The long game: it’s a tough road to take and you have to be patient, but sometimes it can pay off in ways that you never expected.

Take the guy you’re going to read about, for example: he played his cards the right way and saying that it worked out for him is a HUGE understatement.

Check out this story from Reddit’s “Pro Revenge” page.

Dad gets fired for bad reasons, plays the long game, ends up in charge, takes the extended family on a cruise.

“My dad had worked at the same company for almost 30 years before he was abruptly fired for complete ********.

He was coordinating an upcoming meeting of people who had to fly in from around the country. One important participant resigned unexpectedly, so Dad cancelled the meeting via email and explained why. Apparently that counted as “improperly communicating privileged information,” and he was fired the next day.

This did not sound like a coincidence.

All this happened a week after Dad’s boss retired and was replaced by a new guy who wanted to cut costs. What a coincidence.

This was about ten years ago, near the height of the recession. Dad was in his 50s, hadn’t interviewed for a job since the early 1980s. He wasn’t sure he’d ever find another job.

Times were tough for the family.

My mom went back to work at a school to pay the bills, while Dad scraped together what he could doing some lame online consulting gigs for basically minimum wage. They managed to keep their heads above water, but only barely.

Their dad finally caught a break.

Dad was out of work for a year and a half. He finally landed a job at a new company three states away, coincidentally about an hour away from where my wife and I lived and were expecting Dad’s first grandchild. Mom and Dad moved to live about 20 minutes away from us.

They had paid off the mortgage on their house, so they decided to keep it and rent it out, planning to retire there in a few years. New Company treated Dad very well. Better salary than he’d made at Old Company, good benefits, and respect from his co-workers and superiors. A year later, Mom and Dad were able to buy a second, smaller house near their grandkids.

Dad mentioned a few things about his time at Old Company to his new bosses. Nothing confidential or anything, more like overall strengths and weaknesses. Of course, the story of how he got fired came out as well.

The dad’s new company was interested in what he had to say.

It turns out that when you work at a company for over 25 years you learn a thing or two about how it works, and “cutting costs” by firing experienced employees can make your company vulnerable. New Company started to get very interested. They saw an important business opportunity, and also a chance to get revenge on behalf of a valued employee.

So they made a move.

A couple years later, New Company bought Old Company. They were both big companies, and mergers of this size take time, but when the dust settled it was clear there were “redundancies” – divisions and products that both companies had that New Company only needed one of.

Some people were on their way out!

They kept as many of Old Company’s people as they could, and very few lost their jobs. Except, of course, for the people responsible for firing Dad. New Company put Dad in charge of the building he used to work in at Old Company and let him choose his employees from both Old and New Companies.

Dad had to move back to the old state, so New Company helped sell his house in the new state and gave him a moving stipend of several thousand dollars. But Mom and Dad were just moving back into their own house. They sold their new house that they’d made payments and improvements on for five years for a nice profit.

And a celebration was in order!

With that money plus the moving stipend, they paid off debts, saved for retirement, and took me, my siblings, our spouses, and the grandkids on a cruise.”

Check out what Reddit users said.

This reader shared their version of the best revenge.

One person said this is why you should never burn bridges.

Another individual shared a similar story.

This Reddit user said this guy is a PRO.

And one individual was impressed by this man’s story.

Sometimes, playing the long game really pays off.

It certainly did in this story!