This is part of Revenge Week, a series about how vengeance runs America, from the White House to cheating spouses to that bad boss who totally deserved it.
In college, I got a job at a pet store. It was a good fit. I knew my way around animals, got along well with most of my co-workers, and could use the extra cash. They put me in the department that handled birds, fish, and reptiles, and I was basically the only one there with any real experience. However, there was this one shift supervisor who was just impossible to deal with. She was quite a bit older than the rest of the crew—in her mid-40s, I reckon—and basically just demeaned me from the start. It was always hostile with her. Early on, I remember her telling me, “The team is only as strong as my weakest link, and you are my weakest link.” Like, what? I was a part-time teenage employee working 15 hours a week. Chill out!
As time went on, I found that she kept giving me the worst assignments in the store. I was the one who had to clean up the goldfish poop and the bird shit. Everyone else was treated much better. She was always side-eyeing me and talking down to me. It got to the point where I started to actively look for other work around town just to get away from her. To this day I don’t know what I did to get on her shit list. But I always kept my eye on her, hoping that one day I could get my vengeance for all my late nights clearing the gunk out of the fish tank.
Thankfully, that day did eventually arrive, in a way I never thought possible. Throughout my time working at this particular store, I noticed that a lot of people were coming in with the intention of speaking to her and only her. It was always a bit awkward. We’d try to engage with them as normal customers, and they’d breeze right past us and ask to speak to our supervisor. They were always looking for the same thing too: live crickets and fish food, for whatever reptiles they had back home. That was already strange, but after noticing this a few times, one of my colleagues at the store told me that when these customers came in, our supervisor would treat them to this suspicious personal shopping trip. She’d take them up and down the aisles and pick out specific items for them, and when they went to pay, the supervisor would tell whatever cashier was on staff to take a break so she could ring them up herself.
I’m not a detective, but it was pretty clear to me that this supervisor was likely giving out discounts to people that she was friends with. And if I caught her on that, maybe she’d get a slap on the wrist or something and wouldn’t run this pet store like a tyrant. So one day when she was valeting a customer through one of these shopping sprees, I discreetly wrote down the barcode numbers of every item they were pulling off the shelf, as well as the exact amount of time our suspect was on the premises. I turned over all of that information to the manager. He was pretty stoic about it. He seemed like he didn’t care. It felt like he was thinking to himself, Why am I bothering with some kid trying to narc on his boss? So I felt pretty deflated. You don’t have much authority while holding down a summer job. Maybe there was nothing I could do. Maybe I was just going to have to get used to being on janitor duty for the lizards.
But then, a few weeks later, I showed up to work and one of my co-workers told me, “All right, you’ve really done it now. Your supervisor is pissed.” It freaked me out. Was I about to get fired? Did the manager tell her that I was monitoring her activity? Nope. Not at all. That co-worker was just pulling my leg. Minutes before I got to the store, that supervisor was walked out by the police. Sure enough, I looked down the street and saw my former boss throwing a hissy fit outside a cop car. I whistled to get her attention, then offered a wink. Sorry! I couldn’t help myself.
Here’s what happened: The store manager did end up using my tip to investigate that supervisor. It turns out she was running a ton of scams. She was logging perfectly functional merchandise as broken or defective and leaving them in a box outside the store so her cadre of friends could run off with it for free. (It was something she did with aquarium decorations, because those things tend to break easily.) More egregiously, when she was ringing up her friends, she wouldn’t scan the big-ticket items, basically letting them steal huge swaths of expensive animal care equipment right from our shelves. After the investigation was finished, I learned that this supervisor was running a side hustle where she was breeding live mice, which she would sell as snake food. The people she had coming into the store? They were all buying mice from her. So, from what I can tell, she was trying to butter up her clients by giving them carte blanche to take whatever they want from our wares. In total, she robbed the store of $4,000 in material, which was enough to qualify for a felony.
I haven’t seen that supervisor since I watched her get hauled away in a cop car. I’ve tried to look her up on Facebook, but no dice. Honestly, her husband is a pretty scary-looking dude, so I’m happy I haven’t bumped into them. I know people sometimes have regrets about the revenge they’ve taken, but, personally speaking, the vengeance is as sweet as ever. It was like finding $100 in an old coat pocket. Ratting her out felt amazing. It was totally deserved! It left me with a valuable life lesson too: The way you treat people is cyclical. Don’t be cruel to new hires. Don’t engage in any of that macho hazing bullshit. It costs nothing to be outwardly nice and helpful to your co-workers … especially if you’re also trying to rob your own workplace.
