For some reason, adventure books, movies, and TV shows mostly focus on the survival of heroes in the ocean and high mountains, impenetrable jungles, and deserts. Surrounded by bears, scorpions, sharks, and piranhas… Skyscrapers made of glass, steel, and concrete, a ruthless corporate world – this is where true survival stories happen nowadays!
Well, the story we’ll tell you today, from the user u/SwitchSCEtoAux, happened almost three decades ago, but it clearly illustrates how difficult it can be to survive in the corporate world. If Mr. Beast isn’t already planning to launch an office survival show, it’s definitely time to think about it.
More info: Reddit
The corporate world is a tough place to live in, and sometimes you have to become a true shark yourself to survive
Image credits: DC Studio / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The author of the post was a promising finance professional three decades ago, and he expected to get promoted to Business Development Director soon
Image credits: ArthurHidden / Freepik (not the actual photo)
However, the author’s new boss was a real slacker and had acquaintatces in the board, so any reports and complaints would’ve come in vain
Image credits: gpointstudio / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The boss didn’t hire any assistants for the author, so he had to work hard the whole year on his own
Image credits: Drazen Zigic / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Anyway, the man did a great job, became the company’s top performer, and expected a hefty bonus and a promotion as a result
Image credits: The Yuri Arcurs Collection / Freepik (not the actual photo)
During the meeting, however, the boss claimed that the author’s bonus would be 90% less than he expected, and he passed him up for a promotion as well
Image credits: SwitchSCEtoAux
So the next year, the author just took all his accumulated vacations and then quit on the spot, leaving the boss empty-handed and angry
So, the Original poster (OP) has had his own company in finance for many years, but back then, three decades ago, he was a promising employee of a large international company. Our hero worked extremely hard, often carrying over his vacation weeks to the following year, so by the time of the events described, he had accumulated over three months of vacation.
The boss, under whose supervision the OP was assigned at the new branch, was a protégé of one of the board members, so he felt at ease. He refused to give our hero an assistant, so the author was forced to work hard alone for a whole year. He became the company’s best performer and rightfully expected a hefty bonus and a well-deserved promotion.
However, the boss’s speech was a chilling blow to our hero. He stated that without a director’s status, his bonus would be around 90% less than he expected. As for the promotion – well, that would have to wait until next year to ensure that the current numbers weren’t just a fluke. Okay, at this point, the author’s patience snapped, and he moved on to executing his revenge plan…
The events described took place in April, so our hero consistently took vacations for the following months, thereby forcing his boss to take over most of his work. The branch’s performance, of course, dwindled, and the icing on the cake for the author was his resignation, which he submitted with two weeks left on his vacation. In other words, he effectively quit on the spot.
Our hero recalls that the strange dismissal of the company’s “rising star” was bound to attract the close attention of the board. Well, the author’s hapless ex-boss wasn’t fired, but he was transferred somewhere to the backwater, which he was clearly unhappy about. As for the OP, he found a new job, and a couple of years later, founded his own company… but that’s a whole other story.
Image credits: Freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
In fact, unfortunately, such cases are far from isolated in the corporate world, and in the three decades since the original poster’s time, the situation has improved only slightly, if at all. For example, this dedicated article at Forbes quite reasonably notes that people don’t leave jobs; they actually leave managers.
Many bad bosses are quite similar. “They lack both empathy and often self-awareness,” the BBC quotes Ann Francke, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute. “They can actively undermine their team, take credit for others’ work, or rule by fear and have unrealistic expectations.” So, recognizing these signs and leaving isn’t an admission of weakness; it’s just wisdom.
Another article, published in Forbes, urges employees who find their higher-ups blocking their career growth to just focus on what they can actually control. That is, try to put their best foot forward, and if that doesn’t produce the desired results, well, a decent professional will likely always be in demand.
People in the comments massively praised the author for this interesting story, as well as for his witty and clever plan for revenge. Incidentally, some responders recalled similar experiences in their work, and they usually had to make bosses learn their lesson the hard way. So, in case you, our readers, have ever experienced something similar, too, please feel free to share your stories in the comments.
Many commenters really cracked up at this story and recalled their similar cases from work experiences, too
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