In an ideal world, the workplace would be a professional environment where everyone gets along and acts like adults.

Unfortunately, that is not always the case, which can make for a stressful environment. This is especially the case when the people fighting are the owners of the company.

In this story, some of the employees got revenge on the owners by simply following their instructions.

Let’s take a look.

“Bin everything in this room? You got it boss.”

A few months ago, the two owners at my work had a huge disagreement, which escalated to full blown screaming matches in the middle of the office and nearly into several physical fights. It came to a head last Friday and owner A decided to pack it all in and leave effective immediately.

That must have been quite a disagreement for one of the owners to call it quits. But things don’t get better for the employees.

After lunch, owner B called the warehouse manager up to the office and pointed at owner A’s office (situated just off the main open plan office) and said “I’m too stressed to deal with this so I’m going home. Bin everything in that room. I don’t want to see a shred of evidence that owner A worked here when I get back on Monday morning.”

Everything huh? The warehouse manager even asked for clarification.

The warehouse manager looked at the offending office and back to owner B. “Are you sure you want to bin everything boss?”

Owner B looked ready to explode already and apparently this extra bit of clarification sent him over the edge. “Did I stutter. Get rid of everything in there or you can clear out your desk too.”

And so owner B stormed off and our warehouse manager took out his walkie talkie and summoned up two of his warehouse staff and relayed the instructions. The warehouse workers questioned it and got the same answer: yes, absolutely everything.

The boss is already upset, and these workers seem to want to fan the flames.

And so they got to work, owner A’s personal effects were put into a box and sealed up to be taken to him by one of the purchasing staff who lived nearby. Everything else was bagged up and put into the bins.

The paperwork and stationary were boxed up to be shredded and destroyed. Next the monitor and printer were taken to the bins, followed by the desk and chair. When I left at 4pm, the warehouse workers were just starting to take down the wall mounted bookshelves.

When the boss said everything, the warehouse manager really took him literally!

I would have expected them to stop there, but when I got in this morning there was nothing in the office. The curtains and blinds are gone, plug sockets and light fittings taken off the walls leaving exposed wires, the tiles removed from the ceiling showing the ductwork and wiring above, the carpet that owner A requested be put in was torn up leaving the underlay. Even the door with owner A’s name plaque on it was taken off the hinges. It looks like a construction site in there.

Owner B came in at 10 this morning, took one look at the bomb site and started screaming his head off and demanded to see the warehouse manager. He wanted whoever did to put this right and then get off site as they were fired. If no one owned up, then the whole warehouse shift was fired.

Our warehouse manager, never one to give a s***, just peered into the office and said “You said bin everything boss. Looks like they did.” And walked off.

Owner B looked like he was going to burst a vessel.

Sure, the warehouse workers technically followed the instructions, but no reasonable person would have taken it that far.

While the story is funny, I don’t feel too bad for the workers getting fired. They knew what the boss meant and intentionally took it too far.

I have to wonder if the employees just wanted out of this toxic environment and saw this as a good opportunity.

Let’s take a look at what some Redditors had to say about the situation.

My thoughts exactly. They clearly took it too far.

I mean, this person isn’t wrong. They did follow the instructions a little too well.

This is the big question. How do people who can’t control their temper end up in such high-level positions?

Sometimes the punishment is worth it to be able to stick it to a bad boss.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.