If there is one good thing to come out of the covid19 pandemic, it’s that people realized their worth in the workplace – and started to demand they be treated like actual human beings instead of cattle.
OP was pregnant in 2020, and returned to the office after her maternity leave even though many workplaces had switched to remote.
Her boss was not a nice woman.
At my last job, my boss (let’s call her K) hated me. She turned everything into a competition; she mocked me publicly; she took credit for my work; she divulged my personal medical information in front of all our coworkers. She was cruel, and needless to say, I avoided her as much as I could.
So, now that the stage is set, here’s the context. End of 2020, coronavirus blazing, I had just had my first baby. I was a nervous wreck my entire pregnancy, working from home and being extra careful.
After maternity leave (which was disgustingly short btw), I had returned to the office with some precautions set in place.
These things collided when her boss insisted she attend an out-of-state training, even though they would have to complete – or lie about completing – a two-week quarantine upon returning home.
My boss became crueler to me over those first few weeks back, and suddenly announced that, regardless of any negative feelings toward it, she had decided we all had to attend this training in another state.
Keep in mind that there were mandatory 2 week at-home quarantines in place for anyone coming back to my state, but my boss fully planned on ignoring those quarantines and demanding we all would return to the office as soon as we got back.
OP confronted her, also telling the boss that she had a baby to worry about at home. The boss told her that if she didn’t like it she could quit.
I was carrying a heavy workload and pulling a lot of the weight around the office, and I had some rank. So, I felt fully comfortable expressing my deep concerns to K, telling her that it was peak covid season, and that I had a newborn to worry about now.
I expressed I simply didn’t feel comfortable going in the middle of a global pandemic and asked if there was a remote training I could attend instead.
She firmly, ADAMANTLY insisted there was no remote training, and informed me that I could quit if I was that upset with her decisions.
It’s important to note that she insisted this for weeks, even claiming to have contacted the training organization to make sure.
OP decided she would quit, but before that, she was going to catch her boss in a lie. So, she emailed the company conducting the training and learned she could have attended a virtual training if allowed.
I decided on the spot after that meeting that I would be quitting. But I needed to check my boxes first, which took me a few weeks to figure out.
Some time after this meeting and her incessant insistence that there was no remote training, it finally occurred to me to check with the organization putting on the training and ask them to clarify if there truly was a remote training or not. I did, and lo and behold, there WAS – and they had been offering it for months. I asked them to email this information to me.
At work, she confronted her boss with the lie and then quit, leaving the boss high and dry and probably with more work to do now that OP was gone.
Now to figure out how to use this valuable information, right? Wrong. As soon as I stepped back into the office, K starts fake-empathizing with me out of nowhere, in front of all our coworkers. saying she really wished she didn’t need to force me to go to this training.
So, I said, “if you feel so bad, let me go to the remote training.”
She looked at me in surprise, and her face turned beet red. Before she could fight me, I pulled up the email with the information and read it aloud in front of all our coworkers.
No one said anything, they just stared, wide-eyed at her while she blubbered like a fool.
Long story short, after pulling that fast one on her, I pulled her into a private meeting a gave my notice. She was horrified because, as I stated prior, I carried a lot of the work around the office.
But, like she said, I could quit if I didn’t like her decisions.
Let’s see if Reddit is ready to stand up and cheer!
The top comment is, for sure.
This person thinks OP should have gone to HR, though.
Everyone wants to be OP’s friend.
No one was impressed with the boss’s lie.
It’s jealousy, probably.
Bosses like this deserve what they get.
And extra workload is just the tip of the iceberg.