Many years ago, before I got married and had kids, I was renting out my basement as an apartment to one of my good friends. The basement had a full kitchen, a full bathroom, and a washing machine (among other things). My friend notified me immediately if there was a problem and was pretty vigilant about it. I attempted to fix the small things myself, but I needed professionals for larger projects. One such project was his kitchen sink, which had an unstoppable leak at almost every connection.

At the time, my regular plumber had just retired and I hadn’t yet needed a new one, so on his suggestion, I gave the job to a contractor who was one of his oldest friends. The initial survey revealed that the problem was corroded pipes. However, he had to tear up the floor to find the extent of the problem. Combine that with the found problems, and we were already $2000 in — and from what I learned later, that was in fact a good deal for the volume of work. I cut him a check, and he got to work.

The work trapped me in the house for a few days, so on the day our mutual friend had a day off, he agreed to watch the house while they were ripping into the foundation in his bathroom, and I took the opportunity to go grocery shopping for the next week. When I came back, I was greeted by a horrified face from my tenant, who informed me that his friend hadn’t stopped the jackhammer until after he’d smashed through a water pipe, and he hadn’t previously shut off the water. The water damage itself was negligible, but the kitchen sink and washing machine (which weren’t supposed to be affected unless the water was shut off) could no longer get water.

Thankfully, everything above the basement still had water and we could close off the one pipe, so I moved my friend into my guestroom and gave him the guest bathroom until this was resolved; this and friendship were enough to make him not withhold rent, despite him being trapped in the middle of this. However, my now-ex-contractor not only refused to fix this mess without receiving more money, but he also refused to refund my money for this blunder, insisting that what he’d hit was another corroded pipe that would have been replaced anyway. However, the pipe didn’t look corroded to me, so I showed it to my new plumber who confirmed that this pipe was immaculate before someone put a hole in it.

I took this knowledge and got a lawyer.

After dragging his feet with multiple continuances, the contractor and I and our lawyers finally sat down to discuss a deal.

Contractor: “I don’t see why we’re even discussing this. I never even worked on his home!”

My Lawyer: “You’ve billed my client for services already.”

Contractor: “That was for the survey and when we signed the work contract. There was an agreement to work, but I never did more than look.”

His Lawyer: “Not another word, [Contractor].”

Me: “So, who smashed my toilet?”

Contractor: “Not me! I removed it carefully!”

Me: “If you removed my toilet, then you worked on my house.”

Contractor: *Pauses* “Okay, yes, I did that.”

His Lawyer: “Let me handle it from here!”

Contractor: “No, no, let me clarify this. I just got the site ready. I wasn’t the one who caused the damage. I wasn’t even in the state at the time.”

My Lawyer: “Then where were you?”

Contractor: “Upstate at my other house with my wife and kid.”

I later learned that neither of these people existed.

Me: “So, who was in my house?”

Contractor: “One of my guys.”

My Lawyer: “‘One of your guys’? Well, the contract is with you. If you gave the work to someone else, you are still legally responsible for anything that happens.”

Contractor: “But I never signed a contract!”

His Lawyer: “STOP TALKING!”

The two confer for a moment.

His Lawyer: “My client’s willing to settle. He’ll pay $2,000 if you accept.”

Me: “I wanted $2,000 the day he busted my pipe. This is not that day. I have a job you didn’t finish and a new job that’s a direct result of your negligence, and you forced me to get a lawyer to fix this problem. I’ll settle for $12,000.”

Everything I just listed totaled $8,000 in expenses.

Contractor: “That’s over the cap. You can’t sue for that much in this state.”

My Lawyer: “That’s true in small claims court. This is not small claims court. If we go to trial and you lose, I’m certain you’d be paying six figures.”

His Lawyer: “How about $4,000?”

Me: “$12,000.”

I wasn’t dropping my asking price until I heard $8,000. We finally settled at $10,000. Then came the payment plan.

My Lawyer: “What are your client’s assets?”

Contractor: “Just the business.”

Me: “Didn’t you say you have a house upstate? Or rather, another house upstate?”

My Lawyer: “So, we have two houses. Are they paid off?”

Contractor: “‘Paid off’? You’re not taking my houses!”

My Lawyer: “It’ll just be a lien to guarantee payment… unless you decide not to pay, of course.”

Contractor: “BUT THEY’RE MINE! I WORKED HARD TO PAY OFF THOSE MORTGAGES!”

Me: “Which makes them perfect for a lien.”

Contractor: “THEY’RE WORTH MORE THAN THIS COURTHOUSE!”

Me: “So it’d be really stupid not to pay.”

My Lawyer: “Would you rather use an automobile?”

Contractor: “MY CAR?!”

The payment was set up so I got half up-front and the other half in installments with the condition that the whole thing was paid off within six months. Even so, it was like pulling teeth to receive payment. My lawyer notified me of new excuses every month as to why the payment was delayed. We had to repeatedly threaten to notify the police that the contractor was violating a court order and to issue a warrant for his arrest or demand to see his bank records to show someone that wasn’t me had been cashing his checks, at which point the check magically showed up. Sadly, I never got the chance to make that call for his arrest or take a house or car from him. I was always hopeful that there’d be a way to make him really suffer for this nonsense.

And I got my wish.

Once the final payment went through and all the work was done, I got a nasty message on my answering machine from him. I won’t transcribe it because it’s predominantly assertions that my parents weren’t married, that I was a female dog, and that I was suffering from an Oedipus Complex. However, there was some reference to “harassment” and “countersuit” mixed in. My friend and tenant overheard the message and explained.

Friend: “He didn’t read that notice too carefully. I’m suing him for the rent on my apartment, the loss of utilities, and harassment.”

Me: “‘Harassment’?”

Friend: “He called me every day urging me to get you to drop the lawsuit. After the deal, he kept begging for money and demanding I tell you the check was coming.”

Me: “And the rent, too?”

Friend: “It wasn’t your fault my apartment was wrecked.”

My friend won, too. The contractor lost one house when he was unable to pay off the settlement. We last heard that he sold the other and left the state once his business dried up.

In the early oughts, I worked at a small company. The owner was a classic narcissist. Nothing was ever good enough for him, and his standards for what was good enough changed about every hour. You’d give him some work product in the morning and it would be fantastic. You’d give him the same exact thing a few hours later and it would “need a lot of work.”

Two things happened to the guy before I left. First, he and his wife built a house in a rural area. The spot where they built their house used to be commonly used in the winter by snowmobilers and in the summer by dirt bikers. He decided to fence it off, and the recreationists didn’t like it, so they’d cut his fence and carry on through. He’d yell at them and threaten them, but nothing happened for a while.

Then, one time, after about two winters of this, he did his usual schtick of going out and yelling at them and threatening them with lawsuits and the police and the like, and one of the snowmobilers had had enough. That snowmobiler got off his ride, walked over, and beat the owner senseless. The owner pretty much hid in his office for the next two weeks. We eventually learned the entirety of the story, and nobody had much sympathy for him.

A year or two later, I ended up leaving the company. The owner demanded that I stay for four months to “train my replacement.” I politely reminded him that Washington is an At-Will employment state, and the two weeks I was offering him were a courtesy, not a legal requirement. Initially, all seemed well, but he spent two days trying to give me new work that was going to take months to complete. I kept reminding him that I wouldn’t be there to finish anything and it would be a better use of my time to transition my existing work to other people. He kept blowing up at me. I’d had enough, handed over my keys, and left.

That’s not even the best story, though. About two or three years after I’d left, the owner was in the newspaper. Yep, it was that recreational trail again. This time, he went out in his pickup truck to confront a dirt biker, and rather than bravely staying inside his truck and yelling threats at them as he usually did, he used that truck to run over the dirt biker. With the dirt biker on the ground with a broken arm, the owner then bravely emerged from the truck and threatened the guy (a teenager) with an axe, and then called the police. When the police arrived, they gave the kid a ticket and put him in an ambulance… and they promptly arrested the owner for assault with a deadly weapon (the truck).

Recently my restaurant has been really struggling to make a profit. We have a decent amount of customers but we never are able to break even. In an attempt to come up with ideas to increase our profits I call a team meeting with all the staff.

Me: “Hey, everyone. Turns out we haven’t been hitting our goals for the month. Does anyone have any ideas on how we could bring in more customers?”

Waitress: “We could put a big sign out to advertise more.”

Me: “A good idea, but unfortunately we don’t really have the funds to get said big sign.”

Chef #1: “We could maybe use cheaper food?”

Chef #2: “Nah, we don’t want people to think we’re too cheap to give them good food.”

A few more ideas were pitched out with no luck.

Waitress: “I know it seems mean, but maybe we could skip next Monday’s charity brunch.”

Me: “Haha! We’re not even open on Monday.”

Chef #1: “Yeah, we are. We always do the charity brunch.”

Me: “Nice joke guys, but I know we aren’t open on Monday.”

They weren’t joking. As it turns out my now ex-assistant restaurant manager was claiming to be the owner to their friends and would open my restaurant every Monday to give their friends free brunch!

This happened in January 2002. I was just recently hired at this small hotel that, due to its location, often has military guests.

I am working probably my third evening shift at the front desk. It’s almost 10:00 and the houseman and I are the only employees on site. I check in a customer who pays cash and take a deposit. The customer asks for someone to take his luggage to his room and the houseman obliges.

A minute or so later, the houseman radios me.

Houseman: “This guest just told me to be careful with the luggage because ‘there’s a bomb in that case.’”

Me: “Put it down and come to the office!”

I dial 911 and let the authorities know what is happening. They tell me they are on their way. The houseman has made it to the office at this point, but he has the case.

Houseman: “I think we should open it.”

Me: “Just set it down!”

I convince him to leave the office with me. 

The police arrive, find the gentleman, and retrieve his case. This takes maybe five minutes. An officer comes to me.

Officer: “It’s safe to go back inside. We’ve checked the case, and the guest told us it was just a joke. Would you like the guest to vacate?”

Me: “I don’t want that guest on our property.”

I had the officer wait while I checked him out of our system.

I gave the officer an envelope with the full amount the guest had paid, including the deposit, and told him that I did not want to see that guest in the lobby. The police and the guest left, and I put the guest on our blacklist.

In the first half of the eighties, my first job was working for a newsagent at a local train station.

After every shift, we counted the money and checks we’d received during our watch. These were put in special paper pouches, which were then placed in our strongbox. A couple of times per week, the strong box would be emptied by our boss, and the pouches were taken by one of us to the deposit box outside our local bank. One summer, the bank reported that an entire pouch was missing from the last deposit. That pouch had contained roughly 10,000 kroner.

Everything was, of course, searched, and our second-in-command, a very nice woman in her fifties, who had taken the money to the bank on that day, was blamed. Nothing could be proven, but we could tell that the suspicion really got to her.

Over the winter, everybody working in the newsagent somehow learned that our boss had a mistress at the other end of the country. Then, we noticed that money was never taken to the bank until at least two days after we put it in the strong box. We worked out that our boss took part of a day’s earnings and used it to pay for some of the earnings from the day before. This went on for quite a while. None of us doubted that something similar had happened the year before and that one day, our boss just got tired of doing this every day. He then just let one pouch go missing.

One day, I knew for certain that my pouch from the day before was missing from what I was asked to take to the bank. After my shift, I called the district manager and told him what we thought was happening. I didn’t want to end up being blamed for money going missing just because my boss needed his extramarital affairs financed.

The district manager showed up within the hour, went through everything, and sure enough, close to 10,000 kroner was missing. My boss was fired on the spot.