The Non-Expert
Highly Effective Habits of Revenge
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week ROSECRANS BALDWIN helps a reader with strategies to get a co-worker fired.
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Question: Just wondering, how do I get my revenge to get someone fired? —Chelsea C.
Answer: This topic’s been covered before in this column, but it’s too rich to exhaust. Who hasn’t worked with a nincompoop, an overpaid busybody, a duplicitous overseer who favors idiots and overlooks your talents?
There’s delicate work involved when stringing together a sequence of events to ruin someone’s career and yank bread out of his or her children’s mouths. So, please, take pause before taking this advice; the person you’re trying to get fired may, in their personal life, be an even bigger dickhead than you realize—so you should consider trying at least two of these methods.
—Sexual harassment never grows moss. Claim you were groped in the kitchenette. And before that there was that week of lewd emails. And the horses—your victim kept begging you to ride her wild horses.
When your supervisor asks for the dope, fake the emails with lots of bit and saddle imagery. Cover your bases by filling in some co-workers on your victim’s tendency to whinny in the heat of passion; if the boss cows and low-balls for a minor punishment, at least the cubes will resound with snickers of hot pony action.
—Infecting your victim with a deadly virus is a no-no (they’d claim workers’ comp), but killing someone else and pinning the tail on the homicidal maniac isn’t bad.
The murder part is easy, but establishing motive takes sweat. Why would your victim want someone dead? Particularly Persky from Human Resources, who would kill kind old Persky? What did Persky ever do to anyone, bumbling Persky with the blond moustache, except that one time he was drunk and called your victim’s spouse racial slurs? It was at the previous month’s office party, wasn’t it? Everyone was loose, Persky was into the vodka over his head, maybe you actually overheard him say “setback runt,” but wasn’t Persky also slipping nipple tweaks into an otherwise innocent match of thumb war? Dirty Persky parrot, as he was known in the coffee room, the pederast you accidentally observed downloading pornographic crossword puzzles at work—isn’t the real surprise here that no righteous co-worker had strangled him sooner?
Police can be quite suggestible if you’ll make it easier for them to lower their precinct’s murder count. You’ll probably need a conspirator, though, to back-up your stories; don’t worry, later you can find a way to pin killing them on your victim, too.
—Where in the sterile modern office is there room for 12th-century exorcism rites? Afterwards, leave behind a druid cloak with your co-worker’s name stitched on the front.
—People are savvy to Nigerian banking scams and discount offers on the best love dr@gs on the market, but some of the older tried-and-true cons still work. Arrive at the office one morning wearing a fake beard and a pince-nez, insisting your victim will inherit eight million dollars from a distantly related Bavarian Duke as soon as he quits working and renames himself Wittelsbach. Or pay a pregnant woman to interrupt one of your victim’s presentations insisting she’s his baby mama and doesn’t he remember their night in Kansas City, the Motel Hi-Ho, the “prophylactic juju” he swore he’d learned in Hanoi? Or walk into the victim’s office and ask, “Guess what I’m hiding behind my ear?” “I don’t know, what?” your victim will say, but don’t reveal your secret until he finally gets up from their desk and comes over and peels back your ear from you head which is when you shout “Why are you touching my breasts?”
—Sometimes it’s the little things that count. Don’t get your victim fired so much as over-compensated. Secretly upgrade his assessment reports. Improve his spreadsheets when no one’s looking with extra zeroes. Shine his shoes when he’s out to lunch, or send thoughtful presents to his boss (Loofah basket? Caramels?) with handwritten notecards (“You’ve been a great peer and advisor, Tom, and though I don’t love you, romantically, I named my dog after your BMW.”)
This all may seem misleading, but consider the big picture: years from now, after you’ve steadily puffed up his reputation, when he’s made CEO not because of any actual merits or achievements but because of how people perceive him, you’ll know you were right all along.
Question: Just wondering, how do I get my revenge to get someone fired? —Chelsea C.
Answer: This topic’s been covered before in this column, but it’s too rich to exhaust. Who hasn’t worked with a nincompoop, an overpaid busybody, a duplicitous overseer who favors idiots and overlooks your talents?
There’s delicate work involved when stringing together a sequence of events to ruin someone’s career and yank bread out of his or her children’s mouths. So, please, take pause before taking this advice; the person you’re trying to get fired may, in their personal life, be an even bigger dickhead than you realize—so you should consider trying at least two of these methods.
—Sexual harassment never grows moss. Claim you were groped in the kitchenette. And before that there was that week of lewd emails. And the horses—your victim kept begging you to ride her wild horses.
When your supervisor asks for the dope, fake the emails with lots of bit and saddle imagery. Cover your bases by filling in some co-workers on your victim’s tendency to whinny in the heat of passion; if the boss cows and low-balls for a minor punishment, at least the cubes will resound with snickers of hot pony action.
—Infecting your victim with a deadly virus is a no-no (they’d claim workers’ comp), but killing someone else and pinning the tail on the homicidal maniac isn’t bad.
The murder part is easy, but establishing motive takes sweat. Why would your victim want someone dead? Particularly Persky from Human Resources, who would kill kind old Persky? What did Persky ever do to anyone, bumbling Persky with the blond moustache, except that one time he was drunk and called your victim’s spouse racial slurs? It was at the previous month’s office party, wasn’t it? Everyone was loose, Persky was into the vodka over his head, maybe you actually overheard him say “setback runt,” but wasn’t Persky also slipping nipple tweaks into an otherwise innocent match of thumb war? Dirty Persky parrot, as he was known in the coffee room, the pederast you accidentally observed downloading pornographic crossword puzzles at work—isn’t the real surprise here that no righteous co-worker had strangled him sooner?
Police can be quite suggestible if you’ll make it easier for them to lower their precinct’s murder count. You’ll probably need a conspirator, though, to back-up your stories; don’t worry, later you can find a way to pin killing them on your victim, too.
—Where in the sterile modern office is there room for 12th-century exorcism rites? Afterwards, leave behind a druid cloak with your co-worker’s name stitched on the front.
—People are savvy to Nigerian banking scams and discount offers on the best love dr@gs on the market, but some of the older tried-and-true cons still work. Arrive at the office one morning wearing a fake beard and a pince-nez, insisting your victim will inherit eight million dollars from a distantly related Bavarian Duke as soon as he quits working and renames himself Wittelsbach. Or pay a pregnant woman to interrupt one of your victim’s presentations insisting she’s his baby mama and doesn’t he remember their night in Kansas City, the Motel Hi-Ho, the “prophylactic juju” he swore he’d learned in Hanoi? Or walk into the victim’s office and ask, “Guess what I’m hiding behind my ear?” “I don’t know, what?” your victim will say, but don’t reveal your secret until he finally gets up from their desk and comes over and peels back your ear from you head which is when you shout “Why are you touching my breasts?”
—Sometimes it’s the little things that count. Don’t get your victim fired so much as over-compensated. Secretly upgrade his assessment reports. Improve his spreadsheets when no one’s looking with extra zeroes. Shine his shoes when he’s out to lunch, or send thoughtful presents to his boss (Loofah basket? Caramels?) with handwritten notecards (“You’ve been a great peer and advisor, Tom, and though I don’t love you, romantically, I named my dog after your BMW.”)
This all may seem misleading, but consider the big picture: years from now, after you’ve steadily puffed up his reputation, when he’s made CEO not because of any actual merits or achievements but because of how people perceive him, you’ll know you were right all along.
—Published October 6, 2006
