When you work for a company, you sometimes have to deal with difficult personalities to earn that paycheck.

What would you do if your boss went from being weird, but generous, to being irate about every little thing?

That is what happened to the tech professional in this story, so when the boss told him to go home and not come back, that is exactly what he did, and he ended up getting paid for weeks of sitting at home.

Check it out.

“FIGURE IT OUT, AND DON’T COME BACK TIL YOU DO!” ok buddy, if that’s what you want

Ok, this story is set 19 years ago.

“This place” was the office of an interior designer in BIG CITY I LIVED IN.

I’d been looking for tech work, and an acquaintance had recently been hired on as office manager, so she brought me on.

I was happy to land a job providing tech support, and to be earning a decent hourly wage with flexible hours.

But little did I know how bizarre this place was.

How bizarre, you ask?

Hey, lots of bosses are kind of weird.

Well, my acquaintance, the new office manager, was never in the office.

The designer, let’s call him Boss, was also rarely there.

Let me tell you a little about Boss: he was an older guy (60s easily… which was ANCIENT to my 22yo self), he constantly ground his teeth and clenched his jaw, he always seemed distracted, and had a general vibe of just being weird.

So I get this new gig, and pretty immediately find myself alone in a nice big office space, with no onboarding, no training, and nothing to do.

Literally come to work, surf the web for hours, go home or to class.

Every now and then, Boss would randomly come in, ask me to do something vaguely tech related, like create a spreadsheet for client names.

And then he’d ask me to show him how to do the same thing.

I’d do it, he’d be thrilled and give me a bonus on the spot.

Sweet, right? Right.

Wow, what happened to this guy?

Until Boss started coming in and losing his mind about random things.

Like the green ink on his printed Excel spreadsheet was the wrong hue.

Or the office manager had called in, and why the heck did she need the day off?

Or any number of other random things.

None of which were my fault and many of which I had absolutely nothing to do with.

Boss was yelling at me whenever he was in the office.

Which became more frequently.

I learned from the office manager that Boss had been cleared to return to working more hours by his psychiatrist.

Wait, WHAT?

Turns out Boss was never around when I started bc he had a mental breakdown, and had been advised to step back from work.

Is this guy really ready to come back to work full time?

So, the distractedness? Meds. The teeth grinding?

Uncontrollable stress reaction.

He even did it in his sleep; it was so bad his dentist had concerned about his jaw bone having micro fractured.

Oh great.

So the guy gets back into the swing of things and takes EVERYTHING out on me.

I’m 22, my wife’s in grad school, I need this job.

But I’m feeling the stress, I’m always thinking about work, stewing over the last thing I got unfairly yelled at about.

I’m waking up 3 or 4 times a night for no reason I can think of, my wife says I toss and turn when I do sleep.

This goes on for a week or two.

Finally, something that he can actually work on.

Then Boss walks in with a new, handheld digital voice recorder.

Hands it to me, says “when I record a voice note, I want it to be saved in there as Boss_date_note_##” and I need you to show me how to use it.

Ok, this is actually in my wheelhouse, so I take the recorder, grab the manual, and start tinkering. I come up with a quick how-to curriculum, and then read a note in the manual: “Voice recordings are saved in the device as vr####_TIMEDATESTAMP.vrn. Once you import them to your PC, you may rename them as required.”

So Boss’s initial request is not possible with the hardware, but there’s a simple work around. I document that as part of my curriculum, and go sit with Boss to go over it.

Naturally, he blows up that he can’t rename the files on the device.

He can’t believe I can’t figure this one thing out.

Did I even look at the manual?

He KNOWS it can do what he wants, I just have to do my job and learn how to make the changes.

People who get irrationally upset about little things are hard to work for.

And then he says, “GO HOME RIGHT NOW! AND DON’T YOU COME BACK UNTIL YOU HAVE FIGURED OUT HOW TO DO WHAT I WANT!”

Cue my relieved but gleeful malicious compliance.

I go home.

And since I know that what Boss is asking is impossible, I never even consider returning.

I don’t call in the next day I’m scheduled.

I don’t go in.

I try to forget the whole ordeal.

I DO begin to sleep like a baby.

Two weeks pass.

I’ve moved on, looking for another job, doing school, normal stuff.

Too funny, the boss never even questioned where he was.

I get a call from Boss, outta the blue. “You haven’t been in in a while. Is everything ok? When are you coming back to work? I’ve got some tech issues I need your help with…”

I’m floored.

This guy is talking to me like the last time we spoke he wasn’t screaming at the top of his lungs, spewing spittle everywhere.

So I say, “Dude, you TOLD me not to come back until I figured out that voice recorder thing. So I didn’t come back. Cuz that thing is never gonna do what you want.”

Boss: “oh that? I took it back to the store. So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

So, he was getting paid this whole time!

Me: “Ummm…Nope. I figured I was fired, so I’ve got another job. Please mail me my last check, but don’t call me anymore. Thanks, bye.”

And I disconnected the call laughing.

It never felt so satisfying to be unemployed.

Wow, that boss was crazy.

I bet this guy could have just ‘worked from home’ for a long time and gotten away with it.

Read on to see what the people in the comments say about it.

This person has worked in similar situations.

Hopefully the boss got some help.

Sometimes you need the money.

It’s not always a good thing to stay in a bad job.

This is very interesting.

Sometimes having a bad boss really pays off.

It teaches you how to just walk away.

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.