‘The joke was on him’: Manager gets himself fired after threatening to fire an integral employee if he didn't pass a test, he passes and immediately quits

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Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Sep 30, 2025 8:00 PM EDT

Sometimes it really doesn't matter how hard working you are as an employee. If you aren't willing to play the power dynamic that the ego of your boss wants you to play, you'll still be treated like you're lazy and unimportant. This, of course, is only when you have bad management, which, unfortunately, is often. Everyone experiences a bad working situation at least once in their life. (Actually, if it's just once, then you're lucky!) 

 

The best course of action in this situation would be to quit, but strategically. Like this employee who was threatened to be fired. He was sent to take a yearly safety exam and his entitled manager told him that if he didn't pass, he would be fired. So, the guy took the test and immediately after decided he needed to quit. So, before he even got his test results back, he started drafting a resignation letter. Right before he was going to turn it in and leave, he got the test results. He passed! So, he stapled the certificate of completion to his resignation letter as an extra dash of salt to the burn. He was a hardworking employee and was not about to just stand there and allow himself to be threatened by some dude's ego. 

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    via Unsplash+ (and Getty Images)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • "So long, farewell..."

    From 2000 to 2005 I worked for a financial company based in the Atlanta, GA area.
    via eeekthekat
  • The first few years were great. The team was growing and my VP got along well with me.
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  • My manager was one of the "stay out of the way and let his guys work to make him look good" which was perfect for me.
    via eeekthekat
  • Three managers later everything started going downhill. By the time I quit I was assigned to 18 major projects along with having to maintain my daily workload.
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  • My last manager there was useless. He would go into meetings and promise that I would work on something, but forget to tell me that I needed to work on it so I was constantly getting yelled at by other teams.
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  • He never once backed me up. Then time came for the two week long yearly disaster recovery test.
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  • As I was leaving work on Friday my manager pulled me aside to let me know I was going to be leaving the Sunday after I got back for a certification boot camp and that I would be taking the test the Saturday after I got back from it.
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  • If I did not pass the test I would be fired. After the disaster recovery test finished, I flew home on Friday, washed clothes on Saturday, and flew out to the class on Sunday.
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  • I spent Monday through Thursday in 14 hours of training classes, studied what we covered in class for four to six hours each night, finished up the class Friday morning, flew home Friday night, and woke up at 7:00 AM in order to be at the testing site at 8:00 AM.
    via eeekthekat
  • I sat and took the test and was one of the first to finish. As I dropped my test off the proctor asked if I thought I passed.
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  • I told him straight up that there was no way I passed the test. Monday morning I polished up my resume and started looking for a new job.
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  • A few weeks later I found one with a vendor of ours who as excited that I wanted to work there.
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  • I typed up all of my notes on my 18 projects, had them printed, spiral bound, and loaded them all onto a CD- ROM.
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  • I placed the stack on my manager's desk with a note telling him what it was and started typing up my goodbye email and resignation letter.
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  • The real surprise came when I found out that I had actually passed the test. I went through the necessary steps to get my certification letter in and stapled a copy of it to my resignation letter.
    via eeekthekat
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    via Unsplash+ (and Curated Lifestyle)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Wouldn't it be a much better world if people were able to leave their egos behind and just live life with a little empathy? If, at the very least, people in charge could do that, that would be great. 

  • I thought my manager was going to throw up when he realized what it was. He asked me why I was quitting and I reminded him that he said he would fire me if I failed the test and that I do not respond well to threats.
    via eeekthekat
  • Of course he immediately started trying to play it off that he was joking. I told him that apparently the joke was on him.
    via eeekthekat
  • I was escorted out that day with two weeks of pay. Two months later my manager and the new VP of our group called me asking for an update on all of my projects.
    via eeekthekat
  • I told them that I had let all of that on my manager's desk. He said I didn't and I asked him how he could have missed 18 spiral bound notebooks and a CD sitting in the middle of his desk.
    via eeekthekat
  • He responded that he didn't know what that stuff was and threw it away. When I asked if he had shredded it he replied that he had just tossed it in the trash.
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  • I asked if he was aware that he had just thrown away company proprietary information on how the company did business in the trash.
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  • The line got very quiet. My VP asked if I had any other copies of the data.
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  • I told him that it should all be on my laptop still to which my manager said that he had needed my laptop for a side project and had wiped it clean.
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  • The line got quiet again. I wished them good luck, hung up the phone, and went to lunch with my new boss (who turned out to be a bigger waste of space, but that is for another story).
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  • Two weeks later my old VP called me and let me know that my manager had been fired and wanted to know if I could come in as a contractor to help recreate as much of the documentation as I could.
    via eeekthekat
  • I told him to meet me for lunch and handed him a thumb drive with all of the information.
    via eeekthekat
  • I explained that I "forgot" that I had backed everything up to my home storage. My old VP called me and A- hole and then bought us a round of drinks.
    via eeekthekat
  • TL;DR My boss said he would fire me if I failed to pass a test. I passed and quit leading to him being fired.
    via eeekthekat

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