When you have a job that you love at a company that you really like, it is something that you want to be able to do for years until you retire.

What would you do if a new manager came to lead your team, but they hated you for no reason and made things incredibly difficult?

That is what happened to the tech worker in this story, so after she finally got fired by her bad boss, she enacted her epic revenge that ruined his career.

Former manager ends my job at the company I loved; I helped end his career in local tech forever

I. The background

I worked at a very big tech company for a very long time (like decades).

Over the years I had worked my way up from being a n00b to a kind of specialist ‘fixer.’

I became fairly well-known internally as a security/emergency response person.

I got assigned the bad or unfixable projects, many of which made news headlines. (I have many stories. That I can never tell publicly, sadly).

Suffice it to say that multiple senior vice presidents in various divisions got to know who I was, because I effectively wrangled gnarly and complex problems and herded many intense tech nerds together to resolve big things in multiple divisions over the years.

This sounds like a great job with great coworkers.

It was SO fun.

At the time of our story I was working on a small security team in a product engineering division.

It was a somewhat turbulent time and our team of 8 had weathered multiple re-organizations and had SO many manager changes.

It was a lot. But we kept our heads down and did the work, and we all got along just fine.

Time to get to work on a big project…

Sidebar (and relevant later): One of the better managers assigned to run our team immediately assigned me a HUGE and complicated and urgently important project to manage.

It would involve people in 6 different divisions, had seriously big legal implications, and our Senior VP wanted it to happen by an aggressive deadline within like 4-6 weeks.

Oh and my manager was leaving imminently on a long-planned vacation so he apologetically would be away for the next 3 weeks and unable to assist.

The project was to do something big and technical and which had never been done before, so no one was entirely sure HOW to do it, who all it would require, what steps in what order, some of the key players had what we gently called ‘difficult’ personalities and oh by the way it would definitely make international news and cause a ripple in the industry when we did it.

No big whoop.

OP actually had this all under control.

Manager was a decent guy and he felt bad about leaving me with this thorny mess.

And I did it.

We got all the people from all the divisions in a room and mapped it all out on a whiteboard (it took days) and hashed out how to do it before the deadline, actually WELL before, for bonus points.

And we lined everyone up to get it done.

Before we pulled the actual trigger on the VERY BIG THING, I had to attend a meeting with the VP and exec leadership (several levels of management above me) AND with the legal team to present the plan and to assure all of the execs that we were ready and had it all handled.

So I looked the VP in the eye and assured him that I got this and then I did.

The team did the big thing SOONER than the deadline.

It was flawless. We rocked that. W00t! Just another day at the office? 😛

Meet IneptManager…

II The inept manager

A few months after that EPIC project, our good manager left us for another role and someone new moved over from an unrelated division out of nowhere.

We’ll call him IneptManager.

How do these people get promotions?

IneptManager did not know anything about security.

He did not know anything about emergency response.

He didn’t know anything about what our division did, in fact – no one on our team had ever heard of this guy.

He was that worst kind of middle-manager: self-important, dismissive of everyone, cares most about appearances and ego, micro-manages stuff he doesn’t comprehend and just makes EVERYTHING worse.

It’s who you know.

But he apparently knows people and those people get him job assignments because of politics? Loyalty?

He certainly didn’t have any skills or experience for our TEAM. Ugh. That guy is the worst.

One of IneptManager’s many weird quirks was that he didn’t think it was appropriate for our team to disagree with or correct each other in front of other people.

IneptManager really didn’t understand how things worked.

Things in tech, and specifically in product development, move pretty quickly, and things change ALL the time.

So, if some of our team was meeting with someone from another team, and someone something like: “So we decided to make the sky green, and we’re on schedule” and someone else on our team chimed in to say: “Actually that’s changed, we decided that the sky is now going to be blue and we pushed the deadline back 2 weeks, that just happened in an earlier meeting.” “Oh, okay cool.”

IneptManager would interrupt and say: “We clearly need to get on the same page, let’s end this meeting right now and reschedule when my team has all the facts straight.”

Um, what? That’s INSANE.

We’d literally never have ANY meetings if we waited until everyone knew all of the same information all the time.

Other teams would routinely leave meetings with us with INACCURATE info which affected release schedules, resources.

It was just a MESS.

Seriously, why is OP on this guy’s bad side?

III IneptManager hostility

Shortly after IneptManager became our manager he started being really hostile to me.

Not to everyone on the team, just me.

As far as I knew I hadn’t done or said anything to earn his hostility.

Suddenly after 20+ years at this company I could do nothing right.

While this jerk didn’t actually understand most of what my job was, he was sure I wasn’t doing it right.

And he was quick to tell me so, and often in front of others.

To the point that my co-workers would take me aside to ask what was going on?

I didn’t know either.

Wait. OP actually knows WHY IneptManager is discriminating against her.

The thing is: I was the only woman on the team.

And I have a disability.

Now I’ve been through some things working in high tech over those decades; it was very much an old boys’ club back then.

I was fine. I

‘m not one to claim discrimination at the drop of a hat or for no reason, however, when I was trying to piece together the cause of this dude’s hostility, some of his comments were sexist and not at all subtle.

He also didn’t like that due to my disability (and frankly, my seniority) I was given one of the few offices with a door on it in our new building.

The rest of our team was in open floor plan cubicles which EVERYONE hated.

He was INCENSED that I, a lowly direct report (and woman), got an office and he didn’t.

She actually deserved the office.

I had more seniority than just about anyone, so even without my disability I’d have scored the office ahead of him.

Note that other MEN in our division got offices too, because again – seniority – and that bothered him less.

But I was the only woman on our floor with a door, and I was his subordinate.

His ego did NOT like it, not one bit.

He threw a fit about it. Repeatedly.

There were lots of other things he said, my favorite among them towards the end was him reprimanding me for my ‘bad attitude’ in a meeting we’d just had.

Is he seriously criticizing facial expressions too?

IneptManager had told me beforehand NOT to say anything during that meeting (because he was insisting on sharing INCORRECT information again and he knew I’d want to correct it), so I sat quietly and kept my eyes on the power point presentation or the floor nearly the whole time.

When I asked him how I’d had a bad attitude when I hadn’t said anything – as he’d requested? “I didn’t like the look on your face!”.

Ummm. Okay dude.

HR rarely helps the employees.

After realizing there was NOTHING I could do to make this guy happy with my work and to lose his hostility, I finally went to HR to go on the record.

I knew they’d do nothing about it, but I wanted to document it at least.

So, predictably they told me to ‘work harder at getting along with IneptManager”, and because it wasn’t my first rodeo I went back to my office and emailed HR saying “thanks for meeting with me about my concerns about IneptManager. I fear his bias and misogyny will reflect negatively in my next performance review. HR should be aware that there is a real problem here and I hope you’ll take steps Etc. etc.”

Which, of course they didn’t. But now it was on the record.

She doesn’t want to get laid off.

IV: The axe falls

And then a few months later he gave me a terrible performance review, as expected.

Long story already long: he was trying to fire me for underperformance.

Unfortunately for me, the company had started rounds of layoffs all over and it was the worst possible time to be looking for another job internally.

And now I had a bad performance review on my record, too.

HR still doesn’t help.

I went back to HR and said: “That thing I said I was worried would happen when we met six months ago? That happened. Exactly as I said. Now what?”

HR, once again, was no help.

Also they’d done literally nothing.

But hey it was on the record, again. Helpful for the attorney later!

Blah blah blah – when I realized I couldn’t find a new gig at my company because of all of the layoffs (sigh) I scored a new job for MUCH more money at a different local tech company, and pretty quickly. (I live in a tech-heavy area; there was lots of shuffling between 3-4 big companies during this time period, and we’d often bump into other company veterans at these other companies. It was a small world).

With my track record and references it was super-easy.

Hopefully that attorney can help her out.

After THAT was lined up, I called an employment discrimination attorney to negotiate my exit from the company I thought I’d work at until I retired. Sadface.

Because I had documentation with HR explaining IneptManager’s misogyny and ableism going back for some time – and because they’d done nothing about it, and because there were witnesses who confirmed his behavior – they had no leg to stand on.

They agreed to write me a relatively nice check to go away and to not sue them, and I agreed to not talk about the details of my ‘separation agreement’.

I went down to my lawyer’s office and signed the agreement.

She was happy to leave.

I looked to see who had signed the agreement for the company – I assumed it would be someone in HR – but it was still blank.

I’d eventually get a copy once someone there signed it.

I took my check and packed up my office and left.

Bye, old company. 🙁 I started my new job a few weeks later.

She really couldn’t believe who actually signed the separation agreement.

V: Karma begins

This was August of that year that I left.

I got my copy of the executed contract in the mail in October.

Who signed it for the company?

Not HR – but MY EXEC VP. The one who asked for the urgent, highly important, legally complicated project.

The guy I looked in the eye personally, and then DELIVERED on this VERY BIG THING™ he personally asked for, before the deadline he asked for.

THAT is who signed off on my separation agreement.

That was almost like revenge.

I suspect that he had no idea until that moment that I was gone, and I imagine that he likely had MANY questions about what had happened.

And also: why did they have to pay me a chunk of money on the way out?

Whoops. I chortled when I saw it.

Since the VP knew me and we had some history – and IneptManager was NEW to the division and was one of hundreds of middle-managers he’d likely never heard of – I’m guessing IneptManager had some explaining to do.

Mwah hahahaha. I really enjoyed the thought of that.

This is getting good…

VI: KARMA FOR REALS

Cut to November.

As I mentioned it was a relatively small tech community in the area, and those of us who worked in security in particular at company X would often encounter other current/former colleagues at company Y or Z or whatever.

Heck there was a ton of poaching going on between the companies.

One day I got a in-company chat from someone who’d worked in security at my old company – we’ll call her SecurityColleague.

SecurityColleague asked me if I knew someone named IneptManager.

Ummmm. Why yes. Yes I did. Why?

I very much doubt he will be getting this job.

Because IneptManager was appearing on SecurityColleagues schedule to interview for an open management position the very next day!

It seems that shortly after my former exec VP had signed my separation agreement contract,  IneptManager was actively looking for a new job at a new company!

Heh. SecurityColleague asked me what I thought about IneptManager.

I said, you know, I can’t really talk about it for legal reasons (which – BOOM everyone knows what that means) but if you wanted to ring my personal cell phone later this evening to catch up on old times, please do.

She did.

She gave her all the details.

I *hypothetically* shared some stories with her about IneptManager.

I also told her where his hot-buttons are.

The appearance/ego thing, the dominance stuff, etc. etc.

And ALL about his misogyny and ableism, which was perfect since SHE was conducting his interview.

I may have shared some specific scenarios/questions to ask which I knew would set him off.

I wished her luck, and for the love of all that is holy to please call me after (when appropriate ) and tell me how it all went.

IneptManager was doomed!

It did not go well for IneptManager.

When SecurityColleague rang me I couldn’t wait – HOW did it go??

“Well, he got combative and angry and yelled at me. TWICE. During HIS interview to be hired as a manager.” (facepalm) There were lots more details, now lost to time.

Except: at that company, interviews loops were assessed as such:

• Strong HIRE for this role
• Hire, but not for this role (not a good fit for THIS job but we like them)
• No hire
• NO HIRE EVER, not for any role

That is pretty severe.

IneptManager’s interview was rated that last one – NO HIRE EVER.

Blacklisted from ANY job, ever, at one of the biggest tech companies in the world.

After being pushed out the door of one of the OTHER biggest tech companies in the world. Derp.

Shortly after that it appear that IneptManager moved himself and his wife and kids a few states away to work at a smaller company in another region.

It took less than six months from when I left my old company for him to be gone as well. Heh.

IneptManager really didn’t think things through.

What gets me still is that IneptManager thought I was so inconsequential, so unimportant that he didn’t bother to check and see where I landed after he forced me out of the company I loved.

And when he had to look for a job himself shortly thereafter it also never occurred to him that I’d have connections with, oh, thousands, of colleagues I’d worked with over the years, some of whom could now be working at Company X or Y or Z WHERE HE WAS INTERVIEWING.

And where I’d scored a huge raise for myself.

To this day he doesn’t know why his interview at Company Y TANKED so badly.

And since SecurityColleague was not legally precluded from sharing ‘stories she had heard through the grapevine about IneptManager’s management problems’, it’s possible that other of our old security colleagues at Company Z and other companies in this area heard those stories, too.

He really ruined his whole career.

Which means he’s unlikely to get a job at any major tech company in this area, maybe ever.

Definitely not at X or Y, and they are BIG companies. Among the biggest.

And it’s all because he’s an ableist misogynist middle-manager who underestimated lil’ ol me. Mwah ha ha ha.

He made his bed and now he has to sleep in it.

Let’s take a look at what the people in the comments on Reddit thought of this story.

It is a real mystery.

Here is someone who went through something similar.

Sounds like lots of people have issues with this type of company.

It was a great story.

Never burn bridges.

How did this inept manager get his position in the first place?

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.