10+ year employee stands up to entitled CEO who demands huge project be completed before vacation: 'You want me to resign? Good luck without me!'

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Oct 11, 2025 11:00 AM EDT

This CEO thought that pushing an engineer to their breaking point was a good strategy, but he was swiftly proved wrong. 

When companies roll out that dreaded phrase, "under new management," the current employees start to give each other the side eye. It doesn't always immediately mean layoffs and changes, but those are sure to come! 

When these new management changes arrive, they're often the cause of a lot of strife. Instead of working with managers who know the lay of the land and have been there for years, fresh bosses enter the environment ready to start making big, reckless changes. Sometimes they'll implement money-saving measures, and fire someone who knows crucial information just to save a few thousand dollars a year. Then, they realize they're stuck trying to solve a problem that can only be fixed by the guy they just fired. 

This person had been working at their job for a solid decade before problems began to ramp up. All they wanted to do was redeem a few weeks of vacation time, but that was apparently too big of an ask! 

Next up, read about these employees who were actually excited to be fired from their bad jobs: "She quit that day [and] joined the competitor." 

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    Man with beard and glasses looks smug, in background man in overalls holds wires and looks confused
    via John Lee on Unsplash+

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

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    It is going to be a long one, sorry about that For the last 10 years I've been working from home as automation engineer for a relatively small
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    company what produced custom- built industrial gas treatment units (industrial chillers, compressors stations, that sort of thing). My job was to write algorithms
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    for PLCs, design HMI, and setting up data transfer for customers SCADA systems. Basically I was the person who told machines what to do. I was getting significant below
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    market pay for such position, but with only 4-5 project per year and each taking me 2-3 weeks to complete, I wasn't arguing, since I was getting paid for mostly doing
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    nothing and I was fortunate enough to have considerable passive income thanks to lucky investments of my inheritance.
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    Everything was great until couple years ago, when owner decided to retire and sold the company. So here comes new managment with new policies.
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    In my country every worker entitled to at least 4 weeks of paid vacation time per year all unspent vacation is rolled other to the next year, but you have to take at least 2
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    uninterrupted weeks per year, so if you only take your mandatory vacation, you accumulate 14 additional days per year. Given how much free time I actually had I rarely
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    used more than mandatory 2 weeks per year, always making sure what there be no commissioning or maintenance planned during my vacation (During
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    these events I would remotely access maintenance engineer's laptop to make neccessary adjustments to the algorithms, so everything works perfectly in real
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    working conditions). But one of the first policies new managment implemented was schedule based vacations. So now O had to decide when I
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    take my 2 weeks at the start of the year. I chose first weeks of April. In early March I get a call from manager of the development team who asks me
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    to come on a quick 3 day work trip to help maintenance engineer switch plc and upload new project. Apparently thanks to new maintenance team manager a lot of
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    maintenance engineers quit and they are short stuffed and the only one they can send atm is bad with computer. "Where isn't much for me to do, since we had
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    identical station going through the same plc switch month prior, so I'll just fly there, chill, until electrical panel is rewired, new plc is installed, when I just upload new project
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    to plc and fly home" - I thought for myself and agreed to go. Apparently maintenance engineer not only bad with computers,
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    but also knows nothing about electrical work, so I had to do everything myself which I am not actually qualified to do, but at this point I don't want to disappoint client,
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    who turned out to be a bunch of really nice people, so after a week and with only 3 burned down fuses I finished. After returning home. I inform my manager what I am not going
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    to any more business trips since I don't get paid enough to also do maintenance engineer's work. First say of my vacation comes and
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    I get another call. Despite my poor judgment I decided to answer: ● Hey, we need tou to go on another business trip
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    starting next Monday, it will just take a week, it for this project • I'm not familiar with that project, it was done while I was on paternity leave (in my country either
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    parent can take paternity/maternity leave up to 3 years and after first 6 months my wife asked me to switch). Yeah, we had to contract a
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    specialist to do that project while you are on leave, I'll send it to you along with documentation right away. disconnects
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    I check recieved project and it is huge - 7 PLC's, 6 HMI panels, everything has to work as a single system, and project is a total mess, nothing would work, you just has to
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    do everything from scratch, will probably take me close to a month to finish. And that is with doing everything from comfort of my own home where I am more productive. So I
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    call back: • Yeah, I looked at this project and that's a mess, it's not in the working condition and no way to finish it in
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    a week. I'll do what I can do, but as I said last time, I'm doing it remotely, as always, I won't go on another business trip, especially now, I
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    have to many things planned for the next few weeks, I can't go. • But reception on site is terrible, you won't be able to access it
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    remotely. And we already missed all deadlines on this project, client is ped and we are looking at huge fines. CEO is breathing down my neck, we need it fixed
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    yesterday. • Then I'll email maintenance engineer project with changes each eavning once he is in hotel with decent reception and he can email me list of
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    things what need fixing, it's not the first time we done it that way. Ok, I hear you, I'll have to speak with CEO about.
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    About 15 minutes later I get another call. • CEO said what if you don't want to go, you should just write a resignation letter.
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    ● Hmmm, I am the only employee who knows how to do my job, but yeah, sure, I'll send my resignation letter right away.
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    I was thinking about not doing it so they had to terminate me and pay me termination compensation, but when I decided to be petty in a different way - in my country you had to give at least 2 weeks notice,
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    unless both parties agree to shorter notice. So I write my letter and set my resignation day as 14th of April which is 2 weeks. Shortly after it gets approved. Did is done. And I get another call a bit later:
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    So, will you be able to finish this project before you leave? -I won't be able to do any work on that project before I leave.
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    -What? Why? You still have 2 weeks and we really need it done. -Well, you see, I am on vacation right now, last day of my vacation will me April 13th and I am resigning on 14th.
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    Fallout: I recently got a message from ex colleague I have friendly relationship with apparantly they are in deep right now, deadlines were missed, fines rolled in and company's accounts have
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    been frozen. They even were unable to pay salaries for the last 2 months. They are probably toast and if thing go that way they'll have to file bankruptcy. Don't worry, people will get paid in the end. In my country
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    salary depts have the highest priority when bankrupt business sell thir assets. Downside? I still haven't recieved my compensation for my 120 saved vacation days.
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    SCRE
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

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

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