[geocrasher]

From my worst colleague: This man thought things were funny, and they weren't. I bicycle commuted to work, and he thought it funny to buzz me, passing just a few inches away from me, doing about 60mph on his street motorcycle. Another time, I was a bit stressed and needed some downtime so on my way out of the office, I said as much and added "so don't call me unless something is on fire." So, he called me, on my lunch, to tell me the building was on fire. I panicked, thinking all my coworkers lives were in danger, and told him to call 911 and get out of there now. He started laughing.

What did he teach me? He taught me that when I'm sufficiently pissed off, I can be vindictive. I retaliated more than once by doing mostly harmless things like sticking a floppy disk in his PC so it wouldn't boot, and then not helping him fix it so he could do his job (that should date this for ya...). He wasn't computer savvy, and I let him stew in it. That made me ashamed of myself later, and I have never taken the low road again. So he taught me something about myself, and I changed for the better because of it. I still vehemently dislike him and what he did, but that was a long time ago.

[moosebear847]

Vindication is morally questionable, but someone could be tempted to it to attach consequence to the offending behavior. After deciding not to take the low road, how did you handle these situations in the future?

[geocrasher]

That's a very good question. Since then, I have never had a coworker treat me in such a fashion, and so I cannot speak directly to it.

What I can do is express that the reflection of myself in that scenario was one I didn't like, and I've become quite a different person overall since then. My conflict resolution methods in general are much more constructive. When I have a problem with somebody I am calm but direct and tell them what the problem is. I used to mistake being blunt for being rude, but blunt (as long as it is kind, and not vicious) can be very effective.

[StavrosK]

By "vindication" do you mean "revenge"? Because vindication is absolutely not questionable. Revenge may be questionable, but I find that not teaching bad people a lesson isn't much better.

[geocrasher]

Vindictive, which is the word I used (not vindication) is defined as followws:

"having or showing a strong or unreasoning desire for revenge."

So yes I was after revenge.

[StavrosK]

I was replying to moosebear847, though I didn't notice you had said "vindictive", so I guess that's what they meant too, thanks!

[chris_wot]

It could have been worse. I was at college when I heard a previous bunch of students took vengeance on another student by replacing the magnetic disc in his 5 1/4" floppy with a circular disk sander.