Employee opts out of optional social-only work events and manager flips, employee gets last laugh before quitting: ‘That look on [my manager’s face] is enough!'

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Jun 28, 2025 5:00 PM EDT

There is a new workplace culture going around these days that encourages you to find a balance between work and life. Whatever that means for you, it's the "healthiest" way to lead your life in this capitalistic society. Because of this, many employees are opting out of any optional social events planned by their workplace. They already have friends and they'd like to use their off hours with them—it's really not that crazy. Separation of work life and social life can be way healthier than the other way around, because usually, even if you are in a "social" setting, when you're with your co-workers, you are still within a hierarchy of power. 

 

Unfortunately, there are many stories online of employees getting in trouble to opting out of social events planned by their work. It's like, they make it optional, but not really… Like when this employee opted out due to personal reasons, her manager started making her work-life a nightmare. 

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  • Luckily, this employee gets the last and even gets her way by the end of the story. That being said, she still very much plans on quitting—once a toxic manager, always. 

  • Cheezburger Image 10522197760
    via Unsplash+ (and Christin Hume)

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

  • "Every communication with the customer needs to be logged? You got it!"

    I've worked at an accounting firm for 6 years, for the first 5 years whenever I'd have a notable interaction with a client I'd log this on a shared spreadsheet that I created. Everyone I worked with had access to this and you could literally just CTRL-F the account information and find
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  • whatever you needed. Super simple. If ever my manager 'Sarah' needed a quick update on an account she'd call me and I'd give her all the information she needed.
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  • At the 5 year mark I'd managed to annoy Sarah by cutting back on attending OPTIONAL social-only outings despite having made them aware I do suffer with social anxiety and was off my medication. I was
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  • polite and professional in work as usual, just declined OPTIONAL work outings. (side note: I tried for years but it was a lot of cattiness. I'd even been sexually harassed, gaslit about it and even openly insulted at these events before I decided no more.)
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  • Off the back of this annoyance Sarah decided that my spreadsheet was "too intricate and time consuming" to access and it needed to be logged upon the accounting system itself. Alongside my spreadsheet.
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  • The accounting system was often slow, at times non-functional. The logging process was moderately time consuming but slowed my roll majorly to have to fully pull up each account just to update an email trail.
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  • I initially pushed back and asked why the sudden change, how was loading a spreadsheet more complex, this wasn't how I was trained etc. Sarah told me it was easier for her to see notes on the accounts themselves. I
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  • asked why this has suddenly become a problem after 5 years, she had no answer other than she'd always preferred them on the account but now she wants to action it.
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  • I started logging notes on the system begrudgingly, alongside my spreadsheet. Sarah continued to use my spreadsheet regularly. She would also continue to call for updates even when I had made 2 sets of notes for her convenience. She never checked my notes on the accounting system,
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  • but I continued to log. was only when I noticed none of my coworkers were being asked to log to the extent I was that I started slowly reverting back to my spreadsheet.
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  • Sarah didn't care about this at all, but was prone to mood swings. When she would be having a bad day, she would remember how to check notes on the accounting system just to call me up and berate me for not having logged them.
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  • Sometimes I would push back with points made above, but she wouldn't even address this. Occasionally I'd get an "I know I know" and then she would just continue on her rants about how "it just needs doing".
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  • The straw came for me when Sarah was having a particularly challenging period, called me up and basically threatened my employment should I not log each interaction I made to her specifications.
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  • Quite frankly with all listed above I am DONE with this place, I have put things in place to leave and will be doing so before the year is over. However with regards to this particular issue I decided to comply, maliciously.
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  • I logged EVERY. SINGLE. INTERACTION. Every pointless email, every nothing-cc, every call, every text.. if I had so much as a one word "ok" from a customer, it went EVERYWHERE I could squeeze text into on the accounting system.
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  • Cheezburger Image 10522205952
    via Unsplash+ (and Mimi Thian)

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

  • I started writing brief abbreviations that only I could understand on my spreadsheet so that I could quickly find the information I needed, but Sarah would have to wade through 20 emails, transcripts and texts to find what she needed.
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  • It took A LOT of my time to manage, but I persevered. Other areas did suffer, but Sarah didn't care about that, Sarah was just happy I had submitted to her ever changing whims.
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  • I also grew a backbone when Sarah would call and would insist heavily that she check my notes on the accounting system as suddenly I am just oh so forgetful and wouldn't want to leave out any important information.
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  • She knew what I was doing, but she couldn't do a thing about it as I'd told several coworkers about how happy I was Sarah pushed me to use the accounting system, how smart she was, it's saved me so much time etc.
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  • My good times with watching her sift through countless texts and emails came to an end last month, after 6 months of watching her wade through the ocean of emails, transcripts and texts I would leave on each of my accounts.
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  • I checked my emails one morning to find that Sarah had, without any communication, scheduled a 1-1 weekly occurrence meeting with me, solely to get updates on all my accounts. I accepted the invite with glee and waited for it to roll around.
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  • When the meeting commenced, Sarah pulled out a notebook where she had been keeping every query on my accounts she had over the past week, it was surprisingly extensive, but I imagine she'd been stockpiling a lot longer than a week to be petty and also to avoid using her
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  • 'convenient' new logging method. I listened and nodded, customer service smile on my face while she explained how it needed to be a meeting because "sometimes I just don't have time to check notes" and "I think it's easier for all of us to do it this way". I
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  • agreed, wholeheartedly. A smug smile crept across her face and she told me the first account she would need an update on. Without skipping a beat or allowing one crack in my customer service smile, I put on my screen-share and it showed the account she had queried on
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  • accounting system, with the notes tab open. She smug smile dropped, replaced by a look of poorly composed, white- hot seething rage.
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  • I then, bar for bar, read the entirety of the (relevant) notes on the account. No paraphrasing, no deviation. from the written text whatsoever. Same with the next account, and the next.
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  • By the time the call had concluded Sarah had a face like thunder and didn't even say goodbye when the call ended. The following day there. was a team-wide email issued with the subject "URGENT-NOTES UPDATE". It was a one-
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  • paragraph email about how due to some 'site issues' the accounting system was no longer suitable to store our notes and we are to return to the prior system of keeping our own records.
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  • I'm still leaving, but that look on Sarah's face will be enough to placate me until I do!
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