'I wasn't getting paid enough for my effort': Company brings in analyst to justify firing worker, they get a $10,000 raise instead when they pretend to quit and disable their automated tasks

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Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Aug 6, 2023 9:00 AM EDT

Throughout your working life, you will continually be under-appreciated for your efforts. If you're an especially hard worker, even if your boss appreciates you, they still probably don't understand how much you do or the scope of your contribution. Unfortunately, without proper documentation and ticketing of the odd jobs you're doing, you're relying entirely on management's perception of you and your work. And if you're not advocating for yourself constantly and managing upward, there's a good chance they may even be questioning whether or not you're worth keeping around. 

That's what this worker discovered was happening when a rude mystery manager suddenly appeared on the company's management team. The guy was an absolute nightmare to deal with and to work with and just an overall unpleasant individual. 

The worker began to dig around and uncovered evidence that the manager had been brought on to perform an analysis as to whether or not the worker's position was relevant and necessary within the organization. The manager's notes were derogatory, inaccurate, and generally didn't take into consideration all of the contributions the worker was making to the organization. Angry, upset, and put out, the worker disabled all of the automation that they had created that was saving other members of the organization valuable time—they then scheduled themselves on an immediate two-week leave. 

The predictable happened, and chaos ensued, which led to the worker's boss begging them to come back—and to not leave the company as they had been planning—netting them a nice raise and the removal of the rude mystery manager.

Read on for this brilliant workplace story, originally shared with Reddit's r/pettyrevenge sub. 

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  • 01
    Font - About 5 years ago my company brought in an individual to see if my position was "no longer needed". I passed with flying colors... Not to give too much info away, I was hired at an organization as a job title of basically "helper". Well for someone who is supposed to just be helping, I had a ridiculous amount of work. Almost all of my coworkers were huge technologically illiterate boomers. So I actually sort of thrived this as a very useful person. For example, one guy would spend half hi
    via u/Frostytoes99
  • 02
    Font - I wrote a program to do this automatically but did not tell him. So I would just run it occasionally as part of my responsibilities. Anyway, I did a lot of stuff like this, I'd estimate i saved about 15 hours of work every day, on top of the 8.5 hours I did too! but then insert sergeant foface. (This wasn't the military but I just like to call him that.)
    via u/Frostytoes99
  • 03
    Font - We are having a team meeting when he shows up. White hair combed okayish, a scrunched face, glasses. He just sort of just showed up one day and took notes during our morning meeting. At one point someone brought up a name of one of our customers. I said, oh is that the 300 lb guy with a big beard? Sort of as a joke because I mostly do back end stuff. There was a guy like this I recently did some entrance stuff for. But I was wrong and my boss said no it's blah blah some other person.. oka
    via u/Frostytoes99
  • 04
    Font - Fast forward about a week and this Sgt ff is a complete fong douchebag to me. I don't know why, he will ignore me during group conversations and literally sometimes scoff at me. Who actually scoffs at people?? I was having a really rough week looking for some extremely important files. People were yelling all day. I was exasperated. Too much to do, I was having anxiety attacks at home in the middle of the night. But it was Friday so I was pulling through.
    via u/Frostytoes99
  • 05
    Font - As i looked for this file I ended up deep on our file structure and the search returned a personal folder structure within one of the drives. I clicked out of curiosity and there it was "Sgt ff's notes". I opened it and there was a whole section about me. This guy basically goes from location to location getting people fired to save the CEOs money. And he was working on me now. I scrolled through his notes and at the very top I saw
    via u/Frostytoes99
  • 06
    Font - "Frosty thought a 4'10 24 year old female patient was a 300 lb bearded man. Clearly atrocious attention to detail" That's just ONE example of how completely f up his comments were. So, in combination with my job (which I generally liked and enjoyed helping people) knowing I wasn't getting paid enough for my effort. This horrible week I had. And Sgt ffaces comments, I said fothis.
    via u/Frostytoes99
  • 07
    Font - I set up 3 email configurations. 1. To my boss letting him know I will be taking 2 weeks of vacation time. To be sent at 10pm tonight. 2. To the company letting them know I will not be present for 2 weeks so whatever work they currently need me to do they will need to do themselves. To be sent Monday morning at 4 AM. 3. For any emails that came in, I set an auto response that said "I will be out for an unknown amount of time, for any routine, emergency, or even occasional items, it is imp
    via u/Frostytoes99
  • 08
    Font - Then I swung by ff's temporary office and said "I think I found a way to make your job easier!" He didn't even really turn his head to look at me but just raised one eyebrow. Then I left. I actually got multiple calls on Monday morning I didn't answer. It didn't last long apparently. But I stayed strong and didn't respond to anything. On Wednesday I had a little anxiety about it but I stayed as strong as i could. I thought about the tasks that needed a 2 day turnaround... there's no way s
    via u/Frostytoes99
  • 09
    Font - I got a long email to my personal account (I guess from my resume or when I interviewed) from my boss on Thursday night of the first week! It went something like this: "Frosty, I know you're a smart person and probably figured out what the company had us doing. I would say it's very important you call me but that probably isn't going to work I see. I've talked with sgt ff's boss, and he will be leaving our location. I explained our progress meetings seemed to be going in the wrong directi
    via u/Frostytoes99
  • 10
    Font - I am sure you are probably looking at other jobs at this point, or maybe you have even started one. I hope not. If you could please reach back to me I would like to offer you a raise. It has become very apparent how useful you are around here. I hear about it every day, believe me." So I came back on Monday with a 10,000 dollar raise and Sgt fi face out of my face. My boss apologized again in person and said he didn't get a say in it. I think it's a little weird he could have a say after
    via u/Frostytoes99
  • 11
    Font - BaronIbelin With jobs that involve 'helping' or 'fixing problems', your work is often difficult to show on paper- which is why a ticketing system might help! That being said, my own company has a decent ticketing system, but most of my clients don't open a ticket, and my life is filled with shoulder-taps. 2.6k JerusalemAll Reply Share 633 ●●● Same, I have just started blaming management telling me to not move without a ticket, 60% of the time it works 100% of the time. Reply Share
    via u/Frostytoes99
  • 12
    Font - spryfigure I fully believe your boss. Only after shit really hits the fan will the C-suite listen. 7.0k ziapelta I do too. For executives, there's a big difference between a lower level manager saying things will fall apart and everything is on fire right now Reply Share 2.8k Reply Share sarabeara12345678910 1.3k ... One of my constant sayings to my boss is "if only someone had warned them this would happen. Oh wait. We did". Then I get to fix the issue that shouldn't have happened in the
    via u/Frostytoes99

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