When Commission Goes Missing: How One Retail Worker Tanked Profits for Petty Revenge
Picture this: You’re hustling in a busy Manhattan electronics store, finally getting your shot at the big-ticket items—computers, cameras, and all the shiny gadgets your inner geek craves. You work for peanuts, but there’s a catch: sell enough and you get a sweet commission. Except, one day, your hard-earned bonus vanishes because… you clocked in three minutes late. What’s a slighted employee to do? Well, if you’re like u/Meanee from Reddit, you hit them where it hurts: their bottom line.
Welcome to the world of retail, where policies are as rigid as a VGA cable and pettiness can be more contagious than a computer virus. This is the story of how a few minutes late turned into a legendary act of petty revenge, and why you should never mess with someone who knows exactly how much your inventory costs.
Let’s rewind to a not-so-distant past, at a computer store near NYC’s Bryant Park. The pay? A meager $300 a week, with the tantalizing promise of 10% commission—if you clear that weekly threshold. The sales system was quirky: prices could be haggled, and a secret code let you see the store’s cost for each item (think “H45S99” meant $45.99). For a while, u/Meanee toiled in the software department, where commissions were a myth. But when they got moved “downstairs” to the land of hardware, things got interesting.
For one pivotal week, Meanee hustled hard, tracking every sale—expecting a $630 commission windfall. But when payday arrived, the check barely covered rent. Management’s reason? “You were three minutes late one day. Per policy, you forfeit all commission.” Ouch.
Cue the revenge. For the next two weeks, Meanee sold everything at cost—no markup, no profit. Repeat customers flocked for deals better than Black Friday. When summoned by the suits, the printout of sales numbers told the tale: $0.32 profit for the company in two weeks. Asked to stop, Meanee doubled down for another week and was promptly fired. But the seeds of rebellion had been sown.
Redditors, of course, loved every second. As u/Berta1401 cheered, “Nicely done, you hit them where it hurts. Jerks deserved it.” Even the OP admitted, “If I am not making money, neither are you.” That’s the kind of logic every underpaid worker dreams about, but rarely gets to execute.
The fallout was swift and delicious. According to Meanee, “Rumor is that people started to do the same thing that I did after I was fired. No commission? Sell everything at-cost. And company later repealed that policy.” In the end, the store’s once-bustling NYC and Long Island locations faded into obscurity, shrinking down to a “hole-in-the-wall” shop. “I certainly hope that I had some impact on their company fate though,” OP mused. The lesson? If you play stupid games with employee pay, you win stupid prizes.
The comment section became a nostalgia-fueled detective hunt, with locals trying to guess the store. “Crazy Eddie can’t be it. PC Richard had similar policies,” pondered u/LauraLand27, before Meanee revealed the answer: DataVision. Cue a wave of “Oh, I remember that place!” and “Never heard of it!”—a snapshot of New York’s vanished retail scene.
Other commenters chimed in with their own tales of workplace pettiness. u/night_noche shared a saga of fighting for basic employee perks, only to be fired—and then vindicated as policies changed after their departure. As u/Available_Agent3305 succinctly put it, “Classic case of a company thinking policy beats people… until it bites them back.”
Some wondered if Meanee could have taken it further. “Why not sell at a loss?” asked u/AragornKramer. The answer? The system wouldn’t allow it—unless a manager approved, which was about as likely as a customer actually reading the 500-page printer manual.
Perhaps the most telling takeaway came from the OP themselves, looking back years later: “Now I could’ve easily hit them with the whole ‘Once commission is earned, it becomes my wage’ thing, so it’s illegal to withhold it. But what did I know back then lol.” It’s a reminder of how many young workers get taken for a ride by companies counting on ignorance and silence.
This story isn’t just about one act of retail rebellion—it’s a case study in how bad management creates its own headaches. As u/michaelpaoli put it, “Owners were very short sighted penny pinchers—wouldn’t spend a dime to save ten bucks, so they’d count their pennies and grin gleefully over them, while the dollars walked away.”
So next time your boss tries to nickel-and-dime you over a few minutes, remember: Sometimes the pettiest revenge is also the most poetic. And if you’re in management? Maybe pay your people what they’ve earned—before your profit margin disappears faster than a discount laptop on Cyber Monday.
Have you ever served up some sweet workplace revenge? Or do you have your own tale of managerial madness? Share your stories in the comments below and keep the spirit of petty justice alive!
Original Reddit Post: No commission? Well, no profit!