Toxic startup manager becomes direct report of employee they used to victimize 15 years prior: 'Karma really is a boomerang'

JR Atkinson • Writer and Editor

Sep 8, 2026 12:30 PM EDT

Sometimes life has a cruel sense of humor.

Coincidences are a strange thing. If you're the type of person who believes in a higher power, then you might take coincidences as a sign of this. And who is to blame you? Sometimes things unfold in such a deeply ironic way that we just have to laugh at. And if you're looking for meaning in all of this, you just might find it. Like when you're thinking about a song, and then it comes up on shuffle. Or you dream about your favorite baseball team winning the World Series and then they do. Or if you fantasize about quitting your job and then you get fired the next day. Life is full of little moments like this, and we can stand to learn a lot from them if we give it a chance. This story is an example of one of these twists of fate that made everyone believe in karma.

Have you ever had a horrible boss? If you've worked long enough, you probably have. They are pretty hard to avoid. But the worst ones have a way of getting under your skin and staying there. You likely spend so much time with them that they start to spill into your consciousness even when you're not there. You dream of exacting your revenge one perfect day, and you imagine what you might say to them if you were finally allowed to speak freely. This day rarely ever comes, though, unless you're the person in this story.

*_{Representative only.}*

*An employee and their boss shake hands outside an conference room*

The toxic startup manager who made my life horrible 15 years ago just became my direct report

Karma really is a boomerang. The absolute tyrant who made my life h I at a toxic startup 5 years ago just got placed on my team as my direct report.

Back then, Greg ruled through fear, manufactured urgency, and mandatory 14-hour days. He took credit for my code, pinged me at midnight, and gaslit anyone who pushed back. I left completely burned out, eventually clawing my way up to a Senior Engg Manager role at a solid MNC where work-life balance is actually respected.

Fast forward to last Wednesday. Upper management shuffled a new senior hire onto my engineering squad to help with headcount. When he logged into our morning standup and saw my face on the screen, the color completely drained out of him. Pure, unadulterated deer-in-the- headlights terror.

The man who used to hover over my desk and threaten to dock my pay for taking a lunch break now has to message me on Teams for PTO approval. Part of me wants to take the high road and k I him with boring, flawless professional grace. But another part of me is staring at our massive, tedious documentation backlog and smiling a little too wide.

What would you do in my shoes? How do you manage your former workplace ab er without turning into the monster he used to be?

When you have a bad boss, and you finally get out from under them, you probably assume that you'll never cross paths again. You certainly don't imagine that one day you'll be their boss. But that's what happened here. They had been victimized by this person for years, and now suddenly they were in charge. This came with a huge amount of opportunity. But isn't it just as bad to victimize someone else for victimizing you? Or are you allowed to exact your revenge? Keep reading for the details of the story and see what you think about it.