A good leader is someone who will have their team’s interests in mind, not just the company’s bottom line. They know that a highly-motivated group of people who find purpose in their day-to-day tasks will stop at nothing to get great results. Money is just part of the equation.
Forbes explains that employees want trustworthy managers, the possibility to improve their skills, and advance their careers. Moreover, they value safety and security and having an impact on the world. Progress, clarity, and purpose are essential here. If you want to have a miserable team and a high turnover rate, do the opposite!
Years ago I worked as a Barista for a coffee shop. It was managed by a really awful old woman who was mean spirited and cranky. She criticized my hair, my appearance, my attitude, my work ethic (I always showed up to work EARLY!! and that's saying something when your shift starts at 6:30am) and never stopped nagging at me for one thing or another - usually in front of customers, which was humiliating. She acted like this to me and most of the girls I worked with. She was sweet as pie to my male co-workers, though, go figure.
Anyway, one day she taped a typewritten sheet of paper to the wall filled with a bunch of new rules regarding point-of-sale behavior. It was riddled with typos. When she was gone for the weekend, I took my pen and corrected every typo on the page. She was so mad and embarrassed when she got back, but because a whole weekend of shifts had passed, she couldn't pin it on anyone.
We recently launched a project to a select group of beta testers. Late on a Sunday evening (I'm not paid to be on call or work on weekends), I get an email from the boss, cc'ing everyone involved in the project, that the entire site is down, please can I get it sorted urgently, as this makes the company look bad. Complete with screenshot of the problem.
I'm really glad for the screenshot. I didn't even need to open my laptop to see what the problem was. I'm mildly peeved at the tone of the email and I don't think including everyone plus the janitor was really necessary. So I reply-all to all, saying that the reason the boss is getting that error is because he has typed the wrong website into his browser.
I get a sheepish mail from him the next day saying that no, it was actually one of the beta testers that had sent him the message about the website not working and screenshot, and he had just forwarded it, and wasn't he glad it wasn't actually a problem. Suuuuurrrre, buddy.
Very petty, but I got a kick out of it.
I work with a big company that lets me work 4 - 10 hour shifts a week and have Fridays off. Occasionally at the beginning of this I would get a text on a Friday from my boss. Or a text when I’m off on vacation. These annoyed the hell out of me. Nothing about my job has that level of urgency.
The biggest annoyance to me was when I had the day off so I could move out of my house (just across town) and he texts me that morning. I certainly ignored it. Then he calls me. I ignore it. He calls me again a few minutes later and I answer it. What he wanted to talk about was something that “could wait until Monday” but he called me anyways.
So I decided to start handling things with a little pettiness. Anytime you want to text or call me on a day off, that’s fine. But I won’t respond until after 6pm and I will always ask a question with it which makes him work when he isn’t working.
After a few tries of this, he figured it out (subconsciously or consciously) and never texts me when I’m off anymore.
Just do what I did. When he calls just say "sorry just currently having s3x please call back in 20". Never will call again.
A recent poll conducted by Ciphr found that 67% of British employees valued work-life balance as the most important aspect of their jobs. In second place was pay and benefits (59%), while job security (57%), job satisfaction (53%), and a healthy work environment (42%) followed suit.
The situation is quite similar across the pond, too. According to the data from Forbes Health-Ipsos Monthly Health Tracker, 90% of polled American employees said that work-life balance is an important aspect of their job. 91% said that they value financial stability while 90% noted that consistent pay was essential.
Meanwhile, the data that the BBC looked at showed that 65% of Brits prioritize work-life balance over pay. 63% of Americans said the same. It’s pretty clear what managers ought to focus on. Their employees value freedom and clear boundaries. Something that’s bound to get them riled up, however, is giving them tons of unpaid overtime and playing it fast and loose with work hours.
This happened a few years ago, I was a data and reporting analyst and did all the ad hoc reports for the company. My boss, we'll call her Kerry, was a useless, she was one of these people that was always late, left early and took days off at short notice. The only thing of value she did was all the regular reports - sales, revenue etc. We suspected she got away with it because she was having an affair with her boss, we'll call him Stewart.
Our CEO was a fairly decent bloke, he'd look for ways to cut costs and would pay regular bonuses for the best cost saving initiatives. Kerry was very keen to submit ideas and encouraged us all to automate our tasks so she could try and take the credit for the savings.
On one of her skive days, which coincidently Stewart was "sick" as well the CEO was desperate for the sales report my boss does. I said I'd give it a look and see if I could get it done. Normally she'd spend 2-3 days doing it each week but the CEO wanted it that afternoon. A quick inspection of the data showed it would quite easily be automated so I knocked up the necessary script and got it over to the CEO who was super impressed that not only had I got it done in a couple of hours but also that it could be updated whenever he needed it. He asked if I could also look at the revenue, churn and a couple of other reports. Over that afternoon I automated everything my boss did.
Both Kerry and Stewart were back in the next day but were immediately summoned to the CEO's office before being suspended and sent home. Turns out the CEO knew they were having an affair and all the times they were sick or late or had to leave early was so they could sneak off and have sex. He'd not done anything about it because how important these reports were. Now they were automated he was able to get them suspended and later fired for gross misconduct for all the time they'd taken off. I also got a nice bonus out of it.
TL;DR: My useless boss encouraged us to automated our work so I automated all her tasks and the CEO fired her for.
This was a long time ago but I remember it like it was yesterday. I worked in the regional branch of a bank and was in loans. The district manager had to move the head lender into our branch for observation because he had four processors quit on him within six months. So I was number five. This guy was HATED at our bank… he treated fellow workers incredibly disrespectfully and was a flaming racist ( one of his rants… not kidding) was that the bleeping Jews stole Passover from the Christian’s). So also not so bright.
Well my district manager ended up loving him and he lived to drive me crazy.
One day he had this obnoxious singing tie that he played. I obviously cringed so he decided to play it over. And over. And over. In between customers. In between phone calls. And smiled huge because he knew I was absolutely silently seething. So I finally decided I had enough. I told him if he could go the rest of the day without playing it? I would buy him a case of literally any case of beer of his choosing. Anything.
He immediately jumped on it and then spent the rest of the day musing out loud about what the most expensive beer was…max number of bottles… all the different ways he could gouge me the most… while laughing like it was the funniest thing ever. I silently took it and didn’t say a single word… no matter how outrageous his comments. His constant… constant at my expense comments. After six and a half straight hours of this.. the clock finally hit end of day.
At that point he jumped up and started telling me what he had decided his beer of choice would be.
To which I replied… “ April’s Fools”.
To say he was angry is an understatement. He didn’t speak to me for a month. ( which was awesome). The district manager was equally enraged. Everyone else high fived me for weeks…
I ended up quitting not too long after but I will admit it was sooo satisfying. Petty? Yes. But so deserved.
Traditionally, April Fool's tricks had to be done before noon - after 12 the victim would day "April Fool's is past and gone, you're the fool and I am none" - just a little fact for anyone who is interested 😀
One of my first workplaces had extremely toxic management - it was owned and run by an old couple in their 60s were "co-CEOs". The wife in particular was a bitter, racist a**hole who would micromanage everyone, take credit for our work and also hated my guts more than the rest of the team (I am minority, female, young and also opinionated i.e. all the things she despises).
Because she's quite old, she never learned to touch type and instead does the typical hunt-and-peck style, so once she starts typing she stares down at her keyboard the entire time. She also tends to write quite long emails.
I became so jaded that any form of revenge was screwing with her to brighten my day, so one time I decided to plug a wireless dongle for a mouse into her PC. Once I saw she was typing, I'd wait until she'd typed a reasonable amount and then click using the spare mouse somewhere random. She'd continue typing, look up, and rage at her computer and have to start again. Sometimes I'd repeat the process within the same email for extra f**kery.
My colleagues were in on it, so I'd give them a heads-up when I clicked so we could all have a laugh.
When I was done, I'd simply wait until she left and casually unplug the dongle from her PC. Honestly this is one of the things that kept me sane while I was there until I managed to escape.
Saying someone is to old to know touch typing doesn't make sense. I'm 53 and they tried to teach me touch typing in High School, it is way older than me. So someone in their 60's could have learned touch typing when they were young. They may not know how to do it but it isn't because of age.
Came here to say that us older folks are the ones most likely to know touch-typing.
Load More Replies...
"it was owned and run by an OLD couple in their 60's" Tells me all I need to know about OP. "because she's quite old, she never learned to touch type' Screw you OP. We didn't even have computer classes in high school in the 80's but we damn sure had to take typing class. When you say you're opinionated you should preface that with stupidly and overly.
Not inowing touch typing has nothing to do with age. Secretarial schools in the 30’s taught touch typing. My mother learned touch typing as a teen. She’s in her late 70’s now. Don’t be ageist. ;)
lol touch typing comes from typewriters so no one is too old to learn it, they just don't care to.
OP sounds like an as*hole.. you mess** with someone because you don't like her? Try educating her instead of being a passive-aggressive f*ckwit.
"An old couple in their 60's" "Because she's quite old" LOL I'm 66 and I bought my son his first computer when he was nine years old. He's 33 now and builds, programs, and repairs them, making a six figure salary. I've been using computers longer than the author has been alive...oh, and I learned to type in high school. I also have a wireless mouse, lol.
At one time, all girls HAD to take typing. I wanted to take typing, (1970s), but the teacher wouldn't let me take it without also taking shorthand. I didn't want to take shorthand, as I figured it was unnecessary for using computers. I 'hunt and peck' to this day.
So yeaahhh...Nope. If she couldn't type or keyboard, her age had ZIP to do with it.
Typing has been taught in some schools as an occupational skill, nationwide, since at least the 1920s. One of my grandmothers learned as a high school junior in 1919, in Kansas/Indiana. Typewriters have been around since the 1880s; touch typing was every typist's goal Typing classes were standard high school curriculum when my mother attended...in 1944. As a matter of fact, many schools across the nation were teaching typing as an occupational skill as early as 1920. "Typing/touch typing" is old school terminology, referencing mechanical/electric typewriters and word processing machines of the era. "Keyboarding" refers to the use of external keyboards that came into vogue at the onset of the computer age. Even now, when one uses a mechanical/electric typewriter (which are still available), one "types"...if one has learned it...and if one has not learned the "touch method", it matters not if it's typewriter or keyboard, one is going to use the "hunt and peck" method. Just sayin'.
I'm 78 and learned touch typing when I was 15 and could type at 95 wpm (tested by the State). But your fuckey is brilliant 😅🤣😂
Touch typing was invented in 1888. Gave up reading at that point!
78 here. To learn touch typing. First you had to take a typing class . School on our Airforce base did not offer that option.
One way to be a good boss is to embrace the idea of servant leadership. It focuses on empathy, humility, as well as selflessness. The idea is that managers strive to support and empower their workers to keep them motivated and passionate about what they do. Moral, principled people who always do the right thing instead of changing their opinions just to be popular
However, no boss will ever be perfect and they’re not mind-readers (even if you might think some of them are!). Employees need to shoulder at least part of the burden as well. Specifically, when it comes to communication. They need to let their superiors know what they need, what works, what doesn’t, and what’s making their lives so awful that they’d rather quit. Transparency is a two-way street.
I worked for an internet company in Maine, the company was then bought out by a company in RI. Once every few months this snotty jerk would come to visit from the "main office" most of his comments were condescending, us redneck Mainers, blah blah. He'd always come with this stupid Labradoodle like he was the lord of the manor visiting the peasants. I was the supervisor for the newly created phone department and spoke to him about 2 employees who were allergic to dogs. He didn't care and still kept bringing his dog on his trips/visits.
I would get advanced notice of his visits, so one day a fellow co-worker I enlisted and I went out for lunch and each brought back a rack of ribs, from the local BBQ place. After enjoying them we went and placed one rib bone into all 20+ trash cans in the call center, as well as in each office trash can.
The pure joy of watching him try and pull his dog away from every trash can they walked by over and over and over again can't be explained. I got a call from his boss a few days later, and I played it off as innocently as I could. " Well, sir you don't expect that employees can't have a snack at their desks do you? I mean I could get an official break schedule going but that would require hiring more people. I did ask Mr.Y if he could stop bringing his dog, not only are 2 employees allergic to dogs but this is a professional office. He was unaware of that fact.
no more dog, and even better no more him. We started getting a new manager for visit and they were less often too.
This was back in the 90's.
I had a boss, probably in his 80's. Every morning the man walked past the coffee pot, to come to me to order me to get him a cup of coffee. I hate coffee. I hate everything about it.
This man was also quite rude.
I wasn't required to get him coffee (nor anyone) he just demanded it of me. So I started brewing coffee for him. Sometimes it was decaf. Sometimes it was 3 bags of coffee in one pot (bitter and full of caffeine!) But I never did it the same way twice.
After 2 weeks he finally stopped demanding coffee from me because "you are too stupid to learn how to make it."
I currently work at a drug/alcohol residential treatment center. I used to do the same thing somewhere else. The pay sucked and the commute sucked but my coworkers absolutely rocked. They were worth the dogs**t pay and 50 mile one way commute. I was always on time. I never complained about anything. I did my job well for the most part and when I f**ked up, I'd always take responsibility and fix it. Same with my work bestie. But my boss liked to pick on us. She'd come into the nursing station just to yell at us and tell us about how she doesn't trust us and she loved to remind us about how much she didn't really need us. One day after a particularly bad abuse session I sent HR an email about her behavior. One of many emails I've sent. And they told me to go f**k myself. It brought up all those memories of getting bullied in school and no one did anything about it. My depression and anxiety got so bad. I came pretty close to killing myself. But then I stopped and said f**k it. I'm a nurse. I can get a better job with better pay and better treatment and a closer commute. So I did. I quit. That's all I did. I wrote the most bland two week notice I could, and I sent it to HR, management, and the nursing department. That same day, 2 other people quit. And during those two weeks, three more people quit. And in thr month since I got my new job, a total of 8 nurses quit. Now staffing is so bad that my boss had to move into the facility to live there and be on-site 24/7 all because she was mean to me and my friend. She has a sick husband at home and she doesn't even see him anymore. And to make it even better, they had a mass firing at our sister facility which is much closer to my home. They have far fewer patients. I joined an agency and get sent there weekly to collect more than 400 bucks a pop for doing next to no work on a 12-hour shift. So now they're paying me to scroll [internet] and wear track pants just because they need a warm body there and they can't say s**t. So that's my petty revenge. Don't f**k with nurses.
To be honest 'Don't f**k with anybody without good reason' is a pretty good life motto.
Obviously, revenge feels good when it’s deserved. If you give someone who’s been making your life utter hell a taste of karma, you feel like you’ve restored some sort of cosmic balance. However, before you start coming up with elaborate plans that may or may not involve foam boulder traps and non-venomous snakes, think about what it is that you truly want from your life and career.
Why is it that you want revenge? Are you letting your boss live rent-free in your head? Living in constant anger is awful for your physical, emotional, and mental health. It can lead to digestive issues, cardiovascular problems, and even metabolic diseases. Anger can be a force that changes the world for the better. But at some points, it’s simply better to… let go.
Maybe you need to switch departments. Maybe you need to jump ship and build a career at a different, better company. Maybe the actual issue isn’t how bad your boss is but something else in your life entirely. Whatever the case, put yourself first and consider whether revenge is actually worth it. Being the better person, making yourself a priority, and simply moving on works as well. After all, the best revenge is a life well lived.
Lay me off with zero notice because the boss splashed all the cash to impress people but then call back an hour later for a favour...
After ending my contract with zero notice I get a call back an hour later asking me for the backups I kept on disc as they didn't bother keeping any.
Alas as I'm now no longer under contract, I will have to charge 125 an hour and I keep my backups four hours away. So that's going to be 1,000, if they transfer over the money I'll get it to them next week.
They agreed and paid the money.
I opened my drawer, took out the backups I kept there and made a note to drop it in to them across town in a few days.
Some years ago I was working in a petrol station, run by an Indian chap and his family. I was casual and only did Friday and Saturday nights, and sometimes a shift to cover someone who was sick.
Anyway, the boss got a bee in his bonnet about driveoffs. (That's when someone fills up and then leaves without paying.) According to his little fantasy world, that was the fault of not only the driver, but of the person on service. He decides, without consultation that he would simply deduct the cost of the drive off from the wages of the person on till.
I came into work on Friday night, collected my pay from the drawer, and found I was about $120 short. As I generally only earned about $300, this was a big chunk. I rank the boss and inquired why my pay was short. He explained that as I'd had two drive offs, totalling $120, he took it out of my pay. I explained that that was illegal, and that he had to pay the rest. He refused.
Okay then. I close the store, turn off the lights, lock the doors and go home. This is friday night, possibly the busiest night of the week.
The next morning comes. I get a series of increasingly desperate voice mails (As I switched off my phone until I woke up) The signs haven't been changed, the stock hasn't been put up, the fuel delivery turned away (As no-one was there to sign for it), deliveries of food and drinks have not been accepted. Basically, the weekend was f**ked for the store.
Eventually the boss manages to get a hold of me, where he spends the next ten minutes screaming down the phone, claiming I was inconsiderate, rude and a bad person.
I replied, "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes." and hung up on him.
Eventually his wife (who was the accountant) rang, gave a fairly sincere apology, said that my lost wages would be in my next paycheck, and to please come into work that evening.
"No. I need that cash now. This week. If it's in the drawer when I get there this evening, I'll work. Otherwise, I'll leave."
The money was there. He refused to talk to me for several weeks (Like I cared), but he didn't try that crap on me again.
I had a friend who was in a similar situation. She spent the summer before law school waitressing at a restaurant. This was at a time when people often paid by check. The owner decided that if the check bounced, the waitress had to cover it out of her wages. Most of the waitresses were single mothers, afraid to mess with the boss because they needed the job. My friend was in a different situation. She contacted the state's attorney general, and turned the creep in. Fortunately, he kept meticulous records of each and every bounced check, and had to pay back all of the money he had stolen over the years.
My boss LOVES to call me at 6:15 A.M. to ask me if I would LIKE to fill the shifts of the people who just called in sick.
This is an everyday thing.
I was bored and frustrated, so I decided to volunteer at 3:30 a.m. to call this same manager to ask if they needed extra help. He got super-pissed and tried to write me up for it. I showed the GM the time stamps of the calls I had received.
I don't get calls anymore.
I worked for a company in Austin Texas for over a decade, and in that time had amassed over 30 company shirts. I had a pile of polo type shirts and button ups. The company was a high end specialist retail and corporate sales place that had really nice bathrooms. After the company was sold to a genuine prick, he decided to fire a good quantity of about 100 employees including me.
Anyone who knows Austin, knows the huge number of homeless people living under highways. So after my firing I passed out shirts to all of the local homeless population, telling them that if they wore the shirts, they could use the bathrooms in the store.
Edit: this all happened 2 years ago, but the wife says she has a even more shirts put away... Might need a quick post holiday trip into town to drop off a few... Just to keep the revenge up, I'll put a merry Xmas from "boss name" note with them.
I work in the auto industry and outsell my coworkers dramatically. Each of them took a personal day off two weeks ago and since then, I've been asking to take a day off myself. Seems reasonable, since I ran the numbers and make more for the company than five other people combined. But the boss said no, he needs me there. Seems completely unreasonable to me.
So yesterday he came into work showing off a cool beanie hat he found that has bluetooth speakers inside of it. He loves the thing. I heard the story of how he found it five times. Opportunity noted...
Today while he was in the bathroom I paired his new beanie to my phone and left it turned on. He came out from his 15 minute dump session and I flipped my volume real low. I watched him look around for the source of the faint sound, then see his beanie and put it on.
"Why does it sound like someone is breathing in my speakers?" he said.
I turned the volume up full blast.
"Oh god is someone playing porn on my new beanie? There's a guy moaning. OH GOD, THERE'S TWO GUYS MOANING! THIS IS GAY PORN!"
He now vows to burn his hat. The rest of us had a good laugh, and I'm still not getting a day off.
I have a boss in the USA, which means we mostly communicate by email (I'm in Europe). His style is abrupt, patronising, and micro-managing.
This week he asked me to update a spreadsheet for him to present to the company Board. I had to use colour to indicate any changes, but he left the colour choice to me (very generous!)
My petty revenge was to use the colour 'Bastard-Amber' to indicate said changes.
In case anyone needs it, bastard amber is #ffcc88 (HEX) or (255,204,136) (RGB).
My friend works for a bakery/sandwich place. Their boss is an insufferable jerk. She treats all the employees like crap, forces them to work off the clock, plays favorites, etc. You name it, she’s done it.
Today the boss was bragging about trying new recipe for thanksgiving. She needed a loaf of Asiago bread for said recipe.
Alas, there is only one loaf remaining. She put the loaf in the back so that customers wouldn’t see it and refused to ring up the bread for herself.
Queue petty revenge!
This store has an online ordering service. So my brilliant friend frantically texted me to order the bread online. Since the manager had not purchased her bread (per company policy), it was still available for purchase. I placed the order for pick up 5 minutes before her shift ended.
When the order came through online, my friend printed the to-go ticket and with a s**t eating grin, took it to her boss.
Boss was PISSED, but had no choice to give up the bread. Muhahaha. Victory!!!
TL;DR: friends boss wanted the last loaf of bread in their store but, friend had me order it online to prevent her boss from getting it.
About 15 years ago I worked as a bartender at a bowling alley/casino. My boss was a mean lady and I'm nice and want to get along. It was difficult seeing morale drop on the team from the garbage she would say or do. It got to a point where I started closing the bar and setting things up for the next day. I would pre-make the coffee and she always asked to make one a little different because it was for her. From that day on if she was ever rude to us I would make her coffee with decaf for the next day. I lost track of how many times I did this, I think it was nearly every shift there towards the end. I still giggle about this
My boss is a nightmare. She's the head of our department at the school I teach at and we've had serious problems with her in the past. A comment someone made on another post I've made about her made me realise I should post this here.
So my boss is a coffee addict and absolutely must have her morning coffee. Now for whatever reason she refuses to make it at home and either drink it there or bring it in. Oh no she needs to make it at work using the schools supplies. Fair enough that's her choice. The thing is she is super picky about her coffee. She adds almost a quarter cup of full cream milk and it has to be full cream.
My boss is awful to a few people and one of the admin girls came up with the perfect way to retaliate in a way we could never get in trouble for. As we always arrive before her if there isn't much full cream milk we finish it off. She can't take her coffee black and refuses to use light milk meaning she goes without and is left miserable. There are about 5 of us who do this now and whenever she treats one of us poorly we all use full cream in our coffee to try and make her miss out. It's petty, she'll never know it's us and because she won't pay for coffee from the cafe or make it herself she's left miserable all day.
I had this job at the height of COVID that was primarily a cold calling/business development job. I hated this job, but didn't quit, because...COVID. My boss was ridiculous and kept forcing me to be an independent contractor, and then switching me to an employee, when it suited him. He was a real jerk in a lot of ways, though.
One day, my boss contacted me (I worked from home) and said, "you only brought on 21 clients in the last 3 weeks and you have only been on the phone 50% of the time. So, you could have brought on more clients if you were on the phone more. "
I asked him what he wanted me to do. He said, he wanted my active phone time to increase. He gave me no other instructions, such as bring on x amount of clients or make x amount of calls, so I decided to comply, by doing exactly what he told me to.
I found phone numbers that, when I called, I would have to listen to a menu that I would choose options from so I could be transferred. Many of these repeated, forever. Well, the longest one I found was an hour, before I disconnected. So, I would sit there, increasing my phone time, while listening to these menus and knowing I would never select any option. I would just indicate there had been "no answer" in my notes. I called these same numbers, every day, to make sure my active phone time had increased.
I did this for more than a year, before I realized I was wasting my time, not accomplishing anything, and was completely bored. So, I quit. He, apparently, never caught on.
TL;DR- after a year of the runaround, gave notice and the boss approved coming in with a mullet for the last shift. He underestimated my lack of shame.
Oh I have a good one. I worked in a very busy, high-end seafood restaurant in a resort town for a while, 3 years or so (i was a busser, and got pretty damn good at it). I was trying to move up in the restaurant, but my manager kept giving me the run around for over a year. By this point, I had started a full-time job in automotive (my chosen career path) and the restaurant gig was just extra cash. Talked to the manager about it again, told him how I wanted to stay but didn’t need this job anymore, and got another runaround so I gave him my notice. I should note that this restaurant had pretty clear standards on hair/facial hair- had to be neat, clean cut, with no stubble (facial hair had to be grown in), and whatnot. and I had grown my hair out to about the back of my neck by this time- and my hair is thick, dark, and very curly. Jokingly asked if I could show up to my last shift with a mullet, bossman quickly agreed not believing I would go through with it. I got it professionally cut into a mullet, and told the lady the whole story and everything. That s**t was amazing. Saturday night, the place was packed. The look of horror on my manager's face when he saw me was absolutely priceless. Customers were asking their servers if this was real life or some kind of joke/prank. Even my manager from my new job had come in and was at the bar laughing her a*s off. They tried to keep me in the kitchen, but I refused. They tried to send me home, but I followed every rule in the employee handbook so they literally couldn’t even find a reason to… it was f**king glorious.
The fact that customers were asking if its a prank and his new manager coming in makes this story far-fetched. Should have just stopped at the part about his current manager's look
This was back in the 90's, way before the internet was a normal thing to have in an office. Computers within offices were not networked and we transferred files on 5 1/4 floppy discs.
After one particularly s**tful day, my nasty boss fired me. I was happy to go but as I was packing up my stuff, I added all the words I knew he couldn't spell into the dictionary on his computer. It didn't affect any of the other computers I was highly gratified to see at least four spelling mistakes in my termination letter. I also stuffed the prawn heads left over from lunch into the hubcaps of his car, and taped down the button on his desk phone so, even if he answered it, it kept ringing. It's been 25 years and I still giggle about it sometimes.
Note: this post originally had 49 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
A place I worked at tried to implement a no personal cell phones policy. It backfired spectacularly. A couple employees had kids on the spectrum and had daily check-ins from the school. A lot of employees were parents of school aged kids. They told us the policy was that a call would come in for you and the phone person would call you to over the intercom to come answer the phone. So there were constant pages. "John, the school is on line one for you" "Mary, your doctor called and left a message" and so on. When it was pointed out this was a huge privacy issue, they started calling people over the walkie talkie. Which wasn't much better, because any employee with a walkie talkie still heard. And between the check in calls (that could have been texts if they had their cell phones) and calls from the school to pick up sick kids when flu season rolled around, the store started getting complaints about the phone lines always being tied up and customers can't get through.
I knew I was going to be fired from my last job because I was having issues with the manager and no one respected him and called me, a female, boss. I had asked to take part in an Excel class because I was in charge of so many programs for payroll and printing spreadsheets. So I made sure everything I made was in one folder on my computer, deleted it as soon as I got fired. They didn't have anyone escort me out and let me clean out my desk on my own. (IT was at another location and really liked me so I knew it wasn't likely to have them try to recover my files because my coworkers and bosses were ignorant about computers) so payroll and all records were messed up for months after I left.The guy who replaced me was fired for stealing from the company. Of course the company is still in business but I made my mark.
Honestly these posts are TLDR, I got bored after the first two. Suggest that if you copy/paste from Reddit, Jonas, that you precis the stories.
I often wonder why someone who is as experienced and qualified as Jonas is writing 'articles' for Bored Panda that no one bothers to read. These articles remind me of kindergarten kids being asked to cut out pictures from catalogues and glue them onto a piece of paper.
Load More Replies...
One of my first jobs was as a busboy at a semi-fancy restaurant. The kitchen staff, mostly comprised of Pakistani and Bangladeshi workers, was always giving me a hard time, making me do things that wasn't part of my job description. Since it was one of my first (if not the actual first) jobs I had, I didn't immediately go to the manager with any of this. Finally, one time they tried to take my tip, saying that it's normal. Why they didn't try this earlier should have been my first red flag. Either way, I went to the manager, a decent Pakistani man, and asked him, "Is this right?" He told me, "No, it's not", and I was never harassed in that way again, although, they would later try to get me to do other things that weren't my job, but I emphatically stood up for myself. After a year of working there (and dealing with not only the kitchen staff, but also some sexual harassment from one of the waiters--dude grabbed my a** and winked at me like it was normal), I quit.
A place I worked at tried to implement a no personal cell phones policy. It backfired spectacularly. A couple employees had kids on the spectrum and had daily check-ins from the school. A lot of employees were parents of school aged kids. They told us the policy was that a call would come in for you and the phone person would call you to over the intercom to come answer the phone. So there were constant pages. "John, the school is on line one for you" "Mary, your doctor called and left a message" and so on. When it was pointed out this was a huge privacy issue, they started calling people over the walkie talkie. Which wasn't much better, because any employee with a walkie talkie still heard. And between the check in calls (that could have been texts if they had their cell phones) and calls from the school to pick up sick kids when flu season rolled around, the store started getting complaints about the phone lines always being tied up and customers can't get through.
I knew I was going to be fired from my last job because I was having issues with the manager and no one respected him and called me, a female, boss. I had asked to take part in an Excel class because I was in charge of so many programs for payroll and printing spreadsheets. So I made sure everything I made was in one folder on my computer, deleted it as soon as I got fired. They didn't have anyone escort me out and let me clean out my desk on my own. (IT was at another location and really liked me so I knew it wasn't likely to have them try to recover my files because my coworkers and bosses were ignorant about computers) so payroll and all records were messed up for months after I left.The guy who replaced me was fired for stealing from the company. Of course the company is still in business but I made my mark.
Honestly these posts are TLDR, I got bored after the first two. Suggest that if you copy/paste from Reddit, Jonas, that you precis the stories.
I often wonder why someone who is as experienced and qualified as Jonas is writing 'articles' for Bored Panda that no one bothers to read. These articles remind me of kindergarten kids being asked to cut out pictures from catalogues and glue them onto a piece of paper.
Load More Replies... One of my first jobs was as a busboy at a semi-fancy restaurant. The kitchen staff, mostly comprised of Pakistani and Bangladeshi workers, was always giving me a hard time, making me do things that wasn't part of my job description. Since it was one of my first (if not the actual first) jobs I had, I didn't immediately go to the manager with any of this. Finally, one time they tried to take my tip, saying that it's normal. Why they didn't try this earlier should have been my first red flag. Either way, I went to the manager, a decent Pakistani man, and asked him, "Is this right?" He told me, "No, it's not", and I was never harassed in that way again, although, they would later try to get me to do other things that weren't my job, but I emphatically stood up for myself. After a year of working there (and dealing with not only the kitchen staff, but also some sexual harassment from one of the waiters--dude grabbed my a** and winked at me like it was normal), I quit.
