When you first start working in the business sector, you might believe that you have to invest more time and energy into the company as a whole in order to please your supervisors. The same supervisors that, ideally, will offer you increases in pay and promotions when they become available. This seems like a fantastic idea in theory: you overinvest in the company, demonstrating on a daily basis how important your work is to you, in the hopes that your superior will ultimately understand who belongs in a more active role within the company. But that doesn't really happen in reality.

The story that follows is an account of a clever employee who has found the perfect way to avenge his dismissive CEO. The Original Poster (OP) had just graduated from college and was beginning his professional career at the time. OP felt obliged to assist the office in any way during the first few weeks, keeping in mind that he is genuinely trying to pave his own route and create opportunities for himself. But soon enough, his intentions to help out with office chores had become more of a burden than he could handle. Briefly said, because OP lives close to the office, he offered to act as the emergency contact number in the event that the alarm goes off.

Having said that, be sure to read the story below if you're interested in learning the specifics of what happened to drive OP beyond the point of no return! After you're done reading, don't forget to read the story of the tenant who increased the apartment's value by caring for its neglected garden, only to have his entitled landlord, eager to capitalize on his hard work, throw him out!

Imagine quitting your job, moving to an entirely different city, and then two years later, hearing back from your former employer that you've been fired. Come again? If you were expecting anything from this guy, it was probably a message wishing you well, or perhaps even asking for recommendations or requesting a personal non-work-related catchup. Instead, of all things, it was a letter of termination on the grounds of "job abandonment."

The Redditor mentioned that their former boss was a bit disorganized, which sounds like the biggest understatement I've heard in quite some time. The first offense was when the Redditor was still working at the company and was injured on the job. His boss took forever to make sure he was properly compensated and that his medical bills were covered. That experience likely motivated his choice to run away from that company as quickly as possible, so he did. He got a job in a different city, put in his letter of resignation following all the proper channels, and fully moved on with his life. 

So how could this negligent boss have messed this up? The original poster revealed in a comment that he wasn't a salaried employee and it's not like he was receiving pay after he quit, so there was simply no sign of this coming. Our main take on this is that HR is definitely up to something fishy here for their official records. The good news, and something the Redditor should remember, is that this bears no effect on his future employment. 

Keep scrolling below for the full post and the best comments. For more, here's a story about an employee who got back at their former toxic manager.

Some people think that if they will just ignore a problem, it will go away on its own. And as much as we all would have loved it if that was the case, it is often not, which means that if you want something to be sorted, you should probably do it yourself.

The guest in this Reddit story thought that all his problems would be sorted by themselves, and then had to deal with the consequences when it turned out that they didn't just go away. The story was written by a hotel clerk, who was approached by a man who wanted to book a hotel room. The man booked his room online while standing in front of the clerk, and ignored all the clerk's instructions for what he needed in order to check-in. The guest mentioned he didn't have his credit card on him but proceeded to ignore the problem even while the clerk told him he would not be able to check him in.

The clerk did not give in to the man's insistence to ignore everything he said, so keep scrolling to read what happened next. After that, click here for a story of an overworked IT guy who used his skills to take revenge on his company

If you ever question why you're being given an order and the answer given is simply that you should "do as you're told" because the person giving the order is "in charge," it's safe to say that your next question should be why that person is in charge at all. See, leadership is more than just being "in charge"—it is also about inspiring, guiding, and empowering others to achieve common goals. True leaders give reason for their decisions when asked and don't rely on shadow games and power plays in order to maintain their authority.

While working for a local government entity, this worker was tasked with returning money and property to those engaged in the legal process as instructed by court orders. In one instance, they noticed discrepancies in the paperwork they had been presented with, and upon raising the possible issue with their superiors, they were told to just do what they were told and process the transaction. Weeks later, it came out that they had been correct, and the transaction had been fraudulent. The angry supervisors came back to blame it on the worker but were quickly met with evidence that they had no one to blame but themselves.

Trying to beat that eepy feeling at work should count as overtime. 

As you go through your years as an employee, sometimes, you've gotta learn things the hard way. From work-life balance to advocating for better working standards, we don't always know what's acceptable and what's not when we're new to the workforce. It's good to look back and reflect on how much you've changed since you started working. Maybe you used to try and put on a performance during a job interview, but now you're interviewing the employer, too. Or maybe you used to accept whatever salary management offered you because you thought it was the only way to get the job, but now you're asking for raises every year to keep up with inflation. Whatever it may be, wouldn't it have been nice just to know these things when you started out as a newbie? Well, this retired employee is here to help. While in retirement, he took to the internet to share four rules he'd discovered during his years in the workforce, and they're important ones, too. A lot of them are lessons many of us have already learned, but it's validating to hear from a fellow employee.

The rules didn't stop at 4, and other workers in the comments continued the list with valuable rules they've acquired during their time working. So, instead of waiting to learn these lessons the hard way yourselves, get a head start by reading through these workers' experiences and save yourself the hard work. 

Look, none of us wants to be at the airport, but if we have to be there, we may as well try to relax. You already know you might be delayed for four hours, so bring a book. If you don't want to be bored in the long TSA line snaking around the building, best to bring a podcast or some good music. U/traveler-veil did just that when they were traveling, and it helped them a little bit. It would've been a more effective distraction if someone could manage to shut their yapper for more than five seconds.

That someone was another passenger who was entitled and demanding. He didn't care about the other passengers, all he cared about was himself. So what if that flight attendant is helping someone else? He wanted a soda right now! It's like these entitled people have that toddler mindset: everything is about "me, me, me." They can't fathom that other people might also have problems or concerns that need to be addressed. At least the traveller who shared the post kept their cool, while also managing to put this awful plane passenger into his place. 

After that, one neighbor had to confront the home baker who kept leaving cookies in the lobby… but she had a very important reason. 

Scheduling appointments during the work day can be difficult to navigate depending on how flexible and understanding your boss is. Most folks understand that it isn't exactly easy to schedule a doctor's appointment after work hours or on the weekends. Sometimes, you have to take what you can get. Furthermore, most employees understand that if they do have to leave the office early for an appointment, they will make up for lost time before or after. In short, it really should not be an issue whatsoever.

And yet, some managers use situations like this to flex their muscles and their inflated egos for literally no legitimate reason. This new manager insisted that their employee use one of their PTO days simply because they needed to leave the office five minutes early. One might assume that the expectation here was for the employee to stay the full five minutes and be a little late to his appointment. However, the employee decided to take him up on that offer and maliciously comply with the sole purpose of proving just how ludicrous his insistence was. 

Keep scrolling below for the full story and for the best reactions in the comments section. For more, check out this post about court fails and loopholes lawyers discovered to get cases thrown out.

Everyone's a critic. It's way easier to comment on art than make it. It's a ton of fun to talk about works of writing or art, most of us do it on a daily basis. Whether it's talking with your coworkers about the latest episode of a popular TV drama, or talking about the new sci-fi movie with your mom after the showing, we're all a bit critical from time to time. 

That can be a good thing, though. It helps us learn what makes good art good, and what makes bad art memorable. Is it boring, is it easy to read, is it grammatically correct? There are lots of ways to judge if something is "good" or not. It's often just subjective. We all have our own opinions, no two takes are alike. 

Criticism was a normal occurrence on one old-internet blog. It was a poetry site for amateurs, not professionals. Their circle was rather small, with only about 100 contributing writers each month. So when a few trolls broke into the group, the website's members wouldn't stand for it. 

This poet shared their side of the story in a petty revenge tale, which you can check out down below. Then, read about one grandfather who proudly, and illegally, built the tallest house in his town. 

Sometimes, being a stickler can backfire majorly. This manager learned that the hard way after calling out an employee for expensing a mere $1.02 more than the usual limit. She was given a stern "talking to" despite the fact that she rarely spends anywhere close to the $30/day amount when she travels for work. 

Well, that all changed quickly when the Redditor decided to maliciously comply following her manager's unnecessary tirade. She shared her story via this thread on Reddit's r/MaliciousCompliance subreddit and documented how in the subsequent she would spend as close to that $30/day limit as possible… so much so that if you were to calculate her expenses now, it would be close to three times what she was spending prior to her manager's speech. Sometimes, giving your employee a hard time is not worth it and can only lead to far greater consequences. 

Keep scrolling below for the full story and for the best reactions from folks in the comments section. When you're done, feel free to take a look at this post about another employee who ended up getting fired for taking from the communal electronics bin. 

It is unbelievable how companies treat IT employees, even though they know these employees pretty much carry the entire company on their shoulders. They have access to almost every important detail, and you would be surprised at how easy it would be for them to cause chaos for the entire company. The only thing they are asking in return for their hard work is to be appreciated and compensated. And still, you constantly hear of IT employees who are overworked and underpaid.

Much like the employee in this Reddit story. He worked day and night to make sure everything in the company was up and running but still was constantly denied proper compensation. He got no raise, no overtime pay, and not even an extra employee to help him out. Until one day he had enough and decided to find a better job. But before he left, he made sure that the company got what it deserved, and helped all the employees in the company to collect data to prove that they were entitled to overtime pay from the company.

Scroll down to read the full story. After that, click here for a story of two roommates who force their third roommate out of the apartment.

A career in the service industry is never easy. However, it gets ten times more challenging when someone tells the chef they have dietary sensitivities in order to ensure that they take their dislike of a specific ingredient seriously.

The story that follows is relayed by an unhappy server. The Original Poster (OP) is in charge of asking customers if they have any special dietary needs that the chef should be aware of. That's why OP investigated the matter properly when a disgruntled customer claimed to have a garlic allergy. However, after talking with the restaurant more in-depth about it, OP discovered that the client was only pretending to have an allergy in order to pressure them to comply. 

That being said, be sure to read the story below if you're interested in learning what happened between OP and the entitled patron as well as how OP got even! When you've finished reading the piece, don't forget to read about the client who paid an IT specialist $1000 after giving the team access to the administrator password!

There's no stopping customers from being their own worst enemies. They'll do that all on their own, with no help necessary, even from people who actually want to help them. 

Customer service representatives are no strangers to weird questions. People in the tech world are constantly having to remind people to plug in their electronics before getting upset that they're not working. Or for those working in food service, people love to ask inane questions like, "Is the chicken pot pie vegetarian?" It almost makes you feel better about your own intelligence to know that people in the world are bothering customer service reps over the tiniest, most easily solved issues. 

This person shared their tale to r/TalesFromYourBank, and commenters related to it all too well. Apparently complaints like this dude's are common. What do the customers expect the employees to do: change the phone answering service right then and there? Did they think that stopping into the bank in person would help anything? At least this person learned their lesson for the next time they encounter an automated phone call. 

Next, read about a few of the times airports were the worst, like when one person almost paid $10 for one boiled egg and a few cheese cubes. 

Typically, when working a shift job that relies on a schedule, you'd expect your obligations simply to be present when that shift starts until when that shift ends—nothing more and nothing less. Yet, it's common in many industries that rely on the "almighty" schedule for managers to expect you to be present and ready to work (sometimes even actually working) before your shift starts. Usually, this expectation will be somewhere around five minutes before the start of the shift but occasionally will stretch out to 10, 15, or even 30 minutes beforehand. It, of course, is illegal in most places for your workplace to actually require you to be present without being paid, so usually, these obligations are verbal or implied only, depending on your silent obeisance and desire to keep the status quo.

That's what this worker ran into when their manager, who was irritated about actually having to help a customer, reprimanded them for not being there 15 minutes before their scheduled shift. The workers took to this online community to share their thoughts and experiences, telling their story in a thread that went viral, generating a massive amount of responses from readers. See their original post, along with some of the top responses below.

People frequently switch their phone numbers. They might change it because of an impending move, work-related concerns, or any number of other good reasons. The problem arises, though, when that person continues to give out their old phone number even though they aren't the legitimate owner.

The story that follows introduces us to a frustrated individual who has been pushed to the brink of hopelessness. The Original Poster (OP) purchased a new phone number two years ago. Ever since he activated the number, friends and family have been calling him, trying to track down the previous owner. After finding a mailing address, OP got in touch with the person who seemed to have been the previous owner of the phone number in an effort to end the unceasing barrage of texts and calls. To everyone's surprise, though, the woman refused to comply with OP and showed no signs of empathy or understanding.

That being said, make sure to keep scrolling to read the story below if you're interested in learning what happened between the former owner of the phone number and OP, as well as how OP got revenge in the most creative way imaginable! After you're done reading, don't forget to catch up on the story about the housemate who settles the score with the cheapskate roommate who won't pay the bills!

It's remarkable how frequent these shady job postings are…

Look, if job candidates are expected to be transparent and honest in every aspect of their resumes and applications, then we should at the very least expect the same transparency and honesty from the folks for whom we might be working. It should not be novel to be asking for this. In this case, we don't even have a company being intentionally vague in its outlining of job expectations and responsibilities, which is certainly another frequent occurrence. Here, we just have straight-up lying going on. This recruiter decided it would be a good idea to gain more exposure for their onsite, in-person, full-time position in Wichita, Kansas, by listing said position as fully remote. 

One would think that this behavior should get the company in trouble on all job posting sites, but as we mentioned, the same scrutiny we feel as job candidates rarely is projected on recruiters and companies. Keep scrolling below to see how folks responded to this blatant lie online. For more stories like this, here is one about a boss who forced his employee to stay late.

Wearing a suit to work doesn't make you any better than anybody else. While the blue-collar guys are out here scrubbing floors, taking out trash, constructing buildings, and doing hard labor, the suits sit up in their ivory tower untouched by the calloused hand of the working man. Occasionally, when worlds collide, we are fortunate enough to witness a battle of the classes and in this next story, a man of the people came out on top after using a lawyer's arrogance against him. 

In this next tale, a flooring contractor was treated like a 'lesser worker' by a haughty lawyer who saw fit to demean his life's work. While working on a job to re-floor an entire office building, the contractor warned the cubicle inhabitants to clear out their areas, providing boxes and facilities to do so, but the lawyer was decidedly arrogant. Instead of packing up his own things to clear the way, he ordered the contractor to do it for him. 

Scroll for the entire story of how a short-fused contractor stuck it to an entitled lawyer, giving him exactly the wake-up call he needed. You honor, the accused was acting in self-defense, the evidence is inadmissible in court!

Sometimes you've got to take everything but the kitchen sink to send a message to a mooch, and when it comes to entitled new renters taking over your beautifully manicured apartment, that goes double! For the tenant in our next story, living in the Netherlands meant that renters were responsible for the beautification of their living space–meaning they paid for flooring, gardening, extra doo-dads in the kitchen, and even landscaping. But for u/SteadfastDharma, a lady with a keen eye for decorating, she wasn't going to let her crafted apartment go to someone who didn't appreciate the value in her hard work. 

Scroll for the whole story of how one lady got swift revenge on the next tenant after they lowballed her offer to sell the beautiful apartment amenities. Heed this lesson of a Dutch woman who knew her worth and wouldn't settle for less.

Up next, here's another story of petty revenge where a contractor gets back at the lawyer who debased his project by being incredibly entitled.

This baker loves making cookies and other sweets, but they can't eat all of the goodies alone. As you'll know if you've ever lived with an avid baker, the extras get distributed to everyone around them.

Everyone has a different part of the baking process that they love most: the delicious smells, the arm workout of kneading bread dough, or decorating cookies with sprinkles and icing. For a lot of bakers, though, the fun is in making that food. And especially if they make the same recipes over and over to perfect them, eating them isn't always the most fun part of that. 

This person is just like that: they love to bake as their hobby, but they don't want to be eating cakes and cookies 24/7. So they've started sharing the extras with their neighbors---they can avoid wasting food and make people smile at the same time. Most of us would be thrilled if our neighbors started leaving fresh baked goods in the common areas. But one mother confronted the baker, u/MaybeBadCupcake, over their choice, making them think twice about who they're really baking for. 

Up next, these friends and family members of influencers explain the behind-the-scenes reality, with one admitting that it's "exactly as fake and staged as you imagine." 

Going to an IKEA is the kind of experience where if you yourself don't get into an argument with your roommate, partner, or family member, then someone else is bound to do it. 

With this in mind, let's all take a moment to acknowledge the amount of nonsensical garbage that IKEA employees around the world have to put up with when it comes to disgruntled couples, entitled Karens, and misbehaving kids. If the following list of anecdotes from this r/AskReddit thread serve as any indication, then it's clear that IKEA employees have pretty much seen it all. 

I've only had the overwhelming IKEA experience once as a freshman in college and distinctly remember being surrounded by at least 15 other embarrassed and temperamental freshmen who were arguing with their parents. Many would find the setting to be tense and unbearable, whereas I couldn't help but see the humor in it. After all, rarely in public settings do you see so many people lose their minds and undergo an existential crisis the minute they walk through the door. 

Keep scrolling below for these stories. For more content like this, check out this list of top mildly infuriating moments.