Bitey Bite Bite

We all had a run-in with a bad teacher or two back in the day. You might even have a boss whose eyes are reminiscent of Mrs. Smith's stern stare from 9th-grade algebra class. The self-proclaimed ex-"Army brat" in this next story tells the tale of when they successfully owned their high school band teacher, who made it his mission to pick on a kid for getting a cavity filled.

You know, teachers always tell students to act their age and give up the immature acts, but the teachers never know how to point that finger back at themselves. Trusted educators gossip, act petty, and target students. This is a fact… Even still, they usually get off scot-free for acting however they desire, even if it's at the expense of learning. Is this sounding familiar to you? Probably—you don't have to be a John Bender-type to be picked on by an adult who should know better.

That being said, malicious compliance is not exclusive to the workplace. It exists in every walk of life, including right in your high school band classroom. Even if you don't know how to read tablature, you'll find this story especially amusing. Scroll to read.

When parents don't trust their children, they helicopter them until their children start lying to them. The freshman college student in this next story considers threatening to turn off her Life360 location-sharing permissions after they reveal they look at her location more frequently than she'd like.

In the digital age, we're privy to too much information most of the time. Social media insists we share the latest hole-in-the-wall restaurant we dined at over the weekend, which yoga studio we frequent (once a month), and how many selfies we take of ourselves on a weekly basis. Even still, we need to know more. Location-sharing is common between family and friends, and is normalized with the caveat of safety, which is partly true.

The other, more uncomfortable reason? Surveillance. Sure, it makes sense for a 13-year-old to share their location with Mom and Dad when they're out and about, but a 19-year-old college freshman? Freedom exists in many forms, and to this teen, that means breaking free of the shackles of constant oversight from her overbearing parents. Commenters under the story reminisce on the days when "It's 10 PM, do you know where you're children are?" was the only reminder for their parents that they even existed. Scroll below to read the full story.

This family member seems to be the only person who has his head on straight, and that's what seems to be frustrating everyone else. When this guy was a kid, he became the co-owner of a property with his older sibling. Once he came of age, his sibling wanted full ownership of the property, which is something the author was willing to pursue as long as he was given legal assurance regarding a promise that was made years ago. 

This story serves as yet another example of the fact that not every family member is worth trusting. Sure, no one wants to be that cynical. We all want to believe that the people who share our last names have our backs. But the truth is that in nearly every family unit, there is a loose canon, the kind of individual who thinks for themselves and who you would never want to bet on in a game of poker. 

In this instance, the author had the unfortunate experience of having their older sibling as the loose canon of the family. The problem is that the sibling seems to have convinced everyone else in the family that he was in the right, which only made the author look bad. What's remarkable to us is how folks could think of the author as the culprit of all the family drama, especially considering the fact that all he's doing at the end of the day is advocating for himself and protecting his financial future. Shouldn't that be something that the fully grown adults of the family would understand and support? Apparently not!

Living next to a bad neighbor is sure to cause you a terrible existence. Try as you might, these people seem to be an existential and very corporeal thorn in your side. They will test your every amount of endurance and patience and push you to your very last nerve.

These neighbors are like that coworker who wants nothing more than to catch you out on the slightest policy violation or for not following the process to the letter, so that they can report you to your exasperated manager, who is too afraid to tell them to mind their own business because they technically have a point. Except instead of a manager, the higher authority being appealed to here is the actual authority, usually an exasperated police officer or some local code enforcement agent, who would be very glad if they never heard their voice again.

Ultimately, communication and proactive calculation—and a little resiliance—are your greatest tools for dealing with someone who seemingly exists to pass their misery onto others.

In this case, this landowner found that proactivity came in the form of applying for a permit to play loud music for a date and time that just happened to be exactly when they overheard their neighbor inviting friends over for a barbecue. This came after the neighbor had reported him for a bogus noise complaint not long prior.

Pizza night is supposed to be an easy and delicious meal option. You've had a long day and you're too tired to dice onions or chop up raw chicken, so instead, you head to your apps and place a delivery order. Perfect! Now you can plop down on the couch and watch a TV show until a hot pizza arrives at your front door. 

These folks were hoping for delicious pizzas, and that is not what they got. Some pizzas got totally botched while in the delivery process — delivery drivers, you're not supposed to hold the boxes sideways! Other people just had terrible choices in toppings, like one person whose date with a guy went off the rails thanks to the tuna and banana pizza he ordered! And some folks got some interesting "additions" to their pizzas that they certainly did not order, like one person who found a metal grate underneath their pie. 

Up next, read about the over-employed worker who flew too close to the sun and got fired from all 3 jobs at the same time: "After a year, I finally got caught." 

A paid parking spot turns into a midnight seminar on boundaries, where courtesy clocks out and the tow truck does the conflict resolution nobody else would. The roommate's boyfriend treats a reserved space like a free trial, laughs at reminders, and converts someone else's $180-a-month safety net into his convenience fee. This is the ecology of shared living when policies are treated as vibes: costs drift, time evaporates, and the person who plays by the rules gets to pay for everyone's spontaneity. 

Money makes the world go round, but it can also make lines real. A paid amenity is not communal just because it is nearby. If access depends on "it's only a few hours," the bill will land on the person who has to circle the block at 1 a.m. Enforcement exists for the exact moment please stops working, using it is not escalation, it is maintenance. Courtesy is a first step, not a loop, repeating warnings teaches that the consequence is a myth.

Team bonding at my last job was… intense. While I heard about other offices doing chill happy hours or casual potlucks, our outings always involved actual exercise. And I mean actual exercise. Our first event was a hike. Halfway up, one poor guy threw in the towel and turned back. Another outing was "adaptive sports," like wheelchair basketball and sitting volleyball. It was a cool idea, sure. But fun? Only if you consider three hours of drills with one ten-minute break fun.

I love fitness, but there's a line. Team bonding shouldn't feel like punishment disguised as camaraderie. And the pressure! You're supposed to bond while sweating and gasping for air, pretending you're having fun. It's awkward. People get competitive, cliques form, and there's always that one person who takes it way too seriously (still thinking about Will from HR who swatted the basketball out of my hand every time it was passed to me).