After every exhausting week of work, weary employees uncontrollably count their hours and calculate their expected pay. We can't help it. The shining beacon of hope of every working citizen is their bi-weekly paystub, rewarding their hours of indentured servitude to ‘The Man'. But when you get that glimmering check and the total balance comes up short, your ever-wavering shift resilience fades.

Do you ever wish you could take karma into your own hands? Unfortunately, life doesn't always give us opportunities to play with our tormentors, but for the brewery bartender in our next story, the karmic cookie crumbled in his favor after he caught a coworker red-handed stealing his tips.

As someone who sports sweatpants and a hoodie for most of the year, I certainly don't have an aura of intimidating professionalism, but the guy in our next story realized how quickly our stylish social stigmas can derail a couple of employees.

This woman managed to turn lemons into lemonade, even as she was getting fired from her job . We admire her can-do attitude, and her kid clearly did too, since they shared Mom's story to the malicious compliance subreddit. When companies do less-than-legal activities, they often try to make it seem totally normal. They need their employees to believe it's perfectly normal to bend the rules… and bend them some more… and keep bending them. By the time an employee has fully broken the rules, they…

When was the last time you got tattle-tailed on?

It's important to keep some semblance of 'fun' in the workplace because that's the only thing that's getting you (and your coworkers) through your workday. But like every group project in middle school, there's always going to be a Debbie Downer in your group, determined to squash any good-natured fun that falls outside of the rulebook.

Consider his bubble burst.

Middlemen are a concept created by upper management to keep the underlings in line, but are they even necessary?

Managers will do just about anything to cover a wayward shift in the fast food industry. With corporate goons breathing down their neck and a 70-hour week on their horizon, it's no wonder managers become desperately manic when an employee no-shows or calls out sick. They're at their brink. However, the manager in our next story proved to be more manic than desperate...

There's nothing worse than being an employee of a high-end retail store. If you've never experienced it, picture this: Every day you clock in, you are exposed to the scrutiny of every high-horse, ivory tower, wannabe with a superiority complex and despite your desire to dismiss their overinflated opinion with a waive, your commission depends on them.

It's no secret that tipping culture in America has gotten out of hand in the last few years. Every business with an iPad as their POS system will flip their little screen around to their customers they sheepishly say, ‘It’s just going to ask you a few questions'… Sorry, but it's hard to justify tipping 35% on a $7 coffee, but the social pressure of the barista with an imperious stare, a septum piercing, and electric pink hair is tough to ignore.

One customer was ‘held responsible for their actions’ by a full-service shopper who felt it was their mission in life to teach them a lesson. What was this lesson about? Well, tipping. Look, people are awful, I get it. I was a waitress once for many, many years, where I met people from all walks of life. Some were kind, some were petty, and some were downright entitled human beings. Working in the service industry really gets your hatred for humanity going, but still, by law, you don't need to…

If you've ever pulled an overtime shift, you know the psychological warfare that goes on throughout every step of that OT journey. Once you pass hour 8 of your work day, your concept of time starts to warp, turning your workplace into an inescapable purgatory in which you're trapped until your next 15-minute break. For the nurse in our next tale, her accidental overtime shift turned into a nightmare after her relief no-showed...

Even if you're a level-headed worker, sometimes the stressors of the workplace can get to you. Boiling over with rage and brimming with thoughts of sabotage, there are some service industry jobs where the work is doable until the customers rear their ugly heads. Enduring the pig-headedness of customers– or in this case, passengers –can take a toll on a worker's patience and perhaps, their mercy.

Spam emails hit your inbox every day. Whether you're avoiding daily discounts from incessant brands, disregarding subscription requests, or ignoring updates on your extended warranty, there's a lot of riff-raff that comes through your email that can go straight to the trash . However, when it comes to your work email inbox, there are a few messages that can cause a lot of confusion if they're never seen– like a resignation letter.

When we all graduated high school, we thought that that would be the end to the restroom tyranny, but for the gas station employee in this next story, the obsession with bathroom breaks followed them into the working world.