'I've never felt so powerful': Last-minute $1.5M contract falls apart after the company's WiFi goes out, then an employee reminds his pushy boss the limits of their stringent WFH policy

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Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Feb 15, 2025 1:00 PM EST

This employee had a boss who showed up to the office rarely, flexing his latest BMW and ordering his lackeys to bow at his feet. Well, when a crisis actually occurred in the workplace, the employees decided that it wasn't their job anymore to solve this boss's problems, leaving him with his foot in his mouth and millions left on the table.

Working from home is a delicate balance of hyper-productivity and company bankrolls. Without a work computer, a work phone, or even functional Internet, there's not much a worker can do—even from the comfort of their own home. So when this hybrid employee got told to take his work home with him against company policy, he adamantly refused for a simple reason: He's not paid enough to use all of his personal roaming cell data to secure a $1.5M contract for his boss. 

Keep scrolling for the work story that inspires rebellion in the souls of every employee who's ever dreamed of telling their boss to kick rocks. 

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

    If you're not paid to do something at work, don't do it. Although it's tough not to get sucked in by your strong work ethic or your boss's threats, oftentimes, management can get away with daylight robbery from their own employees just by being pushy. Read on to see how this worker stuck it to his own boss after a huge tech contract fell apart, simply because he wouldn't pay his employees $5-10 more per month for WFH Internet compensation. 

  • "Work from Home on Thursdays And Fridays only"

    There's not much to say here. I work for a tech company that sells Macbooks and chromebooks and miscellaneous things to schools. There is a rule in place that says we are NOT allowed to work from home under any circumstances,
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  • with the exception of Thursdays and Fridays if you don't have any meetings or the such. Yesterday we got a bunch of quotes from one of our distributors and the aim of today was to get all the SKU's and codes into our
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  • system for one of the bigwig expensive catholic schools - and these codes came in EXTREMELY last minute -like, we have 6 working hours to fill out everything. I did what I could yesterday, and told my manager that I would have to do the rest tomorrow since it was late notice.
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  • Today, the internet is down at work. The quote for approximately 1.5m worth of stock is due in 2 hours, and to be honest - I'd be more inclined to hotspot my phone to get this work done if they paid me more than the bare minimum,
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • and gave me a phone allowance. My previous pay evaluations were all rejected, and if I'm contributing 5-10% gross profit margins on literal millions you'd think there was at least commission.
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  • Ah well. If only I could go home to use my working internet, or got $5- 10 a month for my month bill so that I could get this done via hotspot. Oh well.
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  • Edit: just got a scathing phone call that the deadline was missed and was asked for an explanation. I told them straight that I couldn't access our systems. They asked why I didn't hotspot and told them I don't have a company phone nor do they
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  • give any money to my phone bill. It's also a data risk if my phone is compromised. I've never felt so powerful sticking up to the in a new BMW every year. Kinda feels nice.
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • Update 2: There is no update. I have 3 hours left of this 9-5 and we still have no internet. At this point they've told us all to WFH so I'm just about to pack my laptop up and head off so I can do something. Bit late... But also most people aren't even aware of this because they sent it in an email.
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  • How do I know this? I get a Teams Notification whenever I get an email from internal people at the company. Which doesn't help when nobody in the office has internet. Might get a coffee. It's hard work doing f all. After that I'll head home.
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  • Top-Put2038 Boom. That's these sound of management shooting themselves in the foot.
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  • Illuminatus-Prime Similar story. Tasked with ordering a high six-figure amount of security tech for a new install. Some idiot on a back- cut through our fiber line about 1km down the road (we were in a rural location).
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  • • Use a mobile phone as a hotspot? No, it's a security risk. Work from our satellite office? No, it doesn't have the bandwidth. Work from home? No, you'll just play games and sleep on the company's dime.
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  • • Sit here and wait for the fiber break to be located and spliced? Sure! It'll be up soon. "Soon" was 2 days later. We nearly lost the contract and had to make concessions that cut into our profits. In the meantime, I made do with busywork and minesweeper.
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  • CoderJoe1 Sorry boss, it's not my responsibility for planning for the most obvious contingency you failed to plan for.
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  • Beautiful-Plastic-83 Malicious Compliance should be the strategy whenever possible.
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