Moms are usually an infinite pit of mercy, grace, and patience, but when a new mom is just released from the hospital post-birth and some old bat at the store decides to give her a hard time about her precious tiny human, the gloves might come off a little.

Perhaps a mother's grace is earned throughout their child's life. Untrained in the ways of well-grounded motherhood, this 20-year-old mom, u/Feathers137 the original poster (OP) of this story, was in the grocery store trying to buy some formula for her newborn when an older woman came over to her. Expecting the older lady to coo over her new baby–as many older folks do–she smiled and allowed her to approach, but what this uncouth Karen said in return shocked everyone standing in Aisle 18. 

Quite frankly, if anyone said this sort of comment to me (unprompted) in public, I think I'd need to be escorted out of the premises by security to avoid some sort of physical altercation. But maybe that's because I don't possess that uber-top-secret mom patience potion yet… So when OP encountered the rudest, most shamelessly abrasive woman in the world who was fixated on forcing her beliefs on a new mom in the dairy section, she dropped an epic comeback that made this Karen cry over spilled milk.

The last thing anyone wants when they are going through a family emergency is to have to deal with your micromanaging boss simultaneously. Here, we have an employee who took one day off to attend the funeral service of a family member. He did not request any bereavement leave or anything more than just the one day of paid time off he was certainly entitled to based on his contract. 

However, upon his return to the office, his micromanaging supervisor demanded for proof that he did, in fact, take time off to attend a funeral service. Apparently, this was because he also had to dip out early one day due to a dentist appointment. The supervisor's own boss was skeptical about the whole thing and forced the supervisor to request for proof. Now, all the employee wants to do is leave the company with no notice instead.

Keep scrolling below for the full story and for the best reactions from folks in the comments section. For more, check out this post about a 40-year-old company man who was passed over for a promotion in favor of a much younger coworker.

We learned from a young age that you should be nice to the other kids on the playground. Share the bouncy rubber ball, don't pull a girl's pigtails, and include everyone in your fun games! That's how it should be in the working world–the adult world–because if you make an enemy on the blacktop, you might just get destroyed in the next game of dodgeball. 

This IT customer learned never to mess with their tech support crew after being a total buffoon on the phone. He was known for screaming at the guys who were just trying to help him troubleshoot his modem, but finally, after being placed with the same phone support guy one too many times, he snapped and decided to get some revenge. 

Frankly, I think this guy's sleep schedule became a little more precious to him after he got completely pwned by the dude he was used to screaming at–I guess now it looks like the phone is the only thing screaming at 2 AM… 3 AM… and 4 AM. Do you think he'll be nicer to his next customer service rep after this? You be the judge.

No personal cell phones? Okay. This employee took his malicious compliance to the next level after getting scolded one too many times for using his cell phone on the job. 

I get it… It doesn't look good for a hotel receptionist to scroll memes while the line at the concierge starts to grow. Smacking your gum, rolling your eyes, and scrolling endlessly really isn't something you're supposed to be doing at work, but as many of us forget, our phones are actually super useful little tools. We've grown accustomed to traveling around all day with a tiny computer in our pocket that it's easy to let slip their more convenient functions. The front desk reception guy in our next tale knew all the ways his phone could help out clients, but after his manager got on his back about using his personal device on the clock, he decided to use the second language translating tool at his disposal. 

Keep scrolling to read how an employee turned a spiteful MC into a memorable guest experience when a traveler needed help with a quick translation.

It is truly mind-boggling how some employers will treat the workers who are essential to the success and operation of their business. They gamble that they can pay them below market rates and keep them exactly where they are and that their workers will continue to be milked like the cash cow that they are… After taking on increasing responsibility in their boss's small business, this worker knew it was time to move on to greener pastures. They did what they thought was the right thing and gave their boss their two-week notice, prompting a meltdown that they could not have anticipated. 

As commenters in the original thread noted, this begs so many questions. Like, if they were so important to the business why didn't their boss recognize that and reward them for it? Surely, there were chances and opportunities for their boss to give them a promotion or even a partnership in the business that they were so essential to. Still, their boss's general laissez-faire attitude and seeming reluctance to lift a finger to support their own business has spelled their own doom. It seems that they were totally complacent and happy to let the employee do all the work while they raked in all the profits.

Nothing feels worse than being "made redundant" at your company after spending years being the best employee you could be. You did everything right! An employee that was always on time, always got tasks done in a timely manner, and never caused a ruckus in the office. Sometimes, there's no rhyme or reason to being made redundant. It's not a reflection of your work ethic, but rather, the very DNA of the corporate machine. Churn in, churn out.

When you finally go to apply for another position, you're surprised to see one of your ex-colleagues at that specific company. Hoping this would work in your favor, you complete the interview with high hopes. Instead of putting in a good word about you, your ex-colleague decides to tell the interviewer that you had "asked too many questions" at your previous workplace. Isn't curiosity what most employers want? Well, 9 months later, you see someone very familiar waiting to be interviewed at your new company. Your mouth turns upward into a small when you realize it's the same ex-colleague who refused to hire you. Sweet karma.

Just like landlords, tenants have rights. When a conniving landlord decides that they are above the law and impede on your rights as a tenant, there landlord can't expect you to keep quiet.

When something seems fishy, it likely is. Always trust your intuition, but even more so, trust the evidence you have and do something with it. The more power that landlords have, the more they're willing to do whatever it takes to pull a fast one on you and every other tenant they have in the future.

The tenant in this story is moving out of their unit and it is their last month paying rent. They noticed their cleaning supplies were gone from their apartment, in addition to two set of blinds and a shelf they had installed in their closet for storage purposes. They first thought their neighbor might've taken their belongings, but they noticed their landlord posted an advertisement of their unit and they had never approved of him coming in and taking photos to post on apartment-seeking websites. When they confront him, instead of fessing up, he demands they pay another month's rent. Scroll to read.

Let this story serve as a friendly reminder to stand up for what you were hired for in the first place. If your boss tries to impose new rules and regulations, new responsibilities, and new expectations that were not expressly written in your initial contract, then you are well within your right to advocate for yourself. That means advocating for a raise or promotion if you feel compelled to do so. It can also mean enforcing what's currently written in your contract if you do not wish to accept the new changes. Be prepared to receive some pushback, of course, but again, you have some leverage here.

This hybrid employee was hired with the expectation that he could spend two days working remotely, which was convenient for his family and young kid. When his boss suddenly decided to adjust those expectations and demand that he come into the office five days a week, the employee stood his ground and said he would only do so if he were granted a 15k raise. This led to a difficult negotiation process, but folks like us are proud of the original poster (OP) for not backing down. For more stories like this, check out this post about a company that tried to steal a job candidate's idea.

Who didn't experience the frustration of getting email after email of rejection from countless jobs you thought you'd be perfect for? If you never experienced that, then congratulations! You are one in a million. If you do know what we're talking about, our question to you is – After how many rejections did you acknowledge that maybe the problem is you and something should change? 50? 100? 1000?  Plus, what does one should change to actually make a difference?

The person in this Reddit story came up with an interesting tactic after getting rejected from a job for which they were perfectly qualified. After several more similar rejections that made no sense to OP (original poster), they decided to open a new email account and reapply for jobs using the same exact resume. This tactic proved successful when they were immediately moved up to the next step in the hiring process for that initial perfect job.

Keep scrolling to read the full story. After you are done, click here for a story of an employee who overheard their boss talking about major workplace changes, and then confronted him about it.

It seems like the only way to prevent cheating in an age where we all have little computers in our pockets is to completely isolate a person, give them a pencil and some paper, and unleash their class assignment. But since we don't exist in a vacuum and high school classes have upwards of 30+ kids per 45-minute class period, you've got to be like this teacher in our next story, who was far more clever than that. 

Being a teacher in 2024 is probably one of the most challenging jobs. 

Teachers are overworked, under-appreciated, and likely underpaid for their version of professional cat-wrangling. Not only are the kids feral, but they're becoming far more witty to cut corners in class. However, wiley, lazy, and arrogant teenagers make the perfect target for a well-laid trap in the form of a hyper-specific creative writing assignment. 

Keep scrolling to read the satisfying tale of a cheater getting exposed for their lies and thrown to the wolves simply because they were too entitled to attempt their school assignment.

The entire family is giving this woman the side-eye after she did something strange during a gift exchange. 

Instead of getting an individual present for every member of your family, some families choose to do Secret Santa gift exchanges. It's a good way to add some fun to the typical present exchange. Everyone is assigned a family member to gift a nice present to in secret. Then, when the present is opened, the person usually finds out who gave it to them. It's a sweet tradition that allows each person to be really thoughtful about their present without breaking the bank. After all, it can be way easier to give one $50 present to one person rather than 10 or 15 individual gifts to everyone in the family. 

This person is being called out for acting a bit stingy. If she was having financial trouble, maybe she should've quietly talked to the Secret Santa organizer. Instead, money troubles or not, she's making a bad impression on everyone else, and commenters agreed that what she did was kind of tacky. 

Up next, this neighbor decided that she had an issue with one family's boat: it was in view, so she decided it had to be moved ASAP. 

Working retail is a hectic and endless stream of customer interactions that balance on a knife's edge, with any one of them threatening to teeter off into a full-blown customer meltdown with possibly little to no cause. It's a way of living that leaves you emotionally drained and completely exasperated, while weekends end up giving you just enough time to self-isolate and prepare for your next shift.

Meanwhile, despite claiming to have the customer's best interest at heart, upper management makes decisions that only serve to maximize their own bonuses and profit, putting you directly in the firing line for even more hostile interactions with customers. They'll enact some broad-sweeping policy that flies in the face of logical reason and expect you to follow it to the letter, vaguely implying serious consequences should you not blindly obey and refuse to listen to the insistence of everyone that their plan is a bad one. Then, acting like it's the worker's fault when they receive customer complaints about their policy. That's what this retail worker shared experiencing when they recounted this story from their days in retail, facing down belligerent customers whilst handling bizarre directives from their superiors.