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There are few things in life more annoying than having a manager or boss at work who can't do their job – and who is trying to do yours too.
The story of a Reddit user who got a little revenge on his manager lets us live vicariously through him.
Bad bosses
Managers are often hired to oversee teams, but they don’t always understand their employees’ processes and daily tasks. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad bosses, but it does make them even more annoying.
A Reddit user shared the story of how he got revenge on his evil boss, and it was delicious.
Red flags galore
“I recently resigned from a toxic work environment as a data analyst at a startup,” shared Reddit user landinthesky.
“It was promising at first, but soon after I noticed a lot of red flags, including the fact that my manager had absolutely no experience in data analysis or management before being promoted.”
They tried to ignore it
“How can you manage analysts without knowing basic Excel functions?” they wrote.
“I ignored those red flags and trusted his leadership because I loved the company’s goals (little did I know it would be the worst decision of my life).”
They did all the work
“I did pretty much all the work for the team the whole year I was there,” they explained.
“When I was doing the calculations to report and analyze the team's performance, she always asked me to simplify them so she could present them to senior management.”
Things took a different turn
“I thought everything was fine because I had nothing but good feedback from her and the rest of the team,” they wrote.
Everything changed when a colleague filed a complaint against them.
The complaint changed everything
“About a month ago, a colleague I don’t get along with filed a complaint about me, which was absolutely false,” they shared.
“The director believed him without investigating, and all of a sudden I was placed on PIP.”
The dismissal was imminent
“The PIP is a performance improvement plan. It is used by managers to address underperformance and initiate a documentation process,” they explained.
“Usually used as the first step in firing someone or putting them out of service.”
Looking for new candidates
“I knew she was doing the PIP to fire me while she was secretly looking for internal candidates to replace me because she was stupid enough to hold the meeting next to me,” they explained.
So they acted.
HR didn't support them
They explained that even when the issue was raised with HR, the manager maintained his position.
“She told all sorts of lies to HR, and when I refuted these claims with written evidence, they doubled down and started manipulating me.”
They got to work
“I complied and started building a case against them,” they said.
They eventually found another job, and once they did, they decided to reveal how little their manager knew about the work they were doing.
Time for revenge
“Before I resigned, she asked me to do some reports for her, so I did the calculations and sent her the raw data, told her where the files were and that she could analyze the data and do the presentation herself,” they said.
Their boss did NOT like this.
Forced to admit her ignorance
“Since she is responsible for data analysis, she should know how to do it,” they explained.
“She tried to report me for it, but it ultimately backfired because they asked her if the work I had done was actually wrong, and she was forced to admit that she didn’t know what she was seeing.”
Not a good look
“They didn’t know what to say because HR and my boss had no understanding of the job. She openly admitted that she didn’t even know what a PIP was before this,” they shared.
“It didn’t seem right of them.”
“Credibility destroyed”
The fact that their boss didn't know the basics in this case led to all the other members of the team being suspected. “All the other members of the team have been questioned, and I believe they are now being audited by an external investigator,” they continued.
“Credibility destroyed.”
They escaped
“I now work for a manager who is competent and has clear goals for the team, but it has been quite a ride,” they wrote.
“A small victory against toxic management – but a victory is a victory.”
Make things clearer
“Just to clarify, I never mentioned that I was annoyed that my manager didn’t know how to do the job,” landinthesky wrote.
“I never complained that she gave me this responsibility, even though she had no idea what those numbers meant.”
The real problem
They explained that their boss couldn't claim they weren't doing their job when she didn't know how to do her job.
“The problem is that she tried to use it against me (by putting me on a PIP because I was “underperforming”) and then couldn’t explain why I was underperforming,” they wrote.
Their boss was a tyrant
“This diminished his credibility and it became clear that the reason for the PIP was to intimidate me and make me lose my job,” they continued.
They then explained that their boss wanted them to lie at work.
“Inflating the numbers”
“I was happy to go along with whatever she wanted to do…until she tried to turn it around and use it against me,” they wrote.
“A little more context. They wanted me to inflate the numbers and make the team’s performance look better than the raw data said.”
They didn't want to lie
“I refused to inflate the numbers because my manager and other managers wanted to impress the management team,” they stressed, adding that they believed this was why their manager wanted to fire them in the first place.
“They needed the numbers to be right.”
A bad idea
“Inflating the numbers is the worst thing you can do as an analyst,” added one commentator.
“How do you know where to improve resources or budget properly for the team when you're hiding the truth?”
High turnover rate within the team
Landinthesky continued his story by adding, “I guess this gave the company the last reason it needed to investigate externally, as our team experienced high turnover (with multiple harassment complaints from junior staff) and heavy fines from regulators due to non-compliance by junior staff.”
Commenters on the post asked if their boss had finally been fired.
Auditing is dangerous
“No… or at least not yet,” they wrote.
“I recently spoke to one of my former colleagues, and he said that this audit, in his own words, “is going to be a real game changer.” [mess] “They stopped them” because of multiple violations and lack of documentation/reporting/resources to show they did the right thing.”
They tried to warn her
“I warned them several times, but they ignored me. I wiped my laptop clean before I resigned, so they really have nothing to show for it,” they explained.
“At the very least, disciplinary action will be taken (I hope).”
The commentators were not on his side
“Good thing data doesn’t lie, unlike your old boss. I bet she’s Googling ‘Excel functions for beginners,’” one commenter joked.
“I guess the only thing she's Googling is a new job search.”
Some Suggestions for Revenge
“The ultimate revenge would have been to become a data analyst for the investigative team investigating your former employer to submit them,” wrote one commenter.
Now that would be pretty cool.
Make it dumber
“In all fairness to OP's former highly toxic manager, asking to “make things easier” for upper management is not an unreasonable request as when you get to C-level people,” one user wrote.
“They are as dumb as a pack of stones.”
Some have defended it
“Technically, you don't need to know how to do a job to be able to manage the people in that job; this is common in many industries,” wrote one commenter.
“However, it also requires management and leadership skills that they clearly did not possess.”
Questionable decisions
“I may have felt that I was criticizing him for not knowing the job itself, which, I admit, is not a requirement for management per se,” the employee said.
“I wanted to point out that his decisions were questionable and that placing me on a PIP was a bad decision.”
Sabotage charges
“People who are promoted above their abilities are never humble enough to accept a drop down,” one commenter added. “They feel the need to sabotage as much as possible so as not to appear as the problem.”
Luckily, the worker now has a new job and can share this revenge story whenever he needs to!
