Revenge might be a dish best served cold, but it's best to not dish it out if you can't stand the heat you'll earn from the fallback. The people in the following stories share how a petty act of revenge at work ended up costing them and their victims in the long-run.
(Content has been edited for clarity.)
He Thought It Would Just Create A Lot Of Annoying Noise
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“When I first became an electrician, an older journeyman decided to teach me not to leave my stuff laying around by taking 50+ small zip ties and encased my lineman’s pliers. He was also trying to tell me I needed to buy some diagonal cutters. A tin knocker saw all of this go down and quietly gave me a very long, heavy duty zip tie and suggested I put it on his truck’s drive shaft so he’d spend time looking for the noise.
The older journeyman didn’t show up for two days after I put the zip tie on because his truck broke down on the way home. Apparently, the zip tie got hung up and his drive shaft, transmission yoke, pillow block, differential yoke all got destroyed, which also took out the exhaust system just after the headers, and it managed to crack the fiberglass dually fender on the passenger side. He ended up buying a new truck shortly after that and I never told him about the zip tie.”
They Didn’t Think It Would Go This Far
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“A married female coworker I was sleeping with accused me of violating and harassing her when she thought her husband might find out about our affair. We had been friends for over a year before the affair started and I thought I knew her pretty well. There wasn’t anything over the course of our friendship that led me to believe she would accuse me of that. In response, I had the letters and pictures she had been sending me anonymously sent to her husband.
She ended up getting fired and her husband tried to take her two kids away. He literally showed up at our workplace, threw the pictures and letters in her face, and dragged their kids away crying. She was estranged from her family living far away from where she grew up and her husband and kids were basically all she had.
Seeing the terrified look on her kid’s faces made me think maybe I went too far.
I was sent home for a few days but did keep my job. I never saw her again after that. I heard from friends of hers that she did manage to spin the situation enough to keep her kids but beyond that, I’m not 100% how everything went with her. That was definitely enough to scare me 1st to never sleep with another co-worker and 2nd to stay away from married women.”
One Phone Call From Her And The Place Fell Into A “Complete Mutiny”
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“During a rough patch with my (now ex) fiancé, he admitted to me that he had been cheating on me and was involved with someone else. At the time, he was the General Manager of a company that was being sold, but none of the employees knew, as the company needed to be up and operating through the sale, at which time everyone would be out of a job, including him.
He was getting a lot of money for his efforts, so when he came clean about the cheating, I went out drinking with a friend. I came home that night and called everyone’s voicemail and left a message with the details of what was happening to their jobs and the company.
It was a complete mutiny the next day.”
No Escape For This “Man Of God”
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“There was a middle-aged man and he was repeatedly violating my friend, a 14-year-old girl. His standing in the community as a ‘man of God’ kept the police from investigating the many allegations against him.
Let’s call him J.
He held a daily ‘youth group’ at his house which I joined against my will (thanks Mom and Dad). All I had to do was go to the bathroom. I used a product called Rain-x which stops glass from fogging up as my revenge medium. I used it to write on his bathroom mirror, ‘I know what you did.’ When he went into the bathroom, he locked the door and the mirror was normal. Once it fogged up from the shower, it looked as if someone had written, ‘I know what you did,’ on his mirror while he was alone in a locked bathroom. Over the next week, I changed the message each day, getting more and more specific about what he was doing to her.
J was very religious. He believed the devil or some kind of demon was after him. He decided it was the house that was haunted. It couldn’t possibly be because he was a predator, so he moved somewhere else in town.
‘You can’t hide from me,’ said his new mirror. ‘I will always find you. Your soul will be mine.’
J spent some time in a psychiatric ward after that. While he was there, he told some other patients that a demon was after him and why. Eventually, word of his confessions got to the police, and they finally investigated. He’s in jail now and will be for a long time.
So that’s good, but he never quite recovered from his mental breakdown. That part always makes me wonder if I could have done it a better way.”
Law And Disorder
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“I had a lawyer a few years back who was a piece of absolute crap.
1) He would go months between returning phone calls.
2) He was constantly late with court filings to the point the courts multiple times moved to have the case dismissed from lack of action.
3) He lied to me constantly about anything and everything.
4) He refused to be fired. When I told him he was fired, he just ignored me and kept presenting himself as my lawyer. I had to get the courts involved to get him to stop.
5) He lied about me, saying, ‘our client has been unreachable, we are considering dropping them.’ Seriously? I TRIED TO CALL YOU 84 TIME IN THE LAST THREE MONTHS AND YOU DIDNT ANSWER OR RETURN A SINGLE ONE!
6) When I finally did fire him, he told me I had to be in court on a specific date (that didn’t work for me) at a specific time (that didn’t work for me) or else the motion to withdraw wouldn’t be accepted. So I got to the courtroom, and the judge was super nice but confused as to why I was there, and when I told him the story, the judge said, ‘Yeah, this is all done electronically. Not sure why your lawyer would tell you that other than to be a jerk.’
Needless to say by the end of all this I was pissed and wrote a 10-page bar complaint about four different lawyers in their offices’ unethical behavior. Well, the bar association decided this was a firm-wide encouraged pattern of behavior and threw the book at the four partners. Disbarred for five years, restitution to clients, and only allowed to practice under supervision for a period of 5 years after they return.
I felt a little bad, but I was soooooo freaking sick of being jerked around.”
Don’t Mess With This Chef
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“I was a chef for a famous all-inclusive hotel chain.
One day I was approached in the kitchen and told I needed to pack my bags and move 3000 miles away to fix a labor issue at another hotel. I happily obliged but negotiated a deal where I would have my choice of any hotel location after I successfully fixed the labor issue.
I arrived at the new hotel and proceeded to diligently address the labor problem, while also taking over dinner service for 750 people.
After a few months, the labor issue had been fixed and settled, and the kitchen was running as smoothly as I like. I asked my manager about when I could make the move to another hotel per our arrangement, and I was told since I had done such a good job they were going to make me stay where I was for an indeterminate amount of time – ie forever.
I let my management know this was unacceptable, and I demanded I be transferred in accordance with the original agreement that got me on a plan in the first place. I was told they would work on it.
I gave them a 3-week window to address the issue to give them time to discuss it with the head office etc. I told them if they did not come through in 3 weeks I would walk off the job and never look back.
After 3 quiet weeks, I politely asked my manager if my transfer had come through or at least was still in the works. It was not.
The next morning I gave the entire dinner staff the day off and told them not to answer any work calls. I set up the kitchen as if I were prepping dinner – onions and herbs in hotel pans full of water with foil covers, garlic sizzling in pans, etc.
I kept the charade up until around 4:30 pm at which time I left the kitchen, went to my room, picked up my bags and went to the lobby to wait for my ride. The manager came out freaked (there were 750 pre-paid dinner reservations that night and NO food) and told me if I walked out I would never work for the company again. I laughed, shook his hand and said goodbye.
I never looked back and never talked to anyone there ever again.”
His Former Friend Left Him Behind And He Couldn’t Let That Go
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“A friend of mine joined this group of social justice warriors that made it their mission to make fun of anyone that never agreed with them; they saw everyone in town as a bunch of hillbilly rednecks. He always joined in with the taunting and verbal abuse when I met with them, which sucked even more as our lockers were together. He reasoned to me that because he came out of the closet, he should not be with a negative crowd and that he joined the new group because they accepted him for who he was. I have no idea what he meant with a negative crowd, but I think it was because we weren’t treating him like a hero for coming out, as we knew several gay classmates and we even had gay teachers.
I gave up talking to him, and a couple of months later, I got a job at this restaurant in a mall; the owner was a bit racist and a gigantic homophobe. I never cared about it; I just wanted money for an XBOX 360.
Summer came and the owner needed more employees because of increased customers. He was holding a resume of my former friend. I later noticed that there were also resumes of his new friends. The owner saw me looking and asked me if I knew any of them and I said yes. This is the moment I regret and I wished I could go back and redo differently, I hated myself for doing it and I always blamed my naivety and stupidity for being so malicious.
I told the owner that he was gay and his friends were also trying to apply. The owner immediately threw the resumes out. After going back to school, I learned that they were trying to raise money for a trip. It never happened and I always knew it was because of me. We never talked again and it pained me to have done to him.”
He Had A Very Interesting Meeting With The Company’s President After That Post
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“I was involved in a fantasy football league with some friends. I would constantly be looking at it on the weekends and leave my laptop unattended in my living room. My roommate at the time got ahold of my laptop when I was gone and decided to post something masquerading as me that was rather unflattering. All in good fun, no big deal.
About a week later, I found he was still logged into his league on my laptop that he had used briefly. In revenge, I posted a poll for his league mates to vote on asking how many dongs they thought he could fit in his mouth with a variety of choices.
Well, I found out shortly after by text from him that this league was with his coworkers including the president of the company. He had to meet with the president and had to explain himself as well to all his coworkers.
Needless to say, I felt like a horrible person and still feel guilt when it pops into my head.”
It’s All Fun And Games Until There’s Property Damage
“A coworker and I had a friendly prank war spanning two years. Close to the end of our war, he ‘iced’ my car.
Icing involves taking the hose to the parking lot every half hour and spraying a light mist over your victim’s car when it’s below zero out. I finished my 12-hour shift to find a car encased in two inches of ice.
I thought my revenge was both more inconvenient for him and less freezing my balls off for me. I decided to take a bed sheet, drape it over his car, and only took four or five trips out with the hose the next night.
The next morning he found his car with a quarter inch of ice freezing a sheet to his car. When he started peeling off the sheet, he pulled his windshield wipers, arms and all, off of his ratty Jeep.
I received a very angry phone call. I felt bad, the unwritten rule was ’embarrassing or inconvenient, but no damage.’ I paid for repairs and he got his revenge. He planted a dozen pieces of smoked herring throughout my car. It took me six months to find the last piece hidden under the carpet in the back window of my car. I can still smell it.”
“We Could Have Really Hurt Him Over Some Workplace Gossip”
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“My then-boyfriend wanted to get revenge on a co-worker who let the whole workplace know about our covert relationship. He pasted Oreos cream-side down on the guy’s Mustang, then put BBs in the tires to cause a slow, annoying leak.
The guy left work that night only to have all four tires blow out on the highway. We could have really hurt that kid over some workplace gossip.”
He Met Her Again In The Most Unexpected Place
“I got a coworker fired for incompetence. My manager wouldn’t do it, so I saved up three months of failures, just documenting them all. I then took this to my director and got the woman fired. She was unqualified for the position and was an absolute witch most days.
She posted all sorts of crap about being an ‘independent woman,’ and how she was proud that she was able to support her two fatherless kids. She would often say things like, ‘If we didn’t have a woman in this office, nothing would ever get done,’ after doing something like changing the paper towel roll in the break room. Which, of course, was something our cleaning staff was already paid to do. She just liked to do things she was actually capable of. One time she was supposed to give a presentation at a hotel conference room, and made it all the way past hooking up her laptop to the projector before she realized she didn’t have the file on that laptop – it was only saved locally on her desktop in her office. You’d think we could just remote into it and grab the file? No, she was one of those fools who turns her enterprise workstation off. It was super embarrassing for our company.
Well, she was my Uber driver last week.”
It Just Keep Getting Worse And Worse For Kevin
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“When I was in high school, I worked with this poor kid named Kevin, at Wendy’s. He was a juvenile delinquent, was a few years older than me, little bit bigger than me, had nasty tattoos on his neck, and supposedly was out of jail on work release. He tried to be a tough guy and bully me whenever we worked together. Stuff like generally talking smack unprovoked, getting real close up in my face, and that stance where you puff out your chest and pull your arms back like you’re going to swing. The most irritating was when he would walk right up in my face then flinch like he was going to throw a punch at me, then just laugh and say some rude crap.
I got along with just about everyone at work, and he did somewhat, but we just did not fit together. One day, the exchanges between us were so apparent and obviously stressed, everyone working was talking about me fighting him. I dispelled these rumors as I wanted to keep my job, but my destiny on this day said otherwise.
First was the backdoor incident. The store had a large back door with a peephole in it, and it could only be opened from the inside. There was a buzzer outside that employees would push if they wanted back in. Well, Kevin was locked outside and his patience while awaiting his re-entry had run out. Instead of tapping the buzzer, this guy was mashing it and holding it down while everyone inside went nuts. We were all busy, and I was running to the back to grab some heavy boxes. While holding these boxes I was going to open the back door while I walked past. I tried to push on the door, but it wouldn’t open. I leaned into it, but couldn’t push much more because of the boxes. I was in a hurry, so I yelled ‘GET BACK, I’M GOING TO KICK THE DOOR!’ He didn’t hear me over the loud, constant buzzing. I gave that door a swift ‘THIS IS SPARTA’ kick and it opened about three inches then bounced closed again. I kicked it again and it opened, revealing a bashed up and somewhat upset Kevin.
He was trying to look in the peephole when I kicked the door. I broke the crap out of his nose; the tip was almost touching his cheek, bright red-purple, swollen eyes, broken. He was ticked off. I immediately started apologizing and backing away from him, but he came at me like a rabid monkey. We were quickly surrounded by employees and separated. I was told to go up front and manage fries and to not come into the back part of the store until Kevin left to the hospital.
Then the final event. Less than 10 minutes later, I was working the fries, which entailed grabbing a metal basket out of boiling hot oil and dumping the fresh fries into an adjacent tray. I was doing this, and everyone around me was talking about how I just broke Kevin’s face. On his way leaving our store for the hospital, he decided to come right up to me again and try to instigate a fight while I was dumping some fresh fries. Kevin pulled his signature move of flinching at me like he was going to throw a punch. I retaliated by returning my own flinch with the basket I was holding. I didn’t actually hit him with the hot fry basket, but I forgot about the boiling hot oil still clinging to the basket. When I flinched at him and shook the basket, tiny boiling drops of grease splattered his face and neck.
I had just broken his nose on accident, then threw boiling hot oil on his face on accident. He instantly threw me to the ground. I was a wrestler, so his freshly broken and burned nose was just smashed and wiped across a dirty floor for a few seconds before we were broken up. He was an absolute mess. He left for the hospital and I got sent home. That was it. No charges. No questions from my manager after. No more being scheduled with Kevin. Not even any paperwork about two vicious assaults and fights on the same day. I felt really bad but simultaneously justified. Both incidents were honest accidents which could have easily been avoided if he weren’t such a jerk. I still felt like the outcome was worse than reasonable.”
One Ladybug Is Cute, But Thousands?
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“Back in my early 20s, I was working an easy job in the mall. I’d only been working there for about a month when I was promoted to keyholder over a guy who started before me. The dude had been a real flake as long as I’d known him, so I wasn’t surprised. Apparently, he’d been promised the position and was really upset with me.
For the next month, he was a huge jerk to me. Swiping sales, complaining to the manager about me, ‘slyly’ messing up cleaning projects or displays I had done and informing the manager that I’d failed to do something. After a full month of his crap, I eventually snapped.
At a few of the local plant nurseries, you can buy jars of ladybugs for $10. I bought three, which was somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000 ladybugs. I swiped his keys from the break room while I was on lunch, found his cute new Saturn, and dumped all three containers on the floor of his back seat.
We closed together that night, so we ended up waking out to the parking lot together after dropping the cash off at the deposit box. I was parked further out, so he got to his car before I did, and I was able to get a peek at my handiwork. It looked like something from a horror film. The ladybugs had swarmed the entire inside of his car, and in the dim light, you couldn’t really tell what they were, only that the car was full on infested with bugs.
The guy had a massive breakdown right there in the parking lot. He absolutely lost his mind. I enjoyed the scene at first, but the longer it went on, the worse I felt. After he calmed down enough to start making sense he barreled into this monologue about how he was sure it was the girl from the pretzel stand because he’d been such a huge jerk to her, and he started crying. He went on about how he deserved this for being so awful, and then apologized to me for being such a jerk, and kept going on about how he brought this on himself. It was pretty bad.
I offered him a ride home, now feeling really guilty, and when I dropped him off, he thanked me for being so nice to him, despite all the awful stuff he’d done. He said his mother was undergoing cancer treatment and it wasn’t going well. He apologized again, and I didn’t see him for a few days.
Our relationship between us at work improved a lot, but I still felt guilty. He had to sell the car a few months later because the Texas heat had killed all the ladybugs and he couldn’t get the smell of them out of the vehicle. His mom died a little while after that, and he stopped showing up to work.
I still think about that guy. The revenge felt so righteous when I did it, but afterward, it was nothing but guilt.”