My next-door neighbor when I was a little kid was an entertaining guy-wonderful mechanic-private pilot, who also had a volatile temper. He was working for a dealership in Philly during the early 1950’s who hosed him over something and caused him to make the decision to quit. Prior to doing so, he disassembled three or four different manufacturer’s automatic transmissions from cars that were in for service, swept the mess of internal parts into a box, and walked out with his tools. My Dad repeated the story years later, as an example of why one should always be fair and honest with employees.
Geez . . . that’s going a bit too far. Personally, I draw the line at causing illness or physical injury.
IANAL, but I think this could be tantamount to attempted murder!
Arrogance will out. Way-out arrogance will WAY out.
I killed one of my directors.
I worked in a hardware store in between school and university. The hardware store chain’s head office was in the same town, and one day a new director arrived in the store as a “mystery shopper”. His report back to the board: “the store’s doing well - apart from that posh git.” The posh git in question being me.
Prior to his arrival, I was the best salesman in the store, got good bonuses, and lots of repeat customer business who asked for me by name. Got on well with all but one of my coworkers. When this guy came in I wasn’t doing anything wrong; indeed I remembered helping him out because he was a bit creepy, but I had given him advice successfully, in a polite and efficient fashion. No, the reason he didn’t like me was my accent. He made my life unpleasant every day, nitpicking constantly, as he used our staff parking lot at lunchtime so he could eat in the town. Word got back to me about his comments, and I was put on some kind of unoffical “watch list” due to his reverse snobbery.
So I cursed him. I just said something under my breath like “fuck him, I hope he kills himself for being such a bastard, the obnoxious fucker”.
Eventually I left the job, and six months later I went in to see my old coworkers - and I heard that he had thrown himself off the top of a parking lot. Being a non-believer I know I didn’t really cause it, but the news gave me goose-bumps. I feel sorry for him; presumably his obnoxiousness was a symptom of something much worse in his life.
Snobbery cuts. Reverse snobbery cuts both ways, and the blade digs in a lot harder.
I worked with a fellow with a vengeful streak. He told me of a boss who had viciously messed him over. It wasn’t hard to find out which car the boss drove. Sporting goods stores sell fox urine for masking the human scent of hunters (put it on the ground, folks, not yourself!) My friend filled a syringe with fox urine and slipped it in through the rubber window gasket of the boss’s car, and he anointed the carpet and upholstery. The whole thing took about ten seconds, but somewhere there’s a car that still stinks of fox piss.
Back when I was involved in the construction industry (more than 10 years ago), I had a boss who treated me like dirt. It was a family business - outside of the union guys, and one or two shop guys, I was the only non-family member, and I was the office manager. The two sons, the dad and mommy all had their own issues with each other, and with money, and in the end, I was the one getting screwed. I quit. The “family” then badmouthed me to the rest of the industry - effectively making it almost impossible for me to find a related job within that niche.
So. They bid on a lot of public work - schools, etc. - and different affidavits (I can’t remember the names of them) had to be filed along with their proposals and there were bonds that had to be issued, etc. Some of the questions that had to be answered and sworn to on these affidavits involved litigation, past and present, and lawsuits and workmen’s comp and stuff like that. The company always answered in the negative (hell most of the industry did and still does - it’s common practice) and I knew that they were lying. So every single time I found out that they had been low bid, I informed on them - I let the people know who were granting the contract that their affidavits were completely a lie, and gave case numbers, dollar amounts, etc. They lost a HELL of a lot of work.
Okay, that’s officially crossing the line from amusing to evil.
I think this is the best kind of revenge: It’s not doing anything illegal or physically dangerous, yet if screws the offenders over royally.
Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce sprinkled into the air intakes uinder the windscreen is also good. Nailing a large mud crab to the underside of your boss’ desk can work a treat too.
This wasn’t entirely planned, but it was sweet. My last boss was the worst boss I’ve ever had, and he had to beat some tough competition to get the title. About this time two years ago, I decided it was time to move on, updated my resume, and quietly started looking for work. A couple of months later, he told me that he wasn’t entirely happy with me and sensed I wasn’t entirely happy with him which was why he was going to replace me. I told him I agreed and the reason I’d actually taken a lunch the day before was to fax my resume to someone (I usually didn’t get a lunch break). The deal was I was given carte blanche to look for another job openly while he looked for my replacement and, in return, they would make sure I got unemployment if I needed it while I would stay on for a couple of weeks to bring my successor up to speed and finish some programming I’d been doing for them (I was their administrative assistant).
Well, for once in his life, my boss actually moved quickly finding a successor. One was hired and scheduled to start on a Tuesday because he was going to be on a business trip the day before. The Friday before she started, I was reviewing some numbers and my suspicions were confirmed. One of our customers was taking quite a bit more in rebates than they were entitled to. My boss was on a different business trip, scheduled to return that afternoon, so I called him to tell him what I’d found and what my evidence was. Now, I’m not going to go into all my boss’s faults. My posts are long enough as it is. One of them, however, was he did not take bad news well and considered merely shooting the messenger as being far too kind. I knew he wouldn’t take it well, and, sure enough, he didn’t. When he got back to the office around 3:00 that afternoon, he told me he’d changed his mind and Monday would be my last day. He said he didn’t want my influencing my successor, although he did say perhaps I could come back after a couple of weeks to fill in some gaps. I nearly walked out on him on the spot, but agreed to stay and did as much as I could to arrange for an easy transition, given the time I had to do it had shrunk dramatically. Some wonderful friends also spent the weekend talking me out of doing anything drastic. You see, I programmed the guy’s computers, made his travel arrangements, and had his credit card numbers memorized. I think some of you can imagine my revenge fantasies.
It turns out I didn’t need them. Fate, karma, the universe or whatever you want to call it took care of things for me. You see, Tuesday morning I had a job interview and, at the end of the interview, they offered me the job. I thought it over and took it, arranging to start in two weeks. Thursday of that week one of those two wonderful friends I mentioned was going to Maine to retrieve some things from his ex-wife following a divorce. He was due to return the weekend before I started my new job. I’d wanted to help him and suddenly I could. I sent a polite e-mail to my former employer informing him that I had accepted a new job, would be starting in two weeks and would be out of town until the new job started. I came home to a couple of frantic messages asking for help. You see, among the information I’d been unable to pass on was passwords to various on-line accounts. I really don’t like writing passwords down. It gets better. Some weeks later his brother and co-owner of the company asked if I could come in on a Saturday to tie up a few loose ends and show my successor some things. I negotiated an hourly amount and a time and made it clear that one of my terms was my ex-boss was to be nowhere in sight. The money I earned that morning paid for my Christmas shopping quite nicely.
As for my successor, while she was bright and competent, or perhaps because she was bright and competent, she left him after nine months. I’d lasted 18, which, as far as I know, is still the record for putting up with him. The sad thing is, I don’t think he realizes he’s a bad boss.
Well, this - Present Via Mail
Shame I wasn’t there to see the joy of receipt.