You’re in a crowded supermarket parking lot. You have your turn signal on, patiently waiting for one person to back out of their spot so you can finally park and get on with your shopping. Then, right as the car leaves, another driver swoops in out of nowhere and slides into your spot.
Sometimes, there's really nothing you can do to change an unfavorable outcome or sway a circumstance back into your favor. In many cases, you're left powerless and stuck saying a simple phrase to sum it all up: “This is so unfair.”
There are countless moments in our lives when we feel we’ve been dealt the wrong cards, but if you’re looking to find some comfort, this community of misfortunate individuals has you covered. Here are some of the most unfair things they’ve ever experienced.
Don't forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!
#45 Don't Make Promises You Can't Keep
About 15 years ago, a local businessman pledged to pay the college tuitions of my entire third-grade class through a campaign he called "Scott's Tots." Years later, when we were finishing our last year and getting ready for college, we took him on a tour of the school. We even made him a song. You know what he gave us? LAPTOP BATTERIES!
#44 A Teacher's Pet, As Declared By The Teacher
My physics teacher used to give me tips during tests, just so he could troll the class and say, "Hey look! This guy got a good grade so the rest of you must all just idiots!"
HCBE
#43 Doing The Right Thing Still Comes At A Cost Sometimes
A friend of mine was driving and quickly realized just how tipsy he was. He pulled over to sleep it off but had to keep the car running because it was winter in Illinois and he needed to keep the heat on. He got a DUI because his keys were in the ignition even though he had technically done the right thing by pulling over. He then had to pay thousands of dollars in lawyer fees. Seems backward to me.
#42 Unbalanced Brain Chemistry
I had a horrible chemistry teacher in high school. She would often fail students, accusing them of not turning in their assignments when in fact she had lost them herself. One day, a kid in my class got tired of our teacher's antics and decided to record himself handing in his assignment. Lo and behold, she ended up losing his paper.
The kid showed her the video as proof, but instead of admitting that she messed up and promising not to do it in the future, she simply gave him a B- to shut him up.
YouTube
#41 Relationships Were Destroyed Over The Super Nintendo
When the Nintendo first came out, I begged my parents for one. My dad told me I had to buy it with my own money. I worked every day for six months doing anything a 10-year-old could do to make money. Somehow, I was able to make enough money to get it.
Fast forward to the SNES era. My brother, who was roughly the same age as me when I got my Nintendo, begged my dad for one. The next day, he came home with the Super Nintendo, a few extra games and TV for his room. That was the day I started to resent my parents and my brother.
#40 The Human Body WIll Forever Be A Mystery
My dad always took care of himself. As a kid, I remember him hitting the gym almost every day. He had a healthy diet, and never drank or smoked. He worked hard to keep things like his cholesterol in check and would get a physical every year.
Years later, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. It was absolutely devastating and unfair. Here’s this guy who, by all accounts, did everything right healthwise and still ended up with this horrible disease.
#39 Drama In Drama Club
There was this one girl (let's call her Mina) in my high school drama club who was incredibly talented but not conventionally pretty. As a result, she was given the smaller roles while some snub (Jenny) who hated theatre but wanted the attention was cast as the female lead. She wasn't even that good at acting and singing; in fact, her parents had to hire someone to show her exactly how she should move and how she should say her lines.
In senior year, Mina comes back from visiting some relatives in Cali. She looked different — she had lost weight and had her metal braces replaced with clear ones. Her hair was still thin but she dyed it a reddish brown and started styling it differently. Needless to say, Jenny was no longer the lead woman from that moment on. It just sucks that the school took away so many opportunities from Mina before her transformation.
#38 Good Thing Dad's Around
A high-level exec hired his lazy son and made one of my coworkers his supervisor.
This kid, who's in his early 20s, sleeps at his desk, lies constantly, plays computer games all day, and hides in different places throughout the plant to avoid doing work. One day, my coworker had enough and told him that if he didn't complete his tasks by the end of the day, he was going to write him up.
The high-level exec got wind of this and instead of thanking my coworker for keeping his son in check, he wrote him up for “poor management." His son got off with no consequences.
#37 Undersold Heroism
A bus driver was got fired from my grandma's company. His offense? He had his phone out. The bus wasn't moving but there's video footage of him making a phone call while in the driver's seat.
He was on his phone because he had just witnessed a bad accident and was calling the police. He told the managers this and they said they didn't care. He should have stood up more for himself. That's the stupidest reason to fire someone.
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#36 Classic Sibling Unfairness
When I was younger, I was a quiet and rather anxious kid. My younger siblings told me that our mom gave us permission to watch a movie while I babysat them. I had no reason not to believe them, so I put on a cartoon.
When my mom came home, she absolutely flipped out at me. My younger siblings had lied to me and it looked like I had willfully gone against my mom, who had strict rules on how she wanted to parent them. My mind imploded at the injustice and I ended up having an anxiety attack. I became so hysterical because I could not prove my innocence.
My mom believed them over me and I got grounded. Years later, my younger siblings confessed to what they had done. I laughed along but wasn't all that amused. I realize now that it wasn't a huge deal but it was the most unjust thing to me at 14.
#35 An Essay Worth Tens Of Thousands
My friend asked me for my opinion on healthcare without telling me that it was for his scholarship essay. He recorded what I said, wrote it for his essay and got $40,000 in scholarship money.
#34 Took The Cake And Ran With It
Last week, we had a charity bake sale at work. They had a competition for the best-baked goods, with anonymous judges and everything. It's common knowledge that my sister makes incredible brownies, and everyone in the office begged me to ask her to make them. I submitted two trays to the competition and, if they won, I would give her the prize. The organizers knew this on the day of.
What ended up winning was a packet cake from the supermarket. All the person did was add an egg and water. That is not baking, that is cheating.
#33 The Attitude Of A Champion
There are much worse things I've seen as an onlooker throughout this life, but I've experienced some incredibly unfair stuff this year:
In February, I gave birth to a perfectly normal son, our first child, through an emergency cesarean. Despite coming out healthy and well-developed, he later died in the hospital from pneumonia before we could bring him home. A few days after leaving the hospital, I developed a serious infection where my cesarean line was. They had to cut me back open with a scalpel to let the area drain. A nurse cared for me at home every other day and it took four months for me to heal. In June, I was told I wasn't welcome back to my job at the local school because another teacher in the district wanted my position and had seniority over me, so I was let go.
But even with all the unfairness I've experienced this year, I still think life is beautiful. There is so much good in this world and we just have to look for it. I've learned to slow down and appreciate everything.
#32 The Court Needed No "Order", But The Judge Did
I was waiting for my turn in traffic court. I witnessed the judge give a young black man a ticket for driving a car with a temporary license plate placed in the corner of its rear window instead of in the center. The guy was really polite and explained he didn’t know that was a law and that the dealership had put the temporary license plate there. The judge said it didn’t matter.
Fast forward to another case where this middle-aged white man was contesting a ticket for going 10 miles per hour over the speed limit. He said it was at the bottom of a hill and he had slowly sped up down the hill. The judge told him not to worry about it. He didn’t give him a ticket.
#31 Zero Tolerance Policy? Zero Sense.
When I was in sixth grade, a kid came up to me insulting my family using all sorts of colorful words. I ignored him. This upset him even more.
He repeated his offensive slurs while banging my head against a concrete wall. I took it, gritting my teeth through the pain. At some point, I had enough and spun him around to press him against the wall, telling him to knock it off. He burst out crying, and of course, the teacher only saw up to that point. I got suspended while he got coddled.
#30 Pizza Advice: Keep Your Teammates Quiet
In German class last week, my teacher told all the students to get into two large groups. We were going to play some kind of game and whoever got the most points would win a pizza. The other group went first and did a great job.
When it came to my group, there were a couple of idiots fooling around. Before we even got to show anything, the teacher disqualified us and automatically gave the pizza to the first group. I'm still salty about this. Just because two students couldn’t keep quiet, we had to watch in suffering as the other group at their fresh, hot pizza in front of us.
#29 Basic Physics: When You Fall, You Fall Hard
This one girl I knew took multiple advanced placement classes. She did pretty well, but AP physics was extremely hard for her and studying for it took so much time out of her day. She went to her counselor after the first three weeks to get it switched with another class because it just was too much. The counselor didn’t allow her even though her teacher already said it was okay. Her grades ended up suffering from all the stress she was going through and she started to go into a deep depression. It took her attempting to take her own life for the counselors to finally change it.
#28 SoCal Isn't As Sunny As It Seems
I live in southern California and make $24,000 a year. After being in an accident which left me with an extremely bloody nose, I racked up $12,000 in ER bills. For some reason, I didn't qualify for medical... How can that be when I have a job and pay taxes?
#27 Growling And Snarling... Not From The Dog
Every Christmas, I bring donated animal food to the local shelter. On one occasion, I was waiting at the front desk when a man stormed in. He had the most beautiful dog on a leash and was screaming at the receptionist.
“My son adopted this dog and he didn’t consult us first. We don’t want it, I’m here to give it back, just take it!” The son was nowhere to be seen. The dog had no idea what was going on and had only been adopted a week before, after waiting in the shelter for over four months. I stood there speechless...
The Daily Beast
#26 Thanks For Your Service
It was my last day in the army. It's a tradition for an outgoing service member to get an award encompassing their entire military service. I served for nine years, went on two deployments, spent months away from my family, and was discharged for medical reasons.
When I asked about my award, I was told that I was too fat to be deemed eligible. I had gained weight from a mix of medications I had to take and was unable to exercise due to my health condition. They didn't even throw a farewell lunch. Only one person said goodbye to me. I'm still bitter about it all.
#25 No Justice
About eight years ago, I was coming down a street that I had to make a right turn on. The street had a stop sign, and to its left, there were several cars parked. You couldn't see the oncoming traffic unless you creeped out.
After stopping at the sign, I started creeping out when a police car barreled down the street and almost hit me.
He wrote me a three-point ticket and said that I didn’t yield to traffic. I wasn’t even fully into the street.
The worst part is that I actually made a whole presentation for the judge but he didn't care at all. It was so unfair.
Youtube
#24 Blueprint For An Unfair Teacher Experience
When I was in high school, my world history teacher told us to draw a blueprint of a castle and label certain parts. She ensured us that she wouldn’t grade us on the quality of our drawing and that she was only concerned with the labeling. I have a disability (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome) that already makes it hard for me to write, much less draw, so I decided to draw free-hand. I even got some blue construction paper and drew my castle blueprint in white crayon, as to resemble an actual blueprint.
The rest of my classmates just put a paper against their computer screens and traced a castle drawing from Google. When our teacher gave us back our grades, everyone got an A+ while I got a B. I asked her why I received a much lower grade than everyone else and she said that my drawing skills were terrible. I reminded her of my disability and she responded, “Well, if you knew you had a disability, maybe you should’ve tried a little harder.”
YouTube
#23 Spousal Swap
When I was a kid, our neighbor divorced his wife and she remarried. After a couple of years, her new man adopted all three of her kids.
A few years later, the ex-husband decided to clean up his act. The mother reacquainted herself with him and eventually divorced the other guy to get back with her ex.
The other guy was stuck paying child support for all three kids while they lived with their biological mother and father.
YouTube
#22 See You In Court
I know somebody who is one of the best surgeons in her country and also the co-founder of a multidisciplinary hospital. One of her business partners teamed up with the bank they borrowed funds from and cut off the rent in order to get her staff evicted. He also filed multiple false complaints to the court and bribed the judges in the bank's favor. I'm constantly baffled at the extent to which people will stoop out of spite and jealousy.
#21 Blind To The Heinousness Of Such An Act
I once saw this lady stealing money from a blind man. She was selling some things on the street and when he paid for his items he asked if she could count his money for him. She got a $50 bill and said it was a five.
Luckily some people nearby noticed what she was doing and helped the blind man. One woman said that she would call the cops and the lady was quick to get out of there. I was fuming for the rest of the day.
YouTube
#20 Down, Not Out
One of our patients had a cardiac arrest with unknown downtime. He was brought to the ER and we did CPR for 40 minutes, but it didn't work. The doctors were about to pronounce him dead when, 15 minutes later, he started breathing again! He was hooked up to a vent and sent to the ICU.
After some time, the neurologist told the family that he had suffered from an anoxic brain injury because he was down for so long. Though the man was essentially brain dead at this point, the family still wanted the doctors to keep trying to bring him back. I thought that was unfair because there really wasn't anything else the doctors could do. He was basically a dead man on a vent.
#19 Not The Kind Of Game We Wanted To Play
When I was younger, my brother and I both wanted to play different video games on our N64. My dad had us each make paper airplanes and whichever one flew the furthest got to choose the game to play. My airplane ended up flying further but my brother started to throw a fit, so my dad just took both of the games and snapped them in half.
YouTube
#18 Set Up For Failure
I'm an American who immigrated to Canada. Part of the process for getting permanent residency involves taking a test called the CELPIP to prove that you are fluent in English. The test is unbelievably hard and I didn't do as well as I should have on it. I can't imagine how everyone else who was in the same room as me must have felt while taking it.
Here's an example of a type of question you'd come across on the CELPIP:
"We decided to travel to the large, blue building. What best describes the building?"
A: Large
B: Blue
That's not an actual question but it should give you an idea.
#17 Too Little Too Late
My fiance told me a story about how he flew to see his parents some years after he had moved out. He wasn't super close with his family, but they still kept in touch. He mentioned how excited he was to see his childhood dog again.
When he got there and asked about him, the mom said, "Oh, Buster? We put him down last summer."
He's somewhat patched things up with his mom in the years since, but he still won't forgive her for not even telling him about the dog. He's still upset that he never got the chance to say bye.
#16 Put Down In More Than One Way
I was adopting a dog from animal control and saw this guy come in asking about a couple of cats he had dropped off the day before. He said that he changed his mind and wanted to keep them.
Animal control has a policy that prohibits them to put down animals until at least three days after they've been surrendered. I guess it gets really overcrowded or something, The point is, the guy still had 48 hours to save his cats.
He was explaining this to the lady at the front desk as she was looking up records for him.
She told him that the cats had already been put down. The look on his face still hurts my heart today. It was this look of hurt, guilt, anger, and sadness all in one.
It was absolutely not fair.
#15 Where Was The Credit Due?
I watched someone who didn't know how to do their job get promoted, while other, more deserving workers who actually did their jobs correctly and always went above and beyond got nothing.
Welcome to the army.
#14 Not Fired, Burned
When I worked at Borders, I got fired because the person who was covering for me while I was on vacation got fired. On top of that, they didn't even notify me. I got a text message from his girlfriend that still worked there and she told me that I should call them.
#13 What's Mine Is Yours
My parents are getting a divorce. Unbeknownst to my mom, my dad racked up over $400,000 in debt and took out $100,000 in equity on the house. Now, my mom must accept half of that debt, as well as give up half of her 401(k). She has worked hard for 30 years and will be left penniless. It is an injustice to the highest degree.
#12 Always Wear Your Bands... Or Not?
My sister and I both had braces and had to wear those little rubber bands that fix your jaw. I wore my bands every single night, while my sister rarely wore them.
When we had our dentist appointment, the dentist took a look at my teeth and said disappointedly, “You haven’t been wearing your bands, have you?” I told her that I always wore them, but she obviously didn’t believe me.
Then my sister got into the chair, and our dentist said, “Wow! You’ve been wearing your bands!”
That was maybe 10 years ago. My teeth are still worse than my sister’s.
#11 The Mystery Of The Coffee Doorknob
Someone spilled coffee on the doorknob of the classroom for my chemistry class.
Our teacher decided that it had to be one of us who did it. She banned bathroom breaks for the entire week until one of us confessed.
Classes were three hours long.
One of the students took one for the team and was sent straight to the admin's office after class got out. He explained what happened, and justice was served. She was allowed to finish teaching the course but was never hired again.
#10 The Lone "B" in A Group of "A's"
In Spanish class, I did a project with some other students. We made an instructional video, all in Spanish. The other students already spoke Spanish fluently and I didn’t. We all were in the video but I ended up planning, writing, editing and filming the entire thing. I got a B on the project because my accent wasn't as good as the others who got A's. The teacher knew I did most of the work, too.
#9 Well Someone's A Favorite
In college, I moved in with my girlfriend. My parents were so upset that they cut me off from all of their funds and criticized me for the "horrible" thing I had done. When my sister moved in with her boyfriend, my dad went over and painted their bedroom so it would look nice.
#8 You Get A Fine, And You Get A Fine. EVERYBODY GETS FINES!
I was in my buddy’s car when he got pulled over for speeding. When I saw the cop, I instinctively tugged on my seatbelt to confirm it was on. When the cop wrote my buddy his ticket, he gave me one for not wearing my seatbelt. He apparently thought my tug on the belt was me putting it on. I explained everything to him and he still didn’t believe me. I went to court to contest the ticket and the judge only decided to cut the fine in half. I didn’t do anything wrong and still had to pay a fine.
#7 Karma Tends To Find People Like This
My stepbrother was at home with his girlfriend and his neighbors were having a party next door. I think it was for St. Patrick’s Day. My stepbrother went over to ask his neighbor if they could keep it down because he had work early in the morning.
For some reason, that really set off his neighbor. When my stepbrother went back into his house, the neighbor and a couple of his friends followed after him and beat him up. My stepbrother's roommate came home to find him getting trashed in the front yard. At this point, my stepbrother was out cold and his roommate jumped in and covered my stepbrother's head with his body. They beat him too.
Someone called 911 and the first on the scene were the police. The cops handcuffed the roommate because he was panicking and looked suspicious. My stepbrother was on the brink of death. He had to have reconstructive surgery to fix his face and jaw. He went to court and the neighbor only ended up with community service for attempted murder. He didn’t even have to pay for my stepbrother's medical expenses.
#6 Not My Bike, Not My Problem
When we were about 10 years old my brother was very irresponsible with his things. He had his new bike stolen after leaving it on the front lawn of the house (he was too lazy to bring it into the garage). He then started borrowing my bike and did the exact same thing... In a matter of weeks, it got stolen as well.
My parents refused to get me a new bike or to punish him for losing mine. I never got another bike until I was an adult. On the other hand, my brother got a brand new bike for his birthday since it was during the summer.
#5 Guess It's Christmas Too, Huh?
On my 14th birthday, my grandparents got me my first iPod. My older brother threw a fit because he didn't get anything. He made a scene in Best Buy until they bought him a Nintendo DS so he ended up getting a present too, for no reason. The next weekend, he came home from being with my grandparents with an iPod of his own... I brushed it off and just laughed at him. He's 17 years old and still acting like such a child.
#4 But Mom!?!?!
When I was 15, we had a school formal. I wasn’t very excited about it but there was going to be an afterparty, which seemed like a lot of fun.
I lived 35 kilometers from my school and had to take a bus into town every day. Both my parents worked a lot so I missed a lot of parties since no one could ever drive me.
I talked about going to the afterparty for weeks but my mother decided to tell me that I couldn’t go on the way to the formal. She kept saying no even though she knew I was going to stay at my friend's house that night. I even gave her the address the week before.
It made me so angry. I had to spend the whole night at an event I didn’t care about and listen to everyone talk about a party I couldn’t go to.
This experience taught me to always live up to the promises I make with my future kids.
#3 Toe-To-Toe With The Unfair
I was in intermediate school and we were out at a camp. I was the only scout among the 60-odd kids, so I was given the harder tasks to keep myself entertained.
On the first night, we were carrying these heavy wooden benches around, and my partner dropped his end of the bench. Due to the sudden drop, the bench slammed into my foot, almost completely crushing it. It swelled up to nearly twice the size and I broke at least three toes. Despite clearly being in tremendous pain, I was told to "suck it up" because I was a scout. I was told to shove my half-broken foot into tramping boots and keep up with everyone else for the next several days.
#2 This One Doesn't Even Dance
When I was in grade school we had to design a fictional community center. My teacher promised a lobster dinner to the group that got the highest mark.
We busted our butts designing our community center. We called a long list of businesses to determine membership fees, the cost of construction, community outreach programs and so much more. We even helped the special needs kid in our group write a jingle, and we got the highest mark.
When it came time for our lobster dinner, my group stayed in the classroom during recess to enjoy the fruits of our labor. My teacher brought out our "lobster," which ended up being just a measly loaf of bread with googly eyes and paper lobster claws stuck in the side.
It was on that day that I learned the true meaning of disappointment.
#1 No Pearl Jam For You
I was once at a fundraiser where the winning prize was tickets to go see Pearl Jam in concert. At the end of the night, they called my name. I was the winner! WOO!
Except, when I got to the front of the room to collect my tickets, the organizers gave me looks of confusion. Turns out, some scumbag told the organizers that he was me, and THEY GAVE HIM THE TICKETS! By the time they verified my identity, he was long gone and I was out of luck. The best they could do was an apology and a $50 gift card to T.G.I.Friday’s.
