Some people will never know what they have until its gone, and nowhere is that more true than the workplace!

People who do the most are often taken for granted, but there’s only so much someone can take before they leave, and if they’re the basis of your company, they might take all your business with them!

That’s exactly what happened to this user’s wife, who after singlehandedly keeping the company alive, was screwed over by her ungrateful boss.

Check out her oh-so-satisfying revenge!

The “Girl Friday” with the PhD takes over the business from ungrateful owner.

My spouse was the second person hired at a consulting company in a very specialized industry. In her 15 years with the firm it grew to a respectable three office (8-10 employees at each location) entity. She and the owner grew the business on the contacts, expertise and presentation of my wife.

To the extent that my wife’s abilities and education were the main reason new business came through the door. Over the years her scope of responsibility grew so that the owner was basically 75% absent and mostly unaware of day to day activity.

He was so dependent on her income generating that he took out a life insurance policy on her.

An employee you need so bad you take out life insurance on them? Sounds like the person you should be taking care of the most.

As he got more and more removed from the business, he would make overtures that he would eventually retire and sell her the business.

Over the years she tried to get an agreement in place to buy the firm, even if it was years away.  He always delayed and made promises but never followed through.

OP soon started noticing even more troubling signs from her boss, and tried to warn her about his taking advantage of her.

I did not involve myself too much, but at a major industry dinner party I attended with her, he introduced my wife to the table as “My girl Friday” basically a secretary (which was weird).

I told her “this guy doesn’t respect you or your contribution, he will never sell you the business because there is no reason to, he can make more money by stringing you along, and essentially: You are the business, why would he sell it to you?”

His worst fears were confirmed when his wife got a troubling email.

One day out of the blue, my wife received a raise and bonus (a very minor amount of money) and a contract that included a non-compete, non-disclosure agreement.

After reading it, she realized that the owner was trying to lock her down from leaving for another firm.

To make things even more suspicious, she received a call from a competitor who said they were in final stages of due diligence and they wanted to meet her.

The jerk was selling the company and didn’t think to tell her or ask if she was interested in buying it.

What a creep! But she was now free to exact her revenge!

My wife is extremely loyal, she has missed so many special days working for this guy, stuck around when they were wobbly, even skipped paychecks when there were tough financial times.

She was furious, the absolute maddest I’ve ever seen her.

We discussed starting her own firm and I asked “how much business is contractually obligated to stay there if you leave?”

It turned out that most agreements were either handshakes or 30 day at-will.

I also asked how many would leave with you? She said about 75% including her biggest source of revenue who didn’t even know the owner.

And to think he could have avoid the impending storm by just selling the company to her!

But that would have been too easy.

In a very short time, my wife took a 3 week vacation(she had months of unused time). During which time she rented an office (in the same building!) and made all the arrangement to set up a new shop.

She agreed to leave any and all company property behind and do her best to give the old company no obvious ammo for litigation.

She called her clients and said “I’m leaving, if you want to look into relocating your account with my new company, you’ll need to quit the old one before we can discuss it” most understood the implication.

What did he expect?

While she was on vacation, she received a panicked call from her boss “We lost XYZ company, do you know anything about it?”

She said “I’m sorry, but I just sent you an email, I’ve resigned. All my keys and company stuff is on my desk. Buh Bye.”

The new firm took basically 90% the business and seamlessly transitioned into the same company as it was before, but with a new owner.

Even most of the office staff would come aboard.

Within a year her old company closed down except for the small office her old boss ran, she sees him once in a while and he just scowls at her.

She even took his staff, seemed like not a single person was loyal to this guy except for her, and he couldn’t even see it! Some people really dig their own grave trying to get a few extra bucks.

Reddit commended her for taking charge of her career and giving her boss what was coming to him, with this user brilliantly comparing him to… a bag of wet rocks. Must be an insult from across the pond. I’ll have to start using this one!

This user agreed, pointing out how regardless of the moral betrayal, this was plain and simple a bad business move!

Another commenter pointed out how sadly common it is for employers to take advantage of the leniency and kindness of their employees.

This person pointed out that loyalty is earned by an employer demonstrating care towards their employees, and that they have loyalty to their boss because they genuinely helped them out.

And finally, this user argued that while loyalty is all well and good, switching jobs and arguing for your own worth can help ensure that you are being valued by your employers.

Moral of the story is, don’t take your hardworking employees for granted!

And if a boss is constantly showing you that they don’t care about you, sometimes you have to listen and do what’s best for yourself!

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.