Boss steals employee's idea and fires him, employee gets back at him years later: 'I [bought] out the company he works for and [demoted] him'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Sep 4, 2024 2:00 PM EDT

People say success is about hard work and determination, but they could say the exact same thing about revenge.

Here, we have a former employee whose ideas were quite literally stolen from their boss at the time. After getting fired, the former employee would go on to buy the company years later and demote the former employer who wronged him. It's the kind of workplace triumph one dreams of, so one can only feel a sense of second-hand fulfillment reading about this decade-spanning revenge plot.

Personally speaking, while I have yet to see the day when I have my opportunity to enact vengeance on former employers and coworkers, I am sure I am not the only person who has ever sat through a meeting and heard a coworker re-articulate your idea and claim it as theirs. In fact, there is no greater way to create an enemy in the workplace, besides listening to music without headphones.

Keep scrolling below for the full story. For more, check out this post about a frustrating encounter with a Karen boss.

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  • 01
    LIKE A BOSS
    via Brooke Lark
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    Fool me once, Shame on you. Fool me twice, enjoy Litigation and demotion. tl, dr; My boss fires me after I complain. Years later I buy out the company he works for and demote him.
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    Ancient History. I started out my working life in a small rural English town in Lincolnshire, with low pay and high unemployment. In 1996, I started working for a local government IT
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    department. I was "fired" in 2002 after I noticed that a whole host of ideas and new pieces of software / spreadsheets that I made were suddenly in use with my boss (let's call him Paul) claimed were his own. Management sided with him.
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    It eventually ended in a court battle, but this is another story. Fresh from the court battle and with a 7 figure payout, I moved to Wiltshire in 2004 and started my own business in IT first as a consultant, then as an MSP who
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    mainly dealt in security, web software and asset management. We offered IT Support, but that marked was overcrowded, so we had a slow uptake on that.
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    Rescuing an old friend. Cut to 2015. An old friend from my local government days (let's call this one Andrew) gets in touch. Andrew tells me that he needs some help with his IT company
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    back in Lincolnshire. They were one of 3 companies in my old home town who are support-based Service Providers, and they were struggling to expand. He wanted me to take over running their support team as a consultant. We agreed a small fee (25k) and I started.
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    After a month, I delivered a detailed report as to why the company was under-performing. I volunteered to stay on and re- shape the company. Andrew, the owner, said yes and put me in full control of the support department.
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    A month later, we were running with high efficiency. I suggested that he needs a dedicated salesman, and he said that he knew just the person.
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    Re-Enter Paul. Remember the guy from earlier? Paul, who fired me and claimed my work as his own? Guess who Andrew recruited. Andrew was unaware of what Paul had done to me, so as far as he was concerned, Paul was going to dynamically transform the company.
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    Paul caused so much chaos that every team suffered, and the three most experienced people quit, profits took a nose-dive and he had to control everything. Again,
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    he took all of my policies and procedures, threw them out then after a few months reinstated them as his own. He refused to pay me for a side project (some software development work) that I did on my own time.
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    The last straw was when he brought in a girl half my age called Tessa (made up name) to replace me, without telling me that it was happening. I told Andrew that I was leaving immediately. He seemed upset, but understood.
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    Paul tried to force me to have an exit interview, as it was in my contract. I asked him where, and he had no idea. My response was that he had no idea, and was a poor excuse for a manager, before I turned and walked away.
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    Revenge Pt 1. After a week back home, I spoke to a lawyer. If I could show that the side project was officially requested and completed, but not paid for by Paul or Andrew, then it could be argued that it was my property. I still had the source code
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    for this project on my personal laptop, and had kept all the relevant emails. I emailed Andrew asking about the project, and he replied that the client in question has never been a client of theirs, but was one of Paul's friends.
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    I still also had access to the web host, so I logged in and downloaded then deleted the software and database, replacing it with a holding page. I sat back and waited.
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    I received a solicitors letter from Paul's solicitor, telling me to put the website back or else. My solicitor replied, telling Paul that unless he pays £12K for the development work plus a fixed fee for legal charges, the website stays where it is. He had 28 days.
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    After 28 days, there were still no funds, so the site stayed down. A week later, I received notice that I was being sued by Paul for stealing his intellectual property, and for illegally breaking in to a web host and deleting software and confidential information. He offered to settle if I paid him £30k. I submitted a counter-claim for the £12k plus costs.
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    So off to trial we went. The judge found that Paul was vastly exaggerating if not lying, and that I had all the evidence to prove it. I was awarded my original £12k, plus interest and costs. On the way out of court, I could hear Paul berate his legal representitive.
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    Within 28 days, he had deposited the money with my solicitor, who took his fees and sent me the rest.
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    Revenge, The second. And this is what makes it more satisfying. Over the years, my own business had grown significantly. In 2016 when I quit from Andrew's business because of Paul, it had turned over an eight figure sum and a nice profit. Bear in mind that in those days I employed 45 people.
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    You can probably see where this is going. In early 2018, Andrew reached out to me again, and apologised for Paul's behavour. Paul had tried to shift the bill to Andrew's company
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    but the company solicitor had told him no. Paul was left having to sell some personal belongings so that he could pay it off. He had also offered to buy Andrew's business
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    to allow him to retire. In order to raise the £300K offer for the company, Paul sold two of his cars and all three horses. Yes, that's not a typo - Paul had 3 horses.
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    Andrew formally put his business up for same, and my company put in a bid along with three others. Andrew accepted mine, as it offered him the option to retire properly and still keep the promise to his staff of job retention. Paul's low-ball offer was rejected because I think by then Andrew had realised that Paul was all talk and very much of a b○
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    Paul never connected the dots between me and my company - sure, the offer came through a retained legal firm in London, and they were to be bought by a subsidiary company and not the main group, so I think he didn't bother checking who the new owners were.
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    We asked Andrew to come out to us in Wiltshire at our expense, and agree a transition where at the end of it he would retire and enjoy his golf and fishing. He would also help draw up the handover
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    documents and contracts. My name was kept out of anything. I sent in a team during the transitional period, consisting of a solicitor, my CFO, a senior support officer, and a senior salesman. They were to assess the situation and further inspect the business.
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    The team realised that although customer feedback was fantastic and the customer base was wide and diverse, the business had unsuitable premises and old technology. Each team was broadly left to their own devices until they got out of hand, when Paul took tight control. Our existing poilcies would be enough to stop that.
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    On the last day of the transitional period, the team assembled everyone and told them that from Monday there would be changes. Shirt and trousers was now mens uniform, women had to wear business casual attire. New staff
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    would be coming in to reshape the business, but no-one will be losing their jobs, although some will have to be redeployed. The new owner would be there at 9AM on Monday morning to explain everything, and expected everyone to be in attendance and ready. Andrew said his goodbyes and retired.
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    Monday morning, I rock up and everyone looks bemused. I introduce myself to the 2 new apprentices and then explain that I now own this business as a remote office to my main company.
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    Everyone's job is safe although there are some people who will be moved around in accordance with their skills. That's roughly when Paul walks in.
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    Paul arrived in scruffy clothes looking and smelling like he's just spent five years living on the streets. As it turns out, he was cleaning out his stables for the final time and that smell was horse manure. He tells me that I can't be here, and that we're waiting for the new owner (who he can't believe is late) so I need to leave and cut all of the before he gets here.
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    There's a pause, and no-one makes a sound for a good five seconds before the penny drops.
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    I then introduce some of the new staff, and tell the existing staff to sort login accounts and email addresses for them. I go to Paul's office and use that as my base while I 1-2-1 all the existing staff. Most are happy.
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    Tessa begged me not to demote her, and I gave her a month to prove herself. After some pointers and some training (which she was not originally given) she excelled in the role.
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    Paul was unhappy with the demotion, but he immediately went from the verbose bully to the very servile yes-man, because he knew that if I let him go, he'd have to find a real job.
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    In 2020, just after restrictions were lifted, we rebranded them as my company and moved into new offices. We also introduced a retail outlet that sells everything from a new mouse, to entire systems. Where
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    their profit used to be a low to mid 5 figures, we've grown their business and personnel, given everyone pay rises well above the local average salary, and we are on target this year for a high six- figure profit.
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    And Paul? He's still there, moaning about how he's been mistreated and how he deserves to be running the company. He is a good salesman though.
    via Hot_IT_Guy

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