What’s the best thing you can do if you work a job and someone goes out of their way to put you on blast and make you cry?

Well, become an expert and put them in their place, of course!

Take a look at this story from Reddit and be sure to read the whole thing: we think it’ll put a big smile on your face!

Solicitor embarrassed me and made me cry 3 times. So I became super efficient at my job.

“This happened many years ago, I’ve only just found this sub and while my story is nowhere near as witty as the ones I’m reading, it still makes me chuckle.

When I was around 19 I was working as a receptionist, front of house at a Solictitors office. It was quite small but very successful – 4 partners (main one was the lady it was named after who was kind of fierce in a Judge Judy kind of way so I’ll call her Judy).

A new Solictor we will call Anna joined the team. We had a Conveyancing, a Personal Injury, Financial and Criminal department Solicitor and she would be working Family Law and her speciality and main focus would be helping domestic violence victims. At this time, all of the abused clients were women.

She was awesome at her job, I saw so many victims of abuse while they waited in reception, and because they were so stressed and worried they would sometimes just tell me their life stories while they waited. I did my best to comfort them, sometimes they’d have to wait an hour or longer if something else was happening.

Anna advocated hard for these women. Restraining orders, emergency hearings, police interviews, protection, arranging safe houses, custody of children. I really admired her, and still do now. Those women needed her.

The thing about Anna was she was extremely posh, well educated she spoke better than the characters on Downton Abbey or even the Queen, but she was also very opinionated and she swore a lot. Hearing her talk about one of the husbands of a battered woman “what an absolute little ****” in a voice that sounds similar to the Queen made us giggle, but she reigned it in and was mostly professional in front of clients.

Most of my job was filing, typing voice dictation statements and logging calls from the women with restraining orders who had been contacted by their ex partner/abuser. So I’d get a lot of calls “Hi Sabrina, he called me at 8.15am and 10am today also an email at 9pm through his mother’s account”, things like that. It all had to be logged and reported for the court files. I got so many of these calls I’d recognise each by voice (this is important later).

After she’d been there for maybe a month, she was featured in an article that put the office in a very good light, the article highlighted her important work in keeping these people safe, we celebrated with her.

But it went to her head and she became arrogant and snappy, with little put downs here to the secretaries and other workers. She became pretty full of herself, getting snarky and barking out “coffee!” to me as soon as she walked inside. I let it go, she was stressed and doing something important.

As it was so long ago, most documents had to be faxed. Her office was two doors away from Reception. She would let me know if she was expecting something important and I would drop everything to rush the documents to her, waiting for lega stuff, police reports or restraining orders could quite literally be a life and death situation for the clients.

Sure enough, a restraining order document came through for a female client who was sitting with Anna in her office. She was crying, looked like she had no sleep, her story was horrendous (I had to type up some statements of hers), I felt desperately sorry for her.

The rule was if something important came through, I had to rush and interrupt any client meeting. The papers came through, I rushed to the office and handed them to Anna and left. Moments later Anna was in Reception screeching at me because the timestamp said it was delivered a whole hour earlier.

I was confused I’d given it to her the moment it came through. She would not stop yelling that I had put this woman’s life in jeopardy over my laziness and stupidity and I should be fired. She made so much noise that Judy came out of her office to listen (the founder of the company). Her face gave absolutely nothing away and afterwards she quietly just said “please make sure to give the documents quickly in future to avoid any more problems”.

It happened again. An 8 (or so) page document came through for that same client who was in there with her, I rushed to her office handed them to her and went to leave. Before I could, Anna started yelling at me again, “THIS WAS AN HOUR AGO! WHAT THE ****, SABRINA WHAT THE **** DID I TELL YOU?”

This time she started swearing and I couldn’t get a word in and all of this in front of the poor client who looked wildly uncomfortable, Judy came to the door again and again, her face gave nothing away and just asked me to come with her. She asked if there was a problem, I explained and she thanked me.

Anna then followed us out and started yelling at me that I had no respect or kindness in my heart for these women and I was lazy, utterly incompetent, and ridiculously not right in the head. I cried in the toilets.

Over the next few days, the same client came in. Things had escalated further and had hit the newspapers (it was an awful case) so the 4 partners along with Anna were meeting with her in the same office.

I went back in to give a file to one of the other partners there and Anna piped up “was this from an hour ago too? There seems to be a pattern here”.

Again, in front of the client and her 4 bosses.

It didn’t bother me this time though. I’d had one of those moments in bed the night before, the moment when your eyes snap open while you’re trying to sleep and you have that BINGO! Realisation moment.

So I calmly just said “the reason why the documents appeared to be an hour late was because the clocks have changed for daylight savings time, I should have realised that when the ink was still not dry as I handed them to you”. Sure enough, the document on her desk yesterday was a little smudged. The fax machine was old and didn’t update the time.

My little victory moment was spoiled because as I was leaving the office I tripped over my own foot and knocked my head on the doorframe giving Anna a good laugh.

The next day a staff meeting was called about professionalism in the office, the client who witnessed Anna’s meltdown had approached Judy – she was really upset to see Anna treat the staff that way and her swearing had frightened her.

Judy was very clear that this was not acceptable, the woman had heard enough yelling and swearing for a lifetime. Anna begrudgingly apologised to me and I shrugged it off. Judy also apologised privately for not stepping in when she should have. No problem.

My malicious compliance was next, every single call I had to log (instead of the main list I used on the computer) from the women I wrote on an individual post-it. So I’d be in and out of her office sometimes 10 times an hour. Her desk was flooded with post-its that just said “10am call from husband to client X”. She was annoyed but this was what she asked for. I wasted a lot of post-its.

The next bit got a little strange. A lady who was in a shelter/safe house with her daughter called and said she was reconciling with her husband and she wants to drop the case completely and did not want to be contacted again. This happens, sometimes abused victims go back when it gets too much.

This was a particularly brutal case, she’d been beaten really badly. I told Anna straightaway who said she would call her in a few days (calling right then might jeopardise her safety if he was there) and I said no – call the Police. She asked why, and I said it wasnt her on the phone, I recognise her voice every time she calls, it wasn’t her.

We called for a Welfare check and sure enough, her husband had taken her forcefully back home and had his older daughter call the office pretending to be her. He was arrested.

When it all worked out well and the lady was again in a much better safe house, Anna gifted me a bottle of wine and a thank you card, and then asked me to stop with the post-its and that the message was received. She also apologised again properly.

Sorry for the long post, moral of the story is don’t treat people like **** even if your intentions are pure, and trying to help someone.

We can all be kind.”

Now check out how folks reacted.

This person said they sound like a great employee.

Another individual said they need to write a book!

And this Reddit user wants to hire them on as a therapist at their office.

I don’t know fam… maybe find a new job?

It’s nice they apologized… but toxic behavior like this shouldn’t be tolerated.