Latest / ok storytime / My company is PRESSURING me to delay my resignation, but I’m not changing my mind! | Reddit Stories | EP3080

Transcript

My company is PRESSURING me to delay my resignation, but I’m not changing my mind! | Reddit Stories | EP3080 · ok storytime

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Dakota.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: And this is Keon, your favorite OK Storytime host, and
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: we've got some great stories coming right up.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: But before that, we have a quick two-minute break from
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the sponsors that keep the show alive. My company is
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: pressuring me to delay my resignation, but I'm not changing
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: my mind.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: You can't stop me!
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I joined my current employer straight out of university eight
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: years ago as a software engineer. I was employee number
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: nine during their startup phase and received stuff. which is
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: now just under 3% of the company. The company now
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: has around 120 employees, but only 6 of the remaining
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: early crew have stock options. Since the day I joined,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I have always reported to the head of engineering. I
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: have never reported directly to the CEO, because I joined
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: early both my partner and I know the CEO and
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: his family in a semi-work, semi-social way. The company built
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: some innovative technology, has good income, but has struggled to
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: expand because they lack the funds. I know the CEO
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: or founder has been trying to raise capital or sell
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the business for about a year now without much luck,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: and he has been open about this with the early staff.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: During my annual review last year, I asked about moving
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: into a more senior role. My manager said the next
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: role up was his, and he joked he had no
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: plans to move. He did say he would support me
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: if I wanted to apply for more senior roles outside
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: the company. because he believed I had the skills and
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: experience to step up. By the way, this comes from FunHovercraft5881,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: and if you want to submit your own stories, go
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: to the r slash ok story time subreddit. I'm Dakota.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: I'm Sophia.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: I'm Keon.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: And we, us big business goofs here, reading big business
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: CEO goof stories, and having thoughts that, for you, we
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: don't always know everything. I'm not a software engineer.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: Not true, I know everything.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: All I know is big.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Ask me anything.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: What is Channing Tatum's middle name?
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: John.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: She's right.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all I know is Big Business Ideas, Bing Bumbleclad.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Bing Bumbleclad. Big Bumbleclad, say it.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: I can't.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Obie says, Channing Tatum's middle name is John. Around October
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: of last year, a much larger company reached out to
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: me with a more senior role.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: You're going to be old in this one. You're going
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: to be Robert De Niro in that movie, The Intern,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: with Anne Hathaway.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: After a few interviews, it became clear they were looking
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: to build a competing product to my current employer. I
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: eventually received a provisional offer in January. They reviewed my
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: contract and confirmed I do not have a non-compete. This
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: was also confirmed by my manager and HR at my
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: current employer. They completed the reference check with my manager
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: and said they got a stellar reference. I received the
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: formal offer, accepted it, and resigned last Thursday. The next day,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: the CEO messaged me asking for a call where he
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: requested I postpone my end date to mid-May. I am
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: not working on any time-critical projects. When I asked my manager,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: he said he was also asked to try to convince
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: me to stay until mid-May. The CEO and my manager
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: mentioned my stock options.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Stocks!
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Which will be forfeited if I leave.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's how they get you. They go, wait, wait, wait. Stocks.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, 3% of the company could be yours.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: They go, wait five more years and you'll have it all, 3%.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: I already knew this, but given the state of the company,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not concerned about losing them, as there's no realistic
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: chance to sell them anyway. I spoke to my new
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: employer and they want me to start in March. They
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: are keen to get going and plan to send me
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: to their head office in Europe for an induction in
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: April and May. My partner and I want to travel
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: together and enjoy a holiday over Easter while our living
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and travel costs are covered. Last Friday, I emailed my
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: CEO thanking him for the past eight years but confirming
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: my final day would be in March. He called me
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: immediately after receiving the email and again tried hard to
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: convince me to stay until May. Ask again mentioning the
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: stock forfeiture. I'd just be like, dude, tell me the
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: real reason. Yeah. You're not telling me to stay because
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh, don't miss out on the money.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: What's going on in Midman?
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: Why do you really want me? Prove it.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: What's happening between now and then? Give me the real deal.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: You have nothing to lose. I'm resigning. Yeah. So just
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: tell me.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Just, you know, put all your cards in.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: Tell me and give me $ 5, 000.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Go all in. I'll think about it.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Last night, the CEO's wife, the CEOW. who we've
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: known since the startup days, called my partner and asked
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: her to talk to me about staying until May. My
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: partner felt very uncomfortable and ended the call quickly. Over
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: the weekend, I spoke to my current manager and he
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: said that if he were me, he would try to
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: push back the end date to mid-May.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: The manager comes in with a fedora and all the
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: lights are off. He turns on a flashlight and he goes,
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: I don't know if it were me. I'd wait till mid-May.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: And then he leaves the room.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: And I go, wait, Mr. Manager. And he goes... Why?
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Stock options.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: And then he disappears again.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: No, he does a you know.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: And then he disappears in a cloud.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: And then he disappears smoke. Until he becomes smoke. And
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: you're like, what? Where'd he go? Okay. I also spoke
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: to a family friend who is a lawyer, corporate law.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Thank God it's not bird law. And he confirmed. that
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: my contract does not contain a non-compete. He mentioned that
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the CEO might want me to stay because the business
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: could be less valuable for sale if I leave to
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: work on a competing product. I'm feeling completely creeped out
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: by this. I still have almost three weeks left in
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: my notice period. I am currently earning about $ 180, 000 and
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: the new job is $ 200, 000. Are these calls legal? Can
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: they block my new job? How do I get them
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: to stop so that I don't have to deal with
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the awkward conversations for the rest of my notice period?
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: This is an update. Well, with the information that you're
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: going to be making $ 20, 000 more after you already make $ 180, 000. Wait, wait,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: that's the reason? And they're asking you to push back
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: your resignation by two months. And you worked for them
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: for eight years.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: I feel like we could push it back two months.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, like, if they just tell you why. If
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, because we're trying to sell the company.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: We could sell the company for more if you're still here.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: And if we can't sell the company by mid-May, you're done.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: It's fine.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: And have you thought about the stocks?
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, what's the problem with that? I mean,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: unless you're already committed.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, unless you have another job lined up.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Which one? Oh, he does.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, he does?
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: I forgot about that. Was that the whole thing?
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: That's the whole story.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: Oh, okay. I thought you didn't know.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: No.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: That's what he just said. He literally just said, what
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: were you thinking about?
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: She pulled a Savannah.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: You were thinking about Matthew John.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: Matthew John.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Channing, Matthew John Tatum.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: Wait, run it back, run it back.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: He was in that movie. Dear John. What movie?
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: Just run back the last sentence.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: I make $ 180, 000. New job, $ 200, 000.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'm there.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Anyway, we have an update.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: Wait, I have new advice. Let's act like none of
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: that happened before.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: All right, editors, wipe it. Wipe it for like the
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: last three minutes.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: $ 180, 000, new job, $ 200, 000.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: I feel like they would have to give you $ 20, 000 more.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Plus the stock options.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: Plus the stocks. Plus the stocks. I want 20K on
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: my desk plus stocks tomorrow morning or I'm walking.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: You're basically like, it's like a 5% pay increase.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: You just quote Kendrick.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: But that's starting salary.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Is that 5%?
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Just quote Kendrick, Opie. How many stocks do you own?
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: Let's find out what Opie does.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: There's an update. One week later. Most of you suggested
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: that I leave now rather than inconvenience my new employer
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: or risk starting the next role on the wrong foot.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: My partner has been saying the same thing since I
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: received the offer. After reflecting on your advice, I realize
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: my current employer has been taking advantage of my loyalty,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: especially by not promoting me or offering meaningful career progression.
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Okay. Well, there you go. There you have it. I'm
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: normally a very passive person, and I think this situation
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: was the push I needed to finally move on. Over
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: the weekend, I received another phone call from the CEO,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: and that was the final straw. When I asked why
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I was being asked to stay until May, he was
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: evasive and noncommittal. So, on Monday, with help from my
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: partner's brother, a lawyer, I wrote an honest letter to
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: the head of HR and copied in the manager and
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the CEO. In the letter, I thanked the CEO, my manager,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: and the company for the past eight years of experience.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: That ultimately gave me the confidence to lead my own
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: team at my new organization.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: Which I will be leaving this one for.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Goodbye.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Right now.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Effective immediately.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: Effective immediately, not until May. Right now.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: I also stated that I felt unduly pressured and harassed
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: to stay significantly beyond my notice period, which could jeopardize
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: my new role. I requested that they stop contacting me
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: about the matter and advised... that if it continued, I
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: would consider pursuing legal options to protect my mental health.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: As you should. Pursue those legal options.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: That's a weird reason to pursue mental health legal option contract.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: They're bothering his partner. My mental health is at risk
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: now because you're bothering my partner. And you know what
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: they say, happy wife, happy life. My wife is unhappy.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: My life is bad. Get a load of the misogynist
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: over here, ladies and gentlemen. How do you know they're
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: not gay?
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: How do you know they're not gay? Look at the
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: misogynist over here.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't it still be like a baseline misogynist idea?
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: No, happy wives, happy lives.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: It's happy spouse, happy house.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, hey now, they've got a thing for that now.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Happy Peter. What is that?
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: Happy man, happy lamb.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Happy Peter, empty theater. That's what I say. Peter must suffer. Hey.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Matthew, happy cashew. Happy Matthew eats a cashew.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: We're not giving you that one.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: Why not? Channing Tatum, middle name Matthew.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Upstairs said that wasn't cool. It didn't rhyme.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: I sent the letter Monday evening. By Tuesday morning, HR
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: asked me to join a team's meeting. My manager and
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: the head of HR were there, and they offered to
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: pay out my notice period immediately. and end my employment immediately.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: They also confirmed that neither the CEO, his wife, or
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: any other company officer would contact me again except through HR.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: They provided a separation agreement that seemed straightforward. My lawyer
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: friend reviewed it, and I signed it that evening. Yesterday,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I returned my equipment, said a quick goodbye, and left.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Opie said, goodbye!
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: Opie said, I'll be, I'll not be taking those stocks.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: I'm leaving the stocks here soon.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: Dissolved into smoke.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Give the stocks to your children, Sam. This morning, all
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: payments owed to me arrived in my account. With the
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: extra three weeks of paid leave, my partner and I
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: are now planning to head to Europe earlier. Woo, Europe!
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: And my new employer just agreed to change the planned
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: flights to make this possible. Europe, fun!
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Starting on a really good note.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: With your new employer.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: Employer said, amazing, you're going on your flight first class.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we want you coming in... 110%.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: We want you coming in hot.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Summer in Europe. Yeah. We want you nice and hot.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: There's another update. Oh.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Oh, boy.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Three and a.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: Half months later. I don't know what could happen here.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Summer's over.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: Maybe we'll find out. Maybe the only reason that would
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: make this update important is if we found out why
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: they needed OP so bad.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. Update two. I found out that there was
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: a comet heading towards Earth.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God. The Fire Nation are going to attack.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: It's Hayley's Comet. Hayley? Yeah, the same one.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Not Sozin?
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: Not Sozin's Comet?
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, you guys are getting mixed up.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: Hayley's coming back.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: It's Hayley Williams' Comet?
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: Hayley Bailey.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I'm like, Sozin, dude. This is great.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Hi.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Update two. Three and a half months later. The day
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: after my second post, I formally finished up with my
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: previous employer. A week later, we traveled to Europe with
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: their fares for both paid by my new employer. They
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: actually paid for a business class fare for me, which
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: we used to buy two economy return tickets.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: My official work was starting after Easter, so we had
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: almost four weeks as a vacation, and the pay in
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: lieu was covering all the costs. We traveled around Europe,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: and I proposed to my partner, and she said yes.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: We spent Easter with some family in Ireland, starting work
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: on the 13th of April.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Look at that. What a.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Ireland? I hardly know her.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Look at Opie being a beast.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, look at you. You're making 200K, you don't have stocks,
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: and you're in Ireland.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know a good Irish name?
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: Stocks.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: John. Hayley. Is Matthew Irish?
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Matthew? Yeah, Machu.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Machu?
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Machu.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Machu Picchu.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Is Matthew Peruvian?
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: Machu. Oh, Machu.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness. Everything was going really well. The plan
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: was to build and market the next generation of the
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: product developed by my previous employer. The new company had
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: the money and resources to make it happen. I worked
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: with their salespeople to work out a value proposition and
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: pitch deck which they would use to approach customers after
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the summer. My new employer had very good contacts into
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: customers who are also based in Europe and were confident
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: they can convert them quickly. We planned out building a
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: team in Australia and possibly even approaching some of my ex-colleagues.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: My task was to create a technical strategy... and helped
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: create a more detailed business plan for approval by the
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: board before they took their summer vacation in mid-June. We
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: came back to Australia in mid-May. I hit the ground
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: running and started working on the technical and business plans.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: I sent out a few feelers to old colleagues about
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: meeting for a coffee and my new role, but there
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: were no replies.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: Of course not. Because you abandoned them when they needed you.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: Or that company doesn't exist, but you just think it exists.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, like, I think it's crazy to...
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: leave to a direct competitor while the company that you
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: worked for was struggling. And maybe they did, like, take
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: advantage of you, but, like, and that's, you know, only
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: you'd really know that. But, like, either way, it's like,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: maybe they're not even talking about, I don't know. I
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's crazy, but I do understand why
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: no one would want to reach out to OP if
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: they were still at the company.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if OP reached out to me, I'd be like,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: long time no talk. Why are you reaching out to me?
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: You want to get coffee?
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Like, I see why they would be like, hey,
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: we were left in the frickin.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Your goodbye was very quick. Now your hello is very slow.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: But I also see YOP doesn't really feel, I don't know.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: I don't think you need to feel allegiance to big
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: gold company who wasn't telling you the truth. True. And
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: you have another job lined up.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Opie starts recruiting.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah. He's like, hey, want to come over here? That
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: is what they do. That's what companies like to do.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: The grass is greener on the other side.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: That's true.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: That's why I live.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: Because I paint it.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: It's AstroTurf.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: I painted it.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Later that week, I got a ping from my old
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: manager asking to meet about a coffee. I met with
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: him and this is where things started to go very wrong.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Oh no. My old colleagues who I had reached out
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: to told him I had done so. They did not
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: want to move. They felt uncomfortable talking to me.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: What?
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Hence the coffee meeting. It turns out my previous employer
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: had been purchased. The CEO has put together a deal
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: where three of their largest customers created a company where
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: they owned 30% each and he owned 10%. This new
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: company then purchased my previous employer. The sale price was
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: just over 35 million Australian dollars. The option and shareholders
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: got cashed out. The non-shareholding staff received bonuses of $ 5, 000
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: to $ 30, 000, depending on the length of their services. Key
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: staff have been offered 100% of their salary. as a
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: bonus per year if they.
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: Stayed for two more years he even engineered the options
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: to be bought out without having to exercise them so
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: the option holders could claim the 50 cgt.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Discount for holding them for more than a year message
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: delivered nicely but firmly was none of my colleagues wanted
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: to move please stop contacting them my share would have
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: been about 960 000 before tax they.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: To warn you they were trying to help you they
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: were trying to help you you dummy you dummy but
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: they couldn't outright say hey you're about to make almost
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: a freaking million oh.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: They could could they i mean they wouldn't want to
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: blow it up you know i'm sure they wouldn't want
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: to take the risk i feel like there was probably
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: a reason but if he was a day one it's
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: like you can be like But they were.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: They tried to.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: They were in your basement in the Faraday pouch. And
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: we say, hey, I'm not going to tell you exactly
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: what's up. But you know how I'm trying to sell
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: the company.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: Okay, now.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: So, with that in mind.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: Now I'm seeing.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Definitely stay until May.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: Oh, OP, this is all your fault. I'm sorry. They
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: looked you in the eyes. They said, maybe stay a
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: little bit longer because the stocks. OP, maybe stay. They
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: called your partner. They called your partner. They said, maybe
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: he should stay a little longer because the stocks.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: The only thing they could have said was, OP, a
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: million dollars in May. A million dollars in May. You're dumb.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: If I was, I would have just been like, I
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: would write it on a board. Like, they're listening.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: They're listening.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: Don't care. They're listening.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Don't do it.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Do not leave.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Now I'm thinking that OP just like, all of those
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: previous updates, OP was just not telling us how they
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: were saying it. Because I really think that they were
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: looking him in the eye and going, Wait.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Wait.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Just wait a little bit.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: I guarantee you they were like, for your best interest,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: which I think they did say. I think they said that.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: For your best interest.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: Dummy.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Stay until. Stay for two more months.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: Stay for two more months. I hope that $ 200, 000 keeps
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: you warm.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: He said.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: And that trip to Europe.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trying to sell the company. I don't know.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: It might not happen. But if it did, I don't know.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I'd hold on to those stocks until May.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: That's crazy.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's like all. And then everyone in the company
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: is like, I don't want to talk to you because
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: you're going to be mad when you find out.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: But also, you did a quick goodbye.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yikes, buddy. That was all your fault.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: OP.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Sorry.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, but you know what? You win some, you
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: lose big.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: OP did the equivalent of fumbling the ball at the
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: one yard line.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: OP sold his stock in Apple right before the iPhone.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, man. OP, I kind of feel bad for you
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: because you thought you had it in the short run.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, bummer.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: The short deal was pretty good on paper.
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: It looked pretty good. I hope you enjoyed your trip
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: to Europe.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Do you think the other company knew? No. Not in
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: a sense.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: They wouldn't have said.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: But they're like, yeah, come on over.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Nah, they wouldn't have said that they were about to
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: win that big.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: Yikes.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, well.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: And that happens, folks.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Dang. Those other, what was it?
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: And that's the man mining for diamonds and he stops just.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Short of them.
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: Truly.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Those other, it was like six other people were there.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: He was one of the six, the core six that
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: started it up.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Oh, man.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Five years of your new salary for one European vacation.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I hope that was a nice million-dollar vacation you had.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He proposed. So, yeah.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yes.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: But it was worth it. Dang, that's going to be
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: in the back of my head.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Honestly, bro, you're fine.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: You're making 200K in Europe. You're fine. Go live your life.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Like, it sucks, but it won't, like, it's not like
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: you are destitute. It just sucks.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it just goes to show, oh, maybe I should
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: have listened to everyone telling me. Maybe I should have.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: i should have picked up on the fact that his
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: wife called my wife yeah something's going.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: On yeah but your wife feels dumb now.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: And if you would have just pressed be like just
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: tell me what's up tell me what's up tell me
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: write it on the Can you not tell me here?
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: $ 1 million.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Stop.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Keep your stocks.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: Stop.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Wait three months. Stop.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, here we go. My first reaction was anger.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: I think all of us would agree we'd all be
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: very angry.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: So you skipped over denial. Actually, no, you denied yourself,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: so you.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: Did the first one. You already denied.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Denial and anger. Then there's bargaining.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: What if I came back now and you gave it
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: to me?
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: I'd just get half.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: What if I came back now and you gave me
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: the million dollars?
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: What's the fourth one? Denial, anger, bargaining, and then the
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: last one's acceptance.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: Victim blaming? You like reverse it? Darvo?
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Darvo is the fourth stage of grief?
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Five stages of grief. Denial, anger, depression, bargaining. Depression.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, so we got depression and then bargaining. So he's
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: not there yet.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: And then acceptance. Aw.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Anyway.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Or it could go denial, acceptance, bargaining, depression, anger, denial.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, there we go. Okay, cool, cool, cool. My
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: first reaction was anger. Off the cuff, at the coffee meeting,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: I threatened to sue to get my share.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: There it is.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: There's the bargaining.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: There's the bargaining.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I'll sue.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: I'll sue.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: This wrapped up the coffee quickly.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: Dude, if you literally just said, you know, is there
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: any way I can get my share?
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: Any way?
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, you could have stayed until May, bro.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: He met you for coffee. Why are we attacking him?
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Honestly, in everything that you said, too, about the company,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: you made it sound like you had given up. Yeah.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: You're like, they're not going to ever sell. They're not good.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: He said that. He said they're falling apart anyway. Why
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: would I stay?
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to get rid of my stocks because,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're not going to be worth anything in
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: the end anyway because the company's never going to get sold.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: You're a dummy. Oh, you dummy.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I planned to look over my contracts later that weekend
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: with my soon-to-be brother-in-law slash lawyer. But before we could,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: I got an email from the in-house lawyer from my
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: previous employer. Attached were screenshots of Slack conversations, phone logs,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: and copies of emails.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: They were ready.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, of course they were. They know that this is
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: a possibility of a lawsuit, and so they're going to
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: cover their tracks. And I hope he's already covered it
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: for them.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Hmm.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: The bottom line was that the CEO had instructed my
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: manager to do whatever it takes to get me to
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: stay until the close and pushed this message repeatedly. They
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: could not tell me the details as they were waiting
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: for regulatory approval from four counties as three competitors were
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: forming a joint venture with a supplier. That process had
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: been happening for almost nine months. Any leak or sign
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: of impropriety would sink the whole deal. When I threatened
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: legal action, that changed everything. That would have sunk the deal.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: So they cut all contact quickly and moved on. The
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: email said that considering all the information provided, my assertion
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: is wrong. And if we commence legal action... They will
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: use this email as evidence when they pursue costs.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Dang, dude.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: He's just making error after error.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: You shot yourself in the foot.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Oh, boy.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: I think it's funny, though, because reading this story, it
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: really started off like, okay, move to a new job, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: And then it was like, I've just lost out on
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: a million-dollar deal, and now we're back in.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Whose fault is that?
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: For God's sakes, can none of these dorks send a
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: message properly? I mean, none of them could say... Hey,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I can't tell you why you have to stay until May.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: But you know about the stocks, right? So maybe stay
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: just until May.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: They definitely tried, but they didn't want to be like,
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: they couldn't sell it. They couldn't sell it.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: I think OP's dumb.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Legally, there are things people can't say sometimes in a
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: given circumstance. Could be any circumstance.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: I think the real dumb move was then threatening to sue.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, three and a half months later after it's
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: already done.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: It's like, whoa.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: What are you going to do?
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: It's like, if you wanted to make them go, okay,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: we're glad you left.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. They probably, I feel like there was a
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: world where they met him for coffee to be like, hey, maybe,
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: you know, maybe we can compensate in some sort of way.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: And then he was like, sue.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: And they're like, well, bye.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Do you think the amount that OP missed out on?
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: It was $ 1 million.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: But that $ 1 million got split into more for more people?
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I have no idea how any of
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: that works.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: I don't know how that works. Presumably it would just
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: go to like the heads. I don't know. I shouldn't
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: say presumably because I don't know how that works.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: We are not business people.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know how stocks work. My fiance's brother agreed
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: and I replied back apologizing, completely withdrawing any allegations of
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: impropriety and promising not to sue. I was devastated. I'm sorry.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: And now here's depression.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I didn't mean to.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: I feel like this is, no, I feel like this
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: is bargaining now.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: No, he did try to do bargaining.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: But like, you know what's crazy to me is if
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: OP never learned about this.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he'd have been fine.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Everything would be fine.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: He would have been fine.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: And that's why money's so funny.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: Funny, funny, funny. I feel like this is less like, oh,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: money is like the cause and more like I've missed
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: out on what I, like in my mind, I've missed
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: out on something that like if I had not known
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: about it, it wouldn't matter.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, OP already made the decision. They're like, Yeah,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: it's just the regret. I don't believe in the company.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: I don't believe in the stock. I'm making this call.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: I'm moving. I'm going to Europe. I'm living there with
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: my wife now. We're getting married. Everything's great. Oh, oops.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Now I found out I left a million dollars on
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the table. Now everything sucks and I hate it and blah, blah, blah.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just regret, man. Don't regret.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I had left close to a million dollars behind when
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: I changed jobs. My plan for a new team was
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: in tatters. To say I shut down is an understatement.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I barely could think straight. I took a few mental
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: health days and managed to find a privately funded psychologist.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: I am slowly beginning to recover. Even after six weeks,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: even things like planning for the wedding reminds me of
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: what it could have been. To say my relationship is
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: at a low point is an understatement.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, if it's fair, OP, you both made that loss.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: You know, you both were told about it. Listen to
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: this absolute buffoon.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: This weekend, we went to buy a couch, and I
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: almost ended up in tears because I thought about what
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: we could afford to spend. Shut up.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: You make 200 grand. Shut up. If you can't afford
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: a couch, you're a moron. You're going to spend, what,
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: $ 100, 000 on a couch? Is that what you wanted to do?
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: That's why money's funny, dude.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: You wanted to buy a $ 100, 000 couch?
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine that their relationship is in shambles now?
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Or like you said, my relationship is in a low point.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Why? Okay.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: I think it is so fair to be like, I
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: am upset that I lost a million dollars. You are
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: not going to buy a $ 100, 000 couch. So it's fine.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: Buy a $ 5, 000 couch. You can do that with a
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: $ 200, 000 budget. And it'll be a very nice couch. It
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: will be a lovely couch.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: There's a little more story left. OP, I can't take
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: your victim mentality here. This is crazy. This is like...
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: You broke every window in your house. And now you're like,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: but I'm cold. It gets cold in the evenings. I
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: don't know how to, I don't know what.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: But you still, but you're like, you're like burning your
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: money to keep yourself warm. I wish I had money
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: to buy new windows.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: He's wiping his tears with his money.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's like, I wish I had anything that I
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: could use to... To buy new windows.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I will say it. I feel like all
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: of us feel bad for you, Opie, but not that bad.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: I don't. I feel bad. I don't feel bad for
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: him at all.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: I feel bad that you lost out on that, but
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: also it's your fault and you didn't listen.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I said, hey, maybe don't leave them like that. They're
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: just asking you to stay. And then Opie was like,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: They took advantage of me and they did this and
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: they did that. Really? Are you sure? Because it sounds
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: like they wanted to give you a million dollars.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: It sounds like they begged you to let them give
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: you a million dollars. So I don't believe you anymore
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: when you say they took advantage of you.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: Hindsight.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, here we go.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: To add insult to injury. I was told two weeks
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: ago my board paper for the new venture has been
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: delayed until after the summer break. Informally, I get the
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: feeling the board is re-evaluating the whole strategy as my
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: previous company has taken the three biggest customers off the table.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: They are likely to lock in a few others too.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Some of the smaller customers may still be an opportunity,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: but the financials are not nearly as attractive with just them.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping for the best. I am barely functional enough
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: to write this post, and it took all my effort
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: and a weekend to do that. Even though logically I
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: still have a well-paying job with a good company, have
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: good friends, and I'm about to get married soon. I
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: can't stop dwelling on what could have been. Stop.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: Stop dwelling.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: I'm still at the stage of blaming myself for the
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: way I acted that resulted in this situation. What other
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: stage is there? Accepting that you should change? What got
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: you to that point?
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: You just got to accept that you don't have this money,
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: so that's it. You just don't have this money. Keep going.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: This is going to be looming over OP's life and
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: head forever. Hopefully not forever. You know what?
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: I never knew that you lost it. You never knew
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: that you had it or had a chance to have it.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: I'm OP. And I also had to realize that I
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: actually never had a chance. I was messing around with
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Bitcoin when it was less than 100 never really took
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: it seriously and uh the amount of bitcoin i had
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: at one point would have been worth like 20 million
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: dollars or something but i guarantee i like and that
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: tripped me up forever yeah and i like couldn't i
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: couldn't if anyone brought up crypto or like i would
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: have to leave i would have to like i would
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: have to disengage uh And then I just came to
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: the realization one day, like, I probably would have sold
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: it when it was worth, like, $ 50, 000. Yeah, exactly. Like,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: I never would have. You would never have gotten, yeah.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: I never would have done that.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, LP, you never had that money, so you never
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: lost it. That's how you have to think of that.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: You never had it.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Hey, it's Keon, your favorite short king. We're going to
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: get back to the stories, but here's three minutes of
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: ads from our sponsors.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Writing this has been cathartic and somewhat therapeutic. I am
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: angry or sad all the time. I'm sure this will
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: pass eventually, but I think I will regret how I
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: acted for the rest of my life.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: This is why money's funny, bro.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: He'll get over it. He'll get over it.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: We have a $ 200, 000 wedding. We could have had a
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: million dollar wedding.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: I think for the next year, maybe two, he will
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: think about this and then he will get over it.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Giving it 10 years.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: I think the real carry on top.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Will make at least a million dollars back.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: The cherry on top here is that Now his job
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: security is kind of in question because they have to
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: reassess their whole strategy because the company that OP thought
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: was small potatoes, didn't know what they were doing, has
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: been dragging their heels for a year, happened to be
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: coordinating a merger with the three companies that pay them
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: all their money.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: And now they're the big potato.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: And now they're the big dog. Now they're such a
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: big dog that the big dog you went to is going,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and trying to figure out a new plan.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: And you just said that you wanted to sue them.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: A little bit. A little bit.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Scary. You don't have to regret how you acted for
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: the rest of your life. You can change. You can
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: just change and be a different person who doesn't do that.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: If I get the courage to revisit this post in
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the next few days, I should be able to answer
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: any questions. And I don't think that they did, because
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: that's the end.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: They did not get the courage.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Top comment.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: They did not get the courage.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Look it up. Top comment says, I feel bad for
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: the guy, but every single comment was telling him, hate.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: You should look into the stock options because they might
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: be selling the company. And OP did not listen.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Yikes. Because OP was the kind of guy who's like,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I know. And it's like, I've been here for eight
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: years and they don't see my value. Why am I
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: not in a senior position? Why don't I have this?
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: We're going to give you a million dollars.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: Probably would have also made him a senior position.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: That was 3%? Yeah, man. 3%. Wow.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: They also probably would have given him the senior position
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: because it seems like, or well, they were selling the company.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: You would have been brought into the fold in the
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: new one, I'm sure.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Or you would have been allowed to walk away if
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: that's what you wanted. Yeah. I'm sure. But instead, I
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: don't know, man.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: Tough, bud.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Maybe, I don't know. Yeah, I would not do well
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: with that if I was you. But I'm me, so
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I think I got it. But I'm good.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: Tough luck for you. Yeah.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Sucks to be that guy, right?
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: Yowch.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Dude, if I worked for somebody for eight years and
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: had stock options. I don't know. Yeah.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: I'm not leaving. I wasn't locked in enough to that
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: story to be like, oh, yeah, stock, blah, blah, blah.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: Because OP was just so non-committal, so non-chalant about it.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, OK. Yeah, leave, I guess, if
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: you want to leave.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: It would have been. And if you were getting paid
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: three times more than your salary now, I'd be like, OK.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: You literally took a 5% raise.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, wow.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: Wow, bummer. But we got another story.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: It's ready.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: I called an ambulance on my coworker even though I
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: know that she's faking it. Oh. I, 28 male, am
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: working in an English language center in a Southeast Asian country.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: There is a female coworker in her 20s here who
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: often touches her head and wobbles like she's about to faint.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: She's got the vapors. She goes, Oh, I can't. I
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: do declare.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: And she would lie down on the couch, letting people
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: fan her, bring water and food to her. We take
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: midday naps here, so whenever she does this, everyone's lunch
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: and nap time is ruined. Especially the ones who keep
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: caring for her.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Then stop caring for her.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: Well, I think they're not. I think OP just should
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: not do this if they are. This would happen at
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: least twice a month. So over the last five or
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: six months, I've seen a few incidents when we worked
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: the same shift. One time, she even asked me to
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: order ice cream for her. Info, it's a big crowded city,
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: so you can just walk to the ice cream shop
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: nearby to grab one for a dollar. Didn't pay me back,
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: but that's beside the point. This Monday, she did it again.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: And this time she asked a girl to order her
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: a nice drink, a sandwich. A group of coworkers fanned her,
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: did the whole caring thing like she's a sick child.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: By the way, this comes from Normal Midnight 1661. And
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: if you want to submit your own stories, go to
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: the r slash showcase story time subreddit. I'm Sophia.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: I'm Dakota.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: I'm Keon.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: We're here to give good advice goofily, but we don't
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: have all the answers. We only know what we do.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: So let us know what you would do in the comments.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: And Opie says, I stood up from my chair, walked
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: towards her, asked if she was okay. Then I went
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: to the men's washroom, dialed for an ambulance, and went
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: back to my seat. After 20 minutes, we heard the siren.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: My phone rang again, and I stood up and told
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: her servants to help her to the ambulance. Her face changed.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: You know, that face when someone knows they've effed up
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: Other girls asked if I called. I said, yeah, it
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: seems more severe this time. It's best for her to go.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: The ambulance is already here. You'll have to pay for
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: it regardless. The ambulance fee is about one to two
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: days worth of her salary.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: $ 50.
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: Aw, $ 50 for the ambulance? I wish it was $ 50 here.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: It's $ 5, 000.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just walk.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Other co-workers actually agreed and helped her get on the ambulance.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: Now that I think of it, no one called an
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: ambulance for her once. Ever since that incident.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, never mind. It just sounded funny.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: No one called an ambulance for her.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: So where did she go?
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: Where did that ambulance come from? Ever since the incident,
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: she stopped interacting with me beyond hi's and hello's. Thursday now,
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: not a word to me. Am I the a-hole for this?
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: And we do have an update. I think this is
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: kind of funny.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: I think it's funny, but I would have been like, hey,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: I'm going to call the ambulance and just see her
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: face completely change. You're like, okay, cool. I think calling
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: the ambulance behind her back a little too much.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: I don't know. She got so many free sandwiches.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: You know, when you think about what you're getting per diem. Yeah.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: It adds up to one ambulance ride. One ambulance. I
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: don't know, man.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: That ambulance could be used for somebody else. If.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: That's true, you know.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: Good point. That is a good point. Never good to
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: call in. fake ambulance so maybe from that standpoint of
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: just like good samaritan maybe just threaten it yeah from
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: the standpoint of she probably won't do that again cool well.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: The fact that nobody nobody called it before crazy like
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: who's gonna call.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: An ambulance for like oh i need i'm faint no
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: one calls an ambulance for feeling faint but if she's
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: doing it twice if they did that i would have
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: gotten a lot of ambulance.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah let's just say twice a month for five to
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: six months On like the 10th time, I'd have been like,
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: I need you to get that checked.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, get that freaking checked. I don't know. If someone
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: called an ambulance here, I'd be like, I can't.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Afford your jokes.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: I'd rather just pass away. Thanks. Yeah.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: Someone actually heard me. Update. Four days later. Here's the
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: update on the female coworker who kept fainting and asking
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: people to order food for her. I'll call her Anne
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: because there's a lot of women involved in this post,
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: in this update. After the first post, I texted some
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: female coworkers to see if they had received food money back.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: Two female teachers told me that they hadn't, but they
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: didn't mind. The total amount was around $ 20 per person. That,
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: I knew it. I knew it.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: Which again?
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: Adds up to a freaking ambulance.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: One ambulance in a Southeast Asian country.
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: Word got around fast and I was added to a
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: group of five other women. People. Two ambulances. So in total,
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: at least seven female teachers were affected by Anne. Two
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: ambulances and a quarter-ish.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: And-bulance. And-bulance? Yeah, that's her name.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: Oh, and-bulance. Based on their word, Anne has low blood
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: pressure and malnutrition.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Bulance pressure.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: No, no, bulance pressure. And malnutrition. And she indeed is
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: very thin, K-pop idol type of body. She clearly has
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: some unhealthy relationship with food. It's almost as if she
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: didn't want to pay for food. I think you're right
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: on the money.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I think that's her relationship with food.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she doesn't like to pay. pay for it she
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: borrowed money from multiple female teachers to pay hospital bills
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: and begged them not to disclose this information to others
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: we're talking up to a loan that's worth four months
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: of salary she basically borrowed half of that teacher's emergency
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: funds she also flirted with one female teacher said teacher
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: often brings her on small dinner dates i didn't ask
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: on this matter hr was notified the girls did the
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: talking and i was called in as the one who
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: called the ambulance After the meeting, it's confirmed that Anne
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: will be let go after 30 days. The reasoning was
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: creating a hostile work environment. This morning was really awkward. Unfortunately,
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: HR cannot help with the loans that people have given
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: her as it's a personal matter. However, HR is willing
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: to provide personal information of Anne to the affected coworkers. Oh, well,
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: it's their matter now. Oh, just like her number so
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: they can try and they're like, here's her Venmo. So
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: you can reach out to her directly.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: You can fix this person to person.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Good luck.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and she's never going to give them the money.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Let's be real.
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: Now answering some comments from the previous post, some mentioned
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: that I was wasting healthcare resources while she was examined
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: and came back with a diagnosis. Oh, so she did
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: have something wrong with her.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: What was her diagnosis though? Why didn't you tell us?
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: Why didn't you tell us that?
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: We're entitled to that information. Excuse me.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: Thought we had personal information of hers. Some ask me
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: why everything's so cheap. It's Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam.
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: Dude.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Some people ask me why it's so cheap. It's Ho
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Chi Minh City, dude.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: It's freaking Ho Chi Minh.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Ho Chi.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: It's freaking Ho Chi Minh City, dude.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Ho Cheap Minh.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: Ho Cheap Minh City.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Ho Cheap, man.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: Most things are affordable here except real estate, lol. In fact,
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: my overseas relatives literally book flights to Vietnam for medical care.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: Insulin here is like $ 3 to $ 7 per vial. And
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: that is, that should be how much it is.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, like everyone responsible for the way healthcare is
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: run in America should be treated so nice.
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: And you can buy it at almost any public or
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: private hospital.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Crazy. Wow.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, there's nothing wrong here. It's actually Ho Chi
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Minh City with the $ 3 insulin that's the problem. They
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: just don't know they should be charging $ 5, 000 for those bottles. Oh, yeah.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: If you have national health care ID, it's basically free.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: I would hate that.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I would hate that. Man, they've got it all backwards
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: over there in Vietnam.
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: Yes, people take midday naps in Vietnam. You're the odd
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: one if you don't. Oh, midday nap.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: Siesta in Spain.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: If I'm not standing a class, I'm allowed to be online,
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: doing TikToks, etc. Having a TikTok account is not a
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: legal reason to be let go. And finally, don't lend
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: your coworkers half your emergency funds. Like, why?
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: True.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: That is true. Don't do that.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: Honestly, that should be a thing in so many places
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: around the world.
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Good health care. Free health care or cheaper health care that's,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: you know, available to everyone.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: $ 3 to free insulin would be nice.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: And then also, midday naps.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: Midday naps. I would love if midday naps were like
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: socially the norm and you're weird if you don't allow
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: midday naps. Spain.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: That's what they looked at me and I was like,
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: I don't want to take a nap. Oh my goodness.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: When I was in Spain, we had our little midday naps.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Love my siestas.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: The only problem though with the siesta is that sometimes
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: I'm hungry and I want to eat.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: It's lunchtime.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: But I have to wait until nine o'clock to eat dinner.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Or yeah, or it's like, How long do they sleep?
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Dude, nothing.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: They close everything.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: Restaurants do not open until like 8, 830.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: It's nap time for like two to like six.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: I was so hungry.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Four hour nap time? It's crazy.
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: I mean, the people are probably not asleep all that time,
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: but the fact that restaurants are not open, I was like,
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: I'm so hungry.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: That's actually insane. Yes, yes. Okay, he's gone.
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: Well, anyway, we've got another story, folks.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: I started giving away unauthorized discounts because nobody checks them anyway.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: Discount for you! Discount for you!
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: A few summers ago, I decided that I needed some
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: extra spending money, and I got a job at the
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: local grocery store. I figured this was an easy way
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: I could earn some extra money and wasn't expecting this
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: job to be as entertaining as it was. I was
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: a cashier at the beginning... By the end of my
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: three month tenure, I held five positions across the store
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: at once. The store was horribly managed. You don't say.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: You probably got paid for all those positions though, right?
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: No, no, no. Right?
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: You probably got paid for all that extra work you
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: were doing at that horribly managed corporate position.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: In a way, yes. But it was just the same amount.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: It was just like the same amount of pay.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: The store was horribly managed, and I mean to comic levels.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: As in the fire alarm went off and nobody could
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: figure out how to turn it off for multiple days.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Did the fire department not show up?
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: And I was like, well, go to work, I guess.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: The only thing on fire here is a sale at
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: the market.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: Thank God it's not actually on fire. I think the
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: fire nation, fire nation. I think the fire department thinks
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: that works. burned down by now.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: The fire department's being run by the Fire Nation. No
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: wonder no one's putting out the fire.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: When the world needed it most, the Fire Nation did
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: not show up to take out the fire.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: They left me alone to close the store on day
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: three with no supervision. The trash compactor had its emergency
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: switch broken off. That's the type of bad management.
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: It's like more than bad management.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like someone's gonna get compacted into a cube.
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: Someone's gonna get wallied.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: This wasn't a small store either. Store probably employed about
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: 50 people.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: About a month in, I figured that there was no
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: way in the world they kept accurate numbers on the
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: items going in and out of the store. So I
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: began to either give away or double charge people who
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: I determined were either good. or bad people in arbitrary ways.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: Okay, I will say I did the good stuff. It's
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: crazy to overcharge people. I'm not going to lie. Because
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: that is something you can call. People don't always catch,
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: but if they catch, you're going to get in trouble.
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: No one's going to call you out for giving them
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: the good stuff.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Your boss will.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's true. I did this, the good stuff part.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: I did the good stuff, but also not necessarily bad stuff.
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: I would just charge them what they owe.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: I would give kids like free stuff or like people
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: that I really like regulars. I'm like, OK, cool. Like
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: you're not wasting my time. You're fun. You're making my
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: day good. Cool. Here's something free or like a discount.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: When I worked at Starbucks, I would always give people
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: like if I like them or they were regulars. If
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: I like them, I would just like not sometimes I
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: just like not charge them for like extra like syrups
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: and stuff. And if I knew them, I would sometimes
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: charge them for a smaller drink or not charge them
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: at all if they were my friend. But if they
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: were mean to me or rude, I would just be like, okay, well,
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: you got the syrup and the milk. And also, oh, wait,
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: you got an extra shot of espresso? I'm charging you
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: exactly what you owe. And that's the only thing I
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: could do.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: I just love that Opie's like the punisher of the
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: grocery store checkout aisle.
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: Opie's like, I... Decide what is right and wrong. I
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: am God.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I'm God. We're going to talk about Staten Island right now, really?
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: We're going to talk about Staten Island.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Hey, it's Dakota, your favorite host who's always on track here.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: And we're going to get back to the stories in
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: three minutes after these ads from our sponsors. It started
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: off small at first, only forgetting to scan small items
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: to test the waters. And nothing of consequence happened. I
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: got a little braver and I started to double scan
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: items for people who were rude to me or other people,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: and nothing happened. And by the way, this comes from 6789justtang.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: And if you want to submit your own stories, go
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: to our subreddit. We're OK Storytime. I'm Dakota.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: I'm Sophia.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: I'm Keon.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: We're going to read this story and have our thoughts,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: and you're going to have yours. You get to put
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: yours in the comments. We say ours right now. One, two, three, go.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: Those are my thoughts. I began to notice that not
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: only did the store not pay attention to what was
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: coming in versus what was going out, people didn't pay attention.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: I never got caught by the store and only a
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: handful of customers caught on. Thankfully, one of them was
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: one that I ripped off. She ended up going completely berserk,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: but that worked for me because she had to be
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: escorted out by security. She never shopped at the store again.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: That's so funny. Opie's just in the store going, I
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: don't know what happened, officer. She just went crazy. And
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: then he looks at her, and he winks, and she goes,
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: and he goes, oh, I don't know what happened.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to lie. Opie's just having fun.
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: Opie's maniacal.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Opie's telling the cops, it looks like she's resisting.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: What's my moral compass today?
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: Opie said, I don't know what happened, officer, but maybe
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: you should take it down to the jail.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: By the end of month two, I was doing this
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: with almost every single person that came through my line
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: that I thought I could get away with. If you
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: were what I determined to be neutral, I admit I
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: had no real metric for any of this. You got
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: a modest discount. Nice. Are you a bad guy? Suddenly,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: you're paying an extra 50 bucks.
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: 50 bucks is way too much for people not to notice.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: How are people not noticing 50 extra dollars?
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: What's the IQ in the part of the.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: World you're living in? I look at my receipts all
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: the time.
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: Religiously, I'm looking at my receipts. I'm like, okay, yeah.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: I watch all the numbers stack up. Yeah.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: Also, how do you not notice $ 50?
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Monkey like number go up. Monkey watch number go up.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Monkey watch you make number go up twice as much?
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like you've stopped checking out my items, but the
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: number still go up.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: I actually have discounts. Why is it going higher? Those
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: were on sale.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: These people are dumb.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Obie continues. Are you obviously a starving college student? I
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: scanned one out of your 20 ramen packages, stating the
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: computer knew what it was doing.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: Dang, you are a real one, OP.
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, OP's like, I got you. I go to your place.
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: I go to your grocery store every day.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: I'd be your friend.
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: Get you flowers every day.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: As time went on, it just became more and more extreme.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: What do you mean?
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: God, OP's like, soon they owed me $ 100. Some days
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: I tell them they actually have to give me money
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: just personally.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Someone walking with a TV costs an apple.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: So you're not even taking any of this money. You're
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: just overcharging.
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: He's just overcharging. That company's going to get sued.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: This guy is just chaos for the sake of chaos.
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: He's chaotic neutral.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: He's like, I'm gaining nothing from this.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: This is chaotic neutral.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: I'm just doing this.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: Just doing it for the love of the game.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong. I catch it within reason. If
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: somebody came up to me with a six-pack of briskies, sorry, buddy.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: There's no way I can help you. Bigger orders were
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: easier to spoof, mainly because people didn't know how much
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: they spent, and even though most people wanted their receipt,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: no one actually looked at them. You appear to be
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: a single mom with three kids. Suddenly, I forgot to
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: scan literally half your cart. How is this?
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: How is Opie getting away with this?
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Dude, have you ever worked at a place with just
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: the worst management ever?
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: You know what? No, I actually had pretty good management
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: at the Starbucks I worked at.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: I've seen bad management, dude. Yeah.
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: That's crazy.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: This is what it looks like.
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, I worked at a place with good management
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: and also got away with giving people massive amounts of discounts.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: This guy's probably, whoever this guy's boss is, is probably
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: mostly asleep.
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: Especially at the grocery store. This guy's in the upstairs office,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: door locked.
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: Asleep.
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: Asleep at the wheel.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Are you screaming at someone over the phone about Literally anything,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: you are now paying for four steaks instead of one.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: Opie's funny.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that the people I let off just brushed
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: it off as a mistake or in some of the
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: extreme cases thought I was just an idiot. I felt
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: like I was paying forward every bit of goodwill I
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: ever received.
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: In my life.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: Opie's the karma machine, yeah.
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Opie's like, you are good, you evil. He's playing...
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: He's playing Tinder, but with customers and also morality.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: He's playing cashier god.
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: Cashier god. Put you in there.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: I love this next sentence. This ended up becoming a problem, though. What?
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: What?
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Because people would go to our online surveys and give
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: me glowing reviews.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Oh. They're drawing attention to you.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: Opie's like, stop.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: The plot pickings.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: No, Opie just deletes all those comments. He goes, stop
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: talking about me.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Opie's doing all his own online surveys being like, this
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: guy sucks. This guy's the worst. Very forgettable and does
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: everything normal.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: He charged me exactly what I owed.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: No more, no less. I've never seen anyone actually do
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: one of these reviews, but the little scoreboard in our
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: break room showed that I was almost two times ahead
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: in rating a second place despite working there for like
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: six weeks. That made my manager like me more, which
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: in turn led to them giving me different positions throughout
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: the store. One of these positions ended up with me
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: getting some kind of free sticker dispenser. This was intended
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: to give people free stuff if I felt that they
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: had been negatively impacted by a store action, yada, yada, yada.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: They're like, you're such a good worker.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: Opie's like, did you have a bad day today to
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: a customer? Did you have a bad day? Opie's like,
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: did you talk about the stocks? Did someone tell you
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: about the stocks?
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Free. This is like, Like you, I always make this comparison.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: It's like if you were like secretly a bank robber
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: working at the bank. And then they were like, your
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: cousin reviews are so great. We're going to leave you
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: in charge of the vault.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: Here's the key to the city, Joker.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: I was actively trying to push the envelope at this point.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: So I made it my mission to literally give everyone
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: in the store these stickers. If someone asked me where
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: something was, I would show them. I would then put
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: a sticker on it and hand it to them. One
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: would think that our computer system would pick up the
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: fact that the usage of these free stickers went up
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: by 2000% over the course of what was like a
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: one week period. But I never got questioned about it.
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: I can't imagine that like this, I imagine this is
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: like some sort of conglomerate grocery store. I can't imagine
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: that they weren't like, hey, this location is doing terribly.
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: But we've got great reviews.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: It's probably, I don't know, it's a Ralph's, it's a Kroger.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: But they would know this. It's one of those grocery
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: stores that's like.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: Just so many of them.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like, I mean, I think it could fall through
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: the cracks. It could, it could. I guess it is.
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: It not only could it, it is.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: So when did this story get posted?
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: I'll check.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: As all good things do, though. this came to an
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: end eventually. I had to go back to school, so
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: I quit. Unfortunately, or honestly, probably fortunately, the store got
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: closed down for OSHA violations before I got the chance
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: to go back.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the compact, Johnny fell into the compactor.
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: Johnny got compacted. He's a box now.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Now he's a little one-foot box man.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: Johnny TV got restretched after he got shrunk by that TV.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: His mic TV.
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: And now, oh.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Sorry.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: Well, Johnny TV is Mike TV's brother.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: Johnny Tatum TV.
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: Johnny TV is Mike TV's brother.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: Who was also stretched out off screen.
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: And now he's been turned into a combatant.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, poor guy. Crazy he lived. This store was
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: a chain store, but I doubt literally any other store
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: in America has this level of incompetence to allow me
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: to continue my mission. He has a.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: Goal, yeah. He's just like, yeah, F around it, find out.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: The one grocery store that fell into the abyss. It's
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: like it's not on the map.
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: No one knows where we are. We live outside of time.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: I think by the end of it, I ended up
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: net positive. I gave probably 80% of the people who
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: came through my line or in my eyesight a discount.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: I always would have liked to have known what that
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: number is, but I can guarantee it was at minimum $ 5, 000.
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: You are true Samaritan, OP. Oh, man.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: I think you might have been stealing from the poor.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: Robin Hood. A modern day Robin Hood.
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: Stealing from the people that annoy you and giving back
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: to the people that are just okay.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: Stealing from a grocery store runs so shoddily. It's kind
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: of sad. It's a little sad. It feels a little sad.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: But also, yeah. free groceries dude.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: I won't lie whenever you get something free or like
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: even like the tiny thing or a big thing you're
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: just like oh my gosh.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: Opie hits them with the this is there is a
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man it
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: as infinity this is ralph's sorry i had to i
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: was looking that up it's good thank you thank you
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: thank you can you do the can you do.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: That from the daylight zone.
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the daylight zone. Ralph's.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: We're not open at night. $ 5, 000. 5,000 mothers. And it
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: was honestly one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: gone through.
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: Opie puts it on his resume. He's like, so I
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: was kind of God for a little bit.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: I'm a giver and a taker.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: I gave $ 5, 000 to the people.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: Depending what you're... Opie wants to be a doctor next.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give people free organs.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: OP is in charge of healthcare now, yeah.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: I either let you.
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: Live or not.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: Please, please. You cannot replicate the joy of a little
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: kid finding a quarter of the Hot Wheel rack covered
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: in free stickers, or a dad just trying to make
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: ends meet realize his total is only half of what
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: he expected it to be. Eventually, some of our regulars
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: caught on and would only go to me. But I
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: decided that it was better to just give these people
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: discounts because the people were normally warm and friendly not
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: only to me... but to other members of the staff,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: like the baggers or the greeters, which made it worth
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: my while. At least to my knowledge, no one at
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: the store ever figured out my game, and the only
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: reason I'm sharing this story is because the store in
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: question closed. As I stated earlier, this store was part
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: of a chain, but honestly, with the amount of crazy
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: crap happening at this store on a regular basis, I
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: think I'm the last on their priority list if this
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: ever gets uncovered. Like, I'm pretty sure people got arrested
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: because of the state of the store. At the end
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: of the day, if I had the opportunity, I would
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: do it all over again. I am a judgmental guy
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: and you should check your receipts. That is the end
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: of that story.
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: Wow. Wow. Okay.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if I was a child and I came across
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: the Hot Wheels aisle and they were like, free like
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: 20 of them are free never go anywhere.
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: Else i'd only i go dad i live here now
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: i live here in the hot hot wheels aisle of
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: my life rest of my life i live here in
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: the hot wheel i would just.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Have to cross my fingers i don't slip and fall
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: into the ceaseless compactor.
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah that cannot be stopped just watch out for the compactor.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: The compactor doesn't have mercy yeah we took the mercy
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: button off it's end of.
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: Fargo style compactor so watch out yeah or middle of
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: fargo somewhere.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: In fargo There's a compactor? I thought it was, that's
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: a shredder.
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: It's a shredder, but you know, it's the same thing
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: at this place.
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: In a way, can compact things later, but in the moment,
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: it kind of spreads everything out a lot more.
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: It's like the opposite. I'd say the wood is more compact. Well,
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: in my world, in my head, it wasn't a garbage compactor.
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: It was just one of those wood chippers.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the shredder we throw all the food
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: we don't sell at the end of the day into. Yeah,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: and then we shred it and it falls into the
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: bottomless hole. And that's how food waste is actually, you know,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: that's what is done with food waste in America.
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we pour it in the bottomless hole.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: Dude, it's almost like the people who run this country
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: are evil.
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: My manager harassed me over concert tickets and nobody did anything.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: They all wanted your tickets.
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: My sister really loves a Korean band called BTS. Don't
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: know if y'all heard of them.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: What are they, behind the scenes?
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: Korean band called BTS. A little band called BTS. Yeah,
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: I've heard of them.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: Big time soul. Oh, hey.
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: If it wasn't for her, I never would have heard
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: of them.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's cool. You live under a rock?
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what do you mean? and I don't know anything
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: about them or the music, but my sister absolutely loves them.
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: A few months ago, I heard my sister talking about
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: how they're going on tour. I thought it would be
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: a long shot, but I decided to try and get
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: tickets for one of their UK concerts. I had my
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: friends help me when the tickets went on sale, and
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: by some miracle, I was able to purchase two tickets.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: I'm going to take my sister to the concert for
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: her birthday, and I know she'll be ecstatic. She was
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: disappointed she wasn't able to get tickets and was saying
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: they were too expensive for her. But I know she
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: really wants to go. And I realize this is a
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: very small problem compared to what is going on in
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: the world. But my manager overheard my colleague and I
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: talking about the concert and is now demanding that I
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: hand over the tickets.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: Wait, what?
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: That's like the quickest HR I've ever heard. Maybe not
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: ever heard, but that is a quick HR. The only
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: reason I was even talking to my colleague about it
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: was because my colleague was telling me about the time
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: he went to a concert at the same stadium I'm
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: taking my sister to.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: Give me those. Give me the Renault.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: By the way, this comes from Throwaway Account 6319, and
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: if you want to submit your own stories, go to
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: the rs.showcase.com. I'm Sophia.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: I'm Dakota.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: I'm Keon. Bulletproof. Was it Bulletproof?
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: Bulletproof Boy Scouts. That's what it is.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: And we're here to give you.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Is that what BTS stands for?
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: In Korean.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: In Korean, it is Bangtan Sonyeondan. I probably... Murdered that.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: And that means Bulletproof Boy Scouts? Boy Scouts.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: Bulletproof Boy Scouts.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: So Keon Bulletproof Boy Scout.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: And we're here to give good advice goofily, but we
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: don't have all the advice. So give us your advice.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: We're here to light it up like dynamite.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: We're here to be golden.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: No.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: Smooth like butter.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: No.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: What? That's a Korean.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: That's a K-pop.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I just quoted their songs. Do I know more
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: BTS than you?
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: I'm not talking about BTS.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: I know. Right.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: That's why you're wrong.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: What?
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: I was doing K-pop.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Because we were all saying BTS stuff.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: And I was saying K-pop. I brought in the genre.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: You guys don't even like Huntrix.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: That's like we're talking about trigonometry. We're like cosine, tangent.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: And you're like two plus two. Math.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: I brought in the genre. Sorry you don't know about
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: any other thing in the genre.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: It's true. I don't. I don't even know. K-pop what?
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: K-pop who?
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: Jungkook.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: Who's popping?
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: You can't even name another K-pop band.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: What's popping?
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: Blackpink.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: Dude, I was around.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: I didn't ask you.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: Do you know who GD and Top is? Yeah. Your mom. Yeah,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: I knew about GD and Top when you were just
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: a twinkle in your mother's eye.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: You ready for this? You ready for this? I didn't
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: ask you.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: Sungjin Woo.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: Of course I know that you know K-pop. You got
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: K-pop written in your eyes.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: That's racist.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: That is racist.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: I didn't mean it like that.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: I didn't mean it like that.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: You started as an innocent bit.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: Keep that one in. Editors, look at me. Send me that.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: Clip that and send me that.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got K-pop in your eyes. In your eyes.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: In your eyes like a twinkle. In your eyes.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: Too late.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: You have the twinkle of BTS in your eye.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: You know what? Racism. All right.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: Bringing that up tomorrow.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: I think that's actually a cataract.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: He's got cataracts. My manager is desperate for tickets and
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: because they're sold out is demanding mine.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: Please.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: I obviously said no, but that wasn't the end of it.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: My manager is getting more and more demanding and won't
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: let it go. I'm just posting here because I'm so
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: tired of it. I'm going to have to make a
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: complaint because I've told my manager to leave it alone already. Update.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: Let's see if they leave it alone already. After two months,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: 16 days, I'm afraid this is not very exciting. I
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: left that job.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: Dang, you had to leave? You could sue.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: They didn't leave?
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: I would have just given the manager an increasingly complex
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: series of tasks and I would have constantly moved the goalposts.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: If you solve my riddles three and also hop on
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: one leg and also find me an alligator, that can
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: hatch the egg of a golden goose.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: Do this in 20 minutes, you get the tickets.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: My manager's behavior was what pushed me over the edge.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: There were other issues at my workplace, but they were
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: small enough that I could tolerate things. When my manager
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: started demanding that I hand over the tickets, it was
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: the last straw. I did report my manager to the
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: head of the department and to HR, but nothing was
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: done and I was encouraged to find a compromise. What?
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: What? What's that compromise? What?
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: I'd be like, wait, I'm sorry.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: You keep your job?
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: Give him my tickets?
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the compromise is give me the tickets and you
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: keep your job.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: The way my manager acted made things unbearable when I
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: could have tolerated all the other issues. This had been
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: going on for a while before I made my first post.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: My last day at the job was a week ago,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: last Friday, and I start my new job on Monday.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: My new job is also entry level. I have the
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: same title, and my pay is the same, and it's
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: in the same city.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: My manager continued to badger me about the tickets right
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: up until my last day.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: That's crazy that he kept doing it until you left.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: Tickets, tickets, tickets, tickets, tickets, tickets, tickets, tickets.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: I need the leg of a man from Liverpool. I'm
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: not going to tell you who. It's a prosthetic. You
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: have to go find it. And you go, what? I'm
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: going to fire you for that. Probably.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: Well, that was a way better move to just leave
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: the company, honestly.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: OP continues, my sister was absolutely over the mood about
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: the tickets. She had the best time at the concert.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: As I mentioned in my first post, I only knew
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: who BTS is because of my sister, and I don't
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: listen to their music, so the concert was meh for me.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: No way.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: That's crazy.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: No way. No way you went, and you were there,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: and you saw it, and you didn't go.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: You saw all those little K-pop stars dancing around, and
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: you didn't even say, um, this is fun. This is
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: a little bit fun.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: You couldn't just say, like, that was a good show.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: Not for me, but Clearly a good show.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: But my sister was excited and had an amazing time,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: so that's all that matters to me. Also, I turned
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: off my chats because apparently when I said in my
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: first post that I don't listen to BTS, it really
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: offended their fans. Yeah, don't screw with the BTS army, man.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, hey. Taylor Swift is mid.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: Oh, no.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: Oh, no. Oh, no. Don't worry, we'll take him out.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: I'm being vaporized. I'm being compacted.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: This is a hologram. I got flooded with mistreatment and
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: derision over what I said. I couldn't believe so many
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: people would lose their minds over such an innocent statement.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: That's my update.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Are you sure? Because your boss literally lost his mind.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: Your boss literally harassed you over tickets nonstop until you quit.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: But that's the end of that story, folks. That's the
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: end of the story.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: But.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: We've got comments from the video. I thought my husband's
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: mistress was stalking me. The truth was worse. And this
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: was posted July 18th, 2026. And the TLDR from story
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: one says Opie thought she had finally caught the full truth.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: After discovering five years ago that her husband was having
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: an affair, she believed him when he swore it was over.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: But anonymous messages kept flooding her inbox, detailing secret trips, dates,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: and even a child her husband supposedly had with the
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: other woman. When she found a stranger's earrings in her
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: car and dug through his phone, everything came crashing down.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: Now separated, Opie started noticing the mistress everywhere she went.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: The playground, the salon, the ice cream shop, always sitting
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: there and staring. If you're curious to know the full story,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: you can go watch the full video, but we've got comments.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: We sure do. That one sounds fun. Tense.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: She's just standing there.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: She's everywhere.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: Medicinally.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: But we have some comments from that video. Like Sophia said,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: go check it out. But comments here. Nanya460 says, my
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: petty butt would have started going to her church and
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: be like, oh my goodness, it's you. Can we sit
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: by you? And then when people ask how I know her,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: just tell the truth. She's my stalker. Oh, this is
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: my husband's mistress.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I like it. It's the woman my husband's seeing.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's the woman my husband's seeing.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: We're very progressive.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: We're so fun. We have fun here.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Small town times, you know. Another comment by.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: It's all good in the lies of the Lord, right? Yeah.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: Another comment here by.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: I mean eyes. Sorry.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: No, but that worked.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: I meant eyes.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: That was funny.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: Real eyes, real lies, real lies. But another comment here
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: from Boogermaden.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 5: No.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: Saying, record everything whenever she's there. Send them to the
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: police or just keep the evidence that you can use
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: in the divorce.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: Or use it for your next SoundCloud rap album.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: Or just record everywhere she goes and go, oh yeah.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Like, don't make it too like, oh yeah. Like,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: just make it like, oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: And continuing that comment, saying, tell the kids the truth
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: and tell them of a plan in case things get...
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: Get Ari, yeah.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true. That's true.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Well, I guess I can't spoil the story. I remember
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: the story. I don't.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't read it. Folks, communication is key. You know
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying?
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: Communicate or communicate.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: Communication.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: Communicate.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: But yeah, also think of the children. The children, kids
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: say first.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: Communicate with your quiches.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: Yes. And then a final comment here from Michelleann87654 saying,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: if he went to those locations with his kids, then
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: she might be going to those locations now instead in
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: the hope of bumping into him in those locations.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: Oh, you betcha.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: No.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: It also sounds like a small town.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: She wouldn't do that.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: She would never. She would never try to find him
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: in the locations that she knew.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: He went to.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: But that's the end of those comments.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: And the end of the episode. So, if you love us,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: make sure to subscribe.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: We love you. And subscribe.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: You tomorrow.