Have you ever had a coworker who seemed to find joy in your misery? Would that make you even more miserable, or would you find a way to ignore them and find joy again?

In this story, one woman was in this situation, but it was actually two coworkers who seemed to love seeing her upset. Then, one day she had an idea that changed everything.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Happiness is the best revenge

I was working at a job where I had two coworkers/assistants. Their job position was intended to partially support mine, and partially they worked independently as well.

I reported directly to the manager.

These two gals were nasty and decided to try to get me fired because one of them wanted my position. They kept running to the manager with frivolous complaints about me and constantly undermined my work by not doing the support work.

In addition, two other people left at the same time so pretty soon I was overwhelmed, overworked, and miserable, working what felt like three jobs instead of one.

It was a really bad situation.

The more miserable I got, the more visibly happy they were.

And I would get even more sad, because I once thought of these gals as friends.

I felt like I was carrying so much weight on my shoulders, feeling unsupported by my manager, being attacked by these women who were once my friends, and just physically and emotionally overwhelmed with so much work.

I was running myself ragged and really letting go of my appearance and just looked so bedraggled

She had an idea.

One day I was sitting in my apartment crying, thinking about the smirks on their faces when I left that day.

And then I thought to myself, wait a minute, if they are so happy seeing me miserable, then the opposite must be true? What if they saw me happy?

The next day, I woke up. Combed my hair, wore makeup, put on the nicest clean clothes I had. Then I went to my job and pranced in with a huge smile on my face like I was on cloud nine.

She could tell her joy was getting to them.

I chatted happily with my favorite coworker loudly, who sat next to the other two women.

I watched those two gals out of the corner of my eye, and they exchanged a wide eyed look that said, “We’re doomed.”

The next week they tried their best to annoy me. One of them kept interrupting me constantly, unnecessarily, and every time I gushed with smiles and gratitude.

The disappointment on her face was downright hilarious.

She kept it up.

I enjoyed smiling at them every time I passed by, saying over the top sweetly please and thank you, and acting so incredibly considerate towards them every chance I got.

It drove them insane.

Pretty soon, they were looking terrified and miserable.

One of the women sealed her own fate.

It became fairly apparent that they thought I had some secret discussion with the manager.

At one point one of the gals had an outburst and went and yelled at the manager saying “you are going to fire me anyway!”

She did get fired.

And it was not because I said ANYTHING to the manager. It was only because she couldn’t handle me being happy.

She’s still surprised at how being happy impacted her coworkers.

The other one was scared into silence after that.

I eventually left the job because the management sucked.

I still am in awe at how just appearing happy and being super nice affected them so much.

I got to make them as miserable as they made me, without having to be actually unkind to them like they were to me.

That was a really wise revelation. If they’re happy when she’s sad; they’ll be sad when she’s happy. A smile has never been such good revenge!

Let’s see what Reddit thought of this story.

This is true, at least partially.

I love how she turned the tables!

Acting is a life skill.

Another person shares how they handled bullies in school.

They were probably secretly miserable the whole time.

She beat them at their own game.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.