In a perfect world, hard work and dedication with a company would lead to promotions and better treatment.

What would you do if you were constantly given more work and responsibility, but never got a promotion or even a better job title?

That is what happened to the woman in this story, so she finally abandoned the company and went to a competitor, resulting in major problems for her terrible former employer.

The details are below.

Made My Boss Cry

I’ve had some dumb luck the past 5 years of my work history.

I am an administrator/office type.

So I applied for a job (I had been out of work for 3 years prior due to a hormone condition and depression) at Company A and got a job as a call handler in a telephone answering service.

Over a few years I kept that same job title and pay but was actually more the office manager due to the workload and how much of a distance there was between what my daily work was compared to anyone else.

Heartbreaking.

So, long story short I lost a baby, the company owner made a comment in front of me to a client “should have kept a hand on her ha’penny” (meaning I should taken care not to get pregnant).

I walked out without notice and because I was the only one running admin in the place, it all stopped and she lost her biggest client. 😀

I landed another job at Company B as an admin assistant.

It should have been easy, something low key to keep me financially until I could recover from losing the baby.

Also, at this time I had moved house and was saving for my wedding which was made known to the owner of the company.

That is why I applied for the lower ranked and paid position.

Within the year I was running an entire central production unit for a chain of cafe’s and deli’s.

Still on low pay and admin assistant job title.

You see a reoccurring theme here?

As I was about to demand a pay rise and proper job title for the work I did, the owner puts the whole company into administration and cuts everyone’s hours.

I sucked it up to keep the place going.

I worked hard and got the CPU into profit.

Owner says everyone needs to slash their hours more because other depts are losing money.

I refuse to cut mine.

I’m already down to the bone financially.

He agrees to have a meeting about it but instead jets off on holiday.

I hear back from Company C about a role I applied for as an admin, learn I have a new job to go to so walk out the very next day.

The place is STILL in administration many years later with massive job losses and they closed half their locations.

Turns out my work was the only thing keeping the CPU open and when I left, they had to close it down because no one else knew how to run it and they failed a hygiene inspection too!

Company C takes us to the true revenge.

At first, things are amazing.

Great hours, pay and I’m treated really well.

I start to put the past behind me thinking the way things went at the last two companies must be a fluke.

Company C rewards my hard work with a pay rise and better job title after 3 months!

But then they start to take me for granted.

After 4 months of being there, I am moved to the sister company which is the installation branch (fitting insulation under Government grants to residential homes).

I am to run the installation and warehouse operations with a small admin team and it will be temporary with my reward being a move to Office Manager when the current manager Angela goes on maternity leave.

On this basis, I accept. (The idea was when Angela comes back, she will be moved to oversee another dept)

So while I am running Installations, I have a nervous Angela to accomodate as she is still my manager in theory and wants me to use her crappy basic spreadsheets so she can feel like she is still in control.

BUT I also have 3 Director/Owners (Swishy, Stupid and Sly) constantly coming in and contradicting each other over what they want and targets etc.

I juggle making everyone happy, meet the targets and get processes and procedures in place – oh and I am still doing tasks from my old role as they don’t have anyone else to take care of that!

I have issues with the team they hired to do admin under me.

Lazy, crazy, and Shy.

They seem useless.

Lazy plays on Facebook all day, Crazy flirts and chats all day and Shy is quietly handling way too much but too afraid to speak up.

So, I report the team issues and they get pulled into a meeting.

Remember, I am a Senior Administrator NOT a Manager.

I get brought in afterwards and Director Stupid decided that they are all perfectly fine and competent and its my fault they aren’t doing their jobs.

I suck it up, thinking he may be right and try to work on my management style.

Nothing changes.

In fact, it takes Director Sly coming in on a day when all 3 are off and I am doing all of their jobs by myself for the bosses to notice how little my team actually have to do.

But again, why do anything about it when I can take it on and cover it all as well?

Nothing is done about the 3 Stooges and my workload continues as is.

Shortly thereafter it is announced the new Office Manager will be Claire.

I am livid but think maybe I am going to be made the official Installations Manager as this is hinted at by other managers.

I have at this point only been in the new role 2 months.

Then the stress got to me and I was off ill for a week.

While I was off, everything fell apart, my admin staff stopped doing any work at all and some installs were reported as complete when they hadn’t been.

So, Director Swishy swoops in and orders the whole place be audited.

He suspends me and warns me to look for another job.

He tasks the audit to Claire. (Claire is 24 years old and this is her second job ever.)

Claire looks and acts much older than she actually is so you get fooled into thinking she is better than she is.

She is also the type to blame others for her mistakes or great at hiding them.

She gets to the root of those installs being declared complete when they weren’t as one installer pre-signing his paperwork.

He would have brought that in and given it to Crazy who should have then rebooked the job and put the paperwork back out.

But of course she didn’t because she wasn’t doing any work while I was off.

So, the bosses can’t pin the blame on me (before I went off sick, I was supposed to be off for 1 day and had left a detailed list of everyone’s daily job and tasks so other managers would know who does what) and decide to pull me back into my old role and put Lazy, Crazy and Shy into lesser admin roles.

This means no promotion for me.

They then hire a new admin team and make one of them the Manager (she has no experience and sleeps with the installers).

But wait, it gets better! 2-3 months later I am now working directly under Director Sly and the Operations Manager; Lizard King.

Why would she stay at this company?

In fact, I am doing ALL OF Lizard King’s work and taking abuse and bullying from him as no one else can stand working near him.

I am doing jobs well without my remit like tendering for work and running the entire QMS.

I am in effect, the assistant Ops Manager.

NO pay rise or job title though.

Now we get to the end.

I effectively hold the keys to the kingdom.

There is no part of the business I don’t know and haven’t run or had a part in getting up and running.

I am relied upon for almost everything.

They call me the cornerstone of the office.

At this point I’ve been with Company C less than 2 years.

Claire is still called the Office Manager but all she does is oversee a small team who submit completed installs to the funder for payment.

She doesn’t know anything actually office manager related.

I have a run in with Director Stupid.

He allowed Lizard King to bully his assistant so she quit.

I am forced, despite protesting, to also take on her work which is helping him with anything he needs.

He calls me after hours with stupid comments like did you photocopy X and call Y (after I emailed him to say I had before I left work and verbally told him I had emailed him).

I arrange a really important compliance audit to allow time to get it done right and he calls them behind my back and rearranges cutting the time I have to do the work in half.

This compliance audit costs us thousands and is really important to get more work.

Its all too much and I get sicker and sicker.

Finally I decide I will quit.

I tell the office yap I am thinking of quitting knowing word will spread and it does.

Director Swishy takes me aside and begs me not to leave, he gives me a paid week off and says to come in the Monday after for a talk.

I think things are finally changing so agree.

Except that I notice on the Sunday that Director Swishy posts on Facebook that he is hungover and taking Monday off.

So I don’t go back.

I get a phone call late on Tuesday and Director Swishy is literally begging me to come in.

I tell him everything and that he doesn’t even pay me enough for what I do.

He starts to cry.

His tears are like bliss to me! Cry harder!

I tell him no way, I am done and he won’t see me again.

She should have called them up long ago.

I then call up Company D – who is their BIGGEST rival and most hated nemesis.

Company D is owned by two former staff of Company C who were treated poorly, walked out and started up their own version of Company C.

They give me a job.

I then remember I never signed a non compete so I call up Company C’s best sales staff and offer them jobs.

I get their top man to come join us and he brings a handful of install leads with him (customers he was screwed out of commission on).

Company C panic when they realize and try to set the lawyers on us.

There is no case.

They then call us and harass us, visit the office etc.

We don’t back down.

They actually think we have their entire lead database (we don’t) and are freaking out.

Finally I get a phone call from Director Swishy.

Again, he is crying.

“Please don’t ruin us! I know you are behind this. Please just destroy the database and this will all be over.” Bla bla

I let him think I am thinking about it.

Eventually Company C is forced to buy a new database and only then do I call him back and tell him that we only ever had 5 or 6 leads he could describe as being on his database but those leads came to us through a third party and we hadn’t gotten any sales so scrapped them.

Company C have since closed the sister installations company down (most of the staff were made redundant for unrelated reasons not my doing) and are now a company of 3 directors, 3 managers and 1 admin from 80+ staff.

Claire has been given all of my work and complains constantly as well as a demotion.

Good, she deserved it.

Angela got fired for being useless, Lizard King has had his hours and pay cut and Claire is going to be forced out soon as the owners are talking about selling up.

I get all the updates from the company accountant whom they bullied so bad, she lost her hair and is now working for me part time. >;)

Revenge: making your former bosses pay thousands for something they don’t need, lose another £10K on compliance audits they failed when you walked out and make at least one of them cry.

TWICE.

Company D so far are treating me like a queen.

If things turn sour here, it won’t matter.

I have the keys to the kingdom again.

That is some epic revenge, but honestly she stayed with the company way too long.

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

This person blames her.

This commenter says to stop taking this type of abuse.

Sadly, this is very accurate.

I’m curious as well.

Yes, demand what you are worth.

Workplace drama follows this woman.

She needs to get 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.