February 4, 2025 at 5:48 pm

Programmer Was Passed Up For A Promotion In Favor Of Someone Who Knew Nothing About Developing, So He Worked With The Other Programmers To Set Him Up For Failure

by Michael Levanduski

Source: Shutterstock/Reddit

When working as a developer, having a good manager can help to ensure projects go well and that you are treated fairly.

What would you do if you were passed up for a promotion and someone who knew nothing about programming was put in place as your boss?

That is what happened to the developer in this story, so after he got tired of his new boss not doing anything, he worked with the other programmers to plot the fall of their boss (and his boss).

Pass me for manager promotion and hire your useless credit stealing friend, I’ll destroy your career.

So the story, Dave (not real name) has been working for an I.T programming company for just over 9 years, getting a good rep as a hard worker.

All his colleagues knew him and can trust him to be a big help in times of trouble, like during big difficult projects for major clients.

Dave’s manager (John) was planning to retire and thought Dave would be a good replacement so put his name forward as a recommendation.

He started showing him the ropes of his potential new job just to give him a glimpse of what he may be asked to undertake.

A month later John puts in his notice of retirement and Dave’s department manager (Michael) starts the interview process.

Some character info.

This is not going to end well.

Whilst John was a good manager, very people friendly, Michael was not.

All Michael cared about was numbers and reports, he didn’t even know who most of his staff was nor did he have very much interaction with them.

Back to story, Michael had started the interviews to fill John’s position, Dave being one of the interviewees.

Dave thought the interview went really well.

A few nervous months later Michael announces the new manager, it’s an outside employment not an internal promotion.

Dave was disappointed but brushed it off as “there is always someone better for the job,” but in less than a week he realized just how wrong he was.

What a terrible idea from Michael.

The new manager (Darren) was below useless.

He didn’t know how to spell ‘computer program’ let alone write one, turns out he was old friends with Michael and Michael had helped him fabricate his resume to get him the job.

The news quickly spread to all the programmers but there was nothing they could do as Michael was the person all complaints had to go through and he buried all of them.

So, no one above Michael knew of Darren’s incompetents.

Darren from day one had been pushing all his work on to others and then claiming credit for the work they had done getting bonuses for completed work he didn’t deserve.

Darren spent his days watching movies, napping, playing games and occasionally pretending to be a manager when the need arose but never wrote a single line of code.

After 3 months of this the extra work load was starting to effect Dave and others but talking to Michael would do nothing so Dave devised a plan to sort it out.

This would be all too easy for the programmers.

Time for the pro revenge, Dave had talked with all the other programmers and agreed next time Darren pushed a major project onto them to purposely sabotage the work, not in a big way just enough to cause some bugs and glitches that will really light a fire under Michael and Darren.

It took about another month but a really big project came in.

Immediately Darren started pushing his work onto others and stealing credit so the plan was put into action.

It was easy to accomplish, especially as Darren had no clue about coding and Michael didn’t care as long as the project was done in good time.

The project was done, saved and sent to the client with almost all of the major work credit being stolen by Darren.

It took less than 2 days for the client to call back complaining about how the new program has damaged his systems and was wrecking havoc on his company, the client wanted it fixing and a full refund.

The blame rolls down hill.

The bosses were upset at Michael.

Michael tried to shift the blame onto Darren, Darren tried to shift the blame onto the programmers, Dave and the programmers just pointed out the program wasn’t their project and denied any involvement in it’s development.

Which brought the attention back to Darren.

The fallout.

With the bosses coming down on Darren for what happened he confessed he lied on his resume and he ratted out Michael about how he helped him fabricate it.

Dave and programmers denied any wrong doing just stating Darren must of damaged the program some how, Michael and Darren were promptly fired and replaced.

Dave and the rest fixed the “errors” that “Darren” had created and the client was happy.

In the end Dave didn’t get the promotion but left the company a year later for a better job.

I wonder how much money Darren made while doing essentially no work.

Let’s see what the people in the comments think about this story.

LOL – If only, I’m sure they landed on their feet.

Source: Reddit/Pro Revenge

Yes, this is important to know.

Source: Reddit/Pro Revenge

Michael made a huge mistake and it cost him his job.

Source: Reddit/Pro Revenge

This is a good point.

Source: Reddit/Pro Revenge

Yeah, he was likely labeled a troublemaker.

Source: Reddit/Pro Revenge

Never try to fake knowing how to be a programmer.

That’s not going to work out in your favor.

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.