freepik @wayhomestudio

Few things are more satisfying than stopping a jerk right in their tracks, and these triumphant stories prove it. From sticking it to a horrible boss to dominating an old tormentor from your days at school, nothing compares to the full body high of getting to look a jerk in the face, feel absolutely no fear, and calmly say, “You have no power here.”

1. Family First

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I coached gymnastics at a very highly competitive gym. One of my duties was to select and train the youngest talent for compulsory team training. Parents caught on to what I was doing when I pulled kids from recreation classes and got all nail biting excited, but they never confronted me if I didn’t pursue their kid for higher training. Or, they didn’t until I met one high powered exec mom.

She was furious that I didn’t select her daughter. She started screaming at me in the lobby that I was blind, couldn’t see Suzy’s talent, her somersault (!) is better than all the other five-year-olds in class, we should be training her for free because did we know her soccer coach thinks she’s a STAR. A STAR! I told her competitive gymnastics is a family commitment, and while Suzy is great, her family is what didn’t make the cut. That shut her up real quick.

2. Get What You Give

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I was a manager for Circuit City. On my way to work, I was pulled over by a police officer because my license plate light was out. When the office asked for my driver’s license and asked if I was still living at the address that was listed, I told him that I had just moved. He asked how long ago. I said that it had been a couple of weeks. He wrote me a ticket for my light being out and for not changing my address on my license. What a jerk.

Later that same day, I see a customer arguing with one of my customer service associates about returning a printer that was 6 months past the return policy. As I approached the counter, I made eye contact with the guy. It was the same cop that wrote me a ticket. We locked eyes and I saw his immediate regret. He knew how this was going to go down. Could I have returned the printer? Yes. Was I going to? No.

3. Mom One, Jerk Boss Zero

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After decades of working at a government service job, my mum finally got fed up with her managers one day and decided to retire. As soon as she informed them of this, they tried to screw her over on her payout amount because of an alleged error in their records from twenty years earlier. In other words, they claimed that they had been paying the wrong amount into her retirement fund after the rules had changed and forgot to update it or something.

Jerk Boss: “It can’t be fixed. You would have to bring in your pay slips for the whole 20 years to have the evidence to fix it.” Mom: “No worries. I’ll bring them in this afternoon if you’d like.” Jerk Boss: “No, I mean all of them. Every single one.” Mom: “Yep.” Jerk Boss: “In chronological order.” Mom: “Yes of course. I wouldn’t keep my payslips in some other order, that wouldn’t make any sense at all.” It hadn’t even occurred to my mum that one would not keep all those documents in one place, and she never left the job so she just kept on filling up the box. That’s how you leave a lousy job in style!

4. Let’s Get Away From It All

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My boss refused to let me take a weekend off for my best friend’s wedding because a co-worker was already taking the time off for a dirty weekend away with the married guy she was having an affair with. The married guy was my boss, by the way. I was a bridesmaid and had booked the weekend off 10 months in advance.

I quit on the spot and told my boss’s wife he was cheating on her. My best friend’s wedding was lovely.

5. Making Light Of The Situation

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My parents owned an automotive garage. One day, a guy comes in and says his headlights don’t work and it’s the switch. Dad checks it out and it isn’t the switch. The dude has four blown headlights. When the guy picked up the car, dad explains he just needed new headlamps, not a switch. Dude thanks him, pays and leaves. But that wasn’t the end of it. Not even close. He comes back a little later complaining that dad didn’t do what he asked and he was ripped off. Dad explained again that it wasn’t his problem, but he persisted. They don’t want a fight, so my mom gave him his money back, but told him she needed to get the lights back. Dude says “Nah,” but he’ll come back. My mother is having none of that.

In the moment, she walks out and smashes all the lights with a hammer. She comes back in and sits down as the guy is yelling about calling the authorities. So mom dials 9-1-1 and hands him the phone. Officers show up and they tell him he got his money back, so the lights were mom’s property to do with as she pleased. It was so beautiful.

6. Thawed And Ready To Go

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I used to work as a refrigeration tech and had a job at the only employer in my county. They treated me terribly, cutting pay and benefits, giving us the bare essentials to do our jobs, and then complaining when it took us longer. Then another company opened up an office and started hiring a few of us. They offered me a job as a lead tech with a bunch of benefits.

These folks and I clicked and I knew we would get along. My old employer came to my house and begged me on a literal bended knee not to quit. They made this speech about how they would give me whatever I wanted. I looked this man who had treated me so badly and just said, “no, now get out of my house.”

7. Give A Little, Get A Little

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I was working in a toxic environment. I would never say no because I enjoyed the challenge. However, when I pointed out my value and received a paltry increase, I decided to leave. I got a job offer that would basically double my salary and delivered my resignation letter. That’s when everything went nuts.

A group of my bosses took me out to lunch as a sort of intervention and basically did what they did best – delivered the hard sell. I’m integral to the business, they’ll open up a career advancement path for me if I’ll just hang in there, yada yada yada. Then they made their counter-offer knowing full well how much my offer was for, and low-balled me like I couldn’t do simple math. I got pulled aside by just about every single higher-up over the next two weeks, and they all progressively sweetened the pot. I stood firm, and it was absolutely the easiest rejection of my life. I actually left that job with a sense of survivor’s guilt about the people I left behind.

8. At Ease, Soldier

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Got out of the Army and joined the Air Force National Guard in my home state. 20 minutes after leaving my new base for the first time, I receive a phone call from a guy introducing himself as a sergeant and saying that my name had been pulled from the reserve pool to deploy to Iraq in three months. I kindly informed him that: 1) I had just returned from deployment before getting out and was guaranteed more than three months stateside, and 2) I had enlisted with the air guard and was therefore exempt.

He got irritated, raised his tone of voice and said “well you better get that paperwork to me ASAP because my system says you’re going.” My reply shut his attitude down immediately. I said, it’s not my job to update your system for you. I then gave him the name of the organization I was now affiliated with, the city and state it was in, my recruiter’s name, rank and personal phone number. I concluded with “Now you have several different ways to contact who you need to in order to get your system updated,” and then hung up on him.

9. Sweet, Sweet Hush Money

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I had found another job and was just waiting out my previous job to get my bonus. For about three glorious months, I was free to express myself in ways I wouldn’t have otherwise. I had noticed that my vacation time had not been approved and normally would have asked about it but decided to see how it might play out. My manager called me in about two weeks before my vacation to inform me that it was denied.

I wasn’t the least upset (to be honest, I figured they’d screw with me). Instead, I dropped the mic. I calmly informed my manager that I would be going on my vacation anyway. She threatened me every way under the sun which only made me laugh at her. Everyone was surprised when I left her office smiling as they had heard her. I went to my desk, printed off my resignation and gave it to her. Got my bonus, got my vacation, and also got an extra two weeks paid because I was going to a competitor and they didn’t want me sharing information.

10. Which One Will You Choose?

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A long time ago, I was working at a restaurant that was, to put it bluntly, absolutely freakin’ atrocious. The place was almost always dead apart from the owner’s friends, who would make it their life’s mission to be incredibly rude to myself and the other staff members. Somehow, I stuck it out working there for six months.

The final straw came at Christmas, when I wanted to travel back home to spend time with my family (as my grandmother was sick at the time); and their response was, “You’ll just have to decide what’s more important, your job or your family.” I decided. I told them that this was the dumbest and most insulting question I had ever heard, and walked straight out the door.

11. Good Godiva, Man

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My wife used to keep these little Godiva chocolates that she likes in her desk at work, but started noticing some of them missing and figured it must be someone from the overnight cleaning staff taking them. Fed up with losing her not-inexpensive treats, she decided to get revenge on the choco-thief in question. My wife replaced the good chocolate with these little squares of chocolate laxatives that look just like real candies.

The next morning, she saw several of the laxatives were gone. Mission accomplished. From that day forward, she was never missing another one of her good chocolates ever again. And best of all, the thief couldn’t get my wife in trouble because it would mean admitting that they stole her food in the first place.

12. Not In My House

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I’m a small-time landlord. When I was just getting into things, I made some bad mistakes. The neighbor of one of my properties is a very friendly guy and when I was doing renovations would constantly pop over to chat. It turns out his son and his girlfriend are looking for a place to live. Great! Saves me the trouble of having to hunt down a renter, I thought. I run a background check and there are some red flags but nothing they can’t plausibly explain. I let them rent my property. Big. Mistake.

They never paid their rent on time and towards the end didn’t pay up at all. They trashed the house. They ground cigarette butts into the carpet and etched the word “Booty” on the side of the tub. I ended up evicting them and getting a judgment against them. I figured I’d never collect and never hear from them. Fast forward two years. The house is empty. I just had a tenant leave and I was about to start doing turnover. My phone goes off one day. It’s my former tenant. His girlfriend left him, he’s back living at home and he really wants a place to stay. “Not on your life.”

13. No, YOU’RE Dismissed

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I was once getting fired from a really bad job by a really bad boss. I knew he was going to fire me after I finished the project because the moron actually hinted at it in a conversation with his superior when he thought I couldn’t hear. So he calls me into a room, and as he was about to start his monologue, my phone rang.

I excused myself without waiting for an answer and left the room to answer the call. It was a company I had previously had an interview with offering me the position. I accepted, got back in the office, and dealt him the most satisfying blow. When I entered the room, I could see he was almost foaming. He was really expecting to destroy my soul by dismissing me from the job. So we go in the room again and when he opens his mouth, I just stop him and say, “I know what you’re doing, could we make it quick? I have a really important meeting and I don’t want to be late.” He just threw the paper at me and left.

14. In Spirit And In Truth

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I was engaged to a girl with two kids from a previous marriage. For the four years we were together, I had helped support and raise them, while loving and providing for her mom. They began calling me Dad after the first year, as their bio-father was long since gone. Then she betrayed me in the worst way possible. She started cheating on me with a guy she met at a friend’s birthday party and she kicked me out when I found out. My protests that on top of me not deserving all this, it was disrupting and hard on my boys were met with the statement, “you’re not now, and never have been they’re real father.”

Fast forward two months, and she’d missed a LOT of work due to long, drunken escapades with her new boy toy. Her boss finally had enough and told her if she didn’t get to her job in 20 minutes, he’d fire her. She calls me up, playing every pity card she knew, even promising reconciliation if I would watch the boys for her that day. Because the three of them “needed” me. I told her “Why? I’m not now, nor have I ever been their father,” and hung up on her. It was very satisfying.

15. Gamer Rage Strikes Again

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My friend has this entitled younger brother who acts like the world revolves around him. While his dad is stern with him, his mom babies this behavior, and he can get away scot-free with almost anything. He gets angry very easily, even at the slightest things. I was over at my friend’s house, and while we were downstairs, we heard a loud crash from his brother’s room.

It turns out he was playing Fortnite on his TV, and threw the controller into the glass table, which shattered. My friend called me later in the day over Discord and told me how after his dad came back, he grounded his brother for a month, and he wasn’t allowed to play video games or go over to a friend’s house. He had to pay for a new table with his allowance and had to do chores. He got what he deserved.

16. Deal or No Deal

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I heard this from a DJ in my home town. He’s pushing his cart of groceries out of the store and over to his car when a woman pulls into the handicapped spot in front of the store. No placard, no handicapped plates. She jumps out of the car without so much as a limp and heads into the store. He gives her some stink-eye about taking up a handicapped spot and she snarls, “Deal with it” as she sashays into the store.

The guy is now fuming. He sees a couple of officers who were leaning against their cars talking. They hadn’t seen it. So he goes over and tells them the story. They smile and say they’ll handle it. He puts his groceries in his car, and as he’s pushing his cart back to the store to put it in the rack, he sees the officers have blocked the lady’s car with theirs. The lady comes out of the store with her purchase, sees the officers, and goes white as a sheet. He walks over to her and says, “I dealt with it.”

17. A Star Is Born

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My wife was about to give birth, and I had just taken an odd job as a temporary thing. We had just moved to a new city and I had started this job less than three weeks earlier. The plan was for me to work there for a bit while I continued to search for an office job in engineering for the long run. Well, when the big night finally came, I called my supervisor to let him know that I couldn’t come in because my wife was having contractions and her water had just broken. His reaction was so disturbing, it’s impossible to forget.

He told me to get to work and that the baby wouldn’t be born till later anyways. I said, “No, I’m driving my wife to the hospital now.” He told me to get the you-know-what back to work, so I simply said, “I quit” and hung up on him. No more than 10 days later, I found a much better job and I have been happily employed here for four years at this point.

18. Thank You, Next

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I was in a McDonald’s during a lunch rush. A guy walked in and tried to rob the place. The manager’s response made me want to clap. The man told the dude he didn’t have time for this and just took the next person’s order. The place was packed and the would-be villain just left empty handed and completely ignored.

19. Sucks For Them

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I once worked for a shady company that sold and repaired expensive American vacuum cleaners. I was the service manager. I had been planning a six-week scuba diving trip with a friend for two years. They were well aware of this and said it was fine. When the time came close, I put in my application for six weeks leave. I was called into the husband/wife owners’ office and told that I could only take three weeks, even though I had saved up six weeks of days off with their permission.

I pointed this out but they were adamant that three weeks was the most they were prepared to authorize. I even tried to negotiate five weeks but that was firmly rejected. So I walked from the office, wrote my resignation letter and left. Had a great holiday diving the Great Barrier Reef. They rang me weekly for a solid three months offering all sorts of incentives to come back but by then I had landed a great government job.

20. Technical Victory

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A horrible former co-worker always claimed she worked way more hours than she actually did, and when she was at work she just browsed Facebook all day. The doctor/owner was very hands-off and just let her do whatever she wanted, despite me going to him with proof, so I decided to take revenge.

She was not computer-savvy at all, so I removed Internet Explorer from her desktop and installed an identical icon that, when clicked, would instantly restart the computer. It was so satisfying when she would forget and click it, losing anything that she was working on. She would always grumble and complain about the issues with her computer.

21. Slingshot

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I used to work as a lifeguard. At one point, I had injured my shoulder and was in a sling, yet they forced me to come into work and threatened to fire me if I didn’t. I had to guard a pool while being unable to swim because, as I mentioned, MY ARM WAS IN A FREAKIN’ SLING.

In response, I specifically did the pettiest thing I could possibly think of. I sent in my resignation very late at night, the evening before my morning shift. Have fun finding a replacement, jerks!

22. No, I’m Closed For Business

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When I worked at McDonald’s, I found out we didn’t get paid for closing. We got paid until the store closed, so if it took us an extra hour or two to close, that was unpaid. I wish I knew what I know now, because that is an open and shut case, but at the time, I was young and dumb. My first paycheck, I noticed I had a ton of missing hours.

So, when I asked my boss about it, she told me we only get paid until the store closed. So that night, I walked out when the store closed. They tried to guilt me into staying, because “the other team members need me.” Screw that. I don’t work for free, sorry. Especially when I’m already making minimum wage.

23. Eat Your Words

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A while ago I decided to treat myself to some Burger King. I was having a bad day and had a headache coming on. So I was waiting in line at the BK, when suddenly this woman comes in with a monster of a child. He was out of control, screaming, punching his mother, throwing things around. The mother didn’t pay any attention to him and he continued yelling, “I want a PIE.”

My headache turned into a full-blown migraine. I calmly turned and asked if she could please calm her child down. Immediately she got up in my face, telling me to mind my own business. I nodded and turned around, when the child cried out again how he wants a pie. I then decided to ruin their day in the most devious way I could think of. When I got to the front of the line I asked the person at the register how many apple pies they have left. They told me and I bought all of them. I ate one and made sure the kid saw me throw the rest in the trash.

24. Sold Out Of Love

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Wife was pilfering money from the marriage, to the tune of about $1,000 per month. It had gone on for a few years before I figured it out. (I thought she was saving the money, she was really stashing it in her dad’s accounts.) Not satisfied to simply stash away her own salary, she began to buy stuff on the joint charge card, then sell it on eBay.

I paid the card. I started the divorce without telling her. During this time, I took my name off the joint card without telling her and began using my own credit card. When the bills came in for that month, I informed her that I would not pay the credit card bills anymore, that she had her own job and her own money and she could pay her own bills.

25. A Story You’ll Never Forget

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I used to work at a deli counter in a grocery store. My last straw was getting yelled at for something that I forgot to do. I can’t even remember what it was anymore, but it was a very minor thing and it was the first time I had ever forgotten an instruction. I was also the sole reason why my department had still been open and they were working the hell out of me, so they could have been a little more patient and understanding the one time that I made a mistake.

I had been working 10-13 hour days, not getting any help during rushes. After the yelling, I just walked out. The deli was closed for at least a few months after I quit.

26. I Walk The Line

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I was 18 years old and working at a movie theater concession stand on an extra busy day. My coworkers made themselves busy doing things that didn’t need to be done (like checking toilet paper or organizing candy) instead of helping me with a long line of customers that wrapped itself around the entire stand. One lady got extremely nasty with me because I didn’t butter the middle of her popcorn the way she had wanted me to. She was literally screaming at me for it.

I looked around and saw one of my coworkers just watching me and laughing as they pretended to clean the ticket booth window. That was the final straw. I logged out of the computer system, closed the cash register, walked out of the concession stand, slammed the door behind me, told the customer she was a jerk who didn’t need more butter, told my coworker to go screw himself, and walked right out of the theater—leaving the long and very confused line of customers completely unattended. I never went back despite the fact that they were apparently willing to forgive me because this “wasn’t my usual behavior.”

27. Peaceful Protest

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When my brother was in school, he was horrifically teased for being autistic. Even worse, his aggressor was the most entitled little brat I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting. His father paid for boxing practice, karate lessons, and other martial arts. This made him think that he was the best at anything physical and he used it against others. My brother isn’t overly fond of sports, and prefers to read in the library. As the typical nerdy kid, he’s a prime target. One day when the jerk had cornered my brother up against a wall, my brother finally decided that he wasn’t just going to take it any more. But he strongly dislikes aggression, and thus would not be fighting back.

Instead, when the jerk tried to punch him…my brother ducked. Three broken fingers and a trip to the hospital later, the jerk’s father finds out what had been happening. All his extra classes and training were cancelled, and he had all of his electronics and games sold. Also, if he wanted to have a car, he would have to work for every penny himself.

28. The First Million Is Always the Hardest

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This kid I knew won a cool million off a scratch ticket when he was 19. Acted like a big shot. Arrogantly buying rounds of drinks for entire bars…didn’t do anything for 20 years. Then he got the last check.

Suddenly, he was an alcoholic with no savings, no assets, and no skills. He’s now in and out of hospitals for alcohol poisoning and mental breakdowns.Lost his paper-hat job, his girlfriend, everything.

29. Taught by Force

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I had a guy in school who would always skip class and then ask for my notes. Very annoying. We had a group project worth almost 40% of our grade and he did zero work, and the professor told me “tough luck.” Instead of just saying “no” the next time he asked for notes, I took the low road and got the perfect revenge.

I began giving him edited versions. I would leave items out of lists, incorrectly define things, or just straight-up write stuff that made no sense. If he had even once bothered to crack the text, he would have figured out that I was just putting junk in willy-nilly, but that was apparently too much effort for him. He retook that class.

30. Bowling Him Over

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My two-year-old cousin was being a huge brat. He kept challenging all the adults to Wii Bowling and crushing them, which is cool, but he was just being really obnoxious about winning. The rest of the family was pretty oblivious, and actually found it cute. He’s 12, so I have no problem with him being obnoxious to me, but I knew if he did that in the playground, he could potentially get his butt kicked.

He had some hearing problems when he was a baby, so he was in a special school to help him catch up, and I don’t believe that school had normal recess—so he wouldn’t learn about not being a jerk until it was too late. I didn’t want him to enter normal high school and just think this could fly. So, I said, “Ooh, Wii Bowling? I’ll play you.” I scored a 264 to his 140, and I didn’t say a word about it. I never taunted him, I just played and put the controller down. He wasn’t so obnoxious after that.

31. Cherish This Moment

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I worked at a Dominos, and there was this old lady who ordered from us a lot and was always unpleasant. One day she calls and makes an order that she must make a lot because she knew exactly how much it was supposed to cost, down to the penny. I put her order in and tell her the price, and she starts getting upset because the order was two cents more than usual. She then accuses me of conspiring to steal two cents from every customer.

At this point, I didn’t know what to do because she wouldn’t accept the order unless it was exactly how much she thought it should be and the computer doesn’t let staff just remove two cents from an order, so I ask the manager and she just tells me to hang up. I was new at that time and I’m guessing this wasn’t the first time that she messed with the store. Hanging up on that nutjob felt amazing.

32. Cooking Up a Storm

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First job ever. McDonald’s inside a Walmart. It was a busy Saturday afternoon with a line going all the way out the door. The manager starts yelling at me to stop taking orders because she can’t keep up with my pace. I was 15 years old at the time and therefore not old enough to work the grill, so I asked what I should do instead. Her answer was vicious.

She rudely told me that if I was too dumb to figure that out, then she didn’t need me there. So I was like, “Yeah, I guess you’ve got this covered then,” clocked out, tossed my hat on the ground, and strolled out the front door as she pleaded for me to come back—leaving her to deal with that long lineup on her own. I wish 31-year-old me had the nerve that 15-year-old me had!

33. It’s The Little Things

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I work at a domestic violence shelter, and our ex-executive director was asked to resign because she had embezzled over 25 grand of our grant funding. She was a verbally abusive garbage human, doing things to the employees that were the same things that clients are escaping from. I never did stick up for myself, because it was easier to let her curse and scream about thermostats and cat litter and be done.

She has been skirting the blame in our small town since she resigned and the other day sent a mass text out to all current and past employees once again passing the blame on to our current director and our board. That was the last straw. I had enough of this drama. I finally told her that she could politely “lose my number.” It’s just a small text, but that was literally my declaration of independence from her, and I have NEVER FELT MORE EMPOWERED IN MY LIFE.

34. Getting Peppered

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I had a man in his 40s call a 16-year-old girl I work with a stupid idiot because she forgot to put extra peppers on his sandwich. I was in an irritable mood that day, so I confronted him about it. I asked him if he had any children, he said yes. I asked him if he thought it would be appropriate for them to talk to a stranger (let alone a young girl) like that.

He said no, so I asked him, “What makes you so special then?” He looked very ashamed of himself and just walked out of the store without saying a word. I got some applause from one of the tables.

35. Don’t Meet Your Heroes

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I worked at a Toys R Us twice doing seasonal work around the big holidays, like Christmas and such. Anyway, you have to find ways to amuse yourself and keep from going totally insane with all the bratty kids and exasperated parents. So I did one pretty awful thing that I nonetheless have absolutely no remorse for.

I was scheduled to work the first shift on Black Friday, and they made me wear the Geoffrey the Giraffe costume. First rule is, don’t talk. Dance, pose for photos, and keep your mouth shut. Basically, don’t ruin it for the kids. But this particularly bratty kid kept punching me “down there” while I was posing with him for the photo. I was in the suit, but it still hurt. Wouldn’t cut it out, so after the photo was taken, I got my revenge.

I knelt down, got my giraffe head at his eye level, and whispered, “Your parents told me not to say anything, but you were adopted.” That little punk started wailing so loud, crying his eyes out. Best part was, the parents complained, but since I was in costume and they had just hired a bunch of new people, they had no idea who had done it.

36. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

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Some jerk in a Humvee decided to park in a handicap spot at a Kroger. I was young at the time and out riding with my dad, who was a repo man…driving his repo truck. My dad towed the Humvee to a parking spot on the opposite side of the parking lot. We then waited until the owner came out and looked around in disbelief.

She thought someone took her car. My dad drove right up to her, rolled down the window, and said, “Are you ok, miss?” The woman said, all concerned, “My car was taken by someone.” My dad replied very coolly to her, “Well, maybe you shouldn’t have parked it in a handicap spot,” gave her a smile and drove off.

37. Show Them Who’s Boss

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I work for a pipeline company, one of our lines brings fuel into a refinery. We needed something changed out on our line, and needed it done ASAP. Timing was critical, because after a few days of not being about to deliver into the refinery, it would back up our system and shut down the WHOLE PIPELINE. Basically, it was a big problem.

The refinery guys were total jerks, and were obviously used to being in charge, and definitely didn’t take orders from a young woman. For two days, I got to remind them that I FUEL YOUR REFINERY. Oh, you don’t think you can get to this today? I hope you don’t mind explaining this when our pipeline is down and your refinery shuts down… Felt so good, man.

38. It’s the Small Victories

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I am a waitress. One day, I walk right up to this customer’s table, and before I can even say hello and spit out my name, I am greeted with “I want the Reuben with fries. I want some ranch to dip them in too, but I’m not going to pay that ridiculous $.50 charge. My server charged me last time, and I haven’t been back for more than a month!” So I did exactly what she asked.

Reuben, fries, and ranch… at an inflated cost of $.75 due to us making the ranch now instead of buying it. It was worth not getting her tip.

39. Reap What You Sow

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I work at a call center and a customer asked to speak to a supervisor today. Of course, I had to be that supervisor. Being in my position, I have a lot more leeway with procedures than frontline customer service specialists do. I was a hair from fixing this man’s problem and drastically cutting down the call time… Until he started to insult me.

I literally chose to make this customer’s life more difficult and take the traditional route with the call instead of making a special exception JUST because of his attitude. The customer wound up hanging up on me after refusing our number, so he’ll probably call back, get transferred 500 times (my department is kind of niche), and have to do the same thing all over. Be nice to customer service and customer service will be nice to you.

40. A Serving of Superiority

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When I was in high school, I dated a guy who repeatedly cheated on me with his ex. I found out after we’d broken up, and I told him off and broke off contact. A few years later, I’d finished college and started working at a publishing company where I often get free tickets to cultural events in town. My boss gave me tickets to the opera and also tickets to the little VIP events where they serve free food and wine at intermission and after the show.

The first time I’d seen the girl my ex cheated with was at the little VIP intermission gathering. I was sitting there munching on hors d’oeuvres and sipping wine when I saw her. She was clearing tables with the catering crew. She made eye contact for one second and then immediately turned away and was obviously avoiding me for the rest of the night. It was perfect.

41. A Little Humble Pie

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Back when I was a waitress, I worked at this BBQ joint that had really narrow, awkwardly arranged tables so I always had to lean a bit over to serve the food. Anyhow, there was this table with a really obnoxious 4-year-old who kept grabbing at everything: My hands, my clothes, the tray I was serving from. He even untied my apron and my pens and cash flew everywhere. This went all through the whole meal. Meanwhile, the parents didn’t do a thing about it. In fact, the dad said it served me right for taking a job in food service. Total jerks, all of them, and I knew I wasn’t getting a decent tip. So towards the end of their meal, they order dessert—peanut butter silk pie, which is ooey-gooey sticky pie heaven. I knew just what to do.

I make sure to cover it in an extra mound of whipped cream and balance it precariously on the side of my tray, counter-balanced with a couple of soda refills for the parents. Sure enough, when I got to the table, the little jerk made a grab for the tray and everything conveniently capsized all over him and his parents. They were covered in diet coke, whipped cream, and the stickiest peanut putter pie you can imagine. I looked appropriately shocked and then said “I am SO sorry. Guess that’s what happens when you have kids.” Even managed to make it back to the kitchen before I cracked up, along with most of our staff. Serves them right.

42. Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You

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I was riding my bike to work one day and while I was crossing the street, a woman ran me over. She drove through the crosswalk, looking to turn right, and ran right into me. After I got bumped hard enough by her fender to take a spill and have some bruising all down my side, she stopped. But not to see if I was okay, oh no.

She only gave me an exasperated, “my bad” wave and continued to talk on her cell phone, ignoring me as I picked myself and my bike up. So I walked right up to her open window, grabbed her cell phone from her ear, and chucked it into a nearby parking lot as hard as I could. I swear that was the farthest I have thrown anything in my life. She gaped at me in shock as I struggled back onto my bike and slowly rode off, fuming yet victorious.

43. Exposure Doesn’t Pay The Bills

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An ex-client tried to make out that he never said he agreed to pay me after I creating a complex website, graphics and marketing materials for him. Instead, he said that it was just “work experience.”

This was untrue, he even agreed a price via email exchange and I’m not exactly going to waste my time working for “experience” when I have bills to pay and an established skillset in my field. Anyway, a swift screenshot of the emails and talks of lawyers soon changed his tune.

44. The Bare Minimum

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I worked in a movie theater, and an older man came to the box office to complain and ask for a refund for his movie one day. I don’t remember the reason, but he was furious and disgusted by the film, cursing under his breath. My co-worker gave him a refund, but the gentlemen still wasn’t satisfied. He said, “I need to talk to your manager.”

So my co-worker calls the manager. The man buffs and puffs as he waits, looks at my co-worker and then says, “Aren’t you even going to ask me why I’m upset?” My co-worker looks him right in the eye. The he says something absolutely brutal. “I make minimum wage, they don’t pay me to care, they pay me to sell tickets.” This man exploded, and the manager had to diffuse the situation. My co-worker was only given a slap on the wrist. That guy never really did care.

45. Think Fast!

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I was on the bus a year or 2 back and a kid and his mom were seated in front of me. The kid kept screeching about wanting to ”press the button” (you press a button to notify the bus driver that you need to get off at the next stop) because he liked the beep it made. Every. Single. Bus stop. This little jerk screeched asking if he could press it yet.

Finally his mom said he could press the button. I pressed it. It only beeps for the first person to press it. The little brat cried.

46. Donut Mess With Me

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The nurse-in charge at our emergency department has been working there for 20 years. Our hospital is in a rough area, so she’s seen it all. She has single-handedly tackled violent patients with superhuman strength. But one day, she outdid herself. This day, a disheveled guy came in to be treated for assault, to be detained after his discharge.

He was giving everyone heck all night, and he almost made his nurse cry. The nurse-in-charge called from the nurse’s station to cut that out. He called her a “miserable, old, fat witch.” The nurse-in-charge picked up a chocolate donut from the nurse’s station and without breaking eye contact, started slowly chewing it in front of him. Then she called the officers to pick him up.

47. What A Beautiful Sight

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Over the course of six months, through countless phone calls to different union offices and the department of labor, I eventually got my boss fired for changing people’s time-keeping information to steal overtime from them. During those months I was treated like dirt by this guy, but I never actually did anything wrong so I couldn’t be punished.

At one point, management—against contract rules—denied my time off request to be at my best friend’s wedding and my boss brought me into his office and threatened to fire me. At this point, I had called the northeast district business associate on him, and I will never forget the look on my boss’s face when he realized I knew he couldn’t do anything to me.

48. You’ve Got Mail

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I worked at an awful private “school” with terrible management, and an even worse boss. I had been planning to take a summer vacation back home with my wife and kid for, oh, about 6 months. I’d gotten my direct supervisor’s approval. I’d gotten a second supervisor’s approval. All of this over email, and all directly CC’ed to the boss. Airlines were booked, stays planned.

A week and a half before takeoff, I get the worst email I could imagine. It’s from the horrible boss saying that my request was “unreasonable” and saying I needed to rearrange/drastically shorten my trip. Fortunately, I had been hating it there for about 9 months at that point – it was, again, an absolute nightmare workplace – and had been interviewing at real schools for some time, and had just landed a new position. It was extremely satisfying to link him every email approval of the vacation over the past 6 months to multiple supervisors, point out that he’d been CC’ed every single one of them, and tell him that not only was I not going to change my travel plans, but he could consider this correspondence my notice of resignation.

49. Paying the Price

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My housemate defaulted on the rent and car payments that he owed me, so I booted him out. He tried to get back at me by bullying my fiancée and trying to make her doubt our relationship and then tried to have me arrested for assault. He had gone too far. So, I sicked my solicitor on him and he ended up begging me to give him some leniency because the debt was ruining his life. “No.”

He had to drop out of college to work full time to pay both me and his rent and messed up his relationship with his parents because they had to bail him out. Now when I kicked him out, I was going to let him get resettled before asking about the debt and maybe renegotiate. But he decided to make my fiancée cry. Ain’t no one messes with my woman.

50. A Classic Case of Gaslighting

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I worked at a gas station deli back in the day and, right before I went in for my shift one time, my mom called me up to let me know that my sister had been rushed to the hospital and that I needed to get there as soon as possible to be with the family. I called my manager, who told me that I had to find someone to cover my shift if I wanted to miss it. I called a few people and one person said that they would come in and cover my shift. I called my manager back and let them know that so and so would be covering my shift. My manager said that was ok. I came in two days later for my next shift and the manager immediately started flipping out on me as soon as I walked in the door.

She was ranting about how I had screwed the place over because I didn’t show up for my shift. I proceeded to remind her that I had to go to the hospital for my sister and that so and so was covering my shift. She then proceeds to tell me how so and so didn’t show up, and how therefore it was my fault that they lost a bunch of money that night and whatnot. I simply replied “Are you freaking kidding me? I’m sorry if you were too stupid to remember our call, but I had a family emergency so screw you and screw this place!” As I walked out the door, I slowly paused, turned around, and proceeded to shout, “Screw this place!” one more time.

51. Engineer Your Way Out Of That One, Boss

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I have always had a pretty good relationship with my bosses and they’re usually reasonable. It’s an engineering position and occasionally some people have to travel. I was asked to cover for someone for a relatively trivial meeting on the west coast. It was not my project and the only justification for sending me away from my family for a week was to “show that we were present.”

Boss told me to go, I said no. He said “this won’t look good on your performance appraisal.” I said “the only way you can hurt me with a performance appraisal is to roll it up and poke me in the eye.” I did not go to the meeting.

52. Trouble With The In-Laws

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When my ex FINALLY stood up to his mother (She was 90% of the reason for divorce) about our custody schedule and told her, “We have it figured out.

Myself, their mother, and their stepdad. We do not need your advice or opinion.” I just wish I had been able to witness it.

53. Breaking the Bank

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I worked for a company that went public after operating as a private company for 18 years. Four months after going public, our company was caught fabricating the financial statements for our quarterly reports. This put an extremely large strain on our accounting department, and they were required to work overtime to try and “fix” the corruption.

Well, the accountants started complaining that they were spending less time with their families, so the CEO held an emergency meeting. In that meeting, he told the accounting department that all departments are working hard and if anyone is unhappy, they can leave. He got what was coming to him. The entire accounting department of 14 employees got up and left. It was super awkward. About two months later, the CEO stepped down and then the company was sold to a competitor for next to nothing.

54. Pennies From Heaven

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I occasionally deliver pizza as a part-time job. There is a customer who tends to pay with a big bag of change. I don’t mean a bag full of quarters, I mean a bag full of dimes, nickels, and pennies. Since his meal typically costs about $20, the bag usually weighs several pounds. It is a total pain to count out all of the change. Typically, drivers will just assume that he has the correct amount and leave. Usually, he has just enough or maybe a few cents over. I don’t think it is an innocent thing either, as he usually gives the bag of change with a dirt-eating grin. It is such a pain that most of the drivers know his address by heart, and avoid going to his house if at all possible.

I was having a bad night, and by the luck of the draw I got this dude’s house. I remembered reading a post involving someone paying in a checkout line with a bag of change, and I knew I could use a similar method to take my frustration out on this guy in the pettiest way possible. So I pulled up to his house and left the pizza in the car. I rang the doorbell, and when he answered I saw the large bag of change in his hand. He asked where his pizza was and I said, “New policy, sir. Gotta count it out before we can give out the pizza.” So, I sat down on his doorstep and started to count out all of the change. At one point, I even asked if he could turn on his porch light, because I was having a hard time seeing.

He ended up sitting there while I counted out the entire bag of change. He was a dollar over, so I started picking up pennies to give him his change back, and he said that I could keep the rest as a tip. When I gave him his pizza, he sheepishly told me sorry and then shut the door. To my knowledge he hasn’t ordered pizza from us in a while.

55. She’s All That

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When I was about 11 years old, I got bullied pretty bad at school by three guys who were a year older than me. I had braces, glasses, and my ears stuck out a bit so they would wait for me after school to follow me home while insulting me all the way there, calling me ugly, disgusting, dumbo, and shoving me. Fast forward to when I was eighteen. I wore contact lenses, I grew into my ears, and my teeth were fine thanks to braces. I was going to college, did some modelling, and worked as a bartender on weekends.

One night, these three guys came in. They saw me but clearly didn’t recognize me. They kept hovering around the bar and ordering drinks. One of them seemed to get pretty serious. He kept coming to the bar the following weekends and sat there trying to talk to me. One night he stayed until the end of my shift, said he was falling for me, and asked me out.

I said no. I told him my name and what he and his friends did to me. He went pretty pale. I said that I’m not angry about this anymore but that to him, this was just some bullying, but to me it was years of insecurities to work through, and that I’d rather he just stayed out of my life.

56. Not on the Menu

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I was working the drive thru late at night at Burger King in 1992. A group of punks come through and make fun of me and as they leave, they all shout, “See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya!” They park in the lot to eat. 30 minutes later, I hear a knock at the window. It’s the same punks whose battery seems to have died and they asked if anyone inside had jumper cables. I shut the window on them while saying “See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya!”

57. It Takes Four to Screw Something Up That Bad!

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I once told three out of four managers (as the last one wasn’t there that day) that my grandma had passed away and that I therefore wouldn’t be able to make it to work the day after tomorrow. I had to go to the funeral. I also left a note for the fourth manager and asked everyone to let him know. In the middle of the funeral, I got a call from the fourth manager asking where I was. I called him back to explain, and he said ok.

I went back to work the next day and they immediately handed me a paper saying I’d been written up for doing an improper call out. I handed the paper back and just walked away.

58. Petty Power-Play Falls Flat

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I had put in my two weeks notice at a job and they suddenly had me working bizarre split shifts when they found out that I was training for my new job around my previously set schedule. My schedule which had not changed in months. The schedule which was preventing me from finishing college. I finally had my fill and decided to leave. As I was leaving, one of the supervisors said I had to check in with a manager and I said, “Naw, I don’t work here anymore.”

59. Excuse You

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I was once in a line to get on a ski lift and just as I was about to go through the barriers, a very rude French man barged me out of the way and proceeded to sit on the lift all by himself. As he did that, he dropped one of his ski poles and turned to look at me to pick it up. I looked back at him and just shook my head. The people behind me clapped.

60. Seniority Squabble

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My job has a system based on seniority if you are doing the same job. For example: promotions are handed out to the people who’ve been there the longest, or if the job is overstaffed the seniors gets first dibs to leave. In the interview they ask if you are comfortable if a 20-year-old is your senior and can boss you around (assuming you are a 50-year-old), if you answer you have problem with it, they won’t hire you…

So I’m 22 and this 45 year old was telling me what to do, I am his senior by two years. He was telling me how to do my job on his first month. He tried to throw the “I’m old enough to be your grandfather/dad” card. He told the supervisor that I was being disrespectful and rude and threatened to call HR. Yeah, he shouldn’t have done that. Midway through his complaints, HR fired him.