Employees cost employer coveted award by submitting unlimited anonymous responses to corporate survey: 'The company never really recovered from that point onward'

Author image for Brad Dickson
Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Jan 6, 2025 12:00 PM EST

Carrots on sticks dangled in front of employees' faces will often be used as a means of motivation in place of proper compensation or building actually tolerable workplaces. It's just easier to tell someone, "Go do this, and you'll get this," than to build effective systems. Plus, that way, you're not really on the hook for anything when they meet the target, and you can just move the goalposts out further and further, reaping the rewards of their efforts while they hardly get much at all. That's why, when you're on the other side of this, it's important to get these kinds of things in writing. Even then, employers will find any chance to not pay out a promised bonus in any way possible. And, well, there are a great many people, even outside of employment relationships, who will do anything they can to avoid paying. 

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  • The only things these types of employers love more than carrots on sticks are hollow, corporate, meaningless rewards they can parade to show off how great a place to work they are. These industry awards like “Safest Workplace” are often ironically given to the companies with the lowest amount of incidents in a year, when really this company isn't having any fewer incidents than any other company in the industry, they're just relentlessly crushing the spirit of anyone who dares make a report, ensuring with veiled corporate rhetoric and between-the-lines communication that they have the “fewest” incidents on record. 

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    Cheezburger Image 10450753024
    via Katelyn Perry For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • When you're wronged by an employer or boss for some reason there will be very few points in life where you actually have a chance to right wrongs and tip the scales in your favor. For both the sake of professional references and your own sanity, it's best to just walk away from a bad employment experience. 

  • These employees, however, had a chance to tip the scales in their favor and hit their terrible previous employer right where it hurt: right in the corporate award.

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    ሓባ VAL
    via Campaign Creators
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    My former employer treated everyone like garbage, so myself and former employees cost them a prestigious award

    I worked for about 5 years for a company where by the end I was practically s lal from the stress and the mistreatment. When I left, I was operating as a supervisor without the pay for a shift I wasn't even on. To give you an idea of just how awful this company was, I gained nearly a $10hr pay increase by leaving and I had a fraction of the responsibility.
    via Cananbaum
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    Everything was fine, until the Co id Nation attacked, and considering the industry I was now in, it was a given that I would receive a pink slip. The following year that transpired was the most hectic, stressful and difficult periods of my life. To try and spare you any unnecessary details,
    via Cananbaum
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    what transpired was me having to fire one contract agency for grossly padding my resume, only for this new contract agency to end up bait-and- switching me. Promising me administrative experience (the degree I was working on at the time) only to turn me around and send me back to my former employer that I had so desperately wanted to leave in the past. Why? They had become their biggest client, because they were a respiratory medical device company and business was obviously booming.
    via Cananbaum
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    Desperate for an income, I agreed and kept sending out resumes in the mean time. I was only back for 4 weeks, but holy h I the place was like a war zone run by the most masochistic idiots you ever met. Some of the sh the company was pulling trying to squeeze every last ounce of productivity was appalling.
    via Cananbaum
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    They decided to try an old stick-and- carrot ploy whereby if you worked 20+ hours of overtime each week between Thanksgiving and New Year's, you could get a $2000 cash bonus. It probably goes without saying, you had people so desperate for spare cash that people were literally risking their lives to get to work. We had no less than 2 winter storms that shut down the state in the 4 weeks I was there. But the company found every loophole to exploit to keep from paying out these bonuses.
    via Cananbaum
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    They also lacked any semblance of compassion. I was on my way to work when my car lunched its throwout bearing leaving me stranded. I called both the temp agency and my employer who immediately told me that if I didn't show it was my job. I was two hours late, and they complained to my temp agency anyways because I refused to make up the lost time by staying and assisting the overnight crew.
    via Cananbaum
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    I left when I finally got hired by another medical device company full time, meaning I could give the temp agency and my former employer the middle finger. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I had made friends during my time there, much like POW's commiserating over trauma, and many still were working for the old company, and it was through them I, and so many more jilted comrades learned of The Contest.
    via Cananbaum
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    You see, the state this all took place in is small. Not the smallest, but close to it. So, there is an independent business magazine for the state that holds a competition for Best Company to Work For in [State]. My former employer had actually won the award about a year before I exited stage left the first time around. It'd been the requisite waiting time and said company could now reapply to try and reclaim their glory.
    via Cananbaum
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    All the n ked little emperors running this company were so high in their ivory towers, falsely believed everything was coming up roses. How this competition works, is the company is interviewed by the magazine, and a link to an online survey is sent out to be disseminated to the respective employees. Thus, when me and so many who had a Discord group at the time learned of it through someone still within the employ of these bastards, they were more than willing to become a mole and when the surve
    via Cananbaum
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    It goes without saying, but we trashed this place in the survey. At the end you could leave a comment and so I regaled them with the ab e I faced my initial employment with the company, and how when I was forced back, I left when my former boss insulted me in an email for having the audacity to leave in the first place all the while using my newly deceased mother to prop up her own sob story.
    via Cananbaum
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    You may think it ends there. But it doesn't. That is not where the revenge comes in. Oh no. Imagine the shock when a message comes through the Discord group: "Holy sh you guys! If you open the survey in an incognito browser, you can take it as many times as you want!" Me and my crew had gone from slingshots, to being gifted a cannon and we were not going to waste the opportunity.
    via Cananbaum
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    We proceeded to send in negative surveys as often as we could, and our mole would forward us the HR updates, and when "90% participation" was reached, we halted our attack. And waited. A week before the results would be announced, our mole informed us that bubbly was being stockpiled in the break room fridges. I had the forethought to monitor their LinkedIn and Facebook page. Every other post was about the BCTWF award and how excited they were to achieve it, assured victory was in the bag.
    via Cananbaum
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    Then the announcement came and our mole excitedly texted us that management was is "silent bedlam". The bubbly magically disappeared from the fridges, any social media post referring to the contest or magazine vanish, and NO ONE was allowed to talk about.
    via Cananbaum
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    They had obviously not expected such a pitiful defeat, but the results from the survey was so troubling they came back to my former employer to go over the results. The company never really recovered from that point onward and struggled to remain upright. Most recently they had to delist from the stock exchange and go back to suckling the teat of venture capitalists.
    via Cananbaum
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    FarOutLakes · 1h ago • this is satifying to read. I'm also sorry for the horrible time you went through a few years ago
    via Cananbaum
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    Neutrollized ⚫ 1h ago Wow. I read a lot of PR posts but rarely feel the urge to comment. I love your story and I'm glad you're in a non-toxic work environment. EDIT: I think my favorite was the fact the you co-ordinated with the mole to stop submission after you reached a high participation rate.
    via Cananbaum
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    Ravenmn 1h ago • . I like your writing style and your petty vengeance expertise! | hope your "mole" got the heck out of that dumpster fire!
    via Cananbaum
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    Grandmapatty64 • 1h ago • Good job! You all won avictory for everyone that has worked for a company like that. Congrats for fighting the good fight.
    via Cananbaum
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    Tough-Juggernaut... 25m ago • . Soooooooo...... A while back on another forum there was talk about a small medical tech company buying a lot of bubbles and the OC (wine merchant) was wondering if that would be considered inside trading on stock market, I do believe they bought a load of shares in that company. Sometimes the stories of reddit are all connected by little pieces of sting, it's great to see these revenge stories come about.
    via Cananbaum
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    justaman_097 · 53m ago · It sounds like you exacted a sweet revenge on those idiots.
    via Cananbaum
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    Major-Check-1953 23m ago • Your former employer deserves to go bankrupt. No employee should be treated like garbage.
    via Cananbaum

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