People say that laughing at others' misfortunes isn't nice. But people do like to see arrogant and mean people get the justice they deserve. Today, we're featuring some stories where people ruined their days, reputations, and lives or just generally messed up. And they did it all by themselves!

When someone started a thread, asking, "What's the best way you have seen someone screw themselves over?" people came to share many mistakes they've seen people make that came back to bite them in the rear. They burned bright but crashed perhaps even brighter.

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#1

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) When my wife was married to her first husband, her second childbirth ended badly, with both her and her baby needing to be resuscitated. Daughter has lifelong medical issues and both ended up with financial compensation. Husband became distant and ended up breaking up 2 households. Wife sued for divorce, and he dragged it out, aiming to get some of her settlement. Enough time elapsed that she became fully vested in his retirement plan.
And he got none of the settlement.

Impossible_Ad_7367 , Karolina Kaboompics / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#2

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) I worked with a literal idiot for a union job where he just didnt think it was needed or morally ok. We tried to explain to him that the union helps him a lot more than he realized but nope. In one ear, out the other.

He had some incident and went in to a meeting about it. He rebelled against the union rep, and she sat there and let him sign away his job. He thought he had finally freed himself from the union to work better and they fired him hours later after he was no longer protected.

Free healthcare, education expenses, guaranteed vacay and sick time, assistance with housing/legal, guaranteed pay raises. Threw it all away because of religious political philosophy.

blackmobius , Pixabay / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#3

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) They were constantly badgering me to fix something (on a system I was tech support for) and I, time and time again, warned them that they shouldn't do what they were trying to do and that they should just do it the correct way to avoid their issue.

After 5 weeks of hassling me, they got fed up and emailed me complaining that they'd missed a deadline for a massive client because the system didn't work, and that I'd not supported them as my job required.

To make their 'point', they cc'd in many, many people. Their boss, my boss, their team, my team, their VP of operations, my VP (you get the idea).

I drafted my response, redrafted several times, then replied.

I attached every single one of their abusive emails, my professional responses explaining clearly that the issue is theirs and that they should correct it to make it work.

It's the only time I've made sure I *did* reply all.

I'm not overly sure of the fallout for them, but they were very quiet for at least 18 months before I heard from them again.

randypriest , cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#4

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) I know somebody who cheated on her husband of 15 years this spring and thought she would do it a few months and then go back to her marriage like nothing happened. Her husband found out after less than a month, left her and moved out, she can’t afford their house anymore and both kids refuse to live with her. Oh and she lost her job last week.

GroundbreakingHeat38 , cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#5

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) My mother.

She told me one day “you’re the reason I wake up every day and want to kill myself”

I said “Good. You’re dead to me”.

She has been trying to come back into my life for almost 5 years.

MooseLogic7 , Kindel Media / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#6

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) I've seen friends talk themselves into tickets when dealing with police where they initially were just going to give them a friendly warning.

Soggy_PNW , Kindel Media / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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jamespeek avatar
James Peek
James Peek
Community Member
1 week ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You have the right to remain silent. Any lawyer will tell you to use it! Answer directly but don't add information that wasn't asked!

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#7

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) Friend agreed to child support outside of court. Got a new job and the ex came back asking for an increase. Friend said no, got sued. Judge did the calculations and she ended up getting less.

FlakyAd3273 , Los Muertos Crew / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#8

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) We had an employee at another location sell company merchandise on social media on his own account for 10× the original retail price. Company found out and fired employee. The very next day the company gave every employee company wide a decent bump in pay. So he lost his job and the pay bump all for less than $100 reselling company merch. Truly one of the dumbest ways I've ever seen someone screw themselves over.

Few_Lobster7961 , Canva Studio / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#9

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) A guy at work on his first day jokingly asked 'how strict is the sexual harassment policy? nobody laughed.

naturalcurvyrae , Edmond Dantès / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#10

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) A long while ago in a large computer corporation with looming layoffs. An employee set up a time bomb so that a lot of files would be destroyed if he didn't reset the trigger periodically thus creating a delayed revenge if he got fired.

Which eventually happened (without any severance package) because the time bomb went off when he was still an employee.

ofnuts , Lisa Fotios / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#11

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) My ex wife was so excited to go screw other guys that she didn’t think at all about how she would feed herself, where she would live….

Within a couple weeks of her saying she wanted a divorce, and living her best life via online dating, I drafted up a contract saying I would get the house, my retirement account,  my pension, the paid off car, sole custody of our child, no alimony to her, and she would pay me child support.

To be clear, this wasn’t a case of her not knowing what she was signing.  I made sure she understood all of it.  She was just rose colored glasses about what an incredible new life she was going to live.  Who needs anything from the old life, when the new life will be so much better???

Turns out guys don’t want her for long now that she’s obsese and pushing 40 instead of the cute little 20-something she was when we married.  She thought that was the life she was going back to — it hasn’t been.  Meanwhile, she can’t hold down a job and her parents had to buy her silverware because she lived off of me for so long that she had no concept of how to survive on her own.

I don’t rub it in.  But I also don’t bail her out.  She made informed decisions.  It’s not my fault she was living in a fantasy land.

DammitMaxwell , cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#12

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) Used to work as a house matron in a UK boarding school, where there was a team of four ladies who cleaned the house I was in charge of. Three had been there for years and were great - and then there was, let's call her "T", who'd been hired as a replacement for a lady who'd moved out of the area. "T" was lazy, unmotivated, called in "sick" frequently and had to be micromanaged to get any work out of her at all; I complained to HR, who basically told me to suck it up because it was hard to get cleaners who could work the hours the school required.

T reported that her father had died, and that she had to go halfway across the country to clear out his house. The following day was my day off, and I went into a nearby town to have lunch and run some errands; as I was sitting outside Starbucks with a coffee, who should emerge from the shop opposite me - laden down with shopping bags and laughing with a group of friends - but "T". The look on her face when she spotted me was classic "deer in the headlights" material.

She was called into work the following morning and fired on the spot.

MisterWednesday6 , Liliana Drew / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#13

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) Cops were called to a buddy's house.

Cops told this buddy that they did not require any statement from him.

Buddy proceeded to tell "his side of the story".

Buddy went to jail.

Gustavius040210 , cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#14

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) I worked for one of the government agencies everyone loves. We had a donation bin in one of the visitor centers that was empty one morning. The money in the employee honor system snack room thing was gone too. It was a huge scandal. A day or two later, the cash (but not the coins) from a satellite office’s employee snack money also disappeared. This was enough to get our in-house law enforcement to question everyone with access to either building.

Well, only one person had a key to the donation box AND a key to the satellite building. One was where he worked and the other was in the compound where he was renting government housing. Also, there were cameras around and he was the only one of a certain size currently employed.

The guy was a strange mix of really excited to make his job his career and complaining that it did not pay enough. He ended up throwing away his dream career and receiving federal theft charges for around $100 in small bills.

BobRoberts01 , Karolina Kaboompics / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#15

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) My father was all tough and LOVED getting into fights with people. He was proud of himself and his muscles (all steroids) and people would genuinely be more scared of his attitude than his looks. He also had guns at home (my country doesn't allow it, so that was a BIG deal), so around the block when he would get into an argument with someone, he loved going home and getting the gun to scare whoever he was arguing with. People were generally scared of him, so he wouldn't end up getting in trouble or anything (unfortunately)

Well, one day he got into an argument with this guy who parked in front of his house but on the other side of the road (where the guy was allowed to park). My father was shouting at the guy, telling him to take the car out of that spot because it would disturb my father's illegal way to park his car. The guy didn't want to. My father went inside his house, got the gun and came outside to threaten the guy. The guy decided to leave, but he didn't go home, he went straight to the police and gave them the EXACT address of someone who threatened him with a gun. The police showed up at my father's house an hour later and found three guns. My father got arrested and spent the night at the police station, and my grandpa had to bail him out or he would go to jail the day after.

The prison system in my country is not that good, and normally if it's your first instance you get off of it pretty easily, but when you have your first instance you really really REALLY don't want to get a second, and now my father is scared of everything, because a small argument while driving could land him in jail if someone decides to call the police.

teamstark0 , Samer Daboul / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#16

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) I was waiting in a lobby once for a meeting room my work had booked to interview a possible new remote hire.

While I was in the waiting room a guy showed up then sat next to me and proceeded to brag about getting a new job that he was under qualified for and that he lied on his resume about college/work experience/etc. He was talking like he was some hotshot finance bro saying (to a stranger at a business center at like 10am) that he was going right from there to the strip club to celebrate.

Guess who I was there to interview? He was drastically unqualified, unable to tell me the meaning of the 3 letter acronym that the job was (and that he supposedly had 10 years experience in). During the meeting I called a referral location he claimed he worked (but with the number I had not the one he listed) and they had never heard of him. He thought he already had the job after a few interviews but unfortunately I was the veto. The offer was pulled after we looked into his resume that had somehow not been checked. If he had kept his mouth shut and done some homework on the job he might have slipped through and gotten at least a few paychecks.

captainofpizza , cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#17

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) My ex literally sent me a goodmorning message that was meant for another girl and it had her name in it.

ChocoCharmChic10 , Jonathon Burton / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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183srf avatar
Steve Robert
Steve Robert
Community Member
4 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I can't stand cheaters! They are like murderers, except they kill a person's soul. Just leave if you're going to cheat!

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#18

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) I had a boss that regularly would take all of the credit for things me and my team members would work on. We work in special event and large event venue planning. Well… we had one of the largest events in my career pop up. Spent months planning. Budgets. Negotiations. Contacts. The works. He came into maybe 5 meetings in the months we spent planning. Long story short we had a few major slips that caused a HUGE loss on the clients end (mind you we made them whole in the long run). He got all the credit. Poetic justice imo.

420tacoo , Pavel Danilyuk / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#19

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) Recently, a 20 year employee lost his management job because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. There was a blowup at work with him and a pregnant young lady, yup, his second with that young lady. Funny thing, it wasn’t the only woman he’d had relations and children with at work, and not the second, either…. Pregnant young lady went to HR and he was gone before lunch.

Ok-Lavishness-7904 , Mikhail Nilov / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#20

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) My ex wife was trespassing on what used to be our home together, assaulted our roommate after they told her to leave, and then called the police on herself 😂.

Mooboyblue , Maria Orlova / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#21

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) Back in college, a friend of mine tried to impress everyone at a party by showing off his fire-breathing skills. he didn't realize that the bottle he grabbed was rubbing alcohol instead of the usual lighter fluid. when he took a big swig and tried to spit it out into the flame, it caught fire way too close to his face. he ended up with singed eyebrows and a trip to the ER. the next day, he found out the whole thing was caught on video and had gone viral on our campus. it was a painful lesson in thinking twice before showing off.

angiela625 , Benjamin Farren / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#22

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) Had this lab partner in college that was premed. While rushing for a frat he wasn’t allowed to sleep for a month among other ridiculous things. He basically slept through all of his classes and ended up having to switch majors to something less academically demanding in order to survive rushing for his frat.

RevealUseful , Dziana Hasanbekava / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#23

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) Had a dude who worked on a team that I wanted to join at work and kept putting himself in Teams meetings to look busy, then when he was asked to come to the office, he’d ask the boss how to do the simplest of tasks because he was never doing anything and thus never learned.

I replaced him 🫡.

Josh_Hilll , cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#24

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) During the dotcom boom my employer's stock price was riding high, and we were all millionaires .. on paper. You only got the riches if you exercised and sold your stock options. With the stock price going higher every day, exercising and selling you options today would feel like a loss tomorrow. This caused people to make all sorts of bad decisions.

One that stands out for me is a coworker who bough an enormous house. Instead of exercising and selling his options to pay for it all (which he could have done), paid the minimum down payment and took out a mortgage for the rest. Then he would exercise and sell just enough options every month to cover the monthly payment.

Cue the dotcom bust. Our stock options quickly became worthless. My coworker had no money to cover the mortgage payments and lost his house.

khendron , Karolina Kaboompics / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#25

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) The girl that bullied me mercilessly in school had a baby at 18 years old. Recently her partner left her and now she's alone with a little kid to raise on her own. Can't say I feel sorry for her.

Heidi3023 , RDNE Stock project / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#26

“What’s The Best Way You Have Seen Someone Fail Themselves?” (26 Answers) My ex-wife. She had an eye put out when she was 12. She got a $250k insurance settlement. Some of that money was put into mutual funds. I opened a business while we were married. At one point, cash flow was very slim and we borrowed several thousand dollars from her mutual funds. We didn’t put it back over the remainder of our marriage.

When she filed for divorce I told her I was going to pay it back. She said I didn’t have to, but I insisted I was going to. We fought over how we were going to settle everything for months. Mainly because her attorney saw a cash cow in her and kept her stirred up. Every time we would come to an agreement she would take it to him and he would talk her out of it.

Eventually I told her in lieu of me paying her back the cash for the mutual funds she could have my half of the equity in the house. She jumped all over that. She wound up getting about 1/4 of the money we borrowed from the mutual funds in the end.

Direct-Childhood4459 , Anete Lusina / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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