When you work in a high profile position, sometimes you get some pretty great gifts from clients.

What would you do if a client wanted to give you tickets to the Super Bowl, but your boss took them and gave them to someone else?

That is what happened to the consultant in this story, so he worked with the client to get some great revenge on his boss.

My boss stole my Super Bowl tickets, so I made him lose a major client.

I’m a huge 49ers fan (the rabid all-day tailgate in the parking lot type).

A few years ago, we made it back to the Super Bowl.

I was working at a consulting firm with a handful of accounts I would interact with directly.

One client in particular knew how big of a Niners fan I was.

I was the day-to-day lead on his account.

He really liked working with me and we became friends, often grabbing drinks or dinner after our meetings.

That is quite a gift.

He had access to a pair of extra company seats to the game, and as a thank you, wanted to give them to me as a gift.

He passed the tickets over to the partner on that account, who I will refer to as Dick, to be given to me as a surprise.

The game came and went, we lost, it sucked. The next time we met, we went to drinks afterward and he mentioned, “Hey, by the way, why didn’t you go to the game? I heard someone else was in your seats.”

I asked “What game?”

He said “The Super Bowl!”

He never got the Super Bowl tickets!

Confused, I answered “I didn’t have seats to the super bowl?”

He told me that he gave Dick a pair of his company tickets for me as a gift so I could attend.

I had zero idea what he was talking about.

He looked shocked, told me to quietly ask around about it and get back to him.

When I was back in the office the next week, I found out through one of the secretaries that Dick had given a pair of Super Bowl tickets to another one of his clients as a gift from our company.

No way he should let this go.

I might have let this sort of thing go to keep the peace under different circumstances, but these were seats on the 30-yard-line to see the 49ers play in the Super Bowl.

I was mad.

I considered confronting Dick myself, but realized it was the client who had noticed I wasn’t there in the first place, so if I let him handle it, there would be no blowback on me.

So I texted him “Hey, I just wanted to thank you so much for thinking of me with those seats. It appears that they were given to another one of our firm’s clients.”

He texted back right away, in all caps, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME??” and then “Pretend I never told you, let me handle.”

He followed up with me about formulating a plan.

The meeting was a setup.

A few days later, we were asked to come down for a meeting in their office.

The client requested the partner be present, not entirely unusual, so Dick and I hopped a flight the next week and headed over to their office.

Little did Dick know, my client had orchestrated a wonderfully awkward little show to catch him red handed.

When we entered the conference room, it was all the usual suspects along with a woman in her 30’s we didn’t recognize.

My client immediately introduces “Dick, this is Stephanie Suchandsuch, VP from [other department], she wanted to sit in on this meeting. Hey, you guys must already know her from the super bowl!”

She then responds as she goes to shake my hand “Oh, I don’t think so. Did we meet there? I’m sorry if I forgot.”

She is a great actor.

Client responds “Jeez Steph how much did you have to drink? They were sitting right next to you!”

Client looks at me, and I say “Sorry [client], I wasn’t there. Are you thinking of someone else?”

At this point, Dick is looking visibly uncomfortable, probably trying to come up with an excuse.

He starts in with an “Uhm..” when Stephanie says over him “No, [so and so] from [other company] were in the other seats. By the way, I was wondering why we gave company seats to those guys, is there a project we’re working with them on that I don’t know about?” (obviously not, they were in completely different industries, it would be like Coca Cola partnering with John Deere).

Dick tried to get OP to cover for him. Not happening!

Dick lets out an “Uh” again, and the client immediately speaks over him asking “Dick, I gave you those tickets for him?”

At this point Dick is turning bright red. He responds “Ohh, uhh, well he wasn’t able to make it, so he must have given the seats away to someone else?” and turns to me looking for me to cover for him. Client smirks at me.

I respond “Uh, what are you talking about? Client, you gave me tickets to the super bowl??”

Client suddenly raises his voice “Dick, those tickets were a personal thank you gift from me to him. Did you give them away to someone else? [pause] Was it another client??”

Nobody is going to buy that claim.

Dick buts in with “Oh, uhm, maybe something got mixed up in the office?”

Client went quiet for what probably seemed like an eternity to Dick. He then looked down, grabbed his portfolio and iPad, put them into his briefcase, and said “I think this meeting is over.”

He turned to me and said, “it seems as if I owe you a thank you gift, let’s go to lunch. Stephanie, you’re welcome to join…Dick, I need to evaluate our relationship, please go back home and expect to hear from us next week.”

Dick suggests he would like to join, presumably to do damage control, and Stephanie sternly tells him, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” and asks the front desk to see Dick out.

It must’ve felt good to laugh!

As soon as he is in the elevator, we all break out laughing hysterically.

Stephanie wasn’t really a VP, just an employee at the company who client had drafted into helping with his pre-planned meeting skit, but she did end up coming to lunch with us and was a fellow Niners fan and total blast to hang out with.

On our way to the restaurant, I got a desperate text from Dick saying I needed to “cover for the firm” and that we could discuss things when I got back.

I replied “Yes, we need to talk, but I’ll see what I can do.”

The client has a list of demands.

Client told me to wait a couple hours and then respond to him:

1) To expect invoices for the resale value of the super bowl tickets (resale is WAY above face value, it was over $10K) as well as our lunch (he picked a pricey spot and made a big show of overspending) and that he expected them to be paid immediately

2) Expected I be given a direct apology

3) Expected a written apology to his company for what he considered theft

4) He will only interact with me or another one of our firm’s partners, never Dick.

It didn’t even look like revenge.

This whole thing caused a stir with the other partners, and I actually came off looking great because it appeared that I had made a good faith effort to save the client for the firm despite being the victim in this situation.

The client would transfer to another partner, which meant Dick lost his profit share on any work with them.

Oh, and the other partners in the firm made Dick pay the invoices back out of his salary.

In retrospect, I really have no idea what the guy was thinking.

Did he seriously believe the client would just not notice me not thanking him for Super Bowl tickets?

It worked out, but he still would’ve liked to go to the Super Bowl.

Anyway, the well was kind of poisoned for me there long term because Dick wasn’t going anywhere.

I left the firm a few months later for a much better position.

Client ultimately terminated their relationship with that firm a year later, he actually now works with a good friend of mine at a competing firm.

I’m still mad I missed out on the super bowl even though we lost; hoping we make it back this year so I can finally go to one in person.

Go Niners!

What was Dick thinking? He had no right to do that, but at least he got called out for it.

Read on to see what the people in the comments on Reddit have to say.

Sounds like lots of bosses do this type of thing.

Yeah, this was very unethical if not illegal.

This is almost worse.

He did not think this through.

He could never be trusted again.

What was this boss thinking?

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.