This was when I was in my early twenties, company hired a rough big-shot manager who after disagreement with subordinates use to use a subtle threat "do you want to be fired" all the time - he eventually got fired for discriminating against a customer.

The best ones are when they don't realize you already know. just watch them work so hard for nothing and never say a word about it. incredibly satisfying tbf.

A long time ago. We had built a complex production planning system. The client didn't like it because it was new.

I was the junior dev on call when the whole system went down at night.

Couldn't get the database back to connect. Client escalates, angry production team at night, yelling management over phone.

I called the seasoned database admin out. It took him a few minutes to find out the hard drive was full. With adult content. And the database server was hooked to the internet instead of the secure internal network.

He had a field day. Changed the raid, fixed the network settings and everything worked.

Apparently, the night shift was bored and some guy managed to download adult content from the internet....

The database engineer kept the hard drive as evidence and we never heard another complaint. But this gave us a lot of laughs for months.

This one time I had an enemy who dug a big hole in a shadow on a pathway. He placed a sign that said “This way” with an arrow, expecting me to follow the sign and fall in. Long story short, he fell into the very hole that he himself had dug, whilst I avoided it.

Nintendo announced at the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show that they had a new console with CD-ROM capabilities. They were developing it with Phillips.

The problem was that Sony had spent years working with Nintendo to develop a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES, and that add-on was starting to turn into its own console with lucrative possibilities. This very public announcement was how Sony found out that Nintendo was breaking the partnership.

Sony made lemons out of lemonade by developing the prototype into the PlayStation, the console that would be Nintendo's prime competitor for years to come.

Not me but a colleague. She explained that before she worked in our company, she worked as a middle man of sorts between different parties. As part of her job she had to save mails and keep their schedules aligned, among other things, so other colleagues could continue tasks she hadn’t finished yet on her days off.
At some point the higher ups take her aside because things have been going absolutely sideways (people never invited to important meetings or jobs despite the other party notifying the company on time, important conversations missing so it’s impossible to follow up for other colleagues etc) and it was usually when she was the only one working. Logically it’d be her fault, right? Luckily for my colleague, she was meticulous in keeping receipts on everything and proof of what she did and when she did it.
They did some digging and found out it was someone else who just got hired and went out of her way to get my now colleague fired by coming earlier and deleting a lot of stuff before anyone else got there. Unfortunately for her she wasn’t that good in covering her tracks. Instead of succeeding and getting my colleague’s position, she got herself fired the same day.

A guy at my old job spent months trying to get his colleague fired by documenting every small mistake and reporting it to management. turned out management noticed his productivity had tanked because he was so focused on bringing the other guy down. they let him go instead.

Had a tenant try to pull this exact thing on me a few years back. Guy stopped paying rent, then called code enforcement on his own unit claiming I was a slumlord who wouldn't fix anything. Problem was, I keep meticulous records of all maintenance requests and communications. Code enforcement showed up, saw the place was in great condition, and then discovered he'd actually been the one damaging stuff to stage photos. Ended up getting evicted faster than normal because the judge was pissed about him wasting everyone's time, plus he got hit with filing false reports.

I remember reading about a coworker who tried to sabotage another person’s promotion by “accidentally” sending an important report late, hoping it would make the other person look bad. The twist? The manager noticed the late submission and traced it back not to the intended target, but to the coworker who was tampering with it. The coworker ended up not only missing the promotion but also getting a formal warning and losing trust in the office. It was a perfect example of that proverb in action: their plan to dig a pit for someone else completely backfired on them.

Not a betrayal, but a backfire. I knew a woman who was furious at her landlord for not responding to her maintenance requests and all the problems in the building, so she called to city building department to make a complaint. They came to do an inspection and she was thrilled that her landlord was facing fines. Then they condemned the building and she found herself having to find a new apartment on very short notice.

Me and my mates were hitting the weight bench, I stepped out for a bit. Heard the distinct sound of extra weight being racked. Came back in to "oh its your turn now" with all of them looking smug as if I wouldn't notice all the weight plates they had on the bar. I didn't say anything and just jumped under the bar with all of them not hiding the looks on their faces at their excellent "prank".

Forced out 10 reps fueled by their faces dropping and staring as I crank the reps out (far too much weight but you have to prove a point). Finish and slide out and go "good times, you're next aren't you?" the next guy did not look happy, but ego and pride is a hell of a thing.

I wished I could of taken a picture of their faces, put it in a book and bring it out from time to time to warm me in my old age. Felt pretty good to be able to turn the tables and not be shown up.

A coworker once tried to get me fired by going to our manager with a list of "mistakes" I had supposedly made over several months. Printed it out and everything, very official looking.

Turns out he had been keeping notes in a shared company folder that anyone with the right access could read. Our manager found it weeks before the "meeting" and had already been watching him.

The list of my mistakes was mostly fabricated. His browsing history on company devices was not.

He got walked out the same afternoon he came in with his printed list. Still had it in his hand.

My older cousin tried to turn the whole family against my dad over some inheritance dispute. Sent group texts, made calls, the works. Problem was she accidentally included my dad in the group chat. He never said a word about it. Just screenshotted everything and brought it to the lawyer. She lost her portion entirely.

In the heat of an argument, my ex threatened a divorce to try to manipulate me into doing what he wanted. I said "Great! Let's get a divorce!"
He didn't know I had been working up the courage to tell him I wanted a divorce.
He tried to backpedal, but I moved out immediately, and initiated a divorce.

Someone made an over the top work request of my team, not knowing they were being transferred to my team (not what I wanted, but management do as they do) the next week. When they started I instantly put them on that task as they were clearly best suited to it.

I once saw a guy try to sabotage a coworker's code right before a major client demo just to make him look incompetent. he thought he was being slick, but he completely forgot about git commit history. when the app crashed, the lead dev just pulled up the logs and saw exactly who made the "fix" at 2am. he was escorted out by security before the meeting even started. absolute instant karma.