People Are Sharing the ‘Good Things’ One Person Managed to Ruin for Everyone

A thread posted to r/AskReddit on Oct. 7, 2026, asks users about good things that were ruined for everyone else because of one person. The thread drew about 4,300 upvotes and about 3,200 comments at the time of publication.

The responses ranged from a McDonald's fraud scandal to coworkers' behavior in the workplace.

One commenter described a workplace loophole that a coworker's behavior shut down. "Every time this question is posted I tell the story about how my old company didn't restrict Chrome extensions at all, which meant we could install any free VPN extension and bypass the web filtering policy," a commenter wrote.

The commenter said coworkers knew about the loophole for years. However, one coworker changed everything. "[...] one [coworker] didn't realize there is a difference between being technically able to do something and being officially allowed by policy, so he had it running at all times and mostly just sat there all day long streaming Twitch," the commenter said.

The IT security team identified everyone who used the extension. "Obviously that raised some red flags somewhere in IT security," the commenter added. "[...] we all got yelled at and the loophole was closed."

A commenter recalled a high school job where pay depended on the number of subscriptions sold. "I sold newspaper subscriptions door to door for a little bit (I'm old) and the pay was ridiculous, base was $16 an hour but bumped up to $22 per hour after 5 subscriptions sold that shift and $27.50 per hour if you hit 20 in the week," one commenter wrote.

The commenter said the employer did not care which subscription was sold. Customers received a $20 grocery gift card for signing up. "A Sunday-only subscription was $8/mo," they wrote.

The commenter described the routine that followed. "So I would go out after school one day a week, find 20 people to sign up for a Sunday only subscription for $8, and hand them $20 in groceries, and they could immediately cancel their subscription by calling," the commenter said.

They said the other days of the week were free. "[...] $27.50 was the max rate and if I submitted the 20 subs over 4 days I got paid for 20 hours," the commenter explained. "So I was making $25,000 a year at 16 years old by getting people to take free money. Ridiculous that program lasted so long, they were still hiring when I quit after finishing high school."

A former service technician described a Friday perk that ended after one coworker was fired. "When I was a Service Technician, my manager had a policy that if you completed a certain amount of maintenance contracts, you got to leave early the following Friday," a commenter wrote.

The commenter said the perk was a motivator for the whole branch. "This one technician would always hit his quota, and would basically have a half day every Friday," they added.

The commenter said that technician was later found to be forging customer signatures. "As it turns out, he was forging signatures for customers on work he was supposed to be doing," the commenter wrote.

The manager responded by ending the policy. "After he was found out, he got fired. But my manager got rid of the perk because he thought someone else would do the same thing," the commenter said.

A train driver explained how a social media post changed a week of paid downtime. "I'm a train driver. On our line for a week over Christmas our line had engineering works, the entire line so nothing to do," a commenter wrote.

Drivers still had to report to the depot and leave right away, the commenter said. "One guy posted on Facebook about it. Something like 'turn up and go home straight away, easiest money I've made,'" the commenter explained.

The commenter said the post reached management. "He forgot his manager was on his Facebook. After that, we were ALL kept at the depot sitting around for 6 hours," the commenter wrote.

A commenter chose a fast-food contest tied to a convicted insider.

"The McDonald's Monopoly game," a commenter wrote. "It used to be a massive deal in the 90s and early 2000s." Customers could win a million dollars or a new car by buying a large fries. "[...] a chance to peel off a Boardwalk piece and win a million dollars or a new car just by buying a large fries," the commenter wrote.

They named the man behind the rigging. "Turns out, a guy named Jerome Jacobson, who was the head of security for the company that printed the game pieces, was secretly stealing almost all the top winning tickets," the commenter said. The commenter said he gave top pieces to friends, relatives, and members of the mob.

The commenter said Jacobson rigged more than $24 million in prizes before the FBI broke up the ring in 2001. "The trust was gone, and the massive hype that made it so fun for everyone else was ruined forever," the commenter wrote.

The Daily Dot was unable to independently verify the accounts shared in this thread. The details above reflect the commenters' responses as shared on r/AskReddit. The commenters' identities have not been confirmed.