Undervalued employee proves their worth, gets $10,000 raise after Office Karen tried to get them fired: 'I turned off every automated task I had ever set up'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Dec 9, 2024 8:00 AM EST

Sometimes, the only way to prove that you're a valuable employee is by showing and not telling. After all, most folks need to see things to believe them, and this employee had spent the better part of the last five years at their company automating systems so that tasks were far easier to complete for everyone involved, including their technologically challenged coworkers.

However, clearly, their value was underseen, unnoticed, and not reflected in their salary. After an office Karen decided that this Redditor should be on the chopping block, the original poster (OP) decided it was time to show just how valuable they actually were by turning off all the automated systems they had ever set up right before taking a two-week vacation. "That'll show them," the employee thought, and they were absolutely right. 

It took no time for the employee's actual boss to step in and ensure not only the employee's job security but also that they would stay at the company long-term. Keep scrolling below for the full story and for the best reactions from folks in the comments section. For more, check out this post about a decent manager who defied their boss's schedule.

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    Cheezburger Image 10438447872
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    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02
    About 5 years ago my company brought in an individual to see if my position was "no longer needed". I passed with flying colors...
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  • 03
    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.
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  • 04
    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
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  • 05
    would spend half his day copying items and passing them into another program we use. HE DIDN'T EVEN USE CTRL C CTRL V he would right click then copy then go into the files menu or something and "insert copied
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    item from clipboard". He was so proud of himself when he showed me because "don't worry you won't have to retype everything!"
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  • 07
    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.
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  • 08
    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 f face. (This wasn't the military but I just like to call him that.)
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  • 09
    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.
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  • 10
    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
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    stuff for. But I was wrong and my boss said no it's blah blah some other person.. okay. Then we talked about that person a bit.
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  • 12
    Fast forward about a week and this Sgt ff is a complete 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??
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  • 13
    I was having a really rough week looking for some extremely important files. People were yelling all day. I was exasperated.
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  • 14
    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.
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  • 15
    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".
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  • 16
    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.
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    And he was working on me now. I scrolled through his notes and at the very top I saw
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  • 18
    "Frosty thought a 4'10 24 year old female patient was a 300 lb bearded man. Clearly atrocious attention to detail"
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  • 19
    That's just ONE example of how completely f ed up his comments were.
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  • 20
    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 f faces comments, I said f this.
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  • 21
    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.
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    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.
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    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 imperative you reach out to Sgt F Face at xxxxx for assistance"
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    Then? I turned off every automated task I had ever set up. 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.
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  • 25
    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.
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  • 26
    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 some of the guys were keeping up with their normal duties.
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  • 27
    Guaranteed at least 2 people were no longer doing their normal jobs just to keep up with my automated tasks.
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  • 28
    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:
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  • 29
    "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.
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    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 direction and that you are one of our most valuable employees here.
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    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."
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    So I came back on Monday with a 10,000 dollar raise and Sgt f 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 I left, but not before... but I sort of get it.
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    Edit: Hopefully this is a better edit than most r/awardspeechedits but I just want to unrelatedly say that while the world seems to be going to sh, every single one of us can start making a difference in it.
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  • 34
    Please just try to bicycle or walk to work once a week, or skip one meat-based meal every so often. Try out composting. Or swap your dairy milk with almond/oat/coconut/etc/etc/etc milk. It's easy to blame everyone
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    else or industry and carry on like you can't make a difference. But you really can. All of us can. And if everyone starts to live more sustainably, the markets MUST switch and follow US, the people,
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    the workers. That's the way it works and that's how we get more bicycle lanes and a more sustainable earth where our friends and family can prosper.
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workplace-stories work stories toxic-workplace job work petty revenge Office reddit thread Reddit company karen toxic-work-environment
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