Some people will push their luck until there’s nothing left to bargain with.

What would you do if someone tried to dodge a fair deal and hoped you’d hand over something valuable for free?

Would you end up giving in?

Or would you make sure they walked away empty-handed?

In the following story, one business owner deals with this very situation and opts for the latter.

Here’s what he did.

If you don’t buy it, you can’t have it free

Last month, I closed my physical office, and everyone works from home now.

Part of closing it was selling off everything in it.

We also have a vendor that I had to cancel a contract with, leaving me with a $12k bill.

The vendor has an office down the hall, and I chatted up one of their sales managers, vendor guy, and he expressed that they’re planning to expand and might want our space.

While the space is a deal with the building, maybe we can trade the furniture for the bill (it’s custom for the space and was a lot more expensive than the bill), and he seemed pretty excited about the idea.

It appeared as if everyone had made a plan and left him out of it.

When we got a couple of weeks away, I got the impression that he was clearly dragging his feet on buying the furniture, and I talked to the building management about hiring their waste contractor to haul it all out.

The building guy mentioned that the vendor said they might want to buy the furniture, so it has clearly come up in their discussions, and asked whether I was abandoning it.

I said yes, but I also explained the bill and trade I was trying to work out and stated clearly that I wasn’t going to both pay their bill and give them free furniture. I met with the waste contractor.

He sounded already familiar with the situation and gave me a very low handshake quote for the work.

I got the distinct impression everyone had a plan I wasn’t included in.

Here’s where he put his plan into action.

Two weeks before the lease was up, I contacted the vendor guy and asked him how it was coming along.

He said it was being handled by another person in his company, and I told him to communicate that I needed an answer by the end of that week.

I didn’t get an answer, so I completely disassembled all the furniture.

It took me maybe five days, a giant reverse Ikea for a whole office full of custom furniture, and I piled it all up in the center of the office.

The day before the lease was up, I turned in the keys and paid the waste contractor’s invoice.

It’s not like he didn’t warn them.

A full week later, I received a very polite email from the building guy asking whether I had the screws and parts to put it back together!

No, I explained. I brought them all home, along with the connecting plates and smaller metal parts, and threw them away.

I reminded him that I said if the vendor guy didn’t buy it, I had no intention of giving him anything for free.

A couple days after that, vendor guy calls me asking about what we left in the space!

I explained that he had quite a bit of nerve asking me for anything beyond their bill.

It looks like the waste contractor ended up having to do the work I paid them for, after all.

Wow! They must’ve been so surprised!

Let’s see what the folks over at Reddit have to say about this story.

Here’s a similar situation on a larger scale.

This person would’ve added another twist.

As this person points out, he should’ve been more passive-aggressive.

For this person, they would’ve kept the equipment and negotiated a better deal.

What a great move!

It serves them right because you shouldn’t make a deal that you don’t plan to complete.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.