A few years ago, I got hired on as a general manager for a small, corporate chain specializing in ice cream. They weren’t doing well as the pandemic had just ended, and they needed someone to boost their sales. I was hired on with the promise that once I’d doubled the sales of the store, I’d get a substantial pay raise.

I hit that goal five months into the job. During my six-month evaluation:

Me: “Why is my raise so small? It’s not even half of what I was promised.”

Manager: “The store is still catching up, so we can’t afford the raise we’d previously quoted. If the store continues on its upward track, you’ll get your raise at your one-year evaluation.” 

Yeah, no.

I started looking for other jobs and stopped going above and beyond in my duties. The assistant manager I’d hired noticed and took up the mantle, secretly going to my boss to get my job. After a month, it worked. They were going to demote me and promote her to general manager before I quit.

A few months later, a friend sent me a screenshot of a post on Facebook where a girl was warning people not to work at that shop because they won’t pay you. 

I reached out to her; found out she hadn’t been paid for a week’s worth of work and the new general manager (my old assistant manager) wouldn’t do anything about it. The corporate number wasn’t publicly listed, but I still had it saved in some emails, so I gave it to her and told her she ought to let corporate know about what’s going on in that store.

The store was shut down by the end of the next week. It was closed for a month before having a grand reopening with new owners and management. I got revenge in a “two birds, one stone,” kind of way.

I work at a specialty Italian grocery store. I’m in an aisle, restocking a shelf with one of those deep cardboard boxes full of individually wrapped items. I’m halfway through when a woman walks up behind me. Before I can even turn back around, she grabs the other end of the box, lifts it up, and dumps the entire contents onto the floor. Hundreds of little items scatter everywhere.

Customer: “I need this box.”

I stare at her, stunned.

Me: “…So you’re just going to dump everything out?”

Customer: “I need the box. You weren’t moving fast enough.”

I take a slow breath and glance at the avalanche of merchandise across the aisle. Customers are stepping over them like they don’t see them.

Me: “Well, you could have asked me first.”

Customer: “Customers don’t need to ask. Actually, you should have offered.”

I sigh and start the job of picking up the individual items and figuring out where they were supposed to go. 

That day, the stars aligned. I’m now delayed in trying to put the stock back on the shelves. A few aisles over, the same customer (with the box now in their cart) storms up to me and says:

Customer: “Where is the pesto! There’s none on the shelves!”

Me: “Sorry, ma’am, I was about to restock those, but I had to deal with a box spillage a few aisles back, and I am now delayed. I will get to the pesto shortly.”

I stared daggers at the customer, who in turn glared at me but didn’t say anything for fear of being called out.

 After restocking that particular shelf, I went to the back to see the box that I knew contained the pesto… and skipped it completely.

I saw the customer an hour later, at the checkout, huffing and puffing.

Customer: “Well?! Did you find the pesto? I’m about to check out, and I can’t wait any longer!”

Me: “Sorry, ma’am, the aforementioned box spillage resulted in me falling behind, and now I need to take my contracted hour-long break. Maybe I will get to it after my break.”

Cue another glare-off. The customer realized my game, and that she was not going to be getting any pesto on this particular shopping trip. She proceeded to the registers and checked out in angered silence.

I made sure the box containing the pesto was the last box I put out… just in case.

A woman has been shopping in our beauty/make-up section for a while, scrutinizing every product as she scans. After what feels like an age, she finally comes up to a register with a basket full of items.

Customer: “It’s so hard to find items that aren’t made in Asia! Especially China!”

Me: *Scanning.* “Is there a reason you try to avoid items from Asia?”

Customer: “You work here, and you don’t know?! The Chinese put poison in their stuff! It’s designed so that our body heat lets the poison melt into our skin and kill us.”

Me: “Ma’am, that is absolutely not true.”

Customer: “It is! They don’t report it on the news as it’s a cover-up, but it’s true!”

Me: “Ma’am, if that were true, we’d be dealing with dead bodies every day from the makeup testers we have in store.”

Customer: *Ignoring my point.* “Everything made in China is toxic! Deadly!”

I stay silent. She’s not aware that my father is White, but my mother is Chinese. I make sure to thoroughly touch every single thing in her basket as I finish checking her out, y’know, to get my toxins all over it. Some of the items she is buying today are on sale with a coupon, and I’ve been telling customers without the coupon how to get it up on their phone if they weren’t aware of it. I forgot to do that for this customer.

A few years ago, I worked at a janky, two-bit company. The boss thought he was Billy Big B*llocks and God’s Gift simultaneously. He had such a big head, I’m surprised he could get through doorways. He used to drink beer at his desk for lunch and would often arrive at work late. He was also an insufferable muscle-bro and walked around as if carrying rolls of carpet under each arm.

A few months into my time there, the company starts winning large orders, so he asks me to set up a small-scale production line to increase capacity and tells me the new hire will be situated there.

I design it, set it up, test it all works, and I’m feeling a sense of pride with what I’ve accomplished; it worked like a dream. I was confident it would work really well for the new hire. Because I’m an engineer by trade, everything was perfect and only I knew how to fix the broken s***. Nobody else asked how it worked.

A while later, there was an issue; he couldn’t hire anyone willing to accept such a crappy wage and boring work. So, Billy Big B*llocks had a bright idea to demote me and make me governor of my creation.

No way, not for £9k less.

I immediately started job hunting, and I told him, “If that’s your final offer, regard tomorrow as my final day.” He panics that he’s committed the company to a £1m order due for shipping in three days’ time. During his alcohol fuelled panic, he tells me to write up highly detailed technical manuals and processes for my replacement (the production line included some precise handwork).

I can’t do that in one day! He also didn’t specify what they should contain, and considering I had no help from him with this project, just complaints, I thought, ‘f*** it.’ So sure, he got his manuals.

I created Word documents with convincing titles like ‘Technical Manual – Product Version 2.0’ and ‘How to Do This Precise Task.’ Inside the documents were, for example, the surprised Pikachu face, and Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys looking lost. Then, below just one line of text reading, ‘This manual contains all the information I could find or was given.’

The file sizes would also indicate a lot of text was contained within, thanks to the images; therefore, at face value, they looked legitimate.

I saved them to my laptop in an equally legitimate-looking folder that afternoon. Early the next morning, I came to work to collect my belongings and do some handovers, and found the laptop had vanished. I said my goodbyes to my colleagues and looked over to see him looking incensed with a beer in one hand. He was so angry, he didn’t look up from his desk.

A friend told me later that the company missed the production deadline despite his working twelve-hour days to try to catch up. Apparently, the client was extremely f***ed off!

It’s the day before Thanksgiving, so as usual, the store is overflowing with last-minute shoppers, heck-bent on making sure they have too much food for tomorrow. Every lane is packed with customers.

I’m about to start scanning the next customer. She has a full cart. Actually, that’s an understatement; she has an overflowing cart, easily one of the largest I’ve had to scan today.

The next customer behind her meekly asks:

Next Customer: “Excuse me, I only have these two things, and the parking meter for my car is about to expire. Would I be able to go ahead of you?”

Current Customer: “No. First-come, first-served! You should have planned better!”

As much of a jerk as she may be, my current customer is indeed next, so I have no choice but to start scanning her items.

Current Customer: “The gall, asking to skip the line!”

Next Customer: “I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask. No need to keep going on about it.”

Current Customer: “The nerve of your generation! The entitlement! I hope your car gets towed!”

I get through scanning it all as fast as possible, as the customer’s ranting is making me uncomfortable. The current customer pays and wheels away her massive cart of items.

I start scanning the current customer’s two items as fast as possible.

Me: “Sorry about that. I have to go in the order the customers are in the line.”

Next Customer: “Don’t worry about it. Oh, and when that miserable person gets home and realizes they don’t have their cornbread and canned cranberry sauce, it’s because I threw them under the counter behind the shopping baskets when she was too busy insulting me to look.

The next customer scans their card, grabs the receipt, and walks out with a victorious gait, leaving me there, finding the situation equally hilarious and horrifying.