#1

So today I resign my position with immediate effect, which in terms cancelled his vacation plans for next week. On top of that, there is no one to fill my position. As soon as I mouthed the words "I quit" you could see the terror in his eyes. I've never felt such a sense of instant karma as today. I never meant to cancel his vacation, but I wasn't going to put his needs before mine.
#2

#3

One day, out of the blue, the region manager calls me into the store and tells me that I'm suspended. No warning whatsoever. I asked her why, and she flat out tells me that I'm frightening away the patrons because of my sexuality (gay). The next day, she calls me to say that I'm no longer needed. I tried for a lawsuit, but it was he said she said kinda thing.
Flash forward to last month. I get a call from a lawyer asking me if I want to take part in a class action lawsuit against this company for discrimination and unfair wage compensation practices. I told them my story and now I'm a class representative for the case. I'm so ready for this court case.
**TL;DR, Fired from company for being gay. Years later, part of lawsuit against said company. Delayed karma, but oh so sweet.**.
To learn more about this topic, we got in touch with Gina Vild, co-author of The Two Most Important Days, How to Find Your Purpose and Live a Happier, Healthier Life, and the upcoming book Buoyant, The Art and Science of a Resilient Life. Gina was kind enough to have a chat with Bored Panda and discuss whether or not karma is real.
"Not only do I believe in karma, but researchers have something to say about it," she shared. "First, let’s define karma as the concept that every action, whether beneficial or detrimental to others, creates consequences that shape our future experiences. In essence, good deeds that enrich others will boomerang back to us, while actions that inflict harm will, in return, sow negative outcomes."
" Science increasingly echoes that our behavior shapes outcomes," Gina explained. "Studies show that belief in karma influences behavior, inspiring generosity, ethical behavior, and prosocial action. In one cross-cultural study, people who believed in karma were more likely to help others and reported a stronger sense of purpose and well-being."
#4

#5

#6

I'm trying to tell him where I work when he suddenly interrupts me and asks if I got a college degree. I said no. He is DISGUSTED. Said he would never have talked to me if he knew that and I was a piece of trash. I went to the bathroom and cried. My inability to pay for college was a sensitive subject for me.
The very next day I am at work as a branch manager of a large local bank. One of my tellers needs me to do an override. I leave and go to the teller line to notice him standing with an older lady. Grandma, it turns out. She was there to transfer money from her account to cover his negative balance and wanted to know if any could be refunded.
I refunded all of them. The fact that he couldn't look me in the eye was the best karma I ever got.
"Research also confirms that doing good benefits not only the receiver but also the giver," Gina continued. "The benefits are social, psychological, and even biological. Here's how it works: Kind acts release endorphins, which boost happiness, reduce stress, and strengthen our sense of connection and meaning with others. Doing good quite literally changes the brain. For example, people who spend money on others report greater happiness than those who spend it on themselves. They experience what psychologists call the 'helper's high.'"
"Even when kindness is offered with self-interest as the goal, which rather misses the spirit of karma, the act itself will be transformative," the expert continued. "The goodwill and psychological benefit to the giver will likely prompt a spiral of generosity that ultimately reshapes the intent. There is abundant evidence that one good deed generally inspires, on average, three additional generous acts by the recipient, creating a ripple effect that spreads far beyond the original act. In this way, science affirms that goodness begets goodness – regardless of original intent."
#7

#8

They got fined 250K for the violation I brought up several times. I'm still unemployed but I go hiking all day and love my life. Have enough saved up to last me until I do find work.
#9

I searched high and low and couldn't find her anywhere. My sister had no clue either, and neither of us heard the doors open, so we didn't think she could be out there. Turns out the kid decided to go outside. Well... she hid in the back of my mom's truck. It has a camper shell that can be locked from the outside.
I guess someone saw it open and locked it while the kid was hiding inside. She ended up pissing her pants.
I volunteered to unlock it and I took my sweet time, staring at her with this grin.
It was great.
So is there anything we can do to improve our karma? "It is this simple: As the Dalai Lama said: 'Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.' This mindset will put your thoughts and actions in harmony," Gina shared.
"To enhance your karma, always act with the intention to do good. Pause and ask yourself: What can I do right now to make someone's life a little better? Kindness can show up in both small acts and large," she explained. "You might let a hurried shopper go ahead of you in the grocery line, allow another car to merge in front of you, volunteer to clean up a beach, or become a mentor to a child. Even the simple act of smiling can elevate someone’s day. Remember, nothing is more contagious than a smile."
#10

The head boy in our year, who was in our registration class, had a surprise, and had hired a bouncy castle just for us! Now I had always been the biggest guy in school, 6 foot tall and around 20 stone (300 lbs to you Yanks) but I was also one of the quietest, and I only went on after most of the other folk had their turn and gone to do something else.
I pluck up some courage because this looked like so much fun, and I start bouncing and bouncing higher and higher, and then this p***k Paul pushes me when I am at my highest and I land on my side on the ground, which was thankfully grass.
I slowly sit up in a little pain, and Paul is laughing his head off and pointing at me, trying to get as much attention so other folk can start laughing at my misfortune. I get up and go back inside and sit there on my own, while I think about how s**t school has always been, nearly on the brink of onions.
Here comes the karma.
The head boy comes in a minute later, and tells me he saw the whole thing and that he knows how to get my own back...
Paul is still bouncing around like a p***k, and I get back on at the furtherest end of the bouncy castle, I get into a bounce which is timed slightly behind Pauls, and then I do the biggest jump I could, curled up into a cannonball and hit the castle floor with all my weight.
Paul ended up bouncing RIGHT OVER the wall of the castle and landing hard on the other side, he was ok though, only his pride was dented, but everyone who saw it was in absolute hysterics. Everyone started to tell the story of Paul flying over the wall of the castle, and classmates who I had never really gotten on with came up to me and told me how awesome it was. It was the only day where I felt accepted at school, just a shame it was one of the last.
#11

The worst of them was Marcus. One day Marcus and I, along with some of the other kids, went to a nearby school to ride around on our scooters (oh yeah). Marcus convinced me that to be "cool" I had to jump down a flight of 5 stairs. I succeeded, but broke my scooter in the process.
As the kids rode off, laughing at me for not being able to join them, Marcus' front wheel caught in a crack in the concrete. He FLEW over the handlebars straight into a flagpole. I nearly died laughing. I broke my scooter; he broke his face.
#12

"Also, be the force that puts an end to bad karma," Gina says. "While we can't rewrite the past, we can transform negative energy. Remember that resentment and envy are forms of negative karma. When you feel wronged, resist the urge to respond in kind. Choose forgiveness and understanding. Remember the adage, 'Be kind. Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.' Each act of understanding and restraint creates its own gift of goodness."
#13

#14

So, when I quit to go get my PhD, they realized that I hadn't used any vacation time. The ultra penny pincher had to write me a check for two extra months worth of pay as I walked out the door.
#15

But it's important to remember that karma won't always be as fast-acting as it was in these stories.
"Karma is not inherently transactional," Gina noted. "Yet goodness generally returns to us more quickly than we realize. When we act with kind intention, we feel its reward almost instantly by experiencing a lift in our mood, a sense of connection with others, and satisfaction that we have been the source of something positive. This is the first wave of karma. As our positive actions ripple outward, they will eventually circle back to us in unexpected forms of goodwill and opportunity."
#16

Got everything hooked up, and gosh, no internet. So he called me in on Sunday to talk to tech support. I'm a family man, and we had a very nice dinner planned. But no, work was more important to my boss. Told him ok, but he'd need to meet me at the office. I did the tech support call, and still no boss.. Called him again, and told him I really needed him in the office.
I handed him my key, the list of passwords to the server, wrapped in my resignation letter. Told him I had a family, and being pulled away from Easter Sunday dinner to talk to tech support to only have them confirm what I'd told him Friday and Saturday was the last straw. To.d him that I was sure he could find another java/php/linux admin on short notice, or he could figure it out himself.
tl; dr: Left a sleezy boss after he forced me to come into the office to make a tech support call on Easter weekend, to get them to confirm what I'd been telling him all along.
#17

I told the customer - who I'd done work for before and who I'd had a good relationship with - that it was not going to end well for them. They took it as sour grapes on my part. Fair enough. I had plenty of other things to do anyway so I just moved on.
Two weeks after they started the implementation phase of the job the other consulting firm augured in. The entire email system stopped working. No mail coming in or out, no mail flowing between any of the Exchange servers, everything just dead in the water. I find this out when I get a call late one evening at my home from the other consulting company begging me to pull them out of the fire. I told them no thanks. An hour later the owner of the other firm is at my front door trying to convince me to help them "for the sake of the customer". This is well after dark and the conversation does not go well. He ends up screaming at me and I slam the door then call the cops because I'm tired and afraid that I'll do something stupid if I continue to interact with the guy.
Cops come, he loses it, they arrest him for disorderly conduct and I have his d**n car blocking mine in my driveway. I have it towed off (I had to pay for the privilege too). He spends the next 24 hours in jail, about average for getting through the Dallas County jail I'm told.
The customer called me the following day and I again declined to fix the mess. By this time I'd decided I didn't want any of that s**t on me, period.
The customer ends up getting Microsoft Services in to fix everything (cost them about 5 times what I was going to charge by the way). The customer sues the other consulting firm, which promptly files for bankruptcy / closes its doors rather than deal with the lawsuit.
#18

However there were a lot of people that apparently missed that. My favorite was the guy in the SUV who decided he had a big ol car and he was going to get pass that idiot driving slowly in the icy snow. He gunned around us, attempting to hit 60 mph...which he did, immediately before spinning a 360 off the road and getting stuck in the ditch.
We stopped counting cars in the ditch when we hit the mid 100's.
#19

When I got hied, the store was in serious trouble. They had recently fired a huge chunk of the staff for skimming profits nd selling pot out of the warehouse. Their numbers were really low, and corporate as breathing down their necks. But, as it turns out, I have a penchant or selling stuff that I know about. I was the accessories guy, and got really, really good at it. I was routinely rolling $30k or better a month out the door, and the most expensive thing I had in my department was only $500. I also had one of the lowest return rates on the west coast, and a file with several letters from happy customers saying how much help I had been. Eventually, the store's numbers improved, especially my department. Eventually, we were #1 for our district, and #3 on the west coast, behind Hollywood and San Francisco.
However, NONE of that mattered to the GM or anyone from corporate. All they wanted was more from me. My numbers had to be better every month, or I'd get yelled at. I was written up for having a low sales month one January because I went on vacation. I would get daily emails and phone calls from the district and regional managers, demaning to know why I hadn't hit $xxxx in sales yet. My hours got bumped up to the point where my days consisted of sleeping, showering, eating, and working. I had zero social life. My gf at the time would go weeks without seeing me. Eventually, because of the stress, I developed a ulcer. So I decided to quit.
I threw myself into my last month, which just happened to be December, the month all retail workers hate. I worked extra hours, sold as much as I could, contacted old customers, you name it. Blew everyone out of the water, rolling just shy of $80,000 in gear. My boss called me in to his office, and said I was doing a good (not great, good) job, and to keep it up. I pointed to the sales numbers screen, pointed out how well I had been doing and how well liked I was by the customers, and asked for a raise. He laughed and said no. So I handed him my resignation letter. 2 weeks later I was done and starting classes in college, something I'd had to put off since work wouldn't allow me to cut hours for school.
I came back to the store a couple months later, as someone who had worked with me called and said they'd found a jacket of mine in the warehouse. When I showed up, the GM wasn't there. I asked, and what I wastold was that apparently, corporate HAD noticed me, and when my GM had failed to retain me, they'd fired him. Also, that department went from #1 to #9 in the district, out of 11 stores. The district managers were scrambling to recover, a few got demoted because of how things panned out, and the extreme higher-ups were not happy that the district was in such a state. I laughed the laugh of the vindicated.
**TL;DR** - Quit the Evil Empire, people got fired or demoted because of it, and I had a good belly laugh over it.
**EDIT:** Jesus Christ, Mother Mary, Joseph, and all their dancing little midgets, I was NOT expecting this kind of a response, let alone someone sending me reddit gold!! I have a big dumb grin over here.
And for those of you who work retail, take a chapter from my book. Work hard, become indespensible. Eitherthe company will be decent and reward you, or they'll be corporate douches and you can f**k them by quitting. Stand up for yourself, you don't need to be treated like a machine or worse.
#20



