During the holidays, it's almost inevitable that someone at the dinner table will ask you for free services related to your career. If you're a lawyer, you'll likely be asked for legal advice over the Christmas ham. If you're a doctor, your distant cousins might ask you if the mole on their neck is benign after a few too many glasses of grog. And if you're a daycare worker, you'll likely be asked to volunteer for free at your school's kiddo Christmas bash.

This home is a gardener's paradise. With two gardens enveloping their family home, this person shared that their family tended to their yard each and every day. So they must have been quite confused when their city reached out to them to condemn the way they were maintaining their lush lawn. 

Those who have space for a garden have an amazing resource at their fingertips. Alongside growing veggies and herbs for meals, you can plant a variety of flowers or shrubs to make your yard look and smell incredible. Soon enough, your yard will be filled with butterflies and honeybees. And there will surely be a few animals sneaking a bite of your vegetable plants each night, no matter how fenced-in the garden is. There are plentiful benefits, but it does require upkeep. 

Some families hire gardeners to keep their yard looking fresh and trimmed. Others, like u/IamasimpforObi-Wan, are more hands-on. The OP writes that their family members were constantly working on the garden---every day, in fact. Working with nature does have a therapeutic effect. 

I have a basil plant at my home that I have anthropomorphized. It's just a happy sunlight-loving little dude! Every time I add some basil leaves to a soup, it feels like the little guy is earning its keep. The basil plant wants to be helpful, I think, and it's making some flavorful contributions in lieu of paying rent. 

Check out this person's satisfying story of gardening malicious compliance. Up next, take a peek into the life of a very overworked coffee shop manager who got to take two weeks off and decided to reevaluate their career. 

Hey there, Ms. Smith, if you're reading, yes, I one hundred percent was peeking at Sophie's test that time you pulled me aside and gave me a big fat zero with a smiley inside, just to be petty. You stared at me with your beady little eyes and breathed angrily into my face, and I in turn, totally lied and adamantly held my ground that I did not cheat on the test. Today, I'll admit… I was the kid who copied off of other students' tests.

I did not take school seriously, and that did not change, even well into my high school years. The system and I did not get along… But to be fair, I was not mean to the people I copied tests off of. In this case, the students copying off of OP's test did not treat them with respect, and that is what made OP take such serious action, resulting in everyone's grades plummeting into the ground.

OP's actions held ramifications for the students involved down the line, even several years later, and those same students ended up being knocked out of the running for Valedictorian. They made their bed, I guess. Now they have to lie in it. Scroll down to read the full story, and then check out this similar story about a computer science student who did the workload of 3 people for a group project and then got zero credit, pushing him to get even with his team.

Imagine you are sitting in your office at your own desk, minding your own business, when in storms your manager,  unannounced, tells you to 'drop everything now' and immediately take care of a 'very important' task he gives you, which ends up being not very important at all. It shouldn't be hard to picture, as this is what managers are best known for…

This manager was especially good at micromanaging his employees, and he wasn't even that high up on the food chain, so where he got all his confidence beats me. He barged into an IT employee's office and interrupted what he was doing with vigor. The employee in question was actually busy doing something for the CEO, but this manager told him to drop it and focus on his task instead.

The manager was oblivious to the fact that this employee was, in fact, working on something that should have taken priority over his Highness's request. Good thing the CEO was informed, then. Scroll down to read what happened, and afterward, check out this mass resignation that took place after one micromanager was micromanaging just a little too hard.

It's not that employees should be careful around bosses with tempers; it should be that bosses with tempers should be careful around their employees. Those who throw tantrums and who have a habit of unfairly threatening employees should not only be fearful that they themselves might get in trouble for their tirades, but also they just might lose those employees forever and not of their own volition. I once had a friend who willingly took a job with a temperamental boss who had a known reputation for getting away with ridiculous workplace behavior. Unfortunately, the friend felt like he would be the exception and would be able to handle it. It turns out he did not last more than six months, but at the very least, he had enough sense to quit and to call his boss out on his nonsense before leaving forever. Who knows whether or not this confrontation got through to the boss's head but at least my friend was able to get it off his chest.

Working retail is the experience of permanently being wedged between a rock and a very angry place. The rock is the obstinate management structure above you that is setting and enforcing policies that make no sense—but that they refuse to change. On the other side are the perpetually angry customers who are often upset about those exact same policies. Unfortunately, you, the lowest-level employee, take the brunt of the customer's dissatisfaction, which then becomes management dissatisfaction as they try to blame you for the customer issue, despite the fact that their own policies are what upset the customer in the first place. Eventually, you'll give up trying to argue with either side, fully hollowed out into a soulless husk with no emotion or energy left to try and work things out for the customer.

This is probably exactly who this customer was interacting with when they tried to argue prices with the cashier when the item they were purchasing rang up higher than the online price. Instead, the customer returned the microwave and went to order it online while standing right outside the store. A smooth move to get back at a ridiculous corporate policy.

If you're single and under the age of 45, there's a chance that your family bombards you with the same two questions every holiday season: Why aren't you married? Why aren't you having children? Like the family structures of the medieval days, apparently the youngens are only good for one thing– procreating and carrying on the family name. Although it's 2023, grannies and great uncles don't seem to comprehend the complexities of marriage and kids, so what's a single person to do? 

Well, most of us have grown accustomed to grinning and bearing it, shrugging our shoulders and putting off the inevitable until next Christmas, but one woman has had enough! u/LadyJoselynne has compiled an expertly tactical list of quippy responses that single folks everywhere can use when they're being questioned by their parents and family members. Finally, a polite (yet firm) way to shut down the inquisitions. 

Perhaps in the coming months and years you'll change your mind, but for now, the only response to tired questions is an equally snarky response. Scroll onward to enjoy this juicy collection of sass, brass, and epic clap-backs. 

Here's a red flag in any workplace: if they love to say, "that's how we've always done things." It immediately signals to you as an employee that your contributions won't be valued. Instead, the company is going to keep doing things the way they've always been done, like using outdated tech or working harder, not smarter. Places like this don't want innovation, they want you to shut your brain off all day and do things by the books. 

While in nursing school, u/krichcomix found out that some old-school nurses took this saying to heart. But weirdly enough, their instructor felt that way about their outfit. Nurses have a crucial job, and they should be allowed to wear whatever is comfortable and professional. After all, they aren't there for the fashion, they're there to help sick people feel better as quickly as possible. No matter to the OP's instructor---this woman was kind of obsessive about the OP's shoes. The OP even consulted the company's handbook to make sure they were in compliance. Sure enough, their outfit was fine. The only person who cared was the instructor…Check out the entire story below. 

Next up, this coffee shop owner told one frazzled manager to take two weeks off, but the owner wasn't prepared for the store to fall apart while the manager was out. 

Everyone says there is never a perfect time to have children and that you can never be fully prepared for such a monumental life change, and that may very well be true. However, that's not to say that we shouldn't at least be sure we understand the details of what that life shift might look like beforehand. Societal pressure to have kids is real, and there is no denying that having kids can be a beautiful thing. But like most things in life, it's not for everyone. 

In an online world where so much of what we see is parents talking about their perfect families and children, it's refreshing to stumble upon a group of individuals who have absolutely no regrets about having children. These folks shared their "Aha!" moments via this thread on r/AskReddit. Keep scrolling below for the full stories. When you're finished, check out this list of hypothetical purchases people would make right after winning the lottery.

"I immediately wanted to call in sick," this video game store employee wrote. What made them feel so ill? An advertisement!

For those who have spent time in the trenches of retail work around the holidays, you know exactly how this person feels. No matter how much you enjoy your retail job during the year, when the holiday season comes around, customers begin to act feral. 

A few years back, I enjoyed working at a clothing store for much of the year. It was mainly folding clothes, working the cash register, helping customers, and putting clothing back in the correct section. It was easy to pass a shift with only minimal customer interaction, and usually, the customers would be kind and patient. 

But, the holiday season made monsters of these people. Why do shoppers lose every ounce of patience and understanding during this season? It's like they don't understand that there will be longer wait times and fewer employees to help them, since Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the times everyone is shopping. Just because you suddenly realized you need to get presents for everyone on your list right now, that doesn't make it an emergency for the rest of us! 

They say to never trust your employer, but we always need a former employer for references so do we have much of a choice in the matter? The truth is that we do not. Even after you leave a company, you're still beholden to your former employer in some way. If you have minimal work experience, you might not have another employer to use as a reference. It's the cyclical nature of the working world. Even when you leave one place, you're never really free now, are you? Sure, it's possible to frame this kind of networking in a positive light. One opportunity leads to the next, and so on. However, for those of us who had unfortunate experiences with our former employers where it wasn't our fault, why does it feel like we still have to suffer indefinitely afterward? To that end, shouldn't recruiters be able to let prospective candidates start fresh and bring their skills to the table on their own terms rather than through the perspective of a potentially toxic former boss? 

You could be the best at your job, yet be so underappreciated that even your most competitive coworker who acts like the office Karen would be on your side. Not given a raise, tossed to the side, the resentment in your belly begins to grow, and 'the grass is greener' thoughts keep popping up in your head. You realize that in order to make yourself indispensable, you need to teach them a lesson… So that your message will be heard loud and clear.

This clever, overworked, and underpaid employee delegated a bunch of tasks to himself, and then found a way to automate them, making them take less time while giving himself the upper hand in negotiations. This move was sharp on his part because soon enough, an individual came to the company, the type who fired people in order to save the CEO some money. This person took an instant dislike to OP, and studied him very closely, resulting in a myriad of notes that did not favor OP in the slightest. OP inevitably found the perfect way to get even with his company and give them a taste of their own medicine.

Scroll down for the full story, and then when you are finished reading, here are a couple of roommates who hatched a plan to kick their housemate out that unfortunately for them, backfired hard. Why be mean when you can be nice? Just a thought.

This isn't a story you hear every day, but you should keep this petty trick in your back pocket the next time you're looking to dish out some epic revenge.

This student attends a school that doesn't allow her to carry medications on her; she must receive her meds from an administrator when she needs them. One day, after suffering from a massive migraine, she headed down to the school nurse to take her meds. The problem is that she needed a doctor's note to take her own medication. Even though it's clearly in a prescription bottle with her name on it. After multiple failed attempts to reason with the administrators, she took matters into her own hands. She called up the local radio station and spilled the tea on the school's petty behavior. It turns out that a lot of people had some pretty strong opinions on the matter. It only took about 45 minutes until the assistant principal hunted the OP down to give her her meds. 

This restaurant closer was ready to "prove a point." Overwork your employees, and they'll find ways to get back at management for putting such a heavy burden on them!  

Once you've worked in both hourly roles and salaried roles, you realize how insane the workload is on hourly folks. They're often held to standards that just cannot be met in the time frame allotted to them, unlike salaried workers who are expected to work off the clock if necessary. For example, this person shared that while they were working an hourly gig at a golf course's restaurant, they were expected to work, train two people at once, and also close, all at once. Meanwhile, I'm sure their bosses were just lazing around, with no clue how difficult of a task they'd assigned to u/yungcremepuff, the OP. 

This person at least did the right thing by not letting their bosses overwork them. Their bosses said to be done at a certain time, and the OP was able to let the restaurant remain, well, rather un-closed. There's always a rivalry between closers and those who open the next day after them, and these openers must've lost their minds after seeing what the OP did. 

Check out their entire malicious compliance story below. Then, check out these outdated things that could never be explained to kids born after 2000. 

It's no secret that millennials got dealt a pretty terrible hand in the game of cards called life. To keep the card-game analogy alive, millennials are basically holding a 2 and an 8 with different suits in Texas Holdem and the turn of the century was the flop. For those of you who don't sympathize with a generation of grown up emo's battling a lifetime of student debt and jobless futures to fit their master's degree, that's okay. There's one man on the internet, a Gen Xer, who recently went viral on Reddit after empathizing with an entire generation, lamenting over their struggles and reminiscing on the golden days of his own past. 

An important lesson you learn early on in this world is to own your own mistakes, and whether or not someone makes mistakes is a good indicator of that person's character. As is often the case, there are plenty of people who never managed to learn this simple concept, with these people finding themselves in positions of authority all too often. It's not surprising then that there are a lot of toxic bosses out there who consistently find someone else to blame and someone else to shame for their own misdeeds, successfully scapegoating workers who don't have the evidence or authority to defend themselves but sometimes going as far as to grapple with the bounds of reality when no one else is buying their claims.

When it comes to the ethics and management of business finances, if it's your business, you'll find yourself responsible—no matter who is managing them. But, if you're managing your own finances and still trying to blame a random worker in your employ when the enforcement agencies and tax collectors come for you, you are outrageous and grasping at straws. You also probably shouldn't be running a business.

As much as it is the season of giving, apparently, it is also the season of complaining. Now, I have never been one of those lucky employees to receive a sizable bonus for the Holidays. One has to assume it is the price for not going full corporate. That being said, if I were to receive such a gift, I would try not to take it for granted and remember the days when I would never have gotten this kind of special treatment (meaning, these days). So if this choosing beggar has no interest in using his free $500 gift card from Target, I am happy to reach out and take that sweet burden off his shoulders. As someone who never receives gifts of that size, it is the least I can do.

This thread was posted to Reddit's r/ChoosingBeggars subreddit by u/hubbity-bubbity, another employee at the company who unfortunately had to be on the receiving end of his coworker's tantrum. Of course, the tantrum was useless considering the fact that OP had no part in the decision-making here, but that is how corporate culture works. Someone on top makes a controversial decision, and someone below has to clean up the mess. Keep scrolling below for the full exchange and for the best reactions in the comments section. When you're done, check out this post about a Karen's property fiasco. 

There's nothing like hustling to go above and beyond in your role only to have your new boss turn around and throw some random metric that is vaguely associated with productivity back in your face for no reason. Your KPIs and contributions that are tied to actual revenue for the company are topping the charts, and yet your insecure micromanaging manager is concerned about the fact that your screen was "idle" for a few minutes. This is the problem with modern "productivity" tracking software that tracks employee activity: twiddling your mouse around more often than your coworkers has no bearing on your actual contribution to the company. This, for some reason, is something that a lot of corporate managers have trouble logically reasoning—probably cause they're not doing any actual work anyway—so, to them, moving their mouse on the screen is productive.

As commenters in this voracious discussion have already mentioned, without a doubt, this new manager is trying to make an example of their top performer in order to set a precedence of authority with their team. See the author's original post and the discussion that followed below.

Whether you're working in a spotless kitchen or not, hearing that the health inspector has showed up unannounced sends some sort of chills down any service industry worker's back. Maybe it's PTSD from getting pop quizzes in high school, because that's exactly what it feels like. Even if you are sure you are an expert on the topic, something about being put on the spot and quizzed about it at random makes you doubt yourself. So you can image the sort of chaos that ensues with an inspector shows up out of the blue to a restaurant. Managers start to sweat, servers try to stand a little straighter, kitchen staff does the ungraceful dance of making sure everything is how it is supposed to be. Even a slip up of forgetting to date the juice of when it was made can ding you for a lower rating. So below service industry employees share the chaos cause and effect of when an inspector drops in out of nowhere. Buckle up!

Do you have a friend who doesn't believe in Karma? Well, show them this sweet by epic Reddit story. This guy was working at a place where he never received any sort of work evaluation or detailed instructions, so he thought was was doing pretty well. And he most likely was. However, one day he got called in and was terminated started immediately. He kept asking why and his manager refused to give any reason. Confused, he packed up his stuff and left. As you do when you get fired, you collect your last paycheck, which should also include all your paid vacation days. This guy not only never received his last paycheck, they gave him documentation that showed he wasn't getting his PTO paid for either. That's some BS. So what did he do? He reported then to the labor board. Turns out this wasn't just a clerical error, this was an entirely different much more sinister situation he just uncovered…