People Tell Us How They Got Back At The Worst Boss They Ever Had
26. How My Boss Went From The Tattoo Studio To Caravan Life
“I worked in a tattoo studio reception when I was about 21… The owner was an absolute jerk but we all put up with it because there were not many opportunities in our area to work in this field.
He would often try to short-change people, paying in cash and just randomly coming up with “tax” deductions from it (UK so PAYE applies).
What he didn’t know is that I had worked in payroll for three years before, working in PAYE, so I knew he was lying.
I had access to petty funds, so I ordered some wage packets and a stamp with the company name and logo. Every week I would write down the figures that he paid us and his “tax” amounts, stamp it with the company stamp and take it home.
One day, after planning it all out, I stood up to him when he was shouting at everyone, knowing I would be fired on the spot. Before he had the chance I told him that he could “stick his freaking job”… man it felt great.
On my way out I told him that I would be back in one week for my p45. His partner tried to lie to me, saying I didn’t need a p45 because I didn’t pay “enough tax”… It was then that I smiled sweetly, pointed out that I had in fact worked in payroll, that she needed to provide a P45 or I would report them to the Tax Office.
The look on her face was priceless.
In the end, I took all of my “payslips” along with a letter I had prepared on company-headed paper which confirmed my employment dates, took them to the Tax Office, and innocently queried the tax amounts because I thought they might have been incorrect.
In the end, with an investigation and my help, they took him for a lot of money, he lost his business and his house and he ended up living in a caravan.”
25. Tell Me How Bad I Am At My Job In Front Of Customers? I'll Leave You Scrambling On Black Friday
“Working retail I quit at the register on Black Friday. I had recently gotten another full-time job and was keeping this retail gig because I liked the employee discount and due to my other job this check was pure fun income, all that is to say I didn’t need the retail job.
My store manager comes over at hour 7 of my shift, with chaos and a line 100 people long, and has the nerve to tell me my up-sales (fishing for promo signups, i.e. rewards, credit cards, etc) weren’t cutting it for how much traffic I was seeing.
In front of the customers! I already couldn’t stand this jerk so I said, “You know what you do it, I’m done” and then I apologized to my coworkers on the way out.”
Another User Comments:
“In my younger days, I worked retail in a clothing store.
It was during college. Obviously, it paid minimum wage. At the time, that was less than $6 an hour. It was a basic job; stock the merchandise, straighten the shelves & racks, run the register.
Pretty much the entire staff, including store managers, were around college age.
They didn’t break our balls, and we did what we were assigned to do.
The problem….was Derek. Derek was the district manager and he was exactly the kind of district manager you dread. He shows up and just starts tearing into everything, and everyone.
Our store managers are now being put through the wringer…which means it’s passed onto us.
He would yell at me because I didn’t greet every single customer who walked in, and didn’t give the full spiel of “Welcome to (store), today we are having a sale on cargo pants and button-up shirts, they’re in the rear of the store, please let me know if I can help you with anything”.
He also yelled that my SPT (sales per transaction) was too low…that I needed to upsell more.
He snidely told me “I’ll show you how it’s done” and took the next customer. He bombarded the poor guy, followed him around the store, making suggestions, and giving him the hard sell.
When the customer left, he left with multiple items…and Derek stood there looking all smug. “That’s how you do it.”
Until about 15 minutes later when the same customer came back and returned everything but one item. When I asked why he was returning them (they made us), he said “I really just wanted the shirt.”
Screw you, Derek!
I swear, retail management largely has no clue. Minimum wage gets you minimum effort. If I show up on time, don’t call out sick unnecessarily, and complete my tasks….I’ve done my job. You don’t get anything more out of me without more compensation.
I even had one manager (different job) give me crap when I told him I couldn’t make the “mandatory store meeting” because I had a college class. He said I needed to “get my priorities in order”.
My friend, I’m a college kid working part-time for minimum wage at a clothing store in the mall.
My priorities are exactly where they should be in this situation. I’m choosing the college course I paid thousands of dollars for over the two hours of minimum wage to sit in the store and learn that “We’re selling hats now.”” SpeedySpooley
24. Mass Exodus Of Expats Leaves Toxic Oil Company Manager High And Dry
“I was working as an Expat oil company Senior Staff Geologist (and de facto Exploration Manager, but without the increase in pay nor authority, just increased stress levels) in the Middle East for a Southern European construction company’s oil and gas concerns.
The General Manager was a complete jerk. Full of himself because he worked for one major oil company his whole benighted career as an engineer, so obviously, he knows everything about geology, geophysics, petrophysics, etc. (He didn’t and doesn’t). His “management style” (if one could grace his screaming and infantile fuming as a ‘style’) could be described variously as ‘inept micromanagement’ or ‘management by objection’.
Would berate and degrade the entire staff in meetings with partners (which made everyone terribly uncomfortable to see such a lack of decorum and professionality), scream so the whole office could hear over mundane idiocies such as lack of coffee pods in the kitchen or why 6,000 meters of pipe had never materialized even though the unpaid invoice still nestled on his desk.
In a multicultural office, he would rant and rail, at top volume, about “useless Arabs”, “self-important and entitled Expats” and “gosh darn Jingle-bunnies (those engineers and others from the Subcontinent region)”. Called the firm “the worst oil company in the Middle East” (at least, here we agreed).
Not only a racist, but a sexist, misogynist, general misanthrope, and a complete and total waste of carbon.
He got in my goodie locker one day after a well was drilled (but yet to be tested or completed) based on my prospect and recommendation, and looked somewhat dismal on the logs.
Truth is, the well came in for over 8,000 BOPD (barrels of oil per day), and it was the Jake-leg and lowest-bid (from whom he always took kickbacks) loggers that had messed up the logs, and he absolutely refused my insistence to re-log the pay zones.
I was called just about every nasty name in the Oil Patch handbook, right down to the part where he told me my alma maters were a bunch of ‘idiots’ for granting me my three petroleum geology degrees. After 26 years in the Patch, I decided that no job was worth this and laid plans for a quick, early, and entirely unannounced departure.
I quietly related the fact that I was doing a “runner” to some of my other Expat compatriots over drinks one Thursday evening and was greeted with the revelation that several (read: most) of the other Expats there were 1. thinking the same thing, and 2. if I left, they were gone as well.
We carefully laid out our plans.
The company ‘provided’ housing (i.e., paid a ridiculously low monthly fee so we had to live in cheap housing or sucked it up with our families and ponied up additional funds to live in decent villas), so we all gave clandestine notice to our respective landlords about our imminent departure and asked they keep it on the QT. Since they were paid by check (12 per year) and were already compensated, they were both delighted that they had already been paid once and that they could rent out our abodes after we left for essentially double rent.
Cancellation of internet, water, and power was token; a quick email, print the automated response, and carry it with you if the border guards gave us any trouble when we buggered off.
Since we were all Western European, Canadian, or American, we decided to book a block of Business class tickets (as was our contractual due) to London on the same British Airways flight.
In fact, with families and all, we booked the entire Business class section.
We all had been in-country for years and years, so arranging packing and shipping (or storage) of our belongings was a snap. We were all members of the ‘move every 18 months to follow the money’ crowd, so this was the easiest part of our master plan.
No one leaked a word of all this, but some of the locals in the company somehow sensed the change in the decorum of the company’s daily activities (when one really doesn’t give a darn, the stress levels magically evaporate down to near zero) and wondered aloud what was going on.
We confided in a few of them (these were not just colleagues, but personal friends in many cases) with the proviso that they would tell no one, under the pain of bacon sandwiches (they were all Muslims, and they thought the threat hilarious. Like I said, many were, and are still close, personal friends).
The weeks dragged on and school was about to let out for the summer (when most Expats bugger off for 1-3 months to escape the stupidly hot and humid Middle Eastern broiler season), so the usual requests for contractual time off were made (and all roundly rejected by Mr. Jerk General Manager) and life proceeded on its merry way.
Finally, Liberation Friday arrived (weekends being Friday-Saturday at this time in this country). We contracted a local carrier and had a bus rented to pick up everyone and take us all to the airport. Luggage tagged and schlepped off to the bowels of BA’s incomprehensible baggage-handling inner workings; through check-in, customs, and passport control without so much as a sideways glance.
We all invaded the English Pub after hitting Duty-Free one last time we toasted each other on a job well done and best soon forgotten.
Sitting in Business Class waiting on takeoff, I did a quick tally: the company was, in this one instance, losing its Sr.
Staff Geologist cum Exploration Manager, Senior Geophysicist, Sr. Petrophysicist, Sr. Geomodeller, Sr. Reservoir Engineer, Drilling Engineer, Operations Geologist, Logistics Manager, Senior Surveyor, 3 secretaries (wives of the aforementioned Senior crowd), and the HSEQ Manager.
A small company (50 or so total employees) could withstand the loss of 2 or maybe even 3 of their Senior-level employees, but not this mass emigration.
My good friends whom we left behind regaled us for months regarding the situation in the office come Sunday…Bloody Sunday.
Once the realization of what had happened, the GM went completely “off the rails”, “totally crap-housed” and “completely berserk”, or variations on that theme.
The first glimmer of recognition of the severity of the rotund bale of jeers about to descend upon him was when all calls to various abodes was answered with “That number is no longer in service. Please check blahblahblah…”.
Emails went unanswered however our GSMs were still working, although we all blocked Mr. Jerk’s number, though we still allowed text messages.
Text 1: “Where are you? Why aren’t you at work?” was just the beginning.
In the words of Khan Noonien Singh we “let him eat static”.
Text 2: “Where the heck are you? If you don’t get your butts in here immediately…” and other such impotent threats.
(“Yes, please. I’d love another drink.”)
Rising panic ensued: Text 3: “This isn’t funny. Come in and we’ll act like this never happened…”
We all sat on the plane, anticipating touchdown.
By the time we hit London, it was 0700 local time but 1100 back-there time. Mr. Jerk GM called an emergency meeting of the remnants of his staff (all locals) and demanded to know what they knew about this huge display of insubordination.
“Dunno”, “Never heard a word”, “Why? What happened” and “Where is everybody?” were the responses.
Mr. Jerk blows a gasket and immediately sacks everyone left in the office.
Unfortunately, all that was left were a couple of teaboys (who are always in demand) and a bunch of locals.
Due to the country’s “-ization” plan, it would be easier to fly a fully loaded 747 through the hole of a bagel than it would be to dispose of a local indigenous worker. Long story short, he couldn’t and was instantly reported to the proper ministry in charge of such matters as one of the secretaries was kin to the Minister of Employment Affairs (it’s all wasta (nepotism) in this part of the world).
Final damages: loss of 10+ senior employees.
Fines of over 5,000 riyals/day due to improper business practices (firing locals).
Loss of 2 drilling rigs due to lack of personnel and inability to provide work as per contracts; and cessation of drilling of 2 active wells (into the hole, so to speak, about US$3.5MM each) and 10 or 12 field development wells.
So long cash flow.
Loss of a 3-D seismic contract worth approximately US$3MM. Adios exploration program.
Loss of “A-rating”, meaning you take a back seat to all who try and tender rigs, seismic crews, etc. Good luck sourcing oil country tubular goods, logging or completion services, and pretty much all field-related activities.
Loss of face with several ministries (no small item here, huge importance is placed on competence and perceived amiability). Au Revoir Field Development Plan acceptance or seismic contract approval.
Loss of 6 locals to the national oil company. Figured if Expats deserted this amalgamation of idiocy masquerading as an oil company, they should bail as well.
Ultimate temporary closure of the office, cessation of all field activities, payments of 150-200% on defaulted loans and contracts, and loss of several lucrative pipeline right-of-ways and transfer contracts. They had to continue to pay the still employed locals, basically sending them a check for sitting at home playing Xbox and loss of 25% of their acreage due to non-fulfillment of contracts with the government.
Last I heard, Mr. Jerk GM is thrashing around South Texas trying to sell some sort of jumped-up and shady oil deals with companies who have seen their own projects quashed by plummeting oil prices. Funny thing is, he keeps running into people, now on the other side of the desk, who both know him and in one or two cases, actually worked for him.
One receives a special gold-plated schadenfreude when you lean ever so slightly forward and tell him to “get lost” and “Don’t let the door hit you in the rear on the way out, you might suffer brain damage.””
23. Daycare Job Turns Into On-Call Nightmare, Leads To Better Opportunity
“Applied for a full-time job at a daycare.
The interview was on Friday and the director said she would text me over the weekend to tell me my hours for next week. Yay! I got the job!
Monday rolls around and no text or email from her so I am sitting in my pjs at home thinking I’m out of work.
At 10 am a random number calls me and she asks me to come in for 11. I let it slide thinking she lost track of time or whatever.
By the end of the day, I asked for my schedule and she said she’ll contact me tomorrow at 9 am.
The next day is the same thing, except this time she calls at 11 am asking to come in for 11:15!!!!! I waited TWO hours for her call. Now I have no car and live 15 minutes away. On top of this the shifts were only 4ish hours long, so the job isn’t even full time.
I tell her I need a schedule by the end of the day. Didn’t get one.
The next day she calls at a random time but too late, I’m busy at an interview with a different job! I tell her I’ll stop in to get my cheque by the end of the week because she couldn’t respect my time and lied on the ad about being full-time.
Also, I am not getting paid to be on call.”
Another User Comments:
“Did they give you a written contract?” [deleted]
Reply:
“No. After the interview, she basically said I’ll text you the time you need to come in on Monday so I figured everything would get done then, like training and setting up my pay, and figuring out my schedule but she just expected me to come in whenever without ever giving any specifics.
It was frustrating because I told her if I am not going to be full-time here I’d have to get a second job, but I couldn’t get a second job if I didn’t know my schedule at the first place! So I just left.
It’s funny because after I told her I wasn’t coming in anymore she offered me full time with a raise but I didn’t want to work for someone who lied from day one.” dcdcdani
22. Still Want Me To Come In After I Quit? Maybe You Should've Been A Better Boss
“I forgot my name tag on my second or third day at work at a supermarket.
The manager, Damien, asks me where the name tag was and I was honest, I forgot it. He says to me “how about I forget to pay you?” I wanted to tell him off but needed the job. It was casual hours but they started giving me more and more when they saw how efficient I was.
I had a few run-ins with the guy over a couple of months, he was one of those short guys that had a complex about it. Drove a powerful car, belittled people, and was just a terrible person.
Eventually, I found full-time work, so one day I walked in, resigned on the spot, and walked out, but it was a weekend and he wasn’t there, it was right before Christmas.
For some reason that night I get a call from the store asking me to come in to cover a shift the next morning, and I mentioned I had quit. They had no one else to do it and said why not one last shift. I said no and hung up.
About 5 minutes later I got a call from Damien asking me to do the coverage.
I repeated to him that I had quit, and he repeated that he needed the coverage and he’d see me in the morning. I said “screw you” and hung up.
He called me back and said that I can’t say that and HR would be having a word with me, so I said “screw off shorty” and blocked his number.
Thankfully the new job worked out and I never needed that idiot Damien for a reference.”
Another User Comments:
“You should have gone to that HR meeting.
And absolutely belittled the jerk.
“Why didn’t you come in for your shift?”
“Well I was sick of this tiny tiny stupid man.”
“Plus his breath smells like, he’s very ugly, and he has the people handling skills of Jeffrey Dahmer.”
Or fun times if you’d done the shift, when you announce on the PA: “Our manager Damien has just launched our 99% off super sale on EVERYTHING!!!!!!” then walk out and leave him to it.” WimbleWimble
21. Be A Horrible And Misogynistic Boss? She Won't Leave Until The Company Is In Better Hands
I’m sure he was shocked to hear that he was being replaced by a woman, making this revenge so much sweeter.
“My coworker – let’s call her Noelle – was nearing retirement age. She was kind of crusty even when I had first started at the company and consistently commented she couldn’t wait to retire and stick it to everyone. Honestly, she was just older and frustrated that she was always pushed to do the things that were deemed as “female” jobs.
Training new hires was one of those things when she just wanted to put her head down and put in her hours and go home.
Enter our new boss, let’s call him Raj. He was a friend of one of the bosses and as time went on, was a misogynist. He had daily meetings with our department – often interrupted me and Noelle – while listening intently to the male employees and would often prove that he wasn’t listening by asking questions that had already been covered in what she and I were saying.
He twisted words around to the point that I had to CC HR a few times regarding him outright lying to upper management about me. The icing on the cake was the day I came back from bereavement (I had lost a baby late in my pregnancy), his sole focus on me was to train the person he had hired to cover my maternity leave and despite not even going on maternity leave – still wanted the notes for my accounts as if I were still going on leave in a couple of months.
When I sat down with him and explained I would do it, I just needed some time and grace because these asks were difficult emotionally, he turned to the employee that was hired and told him to ask me to do this task because I “clearly” wasn’t listening to him (that new hire quit rather quickly and told me after he left that he had been disgusted by the way that man had treated me).
Anyway, onto Noelle. Noelle during my pregnancy often commented that maybe the day I went on maternity would be the day she would retire – something she and I would laugh about over coffee and then continue on with our jobs. Obviously, when I lost my baby, she didn’t.
She picked up the slack and worked her butt off. When I returned, Raj’s boss (who had been lovely during my bereavement) announced he was going to retire in the new year (2022). Shortly after Noelle announced she would be retiring just after the Christmas season (2021).
I was sad to hear these two lovely people would be retiring but happy for them.
Enter Noelle’s final act. Christmas passes. Her retirement approaches. Her last day and HR and Raj’s boss sit down with her for an exit interview. And they ask her about her employment with the company.
She tells them that she would’ve retired later in 2022 if Raj wasn’t employed with the company. He was a jerk, lazy, didn’t understand his job, and treated the women particularly poorly. That was a Thursday.
Monday morning – and Noelle is in the office.
… and Raj isn’t. Turns out, they decided that Noelle would be a much better asset in the company for the period of time to transition after Raj’s boss retired. She would assist our NEW boss in getting situated and retire later in 2022. And she did.
I’m on maternity leave now – I had gotten pregnant during all of this drama and went on leave after Noelle retired. From what I hear – she’s never been happier.”
20. Escaping A Toxic Boss, Only To Return And Watch Her Downfall
“Once upon a time, I was working in nonprofit legal services. I wasn’t making a lot of money, but I was happy with where I was professionally at the time.
Then in walks a new director in another department I was interested in working in. This was an event/program-heavy organization, so I reached out to her and asked if there was anything I could do to help her department because the previous support staff (a manager and a coordinator) left right before she started, and she was rebuilding the department alone.
Long story short, she approached me to interview for her department and offered me a job, I accepted, and from the first day, we just did NOT work well together. She did not like me, I didn’t like her. It didn’t last very long, but she started making moves to fire me.
Having nonsense meetings about my performance but was never able to articulate any area I was underperforming in. She did say some nonsense about me leaving at 5, but this was a 9-5 job.
So finally, she said she’s having a meeting with me and reporting to HR afterwards.
I scheduled another job interview instead, called out, got the new job, and gave notice to this psycho. She said I wasn’t allowed to work my two weeks, had my computer and building access turned off, and sent me on my way.
Cut to 4 months later, my former manager in the department I was originally in at this organization hits me up and asks if I want to come back to the job I left for this psycho.
I jumped at the chance because this was my actual “career/field” and the job I got in the interim was just to make rent. So I got to go back and my ex-psycho boss was LIVID and said I wasn’t allowed to attend any of her events/programs…fat chance lady!
Like I’d ever try. It’s been years at this point and she’s still miserable and now unemployed because she’s a terrible person to work with.”
19. Don't Appreciate My Attitude So I Should Find A New Job? Okay!
“I have two that I equally disliked and ditched off pretty evenly in my opinion.
First (my first job at 16-17) I was an assistant manager at a popular sandwich shop known for its yoga mat bread.
The manager had me doing her job and mine, earning about $13 which was decent pay for the time but not for the workload. I got tired of her leaving everything for me to do every day when the daytime was much slower and she had time to take 100 breaks and purchase illegal substances while working (she admitted to it and asked if I knew anyone who sold).
I spoke up one day and was told “I don’t appreciate your attitude toward me, it’s time for you to find a new job”. Okay, bet. I was off that night but on the next and it was full-time so five days a week I was either opening or closing by myself and the days I worked were set since no one else had availability to work them.
I went to the store to collect my things that first night I was off and never went back and never answered again meaning she had to work open-close multiple days for quite a while and had to work 6-7 days since management needed to be there seven days a week.
Second, I was yet again an assistant manager, this time at a store in the mall and I had an “equal” assistant manager in charge of less than I was. The store manager was horrendous and an absolute nightmare. I found out about eight months in that the other assistant was being paid twice my pay to do less work and that associates were making more or equal to what I was.
I asked for a raise and was told that I would get one at my one-year mark, okay cool.
My year review comes in and I’m not eligible for any raise at all due to the “store not performing” based on metrics I had no ability to influence as mine were the only ones exceeding expectations and the failing ones were the responsibility of the other assistant and the store manager.
I stopped working but still showed up for my shifts, doing nothing but occupying space and the essentials like counting and closing register at night and delegating to associates.
After three months I was sat down and talked to about how I “seemed to have given up” and asked why that was, my response was that I was being paid less than everyone so I was doing less.
The manager couldn’t face telling her boss this so she made something up and the big boss offered me a part-time position back at another store for what I was already being paid. I said yes, worked until I found a new job, and then sent all of the evidence of the manager’s incompetence and poor treatment of employees (I recorded screaming matches she had) to the highest manager I could contact.
The manager of the store was fired before my two weeks at the new store were up, her boss was put on probation and made to offer me the manager’s job to which I simply replied “too little, too late” and never spoke to them again.”
18. Use The Company Credit Card For Your Own Personal Use? Your Theft Is About To Be Exposed
This story proves that eventually your lies will catch up to you.
“I worked building maintenance at a small daycare centre for 5 years. I was in charge of all janitorial work, logistics and preventative maintenance for the entire property. The supervisor who hired me was amazing but she moved on to another company after 2 years.
The lady they brought in to replace her was a mega jerk who also thought she was smarter than everyone. She’d always tell me she had to go to another centre to “help out” when I knew darn well she was going shopping at the mall.
I’d never say anything though because I was happy she’d be out of the building.
She then started criticizing my work, saying I wasn’t doing enough and that I was lazy. I asked how she was able to know that seeing as she was never in the building.
Was I slacking off? Absolutely! However, I’d get all my work done first before I’d slack off. My beef was that I had a supervisor who literally did nothing trying to tell me that I was doing nothing. At one point she even tried to make a schedule for me while not knowing anything about my job.
This back and forth went on for a couple of years until she eventually received a promotion and would be breaking the sunshine list. Which she went around and told every single worker about personally. Like we cared. She even put up a note on the front door about it.
That’s when crap hit the fan.
She comes into the building the next day with 2 large gas jugs. 25 litres each. First off, that’s a fire code violation which I promptly told her. She then asked me to say they were for the centre.
With a lawn mower being the only thing I had that needed gas, I said no. She literally started to beg me to lie for her and that’s when I put the pieces together. I told her I wouldn’t be telling any lies unless she told me what was going on.
She finally admitted to claiming more gas mileage than she was actually accumulating and that the gas jugs were a cover-up. Now knowing the truth, I smiled and said I still wouldn’t be lying for her.
The next day our regional director and company treasurer came into the building and requested an interview with me.
I played dumb throughout the whole thing acting like I had no idea why they wanted to speak with me. They asked a few questions first and slowly tip-toed towards the gas jugs. They directly asked me what the 2 large gas jugs were for. I explained to them that I never purchased 2 large gas jugs and that I had 1 small one that I’d fill up every spring before filing the paperwork to get reimbursed. This was all 100% true which the paperwork later proved. They then tell me that my supervisor told them that I had bought 50 litres of gas.
I told them she was lying and that I’d never do something that stupid seeing as I only had a lawnmower which needed gas. They believed me.
She was fired the next day. Turns out the gas was just a small piece of the massive amount of theft she was committing.
I later found out that she had been using the company credit card on all her shopping trips. How was she getting away with it all? Not sure, but she had literally spent thousands of dollars until she got caught. Once I learned about her being fired I texted her a simple message saying,
“Sorry to have you stolen away from us.””
17. Underpaid And Overworked, I Give My Boss The Perfect Secret Santa Gift
“I got a job with a company in another state and relocated there with the missus. The phone interview went pretty well, and the operations manager told me that there would be regular reviews and pay raises.
When I forced the first review and asked about the pay raise, the owner of the company looked at me and said “what more value will you offer us to justify it”. This was only 2 weeks after I had done 136 hours in 6 days and nearly overexerted myself to get a number of different projects together.
This was in the first year.
I worked there for four years and made some great friends, but every single time the topic of pay came up, the owner kept saying he couldn’t afford it.
Now, the regional city we were in was famous for its drinking culture, and the boss actually paid for a decent Xmas party, so merry shenanigans were the norm, and every year they had a secret Santa.
For those who don’t know what this is, everyone draws the name of someone in the company out of a hat and has to anonymously get them a small gift.
The last Xmas party that I attended was coming up. At that point, the hierarchy of the company didn’t know that I was already arranging to leave, and I managed to draw the owner’s name out of the hat for the secret Santa gift. I racked my brain on what to get and finally picked out what I thought was the perfect gift.
Fast forward to the night of the Xmas party. All my friends in the company know that I’m leaving, but they’re keeping quiet for me. Everyone is getting well-lubricated, and it’s time to hand out the gifts from everyone’s secret Santa. There are a few silly coffee mugs, a few joke gifts, and then the owner picks up his gift. He opens it up to discover that it’s one of those rubbish grabbers.
The expression on his face is one of “weird flex, but ok”.
As the night starts to wrap up, I mention to one of my mates that it’s REALLY important that he reads the card, so with everyone still there, he yells out “Hey boss, the card you got with your gift, what does it say?”
The boss pulls the card out and reads it out loud “THE PERFECT GIFT FOR THOSE WITH VERY SHORT ARMS AND VERY DEEP POCKETS”.
To this day, I’m not sure if he knows I gave it to him, but EVERYBODY else does.”
16. Overlooked Twice For Dream Job, But Found Success In New City
“I was working as a municipal arborist for a city in northern Virginia, outside DC.
I had been there 6 years. My peer retired, and they hired a new guy to replace him. My boss (who had been there for decades) then retired. So I took on all his responsibilities. Having literally zero experience managing budgets, projecting out quarterly expenses, tracking invoices for our contractors, etc. I was doing great, in my opinion.
And that of my division chief. They interview both me and the new guy for my old boss’ job. They give it to the new guy. I was devastated. As lame as it sounds I have always dreamed of being a City Arborist..which is a middle manager basically but I’ve always wanted to run an urban forestry program of my own.
About a month later I interviewed for the City Arborist position of a very high-profile city in southern California, where my wife is from originally. I get the job.
On my last day, I “hand over the keys” to the dude. No ill will to him.
He shot his shot. I showed him how I handled the budget, projections, incoming resident requests, transferring work to the contractor, and closing out the processes. After about an hour of running through all the systems I had built up (previous old boss did everything on paper) he looks at me…DEAD in the eyes and says (which I’ll never forget) “wow this is a lot of work, you were doing this on your own?” ……
So, sell my house. Say goodbye to all my friends, throw away everything I own. And move across the country to start a new life. Not obtaining that goal is something I still cry about in quiet moments by myself.
So I start my new job and new life in SoCal. It’s hard.
This city has never had a City Arborist before. But as it goes, I’m finding success and making a positive impact on tree canopy, and building a program from scratch. I hear from friends that the hiring manager who didn’t give me the job quit and moved away because it was going horribly wrong.
The guy was not up to the task. Then he quits and gets a higher paying job in another county about 1.5 years in. They ask me to interview for the position..and RE-relocate my family back. My heart… I LOVE truly love that city in Virginia.
So I interview..willing to toss the success I had carved out behind and have my old life back and pick up where I wanted to be……
THEY OFFERED THE JOB TO ANOTHER PERSON…who researches how in shambles the department is……and turns down the offer.
Hiring manager reaches out to me on my personal email address and encourages me to reapply. Forget all of that.
So I don’t know if that’s a “final screw you” but I know I would have been successful. And it sucks to know the residents are the true victims of management’s incompetence.
But after 2 years I’m just now finally starting to get over that devastating defeat and living my dream of having a municipal forestry job that I can build and craft.”
15. Denied Wedding Leave? Enjoy Finding My Replacement!
“My wife and I were in the final few months before our wedding. I was working as a “Behavioral Health Technician” (glorified babysitter) at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility in town.
I had told my supervisor and my boss both months ahead of time when our wedding was, and when our honeymoon was. I even went onto our computer system and put it into the time-off system.
Their response was, “That’s great, we’ll make sure it’s in our calendar.
Just make sure to remind us two weeks before so we can put it on the schedule.”
Fast forward to two weeks before the Wedding and Honeymoon. I checked the time-off system in the computer, and my request has been denied.
When I confronted my supervisor about it, he told me, “Yeah, I’m sorry, but two weeks isn’t enough notice to find a replacement for the 9 days you’ll be gone.
You’ll have off the day of your wedding, but you’re either going to have to find people to cover your shift, or you’ll have to come in.”
I told him, “Yeah, sure, I understand completely!”
Cue to the day after my wedding.
My wife and I are sitting in the International Airport waiting to board our flight to Mexico for 8 days. About 30 minutes after my shift was supposed to start, I get a phone call from my Supervisor.
“Hey Azrael, where are you at? You’re 30 minutes late!”
“Oh, hey! I’m getting ready to board my plane to Mexico!”
If I could have seen his face, I’m sure it looked exactly like the surprised Pikachu face. Never thought about work once while I was in Mexico, had a blast, 10/10 would recommend.
When I got back, I never bothered calling them back, and within a couple of weeks after, found a much better job. It was a nice extended vacation.
Employers, when we are putting in for time off, it’s us letting you know we aren’t going to be there, and it’s your responsibility to find coverage, not mine.
Don’t tell me it’s okay, and then cut the rug from underneath me because you failed to do your job. They had really high turnover there, as you can imagine.”
14. Fired For Taking A Pre-Approved Vacation, I Finally Stand Up To Abusive Chef
“I worked in a kitchen under a dude who worked in Hell’s Kitchen, but not the kind you see on TV.
I was 18, and this dude was straight-up abusive. It’s appropriate to be passionate and be a hard charger when it comes to food, but this dude was just way out of line.
He ran the kitchen like it was actually Hell’s Kitchen, but the restaurant was a barbecue joint and microbrewery.
The environment didn’t warrant someone of that nature.
He had a habit of telling people they needed to come in on Mondays with a day’s notice. There was no scheduling or anything, he just chose who would come in on Monday for prep and that’s it.
I guess after a while of people actually giving valid reasons why they couldn’t come in, i.e. people weren’t in town or they had obligations, he sent out a message something along the lines of “I don’t care what you have going on, if I schedule you on Monday you are here on Monday.
I don’t care if you’re on a vacation to the Bahamas, you’ll be here when I tell you to or your job is gone.”
Well, it came down to me, an 18-year-old kid who was already pretty much the servant of the restaurant.
Being berated and threatened all the time, having food thrown at me by the head chef for messing up orders, the usual.
I was on my way to Myrtle Beach, which was 12 hours of drive. I put a vacation request in the day I started working there months in advance, and I’ve been an employee there for over a year.
I knew the routine, but I was over it. I had a vacation and I wasn’t skipping it.
I got a message from the Walmart version of Gordon Ramsay saying I’m working Monday. I told him that I’m halfway to Myrtle Beach South Carolina, and it’s not gonna work.
He immediately fired me.
I have the message saved from years ago. This was the message that I sent:
“I apologize for not being able to come to work on a Monday, even though I gave you my vacation time in advance. I don’t understand how you think it’s okay to act this way toward your employees, but I find it to be a weight off my shoulders that I don’t work for you anymore.
If you expect someone to drop what they’re doing to come to work with you like driving 6 hours back home and postponing a vacation to cut tomatoes on a Monday, you are out of your mind. Working for you has been the worst time of my life, I’ve never felt stress and anger as much as I have in the time I’ve worked under you.
I had a passion for cooking and a love for the industry, but you freaking destroyed that for me and turned me bitter. You have no respect from me, you are a horrible boss, manager, and head chef. I wish nothing but the absolute worst for you and your time as a head chef, and I mean that from the deepest parts of my heart.
I expect to have my last check mailed to me, Have a nice life, and enjoy the power while you have it.”
That was the best feeling ever.”
13. I Can Never Do Anything Right? I'll Apply For A New Job Behind Your Back And There's Nothing You Can Do About It
“I spent 2 years as a temporary assistant & when I finally made my way into a permanent position – it was with the witchiest elderly lady as a unit supervisor with no heart (my luck, of course).
At first, she acted sweet and kind but I quickly learned that she was actually a micromanager, and just genuinely disliked her staff or her job or both. Made all of us in the unit miserable, made other units she has no business meddling in miserable & caused major mental health issues for some, nobody liked her there.
For some reason at the end of my time with that office, she really started picking on me for everything. The shoes I wore to the office the few days I was there out of the week (while others wore flip flops & not to mention our offices were closed to the public), if I went to the bathroom she was messaging our entire group on teams asking where I went after all of 2 min of being away (we had a policy where we had to lock our computers when stepping out which made us look like we were away longer than we were), she’d also say to do one thing and then call ranting and raving saying she actually meant the other thing.
Inconsistent as can be. Eventually, most of us shut down and started telling her she was hard to talk to and communicate with. She didn’t want to hear it, in her eyes she was their best employee and we were all to be her good little minions.
I secretly applied out when I passed probation, got offered an interview, and managed to sneak away to do the (online) interview in the car even though we were allowed to use company time for any interviews within the place. I just simply didn’t want her to know.
A few weeks later I got offered the job that I did that interview for, cried out of happiness, and accepted. I didn’t tell this lady anything until we had my “probationary passing” meeting. She droned on about how “awful” of a worker I was (funny how my other coworkers told me differently) how I didn’t communicate with her, etc. So when the meeting wrapped up and she asked if had any questions, I simply said, “No, no questions but I’m just letting you know I’ve accepted another offer and I will be leaving the department entirely.” Her face dropped, and I’ll never forget how stupid & dumbfounded she looked on the other end of the camera.
She of course, panicked and started saying I needed to send her all the proof of my interviews and the emails between myself & hr, when I accepted this new job, what my new supervisor’s name was, etc claiming that she needed to do so to fill my position.
I immediately contacted her & they shut her down so fast that she came back at me with “WHY are you getting HR involved? Do you think I’m trying to hold you back from promoting?” Uhh yeah, I do, considering my new boss has nothing to do with you…Come to find out the woman had so many HR complaints that I added to the pile.
No wonder she was upset.”
Another User Comments:
“This sounds so much like my old boss in a corporate position I held. She constantly talked badly about others, would have me type up documents for her, demand I change them, and then demand I undo the changes because they were wrong (imagine that, my first drafts were almost always perfect).
The final straw for me was when I stayed almost 2 hours late rewriting several documents per her direct order (quite the micromanager) only to come into the office to see she wanted a 7th draft of a document that was identical to my 1st draft of the same document.
I typed out an email to HR detailing her abuse of other coworkers, her unwarranted disciplinary attempts on me taking bathroom breaks (off the clock, during my scheduled lunch break – and I was pregnant and only used the restroom while off company time), and her complete and utter lack of professionalism and work ethic.
She didn’t answer the phone professionally and tried telling me that a VP complained about me and that I wasn’t allowed to discuss it with him. (He came by my desk later that day so I apologized for “his complaint” and he was completely taken aback and said that he would never issue a complaint on someone so professional, that I was doing a great job.) After the email was sent, also stating I would be leaving this toxic work environment effective immediately, I packed up my belongings and left without a word to her.
Screw off Marlena.” Ready_Revolution5023
12. Put Me On Probation? Don't Worry, I'll Come Back And Do Your Job Better Than You Ever Could
“Honestly, I just undid all of his work.
I was a lowly help desk tech and reported to the server admin. Previously we had been under the same manager but in a bid for more power, he’d threatened to quit unless he got a promotion so they’d given him managerial powers over me and another coworker.
The arrangement was he managed our work but the final hiring/firing was in the hands of our former manager.
Having him as a manager was fine for a while as I was trying to develop my own skills to grow into a new role.
Then he started getting really controlling and unbelievably unpleasant. I lost access to looking at any system above just a basic computer. Then when he messed up a department by ignoring a request for months and I just took care of it (it was part of my normal work, he just sat on the ticket)… he blew up.
Full-on screaming in my face while blocking my exit from my cubicle. When the other guy told him he needed to cool it, he just flipped it as I was being a problem. The next morning I was in HR with him and my previous boss, defending myself as I tried to explain his behavior but he called for firing me because I did such a terrible job and my old boss said I would just be on probation.
My “terrible job” included being employee of the quarter the previous quarter for the company in a role that NEVER was considered for it (hospital IT, typically the EOQ was a nurse). So I was put on probation and required to daily detail every single thing I planned to do that day and review every single thing I actually did that day… to the guy who wanted me fired and screamed in my face.
Around the same time, our department was being evaluated for issues on multiple projects so they brought in a consultant to see what was wrong. The consultant identified that “leadership” (aka the previous boss) let a few team resources (such as the server admin) be combative and derail projects.
She was let go. Then the consultant discovered I was on probation and sent a “wtf” to HR as their findings were that I and the coworker who’d stepped in were the only team members the rest of the company thought were actually helpful.
Off probation. My manager saw the writing on the wall and found a new job.
On his way out he sang my praises saying how he thought I should get the job now that he was leaving despite months before saying I was worthless. I applied, did not get the job, but was offered a new job that was the technical part of his job without the management part.
They hired in a “senior” team member to manage… who immediately started to defer to me on everything as I had a solid handle on all the systems. I then basically dismantled everything my old boss had done because I’m pretty sure he stopped letting me touch things when he realized I’d noticed the poor job he’d done of things.
Stuff like using public IP ranges for internal systems including our main medical system. Leaving wide-open holes in our firewalls. Plaintext password files in directories that were easily accessible.
So what did I do as revenge on an old boss I hated? Ripped his entire setup apart and did a far better job than he could possibly do.”
11. Treat My Friend Terribly And Expect Me To Just Take His Place? No Chance
Now that’s a loyal friend!
“I was hired on as a new engineer and, admittedly, the owner really liked me. In that first week though, I realized that I was the ONLY one he was nice to. He treated all of the other engineers (who were far more qualified than me) like garbage.
One of their senior engineers made a super simple mistake and was verbally reamed by the owner. The owner decided the engineer no longer deserved his personal office and was told to switch spots with me….the noob. I was already incredibly uncomfortable with the company dynamics and it was even more awkward when I had to clear off my small desk and move my stuff into the senior engineer’s office…which I knew I didn’t earn or deserve.
I made a point from that day on to befriend the senior engineer and make it clear that I was not happy with the way he was treated. We went out to lunch every day and hung out on the weekends…going hiking in national parks and trying out the new bars in our city.
All said, we became really close friends.
About a month later, I’m called into the owner’s office and told that they would be letting some engineers go. Of course, being the last one hired on…I think I’m about to get laid off. But, nope!
Instead, the owner thought it was a better idea to vent all his frustrations to me about the senior engineer…which were all personal and not at all related to his performance as an employee. The owner wanted me to step up and assume the senior engineer role and asked if I would be willing to accept that responsibility.
I said no, I was too new and still had a lot to learn before I would feel comfortable accepting that level of responsibility. The owner assured me that I had what it takes and walked straight to the senior engineer’s desk and fired him on the spot in front of everyone.
I was mortified. The senior engineer and the owner exchanged some choice words and with that, the senior engineer was gone.
I was LIVID! The owner knew I was good friends with the senior engineer and put me in a spot to make it seem like I was stealing his role.
I stayed at the company for another week and used that time to pretend that I was stepping up and becoming the new senior engineer. In reality, I was applying for other companies most of the day and looking for my way out ASAP. Typically, I’d communicate my concerns directly with the owner but, I was so upset with the way he treated employees that I went out to lunch one afternoon and just never came back.
The owner left me several messages, claiming that their business was in jeopardy of going under if I didn’t come back, and even offered me a HUGE pay increase. I just couldn’t accept it. It didn’t align with my morals and there’s no way I’d voluntarily accept that role knowing how he treated my friend.
Flash forward a week or two and the senior engineer and I are out having drinks and he mentions that the owner reached out to him and begged for him to come back. The senior engineer apparently laughed and hung up. We heard through the grapevine that the two other engineers quit shortly after me, and the company closed its doors in less than 3 months.
I’m not saying I’m happy about how everything went down. But, I am pleased to know that the owner (no doubt) learned a great deal that year about how to treat others.”
10. Micromanaging Boss Causes High Turnover Until Employees Take Action
“I had worked for a company for a long time – more than a decade, when I got a new boss.
I knew what needed to be done and did it, and for his first year, he pretty much left me alone. I was the technical lead in my department on a new project when some switch flipped, and he went full micromanager mode. He would make changes to the project specs without consulting the rest of the project team or the project manager, he’d tell engineers working under me to do something different without telling me.
When pressed to explain why he was making X, Y, or Z change, he’d puff up and say “You are just going to have to trust my experience” and not offer any valid engineering justification. He’d also try to tell other departments what they were going to have to do differently too, which went as well as you can imagine.
The engineers in that office were pretty chill, so most folks just ignored him and let the department heads deal with him.
But, he was my department head, and ignoring him was hard. After about 6 months of this, I’d had it, and went to talk to my grand-boss (who was at a director level and had been my temporary boss for about 8 months before crazy dude was hired, and I generally trusted).
We talked it out and had a group meeting where my boss tried to make out that I was the unreasonable one. Suffice it to say I had a 10-year reputation as being the reasonable person in every discussion. On the other hand, Boss and Grand-boss had known each other for years before coming here and regularly hung out at each other’s houses.
I knew this was going to be an uphill battle.
Things were okay for about a fortnight before the problematic behaviors started popping back up. Three months after the first meeting, we had another, with more talking and still no action. I started looking for other internal positions, but there weren’t any spare seats that I would fit in.
About two months after the second meeting, there was a third meeting, where I was clear that the problem needed to be resolved immediately or I was out.
About two months later, I was out, with a new job already queued up.
About a month after that, I got a phone call from a colleague I thought highly of who was on that project team asking if I would be willing to be a reference for them since they were leaving the company.
I told them that I would happily give a good reference to anyone who reached out to me, but that I had two questions:
Are you leaving because of crazy dude?
If crazy dude wasn’t causing trouble, would you rather stay?
Turns out my former boss had been continuing to cause significant problems. He was openly yelling at people in meetings, undermining other people’s work, and continuing to try to boss around people who were not in his department.
His department was up to about 50% turnover in a year. My colleague was indeed leaving because, and only because, of my crazy ex-boss.
Our next conversation was short and brutally effective:
Me: “Friend, I know your boss (who was at a director level), and think highly of her.
How do you feel about her?”
Colleague: “She’s great, I love working for her.”
Me: “You are a tremendous asset to the company, and it would be a shame for them to lose you. I think you should talk to your boss, tell her that you are going to quit if you have to keep working with crazy dude, and give her a chance to do something about it.
I think she’ll pull through for you, and worst case scenario, I will still sing your praises to any potential employer.”
Colleague: “…Okay. I’ll see what happens.”
Six weeks later, crazy dude is no longer employed at the company. Sometime later, I gave my (much happier) colleague a call and asked how things went down.
Well, my colleague’s boss hauled my grand-boss (both are director-level folks, if you recall) in front of the VP they both reported to, told the VP that her valuable reports were being driven out of the company because of Grand-boss’s employee, who had also been driving out his own reports.
Apparently, the VP looked at my grand-boss, and said: “You have two weeks to fix this problem.”
Within two weeks, my crazy ex-boss was out of a job.
So there was my contribution: I tossed the pebble that started the avalanche that swept my boss out of his job after I had already quit.”
9. Unfairly Fire Me? I'll Use The Power Of The Internet To Get Revenge On Two Terrible Bosses
I feel bad that this person had more than one awful boss he had to get revenge on, but hey, they make for some pretty entertaining stories.
“There’s a few.
I took a boss’s number after firing me for no real reason other than my kid was about to be born and they didn’t want me to take their parental leave.
I put his phone # up on Craigslist and grabbed pics of an older car and put it up for $500. I made around 20 posts (this was before you had to pay for car ads). An old coworker said his phone was unusable so he bought a new one and I got his new number and did it again.
A different boss was begging me to work there during an interview and I did despite the red flags. I was promised $20/hr, a M-F schedule 8-4, and free lunches. I worked there for 2 weeks and before I got my first paycheck I noticed next week’s schedule was from midnight to 8 am, I get paid and it was min wage with lunches deducted from my paycheck.
I was beyond furious.
We had a computer that we all used to put daily logs in on a shared document. I noticed our lovely boss used that computer first thing in the morning for her emails, social media, etc. I check the Chrome settings for saved passwords and I see her passwords for her email and social media.
I log in on her email on my phone and discover her using her email to talk bad about her boss to multiple people..like very personal attacks on his children, his wife, where he lives and drives, etc. I take all of those emails and forward them to her boss on a set date of 2 weeks from now and delete any evidence of the forwarded message being sent.
I checked her social media, she’s married with 2 kids, and find out she’s being unfaithful to her husband with 2 different men at the same time. She randomly leaves work and I was able to match that up with the chat of her going to meet these people.
I screenshot the chats and use her email to send them to her husband 2 days before the ones are sent to her boss.
My god was that one heck of a week I didn’t care I was making min wage I waited. The first email to her husband was sent on a Monday about 20 minutes after she got to work, she’s still sitting at the computer and I stayed after I clocked out to chat and it felt like I was in death note constantly checking the time waiting for the chaos to unfold.
Then at the bottom right it says email sent but she doesn’t notice…within 5 minutes her husband calls and is screaming at her and she checks the sent box and there’s the email “she” sent. She left work without saying anything to her boss. Came back late on Tuesday.
I stay after again on Wednesday, still watching the time intently, and then within minutes of the email being sent again, the boss asks to see her. She quit as soon as he asked her about the emails she sent him.
That was by far the most epic thing I’ve ever done for revenge so far.”
8. Cut My Pay And Ignore Me? Enjoy Losing Your Best Employee To Farm Life
“After they cut my pay by over $4k a year, I was very unhappy. But what pushed me over the edge was the complete lack of teamwork that reached the point of hindering my performance. Nobody wanted to communicate or help each other anymore. My manager wouldn’t even look me in the eye, let alone say “Good morning” or update me on new procedures, which put me in conflict with my team.
I almost got in a fight with a team member in front of everyone because of this.
So I got called into a disciplinary meeting. By this point, their crap was played out. Telling me every couple of weeks that we’re family, my job is safe, then calling me into meetings again and again to threaten me with termination “for any reason we like.” Well, this time I brought in an apple — the kind you eat — and while my team leader chewed me out I sat there and calmly ate my apple in front of him.
Finally, when he was done and I was done I proceeded to chew him out, taking him to task for his lack of leadership and lack of effort to communicate and connect with his team.
To his credit, he listened and said I made good points and that he would work on improving.
That was good, but did you forget that they cut my pay by $4,300? I sure as crap didn’t. I didn’t forget that during my interview, I had taken this job because he had told me, “The sky’s the limit” for how much I could make and do in this position.
No, I did not forget, and I certainly did not forgive. What he did not know was that I was finally in the position to buy a farm, and I was so over and done with this job and office life. I was waiting on finalizing the moving date, so I wasn’t ready to quit or get fired on the spot, although if I had gotten fired, I could have taken Unemployment, which would have benefited me financially.
(Please be advised that I was aware it wasn’t his decision to cut my pay, it was corporate, so you know.)
Because of his willingness to put his pride aside in this meeting, I told him, and because the meeting went well (I got off with a warning), I promised to tell him everything in a couple of weeks when the time was right for me.
Two weeks later he must have forgotten the whole thing because when I called him to a meeting he was taken off guard. I told him that I bought a farm, it was hours away from the city, and I had no intention of commuting.
I gave my notice. All he could do was tell me that he was jealous and wished me the best.
Darn that felt good. And I love farming. Much better suited to it. I’ve never looked back.”
7. Quit My Job, Changed My Number, And Watched Their Security Contract Crumble
“I was a security guard for an industrial plant that was being built and was trying to report the project supervisor for verbal harassment (not the first report she’d gotten about her, she was a huge problem).
After the regional manager, whom I was reporting to, told me that I and everyone who reported her had no idea what it’s like being a supervisor and that it’s not a responsibility we could handle for an hour let alone as our job I told him “You know what, you’re going to have to find someone else to come in on Sunday, I’m done.” He hesitated and said “Really?
Are you sure? You know y—” and I cut him off with “Yep. No one needs this, you need to get your act together and fix this problem or it’s going to be your fault you lose that contract” and hung up before he could reply.
Promptly logged into my phone carrier’s app and changed my phone number. I knew they had a previous mailing address on file for me, and now they didn’t have my phone number. Kept my uniform and all of the expensive equipment provided to each employee that was expected to be returned, the only thing I actually returned was my access badge to the plant’s security office to my shift supervisor, who was under the project supervisor, who I knew would make sure my badge would get properly deactivated, and she said she was leaving next week now that I was gone.
So they lost equipment and the only two employees that followed required procedures and made sure daily reports were filled out properly.
That was 6 years ago. Now I work for a different company testing pipe welds for industrial plants; in November of last year I had to go do some tests at that plant and there was a new security company.
I asked the guy preparing a temporary access badge “How long has (this company) worked security here? It used to be (company I worked for),” and it was less than three months after I quit 6 years ago.
I’m not saying I was a critical part of that operation but I certainly knew how much I and my supervisor did to keep things from unraveling because of the incompetency of the project supervisor.
If they’d have just let her go and promoted literally anyone else it would have worked out even after my supervisor and I quit.
Bonus wisdom: I was really frustrated and upset after I quit and changed my phone number. I put a lot of effort into that job and I felt like I was being dismissed like a brat making unreasonable demands.
I expressed being upset to my now ex-supervisor when I turned in my access badge and she said “People usually don’t quit their jobs, they quit their bosses” and that made me feel so much better.”
6. Lazy Store Manager Gets Fired After Entire Inventory Team Quits During Black Friday Week
“I was the merchandise manager for a clothing retailer. Mainly entailed of showing up at 4 am to receive shipments of new inventory with a team of people a few times a week. The store manager was notoriously lazy and oblivious but skated under the radar by having managers under her who knew what they were doing and covered her backside.
Our inventory team was consistently understaffed. We all met the “units received per hour” metric that calculates how much time it should take but being understaffed meant we were often still staging and replenishing inventory multiple hours after the store had opened. Multiple requests for hiring were denied. Eventually, the store manager got called out for frequently having the inventory team on the floor while the store was open as it was apparently “bad for the customer experience” to have inventory actually stocked. Her solution was to restrict us from stocking inventory after the store opened, which just caused inventory to stack up in the back.
Come to the week of Black Friday, we have no choice but to get all the back-stocked material out on the floor. It’s all hands on deck, and I even called other stores for support. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we got a huge shipment.
The store manager shows up late that day (not uncommon) so I and a team member lose time opening up the store. Once the opening team shows up, we can get back to work. The store manager helps out for maybe an hour. She leaves after being there for 4 hours and says “I need everything out today.
I don’t care if you have to stay late.” We are livid. She left, half the team and I quit on the spot. She tried calling me a few hours later. I essentially told her the lack of planning, support, and work ethic on her part was unacceptable and she could get lost. Holidays being the biggest time of year for most retailers, she promptly lost her job by the end of the year.
Sweet Justice was seeing her come in to interview as a manager at the new store I landed at (where she would be my peer.) I intercepted my new store manager on the way up front to meet her for the interview and told him why we shouldn’t hire her.
She did not get hired.”
5. Exploitative Hotel Owners Get Publicly Called Out And Lose Staff Overnight
“I worked as a resident musician in a hotel last summer. We played 4hr gigs nonstop with no intermissions (I wouldn’t mind if the pay was worth it). They were such horrible people. Completely out of touch with the reality of the business they were in and money-hungry.
Run by a husband and wife who needless to say were flogging a dead horse in terms of marital happiness. Some of the reasons I quit in the fashion I did:
They would regularly scald us for not sticking to the repertoire and genre of Irish music ONLY (It was in Ireland).
They of course knew nothing about music. But insisted on scalding us regularly in front of the audience for not sticking to the repertoire. We mostly adhered to the rigidity of their terms but some were unavoidable. For example: when we got a request from an audience member that would certainly annoy the management, we would simply say “oh sorry we don’t know that one, but here’s something similar…” But when we had a request that we simply couldn’t turn down not only because we loved it and it was within the boundaries of what some may call Irish music AND the customer came up and personally tipped us to play that tune, we couldn’t not play it.
Without fail, management would give us daggers from the bar doing the “cut it out” gesture or simply coming on stage and telling us to stop playing immediately.
They scorned parents for letting their kids dance in front of the musicians and claimed “we aren’t running a play school for children here”.
“English is the spoken language in the Rathbaun Hotel” – a sign that was posted in the hotel kitchen. Yet 80% of their staff were Russian, Polish, German, and Ukrainian Refugees (who had very little English due to the war forcing them to leave).
They berated and belittled the staff incessantly during serving hours.
We all lived in the staff accommodation and when their shifts were done, many of these young staff would come home in tears.
They called all of us lazy musicians ALL THE TIME. Saying that all musicians are lazy and we don’t have any push to go further.
That we will learn REAL music here in the Hotel and what it’s like to be a REAL musician. All the while they were aware that all of us were seasoned professionals with Master’s degrees in the art form.
The pay was bad. €70 for 4 hours of music every night 7-11 PM.
Most of the time with two musicians only. Let me tell you, that is tough going on your voice and hands. My rear was positively numb from playing piano and voice raw for 4 hrs straight. We had free accommodation and food from the hotel, but working it out, still very underpaid.
Also, they wanted us all to register as self-employed so they could save money on paying tax for having fewer employees at the hotel.
We had 10 days left of our “contract” which we never signed. And this night we were having a solid gig myself and Richard.
Until the requests started coming in. And when the requests come in, the tips are great. We were so sick of their nonsense that we just played any requests and when the audience saw this they tipped even more! This didn’t fly for long though.
The wife came up and said horrible things to us that could be heard by the audience. Their faces of shock were evident as she said “STOP ENGAGING WITH THEM LIKE THAT. STICK TO IRISH MUSIC ONLY. WE ARE HAVING A SERIOUS TEAM TALK AFTER.” Naturally, this destroyed our good mood and we finished the gig in depression.
As soon as we switched off the music, I walked down and exploded. Something I never thought I had in me. The place was busy with customers and I made sure everyone heard everything I said. I shouted from the top of my lungs that they were racist, money-hungry jerks.
Explaining that they take advantage of Ukrainians who lost their home and lives by verbally abusing them and paying them bad wages. That they complain every night that not enough Irish people show up even though it’s a tourist spot in the height of summer??
I told them how much we resented them for how they treated us and how they treated all the staff. I called them every name under the sun because they really deserved it. I had to be told to stop by other musicians because I couldn’t stop myself!
In the end. All musicians quit that night including 5 wait staff. We packed all our stuff and bolted that night. Stayed at a friend’s house at 3 AM and never regretted a thing. They got what was coming. You treat staff like crap it’ll bite you in the rear.”
4. Denied My Honeymoon Time Off? I'll Quit And Enjoy It Anyway
“One autumn, I got married. For various reasons, we wanted to wait for spring to do a honeymoon, and we were lucky enough to be able to afford a longer honeymoon. I submitted the time off request about a month after my wedding. My boss and her boss said they’d need to think about it.
Understandable, it’s a big ask, but I’m about 6mo out from the vacation dates at this point, so I don’t expect it’ll be terribly unreasonable to figure out.
Two months go by. “We’re still thinking about it.” In the meantime, annual “raises” happened. I had gotten awards that year for my work.
My raise was a very tiny percentage of my wage. Like barely a cost of living increase. And then I was told I should be happy because it was one of the largest in the company that year. That was when I decided that I didn’t care if they approved my honeymoon or not, we were going when we wanted. We started booking things to make sure we had what we wanted at a price we could handle.
At the two-month mark, they call me into the boss’s boss’s office. They can’t give me that much time off, nor can I have it when I want it. That’s the busy time of the year. I can have much less time a month later.
I pretend to go along with it, and I mark my calendar for 3 weeks before the date we are actually leaving.
Hey, it’s 3 weeks before my honeymoon! I put in my two weeks’ notice. I claim I have another job offer. My team is all sad to see me go, yadda yadda yadda.
3 days left to go, and my boss and I are chatting. My honeymoon comes up, and how I’m starting a job right before leaving for that. Something clicks for her. Maybe she realizes we’re just over a week out from my original request date. Maybe she sees something in my face.
She goes a little bit pale and looks at me like “did you really quit because we wouldn’t accommodate your honeymoon?” I just made eye contact and nodded slowly. We moved on with the charade. I left and really enjoyed my honeymoon. I had a new and less skeezy-feeling job about 2 weeks after we got home.
All was right with the world.
Side note, I have absolutely no guilt about this whole thing. I’m a woman, and had I been pregnant, they would have had about as much warning, and I would have had probably more maternity leave than my proposed vacation.
Also, I would have had a baby to need time for afterward. I think my ask was at least as reasonable. 2nd worst place I ever worked, and that’s worse than the fast food jobs.”
3. Try To Force Me To Lie On An Official Report? It'll Come Back To Bite You
“Best Buy loss prevention lead.
Because I refuse to lie about a friend and fellow employee who was accused of stealing TVs and GPS units.
I wasn’t even working when this supposedly happened. I was told that they wanted me to sign a statement saying I witnessed him removing the items from the store. He probably did steal the items. However, I never witnessed him taking them. Told Jon and Rebecca (managers) no, I’m not going to lie about something that I have no knowledge of occurring.
Then I was told how important it was that I sign the statement and explain to the police exactly the same thing in the statement. I told them that I wanted to take some time to think about it and that I was going to lunch.
I called the employee and told him not to come back to work and explained everything to him, ate me some Chipotle, and went back to find 6 Houston police officers in the store. I was then told that if I didn’t sign the statement, I was going to be fired and arrested for the missing items that totaled 4,688.00 dollars.
I pulled the statement over and picked up the pen, looked at Jon, and smiled. I finished signing the statement and slid it back to Jon. It read “Screw you, I quit.”
I was then stood up and forced to remove my Best Buy yellow shirt and name tag and then walked out of the office by six officers as they held my arms. With all the employees and customers watching, I stopped walking and said, “Read them to me right here.” The officer began to read me my Miranda rights.
I stood there looking at my fellow employees, whom I have known for over three years, “because I would lie for them,” I said as they walked me out the doors.
I spent two days locked up, without a phone call or lawyer, and suddenly I was released. Now I don’t know what exactly happened, but I was told by the officer who was processing me for release that there was not sufficient evidence for me to be charged. I did find out that after I was taken away, the customers and employees walked out.
The next night (I was still locked up) at 2 ish in the morning, an electric fire destroyed the store, total loss including the store inventory, which showed the missing items. I have to say, I didn’t have anything to do with the fire, but dude, the reputation I got after that was so beyond epic.
I became the guy not to mess with overnight. Mind you, I had no idea any of this happened until four days after the fire. I did run into Jon at HEB a few months later, “I don’t know how you did it but I’m going to figure it out and when I do, I’ll be coming for you,” he said.
I replied, “Better check that magic 8 ball again, I sent one of these to corporate and have one ready to hit the news desk at local 2.” I handed him a 4 GB flash drive with one 22-minute audio file on it. Where he threatened to have me arrested for a crime I had nothing to do with unless I falsified company forms to have another employee fired and arrested. The look on his face was worth two days locked up.
I looked at him and said, “Oh, Jon, word of advice, be careful when you play with fire, you don’t want to get burned.”
Update: Jon no longer works for Best Buy, and from what I’ve been told, he can’t get a job in upper management in retail.
Rebecca was transferred and working for a store in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma.
My friend didn’t take the TVs, but it was later discovered that it was a local group of guys boxing old TVs in new TV boxes and returning them unopened and they had hit us three times.
Me well, I ain’t a snitch and life is great.”
2. Plan To Fire Me On A Busy Work Day? I'll Be Laughing It Up At A Mexican Restaurant Instead
“I had a boss when I worked in retail who was going through a divorce and losing his mind.
I was hired to be a manager, but on the day when I started work, he informed me that I would not be a manager until I’d completed a probationary period. Which I never completed. There was always some issue or some excuse, and meanwhile, he was scheduling me to work alone for long periods of time with no breaks, and when he was in the store he was often locked in the store room, obviously upset.
I also was earning $5/hour less than I agreed to, yet the other employees referred to me as the assistant manager and I handled managerial duties relative to them. It was a sad situation, but obviously a bad employment situation. So, I started asking when I was going to be promoted, and why I was being scheduled illegally, and so on.
And one evening I got a call from the mall where the store was located— the mall had an agreement with the store to be open certain hours and the store wasn’t open at that very moment— apparently I was listed as its manager on their paperwork and responsible for that.
My manager’s phone numbers did not work.
So we continued like that for a few more weeks, but then I misplaced my key at home one day and my manager seemed cool but I had to sign an acknowledgment that I had shown up without my keys.
A week or so after that I was ranting about the situation with another employee, and she stopped me and told me that my manager was going to fire me the next day for losing my keys, which was one of those days when he’d scheduled me to work all day by myself, illegally.
He was going to leave me to finish that shift and then sack me. On a Saturday, no less, so it was going to be a hard shift on top of being an illegal one.
So Saturday morning, I came in like usual. But instead of opening, I cleaned out my locker and set up the computers like normal, and then threw my key into the store through the roll-down overhead grate and went home, knowing that the mail wouldn’t have any way to reach anyone when the store didn’t open.
I then went to a very festive lunch at a Mexican restaurant with my best friends. I put my cell phone in the middle of the table and every time the phone rang with a call from the mall we’d take a sip.
Several weeks later I got a call from the area manager, who wanted to know why I’d left and if I would consider coming back since they had sacked my manager due to his mismanagement, which had left the store with no assistant manager and a bunch of fines for failing to open on one of the highest-traffic days of the week?
I declined. I already had another, better, job by then.”
Another User Comments:
“I was a chief inspector for an aviation repair station, my buddy was the production manager, he was going through a hard divorce, he would show up in the morning, then disappear by 10 am, I would take over and manage the shop without him, he got the nickname of “Casper”, I was working on my bachelor’s and happen to finish it a few months later, management approached me to take over his job, I think they were going to fire him, I said I would do it if they gave him my old job and kept his salary the same.
They did and he was actually happy about it because it’s a lower stress job and it was what we both were doing before he was made production manager.” surfdad67
1. I Couldn't Leave Without Giving Him One Final Stinky Surprise
“I worked ride photo at an amusement park when I was a teen. The first two seasons were great, that boss I liked.
Third season, new boss. Smug jerk. My younger brother (his first season) and I told him we were still dependent on our parents for transportation.
My father even came in on the interview and told him as much. He smiled and agreed that would be the case.
It was not the case, from day one we had radically different schedules. It was very rare we were picked up at the same time.
Parents were frustrated, and when pressed the manager claimed he wasn’t told about our need to have the same schedule and that it would be impossible to do since it would be ‘unfair’ to other employees.
One day halfway through the season, I was set to work from mid-afternoon to close, but because of my parent’s schedules, I had to be dropped off in the morning.
The opening team for my station called out, and boss found out I was in the park. I tried to refuse being assigned a double, but boss said I would have to ‘or else’. Then acted like he was generous in letting me have an additional 15-minute break.
For a 16+ hour work day. Then he edited my time sheet so I would only get paid for 12, so that he didn’t have to report overtime. If I had known then that was illegal, that would have been pursued.
I was scheduled to open the next day, and after getting home after 2 AM, I called in and then the next day after just quit, and so did my brother.
The ‘screw you’ came when it was time to collect our final checks. It wasn’t even planned. We arrived at our normal time to get our checks, and Boss was nowhere to be found. He was ‘running late’. Our dad was waiting in the car, getting angrier as time passed, though he wasn’t directing it at us.
I almost wish he would have been allowed to come into the park with us, if only for the catharsis of getting to bark at this clown of a boss.
Boss made a serious error that day. He left his bag in the office. While we were waiting, I told my bro to stand watch.
The night before we’d had chili for dinner. Yes, I pooped in his bag.
Hilariously there were stores of chemicals for developing film, even though they’d just transitioned to digital (just in case!), so there were frequent issues with dead rats due to poisoning. The boss caught the whiff of my Screw You and thought it was another dead rat.
We were halfway out of the park when we heard him find my ‘exit interview.'”
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