From annoying coworkers to horrible bosses, a bad workplace can make life pretty tough. A lot of people wish they could get revenge on those that make their work day so bad. Some people do take matters into their own hand and get the revenge they want!
Here are all the best stories from Reddit about people who got revenge at work. Content has been edited for clarity.
When Friends Become Enemies
Since one of my roles was system admin, I spent one afternoon perusing their email on our server. In a matter of minutes, I found hard evidence of their plot to perform the aforementioned merger and promptly make use of a clause which would allow them to vote me out and leave me high and dry. It certainly explained why they were champing at the bit for me to ‘hurry up and just sign the new contract already.’ Closer scrutiny of the proposed contract showed that they would have been able to take me out of the deal with no payout, and leave me with nothing. They were going to shaft me out of 8 thousand hours of development time and they were going to be making money off my technology for who knows how long.
I immediately picked my jaw up off the floor, did some research, and went to a lawyer. We devised a plan for me to be able to walk away from the partnership and operate the business on my own. This was tricky and took way too much time and money because of the lack of protection I had due to a lousy contract between us. I was successful and was able to oust them. I still operate the business to this day, all on my own.
Here’s the revenge part. My now former partners went on to start their new business. One of the Evil Partners still had a day job as VP of sales a company in the same industry as the new company they were building. I won’t say who or what industry, but this was a clear conflict of interest in a narrow business space. This person was mining the Rolodex and stealing clients away with the goal of jumping ship and running the new company with the purloined client base.
I knew all of this and this was one of the reasons I didn’t want to merge companies to begin with. That behavior is illegal, unethical, and just plain icky. I waited a suitable amount of time to distance myself from the situation, then sent a package to the owner of the company for which the Evil Partner still worked. It provided evidence to their efforts to undermine and steal all their clients. Results were as expected. Evil Partner was fired and sued. This was years ago and every time I remember what almost happened to me and the bullet that I dodged, I just laugh and thank my lucky stars. The fact that I was able to give it right back to Evil Partner makes me smile. Revenge can be satisfying when applied to well-deserving jerks.”
Puzzling Revenge
“I was a pizza delivery guy about 20 years ago. I brought a pizza to a dude’s house and he had me follow him into the kitchen where his checkbook was. I set the pizza down, he writes out the check for the amount of the pizza, NO TIP. He said, ‘You can find your way out,’ and headed downstairs. I walked down the short hallway towards the front door. Off to the left was the living room.
Right there was a card table that had a puzzle about halfway done. One of those 1,500 piece puzzles that are a real accomplishment to finish. I swiped six pieces of the puzzle and left. Hopefully, it drove that jerk insane.”
What Goes Around, Comes Around
“My office chair broke so I requisitioned a new one at work. It was about $400 and ergonomic, it was the same chair the general manager has. The guy who ordered the chair for me decided I didn’t need an expensive office chair and just got me the same chair that had been hurting my back for two years. He said it wasn’t in the budget.
A year or so later, this same guy decides he needs a laptop to do his job instead of a desktop. So, I finally got my revenge.
