There’s that saying “nice guys finish last,” and “only the good die young,” and there always seems to be this perception that nice people get stepped on by those who are willing to do what they have to in order to get ahead.
Hearing them, maybe believing them, is different than actually seeing a genuinely good person get stabbed in the back though – and the latter experience is something these 15 people will never forget.
15. I have actual rage.
A woman I taught with, Mary, who was the sweetest, most helpful patient Special Ed teacher I have ever met, finished her degree and she and I started teaching the same year. She worked miracles with kids everyone else just gave up on.
The principal was new to the school and let her go through two years of new teacher probation and let her think she was getting a continuing contract. He ousted her. Because he had final say on non-renewal and because she was probationary, he didn’t have to provide justification.
The justification was that he installed a 25 year old leggy blonde teacher from his former school.
She hated kids.
14. Mean AND fruitless.
I found out a colleague hadn’t applied for a big promotion so I asked why as she had shown a lot of interest in the past having covered the position quite enthusiastically.
She told me that she had been off for a few weeks and on her 1st day back had given another colleague a lift home (massively out of her way). It was common knowledge in the office the vacancy was coming up and we were just waiting for HR to open up applications so whilst driving it came up but the other person said that applications hadn’t opened yet and they hadn’t heard anything about the role in a while.
Applications closed the following day and I know for fact the person who denied knowing about the vacancy had already put their own application in a few days before.
My colleague missed out on the role and we all learned there was a snake in the office. What’s worse is the petty arse hole never stood a chance of even getting an interview for the role because she was known as lazy and quite argumentative.
13. Kids can be genuinely awful.
I went to high school with someone who had some form of mental disability. I can’t say for sure what, but I would hazard a guess at Asperger syndrom. She was a very nice person, very outgoing in that she was always trying to make friends, but had a very hard time picking up on social cues and social norms.
She was easily peer pressured unfortunately, and often times people would convince her to do things because they thought it would be funny, and she either didn’t know to say no or maybe just wanted to take a risk to become friends. She was always kind, and didn’t have a bad bone in her body.
It was extremely sad to see such a kind person so easily manipulated and treated poorly :(.
On the list of things I saw happen to her: Smoking cigarettes because the “cool kids” told her to, ultimately leading to her becoming a full time smoker.
Smoking weed on lunch break with the “cool girls” in the forest, and then being left in the woods not going back to class because she was scared.
Someone spiked her drink in home room and by 10AM she was drunk and didn’t know what had happened.
And the ultimate insult, the ultimate “noah get the boat” moment for me, was hearing of (never knew who did it or I would have said something) someone surprising her with a lunch they brought for her. This lunch consisted of a sandwich that was filled with magic mushrooms. This absolute waste of a human fed this poor girl, someone who the whole school knew had a mental disability, a VERY LARGE quantity of magic mushrooms and just let her unknowingly hallucinate at school.
She was suspended for doing drugs at school (what a joke), and if memory serves me she never came back (or maybe left at the end of that school year).
12. I guess George got the last laugh.
George – nice guy at a hardware store I used to shop at. He liked being busy and wasn’t a big talker so while the rest of the people at the store were standing around gossiping or on their phones, George would be straightening shelves, sweeping etc. He was also very good about explaining DIY stuff to folks and was always helpful in pointing out the safest way to do something or giving you tips to save money.
He worked there over 20 years and was the first guy fired in the recession because the manager thought George was too nice to resent being fired.
George went to work at competitor in the next town and once word got out that George was over there, half of the store’s business followed him. That hardware store is now a walk-in clinic.
11. He did the right thing.
My dad literally supported his family after moving to America for years. He sent money to his dad and stepmother, plus paid for his half siblings’ education, despite barely scraping by in the US.
Fast-forward to today, and all but one of them are doing super well financially. None of them showed up to my mom’s funeral or did anything to offer support to my dad.
Despite overcoming incredible abuse from his stepmother, I was still never allowed to call her out on it and always told to look at things from her side (which was not justifiable in any way).
10. There’s a special place in hell.
My pops worked for an oil company. Started entry level and worked his way up. I honestly cannot remember him ever taking a sick day. Quiet man, never caused a problem. The kind of guys you would want to work in your company.
Full retirement was at 35 years, they laid him off at 32 just so they wouldn’t have to pay full retirement.
It crushed him. I watched him decline, struggle with depression and eventually die a few years after being laid off. It’s just sad that corporations can’t honor employees who give their lives honoring the corporations.
9. What awful people.
My little niece at 5 years old asked her mother to stop the car and let her rescue a turtle in the middle of the road. While they were standing patiently by the roadside waiting for traffic to clear, a carload of teenage boys aimed for the turtle and ran right over it in front of her.
She cried for a long time. I know it was “just a turtle,” but to intentionally hurt and horrify a little girl just trying to help a fellow creature is sick.
I hope those boys have matured by now, maybe having kind little girls (or boys) of their own.
8. Maybe she doesn’t play the game.
I used to work with this girl who honestly is one of the top 5 nicest people I’ve met in my life. She really did love this job too and cared about it. She actually had 2 jobs where she started at 4 am for one of them and the other job (the one I was at) ended at 10-11 at night. After all this she’d give me rides home too cause I didn’t have a car yet.
One day her sister told her if she had half a brain she’d ask to be a server at our location because she had been working her a** off for basically a year there working double shifts every day.
Not only did management not let her be a server, once she quit, another girl who came a month before she quit ended up getting promoted to server by the end of that month
She was 3 years younger than her and had no experience serving. They just hated her for some reason and I’ll never understand it.
7. I hope something very bad happened to him.
“Melvin” and “Marjorie” had been married 40 years and looking forward to a comfortable retirement when Melvin told Marjorie God had called him to be a missionary in the Philippines. Marjorie, being a good Christian, supported her husband’s decision, bought him luggage and drove him to the airport as a good wife does.
Melvin wrote emails every day talking about his ministry and how things were going and asked Marjorie to send him money occasionally. Months passed this way and soon it was time for Melvin to come home. And he did. With a new 18 year old bride.
As it turns out, Melvin had divorced Marjorie in secret by forging her names on a do-it-yourself divorce kit and filing it with the Court. Marjorie defaulted, of course, and the divorce was finalized without her ever knowing. So when Melvin returned from the Phillippines, he dropped the bomb that not only had they been divorced for a year and a half but he now had this new “wife” and Marjorie would need to move out of the house and in to another which he “graciously” agreed she could have in the divorce she never knew about.
Coldest thing I’ve ever seen.
6. Poor Becky.
I used to work with a lady in an IT department who was everyone’s work mom. She did her job but also liked to make sure everyone was happy.
She kept track of everyone’s birthdays so she could make them a cake or cookies, she would offer to cover for you if you needed to leave early or take a long lunch or anything – just overall a great person!
Well, she was also one of the oldest (in tenure, not age) employees at the company and knew the CEO and most of the managers well. At one point there was an opening for a manager in a department she used to work in before moving to IT. We all told her to go for it. The CEO herself even suggested that she go for it. So everyone assumed she was a shoe-in and that the interview was just a formality.
So, after the interview, they give the job to someone else. My coworker feels really hurt and betrayed because why would the CEO push her to apply and then not hire her for the position. Months go by and the role is vacant again (restructuring, the new manager got shuffled somewhere else) and again the CEO and some of the managers of other departments tell my coworker to apply. She is reluctant but eventually she does. And they do it to her again!
At that point she took it personally and felt like she did something wrong or wasn’t a good employee or something. It killed me to see that s**tty company break her spirit like that.
Becky, if you somehow read this, you’re the best and way better than that place deserves!
5. This hurts my heart.
I went to a very poor high school. There was a girl who would volunteer to work concessions and baked hundreds of cookies to sell and raise money for girl’s athletics, as she herself played 3 sports. Over her 4 years, she had to have raised over $1000.
Her senior year, she was a manager for the volleyball team. Having been a starter the year before, I assumed she was injured and asked when she would be able to play again. I was shocked to hear she had been cut from the team.
No one knew why, but you could tell she was heartbroken.
4. Mean girls, ugh.
There was this girl in high school who was probably the kindest person I have ever met. During a football game, she would always have 200 or so cupcakes to pass out. All types of different flavors and designs on them and everyone loved them. Well, a group of girls didn’t like the attention she was getting at all and asked to help pass out the cup cakes to “help”.
Instead they took the cupcakes and caked them quite literally on the girls new car. It was everywhere. The windows, the exhaust, the wheels, and a back window was also open a bit so anything they didn’t smear on the car was shoved into that window. I felt terrible seeing the car afterwards and only ONE of the girls took the blame for it and didn’t even end up getting into too much trouble.
Sorry about your cupcakes Hannah 🙁
3. Finally, a happy ending!
My cousin is genuinely one of the nicest people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. She is an elementary school teacher who apparently kicks butt at teaching too because she has won numerous teaching awards.
Her husband lost his job in the recession and that’s when she said he turned into a different person. He ended up cheating on her, claiming he was driven to it because my cousin is infertile. She begged him to see a couples counselor. He agreed. She set up and did all the work to get the appointment. Even though he was unemployed and the one that cheated. The morning they were supposed to go, he gave her divorce papers. She was crushed.
Good news is, more than a decade one she is doing better than ever. Has met a great guy that worships her. The guy has a son and they all get along great with the boyfriend’s ex wife. They all even celebrate holidays and vacation together. She deserves every drop of happiness.
2. What is the matter with people?
I was a McDonald’s manager and there was this kid who worked grill/fryer. He was a little dumb, but this kid TRIED and had an amazing attitude even when the kitchen s**t on his every move. Loved that kid. Anyway…
The tiles around the oven and fryers needed to be relaid so they were and cardboard was thrown over them to cover the new grout. I told the kid when he came in “be careful, blah blah blah” and then it happened. He was moving from the cabinet above the oven to the fryers to the right and slipped. He wasn’t f**king around, I tried to catch him but missed and he hit hard.
I witnessed the entire thing from INCHES away and wrote the incident report personally, he literally stepped on it, gently, and the grease from the kitchen must have built up because he straight went back, head hit tile. He had a concussion, but was otherwise alright except “some” back pain, which I think was worse than he let on.
He filed for workman’s comp and they denied it. Said he had a “history” of unsafe workplace practices or something formal for “f**k off.” Yet they didn’t call me, the CERTIFIED SHIFT MANAGER ON DUTY or even acknowledge the incident report.
1. While. Their. Baby. Was. In. The. NICU.
This girl I used to work with. She was so nice and personable. Everyone at work liked her. She loved her family and was close to them, and she was incredibly dedicated to her husband, whom we all thought was kind of a dick. She put up with a lot from him because she believed so deeply in her marriage and the commitment she made.
This girl suffered through five miscarriages, two of which happened in the time I knew her. One was very early and she just kinda took in stride. The second was absolutely heartbreaking. She lost the baby at like 28 weeks. We all really thought that was going to be her miracle baby. Not only that, the epidural screwed up and left her leg partially paralyzed for a while. It was awful.
But she carried on. She doubled down on her faith in her religion, stuck with her husband, worked extra hard at work, and kept trucking and being a delightful person.
Then the miracle baby actually came. She had preeclampsia and pre-term labor, and delivered a preemie who spent a large chunk of my coworker’s time on maternity leave in the NICU. What should have been a happy ending and a completed family ended in backstabbing.
Her husband was cheating on her, and spent a long weekend with his side chick draining their bank account. In a blind fit of trying to force the family she dreamed of into existence, this poor girl tried to forgive him, and after spending all day in the NICU with their baby, went home and washed all his clothes, cleaned the house, and cooked his favorite meal. The next day he went to visit her and the baby in the hospital and asked for a divorce.
Just to be extra s**tty, he ended up dumping the side chick and re-united with an old ex girlfriend and started playing Instagram step dad to her two kids while neglecting to pay child support to his own.
She’s doing worlds better now but there was a period of time during the divorce when he was being s**tty about things like who gets to keep kitchen utensils where me and my coworkers wished he would just die.
I hate these stories, y’all!
Have you ever witnessed something like this? Share the story in the comments!
