Working with people who are out to get you is horrible.

In today’s story, one coworker makes up horrible lies about another coworker to try to get him fired.

Thankfully, it eventually catches up with the lying coworker.

See how the story plays out…

Try and get my Team Member Fired, Get Deported!

Back in the early 2010’s I started working for a big internet based company in the UK.

The company was opening a new office with a new subdivision in London.

When I started there were two team leaders and the office manager.

The two teams were the content team and the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) team.

I was recruited to be the development team lead (that is web development).

He got the job.

When I was interviewed for the job, both the office manager and SEO team lead were carrying out the interview.

As you do in interviews when they asked if this or that could be done I would respond “Yes of course” or “You know you would get a better result doing X, Y or Z”.

So, I got offered the job and for the first year there was so much going on.

As well as building a team, I also had a portfolio of websites that needed to be redeveloped and redesigned.

It was at this point that some red flags started to pop up.

Meet Andy…

I would have the SEO team lead (we will call him Andy), coming to me and telling me that I needed to do things the way he wanted.

I would always push back and say no, and give a reason why I was doing things the way I was.

Andy would get irate and would complain to the office manager about me.

When the office manager would ask me about it I would explain what had happened and why I had said no.

The office manager would leave it there because at the end of the day I was the one with the experience in web development not Andy.

Andy misjudged him.

This happened a few times over the first year and I then realised that the reason that Andy was getting so irate was because he thought that I would be a yes man to him.

Sorry buddy, that is not who I am.

So, now that we have the backstory let’s get into what lead to the revenge.

He prepared to show a couple websites to the board.

Me and the team had been working hard to get two of the new websites completed, and I was due to show them off to the board before they went live.

This company’s head office was in another part of the country, and I had to leave the office in London at about lunch time.

So, I arrive to the hotel that is across the road from the head office about 4pm and jump on my laptop to start going through the sites to run some tests.

I was testing functionality, making sure the look and feel were correct, things like that.

Then it happened, we found a major bug that caused a major issue with the functionality of the website.

Johnny helped him fix the problem.

So it is at this point that I am going to introduce the star of our story, Johnny (not real name, but attacked all the same) who was my Senior Developer.

Me and Johnny working through the night, me in the hotel room and him in the London office.

We finally fixed the bug, about 7am the following day.

My meeting with the board was at 10am, so after getting showered, feed and over to the office I started my day with zero hours sleep.

The board loved the sites.

I go into the meeting and the first thing that is said, is the CEO asking if I was ok (I had meet him a few times and he was a really nice guy).

I explained that we had found an issue with the sites yesterday and me and Johnny had worked through the night to fix it before the meeting.

Long story short, everyone was really impressed and loved the new sites.

At the end of the meeting the CEO pulled me aside and thanked me for everything and then told me to go home and get some sleep (it was about a 3 hour train ride to London and then another hour home).

I thanked him and when on my way.

After celebrating, he heads home.

So, after taking my team out for a well-deserved lunch to say thank you.

The office manager then organised a night out for the whole office to celebrate on the following Friday.

We started off at a fancy bar (not my sort of thing, I am a man of cheap tastes) and then everyone moves on to a small club.

I go to the club for a bit, but then leave quite early in the night as I need to get a train home.

I say my byes and then head home.

There was an unexpected meeting.

I come into the office on the Monday and there is something going on.

I speak with Emma (Not real name) the content team’s lead.

She does not know what is going on, but there are people from head office, HR and others.

Then a few minutes later all the team leaders are call into a meeting.

We are all squished in one of the small meeting rooms, there is office manager, two members of the HR team from head office and the three team leaders (including myself).

So, HR explain that there has been a complaint made against Johnny.

Andy accused Johnny of being racist.

A member of the SEO team (we will call him Mark) had called Andy on the Friday saying that Johnny had been making racist comments while everyone was out at the club.

Both myself and Emma were taken aback, this was not like Johnny.

On a side note, I fell that I need to explain the races of people involved.

This is just for context and not an attack on anyone involved.

Johnny, Emma and I are white British. Andy is African (born in Britain, I believe), and Mark is Indian (once again I believe).

It didn’t play out the way Andy had hoped.

So, the whole day was spent with HR doing interviews with the other people that were there that night and we then all reconvened towards the end of the day.

The result of the interviews were that no one had heard anything like what Mark was saying.

So, it was Marks word against Johnny’s, this was not acceptable for Andy.

He wanted Johnny fired and cried “we could not have someone like that in the office”.

Eventually, another guy pulled OP aside.

So, both Emma and I looked at each other and though that it was strange that he was so instant on firing Johnny with no evidence.

Both the office manager and HR agreed, and Johnny was let off with a warning and to be aware in the future of how things he says that could be misinterpreted.

Life went back to normal in the office, that is until about two months later.

The story of what had happened had gone round the office (about 12 people).

Then one afternoon, I was pulled aside by one of the guys on the content team and he said that he had overheard Andy and Mark talking and thought I should know.

We went into on of the meeting rooms and he laid everything out.

Andy had been plotting to get Johnny and OP fired.

What I heard made my blood boil and I think had I been in a cartoon steam would have been erupting from my ears.

He told me that the racism complaint was faked and a plan that Andy had to attack my team because I would not bend to his demands.

Him and Mark we on a call outside the club (Andy was not there that night) and that is when he heard what they were doing.

It later came out that their plan was to make the complaint against Johnny and get him fired which would then lead on to Andy complaining that I was not fit to run a team if I let that sort of this happen under my leadership.

HR didn’t believe the guy who told OP the truth.

My first question was why he didn’t bring this up with HR in the interviews.

He said that he did but it was his word against both Andy and Mark.

I thanked him for this and went on with what I was doing.

I WAS MAD!!!!!!!

He waited to get revenge…

There was no way that I was going to let the slide, but I knew that if I was going to go after them, I needed to have everything in place before hand.

I didn’t tell Johnny what I had been told and asked the guy that told me to keep it to himself for now.

I didn’t want Johnny to get pissed off and do something that would get him fired or worse affect any revenge I could dish out.

So, I watched.

I watched everything the SEO team did (and didn’t) do.

Then it happened, it was like angles had descended from heaven to deliver me the winning lottery ticket.

He ran into Mark.

The building we were in was a three story building with a main stairwell with a door on each floor to the offices.

The stairwell also lead to a door out to the street .

At the time I was a casual smoker and used it to get a break from the screen and clear my head if something I was working on was not going well.

So, I walk out of the door to the office and into the stairwell and who is there…. Mark of all people.

He is on the phone, and he goes white as a sheet when he sees me.

Mark’s call seemed suspicious.

Now he is mid-sentence with the person on the other end of the phone and as I am walking past, he is forced to carry on the conversation.

I overhear, and from what he is saying I can tell that he is talking to a school or something like that.

The conversation sounding like he was looking for information about applying and about a visa.

I thought that was a strange call to be having and something was fishy about it.

I had my suspicions as to what was going on, but nothing concrete at this time.

He told the office manager what he had overheard.

A few days later I was heading back up to the head office and by that time we had a new office manager who lived near the head office so was based there most of the time.

When I got there, I dropped my things off at the hotel and headed over to the office.

I went to his desk and ask to have a quick chat.

I explained to him what I had overheard Mark talking about on the phone and said that maybe the company might like to look at his visa status.

So, a week went by and nothing seemed to happen…… then BAM!!!!!

He stopped showing up to the office.

Mark got fired.

A few days later I got told what had happened from one of the other SEO team members.

Mark had been fired with immediate effect for no longer having the correct visa to work in the UK (the company did not want to get involved in sponsoring a new visa for him, I don’t know why).

I started asking questions around the office (random chit chat) and I found out that Mark is from Dubai and he was here on his wife’s student visa (I don’t know how that works, but it was all above board).

I also found out that his wife’s course had finished and that left them with a small window of time to get a new visa.

That is when it all clicked.

Mark and his wife had to go back to Dubai.

Now there are some doggy people in London (and everywhere else) and they would setup these fake collages that would sign people up to get visas to live and work in to UK.

At some point before or after this saw a program on this and normally these were setup in tiny offices that you couldn’t swing a cat in let alone be a collage.

They were used as postal addressed for the “collage”, and they would charge a “course fee” to be enrolled and thus be able to apply for a student visa.

So, what Mark was trying to do is to get “enrolled” in one of these “collages” so that he could stay in the UK and carry on working.

I found out a few weeks later that Mark and his wife did have to leave the UK and go back to Dubai because he didn’t have any money coming in to pay for his new “college” course.

BYE MARK!!!!!!!!

He filled Johnny in on everything that happened.

When I found out that Mark had been let go, I pulled Johnny aside and filled him in on everything.

He could not believe it and was stunned that they would try and do that.

I apologised to him as it was my fault that he had been targeted by them in a way to get at me.

He would not accept it and said that I had gone above and beyond in defending him.

He does not feel guilty.

Following on from this I made it quite clear to Andy that I know what he and Mark had done.

And that I would not be forgetting it and to watch his back (I made sure we were not in earshot of anyone else).

About two months later Andy handed in his notice and left the company, never to be seen or heard from again.

I have told this story to some people over the years, and I have been asked so many times if I feel guilty for what I did.

I always respond the same way,

“I feel guilty that Johnny, was wrongfully accused and targeted. I don’t feel guilty about what I did to Mark. You don’t mess with my friends, family or team.”

All he had to do to get revenge was tell the truth.

Mark got what he deserved, and it was almost too easy!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

This reader is not impressed by the fact that he and Johnny stayed up all night.

The revenge was too easy…

This reader can’t overlook all of the spelling mistakes.

Another person loved the revenge.

Don’t make your coworkers mad at you when they can make your life miserable!

It seems like that should be a no-brainer.

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.