Turning a power-tripping authority's own methods against them b y adhering rigidly to their strict rules—turning the authority they love so much into their own downfall or to be “Hoist with their own petard,” as Shakespeare would have put it. And there's a reason why this theme is so pervasive throughout history and intriguing to us through to the modern day, the poetic justice of someone's own misuse of authority against them by turning their orders into a perfect act of defiance.

People say that haggling is a skill that can be very beneficial to learn and master, but they don't say that there is a specific time and place one should use this skill. It is certainly not suitable for every business, and one should know when it is acceptable to try and haggle a lower price for something, and when they should accept the price they are given in the first place. A farmer's market, is the perfect place to haggle for a price, and you can sometimes get really great deals on produc…

Next, read about the brand new managers who messed up their workplaces really badly, like one dude who “decided to get rid of people... a month later, critical systems were failing .”

It's a commonly overlooked reality that being kind is easier than being unpleasant. Besides, the impolite individual is the only one who will eventually suffer the consequences. The story that follows is from a displeased student. The original poster (OP) describes his encounter with a lecturer who exudes entitlement. As a student, OP gained expertise in handling a variety of personalities. But nothing had prepared him for the smug professor who was unwilling to give his students the time of da…

The worst people on the planet are those who have an entitlement complex. It never ceases to astound us when someone exhibits an annoying sense of entitlement, no matter how often we encounter it. The story that follows describes an innocent onlooker who is shocked by an entitled family. A group of thirty-six people were having dinner at a restaurant. Guests started leaving the restaurant later in the evening. A very pregnant woman was the only person still seated at the table by the end of the…

Imagine helping build something from the ground up, only to have your contribution entirely dismissed and undervalued. This CEO is giving an Elizabeth Holmes level of ruthlessness after cheating her former CTO out of his promised shares in the company just before its official launch. This, of course, was after two years of contracted work on the CTO’s part in helping develop the app and raise funding for the startup. Once the CEO found an investor who signed onto the company as her COO, this Re…

We all want to have the best experience while being out and about, eating at restaurants, and enjoying life. That is why we can all probably recall times when those experiences don't go as planned, and we end up annoyed in certain situations. When going out to eat, for example, you expect the dining experience to provide you with a pleasant service, in which you are greeted a certain way, you get your food in an acceptable amount of time, and overall leave the place feeling content. When one of…

“Maybe he thought he was doing you a favor and took you saying you were thinking of selling too literally? Or he's scamming people. Either way, he's going too far.”

Sometimes, you have to put your foot down because of the principle of the matter and not because of details. This Redditor had been selling numerous household items on Marketplace only to repeatedly be taken advantage of by potential online buyers. The pattern was common. The two would message back and forth, a specific price would be agreed upon, and when they finally met up to exchange the item(s) for the agreed-upon price, suddenly the buyer did not have sufficient funds. The Redditor would…

This boss has an odd incentive structure, and it is not at all favorable towards his hard-working employees. When you go to an interview at a movie theater, I imagine they ask you about your customer service qualifications or your background working in retail. They probably don't ask how much snow you can shovel… these employees had to find out the hard way that it was part of their workplace requirements. U/SparkleFritz had a boss who insisted that when it snowed, the employees should be the o…

Landlords are never there when you want them and are always there when you want to be left alone. This week, we've collected some of the top mildly infuriating landlord stories that range from ignored mold and pipe problems to entering tenants' apartments without permission. Let these stories serve as a friendly reminder to read up on tenant rights in your states if you also have a landlord who is either too invasive or one who refuses to acknowledge an unlivable situation. Personally speaking,…

"After that every morning when Bessie comes in she throws her tantrum screaming about how lazy young people are, no one wants to work, all the usual boomer greatest hits."

We are firm believers that hourly employees should get paid exactly the amount they are due for their work, not a minute less or more. Clocking in and out of a job is the perfect way to track the hours and make sure employees are getting paid exactly what they are owed. That means, of course, that as long as an employee is physically on the job, they should be getting paid for it, and they only clock out when they are entirely off the job premises. The fact that the workers in this Reddit story…

When there are changes in management at a workplace, the whole vibe can suddenly shift. A new manager can change a workplace without even trying, although, as these people shared, a lot of managers try their hardest to act in charge at their new place of business. While we're on the subject of hiring new people, read about the HR folks who were surprised by these odd resumes, like one person whose “ resume had a skills sectio n...only thing listed was ‘calculator.'”

Some managers insist that their workers would take any opportunity to slack off, and this attitude is especially pervasive in any industry where staff are frequently off-site and operating in a multi-site environment, like in delivery or maintenance scheduling. Meanwhile, these same managers are comfortable at their desks obsessing over this single point and trying to thwart their workers from slacking while achieving very little themselves. This cynical view prevents them from taking any feedb…

Never burn a bridge with your next door neighbor