'She is very happy with the results until she reaches ours': Customer service worker gets thrown under the bus by "unprofessional" boss, holds a grudge for two years

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jul 25, 2024 5:00 PM EDT

Giving your overworked employees even more work: what could possibly go wrong? This person, u/TheMightyGalah, found out exactly what happens, but they were glad to watch their boss get her comeuppance. 

Good managers will be beloved by their team. You can tell when someone's an exceptional supervisor by the way their team talks about them: do they dread that manager seeing their work and results, or do they look to the manager for support and help? Some managers don't really manage much at all. They're happy to have a team and let them do their work, and then they just react to whatever is put out. If they had a good month, the boss will take credit for that and brag about it. On a bad month, the whole team is taking blame, and let's face it, that manager probably isn't offering the most sage advice for how to move forward from there. This is a really difficult type of boss to have, and this person felt slighted by their manager for years before they managed to get back at her. 

For this customer service representative, setting a plan for their boss to fail also came along with a sweet vacation. You can check out this great tale of grudge-holding and exacting revenge down below. 

Next up, these workers had a really fun bonding moment in their insurance job when their boss insisted they start overstating all of the damages they came across. 

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  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 10379367936
    via Damian Zaleski on Unsplash
  • 02
    Embarrass my department in front of the whole company? Ahh, I do like to hold a grudge.
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 03
    Let me set the scene: It's April 2016. The company has received their customer service scores for the last 12 months and its mostly good, bar one department which is just below the expected level set by the company. Unfortunately, I work in that department. Now this was anticipated by just about
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 04
    everyone in our department because the overwhelming majority of our queries and complaints pertains to the cost of the work we do - a cost decided by the finance department who are completely separate to us and aren't customer facing so don't have to deal with the issues caused by these costs.
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 05
    The results are announced on our internal website with a small note from the head of customer service. Reading the message, it's clear she is very happy with the results until she reaches ours.
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 06
    Now I'm not going to post what she said as it would be very clear who I am if someone from work was to read this - in fact they will probably be able to tell anyway, but let's just say it was incredibly unprofessional and threw us completely under the bus in front of the entire company.
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 07
    Our manager invites her to come and spend a day with us to see what we are up against but she me off, declines. This because I see how hard our guys work every single day and she's going to treat them like that? I'm a sucker for holding a grudge.
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 08
    Now it's 2018, she's blown over 100k trying to increase our satisfaction scores by investing it in the wrong areas, ignoring the real problem which remains the price (in fact, they increased them earlier in the year). Rather than take the blame herself, she puts it on her team and somehow gets away with it.
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 09
    It gets to the point where she needs some results and has an idea, but it involves giving us more work on top of our already ridiculous workloads. In fact by doing what she wanted, we'd be slower at completing the rest of our work which would only have a negative impact on our scores but she doesn't seem to get this. Needless to say, it fails. Who gets the blame? Not her.
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 10
    At this point, she has no idea I read that note two years ago and certainly wouldn't expect me to have remembered it for this long. Like I say, I'm a sucker for holding a grudge.
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 11
    She calls to speak to my manager, but I'm covering. She needs us to come up with an idea that she can put to the board of directors 2 weeks after the call, but she's going on holiday for 10 days and won't be able to look into an idea herself. I see what is happening - I come up with an idea and if successful, she takes the credit. If it fails, I take the blame.
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 12
    I told her that it isn't my responsibility but she insists. If my manager isn't about, I'm going to need to take this on apparently.
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 13
    'I'll leave this in your hands. You email me but only when you've come up with something you think will work and we'll go over it'. No deadline, even though I know there is one. But she just said when I come up with something I think will work. I can do that.
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 14
    She comes back from holiday, I've taken a fortnight off. I've only been off for 2 days and won't be back for another 12. I come back to work to find out she the bed in her meeting with the board because she didn't even have half an idea, let alone one that would work. She makes contact
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 15
    with me, asks me what I am playing at and why I didn't do as she asked. I said I hadn't come up with an idea I thought would work yet. She tells me that she there was a deadline but I let her know that she hadn't told me that - just to offer my idea when I thought I'd found one that would work which I still hadn't. I was doing exactly what she asked.
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 16
    The board were obviously revisited the situation with the 100k where her team practically threw her under the bus like she had with my department and then them when the 100k investment went wrong.
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 17
    She's got a review with the board this week and I've heard through the grapevine that she is herself about being removed from her job role. Thankfully, not being sacked but no longer being in a position where she can people over when she doesn't perform. Beautiful.
    via u/TheMightyGalah
  • 18
    timetraveler1912 She didn't even try to come up with an idea?
    via u/timetraveler1912
  • 19
    SgtSilverLining man, I live vicariously through this sub. I hate my boss soooooo much for pulling like this, but it's a small company so I don't. have a leg to stand on against her. I'll find a new job one of these days...
    via u/SgtSilverLining
  • 20
    ancient650 Tldr: hated manager doesn't communicate the deadline, complains when it goes past deadline
    via u/ancient650
  • 21
    dabbers26 "Thankfully, not being sacked..." You have a big heart, good on you x2
    via u/dabbers26
  • 22
    Typical_Kenyan_... I'm sure in high school she was that one girl that didn't do any work in group projects, stood awkwardly during the presentation not really knowing what her project was about, but then claimed the credit at the end.
    via u/Typical_Kenyan_Girl
  • 23
    [deleted] Excellent work, but these stories always remind me how glad I am to work for a tiny company. man! the
    via u/[deleted]
  • 24
    srayn Ugh your boss sounds exaaaaaactly like my old boss. He was so lazy he even even created the position of "admin director" just so that he could pass his paperwork onto that person, but still take credit for any good idea they came up with because he was that person's supervisor. Talentless hack.
    via u/srayn

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boss workplace-stories jobs job malicious compliance bosses embarrassing work coworkers malicious-compliance-reddit workplace malicious compliance reddit embarassing customer service customers
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