People Try To Be The Bigger Person In These Revenge Stories

I’ve been at my current tech support job for about five years now. Things were going pretty smoothly until management introduced these quarterly goals about a year ago.

At first, they seemed reasonable – customer satisfaction targets, response times, that kind of thing. Made sense for our field service work.

But then things got ridiculous. Like, seriously contradictory ridiculous.

For context, our company provides technical support for business clients with service contracts specifying different response times – some require 4-hour responses, others 8-hour, and some 24-hour.

We’re technically on call 24/7, but most work is supposed to happen Monday through Friday, 8am-5pm. See the problem yet?

So here’s where it gets fun. Our quarterly goals included maintaining a 98% on-time response rate (fair enough, that’s what customers pay for), but also a maximum of 4 hours overtime per week.

Oh, and about twelve other metrics I was supposed to hit simultaneously.

Logan, my manager, would constantly brag about how the team needed to be “metrics champions” while providing zero guidance on how to actually achieve these conflicting goals.

Let me paint you a picture.

It’s 4:30pm on a Friday. I get a call from a client site that’s two hours away with a 4-hour response contract. If I go, I’m looking at a minimum of 4 hours overtime just for this one call.

If I don’t go, I miss my response time target and potentially violate our service contract.

For months, I prioritized what actually mattered – keeping our contractual promises to customers. That meant sometimes putting in 10+ hours of overtime in a week.

The customers were happy, and I figured the company would appreciate someone actually delivering the service they sold.

Nope.

Logan called me into his office last month. “Nathaniel, your overtime numbers are way too high. You need to get them under control.”

“How exactly am I supposed to do that while still meeting all the response times?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“I don’t know, but everyone else on the team is hitting all their goals. You’re making me look bad.”

“So what’s more important – looking good on paper or actually providing the service our customers are paying for?”

Logan stared at me for a second.

“I don’t care how you do it. Just make all your goals work. Figure it out.”

Challenge accepted.

From that day forward, I became an absolute wizard at making my metrics look perfect. I started closing service tickets before work was actually complete.

I’d log the first visit as complete, then open a new ticket for “additional troubleshooting” if I needed to come back. Response time? Check!

I began strategically choosing which customer contacts to list on service tickets.

Maya from accounting always gave perfect scores. Levi from operations was a stickler who’d mark you down if you were 5 minutes late. Guess who started getting all my survey requests?

The most beautiful part? I trained customers to game the system with me.

“Look, Priya, I know your server is acting up, but if you call this in after hours, I probably can’t come until tomorrow anyway because of new company policies. If you wait until 8am to report it, you’ll get faster service.”

Or my personal favorite: “Hudson, I can walk you through resetting that yourself right now, or I can come out tomorrow morning to do it for you.” Most people chose the DIY option.

Overtimes plummeted.

My response metrics looked perfect. Customer satisfaction scores soared (from the carefully selected survey recipients). I was hitting all my goals!

Of course, what actually happened was that we provided objectively worse service. When something genuinely urgent came up during business hours and I couldn’t handle it myself (because I was juggling all the calls that would normally be spread across evenings and weekends), I’d call in third-party contractors.

Those contractors cost the company three times what my overtime would have.

But hey, that came out of a different budget line, so not my problem!

After two months of this, Logan proudly displayed my perfect metrics in the team meeting. “See everyone? Nathaniel figured it out! This is the kind of performance we need!”

Grace, our newest tech who still believed in doing things properly, looked completely bewildered.

The funny thing is, customers started to catch on.

Evelyn, an IT director at one of our biggest clients, pulled me aside during a routine visit.

“Nathaniel, we’re paying premium rates for 4-hour response time, but it seems like nothing ever gets fixed outside normal hours anymore.”

I gave her my most sympathetic look.

“I completely understand your frustration, Evelyn. Unfortunately, this is the new company policy. I’m just following the metrics I’m evaluated on.”

She nodded knowingly. “Ah, the corporate metrics game. We play it too.”

Last week, the regional director came by to figure out why third-party contractor expenses had skyrocketed 300% in our district.

Logan got chewed out pretty badly. I was called in to explain why I was utilizing so many contractors.

I simply pulled up my perfect metrics dashboard. “As you can see, I’m meeting all my goals as directed.

With our current call volume and the overtime restrictions, this is the only way to maintain our contractual obligations.”

The regional director looked at Logan. Logan looked at his shoes.

The funniest part? They didn’t change a thing.

The goals are still completely contradictory. Logan still wants perfect metrics. And I’m still gaming the system like a pro.

The lesson I’ve learned is that in corporate America, the appearance of success often matters more than actual success.

If you’re going to set impossible goals, don’t be surprised when your team finds creative ways to appear to meet them.

Oh, and our customers? They’re starting to renegotiate their contracts for lower service levels since they’re not getting the premium service they’re paying for anyway.

Because when metrics become more important than the work itself, nobody wins.

Except me, I guess. I got a perfect performance review last quarter.

So I work at this furniture manufacturing place where I load this massive burnoff oven every day. It’s basically this giant oven that burns paint off iron furniture.

Usually I start at 6 AM and have everything loaded and running by 7:15 or so.

Anyway, we got this new supervisor, Marcus, who’s been on this documentation kick lately. Yesterday, he tells me he needs to take photos of the entire burnoff loading process for some manual he’s putting together.

Fine, whatever. Not my problem.

The thing about this burnoff oven is it’s no joke. It gets up to 1500 degrees and takes about two hours to complete a cycle, then another 2-3 hours to cool down to a safe temperature.

You can’t just shut it off midway–once it starts, you’re committed to the whole process. Someone has to be in the building until it cools down enough to be safe. Company policy.

So yesterday, Marcus rolls in super late.

I’ve been waiting around all morning to do my normal job because he insisted on getting these stupid photos of every single step. I couldn’t start without him since he needed to document everything.

By the time we finish loading the oven, it’s already after noon.

We normally get out at 2:30, and I’m thinking Marcus will just take the final photos and have me run the burnoff the next morning. But no, this genius looks at me and says, “Okay, go ahead and start it up.

I need photos of the initial startup too.”

I stared at him for a second, and I’ll admit, a little voice in my head went, “Well, he IS the supervisor…”

So I hit the start button.

The minute that oven roars to life, my phone rings.

It’s my actual boss, Paul. He sounds panicked.

“Please tell me you didn’t just start the burnoff,” he says.

“Well, Marcus told me to, and you’ve always said to do whatever the supervisors say,” I replied, trying to keep my voice innocent.

Paul lets out this long sigh.

“You know that means someone has to stay until at least 5:00, right?”

“Yeah, I know how the oven works,” I said. “Marcus wanted pictures of it starting up.”

There’s silence on the other end, then Paul says, “Put Marcus on the phone.”

I handed my phone to Marcus, whose face was already turning a nice shade of pale.

I couldn’t hear everything Paul said, but from the way Marcus was wincing, it wasn’t a friendly chat.

When he handed my phone back, all he said was, “You could have reminded me about the cooling time.”

I just shrugged.

“You’re the supervisor. I figured you knew.”

Paul ended up having to stay late himself since he couldn’t force Marcus to do it (something about Marcus having some important family thing). As I was clocking out at 2:30, Paul gave me this look that was half annoyed, half impressed.

“Next time,” he said, “maybe use your judgment a little more.”

I just smiled.

“Sure thing, boss. Just following the chain of command.”

This morning when I came in, there was a new note posted by the burnoff oven: “NO BURNOFF OPERATIONS TO BEGIN AFTER 10 AM WITHOUT MANAGEMENT APPROVAL.”

Marcus avoided eye contact with me all day, and Paul actually brought me a coffee.

I guess sometimes malicious compliance has its perks.

But seriously, who asks someone to start a 1500-degree industrial oven right before quitting time without thinking through the consequences? The best part is, I checked later and Marcus’s camera didn’t even have enough battery left to get a good shot of the startup sequence.

All that nonsense for nothing.

Next time maybe he’ll charge his equipment before trying to document a process that takes all day. Or better yet, show up on time like the rest of us have to.

So this happened a few years back when I was working at this big promotional products company. We did all kinds of custom printed stuff for businesses – pens, mugs, t-shirts, you name it.

But my department specialized in promotional games and contests.

This one time, we got a request from Victor, a sales rep at one of our biggest distributor clients. They needed a quote on a massive scratch-off card order for some retail chain’s nationwide promotion.

We’re talking HUGE numbers – hundreds of thousands of cards that needed to be shipped to like 400 different store locations across the country.

The scratch cards had different prize values from $5 up to $100, with ten different prize tiers total.

Pretty standard stuff for us, but the scale made it complicated.

Normally with these orders, we’d get an official purchase order with all the details spelled out nice and neat. But not this time! Victor just emails me this giant spreadsheet listing all the store locations and how many of each prize card was supposed to go where.

No totals, just raw data. I’m like, “Hey Victor, can you send an actual purchase order?” and he’s all “Just use the spreadsheet as the PO and get started ASAP.”

Since he was authorized to approve orders, I went ahead with it.

I sent him the proofs along with our order confirmation showing the total cost for printing and distribution. He approved everything without any questions, so we put it into production and shipped everything out the following week.

About two weeks after delivery, I get this call from Richard, the president of sales at the distributor company.

Dude sounds STRESSED. He starts going on about how we made a “massive mistake” and that we need to “make it right” with a credit.

I ask what the issue is, and he tells me that the end client had budgeted around $750,000 total for all the prize money they’d have to pay out.

But somehow, they’d already paid out about $500,000 with only a third of the cards being redeemed! Richard was claiming we’d be responsible for any payouts beyond their $750K budget.

I was pretty confused at first, so while still on the phone, I pulled up the original spreadsheet.

Using a simple Excel auto-sum (thank you, basic office skills!), I quickly realized the spreadsheet they sent us actually called for nearly TWO MILLION DOLLARS in total prize money!

I tried to explain this as politely as possible. “Actually, Richard, based on the quantities and distribution in the spreadsheet your team provided, the total prize liability comes to about two million dollars.

I’m looking at it right now.”

This dude completely lost it. He started yelling that I was wrong, that we messed up the printing, that we needed to “do the right thing” and all this nonsense.

I was still pretty new and didn’t want to argue, so I just said, “Let me send you the documentation so you can see what I’m talking about.”

I forwarded him the original email from Victor with the spreadsheet, his instructions to use it as the PO, his approval of our confirmation, and even included screenshots showing the Excel calculations of the prize totals.

All while Richard was still fuming on the phone.

Suddenly his tone changed. There was this long, uncomfortable silence, and then he muttered something about looking into it and getting back to me. He hung up pretty quick after that.

We never heard from Richard about this issue again.

And funnily enough, we never got another order from Victor either. I later heard through the grapevine that the retailer running the promotion was FURIOUS with the distributor for the mistake, and Victor had been reassigned to some tiny accounts where he couldn’t do much damage.

I felt a little bad for him, but then again, checking your work before approving a million-dollar order seems like basic job responsibility, right?

The whole thing became a legendary cautionary tale at our company.

Now we have a policy that requires us to calculate and explicitly confirm the total prize liability on every scratch-off project, even if the client doesn’t ask for it. We call it the “Victor Rule” (though not to any clients’ faces, of course).

Just goes to show how one spreadsheet mistake can turn into a million-dollar disaster… for someone else, thankfully!

I’ve been working at a high-security detention facility for about five years now. If you’ve never worked in corrections before, let me tell you – it’s a rollercoaster.

Some days you’re running around putting out fires (sometimes literally), and other days you’re just sitting there watching the clock tick by slower than molasses.

I was assigned to what we call Unit 7, which houses some of our higher-risk detainees.

These guys are locked down 23 hours a day and have to be restrained and escorted during their one hour out. My post was in the control room – basically a secure booth where I managed all the electronic doors and monitored the security cameras during yard time.

Here’s the thing about the control room: once all the inmates are back in their cells, there’s literally nothing to do except wait for someone to request a door open.

The booth had no computer, no paperwork to fill out, and no direct view of the cells. Just me, four walls, and eight hours to kill.

Over time, officers working this post started bringing in magazines to read during downtime.

Nothing inappropriate – just car magazines, sports illustrated, fishing guides, that kind of stuff. We’d leave them in the desk drawer for the next person. Even the supervisors would sometimes grab one while doing their rounds. Nobody ever had a problem with it since we were always alert and ready when actual work needed doing.

That all changed when Nolan joined the team as a new supervisor.

This guy had something to prove, walking around like he was God’s gift to corrections. On his first day, he did an inspection of Unit 7 and eventually made his way to my control room. He opened the drawer and found our small collection of magazines.

“Are these your magazines?” he asked, eyebrow raised like he’d just discovered the crime of the century.

“One or two might be,” I replied, “but they’re kind of communal.

Feel free to grab one if you want.”

Nolan’s face hardened. “This can be considered contraband and should not be here. Since this is your area, you need to keep it clean of this stuff. Gather them up and get rid of them.

If I see this again, you’ll receive a write-up.”

“No problem,” I said, trying to keep my tone neutral. “You won’t see them again.”

I collected the magazines and took them to the staff library area, with Nolan watching me the whole time, smirking like he’d just solved world hunger or something.

The very next day, I came in for my shift and checked the drawer out of habit.

To my surprise, there was a fresh stack of magazines with a sticky note on top that read “Nolan.” My first thought was that he was trying to set me up – leave his magazines there, then write me up for having contraband in my area.

Not happening on my watch.

I tossed the magazines in the garbage can and went about my day. A few hours later, one of the detainees decided to flood his cell by clogging the toilet. Water was pouring down from the second tier, and my partner grabbed the nearest trash can – yes, the one with Nolan’s magazines – and placed it under the waterfall to minimize the mess on the floor.

I didn’t even think about the magazines at that point; we were just trying to contain the situation.

About an hour after we got everything under control, Nolan came strutting in. He made a beeline for the control room, opened the drawer, and looked confused.

“Where are the magazines?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“What magazines? All I found was contraband.”

“I told someone to put magazines in here with my name on them so I could grab them later,” he said, starting to look annoyed.

“That’s not my problem,” I replied.

“You told me to keep this area clean, so I did.”

“So you put them in the library?”

“Nope. I threw them away.”

His face turned a shade of red I didn’t think was possible.

“Why the heck would you do that?”

“Well, after the warning I received yesterday, I figured anybody leaving magazines in here would know they could potentially be written up,” I explained calmly. “So to keep people from getting in trouble and to comply with your directives, I threw them away.”

“But they had my name on them,” Nolan insisted, like that somehow made a difference.

“I couldn’t be certain they were actually yours or if this was some kind of test,” I replied.

“I put the other magazines in the library as a courtesy yesterday. Today I was just making sure I followed your instructions to the letter.”

Nolan’s jaw tightened. “Well, which garbage can are they in?”

I pointed to the trash can that was still collecting water from upstairs.

His face fell faster than a rock off a cliff. He walked over, reached in, and pulled out what used to be magazines but now resembled wet paper mache. He dropped them back in with a splash and stormed off to the recording room where we keep our security footage, making a big show about how he was going to investigate this “incident.”

“There’s really no need for an investigation,” I called after him.

“I threw them away. It was just an unfortunate turn of events they got destroyed.”

Nothing ever came of his “investigation,” of course. What was he going to do? Write me up for following his own instructions?

For the next few months, Nolan gave me a wide berth. And interestingly enough, the magazine ban suddenly wasn’t enforced so strictly anymore.

Sometimes the best way to deal with nonsense rules is to follow them so precisely that even the person who made them realizes how ridiculous they are.

I used to run a small auto repair franchise location with about five mechanics working under me. My office was tucked away in the back corner of the shop – definitely not customer-facing, which becomes important later.

So our parent company has this guy named Jacob who travels between locations.

Nobody really knows what his actual job title is, but we all know he only has the position because he grew up next door to the company owner. Jacob basically spends his time visiting shops and finding problems that don’t exist.

One Tuesday, Jacob shows up unannounced for his quarterly inspection.

After nitpicking about our waiting area and customer bathroom (the only places customers actually see), he barges into my office and immediately fixates on my computer setup.

My desk was massive – like eight feet long by three feet deep – basically an oversized table with two drawers.

On it, I had the bare minimum: keyboard, mouse, monitor, and the computer tower itself, which also functioned as our shop’s main server. There was tons of empty space.

Jacob looks at me with this expression like he just discovered the cure for cancer and says, “Edward, having your computer tower on the desk looks unprofessional.”

I remind him that literally zero customers ever enter my office.

“Doesn’t matter,” he insists.

“It needs to go on the floor, in that gap between the desk and the wall.”

The space he’s pointing to is ridiculously narrow. Jacob, all excited now, whips out a tape measure and confirms the tower would fit with approximately zero millimeters to spare on either side.

“See?

Perfect fit!”

I point out the obvious problem – the cooling vents on both sides of the tower would be completely blocked. The computer would overheat.

“That’s not how computers work,” Jacob says with the confidence of someone who still uses Internet Explorer.

“They only need ventilation from the front and back.”

After ten minutes of arguing, I gave up. He outranked me technically, and I was tired of the conversation. So I carefully wedged the tower into the gap while Jacob watched with satisfaction.

After he left, I immediately sent an email to Jacob, my actual boss George, and Asher from IT.

I attached a photo of the new setup and wrote: “Just confirming this is the approved position for our server as directed today. Please note my concerns about potential overheating due to blocked side vents.”

Jacob replied all: “Confirmed.

Looks much better and more professional now.”

Perfect. I had my documentation.

Three days later, I arrive to find the computer completely powered off. No big deal – I power it up and check emails. There’s an automated message from our software system saying last night’s backup failed.

A quick check of the logs confirms exactly what I predicted: the system overheated during the backup process and shut itself down.

I noticed the warning email had automatically gone to George and Asher. Not my problem anymore, I figured.

Nobody contacted me about it, so I went about my day.

This happened again the next night. And the next. By the fifth morning, I came in to find the computer completely dead – wouldn’t even power on.

Now it was a real problem.

Our entire shop management system ran on that computer. Without it, we couldn’t access customer records, schedule appointments, or process payments. We literally couldn’t operate.

Panic mode engaged. George is calling me every fifteen minutes. Asher from IT is remote-troubleshooting while on speakerphone with both of us.

Eventually, the verdict comes in: the hard drive is completely fried from repeated overheating.

Here’s where it gets even better – due to our franchise agreement, we couldn’t just run to the nearest electronics store for a replacement.

Our contract required us to use the proprietary hardware from our software vendor, located about 2,000 miles away. And of course, this happened on a Friday morning.

The company had to pay for overnight weekend shipping (astronomical), plus emergency setup fees.

Meanwhile, we lost all of Friday’s business – about 15 appointments canceled, with some customers undoubtedly never coming back.

The new hard drive arrived Saturday afternoon. Setting up the software and restoring from our most recent successful backup (which was now a week old) took the rest of the day.

And because our backups had been failing all week, someone needed to manually re-enter all the customer and service data from the past week.

Guess who got stuck with that job? Yours truly. But I didn’t mind – I’m paid hourly, and our company policy is time-and-a-half for overtime until you hit 10 hours, then it jumps to double-and-a-half.

I spent all of Sunday in peaceful solitude, entering data while listening to music, making absolute bank on emergency pay.

All told, the company lost two full days of business (roughly $15,000 in revenue), paid about $3,000 in emergency hardware and shipping, and paid me almost a week’s salary for a weekend of easy work – all because Jacob thought a computer tower looked “unprofessional” in an office that customers never enter.

The best part?

When I came in Monday morning, George had left me a note saying to “put the d*mn computer wherever you want it.” It’s back on the desk now, with plenty of airflow all around it.

And Jacob hasn’t offered any decorating advice since.

Working in electronics retail taught me one valuable lesson — some people just can’t handle being told they’re wrong.

I’ve been the department manager at ElectroZone for nearly three years now.

Most days are pretty routine: help customers find what they need, train new staff, and maintain our displays. One of our big responsibilities is managing the vendor displays — sections of the store that companies pay us to maintain with their products.

Most of our vendor reps are great.

They visit weekly, take pictures for their reports, give us feedback, and we all get along fine. That is, until Mateo showed up.

Mateo was the new representative for CableConnect, a company that rented an entire wall display in our TV section — about 25 feet wide and 6 feet tall.

It housed every cable you could imagine: HDMI, coaxial, auxiliary, and dozens of others in various lengths and price points, including some ridiculously expensive premium options.

On this particular Tuesday afternoon, we were slammed. A shipment had arrived late, two of my staff called out sick, and customers were lined up at every register.

When Mateo walked in, our cable section wasn’t at its best. Nothing terrible — just a few items out of place, some gaps where popular items had sold, normal retail stuff.

I was helping a customer with a laptop when I heard Mateo raising his voice at Anna, one of my newer employees.

I finished up quickly and headed over.

“Is everything alright over here?” I asked, trying to keep things professional.

“No, it’s not alright!” Mateo snapped. “This display is a complete disaster! This is NOT what we’re paying for!”

I looked at the shelves.

“It just needs a quick restock. We’ve been short-staffed today.”

“No, it’s completely wrong!” He waved his phone in my face, showing a planogram. “This cable doesn’t go here.

That adapter shouldn’t be there. This whole section is mixed up!” As he spoke, he started yanking products off hooks and dropping them on the floor.

“Whoa! Stop!” I put myself between him and the display.

“Let’s take a look at that plan.”

He handed me his phone, and I immediately noticed the problem. The planogram was dated from three years ago and showed dozens of products we didn’t even carry anymore.

“Mateo, this layout is outdated.

Most of these products were discontinued. And it doesn’t include any of the new lines you guys have released in the last year.”

He rolled his eyes dramatically. “Any product not explicitly on this plan goes in the miscellaneous bin at the bottom.

Are you new here or something? We send these layouts for a reason, and we expect them to be followed.”

Something in his condescending tone made me switch tactics. “You know what? You’re absolutely right. Could you email me that layout again so I can make sure we get it exactly right?”

He sighed heavily.

“Fine. I won’t take photos today since it looks so terrible, but I’ll be back first thing tomorrow. Make sure it’s fixed by then.”

As soon as he left, I checked my email.

Perfect! His message said: “Please follow attached layout plan. NO EXCEPTIONS!”

I called my boss, Henry, explained the situation, and he agreed with my plan. He approved overtime for two part-timers to help.

First, we fixed the mess Mateo had made and took a photo of our normal, sensible arrangement.

Then we got to work following his outdated planogram to the letter. No exceptions, just like he demanded.

The result was ridiculous. Two-thirds of the display stood completely empty because those products didn’t exist anymore. The “miscellaneous bin” was overflowing with all our current stock.

We had to move boxes of perfectly good inventory back to the warehouse because there was literally nowhere to put them according to his plan. It looked absolutely terrible, but it followed his layout exactly.

When Mateo arrived the next morning, his face turned an alarming shade of red.

Henry invited him to discuss the matter in his office rather than make a scene on the sales floor.

From what Henry told me later, Mateo kept insisting we were incompetent and threatened to report us to his corporate office.

Then he stormed out to do exactly that.

Three hours later, three executives from CableConnect arrived at our store, looking very apologetic. Henry had already forwarded them Mateo’s “NO EXCEPTIONS” email, along with our before and after photos.

“We’re so sorry about this misunderstanding,” said the senior manager as they began rebuilding the display pretty much exactly how we had it before.

“We’ll send you an updated planogram, but please feel free to adjust as needed based on your current inventory and what sells best in your location.”

They finished the work themselves, and we never saw Mateo again.

Rumor has it he was reassigned to warehouse inventory, far away from any customer-facing roles.

The new rep, Lincoln, is fantastic. He actually asks for our input on display improvements and brings donuts when he visits.

Sometimes the best way to deal with nonsense is to follow it to the letter until everyone sees how ridiculous it really is.

I spent three years working at this massive auto service chain with the blue and yellow logo. Unlike most places that hire random people off the street, I was lucky enough to work alongside guys who were actually studying automotive repair in technical school.

They taught me tons about cars that I never would’ve learned otherwise.

This one day, Simon comes in with his fancy crossover SUV. Guy’s wearing expensive sunglasses pushed up on his head and has that “I make more money than you” attitude from the moment he walks in.

“I need two new tires,” he announces, not even bothering with a hello.

I check his vehicle info and immediately spot the problem.

“Sir, your vehicle is all-wheel drive. You really need to replace all four tires at once, otherwise it can cause serious damage to your drivetrain.”

Simon gives me this look like I’m trying to scam him.

“That’s ridiculous. The other two tires are fine. I’m not paying for tires I don’t need.”

I try explaining how AWD systems work and why tread depth needs to be consistent across all four tires, but he wasn’t having it.

Finally, he asks for the manager.

Our regular automotive manager was on vacation that week, so we got stuck with Dominic from electronics who knew absolutely nothing about cars. Classic situation of “whatever makes the customer happy.”

Dominic pulls me aside.

“Just do what he wants.”

“But his transmission could–”

“Just note it in the system and have him sign off on it.”

So that’s what we did. I documented EVERYTHING in the notes section.

I measured the tread depth on his current tires (around 7/16ths) versus the new ones (about 12/16ths). I wrote down our recommendation to replace all four, his refusal, and the potential consequences. Then I had Simon sign it, which he did without even reading.

Fast forward about three months.

I’m restocking wiper blades when I notice a familiar face at the service counter, looking much less smug than before. It’s Simon, and he’s waving some papers at our weekend manager, Eleanor.

“Your shop ruined my transmission!

I’ve got a $3,700 repair bill here from my dealership. They said it was because you guys only replaced two tires!”

Eleanor is nodding sympathetically and already reaching for the corporate complaint form. I walk over because there’s no way I’m letting this slide.

“Excuse me, Eleanor?

I handled this customer’s service a few months back.”

I pull up his work order in our system and print it out. Simon’s still ranting about how incompetent we all are when I slide the paper across the counter.

“Simon, isn’t this your signature right here?” I point to his scrawl at the bottom.

“Yeah, I had to sign to get my tires,” he says dismissively.

“And did you read what you were signing?

Because right above your signature, there’s a note saying we strongly recommended replacing all four tires due to your vehicle being AWD. It states that installing only two new tires could cause drivetrain damage, specifically to your transmission.

You acknowledged this risk when you signed.”

His face goes from angry to blank. Eleanor looks at the paperwork, then at Simon.

“I… I don’t remember that part,” he stammers.

“We discussed it for about five minutes before you asked for a manager.

It’s all documented here.”

I thought that would be the end of it. In a normal world, that would be the end of it. But Eleanor still calls corporate. And guess what? They approved paying for half of his repair costs as a “goodwill gesture.” Over $1,800 for a problem HE caused after WE warned him.

When I questioned this nonsense, Eleanor just shrugged.

“It’s cheaper than losing a customer for life and having him tell all his friends we damaged his car.”

And that’s why I don’t work in retail automotive anymore. This wasn’t even the worst case of us being forced to do something we knew was wrong just because “the customer is always right.” There was this other time a guy insisted we put regular oil in his high-performance engine that specifically required synthetic…

But that’s a story for another day.

The most frustrating part?

Simon had the nerve to come back for an oil change the following month like nothing happened. Didn’t even say thanks for the free $1,800. Some people, I swear.

So I had this whole ordeal with a rideshare app last Tuesday that still has me fuming. My car was in the shop getting some weird noise checked out, and I needed to get home from work.

No big deal, right? Just open the app, schedule a ride, and wait.

I booked my ride through RideNow (you know the one) and saw that my driver was dropping someone else off first. Fine, whatever. The app said he’d be at my location in 10 minutes.

I waited patiently, scrolling through my phone, until I got that notification saying “Your driver has arrived!” Great! I grabbed my bag and headed downstairs.

Except… no car. Nothing. I’m standing there on the sidewalk looking around like an idiot.

I check the app again and see the little car icon literally driving AWAY from my location. What the actual heck?

I watched in disbelief as this driver – let’s call him Jackson – just drove off without even looking for me.

And get this – the app was already processing a charge for a ride I never got!

Now, I actually used to drive for RideNow for about a year when I was between jobs, so I know things happen sometimes.

Drivers might get confused or pick up the wrong person. But when I was driving, I ALWAYS confirmed the passenger’s name before putting the car in drive. Always. It’s literally the most basic part of the job.

Whatever.

I’m not the type to make a huge deal out of things, but I’m also not about to pay for a service I didn’t receive. So I immediately – and I mean within 30 seconds – contacted RideNow support to let them know what happened.

First, I tried reporting a non-pickup through the app.

The system offered me a whole ONE DOLLAR discount on my fare. Seriously? For a ride that never happened? So I sighed and went to their terrible mobile website, which forced me to enter my driver’s license number since I had driven for them before.

Such a pain.

Finally got through to customer service chat. The conversation went something like this:

Me: “Hi, my driver just drove off without picking me up, and I’m being charged for the ride.”

Ada from support: “I’m so sorry for the inconvenience.

We’ll process a refund to your account within 7-10 business days.”

Me: “7-10 DAYS? I contacted you within seconds of this happening. You haven’t even fully processed the charge to my account yet. Can’t you just void the transaction?”

Ada: “I apologize, but our refund process takes 7-10 business days.

I understand your frustration.”

I tried explaining that I knew they had the ability to void transactions or at least credit my account immediately. I used to work with their systems! But nope.

Me: “Can you at least give me a credit on my account so I can book another ride home right now?”

Ada: “I’m sorry, but we can only process a refund to your original payment method, which will take 7-10 business days.”

At this point, I realized I was getting nowhere with Ada.

She was just following her script, and I was getting more frustrated by the minute. So while I was still chatting with her, I opened my banking app and quickly transferred all the money from my checking account (the one linked to RideNow) into my savings account.

The result?

When RideNow tried to process the charge, it declined. Now they’re sending me notifications saying I need to update my payment method before I can use the service again.

That’s perfectly fine with me. I’ll update my payment method when they credit my account for the ride that never happened.

Or maybe when I need to use their service again. Perhaps in about… oh, I don’t know… 7-10 business days?

The irony is that if they had just credited my account immediately, I would have booked another ride right then and there.

Instead, they’ve lost me as a customer for who knows how long. I ended up calling my friend Mateo who picked me up and we grabbed dinner on the way home.

The whole situation just reminded me why customer service is so important.

When I was driving for them, I always tried to go above and beyond for customers because I knew how much a good experience mattered. Too bad the company itself doesn’t seem to share that philosophy.

Oh well.

In the meantime, I’ve downloaded their competitor’s app and guess what? They gave me a first-time user discount that was more than my refund would have been anyway. So I guess something good came out of this nonsense after all.

Has anyone else had similar experiences with rideshare services?

Or am I just unlucky?

A few years back, I worked at this ridiculously fancy country estate – not just any mansion, but one of those neoclassical palladian places that won awards for its restoration.

Super exclusive. The kind of place where people with too much money would hire agents to plan their vacations. The thing is, technically it wasn’t a hotel, so we didn’t have regular staff schedules – we just got called in for events.

This meant we had basically zero protection when it came to crazy work hours.

I’d gotten pretty friendly with some of the regular booking agents who brought their wealthy clients to the estate. They liked me, knew me by name, and I always made sure to bring them coffee during their morning meetings.

I’d built up a solid reputation after working my butt off during events – like this one New Year’s Eve where I pulled a 20-hour shift without a break.

Right after that New Year’s event, the entire management team changed.

We got a new General Manager (GM), along with deputies for front of house (FoH) and back of house (BoH). These new people didn’t know anything about which staff members were reliable or experienced – they just had a list of names to call.

I hit it off immediately with the GM and the BoH manager.

Having worked there for years, I knew all the quirks of the place and could anticipate problems before they happened. They actually listened to my suggestions and implemented them instead of the FoH manager’s ideas. This did not sit well with Fatima, our new FoH manager.

She started pulling little power moves – cutting my hours, assigning me impossible tasks like running a super high-end dinner service for 20 guests completely alone for over an hour while she pulled other staff away.

Once when I mentioned needing help, she got all snippy and said, “You must do everything within your power to make sure the guests are happy, George. Any demand they make, you do your best to meet it.” This irritated me because, duh, at a place like this that’s already understood.

We all knew the drill: don’t speak unless spoken to, and if a guest wants you to do something ridiculous for their amusement, you just do it.

Fast forward a couple months. We had another event organized by those same repeat clients – a diamond wedding anniversary.

By pure coincidence, it was happening on the same day as a major Six Nations rugby match. Another staff member, Nicholas, and I were massive rugby fans and often talked about it during downtime. One of our regular clients, Landon, was also a huge rugby enthusiast.

During the afternoon of the event, guests were scattered throughout the mansion’s many rooms.

I was working from the butler’s pantry across from the TV room where this elderly gentleman, Joseph, was sitting. Sharp as a tack but super sweet, Joseph was chatting with Landon while the rugby match played on the TV.

Joseph mentioned he wished he had someone to watch it with.

Landon, knowing my love for rugby, told Joseph, “George is a big rugby fan.”

Joseph brightened up. “Oh, it’d be grand if you could join an old fellow to chat about the game.”

As much as I wanted to, I politely declined.

“I’m so sorry, sir, but I’m on shift right now.” Then I added, remembering Fatima’s words, “Though my job is to do everything within my power to ensure the guests are happy and meet their demands as best I can.”

Joseph’s eyes twinkled mischievously, and Landon got this “oh no” look on his face as Joseph turned to me and said, “Very well then, I demand you sit and watch the rugby with me and talk with me.”

This clever old man had just handed me the perfect opportunity.

So naturally, I responded with, “Of course, sir. Certainly, sir.” Meanwhile, Landon was struggling so hard not to laugh that I thought the veins in his forehead might explode. I was just following orders to the letter, after all.

It didn’t take long for word to reach Fatima.

She stormed in with this unique expression I can only describe as “polite rage” and demanded to know why I wasn’t serving other guests.

Joseph didn’t miss a beat. “I demanded he sit with me, and he is fulfilling my demand to the best of his ability.”

I just shrugged with the straightest face I could manage, though I couldn’t completely hide my smug satisfaction.

Fatima started turning bright red just as Landon walked in and confirmed Joseph’s story. She left in what I can only describe as a polite storm, heading straight for the GM’s office.

Later, the BoH manager told me the GM had burst into laughter when she heard what happened.

I spent the rest of the match getting drinks for Joseph and discussing the game with him and Landon. The best part? I got paid for all of it.

I still think about that day whenever I catch a rugby match.

Joseph was an absolute legend for that move, and the look on Fatima’s face was priceless. Sometimes malicious compliance is just so satisfying, especially when it involves getting paid to watch sports with a cool old guy instead of running around serving entitled rich people.

A few weeks later, Fatima mysteriously stopped giving me grief about things.

I suspect the GM had a word with her about her management style. I still worked plenty of crazy hours at that place, but at least I had that one glorious afternoon of getting paid to watch rugby, all thanks to Joseph’s brilliant demand and Fatima’s own words being used against her.

So this is what happens when bean counters don’t think things through…

I work for a tech company in France but our parent company and most of our big clients are in the US.

Twice a week I have these mandatory video meetings that start at 6pm, right when I’m supposed to be heading home. For convenience, I always joined them from my car while driving back (hands-free, of course).

The meetings use this special conference software that’s basically a data hog.

We’re talking screen sharing, multiple participants with video, the works. My company phone has a data limit, and I always go over it during these calls.

With our old carrier, going over wasn’t a big deal.

They’d just add the extra charges to the company bill at the end of the month – usually about 5-10 euros total. No problem.

But last month, the company switched carriers to save money. The new one sends this annoying text when you hit your limit asking if you want to add more data.

First time I got it, I replied YES without thinking twice. It was for work, right? Why wouldn’t I?

Fast forward to the end of the month, and Logan, my department manager, calls me into his office looking all serious.

“Owen, we need to discuss these extra data charges on your company phone.”

I explained about the meetings and how I need the data to dial in while commuting.

Logan just shook his head.

“Company policy strictly forbids employees from authorizing any additional paid services on company devices. These charges come directly from our department budget, not the general IT fund.”

I tried explaining that it was literally for WORK MEETINGS that THEY scheduled at rush hour, but he wouldn’t budge.

Policy is policy.

“Fine,” I said. “Then I’ll need to stay late at the office for those calls.”

He nodded like that was a perfectly reasonable solution. What Logan forgot was our company’s overtime policy.

So instead of heading out at 5pm like usual, I started staying at the office until 7pm twice a week for these calls.

Since the meetings were mandatory and outside normal work hours, I logged it all as overtime. Each meeting meant staying an extra two hours (one hour waiting around since there was no point in driving home, plus the hour-long meeting).

By the end of the month, I had racked up 16 hours of overtime.

At my pay rate with the overtime multiplier, that came out to just over 520 euros. From the same department budget that couldn’t spare 10 euros for data charges.

When I submitted my timesheet, Logan’s face went through this amazing transformation from confusion to realization to barely contained frustration.

He signed it without saying anything, but later that afternoon, he called me back to his office.

“Owen, about those data charges… I spoke with Gabriela in Finance, and we’ve decided that in your specific case, we can authorize the extra data usage.

It’s clearly more… cost-effective.”

I just smiled. “Whatever works best for the company, Logan.”

The next day, I got an email copied to the whole team clarifying that staff who need to join meetings outside office hours can now authorize additional data.

Funny how fast policy can change when it hits the bottom line.

And the best part? They backpaid me for all that overtime I’d already logged. Some battles you win just by following the rules exactly as written.

TLDR: Company wouldn’t let me spend 10 euros on extra data for work calls, so I stayed late and charged them 520 euros in overtime instead.

Suddenly the data policy changed.

Two years ago, I was the new temp guy in the IT department for a mid-sized city government. Just two weeks in, and they threw me right into the deep end.

We got funding approved for new time clocks throughout all city buildings, and guess who got stuck installing them? Yep, the new guy – me.

My boss, George, handed me a stack of work orders. “Ian, these need to go up in City Hall, Public Works, Fleet Services, all the fire stations, and the Police Department.

Start with one in City Hall as a test.”

So there I was, power drill in hand, mounting the first clock on the first floor of City Hall. I finished up, stepped back to admire my handiwork, and thought, “Not bad for my first installation.”

Then the phone rang.

It was Hannah from Community Development.

“The time clock you just installed isn’t ADA compliant,” she informed me. “It’s too high for wheelchair users.”

I had no idea that was even a consideration.

Nobody had mentioned height requirements to me. So I went straight to George and explained the situation.

He rolled his eyes and called in a few admin staff for an impromptu meeting. I sat there quietly while they discussed it, and by discussed, I mean complained about Community Development.

“When have they ever helped us out?” said one admin.

“They’re just trying to flex their muscles,” said another.

George turned to me after everyone left.

“Install all the clocks as planned. Ignore Hannah.”

So I did what I was told and installed four more clocks throughout City Hall, all at the same height as the first one.

Then my phone rang again. This time it was the secretary for Benjamin, the City Manager himself, requesting I come to his office immediately.

When I arrived, Hannah from Community Development was already there.

“Ian,” Benjamin said, “these time clocks need to be ADA compliant. That’s non-negotiable.”

I nodded, “Of course, I understand.”

So I went back and moved all the clocks lower, which meant drilling new holes and patching up the old ones.

It was tedious work, but I got it done.

The next morning, George called me into his office. “I’m getting complaints that the clocks are too low now. People are having to bend down to use them.

Move them up a little bit.”

I wanted to bang my head against the wall, but instead, I just said, “Sure thing,” and went to adjust all the clocks… again.

But before I could finish, my phone rang.

Benjamin again. This time when I went to his office, he handed me an official memo from Aisha, the city attorney.

“This document specifies the exact height range for ADA compliance,” Benjamin explained. “Please make sure all clocks are installed accordingly.”

I looked at the paper.

The acceptable range was between 36 and 48 inches from the floor. Currently, the clocks were around 45 inches high, and George wanted them higher.

So I made a decision. I went to every single clock–all thirty of them across every city building–and remounted them at exactly 36 inches from the floor.

The absolute minimum height allowed.

The result? Anyone over 5 feet tall had to bend down significantly to use them. It was technically compliant but practically ridiculous. Tall employees were literally hunching over to punch in.

The complaints flooded in immediately.

But when supervisors called, I simply referred them to the official memo from the city attorney specifying the compliance requirements.

The whole situation perfectly captured the petty office politics that dominated the place. Community Development and IT were locked in some kind of bureaucratic cold war.

I later found out from Adrian (who worked in Community Development) that Hannah’s department was facing budget cuts and was trying to siphon money from our time clock project for their own renovations. The ADA compliance issue was just leverage.

Meanwhile, real work wasn’t getting done because everyone was too busy fighting over clock heights.

The irony wasn’t lost on me that their own building wasn’t even fully ADA compliant, but they were using compliance as a weapon against other departments.

After the clock fiasco, I put in my two weeks’ notice.

Life’s too short to be caught in the middle of interdepartmental nonsense. On my last day, George asked if I’d consider staying on as a permanent hire.

“Thanks, but I think I’ve had enough experience with city government for a while,” I said.

As I was walking out, I passed by one of my time clocks.

An employee named Emily was awkwardly crouching down to punch in, muttering under her breath about whoever installed it so low. I just smiled and kept walking.

Looking back two years later, I’m not exactly proud of how I handled things.

I should’ve just done the job right the first time, regardless of the drama. But when you’re caught between warring departments with nothing but a power drill and vague instructions, sometimes malicious compliance is the only way to make it through the day.

I hear they eventually replaced all the time clocks with a smartphone app anyway.

I used to work for this industrial safety equipment supplier called SafetyFirst about three years ago. The management there was always looking for ways to cut corners while appearing professional on paper.

One day, they came up with this brilliant plan to improve their image with regulators and slash their insurance premiums.

The big idea? Every single employee had to fill out a hazard identification form. Every. Single. Day. Even the office staff who never went near anything more dangerous than a stapler.

Our direct supervisor, Lucas, was particularly aggressive about implementing this new policy.

He’d walk around the floor with this smug look, clipboard in hand, checking if we’d completed our forms. “Failure to comply will result in immediate disciplinary action,” he’d announce in that condescending tone of his.

The unspoken part was clear – fill these out or start looking for a new job.

At first, we just grumbled among ourselves during lunch breaks. But then Evan from accounting mentioned something interesting – these hazard forms were actually legal documents that had to be preserved and presented to regulators upon request.

That’s when the light bulb went off in my head.

I grabbed Mackenzie from HR, Andrew from the warehouse, and a few others for a secret meeting in the break room after hours. “Look,” I told them, “if they want hazard forms, let’s give them REAL hazards to document.”

We started a coordinated campaign. ... Click here to continue reading