Life r/AskReddit

‘What’s your ‘if you go low, I’ll go lower’ moment?’ – 23 people who plumbed the ethical depths just so they could win

We’re all familiar with Michelle Obama’s ‘when they go low, we go high’ motto, which advocates for upholding ethical standards in the face of bad behaviour from others. Now, we’re not saying it isn’t an admirable stance, but, as a brief peek at the state of US politics shows, things don’t always work out in favour of the good guys and, sometimes, you have to dive really deep down to be able to succeed.

They’ve been talking about this on the AskReddit page after user nirvanna1 asked:

What’s your ‘if you go low, I’ll go lower’ moment?

And plenty of people were happy to admit to being a little bit villainous when a situation required it.

1.

‘On a new team, I had helped a fellow lead/manager out a lot, hoping he would spin up and pull his own weight. He had a part in getting me demoted, so I decided to stop doing his job and focus on my own. He didn’t like that and complained to my manager and demanded a meeting to discuss my ‘lack of cooperation’.

So I spent a few hours compiling a ~35 page report complete with screenshots and other receipts detailing how much the team and I did his job in addition to our own. Got it to my manager in time for the meeting which the guy called off. The guy was fired the next week.’
timg528

2.

‘Boss that treated me like crap for years used the company’s PPP loan (that they got by fudging the books by cutting hours) to buy a new car. They refused my demand to bring my pay up with other supervisors, so they got reported for PPP loan fraud.’
Wild_Chef6597

3.

‘This was actually my mother’s doing but it helped me see that she will ALWAYS have my back from a very young age: I went to a brand new school in second grade, and the two popular girls were mean to me in the beginning. My mom booked my birthday party that year at the PREMIERE birthday party spot in my hometown – think laser tag, bowling, put-put, batting cages, etc.

She then sent me to school and had me give an invite to every single person except for those two girls, and coached me to say ‘Why would I want to invite someone who doesn’t like me?’ when they asked. Guess who started being nice to me? I know we could not afford that birthday party at the time, but my mom wanted to help me with my new school however she could. Forever grateful.’
whiskeyandtacos

4.

‘If someone is standing too close to me when they talk, I’ll step in a little closer. Makes it better if we’re all uncomfortable…’
-shizblam

5.

‘Old boss treated me like shit for almost 10 years. When I got a new job in the same organisation as an auditor I ran an audit on her unit since I knew where the skeletons were buried. My new boss enjoyed the shit show because they knew and hated my old supervisor.’
gambitgrl

6.

‘I was standing in a long checkout line with my cart. Every time the line moved, the woman behind me bumped me with her cart. The next time the line started to move, I braced my feet. When I felt the cart touch me, I took a huge, fast step backwards. I heard her grunt as the bar of the cart jammed into her stomach. I turned around and she was doubled over. I just smiled sweetly and said, ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise you were that close.’

Totally worth it.’
rusty0123

7.

‘In middle school this guy kept flicking pencils at me so I turned around and threw a binder at him. Got a detention but at least the guy never flicked pencils at me again.’
MechanicalWindow

8.

‘My friend Nina is ex-military and takes crap from no one. When she was pregnant with her son, this guy came up to her at Target, RUBBED HER BELLY (WTAF!) and asked ‘Boy or girl?’ Without skipping a beat, Nina rubbed his rather large beer belly and asked ‘Budweiser or Coors?’ HE gave her a dirty look, muttered something and walked off. He is extremely lucky that rubbing his belly is all that Nina did. Who on earth thinks it is OK to rub the belly of a complete stranger in a store?’
Pascale73

9.

‘A girl used to cheat off me all of 9th grade science class. She would bully me into it. I started just not resisting. On final day I watched the teacher pass out A and B tests and convinced her we both had A tests knowing she had a B. I let her cheat off me, nay, encouraged it. She failed and had to retake the class.’
witchylibrariankate

10.

‘If someone is talking on their phone (at full volume) in an inappropriate setting, I’ll do the same so they aren’t able to hear their convo.’
necessaryevil23

11.

‘My roommates left the living room a mess then went on a vacation not telling me when they would be back knowing I was having a baby shower at the house that weekend which had been planned months in advance. When I say a mess I mean cans and bottles and literally trash, plates and games and cards not put back in the boxes some clothes and shoes. I threw, literally threw it into their already messy rooms and when they came back they flipped shit.’
Thin-Ad-119

12.

‘In high school, I sat next to a varsity football player. He was a complete dick to me all the time. One day, we were taking a quiz and he nudged me wanting to see my answers. I thought about it a minute and then let him. He copied all my answers.When we got the quiz back, we both failed.
I completely blew the quiz because I knew my grade would recover, but his wouldn’t. His failed the class and his GPA fell below the threshold he could play. I got a B+ in the class instead of an A. I have no regrets.’
noisetheorem