‘You’ll work when I tell you to work’ : Terrible boss makes employee work on vacation, cue malicious compliance, boss gets fired, employee gets boss's job

Author image for Eleonora Bader
Eleonora Bader
Mar 5, 2023 1:00 PM EST

When a boss is as terrible at managing projects as he is at managing people, trust you're gonna suffer the consequences, whatever they may be. This employee had to work on his vacation to make up for the ridiculous amount of time lost thanks to awful management. He was working on a project for his company, of which he and his team were behind schedule. The reason for that being… his boss. He quickly realized that he was going to be the scapegoat for said lousy management, so he handed in his two-week notice during his vacation.

His boss was shocked and tried convincing him to stay, but it was too late. After the employee left, his old company reached out to him, offering his old boss's position, as apparently upper management wasn't that stupid. Shocker. Scroll down to read how this employee's malicious compliance turned into petty revenge.

For a tale as old as time, a server losing a tip because of a huge miscommunication that wasn't his fault, click here.

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  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 9740309760
    via Canva
  • 02

    The result of malicious compliance, as told by OP.

    Font - Posted by u/shabutie 7 hours ago Work During my Planned Vacation? Then have to pay me extra when I leave A L OC I'd been working at this company for about 3 years. I had been consistently growing in my role and eventually was giving a project to own, with 1-2 other team members if needed, but it was a major project, with a quick turnaround. I determined I could do it myself, though it would be tight, and since I was hoping for a promotion, I took on the project solo.
    via u/shabutie
  • 03
    Font - I was able to deliver the project slightly ahead of schedule, and with better quality than expected which allowed us to make a huge sale. The head of the company gave me an award at an All Hands meeting for the work I did, and my boss let me know I was on track for an end of year promotion, with a nice pay raise and more responsibilities. But I was needed in another part of the business, so I was going to have to transfer under a new manager that was notoriously hard to work with.
    via u/shabutie
  • 04
    Font - I transferred to this manager and the first meeting we had to get on the same page, I brought up that I had a 3 week, planned vacation in 4 months. I had never taken vacation, so had 6 weeks saved up and did not want to start losing it. He told me "of course", that would be fine and we would be able to make it work.
    via u/shabutie
  • 05
    Font - About a week later, we have our first meeting with our product team. They had a new, large project idea and wanted it to be released in just 3 months. As my team looked over the details, we knew this was a 6-8 month project at best, and it would be better to deliver it in smaller increments (so they still had something to show in 3 months), or we would need to push out the schedule. My boss was adamantly against both, so throughout the next week he made us have last minute 3-4 hour "brain
    via u/shabutie
  • 06
    Font - At the end of the week, there was no way we could figure out to deliver everything on the shorter timeline, and so my boss asked me to stay behind after the meeting. For another hour, he railed against me, saying I was failing at this project and that he could not see me getting a "good" annual review the in 4 months, and that a promotion wasn't even on the table. This annual review would also include the project I had just received an award for, and is suppose to encompass 12 months of w
    via u/shabutie
  • 07
    Font - At this point, I knew he was ready to use me as a scapegoat for his bad management, and started applying elsewhere. We continued working on the project and sure enough, at the end of 3 months, we were still far from being able to deliver and my boss was getting heat from up above. Right around this time, I received an offer for another company, that would be the promotion I wanted, and an even larger pay increase. I accepted the offer and negotiated my start date to be after my vacation (
    via u/shabutie
  • 08
    Font - That same day, my boss calls me into his office and tells me "we need to talk about this vacation". I reminded him that we had talked about it months before and that everything is booked: flights, hotels, etc. He would not let up and told me there was no way I could take 3 weeks off with how behind schedule we are. He told me I could go on my trip, but I could not take vacation and would be expected to be online during our business hours throughout the trip (4am -1pm local time in my vaca
    via u/shabutie
  • 09
    Font - Every morning while on vacation, I would log on at 4am, check emails, answer questions on our internal chat, and do the minimum work expected, logging off as soon as it hit 1pm, all without burning any vacation. With one week left in vacation, I requested a conference call with my boss, to give him my two weeks notice. He was shocked and tried everything to get me to stay and finish out the project, including bringing back up a possible promotion. I told him I had already accepted a job w
    via u/shabutie
  • 10
    Font - Because my boss required me not to take vacation, the company had to pay out all of my accrued vacation once I left (a little less than 7 weeks at this point), including the 3 weeks I had originally planned to take. Now short staffed, I heard from other coworkers that the project missed two more adjusted deadlines and eventually the manager was demoted before being let go from the company.
    via u/shabutie
  • 11
    Font - About 6 months later, the head of the first company asked me to lunch to offer me a role taking over my former boss's old position. I negotiated an even higher pay increase, as well as company equity, and ended up going back there for 3 more years.
    via u/shabutie
  • 12

    Commenters weigh in on the events that occured.

    Organism - ECAO 7 hr. ago Congratulations! Glad to see the old boss is gone and you got his spot! Well done. Vote shabutie OP Reply Share Vote . 7 hr. ago Thanks! It ended up being a huge jumping off point for my career but has always been an example of what I never want to do as a manager. Reply Share
    via u/ECAO, u/shabutie
  • 13
    Font - fair-crimson . 7 hr. ago I saw a win coming but not THAT many. Good job. Vote CoderJoe1 +3.6 hr. ago You can't play leap frog without pushing off the back of the guy ahead of you. Well played. Reply Share Vote Reply Share
    via u/fair-crimson, u/CoderJoe1
  • 14
    Font - lunaleeloo well done Vote +2.7 hr. ago Vote Reply Share Veriden_ +2.7 hr. ago Win win good for you Reply Share
    via u/lunaleeloo, u/Veriden_

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Tags

promotion work stories toxic-workplace malicious-compliance-reddit horrible-management petty revenge boss-fired overworked-employee bad bosses
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