Inspired by the sovereign citizen thread where people make fake license plates to get around having to register their cars, but then getting arrested over it, I’m curious if anyone has known anyone else who came up with a “brilliant” way to cheat the system only for it to come all crashing down on them.
For years when I lived with her my mother LOVED calling the cops for anything. Getting into a non-violent argument with a family member? Call the cops. Got so drunk she can’t drive and a family member is refusing to let her drive to get more beer? Call the cops. Throw yourself down the stairs to get someone else in trouble? Call the cops. It literally got to the point the cops told her “You call one more time for no valid reason, we’re arresting you for filing false reports”.
Did this stop her? Nope she then decided to get around the system by going to NEIGHBORS houses and telling them to call the cops, under the bright idea “The neighbors called the cops, so I can’t get in trouble since I didn’t call them”. This happened twice more, and second time the cops arrested my mom and took her away again for filing false police reports.
Last I spoke to her her brilliant plan was now to dial 911, hang-up, and force the cops to come automatically and this way she’s not inviting the cops, the cops are inviting themselves to her house and thus she can’t get in trouble.
This thread reminded me of something from back when I was in the first grade. The teacher caught a kid eating a Twix bar during class. The classroom rules clearly said “no candy during class”, so she took it away from him. He insisted that since the label said “cookie bar”, Twix was not candy, and the rules didn’t forbid cookie bars. He clearly thought he had found a loophole in the class rules. The teacher, of course, did not buy that argument.
I have no idea why I have such a vivid memory of that incident from over 35 years ago. Probably because that was the day I learned that Twix calls itself a “cookie bar.”
Okay, you reminded me of a loophole that actually worked. A lunch lady sent me to “the office” in third or fourth grade for some imagined violation I allegedly committed. She didn’t say what I was supposed to do once I got there. So I walked to the office, and walked back, slowly. By the time I got back my class was getting ready to return to the classroom. I never spoke to anyone in the office, but certainly complied with what I was told to do.
A fully grown adult brought a bottle of wine with a group of us to a restaurant, and tried to weasel out of paying a corkage fee by arguing with the waiter that since it was a screw-cap, it shouldn’t apply.
I once had an employee come into my office asking if she was going to be terminated and complain that her warnings for excessive tardiness was unfair on the grounds “Nobody told me I had to be at work on time.” I thought this was a novel defense and it threw me off for a minute. Was I actually hearing what I thought I was hearing? Yeah, a grown adult was telling me nobody told her she had to be on time as a justification for why her warning was unfair.
But I ran new employee orientation on her first day and she was in my class. As part of my presentation, I talk about the importance of showing up to work on time. When she went into training, I know the trainers emphasized the importance of being logged in and ready to go when their shift begins. And finally, on her first warning, which she signed, it outlines the tardiness policy and the expectation that she show up to work on time. I went over these points with her, told her I had no knowledge of what her meeting with her manager and HR was about that afternoon (I really didn’t), and that was pretty much the end of the conversation. Turns out she was right to be worried because they terminated her that afternoon.
I learned in my first year as a school secretary that if a child comes in and sits down quietly in an inconspicuous chair, you should always ask why they’re there. (And then slowly pry the real reason out of them.)
My ex-BIL found an incredible scam to get free calls to his friends in the US soon after his family moved to Australia: there was an unsecured PBX in Hungary that he could dial into and use to call the US. Foolproof.
Until the phone bill came in for thousands of dollars in calls to Hungary. Yeah, you were paying for that leg of the call, dumbass.
My first year in University, I stayed in on-campus housing, and it was the first year they were using a computerized phone system for the whole campus. You had a code to punch in for long-distance calling. Someone started spreading a code your could use for “free” long distance, which a lot of people started using. But I was like, “It’s all computerized, they know what each phone is doing, they’ll figure it out, guys*.” Cue the next month’s phone bills…
*For reference, there was one amusing episode where a person unplugged the phone line for some reason, and within an hour, there was a guy from the University maintenance crew there to see what was wrong with their phone. If they can track that, they can track anything.
I knew someone who had a breathalyzer attached to their car for the 2nd DUI offense.
The point was if he was sober he could blow and start his car for work.
Well, brainless removed it. Promptly got stopped coming home from a bar.
He got in real trouble after that.
Similarly I use to work with a guy who when a supervisor told him to do something, he’d say “Whatever” and then not do it. Then when the supervisor got mad at him for not doing his assigned task he’d go “I said whatever, that means I neither confirmed nor denied I was going to do it so I legally can not get in trouble for not doing it.”
Decades ago, my sister and my then brother-in-law had a scheme to falsify their income and/or living conditions, to get some $ from the government. At the time, they were living in BIL’s house on Martha’s Vinyard. BIL also had a house in New England, and one in Florida, and an airplane. Their plan fell apart when an administrator for the government called to arrange a meeting at their home, to assess their actual living conditions. They quickly dropped their claim.
This stuff is so cute in 3 to 8 yos when they try, then duly fail spectacularly, to outsmart the adults and their decades of practice. “But Mo-om, I’m not touching my brother; he’s touching me!”
Before we started working from home regularly, I had an employee who had requested to work from home for a day because her son was sick and her manager said no, and to take PTO if she needed to take care of him. She decided to work from home that day, and around lunch her manager contacted her and in no uncertain terms told her to stop working and take PTO for the remainder of the day. She continued working.
Me: He was within his rights to deny your request to work from home. Your refusal to stop working is insubordination.
Her: I never actually said no. Technically it isn’t insubordination.
I told her I wasn’t going to play word games, and that it was most likely she was going to get a written warning. Which she did.
I had another former employee call me a few minutes after she was terminated. I knew nothing about the situation, but she said, “I thought they couldn’t fire someone if there was investigation taking place.” I had to disabuse her of that notion by explaining to her the policy did not prevent us from terminating employment just because there was an investigation in progress. This was the first time I had encountered an employee who filed a complaint in an effort to protect their job. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen on occasion.
A friend of mine was an iron worker. He took a Friday off, turning a 3 day weekend into a 4 day weekend. On that Friday, his dog ran into his legs, knocking him over and tearing multiple ligaments in his right knee.
He was in excruciating pain, but did not want to seek medical attention. He called me seeking pain meds. I happened to have some leftover codeine, which I brought to him. His knee was doubled in size and purple. His plan was to survive the weekend, then go to the job on Tuesday and claim the injury occurred there.
He got another friend to drive him to work and help him walk three legged onto the job site. The friend split, then he collapsed to the ground, screaming. An ambulance was called and he was taken to the hospital where he eventually had surgery.
He planned to file a Workman’s Compensation claim. However, a security guy witnessed everything and went to the foreman. The union backed away from his case due to the overwhelming evidence of fraud. Plus his knee’s final outcome suffered due to the delay in seeking attention.
A few years ago an area social services agency expanded into my town (a small, rural town in Missouri, at the metaphorical border between culturally Midwestern and culturally Southern). Apparently 'round here the clock is just a piece of wall decor, no different from a print or a painting. Because within the first few days of operation, the boss was handing out warnings for being late, left and right. And everyone was complaining about what a hardass he was! To the townsfolk around here, “be at work at 8:00” apparently means “try to get there some time in the 8-9 area, if it’s not too much trouble.”
I worked with a guy in Ohio back in the 90’s who had a breathalyzer installed on his vehicle, so he bought a diesel Ford Escort and just let the car run while he was in the bar. It worked! Years later he told me that the state figured that one out and put timers on the breathalyzers, but he had already gotten away with it by then.