The jobs that we have in high school and college are usually good for one thing – stories.

We’re not making a ton of money but we don’t need a ton of money, and usually, we learn a lot of lessons and then move on.

OP worked at a pizza place, and from the get-go, they tried to take advantage of him.

About 30years or so ago I was 17 and about to head to University. An acquaintance through my parents church offered me a job working with him learning to be a pizza chef.

Awesome, I’d need money for Uni and I’d already had a stack of jobs, so working hard was nothing new for me, but being a cook certainly was.

My experience with Italian was limited to Pizza Hut. So I accepted that at the start I was a liability, not a help.

He stood up for himself, though.

I started work, and to start with I worked free. Cool, but when it got to the point about 3 months later that I was opening by myself & taking whole shifts by myself, well, I should be paid.

I screwed up all of my 17yr old courage and confronted the owner, let’s call him Nick (because that was his name).

He huffed and puffed and tried to tell me how terrible I was, but I stood my ground and now I’m on minimum wage. Not bad in my eyes at the time.

I worked there for another 3years, through most of my Uni degree, often putting in 30hrs contact at Uni, 30 hours at the restaurant and 30 hours of study, it was hectic, but just became the norm.

Towards the end I became a lot more savvy, and started researching labour laws, keeping records of my pay packets and end of year tax receipts and realised Nick (& other co-owners) were screwing me.

I wasn’t on the correct rate, they weren’t deducting tax correctly and a couple of other accounting “oversights”.

Then, a new boss showed up and well, that went about as well as it usually does.

By then I was working with my (at the time) mate, let’s call him Girlfriend Creeping Jerk (GirlfriendCreepingJerk).

It was Sunday night – the place was packed I had tickets all the way down my line and GirlfriendCreepingJerk and I were pumped.

We had a new boss (NewBoss) who’d just bought into the business who thought he was the King Of the World because he was now a “restauranteur”, a right wanker, but after years of having to stay back to cook pizzas on world cup nights for the bosses friends, or Chirstmas, NYE, etc I was sorta used to the grandstanding chest puffing behaviour.

The night in question the new boss would *not* let me start the second pizza oven (think a two tier oven – I was only allowed the top tier on) because it “cost too much”.

So here I am, oven FULL, two pizza chefs running full speed and we’re only falling behind, because one oven wasn’t enough and it was starting to cool down from being so full and opened so frequently.

NewBoss gets a couple of tables of mates in. Instead of just asking us to cook some comp garlic bread or whatever, he starts loading up trays himself and putting them in the oven, not the worst crime, but because he had NO idea what he was doing, every 30s he’d open the oven to check them, cooling the oven down even further, potentially ruining the food we had in there and slowing us down measurably.

I had the Head Chef chewing my ass out as his food was ready to go but my food on teh same tickets wasn’t. It was hectic and not fun.

This Garlic Bread Bandit had to stop.

One night, it all got to be too much.

me: NewBoss – Stop messing with my oven. If you want garlic bread – just ask – I’ll get it done immediately for you.

NewBoss: What? Huh?

me: You’re messing with my oven – you’re cooling it down and we’re too busy for this – just tell me and I’ll make it.

NewBoss: Ok.

Did he do it? Nope, he kept on. Queue the same conversation another 2 times, the last time I told him I’d blow my stack if he did it again. You see where this is going. He did it again.

Now – after being consistently ripped off and abused (so many kooky stories from that place) for 3 years, my time was up there anyway, and this was the time to do it.

I looked at GirlfriendCreepingJerk and said “Yo. We out of here?” he looked back and simply said “Yup”.

We stripped our aprons and in front of the entire restaurant (pizza kitchen was in full view of the entire restaurant) threw them on the bench and told NewBoss “We quit – All this, all these tickets, all the food in the oven you’ve messed up, and your mates garlic bread – this is all yours now – good luck”

He probably didn’t handle it like an adult, but oh well.

Then we walked out – got some coffees from the baristas, sat in front of the Pizza area and watched him absolutely FLOUNDER.

He had *no* idea what he was doing and there was literally no one else there that could help him.

We could see food coming out from the kitchen, but the pizza on the same ticket was taking 20m or more longer to come out, tables were hopping mad – we could hear the grumblings all around us. I’ll admit it was immature, but undeniably satisfying to behold.

OP wasn’t done with the place, though, and he did keep records like an adult.

That’s not the pro revenge though. The Pro revenge was that I’d been stealing my timesheet every Sunday night, photocopying it and then replacing it Monday mornings. I’d been doing that for over a year. I’d also told GirlfriendCreepingJerk to do it.

Monday I walk in and Nick was there and was *FURIOUS* at me, as I walking in you could see his chubby face turn bright red as he bellowed across the restaurant floor “What the HECK do you think you’re doing here? Get the HECK out and never come back”.

me: Nick – we’ve gotta talk. We can do it here or we can do it in your office, but trust me, you want to have this conversation privately.

Nick: Fine – You come with me then (desperately trying to gain the upper hand back) and he storms to his  little office out the back

Nick: {{Bull, bull, bull}} about how he’s going to withhold pay and a whole heap of other illegal hot air.

Me: You done? Good… Here – read this:

I hand him a print out of an excel spreadsheet, a stack of photocopied timesheets, a stack of photocopied payslips, printed copied of the wage awards, all of which detail the amount he’s ripped me off for.

Me: You owe me 6 grand. I’ll take cash or a cheque now.

Once again, he held his ground.

Did I mention he and the other bosses had *just* been simultaneously raided by the tax office and that they and the business were all on thin ice? Yeah, bad timing for Nick.

Nick: Spluttering, wringing his hands “But, but, I can’t afford it! Look I’ll show you my bank accounts” as he physically starts scrambling to find his bank statements.

Me: Nick I literally don’t give a crap about you, your bank accounts or your situation, you owe me 6 grand *TODAY* or I take all of this to the Tax office and all of the other relevant government departments that will be *very* interested in this, because Nick…

I have a feeling if you’re doing this to me, you’re doing it to other staff here as well huh? As for not having the money, well, again, not my problem, but you just bought a new $60,000 Pajero, so if you have to run that down to the car yard and sell it, again I don’t give a crap but I get 6 grand TODAY.

He literally teared up a little, I’m not sure why, maybe through frustration, rage or just being screwed by someone he though waaaaay beneath him.

But seeing a grown man who’s abused you for many years cry at your hands is a pretty beautiful thing to behold as a 20yr old kid.

I got a cheque that day for my whole 6 grand (and yes, it cashed)

And he encouraged others to do the same.

the best was walking out of his office with GirlfriendCreepingJerk standing there who deadpan just looked him in the eyes and said “Nick, we need to talk…” and in they walked in to do the same thing. $10k he “lost” that day.

The best part? A few of my friends at the restaurant caught wind of the fact that I had *enraged* him and asked what it was all about – I let them know how they were being screwed, how to take copies of all of their timesheets, and where to find the relevant laws. I know of several other people who did the same thing to him.

And that was how I left the hospitality industry and started working in my field of study, never to look back.

Let’s see if this gave Reddit the warm fuzzies!

Apparently there are too many people out there taking advantage of kids.

This person was glad the quick way worked.

And this commenter think he could have gone further.

This one seems to imply there are more pizza place stories to be told.

Everyone is proud of him.

I, for one, want more pizza joint stories.

I’m sure there are enough to keep me entertained for awhile.

Want to read another story where somebody got satisfying revenge? Check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.