30 Times Bosses Messed With The Wrong Employee And Deserved Revenge

Years ago i was helping my dad build a ethanol plant. We did concrete work from start to finish where they were up an running. Anyway there was a safety guy who was a hard nose **wipe to anyone who wasn’t his drinking buddy.

One day he decided to write me up over something small nothing worth writing me up for. The site superintendent was with me when the “ incident” happened. Not wearing a hardhat in a skid steer. I was doing something in a tight area and the site superintendent was watching my blind spot.

Later on the site superintendent radioed me in to come to his office and asked me about what happened at lunch.I told him I had seen the safety guy drinking alcohol at lunch everclear was his drink of choice . I showed him my phone and the “safety” guy was fired on the spot for drinking on duty and driving a company vehicle. 550 people on site watched him get arrested on the property and cheered as he left in handcuffs. His bac was 6 times the legal limit. 3 hours after lunch.

I'm going to cover old ground here but it was so satisfying that I'm going to indulge myself. For many years I was a salesman in the City of London selling office equipment and I had a particular client who followed me from company to company. I spent 5 years at the company to which this answer pertains, working for an MD I'd known and was friendly with for nearly 20 years. As a colleague and friend he was great fun to be around but as a boss he was a disaster. He was abusive, dishonest and often a hindrance to doing deals and I finally had enough when he “sacked” me for refusing to cancel a trip to an F1 race followed by a family holiday. I put sacked in quotes because it was an emotional sacking taken back when he'd calmed down, although he reduced my base salary as he rescinded the sacking (I took it because it gave me more ammunition for my plan).

This happened as I was in the late stages of a particular deal with the loyal client, which had about about half a year's GP in it. So I came back from my holiday and resigned, sending a letter that resulted in a significant payment to shut up and go away but I wasn't done. I'd tipped off my client that I was leaving and going solo and his response was go get set up and come and see me when you're ready. Deals in that industry typically involve a lease for hardware supported by a variable cost maintenance contract. For this client the maintenance contract was worth about £50k per year and at this stage the buy out value was in the region of £200k plus about £100k for the lease, which presented me with a significant problem in terms of making a new deal external to my employer make financial sense, or so I thought.

When I discussed this with the client at lunch he smiled and told me to construct a new deal assuming a settlement value of zero. He couldn't tell me why but would in a couple of months. He also said that there would be no problem with my non compete agreement. What came out in the wash was that he was selling the business that was contracted to pay for the equipment but was keeping the business that was actually using it, so we were able to do a completely fresh deal which didn't trigger the settlement clause, was outside the scope of my non compete, reduced my previous employer's maintenance income from £50k a year to about £2k and made me about 2 year's GP. Beautiful.

I was asked to do a financial preso in support of a major project for a Supercheese Big Shot at Cisco and did all the slides. My boss was a credit-stealing d***he who wanted to make himself look good to the Supercheese. When the preso was complete, the boss (did I mention he was a d***he) removed the key financial slide and put it in his own deck. When it came time to do my preso, I got up with my laser pointer and presented all the points and conclusions but since the boss had taken all the supporting data I couldn’t refer to and the Supercheese reamed me out in front of the group. But the boss said smugly, “I have that data,” and pulled up my supporting slide, one that had taken literally weeks of research to produce. And pointed to the data. Only he forgot to alter the footers that matched my preso and the Supercheese pointed this out. Then asked the boss to explain the foundation for the data. He had nothing to say. The Supercheese pointed to me and asked if I had it. I flipped to the appendix and explained the data while my boss fumed. The Supercheese nodded and made notes and thanked me. Later I was fired by my boss.

I was working in a customer service position. The supervisor was on an ego/power trip who couldn't work to save her life! Still, I loved the job and many times came in 45+ minutes early — and worked during my lunch break. This one time, she decided the smoker's couldn't go out for a smoke break. It wasn't something we ab*sed, we only had them twice a day. The other staff just b**ched about her — while I asked for a meeting with the manager. I told him how I had worked for a government dept 20 years earlier — that even then, it was decided an employee never work longer than 3 hours without a break — and that was before the eye strain of working with computers! The manager agreed with me — but the supervisor wouldn't drop it and insisted if someone rang in sick, the breaks were off. Sure enough, that happened a few weeks later. It was a job I could do blindfolded with both hands tied behind my back — this day, I handled the enquiries slowly, giving customers 1,000% customer service. It wasn't long before the phones were going crazy, so the supervisor had to leave her office and help with the calls — ALL DAY. After that, I came into work on time and stopped working during lunch breaks. I resigned 3 months later.

I quit. When I left, her work stopped getting done and she was fired about a month after I left. She had told me they were taking about promoting me, so she wanted me to start learning the job. Sounds fair, right? Until I talked to her supervisor about the upcoming promotion. He was blindsided by me. Due to budgetary reasons, there were going to be no promotions for 6 months at least. So I put in my 2 weeks. And about 6 weeks later she was fired.

Several years ago, I was working full time while attending college full time and pastoring a small country church. I also had 2 school aged children at the time. Needless to say, my life was very busy. Production was picking up at work and they instituted a voluntary overtime schedule. Since it was voluntary, I chose to not work it. My supervisor approached me one day and said they needed me to work overtime. I said I thought it was voluntary. He said it is. I told him I didn’t want to work it. He said but I need you to work it and set an example for the less senior people. I told him, I’d set the example by getting my work done in 40 hours. But I need you to work overtime. Then it isn’t voluntary. Yes it’s voluntary. Has anything been late shipping because I haven’t worked any overtime. No. Then I choose not to work it. This went back and forth several times.

Then it happened on several different days. Same result I refused to work the VOLUNTARY overtime. Since the supervisor wasn’t getting anywhere with me, he had the plant manager talk to me. Basically, the same conversation, just a different day and a different boss. Finally they said if I didn’t work the voluntary overtime, I would be written up. I called their bluff and submitted my 2 weeks notice. I stated that I didn’t think that was the best for myself or the company, but I had too much going on in my life to work the voluntary overtime. I submitted a written copy to my supervisor, the plant manager, HR, and the company president.

When I hadn’t heard anything back in over a week, but before the 2 weeks were up, I asked my supervisor about it. He simply said, “Oh, you don’t have to work the overtime.” Hmm. I ended up working for that company for over 20 years after that. Actually, staying there longer than my supervisor, the plant manager, or even the CEO/president.

I was a lifeguard at a country club. I had to punch a time clock. One day I arrive and before I can punch in I’m told the manager needed to see me. I had to take care of something and it was noon before I remembered I hadn’t punched in. Of course my pay was short that week. I reminded him that I was there to take care of something, surely he remembered?


He said we pay for what’s on your time card. No exceptions. So the next week I punched in Tuesday morning and didn’t punch out until Sunday night. I told him they owed me a boatload of overtime. The next paycheck included the lost hours. He also tried to fire me but I refused to be fired. I told him I needed to quit a week early because my college was starting earlier than expected. He said “Why don’t you leave now?”


I wanted to work up until school started, and we both knew it was impossible to replace a lifeguard in the middle of the summer. So I just said no, I’m staying until the date I told you. And he just walked away. Now I use my superior problem-solving skills in my career as a stand-up comedian.

I worked for a small company some years ago. I had been there for many years and it was sold. The new owner was ok at first but quickly showed his true colors. (I reported directly to him). I was a one man department and quickly losing my patience. One morning I woke up and decided I didn’t want to go into work. My phone was blowing up all morning as he tried to contact me. Finally at about 2pm I decided to go in. He started to read me the riot act while many of the other employees were right there. I interrupted several times before he let me say what I wanted to say. Once he let me I told him “I didn’t know I had to be in at a specific time to tell you I quit”. A couple of employees stared to laugh and you could see others trying to hold it back. I ten proceeded to tell him to mail my last check to my house and never call me again.

A friend was fired unfairly by new (probably incompetent) management. He landed very well off with a semi-competitor. Nice ending? Watch this. He then systematically picked off 9 other very competent coworkers over a period of 6 years. Some he gathered into his company; others went to similar companies that trusted him. There was nothing left in his previous company to manage.

Chocolate. Doesn't sound like much., but one manager was a total pain. The final straw was that the company needed to save money, so we would all have to make do with the stuff we had. He always kept his office locked because of confidentiality. One Saturday I was putting in a software update onto our computer, always do at a weekend in case it goes wrong and you have to back it out. He must have forgotten because shortly after wrapping up and having a brew to get ready for the trip home a delivery arrived. A very luxurious swivel chair for his office and a nice large couch. Big enough for a bed. It was a fairly open secret about him and his secretary. Both were cloth covered, brown cloth, patterned brown cloth, ideal! I grated some chocolate and a few weeks later scattered the shavings on the seat of the chair and the couch and massaged it gently in. Don't ask how I got the key, let us just say that the night security guard was partial to a late night takeaway, and I knew where the keys were kept. Next day he left with brown stains on the back of his trousers, of course the chocolate also melted into the seat cover so it could not easily be detected, it worked for two more days. Only petty but I enjoyed it.