In the workplace we encounter a lot of obstacles. And whether it be quotas, reporting, meetings, or other tasks at hand, there can be issues. But what do we do when the issues deal with our coworkers, or worse, our superior?
Sometimes problems can occur on the job that are out of our control but lead to us getting fired. But we took to Reddit and found the employees willing to share their mishaps that turned out to be wins in the long run. These people reveal the moments they were fired or let go, but were able to take revenge on their unprofessional, horrible bosses.
Never Felt Such A Sense Of Instant Karma
“I’ve worked at the same company for over six years. I was a loyal, good employee with a perfect track-record. Over the six years I’ve only called in sick twice. I had the best results, the least amount of errors on paperwork in the whole region and quite possibly the whole country. My new boss decided that that wasn’t enough. He minimized my hours (they get a bonus to keep labor low), expanded my workload and never had anything nice to say. He seemed to think ruling with an iron fist is the way to go about this. Even after all this, I’m the one who kept his head above water, fixing his errors along the way.
So today I resign my position with immediate effect, which in terms cancelled his vacation plans for next week. On top of that, there is no one to fill my position. As soon as I mouthed the words ‘I quit’ you could see the terror in his eyes. He realized how f’d he was without me and tried to do whatever he could to keep me for at least another week. I’ve never felt such a sense of instant karma as today. I never meant to cancel his vacation, but I wasn’t going to put his needs before mine. I have bills to pay. I’d feel bad about it if he wasn’t such a prick. But he’s a prick.
I hope my story inspires someone (even if only one single person out there) to not just bend over and take it, but to realize they deserve to be treated better and that the only thing that’s stopping someone to reach their full potential is themselves. As far as workplace situations go: You spend a great deal of your life at your place of employment, it shouldn’t be a place you dread to be.
Tipped Off The Right People
“We were drinking together one night (this was during our friends phase) and he described in detail a tax scheme that he had engaged in that was very illegal. I just nodded and laughed as it didn’t bother me at the time, and we were (again) friends at that point.
Fast-forward to six months later – the guy revealed himself to be a true a-hole and I decided to leave the company. I work in a relatively small industry and I heard that he was bad-mouthing me to other people and trying to get me ‘blackballed.’ While my first inclination was to drive over to his favorite bar and beat the heck out of him in front of his friends, but I decided that me getting arrested for battery would probably not be beneficial.
So I waited about six months and tipped a few of the ‘right’ people to my former pal’s scam. This included his ex-wife’s divorce attorney, his probation officer (full disclosure: he was on probation at the time for another offense; however, he couldn’t be involved in any criminal activity during that time, including conspiracies) and several agencies whose primary job is to investigate tax malfeasance. As it turns out, I really only needed to tip his ex’s attorney, and she did all the rest of the legwork for me.
In the end (and yes I did sort of keep track of what happen) he was re-arrested, his probation was revoked, his wife got a larger settlement, and he spent the remainder of his deferred sentence portion in jail. When he got out, he left the area and I have neither seen nor heard from him since.”
“Out Of Principle”
“I worked as a database administrator for a community center for one summer in college. Basically, I created a database for them to track who was donating to them and how much they were donating, and who was volunteering at the center and for how many hours. Very simple work and despite being the youngest person on staff by about 25-30 years, I got along well with all of my co-workers except for my immediate boss who was a total witch.
The next spring, I was applying for jobs and e-mailed my old boss to ask for a letter of recommendation. Much to my surprise, she told me that she didn’t write recommendation letters ‘out of principle.’ I was pretty upset about it because I was finding it very difficult to find a position and not being able to count on my most recent employer for a reference was a definite blemish on my resume.
However, in spite of this, I managed to land a decent job. Lo and behold, my old boss emails me on day one of my new job, begging me to come in because she had somehow ignored all the warnings in the user documentation I wrote and moved some files around rendering it impossible for her to access the database. She asked if I would come in and I emailed her back and told her I already had a job and couldn’t do it ‘out of principle,’ effectively rendering my entire summer at the center a waste of time from their perspective.”
Vacation Time Added Up
“As the low man on the totem pole, I got to do all the grunt labor and random tasks that required working on weekends and such… as a master engineer working in a 9-5 job… being paid less than a pizza delivery driver. Then my boss decided that I no longer got to comp time (leave early or whatever to get back some time spent working on weekends), because I was salaried and ‘it was part of the job.’
So, when I quit to go get my PhD, they realized that I hadn’t used any vacation time. The ultra penny pincher had to write me a check for two extra months worth of pay as I walked out the door.”
She Had Her Letter Of Resignation Ready Just In Case
“It was my supervisor. It got to the point that I had decided to quit. I had my resignation letter in my purse, but decided to let his boss know why I was quitting. Supervisor would talk about all the people on our team constantly, but only behind their backs. I got so sick of telling him to cut it out. My husband and I happened to work at the same place (different departments) and my Supervisor would make inappropriate comments about threesomes (with him – ewww), what hotel we picked for our afternoon delight, stuff like that. It was so uncomfortable. Apart from this, he spent most of his time outside smoking. Problem was Supervisor was ‘one of the guys’ and I was the only girl.
I told his boss, and he lost his mind. They started an investigation which took three days. They interviewed staff who all corroborated what I said. They checked the security cameras, saw he was spending most of his work day outside smoking. At the end of it, he was fired.
When he was told he guessed (wasn’t hard!) that I was the person who complained and tried to get to me to ‘apologize that I took it the wrong way.’ The best feeling was my coworkers surrounding me as he was walked out. That was a lovely ending to it all.”
Never Know Who Will Be The Boss One Day
“Two regions of my company merged into one. The manager of the other region was a complete prick. He was about 5’2 and walked around like he had something to prove. He treated all my employees like garbage and made them feel as though the reason they were choosing the other site over ours was because of the quality of work, when in reality they got tax breaks in the other state. Our numbers were far better in every category. But their labor was cheaper and that is what mattered to the company. They gave my employees four months notice. At first, they all thought it was a good thing so they could get paid while looking for another job. Nope. He made their lives absolutely miserable. He doubled their quota, cut commissions by 40%, and made weekly visits chewing me and the other sales manager out for not hitting the new goals and that there was absolutely no excuse. One month – the second to last month, we hit the new goal (not for him, to get our employees paid finally) and he then reamed us out because of the amount of vacation time used. Even after explaining employees needed days off because they were interviewing other places… since we’re laying them off and that I would not deny anyone time if they have it available. He tried getting me fired for this but I had too many friends.
WELL here is how the karma comes into play. I had worked closely with some corporate folks over the two years I was there. They found out my region was being shut down and thought I would make a GREAT fit in their corporate office to be in charge of operations over the Midwest region, which happened to be the prick’s region.
I kept it quiet. I didn’t make any mention of it until I showed up at his office with a clipboard and a laptop. You should have seen the confusion in his eyes.
Him: ‘Are you visiting or something?’
Me: ‘You could say that.’
Him: ‘Well I need to make sure security knows you’re here.’
Me: ‘Oh, they know, I just had to show them my badge.’
I whip out my badge and show him. My picture… in front of the red white and blue flag. Only people that have a photo in front of a red white and blue flag are corporate employees. He was mine, and his face showed sheer terror behind his twitching lips.
I was fair to his employees, but boy did I report every rude and inappropriate incident that went down there. His lack of cooperation, his condescending demeanor towards his own employees, it only took a few weeks for him to pack up boxes. Apparently employees had been complaining for a long time and it only took a little corporate push to get him out.
Most. Satisfying moment in my working career, ever.”
Vindicated
“My first job out of high school was working for a rather famous and nation-wide guitar store chain. At first I thought it would fun, getting to be around guitars all day, and talk music with fellow musicians. Turns out I was wrong, that 10-hour shifts 5-6 days a week while listening to slighty-too-loud overhead music and 14-year-olds play the first 5 bars of ‘Crazy Train’ over and over and over again wasn’t actually all that great. But I stuck it out, I needed money and I have one of those ‘don’t quit ever’ attitudes.
When I got hired, the store was in serious trouble. They had recently fired a huge chunk of the staff for skimming profits and selling pot out of the warehouse. Their numbers were really low, and corporate was breathing down their necks. But, as it turns out, I have a penchant or selling stuff that I know about. I was the accessories guy, and got really, really good at it. I was routinely rolling $30k or better a month out the door, and the most expensive thing I had in my department was only $500. I also had one of the lowest return rates on the west coast, and a file with several letters from happy customers saying how much help I had been. Eventually, the store’s numbers improved, especially my department. Eventually, we were #1 for our district, and #3 on the west coast, behind Hollywood and San Francisco.
However, NONE of that mattered to the GM or anyone from corporate. All they wanted was more from me. My numbers had to be better every month, or I’d get yelled at. I was written up for having a low sales month one January because I went on vacation. I would get daily emails and phone calls from the district and regional managers, demeaning to know why I hadn’t hit $xxxx in sales yet. My hours got bumped up to the point where my days consisted of sleeping, showering, eating, and working. I had zero social life. My gf at the time would go weeks without seeing me. Eventually, because of the stress, I developed an ulcer. So I decided to quit.
I threw myself into my last month, which just happened to be December, the month all retail workers hate. I worked extra hours, sold as much as I could, contacted old customers, you name it. Blew everyone out of the water, rolling just shy of $80,000 in gear. My boss called me in to his office, and said I was doing a good (not great, good) job, and to keep it up. I pointed to the sales numbers screen, pointed out how well I had been doing and how well liked I was by the customers, and asked for a raise. He laughed and said no. So I handed him my resignation letter. 2 weeks later I was done and starting classes in college, something I’d had to put off since work wouldn’t allow me to cut hours for school.
I came back to the store a couple months later, as someone who had worked with me called and said they’d found a jacket of mine in the warehouse. When I showed up, the GM wasn’t there. I asked, and what I was told was that apparently, corporate HAD noticed me, and when my GM had failed to retain me, they’d fired him. Also, that department went from #1 to #9 in the district, out of 11 stores. The district managers were scrambling to recover, a few got demoted because of how things panned out, and the extreme higher-ups were not happy that the district was in such a state. I laughed the laugh of the vindicated.
“Two Milk Notice”
“When I graduated high school, I got a job at a local Walmart, and despite three years experience at Radio Shack, was assigned to their Dairy Department.
Working Dairy at Walmart is probably the worst job I’ve ever had. When the job goes as planned, you should be spending about half your time ‘throwing’ milk, and the other half refilling cheese/eggs/yogurt/etc. However, when I got hired, the Dairy Supervisor (We will call him Bill) was from what I understand, new and a little off; Which caused a lot of people to quit or ask to be moved to other departments. Eventually it got so bad that I was actually the only person in the Dairy department besides my manager.
‘Throwing’ milk is the worst part of the job, because about 1 in 20 gallons of milk are defective, and leak onto other gallons of milk. When you have a room with a couple hundred gallons of milk, it means a pool of milk in your work area, which gets in your shoes/socks, and on your pants, which smells fantastic at the end of an 8 hour workday.
People quitting at Walmart wouldn’t normally be interesting, but a week after I started, the only two other grocery stores in the town went on strike. Now, this Walmart served about a 50 mile radius of probably about 200,000 people. And the statistics were that for every 10 people that walked into Walmart, 6 walked out with a gallon of milk. Meaning that I was now solely responsible for up to 120,000~ people’s milk needs. Basically, my job became ‘throw milk for 8 hours’.
While that would have sucked enough, as it so happens, it’s a requirement in the retail world that you be an idiot to advance to management; And Bill had that in spades. This a-hole would come screaming at me that I needed to fill the eggs/yogurt/etc, but wouldn’t help me or get help for me for the 120,000 needing their freaking milk. So, after 3 months of getting yelled at for putting in 100%, you tend to get a little bitter, but also pretty good at whatever you’re being yelled at for. I developed a ‘style’ of throwing that involved grabbing two gallons at a time (each crate holding 4 gallons), and using my knee to kick off an empty crate.
Anyway, I get a call (while on break) from Corporate Radio Shack, and they really wanted to get me on board to help open a new store. So, I told them I’d be available in two weeks after I resigned from Walmart, and they agreed.
Fresh off break and in a great mood, I decide to finish the shift and put in my two weeks after. But not 60 seconds after I clock back in, I’m told that Bill is looking for me and is furious. Bill slams open the door, ‘Where the eff have you been?’ to which I reply I was on my break, and go back to double-fisting gallons of milk like a champ. ‘Don’t effing ignore me!’ to which I reply with:
‘Know what Bill? I just got offered a job from a Corporate Office. I was going to finish out my two weeks, but instead I’m gonna put in my two milk notice.’ And I softball underhand two gallons of milk about 40 feet at Bill, which hits the concrete floor and sprays him from the thighs down. As I was walking out, I could watch the look on his face move from rage to terror, as he realized his new job was now ‘Throw milk for 8 hours.'”
“He Said She Said” Turned Into Class Action
“I worked for a small lottery parlor chain for the better part of a year back around 2008. It was a single employee operation, so I worked a 10-hour shift with no breaks or a lunch. All in all, it wasn’t a bad job and had good tips.
One day, out of the blue, the region manager calls me into the store and tells me that I’m suspended. No warning whatsoever. I asked her why, and she flat out tells me that I’m frightening away the patrons because of my ‘preference’/identity (I’m gay). The next day, she calls me to say that I’m no longer needed. I tried for a lawsuit, but it was he said she said kinda thing.
Flash forward to last month. I get a call from a lawyer asking me if I want to take part in a class action lawsuit against this company for discrimination and unfair wage compensation practices. I told them my story and now I’m a class representative for the case. I’m so ready for this court case.
On The Side Of Caution
“I was working maintenance at an ice rink. The rule for anyone who knows how an ice rink works is if the zamboni doors open, you get off the ice. Some idiot decided to ignore the fact that they were open and that I was standing in the doorway, and decided to rip off one last slap-shot. The puck bounced off the glass and hit me in the head.
I was OK, but reported it to my boss, because we have to fill out an incident report for things like that. The boss asked ‘Are you OK?’ I said I feel OK, then he responded with ‘Well, we don’t really have to report it then do we?’ I reminded him of the protocol, but it was clear he didn’t want to do it. Since he wouldn’t do it, I sent a descriptive email of the incident up to the administration, because I felt there should be some sort of documentation/paper trail in case god-forbid I ended up having a brain hemorrhage or something a few days later.
The boss was fired by my next shift.”
“For The Sake Of The Customer”
“I’m an IT consultant, and have a rep of being really competent with Microsoft Exchange Server. A couple of years ago I bid on but did not get a project to upgrade an Exchange 2003 environment to Exchange 2010. Multiple servers, multiple sites and right up my alley. The firm that won the bid did so by pricing it extremely low, about 40% below my price which was on the low end to begin with. Totally unrealistic pricing, but they thought they could pull it off with their people. Their people were good generalists but did not have a handle on Exchange 2010.
I told the customer – who I’d done work for before and who I’d had a good relationship with – that it was not going to end well for them. They took it as sour grapes on my part. Fair enough. I had plenty of other things to do anyway, so I just moved on.
Two weeks after they started the implementation phase of the job the other consulting firm augured in. The entire email system stopped working. No mail coming in or out, no mail flowing between any of the Exchange servers, everything just dead in the water. I find this out when I get a call late one evening at my home from the other consulting company begging me to pull them out of the fire. I told them no thanks. An hour later the owner of the other firm is at my front door trying to convince me to help them ‘for the sake of the customer.’ This is well after dark and the conversation does not go well. He ends up screaming at me and I slam the door then call the cops because I’m tired and afraid that I’ll do something stupid if I continue to interact with the guy.
Cops come, he loses it, they arrest him for disorderly conduct and I have his freaking car blocking mine in my driveway. I have it towed off (I had to pay for the privilege too). He spends the next 24 hours in jail, about average for getting through the Dallas County jail I’m told.
The customer called me the following day and I again declined to fix the mess. By this time I’d decided I didn’t want any of that on me, period.
The customer ends up getting Microsoft Services in to fix everything (cost them about five times what I was going to charge by the way). The customer sues the other consulting firm, which promptly files for bankruptcy / closes its doors rather than deal with the lawsuit.”