Photo: Tima Miroshnichenko / Pexels
The candidate sabotaged her in grad school, so she sabotaged her right back.
By John Sundholm — Written on Feb 19, 2023
We've all had a toxic coworker we've dreamed of getting revenge on, and one woman on Reddit has drawn cheers with her story of doing just that.
Posting in the "r/PettyRevenge" subreddit, the woman described what went down between her and a former classmate she didn't get along with.
She writes in her post that when the classmate interviewed for a job at her company, she couldn't resist turning the tables on her.
The job candidate sabotaged the woman when they were in graduate school together.
The woman writes that she had been "poor my entire life," including throughout her education.
She worked three jobs while in graduate school, as well as an internship and classes. "I honestly don't know where I found the time looking back."
Because of her lack of resources, some of the technology needs for a group project for one of her classes were out of her reach financially.
The university library had rentable resources, but they were incredibly hard to come by.
So, she asked a classmate working on the project with her, Penny, for help connecting with someone at the library to help her rent the necessary equipment.
Penny agreed, and the Redditor confirmed the resulting meeting multiple times.
Instead, the classmate did not show up to the meeting at the library, and then did the project without her, sabotaging her grade.
Not only did Penny bail, but she would not return any calls, texts or emails.
Without Penny's help, the Redditor was subject to a two-week wait for the needed tech resources. So she asked her professor for an extension, which he denied.
Penny ended up doing the assignment herself, and the poor grade on the project resulted in a B in the class overall for the Redditor.
Two years later, Penny applied for a job at the Redditor's company, and ended up interviewing with her.
Penny had already made it through multiple rounds of interviews before making it to her classmate.
But "she knew she wasn't getting that job the moment she saw me on the interview," she wrote, going on to say that Penny's "face dropped and she was defeated."
The Redditor says Penny tried to play it off and be upbeat, but she saw right through it and brushed her off.
When it came to deciding on a candidate for the job, the Redditor advocated for Penny's competitors, and she also told her superiors about how Penny had sabotaged her.
She can't be certain she's why Penny didn't get the job, but she writes, "I'm pretty sure it's why they went with the other person."
Many Reddit commenters applauded the woman's crafty workplace revenge and felt Penny got what she deserved.
One user cheered on the woman's "petty and righteous revenge," while another wrote, "that's sort of a dream come true. Congratulations on your Awesome Revenge!"
Others mused about what Penny's reasoning might have been.
"I never understood why people would do something like what Penny did to you," one commenter wrote.
Another user had the answer. "She did it to lower your grade so that if she wanted to get into a PhD program she would have one less competitor."
And some felt that even if it resulted from vengeance, the woman's employer ultimately made the right decision.
As one person put it, "Best part to me is it hurt her prospects legitimately. It wasn't you saying, 'Oh, she was rude in grad school.'"
"It was you saying that she's not reliable and not a team player. Which of course tanked her. Which she deserved. Karma."
Of course, we've all at least thought of doing an underhanded thing or two in our day to get ahead. That's just human nature.
But as this story shows, it's always better to keep your karma clean. You just never know when you might be burning a bridge
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.