Sometimes, even the most harmless prank can turn you into the neighborhood villain…Just ask this young man who created, what he'd call, the most hilarious gnome prank in history. Yes, take a moment, we also didn't know the words gnome and hilarious could be used in the same sentence, but here we are. People are either very creative these days, or very, very bored! This man decided it would be a great idea to reposition his middle-aged neighbor's lawn gnomes, inch by inch, and every night…In a 'light-hearted' attempt to watch his neighbor fall into a spiral of utter confusion. I am imagining this, or did Summer and Christmas gnome swap places…

No. They did not. But after weeks of thinking, aliens have finally and silently invaded this planet, this neighbor confronted the young man. Within seconds, he confessed to his gnome-riddled crime…A big smile spread across his face. Yet, his neighbor was still desperately trying to see where the humor fit into this situation. He just wasn't getting it…Now all the neighbors know about this prank, and instead of writing it down for later use, they criticized the young man for the panic he had caused his neighbor. 

Kudos to employees who leave when they've taken enough mistreatment from their so-called "superiors". It's challenging to discern when it's the right time to call it quits on a job, but as the saying goes, "If you know, you know."

To be quite frank with members of the workforce out there, an accepting, satisfactory boss is leaning toward becoming the exception, not the rule. No matter who you ask, we're sure that anyone would be able to recall a manager or supervisor who exerted unfathomable amounts of power just to make themselves seem better in the eyes of their superior. The workplace hierarchy makes everyone act in a way they might not have if they had taken different paths, but we're in this timeline. Superiors are becoming meaner, and employees are becoming more exhausted by them.

The manager in this next story leads a meeting after a handful of resignations earlier in the week. Usually, when multiple employees resign at once, it is reflective of the manager's ineptness… But a superior would never admit fault in such a way. So, instead, the manager gives the remaining employees a spiel about company loyalty. Not the greatest idea, boss… Scroll to read.

Have you ever gotten something you really wanted in a Secret Santa exchange? No? Me either… and yet still, people insist on having these events every year. 

Secret Santas, White Elephants, and Pollyanas are all types of secret gift exchanges that happen during the holiday season. The only problem is that they don't usually have the best results. Oftentimes, you're given a gifting minimum and maximum. But unless the person who pulls your name knows you well, you're probably just going to get some random junk. For example, you might end up with some expired cookies, or some bubble bath when you only have a shower, or a shirt that's 3 sizes too big. It often ends up regifted, or even just given back for next year's Secret Santa exchange!

I think these things have fallen out of fashion a bit, probably because you can buy very highly customizable stuff online. Giving someone a generic gift just because is a bit wasteful. And in today's day and age, who has money to waste on gifts that won't be appreciated anyway? 

Not to mention that some people will take the exchange seriously, putting thought and effort into their present choices, while others just whiff on the whole thing and give joke presents. Like, is a bottle of car cleaner really a hilarious joke, or are you just cleaning out your garage and feeling lazy? 

Some people were kind enough to share the wild and crazy "gifts" they got in their own gift exchanges. I mean, does bubble wrap count as a gift? I think not. But that's not even the worst thing someone received from a coworker or friend, as you can read all about down below.  

This high school senior was certainly not expecting to run into her father during her first girls trip.

Don't worry, it only gets worse from there.

After convincing her parents to let her go on a weekend trip with her best friends, she was a bit taken aback when she learned that her father just so happened to have a business trip in the same area that very same weekend. Coincidence? We think not.

When she and her friends went out to a fancy dinner one night, things took a bit of a turn. The daughter saw her father there, but this time, he wasn't spying on her. Instead, she spent much of the evening spying on him, since he was seated opposite another woman. Let's just say they did not look like colleagues. 

By the end of the evening, the 17-year-old couldn't take it anymore and walked right over to confront her father, demanding answers. He then begged his daughter not to tell his mother what she saw, which inevitably put the onus on the daughter to make a difficult decision. Keep scrolling below for the full story and for the best reactions from several members of this online community.

What happens when a customer demands to go over your head and speak to the manager… but you are the manager?

Just ask these people — they know all too well the delights of telling a frustrated customer that they're already doing all they can. There's simply no one else above them who can help out more. Oftentimes, it's not the manager's fault at all. Some customers just want things they simply cannot have, like free products, or unreasonable time frames for receiving things. Just because they demand to speak to a higher-up, they smugly think that this is the way to achieve that unrealistic goal. 

There really is a certain type of customer who will proudly walk into a shop and request to have a product for free… as if the entire point of a business isn't to sell product and turn a profit. They think they're better than everyone else, or more deserving of freebies for some reason, and they've decided that if they're loud enough about their demands, management will bend the knee and grant their ridiculous request. No can do! As you can read about down below, a lot of customers push these workers too far, and end up getting a lifetime ban from their favorite store. If only they had asked nicely, things might've turned out differently!

This job candidate's behavior during the interview process proved to be a bit divisive.

Well, technically, there was no interview process because he didn't even make it that far. This guy retold the story about how he went in to interview for a retail job and was immediately suspicious about how the organization skills of management (or lack thereof) before he even got there. It sounds like scheduling his window was already ridiculously and unnecessarily challenging. Red flag #1, folks!

Then, he got there a bit early and was told that he needed to wait a few minutes. Not a problem, especially since he was the one who arrived prematurely. But that few minutes time frame ended up turning into 5 minutes, then 15, and then half an hour. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore and asked the receptionist what could possibly be taking so long.

It turns out that the hiring manager who was meant to be interviewing him was brought into an urgent meeting with her supervisor. However, the author was not having this story, as they could have just been transparent about this from the moment he walked in. Keep scrolling below to see the full story and for the discourse regarding his temperament from several members of this online community.

Do you believe coworkers should remain colleagues and nothing more, or do you think a friendship can develop in the workplace?

We worked in enough workplaces to see both happen, but it really depends on the people more than anything else. Some people don't come into work looking for more than a professional relationship with their coworkers, while others crave a deeper connection with the people they see every single day.

The thing is, becoming friends with your coworker is more than just going out for drinks with them at the end of the workday. The tiniest complication in your delicate friendship can create an awkward environment for everyone in the office. And the forced proximity is probably not the best cause for people to become friends…

The coworkers in the story below were never friends, but they were friendly, and they liked it that way. That was at least until one of them crossed a line that caused the entire professional friendship to crumble–she asked for money.

We're not quite sure how this family became the villain in this neighborhood drama?… But there is just something about a tight-knit community that makes it difficult for newcomers to replace any long-time homeowners, who have made countless friends and memories in the neighborhood! When you move into a new home, it may take a while to make it feel like yours. But when you eventually do, there's no better feeling. Yet, in some homes, there will still be many traces of the previous owners: heights written against the doorframe, or simply just a few boxes of belongings left behind after the move. Whilst most people would paint the doorframe or throw the away the 'meaningless' boxes…This family thought that returning the previous owner's old belongings was the right thing to do! 

So they called the previous owner's daughter, requesting she come and pick up her late parents' things. But she kept dodging their calls and rejecting any contact. So the family decided to sell the goods instead…However, years later, the woman showed up on their doorstep, absolutely losing it when she learned her parents' belongings had been sold! Not only that, but she, too, began demanding entry into her old home…But when the family refused, feeling cornered by her aggressive attitude, the other (long-time neighbors and friends) began 'banging the door down' alongside her! 

When an employee is spending more time avoiding work than actually getting things done, the bosses tend to notice. They don't like that kind of thing! They've hired an employee to work, obviously, and when they don't, their burden falls onto the shoulders of their colleagues. Depending on how big the team is, it might take a while for management to notice if someone is sneaking off every day, wasting hours of working time, or if someone doesn't do any work by refusing to answer calls. There are plenty of ways that a person can "work" for 8 hours while accomplishing basically nothing. 

Some workers managed to finesse their company's time clocks. One dude was called out for driving to work, clocking in, then leaving all day to do whatever he pleased, then finally coming back at the end of the day to clock out. It's no wonder he got fired! Another person was hired to do quality checks, but instead, spent every working moment writing his own book. Naturally, when the company found out, they were not happy, and he was fired quick. He'll have to sell a lot of copies to replace that steady salary! And of course, there are lots of workers who just straight-up steal from their jobs, like one waitress who kept swiping tips that weren't hers. Coworkers clearly notice that kind of thing, and even if they don't, the cameras will tell on her instead. Keep reading to discover a bunch of excellent stories of all the ways people got fired on the spot, as told by the coworkers and bosses who watched it all play out.

There is something deeply funny about discovering class consciousness while standing in line for a roller coaster surrounded by churros and screaming toddlers. This newly elucidated consumer goes to Dollywood expecting twinkle lights and cinnamon air, not a live demonstration of economic inequality. The line says 35 minutes. Reality says 90. Somewhere between the fading daylight and the aching calves, enlightenment dawns.  

Fast Pass holders glide by like aristocrats on a moving walkway, entire trains reserved just for them. The regular crowd looks on, powerless but still clutching funnel cakes like the poor man's protest sign. It's infuriating, but also kind of perfect. Nothing teaches the hierarchy of wealth faster than someone skipping ahead to scream in joy ten times before you even buckle in.  

Don't get me wrong, our philosopher-patron's argument is sort of spot on. There really was something egalitarian about everyone waiting together, sweating under the same sun, united by boredom and anticipation. The Fast Pass breaks that social contract, turning joy into a purchasable perk. The park stops feeling like a communal escape and starts feeling like an allegory for capitalism with roller tracks. 

When you pay for delivery services after purchasing furniture or appliances…It's pretty self-explanatory that the delivery part is actually expected. And by delivered, we don't mind carelessly thrown in one's garage…but handed with care, and in many cases even installed! Whether it sounds like a big ask or not, it's paid for, so it is not strange for you to want those promises kept! So, we can understand this new homeowner's frustration when his promise of a refrigerator delivery soon turned into utter chaos. With delivery drivers acting as if a refrigerator delivery is utter taboo…aka, they're too lazy to put in the energy to get it through the front door…So this homeowner is stuck with a few unhelpful workers and a disassembled refrigerator.

The drivers refuse to help him get the fridge inside, even after telling him they'll do it for an extra $300… He reported the lack of efficient services to the store, and they ended up taking a big chunk off his bill and apologized. So if you look at the silver lining, He actually got paid to do his own delivery…Whether or not his fridge currently remains in 5 pieces!

Imagine making so much money for your boss, only to be rewarded with the price of one movie ticket.

First of all, anyone who knows anything about the current cost of movie tickets these days would know that a $25 AMC gift card is not a good deal whatsoever. You might as well gift this person an AMC Stubs membership so they can get a lot more out of that amount of money. So not only was this a paltry amount of money masked as a "Christmas bonus," but also it was a thoughtless gift on top of it all.

It's worth acknowledging that far too many employees aren't given proper thanks for all their hard work at the end of the year. Gifting someone a small present they could have gotten themselves and throwing an office party are, at the end of the day, never giving people what they actually want. We all know what those needs are: long overdue raises.

For this employee, the justification for that raise or promotion was right there on the table. They made their boss over $1.5 million in commissions that year. After the so-called "Christmas bonus" was handed out early, the employee considered this to be the straw that finally broke the camel's back. They found another job opportunity in the same field and handed in their two weeks' notice. Unfortunately, that's just where the problems began…

Proving your point feels great, and most of the time, being right is all fun and no harm. But not for this guy. For him, it slowly turns into unpaid detective work. Our employee tries to confirm a small detail during a meeting about a grant and gets told they are wrong. Later, while double-checking the documents, they find out they were not just slightly right but completely and legally right. The detail they questioned was tied to public law and not optional at all. What started as mild curiosity becomes the professional equivalent of falling into a tunnel that never ends.  

An email goes out with receipts attached. The national team disagrees, a consultant disagrees, and everyone would rather move on than admit anything. Most people would stop there, but curiosity has momentum. The search continues, turning up proof that the whole organization has been quietly ignoring the same legal rule everywhere. It is not fraud, just a long-running habit of letting paperwork slide. 

There is nothing more satisfying than reflecting something intended for you back onto the instigator.

Some of us probably first experienced this when we were playing Pokémon as kids and successfully pulled off a Mirror Coat or Counter and reversed damage back onto our opponent. But let's be honest, most of us were probably too busy employing "damage move only" strategies to realize the usefulness of such moves. 

That rush of satisfaction when a poorly planned trap backfires and you're able to activate one of your own is extremely gratifying, but outside of video games, card games, and other games of chance, you'll seldom get the chance to enact one of the well-executed reversals. Even if the opportunity was there, you won't realize it until days later, in the shower, when you're replaying events in your head. 

Now, also important to realize here that in business, there is the company's "logistics," and then there is logic itself. You might be mistaken and think that the two would meet up, but there are all kinds of reasons. Implementing a process or policy for another reason can often have shortsighted effects and unintended consequences in other areas of the business. If these aren't reviewed and amended on a case-by-case basis and instead applied rigidly, you'll end up with situations where what you're being asked to do just doesn't make any sense at all.

… Except, of course, money. 

The crux of every holiday conundrum, money and finances are affecting a lot of people right now, determining the kinds of gifts we'll find under the Christmas tree later this month. Kids, who are innocent enough to have no concept of financial obligations, bills, and the rat race of life, won't understand why their holiday pile is scant. However, the hardworking parents trying to get it all together will feel the sting of their kiddo's disappointment if they can't afford the perfect present. 

This is why the dad in this next story got so lucky. 

A stranger, a shopper with plenty of rewards points and intimate knowledge of the department store's best deals, helped a struggling father this week, saving him  $70 on the perfect gift for his kid. This heartfelt gesture and meaningful holiday blessing were thwarted by a snobby cashier who acted smug and inconvenienced by this wholesome encounter. Yet the stranger wouldn't give up; they were determined to help this dad buy the perfect gift for his little one, imagining the joy on his face when he opens a brand-new gaming console and a Mario Kart game. 

Some classrooms run on encouragement and patience. Others run on a teacher who seems permanently on the brink, snapping at students and declaring them talentless for reasons unknown.

That was the situation here, where a group of honors music students were preparing for their annual concert. It was intended as a student-led show, meant to surprise parents and staff, all while dealing with the frustrations of a band teacher who seemed to regret every career decision that led him to this point.

After one particularly dramatic blow-up, the students decided to channel their frustration into something a little more… melodic. They kept the official program intact, practiced like normal, and waited for the perfect moment.

You can't please everyone, even when you do the right thing, as this person discovered while trying to have a calm, civilized conversation with her next-door neighbor.

It's hard to be a logical person in a world of illogical thinkers. You'll have issues with someone and think you have an easy solution, only to find that they don't want solutions — they want to argue with you. That's the intense kind of issue this woman has with her neighbor. This neighbor loves to just hang out by the window and watch everything that goes on. As the local busybody, she reportedly never leaves her house and starts arguments easily. For example, she and the person who shared this story got into a disagreement over snow, of all things. The snow plows came by, and some of this person's snow got pushed onto the crazy neighbor's property. This woman was irate! She literally said that she'd draw a line in the snow, and if any of it got onto her side, they'd have a "problem." Yikes! 

Now, for most people, this wouldn't be a big deal. If you are a logical person, you could understand how snow could be plowed from one place to another, without your neighbor being at fault. But this woman loves to argue, and she seems totally insatiable. From there, things just got worse and worse, which you can read about below. Luckily, if the story starts to make you anxious for this person, she did find a way to stop the crazy neighbor from being in her business. And, as she shared, she can now enjoy her own yard without running into this wacko all the time. Now, that neighbor is someone else's problem! 

It's always remarkable to come across a fully grown individual who cannot comprehend something fairly standard.

What's unfortunate is how frequent this actually occurs. The obvious reaction would be to assume that this is a reflection of someone's natural intelligence, but that's a bit simplistic. More often than not, this is a reflection of how they were raised, what they have been exposed to in their lived experiences, and what they've gathered from those experiences.

This author could tell from the very beginning that one of his roommates, Kevin, was an oddball. It seemed that Kevin viewed the world in his own way, and as a result, tends to miss things. For instance, when the tenants all learned that their internet bill increased by $12 this past month, they all assumed that this was due to the internet provider's choice to charge more. Well, I should say that everyone felt this… except for Kevin.

Kevin believed it was a reflection of his roommates and their internet habits, as if it were the same thing as someone leaving the air conditioning on all the time affecting their power bill. He accused his roommates of using Google too much, believing that every search contributed to their internet bill. He also believed they had too many tabs open and that this also led to the increased $12. The irony, of course, is that Kevin was the one who usually stayed up late every night watchine cartoons and anime on his computer, but that's besides the point.

The problem, of course, was that Kevin was so steadfast in his beliefs that it was impossible to convince him otherwise. People like this are hard to reason with… and clearly, they are especially difficult to live with as well.

These bosses wish their #1 worker didn't quit… but these workers are explaining exactly why they made such a bold choice!

Many workplaces have at least one totally unflappable employee. No matter what comes their way, they keep a cool head, and their calm demeanor can be inspiring to others. It's never that serious, and in most jobs, keeping calm results in the best outcomes anyway. This star employee can take many forms — maybe they're the head chef who takes a deep breath when a party of 30 people come in, and starts cooking as fast as possible. Maybe they're the woman in your office who is literally never stressed about anything, and treats every single person, from the CEO to the interns, with respect and care. There are superstars all over the place, but they won't stay at a job that doesn't treat them well. These managers know all about it —  they lost some of their best workers, sometimes unexpectedly, and it changed their work life overnight. 

Although managers get a bad rep, many of them do just want what's best for their workers. They go above and beyond to try and make their work-lives better, sometimes even taking on extra work to help them out. After all, some managers remember what it's like to be an employee with a full plate, and want to help their workers succeed. It's an interesting look into the lives of our bosses and those they manage, so check out all the stories below. 

The whole purpose of a gift exchange is that everyone involved gets to give and take, but this coworker refused to accept that basic principle.

Talk about an easy way to ruin an entire work team's office Secret Santa experience! It sounds like this entitled coworker, whom the author refers to as the office Grinch, was always a bit of a problem when it came to group dynamics. This was likely the type of individual who was a tough collaborator on group projects, so naturally, when it came to extracurricular activities like Secret Santa, he was all the more disagreeable.

The most amusing part of the whole tale is that the entire activity was voluntary. No one was compelled to participate in this Secret Santa gift exchange, which quite frankly, endears me to this team. If folks want to join in on the fun, they can. If they feel it's too burdensome or childish, they don't have to. Everyone wins!

Still, this man somehow managed to find a way to create disaster, as he does everywhere he goes. Unfortunately, it meant that one employee didn't end up receiving a gift.