Christmas should be the season of giving, but it wasn't presents these people were giving out: it was sweet, savage revenge. Whether they were acting against a stranger, a coworker, a neighbor, or even a family member who did them wrong, these people decided the only gift those peons deserved was a cold serving of karma. Content has been edited for clarity.
“To Joshua, Merry Christmas. Love Grandpa”
“I know a guy that has done this every year for more than a decade. It started when some thief broke into the cab of his truck and stole Christmas gifts he had bought at the mall. If I remember correctly, he had to make two trips and some guy saw him go back into the store and busted his window. It was a long time ago, I am not positive of the details of the original event.
He started this tradition ten years ago, the day after his truck was broken into, right around December 23. He does this at the same mall every year.
He gets a big box, big enough to just barely fit in the backseat of most cars. This takes awhile to find.
He fills it full of the most vile garbage — dirty diapers, cat poop, rotten food, used sanitary products, packing peanuts.
The past couple of years, and after advice from Reddit, he elevated his game by cutting all the corners of the box, so when opened, it falls apart like a beautiful blooming flower and the garbage contents spills out.
He waits until a day or two before Christmas. He wraps the big box in festive yet very thin holiday paper with zero structural integrity that barely holds the box together, then he puts a big bow on it and a giant tag that says, ‘To Joshua, Merry Christmas. Love Grandpa.’ He loads it into the bed of his truck and drives to the mall.
Every year, it is stolen within minutes.”
Neighbor’s Scam Comes Back To Bite Him
“This story isn’t about me, but my dear ol’ dad. Back in the day, he used to be a plumber. He then went on to join the military where he sustained various injuries/chemical exposure. Anyway, this happened during the time when he was fighting for his disability. On occasion, he would do side jobs just to get by. It was very painful/difficult work for him, but alas, the bills needed paid.
At the time, he had a neighbor up the road who needed some pretty serious work done in his home and offered to pay my dad a bit over $3,000 for the labour. To be frank, $3,000 was a bit on the low end for the work, but my dad figured hey, help a neighbor out and he really needed to make some extra cash (the holidays were coming up, a little over two months before Christmas). The guy buys the supplies, my dad does the labour, with promises that he’ll be paid when it is finished (you already know where this is going). Surprise surprise, the work gets finished, the guy doesn’t pay up.
Not only does this guy not pay my dad, but he has the gall to laugh at my dad and ask him what he’s going to do about it since the work was under the table. Neighbor be darned, oh was he (my dad) ever furious! I remember when he flat out told me, ‘That son of a goat might not ever pay me, but he’s going to be paying SOMEONE that three thousand dollars, just you watch, sweets!’ and he got to work. He couldn’t spend a lot of time on his feet, but he had quite a few hours to kill, and he started planning this dudes comeuppance.
He went to the store and bought a ton of jacks (the kind that come in the game of Jacks, with the rubber ball and whatnot). He then proceeded to spend the next couple of weeks sharpening them up and making the ends into little spikes. Every time he would drive by this guy’s house, he’d casually toss a handful out the window into this guy’s driveway. You can imagine, this guy was constantly getting flat tires and had to continuously repair and replace them.
Fast-forward to Christmas day: my dad calls me up cackling hysterically so I ask him what’s up. This is actually one of my favorite memories of him, he tells me, ‘Remember that neighbor?! The one that effed me over??! Well, I just drove by his house and he, the wife and the kids are all dressed up for church standing in the front yard by their car and it’s got a couple flats!! You see, I think he wised up, because he started parking in the grass…but the moron didn’t know I threw them in the yard too!’
I love my dad.”
Last Year’s Mercy Is This Year’s Sweet Revenge
“I used to work with this guy. He and several of his neighbors had their decorations stolen off their porches last year. The woman, a neighbor from one street over, actually got caught at a neighbor’s house, but the neighbors declined to press charges.
This year, my former co-worker had enough: he set up a security camera trained on the front porch. Sure enough, a few weeks ago some of his decorations went missing, so he checked the tape and there was his neighbor from one street over. As he is telling his story to the local news, the police show up, so they all walked over to the woman’s house to confront her.
The best part: my co-worker IS pressing charges, and the police say they may charge the woman with the theft of the decorations from LAST year.”
He Finally Humiliated His Father
“Ever since I can remember, I have been completely and utterly under the thumb of my father. All of us have been, us being me, my younger brother, little sister and my mother. My father is a raging prick. A male chauvinist, over the top macho type of guy. And I’ve always been the victim of his dislike because I didn’t really fit in with his image of ‘the ideal son.’ I was, for lack of a better word, a bit of a girly boy growing up. I wanted nothing more than to dance and frolic around in dresses.
When I was four or five, my mother had this big box of dress-up clothes. She brought it down from the attic and I immediately picked out the prettiest, frilliest golden colored dress I could find. I pranced around in it and declared myself a princess. And that I was now a girl. This went on for a few months, but strictly during the day when my father was away at work. I watched ballet videos with my mother, a soft-spoken and open-minded woman who worked part-time as a social worker in those days. I was happy. Careless.
My father was, and is, an authoritarian figure. He had himself legally emancipated at an early age just so he could join the army ahead of time. After three years in the army, he left as a lower level officer and started a career as a seaman. He was a captain when he and my mother met and had me. Later, he left his naval career and became a traveling salesman. Think Don Draper, if Don Draper was a 6’4” Western European man with curly greying hair and piercing blue eyes. I’ve always found him incredibly intimidating and I think my mother did too.
Anyway, long story short, he came home early one day. He saw me in my dress and told me in an icy cold voice: ‘Go and take that off. After you take it off, go sit on the sofa.’
So, I took it off. Little hands trembling. Next, he summoned my mother into the room. He demanded to know, ‘What the heck she had been doing to his boy.’ I’ve never seen a person shrink so much so quickly. I myself was like a little tiny fly on the wall at this point, barely present.
He took the box with clothes up to the attic, put a lock on it, and informed us that we were not to touch it ‘until my wife gives me a daughter.’ It stayed there on the attic, untouched, until my sister was born ten years later.
My father took more of an interest in my upbringing after this point. He took me to see navy ships, races, made me go on a martial art. He seemed determined to ‘make a man out of me’ and in some ways he succeeded. One thing he allowed me to do was keep my hair long. He knew I was bullied at school for it and that I wanted at times to cut it off for that reason. He insisted I kept the long hair, face the bullies and beat the snot out of them every time they called me a girl, to ‘show them how much of a girl I was.’ I did just that. It toughened me up, in some way, but it also damaged me in other ways.
By the time I went to college, I had grown into a pretty normal dude. I wasn’t gay, I wasn’t even a cross dresser, although deep down inside I still had those urges. I tried desperately to fit in and be what he wanted me to be but…I also grew more and more resentful. In college, I made a lot of different friends, including some guys, I met in an acting class we both took. One of them was pretty much your typical ‘flaming and fabulous’ type of guy. He was as over-the-top gay as my father was over-the-top straight. I told him one night when we’re drinking about my upbringing and my terrible father. And my friend, let’s call him Paul, suggested I should ‘get back at him.’ I asked him how. Basically, why not pretend like I was gay?
But not just, say it over the phone or something. Or even to my father’s face in person. No, much better… I’d hint for weeks in advance about ‘having met somebody’ and ‘being in a relationship.’ I’d say it was a girl. I would ask if I could bring ‘Paula’ over for dinner. At Christmas. When the whole family would be there. And I’d arrive at the house with ‘Paul’ instead. So I did exactly that. I went to the house, at Christmas. Dressed to the nines. I told my father and mother that ‘Paula was caught up, she’s about to come. I’ll just open the door.’ So I sat down with my family. Cousins. Uncles, aunts. My grandparents, just as conservative as my father.
Waited a while. Heard the door and rushed to open it. Walked into the living room where everyone was gathered and introduced Paul, my boyfriend. I’ve never seen a room go so quiet. People literally gasped for air. My sister, brother and mother looked both scared and amused, but everyone else was in shock. My father seething…he just completely lost it right in front of everyone. His veins bulging in his neck to the point where they looked like they were about to pop. He told me to leave. Ordered me, essentially.
My grandparents urged him not to make a scene, but he made one. I just replied calmly how he should do it– call the police and explain the situation to them. I knew he never would; he knew some of the officers well. It wasn’t a call he would be willing to make and it wasn’t a situation he was willing to explain. I called his bluff and he just…sank. He shrank before my eyes. My mother and grandmother had to calm him down. He walked out of the room, defeated. I just stood there, not believing my own eyes. I finally felt free, like I didn’t give a care anymore. He had scared me for so many years, terrified me, and now I could see him for the caricature he really was. It felt amazing.
Paul and I stayed the whole evening. He played his part perfectly. He eventually managed to charm some of my aunts and even my grandmother, who told me unironically how she was glad ‘I found such a delightful man’ and that he reminded her of her favorite TV character, ‘Mr. Humphreys from “Are You Being Served,” such a doll!’
My father later came back to the room and sat in a corner, sulking, refusing to meet my gaze. He drank too much. My mother kept talking to him in a hushed tone of voice, and he kept making a ‘go away’ gesture with his hand.
I stayed away from home for a while. I’ve already explained to everyone how it had been a prank, how I had to make a point and get back at my father for how he had treated me. Pretty much everyone sympathized. I didn’t lose anyone in my family over what happened, but my father lost a lot of respect in people’s eyes I feel. He was always in control of things, he always directed the scene, but now he doesn’t anymore. I do my own thing. My sister does her own thing. He cannot order people around anymore. I feel like a fool for ever letting him. I can now wear whatever the heck I want to wear, enjoy whatever hobbies I want to enjoy and nothing changes. He threatened to disinherit me that night. He threatened a lot of things but in the end, something inside him just broke.
All of my relationships since have been with women, and I have since married and had children of my own. My younger brother came out as gay eventually, but by that time my now aging father had mellowed down somewhat and as he already has grandchildren and his legacy is thus ‘secured,’ he didn’t seem to mind much. It helps that my brother is a muscular gym-rat and that they can bond over sports, more than my father and I ever did, but whenever the subject of orientation comes up my father is still incredibly awkward. I don’t think it will ever change. I feel my ‘revenge’ has been pretty successful in the end.”
HOA Overstep Leads To Leadership Shuffle
“Our lovely HOA has decided that should you choose to decorate your exterior for the winter holiday season, your lighting may not have two consecutive bulbs that are the same color, unless ALL of your lights are the same color. Last year, I hung my usual blue lighting and intentionally swapped in one red bulb, just to tick off our HOA enforcement ‘officer.’ It took two days before I had a friendly phone call, another three days until I received a certified letter, and an additional five days until a $50 violation fine showed up.
The holidays passed and I continued to fight the fine. I refused to pay it. Late fees started to build, and eventually I was summoned to an association meeting. I compiled a list of some of the most insane HOA regulations I could find, to compare to the insanity I was dealing with. I admitted that I changed the bulb intentionally and pleaded with the HOA board to have a little reason.
It turns out that while a majority vote was needed to pass a new regulation, a unanimous vote is needed to change or repeal a regulation. All of the HOA board members, with the exception of one, who just so happened to be the old woman who cited me for the violation to begin with, agreed that the rule was unnecessary. This old hag proceeded to argue that even though she didn’t live on my street, my lighting had RUINED her Christmas, and presumably, the Christmas of everyone on my street.
Finally, someone on the board pointed out that while they needed a unanimous vote to change the regulation, they only needed a majority vote to remove another member of the board. An immediate vote was taken, and the lighting Nazi was removed from the board. A motion was made to re-vote on my case and it was immediately dismissed.”
Watch What Ya Say In Hotel Rooms
“My wife and I decided to go to Southern California for the holidays. We found ourselves a nice resort and checked in. All was well until we noticed that the walls in our room were very thin. As we entered our room, we could hear our next door neighbor talking and having an argument with his girlfriend (we shared one common wall with them). They were shouting pretty loud and we could hear everything through the wall. We’ll refer to this guy as Noisy Neighbor (NN). NN kept fighting with his girlfriend about something she said earlier. We didn’t follow, wasn’t interested, and decided to go eat and explore around the town we were in.
We came back around 10:00 at night and all was quiet. We figured that NN and his girlfriend already went to bed so we went to bed as well. Turns out, he was out.
NN and his girlfriend come back at 12:00 laughing and REALLY loud. Loud to the point that we could hear them and hear their entire conversation. Looks like they made up after the fighting that morning. We hear the girlfriend say that she is hungry and NN calls for pizza delivery. It was there that we heard NN’s name, phone number, and credit card info (not that we would do anything with it). They kept chatting and laughing and we could hear every bit of their conversation through the thin walls. Wife and I try earplugs, radio, and everything we could think of to drown out the noise. We were hoping that they would eventually turn in for the night and there would be some peace and quiet. Yet NN was full of energy and boyish laughter. Finally, at about 2:00 am, we decided to call the concierge and let the resort security deal with it.
The resort we stayed at was meant for mindfulness and mediation, so it did enforce some quiet hours. Security called them up and told them that they were too loud and to keep their voices down. This did the trick for some time and we fell asleep.
Only to be woken up again at around 5AM to some really LOUD lovemaking. Like moaning and screaming from the girlfriend. After they were done with their business, they washed up and just kept talking. Laying there in bed I heard all about NN’s job, where he was from, where he grew up, his political views, and so on. Finally, at 6:00 or so, we called up the front desk again, this time security actually came and knocked on their door to tell them to keep their voices down as it was still officially quiet hours. NN and his girlfriend were furious that they could be disturbed when they were just having fun and having a good time. They claimed that they wren’t loud at all. Why can’t they just have some fun? They threatened to leave poor reviews for the resort and made sure that all of their friends would hear about this. Security took that all in, gave them their warning, and left.
After security left, NN and his started talking smack about me and wife through the wall knowing that we could hear it. Stuff like, ‘Our neighbors are such idiots, probably [racial slur]. What’s wrong with banging with my girlfriend, huh? Too loud for you wussies?’
He just deliberately talked to his girlfriend in a really loud voice, talking about how great the lovemaking was and how she was going to scream and moan louder next time. I was frustrated at this time, with very little sleep. I took out my cell phone and recorded everything that we were hearing, hoping to show the front desk just how little soundproof the room was and hopefully ask for a room change.
But then, something happened.
At 7:00 or so, we heard NN’s phone ring and suddenly NN and girlfriend were really silent. Then I hear NN say:
‘Hi, how are you sweetie? I just woke up here at the conference. Long day ahead. I miss you so much.’
It turns out NN was cheating on his wife with his mistress over Christmas! At this point, my wife and I hatched a plan. With all the information that we had on NN, his wife’s name, and where they lived, we started combing Facebook and Yellow Pages for more information. Lo and behold, we found what NN looked like (old man in his 50s) and his wife. All the information matched up with what he had been talking about all night, plus his zip code when he ordered pizza.
A bit more digging, and we found where NN’s wife worked and her e-mail address. A simple outlook e-mail address later, I compressed the recording I had and sent it to NN’s wife. The best part is that the recording contained NN’s wife’s phone call to NN, so she had no doubt it was definitely NN. Exhausted with little sleep, my wife and I decided to just get up and go get some breakfast around town.
We come back a few hours later and stop by the concierge’s desk. We wanted to thank them and their security for trying to help us get some sleep and to ask for another room. Turns out, we didn’t need a room switch.
‘They checked out this morning – a few days earlier than scheduled,’ the concierge told us. She mentioned something about a ‘urgent family concern’ that NN had to attend to.
Looks like our plan had worked much better than we had hoped for! The rest of our stay at the resort was quiet and uneventful. No one else checked into that room. I did show the front desk parts of my recording, just so they know that they need to work on soundproofing their rooms in the future.”
He Tried To Frame Them For Nearly Killing Their Boss
“It is the early early 90s, and I was in my 20s, working as an electrician with my best friend. We were known as the Hawkeye (Me) and Trapper/Honeycut (old MASH reference) team of our crew. We kept everyone on the job site laughing and in good spirits, even in the worst of times. We were working new construction of an elementary school and had been on site since the very beginning. We were two weeks away from punch-out (that is where construction is complete and inspections are done looking for any flaws or corrections that need to be made).
Anywho, the superintendent over the whole construction site was a major jack-hole and had been since day one. He was new and wanting to make a name for himself. It was his first time running a job and he made several mistakes and always blamed others (remember me mentioning worst of times?). He constantly cut corners to save on cost, which would turn around and bite him later on. He had gotten several good hands fired. He would run good contractors off of the job and bring in his friends to replace them. The dry wallers and painters were a couple of examples, and I had heard that he had half of the plumbers run off and replaced with his ‘crew’ as well. He was a total jack-hole to us electricians as well, wanting us to work overtime, but not willing to pay it. He really wanted to keep us behind so that he could charge the company fines. Our small company finally brought in a couple of extra hands which ticked him off even more because we were starting to catch up.
By the time Christmas rolled around, we were ahead of everyone else, and as mentioned, the job was nearing punch-out status. Two weeks before Christmas, my friend’s car (since I was his roommate, I carpooled with him as I didn’t have my own transportation) lost its rear end and we (my best friend and I) missed two days of work repairing it. The jack-hole superintendent saw this as an opportunity and told our job foreman to have us fired, if not run us off the job site. He tried to kick us off property himself, but since he had no legal means, tried to have our job foreman run us off, citing we were unsafe and a distraction keeping others from getting any work done. His argument was dismissed since, as I mentioned, we were ahead of everyone else.
It was the day before Christmas Eve, our last day before we would be off for the holiday. He knew our supervisor, who was visiting that day, was deathly afraid of snakes. Earlier that day, a small rattlesnake had been found hibernating beneath a Port-A-John that had been moved and killed (gotta love Texas). The jack-hole superintendent had brought a cooler full of drinks for his crew for when the day ended. Well, our supervisor made his rounds, inspecting our work, and talking to our foreman, and since we were his last stop, was ready to leave and start his holiday. The superintendent told him to have a drink and pointed out the cooler. Our supervisor opened the lid to the cooler and had a heart attack – literally (the dead snake was inside). When the EMT’s finally cleared him, the supervisor was telling him that he saw me and my friend at the cooler earlier that day and blamed us. Of course, we had been under the foreman’s nose all day, in which half of it was with the supervisor, and our supervisor was aware of the jack-hole’s tricks, so he did not give in to the demands of us being fired.
Now for the nuclear revenge. My friend and I did not take kindly to our supervisor being harmed, nor to the blame being pinned on us. Do to us what you will, but DO NOT harm those in whom we have respect.
Like I said, it was the last day of work before the Christmas holiday. We had Christmas Eve and Christmas off. After work, my friend and I drove to a bait shop and picked up a gallon of Catfish Charlie. For those who don’t know, catfish are attracted to really foul odors, and Catfish Charlie was one of the stinkiest baits used for fishing for catfish. I mean, one whiff will turn your stomach and you will turn green. A cast iron stomach is what’s needed to not lose your lunch. We drove back to the school and around back to where the air handler unit was (for those who don’t know, the air handler is the main environmental unit of commercial buildings– AC/Heating). We opened up the main intake duct and dumped the whole bucket of the Catfish Charlie and closed the duct back up. For good measure, we had also added about a pint and a half of water and stirred into a nice thinner paste so that it would not quickly dry out. I did learn that, even though we were long time smokers, I could hold my breath a full minute and a half, and my friend two minutes, probably due to him being ex-military. Neither of us could see for about ten minutes due to the tears, and it was a miracle we didn’t lose the contents of our stomachs.
Even in Texas, winters can get cold, including on the coast, and this was a particularly cold winter, staying in the 20s and teens. It even snowed on Christmas (not enough to write home about), which maybe happens once every 10-15 years. Remember, this was Wednesday, and like I said, we had Christmas Eve and Christmas off and then the weekend. Four full days for that stink bait to stew in the running heating system. Come to find out later, the jack-hole superintendent and his cronies had forgotten to lower the main thermostat before leaving for the long winter holiday weekend. The thermostat is normally lowered to 50º F when closed during cold weather and raised to 82º F when closed during warmer. Yeah, it was left at 75º F that whole weekend.
It’s Monday, and my friend and I pulled up to quite the scene that morning. Green ‘Martians’ on all fours seemed to be littering the grounds of the school, projectile vomiting spewed everywhere. There was an ambulance, and three firetrucks on the scene with firemen in full rubbers, including respirators, running around everywhere. All the doors and the windows of the school were open with giant fans venting the buildings. The air was putrid, and we turned green upon exiting the vehicle. ‘Oh, Holy Fu–‘ was all I could say. ‘What the heck happened here?’
Our boss was sitting on the hood of his car next to ours, his breakfast artfully painted the ground. The jack-hole superintendent and a couple of his guys were in the back of the ambulance on oxygen as they had taken the full brunt upon opening the building.
Okay, let’s tally the damage. The smell had permeated EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING! The school, besides cafeteria, was fully carpeted, the drop ceilings were of the fiberglass type, as well as the insulation so they absorbed the smell. The walls that weren’t cinder-block were papered and not painted. Since the inner duct work was the insulated type (on the inside), all of that had to be replaced as well. Needless to say, tens of millions of dollars in damage. Also, a fence had to be erected to prevent such a thing from ever occurring again. Come to find out, the superintendent had skimped on the insurance and pocketed the money, so needless to say, it fell to his company to cover all the costs. All of his underhanded dealings came to light in the end as well. Needless to say, he lost his job, and was arrested, losing his contractor’s license – forever.
Our boss never said anything, but I am thinking, due to the way he always grinned at us after that day, that he had his suspicions that it was us. He never turned us in, but he did put in for us a big raise. Since the smell didn’t permeate any of our stuff, and our jobs were complete anyway, the plumbers, electricians, and pipe fitters were spared from ever having to enter that mess.
It’s been nearly 30 years, I guess the statutes of limitations are well up, so I can safely tell the story. I want to admit that I do feel ashamed for doing it. Being young and dumb and all is a great excuse, but a good contractor service went bankrupt and a lot of jobs were lost in the end. And from what I hear, the school still has a foul odor, even today (Well, about 18 years ago from what I heard). Yeah, we expected to stink up the place, but did not expect such a result.”
This Idiot Just Doesn’t Know When To Stop
“I’m a regular at a bar. I don’t have family, my roommate was out of town for the holidays, so I went to the bar.
I was having a good night. Then this idiot showed up.
Now, this idiot and I don’t have a lot of history, in my mind. I was dating a girl three years ago. She cheated on me. I broke up with her. The whole relationship lasted all of a month. In my mind, that was the end of it. Stuff happens, move on.
The person she cheated on me with was this idiot.
Now, this idiot is a weird person. I didn’t harbor any ill will. This guy, however, ran in very vaguely the same circles as me. He would see me at a bar or a party occasionally and make it a point to say, ‘I banged that guy’s girlfriend.’ Occasionally, there was a party host saying, ‘Hey, that guy’s worried about you fighting him,’ or at a bar, ‘Dude are you going to kick that guy’s butt? Because he’s asking people to have his back.’
I had zero interest in this guy. I gave not a single care about him. I just wanted to drink and have fun.
What was weird about it is that he always introduced himself and acted like he remembered me from somewhere. I would be like, ‘Yeah, you banged Jennifer.’
‘Oh, how is she?’
‘We stopped dating. You know, after you banged her.’
‘Oh, well, good talk.’ And the smug prick would pat me on the shoulder.
This was pretty annoying. I dated this girl for all of a month. It didn’t even blip on my radar as a serious relationship. Except this guy would show up every now and then, and remind me he banged a girl I was dating.
So, I’m in this bar. I’m hanging out with some vets swapping war stories. And here comes this idiot. He goes, ‘Hey I know you from-‘
I say, ‘Dude, not now. I’m in the middle of a story. Scram off for a bit.’
I finished my story and he came back and said, ‘I know you from somewhere.’
‘Yeah, you banged Jennifer. I honestly don’t care. It was like three years ago.’
He left. The owner and the bartender were around me. The owner asked, ‘Do you hate that guy?’
I told him the story. He goes, ‘Are you going anywhere soon?’
After that question, heck no.
The bartender was ticked because the dude was always grabbing her. The owner hated him because he was an impaired driving idiot. At the bar, you don’t drive wasted. The owner has a policy that if you need to get home, they’ll pay for a cab if you pay it back the next time you’re in. If you’re stone broke, you get a cab home, just pay it back when you can. And he will call the police on your tail if you try to drive wasted. That dude doesn’t tolerate that stuff.
This guy had a history of driving hammered from that bar.
The bartender went back and made a phone call and I drank a few brews. I was promised a show and I’d wait.
The guy left and shook my hand. The smug prick even patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘Say hi to Jenn.’
He got in his car, pulled out of the parking spot, and then there were flashing lights.
The bartender had called the non-emergency line and said there was a repeat impaired driving offender at the bar and they sent a non-marked car to hang out in the parking lot.
This is his charge as a third time offender.
120 days to 11 months, 29 days in jail; $1,100 to $10,000 mandatory fines; license revocation for 6-10 years/NO restricted license available; subject to vehicle seizure/forfeiture and treatment program. The judge could order an Ignition Interlock Device installed at your expense with two (2) convictions of impaired driving in 5 years, and the Ignition Interlock Device required for 6 months after reinstatement at your expense.
Merry Christmas to me.”
Greedy Bosses Pay For Their Selfishness
“Many years ago (early 1980s), I worked for a company that did what I called ‘Mall Accosting,’ they did market research surveys in a mall and were always stopping people to ask questions, etc.
The company was run by three older women who had started it in their kitchen. They were opinionated and had no care about anything but money. Part of this included paying employees not by the hour but by the survey, which was against Labor rules as it never matched the basic hourly wage. This is important.
Christmas came and we were planning our employee party, when one of the owners called and told us that in order to avoid paying bonuses, we were to fire everyone at the party and then hire back the ones that we liked after the new year.
We (the other managers and I) talked about it, and then I called the Federal Bureau of Labor, who had been trying to get the information for the employee pay for several years, but had always been turned away. I had them come to the back door and let them into the file room and showed them the boxes. I then said I had things to do in the front and would be back later and went to the front desk to finish the paperwork I needed. Said paperwork? A blow up of Santa going down the chimney with ‘Merry Effing Christmas’ typed across it, all the management resignations, the Fed-Ex envelope that would hold our keys, and said paperwork.
Labor guy finished what he needed to do, we locked up, sent the package which was timed to arrive at their Christmas party, and walked away. The company ended up spending about $250k in reimbursements and fines for the labor problem.”
“Jane” Learned To Work Her Fair Share That Night
“Quite a few years ago, I moved into a house with a few of my best friends. One of my friends got me a job with her at the local gas station within walking distance of our house and I thought I was pretty set with my new arrangement – living with my best friends, able to walk to work and a job that should have been one of the easiest positions I’ve ever held. That is, until I met my coworker – Jane.
I worked nights. We didn’t get too many customers during my shift, so the majority of the cleaning of the store and grounds and stocking of merchandise fell on night staff. We were expected to make sure there was always fresh coffee, sweep and mop the floors inside, make sure that all of our merchandise was neatly displayed, take out the trash inside and outside by the gas pumps, sweep up the parking lot, and stock the beverages which entailed going into the walk in fridge and stocking it from inside the cooler (which could take two hours or more at times). There was always two people scheduled on night shift, most of my coworkers and I would split the work.
Not Jane. Jane would usually hang out in the back in the manager’s office for hours or stand behind the registers ‘doing inventory of the smokes’ and make the other employees unfortunate enough to be scheduled with her do all the tasks that needed to be completed in and out of the store and have to stop and run to the register to ring people up, even when she was standing right there ‘counting the smokes.’ She couldn’t be bothered to even acknowledge the customers.
When people called off, it was standard to call the other employees and see if someone could come in and take the shift. Most people would give a legit reason why they couldn’t when they declined – i.e. no sitter, family plans, etc. Not Jane. Jane would just answer with a flat no when she was called and would then hang up.
My best friend came to me a few months into working at the place and told me that our manager told her that Jane said that I don’t do anything during my shifts with her. OH, HECK NAH! I do literally ALL the work as she sits on her butt in an office or on the counters at the register station doing nothing. She wants to say that I am the one not working? I decided I was done with that place and began looking for another job.
Jane fancied herself the second in command in our store under the manager. Now, mind you, we didn’t have an assistant manager with that gas station chain. There was only a manager and there were supposed to be a few shift leads who really didn’t have any power, just a few additional tasks to complete during the shifts where they were scheduled as a lead – inventory, ordering stock, etc. Jane was not ACTUALLY a shift lead, but she was able to do most of the tasks of the shift lead and acted like that came with power that it didn’t. She was supposedly undergoing training classes to be a lead officially and would walk around on her shift with a clipboard and make little notes here and there about things that could be improved in our store. One of her ‘improvements’ was that everyone during their shift should do 1 hour stocking the cooler, so that it didn’t fall on one person doing it for two or more hours on night shift; stocking the cooler meant having to be in temperatures below 40 degrees the entire time and was not a favorite task of anyone who worked there. The best part of this ‘improvement’ was that she would harp on my coworkers about it while NEVER stepping foot in the cooler herself to do anything that I saw in the entire time that I worked with her.
Another of her ‘improvements’ was that everyone had to attend a weekly mandatory team meeting because she read somewhere in one of her training books that it’s supposedly policy even though none of us, including the manager, had heard of this before she brought it up. These team meetings were universally hated and completely useless. No one wanted to go to the store for 20 minutes of pay at a time they’d otherwise be off of work. There was literally nothing of value that was ever discussed during them because we worked at a gas station and there wasn’t much to go over that we didn’t already know. The meetings were just a show of power by Jane where she could go over her clipboard and force people to listen to her stupid observations and suggestions…or so I was told. I missed the one meeting that was scheduled while I still worked there as I told them I had a doctor appointment already scheduled, but in reality I went to an interview.
I came to work my shift at the gas station after receiving a call earlier in the day saying that I had passed my background check and employment verification and was offered the job that I had been seeking. I asked my shift lead how to put in my Two Weeks’ Notice and she smiled and asked who I would be working with on my last day? Jane. She asked if I already officially had the job and I confirmed that I did and that all of my background checks were complete. She then asked me if it really wanted to put in my Two Weeks Notice and I got her drift and told her never mind.
On the shift before my last shift, I put Jane’s clipboard on top of a large cabinet in the manager’s office. I am tall and it was easy to see and reach for me, but would not be for short Jane. I didn’t think much of it. It was just supposed to throw her off for a few minutes until she located it easily and moved on with her day. I quickly forgot that I even did it.
My last day was Christmas. I was scheduled as a split shift from 7-10:00pm, I was scheduled with my best friend. My best friend was scheduled to get off at 10:00 pm and Jane was to come in and work her normal night shift from 10pm-6am. I came in at 7:00 and worked as I normally would and had a fun time clowning with my best friend when we had a rare moment of down time. Being Christmas Day, there wasn’t really anything else around that was open, so we were swamped as a result. My best friend left at exactly 10:00 pm, but it took a few minutes for Jane to arrive. Jane walked into the store and I came from behind the register and walked up to her and said, ‘Merry Christmas! I quit’ and started to walk around her to leave the store. She stood there in the entryway looking shook until she finally said, ‘You’re kidding, right?’
I laughed and told her that it would not be a Merry Christmas for me if I was kidding and then left her to the store on her own on one of the busiest nights of the year.
My best friend filled me in on what happened when I left. She went through the phone list calling everyone to see if they could come in to work my shift. Every single person just gave a simple ‘no’ and hung up on her. She was left to run the store on her own for quite some time before the manager showed up to assist her.
The next team meeting that she had after I left, she could not find her clipboard and had a melt down fit in front of all the other employees as they all stood there looking at the clipboard still on the cabinet where I had left it. She couldn’t see, but they could and they didn’t feel a need to point it out. They ended up getting to go home without doing the meeting because she couldn’t find her notes. They stopped doing meetings shortly after that.
Now, before you start feeling sorry for my manager having to lose time with his people on Christmas Day to clean up the mess from my revenge, keep in mind that he has access to video recordings of every inch of the store and outside grounds and could easily verify how much work I was doing during my shifts before he felt the need to insult my work ethic to my best friend based solely on the lie of one person. I’m actually GLAD that he was caught up in my wonderful revenge, truth be told. I couldn’t have planned it any better. I still smile broadly every time I think of this memory or walk into that chain of gas stations.
