No matter how long you’ve been working at a company, it’s important to be on your best behavior around your boss. You might feel comfortable cracking jokes after a while or sprinkling in small details about your personal life. But it’s always wise to be careful what you reveal, just in case.
However, if your boss doesn’t seem to prioritize acting professionally around their employees, it might be time to call them out. Redditors have recently been opening up about times they managed to put toxic supervisors in their place without getting fired, so we’ve gathered the juiciest stories below. Enjoy reading through, and be sure to upvote the things you wish you could say to your boss!
#1
Starbucks. Manager was talking to the DM, kissing a*s and lying about her performance and the store's performance.The phone rang. It was an irate customer whom she had just called the N word.
I said "Hey, Michelle, that woman whom you referred to as a ghetto a*s N word is on the phone. She wants to talk to you. She has Corporate on the line."
She turned so many different colors! She was gone by the end of my shift. Of course, it was all my fault in her eyes. ?.
Image credits: anon
#2
One supervisor yelled at me for eating candy in front of her. I’m a T1D and needed the sugar or else I’d faint. She got strike 2 of 3 and was removed as my supervisor. A new one was assigned to my sector.I should’ve just fainted and got worker comp. and her a*s fired.
Image credits: Constant_Ad_8477
#3
I had a manager who thought it was part of his job to manage people's personal lives too. I (female) was stuck with him and another manager (also female) in a car en route to an offsite meeting. He took this opportunity to ask me about my recent slew of "so-called" doctor appointments I had had. They had been legitimate appointments and I could have even provided doctors' notes if he had asked, but he didn't go that route. I simply asked him if he wanted to continue the conversation when we got back to the office and HR could be present or if I should arrange for a consultation with my attorney. He shut up really quickly.
Image credits: readingreddit4fun
#4
Had a manager insist that I am reachable while on holiday. I said no. He kept insisting. I said ok, I will give you my wifes number. If you feel something comes up during my absence that can not wait or be done by someone else, you call her and explain why you absolutely need to talk to me. If she hands me the phone I will talk to you.Guess what, he never called.
Image credits: maatc
#5
One time, I confronted my toxic superior calmly and professionally about their behavior in a one-on-one meeting. I made sure to cite specific examples and how their actions were affecting the team. I also emphasized that I wanted to have a positive working relationship moving forward. Surprisingly, they were receptive to my feedback and actually apologized for their behavior. Since then, our dynamic has improved significantly. It just goes to show that sometimes addressing the issue head-on can lead to a positive outcome without putting your job at risk.
Image credits: TrainerFun1442
#6
I had been groomed for a management position for 6 months. At that point my boss announced his retirement and that I'd be stepping into his role. One of my colleagues took exception to this and accused my boss of playing favorites because we were friends. We had become friends over the course of him training me for his job.Anyway, she went to my bosses boss, and her boss, and got herself an interview. After that she threatened to make a discrimination complaint if they didn't give her the job. So they gave her the job and begged me not to quit. I said I wouldn't quit but I'm looking to advance my career and if I can't do it here I'd find somewhere I could.
I worked for 3 months under her. She made my life hell and tanked the department. Meanwhile, the bosses created a whole new position for me, with more money, more autonomy, my own office, and I'd report directly to a VP.
And a few months after that she(the one that took my job) was fired.
Image credits: CaptainPeachfuzz
#7
My first job was at McDonald’s. One of the managers had worked for my mom a few years before and hated my mom. She was a dogshit employee and my mom fired her because of it. When she realized who I was she started treating me like s**t and making me do all the s****y stuff, cutting my hours when possible and giving me bad shifts like overnights on the weekend then lunch shifts during the week just to f**k with me.One day she yelled at me because my hair was too long. I literally shave my head to 1/4” every other week so it was at most 1/2” long maybe. My response was “my head is shaved you f*****g a*****e” and took my hat off to show her. The main store manager was there. Luckily I had been reporting all of the mistreatment and the store manager agreed that my hair has never been too long. I got talked to about cussing at her. She got fired.
I am 100% sure she hates my entire family at this point.
Image credits: iamacannibal
#8
Had a boss who repeatedly stripped my name off reports and emails I'd written, then submitted them as her own to our VP. I started bcc'ing the VP, with whom I had a good relationship. He called her into his office to ask her questions about the work and to compliment 'her' efforts. She claimed all the credit and lied to his face. He called her on it. She was fired the next day.
Image credits: streamstroller
#9
I worked in IT consulting. I asked for a pay increase and my manager (one of three partner/owners) said I wasn't worth it. I said okay and thought challenge accepted. It took me 3 days to find a new job and put in my notice. One of the other partners called me up and asked what happened. I told him. Apparently the asshat partner was doing other crappy stuff and they bought him out a year later.
Image credits: Lally_919_221
#10
I brought him homemade cookies every day until his clothes didnt fit right and he looked ridiculous.
Image credits: Successful-Clock-224
#11
I quit with no notice, I emailed my resignation letter to him and copied his boss and the bosses boss basically telling him all the reasons I thought he was a terrible boss and why I quit. I was second person to quit after he was hired. He was let go like 3 months later. .
Image credits: TraditionalTackle1
#12
Collective feedback from training on an IT job. When asked didn’t we learn this in training, we all said the instructor spend most of his time calling us stupid and how much better he was then the rest is. He demoted back to the same job we all had, tech support.There really wasn’t any spite or revenge in it. We were just giving honest feedback about what happened.
Image credits: cutearmy
#13
I told him in no uncertain terms that he could _not_ speak to me the way he was and that if he did it again I'd leave. I made it clear that I could walk into any restaurant on our block and get a job on the spot (true), but _he_ had no other options - there was no one who could take my 40 hrs/week and all my responsibilities (I was essentially running half the restaurant at that point) and it would take weeks to find and train somebody to do half of what I do. Betting my job on an ultimatum was terrifying, but it worked. He never spoke to me that way again.
Image credits: expat_mel
#14
I had a manager that tried to steal credit for a excel spreadsheet I created that would make reviewing and submitting expense reports 100x easier. After I showed it to her, I overheard her telling her supervisor about it, but said, "I created", not "my employee created". So I immediately changed the spreadsheet with locked cells that were password protected, with a glaring and bolded "Created by: (My name)" and resaved a copy on my drive. Then it came time to present it at the managers meeting and I copied my file over the original and when she opened it, she couldn't do anything with it and of course my name was on it. She ended up calling me into the meeting, giving me credit and I unlocked the cells and then began to explain how it worked. She was red faced the rest of the meeting with her boss glaring daggers at her.*edit - I'm shocked this blew up and some people asked about the fallout afterwards. Well there was a closed office meeting in between my manager and the Controller who hired her. The CFO didn't really like this hire, so the Controller's rep was hurt here a little when the Accounting Manager (My manager) was forced to admit this wasn't actually her creation, but someone on her team (me). My manager afterwards pulled me into a small room and said, "I'm a little confused as to why you locked the spreadsheet and changed it, I had planned to present it at this meeting and got a little embarrassed in there when I couldn't access it. It didn't make me look good." I said to her, "Well you didn't tell me about this meeting, I would have been happy to tell you about the changes I made, I added the security to it so that sales guys couldn't change the formula's and since this file is the original, I wanted to make sure the integrity of it was maintained." She couldn't really say anything and I didn't let on that I knew she tried to steal credit for my work. She definitely took a big hit in reputation and anything I did after that I password protected and made sure to copy in the Controller.
Image credits: agent_x_75228
#15
I sat calmly in a meeting with the top dawg and his little buddy, smiling and staying calm while they were yelling at me.I stayed calm as they continued to yell. I asked them to please calm down and stop yelling. The response was I'm NOT YELLING! At that point, I laughed.
That was the end of their intimidation.
Image credits: showmeyourkitteeez
#16
I had a horrible team lead who tried to sabotage me when she found out I was being considered for a promotion that would have jumped over her.We both had our own offices so I called her into mine, moved my chair up so I sat higher and pretended like I was her boss and asked her things like "did you think that behavior was appropriate?" and "what would you have done differently if given the chance to try again?". I was nervous doing this because I'd literally never spoken to any adult like that ever before in my life.
I found a new job shortly after that was a 30% pay bump and had a solid career trajectory but let management know why I was leaving and it was 80% because of that lead. Found out she was let go soon after I left because other people gave the same reason for leaving. I didn't exactly want her fired but I improved my situation and she got what was kinda coming to her I guess.
Image credits: Derp_State_Agent
#17
Not exactly my boss but she acted like she was so I’ll say it counts. She was a peer but would try to give me action items, etc.Anyway, nothing too crazy. She looked down on what I did (site building) so I took another job and then she had to do my job after I left. She learned very quickly how much work it actually was and had it all dumped on her while I moved onto better things (and got a significant raise shortly after).
Image credits: MrJigglyBrown
#18
They kept having loud parties that would way into the night. I didn't care about the drinking, which wasn't allowed on base in Iraq, but I also worked 16 hour days and they would go into like 2am some days.So after several times of me asking them and getting ignored I called the MPs. They were on a flight out the next day.
Image credits: Kolipe
#19
Not my direct superior but a guy lateral to my manager at the time.This guy (Let's call him "J") controlled the Materials and Warehouse area. I'm an engineer, and my project was taking a prototype product and working out all of the methods and processes to assemble it on the line. In order to work this all out, I was given permission to tear down storage racks in an area this guy controlled, and use that as a temporary assembly area and build two units. This was at the end of two long rows of storage racks, and I knew if I didn't block the area off, I'd have forklifts moving in and out of my assembly area all day messing around with the assemblers I got from the main line. Not only annoying but a real safety hazard.
Knowing how J operated, I knew he'd think he was getting his old, obsolete racking removed without losing any of his budget, and would still be able to access the racks from my end. I told him face to face I was planning on blocking off the aisles at that end. He asked how. I said there would be some floor stops and possibly other measures. In a meeting before the plant manager, other concerned managers and this guy, I again stated the end of the storage aisles would be blocked. "Floor stops, right?" says J. "And possibly some other methods." I reply. I also sent this out in an e-mail to all concerned.
Then "demolition day" came along. And instead of tearing apart all of the storage racks, I kept four of the best racks, put them in place perpendicular to the ends of the forklift aisles, and put the other two at right angles, neatly marking out my assembly area. I installed floor stops (basically 4" x 4" "L"-shaped steel bars) by bolting them to the floor. I also bolted the racks down, as I did plan on using them for parts and sub assembly storage.
As it happens, J was on vacation that week. When he got back, he went over to my assembly area with some tools, apparently planning on removing the floor stops. Did not expect to find the way blocked with racks full of materials and sub assemblies. So then he comes crying to me saying I never said anything about blocking the way with racking. I said I had planned on using *other measures*, as frequent forklift traffic through the assembly area would be unsafe.
He went to my boss, who said he'd been warned. He went to the Plant Manager, who said he'd been warned, in writing, even. J had the gall to mention it in the General Manager's hearing, who (having been informed by the plant manager) turned and said: "I read that e-mail, why did you think that area would be open for traffic?"
Turns out, J had ticked off a LOT of people in the plant. I was congratulated by many people from all levels in the company. J quit about six months later.
#20
I had a manager that would start screaming at me in public. I was fresh out of college and it was my first job. After a few months of this I got sick of it and started yelling back at her in public. She said to take into her office but I refused. We had it out in the open and II made her look like a fool. After that I was reassigned lol.
Image credits: andy_nony_mouse
#21
Not an interaction with a superior, but with a colleague.I work in IT, I do tech support over the phone for a financial institution. User calls and asks about an issue he's having, so I remote into his computer and start asking questions to understand the nature of the problem. I eventually ask him if he can inquire with his colleagues, to see if they're experiencing the same problem.
So he opens up our chat messaging app, asks someone to check, and follows it up with "I'm with tech support right now, not the brightest guy", which I can very clearly see because I'm still connected. So I immediately remind him that I can still see his screen and that I find what he just said very disrespectful. He gets defensive, tells me I'm asking too many questions and "shouldn't you know how to fix my problem", to which I tell him that's exactly what I'm in the process of doing. Didn't take long for him to realize he's being a douche for no reason.
In almost 10 years of doing this job at different levels, this was the first time someone apologized to me for acting out of line, and didn't just ask to speak to a manager or hang up on me. I accepted his apology, and then proceeded to not only solve the issue, but end the call on a good note.
This happened 2 weeks ago.
Image credits: DDMenace23
#22
Got tired of the managers, but not direct one, telling to do things for them. So I started carrying a sheet with my job description on it from when I was hired and every time after that if I was told by those managers to do an extra for them, I just pull out that paper and say " Sorry, it's not in my job description" and then walk away.
Image credits: TheePizzaGod
#23
I quit.She dropped to part-time and had to find other jobs.
I now have a dream job making 150% of her salary.
Image credits: stooges81
#24
Lol. In a meeting he demanded we do something completely illegal. I emailed him “as per our conversation” and he actually said yes. Immediately forwarded to his supervisor. Gone in three days. His replacement wasn’t much better.
Image credits: Over-Marionberry-686
#25
We were in different cities, and he wasn’t answering his phone. So I began emailing things I needed, and copying in his supervisor. He responded back that he expected me to keep calling, as he didn’t always check emails during his shift, and his supervisor took great exception to that.
Image credits: Ok-Lavishness-7904
#26
Wow, so many times...The district manager was cheating on his wife with our manager. I don't really care, but when they left the busy store to have sex, it became our issue.
We documented everything at the store level from empty condom wrappers in the bathroom to the days and times they left the office with a line out the door. We submitted to HR and they were left with a warning.... Well, it continued to happen and we eventually got a photo of their two company vehicles at her house. We submitted to HR again, and they were both fired. There were tears as they could not believe me and my co-workers could "do this to them".
I was called a number of names from the area manager and after he was fired, he dumped a bunch of dog poop in our mail slot. We diddnt even mind. The real s**t had taken itself out.
Image credits: Sadness345
#27
Not me but a co-worker.She had worked for the company for years and made it to a middle management position in a division of the company that was known for its turnover.
Almost immediately, the VP over the division starts giving her hell. She put up with this abusive behavior for several years because her husband had medical issues, and their younger children were still in school. Recently, she finally had enough, and took a job with a former co-worker that moved to another company.
She scheduled what ended up being an epic exit interview. Apparently the VP had been doing some creative maneuvering within the company to hide her poor decision making in regard to product cost. It all came out. Firing people who were close to discovering what she had been doing, kickbacks to vendors via gifts, gifts to the VP including Super Bowl tickets (our company is VERY strict about gifts, and the Super Bowl is even used as an example of an impermissible gift), and just general fuckery and abuse of power.
Less than a week after that exit interview, the VP and a couple of her cronies were out the door, which triggered a chain reaction of other people leaving their positions as they had apparently been abusing their lower-level power and didn’t have cover anymore.
The entire division was re-formed over several months, and my old co-worker is doing fine.
#28
Dude was a little arrogant. Hired out of house so the other guy was pissed he didn't get the offer. I just started. Dudes just on our a*s all day. 0 downtime, can't be autonomous, always had to pause and listen to how to do xyz less efficiently, etc. It got personal. We just turned out a vehicle, bro grabbed keys for another and we were talking about something for 10s tops. Dude sees it, snaps his fingers twice and yells "c'mon, let's go". Earlier in the week he started forcing us to take our lunch when he wanted and starting s**t if not. It just hit 12:00 on the dot and we were walking outside. As soon as he started talking I went" oop it's 12:00, I gotta take break or imma get written up" and dipped. I complained about the break thing and it got canned, back to normal. He was fuming. For the next week I did tiny things to make him blow up as I learned what got to him. We had a few spats in the shop and it got noticed. One day I made him say some crazy s**t while our manager was standing right behind him. Demoted the following week lmaooo.#29
I had a manager who was way over her head when she took her management position. She was from a super regulated, mature corporate setting and was joining a startup of like 150 where I was asked to help build out her team. I volunteered, as my workload was easing from my normal duties and figured I can learn some new things working under her quality department. Once she started she treated me like a total subordinate and gave super unclear instructions (she didn't know what she was doing) which evolved into me to just make documents and templates for her (I worked in supply chain and she had me making SOPs for random things lol).She was super concerned with security and editing privileges (control freak) so she would only email documents and not have them stored on the company drive (SharePoint). There ended up being like 20 uncontrolled edits of documents disseminated throughout the company and it was a mess. Keep in mind we are a startup and these documents need to be shared and edited by engineering teams relatively easy. Instead I was her little scribe writing down every little process step listed in her convoluted meetings. Again, volunteered to do this and technically my job description or duties did not change on paper...
I asked the director above her if I could just make a SharePoint with permissions so only we had access and he was totally on board and gave me permission as he was also upset with the current methods.
So I made the SharePoint, added security privileges, and things got so much easier for myself and the engineering teams as they could just add the content they needed to add directly.
She did not like this one bit. During a meeting with the engineering team, she accosted me for going above her head and said to everyone that it was so easy for anyone to go in the documents and change things (even though I described how I added access to only the responsible members aka the people she would have me email a draft to which they would all edit and send separately). I showed everyone in the meeting how that wasn't true and they all backed me up as this being a way better method and she pulled me aside and scolded me like a child saying I was "disrespectful" and all that. No one in that meeting said my conduct was disrespectful in any manner btw.
Told her fine, I will only do what my job description tells me I have authority over, which was nothing to do with document control.
I was a supply chain engineer and my contract said I was allowed to be remote so I didn't touch a single document and I stayed home and "worked remotely".
Spent the next three months doing very bare minimum supply chain stuff. Mostly went to the beach and played videogames, got really into cooking. She would try to get on my case whenever I came in and I would just remind her she needs to get approval to change my job description. As soon as my one year came around and they were officially going to change my contract and put me under her jurisdiction, I quit.
Two months later 60% of the company got laid off including her and I picked up a job that paid me 30% more.
#30
Quite a while back (a bit over twenty years now), I had a boss who was pretty vocally one of Those Guys. He was a holy roller, used to listen to right-wing radio at work without headphones (Rush Limbaugh and Jim Quinn, mostly), and would complain vociferously at his desk about Those People. I don't think he ever realized that the only sysadmin the company had (moi) was One of Those People. I kept my mouth shut because it was the best money I'd ever made at the time.The moment I had a chance to jump ship I took it, but before I left for good I decided to take advantage of another of my boss' personality quirks: He was the kind of guy who'd get his mail in the morning, drive in to work, and go through it during lunch. So I got him a gift subscription to [Not Like Most](https://ift.tt/HW1mfAv), which was a glossy periodical dedicated to promulgating Satanic thought and philosophy.
A couple of weeks after I moved and got settled in a few states away, one of my ex-cow-orkers IM'd me. "Did you do something? Bill was going through his mail this morning and he freaked out over some magazine that came in his name." I was told that this caused him no end of heartache and panic, at home or at work, and he was beside himself every time he saw another issue arrive.
Gotcha, Bill. And I hope your eldest son came to his senses and got away from you.
Image credits: virtualadept
#31
Had a buyer who was narcissistic and over-bearing to everyone, thought he was the absolute gods gift.I noticed that he had two laptops on his desk, a company one and his own an identical model. Turns out he was doing ‘company’ work on the company laptop and his own work on his laptop basically cutting deals with our customers for cut-price goods and skimming the profits for himself.
A little tip-off to a couple of directors and IT had him being chased through the building desperately trying to lose his personal laptop somewhere but he was shown to be as guilty as f**k and he was escorted off the premises by security as everyone clapped and whistled.
No one ever knew where the tip-off came from, but I didn’t care as it was one less a*s-hole at work.
Image credits: Common-Ad6470
#32
I sat for my pitty 5/10 minute lunch break with hungry and troubling stomach, and she started complaining how we all are sitting all time, and how she is only person in whole market who does stuff properly.Overwhelmed and anoyed from everything that day, and her day over day, unjustified complaining about everyone the most, i answered that i can easily pack up and go home if she prefers, since i like everybody else am useless here and she can work alone in peace (worked at recieving, validating quantity and quality, sorting and storing products at shelfs too, also drove forklift when big trucks come).
Did not get fired, but i did shut her mouth for a while, made her angry, and later that day at end of shift quit job myself.
Best decision and most satisfaying answer of my life.
Image credits: MC_Torpedo
#33
Had an RN supervisor who had it out for me due to her insecurities (was about to graduate nursing school and I would often point out things she was doing egregiously wrong) and her ignorance regarding union rules (she used to think I was leaving 15 minutes early every day when in reality I wasn't taking my last break until the end of my shift so I could ensure my assignment was completed in full). She never spoke to me about these issues formally, but would make constant passive-aggressive remarks and try to find other ways to get me in trouble.One evening she entered a 4-bedded patient room in the middle of me getting all of the men into bed for the night with a write-up. She says one of the patients I put in bed before I left the night before ended up falling out of bed and that the bed wasn't left in the lowest position. The problems here were as follows:
1. I couldn't be held responsible for an event that transpired when I was off the clock and out of the building. Another aide had assumed responsibility for my patients when my shift was over.
2. She was trying to write me up without a union delegate present. Not allowed.
3. She was trying to write me up inside a room filled with alert patients who overheard everything and were able to attest to the fact that she tried to write me up without a delegate present. Extremely inappropriate.
4. The bed was an older model that didn't go all the way to the floor, and she couldn't prove that the bed was raised or that I was responsible for the bed being raised.
So I refused to sign the write-up, to which she threatened further recourse for refusing. I told her I'd talk to the director about it in the morning and if she felt the write-up was warranted I'd sign it with a union delegate present.
The next morning I went to the director of nursing and told her what transpired. By the end of the discussion she was seeing red. I wasn't there for it, but apparently she ripped that supervisor a new a*****e and shredded the write-up in front of her. The supervisor never messed with me ever again and quit as soon as I graduated from nursing school. I am now assistant director of nursing at this job.
#34
Worked in a supermarket bakery for years and worked my way up to manager. Decided to leave my full time job and go to college. Was lucky enough to get a transfer of my job to the town/city I was going to college amd work a couple days a week in the same supermarket chain as a baker but no longer managing, which I was happy with. Within a few days the staff obviously realised I knew my job well given my experience but I was happy just doing my bit a couple days a week as one of the team. The assistant manager however seemed to take exception to staff asking me for any advice and would undermine any and every thing I said regardless if ot was correct. I advised the manager of this and he was silently watching as this continued. I then had enough and called him out big time and also advised the manager was aware and that I was sick of his childish behaviour. He never challenged me again and actually left the job shortly after. The rest of my time there was one of the most fun jobs I’ve had.#35
I was part of a union so, I had to go before arbitration if anyone wanted to fire me.No one wanted to except this underqualified manager. He got the position by just being there for 20 years and asking to change departments.
I was the only one who didn't put up with him not understanding project timelines, the correct way to do projects. I wasn't disrespectful, but I pushed back when he was setting us up for failure.
Well he asked me to do a project and I mocked up something for a COVID message with a getty stock model.
He wrote me up on bs charges and tried to fire me.
I informed the union and we went to arbitration.
I dealt with him by letting him testify. He was my absolute best defence. He was such an incompetent a*s that everything he said made me sound like the best member of his team.
Bonus: I let him write me up 2 more times while making sure I had all of our communications in writing. I just handed in the emails and the union brought him to arbitration for harassment. His bosses shoved him in a department where he couldn't cause any more trouble.
#36
Maybe not as cinematic as the others listed here, but after a conversation about a jilted ex-girlfriend and well-connected co-worker who was deliberately spreading falsehoods about me in hopes of getting me fired, I stood up from my chair and said to him "I dunno. I had this foolish hope you held ethics over professional convenience." It's been almost 6 years, and late last summer he admitted to me, only after three doubles, straight up, that what I said really stung and he had trouble sleeping for weeks after. Plus, he thought I'd said something to his boss because he was caught off guard by the reassignment that happened, soon thereafter. I truthfully told him I had nothing to do with that, and I think he believed me as I didn't have half the leverage my ex did. I spoke from the heart and I don't regret it, in the least.#37
Someone stole my ID and rang up a few grand in phone bills in my name, and one of the things I needed to prove it wasn't me making those calls from a phone 1500 miles away was a note from my HR stating I worked there and the date I started.Well literally months passing by, I managed to get old credit card statements taken off of microfiche(!?) and mailed to me before the dumb t***t upstairs could muster a 1 paragraph letter. Weekly requests, weekly pleas that she's taking care of it, and one ultimatum from the phone company later and I let her have it. Told her she was completely f*****g useless. Went downstairs to pack my things and my boss shows up with a letter and a smirk - he knew I was right. Told me not to say that to her again and we went on our merry way.
Image credits: rsnbaseball
#38
Oh! I got one!The setup isn't all the special. He wasn't good at his job. He blamed me for mistakes. I just kind of stood my ground and didn't give in to any of his increasingly insane demands. Finally, he yells at me his last words on the subject, turns to stomp away his victory march and walks straight into a wall, having lost his sense of place in the room. Like, wasn't even close to making an exit. Full body, flat into the wall.
I like to think he also still relives that moment regularly.
#39
I was an associate at the time and had just spent a good hour trying to get my student to do any work that didn't involve me writing down the answers for them. Finally (after a huge break down) got the kid to write with a marker and they were doing good age appropriate work.In walks AEA. "You know it's actually more age appropriate for the child to be writing with a pencil."
I try to keep the child distracted with the math worksheet because they hear the word pencil and were already starting to re escalate. My student was still sweaty from their first escalation and had tears on their cheeks.
"Yes I know but they don't like them because they are scratchy and we just now started getting work done. I would like to work up to it later."
AEA still standing over my shoulder clears throat (unbridged style) "please insure your student is writing with a pencil. It shouldn't be that hard to switch them over."
I sigh and stand up because I know she's going to keep pushing. "Can you demonstrate what that might look like then?"
I watch her sit in my seat pluck the marker from the students hand and place a pencil in it.
I also stood by and watched as the student screeched attempted to claw her face and cleared all the materials off the desk before shoving her over a bookshelf. She stood up dusted herself off cleared her throat and said "ah, I don't think we're quite ready for a pencil yet."
Me "? really?" As she ran out of the room.
#40
I had a colleague in a corporate IT company. We were on the same level, talking regulary, sometimes friendl chat, but she wanted to become a shift leader, which she did one day.When she became SL she started to treat me very differently. We had 99% home office and only had to show up to work once a month around 8am - but some came earlier and some later.
Anyway - I live far away from where the office is at, and it was a day to go. I arrived around 4 minutes late due to me not being able to plan a route I don’t really repeat often.
She started to belittle me, harrasing me on the chat. As time went she started to declare her position is higher than mine and that she is actually the boss. I always answered calmly, and never used any toxic words.
One day she said something about my family not being able to wake up on time. My brother at the time worked in a same company and happens to be late (he went by a bus - on time, but it just arrived late - nothing he could prepare for as buses only go every 2-3 hours from my village).
That was a last straw for me, I showed this convo to my friend, who reported it to the manager. Manager then asked me and the girl to provide screenshots. She denied and I provided everything.
She got fired.
#41
Worked at a lab. New Lab mgr was psycho. Started having meetings every morning which was good until it wasn’t. He’d pick one person and after their report he’d start berating them. Moved around day to day…diff person. Even our mild mannered scientists. He started on me one day (I was the one that handled reports on what was late but had no recourse to add staff, schedule or affect anything that would help late results) I pushed back and said scheduling needed to change to improve production. He seemed to put me in his sights after that. Would accuse me of ignoring emails (that turned out I wasn’t cc’d on), tell me not to do parts of my job description that others relied on me for and other crazy behavior. He even moved my desk away from where it was grouped with my coworkers to a hallway as a subtle punishment. He’d light into me every day. Told local HR but she was scared of him too I could tell (she did say something because it was after that he moved my desk). Got fed up. Called the company report hotline on advice from an HR (diff company) friend. They opened a case, hired an outside lawyer to investigate who interviewed me and many of my colleagues and he was fired. Turns out he was saying horrible untrue stuff about me to coworkers to undermine me, was doing similar things to others, took furniture home from the office to his apartment among other things. Never have felt so vindicated. TLDR: abusive bully boss - called the company report line - investigation - he got fired.#42
HR required him to apologize. I didn't turn him in. Someone else did, on my behalf. So I worked with HR, proved my innocence. When he called me in and faked an apology he reached his hand across his desk to shake my hand. It may as well have been a rattlesnake. I couldn't take it, didn't take it and I saw him wince. I am so glad I never touched that rattler.#43
I outworked them and showed my worth to the company, then refused a promotion and informed them that I was looking and interviewing for a position elsewhere, and would continue to do so, as long as he was still there.#44
Left and got a job elsewhere at the same level as them for a better organisation, where I'm a better manager than them.Sometimes the best revenge is simply to do your own thing and be successful.
#45
Worked in a lab calibrating devices used in litigation. So everything around their repair and service is documented because it can be used in court and will be. Anyways the technical manager I’m supposed to go to if I can’t solve something (who I trained, should have been my first sign to quit) was super lazy and didn’t want to do her job. Literally refusing to write SOP guidelines for chemical uses and other stuff. Anyways in my exit interview I provided documentation (that I had already sent my manager several times) of standards violations with OSHA and other compliance agencies, and her and my managers unwillingness to do anything about it, including an email response from her(where she’s CCd my manager who was a pushover and never did anything, he sucked at standing up for anything) saying “I don’t give a f**k, get it done and stop complaining”, and then documented cases where she would attempt to mock my PPE requests. I wasn’t the only person escorted off site that day.Sorry about the block of texts, I guess I needed to vent.
#46
Email the higher ups, and just did my job in front of them. Their job is to be the skipper on a speedboat, mine is to be crew - they would just hop in the engine bay with the boat running if there was a problem and tell me to steer. With passengers on board it’s so dangerous and illegal to do that. Speeding down the Thames at 40knts in a 30 zone. Shouting at me when I do something I didn’t know I was doing wrong, and then expecting me to just accept their apology. It gave me such anxiety I couldn’t sleep, and while I wish I’d been more self assured that I was in the right to want the higher ups to know, I still felt like i was being bothersome at the time. Foolish.I emailed and asked not to be put with him, which sparked a meeting that let me explain everything. I did it explaining what he did and how it made me feel, and that was that. He would apologise to me at some point and I told him straight that we didn’t gel, but I wish I’d gone further and told him he needed to get his act together because of how irresponsible he was.
So I did the right thing, but now I know I’d want to be more up front with things not being okay, instead of being so eager to brush things under the carpet.
#47
Left the company only to have it bought out by the one I left 5 months later. At the new company, I was brought on as a supervisor. After we were acquired, my position is now considered to be a corporate level supervisor , while my old POS of a supervisor is still classed as a local one. When I see him, I don't say anything to him, I just stare. It makes him nervous AF. Then, I proceed to talk to all of my old coworkers and tell them how wonderful life is going now. At one point, I was willing to lose money and move three states away with the company to get away from him. It all worked out in my favor in the end. For the cherry on top, since I had been gone less than six months, I was able to keep all of my benefits that I acquired over 20 years, and right before I left, I blocked him from getting a manager spot.#48
I was lab manager of an extremely small quality control lab in an industrial electro-plating company. The floor manager, let's call him Collin, was one of those men who likes to believe he knows everything. He'd take credit for other people's work, and push the blame for his mistakes onto anyone but himself. Technically we were equivalent grade, but I was younger, newer, and my team was 3 including myself, where his was 20+, also, I am female. So he acted like my superior.One day we needed to make up an acid bath, but because of the volumes involved, there was no safe way (from a manual handling perspective) to add the acid to the water, so we had to add the water to the acid.
There's a rule in chemistry to always add acid to water when diluting concentrated acid, as it creates a *LOT* of heat, and can cause an explosion. Literally one of the first things you learn in high school chemistry lessons, it's *that* important.
As we couldn't physically follow this rule, the lab staff and I were taking turns overseeing the *exceptionally* slow adding of water to the acid, constantly monitoring the temperature, stopping to let it cool whenever it got too high.
Along comes Collin, complaining that we're taking too long. I explain that we're trying not to allow the temperature to get dangerously high. Didn't think I'd need to explain *why* the temperature was rising in the first place, as this was literally an industry based on chemistry, and he was manager of the shop floor!
I move off to check something, I can't remember what, come back to find Colin instructing one of the floor lads to drag another water hose in to fill up the bath faster.
Of course I stop them, and ask what he's doing. He says he's going to add more water using the second hose, so it'll go faster, and the "water will cool down the acid".
I swear I stared at him for a full 10 seconds in shock, before I said "Well, if you're going to do that, can you wait until I'm back upstairs in the lab, with 2 closed doors between me and this acid bath."
He asks why. I explain that adding water to acid creates an *extremely* exothermic reaction. He looks blank, and asks what that means. I tell him the faster he adds the water, the quicker the heat will build up, and at the volumes we were working with (hundreds of litres) that would create an explosion, and everyone in the room would be sprayed with boiling hot acid.
Because this conversation took place in the middle of the shop floor, literally *all* of Collin's staff just watched him get schooled by a diminutive woman about basic chemistry, and a fundamental aspect of his own job. There was no way he could push the blame for that level of ignorance onto anyone else.
The look on his face in that moment is still one of the highlights of my time in that job!
#49
Someone around the office kept coming over to my desk and stealing my phone charging cable when I was away - and never returned it. I went through maybe 7 cables. So, I finally went in and bought an OMG Cable from Hak5 and I wrote a DuckyScript payload that ran automatically when it was plugged into a computer if my phone hotspot wasn’t nearby.It used the Windows Text-to-Speech system, and added a powershell script as a service that ran automatically when it wakes from sleep. The script first set the volume to 100%, and then say: “$username, I love it when you turn me on.”
I then left it on my desk and waited… The very next day when I was at lunch, gone. And then … “Brandon, I love it when you turn me on.” My immediate supervisor, caught in the act.
He stopped closing his laptop screen when getting up to go to a conference room. Always just holding it open and sideways as he walked. All to avoid talking to IT to get them to fix, or to ask me what it was… And suddenly my 3 of my missing cables and chargers were back in the drawer of my desk!
#50
While I worked for one of the big IT contractors, I got assigned to a customer project where the project management (our people) had the habit to organise "pizza nights", namely us developers would stay after hours to work and they would order pizza (under false pretenses the pizzas were never delivered before 10pm).When I got my first notice of such, I replied, copy my deployment manager (and, oops, everybody in the project?), that I would happily comply, but this making me work more than 11 hours in a single day, I was legally entitled to half a day of rest that I would take the next day.
That pizza night was cancelled, and they never did it again.
The same project manager wanted me to a have a professional phone so that she could call me. Of course the day I got it she called me during lunch. The re-enacting by a colleague of her discovering that my phone was ringing in my desk drawer became a staple of our after hours drinks.
Being a grey beard with some hard-to-find skills has its perks ?.
#51
She complained about me to our boss. I won.She’s a one woman IT department and I’m a paralegal. So she’s a department “head”, but not mine.
She was unkind while trying to help with a security clearance on my computer. While I wasn’t joyous during our interaction, I was professional. She failed to get her part of the job done.
During this time, I also asked her another question which she did not know the answer to and was further frustrated by her own ignorance.
She ended up yelling at me, stomping away complaining that I was just trying to make her look stupid.
I documented the exchange and listed my willing coworker as a witness. I did nothing more.
A week later, HR calls me in telling me the boss wanted him to get my side of her story.
So I went there with a file folder and asked more questions than I answered at first. Then they were asking me about my faith in her to do her job.
I said, “Look. I don’t have a copy of her job description so I’m not qualified to answer. But I can tell you, I have a file of documented incidents of her not solving my simple security clearance for me to receive records. The incident she complained about? Yeah, those records are still not unlocked for me to file. So…”
And that was that. She still works here, but I know damn well that she is on thin ice.
And I am not.
#52
Principal told me I would have a class of 45 students in a classroom that did not have proper air conditioning (one freestanding unit in the corner that kept the room at about 85 degrees). I told her she could not cram 45 kids into an 85-degree room, she told me she could do whatever she wanted because she was the principal.That night I called the parents of all 45 kids and explained the situation. The next morning a handful of them were waiting by the front door to meet with the principal, many of them had emailed the superintendent directly. By lunch time the class had been split into two groups of 22 and 23 and been relocated to a fully air conditioned room.
That principal left before the first semester was over, not sure whose decision it was.
#53
I(M) was repeatedly hit on by our newly hired COO over the course of several years. It culminated with him getting a little too touchy. I went to HR and without naming names, I explained that a certain superior co worker was behaving badly toward me. She asked me to draft a letter with days/dates and what occurred, again without naming names. I had kept track. I gave her the redacted letter as asked and she held onto it until the day I put in for my retirement one month later, when she asked me who the offending party was. I told her and she said she would handle it. Apparently she told the principals who must have spoken to the COO as he submitted his resignation disguised as a "new opportunities await" email the next day.#54
I just told them no. Back when I was an insurance fraud investigator I had one particular claim that was referred that literally had no fraud indicators. Pursuing a fraud investigation on a claim with zero indicators is a recipe for a bad faith claim.The particular reason this claim was referred over was because the adjuster did not like how the claimant had spoken with them and she happened to be buddy buddy with my boss. I always referred to these as mean man referrals and sent them back because being a jerk does not equal fraud.
With this claim I got a call from my boss telling me I needed to accept the claim for investigation after I had sent it back. I went over the claim with her, explained that there were no fraud indicators, and explained I wouldn’t do it. They continued to persist and I advised I wasn’t doing anything against our policy and if she really wanted it to be investigated she could do it herself. My persistent nos eventually made them give up and I never saw that claim again.
Long story short is my boss and her friend had a personal vendetta against the claimant and tried to use me to make their life a living hell and I was having none of it.
#55
I had a boss who was very abusive to his staff. Blatantly sexist to the women on the team. Wouldn't pay people overtime. After three years, I negotiated a raise and then he only gave me half of it, claiming the other half had to come later at some unspecified point in time. I was furious. So I wrote a letter of resignation to submit to our Board of Directors, came in the next day, and told him that if he didn't honor his agreement, I would send it to every single Board member.As soon as he read it, he knew he'd probably lose his job if the Board found out about the wage theft, the retaliation, and the sexism. I managed to negotiate proper raises for myself and three of my female colleagues. That gave me some big d**k energy for awhile.
But honestly, looking back on it, I wish I had just sent the letter to the BoD. Yeah, some things got better, but other things got worse and there was very little reason to protect his job other than the fear of the unknown of what would happen if he was replaced.
#56
I was on leave after a work place injury and my pay dropped to 70% for LTD when it was supposed to remain at 100%. I contacted HR and the woman I spoke to said it would be fixed on my next pay with retro. Next pay comes, another dropped pay and no retro. I call her again but this time she doesn’t answer, I leave her a voicemail, no call back. The next day I send an email but she doesn’t respond. I thought she might be on PTO but I wasn’t getting an “out of office” e-mail that HR typically uses. I was being ignored.I waited a couple more days then I reached out to a senior level manager that I worked with for years and knew was reliable. The chain of events that followed was extraordinary. This senior manager sent an e-mail to the HR person and CC’d other senior managers, a director and a few other high level positions to have my concern resolved immediately. I was Bcc’d into the email thread and the negligent HR person was professionally shred to pieces after trying to blame someone else.
I thought she was rude and dismissive from the start so reading her e-mail full of excuses just to have it thrown back at her as being “totally unacceptable” was quite satisfying.
#57
Gave my 2 week notice without having another job lined up. This caught the attention of a senior executive who then asked to meet with me. We talked for 3 hours. 2 weeks later, my boss was fired and I got a raise and a promotion.And to make clear, that story sounds like I'm a manipulative power player, but I assure you it was all inadvertent and unplanned. I just got lucky.
#58
I got swine flu (or some horrible sickness) back in 2009. I missed three days of work in a row. I was only 19 at the time, and due to the rotten coincidence that me getting sick around spring break, my boss assumed I was lying about being sick and was just partying all week. On the third day of calling in sick, he told me that I could take that day off, but if I called in sick again the next day, I can just look for a new job.I came back to work the next day looking pale, sweaty and noticeably lighter (lost a few pounds after battling it for almost a week). Boss doesn't say anything or apologize, even after a bunch of my coworkers mention how sick I look.
A couple days later, I'm called in on my day off. My boss got really sick and they were short staffed and needed help. It's worth noting my boss worked there for 24 years, and this was the first time he called in sick for work.
#59
Sent him an email to read on the day he got back from a two week vacation telling him I was resigning my position. My last day would be two weeks from the day of his return. I got walked out but they paid me. I technically got fired, but I feel like this is in the spirit of the question.#60
I was relentlessly bulied by my line manager when I worked in the pathology office for the NHS some years back. One day, I'd had enough and things got a bit heated. Eventually, I just snapped back at her "I'm right and you know I'm right, but you just won't admit it. So we might as well just end this here because I just don't care anymore!" And it did just end there. She was so shocked, she just said "Right." quietly and went back to working.The argument was loud enough that the laboratory staff all heard and sent someone to check when it suddenly went quiet because they thought we'd either killed each other or I'd walked out. It was amazing! Still shocked to this day that I kept my job.
#61
New CFO kept putting off my request for new equipment. I kept email chains of all communications, and it blew up in his face later when we didn’t have the equipment I kept recommending.Side note: some people try to get around this by doing things through calls and meetings. If you can’t do transcripts for those I HIGHLY suggest you summarize in an email and ask them for their input. If no input is given it is often interpreted later as tacit agreement.
#62
I was being outed at work by my supervisor, and his supervisor told me to come in before my next shift to discuss what was happening. He basically told me "deal with it" and that he wasn't going to do anything to stop rumors or make me feel safe. After a 20 minute conversation I handed him my badge and said I was resigning. The look on his face was priceless.#63
I told him he reminded me of a famous tv show host that was in the news for being a terribly mean boss. He said to keep my voice down cause if management heard my joke he'd get in trouble. I shrugged and said I wasn't joking and got back to work.#64
Caught them in several lies and had video evidence to back it up .#65
Got into with a manager, who wasn't my manager, but I did work closely with him. This was at a dealership, he was the used car manager, I was a detailer. Had an older guy in our department who was semi-retired. Used car manager decided this guy was his new personal assistant the 3 days a week he worked. Well one day we got absolutely hammered with sold cars and customers work, so we had to have this guy come back and help us out, which was technically his job anyways. Used car manager came back throwing an absolute toddler style tantrum over this guy working with us and not pulling cars off the lot just to run through the car wash and park again (aka busy work). I was about 6hrs deep already of non stop work, no lunch break and it was about 85 degrees that day. I wasn't in the mood as you can probably guess. I flipped out on him. We were basically nose to nose yelling back and forth for a bit. I eventually got him to the point where he knew I was right and he was left speechless and stormed out. I never even got written up let alone fired. But the manager didn't talk to me for awhile and he gave me the shittiest cars to detail for a while after, but he never came back with that type of attitude again.#66
I’m an event planner and one of our new VPs was a complete b***h. Though I had been doing my job well for well over a decade and she was new, nothing was ever up to her expectations. One time I did all the event planning, logistics, catering, AV etc for her sales conference in Miami but she didn’t want me on site for the event. Ok. You got it lady. What she didn’t expect is that since I negotiated the contracted with the host hotel and did all the pre-planning, they sent me the invoice. Not someone from her team. And let’s just say I’m like a MF forensic accountant when it comes to reconciliation of complex invoices. I did a deep dive and sure enough the b***h charged a massage, hair styling, dry cleaning and washing of over 20 PAIRS OF PANTIES to our master account WHICH IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN BY OUR COMPANY. We have a compliance department which I reported her to. I secretly met with them, and showed them some of the other charges that weren’t really allowed but they didn’t seem that concerned I deliberately kept the panties on the very last page a presented to them ? Didn’t happen right away, but yeah, she got fired and I still work for my company. And PS the conference was only 3 days so wtf are you doing with 20 pairs of panties??#67
My district manager was never around enough to know what my real voice sounded like, so every time I talked to her, I would switch to doing my impersonation of her to her face. She never said anything.#68
I was doing a job with a title above mine for about a year as my boss kept dangling the promotion. I was doing well too, beating every metric. Come review time to see whether I’d get the promotion or not, I was told it still wasn’t enough. I said “you know what? I don’t want it anymore. I’m going to just stick to doing my actual job title’s duties (which I was also really good at, objectively). Boss didn’t like this, insisted I still hadto do the promotion job’s duties. I said “no, that’s not in my job description”. They couldn’t touch me because by every metric I was doing extremely well at the job for which I was actually being paid . Felt good. I quit this company shortly thereafter (I’d been there for 12 yrs) to a competitor that actually paid me for the job I’d been temporarily been doing for free at the old company.
#69
We had an employee football game, I knocked him out. Gotta keep your head on a swivel. I for sure thought i was gonna get fired or something, but I found out that managers aren't supposed to hang out with employees so nothing happened.Probably doesn't count but that's as close as I got.
#70
I can't remember what started it, but we got physical to the point of shoving each other a few times, before slipping on something and both falling to the ground. This guy was the owner of the restaurant. We just separated and went back to work for a little while, and then eventually i went in the office and was like "that was weird, my bad" and he pretty much said the same. Nothing else came out of it.from Bored Panda https://ift.tt/sOnNfcS
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