These people are mad as heck, and they're not going to take it anymore. From rage blackouts to the knee-jerk responses we can't keep in, blinding anger seems to bubble up out of nowhere—and sometimes, we can't take back what we say or do in a moment of fury. Read on for these chilling, hilarious, and always dramatic "I just snapped" moments.
#1 Good Riddance
A (heading towards abusive) ex told me that he would leave me if I didn’t lose ten pounds in the two weeks before his friend’s wedding. He was blown away when I said “okay” and walked away.
#2 The Worst Kind of Karma
My brother was in middle school, and he biked there every day. One day during a really bad fight, I totally lost my cool and told him that I hoped he got run over. I couldn't have known his dark fate. He was hit by a car that very morning and had to be revived 12 times that day. Nobody expected him to live. I've never gotten over what I said.
#3 Is This a Dagger Which I See Before Me?
When I was about 15 years old, I got into a fight with my friend over something stupid. I went home and was shaking with rage. It was a full-on meltdown. I was stomping up and down the hallway, breathing through my teeth as hard as I could. At one point, I went into the kitchen and got a knife. I then started talking to God, saying things like "PLEASE FORGIVE ME FOR WHATEVER I DO TO HIM!" I was even scared of myself.
#4 Til Torn Do Us Part
When my mom and I had a huge fight, I did something unforgivable. I tore the one picture from her wedding day of her and my dad. They are divorced, and it happened when I was a baby. She still has feelings for him and she always says that he is her one true love. There is no other picture of her with him except one.
She was so hurt and was crying because I did that. I was a teenager then and out of anger I just did it to spite her. Later on, I saw she had taped the picture back and she still has it...which made me feel so guilty and felt so ashamed of my actions. So yeah, that was the worst thing ever.
#5 I Guess That's One Way to Deal With Your Problems
I'm a divorce lawyer, and people do outrageous things when they're angry and splitting up. This one couple separated 10 years ago, but didn't officially divorce until a couple years ago. She was going to get his house, so he burnt it down then faxed her the transfer of ownership forms. He might be going to the slammer for arson, though, so joke's on him.
#6 Not Safe for Church
Back in like 2003 teenage me created a fake AIM name because I suspected my girlfriend was cheating on me. Not only did she flirt with this fake random stranger I created, she confessed to getting with many different guys. Just bragging about it. Instead of handling this well, I logged into her AIM—I knew her password—and hit on every man she knew and convinced them she liked to do the dirty with dogs.
Word got around and she got kicked out of her church. Definitely worst angry thing I've done.
#7 The Magic Is Gone
I was working in the kitchen at Cinderella's castle in Disneyland when this family of four came in for their dinner. About halfway through the dinner, the husband politely stands up and taps his glass for attention. His speech made my blood run cold. He announced that his wife of 15 years has been cheating on him for over a year. The entire place stood still in shock. He motioned for his kids, paid the waitress, and left the wife crying at the table.
#8 Ice Cold Revenge
Wife cheats on her husband during his frequent travels for work. She files for divorce and gets to keep the house. Months elapsed and the husband is still rightfully ticked off about the unfairness of it all, but has no recourse. Then he has an epiphany: "I wonder if she changed the password to the Nest Thermostat?" She did not.
For the next year he continues to mess with the thermostat. In the middle of summer when they're sleeping in HIS bed, he turns the heat on to 90 degrees at 3 a.m. Middle of winter? Time to shut off the heat and hope the pipes freeze. Away on vacation? Turn the air conditioning down to 55 and let it run 24/7 for a nice surprise bill when they get home.
#9 Not Cool, Dude
I was helping two guy friends fix a transmission. One of them thought it would be funny to grab my breasts with his hands, leaving big oily handprints on them. I was ticked and ran after him, but he wasn't taking it seriously, laughing as he skipped away. Suddenly I just saw red—and I couldn't control my next actions.
I picked up a huge wrench, and chucked it at him. I saw it fly end over end and then hit his head in slow motion, but he dropped in fast forward. I ran to get someone else; I knew he needed medical attention. He got four or five staples in his head. He should've gotten stitches, but was afraid of needles. He also has a crazy scar.
Funny thing is, he won't talk about it because he got "beat by a girl." Freaking ridiculous. The boys in the group stopped messing with me as much as they used to after that. But I could've seriously hurt him, or even ended his life. It was a bad move.
#10 Pregnant Disaster
I was pregnant with my oldest daughter and had extreme pain one day, so I came home early from work. When I get home I see two purses that I knew weren't mine sitting on the stand. I head to my room to see if my then-boyfriend could explain the purses; I'm hearing noises coming from our room. I opened the door to peek in and he is having a threesome. I close the door and just go back into the living room.
I was shocked. I was supposed to be on bed rest, but I was the only one who had a job, so I was going to school and working while he got to stay home all day. I was livid, but what was scary is that I was so furious that I remained calm. I went into the living room, sat on the couch and waited for them to come out; when they finally did I asked them if they had fun?
I told them they needed to get out of my apartment. He tried to talk to me, but I told him he needed to get out. I calmly packed off of his stuff up, had a friend come over because I couldn't do heavy lifting being 7 months pregnant and dropped his stuff off at his parents' house that night. It's still shocking to me that I remained so calm being that angry.
#11 No Salad for You!
I worked at a restaurant, and we had a customer who got a salad and when she was finished, she placed one of her hairs in the bowl to try to get it refunded. She got the complimentary “I’m sorry” free bakery item. She did this every day. Finally, the manager just lost it. He sat down at her table one day and told her this was her last day eating in the cafe.
He said they would refuse her refund today and refuse her service in the future. She started to say something about the customer always being right and he just put up a hand to cut her off and said, “You cause us to lose money every day. You’re absolutely not our customer, you are a liability, and you are no longer welcome here.”
#12 Change the Channel on Your Attitude
This one "cool" guy, let’s call him Davey, tormented our English teacher for no reason. She was very sweet and passionate about her job, but this guy was a JERK. The day that caused the breakdown, he took the remote for the TV. Her class was during the daily announcements, so the TV was always used. When she couldn't find the remote, she had to stand on her tip toes to press the right buttons.
When the TV turns off, the teacher goes to turn it on again. A minute later, it turns off again. She jokes, "Okay is someone playing a prank on me?" No one says anything. But Davey keeps going until she snaps and, being immature ninth graders, we all snicker. That's when she unloads about how she's having a tough time lately, ranting about her personal life.
But Davey doesn't care. He turns on the TV and starts channel surfing. The teacher lets out an animalistic yell and bursts into tears. She runs out for like 20 minutes until she comes back with this tough as nails teacher who literally pulls Davey out of his desk by his shirt collar. His feet dangle off of the ground, his whole arm shakes as he takes the remote out of his pocket and showed it. I loved every second of it.
#13 Tragic Ending
My neighbor brainwashed her kids to think their father had done horrible things them when the marriage started going south. So every time he came to get his kids, they would make it hard, like running around hus car and not getting in. Well, one day I came home early from college—and found out the utterly disturbing news.
The son snapped one day and shot his dad in his car. Ten years old, did this to his dad. They found out that mom was supplying the son with Prozac and she was brainwashing him. They still live next door, and the kid got out at 21, I think.
#14 Having a Blast
My wife dragged me to a wedding that I did not want to go to—but I'm forever grateful that she did, because I was able to witness one of the greatest spectacles of human drama that has ever taken place. This was like an episode of Jerry Springer mixed with something even angrier. Get this: the bride's secret lover objected in the middle of the ceremony.
"I'll be darned if I'm gonna keep my mouth shut and let you take my woman, you sorry piece of poop!" he yelled out. This deranged old redneck then proceeded to come at the groom with a loaded pistol, threatening to shoot him if he doesn't give her up. Every single person in attendance started screaming and running away. The authorities were called.
I grabbed my wife's hand and we retreated outside to watch the rest of the scene unfold from the church window.
#15 Let It Go, Dude
My ex-husband went off the deep end when I left him three years ago, despite the fact that he was cheating on ME every step of the way. Anyway, I moved 1,000 miles away and began to restart my life. One day, about a month after leaving him, I checked my mail and saw that I had a huge, heavy envelope in the box. When I opened it, I was horrified.
It was photos of me doing allllll the activities of my daily life, but the photos were clearly taken from afar, and without my knowledge. Immediately, I contacted my attorney. It turns out, my ex, furious at me leaving, was hoping to catch me with someone else, because he wanted to try to sue me for abandonment. It was awful, and it took me a long time to feel safe and secure in my new home.
#16 Race to the Finish
I have a story related to a divorce case. I once worked on bank equipment, and my favorite was opening safety deposit boxes for the bank. So one day, I was asked to get there before the bank opened, which was really odd. I show up and greet the bank employee—along with a lawyer and a very angry looking woman.
She is really impatient to get into the safety deposit box. I get the lock open and swing the door out, and she's screaming, "let me in there!," So I stepped outside and let her rush by. A few moment later, I hear a string of loud curse words: it was empty. Then she busts out and storms off, but while she passed she threw down a single piece of paper that had been in the vault.
It basically said, "Screw you, witch." It had been a nasty divorce, and the-ex husband got there before she did.
#17 Vacuum Nut
I sold a vacuum on Craigslit; it was nothing special. I inherited it from a move out. My price was a reasonable $15. I described it as an average vacuum with average abilities. It was bought by a TA at CSU. She pulled up in a $40k car and wanted to haggle with me. I sold it for $10. She then proceeded to send me pictures of it not picking up things it vacuumed for an entire day.
I got out of work and told her the hose was detached. "Oh." ...Two days pass... Cue pictures of it not picking up stuff "to her standards." I reiterate the purchase price of said vacuum. My parents come to town, she is blowing me up with texts and pictures of a dustpan of dirt from her yard dumped onto carpet as some kind of "display"...I don't respond.
I will refund her once my parents leave in ONE DAY! We come home from dinner to her severing and smashing the vacuum cleaner to bits in my front yard, holding a note in her hand that said, "You can keep the money, jerk." She was having a total meltdown, and we basically caught her red-handed. She looked extremely embarrassed.
I made her pick it up and throw it in my trashcan. Then I told her to leave and never come back. Also, she idiotically corresponded with me with her douchey email signature where she basically listed every achievement and address and life experience she'd ever had. I told her that if she ever did anything to my property, I would come find her. The end.
#18 Busted
When the pastor got to the part “or forever hold your peace" at a wedding I was at, the bride suddenly said, “Yes, I’d like to say something.” Then she dropped her disturbing discovery. She turned around to her guests and said, “I’d like to thank my maid of honor for sleeping with my fiancé last night.” With that, she threw her bouquet down and stormed off.
#19 Machiavellian Grandma
My step great-grandmother killed my biological great-grandmother and great-grandfather. She offed my biological great-grandmother by pushing her off a building—everyone thought she was drunk because it was some rooftop party back in the ‘20s. She wanted my great-grandfather because he was wealthy at the time.
He lost almost everything in the stock market crash, and when they realized they wouldn't recover, she left him for a man who was still wealthy (my step-great grandfather). Poisoned my real great-grandfather. She admitted all this to my mother just as she was about to pass on. Grandma Velma was a psycho.
#20 He Was a Smash With the Kids
Our eighth-grade math teacher was well known for his short temper, but this day turned into a horror story. There was a kid in my class, Justin, who never listened and never did his homework. One day, the teacher just had it. He grabbed Justin's desk (with him in it) and picked it up and slammed it back down on the ground a few times.
After that, he shoved the desk and Justin across the room. Justin was fine, thankfully. Math teacher just stormed out. Told my mom and I guess a few other parents called the school about it too. He was gone for a few weeks and had to take anger management classes. I just went by my old middle school a few weeks ago and he's the assistant principal now.
#21 Blast That Past
Ex-girlfriend of the groom showed up at this wedding I was at...uninvited and drunk. He broke up with her 10 years earlier and has not seen her in over 8 years. She was loud and saying very graphic things about what she wanted to do to the groom. The bride steps up, goes all out and punches the ex in the face...knocks the ex out cold.
The bride we know is a normally calm and peaceful person. A few of us carry the ex out of the reception and drop her at her apartment about 20 min away. Bride told my wife that "there is nothing that will ruin my wedding day."
#22 Over the Hill
My ex-wife and I went up to Big Bear to go snowboarding and spend some time together. We were having issues and I thought to be fun to get away and do something fun together. Let's just say it did not go well. She said she grew up snowboarding, but she never made it down a hill and had a terrible time.
So we went back to the cabin and she was pretty much just on her phone, not talking to me. We make it back and she says she needs to just shower and be alone for a bit. She goes off and I just hang in the den. She left her phone in her purse and it just kept buzzing, so I checked it out because what if someone was trying to reach us or something? I wish I could unsee what I saw.
I open it up to read a full conversation between her and this guy. It wasn't good. I read how that day’s texts started and they started really early in the morning. "Hope you're doing ok up there." "We'll see, doubt it. He's trying too hard. He should just know it really doesn't matter. Wish I was up here with you instead."
Just the worst stuff. And that was before I even woke up. I was pretty devastated and really didn't know what to do. I knew I didn't want to fight because I realized she wasn't worth fighting for. Grabbed my bag and drove back to San Diego. I took her phone with me, so I could text him and tell him "We're coming home early, let's meet."
I ended up inviting him to a coffee shop and waited for him to show up. When he walked through the door, he saw me immediately and kind of stopped. I waved him over and wasn't too far from the door, so I told him we need to talk. He comes over and already front loads with the "It's not what you think," blah blah blah speech.
I told him that if he wants her, he can take his sorry butt to Big Bear and go get her. Because I was leaving and we're through. See you when we sign the papers. And I left. Second worst day of my life but I'm glad it happened. Met my lady three years later and we've been together for four years, now engaged. Things are much better now.
#23 Serious Business
I still laugh about this one. The bride at a family wedding went ape and tried to kill me because I wore a funky suit and tie. If I remember correctly, it was a grey/forest green striped suit. She claimed it didn't go according to the dress code. I do not remember a dress code being addressed. She grabbed her soon-to-be husband's handgun from his glove box and fired four shots at me.
She was taken to the clinker because a bullet grazed my arm, and the wedding never happened because husband realized Bride was absolutely crazy. He bought me a new purple suit afterward and we became best buds. Miss Crazy is still in prison after she attempted to start my apartment ablaze. I now have restraining order and such, but all I can do is laugh at the situation.
#24 This Could Get Messy
My eighth-grade teacher cussed a kid out for spilling his juice. "EVERY FREAKING DAY YOU DO THIS. CAN YOU PLEASE CLEAN UP MY FLOOR! MY FREAKING GOD! YOUR PARENTS DIDN'T TEACH YOU TO CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF?! WHAT THE HECK. STOP MAKING ME YOUR PERSONAL CLEANUP CREW!"
That was followed by a thrown roll of paper towels and a bloody nose. When we found out the dark truth, we were shocked. Apparently, she found out her sister had passed on while under the knife that morning.
#25 Can’t Take the Heat
The last straw came when the company had deadlines approaching and the awful management staff was getting desperate, so they started cutting out everyone's breaks and harassing people out of filing first aid reports. Someone on my crew was starting to get heat rash, but the boss was standing in the shade glaring us down so that we wouldn't take breaks.
After my coworker collapsed, I stopped everything and ran to her side to help. The boss came up and said "Uh oh, heatstroke? Take five minutes, get water, and get back to work!" I exploded and told them to go to heck. I said they were as bad a manager as they were a person and that they had no right to treat people like that.
I helped my coworker gather her things and I gathered mine. Then, I drove her to the hospital and I never went back to work. I immediately filed a safety breach report with WorkSafeBC, telling them of every safety rule that the company had broken. Since then, I have heard that at least two others quit and the company is under investigation.
#26 Winning the Respect of the Bystanders
I watched a guy try to take a girl's purse. He sprinted past her, grabbed onto the strap, and tried to yank it off her arm. She was a lot stronger than he'd anticipated, because she pulled the bag back, and sent him sprawling onto the sidewalk. She then kicked the absolute bejesus out of him, screaming at him the whole time.
As this took place in Montreal, people just watched her beat him up, and clapped politely when she was done. She curtseyed to the crowd, spat on him, and walked off.
#27 Sounds Nice and Rosey
My friend was getting married, and she tried to get me to pay for everything on her behalf as her wedding gift. Unfortunately, she was a complete jerk to me during the entire planning process. So after the final straw, I got sweet, sweet revenge. I canceled all the orders for practically everything. She ended up buying fake flowers and the ceremony was a train wreck. She got the Aisle 5 wedding she paid for and I got to save money on a dress.
#28 Ultimate Mic Drop
I worked in a bar with an awful boss. He would always flirt with the young female bar staff and make us all uncomfortable, even though he was 50 years old. We all knew his wife and two young children, but about six months into me working there he began to “date” a 22-year-old customer. By date, I mean he used to go downstairs to his office and sleep with her.
All while he was on shift. No one was allowed to talk about it, but we all knew. He knocked her up quite quickly and ended up breaking up with his wife, but he still flirted with his staff relentlessly even when his new baby was born. He once told a male employee that he liked asking female bar staff to pick up things from low shelves so we would bend over and he could check out our butts.
He always broke health and safety rules if he could get out of doing a task he didn’t want to. He was prolific at asking bar staff to clean human waste—vomit/poop customers had done on the floor—even though anyone cleaning that stuff needed to have passed a certain health and safety qualification. I spoke to my assistant manager about this and she confirmed that only management can do it, and I should refuse next time.
One day he demanded I cleaned up vomit in the male toilets, and I refused, repeating what the assistant manager told me. My boss went absolutely mad—he wasn’t used to people standing up to him. He told me to come downstairs to his office to speak about it. At that moment I knew I wanted to quit, so I told him I won’t be going downstairs with him.
He asked me why, and I couldn't hold it in any longer. I replied: “The last girl who went down there with you ended up getting pregnant.” Lost my job instantly, but it was totally worth it.
#29 Right in the Family Jewels
My youngest daughter was getting picked on in elementary school by a boy who was two grades above her. He constantly taunted, pushed, and annoyed her. One day he pushed her from behind and she dropped her books. My sweet, shy daughter immediately turned around and full-on kicked him square in the nuts with all the force her soccer-playing leg could muster.
I was told he curled up and bawled for several minutes, while my daughter was sent to the principal’s office. She was smiling when I picked her up from school.
#30 So Much for the Cost of Friendship
I once heard my roommate laughing with his girlfriend about how they were screwing me over on money. Turned out they were taking my "utilities" checks and buying various games and alcohol. Instead of confronting them, I confirmed what they said with the utilities company—and then I gave them the payback they deserved.
I moved all my stuff out while they were at work. For good measure, I took myself off the lease and told the rental company about the girlfriend who had been there six months.
#31 Does Honest Ben Deserve This?
My super dorky history teacher in eighth grade was the nicest teacher I've ever met, but there were a couple "class clowns" that he could struggle with. Usually, he dealt with them ok but one day they were so obnoxious that he snapped, yelling, and chucking his stapler across the room. He nailed a staple right into Ben Franklin’s forehead.
He immediately apologized and went about his day normally, while all the students went silent. Nobody ever bothered him again after that.
#32 A Bumpy Ride Down
In middle school, one of my classmates was permanently in a wheelchair. He was also a bit of an intimidator, and often liked to hurt me in any way he could. I couldn't take it and got revenge in the worst way possible. He was making fun of me and a friend and in the middle of it I said, "Come on, let's go find some stairs." I still cringe pretty hard about that.
#33 Conquering Villainy
A few years ago, when I was 17, my dad, for lack of a better term, had “everything” failure. One after the next his organs just stopped functioning. And he was being kept alive by just about every machine medical science has produced so far. And in turn, my father lost his ability to speak so he needed someone to take over “guardianship,” so he had someone to make decisions for him.
You have to be 18 to be a guardian and I was only 17 at the time so my mom applied for guardianship, why wouldn’t she be his guardian, right? Well, she was denied. So, as a result the court-appointed some hoity-toity lookin’ idiot as his guardian instead. And this man would listen to NOTHING we had to say. I hated this man more than anything.
My mom and I had decided at a point that the next time my dad would have some sort of “organ attack” we would allow the doctors to make him comfortable and let him go. The appointed guardian denied it. Finally, about six months later, I meet this monster for the first time in my father’s hospital room. He needed to tell my dad something in person I guess.
But my mom and I were there at the time and the second I saw his wormy face I got up to give him a piece of my mind. I didn’t ask. I didn’t plead. I didn’t beg. I DEMANDED! That the next time they can make him comfortable to let him go. The man's response made my blood run cold. This monster, this scum of the earth had the audacity to look me in the eyes and tell me, “I’m keeping your father alive because by doing so, he’s earning me $10,000 a month.”
Let me tell you guys something. You’ve had road rage, maybe you’ve gotten mad at a game you’re playing, you’ve probably had a pretty nasty argument with someone before. But pure, raw, unfiltered anger is the most intense emotion you will ever feel in your life. And when that man said that to me, I was literally seeing red.
My blood started to rush and my knuckles turned hot. I punched this guy so hard in the face that it cracked his jaw. It was 100% adrenaline. If I tried punching anyone that hard again, I’d come up so short they’d probably laugh at me. But he stumbled backward, fell, and hit his head pretty hard on the door handle.
And I am INCREDIBLY thankful that this nurse was in the room because he was this huge buff meat man that looked nothing like a nurse, but he was able to hold me back and restrain me. And I don’t like to think this way, but had that nurse not been there that day, I may have actually taken this guy’s life. Some other nurses came by and escorted the piece of garbage someplace, and my mom said we needed to go.
The car ride home was pretty quiet. But as we approached the house my mom parks the car and says, “I love you, I’m not mad at you for what you did. But brass tax, you did assault that man. And you should prepare yourself to talk to the authorities.” A couple more months pass and I finally turn 18. The DAY I turned 18, I went and applied for guardianship of my dad.
The court hearing was about a week later. Not only did I never hear from garbage man or the authorities, but he handed over guardianship without any resistance. The hearing lasted all but 20 seconds. I like to think I knocked some sense into that guy. But who knows? Not like I was gonna ask him or anything. But yeah, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever done out of anger.
#34 Freezing Angry
I cry when I get angry. This girl at my job ticked me off so badly that I kicked a dent in a freezer door and then embarrassed myself by crying uncontrollably for about 20 minutes. It has been years since that happened, but if I go visit, I am still embarrassed by that freezer door incident—even though the girl was fired shortly afterward anyway.
#35 Honest Mistake on Purpose
The host sat me at a table with a couple and their toddler. The two sat on the same side of the booth, kissed, etc., so I knew they were a couple, but the woman looked much older. Like she looked terrible. I'm sure it was substances of some kind, but it was noticeable. So she's super rude to me the entire time. She asked for her eggs over easy hard.
I explained to her that her eggs could either be over easy and over hard, and what both meant. She then got really patronizing, saying things like "Bless your heart" and asking for a real server. I told her that I know how eggs are cooked, and asked if she meant over medium. That's when she got verbally angry and asked "How hard is your job? Honestly, how hard is it to just serve people eggs?"
I'd had it. I gave her order to the cook, and of course, he asked me what she meant. I told him to just make them over medium, as I felt like that was what she meant. I gave her the eggs and she sighed real heavy. She said, "I'm sorry, was my order too hard? Did you not understand me? What the heck kind of place is this that nobody can make me eggs?"
I took a deep breath, and went all in with a brutal insult. I said, "Ma'am, I apologize to you, your son, and your grandson. Let me go ahead and comp your meal." Her face twisted up and got so red I thought it was going to pop off of her face. She yelled, "THIS IS MY HUSBAND AND THAT'S MY SON!" Oh boy, it was so worth it. She began screaming for my manager.
I got my manager. He yelled at me in the office, but couldn't prove that I was purposefully disingenuous. So I didn't even get written up. It was awesome.
#36 Music Lessons
When I was in elementary school we had music once a week. For some strange reason, the teacher hated me, and I ONLY got to play the triangle while everyone else got drums and cool stuff. Well, my teacher’s hair was oddly the same every day so we had speculation that she had a wig. Well, one day, I got the triangle again. So I let actions speak louder than words.
I pulled her wig right off. My punishment was to spend the day as an in-school suspension in the teacher’s office.
#37 Let’s Get Away From It All
My boss refused to let me take a weekend off for my best friend’s wedding because a co-worker was already taking the time off for a dirty weekend away with the married guy she was having an affair with. The married guy was my boss, by the way. I was a bridesmaid and had booked the weekend off 10 months in advance. I was not going to take this lying down.
I quit on the spot and told my boss’s wife he was cheating on her. My best friend’s wedding was lovely.
#38 Hunting for Problems
Brother of mine caught his wife. Her phone would always be going off and she would hide it. He got curious, looked into it, and found some guy had been texting her for a few months. She said she was going to stay home because she had to catch up on homework over the weekend. My brother and I went on our hunting trip and he told me about it.
We never left the city, we went to my house and stayed there till it got dark, then drove back to his neighborhood in my neighbor’s car. She sent him a picture of her at home saying she was going to go to bed early that night. Well, we snuck close to the house after a car parked down the street and a guy walked to the house and let himself in.
My brother was fuming at this point and wanted to beat the daylights out of the guy. I settled him down and told him to think about the long run. We snuck up to the house and using the night vision camera got video of them bumping uglies in the living room. My brother wanted to confront this guy at this point so... I did something messed up and called the authorities.
I said I heard a lot of yelling from the house and asked if they could go check. It kept my brother from messing with the dude (a coworker of hers). Authorities show up, take statements. We leave and the next day he pulls her iMessages off the email account and talks to a lawyer. We give the lawyer the messages. But we weren't done yet.
When we show up five days later from our "hunting trip," he calls her and says he got something wild and wants her to come out and see it. When she comes out he gives her divorce papers and kicks her out of the house. She had the authorities do a civil stand by while she got her stuff a few days later. House was his before they got married so all she got to keep was some stuff they bought together and her car.
No kids and the prenup nullified the alimony she could have gotten as he made way more money than her. The guy she was sleeping with had a record. We saw her a few months later, she tried talking to my wife and said she missed my brother and she was sorry, the guy and her broke up shortly after the divorce.
#39 Unlucky Guess
My brother kept taking my car without my permission repeatedly to drive his friends around. I got so angry that I called it in as a drunk driver. Guess what the authorities found? He was drunk and driving.
#40 The Worst of the Verse
OK, in my very slight defense, my boyfriend at the time in high school cheated on me with a very, very innocent exchange student who was only 14 (even though she looked 11). He was 17 or 18 and I was furious, not so much because he cheated but because I loved that little kid and after he used and dumped her, I found her sobbing so hard in the bathroom that nobody could even understand what she was saying at first.
OK, so he was a jerk too...but then there was me. My dude was stupid, like genuinely very dumb. Typical football jock who'd been socially promoted probably since kindergarten and could literally barely read. I was an honor student. We were a bit mismatched. He knew I wrote and read poetry, so he took it upon himself to write me a poem every day.
Needless to say, they were littered with spelling and grammatical errors, but also, they just sucked. He would often say, "I'm terrible at this, I'm so stupid," but I would say, "Noooo, I love them, they're great!" I had been encouraging him to learn to read better and had even convinced him to go to after-school tutoring sessions with my English teacher, who was nationally known for her work helping illiterate or semi-literate people.
So, he had been making some progress and I didn't want to discourage him by saying, "Uh yep, these are real trash." Well, after he screwed and dumped my little French friend, I SHOULD have dumped him. But instead, I did something even darker. I took all the poems he had written me, corrected them in red ink, tied them in a bundle with a red silk ribbon, and left them in his locker with a note that said: "You're right, you really are an idiot."
For some reason, High School Me figured he would know that news of his cheating had reached me and understand that my note meant, "You're stupid to treat me this way" and that the corrected poems were my way of being a jerk to him. In other words, I was even dumber than he was. I lurked between classes until he opened his locker, stared in shock at the pile of blood-red poems, read the note—and let out a wail like a sad dog.
He burst into heaving sobs and as his football buddies gathered around him, he cried "I knew it!! She's so smart and I'm so stupid! I don't even know why I tried!" I tried everything I could after that to explain that I didn't mean it, but of course, I had no ground to stand on after having corrected his poems like that.
He dropped out of tutoring and, as far as I know, never really learned to read. I still worry that his life sucks and I'm part of the reason why. And not only that, but he never even had a clue that I knew about the other girl, nobody ever called him out on that, and he probably kept right on seducing the most gullible girls he could since he had a total inferiority complex.
That's the only time I ever really fought dirty in a break-up, at least I learned my lesson, but I still feel awful.
#41 What a Beautiful Sight
Over the course of six months, through countless phone calls to different union offices and the department of labor, I eventually got my boss fired for changing people's time-keeping information to take overtime from them. During those months I was treated like dirt by this guy, but I never actually did anything wrong so I couldn't be punished.
At one point, management—against contract rules—denied my time off request to be at my best friend’s wedding and my boss brought me into his office and threatened to fire me. At this point, I had called the northeast district business associate on him, and I will never forget the look on my boss’s face when he realized I knew he couldn't do anything to me.
#42 Too Little, Too Late
I was working as a General Manager at a struggling restaurant—struggling despite excellent business, because the owners would do stupid things like take trips to Italy on the company dime to source the "perfect" panini press. They also wouldn't staff properly; I was the only waiter ever there, open to close, six days a week, on top of handling phone orders, inventory, and other managerial duties. I was wildly overworked, but I sucked it up because the base pay was good, plus tips.
However, to fund their lavish "business" trips, costs had to be cut at the store. They decided to do this by bumping me down to minimum wage for tipped employees—effectively cutting my salary to 1/10 of its previous level. They were also too chicken to tell me until I got my new teeny paycheck and questioned the mistake.
"Oh yeah haha, forgot to mention that blah blah cost-cutting blah valued team member please work with us through this difficult time." I had worked for two weeks at this new lower rate without my knowledge. Pretty sure that's not right, but hey, a lot of bad things go on in the restaurant industry. That's not when I rage quit, though....
A couple of hours later, I'm fuming and have decided that I can't work for the lower rate, so now I’m just waiting for the perfect chance to give my notice. They called in a delivery guy who was fired a few weeks before, and they talk about hiring him to start doing our Facebook posts and handing out flyers around town. Whatever.
Then I hear them offer him close to my old salary as "Promotions Manager"! What??? I was basically running the place for $2.13/hr and you're offering this dude almost $20/hr to walk up and down the street saying "Eat at (Name)"? And yet, it gets worse. They bring up our negative Yelp reviews and this guy suggests asking friends to post positive ones.
The boss starts laughing and says "Better not ask our waitress to post one, it'll be all boohoo don't eat there, I can't pay my rent this month because they cut my pay without telling wahhhh!" I don’t think I was supposed to hear that, but I was five feet away, so of course I did. I RAGED! I quit on the spot, told them to screw their job, and wished them good luck keeping the place open without me.
They quickly realized I was right, as neither of them knew how to do more than pick up the takings once a week. They begged me not to quit. They were so desperate that they sat there for half an hour and allowed me to bluntly tell them exactly what kind of huge idiots I thought they were in excruciating detail.
I went on and on as my rage burned, and they just quietly listened, nodding and apologizing. Once I had cursed myself back into calmness, I walked out, 30 minutes before the dinner rush began, leaving them with an unstaffed floor and no clue how to even open the cash register. God, they were morons. I loved that they actually listened to me telling them exactly how stupid they were.
No repercussions on my side, as the restaurant industry isn't known for checking references. The place closed down about 18 months later, and I was surprised it even made it that long.
#43 Independence Day
I had a lawyer draw up an intent-to-sue-for-harassment after our new boss required me to work on the Fourth of July. There were usually 100-150 people in office, but that particular day I was the only one in the office. That was the final straw for me after six months of harassment. Result: $40,000 settlement. I still smile when I think of it.
#44 What's Wrong, Doll?
When I was a kid (12+,) my sister and I were home alone together frequently because both of our parents worked and I was old enough to babysit. We lived in a house that was too small for all four of us, in a bad neighborhood, and it was a permanently dirty old house that was falling apart. So, background stress levels were high, just to set the tone.
My sister went to a friend's house to play across the street. Meanwhile, I couldn't find my Jem doll that I'd got from a friend online and was looking everywhere for it. They don't make Jem anymore, so it was a very important doll for me. While I'm looking, my sister comes home and timidly asks for me. Something in her voice told me something was wrong.
She said, "So, you know how I went over to Neighbor's house to play? Well, her dad got mad at us and ripped the head off of the doll to punish her but actually it was the one I brought over and I think it was your doll...." So naturally, I lost my mind and TORE INTO HER. I was furious, not only was that my doll, but it was rare and not made anymore and already older than either of us, so how dare she take it from my room and play with it and get it broken??
I yelled at her so loud and hard I went hoarse, and she crumbled into tears. I demanded she give me my doll back and not talk to me until mom and dad got home. She collapsed onto her bed and sobbed, and I took the doll back into my room. I looked at it...and it was a grungy old Barbie doll. I felt so, so guilty for screaming at my sister, and hearing her sob through the walls made me feel like a monster.
I'd ripped her a new one over nothing. An old raggedy Barbie with missing hair and chewed up feet. My Jem doll was somewhere in my room; she'd never taken it. Eventually, I came out of my room and apologized to her. I explained why I was so mad and what I had incorrectly assumed, and I told her that it wasn't her fault the neighbor girl's dad was a crazy jerk.
He later apologized to her and his daughter too, but that made me feel just as bad as he was. It's been over a decade since that happened, and my sister and I have both moved on and have a great sibling relationship, but I still feel so, so horrible about how I treated her when I was a teenager. I wish I had been more level-headed.
#45 His Loss Is No One’s Gain
When I was in elementary school, there was this kid who lost his father to cancer during the school year. One day after he came back to school (can't remember how long after), we got into some sort of dispute on the playground. I don't remember exactly how it came to me saying, “At least my dad isn't dead," but that's exactly what came out of my mouth.
I spent the day in the principal’s office. To this day, this is one of the biggest regrets of my life and I'm 23. I still feel terrible about it because I never got to apologize to the kid because we moved away shortly after. I don't even remember his name, but I'll never forget saying that.
#46 One Eye Open
My mother's ex-husband and I had a really volatile relationship. He was mentally and emotionally abusive and my mom was an alcoholic. There was one day where things got extremely bad. Both my mom and her ex-husband were drinking. All I did was walk in the door and that's when it all started. I was told I had no friends.
I was told my family didn't care about me and that if I disappear it would be a good break because I was disappointing. I was told that they wished I was dead. I kept trying to tell them to leave me alone, but they went too far. I tried hiding in my room too, but they followed me. I at one point finally became so enraged at them I flipped my bed over. Not just the mattress, I'm talking bedframe and all.
It was because I kept a knife under my bed. I then chased them out with a knife and threatened them. Yeah. That was fun to explain to the authorities.
#47 The Feature Attraction
I used to work at a movie theater in my hometown all throughout my high school years. When I moved away to start college, I was able to transfer to a theater owned by the same company as the one in my college town. The management at the new theater was absolutely terrible. They were demeaning towards the staff, they fired people for not selling rewards cards, and they scheduled mandatory all-hands meetings with less than a week’s notice.
At one such meeting, (at seven in the morning on a Sunday, by the way), some of my coworkers were starting to fall asleep. To wake them up, our managers forced all of us to stand up, do five jumping jacks, and sit back down. They did this every time that anyone fell asleep at any point for the duration of the three-hour meeting.
After around the fourth or fifth time that this occurred, I decided that I'd had enough. I didn't stand up for our "punishment" when everyone else did. My manager singled me out, asking why I refused to participate. I replied, "We're not children, don't treat us like we are." I was 20 years old at the time. My manager replied by suspending me for a month, right there, in front of everyone.
I promptly replied, "I’ll save you the trouble! I quit" and never went back. No regrets.
#48 Slippy!
When I was about nine, I was away from home in a foreign country for about a month visiting distant family. They lived in some remote foresty area. I went outside and tripped over what I thought was a rock. Fell in some dirt and got covered in absolute filth. So, I ran up to the supposed rock and booted it as hard as I could. It was only later that I realized what I'd really done.
After, I noticed I’d destroyed a toad. I still get pangs of guilt about it 15 years later.
#49 Pimp My Ride
I was heading home from work late at night. I was tired and stressed and it was late at night, I was the only car on the road so I was driving at a slow pace in the appropriate lane while listening to some podcasts. Some other speeding driver came up and started tailgating me, on the slow lane. I moved to the middle lane, and he followed.
I moved back to the right lane, he followed. The guy was just being a jerk for no reason. Then he floored it past me while bringing the side of his car inches away from mine. A few minutes later I saw the same guy at a stoplight. I had a large paint can sitting on the floor of my car. I picked up the can. I put it in my lap. I opened it.
I floored through the lights while yelling "SCREW YOU", spilling paint all over me, my car and steering wheel, and hurled the paint can through the guy’s open window. First, I see this bald douchebag staring at me with terror in his eyes, then a magnificent white liquid explosion, followed by me laughing like a maniac as I watch his windshield turn pearly white.
#50 Real Estate, Fake Friends
I found out that my supposed best friend, who I was letting live on my couch, was cheating on me with my girlfriend. She and I lived together at the time. I work in IT, so I work crazy long hours, but we had a massive power outage one day, and the boss said to just go home. I left five hours early and caught both of them red handed.
I kicked them both out at once. They apologized profusely, and asked me even though they made a mistake, why would I kick them out on the streets in an area where they can’t afford to live? (Silicon Valley). I laughed my butt off and said, “I guess that’s something you two should have figured out during pillow talk huh?” and slammed my front door as hard as I could in their faces.
Needless to say it wrecked me for a while because I loved that girl but looking back, I think it’s the only moment in my life where I’m proud to have stood up for myself, and that is priceless.
#51 Tit for Tat
I was being baited by a couple of people online. One of the girls tragically had lost her parents in the tsunami in Asia. Well, she really kept calling me heinous names online and started getting others to do the same. She told me to say the worst thing I could as I was clearly too thick to think of any rebuttal. But I thought of something really, really horrible.
I told her: "Your parents purposefully jumped in the water to end their lives as it'd be less painful than dealing with you." Needless to say, when I got into school the next day, I got suspended pending investigation for three days.
#52 Anywhere Else But Here Right Now
When I found out about my (now) ex-husband’s last affair (he had several), I told him to open his iPad and start looking for a place to stay as he sure as heck wasn’t going to be staying in the house. He sat there and just looked at me like I was joking. I said your fingers aren’t broken, start tapping away and find a place.
Either I can pack your bag for you which will be done in three seconds or you can pack it. I said you have three choices. The car, the gutter, or find a friend. He then stood up and made his way to the bedroom to pack. Said he can stay at a friend's. I said I don’t care where you stay, but it won’t be here. Moved in with the last affair the following day.
#53 Your Princess Is in Another Castle. Leave Mine Alone.
My ex-boyfriend just recently tried to win me back, after HE was the one who dumped me. He was trying to win me back from January all the way to last month, and no matter how many times I said no, he always came back with the same excuse of “I know you hate me but I really miss you.”
So, on the last day he tried to win me back, he pulls up to my house with flowers and chocolates and says he still loves me. He had woken me up from my afternoon nap with my dog and that really cheesed me off. I have had enough at that point. So, I pushed the flowers into his chest and said “Can you kindly leave me alone? For the last time, I am so sick and tired of having to reject you, it’s pathetic.”
He then tried to argue with me saying he knows he was wrong, and he can change. I was so mad and cranky that I just yelled as loud as I could, “Get it through your thick skull that I don’t like you anymore! I blocked your number and you on every social media for a reason, you nutjob!” And then I slammed the door in his face and had some tea, cuddled with my dog, and watched The Office. He hasn’t tried to contact me since.
#54 The Rule(r) of Law Means Nothing Down There
Back in the fifth grade, there was this kid with a really cool ruler (one of those blue and green ones that's rubber and you can bend it and whatnot). One day, I decided I was going to take it. It was during recess, and no one noticed me, and my plan was dutifully completed. I tried being smart about it and didn't start using it until a few days later, but the kid found out and tattled on the teacher, so I lost the ruler.
10-year-old me thought, “That’s not fair! I took it fair and square!” I eventually came up with the thought that if I couldn't have it, neither could he. So again, I took the ruler during another recess, but this time, I decided to drop it into a drain, never to be seen again.
#55 A Battle as Old as Time
Once I was having a smoke outside the bar in my hometown doing whatever, being young, when, on the way in, this guy makes some crack at me about how I was dressed. I got pretty mad about it and lipped off to my friends. This got back to the guy inside, who had some mutual friends or something, and he ended up asking me if I wanted to step outside.
My blood already having being fired up, I looked at him and just said, "Ya, let's do it," and another guy near my age steps out with us. In the lights of the entrance as we get outside, just as I'm going into get-ready-to-scrap mode, I get my first clear look at the guy...he had to be near 60 and was not a large man by any means.
Still, never underestimate people. It was at exactly this moment that I realized: A) I was going to fight an old man outside the pub and kick his butt, looking like a piece of snot or B) I was going to get my butt kicked by said old man and look like a complete tool. In that moment, I actually had the exact thought: "Oh, I'm the jerk here."
He said he didn't realize what he said would get me so mad and apologized, and I said I overreacted and made a fool of myself. We went off on our separate ways, but still, sometimes I look back on this whole thing and just think, Jesus what were you thinking?
#56 That’s No Way to Treat Someone!
This lady came into the shelter where I work to see the cats. She asked if she could give them treats and I said yes. It's a shelter where most of the cats are free. So, she gets the bag out and the cats start going wild with anticipation. I couldn’t believe what she did next. She just stood there laughing and tempting them without giving actually them anything.
She looked like she enjoyed their anxiety, and her laugh sounded like a crazy person. I lost it, grabbed the bag out of her hands, gave the treats to the cats, and asked her to leave. Those cats are already stressed out. Don't give them more anxiety!
#57 Not the Only Tool Bag Here
I was working as a plumbing apprentice at a very large mall. It was just myself and my foreman. Our meeting room was way on the other side in the basement from the store where we were working. My foreman would bring his tools in the morning and then after 30 minutes of looking at what was completed yesterday, make an excuse and spend the rest of the day reading the paper in our office, then saunter back at the end of the day to get his tools.
Well one Friday, he brought his tools in the morning, made his excuse, and disappeared. I didn’t see him all day...not even when it was time to go home. So, I packed up all the tools and struggled across the busy mall back to the lock up. My foreman had clearly lost track of time and was startled when I showed up.
He looked at all the stuff I’d brought and realized I’d left his personal tools on the other side of the mall. He freaked out and demanded that I “Go back and get his tool bag right now!” I looked at him and pointed out that they were his personal tools and it was after regular work hours, but he cut me off and shouted, “Did I freaking stutter?”
So, I went back across the mall. Into the storefront. Dumped all his tools onto the floor and brought back his empty tool bag. Back at the lock up he looked at me, gasped, and said “Where are all my tools?” To which I replied, “You told me to go back and get your tool bag, and you didn’t stutter.” I was promptly transferred to another job-site Monday morning.
#58 That’s Some Fine Handywork
I worked with a guy who always talked a mean game about how he was going to get revenge on his most awful customers, but when push came to shove, he never followed through—until one day, when the wrong guy pushed the wrong buttons. My buddy declared he was going to employ an angry waiter classic: The butter trick.
A group of us tried not to stare as my friend approached the table, leaned down to speak to the offending party, and placed his butter-filled hand squarely on the man's expensive-sports-coat-covered shoulder. I hope he had a really good dry cleaner.
#59 Which One Will You Choose?
A long time ago, I was working at a restaurant that was, to put it bluntly, absolutely freakin’ atrocious. The place was almost always dead apart from the owner’s friends, who would make it their life’s mission to be incredibly rude to myself and the other staff members. Somehow, I stuck it out working there for six months.
The final straw came at Christmas, when I wanted to travel back home to spend time with my family (as my grandmother was sick at the time); and their response was, “You’ll just have to decide what’s more important, your job or your family.” I decided. I told them that this was the dumbest and most insulting question I had ever heard, and walked straight out the door.
#60 Long Weekend
I rage quit a job once because my boss wouldn't let me take off on a Friday for a wedding, even though I requested it nine months in advance. It was also MY wedding! So, I gave in my two weeks notice on Thursday, got married on Friday, and went on a two-week honeymoon. Take that!
#61 I Scream, You Scream
Many years ago, I was just starting out on a new position as a project manager. Things weren't going smoothly on this project, not really in anyone's control, but it added stress to myself and my team. One day, one of my teammates made a minor and fixable error, and I made an absolute fool of myself. I screamed at them in front of about 10 people.
Like a good two-minute rant about what an idiot they were. They were a summer student, making minimum wage, and I just laid into them. The worst part is that they made the mistake because I mislabelled something. Some 10 years later, I still manage small to medium teams and I think about that moment a lot.
#62 Couples' Counseling
I rolled my car. I had recently found out my girlfriend was cheating. For reasons that are fairly irrelevant to this story, we had decided to stay together. We were fighting, as we often did, and I wound up going on a drive with a friend which had been pre-planned. He wanted to show me some roads he found fun to drive on, so we were in what was essentially a two-man caravan.
After a while, we pull over, and the argument with my girlfriend continues over text message, as it had at stop signs and red lights. After deciding our next direction, my friend and I decided to drive around some more. Still heated from the ongoing argument, I drove a little too hard, and just a little too fast.
I experienced what I can only describe as a black-out of anger before coming to awareness in a moment where my car was shaking, and surrounded by too-high grass coming up into view in the side windows. I felt a hard hit, and then I was upside-down, then right side up, then upside-down. I realized then that I was screaming, and the car had come to a halt on its roof.
I unbuckled, found my phone, clambered out a back door, and what felt like instantly my friend pulled up behind me. I was incredibly lucky, to be honest. I walked away with some bruising, and no more car. That was a night that I learned a serious lesson about compartmentalization and self-control and is a night that will be forever burned into my memory.
It’s been four or five years since it happened, and I will never forget the absolute terror that I felt. Oddly enough, that event also convinced me that I had a real desire to live. Dangerous thoughts of self-harm are no longer a daily or even weekly occurrence. Other than that, it was probably when I was in an argument with the same girl.
We were in front of her house and I screamed at the top of my lungs in my tiny little '93 Toyota Camry, “Get the eff out of my car right now”. I inherited a lot of my dad's volume, and when he's upset the house can shake due to the volume of his voice. I yelled at her so loud that my throat hurt. I still feel bad about that one.
#63 Coping With Loss
My grandfather recently passed on, so I told my boss that I needed to take a couple of days off to be with my family. His response made my blood boil. He had the nerve to tell me that work was more important than family and then threatened to fire me. I went off on him in the middle of the office for a solid five minutes before quitting and rushing home.
#64 A Gesture That Translates to Every Language
Our former Latin teacher once slapped a kid across the face because the kid made fun of her dead husband. The teacher got suspended shortly afterward.
Needpix
#65 Music to My Ears
I had things all set up to play piano with a string quartet for a wedding ceremony in a church. The grand piano was up front, near the couple, and the organ in the rear to be used later. When I entered the church, I found that the florist had placed a large vase of roses on the grand piano, using the sheet music for the string quartet underneath the vase to absorb water.
Rarely do I lose my cool, but I did that time. Members of the string quartet told him in no uncertain terms where he could stick those roses as they tried to salvage their soaked music scores.
#66 Fired or Freed?
I often hold my emotions in and they all come bursting out at once with explosive consequences. At a job where I was just there for the paycheck and not much else, never going above and beyond, never volunteering, I had two bosses, one of whom was fair, and the other who was a complete jerk. Day after day, I cataloged things the bad manager did that were ineffective and useless, or just plain mean.
It was clear he wasn’t very good at his job and often used the punishment of others to mask his incompetence. One day, when he wrote me up for being five minutes late to work, I said fine. Later that day he wrote me up for taking a break that was too long by two minutes. Whatever. Even later, he called me into his office and said he was writing me up for “delaying work” because he’d observed me moving slowly.
This was a bridge too far and I let him have it. I told him he was out of his league, ten years older than me, and would never amount to anything beyond the associate degree from community college and a job most high school seniors could do without the number of screw-ups he had. I said he spent his time writing people up for being late when he waltzed in later than most workers most shifts and was trying to hide his own flagrant rule-breaking by pretending to be on top of others.
No, I knew I wasn’t a perfect employee, but if he spent less time on his computer and more time with the workers he wouldn’t have to write me up for being slow, he’d have to write himself up for being slow because he’d realize how completely incompetent he was at even moving boxes. And then he fired me. I couldn’t have been happier.
#67 Baby You're a Firework
It was Halloween and I was sitting out in front of my house watching my sister take my niece, who was around 4, trick or treating. The people who lived above us (we lived in a maisonette) decided to shoot a firework at them. This is the only time I’ve ever thrown a temper tantrum. Got them inside the house and made sure they were alright.
Sister had only a few non-serious burns on her arm and managed to shield my niece from the explosion. I was just so angry that I went up to their door and starting banging on it, demanding they come out. They didn’t answer so I start trying to kick the door in. My mum and brother dragged me away and back inside to calm me down.
Half an hour later, the authorities arrived because the neighbors had called them about me. Luckily after we explained what had actually happened I didn’t get in any trouble.
#68 Tough Guy
So earlier this year, my health insurance got messed up. I started making too much money to qualify for my state's medicare, so healthcare.gov requested a notification from New Jersey Family Care to confirm that I wasn't on it anymore. So in January, I called them to get said notification. They say "yeah, you should get it in a couple of weeks." It never comes.
Unfortunately, I had forgotten about it until healthcare.gov sends me a message saying that they're going to raise my insurance costs if I don't get them the notification in the next 2 weeks. So I call family care again and explain the situation to them. They once again claim they're going to send me the notice and don't.
So now, after getting an extension about this, I call up family care once more and attempt to explain the situation, politely requesting the cancellation notice. But for no apparent reason, the woman on the phone decides to start giving me an attitude, saying some stupid nonsense like "UMMM, you know this is the cancellation department right?" I completely lost my mind.
"What the HECK is your PROBLEM?! I don't understand why the heck you can't just send me this DARN LETTER. What's happening over there? Just look in the freaking file and CANCEL IT. Yes, you IDIOT, I know this is the cancellation department, I WANT A NOTICE THAT IT'S CANCELLED." I must have scared the daylights out of her because the next thing she said was "...Uh, I'll go get my supervisor"
He solved the problem in 10 minutes and I got my cancellation notice 3 days later.
#69 Could You Repeat That, Please?
My friend is bad with math. I was explaining a thing to him once, it took 10 minutes, he tells me he doesn't get it, so I sit there and explain this thing more deeply to him. It took 30 minutes. This is the scene that then ensued: takes in-ear headphones out of ear, and says “Oh sorry, I wasn't listening to you, I found this amazing radio show." I blew my top.
#70 Safety Instructions Are There for a Reason, People
I was in charge of a rollover trainer once at a military training site. Think of a Humvee on an axle that spins, like a rollover accident. Part of the safety briefing procedure before anyone goes in is being told to empty your pockets of all items. Take any items on belts off. We have rubber items inside to simulate bad flying. We do this for safety’s sake.
Part of the training is we stop the trainer on its side/roof, so the participants can get exposure to assisting the other passengers and helping them exit the vehicle safely and quickly. It’s been a really long and boring day. It’s hot and, like during all good army training, I am hungover and irritated. All the participants there are officers, and they aren’t listening even slightly.
We stopped the exercise on the roof for a group, and they all exit except one who can’t undo the seatbelt. I open the door and reach in. I placed my hand right on a dual-edge, 4-inch boot knife. I absolutely flipped my lid. I saw red, my ears burned, and I distinctly remember seeing one of the other instructors mouth “Oh darn!”
I chewed out every single officer there, ALL of whom outranked me, many of whom even outranked my commander. Didn’t matter, as my position was Safety Officer. I went on a full tirade. I turn around after it was done, and my best friend is recording the whole thing on his phone. The guy showed everyone that clip for the rest of the week and for years after that.
#71 An Ugly Mug
I worked at a diner with an open kitchen (you can see us and we can see you). I'm the only cook during the lunch rush when I hear a lady shout "hey!"; I look over and a lady sitting in a booth points at me and then does a very condescending "come here" motion with her finger. I thought something was wrong with her food, so I decide I can run out of the kitchen for a moment.
She has no food on her table. She holds her blue soda cup out to me and asks "what is this?" "Uhhh excuse me?" "Why is my root beer in a soda cup and not a mug?" "I... I don't know anything about that, I'm just the coo-" "oh great, another freaking idiot in this freaking stupid place who doesn't know anything!" She then proceeds to chew me out because I, the cook, do not know why the server gave her root beer in a normal cup.
I apologize to her and head back into the kitchen while she's loudly talking about me to the next booth. What do I find upon my return? Naturally, I find that all of my orders are ruined , and more had been coming in in the meantime. It's already stressful working in a kitchen, and that was the last straw. I went back in and started screaming about her and kicking the heck out of the walk-in cooler.
When I went back out everyone was quiet and avoided eye contact, even the lady with the issues. Still looked pretty mad though. I rushed through the orders and thank God she left without saying anything. I didn't get in trouble though since my manager was serving and had to deal with her as well. He understood.
Youtube
#72 Laying Down the Law
My brother and I played travel sports for a few seasons as kids. One trip, I was at the pool with some of his teammates messing around in the water and the coach's kid was being a jerk as usual. My brother was one of the smaller kids on his team so the coach's son would mess with him a lot. Most of the kids on my brother's team disliked him but didn't speak up so they wouldn't be next.
He thought it would be funny to pick up my brother’s drink right in front of him and spit into it. My dad taught me from a young age not to let anyone mess with my brother or sister, so I got seriously angry. I took a good running start and shoulder checked him into the pool. Since he had just gotten there, he hadn't taken his clothes off yet, and cried because his phone and iPod got ruined.
He literally ran out yelling, "I'm telling my dad!" Well that backfired, because everyone stuck up for my brother and the coach was not happy to find out what a colossal jerk his son was being, so he was the only one to end up getting in any trouble.
#73 Department of Morons With Vehicles
It was my 7th trip to the DMV when trying to reinstate my license. Every single time, they scrutinized my paperwork and always managed to find something “wrong” and would send me away to fix it. On this 7th trip, they finally resorted to, “You have no proof that you ever had a license,” despite my piles of paperwork showing my driving record, among other things.
I have never reacted the same way before or since. I refused to leave the seat and said, “You people are freaking monsters.” A manager was called. We argued, he said he believed that I had had a license, but that there was just no proof, and he couldn’t risk accepting my paperwork in case someone checked it.
I said I refused to leave the seat until I knew exactly what was needed. Finally, the manager said he could contact my previous state of residence and could get a verification that I had indeed had a license there. It would take 3 minutes. That’s when I yelled, in the middle of the DMV, “WHY WASN’T THAT THE FIRST FREAKING THING YOU SAID??!!” I got my license back.
#74 Birthday Mayday
When trying to get my wife's information switched to our new state, they said they needed a birth certificate. Apparently they needed the original and not the copy the hospital gave her mother. The clerk looked her in the eye and said with a straight face, "This isn't a birth certificate, it's just a certificate that says you were born." I responded by having a meltdown.
#75 His Head Is Always in His Books
In sixth grade, a group of some four kids took a monopoly over the back of the bus, a true power move. I always minded my own business and tried to sit away from them. For one, they all didn't understand basic hygiene and smelled even though they were older than me. Anyway, turns out the bus driver was their quiet, retired Grandpa, who would never tell them to stop.
So one time they have a freaking spitting fight, as in they spit across the seats at each other as they jump seats for cover. At one point, I was in the middle seat and a giant wad of their disgusting spit hit me square in my face. I then proceeded to take my Pearson history book, one of those big, heavy hardcover textbooks, and smash one of them over the head with it. The spitting stopped.
#76 Hit Me Once, Shame on You. Hit Me Three Times, Shame on Me...
This happened to me in some club ages ago. I was bouncing around on the dance floor with everybody else and apparently I stepped on some dude’s foot who had been standing there with his posse of 2 or 3 other guys watching people. I shrugged and apologized, then turned around to leave. Right then "somebody" smacked me in the back of the head.
Not hard, but too hard to ignore. I turned around, still calm, and said something like, "Look, I'm gonna walk this way, you guys stay here and nothing more needs to happen." Turned around again, got smacked in the head again. I was very much ticked off at that point. It didn't help that they tried to look at me all innocent.
I couldn't even tell which one of them did it. So I just stuck my finger in the face of the dude whose foot I allegedly stepped on and recommended that he doesn't do it again. Turned around once more, waiting to get smacked in the head again. This time they poured a glass of beer on my back. That's when I completely lost my cool.
I threw myself around and went straight at the guy. I was in full rage mode, didn't care what happened next as long as that guy suffered. I could tell by the terrified look on his face that he realized he had gone too far. His friends never stepped in to help him. After a while people separated us and that was that. I feel no shame for having snapped in that situation.
#77 Someone Had to Get It
Another unit lied to me about the condition a patient was in. I went into the supply room and SCREAMED to vent at another nurse. Poor girl remains the only person at work to ever see me lose my head like that.
#78 Let It Go
I can remember that day like it was yesterday... I was home packing my stuff to get ready for when my husband was getting out of basic training. I NEVER yell or even raise my voice to anyone ever. My dad has always had a wicked temper, and my sister has a knack for starting yelling matches with him and matching his energy.
One night, she forgot to do something she was supposed to, and the yelling started again. I ignored it up until he called her stupid. It got under my skin so I spoke up a little, saying that he shouldn't call her that. He hollered back, "You are MY daughters, I can talk to you however I want!" That's when I snapped.
I saw red for the first time in my life, and I completely lost it. I screamed back at him at how I was tired of him treating us like garbage when he lost his temper, at how we hid in the back room with my mom until he cooled off, and how all I wanted was to visit my family before I had to move over 12 hours away from them.
I also threatened that if he EVER wanted to see me again, then he needed to shut up and sit in the corner until he was done throwing a fit. I yelled at him for the first time in my life for a solid 30 minutes. I didn't stop until everything that had built up over the years was let out, and I saw him go from red-faced angry to what seemed to be guilt-ridden.
When I finally stopped, he was quiet. He didn't say a word and walked away. Shortly after I moved out, he went to a doctor and has been put on some medication to help with his anger issues. Now he's super friendly to all of us, and I haven't heard him throw a tantrum like he used to in over 10 years now. He has never spoken poorly to me or my sister since then either.
#79 Touchdown!
I never liked playing football in general just because I wasn't an aggressive person. But in 5th grade, I had a teammate who, during practice scrimmages, would always line up across from me. At the snap, he would grab me by my facemask and pull me to the ground. I let it go on for most of the season until I started having neck issues and pains.
During one of our final practices, I was getting water across the field and decided enough was enough. I sprinted full charge across the field, sacked him with all my weight, and while I pinned him down under me I started grabbing his facemask and repeatedly slammed his head into the dirt until my coaches pulled me off him. When the season ended I decided to switch to basketball.
#80 No Regrets
My Dad was in the hospital after having a stroke, I was 14 at the time and still in school. This absolute little garbage kid kept going on about how my dad was going to die, that he deserved it, etc. I put up with it all morning, but at lunch he cornered me. Normally I took all the beatings, but not that day. I finally lost it.
I don't remember what happened, but apparently it took 3 adults to pull my 14-year-old, 100 lbs self off him. I regret nothing. He didn't mess with me after that.
#81 Was She Wearing a Pencil Skirt?
This girl viciously bullied me in school. She told everyone I was a lesbian at a conservative all-girls school where this made you a social pariah, started rumors that my Dad was gay, threw paper at me during class, and other nasty stuff. In history class, she was sitting behind me and started kicking me through the hole in the back of my chair.
I told her to stop it several times, but she kept doing it. So then I took drastic measures. I turned around and punctured her in the leg with a pencil. I got detention, but she left me alone after that.
#82 Bon Appetit!
I lost it when someone's kid at Golden Corral decided to put their hands in the food containers and they did nothing about it.
Youtube
#83 Breaking in the First Degree
For some reason or another, my mother always hated me. As a little girl, I could never understand why she treated me so much worse than she treated my three other siblings. I would often go up to my grandmother and ask her "Why doesn't my momma love me?" She never could give me a straight answer, and would usually tell me something like "Your momma loves you in the only way she knows how."
That answer confused me because she loved my siblings just fine. Disclaimer: Her love was extremely toxic, and she did a different type of damage to my other siblings. Now, when I say that my mother treated me badly, it started out with her picking fights with me. She would constantly nitpick at everything I did; chastising me and, at the end of the day, punishing me harshly for things that could have been addressed with just a gentle scolding.
When I got older, she started cussing at me and calling me names. She would often ignore me for days on end; and when she would decide to talk to me, it would only be to make me the butt end of a bad joke, or to tell me that she hated me. Yes, my mother looked me dead in my eyes and told me that she hated me. Disclaimer #2: She was an addict and an alcoholic, and she loves to claim that all the emotional harm she put me through as a child was merely the effects of the substances and that it "wasn't even that bad."
It was things like that which really began to tear away at me after a while. She did all sorts of terrible things to me growing up. I couldn’t stand the terrible things she said, or the way she ignored me constantly. All of it was so very different than how I saw her treating my other three siblings every day. She was very close with one of my brothers and my sister.
She would spend time with them constantly, take them anywhere they wanted to go, buy them anything that they wanted, etc. After a while, it made me come to resent them. My sister would sometimes rub it in my face that “Mom loved [her] more.” It was her little way of having power over me, and it was one of the things that eventually made my rage start to bubble over onto innocent people.
I just wanted to be loved and accepted. I wanted to be cared for and cherished as a child should be. When I didn't get that, I plotted on how I was going to get her love and affection. In my screwed up mind, I thought that if I got rid of my older brother and younger sister...I would be one of the only people left for her to love.
That thought was the breaking point for me. At that moment, I planned on fatally harming my brother. How screwed up is that? It wasn't just some thought that passed through my head; it was a constant idea, a plan that I was putting into place to end his life so that I could make room in my mother's heart for myself. I feel ashamed of this writing it out.
It was a very dark time in my life, and I was also incredibly mentally ill. My brother was addicted to pain medications, and my parents were trying desperately to get him clean at the time. Ironically, at the same time, he was going on a substance-induced rampage, my sister had just shattered her leg on a trampoline and, as a result, she had brought some pretty heavy pain pills into the house. My mother was doing everything in her power to keep my brother away from the pills.
She would leave my sister (and her pills) in my care. So, one day, while my mother was out somewhere with my brother and my sister was still sleeping, I snatched the rest of her pills. My sister was super afraid of becoming addicted to them after watching what my mother and brother were going through, so there was a ton left.
I then waited patiently for my brother to come back home. When I heard him come through his window (his room was next to mine), I went into the kitchen and made him a glass of juice. Earlier in the day, I had crushed up the pills into a powder, and I mixed them into the juice. I went up to his room, knocked on the door, and offered him the cocktail of various prescriptions.
He took the juice and, right before he was about to drink it, I had a sudden thought. "How could I do this to my own brother??!!" I snatched the drink back and it spilled out all over the carpet. He was confused and super angry, but at least he was alive. I never tried anything like that again. It felt so sick, wrong, and evil. I mean, what type of person thinks that?
Besides, my brother dying wouldn't have made my mother start to love me any extra. On the contrary, it would have only made her resent me for living instead of him. So that's my sad, sick story of how I almost executed my brother. I didn't actually carry through with it, obviously, and I guess everyone lived happily ever after.
My brother got clean and now has a happy family. I'm in college and my sister's leg has healed up nicely. Meanwhile, our mom ended up abandoning us after a while...but that's a story for another time.
#84 That’s What Happens When You Get Cheeky
Back in school we had tiny lockers stacked right next to each other. Locker neighbor would always close mine while I was fishing through my backpack. Went on every day for the whole year, he thought it was funny. Last day of school I'd had it, punched him across the cheek. He didn't do it the next year, and didn't bother telling any adult because he knew he was in the wrong.
#85 Water Under the Bridge
My friend and I were walking home from high school, sophomore year I think. He was really bothering me, kept lightly tripping me the whole walk home. I kept asking him to stop but he didn’t. For context, I did get picked on in high school, so maybe this moment was just the breaking point for some other incident.
When we got near where we would separate, he did the tripping thing one last time and I lost it. I swung my backpack at him. Here’s the part where he really screwed up. He was carrying a balsa wood bridge home that he needed to complete for some class. When I swung the backpack, he dropped the bridge. I ran directly at him but then saw another, better target.
I could’ve kicked a 60-yard field goal. I grabbed my bag, turned and walked as he stared at his scattered work, saying in a shocked voice, “You broke my bridge.” I replied “I don’t care."
#86 Sounds Like a Fiesta
I lost my temper one time when I was little, somewhere in the 5-10 range. That doesn't sound out of the ordinary, but I was a quiet, reserved kid who didn’t ever do much out of line. Anyway, I have an older brother who tormented me all the time. This day he had been particularly bad, but I still just took it and coped.
My mom made burritos for dinner. I love burritos, but only if they’re well put together. Sloppy sandwiches drive me nuts. Anyway, my brother and I are sitting down, waiting for my parents to sit at the dinner table too. My brother sees that I’m excited and is privy to my sandwich pet peeve, so he takes just his index finger and smashes it down on my burrito as hard as he can.
I get upset, so he just open-palm smashes the burrito on my plate into an absolute mess. I lose it and whip the burrito at him, missing and nailing the wall. Parents walked in just when I threw the burrito on the wall. They freeze, and then instead of yelling at me, they immediately ask my brother, "What did you do to him?"
Hearing that I would not be punished and that they knew it was my brother’s fault without seeing what happened made it a little bit better. I don't think I ever ended up getting a burrito that night, though.
#87 Self-Appointed Spiritual Mentor
I'm a bit more quick to anger these days, but as a child I was fairly quiet and such. When I was in 6th grade, I was always forced to go to church every Sunday and Wednesday. Perks of growing up in the Bible Belt. I've always been a pretty heavy reader, and like most kids at that time I was heavily into the Harry Potter series.
The people at the church my mother forced me to attend decided that those books were not only of the Devil himself, but also surely corrupting me. They took every opportunity to tell me so. Making matters worse, the son of my Sunday school teacher decided he was responsible for correcting my horrible devilish ways.
In addition to harassing me about these books every chance he got, he also began getting physical about it. I pretty much just let it all go because it was just a bunch of idiots, what did I care? That is, until he spit in my face. Twice. I chased him down and proceeded to beat the daylights out of him. I've only been in a few fights, but I've never been in one where I was this absolutely livid.
He never bothered me about my choice in books again and I stopped being forced to go to church.
#88 Missed Connections
At a wedding of a college friend of my husband’s, we learned a dark secret. We found out that the bride (his old friend) had been in love with him for over a decade. We learned this from the women at our table at the reception. We introduced ourselves while we waited for the bride and groom to arrive. They were horrified that we were there—and extremely worried.
My husband had NO idea that she had feelings for him. She bee-lined right for our table after the "introducing Mr & Mrs" thing—ignoring her family and leaving her husband standing alone. She clung to my husband and sobbed—lifting her head to glare at me. She had to be pulled off of him, she was having such a meltdown.
She repaired herself, then followed us as we tried to leave quietly—her parting shot was to stare at my chest and say, "Well I guess I know what I was missing all along!" Her new husband was in shock and my husband was horrified and embarrassed—he was completely clueless and would never have gone to the wedding if he'd know she was obsessed with him. It was bizarre.
#89 Short And Not Sweet
I'd been dealing with my dad and his ex-girlfriend having screaming matches and occasionally getting dragged into it for like a year. They started again one evening and she addressed me, demanding that I answer something or another to fuel her argument against my dad. I was just trying to play a game at the time and I just kinda snapped and screamed, "I don't know and I don't care and I'm tired of your fighting."
It wasn't much but I've never raised my voice ever, and I think it kinda just stunned them both into silence. She walked out of the house.
#90 A Dishonest Mistake
When my boyfriend and I were breaking up over the phone and I asked to come by to get a dress I left at his place. He informed me that he “accidentally threw it out.” This and a combination of him telling me he didn’t want a relationship anymore after telling me two days ago we were fine...I lost it. I saw red and have never yelled so much in my life.
#91 The Good Old Lever-Thump
In secondary school, a girl sitting next to me kept emptying my pencil case onto the floor and laughing with her friend about it, so I punched her on the top of the head. Sort of like a lever coming down. She cried and I got detention. Looking back, I think I know what I was missing. She probably had a crush on me. But hey, you mess with me, you get the lever-thump.
#92 Taking a Stand
My baby’s mom said she's considering not vaccinating our kid. I did not react well...
#93 You Messed With The Wrong Guy
My son was maybe 8 months old and was recently diagnosed as profoundly deaf. Deaf kids will often inhale to make vibrations and noise that they can somewhat “hear” for stimulation. We were on pins and needles as I had just lost my job and our insurance and the cochlear implant surgery was going to cost us $170k.
We’d have to sell the house and one of the cars. We needed a break and our in-laws took us to the food court at a local mall. Our boy started to inhale and gasp. “He needs a beating,” a fat twenty-something-year-old said not so quietly to her friends at the table next to us. I rarely curse in public and am generally non-confrontational, but I let loose in a way I can't ever explain.
A stream of insulting profanity issued from my mouth for a good 10 minutes that would have put a sailor to shame. I found I couldn’t stop and it got on the verge of Bukowskian poetry. I insulted her, her mother, her weight, and her pinched-faced friends. I launched into the smell of her unmentionables, how fat she was, how she’d only be able to reproduce with a blind drunken moron with a deathwish.
And it only progressed from there. F. Lee Ermey’s Marine Drill Sergeant from Full Metal Jacket would have told me to tone it down a bit. I told her he was deaf and that we couldn’t stop it and that this was a food court in a pissant Southern town filled with pissant inbred hellspawned redneck ignorant mutant troglodytes that embarrass normal troglodytes.
The food court was silent and all the eyes were upon us. She got up and left crying. I can honestly say the whole rant was involuntary, like a pus-filled boil popping and draining in the instant that I said it. I had never done anything like this before and have not done it since. I feel bad for her to this day.
Youtube
#94 Teaching Is Her Passion; Cleanliness Is Her Crusade
In elementary school, the cool thing to do was put hand sanitizer in excess on your hand and sniff it pretending to get really high. Things escalated to the point of our teacher, at full volume, yelling "Where! Is! The! Hand! SANITIZER!?” A brave soul returned it and the teacher threw it against the wall.
#95 Steady Hands
As a surgeon, I try to remain calm and steady about most everything. Even all the staff comment about how I’m the calmest surgeon they’ve ever met. One time taking out someone’s gallbladder, the assistant needed to grab it and hold it up so I could free stuff up. Newer person was helping me and moving a little too fast without seeing where their instrument was going before grabbing the gallbladder.
They ended up poking a small hole in the liver. I went as crazy as I’ve ever gone in my life: I let out an audible sigh and small grumble. Ended up not bleeding all that much and rest of surgery went fine. One of these days I plan to react to something like that by throwing instruments around the room, just to see how people react.
#96 Premeditated Revenge
A kid bit me on the chest in kindergarten. I waited till after nap time to run him over with my tricycle.
#97 Brand Spanking New
It has always felt like my parents never wanted me. I was a surprise honeymoon baby, born nine months and a day after their wedding. I was regularly screamed at for anything I did until I just started hiding away. I was called "the practice child" my whole life. My younger siblings got way more love and attention. In my teens, they started taking in "strays."
If any neighborhood kids didn't want to go home at any point, they could just hang out at our house all the time. Effectively, my mother would take my friends away from me to be her friends instead. One such friend of hers was a kid who picked on me constantly from the time I was 11 years old. I guess they had that in common.
This guy had been kicked out of his dad's house and his mom's house when he was 20, so my parents ended up taking him in permanently. That ruined me. But I always wanted their approval, so I was always calm and agreeable; always desperately trying to figure out how to get them to love me. For this reason, I went along with it.
Years later, I'm married and have a son. This guy still lives with my parents. They continue to coddle and make excuses for him while criticizing me for whatever they feel like. One day, we're all at my parents’ house and my son is being a goofy two-year-old, which annoys the man-child living there. So, he gets furious, picks up my son by his ankle, and spanks him.
My parents claimed not to have seen it. We went home. I couldn't sleep that night because I was so upset. The next morning, I made sure the guy and my mom would be at home—although, why wouldn't he be there—and I went to confront them with my wife. I dumped everything I had been putting up with onto them for about an hour, including asking how my mom could allow this jerk to hit my son.
Their reaction was utterly disturbing. She maintained that it didn't happen, so I went through the roof. I ended up crying because of all the pent-up emotion, so my fantastic wife took over. She said we wouldn't ever be coming back if the guy still lived there, so he yelled that he would move out. He then stormed off after saying he didn't have to listen to this.
My parents convinced him not to move out shortly after we left. My mother expressed how disappointed she was that I didn't really come "to have a conversation", and only came to "dump" on them. That was her big takeaway from everything I had said. That I wasn't being "fair" to them. We went to counseling with them later. For months.
It validated everything I had felt, but they never stopped lying and being defensive. One counselor said we should be on Dr. Phil. The other counselor said my mom is "incapable of empathy." Both counselors called my parents delusional. But, of course, my parents didn't take any of it seriously. At one point, my dad asked me "Who does he think he is to judge us like that?" as if he had forgotten that THAT'S THEIR JOB!
I haven't spoken to them in almost a year now, and my life is so much better.
#98 Eat Your Words
A while ago I decided to treat myself to some Burger King. I was having a bad day and had a headache coming on. So I was waiting in line at the BK, when suddenly this woman comes in with a monster of a child. He was out of control, screaming, punching his mother, throwing things around. The mother didn't pay any attention to him and he continued yelling, "I want a PIE."
My headache turned into a full-blown migraine. I calmly turned and asked if she could please calm her child down. Immediately she got up in my face, telling me to mind my own business. I nodded and turned around, when the child cried out again how he wants a pie. I then decided to ruin their day in the most devious way I could think of.
When I got to the front of the line I asked the person at the register how many apple pies they have left. They told me and I bought all of them. I ate one and made sure the kid saw me throw the rest in the trash.
#99 Sometimes It’s Best to Keep Your Mouth Shut
Company consisted of something like 1,200 employees at the time, and rented out a big conference center for a Christmas party. At the opening of the party, the CFO was giving opening remarks, and asked—expecting cheers—if everyone liked their Christmas bonuses. He got booed. See, of that 1,200 people, a bit over a thousand were in customer service. No one in customer service got bonuses, only people in the "corporate" departments got them.
And our awesome CFO decided to rub everyone's noses in it, because clearly the Chief Financial Officer of a company would have no idea that 80%+ of his company didn't get bonuses. At the same party, the CEO made an announcement that the company would be closed on Friday (Christmas that year was on a Thursday), and everyone got a day off.
Now, he had literally just finished making a speech about how everyone was important, and everyone was part of the company, no matter the department. He had shoveled it hard, trying to make CS happier. The next day, we all got a memo that Customer Service still had to work on that Friday. We apparently didn't count as "everyone."
We had enough. January saw a 60% attrition rate.
#100 Irresponsible Faculty Meeting
One of my favorite moments: I walk into the school office to check my mailbox. A parent of one of my students sees me and says very loudly, almost screaming, "Oh, FINALLY!!!! LOOK, EVERYONE, I FOUND A TEACHER!!! Do you realize that I left work EARLY to come here after school to talk to my son's teachers about his report card, and you are LITERALLY the ONLY teacher I have found?!!! I went from classroom to classroom and everyone is GONE!!! Do you know what time it is?!! It's 3:45 pm! School ended FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO!!! FIFTEEN MINUTES!!!! And you're the ONLY teacher STILL HERE!!!! CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME WHY EVERYONE IS GONE?! CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME WHY EVERY TEACHER HAS LEFT THE BUILDING WHEN SCHOOL JUST GOT OUT?!!!!"
The guy just snapped. I paused, waiting to see if there was more. When I realized he had finished, I said, "All the teachers are in the library. We're having a faculty meeting." The look on his face was priceless. He knew he was in the wrong, but by that point, he had committed so fiercely to his anger and righteousness that he couldn't just apologize. So he said, "Well that's just irresponsible." And he walked out of the office.
