From dropping out of college to marrying an unemployed man, to stealing cake as a new manager, people describe the fastest way they’ve seen someone screw up their life.
[Source can be found at the end of the article]
Our High School Valedictorian was the smartest kid I knew. He was an introvert, but he had the answer to every question known to man in class. One month before graduation he was bragging about Ivy league schools that accepted him and which one he was going to choose. Three weeks before graduation, someone found a note he wrote that fell out of his bag. It was a “hit list” of students that he hated and he wanted to hurt. Within 48 hours he was suspended from school, not allowed to attend graduation and we heard the Ivy league schools all dropped him. All I remember was him getting handcuffed in class and him screaming it was a joke. 10 years later and I heard he lives with his mom and works at an electronics store.
AwkwardTraveler
I had a friend back in high school who was nice but kind of a pushover. We went to the same college but he started drinking too much and transferred to a smaller school back home.
One night he got wasted and decided to drive home. He ran over five international students that were walking home on the side of the road, including his own roommate. Three of them died instantly and two were hospitalized.
He was so drunk he didnt even realize what hed done. He woke up the next morning to the cops banging down his door.
nowhereman86
Here in Utah a few years ago an immature mother decided to take her daughter’s side in a spat her daughter was having with one of her friends.
Mom decided to photoshop a picture of the friend’s head onto a photo of a nude woman. Then she proceeded to print out 50 copies and hang them up all over the daughter’s school.
The police didn’t care that the images were fake. They charged her as if she was posting real nude pictures of the girl — 50 individual felony counts. I wonder if that stupid woman is still in prison.
syndoctor
We had a young girl come to jail for a misdemeanor assault. It sucks but not the end of the world. I think she got a five day sentence.
Well, she decided to smuggle her medication in instead of just giving it to us to administer. So she got a 5 month charge. The judge went easy on her. Four days before her release she decides to do drugs with another inmate who had smuggled some in, both get caught, she catches another couple months for that now.
Instead of sitting for a few days on a misdemeanor she winds up doing eight months and catches a couple felonies.
Icing on the cake- she never showed up to report for probation so she just spent the weekend with us again less than a week after she got out and caught another charge.
Zoup
I used to live on a decent sized lake, from my vantage point to the other side was probably a good 1/4 mile. I had my eye on one boat, no idea why but I had a weird feeling. I kept watching as they got closer to shore with three teenage girls behind them on a tube.
The driver (who was very drunk) made a correction which in turn swung the girls at high speed towards the shore and right into a steel dock. The three girls hit the dock at around 40mph. One of them died on impact, another one went into a coma, eventually died months later, and left the survivor with permanent physical damage.
Not only did this guy destroy two families lives in a matter of a few seconds, he’s now in prison for life.
INTP36
Gambling. My friend’s cousin gambled his student loan of 15,000 and lost it. He took out a loan to cover it and lost that gambling too. He had to leave university as he couldn’t pay the fees. He gambled afterwards too and requested that the casinos bar him. He now gambles online.
Mikluvinb
This happened a few days ago. My neighbors have been together for a few years and seemed pretty happy. They had three kids but didn’t marry yet.
One day the guy just completely loses it and accuses the girl of cheating (she wasn’t) and demands she tell him who the guy is. After some arguing, he drops it. Then for a week, he follows her around. She gets fed up.
About three days ago I see him looking angry and driving his kids somewhere but I don’t think anything of it. Turns out he drove his kids to his grandparents that day then waited for the girl to show up at the house. When she arrived, they get into an argument. She says she is leaving and he pulls out a gun and says if she leaves he’ll kill himself. She turns around and immediately hears a gunshot and a thud.
The guy shot himself over nothing.
SubsurfaceIndia
Not wearing a helmet when doing BMX tricks.
He was doing a grind down a handrail and went over the outside of the rail from about 15 stairs up and landed on his head. Now he can’t speak correctly, can’t focus, and he gets mad easily and often.
Brain injuries are terrifying and doing things like wearing a helmet when biking or wearing your seatbelt when driving are such a “no-brainer” to me after seeing how it has affected people around me.
bfro
My now-wife started at a top-14 law school in 2013. There was an impromptu party at a local establishment a couple of nights before law classes started, it was very popular.
Well, this local establishment was mostly outdoors and was set up in such a way that you had to climb a small flight of stairs from a sidewalk to get to the seating area. We had just left the party and were walking to our car when we saw an ambulance blast past us and to the bar.
An incoming student got super drunk and fell off the flight of stairs and hit his head on the sidewalk, causing significant brain damage. He intended to defer for a year but I believe he never came back.
ironicusage
We’ll call her T.
T was studying for a degree, was captain of the university cheerleading squad, really smart with decent prospects.
T dropped out because her parents wanted her to work in their bar, which they squandered, so T was jobless and a handful of credits short of her degree.
T met N, who was a barman in a pub. He went for management but lacked any kind of intelligence and ended up unemployed. T was knocked up, popped out 4 kids one year after another, all while N is bouncing between part time jobs.
N cheats, T finds out that he’s put them in the red so far that they’re screwed. T gets a job at the local shop, has a fling with a colleague and gets knocked up again.
Quitting university messed up her whole future. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure she loves her kids, but they’re on the breadline and I doubt they’ll ever do much.
generic_brand_cola
I suppose this person did it slowly, but they sure seemed to descend quickly.
Girl I knew came from a decent family and other than being a bit of a drama queen seems perfectly normal. Marries a guy and gets pregant on their wedding night. Perhaps before, it’s hard to tell since the family was religiously ultra-conservative. Five years later they have five kids and are living in her parents’ basement because they can’t afford one kid, let alone five.
Slowly they drag themselves out of poverty and eventually end up owning a home and stop at the five kids. About eight years pass.
She decides this is way too stable for her. Tells her husband she’s leaving him, goes out that night and gets pregnant immediately. Like, same night. Proceeds to have 3 more kids in 2 years with another guy.
8 kids. The oldest is 18 and her mom is still squeezing out a litter a year.
coupland
A girl I know threw away everything because a boy didn’t love her back.
She had been living on her own since she was 16 (don’t know the exact story), but got her high school degree at 20, chose to do further studies and seemed to do pretty well, given the circumstances.
She had a friends with benefits situation with a guy for maybe a year or so. She wanted a relationship, but he was in it to sleep with her and maybe a bit of company. He honestly sounded like a manipulating douche, but she didn’t have the spine to say no to sleeping together after feelings got involved. He left to go to Africa for a few months, and she coped with that by completely abandoning her studies, spending entire weekends binge drinking in bars, and started taking anti-depressants and quitting those cold turkey after half a year.
As far as I know, she doesn’t study, doesn’t work, lives off welfare and last I heard she has a new boyfriend that got stabbed by his ex’s ex. She went from doing okay and seemingly having it together to completely losing it in a matter of weeks, 2 months tops.
this_guy___
This is the story of my ex-best friend.
She was the first to graduate from college in her family and went on to become an officer in the military. She married her college sweetheart and got stationed at the same place.
She cheated on him and they divorced. She then got involved with an enlisted guy (Huge no-no). She got disciplined and he got kicked out. Then she met a new guy and they got married in 6 months. She had a miscarriage, got really depressed, got pregnant again, got even more messed up. She cheated with another enlisted guy while pregnant and while hubby was off training, and got an STD. She accused hubby of sexual assault.
Turned out, on top of all of this, she lived the high life in college off loan money and is now $100k in debt. Hubby divorced her, fought for custody of their daughter, and she got kicked out. She stays with the new guy who also got kicked out and is now living in a trailer with two kids from 2 different baby daddies on her 3rd marriage before the age of 27.
Riodancer
I was at Snowshoe skiing with buddies. Were at the top and I overhear a little girl (10-12) in blue ski pants and a white puffy coat complaining about her helmet being uncomfortable. Her dad comes over and adjusts it, but the girl continues to complain. They make a plan, Dad and brother start to go one way, girl stays with mom. I hear clear as day from Dad, The helmet stays on or you stay in the lodge. As soon as the father is out of site her mother tells her just to go toss it in her bag and that mom will deal with dad later about it.
Day goes on, we ski, wreck, get soaked, have fun. Its sometime towards dinner and were at the bottom of the hill planning on one more run before we grab a bite to eat. The sun is low, its cloudy, the lights are starting to turn on. Theres an ear piercing scream as a young girl in blue pants and a white puffy jacket comes hurtling out of control through the flats and head first into a cement anchor for the lift line. The sounding was sickening, the whole crowd seemed to drop silent as she hit with a wet thud. Someone behind me puked… I do not know if she made it, I know she didnt move again while ski patrol loaded her onto a board with a neck brace. I also dont know if a helmet would have even helped.
xdrakennx
There was one young woman.
Initially she was pulled over for speeding, which isn’t all that bad just a traffic citation.
Then the officers noticed she was drunk, still not terrible as it was misdemeanor DUI but you still end up spending the night in the tank.
As she’s being arrested she resists and during the struggle she kicks one deputy in the face which ended up blinding him in one eye because she happened to be wearing high-heels.
She went from a simple speeding ticket to a DUI to felony assault in the space of about 30 minutes.
TaxDollarsHardAtWork
We had a guy get busted for drinking and driving during his first month at his new base (Air Force). He was a brand new Airman and his leadership spun the story that he was young, learned his lesson, etc, and managed to let him stay in. He lost a stripe and got paperwork but could continue his career.
No less than a month later, he gets another DUI. Bam, career over, out of the Airforce, no chance to ever rejoin. Oh, and a bit of jail time and a suspended drivers license.
So what do you think he does? He goes to a party, gets drunk, grabs his keys and tries to drive home without a license.
Cops catch him. Third DUI within just a few months period, with a suspended license, resulting in several months in jail and basically no chance of employment. It’s sad to see someone’s brand new career fall to pieces so fast, even with good leadership.
Julian_rc
In first grade, I was at the first Tiger Cub meeting for kids and parents interested in Cub Scouts. The parents were hearing all the boring details about dues and fundraising, etc. We were playing tag or dodgeball, and one of the kids falls and slides across the gym floor.
We all thought that was pretty fun, so we all started running and then falling on our stomachs to see how far we could slide on the gym floor. One kid got way too close to the wall and slid head first into the wall pretty hard. His parents left with him and went to the emergency room. He was in special-ed classes after that.
Awdayshus
I worked with a high school kid for a day.
He had a lot of problems, just a troubled kid in general. He hung out with the wrong crowd and didn’t have parents who cared, but this was his first job so I thought he was starting to turn his life around.
Then, the next day, he doesn’t show up to work. I think he must have slept in or something. Manager is unable to reach him and we don’t hear anything about him for a week.
Turns out, his friends that had picked him up after work that day, had robbed a car afterward. The kid was not involved but took the fall for the guys when they inevitably got caught the same night. Last I heard he’s still locked up.
miguelz509
I was a bouncer. I have seen guys get in drunken fights and usually did not intervene if they occur off property.
One night I saw two guys get into a brawl over nonsense and one of them hit the ground. He never woke up.
The other kid went from having not a major problem in the world to becoming a felon convicted of manslaughter.
By far the fastest way I have seen someone screw up their life.
yegcosmonaught
I was working at a pizza joint when I was in college (I was 23) and had a really cool manager called MB. MB had a history of addiction but decided to be clean when she got promoted to manager. Our store hired a couple new people who turned out to be addicts and got MB into it again. Two months later, during a night shift, MB was working through the dinner rush when out of nowhere, she collapsed. MB was rushed to the hospital, the doctors said she had an aneurysm, and was braindead. Her parents flew in from halfway around the world just to pull the plug on her.
Saddest moment so far in my professional experience. MB was only two years older than me, but died so young. She treated everyone with respect and kindness. She got with the wrong crowd that brought up her past. And after the tragedy, those guys were fired.
re_spirit
A guy in the same grade as me from high school got accepted to a great college on a full ride scholarship playing football (not going to specify which one, but they’re in the top 5 right now.) He gave it up because his at-the-time girlfriend with no future didn’t want him to go off to college without her. They broke up not even a year later.
What a waste.
Kingjumby
I worked at a grocery store bakery. New assistant manager for the bakery comes in and immediately “adjusts the work flow to be more efficient,” meaning dumping his work on the already enormously busy evening workers. He also complains about the quality of everyone’s work seemingly just because he can. He especially has a bone to pick with me because I listen to the wrong talk radio station or something, and he goes to extra lengths to insult me openly and leave me tons of extra work.
One day shortly before close, he leaves the bakery with an empty cake box. He comes back with it full and taped up neatly. He leaves it on the counter saying he needs to hit the bathroom, so I pick it up… and it’s heavy as hell. No way that’s a cake. So I phone the acting manager and report theft. They checked the cameras and sure enough, he had filled the box with expensive steaks.
Company pushed charges and prosecuted him to the fullest extent possible. They were big on making examples at that point to curb the high levels of employee theft. He got absolutely screwed and was unemployable overnight. He sold his house, lost his wife… don’t know what happened after that but I bet it wasn’t good.
Flaktrack
I have a cousin who got kicked out of the house. Pawning my aunts jewelry was the last straw. “I need money more than you need possessions!” he said, having already ruled out work as a means of income. He spent the money he got from the pawn shop on useless stuff.
He stayed with us for a bit, then WE had to boot him too after (among other things) because he downloaded some questionable stuff into my dad’s work computer. He had the option to stay with friends, get a job, etc, but instead he decided to live in a tent behind an IHOP and suffer voluntarily in an admitted attempt to make the family regret their decision not to house him. You know, because we didn’t like having our stuff stolen and our jobs potentially put in jeopardy.
Duwt
A 19 year old guy gets drunk one night during winter.
He gets wasted in a bar, thrown out by the bouncer, gets mad at the bouncer and starts calling him stuff. He argues he wants his jacket, doesnt get it, was told to come back when hes sober. Takes a piss on the outside of bar, police sees it, he gets pissed at the police, shows them the middle finger, kicks one officer in the thigh.
Charged with violence towards a police officer, pissing in public, showing finger to police and drunken disorderly conduct.
2000$ fine, 1 year jail-time, can never travel to i.e. USA, never study for lawyer, police, doctor, teacher etc, never join the military.
nioxstar
A freshman at my university posted an anonymous threat on YikYak about a month after he started.
The threat was something like “No one go to X building tomorrow at 7PM tomorrow, you’ve been warned.” He gets arrested that night or the next morning and gets a 10 year sentence for threats and terroristic threats. He wasn’t even serious. He thought it was a joke or didn’t want to go to a quiz/test that day.
JabroniSn0w
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