We all have frustrating people that we work with, and there's nothing quite as satisfying as getting just a littleeee bit of petty justice when it comes to them. Now, obviously, we're not suggesting y'all do anything illegal here...but most petty revenge is pretty harmless while also being SUPER satisfying.
If you want some ~secondhand satisfaction~, here are 16 stories from the BuzzFeed Community (and r/pettyrevenge) about people getting justice when it comes to someone they work with.
1. "I was working in an office that was part of an agency that's sole purpose was in support of disabled persons. My supervisor, P, was a nasty jealous a-hole. One coworker, E, in another office was deaf ... and while she had cochlear implants, still had to do a lot of lip reading. P was fully aware of this. P's boss also made his high opinion of E well known which made P jealous."
"One day, P leaves a voice message for E, which E returns but says she didn't catch everything said so needed it repeated. (P always used the speaker phone despite my desk being only four feet from her, and I could hear everything.) Anyway, the call ends, P hangs up and then explodes. She's ranting about E being too stupid and entitled to even pay attention to a voice message. I remind P that she's deaf and voicemail can be problematic as she can't lip read to supplement. P says E shouldn't work if she can't hear. I lose it! I scream, 'she is great at her job and this agency exists for the disabled for f*sakes.' P says nothing — probably 'cause I had never even raised my voice or cursed in the office before.
So my petty revenge: I researched our archaic phone sets and covertly reset P's at the lowest volume possible. She was stupid and lazy meaning she never figured out what I did or the volume setting issue. E was so well-liked that no one would help her [P] figure it out either. I told her she must be becoming hard of hearing."
2. "Signed her up to stairlift company mailing lists, incontinence pad mailing lists, soft food meals on wheels lists, anything I could find that would be useless and annoying because when my daughter died, she said ‘Surely better aged 2 than aged 22.’"
3. "I was the assistant manager at a mall shoe store and the new manager they brought in after the old one got fired was an absolute dick. One example is that he once said to me — a pregnant woman — that if his girlfriend got pregnant he would push her down the stairs. Real gem. So when I accepted another job, I called him at close that day to tell him I quit. The guy working with me that night also quit, and helped me completely reverse the entire store — all the men's stuff switched to the women's side and vice versa, all out of order, all backward."
"The icing on the cake? The guy that was not so subtly being groomed for my position had just left for a mission trip for two weeks. In Africa. Which left shitty manager bro working two weeks straight of 12-hour days with an entire store to put right by himself. I later found out that three other employees quit when they found out that I left!"
4. "I have an annoying coworker, who started to hide my and my other colleague's stuff, because he thinks it's hilarious. We told him to stop, but he continued. Our shitty boss didn't want to intervene and [said] we should solve this issue ourselves. So since I don't want to be on his level and start a petty hiding war, I decided to ignore ... him because he is a very extroverted person who always thrives on small talk and gossip."
"Now, we take the same train to work each morning. As always, he has his headphones in and is focusing on his smartphone. ... I walked passed him and chose a different section. The train stopped a few stations before our destination, cause of construction work that started today. Everyone had to get off and change to another train line or the bus to continue their travel, as that was announced several times in the train. Guess who didn't hear those announcements because of his headphones? That's right; my shitty coworker. After everybody got off the train, the doors were shut for half an hour. He was trapped in there. Then the train drove back to the central station, resulting him to be more than an hour late to work. Our boss was furious. All this could have been avoided, if he wasn't such a childish ass."
5. "Earlier today, a coworker was walking around with a can asking for spare change donations. From what I could see of the label (I realized afterward he was likely obscuring the full label on purpose), it was a kid's charity. Okay, cool. He got to my desk, and I did have some loose change, so I dug it out of my purse. As he held the can out and I put the change in, I saw the full label and noticed it wasn't a kid's charity; it was an anti-abortion foundation. I am quite fiercely pro-abortion rights. Maybe I gave about 30 cents (I held the rest of the change in my palm once I realized what it was), but it was the clear deception that pissed me off. And I know a good bunch of my other co-workers tend not to ask details about donations, so he got a lot of mindless donations.
"So, I pulled out my phone and made a nice donation to my state's local abortion fund, and they let you do it in honor of someone, so I wrote, 'In honor of (asshat coworker's name) who thinks he can pull one over on busy office people.' Suddenly, Monday doesn't seem so bad."
6. "My ex-manager was a total nightmare. I worked at a small office for about three and a half years, and I trained about five people during my time there, but none of them stayed because the manager was a complete hell-on-wheels supervillain. She was really getting on my last nerve one day, and I knew she had a zoom meeting at 3 o'clock. She would always take her work laptop to the back of the office, where the bathroom is located, for these meetings. Around 2:50, I got up from my desk and went to the bathroom. I took a very large, very smelly dump and did not use any air freshener afterwards. When she went to the back to start her meeting, she FLIPPED out! She immediately went to the front of the office and swung open the front door and turned on the A/C. She muttered curses under her breath while I sat at my desk holding back my laughter. I had to put up with her shit all day long; I figured she deserved to put up with mine for an hour-long zoom meeting."
—Anonymois
7. "My girlfriend and I both work at a large grocery store. ... A few nights ago, my girlfriend called me, crying and upset. ... She was walking to the bathroom minding her own business, and our coworker (we’ll name Cameron) shouts out to her randomly, 'Damn GF, you’re hooking up with OP now?! How many guys does that make it this month?!' ... When my GF got home, I had already planned my revenge. I helped her through her anxiety as best I could, went to work, worked all night like normal. The next day, however, Cameron was overnight, and so was I. Hence, my revenge. I again worked all night, and when I clocked, out, I used the bathroom.
"It was like 1 in the morning, so the store was closed. Cameron was on shift until around 2, so was a closing store manager (CSM). ... I went into the bathroom, locked the door, squatted down into the urinal, and shit...smearing my sticky, leftover shit in the back of the urinal. ... I found the CSM, acting concerned, and told her that there must’ve been a guy on meth or something that came in, because there’s a turd in the urinal. ... [I said], 'Yeah, it’s really gross, and I know you’re busy, but I couldn’t find Cameron, so I thought I’d let you know so he could clean it.'
"She agreed, a sly smile on her face. She hated Cameron as well. ... And since he was a courtesy clerk, he was trained on how to clean biohazards. It’s part of his job since our janitorial staff doesn’t come in until later in the night, around 2. So between 1 and 2, it’s his job to clean bathrooms. Period. End of story.
"'Cameron, to the front please, thank you.' I heard the overhead intercom buzz as I exited the store, my unsavory business complete. ... Cameron cleaned up my disgusting shit, but he threw a fucking gargantuan TANTRUM. ... I felt giddy knowing that it was me."
8. "An unfriendly coworker used to use my Keurig in my cubicle all the time. She brought her own pods in, so I really didn’t care. Then she started emptying my Brita pitcher to fill her water bottle up every day after I left and never refilled it. Annoying, but whatever. Then one day, a friendly coworker was standing at the entrance to my cube talking to me about a serious operation his wife needed to get soon. He was clearly worried and needed to talk to someone. The unfriendly walked up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and snapped, 'You’re in the way.' The guy seemed embarrassed, apologized, and walked off. She walked in, started her coffee, and walked off while it brewed. I grabbed my bottle of MiO blackberry water flavoring and squeezed probably 1/3 of the bottle in her cup as the coffee filled it. She never used my Keurig or water pitcher again."
9. "I bartend at the airport. This happened last night, and it felt absolutely glorious. The security line through TSA was wild. There is an employee line, but it's mixed in with the regular line (hard to explain, but it's basically not any faster). After a coworker and I had already been waiting 25 minutes, we finally hit the front of the line. Two employees apparently thought they were more important than everyone else, and cut in front of us. I was furious. I remembered their faces. We have hot grab-and-go burgers and sandwiches at my store, and what we don't sell at the end of the night, we usually walk around and hand them out to employees or random people flying out. One of the line cutters came up 20 minutes after close, and we had, like, 30 hot sandwiches left. She asked if she could order food still, and I said we were closed.
"She says, 'What are you going to do with those sandwiches?' I replied, 'That's up to my manager.' She told me I better find out fast because her break was almost over. I was counting my till, and had just finished it. I told her I couldn't ask until I finished counting my till. I recounted it six times until she left. Then I bagged up all the sandwiches and handed them out to every single other airport employee I could find, with a smile, like I was Santa Clause. Take that, you line-cutting jerk."
10. "I (22F) work at a kiosk in the mall, and A (20s M) works at the kiosk right beside ours. I disliked him from the first month I started working there. ... He's a douchey guy and says a lot of misogynistic things. I usually ignore and don't partake in the conversation, but when it's a joint conversation with my coworkers (who are all men) and I'm talking, if he gets bored or doesn't want to wait till I'm done, he'll face the other guy and stop me halfway so he can talk about whatever he wants. The other guys don't pick up on it or are used to doing this as well, so I completely stopped engaging if he's around.
"Recently, a new girl started working, and he tried to do the same to her, and she picked up on it. The very first time he tried to interject four times. He actively tried to stop her from talking four times, and she would not budge — she continued talking to me and our other coworker. At that point, I just decided 'fuck him.'
"So now, whenever he struts over to our kiosk to talk or he tries to talk to anyone, i interrupt him midway and start a new conversation or pull my coworker into doing a task. Every time without fail. It's enough to keep me content at work. We also don't let him get a word in when it's just the girl and I, and I full-on ignore him if it's just me at the kiosk."
11. "I work at an animal shelter, and lots of dogs that come to our shelter don't have names, so we get to name them. Last week, we got a transfer of about 20 dogs from a shelter in New Mexico, all without names. It's kind of an unspoken rule that whoever bathes the dog on intake gets to name it, and it's common courtesy to not argue unless it's offensive. So my coworker named a dog Bentley because she thought it was cute. One of our really mean coworkers was really annoyed by this and said, 'Can you not give our dogs basic names?' (This same coworker has been known to give the dogs stupid names like 'Dooper.') So we proceeded to name all the dogs things like Spot, Benji, Rosy, Ruby, and Bella because fuck her."
12. "For a little backstory, I work construction. When work is slow, I deliver pizzas with a company, whose name is synonymous with a table top game. I knew this coworker from the construction job. When I was very new, he was my lead. He was the kind of guy that would watch you make a mistake, then berate you and call you an idiot for that mistake. Not a nice guy by any right. But one thing he loved to do was brag about how doting his wife was [and] how she was a homemaker. But also bragging about how hot his girlfriend was, and how much they sacked when his wife thought he was working overtime. I got a delivery with a familiar name (we’ll call him AC). I arrived at the house, knocked, and he opened the door. He looked quite surprised. AC: 'Hey, I didn’t know you delivered pizzas!' Me: 'Yeah, when work gets slow. Anyway, that’ll be $15.' AC: 'Here you go.' He hands me $16 and looks kinda smug about it.
"I take the cash, am about to turn around and say just loud enough that anyone inside might hear, 'Hey AC, is this your girlfriend’s house, or you and your wife’s place?' The color drained from his face, and he handed me an extra $20."
13. "On the night shift, we nap — there’s nothing to really do from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. I always would nap in this one area. Everyone on their shift has their designated spot that they always go to. No one would use that chair because it wasn’t reclining correctly. I looked up how to fix it, and it was reclining properly again. The next time I worked, I saw my coworker's bag and blanket on the chair. I asked her when she was leaving the spot since that’s not her normal spot (not even thinking she was trying to sleep there). She goes, 'I’m watching a movie.' I found another spot that night. The following day, the same thing — three days straight! I’m like, this girl really took my spot. So before she got in, I removed the cord I fixed it with and put it back in the upright position and was already sitting in her old spot. I would come in slightly early every time she worked to claim her old spot."
14. "The first thing a coworker I normally work nights with does is put a sticky note on the break room saying they're using the room for their break. It's normal on night shifts to take all your breaks in one go and take a nap. But normally, you talk to your coworkers about where everyone's gonna go. This one coworker is the only one who just puts a note on the door calling dibs. After months of kinda just being a little annoyed and finding other random weird spots to break, I found my inner petty self. Now I make sure to get to work 30 minutes early, and if it's that coworker on, I put a note on the door exactly like the ones they always did. It brings me great satisfaction to see them approach the break room sticky note in hand to then just walk away. And I sleep very well indeed."
15. "At my work ... we have a few of our own lockers. Only thing is, it’s in the bathroom. So if you use the bathroom, you lock the door and cut off access to the lockers. ... I got a locker during orientation to my job, and had been using it since I got there. For a while however, I had to stop because a certain coworker who’d get done earlier than me would hang out in the bathroom until time to leave and lock the door. So I couldn’t get my stuff until later. ... So I just kept my stuff and lock in my purse and put it in my car. He left a few months later, and I went to go use my locker again, only to find stuff it in that wasn’t mine."
"Stuff like prescription pills, an Apple Watch, keys, and other miscellaneous things. I kept my lock in my purse and just moved the things to the side to put my purse in. I asked all my coworkers over the next few days if any of them kept their things in this certain locker. All denied. I even asked my boss to check the locker records and make sure I was using mine and not someone else’s. And I was using mine.
Since everyone denied it, and I didn’t wanna limit their access to important stuff, I just kept my purse to the side of the locker and theirs to the other side. Soon after though, ... before I left for the end of the day, I noticed my bag wasn’t in the locker. I checked the other opened ones and found mine in one of them. I figured whoever’s stuff this was was moving mine around. Again, I asked my coworkers the next few days. They all claim they don’t use the stuff in there and it’s not theirs.
It happened almost every other day for about a week, and one day I just had it. I white out the combination on the back of the lock so no one but me would know. And on a Friday, I checked my locker to find my stuff moved again. I got my purse, grabbed the lock, and locked my locker, with all the other stuff in it. I didn’t work the weekend either, so it was locked until Monday morning.
I walk in to immediately hear my name from a fellow coworker. She started chewing me out, asking why I locked it and she couldn’t get to her stuff all weekend. She kept going on and on, saying how petty and upset and disappointed she was to trust a young lady like me, to deprive her of her things.
Once she was done, I calmly said, 'I had asked you multiple times on multiple occasions if this was your locker, or if the things inside were yours. You denied all of it. After checking with my boss again, and confirming it is MY locker, I simply did what I was entitled to. I locked it. If you’re upset take it up with boss.' Needless to say boss sided with me. The stuff was removed from my locker that night."
16. Finally, let's end on a long but good one: "I work as a bartender, and my stubborn coworker, we’ll call her Melissa, used to be a server at the time of this story. Melissa ... openly thought of herself as above the rules, and never did anything she didn’t want to do. Melissa, being God’s gift to our restaurant, aspired to be a manager. Our company was hiring managers throughout our region at the time. Every quarter, the company offers different bonuses and incentives that are very lucrative. Even though I hated her, I wanted Melissa to become a manager, because she would have to relocate to a different store per company policy."
"One day, I was getting absolutely slammed at the bar, more so than usual. I not only had to take care of the guests at the bar, but also was in charge of two server sections (total of eight tables). On top of all that, I had to make drinks for the entire restaurant that the servers rung in.
This was during a time we were short staffed so it wasn’t super uncommon. To prevent the dining room from burning to the ground, the servers and myself had to all work as a team, have each other’s backs, and be patient with each other. Except Melissa, of course. Melissa only cared about her own tables. She did not care that her drink ticket was seventh in line. To Melissa, nobody else existed. ...
I noticed Melissa cleaning her tables by putting her dirty glasses on the bar. She was doing this to flip her tables faster and make more money. But this created more work for me, when I already had more work than anybody else in the entire freaking restaurant. I was fucking PISSED. Next time she was rung in a drink and was impatiently waiting for me to make it, I told her she needs to take her glasses to the dishwasher in the kitchen or I’m not making any more drinks for her. She can come back here and make them herself, or take the glasses to dish. She grudgingly took back the glasses, of course while saying something snarky about me under her breath, but it didn’t end there. In her mind, she must’ve needed to get back at me for making her do her job.
After the rush was over, she ... secretly put one dirty glass on the bar when she thought I wasn’t looking. I immediately called her out. So she said she forgot it doesn’t go there, and will bring it to the kitchen right away.
…. But she waited for me to turn around and she ran away with the glass still on the bar. No more guests are coming so I left it for her to clean. Next time she comes by she still doesn’t take it, and she’s got an obviously satisfied smirk. I told her to take the glass back and she told me she 'already did, this is somebody else’s glass.'
I looked her dead in the eyes and said, 'Is this the hill you wanna die on? Are you really this stubborn?' She doubles down and says she’s not cleaning up somebody else’s glass (even though it’s hers). Fine. You can win the battle. I’m gonna win the war. Rather than getting openly upset, I channeled an astonishing amount of rage into a productive revenge plan.
Within moments, I remembered something amazing. That quarter, new managers get a sign on bonus of $5,000. They have to be hired/promoted before the quarter ended. She was all but a sure thing, and there was only a few weeks til the beginning of the next quarter.
So what happened? I decided to delay the hiring process by recommending someone better for the job, with more experience, seniority, and leadership: myself. I had a formal interview with my boss, the regional manager, and even corporate. The managerial hiring process was delayed by a month, and as soon as the new quarter started, I decided to withdraw my application.
The quarterly bonus was no longer a $5,000 hiring bonus; it was instead a $2,000 referral bonus. So I decided to refer Melissa to corporate at the time of my application withdrawal. She eventually got the job. ... I’m still waiting on my $2,000 referral bonus: however, Melissa cost herself $5,000 by saving herself a trip to the dishwasher. Hope it was worth it."
Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.