‘Take the promotion or you’re fired': Carpenter gets even with boss who gives him an ultimatum, taking $45,000 worth of tools

Eleonora Bader

Jul 16, 2023 6:00 PM EDT

Management often cut the branch they're sitting on, find themselves on the floor, and then have the audacity to complain about it. In this case, OP was working for a whopping 20 years as a lead carpenter for a construction company. They hired a new president and brought in a coaching company along with him. The coaching company in question was attempting to get profits up from 50 to 750 million a year. Thus began their detective work, starting with who earned how much at the company. OP was making 65k a year (before the bonus) at the time.

OP got called into the office for a meeting with HR, the president, and 'the coach'. The president told OP that their pay rate fit a different role, a superintendent. Then he told OP that he either changed his role to be a superintendent, or he was fired. OP glared at the president but asked him to give him the weekend to think over it, to which the president hesitantly agreed.

That weekend, OP hatched a clever plan for petty revenge… scroll down to read about it. For more, here is a company that crumbled after refusing to give an employee an 8% raise.