Sometimes an organization is completely unaware of how much their operating smoothly relies on a single person’s expertise.

And ironically, its usually this very person that they decide they can do better without, thinking that after that person contributes their share, they’re fine to just kick them to the curb.

Which makes it all the more satisfying when that same person gets to watch their workplace crumble into ashes without them!

Luckily for OP, that’s exactly what happened when the charity whose business she saved kicked her to the curb and tried to make her write her replacement’s training!

So to get back at them, she made her training as patronizing and detailed as humanly possible! Check it out!

“Make it so a person with zero knowledge could understand it”? Ok.

My previous workplace was an NGO hired me to do what was deemed an impossible task, reaching to and gaining the support of several groups that are notoriously difficult to recruit.

It was a pretty critical point, with over 1.2m$ funding depending on it. Not to brag, but this is something I am actually expert in – one of very few in my country.

I got to work, and used some pretty unorthodox methods. Initially management seemed to be fine with it, since it proved extremely effective.

And effective was an understatement, as OP’s methods completely transformed the organization’s public profile!

Within 8 months, the organization moved from being irrelevant at best, to having a small army of volunteers, active groups and vocal ambassadors.

It gained a reputation for being the most radical and interesting player on the scene. The thing is, this success was because I was there to cover for the organization’s irrelevance.

As long as they don’t implement some deeper changes, this is as good as it will get. Except nobody seemed very interested at implementing any deeper changes.

Not only were they not changing their behavior, they were actively getting worse!

In fact, they began doing increasingly more problematic stuff (think public racist comments by staff members), making it harder and harder to maintain the support.

I kept raising the alarm that this will not end well – and at some point, this and my less-than-standard methods annoyed management enough that they decided to fire me.

I pointed out to my manager that, if they don’t want to lose all of the work, they’ll at least have to recruit someone with similar experience – which is going to be very difficult to do.

In response, my manager demanded that I write down a document for my future replacement.

Specifically that I make it so a person with absolutely zero previous knowledge could understand it.

But OP took their patronizing demand not as an order, but as a challenge!

Zero knowledge, you say? Alright. I sat down and wrote an extensive document… Which included nothing but the most obvious, basic and offensively unhelpful information:

“No, you cannot call people ********. No, not even when they aren’t present.”

If they hire someone competent, they won’t need that document anyway. If they hire someone clueless – well, they’ll probably be able to understand it.

I ended my employment there in September, but stayed in touch with some of my former crew.

Without OP though, the company soon was soon on a one way trip down the toilet!

By the end of November, half the volunteers I recruited dropped out. The 200+ people involved in one of the flagship projects just stopped showing up.

They attempted to continue one of the other long-running projects, but since they didn’t know how or why it worked, it flopped gloriously and stopped running after one more session.

The annual fundraiser I started failed to have any relevance when they attempted to copy it this December, and only 7 people showed up.

Three of the groups decided to exit and operate under a different host, after also going public about the management being both out-of-touch and abusive.

Oh. And as of today, it seems like they lost the 1.2m$ funding, too.

If someone build’s your entire company up from nothing, don’t you think it would be a good idea to keep them around? And to listen to the problems they identified?

Reddit said this was a perfect case of management getting in the way of progress!

And this user said once a company fires you, you owe them absolutely nothing, especially not the training of your replacement!

And this user suggested a cherry on top of OP’s malicious compliance sundae: a quick call to the IRS!

Finally, this user said that charities can ironically be some of the most unfair employers!

Hopefully OP included “Don’t fire the one person keeping your organization afloat!” as one of her instructions!

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.