Manager conspires to get 19-year-old Boba Shop employee fired, she files a complaint after not receiving her final paycheck: 'I got the whole place shut down'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Oct 15, 2025 8:00 AM EDT

This 19-year-old may have been unjustly fired from one of his first jobs, but at the very least, he managed took the whole Boba Shop down with him.

Hopefully, this kid understands that most unfairly fired employees do not experience the luxury of seeing their former employer and company fall apart in the aftermath. In other words, here's hoping that this author soaks in all the glory of this special moment.

After all, no one who works in a bubble tea establishment should have to endure such ridiculous bureaucratic nonsense from both his manager and the owner of the business. Not only was the 19-year-old frequently manipulated by the manager into biting off more than he could chew in taking on extra shifts for him, but he also was never properly thanked for going the extra mile. 

Instead, the author quickly learned that he was on his way to getting replaced by an unqualified close friend of his boss. This meant that he needed to have his back, since he was already getting accused of doing his job poorly when that wasn't the case. The problem was that the manager convinced the owner that the author deserved to be dismissed. Still, the manager's comeuppance would imminently follow…

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  • A customer holds up their cup of bubble tea.
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

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

  • This kind of backlash only further proves that owners should not blindly follow the advice of their managers. It's important to make sure that employees on the ground are properly protected. Furthermore, you can usually tell if a manager has their own ulterior motive if you're paying enough attention. Still, this owner remained oblivious, and that was partly what led to the downfall of the business as a whole. Well, that and the author's ability to advocate for himself!

  • "Manager tried replacing me. I got the whole place shut down"

    TLDR: got my former establishment shut down for not paying me all because the manager wanted her friend to have my position lots of detail was added to get the full picture.
    via CriticalFire15
  • About 3 years ago, I worked at a boba shop. I just wanted a job that summer, but I should have known something was up when I submitted my application and got hired on the spot. I was trained for opening shifts right away.
    via CriticalFire15
  • When I started, there were 5 employees total. 3 were high schoolers (I was 19), and then there was the "manager." I say that loosely because the only reason she had that title was
    via CriticalFire15
  • because she was the last person still working there after the business changed ownership. No management training. No clue what she was doing.
    via CriticalFire15
  • I opened while the high schoolers closed. On Mother's Day, she asked if anyone could cover her closing shift since she had two kids, but everyone was busy. I
    via CriticalFire15
  • was too, but I offered to take the closing shift anyway just to be nice. (Keep in mind, that was my first ever closing shift. I was not trained for it at all.)
    via CriticalFire15
  • And (for the record: I didn't abandon my mom. We spent most of the day together and still had the rest of the weekend. As a single mom herself, she understood me doing this favor.)
    via CriticalFire15
  • The next day after I closed, the manager sent me a picture of a spilled drink bottle and told me it was unacceptable, that I was irresponsible, and she was going
    via CriticalFire15
  • to report me to the owner. I told her I thought I cleaned it up. (I always cleaned small spills forgotten by closers during my shift. We're given an hour to open
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  • it's not that deep.) But she said she'd check the cameras, and that "this isn't right." Nothing came of that, though. The only camera was pointed directly at the register. There was
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  • no camera for the front door or the supply closet or anywhere else, so even if it was on purpose, it wouldn't even be in frame.
    via CriticalFire15
  • Around this time, she hired her friend and casually told me he was a recovering addict. Something I absolutely should not have been told. Fast forward
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  • a bit, and suddenly he's being trained for my position, and everything I do is suddenly "wrong."
    via CriticalFire15
  • One weekend, I was visiting a college during a campus tour when she demanded I come back immediately to return the keys. (As an opener, I kept the keys.) I
    via CriticalFire15
  • don't know what happened to hers. I said I'd need a bit of time, and she gave me massive attitude. By the time I got back, I was so done I just handed over the keys and walked out.
    via CriticalFire15
  • She immediately started spinning the story, claiming I "accosted" her. Mind you, the owner liked me. He came by weekly, said I was doing great. Customers liked me. Staff
    via CriticalFire15
  • liked me. But then the day after dropping off the keys, I got a call from the owner saying, "I'm hearing complaints. You've been
    via CriticalFire15
  • giving attitude and being a problem." He said he was thinking about letting me go, especially with recent issues with drinks.
    via CriticalFire15
  • When I asked why no one had brought it up sooner, he said he was "trying to give me time to get better." I call on that. I knew I was about to get fired.
    via CriticalFire15
  • An employee wearing blue gloves prepares several orders of iced coffees and bubble tea.
    via Frank Zhang

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

  • Important detail: I never got pay stubs or T4s (this is in Canada). I didn't think much of it at the time, but that became important later.
    via CriticalFire15
  • Right before I officially got fired, I was on one last shift when a former employee I'd never met walked in, handed me a key, and said to give it to the manager.
    via CriticalFire15
  • She gave me her name, and for once, I wasn't alone two others saw it happen. The next day, my key didn't work except for the one that had been handed to me. So I let myself in.
    via CriticalFire15
  • The manager flipped out, accused me of cutting a key. I told her to check the cameras. She got flustered. I calmly started calling out how weird and shady
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  • everything was (I even had cue cards with bullet points). She snapped, told me to get out, and started chanting it like a mantra: "GET OUT. GET OUT." Said she was going to call the cops.
    via CriticalFire15
  • Then the owner called me and said I "threatened" her. I asked for consent to record our conversation, and I had the audio.
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  • I sent it to him. It was incredibly awkward I sounded calm as hell while she was yelling her lungs out.
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  • Obviously, I didn't threaten her. And the fact that the keys were just floating around made her look bad. After that, I got ghosted by the rest of the staff. I'm sure she spread lies.
    via CriticalFire15
  • But here's the kicker: I was supposed to be paid the day after all that. I wasn't.
    via CriticalFire15
  • So four months later, after being dodged, I filed a claim with the B.C. Employment Standards Branch. I explained everything, sent the receipts (literally), and the caseworker contacted the business.
    via CriticalFire15
  • NOTE: while this was going on, I had to pop back. And forth from where I lived and a courthouse in langley, as I was entitled to a settlement, i won't get into the specifics of my injurys, But under my circumstances, I needed to document everything I made very clearly so employment standards were not playing around.
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  • They tried to say they'd already paid me. Lies. The only explanation I can think of is that the secretary accidentally sent it to another employee with the same first name who'd been fired before me. Not my problem. PAY ME.
    via CriticalFire15
  • The caseworker wasn't having it. She told them pay up or else we audit. They still didn't. So I let her know. Not even an hour later, I got an email with an e-transfer. I told her I received it but I also let her know about the missing T4s.
    via CriticalFire15
  • Guess what happened next? The business got shut down. ( it was then replaced with a indian restaurant very good actually ) It was already slowing down, and this probably was the nail in the coffin.
    via CriticalFire15
  • Everyone lost their jobs. I only felt bad for one of them I had tried to help them get paid too, but they told me to "worry about myself."
    via CriticalFire15
  • A young barista speaks on the phone while working behind the counter.
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

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

  • As for the manager, at one point, I was training her friend, and someone told me I was doing the work of a manager. I joked, "I should be paid like one." That was later used against me apparently, I was "trying to take her job." (I wasn't.)
    via CriticalFire15
  • And yeah, I got a little petty with it too. Before they closed, I went back in and threw a full cup of ice on the floor (I want to make this very clear: no one was in the store except for her, and that was hours before anyone really would show up it was just a mess. Maybe I shouldn't have done that, but when you don't get paid, then talk to me.)
    via CriticalFire15
  • Also, they had a punch card program. (buy 9, get 1 free). Obviously, I took 1 and gave it to my friend so her and I could get a free one right before they virtually shut down.
    via CriticalFire15
  • What I find interesting is that while I was being trained within the first week, there was a three strike system. I did not get a single strike I was just straight up fired but there was an incident where a piece of rubber ripped off the thing we used to push
    via CriticalFire15
  • the drink down in the blender and was given to a person in a cup. The straws. are pretty thin, and the piece of rubber was large. Luckily, she did not consume any of it, but I bring that up because she left 2 untrained person at the time's first shift alone to do that. Not only did nobody get in trouble, but she used that to show off how good she was at fixing things like tf.
    via CriticalFire15
  • Not to mention she was going to fire another employee for using his discount too much, but before she did, she told me. I don't know why, but not just 10 or 20 minutes before an entire day before and I had to work with him that day. She was repeatedly telling me things I should not have known.
    via CriticalFire15
  • And I want to reference this again. The only reason she became manager is because she was there for 6 months longer than anyone else. Someone would get hired and then fired in less than a month repeatedly and when ownership changed, because the last two owners, one of them took all the cash and left the other one broke. So needing to sell the new owner just went with practically anything she said.
    via CriticalFire15

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employment issues toxic-manager micromanager work stories job work Horrible Bosses employment fired fired story pay
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