I was a smart kid when I was young. Up to the age of 14, in most of my classes of generally 30 students, I was regularly in the top 5. Teachers were mostly impressed, and that is without me having much in the kind of routine studying, encouragement from family/peers, or discipline. I was just good at picking up and parroting most subjects, and a keen reader.

This ability was not without its pitfalls. You know how kids behave towards others who they think of as geeks. I had few, but good, friends. From my teenage years, I entered a “rebel phase”, and disengaged from school. I flunked classes, chased entertainment, videogames, girls. My grades went down like an anvil, failed that year, failed the next due to absenteeism. My parents were strict disciplinarians, but they could not motivate me, I did not care. If not for my good friends, my life could've easily turned very different.

By the time I was 18 my parents had lost their patience, and I had either to work and pay my way, or knuckle down for my last attempt at school. I hadn't finished secondary education, so the future was looking grim.

I then joined a technical college, that would allow me to finish my secondary ed, get a tech certificate on top, and earn a small amount of money at the same time. The course I chose was for 3 years, full-time, and miles away from home.

It was difficult in many ways. The long hours, my poor discipline and aversion to early starts, little money (sometimes just enough for the bus pass and meals) or support, and a ton of bullying. The popular kids, the brown-nosers, and pretty much everyone else despised me. Some said I had no ambition, didn't know how to play ball (read: kiss ass of people who can get shit done for you, and be cool with it) with others, and destined to be a nobody. Still I muddled through.

By the final trimester of the 3rd year we (12 out of the 28 who started the course) were on internships with different technical companies, and if we done well overall, there would be a job offer at the end of the course. I had mine at one of the worst companies, where they would not teach me anything related to our course, and just be given menial/meaningless or actual dirty and hard physical labour. They gloated that I'd never amount to nothing else.

Still I finished it. The relief was sweet in itself.

Now the revenge bit - one week from getting my diploma, I applied for a job at a company that was direct competition of the one where I had my internship. I could now learn more, and apply everything from my training. And for better money. Some jaws dropped, because my ex-colleagues got stuck in the companies where they brown-nosed so much - for almost the same they had during internship!

But it still was not enough for me. After 8 months, and purely by chance, I heard about a vacancy for a tech engineer in one of the biggest corporations on the planet. Grabbed my wits and CV, applied for the job, was offered an interview in which I basically said I had so much appetite to learn about the company/business, and got it.

I'll never forget it, the significance of it all - I (found out later) was the 1st person of my background to land that job, in my country… boom! Contract with awesome pay, company uniform, company phone, company car, the lot!

I was about 10 feet tall. What on earth could have made it even better?

One of my ex-colleagues, who never, ever gave me anything beyond mockery and contempt, caught wind of this news, got jealous, and tried to muscle in. One day I turned at the office, my manager says “hey Dom, I have had a telephone interview with *dude* a while ago, he seemed OK, he said he knows you and put your name as a character reference. Do you know him?”

I say cooly, “No. Don't remember anyone by that name at all. Sorry”

Last I saw the guy at a distance, he was delivering pizza on a moped.

Since that day, revenge has never -ever- tasted so sweet.