This week: Wreaking Workplace Revenge

Last week the Work & Money section reviewed "Sabotage in the American Workplace," a hilarious but disturbing collection of anecdotes about dissatisfied workers who got their revenge against the system using methods ranging from making unauthorized long-distance calls to erasing data to finding ways to shut down the business. Recent Tripod columns by Bruce Tulgan and Harry Goldstein have covered the same topic. Clearly this is a growing trend, so there must be a few saboteurs among you. So, how about sharing your own personal tale of on-the job revenge?

Read what others said.

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dvorak: I have commited "workplace sabotage." I am a high school student, and we have a computer system in the library. So, I made the machines play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" upon startup. But, the higher-ups didn't think that was cool, and I got a couple of detentions.

Kimmy: Well, I don't know if it's sabotage or not, but here's the story. I was bookkeeper and my friend was general manager of a local restaurant. The owner informed her late one night that he was declaring bankruptcy and that, as of the next day, everybody was out of a job. My friend immediately called me up -- I went to the restaurant and we proceeded to pay all the employees we could round up in cash out of the night's takings, including ourselves. Then my friend stood on a table in the lounge and shouted "drinks on the house" and let everyone in the place drink for free for the rest of the night. As it turned out, we all did end up having to go to the Labour Board to reclaim the remainder of wages owed, so, we really did everyone a favour. No sympathy for this bankrupt owner, either folks, he's a multimillionaire -- but the restaurant was incorporated, so many families of the waiters and waitresses there went without because he was so callous.

Kellyish: My "thinks he's funny" business partner "sabotaged" my morning last April Fool's Day by putting a program called "Tappy Keys" on my Mac as a practical joke. When I started to work, I wondered who was using a typewriter. Whenever I stopped using my keyboard, the sound stopped. This went on for about a half-hour (duh) 'til I got up and looked at our typewriter. No one was there, natch, but by this time I was convinced I was certifiable, and said so to my business partner -- who laughed until he cried.

JVanDorn: You ask for our experiences, and now I can tell a tale that a few years ago couldn't be told for fear of the consequences.

Some years ago I traveled a territory as a salesman for a building company in the southeastern United States. Most of the salesmen didn't live in the same city as the office, so we worked out of our homes. One of the few times we all got together was when we all met at a trade show and "worked" our booth.

Our boss was not the easiest person to get along with, and most of us felt he took advantage of his position, giving himself much more time away from the booth than the rest of us got. Everyone was welcome to bring the family to the one show, each year, but our boss never did bring his wife and really made use of his "free time." Tiring of the whole shabby deal, a couple of us planned a little revenge.

A few days after the show, after everyone had returned home and gone back to work, a phone call was placed to our boss's home. We knew he would already be at the office and therefore the caller talked with his wife. The caller introduced himself as being a "new" salesman working for the company, and related how much he enjoyed the trade show and all the families being able to get together there. The wife said, "Oh, the families too?" Our "new" salesman said, "Yes, and that brings me back to why I am calling. You left a piece a luggage in the hotel room, and for some reason they sent it to this branch office. We know it is yours because the hotel said it came from your husband's room and it is full of ladies clothing. Would you like us to try and mail it to you or just wait for your husband to pick it up?"

After a long silence our "new" salesman was instructed to send it directly to the house because there were "some things" in it that were needed.

Of course there never was any luggage or a "new" salesman and Mr. Boss always brought his wife to the family get-togethers from then on. He also worked the booth right along with the rest of us. He was even a little easier to get along with, not much but some.

And that's the way it was in the days of real revenge and other playful things.

rjnerd: It wasn't me what did this (this username is anonymous, so I would admit it if it was...). At a previous employer, the load-at-power-on microcode files (older generation of machine -- at power on, it read the microcode off the boot disk) got mysteriously erased on the domain and name server. The machine was fine until the local power company made them a "gift." The lights came back on, but the machine didn't It took a service call to get the bits back onto the disk. This was around the time of a big layoff, but the "likely suspect" was one of the survivors....

mszippy: Many years ago I was a grocery checker for Safeway. I was working a Saturday night shift. There were only 3 employees in the store -- the Assistant Manager, the produce guy and me. At midnight, while I was closing out in the office, I could see through the one way mirror that 2 guys were just outside the door, waiting for me to come out. I called the assistant manager at the liquor counter on the phone, and he refused to come and walk me to the back to get my purse and to my car. I called him 3 times. Finally, I opened the door and ran to the back to get my stuff, right past the guys. When I came out with my purse, one of them grabbed at my arm, but I ran really fast and got away safely. The next morning I came to work and there were only 2 checkers. The store was packed. I had told the manager what had happened the night before and he said it was not their responsibility what might happen to me once I leave the store. I started work, and had a really long line of people. The more I thought about what had happened, the angrier I got -- so I walked out and left the store in chaos knowing they wouldn't be able to get a replacement.

win01: I was once given a check from a former partner -- which was returned to my account for insufficient funds. My bank removed the funds from my personal account to cover the check. When I called my partner, he claimed that the business was failing, and that on Monday Morning (this was Thursday) we should see our attorney about filing for bankruptcy. He was sorry, but he couldn't cover the personal check. I then called his bank to find out if the account could cover a check for $50 dollars less than the $1500 he owed me. They said no. I called back later (using the business name) and asked if the check was good for $1400? They said yes. I waited until after the bank had closed, and went to the night deposit, and using the account number on the bottom of his check, I deposited $100 into his account. Friday morning, I went to his bank, with the returned check, and immediately cashed it. This way I was only out $100. The best part was that he had his account cleaned out, and he had written numerous smaller checks to deplete his account before we filed bankruptcy and disolved the partnership. He was arrested for deceptive practices, and I got out just in time.

pialoca: Well, many, many years ago, when I was working in a coffee house chain, the owner decided to set up some new rules. He took away our tip jars because it was "unprofessional". He forbade us to sit at any time except our break (even if all the work was done and there were no customers); and, he took away our free coffee privileges. We were all infuriated because we busted butt for the minimum wage and those tips really meant a lot to us. So, collectively, we undercharged the customers and gave them an occasional free snack. As a result, they tipped us anyway out of being thrilled for the special treatment. I've seen this happen in restaurants too. I had one friend that was so fed up with the abuses of the owners (who would hire illegal immigrants and pay them minimum -- for years), that he often charged half the bill and split the large tips with the other workers. These sort of "conspiracies" are a result of sweeping disatisfaction.