The Biggest Examples Of 'No Good Deed Goes Unpunished'

For every action we perform, there will be a consequence, whether it's positive or negative in nature.

We might know that, but sometimes, we still find ourselves surprised by what materializes from our actions, especially when we do something good, only for things to not go well for us in return.

Cringing, Redditor Misha2468 asked:

"What's an example of 'No good deed goes unpunished'?"

Just An Employee

"19 years with a company. Bought into their 'vision.' Started as a team lead and worked my way up to executive. 60-hour weeks weren't uncommon, and I filled a passport with stamps making things happen."

"Then I got a five-minute call out of the blue, saying my position was being eliminated and had 30 minutes to pack my stuff."

- Uzi4U2

"I didn't take parental leave when my first kid was born to help out my employer. We even had chats and a handshake agreement about my sacrifice."

"Then my VP retired when the baby was seven months old, so I renewed the handshake agreement with my new boss. Four months later, he wouldn't even honour the agreement we'd just made about me working remotely for two weeks."

"So I took parental leave when baby two was born just after, and one week after returning, I was laid off. Same thing. Given five minutes' notice to leave."

- thesecretmarketer

A Lack Of Recognition

"I had to argue with my boss for a coworker to have a retirement lunch. She's been here 30 years, and she deserves more than a pizza party, but it's what I could secure."

- kyritial

"I hit ten years with my current company a few months ago and literally no one even commented."

- TheYarnGoblin

"They are afraid any recognition will have us asking for a raise. They want us to constantly question how disposable we are."

- bombalicious

"When a coworker retired, she got treated to a nice dinner & presents. We arranged it ourselves. No one in management acknowledged it or attended."

- PhoenixFlare1

Living With The Evicted

"I let a friend of a coworker move in rather haphazardly to the apartment I was renting because he needed a place to stay as soon as possible. He ended up being a disgusting, disrespectful, coke-addicted, narcissistic squatter. Live and learn!"

- Batfro7

"Them: 'My landlord evicted me out of nowhere!'"

"Apartment: Water damage in every room, holes in walls, missing ceiling fan, indoor composting bin, seven dogs that p**s and s**t everywhere, heavy smoke damage, for some reason all the face plates are gone, evidence of at least three unreported fires, and none of their doors are still on their hinges."

- bdfortin

"That is an unfortunately common story. I'm amazed not by the existence of entitled, ungrateful people, but by how common they are. I've learned that people usually get kicked out for good reasons."

- StockGarage672

Standing Up For What's Right

"My personal Experience, I was about 15 and working my first job at a Grocery store. A Karen comes in and starts asking me questions, and I have answers for all of them, except one, and she uses that as an excuse to just lay into me and cuss me out."

"A customer steps in, who is a woman with a stroller. She takes my side and tells the Karen to leave me alone, and said I was nothing but professional, and I actually was helping her."

"The Karen doesn’t stop, so the woman with the stroller raises her voice, and she starts getting in her face and cussing the Karen out."

"It gets so bad that everyone can hear them across the store, and the managers come in to try to calm all things down, and they all send me to the back to get away from all of it, but the managers don’t know much besides the Woman was cussing out the Karen."

"So they called the cops, and the cops arrested the woman who took my side, and the Karen was let go. I didn’t learn of what happened until after the woman was arrested, and one of the managers asked me what really went on, and I explained to him everything."

- ForbiddenGospel

Just Doing What They're Told

"I used to work at a hotel, and when I was still very new, I got a phone call from the central reservation line, telling me that someone with a disability was coming in and that the ADA required us to give them an adjoining room so their caretaker could stay with them if I remember correctly. It’s been a while, so the details are slightly fuzzy."

"So turns out that was a lie, and I got written up about a month later when they showed up. There’s no such law, and I didn’t expect the central reservation line to lie to me about policy. So I got in trouble for the first time since middle school because I thought I was following the rules and helping a disabled person."

- TPrice1616

Clean Practices

"Ignaz Semmelweis was a doctor who was beaten to death for suggesting that doctors should wash hands prior to aiding pregnant women give birth. His protocol reduced childbirth-related deaths from one in five to one in 50, but he was forced into an insane asylum and killed for it."

- kirk_lyus

"What an absolute overreaction from the other people!"

"Him: 'I think doctors should wash their hands before aiding in childbirth.'"

"Them: 'That suggestion makes us violently enraged; we are going to beat you to death.'"

- I_am_THEdragon

"That would mean every doctor prior has been responsible for countless deaths of mothers and children too, and they could be the first ones to prevent needless deaths with good practice. You'd think they were killing people on purpose."

"Even if it was just a bucket, it's better than nothing. Could've started a discussion on best practices for the profession."

- Second_Sol

Quiet Quitting Retail

"Pretty much anything that is above and beyond for a retail position. You give these people what they want when they want it, and they expect it all the time."

- GSilky

"I used to go above and beyond in retail jobs. Then I realized it didn’t earn me any more money than doing the bare minimum."

- bdfortin

Bait And Switch

"We were at a party (underage for drinking) in college where the cops came and everyone ran. The cops were too slow to chase anyone. They yelled that anyone who came back wouldn't get in trouble."

"They arrested and sent all the kids who came back and apologized to jail and slammed some of them on the ground kicking them for resisting. No one who left had anything happen to them."

- the_dayman

Expensive Tools

"My neighbour wanted to do some landscaping and lay some flagstone. He borrowed my heavy-duty dig stick and wheelbarrow. After about a month of not getting it back, I popped over and the dig stick was getting rusty lying in the mud. I took it home."

"He knocked on the door a couple of days later and told me he returned the wheelbarrow. It was in my driveway. He left."

"When I went to move it, he had broken it to the point of being unfixable. That a**hole didn't think I would notice. I had to buy a new one. Don't lend your tools!"

- frogwurth

So Much For Good Sportsmanship

"I'm not really into competitive Smash, but I remember one clip where two people were playing and one of them accidentally pulled their controller cord right out of the console. The player who still had a functional controller paused the game so he could plug it back in. Good sportsmanship!"

"But then the player who had unplugged their controller called for a penalty because the other player had paused the game and that was against the rules. So the good sportsman was forced to give a free stock for pausing the game."

- StevynTheHero

A Quick Lawsuit

"My mom was stopped at a red light and a bicyclist rode into her station wagon (that wasn’t moving). She helped get him in the back and took him to the hospital where he told them she hit him with her car driving 50 miles per hour."

- in_animate_objects

"I had a bicyclist ride into the back of my car many years ago. I was stopped at a stop sign, and he hit the rear quarter panel at an angle and flipped over the trunk of my beater work car."

"I get out to help him up, and the first thing he asks is where his screwdriver is. It was in a paper bag he was carrying, and it was unbroken."

"He was clearly very drunk and was complaining his neck hurt. I thought, Oh s**t, this could end badly for me if I stuck around as in getting sued, so I told him I was late for work, helped him back on his bike, and took off."

"Dodged an expensive bullet, most likely."

- big_bee_usernametaken

Sometimes Heroes Go To The Hospital

"I’m a florist and a while back, someone sent their friend flowers while she was in the hospital."

"The friend:"

"1. saw a feral cat in the road,"

"2. doesn’t like cats,"

"3. still, felt bad for the cat, and tried to save it,"

"4. got her face and literal eyeball scratched by said cat,"

"5. managed to get the cat out of the road anyway,"

"6. got hit by a f**king car, and"

"7. broke an arm and a few ribs."

- demonrimjim667

Constantly Available

"You cover a coworker’s shift because they had an emergency, but then your manager starts assuming you’re always available and schedules you for extra shifts without asking."

- Designer-Fan-5857

"This exact same thing happened at my first job. Initially, I was happy to jump in for an extra shift or two, but after a few weeks of being on for six days straight, I started 'inconveniently' having plans whenever I was approached for covering someone else's shifts."

"It really is depraved when you think about it. We're being trained to never cover shifts for our coworkers for fear of having our generosity exploited."

- goat-stealer

Unforgiveable

"Every time I’ve lent someone a book and gotten it back with water damage or torn to s**t."

- Equizotic

"While a former friend was going through something, I lent her one of my favorite books (signed by the author) and a really cool bookmark. She moved and stopped replying to messages about how she was and if she wanted to hang out shortly thereafter."

"As much as I loved that book, I've hesitated to buy a new copy, because I don't want that visual reminder of that former friend in my house. Besides the fact that it won't be signed like the copy I had before (and it was one of the kindest personalized signatures I had in my collection, ugg)."

- TheBookishAndTheBard

"I stopped lending books after I lent one to a coworker and he accidentally returned it to the library, and the librarian couldn't find the book again."

- Reasonable_Pay4096

Positive or negative, there are always consequences for our actions, but it particularly stings when we've done something to make the world a little better, only for it to lead to trouble for us, or for the act to at least not be reciprocated.

While this shouldn't stop us from being kind, it's undeniable that it hurts when kind acts aren't reciprocated.