We've all been there. Those times when you know you're right about something, but somebody singles you out and tries to make you feel inferior. Sometimes these individuals get away with it, but other times, something glorious happens: sweet revenge rides in on karma's back and strikes. Them. Down...Justice at its finest.
1. Terrible Timing
As a lifeguard, we’ve got a rule - mini swimmers need an adult with them in the water. So, one day this mom and her little kid, maybe five, stroll in. Immediately, I can tell they're going to be a problem. The mom's dressed in jeans and glued to her phone, obviously not up for a swim. I saw this drama coming a mile away and grabbed them before the kid could dive in. I tried explaining our arms-length policy to her.
I told her our pool was at least four feet deep, and these rules were to keep her kid safe. No offense to us lifeguards, but a nearby parent could act faster if anything went wrong. According to her, it was a dumb rule.
She tried to convince me that her kid was the next Michael Phelps, and that he aced swimming at the lake, blah blah blah. Apparently, I was the bad guy, just complaining that I had to do more work. Typical meet-cute with an offended parent. And while she's ranting, the little one goes full Baywatch and jumps straight into the deep end. That's when things got real scary, real fast.
Without skipping a beat, the kid starts flailing around - classic signs of drowning. My colleague, who happened to already be in the water, quickly jumped in to save him. The mom checked out quicker than anyone I’ve ever seen, signing off on our care refusal form. I felt for the kid - seemed like she was more mad at him for making her look like a fool than anything else.
2. More Than Just Muscles
One client I worked for tried to sue me after I didn't give him free service/a refund because he randomly decided he wasn't happy with the job I did. When we talked it out under oath, it was pretty obvious they thought they could walk all over me. They were rudely mistaken.
His lawyer got so frustrated, he started throwing insults my way. Classic sign he had nothing legit to back up his case, and we had to take a break. When we picked it back up, he apologized, asked some more questions, and wrapped it up. My insurance ended up giving him bread crumbs to avoid a major lawsuit.
3. Are You Smarter Than A Kindergartener?
When I was a little kid, around five or six, I was totally into the Titanic - the ship, not the movie. I reckon all those video rental ads got me hooked. For a good while, I knew all the stats, facts and trivia about that ship's doomed 1912 trip.
One sunny summer, the whole family came together, like we usually did. Among the crowd was one of dad's uncles - my great-uncle - who had the reputation of being quite the jerk. Even my dad couldn't stand him. Somehow, my great-uncle found out about my Titanic obsession, so he tried to embarrass me with a pop quiz. He goes, "Hey, how long was the Titanic exactly?"
Dad said I looked straight at my great-uncle, sporting a poker face, and calmly replied, "882 and a half feet, duh.” Needless to say, my dad loved that.
4. It’s A Tricky Word
I once worked tech support at a hospital and had to guide a doc through a password reset. He struggled to type in "welcome12345" because he thought "welcome" had a double L. He got all up in my face, saying his education beat mine and wouldn't back down.
Finally, he got annoyed and passed me to his nurse before taking off. She nailed the password on her first go and even said sorry for the doctor's attitude. But the best part came right at the end. As she was ending the call, I heard her ribbing with another nurse, "Yeah, Doc couldn't spell 'welcome' once more."
5. Simplest Solution
Once I had this boss who seriously believed everyone was just plain dumb. One morning, our office computer went kaput. She swings by my desk, asking if I'm any good with computers. I let her know I've used one, like, once or twice. She then dispatches me to inspect the malfunctioning computer to see if I can work out what's causing the issue. I hit the power button, and she instantly labels me a nitwit, claiming she'd already given that a whirl herself.
So, there I was, diving under the desk and emerging after a hot minute. I asked her to press the power button yet again. Lo and behold, it sprang to life. "What was the snag?" she inquired. "It was unplugged," I bluntly replied.
6. Talked Themselves Out Of A Sale
When I was a cashier at a supermarket, customers often argued about their veggies. They'd mix up lettuce and cabbage, and I'd just go along with it to keep them happy. It was pretty funny when they came back complaining about a failed coleslaw recipe.
The best debates were about sweet potatoes and yams—especially before Thanksgiving. Mostly, we sell sweet potatoes in the US, but folks often call them yams.
True yams are tough to find unless your shop caters to Latin American tastes. We did, but they were often out of stock and costlier than sweet potatoes. Around holiday time, we'd put sweet potatoes on sale, and they’d fly off the shelves. Customers always insisted they were buying yams—I was even called stupid for not 'knowing' it.
So, I made them pay for it—literally. I tagged them as yams...at four times the price. When they asked for the discount, I’d gently remind them that they insisted I mark it as a yam, missing out on the sale price for sweet potatoes.
7. Following The Rules
I got my paper sent back this morning, all because I didn't write out the authors' full names in the manuscript. So, I snapped a pic of their submission rules clearly saying to use the first initial and last name for the authors, and shot it back at them. A couple of minutes later, I got a sorry email and an alert that my submission got accepted.
The academic world... Geez!
8. Do Not Touch
In my tour group, there was this guy who loved sharing his unsolicited opinions about my animals. Then, even after I warned him, he still stuck his fingers into the tank with our tiny gators. He was going on about how baby gators can't hurt people. Boy, was he wrong. The male gator shot out from his hidey-hole and latched onto his hand.
Man, I had to try real hard not to crack up.
9. Stubborn
I used to manage train modifications, and there was this one difficult door mod. The fleet guy, who was a pain right off the bat because I was an over-30 but youthful-looking blonde woman leading the project, didn't make things easy.
I was driving this big grey Volvo back then, but it was in the shop, so I brought my "fun car" for the week. The fleet guy saw it in the lot and, assumed because of its Barbie pink color, it must belong to me. He even called it out during a meeting.
One of the guys asked what kind of car it was, and I said a Peugeot 207 convertible. The fleet guy said, "No sweetie, it's a VW beetle. Not surprised you can't tell cars apart." I backed myself up, saying, "I've got it insured as a Peugeot and I’ve had it for a bit, so I'm pretty sure I know what I've got."
I tried to move the meeting along. But during a coffee break, he started up again. Some folks had gone out for a smoke and seen the car – obviously not a Beetle. But even then, they didn't back me up. The fleet guy continued on, suggesting I had the car because it was pink.
Most of them didn't know I had a daughter because that's my private business. Actually, she picked out the car. Anyway, I plonked my Peugeot-coded keys down on the table and invited him to go find 'my' car. I wish I could say he backed off then, but no. He said there must have been two pink cars and that he only saw the Beetle. He was a total oaf.
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10. Life Lesson
I'm French and live in France, but my roots are in the UK and English is pretty much like my first language. At 17, I had to switch from a private to a public school due to some personal stuff. Everyone figured I was bumped off the private school because of lousy grades — they had some high standards there.
On the first day at my new school, we had an English class. The teacher distributed a bunch of sentences for us to translate from French, then we had to compare answers with the person next to us. The first sentence was a bit tricky, and only one student — me — nailed it.
We all started comparing translations, and this girl next to me laughed her head off at my answer, "How long has it been raining for?" She thought it was the funniest thing she had heard, "Has it been? Has it been? Never heard of something like that. So dumb," she scoffed.
I was the new kid, I didn't want to make waves, so I kept quiet. I knew she'd be eating her words soon enough. As expected, the teacher called out my answer as correct. Classmates found out I was really good at English and I had solid grades all over. Didn't exactly make me popular though.
Hopefully, that girl realized it's not cool to poke fun at someone without knowing what's what, or better, not to make fun of people at all.
11. Backwards World
My wife, a work buddy, his partner, and I decided to take a leisurely road trip around Jeju, South Korea. The buddy's a smart aleck, but he's been in Korea longer, so I usually listen to him. We were driving around looking for a place to eat, and Mr. Know-it-all happens to be guiding us in the complete wrong direction. When I checked, he replied, "Trust me, we're going south, I'm a geography grad." I had the perfect response.
Seeing the setting sun directly ahead, I shot back, "Funny, looks like we discovered the first place ever where the sun sets South". That zipped his lips pretty quick.
12. Student Employee
Just a few weeks back, school was winding down, so I went home from my college dorm to polish off the semester online. Meanwhile, I started working a little bit at my local grocer. One day, I was ringing up these two dudes. They decided to go halves on the payment with two cards.
My register needed a manual price input, which I promptly did. Then, one charming fella called out my math, saying he's a second-year engineering major at some college nearby. I replied, "Nice. I'm in my third year at— (insert a top-notch engineering school) —what's your major?”
Meanwhile, I whipped out a calculator to prove him wrong. It's always a good day when I can show people that us retail workers aren’t as dumb as they think.
13. Think Before You Talk
Before online banking, I had to do all my banking face-to-face because I'm deaf, can't hear a thing. So one day, I go to the bank to update my address and ask the lady at the counter to make sure she's facing me when she talks because I read lips.
She looks at me, sighs, and says, "You know you could've done this by call, right?" We stare at each other for a bit before I respond, "Yeah, but that'd be pretty much a monologue, don't you think?" She turned as red as a tomato and changed my address right then and there.
14. Stick To Your Subject
In grade eight, we learned that Earth's closeness to the sun doesn't determine winter. Instead, it's because of Earth's tilt. This shocked me.
Later in math class, my teacher mistakenly mentioned the freezing weather was due to our distance from the sun. I couldn't help but correct him, based on Mr. Science Teacher's lesson. Man, he went to town on me! But it was all in good fun, he was known for his funny classroom banter.
We had a lively debate. He quipped, "When I'm cold, I move away from the fire! Yeah that makes perfect sense!" I kept protesting, "No, it's all about Earth's tilt!"
Finally, he googled it and guess what? I was right! Thankfully, he was a good sport, gave me credit and admitted his error.
15. That Backfired
They changed our school timetable one year. That meant our double period class was now sliced into two. When I discussed this switch with the co-teacher, she jokingly called me a dummy and told our table group I sucked at math. As you can imagine, everyone cracked up. It felt awful, but sweet vindication was coming.
Then, the principal clarified the new schedule. You should have seen the co-teacher's face when she found out she was the one who goofed up. Trust me, it felt super good to watch!
16. Don’t Insinuate
My stepmom used to help older folks in the hospital as an occupational therapist. One of her patients was a Vietnamese man who didn't understand English, and his son was there too. My stepmom wanted to ask the son about his dad, but a workmate cut in, saying, "I think he doesn't know English."
The son stayed silent during my stepmom's work with his father. Once they were finished, he and his dad left the room. But he was just biding his time before the mic drop. Just as they reached the door, the son spun around and, in perfect English, said, "By the way, I don't speak English." This completely baffled the coworker, and all my stepmom could do was crack up.
17. Learn Something New Everyday
In college, I had this cocky buddy. One morning, we're in the cafeteria, munching on breakfast, and someone goes, "How do they make bagels anyway?" So, I'm like, "Bagels are boiled, I think." My big-headed friend then blurts out, "You idiot! No way bagels are boiled. That's crazy!" So, someone decides to Google it and turns out, yup, bagels are boiled.
Everyone was pretty blown away by that fact.
18. Cicadas Be Kidding Me!
When I was in eighth-grade, the 17-year cicadas were in full swing in my town. I remember telling my science teacher about this flock of seagulls feasting on them in my backyard. But she kept saying, "You must have been mistaken, we don't have seagulls here because we're not near the sea."
Mind you, Lake Michigan was just a quick 45-min trip away. I insisted, "I see tons of seagulls in my yard every morning, munching on cicadas." Fast forward to a week later, she shows up with a newspaper sporting a giant photo of seagulls. Turns out, they were flying over to the suburbs to get their cicada fix. She had to admit she was wrong but seriously, we've had seagulls my whole life, cicadas or not.
Funny she didn't know that. Seagulls were always around, they just came in bigger numbers for the cicada feast.
19. How The Tables Have Turned
So, I work at Starbucks and I'm a native Spanish speaker but I can chat in English too, just not quite as well. Yeah, some folks reckon I have a speech problem. Once, I kinda tripped over my English words while talking to my workmates and yeah, I felt dumb for a bit.
This new girl, who didn't know I speak Spanish, started laughing at me. She'd regret that soon enough. Time ticked on and soon she was struggling big time with a Spanish-speaking customer at the drive-thru. No one understood a word she tried to say.
I jumped in and took over the order in Spanish. Nowadays, she can't even look me in the face.
20. How To Get Free Wi-Fi
These Dutch folks dropped by my workplace at the tourist center, and they were dead set that our map had its French all screwed up. They saw "Groenland" and were like, "Nope, that's Dutch for Greenland, not French." So, I'm like, "Guys, 'Groenland' is also French." And they're all, "What do you know?"
"Guys, I speak French," I tell them, but they snark back, "Clearly, you're not that good!" Then they asked for the Wi-Fi to look it up on Google translate. So, I shared the password, they checked and there it was: "Groenland". Not a single sorry from them, just a "Guess the map's right then," and off they went.
21. Ruining The Fun
After finishing college, I moved to a new city for work. I planned to stick around, so I thought why not explore the local pub scene for some chill part-time gigs. I aimed to wash dishes in exchange for drinks and to meet people in town. I got one of the jobs, and I was stoked! But, there was this one cook who was not a fan, endlessly trash-talking me every night.
He constantly insulted me, calling me dumb, useless, a dead-end. It didn't bother me much since his rants didn’t affect my profitable day job. I thought he was just venting. But then, my buddy, the head chef, caught the other guy mouthing off about me again.
He spilled the beans about my daytime profession, my college degree, and why I'm working this part-time gig (it's all for the drinks and new faces, guys!). When the annoying cook heard the truth, he vanished forever. Didn't see his face again!
22. Proof!
Back in senior kindergarten, we had a Mother's Day task to color in these pre-made cards with three tulips on 'em. The teacher said to color the tulips red, yellow, and orange. But me, being six years old and not too fond of orange, decided to color one tulip purple. My teacher called me out on it and told me to do it over, saying, "There's no such thing as purple tulips."
When I got home, I told my mom about it. So she came up with a brilliant plan. She clipped a purple tulip from our garden that I brought to school the next day to show my teacher she was wrong.
23. Not Even Worth It
One day, I'm at work, scribbling lunch specials on the menu board. A couple walks in and begins to snicker behind me. The woman throws me a smug glance and quips, "What's a SAND-wich? It's SAMWITCH, sweetie. You've written SAND, like the stuff at the beach!"
I just grin at her and choose not to correct her. Her overconfident gaffe was really something to witness.
24. Me Fail English? That’s Unpossible!
My sister-in-law used make fun of me for my English skills. If I messed up a word, she'd start giggling like, "Oh look how cute, she can't pronounce this." I saw her as a typical attention-seeker, but her ragging my English really got to me.
Quick background - I was born in Colombia, now living in Canada. I speak Spanish, English, and French. One day, we were having a few drinks and she started laughing at something I said again. That's when I snapped. I told her I speak three languages while she can barely manage English. We got into an argument and I was like, let's settle this.
We did a mock English exam online. Guess who aced it? Me! She only managed an eight out of twelve! That was the last time she ever dissed me.
25. Careful Who You Criticize
One day, this project manager and his team came to explain their upcoming migration plan to us. It was so confusing, I didn't get anything they were saying. So, I thought I'd ask some questions to maybe highlight some misunderstandings. But the guy got really worked up and asked who I thought I was.
The surprise on his face was epic when I told him I was the one who actually wrote the procedure and code they were using. Take that, GREG.
26. Please Read Carefully
I gotta say, man, there's never a dull moment working in retail. Customers always seem to misread signs and this one guy messed up his chips deal. Got all angry at me and wanted me to see the sign. I had already had a bellyful of this kinda thing that day, with folks ignoring the small print, so I told him straight: “Why don’t you go check it again yourself, and then bring the right stuff?”
His sassiness deflated when he realized his mistake. After that, whenever he dropped by, I had my defenses up, ready for a showdown.
27. Someone Needs Glasses
Back when I was working at this old grocery store, a lady came up to me claiming that the sign for aisle seven was upside down. This wasn't just a flimsy sign, it was a huge, 4ft square panel, painted yellow with a big '7' on it. I told her there's no way it could have been flipped, especially not during store hours.
Plus, I was just in that aisle a couple minutes ago. But, she wasn't buying it. She even dragged me over there to prove her point, only to find it was perfectly fine. Flustered, she finally muttered something about someone having fixed it already.
28. Who’s The Boss?
A business coach swung by our office for a training gig. I decided to drop by and see if she needed a hand. She was wrestling with the projector setup when I got there. Despite not being a tech whiz, I offered my help. She was a tad annoyed, assuming I was the supposed "IT guy" failing at his job.
We eventually sorted it out and I decided to offer her a cup of coffee. By then she was somewhat cold towards me, but I got her a coffee regardless. Fast-forward to the training session, I was the one to welcome her to the crowd of 40 people and express our gratitude for her presence. At this point, she realized I was the big boss and the cash behind her gig. Needless to say, seeing her face offered me a good dose of satisfaction.
29. Girl Power
So, when I was in the Army, a few of us were chilling in a motor pool. This lieutenant came by needing a forklift driver. He went around asking all the guys if they had a license - none did, so he just huffed off.
Funny thing was, he totally bypassed the other woman and me. We were actually the only ones there with forklift licenses, being 88M - heavy vehicle operators. All the guys? They were just paralegals and HR experts. Everyone had a good laugh at his expense. Definitely a facepalm moment for that guy.
30. Showed Up
A while back, some dudes were gabbing about cars, engines, and whatnot. One of them started mansplaining to me. He was like, "but you probably don't know a thing about this, right?" My husband shut him down quick, saying, "she's actually more car-savvy than me, so don't jump to conclusions." Of course, the guy tried to outsmart me.
He failed miserably, and it was beautiful. I was raised around race cars and mechanics who believed everyone should know their way around a car. I admit, I'm not as knowledgeable now with all the new tech stuff, but this was back in the day.
31. More Than Just A Drive
So, back when I was wrapping up grad school, I drove for Lyft on the side. One time, I picked up this undergrad dude. We got to talking. I asked, “What's your major?” He was like, “Computer Science.” I was like, “Cool! What kinda work are you doing?” He goes “Man, it's some high-level stuff. Not sure you'd get it.”
But I was curious and continued, “Like what? I'd love to hear what you're working on.” He sorta explained, “Really complex database tasks and web app development, including HTML. I'm getting the hang of NodeJS. Probably sounds like gibberish to you, huh? Ever been to college yourself?” I grinned at him, “Actually, I'm in grad school for Computer Science. Got two degrees - Computer Science and Computer Systems Engineering.”
Cue awkward silence - mission complete. But I still chatted with him about his projects. He was excited to share then, once he realized I was into the conversation.
32. Suite Justice
During my summer job as a receptionist, a lady called me from a potential supplier's firm. She had the tired, Midwest voice of someone in their late middle-age, and she wanted our postal address. I gave it, "60 West 26th Street, Suite 400,” but she asked me to repeat.
Then she enquired, "So it's S-W-E-E-T 400?” I nicely told her it's actually suite, spelling out S-U-I-T-E. She burst out laughing and corrected me. "Honey, you don't pronounce it as 'sweet',” she said, patronizingly. "It's pronounced 'suit'." I thought she was pulling my leg or misunderstood, so I chuckled and clarified it's suite, like an office suite.
With a tired sigh, she tried to set me straight: "I hate to be the one to tell you, but you sound ridiculous every time you mention your office address. It might be embarrassing, but after this call, look up a dictionary or ask someone to help you understand how to pronounce suit.”
"Perhaps it's not entirely your fault. Maybe your folks never had formal education, and you were poorly schooled. But if you don't want to lose your job, I suggest you take my advice." She then made me repeat the address but insisted I pronounce suite as suit and wouldn't let me carry on unless I got it right.
Awkwardly, I complied, and she finally hung up, hinting that I'll be grateful to her someday. I just wished she lingered on the line, as I was convinced she'd immediately share this funny story with her co-workers, "You won't believe the idiot I just spoke to.”
“She kept calling her office number a 'sweet'! I was confused, so I asked her to spell it since I wasn't prepared for someone to be daft enough to call S-U-I-T-E a sweet, when everyone knows it's SUIT! Why do they hire bumbling fools?"
And then everyone would get awkward, trying to decide who should tell her the truth.
33. Solar Opposites
My brother and his girlfriend asked me which planet is closest to the Sun; I said Mercury. They spent the next 20 minutes mocking me, insisting it's Venus. I was just bummed out. I was like, we're in our 20s, man!
34. Tricked
I whipped up some veggie nachos with mock meat for a party with friends. One late-comer buddy burst in bad mouthing vegetarian food, thinking the killer nachos could only taste that good with real meat. Wait till he gets the surprise of his life. One of the other party-goers finally set him straight.
35. More Than One Meaning
I was just chilling at a house party, chatting about binary stars, when out of the blue, my ex pipes up, "That isn't binary, are you clueless?" Just then, a mate pulled out their phone, looked up 'binary' and read the meaning to him. His eyes almost fell out of his head. I said, "Quit trying to act like a know-it-all when you clearly aren't. It just makes you look silly."
He was so stuck on binary code from computers, he totally missed that other things can be binary too.
36. Doesn’t Take An Expert To Know
Right after high school graduation, my brother and I went car hunting. He had only just figured out how to drive a manual car. His first test drive was an old Ford Explorer that wouldn't shift into fifth gear. I immediately told him, "Hey, I don't think this one's a good buy. Something's clearly off with it." He dismissed me, questioning my car knowledge and bought it anyway.
Fast-forward a week, and the car's transmission broke. I couldn't help but sass him, "Hey, I might not know a lot about cars, but clearly I know more than you!" It's been nearly two decades since, and I tease him with that story whenever he gets too cocky. Honestly, my car knowledge is still limited; I only know they go "vroom" and get me around.
Despite my 15+ years of driving and owning cars, I've been lucky enough to avoid any major repairs like transmission troubles.
37. That Came Full Circle
Back in sixth-grade science, we got asked about the shape of a rainbow. I quickly said it's a circle. The class "smartypants" started laughing and talking trash. Then, the teacher agreed with me - it's a circle, and the whole class cracked up at her.
38. Didn’t See That One Coming
I was at a game night once. Someone made a comment about languages - irrelevant now, but they were curious about something. So, I gave 'em an answer. We had just met, so they tried poking fun at me, saying I was off base. I said, "Nah, I'm pretty sure that's right, here's why."
He chuckled a bit and said, "What, did you get a degree in languages or something?" Our mutual friends immediately started laughing. I told him, "Well, yeah, just got back from grad school with my second degree in linguistics." You should've seen the red in his cheeks, priceless.
39. Not So Handy Work
I had a car crash and it messed up the front of my car. The insurance suggested a garage where I got it fixed. About a year later, I had another accident, hitting the same spot again. I took it back to that garage. The mechanic tells me, "The last lot didn't do a great job fixing this."
I looked at him and shot back, "You guys were the last lot." Safe to say, there was total silence after. Needless to say, I didn't use their services after that.
40. Just One Of The Guys
I was super into Warhammer once. I popped into the shop one day and some young dudes were there painting models. They gave me a snarky look, a chick hanging out in a dude-heavy hobby. I reached out to check out a model and one of them was like, "Don't, you'll mess it up if you don't know how to handle it right."
Then the store owner came in, said hi to me like we go way back and we started chatting about the new versus old paints. Wish you could've seen their reactions!
41. Safety First
When I was in the army, I worked with anything that had moving parts - you name it. We'd have annual training drill. One year, we got six sparkling new generators, which were under the charge of a long-serving sergeant.
This person thought I wasn’t doing my job right. He decided it was a good idea to just place the fuel cans next to these new generators. I told him they needed to go on a second containment to avoid spillage that could get us in deep water.
He brushed me off with some nonsensical excuse I don't really recall and ignored me. I decided to report his defiance to my boss. Not five minutes later, the sergeant got a roasting and the fuel cans were relocated to the secondary containment.
42. All By Myself
I'm a software guy that builds apps for a public work scene. I've made a bunch of computer software over here, from Human Resources to incident logs and a few tracking systems too. There've been times when folks try to teach me wrongly how to use an app that I've built. It's amusing when they recommend "asking the company."
Which company's that, I wonder? I let 'em know, it's kind of cool they think a whole companies behind the software when, in reality, it's just me in my workspace doing my thing.
43. Rude Misunderstanding
It didn't make people look dumb, but it did make some feel bad. I spent a year in Germany after high school on a student exchange program, and I had to make a bunch of phone calls. I called doctors, bosses, program managers, you name it, so I got the hang of making telephone chatter in German.
I could chat quite easily on the phone, but since it’s not my mother tongue, I would mess up some grammar and stuff. This put me in a weird spot where people thought I was German because I could talk well enough, but since I goofed sometimes, they thought I was also slow.
Folks were quite snappish on the phone, probably because they thought I was slow. When I told them I was actually not from Germany, they were always so shocked and said nice things about my German skills. After that, they were always much nicer and more helpful.
44. Caught Red-Handed
A guy on my team tried to throw me under the bus in a meeting recently. We're working with different agencies, and he basically tried to tell our team leads and boss that I wasn't doing my job for two of our projects. I immediately explained how one of the projects wasn't even qualified for the type of work he was talking about - which I proved by sharing my screen in the Zoom call.
I also questioned why he was messing around with my projects, especially since he wasn't my boss or even from my department. It turns out, he had heard about another project where he thought I wasn't delivering. But again, he was wrong. In fact, I provided enough evidence to show they were doing just fine.
At the end of the day, he was the one who ended up looking bad – like he was out of line or even aiming to get me sacked or lose our budget. On the other hand, I came off as capable and professional. People are still irritated with him and don't really trust what he says anymore.
45. Foreign Language
Caught a bunch of girls in Beijing's subway talking smack about foreigners. They sure didn't see a 6-foot, ginger-haired, white girl dropping Mandarin bombs coming.
46. Second Hand Information
When I was a pharmacist's assistant, folks often assumed I was clueless just because I was young. One day, an older lady insisted on speaking to only the pharmacist. She was so rude, thinking I didn't know my stuff.
Her request was straightforward: cold meds and a Vitamin B shot. The pharmacist, who was pretty busy, asked me to help her out. I gave her the meds and the shot, being as nice as I would with any other customer. But she wasn't happy and complained about me being disrespectful.
I guess the embarrassment got the better of her, as I never saw her again. Hopefully, she learned a lesson and won't behave that way with anybody else.
47. Fool Me Once...
So, once upon a time, I'm working at the Courtyard Marriott near LAX. You know, it’s a business-focused hotel packed with go-getters and frequent travelers. The digs stretch up to five stories, boasting around 200 guest rooms. For high-flyers who think LA business trips up their cool quotient, it's THE place to be.
One night, I'm at the front desk, clock's closer to midnight. A slightly boozy guest stumbles in demanding his room key be reset 'cause apparently, we didn't get that right. I’m like, “Yeah buddy, no problem. Sleep tight!”
Five minutes later, the dude’s back, visibly ticked off. “What the heck, man? Didn’t I ask you to remake my keys? Do your job!” In the hotel world, we can’t retort or argue, it's all about making the guests feel comfy.
So, I cop the fault, assure him it won't happen again, and hand him an extra key. He nabs it and storms back to his room. Five minutes tick by, guess who's back? Hurling more insults my way, he flings the keys at me, demanding a set of WORKING room keys.
My boss, watching all of this, steps in. “Let me take care of this. You need a break.” So I head to the break room, stewing about the nerve of some folks. When my boss returns, he enters the room, grinning from ear to ear.
Got a juicy tidbit to share, obviously. He spills the beans, “Turns out, the guy was trying the wrong floor. His room was one level up. He asked me to apologize for him.” Oh, how I wish I’d seen the look on his face!
48. That’s On You
I make and edit ads and chuck them on our company's YouTube page. One day, I put up this pretty plain vid, and bam! My boss drags me into his office. One of our bigwigs, who's got a real beef with our team and me in particular, had emailed my boss and some top dogs. And it's about to get super awkward.
In the email, he's all up in arms, saying I screwed up the ad because there were "all these gross vids attached to it." He even slaps in a screenshot of the video's end, showing the recommended videos starring suggestive gals in skimpy clothes. The bigwig and my boss got no clue how YouTube's suggestion robots work.
He didn't figure out those videos popped up because he or someone else on his account was watching similar stuff. Not sure how my boss broke that down to him.
49. Wait For It
I was a bank teller a while back and this lady, let's call her Karen, was griping about my slow, crappy computer. She said if I had an IBM, she'd have gotten her stuff done and left by now. She boasted about working at IBM and how they make only top-tier, super-fast bank gear. Yada, yada, yada. So, I took my sweet time turning my equally "terrible" IBM computer for her to see. After that, she didn't utter a peep.
50. Takes One To Know One
Once, when I went for a haircut, the stylist made a huge deal about my dull highlights. He went on how badly they were done and that I was swindled. Then he asked me who messed it up. I was like, "Um, you guys did."
Sources: Reddit,
