These questions are great, they bring back so many memories. Generically, the best ‘revenge’ has always been a better job.

One story in particular stands out. When I was first out of school, I was basically aimless and adrift, more interested in drinking than I was about a career. Living on the cheap, hanging out, not a whole lot of motivation to find a ‘real’ job and a general disdain for the house, picket fence, two and half kids and a dog route, I did a lot of temp work to get by.

I knew someday I’d land, I just wasn’t quite ready. At one point, I ended up going to a career placement agency for professionals to give it a whirl. The manager was a pompous windbag and basically told me that I’m just shy of unemployable. Not sure if he was trying to motivate me but the clash of wills began.

He’d send me to half-baked opportunities that had little to do with anything remotely close to what I could do and I’d give half-baked interviews. Game on! This went on for a while as I figured it wasn’t costing me anything (until I got hired, at which point they’d get a percentage), and I was gaining interview experience.

Finally bored, or annoyed, to get rid of him, I told what at first appeared to have been a lie. I had interviewed for a sales position - an interview I had gotten on my own - and told him that I got the position and told him the salary and the benefits without actually having received either.

I could see that smug look on his face contort as I delivered the news. At that moment, it was not reality. Yet not only did I get the job but I made the amount I told him (and then some) and that job catapulted me, minus some parallel paths, to an amazing work history.