Share your petty things you've done

[Deleted]

I love petty stories that are harmless. I have a slight petty streak if someone is an awful person. I had a boss who hated me and I couldn't figure out why. I had screenshots and saved emails because I felt like she was trying to get me to quit or figure out how to fire me. Even coworkers would comment on it. Luckily she moved on. I was in the office over the weekend working and I saw a dead cockroach on the ground in the hallway. I kicked it over to be in front of her office door so she'd have to clean it up. 

If someone has been rather impatient during a work project, I always thank them for their patience and it makes me laugh on the inside. I have no idea if this is petty but absolutely adore doing it. 

Please share your petty Betty side! 

[Queen Dick, Hibernating Bear]

Fuck's sake.

[mala]

I misread this as pretty things. Like a nice dinner, or a craft, or whatever. I'd rather do a thread of pretty things.

[meanie]

Not sure if this is petty but a guy at my company added words in random places to all his team's shared excel workbooks before he left. Like...you would be working on a client deliverable and find "poop" written somewhere in a large excel sheet of data.

They had to redo everything.

[Wallflower]

I was working at JC Penny's on a Friday night, many years ago. In walks a young man and it was incredibly obvious that he was buying some new clothes to go out and hit the bars. He might even have said something about not doing laundry so he needed to buy a new pair of jeans. Maybe exuding a whiff of, "I'm a hot dude going out to pick up chicks so I have to dress accordingly."

I don't remember except he annoyed the two of us on duty. So, when he bought the jeans, then went into the changing room to put them on, we didn't tell him as he walked out the door that he still had the long plastic strip of sizing information running down his pant leg.

[waverly]

I can't remember doing something petty recently. But I do laugh to myself when Karma comes around and does it for me.

[W.T.Faulkner]

If someone at work calls me rapid-fire without leaving a message or emailing/texting, I take longer to respond.

If a student does work at the last minute and then rushes me to grade it, I will wait until two minutes before grades are stored in our system to change it.

[ksun]

my mom insists on exchanging gifts despite the fact that my brother & I have said we don't need/want to - mainly because she gives us ridiculous things. For xmas she gave DH a pack of post it notes and a pen that didn't work. She gave me one of those free calendars you get in the mail when you donate money to an org. She gave my brother a dollar tree meat baster one year, and DH shirts that are 2 sizes too small. This is not because of lack of money; she is extremely well off. She also always has expired food in her fridge (not meats, dairy etc but she had salad dressing that we finally tossed after 21 years AND a new fridge) and she has even given us expired foods when she comes to visit.

So, I bought a bunch of holiday candy & cookies on 90% clearance at Target in December and I'm saving them to give to her for next xmas. They'll only be expired by a couple months and I spent like $7 total so I don't care if she tosses them. But two can play.

[bex1973]

Feb 2, 2023 16:41:05 GMT -5 ksun said:

my mom insists on exchanging gifts despite the fact that my brother & I have said we don't need/want to - mainly because she gives us ridiculous things. For xmas she gave DH a pack of post it notes and a pen that didn't work. She gave me one of those free calendars you get in the mail when you donate money to an org. She gave my brother a dollar tree meat baster one year, and DH shirts that are 2 sizes too small. This is not because of lack of money; she is extremely well off. She also always has expired food in her fridge (not meats, dairy etc but she had salad dressing that we finally tossed after 21 years AND a new fridge) and she has even given us expired foods when she comes to visit.

So, I bought a bunch of holiday candy & cookies on 90% clearance at Target in December and I'm saving them to give to her for next xmas. They'll only be expired by a couple months and I spent like $7 total so I don't care if she tosses them. But two can play.

But will she even notice or care since she clearly gives no fucks about expiration dates?

[CurlyQ284]

PDQ
I'm super organized and timely with my work...unless the client is a known conservative baddie. Then I let a good chunk of time go by before reaching out to them about their project and am slower to complete it. I'll prioritize every other client over them.

We restructured our work flow and now my boss gets most of their projects so its pretty rare now but the last one I did I waited about 10 days to do something that would take me 10 minutes. It was during Covid when they emailed me that the employees were working from home when this company was loudly proclaiming that everyone should not be telecommuting and I was very irritated about it.

[jobae1234]

Idk if this is petty but my husband needed a new car and I didn’t. He bought my dream car. For himself. I have never forgiven him. I keep acting like I’m going to go replace my perfectly good car with a flashy new car just to spite him. He’s very cheap so the idea of having a higher payment tortures him. I may actually do it if the right car comes along.

He 100% could have driven my car and given me my dream car and he chose not to. But he said “isn’t it better to have our family own the car and you can drive it when you want to? Should I NOT buy it just because you want it? That doesn’t make sense!” Except every time I tried to drive it he said he was taking it, so now I never ask. I have a lovely car, so this is a petty source of bitterness that I can’t let go, two years later.

[starburst604]

Feb 2, 2023 16:31:27 GMT -5 W.T.Faulkner said:

If someone at work calls me rapid-fire without leaving a message or emailing/texting, I take longer to respond.

If a student does work at the last minute and then rushes me to grade it, I will wait until two minutes before grades are stored in our system to change it.

In this vein, if someone calls me with a billing question and leaves a rude message, they go to the bottom of the list of people I need to call back. I don't know why people don't get that when you come out of the gate abusive and angry, no one wants to help you. 

[ksun]

Feb 2, 2023 16:50:40 GMT -5 bex1973 said:

Feb 2, 2023 16:41:05 GMT -5 ksun said:

my mom insists on exchanging gifts despite the fact that my brother & I have said we don't need/want to - mainly because she gives us ridiculous things. For xmas she gave DH a pack of post it notes and a pen that didn't work. She gave me one of those free calendars you get in the mail when you donate money to an org. She gave my brother a dollar tree meat baster one year, and DH shirts that are 2 sizes too small. This is not because of lack of money; she is extremely well off. She also always has expired food in her fridge (not meats, dairy etc but she had salad dressing that we finally tossed after 21 years AND a new fridge) and she has even given us expired foods when she comes to visit.

So, I bought a bunch of holiday candy & cookies on 90% clearance at Target in December and I'm saving them to give to her for next xmas. They'll only be expired by a couple months and I spent like $7 total so I don't care if she tosses them. But two can play.

But will she even notice or care since she clearly gives no fucks about expiration dates?

Probably not. But I will.

[bex1973]

Feb 2, 2023 16:58:16 GMT -5 ksun said:

Feb 2, 2023 16:50:40 GMT -5 bex1973 said:

But will she even notice or care since she clearly gives no fucks about expiration dates?

Probably not. But I will.

LOL

[maudefindlay]

I used to always donate all our good condition toys, books, games to the kids' preschool. My SIL is the director. I quit for a while because it aggravated me that I donated stuff to the preschool and SIL would take out a good chunk of stuff and give it to her granddaughter/our great niece. I know we don't know anyone's finances, but SIl and niece (mother of great niece) do not live like they are struggling in the least. So I quit and decided not to donate again until great niece was older and in elementary school. I donated today and SIL still took stuff out and gave it to her. I'm not saying anything as it's just one of several things that irk me about them and the bigger things I share with DH. I need to let this one go and resume donating elsewhere.

[mofongo]

Feb 2, 2023 16:55:22 GMT -5 jobae1234 said:

Idk if this is petty but my husband needed a new car and I didn’t. He bought my dream car. For himself. I have never forgiven him. I keep acting like I’m going to go replace my perfectly good car with a flashy new car just to spite him. He’s very cheap so the idea of having a higher payment tortures him. I may actually do it if the right car comes along.

He 100% could have driven my car and given me my dream car and he chose not to. But he said “isn’t it better to have our family own the car and you can drive it when you want to? Should I NOT buy it just because you want it? That doesn’t make sense!” Except every time I tried to drive it he said he was taking it, so now I never ask. I have a lovely car, so this is a petty source of bitterness that I can’t let go, two years later.

This is not petty, this would be a big deal for me. I mean, he can’t help that he needed a new car, but to get your dream car and basically not let you drive it? What is the car, out of curiousity?

[jlt19]

jobae1234 reminded me of something a friend used to do.

Matt and Elizabeth were married. Matt had this weird “quirk” that no one could order the same thing at a restaurant as him. Like would throw temper tantrums if someone at the table ordered the lasagna he’d just ordered. Another friend, Scott, didn’t like Matt. It got to the point that Matt would insist on ordering last, but then Scott would change his order after Matt’s, just to piss him off.

Matt and Elizabeth divorced 10+ years ago and thankfully we kept Elizabeth. I was at brunch Sunday with Elizabeth, her sister Ann, and Scott’s wife. I asked to order last and Ann asked “is this a Matt thing? You don’t want us to order what you’re getting, do you?” It was not, I’m just indecisive.

It was such a funny reminder of what an odd duck he was and what a petty jerk Scott was to him. But hindsight does show Scott was right…

[livinitup]

Feb 2, 2023 16:55:22 GMT -5 jobae1234 said:

Idk if this is petty but my husband needed a new car and I didn’t. He bought my dream car. For himself. I have never forgiven him. I keep acting like I’m going to go replace my perfectly good car with a flashy new car just to spite him. He’s very cheap so the idea of having a higher payment tortures him. I may actually do it if the right car comes along.

He 100% could have driven my car and given me my dream car and he chose not to. But he said “isn’t it better to have our family own the car and you can drive it when you want to? Should I NOT buy it just because you want it? That doesn’t make sense!” Except every time I tried to drive it he said he was taking it, so now I never ask. I have a lovely car, so this is a petty source of bitterness that I can’t let go, two years later.

You know, the value of your car is only going to go down. You are probably in the sweet spot for getting the maximum use out of your vehicle and selling/trading it for a good price. Then you’d need a new car and lots of dealers have loyalty programs when you buy another, similar car …

[AJL]

This isn't petty. It's funny, really. My DD had a little package of small adhesive googly eyes. A couple of months ago, unbeknownst to me or DH, she put googly eyes on all these random things. Googly eyes on the bird on the wall calendar. Googly eyes on the fridge magnet with a seal on it from the aquarium. Googly eyes on the horse logo on my bottle of olive oil.

It has been the funniest prank ever. I'm still finding googly eyes! (Also petty is dumb. Funny is better.)

[jobae1234]

Feb 2, 2023 19:07:20 GMT -5 livinitup said:

Feb 2, 2023 16:55:22 GMT -5 jobae1234 said:

Idk if this is petty but my husband needed a new car and I didn’t. He bought my dream car. For himself. I have never forgiven him. I keep acting like I’m going to go replace my perfectly good car with a flashy new car just to spite him. He’s very cheap so the idea of having a higher payment tortures him. I may actually do it if the right car comes along.

He 100% could have driven my car and given me my dream car and he chose not to. But he said “isn’t it better to have our family own the car and you can drive it when you want to? Should I NOT buy it just because you want it? That doesn’t make sense!” Except every time I tried to drive it he said he was taking it, so now I never ask. I have a lovely car, so this is a petty source of bitterness that I can’t let go, two years later.

You know, the value of your car is only going to go down. You are probably in the sweet spot for getting the maximum use out of your vehicle and selling/trading it for a good price. Then you’d need a new car and lots of dealers have loyalty programs when you buy another, similar car …

I love the way you think!

[jobae1234]

Feb 2, 2023 18:36:27 GMT -5 mofongo said:

Feb 2, 2023 16:55:22 GMT -5 jobae1234 said:

Idk if this is petty but my husband needed a new car and I didn’t. He bought my dream car. For himself. I have never forgiven him. I keep acting like I’m going to go replace my perfectly good car with a flashy new car just to spite him. He’s very cheap so the idea of having a higher payment tortures him. I may actually do it if the right car comes along.

He 100% could have driven my car and given me my dream car and he chose not to. But he said “isn’t it better to have our family own the car and you can drive it when you want to? Should I NOT buy it just because you want it? That doesn’t make sense!” Except every time I tried to drive it he said he was taking it, so now I never ask. I have a lovely car, so this is a petty source of bitterness that I can’t let go, two years later.

This is not petty, this would be a big deal for me. I mean, he can’t help that he needed a new car, but to get your dream car and basically not let you drive it? What is the car, out of curiousity?

An all electric SUV. I’ve been following the electric market since its inception. So excited to move to electric. They’ve only made tiny cars like the leaf and the bolt. Finally a couple of SUV’s hit the market all at once right when he needed a new car.

He genuinely thought I’d be excited to have it. And I think he expected that we would share it. But it hasn’t worked out that way. We each keep stuff in our cars and it’s not convenient to switch a lot, especially when one car needs advanced planning to charge it etc. I am a bitter, bitter Betty about it. He knows. I’m open about it. It’s a running joke that he doesn’t really think is funny. He gets very defensive about how I can take it whenever I want.

[noodleoo]

Feb 2, 2023 19:22:39 GMT -5 AJL said:

This isn't petty. It's funny, really. My DD had a little package of small adhesive googly eyes. A couple of months ago, unbeknownst to me or DH, she put googly eyes on all these random things. Googly eyes on the bird on the wall calendar. Googly eyes on the fridge magnet with a seal on it from the aquarium. Googly eyes on the horse logo on my bottle of olive oil.

It has been the funniest prank ever. I'm still finding googly eyes! (Also petty is dumb. Funny is better.)

I love this! I had extra googly eyes from a kids craft and I put them random places. They make me smile.

jobae1234, I would not be as forgiving as you are. I’d be mad. That’s not cool. 

[TR]

Feb 2, 2023 16:55:22 GMT -5 jobae1234 said:

Idk if this is petty but my husband needed a new car and I didn’t. He bought my dream car. For himself. I have never forgiven him. I keep acting like I’m going to go replace my perfectly good car with a flashy new car just to spite him. He’s very cheap so the idea of having a higher payment tortures him. I may actually do it if the right car comes along.

He 100% could have driven my car and given me my dream car and he chose not to. But he said “isn’t it better to have our family own the car and you can drive it when you want to? Should I NOT buy it just because you want it? That doesn’t make sense!” Except every time I tried to drive it he said he was taking it, so now I never ask. I have a lovely car, so this is a petty source of bitterness that I can’t let go, two years later.

This is super fucked up, imo. I know it’s just a car, but it is SO bizarre to me that he’d get it and not let you drive it at least 50% of the time. Like. It’s borderline pathological lol.

[mofongo]

Feb 2, 2023 19:53:48 GMT -5 jobae1234 said:

Feb 2, 2023 18:36:27 GMT -5 mofongo said:

This is not petty, this would be a big deal for me. I mean, he can’t help that he needed a new car, but to get your dream car and basically not let you drive it? What is the car, out of curiousity?

An all electric SUV. I’ve been following the electric market since its inception. So excited to move to electric. They’ve only made tiny cars like the leaf and the bolt. Finally a couple of SUV’s hit the market all at once right when he needed a new car.

He genuinely thought I’d be excited to have it. And I think he expected that we would share it. But it hasn’t worked out that way. We each keep stuff in our cars and it’s not convenient to switch a lot, especially when one car needs advanced planning to charge it etc. I am a bitter, bitter Betty about it. He knows. I’m open about it. It’s a running joke that he doesn’t really think is funny. He gets very defensive about how I can take it whenever I want.

I don’t believe the man needs to let the woman drive the newer car, or anything, although my dad always did, even with me. I drive a much older car than H. BUT I think he’s being a big ass!

[jobae1234]

Feb 2, 2023 19:56:54 GMT -5 TR said:

Feb 2, 2023 16:55:22 GMT -5 jobae1234 said:

Idk if this is petty but my husband needed a new car and I didn’t. He bought my dream car. For himself. I have never forgiven him. I keep acting like I’m going to go replace my perfectly good car with a flashy new car just to spite him. He’s very cheap so the idea of having a higher payment tortures him. I may actually do it if the right car comes along.

He 100% could have driven my car and given me my dream car and he chose not to. But he said “isn’t it better to have our family own the car and you can drive it when you want to? Should I NOT buy it just because you want it? That doesn’t make sense!” Except every time I tried to drive it he said he was taking it, so now I never ask. I have a lovely car, so this is a petty source of bitterness that I can’t let go, two years later.

This is super fucked up, imo. I know it’s just a car, but it is SO bizarre to me that he’d get it and not let you drive it at least 50% of the time. Like. It’s borderline pathological lol.

Ok he does theoretically let me drive it. He said no a few times when we first got it and I shut down and became petty about refusing to drive it. Also I just said above, with planning longer trips and charging and all that, it takes a lot of communication for it to be everyone’s car instead of one primary driver. He’s not a TOTAL monster.

[TR]

Feb 2, 2023 19:59:23 GMT -5 jobae1234 said:

Feb 2, 2023 19:56:54 GMT -5 TR said:

This is super fucked up, imo. I know it’s just a car, but it is SO bizarre to me that he’d get it and not let you drive it at least 50% of the time. Like. It’s borderline pathological lol.

Ok he does theoretically let me drive it. He said no a few times when we first got it and I shut down and became petty about refusing to drive it. Also I just said above, with planning longer trips and charging and all that, it takes a lot of communication for it to be everyone’s car instead of one primary driver. He’s not a TOTAL monster.

You could be the primary driver, though. I can’t imagine buying a car that my H was obsessed with for myself.

[jobae1234]

Feb 2, 2023 19:58:11 GMT -5 mofongo said:

Feb 2, 2023 19:53:48 GMT -5 jobae1234 said:

An all electric SUV. I’ve been following the electric market since its inception. So excited to move to electric. They’ve only made tiny cars like the leaf and the bolt. Finally a couple of SUV’s hit the market all at once right when he needed a new car.

He genuinely thought I’d be excited to have it. And I think he expected that we would share it. But it hasn’t worked out that way. We each keep stuff in our cars and it’s not convenient to switch a lot, especially when one car needs advanced planning to charge it etc. I am a bitter, bitter Betty about it. He knows. I’m open about it. It’s a running joke that he doesn’t really think is funny. He gets very defensive about how I can take it whenever I want.

I don’t believe the man needs to let the woman drive the newer car, or anything, although my dad always did, even with me. I drive a much older car than H. BUT I think he’s being a big ass!

I have truly made him regret getting it, lol. I just asked him tonight about it. He now knows the whole thing has been one massive tactical error. But I don’t want that car now. I want my own new car. Of equivalent value.

[jobae1234]

Feb 2, 2023 20:00:39 GMT -5 TR said:

Feb 2, 2023 19:59:23 GMT -5 jobae1234 said:

Ok he does theoretically let me drive it. He said no a few times when we first got it and I shut down and became petty about refusing to drive it. Also I just said above, with planning longer trips and charging and all that, it takes a lot of communication for it to be everyone’s car instead of one primary driver. He’s not a TOTAL monster.

You could be the primary driver, though. I can’t imagine buying a car that my H was obsessed with for myself.

I will probably be throwing this in his face until the very day he dies.

ETA oh and I tell everyone. “DH‘s car? You mean my dream car that he bought for himself?”

[Jalapeñomel]

I make four different exams so my kids can’t cheat. (Off each other—-).

[jobae1234]

I feel bad now. There are other factors. I walk to work. He has free charging at his job. A nicer man would never have let this happen no matter what, though.