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.
A Nasty Salad Surprise
“I got a new job and after a few weeks spent getting comfortable, I started putting my food in the shared refrigerator. We all know where this is going. Well, after having my ranch dressing broken into three times, I decided to do something. Mind you, I had my name written on it, the second time I had tape around the lid, and the third time, I taped the lid again and drew lines on the seal to prove it was opened a third time.
After much thought, as I didn’t want to get anyone truly sick by using human bits or fluids, I decided to spike it. Half the ranch was left, so I filled it back up to full with half a can of salt, 5 tablespoons of ground cayenne pepper, and mayonnaise. The salt did not fully dissolve, there was so much. Before sealing it, I decided to taste my own medicine. I had to know how bad it was. It was like instantly gagging from the salt, followed by a nasty mayonnaise tangy taste and then the burn from the cayenne…perfect! I set the trap the next day, with only a tiny piece of tape over the seal so I could tell when someone opened it. I only wish I could have been there to see their face when they tasted it, and then the anger after they realized they dumped it all over their salad.”
Raining On His Parade
“I used to sell cars. One Saturday, a very busy Saturday where people were buying left and right, I had just finished up with one customer and was looking for the next one. One of my co-workers walked up to me with an older couple and said he had an appointment who just showed up, so could I help his customers? They’re looking at whatever. Sure, I can help.
Well, I get to talking with these folks and they’re not buyers. They’re not even close. They were just there to waste time. A few minutes later, I see my co-worker pointing and laughing with a couple managers at how he had just pawned off some tire kickers on me. So I politely got the lookers to leave and started plotting.
I knew it was supposed to rain later that week and I knew there was a truck on the very far end of the lot with a dead battery. The lot was very long and thin, about 100 yards deep and 400 yards wide. The showroom was not quite in the middle, it was about 300 yards from there to the far end of the lot where the truck was located. This truck was a honeypot. It was a heavy-duty truck that was just completely loaded. Huge markup.
I have a friend who used to be in the auto industry. She had worked in sales and finance for 20 years. She knows her stuff. More importantly, she knows all the sweet nothings to say to a salesman to get his juices flowing. I got her to call him and start talking about how she needs a high dollar truck for her business because she needs a tax write off. Something like a truck she saw on our website and then gave the stock number. Cash in hand, ready to buy. Then she asked for an appointment on that rainy Wednesday, which also happened to be his day off.
Wednesday comes around and it’s disgusting. It’s just pouring. The dealership had a covered golf cart for driving around the lot with customers in the rain, but its batteries had died a few weeks prior. My coworker showed up on his day off, all excited for this big fish sale. The deal my friend had discussed with him was just too good to be true, so he was ecstatic to be there. This was the kind of deal that would make his month and then some.
He went and got the key, trudged through the rain, all the way to the far end of the overflow lot, and tried to start the truck to pull it around. Nope, the battery was flat. So he had to walk all the way back to the showroom in the pouring rain, get a jump box, and walk back out to the truck and jump start it. At this point, he’s soaked. His pants are all wet from waking back and forth in puddles. He had gotten all wet while he was trying to jump-start the truck because it’s impossible to jump-start a huge truck while holding an umbrella. Finally, he pulled the truck up front.
The appointment was set for 1 pm. That time came and went, so he called my friend at about 1:30. My friend says sorry, I’m running late, I’ll be there about 3 or so. 3 o’clock comes and goes, and no buyer has shown up. He calls her again and…nothing. She completely ghosted him. So he had to take the truck back to its spot, with rain still coming down. He was so mad, yet he never knew it was me the whole time. Still has no idea to this day.”
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.”
Rule-Breaking Boss
“So, I was working at a 7-Eleven for just shy of a year. The store was a franchise, so it was independently owned by a Lebanese guy who’s IQ was probably somewhere in the 80s. He treated us all like dirt. The only person who made more than minimum wage was the useless clerk he was cheating on his wife with, who, for some reason, made $15 an hour.
This guy never did anything by the book. If he thought it would make him more money, then the law didn’t apply to him. Nobody at the store ever got a lunch break. We were barely afforded smoke breaks. We weren’t allowed to eat while on the clock. In California, when you work more than 5 hours without a lunch, you’re supposed to get paid an extra hours worth of wages, which counts toward overtime. We didn’t get that, either. On top of that, when he did payroll, he wouldn’t actually go by when you clocked in and out, he went by the schedule he wrote. So if you stayed an extra hour or two to help out when it got busy, you’d be working for free, because the hours wouldn’t show up. Also, your schedule was subject to change whenever he felt like it. There were several times he wrote me up for showing up late because he would change my shift without telling me.
So, here’s where the trouble starts. We would take expired food off the shelves. But, we’d come in the next day, and he had printed new expiration dates, pasted them on top of the old ones, and put the food back on the shelves. The happened consistently the entire time I worked there. Well, one day, I’d had enough of his bull. I called up the health department and reported him, then emailed corporate and filled them in on what was going on.
Well, word got back to him. When I went in the next day, I’d received a ‘complaint’ and was promptly fired. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never worked anywhere with a one strike policy.
Here’s the thing, though. Since the day I started there, I’d been keeping records. I had copies of every schedule posted, and every paystub I’d ever received. I went to the labor board that day and picked up the paperwork I needed. See, when you don’t get lunches, and you don’t get paid the extra hour you’re supposed to, the labor board can force the employer to pay you the money he owes you in one lump sum. So I filled out the paperwork and turned it in. My old boss wasn’t so smug when he had to make a check to me for $2,600 right after receiving a hefty fine from the health department.
Now, I’m working to get the labor board to force him to hire me back under the whistleblower clause. If he has to re-hire me, he also has to pay me back lost wages for the past few months. Also, my old co-workers get lunches now.”
Revenge Years In The Making
“When I was on my first trip to India, I was assaulted by a photographer. The guy was a jerk on many levels and constantly defended his actions against me by saying, ‘Hey, I could’ve done worse’
On a non-assault level, he constantly uses people, including his distributors, lying and making up sob stories about his past.
Anyway, he knew I would be going to China where I would be visiting a VERY famous photographer, who he considers his idol and greatly admires and aspires to be like. All of a sudden, he changed his tune. He was flattering me and everything. Then he gave me a copy of his portfolio, begging me to give it to this photographer when I met him. I took the portfolio.
Fast forward a few years, the famous photographer and I are good friends. I met the jerk again. We start talking, and I’m pretending that everything is happy and wonderful. I mention that I met the famous photographer and his eyes light up. I talk about the famous photographer for a while, and the jerk is obviously getting jealous. Then I act as if I’ve suddenly remembered something.
‘Oh! Remember how you gave me that portfolio to give to him?’
He said ‘Yes?’ so excited and expectant.
Then I said, ‘I didn’t give it to him.’
The jerk said, ‘What?’
Me: ‘I didn’t give it to him. I did, however, warn him and all of his students and colleagues not to work with you as you are a liar who uses people and can’t be trusted. Then we went out for drinks.’
Jerk: ‘What?! Why did you do that?’
Me: ‘Today’s lesson is: if you’re going to treat someone badly, I highly recommend not asking them for major favors later. The alternate lesson is, if you are going to treat someone badly, you might want to avoid trying to violate someone who works very closely with people who are the key to your future. Oh! there’s my phone! Bye.’
He looked broken. It was beautiful.”
HIs Car Was His Pride And Joy
“I worked in a fish factory most summers when I was in my teens. There was a boy who also worked there one summer who was a jerk and a bully. Me and another girl were his main targets, and this was really disgusting verbal bullying, about our gender and race (the other girl was of mixed race). He would yell his insults over the factory announcement system whenever he didn’t have enough work to keep him busy. The foreman refused to get involved, so we took action.
One day, we finished work before he did, and spotted his car out in the parking lot. We looked at each other, went back into the building, got several rolls of toilet paper and a packet of menstrual pads and ‘decorated’ the car with them.
The car was seen by many of our co-workers, some of whom also witnessed the decorating and cheered us on. Once he got out, he just stood there, blushing and embarrassed and wondering who could have done this to him. He was very subdued at work after that and the bullying nearly stopped, I hope because what we did made him realize what it felt like to be at the victim’s end of it.
The best thing about it was that everyone, including his brother, knew who had done it, and no one told him.”
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 ordered him a Dell Mini netbook. I told him the Mac Book Pro he wanted wasn’t in the budget.”
Don’t Mess With A Teacher
“My mom was a language teacher at my high school and years after I had graduated. Once, she called me kind of upset because a group of guys were trying to make her look dumb. The class was supposed to write one of those team dialogues in Spanish. They had a week or so to prepare it and then had to perform it in front of the class. When she called for them to do theirs, they said, ‘But we already did ours, we’re not doing it again.’
She said, ‘You definitely didn’t do it, I don’t have any record of it here and I would remember it if you had.’ They refused to do it, insisting they already performed it and that it was her fault she didn’t take notes/scores down.
She was feeling puzzled and questioning herself when one of the good kids came and said, ‘They didn’t do it – they were bragging about making you look stupid and threatened the whole class if they told you anything. But please don’t tell them I told you this, I don’t want any problems with them.’ These were those stereotypical dumb jock types who everyone was scared of for whatever reason.
My mom was really into yoga at the time and got a great idea while meditating. She went in the next day and said, ‘Boys, I owe you an apology. I found my notes on your presentation and I do remember it, I don’t know how I forgot!’ She went on to describe all the grammatical mistakes they made, that their dialogue hadn’t been as long as required, that they didn’t include the necessary vocabulary, etc. All made up. She failed them all on the project and they couldn’t do a thing about it without admitting they’d made it all up.”
Minor Inconveniences Make For The Best Revenge
“A woman I work with literally stole this great story that I tell about me being in the same hospital at the same time that my niece was born. She tells it as like it was her husband and she was in the hospital giving birth. She’s a known one-upper. Everything you do she did it better, faster, it was worse for her etc. So it didn’t surprise me when a coworker told me she regularly tells clients that story.
So now, every single day as I get in I pour a tiny bit of my water bottle out on her desk, chair, or on the carpet somewhere in her office.
In my mind, mold is slowly growing in her office, her skirt gets wet when she sits down or any fresh documents she sits on her desk get sat right in the small puddle of water.”
The Lunch Crusher
“Someone in my office would always crush lunches with his gigantic lunch box. Either he ate bricks or lead, I don’t know. I always came to the office fridge and found that my lunch was in pieces.
So, after three bouts of this, and numerous notes from myself and other colleagues, I carefully removed his lunch box, emptied the contents, a gigantic sandwich, a Twinkie, chips, some vegetable pieces, and a few other bits, and ran over them with my car. I carefully packed it back in and put it back.
He kept his lunch in a cooler by his cube from then on.”
When Friends Become Enemies
“I once started a tech company and developed a very marketable product. I was a techie who couldn’t sell his way out of a paper bag so, after about four years, I found a couple of partners to work with to help market and promote a business based on my tech and take things to the next level. They didn’t buy their way in and our contract wasn’t written with adequate protection for me. Since we were all ‘friends,’ I never thought anything bad would happen.
Things were progressing nicely toward building a business while we each still had day jobs. We were starting to be successful and edging towards the ability to make quit-your-job kind of money. After a while, my partners started acting strangely and started floating the great idea to form a new business, form a new LLC and roll our existing successful business into it as ‘one of the offerings’ which we would all make zillions from. They talked it up for weeks and eventually sent me a lengthy and confusing contract to sign. I knew right away the ideas for the other offerings for the new business were losers. I got the suspicion that the only reason they wanted to do this was so they could exploit the revenue from the existing emerging business and do away with me in the partnership. I smelled a rat and my spidey senses were tingling.
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.”
“What Do You Mean It’s Not Working?”
“My co-worker was always complaining and always lazy with his work. Yet he got recognition for the simplest thing he would actually do. He also took credit for a full day’s work that was pretty much all me. I always got ignored. So one day, I came in early and I unplugged his ethernet jack just barely to the point it looked like it was still plugged into his computer. For four hours, he couldn’t do any work.
Meanwhile, I got my work done. He couldn’t take any credit for it since everyone knew he didn’t have Internet access. Halfway through the day, he left on break, I plugged it back in and bam, just like this it was working. By then, he couldn’t claim my work, and I began to get noticed more.”