I work in a BBQ restaurant as the pitmaster, so I run the smokers and handle all raw meat preparation. I have to get there by 5 or 6 AM, depending on the day, in order to have food ready to open the restaurant at 11 AM.

The General Manager decided she was spending too much on labor and needed to cut my hours. As such, she told me at around 2 PM on a Thursday the following:

General Manager: “I need you to clock out by 1 PM every day, no matter what.”

I asked for it in writing and got it.

So, the next day, I went to the Head Chef when I got there and said that the General Manager said I had to be out by 1 PM no matter what, and showed him the signed note.

I set an alarm on my phone and got to work.

I got through all the prep for the next day and was starting on the cleaning when my alarm went off. Now the pit area looked awful. The walls had some smoke stains that come off pretty easily with degreaser, but build up over time, the cooler floor had some blood on it that needed to be cleaned up before it spoiled and started smelling bad, my table had some seasoning left on it from where I seasoned the pork for the overnight load, the walls still had bits of skin, gristle, etc stuck to them, the trash can was full.

I told the head chef:

Me: “Well, it’s 1 PM, and I have to go.”

He looked in the pit and said:

Head Chef: “Yep… This is what I expected…”

But he let me clock out and go.

This goes on for about a week, with the pit looking worse and worse each day. Then the District Manager comes in on my day off… The Head Chef told me that the District Manager immediately started on the General Manager for the pit, looking awful, and how the pitmaster needed to stay until the pit was clean no matter what.

So I got it in writing and am now currently working until about 2:30 PM every day, doing the full cleaning I was doing before again…

About ten years ago, I was on medication that required me to drink lots of water to stay hydrated. Thus, frequent bathroom breaks. 

At the time, when I had to go, I’d just make the trip and not make a fuss about it. My department manager was very controlling and said he needed to know what was going on ALL THE TIME. After a couple of weeks, he informed me:

Manager: “I’m writing you up for not informing anyone about your bathroom breaks.”

I made sure I talked to him directly over the next couple of days every time I had to go. And everyone in the store with their walkie-talkie on heard me.

Me: “Hey, manager, you needed to know when I’m going to the bathroom. I’m gonna go potty now. Thanks for asking about it.”

Me: “Hey, manager, I’m taking a pee right now… Should it hurt when I pee?”

Me: “Hey, manager, I need to do #1 and #2. Hope it all comes out okay.”

A few minutes later:

Me: *Flush!* “Looks good, I’m back on the floor.”

He calls for me as I’m urinating:

Me: “Hey, manager, you were looking for me? I’m in the bathroom. Be with you in a sec, I gotta use both hands now.”

Store managers and HR stepped in at that point and said I didn’t need to go the TMI route. I responded wide-eyed and as innocently as I could:

Me: “I don’t want to get in trouble… [Manager] told me he absolutely NEEDS to know about my bathroom breaks. I was merely doing what I was directed.”

They said they’d take care of it, and I was specifically asked to never call out bathroom breaks again. 

My coworkers were laughing about this for weeks.

Prior to my retirement, I worked a retail job with a quasi-state agency that controls retail stores in my state. In our old store, we had a buzzer at each register that rang in the warehouse in case we needed help, or a customer needed a case of something.

Then the powers that be decided to move us to a new, bigger store. Of course, this being a state operation, while the store is much bigger, the staff is exactly the same. We now have four times the warehouse, four times the retail space, and the same number of people and hours.

Everything is always ‘you need to do more with less’. I got sick of this, and I’m a vindictive SOB by nature. I’ve been called the ‘Iceman’ because I can ignore anything. So, if I were on the register, I would stay at the register until I was told to do something else.

The managers were not happy. Then they started playing a game, one of the two managers on the shift would go back into the warehouse, to ‘check things’ aka vape (vaping is not allowed in the stores). In short order, the other manager would join the first, and then the other two clerks would head to the Warehouse, leaving me alone in the store.

Now, at this new store, the powers that be had the buzzer to call the warehouse placed in the office instead of at the registers. Managers put out a memo stating that employees are not allowed in the office without a manager present.

I keep ringing up customers, and other customers come to me asking for products that are in locked display cases. I inform them that they need to stick their heads in the door at the rear of the store and call for a manager. A manager comes out, talks to the customer, and goes to the office to look for the keys, then has to go back to the warehouse to get the keys from the other manager.

Customers are not happy, and I proceed to tell the customers to complain to the state complaint office.

The managers go ballistic, demanding to know why I didn’t ring the buzzer, and I simply point out that their memo says I’m not allowed in the office without a manager present.

Bottom line, there wasn’t a thing they could do about it.

The city I live in has extremely inflated vehicle values compared to the surrounding areas. If you buy the same car from a neighboring state, you can often save $3–4k without really trying. When I buy a new vehicle (which happens every three to four years), I always look in the surrounding states to compare pricing.

I was shopping for a new car (brand new) and found one that matched my specs about twelve hours away in a neighboring state. It was priced about $5,000 below comps.

After looking up flights, there was a one-way direct flight that took me to their local airport for around $175. Plus, the gas to drive back, I was looking at a total of maybe $275 to save $5,000. Absolutely worth it in this situation. 

I reached out to the dealership, negotiated a bit, and agreed on a price. I let them know that I would be flying in to pick up the car and offered to pay in full in advance of the flight. They told me that all they needed was a $1k deposit and that the car was considered mine.

We signed a contract, and I paid the deposit.

And then I booked the flight for three days later.

First sign of things gone awry:

When I showed up at the airport, the dealership was supposed to pick me up. This had been arranged in advance. A quick phone call later, I grabbed an Uber to take me the twenty miles to the dealership, with the promise of them covering that cost. No big deal either way.

Second sign of things gone awry: 

When I showed up at the dealership, the salesman I had been speaking with asked me if I wanted to walk the lot with him to look at a few cars. 

Yes. Cars. Plural.

Questioning what he meant by that, we walked into the lot to see these “cars” he was talking about.

Were these some special type of gold-inlaid, full self-driving, full self-flying amaze-mobiles? No. They were not.

When I asked point-blank to see the car I was buying, the one with VIN XYZ listed in the signed contract with a deposit on it, I was told it was no longer available. 

The salesman offered to show me similar cars, which would have been fine if we could have come to similar pricing terms. But all of these cars were outrageously priced (think $2k over MSRP instead of $5k under MSRP).

There was never any mention, paperwork, signage, or otherwise, of incentives for giving five-star reviews.) 

Fast forward two to three hours. 

I was now convinced the dealership never had this specific car on the lot and that this was a 100% bait-and-switch gone wrong. The dealership was unwilling to sell me a similar vehicle at a similar price (we were over $5k apart) and unwilling to pay my flight costs for this scenario.

A heated discussion ensued between the general manager and me, who told me:

General Manager: “Go ahead and leave a bad review.”

He also made it clear I wasn’t getting any “free” money from him. I took an Uber to a nearby hotel and booked a flight home for the next day.

Total cost: Around $750.

This dealership had an average Google rating of around 4.5 stars with about four-hundred total reviews. Pretty solid for a dealership. 

That night, sitting in the hotel room with time to burn, I spent a couple of hours creating new email accounts so I could leave multiple reviews. By the end of the night, I had left around twenty one-star reviews. Then I stopped caring about the reviews and shifted my focus to recovering my travel expenses.

A few days after getting home, I sent the dealership a demand letter for $750, which they ignored. Since the original contract was executed in both states, I was allowed to file small claims in my home state, which I did.

The dealership never showed up. I received a default judgment for $750. I got my $1k deposit back. I paid with a credit card, and it was refunded without issue. I couldn’t sue for time spent or force the contract to be honored because I filed in small claims court (the case was winnable, but legal fees and time made it not worth pursuing).

It took certified letters, phone calls, and about a year, but yes, I collected.

I was still not a happy camper. What they did was wrong on so many levels. All my friends knew the story. Many left a bad review or two, but nothing out of the ordinary.

At some point later, I left one bad review. Just one. I noticed all the original reviews I had left earlier were gone, likely flagged as fake. The one I just posted stayed. So, the next day, I created another account and left another one-star review.

Fast forward two to three years. This became a habit. Any time I had a few minutes, I created a new account and left a one-star review.

Their current rating: 1.9 stars. Total reviews: Nearly 3,500. I am personally responsible for at least half of them.

When you open the dealer’s website, one of the rotating banners advertises:

Website Banner: “$50 for a five-star review.”

It explains that if you show the review to your salesman, you get a $50 Visa gift card. This policy appeared around a year after the bait-and-switch, right when the one-star reviews began piling up.

Assuming I’m responsible for half the reviews, and they’ve paid for at least a thousand five-star reviews, they’ve spent $50,000 buying reviews.

And their rating still keeps dropping. All after telling me to “go ahead and leave a bad review.”

Back in 2014, I was driving home from going clothes shopping for my new job, which I was starting in a week, when my car literally caught on fire with me and my then four-year-old son in it. I had just bought $200 worth of clothes, AND my laundry was in my car from the laundromat (including my work shirt and white lab coat).

I had already given my notice to my boss that I was leaving, and the next day (Monday), I called in to tell her what had happened and that I would not be in due to smoke inhalation issues and needing to go buy a new car.

This was supposed to be my last day.

Boss: “You need to return your three work shirts and both lab coats, or you’ll have the costs garnished from your last check.”

Me: “They are a pile of ash at the salvage yard.”

Boss: “You have to bring them in.”

Me: “Okay. Will do.”

Insert eye roll and a certain finger flashing from my side of the phone. 

Tuesday, I walked in with a picture of my laundry basket melted in my car and a Ziplock filled with ashes and mud. I recorded myself giving them to her and telling her again what happened. I got a side-eye and a “WTF?!”

I walked out with a smirk.

I’ve been at the new job for ten years. Best move I ever made.